Vintage Love (243 page)

“I want to see you,” he told her in his friendly way. “Come as soon as you can.”

“Thanks,” she said. “Things are getting grim again here.”

“The ghosts?”

“Say it’s their influence. Fred and I can’t seem to get along.”

“You can tell me about it when you get here,” the old doctor said.

She went upstairs and changed into a warmer suit. Over it she put on her raincoat and then she was ready to leave. She decided to take the letter Jim had given her with her to show it to Dr. Boyce.

She was carrying the letter in her hand as she went downstairs. Just as she reached the foyer she heard a sound of something falling heavily in the cellar directly underneath her. It made her start in fear for a moment. And then she wondered what had happened. She’d never ventured into the cellar after the several warnings given her. But now she felt she should find out what had happened down there. It could have something to do with the furnace system, and that might be important.

After a few seconds of hesitation she made her way along the dark hall to the door leading to the cellar steps. She opened the door, and at once the dank odor of the cellar reached her. Groping to the left of the doorway, she found the switch to put on the cellar lights. And then she cautiously made her way down the steep steps.

The cellar lighting was provided by small bulbs installed in sockets on the rough ceiling. The bulbs were few and weak in power, so that a dim yellow glow revealed only the shadowy outlines of the cellar to her. She was surprised to find that it had a plank rather than an earthen floor. She could only guess that the house had been built on rock, and rather than fill in cavities an even floor of wide timbers had been used.

Except for the steady drone of the oil furnace in some distant area, the shadowed cellar was enveloped in an eerie silence. It was a dim world of half-revealed things. She slowly moved to the spot where she thought the sound must have come from, and saw what had caused the noise. A quantity of wood had been piled against a wall for use in the fireplace, and some of this had tumbled down. Why? She could see no reason for it having taken that particular moment to collapse.

She glanced around her fearfully, peering into the shadows, as a new thought came to her. Had someone deliberately made the wood roll down? She gazed at the scattered birch logs on the floor and debated whether some hidden intruder hadn’t caused the accident to lure her down there. She was a long way from the stairway, and she realized she’d been foolish to make the expedition in the face of the warning she’d had.

The letter still in one hand and her pocketbook in the other, she turned in a burst of uncontrolled fear and started running towards the steps. She’d gone only a short distance when something hit her, striking her across the shoulders so that she stumbled with a scream of dismay and fell down onto the rough board floor. Her pocketbook flew in one direction and the letter in another.

In the next second she was clambering to her feet, sobbing with terror, and reaching down to retrieve her pocketbook. She found it, and then looked about for the letter. It had completely vanished, and she could only assume that it had slipped down between the planks of the rough floor. She was in no mood to remain there and search further for it. Instead, she raced the rest of the distance to the steps and the safety above ground.

She did not lose her fear until she was seated in her car ready to make the drive to Dr. Boyce’s house. When a feeling of some security returned she began to worry about the letter. Jim would be upset at its loss. It had been stupid of her to carry it in her hand. Everything would have been all right if only she hadn’t stumbled. And what had caused her to stumble?

She sat there in the car in the fog-shrouded driveway with a look of baffled fear on her face. There had been a presence in the cellar. She was sure of that. And it had been that unseen influence which had made her stumble, deliberately made her stumble so the letter would be lost. It was a terrifying speculation.

To follow it all the way, it meant that she had been deliberately lured into the cellar. The ghosts of long ago had not wanted the letter to exist, and so had taken this means to be rid of it. She was trembling as she started the car.

She was still in a state of shock as Dr. Boyce ushered her into his office. “You’re looking ill,” he said. “What is wrong?”

Sitting across from him, she said, “I’m sure I’ve had another encounter with the Moorgate ghost.”

His round, pleasant face showed surprise. “Another one?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me about it.”

She explained about the letter and its contents, and she ended by saying, “I’m positive some supernatural creature at Moorgate wanted that letter destroyed. And that is how they managed it.”

The elderly doctor looked speculative. “You make a strong case of it.”

“Do you agree?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “To do so would be to admit there are ghosts at Moorgate.”

“But there have to be.”

“There are for you,” he said. “I find it difficult to accept. But that is because I’m not in the least psychic.”

“I didn’t stumble,” she protested. “Something shoved me.”

“You may have a difficult job proving that to Fred, or to anyone else for that matter,” the doctor said.

She gave him a despairing look. “What about Jim? He’ll never forgive me for losing that letter. It was a prized possession of his mother’s.”

“If he wants it badly enough, the floor could be lifted in that area. You seem sure it slid between the cracks of the boards.”

“It must have. But that doesn’t say it will be easily found.”

Dr. Boyce sighed. “And you say you and Fred had an argument about Jim visiting you with the letter?”

“Yes. Of course Shiela was responsible for that.”

“She’s trying to make a rift between you two,” the old doctor said. “I know I pointed this out before.”

“You did,” she agreed. “I’ve always suspected it. Now I’m sure of it.”

“Well, there’s not much you can do. Just hope that Fred will realize he’s being unfair, and will come to himself again.”

“These quarrels are happening too often,” she said. “In many ways I blame them on the evil influence of Moorgate. We had no such misunderstandings before we lived there.”

“But you were not married until you lived there,” the old man said. “Not until you settled in Moorgate did you truly get to know each other.”

“That is true.”

“It could be that you are not as well-suited as you believed. This happens with many people. It doesn’t have to be the result of ghostly influence. Perhaps Fred has simply discovered that he prefers Shiela to you. I hate to put it so bluntly, but isn’t it possible?”

She shook her head. “I don’t believe it.”

“You don’t want to believe it,” he said. “And I can’t blame you. But you must consider the possibility.”

“I will, but I’m sure there’s something else. An outside power, making us behave differently from what we otherwise would. I have felt it working in me.”

The doctor raised his eyebrows. “You think you’ve been made to do things against your will by the influence of these spirits?”

“Yes.”

“Yet you’ve not been harmed in any way. Nor has Fred.”

She gave him a grim look. “I think it’s slowly leading to violence. The evil spirits of that other day are trying to make us relive the pattern of their lives. If they have their way it could end with Fred throttling me.”

Dr. Boyce showed his astonishment. “That’s a most remarkable statement!”

“I believe it to be true,” Lucy insisted. “There will be violence unless something is done to prevent it.”

“I have talked to Fred,” the old doctor said, “but he doesn’t want to listen.”

“I know.”

“It was as if I’d said nothing,” he said. “He has his own ideas, and he refuses to hear the opinions of others.”

“Because he is under the power of Moorgate’s evil.”

The old doctor studied her with troubled eyes. “Do you still contend that Graham Woods was innocent of the slaying of his wife?”

“Yes,” she said. “And that is why the evil spirit of Frank Clay is at work. And why Jennifer can’t rest in her grave. Frank Clay is trying to influence us from the other side of the grave so the slaying of a true wife will take place today. He wants it to happen to bolster the false story he wickedly spread a century ago.”

“If I accept your theory of ghostly pressure, then I must disagree with you as to the facts,” the old doctor said.

“What do you mean?”

“You assume Graham Woods didn’t kill Jennifer. It seems to me he did. And the letter you received from Jim shows this to be true. Also the manner in which it was made to vanish.”

She frowned. “What has that to do with it?”

“Everything. You have always claimed that Graham Woods’ spirit has never shown itself.”

“Nor has it.”

“I say you’re wrong,” the veteran doctor said calmly. “I say that it was his evil spirit, not Frank Clay’s, who attacked you in the cellar today. Since it was only to his advantage to destroy the letter.”

Lucy heard the elderly doctor’s pronouncement with a feeling of complete despair. She realized the truth of his words, and felt that it did seem likely the young doctor who had lived a century ago had been guilty of the murder of Jennifer. No matter how she tried to whitewash the wife-killer, the truth could not be concealed.

In a small voice, she said, “So you think I’m wrong about the innocence of Graham Woods.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“So he did kill Jennifer, and that was why he schemed to take the letter from me. He wanted to remove the evidence against him.”

“If your ghost story is true that seems very likely,” the old doctor agreed.

“It saddens me.”

“I understand,” he said. “You are a romantic by nature. You would have wished it to be otherwise.”

“I wish I had never seen Moorgate,” she said bitterly. “It has brought nothing but misery to Fred and me.”

Dr. Boyce nodded. “I doubt if anyone but your husband or some other unwary stranger would have rented the house with its dark history of tragedy.”

“Henry Farley let us have it because he wanted to use us,” she said with anger in her voice. “It was part of an experiment he’s been making about the supernatural. We arrived at a convenient time.”

“Shiela suggested the house to Fred, didn’t she?”

“Yes, but no doubt at her father’s bidding. He has the final say in all things.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” the doctor agreed. “Now what?”

“I hardly know which way to turn,” she said bleakly. “I’ve become so involved in all that business of a century ago.”

“Surprising, isn’t it?”

“Not really. I’m positive I am a psychic,” she said. “And the moment I set foot inside Moorgate I was bound to be involved. From the start I was convinced I’d seen only the ghosts of Jennifer and Frank Clay. I came to the conclusion that they were in desperate combat, she trying to defend her husband’s name and he trying to blacken it, as he had in life. But it seems I had it all wrong.”

“There was the third ghost, that of Dr. Graham Woods to contend with.”

“Yes,” she said. “And now it appears he has been trying to confuse me. To make me believe him innocent when it is not true. So all my earlier conclusions are useless.”

“It was a natural error.”

“I don’t know how I could be so wrong,” she said. “I’ve tried to find some new evidence to tell what really happened with those three. But Moorgate has yielded nothing. And now I’ve lost the only other document of importance which has come to light.”

Dr. Boyce said, “But through the circumstances of the loss you have learned a great deal. It now appears that Graham Woods was indeed the dark character Frank Clay depicted him as being.”

“So it seems.”

“Why not let it go at that?”

“I wish I could,” she sighed.

“There’s no sane reason why you shouldn’t leave Moorgate and forget all this. I’ll have another talk with Fred. I’ll make him listen to me this time. Perhaps he should take you away from St. Andrews altogether.”

She gave him a wistful glance. “Then I would always be haunted by the memory of Jennifer.”

“She has come to mean that much to you.”

Lucy nodded. “She and the others have come to be like living people whom I’ve known.”

“It’s a strange business,” the old man worried. “Could it be that the true key to the puzzle might be on Minister’s Island?”

“You mean in Frank Clay’s house?”

“Yes. The old house still stands, and it is not unlikely that somewhere in it there are letters or other papers which would fill in the missing information about the true events of that stormy night a century ago.”

“Jim Stevens claims the house has been thoroughly searched.”

The doctor said, “Yet there could still be evidence hidden there which their searching did not reveal.”

“I wish it were so.”

“I don’t think it’s anything you should concern yourself with personally,” the old man said hastily. “But you might discuss it with Jim and have him start another search.”

“Perhaps I will.”

“I should think it worth a try,” Dr. Boyce said with a serious expression on his round face. “It might be the one way to settle the ghosts of that unhappy trio for all time.”

She got up. “I’ve stayed too long, as usual.”

“Not at all,” he said, rising. “I’m fascinated by all that you’ve told me. I’m as anxious to see the mystery solved as you are.”

Lucy smiled. “You’ve been a great help to me.”

“I wish I could do more.”

“You’ve been wonderful,” she assured him. “I suppose I’m being silly about Frank Clay. But he somehow doesn’t appeal to me. I sense evil in the mention of his name.”

“Yet you have probably been wrong about him.”

“It looks that way now,” she admitted.

The old man saw her to the door, and before she left he urged her, “Try to settle your differences with Fred. That is your most important problem and you mustn’t lose sight of it There is no reason why you two should not be a happy married couple again.”

She gave him a meaningful glance. “No
living
reason.”