39

Once the good doctor stopped clowning, he impressed me as quite professional.

He started at the fountain, about which he made several remarks, suggesting he thought it one of the great sculptures of the modern age. He asked if it might be for sale in the foreseeable future.

Peters and I exchanged glances. Peters was way out at sea, encountering a side of the world about which he’d only heard before. He said, “Unlikely, doctor. Unlikely.”

“A pity. A great pity. I’d love to own it. It would make a wonderful prop.” He shuffled through his cases as Dojango popped them open, took out this and that—and nobody else knew what they were. For all I could tell they had no use at all and were just stuff to impress the peasants.

Three minutes later he said, “A great many traumatic events have occurred in this house.” He looked at something in his hand, drifted to the spot where Chain had made his exit from this vale of tears. The boys had cleaned up good. I guessed Chain was taking his ease in the wellhouse till planting time.

“A man died here recently. Violently.” Doom looked up. “Pushed, I’d guess.”

“On the money,” I admitted. “Maybe an hour after midnight last night.”

He wandered around. “The dead have walked here. Zombies . . . No! Worse. Not under control. Draugs.”

I looked at Morley. “I guess he knows his stuff. Unless he’s got a friend on the inside.”

“You’re suspicious of everything.”

“Occupational hazard.”

The spook hunter spent fifteen minutes just standing by the fountain with his eyes closed, holding some doohickeys to his ears. I’d begun to wonder if we weren’t getting shucked after all when he came back from wherever he’d been. “This is a house of blood. The very stones vibrate with memories of great evils done.” He shuddered, closed his eyes for another three minutes, then turned to me. “You’re the man who needs my help?”

“I’m the guy the General hired to straighten out a mess that only gets more tangled by the minute.”

He nodded. “Tell me what you’ve learned. There have been so many evils done here that it’s impossible to separate them.”

“That’ll take awhile. Why don’t we get comfortable?” I led him to one of the rooms on the first floor west where, I presumed, in better times the business of the estate had been managed. We settled. Peters went off to sweet-talk Cook into providing the next best thing to refreshments in a household where alcohol was banned.

“A twisted place indeed,” Doom said when he learned that. I decided maybe he wasn’t so bad after all.

I told him what I’d learned, which wasn’t that much when you came down to it. Mostly a catalog of crimes.

He asked no questions till I finished. “The spirit seems content to victimize your principal? The other deaths are the work of other hands?”

“Hell, I don’t know. The longer I’m here, the more confused I get. Every time somebody dies or emigrates, the list of suspects gets more improbable.” I explained how I’d had Chain locked in as the villain—till he took his tumble.

He considered. He reflected. He took his time. He was one guy who didn’t get in a hurry. He said, “Yours isn’t my field of expertise, Mr. Garrett, but I would, as a disinterested layman, suggest that you may be following false trails because you began with faulty assumptions.”

“Say what?”

“You think you’re after someone who wants a greater share of the estate. Have you considered another motive? The heirs keep demonstrating a lack of interest in the legacy. Perhaps there’s another cause for murder entirely.”

“Perhaps.” I’m not exactly a dummy. I’d considered that. But I couldn’t come up with anything to connect these people any other way. Only the legacy offered any normal basis for bloodshed. I told him that. “I’m open to suggestions. I’ll tell you I am.”

He did some reflecting. “How separate are your separate investigations?”

I explained it the way I saw it. Morley fretted, thinking my perspective too narrow.

“Good heavens!”

“Huh?”

Doom was staring past my shoulder. I had my back to the doorway. I turned.

Jennifer had appeared.

“Good heavens,” I said.

She looked like death warmed over.

Doom said, “Come here, child. Instantly.”

I got up, put an arm around her waist. She was almost too weak to walk. She hadn’t had strength enough to dress herself properly. “Garrett . . . ” There were tears in her eyes.

That’s all she said. I led her to the seat I’d vacated. The light was better. What it showed me wasn’t. She’d taken on the color the old man showed. “It’s after her,” I croaked. “The spook.”

Doom looked at her a long time before he said, “Yes.”

Morley looked at her, too. Then he looked at me. “Garrett, let’s take a walk. Doc, see what you can do for her. We’ll be back.”

Numb, I didn’t say anything till Morley started leading me upstairs. “What are we doing?”

“That spook’s been gnawing on the old man for a year, right? It never bothered anybody else. Right?”

“Yeah.” We were headed for my suite.

“Something changed that between last night and this morning.”

We reached the fourth floor, me puffing and renewing my vow to get in shape. “I guess. But what?”

He unlocked the door with my key, held it for me. Once we were inside, he took down the portrait of my mystery blonde. “Where’d you spend the night, Garrett?”

I looked at her. I looked at him. I recalled seeing her as I wandered home. I said, “Oh.” That’s all I had to say. It was a lot to swallow.

Morley went back into the hall, me tagging along. He said, “Time to get an opinion on this from everyone.”

“Morley, this isn’t possible.”

“Maybe not. I hope not.” He has no mercy sometimes. His tone was a hot flensing knife.

We returned to the room where Doom and Jennifer were. Doom was disturbed. Jennifer looked a lot better, though. He’d done something for her. She had strength and attention enough now to put herself into better array. Morley placed the portrait on a table nearby, face down. “Peters. Would you get everyone in here? Garrett has something to show everybody.”

Peters had been hovering over Jennifer. He looked at me. I said, “Please?”

“The General, too?”

“We can do without him for the moment.”

He was gone longer than I expected. I found out why when he came back. “Cook and Kaid were up feeding the General. Garrett, he’s damned near gone. Can’t even sit up. Can’t talk. It’s like he’s had a stroke. Or had all but the last ounce of life sucked out.”

Doom listened but said nothing.

“How soon will they be here?”

“Soon as they get him cleaned up. He fouled his bed. He’s never done that before. He always got hold of Kaid or Dellwood. Most times he had enough strength to make it to his chamberpot.”

After that there wasn’t much to say. I watched Doom fuss over Jennifer and Jennifer continue to improve. I tried not to dwell on what Morley had said without saying it in so many words. There are things you just don’t want to believe.

Kaid and Cook came in, Cook grumbling steadily about the interruptions in her schedule. Morley said, “Sit down, please. Garrett?”

I knew what I had to do. I didn’t want to, for some reason that seemed almost outside me. But Garrett’s got willpower. I looked at Jennifer. Too bad Garrett don’t have a little more won’t power.

“Snake Bradon was a remarkable artist but it seems he never showed his work. Which is a damned sin. He was able to capture the essence of what it felt like in the Cantard. He painted people, too. With a very skewed eye. This is one of his portraits. I managed to save it from the stable fire. It could be the key to everything. I want you all to look at it and tell me about it.”

Morley brought a lamp closer so there’d be more light. I lifted the painting.

Damn me if Jennifer didn’t let out a squeak and faint. And Cook, who hadn’t deigned to seat herself, collapsed a moment later.

“Hell of an impact,” I said.

Doc Doom stared at the blonde. He got the look Morley had last night. He shook himself loose, said, “Lay it down again, please.” Once I had, he said, “The man who painted that had one eye in another world.”

“He’s got both of them there now. He was murdered night before last.”

He waved that off. It was irrelevant.

Morley asked, “You see what was in the background?”

“Better than anyone with an untrained eye, I suspect. That painting tells a whole story. An ugly story.”

“Yeah?” I said. “What is it?”

“Who was the woman?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to find out since I got here. Nobody but me ever sees her. The rest of these people say she doesn’t exist.”

“She exists. I’m surprised you’re sensitive . . . No. I did say she’d manifest frequently. Sometimes they will attach themselves to a disinterested party, gradually trying to justify themselves before an impartial court.”

“Huh?”

Morley said, “I get it. I was wrong, Garrett. She’s not the killer. She’s your ghost. She didn’t need secret passages to get in and out.”

“Morley! Morley. You know damned well that’s impossible. I told you about . . . ” Some sense wormed through my confusion. There was a crowd here. Was I going to be dumb enough to tell them all I’d fooled around with a spook?

Was I dumb enough to believe it myself?

“She’s the haunt,” Doom agreed. “There’s no doubt. That painting explains everything. She was murdered. And it was the culmination of a betrayal so immense, so foul, that she stayed here.”

I had it. “Stantnor killed her. His first wife. The one he got rid of. Supposedly he bought her off and sent her away. He murdered her instead. Maybe there is a body in the cellar, Morley.”

“No.”

“Huh?”

That was Cook, getting up off the floor. “That’s Missus Eleanor, Garrett.”

“Jennifer’s mother?”

“Yes.” She moved to the table. She lifted the painting. She stared. I was sure she saw everything Snake Bradon put there, maybe stuff Morley and I missed. “So. He did it hisself. He’s lived a lie all these years because he can’t give up that alibi. It wasn’t no fumble-fingered doctor at all. That lousy bastard.”

“Wait a minute. Just wait a damned minute—”

“The story is there, Mr. Garrett,” Doom said. “She was tortured and murdered. By an insane man.”

“Why?” My voice was in what you’d call the plaintive range. I wasn’t calming down any. I couldn’t get last night out of my head. That hadn’t been any spook . . . Well, if it was, it was the warmest-bodied, friskiest, most solid spook there ever was. “Doc, I need to talk to you in private. It’s critical.”

We went into the hallway. I told him. He went into one of his reflections. When he came out a week later, he said, “It begins to make sense. And the child? Jennifer? Did you sleep with her, too?”

Well, hell. They say confession is good for the soul. “Yes. But it was kind of her idea. . . . ” Stop making excuses, Garrett.

He smiled. It wasn’t a salacious grin; it was a eureka kind of grin. “It falls together. The old man, your principal, whose life she’s been leeching slowly as she sets his feet upon the path to hell, is drained this morning. She’d have had to do that to assume solid form with you. Then the other—her own daughter?—wounds her by taking you to her bed. You, the focus she’s chosen to justify. You’ve been tainted. That has to be punished.” He got reflective again.

“That’s crazy.”

“We’re not dealing with sane people. Living or dead. I thought you understood that.”

“Knowing it and knowing it are two different things.”

“We have to talk to the troll woman. It would be wise to know the circumstances of those days as well as possible before we take steps. This isn’t a feeble haunt.”

We went back inside. Doom asked Cook, “What reason would General Stantnor have had for doing what he did? From what Mr. Garrett tells me, she was frightened of everything, had almost no will of her own. It would take great evils to animate her to the point where we’d have the situation that exists here now.”

“I don’t tell no stories—”

“Cook. Can it!” I snapped. “We have the General nailed here. He murdered Eleanor, evidently in extremely traumatic fashion. Now she’s getting even. That doesn’t bother me too much. I kind of like the idea of retribution. But now she’s started on Jennifer. I don’t like that. So how about you just puke up some straight answers?”

Cook looked at Jennifer, who hadn’t yet recovered.

“I kind of hinted at it but I guess not strong enough. The General . . . Well, he was obsessed with Missus Eleanor. Like I told you. But that never stopped him from rabbiting around hisself, tumbling every wench who’d hold still while he threw her on her back. He wasn’t discreet about it, neither. Missus Eleanor, naive as she was, figured it out. I can’t tell you what she felt for him. She wasn’t never one to talk or show much. But she had to be his wife. She didn’t have nowhere to go. Her parents was dead. The king was out to get her.

“She was hurt bad by the way he done. Real bad. Maybe, because she was the way she was, lots more hurt than a deceived wife ought to be. Anyway, she told him if he didn’t straighten up, she’d see if what was good for the gander was good for the goose. She wouldn’t never have done it. Not in a million years. She didn’t have the nerve. But that didn’t make him no never mind. He thought everybody worked inside like he did. He beat her half to death. Maybe would’ve killed her if I hadn’t of got between them. Anyway, he just went crazy after that. Poor child. Only time she ever stood up to him. . . . ”

I wanted to tell her to make the long story short, but it might not be smart to interrupt while she was puking her guts.

“Well, the poor child was pregnant with Miss Jennifer. She didn’t know it yet. Naive child. Once she did figure it out, it was a day too late. I like to pounded his head for him but he wouldn’t believe he was its dad. Not till she was gone. Him thinking that poor child was as loose as him! With who? I asked him. Was there anybody around the house? Hell, no. Not but him. And the child never went outdoors. Half the time she didn’t even come out of her room. But try to convince a fool with logic.

“He put her through hell. Pure hell. Tormented her. Tortured her, I think. She had bruises all over. Trying to get her to tell him the name. I done what I could. That wasn’t never enough. Only made him worse when I wasn’t looking. And it got worse when the old General passed.” She looked at me. There were tears in her eyes the size of larks’ eggs. “I swear, though, I never thought he killed her. I never believed that even when there was some whispers. If I’d of known it then, I’d of plucked off his fingers and toes and arms like plucking feathers off a chicken. How could he of killed her?”

“I don’t know, Cook. But I’m going to ask.” I looked at Doctor Doom.

He asked, “You intend to confront him?”

“Oh, yes. I sure do.” I grinned like a werewolf. “He hired me to unravel his troubles no matter how much he didn’t like what he learned. I’m going to give him apoplexy.”

“Take it easy,” Morley said. “Don’t get so upset you can’t think straight.”

Good advice. I’ve been known to gallop around like a beheaded chicken when I’m excited, doing more damage to myself than to the bad guys. “I’ve got it under control.” I glanced at Jennifer. She’d begun to recover while Cook was talking. She looked a little goofy, still, as she stared at the portrait of her mother. She seemed amazed and puzzled. She mumbled, “That’s my mother. That’s the woman in the painting in father’s bedroom.”

I looked at Peters. “Why didn’t you tell me that last night?”

“I didn’t believe it. I guessed, but this painting doesn’t look anything like that one. I thought I had to be wrong. That it was just a coincidence. Snake never saw her, anyway.”

Cook said, “That’s not true.”

“That’s right,” I said. “He came from the estate, didn’t he? I should have thought of that. Did he know her at all?”

Cook shook her head. “He never came in the house even back then. She never went out. But he would of seen her from a distance.”

Peters just shook his head. “I didn’t believe it.”

I recalled him and Kaid arguing after Morley and I left. Now I knew why. They’d been trying to make up their minds. “What do we do about the ghost, Doctor?” At the moment I was on her side, despite what she’d done to Jennifer.

Not hard to understand. Last night she’d added adultery to the punishments visited upon Stantnor, twenty years after he’d convicted her. Then Jennifer and I had . . . But why shouldn’t she consider Jennifer my victim, the way she’d been Stantnor’s? Was there more to it than I knew? I supposed Doom could explain but I couldn’t ask.

I shrugged. Go try to unravel motives and you’ll drive yourself crazy. In my line you’re better off dealing with results. That’s much more straightforward.

Doom said, “She has to be laid to rest. Her staying here and walking the night . . . That’s far more cruel. That’s more punishment that’s undeserved. She needs peace.” He paused, apparently expecting comment. When he got none, he added, “It’s not my place to be judgmental. I suspect the man who killed her deserves all he’s gotten and more. But my own ethics don’t let me let the victimization go on.”

He was starting to look like a right guy despite his clown show. Most of the time that’s the code I follow myself. Most of the time. I’ve been known to get involved and consequently stumble into some home-grown justice sometimes. “I agree. Mostly. What next?”

Doom worked his ugly face into a smile. “I’m going to work a constraint on the shade that will keep it from draining any more substance off the living. The principal will begin to recover immediately. Once he regains some strength—this is just a suggestion—I’d like to call her up to confront him. A direct confrontation will leave her less reluctant to go to her rest, I think. And I have a feeling that an exorcism against a hostile shade would be very difficult here.”

“Yeah.” I reckoned he knew what he was talking about. And a confrontation sounded good to me.

“You can’t do that,” Jennifer protested. “That might kill him. He might have a stroke.”

Nobody else much cared if he did. At the moment there was very little love for Stantnor around that place. Cook looked like she was considering ways she could help him across to the other shore. She’d raised him like her own but she was less than proud of him.

She said, “I got to get back to work. Lunch is going to be late as it is.” She stomped out.

“Keep an eye on her, Sarge,” I suggested. “She’s pretty upset.”

“Right.”