The shadow kind, p.8
The Shadow Kind, page 8
“Remarkable–I had no idea.”
“Not many people do; they have a tradition of privacy, and prefer to stay behind the scenes. Is it Abigail your colleague’s dealing with?”
Williams nodded. “I believe that’s the name he mentioned.”
“Very lovely, and a formidable businesswoman. But she’s stepping down these days, with her niece taking over. Catherine is every bit as charming, and–” Northrup winked slyly– “both can be quite persuasive in other ways.”
This time it was Williams’s eyebrows that rose.
***
Outside again, he started homeward, pondering the new information he’d gleaned. The financial world was apparently in fine shape, so he could dismiss that part of Madame Zasha’s ‘prophecy,’ and all the rest that hinged on it.
Although it was another odd coincidence that the Anstruthers were powerful eminence grises in international finance. The impression emerging of Abigail was increasingly intriguing–mysterious, rich, beautiful–and ‘persuasive.’ He wondered if that charm would find its way to Grenville, and admitted wryly to a touch of envy.
But he had not come up with anything of real importance or relevance, and he’d decided by now that the psychic’s bizarre pronouncement was the result of her being thrown off kilter by some unknown but entirely normal factor–mental instability, drug use, even a slight seizure–and she had turned defensive to cover her lapse.
He was still in the financial district, where the overcast sky and tall buildings obscured the waning daylight to an early dusk. Just ahead of him, a woman was getting into an elegant black car parked at the curb; the make wasn’t familiar to him, but it looked foreign and certainly expensive. She was carrying a couple of shopping bags; as she sat behind the wheel, she jostled them and he thought he saw something fall to the curb. She seemed not to notice, and closed the door after her.
“Excuse me, madam,” he called out, waving to get her attention and hurrying forward. She rolled down the window, with him an inquiring look. “I think you dropped this.” He stooped to pick up the object, a small doll-like hand puppet of an old-time court jester in motley, with a floppy cap ‘n bells hat. As he handed it to her, he noted that her dress, like the vehicle, was tastefully expensive, and that she was very attractive–about thirty, with long auburn hair and the flawless fair complexion that often went with it.
“Oh, thank you so much–you’ve saved the day,” she exclaimed, in a crisp British accent. “It’s a gift for someone special, a young person.” She smiled. “And of course, terribly important to her.”
He smiled back. “Of course. Glad to be of help.”
The car pulled away and joined the flow of traffic. Williams walked on, buoyed a little by ending this somber excursion on a pleasant note.
Then he stopped abruptly, remembering the puppet that had just been in his hands, with its floppy cap and motley costume.
Jester.
Fool.
FIVE
Returning from Sally Caxton’s cottage, Grenville stepped into the Anstruther mansion and immediately caught the savory fragrance of the lobster bisque warming in the kitchen. He was hungry, he realized, on the edge of ravenous. The electric lights weren’t especially bright, but he noticed things in a way he hadn’t earlier–the fine detailing of the wood trim, the stonework of the fireplace, the discreetly rich draperies and fixtures. The tension and anticipation coming over him were sharpening his senses all around.
The long dining room table was set for two, not at opposite ends but across from each other at the host’s end. Abigail was in the kitchen, wearing an apron and adding final touches to the soup simmering on the big Monarch stove. He could tell from the way she moved that she was at home doing this, and it brought a touch of earthiness to her sophisticated poise.
“What can I do besides stand here being useless?” he asked.
“I’m ready for a glass of wine, and I suspect you are, too.” She nodded towards a bottle chilling in an ice bucket on a counter–a Pouilly-Fuisse ‘25, an illegal and expensive pleasure like her Scotch and Madeira. “Did you find anything interesting?”
“The only thing that struck me was a mirror she’d hidden in the bed, as if she was using it to fantasize about herself.” He’d already decided not to mention his aversion to it; that was irrelevant, entirely personal and slightly embarrassing. “It brought home what you said about her being susceptible–yearning for escape and easily led. And I am getting a sense that this is linked to my brother, although I can’t explain it or even why I feel it. Tomorrow I’d like a look at that cavern, and Joseph Fletcher’s home, and anyplace else you can think of.”
“Let’s start with those two and see what else follows.”
He finished opening the wine, poured them each a glass, and they touched the rims with a faint chime of fine crystal.
“To my hostess,” he said. “I’m deeply in your debt.”
“Oh, no, don’t think of it that way. This is fascinating for me, too.” Then, with her eyes softening a little, “And I so want you to find what you’re looking for.”
As they sipped the wine–rich, tart, with just a hint of sweetness–the telephone rang in the living room, a brash peremptory summons. Her mouth twitched with annoyance.
“I’d better get it,” she said. “There are some business rumblings I need to keep up with.”
“Take your time–I’ll tend the stove.” For the next couple of minutes, he busied himself with little tasks, stirring the bisque and slicing a loaf of fresh crusty bread. Alone, he was aware that the subtle change he’d been feeling was still going on, an internal balance imperceptibly shifting–and that Abigail was capturing more of his attention.
She came back looking exasperated. “I’m afraid that’s thrown a wrench in the works, dammit. That was my niece, Catherine–she’s been looking after the office in Boston. She thinks we need to move some important investments that can’t wait, and I’m sure she’s right–she’s very sharp. Anyway, she’s coming here tomorrow to work it out, and I’ll be tied up until then getting prepared. Will you mind being on your own tomorrow? I can sketch a map to get you around.”
“I’ll manage fine, except I’ll miss your company.”
“Hah,” she said, although she looked pleased. “Really, it’s another situation where I wouldn’t be of any use. You’ll like Catherine, by the way–and come to think of it, she might have interesting insights into the weirder aspects of this. She’s British but she grew up in Malaysia, and there’s plenty of that sort of thing there.”
“I’ll be anxious to pick her brain.”
“Good. We’ll go our own ways in the morning, then, and catch up later in the day.”
She ladled out steaming bowls of the bisque; he ferried them to the table, along with bread, butter, salad, and the rest of the wine.
At some point, there came a moment when they were close beside each other, she turned to go back to the kitchen, and her breasts brushed lightly against his upper arm.
Abigail did not appear to notice.
***
An hour later, he was back in his guest suite. They had lingered enjoyably over the meal, but he realized that she would want to get a start on her business work, and he had his own thoughts to sort out. She’d drawn him the promised map of Roothing, and they said goodnight with polite formality.
He settled down at the sitting room’s desk, got out his journal, and started making notes on the day’s events and his perceptions thus far. But he was distracted, and he finally admitted why. He could not forget the delicate brush of her breasts, and couldn’t help wondering if it was intentional.
An affair with his hostess had never entered his mind to begin with, but there was no doubt that warmth and even a degree of intimacy had quickly developed between them–and now he found himself thinking about her in a starkly erotic way. Grenville liked women, and he was not a sexual novice. During the war, the grim realities were occasionally lightened by women who gave themselves to soldiers out of gratitude for defending their country, or compassion for the danger they faced, or for money. But back in the United States, that kind of laissez-faire did not exist. His occasional romances had failed to survive the pressures of expectations and practicalities; he wasn’t ready to settle down and marry, and not sure he ever would be. For the past years he had lived mostly celibate and gotten used to it, burying desire with work and more sharply aroused because of it.
Her being older made her all the more attractive to him, with the promise of experience and sophistication. She clearly wasn’t constrained by Puritan conventions, and she spent a lot of time in Europe, where rigid American taboos were laughed at; she must have lovers when she chose to. Had she chosen him, and that touch was her subtle way of letting him know it? The formal goodnight because she was nonetheless a lady, and reluctant to seem too bold?
Under ordinary circumstances, he wouldn’t dream of approaching a woman with such slight and even imagined provocation–but the heightened sense of power he was feeling almost pushed him over that edge. But common sense won out. If he was misreading the situation, she’d be mortally offended, and that would be the end of what he hoped to accomplish here in Roothing. For now he could only wait in sweet torment. Judging from what he already knew of her, she would see to it that they went the way she wanted them to.
He turned back to his work and managed to jot down a cursory account of the day, but trying to analyze more deeply was useless; he was at the point of pushing information around in his head and confusing it further instead of clarifying. He intended to go to bed early and get an early start in the morning, but there was still an hour left for reading. He got out the three books he’d brought from the Widener, thinking he’d give each a brief look and decide if it warranted more attention.
Cotton Mather’s Wonders Of The Invisible World was the first he chose. This dealt extensively with the Salem witch trials, which began with a few teenaged girls making accusations that led to the cruel execution of more than two dozen adults, with imprisonment and irreparable damage to many more. Mather was a Harvard-educated clergyman from an influential family, but in spite of his erudition he was far from skeptical. He had a hand in the prosecutions, and was known particularly for his support of ‘spectral evidence’–unfounded fantasy involving spirits and magic. This credulity, together with his self-righteousness, made the book hard to take and easy to set aside; but it was a good look at how easily mass hysteria could arise and spread, with devastating consequences, even among pious intelligent people.
Grenville turned next to the medieval text Malleus Maleficarum–The Hammer Of Witches. This was the product of a pair of fanatical Dominican Inquisitors who were more credulous still, and even more sickening in their approach. According to the book’s modern–and acerbic–introduction, the witchcraft trials in Europe did not involve only a comparatively few innocent victims, but tens of thousands, executed from about 1400 to 1700. The vast majority were women, although many children, some only toddlers, also suffered.
The Malleus had served as a favorite manual for proceedings, which followed a typical pattern. The Inquisition held that anyone even suspected of witchcraft must be guilty, and trials were only intended to prove it; there was rarely any hope of escape. The accused were tortured into confessing to fabricated charges of consorting with evil powers, and forced to implicate others including their own families; most were then burned alive.
The aged, eccentric, and mentally or physically infirm–those who were looked down on, weak, without protectors–were frequent targets. But comely women were also at risk. If she spurned the advances of a lecherous suitor, he might complain that his obsession with her could only have come about because she had cast a spell on him, and her virtue would cost her life.
Even affluent, respected citizens were not immune–there was a thriving financial angle to this. Churches would confiscate the property of the condemned and resell it, often to the accusers. This made for a self-contained industry, whereby greedy schemers could acquire land on the cheap by slandering their neighbors and sending them to their doom; and of course, the church would take a tidy profit on the transaction.
If there were such things as demons, Grenville thought, they were hard at work in this ugly chapter of history–posing as the men who claimed to be on the side of holiness.
He set the Malleus aside with relief–it even seemed to have an evil weight to it–and took up the novel Dracula. Now he remembered the mention of it, from the Boston papers, that had stuck in his mind. A film version was made several years ago; he’d noticed the article because the director, a German named Murnau, had been a battlefront photographer in the war, possibly in the same action that he himself had seen. Apparently there was a flap about the film’s illegal usage of the book, and a resulting lawsuit had made the news.
As he skimmed through it, he found himself enjoying it more than he’d expected. Stoker wrote with passion, a pleasing style, and a talent for evoking the dark Gothic sensibility suitable to the story. This was Grenville’s first encounter with vampires; he was familiar with childhood bugaboos like goblins, trolls, and of course, stereotype witches, but this was more mature fare, with a much more eerie feel that wasn’t so easy to dismiss. Count Dracula was supernatural evil incarnate, and the story was a spine-chilling battle of that against the forces of good, hell-spawned fiend versus valiant humans, with the soul of Mina Harker at stake. The vampire’s superhuman strength and formidable powers–to change shape, fly, become invisible, create fog and storms–gave him an advantage that seemed impossible to overcome. But Van Helsing, emerging as a hero of epic proportions, also knew the vampire’s weaknesses; that knowledge, together with courage, made up the mortals’ slender hope.
It was fiction, of course, darkly imaginative and fanciful. Still, there was a haunting undertone–the sense that it was metaphor, symbolic of a secret reality it only hinted at–and it raised a troubling whisper that Grenville could not quite dismiss.
Could there possibly be such a thing as true evil–a force that existed in itself, immensely powerful and intelligent, hidden deep beneath the manifestations it gave rise to–evil that was not an effect, but a cause? Rational thought would dismiss the idea as absurd–but it did not seem as absurd here in Roothing as it would in Boston.
He pulled himself out of this musing with a wry shake of his head. When he found himself entertaining thoughts like that, it was time to turn in. He switched off the reading lamp and stood up from his chair. As he walked through the darkened room, he glanced out the window that overlooked the courtyard with the pool.
His gaze was caught by something moving on the water surface, a dark shape like a shadow flitting swiftly across. He barely had time to register it before it was gone. There was enough moonlight through the clouds for him to see that whatever had caused it was not in the pool–it must have come from above. He scanned the surrounding area, thinking it was a tree branch shifting in the breeze, but there were no trees nearby, no weathervane or anything else like that. A passing nightbird or bat, maybe; it had seemed too large, but the size could have been distorted by the faint uneven light, the wavy old window glass, the haze of steam rising from the water.
Then the French doors to the house opened, and a figure stepped out onto the patio. This was no mirage. It was Abigail, wearing a dark robe, apparently out for a late night dip. His immediate reaction was to avert his gaze, so as not to violate her privacy.
But she had to know that she was in plain view of his window. He continued to watch.
As casually as if she were taking off a coat, she slipped out of the robe. She was nude, her light shape appearing from the darkness like a living flame, and even lovelier than he had imagined, with hourglass waist, long shapely legs, and full breasts softened by maturity. She stepped down the submerged stairway into the pool, leaned back languorously against the far wall, stretched her arms out to the sides along the stone edge, and raised her face to stare straight into his eyes.
The sense of almost otherworldly power came back with sudden force, merging with his pent up sexual heat to send a shock through him that made him tremble.
Nothing else in the world mattered but possessing Abigail Anstruther–and she was his to possess.
He stripped off his clothes, letting them fall to the floor, and lightheaded but fierce, he strode downstairs through the French doors and into the water. She laughed aloud with pleasure at the sight of his rigid erection. Neither of them spoke. They met in a warm wet embrace, he bathed her swollen nipples with his tongue, her fingertips stroked him with sweet expertise. He could not endure it for long. He lifted her onto him, her thighs clasping around his waist, and she sighed as she took him up inside her with slow, luscious undulations. Their movements quickened, her sighs changed to moans and then the cries of a woman in a wrenching climax, and he came so hard his vision flickered in red and black streaks.
They stayed locked together for some time longer. Then she murmured, “Come to bed with me, lover. I haven’t had nearly enough of you.”
***
Throughout the night, it seemed as if their lovemaking never stopped. But he must have slept because he dreamed–deep, lengthy fantasies that yet left him with only fragments of memory, but the vignettes were surprisingly coherent and the memories surprisingly clear. He was mainly a detached observer, but there was a sense of the dual role common in dreams, with him also seeming to participate in some way. The scenarios hearkened back to the past, old and even ancient, with rich details of the places and times; and while the externals were very different, they had a common thread–a shadowy presence giving stealthy counsel to leaders of great power, artfully persuading them through flattery and appeals to their cravings.
