The Judges of Hades

And Other Simon Ark Stories

Edward D. Hoch

For Bob Lowndes, who first discovered the Simon Ark stories and their author.

CONTENTS

Introduction by Hans Stefan Santesson: THE CASE OF SIMON ARK

VILLAGE OF THE DEAD

THE HOUR OF NONE

THE WITCH IS DEAD

SWORD FOR A SINNER

THE JUDGES OF HADES

THE CASE OF SIMON ARK

HERE IS A MAN who does little more than at times, if pressed, admit to being close to two thousand years old (“I was fifty when the Emperor Galerius was on his deathbed at Nicomedia.”), and—with the authority of the past—he will curse the Satanist in the language Christ’s disciples in Egypt knew as he relentlessly, ceaselessly, seeks out Evil, wherever he can find it, in order to destroy it.

No. He is not the Wandering Jew. He is a Copt, almost certainly a one-time priest, who has been denied the grace of dying but has instead been condemned—is there another word for it?—to hunt down the Forces of Evil, wherever these may be found, century after century, while those around him would grow old and would eventually die.

There has been extraordinary reader interest in this man who, though he claims no powers, and exercises no powers, obviously has the charisma, if I may use that word, of a man who seems to have been condemned to live forever. …

Many of the Ark stories have been reprinted, time and time again—I reprinted or ran some of them in The Saint, for that matter—but what has fascinated me, professionally, is how long-lived these stories have been—how people know Edward Hoch, despite his later and frequent sales to E.Q.M.M. and A.H.M.M. more as the author of these Ark stories, published ten-twelve-fourteen years ago, than as a regular cover name on the above cited and other magazines.

These stories, “Village of the Dead,” “The Witch Is Dead,” “The Judges of Hades,” “The Hour of None,” and “Sword for a Sinner,” ignoring for the moment the sensationalism of the titles, describe a man whom readers remember and talk about and, I know, would like to read about again!

— Hans Stefan Santesson

VILLAGE OF THE DEAD

PERHAPS, IF YOU’RE OLD enough, you remember the Gidaz Horror. At least that was the name the newspapers gave it during those early days when the story shocked the world.

I was near Gidaz when the thing happened, and I suppose I was one of the first to reach the village. I went without sleep for forty-eight hours to get the story and then I never could use it. All these years I’ve thought about it, and I guess sooner or later I just had to tell someone.

So this is the way it happened, that day in Gidaz. …

I was at the state capitol, covering a political story, when the flash came in. We crowded around the teletype in the press room and watched the words as they formed on the yellow paper:… THE TINY VILLAGE OF GIDAZ, IN THE SOUTHERN PART OF THE STATE, WAS THE SCENE TODAY OF AN APPARENT MASS SUICIDE. A MAIL TRUCK, ARRIVING IN THE VILLAGE THIS MORNING, FOUND THE HOUSES DESERTED, AND, AT THE BASE OF A HUNDRED-FOOT CLIFF NEARBY, SCORES OF BODIES WERE FOUND AMONG THE ROCKS. …

That was all. There was more to follow, but none of us waited to see it. Ten minutes later we were in a car heading south, toward the village of Gidaz, eighty miles away.

It was almost evening when we arrived, but there were no lights in the village. The streets and the few dozen houses that clustered around them were dark and silent. It was as if the entire population had suddenly vanished.

And in a way it had.

We found people and cars at the edge of the village, but the people were not toiling silently, as at the scene of a train wreck or a fire. They only stood at the edge of the cliff and looked down at the rocks below.

We joined them at the edge, and I saw it, too. In the reflected glare of a dozen headlights and in the dying glow of the setting sun, I saw the bodies on the rocks below. There must have been nearly a hundred of them, men, women, and children. I could almost imagine a giant hand sweeping them over the edge to their death.

Presently we made our way down the steep path to the bottom, and men began to set up floodlights for the long job ahead. They were piled on top of each other, among the pointed rocks that stretched upward toward the sky.

“Think any of them could be alive?” I heard myself asking.

“Not a chance. A hundred feet is a long way to fall, especially with rocks like these at the bottom.”

“Yeah. …”

And they began moving the bodies. An old man with his skull shattered by the fall, a girl with her neck broken. …

They carried them from the rocks and laid the bodies in neat rows on the ground. Soon there were only the red-stained rocks remaining. And I counted the bodies, along with the others. “Seventy-three.”

“Seventy-three. …”

A state trooper joined the group at the foot of the cliff. “We’ve gone through every house in the village; there’s not a living thing up there. …”

“The entire village walked over the edge of that cliff sometime last night. …”

After that the deserted village of Gidaz was alive with reporters and photographers from all over the country. They wrote a million words about the Gidaz Horror. Seventy-three people, the entire population of the village of Gidaz, had committed suicide by walking off the edge of a cliff. Why? What had driven them to it? That was the question we all wanted to answer.

But there was no answer.

A New York paper compared it to an incident during the Napoleonic Wars, when a charging cavalry had ridden over the edge of a cliff before they realized their error. A national magazine brought up the legend of the Pied Piper, and suggested that some supernatural force had lured them to their death.

But still there was no answer.

The houses were searched for clues, but yielded nothing. In some places, food was still on the table. In others, people had been preparing for bed. It must have been around eight o’clock when something brought them from their houses. There were no notes or messages remaining. Apparently they had planned to return when they left their houses for the last time.

But they had not returned. …

I was the first one to think of digging into the background of the town, and I spent most of the first night in the deserted building that had once held town meetings. There were records here—records and memories of days past, when Gidaz had been founded, by a group of settlers pushing westward. It had been named after one of them, and had grown rapidly after the discovery of gold nearby.

I studied one of the old maps I found, and decided that the gold mines must have been almost at the spot where those seventy-three persons had plunged over the cliff to their deaths.

It was while I was looking at the map that I suddenly became aware that I was not alone in the old building. I turned and pointed my flashlight at a dark corner, and a tall man stepped out of the shadows. “Good evening,” he said quietly.

“Who are you?”

“My name is not important, but you may call me Simon Ark if you wish.”

“Simon Ark?”

“That is correct,” the stranger replied. “And now may I ask who you are?”

“I’m a reporter, a newspaper reporter. I came down from the state capitol to cover the story.”

“Ah, and you thought you might find something in the old records of the village? I also had a similar thought.”

The man called Simon Ark had advanced closer now, and I could make out his features clearly in the light from my flash. He was not old, and yet his face had tiny lines of age to be seen if one looked closely enough. In a way he was perhaps a very handsome man, and yet I somehow could not imagine women ever being attracted to him.

“Are you a writer or something?” I asked him.

“No, I am simply an investigator; I make a hobby of investigating any strange or unexplained happenings in the world.”

“How did you manage to get here so quickly?”

“I was in the area, just across the state line, on another mission. I would have been here sooner, but it is very difficult to reach Gidaz by road.”

“It certainly is. The village is almost completely cut off from the rest of the town. Ever since the gold mines died out, the place has been almost a ghost town.”

“And yet,” Simon Ark said quietly, “there were seventy-three people remaining here. Why did they remain, I wonder. Why didn’t they leave this dying village?”

“They’ve left it now,” I said; “they left it last night when they walked over that cliff.”

“Yes. …” And the man called Simon Ark left the ancient building. I followed him outside, to see where he would go.

He was a strange man, strange in many ways. He seemed almost to be from another world or another time as he walked slowly along the dirt road that led through the center of the dead village.

The reporters and the police had already searched the houses, but he seemed to be looking for something more. …

Soon, he had almost disappeared in the darkness, and I hurried after him. When I finally reached him, he was bending over a dark spot on the ground. I could see only by the light of the moon overhead, but he seemed excited by what he had found.

“There has been a fire here recently,” he said, almost to himself. He pulled something from the ashes and attempted to brush it off. It looked as if it had once been a book, but in the dim light it was impossible to tell more.

I had not realized the utter silence of the night around us until that moment, when it was suddenly shattered by the distant sound of an approaching car.

“Someone’s coming,” I said.

“Odd. …” And a strange expression passed quickly over the face of Simon Ark.

He pushed the remains of the charred book into his topcoat pocket and walked back toward the dirt road.

Somewhere above, a cloud passed over the moon, and for the moment all was darkness. Then the night was broken by the gleam of two headlights moving slowly along the road.

Simon Ark stepped in front of the car and held up both hands, like some ancient high priest calling upon the gods above. A chill ran down my spine as I watched him.

The car, a light green convertible, came to an abrupt halt, and a girl climbed out from behind the wheel. “Are you the police?” she asked him.

“No, only an investigator. This other gentleman is a reporter.” She noticed me then for the first time, and the tense look on her face softened.

“I’m Shelly Constance,” she said. “I… I used to live here.”

Simon Ark introduced himself. “You had a family still living here in Gidaz?” he asked quietly.

“Yes. … My father and brother. … I… I heard on the radio what happened last night. I came as soon as I could. …”

“It would have been wiser to stay away,” Simon Ark told her. “Your father and brother are beyond all worldly aid now, and the evil of Gidaz still fills the air, mingled now with the odor of death.”

“I…I must see them,” she said. “Where did it happen?”

Simon Ark motioned toward the distant cliff and led the way through the darkness. “The bodies have been covered with canvas for the night,” he told her. “I believe the plans are to bury them tomorrow in a mass grave at the bottom of the cliff. Most of them, of course, have no living relatives.”

We reached the edge, and I played my flashlight down on the rocks below, but nothing could be seen from that far up. In the light of the flash, however, I got my first good look at the girl by my side. She was young and tall and pretty in a casual sort of way. Her blonde hair hung to her shoulders, and helped to set off the lines of her face.

“Tell me,” I asked, as we walked back to her car, “why did you ever leave Gidaz?”

“That is a long story,” she said, “but perhaps it has something to do with this horrible thing. Come, come into my…house over here for a few minutes, and I’ll try to tell you about it.”

Simon Ark and I followed her in silence to one of the houses just off the main road. It seemed strange entering this house that no longer belonged to the living. There were things, dishes and books and clothing and cigarettes and food, that were reminders of the people who had lived here. On the wall was a map of the goldmining area, where some of these people had continued to work until yesterday, in the futile hope of recovering the village’s lost greatness.

It was then, as the girl entered this dead house that had once been home, that she seemed to go to pieces. She began sobbing, and threw herself into a big armchair to cover her face. I remained where I was and let her cry. There was no way to comfort this girl who was almost a stranger to me.

I noticed that Simon Ark also left her to her sorrow and moved over to inspect the small bookcase in the dining room. After a moment’s hesitation I joined him and glanced at the titles on the shelves. They were mostly children’s books, with a few others that had probably served as college textbooks. One, an ancient history book, was stamped State University.

This seemed to remind Simon Ark of the charred remains of the book he had found earlier. He removed it from his pocket and carefully examined it. A few charred pieces drifted to the floor.

“It seems to be…” Simon Ark began, and then fell silent.

“What?”

“Ah, yes, ‘The Confessions Of Saint Augustine.’ A truly remarkable book. Did you ever read it?”

“No, I’m not a Catholic,” I replied.

“Augustine wrote for all men,” Simon Ark said slowly; “this is a very interesting discovery.”

“Why should anyone want to burn it?”

“I am beginning to fear that I know the answer to that,” he told me, and there was something in his voice that scared even me.

He returned the remains of the book to his pocket as the girl joined us again. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Please forgive me.”

“Certainly,” I told her; “we understand.”

“I’ll see if I can fix us coffee or something,” and she disappeared into the kitchen.

Presently she returned, with three steaming cups, and as we drank she told us of her early life in Gidaz. …

“…I suppose it was about five years ago when I left to attend college. Of course, I was home for the summers, but for the first two years things seemed the same as they had always been in Gidaz. Then, in the summer following my third year at the University, I returned home to find things had changed slightly.”

“In what way?”

“Well, I suppose it would be hard for you to understand, because it was really nothing I could put my finger on. It seemed to be just a change in attitude at first. They talked of a man who had come to Gidaz—a man named Axidus, who seemed to have a great influence on their lives from then on. Of course, you must realize that Gidaz is so remote from other cities that these seventy-three people were forced to live entirely among themselves. My father and brother usually got into town about once every month or two. To them, the village was everything, even though it was slowly dying. A few of the men kept working in the mines, finding just enough gold to keep them alive. Others worked small farms in the valley. But they were happy here, probably because they had never known anything better.”

“But you were not satisfied with it?”

“I wasn’t the only one. Many of the young people like me left Gidaz, especially after the coming of this man Axidus.”

Simon Ark’s face had grown dark while she talked. “You say his name was Axidus?”

“Yes, do you know him?”

“I may have met him once, long ago. …”

“Well, he was the cause of all the trouble, and I saw that right away. When I came home for Christmas that year, it was as if a madness had seized the people. They talked of nothing but Axidus, and how he was going to help them save themselves. He seemed to have some kind of new religion. …”

I glanced at him, but his face was like stone. Once again I seemed to feel a shiver run down my spine.

“It really scared me, the way they all believed in him so completely,” she continued. “Once each week he held a meeting in the old town hall, and everyone would go to hear him—even the children. It was uncanny, the way he seemed to know everything that happened in the village. He would tell people secret facts that no one else could possibly have known. When I was away at school, he would tell my father everything I was doing. Of course, people like this have always been attracted by fortune-tellers and the like, and a person like this knew exactly how to get them in his power. I went to see him just once, and I must admit I found something strangely haunting about this man Axidus.”

“What did he look like?” I asked.

“He was fairly tall, with a white beard that hung to his chest. His hair was long and white, too, and he wore a white robe. He would come out on the small platform at one end of the hall and begin talking without any introduction. Afterward, he just seemed to disappear. Sometimes people would see him around the village during the week, too, but always in this white robe. No one knew where or how he lived.”

“It’s fantastic,” I said; “it sounds like something out of the dark past.”

Simon Ark frowned. “It is dark, and it is certainly from the past. My only wish is that I had heard all this before it was too late. …”

There was a wind coming up outside, and from somewhere up in the hills came the cry of a lonesome timber wolf. I glanced at my watch and was surprised to see it was already past midnight.

“What do you mean…” the girl started to ask, but she never completed the sentence.

Suddenly, Simon Ark was out of his chair, and he was pulling open the front door of the house. I ran to his side, and then I saw it, too. …

A figure, or a thing, all in white, running with the wind toward the cliff where Death slept in the darkness. …

We followed, through the night, with the gathering breeze whistling through the trees around us. The girl started to follow, but I waved her back inside. Whatever was out here, it was not for her to see. …

In the distance, a sudden streak of rumble of thunder followed. It would be raining back in the hills, but with luck the storm would miss us.

The wind was picking up, though, and by the time we reached the edge of the cliff it was close to being a gale. I wondered briefly if a strong wind could have blown these people to their death, but that of course, was fantastic. … But perhaps the real reason for their death would be even more fantastic. …

“There!” He pointed down the cliff, to the very center of where the seventy-three bodies rested under canvas on the rocks.

And I saw it again.

The moon that had given us light before was hidden now by the threatening clouds of rain, but I could see the blot of white against the blackness of the rocks.

“Axidus?” I breathed.

“Or Satan himself,” Simon Ark answered; “perhaps this is the moment I have waited for.” He started down the rocks, and I followed.

But the white form seemed to sense our approach. Suddenly, before our very eyes, it seemed to fade away.

“He must be hiding in the rocks somewhere,” I said.

The odor of the corpses was all around us then, and my head swam sickeningly.

“I must find him,” Simon Ark said, and he shouted something in a strange language that might have been Greek, but wasn’t.

We searched the rocks until the odor was overpowering and forced us to retreat. We found nothing. …

On the way back up the cliff, I asked Simon Ark what he’d shouted before.

“It was in Coptic,” he said, “which is very much like Egyptian. It was a type of prayer. …”

With the coming of daylight, the horror that hung thick in the air over Gidaz seemed to lift a little. The girl had slept through the remainder of the night, and I had sat alone in the front room of the house while Simon Ark prowled the night on some further mysterious investigations.

Since I knew sleep was impossible, I spent the time attempting to set down in words just what had happened to me that day, ever since the moment in the early evening when I’d first arrived in Gidaz. But I couldn’t do it; I was still living the thing, and the terror that clung to the village was still a very real part of the air I breathed. Maybe later. …

Simon Ark returned to the house soon after daybreak, and the sound of our talking awakened the girl. She made breakfast for us from among the remains we found around the house, and by nine o’clock we were ready to leave.

The lack of sleep was beginning to get me then, but the sunlight helped revive me. Simon Ark looked the same as he had the evening before, and seemed anxious to leave the village. “I have things that must be done,” he said. “In the meantime, if you would desire to help me, there are one or two things you could find out.”

“Sure. Anything for a story.”

They were interrupted then by the sound of an approaching truck. Down the single road that led to civilization, an ancient mail truck was coming toward them.

“This must be the man who found the bodies yesterday,” Simon Ark said.

And it was. A fairly tall, middle-aged man named Joe Harris. “They haven’t buried them yet, huh?” he asked us.

“No,” I answered. “The bodies are under canvas at the bottom of the cliff, a short distance from the rocks. The funeral is to take place today. I understand they’ve decided to bury them here in a mass grave rather than try to remove all the bodies to another town.”

“Gee,” he said, “I near died of shock yesterday morning when I drove up and found them all down there. Why do you think they jumped?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It would make a great story if I did.”

There were other trucks and cars coming now, with a gleaming State Police car in the lead. There were workers with shovels, who would soon bury the remains of the Gidaz Horror. And there were more photographers and reporters, from all over the country, coming to record forever the strange happening in this forgotten village.

They took pictures of Joe Harris and his battered mail truck; they took pictures of Shelly Constance, and questioned her about her life in the village. She talked to them at length, but she did not mention the strange man, Axidus, again; I suspected that Simon Ark had suggested she keep silent about this part of it.

Simon Ark himself kept in the background during most of the morning, and went unnoticed in the crowd of curiosity seekers who poured over the scene in growing numbers throughout the early hours of the day.

It was nearly noon before Simon Ark and I could make our escape in my car. I wondered briefly how this strange man had arrived the previous night when he had no car, but the thought passed from my mind as we watched them lowering the last of the seventy-three into the long grave at the base of the cliff.

For a moment, there was silence over the scene, as the last rites of various religions were spoken over the grave. Then, once again, a murmur of voices arose, as I turned my car away from the village.

Simon Ark was in the seat next to me, and I was glad I had managed to avoid the other reporters who’d ridden out to the village with me the previous day. For I had a feeling that the answer to this riddle rested somehow with Simon Ark, and with the white figure we’d seen on the cliff.

I turned into the highway that led north, toward the state capitol. “What did you want me to do?” I asked.

“Do? Oh, I would like you to look up some information in the old newspaper files. I would like you to find out if any priests or ministers have been killed in the Gidaz area within the past few years. …”

I thought about that for a while. “All right, I’ll get the information for you on one condition. That you tell me just who you are, and just who this Axidus is.”

“I am just a man,” he answered slowly. “A man from another age. You would not be interested in where I came from, or in what my mission is. I need only tell you that I am searching for the ultimate evil—for Satan himself. And perhaps, in Gidaz, I have found him at last.”

I sighed softly. “What about Axidus?”

“Axidus is also from the past. I knew him long ago, in North Africa, as St. Augustine did. …”

“Are you crazy? Are you trying to tell me we’re dealing with people who’ve been dead over fifteen hundred years?”

“I do not know,” Simon Ark replied. “But I intend to find out tonight, when we return to the village of the dead. …”

I left the strange man near the capitol building an hour later, having agreed to meet him there again at five o’clock. It did not take me long to gather the information Simon Ark had requested, and I was surprised to learn that six months earlier, a Catholic priest had been found beaten to death only a few miles from Gidaz. The crime had never been solved, although police were still investigating. …

I could make nothing of the information, but I was certain it would mean something to Simon Ark.

I went next to the public library, to do some investigating on my own. I was determined to solve the mystery of Axidus and the seventy-three deaths, and I felt certain that the answer was hidden somewhere in the ancient pages of history.

I looked first in the Encyclopedia Britannica, but there was nothing under AXIDUS. I read the article on St. Augustine, but it contained no clue. A thick history book likewise offered no leads. A biographical dictionary listed no one named Axidus, and I was beginning to believe such a person had never existed.

I glanced out the library window, at the gleaming golden dome of the state capitol. Somewhere, there must be a clue …Axidus, St. Augustine…Augustine was a great Catholic saint, and a Catholic priest had been murdered near Gidaz six months ago. …

I walked back to the endless book shelves that lined the walls and took down the index to the Catholic Encyclopedia. …

A-X-I-D-U-S. … Yes, there it was. …

“AXIDUS, leader of Circumcellions”… Quickly my fingers found the fifth volume and turned to the indicated page.

And I began to read: The Circumcellions were a branch of the Donatist schism, which had split away from the Catholic Church in the Fourth Century. They seemed to be an insane band of outlaws who roamed about North Africa, killing and robbing Catholic priests and others. St. Augustine had spent much of his life fighting them, and their leader, Axidus.

The whole fantastic thing was beginning to take shape in my mind now… Axidus…the burned book…the murdered priest. …

And then a sentence leaped out at me from the page: “They frequently sought death, counting suicide as martyrdom. They were especially fond of flinging themselves from precipices. … Even women caught the infection, and those who had sinned would cast themselves from the cliffs, to atone for their fault. …”

And further down the page was more: “When in controversy with Catholics, the Donatist bishops were proud of their supporters. They declared that self-precipitation from a cliff had been forbidden in their councils. Yet the bodies of these suicides were sacrilegiously honoured, and crowds celebrated their anniversaries. …”

So this was it. …

Something reaching out from fifteen hundred years ago to bring death to an entire village. …

Was it possible?

Was it possible that this man Axidus had convinced seventy-three persons to leap to their deaths?

I left the library and stopped in a bar and fought off the gathering clouds of exhaustion and horror with a couple of stiff drinks. Then I went to meet Simon Ark. …

As we drove south once more, toward the dead village and the darkening night, I told Simon Ark what I had found. I told him about the murdered priest and about the Circumcellions.

“I feared that I was right,” he said quietly. “The death of that priest proves that there actually existed in that village the ancient cult of the Circumcellions. …”

“But…but the whole thing’s fantastic. It couldn’t happen in the twentieth century.”

“Consider the circumstances, though. Here is a village almost completely cut off from the outside world. It is eighty miles from the nearest city, and almost that far from a town of any size. Its people are living completely within themselves, leaving Gidaz only about once a month. Except for the daily mail truck, they see no one else. The road leading to it is a dead end, so there are not even any other cars to pass by. The people, nearly all of them, are living in the past, in a time when the town was great and famous.”

“Yes,” I said, “I’m beginning to see. …”

“And into this town comes a man, a man who is completely evil, who sees the opportunity that the village and its people offer. This man, Axidus, plays on their ignorance and their superstition to get up a new religion. It is an area, I discovered this afternoon, largely neglected by the established churches because of its inaccessibility. A priest will come by every six months or so, but the rest of the time the village is alone.”

“And so they listened to Axidus.”

“Yes. … I imagine he had almost a hypnotic quality in his speech, a quality that, over a period of the last two years, convinced even the most hostile that he was their savior. A few, like Shelly Constance, who were young and intelligent enough to know the truth, simply left the village, rather than stay and fight this demon who had taken control. The priest who visited the place had to die, because he realized the truth. Perhaps others who opposed Axidus died, too. Because he was playing for big stakes and could not afford to lose.”

“But…just how did he work the mass suicide?”

“In the same way that he, or his namesake, did fifteen hundred years ago. He convinced the people that suicide was a form of martyrdom, and that they should throw themselves from the cliff to repent for their sins. He had probably been leading up to it for a long, long time. But two nights ago, when he called them suddenly from their houses, he told them the time had come. They had no time to think, to consider the fantastic thing they were doing. They actually believed, I am certain, that it was good. And they walked off of the cliff in the night, probably thinking that Axidus would join them. But of course he did not.”

“You’ve built up a pretty strong case,” I admitted. “I’ll agree that over a period of years, a fanatic like that might talk most of those isolated people into killing themselves, especially since they seem to have had nothing to live for anyway. But there must have been at least one or two who would have resisted. What about the children?”

“I imagine,” Simon Ark said quietly, “that the children, were carried over the cliff in their mothers’ arms. Or led over by their fathers.”

I fell silent as the horror of the scene formed a terrifying picture in my mind.

“And,” he continued, “Axidus could easily have killed any adults who might have resisted the idea of suicide. He could have killed them and thrown their bodies down with the rest.”

“Still, such a thing seems so…impossible.”

“It seems so impossible and fantastic only because of its setting in time and space. In the twentieth century, in the western United States, it is fantastic. But in the fourth century, in North Africa, it was common. And who is to say that people have changed since then? Times have changed, and places have changed, but the people have remained the same, and they suffer today from exactly the same faults and weaknesses they had fifteen hundred years ago. …”

I turned the car into the dirt road that led to the village of the dead. “But why are we coming back here tonight?”

“Because Axidus will return this evening, and this time he must not escape us.”

“How do you know he’ll return?”

“Because from the beginning Axidus had to be one of two things: either a clever killer whose insane mind had devised this fantastic scheme, or else he really was the long-dead Axidus of St. Augustine’s time. If he is the former, then there’s something in Gidaz he wants, possibly the gold, and he’ll come for it because we scared him away last night. And,” he paused a moment, “if it’s to be the latter explanation, then according to legend and history, he’d return to worship at the grave, just as he did fifteen hundred years ago. …”

I turned on my headlights against the thickening night and tried to shake the gathering sleep from my eyes. “Which do you think it is?”

“In a way, I hope it is the latter, because then possibly my long search will be over. But there is still one thing that puzzles me.”

“What’s that?”

“I am wondering why a mail truck was delivering mail this morning, to a village full of dead people. …”

After that we waited.

We waited in the rocks of the cliff itself, overlooking the grave in the moonlight. We waited as Augustine might have waited those many years before.

The evening slipped slowly by and nothing happened. Once there came the distant call of a timber wolf, and again the hooting of a nearby owl, but otherwise the night was silent.

The grave below us had been marked with a large temporary cross, until some sort of plaque could list the names of the seventy-three.

For a moment the moon slipped behind a cloud, but then it appeared again, and the edge of the cliff glowed in its light.

Then I saw it.

High above us, on the very edge of the cliff, the girl stood. …

“Damn!” I whispered. “I forgot about the girl; she’s still here.”

But before we could move, we realized she was not alone on the cliff’s edge. A tall, bearded man, all in white, had come up behind her.

Simon Ark leaped from his hiding place and shouted one word: “Axidus!”

The figure on the cliff paused, startled, and the girl, seeing him behind her, screamed. …

After that, it was a nightmare.

The figure in white was clutching the girl, like a scene from some third-rate movie, as I scrambled up the rocks toward them. But already Simon Ark was ahead of me, shouting something in the language he’d used before.

Axidus released his grip on the girl, and I caught her as she fell.

And then, there on the very edge of the cliff, Simon Ark challenged this creature from another time. He held in his hand an oddly shaped cross, with a loop at the top, and he said, in a voice like thunder, “Back, Axidus, go back to the caverns of the damned from which you came.” He raised the cross high above his head. “I command it, in the name of Augustine!”

And suddenly the figure in white seemed to lose his footing on the rocks, and he slipped down over the edge of the cliff, with a scream that echoed through the night. …

We found him later, at the base of the cliff, which had now claimed its seventy-fourth life. And of course, under the blood and the false white beard, we found Joe Harris, the mail truck driver. …

And one can argue, I suppose, that it all had a perfectly sane explanation. As driver of the mail truck, the insane Joe Harris would have known enough about the people to scare them into believing he was a man of supernatural powers. He had been after the remains of the gold in the old mines, and had carefully planned for two years to drive the entire town to suicide.

But of course this did not explain how a man like Joe Harris had ever heard the odd story of Axidus in the first place, nor did it explain why he found it necessary to burn the books of Saint Augustine.

That was why I never published my story. There were too many things that could never be explained. Simon Ark and I worked the rest of the night, burying Joe Harris in the big grave with the other seventy-three. His disappearance caused some further excitement, but in a few weeks it was forgotten.

And likewise the Gidaz Horror itself has been forgotten with the passage of time, except for an occasional feature article in the Sunday newspapers.

Perhaps it is better that way. …

As for the others who shared my adventure, the girl, Shelly Constance, and I were married six months later, but that is another story, and a much happier one.

And Simon Ark… Well, I never saw him again after that night, but I have the feeling that he’s still around somewhere. …

THE HOUR OF NONE

“SOMETIMES,” SIMON ARK TOLD me one night, “the greatest evil is found in the midst of the greatest good. Perhaps Satan is never more successful than when he gains control of a truly holy man.”

I lit a cigarette and peered off into the darkness around us. “But isn’t that a contradiction, Simon?” I objected. “If a man is really holy, he will never fall under the devil’s power.”

“ ‘Holy’ means ‘dedicated,’ and is not always a sure guide to the goodness of a dedicated person. No, sometimes the holy are turned aside from goodness without foreswearing their dedication… If you are free this weekend, I would like you to accompany me to the monastery of Saint John of the Cross, in West Virginia.”

“A monastery? You mean with monks and everything?”

“Yes,” Simon smiled in the darkness, “with monks and everything.”

“You know I’m not a Catholic, Simon; they wouldn’t even let me in the place.”

“The monastery is open on weekends for those wishing to visit and pray there. They do not ask your religion.”

I thought about it and blew smoke into the darkness. “What’s up, Simon? I know you well enough by this time to be mighty suspicious of these casual weekend trips you suggest.”

“I do not really know myself,” he replied. “I only know that there is something very evil at the monastery of Saint John of the Cross, and I am needed there.”

I was hooked again, and I knew it. Whatever the evil was at a monastery in West Virginia, I knew I would be with Simon Ark when he confronted it. …

The monastery, when we reached it early Saturday afternoon, consisted of a half-dozen sprawling stone buildings, linked together by covered passages that converged on the central structure, a small but detailed replica of a Spanish mission church. It was surprising to find such architecture this far east, and somehow the whole thing appeared incongruous, nestled as it was in a green valley of the Allegheny Mountains.

We were not too far from the town of Mount Storm, just south of the Maryland state line, and the rolling peaks of the mighty Alleghenies were beautiful to behold in the late August sunlight. I thought as I looked upon them that here was truly summertime—the summertime of Shakespeare and Gershwin.

The fat little monk who met us at the door seemed to blend perfectly with the setting. He was the embodiment of all the Friar Tucks and Father Browns who had ever walked the pages of literature, and somehow he belonged here among the gently waving of trees and the rounded mountain peaks.

“Good morning,” he said, with a voice that fitted his body perfectly. “I am Brother Richard. Welcome to Saint John of the Cross.”

We introduced ourselves and followed him down a long, arched hallway, and somewhere in the distance I could hear the low murmur of many voices raised in a hymn to God. This was a world that was foreign to me and even the cool, faintly musty odor of the air seemed to press in on all sides.

Presently, our guide paused before a thick oak door which swung open at his touch. “Father Michael, we have visitors.”

The man called Father Michael rose from behind a cluttered desk and held out a hand in greeting. “Visitors are always welcome here. Do you intend to remain long?”

“Only for the weekend, Father,” Simon Ark replied. “We come in search of inner peace.”

“I hope you have come to the right place,” the monk said. “There are many here seeking the same thing.”

“You have other visitors?”

“No, only the priests and brothers of the order. But we always have room for more. Brother Richard will show you to your room.” He spoke with such an air of absolute kindness that my former misgivings all but vanished. Certainly these people seemed friendly enough, and they were not trying to convert me to their religion—at least, not yet.

The guest room to which we were led was in an adjoining building. It was well, if plainly, furnished with twin beds and straight-backed chairs. I doubted if the monks themselves had things as good, and the thought brought back familiar pictures of ancient priests copying books by hand in tiny cell-like rooms.

Brother Richard turned at the door and gave us a final smile. “If you wish, you may join us for None.”

I puzzled over this for a time and finally asked Simon, “What did that mean?”

“Just a group of prayers that are said in the early afternoon. Various religious communities have different rules, but this one apparently follows the Rule of Saint Benedict.”

I grunted and slipped off my suit coat. “Well,” I sighed, “I guess a couple of days of prayers won’t hurt me too much. But I wish you’d tell me the real thing that brought you here.”

“First I must locate a Brother Ling. It is he I really came to see.”

“Ling? Chinese?”

“Yes. The Order maintains several mission schools in China, or did so before the coming of the Communists.”

“How do you know this man Ling is here?” I glanced around for some sign of an ash tray and found none. For a moment I hesitated, and then lit a cigarette anyway.

“He wrote me a letter,” Simon Ark said, very slowly.

“A letter…?”

From the distance came the slow tolling of a bell, and Simon rose from the bed. “Come,” he said. “It is the Hour of None.”

I followed him out of our little room. Already in the distance we could see the cowled figures of the monks gathering near the central chapel. They said hardly a word as we moved among them, and I wondered if they were allowed to talk. Brother Richard and Father Michael had spoken to us, though, so I decided that they could.

Above us, the sun was still high in the sky, though it had shifted to the west and gave promise of soon starting its slow decent. Somehow the brightness of its rays seemed to contrast with the drab hooded figures who were now all around us. Already they were beginning to move into the house of worship, and Simon and I must have stood out in our wrinkled summer suits.

Then, as we were on the very steps of the chapel, there came a shouted voice from above, crashing through the silence like a pistol shot.

“Simon Ark!” the voice shouted clearly.

Simon and I looked up quickly, and several of the monks did likewise.

High above us, in the tower of the chapel, a single-robed figure stood. At first he seemed to be actually standing on air, and then I realized with horror that he wasn’t standing at all; he was falling.

He was falling out of the tower, directly over our heads. There was a scrambling as we rushed to escape his falling form. Then we heard the low moan, that wasn’t quite a scream, escape from the plunging man’s lips, and suddenly cease as his body hit the steps.

We were around him at once, but already it was too late and several of the priests were murmuring the words of the last rites of the church.

Next to us someone whispered, “It’s Brother Ling. …”

I looked at Simon’s face, but I could tell he already knew. He had found the man he was seeking. …

“He was murdered,” Simon Ark was saying, an hour later, as we sat with the Abbot General of the order in a small office in one of the buildings. “He was pushed from the tower by one of your order.”

The Abbot General was a big man, well past his middle years, who sat and listened to Simon’s words with an expression of immense sadness. “I am an old man,” he replied at last, “and these people are like my sons. I know each of them as I do the back of my own hand. I know their strengths, and I know their little weaknesses. But they are men of God. They would not—could not—kill another human being.”

“Perhaps not,” Simon Ark agreed, “but Brother Ling wrote to me because he feared for his life, and that fear had its roots in this monastery.”

The three of us were alone in the Abbot General’s office. In another part of the monastery, the hooded men were praying for the departed soul of Brother Ling; but here we were discussing the immediate results of the death. Simon Ark’s offer of his services had not been at once accepted by the Abbot General, but when Simon mentioned the letter from Brother Ling he could not be turned down.

“Why would he write to you?” the Abbot General asked.

“We met once, many years ago, in China. He apparently heard I was in New York and wrote that he wished me to visit him.”

The old man across the desk shook his head. “If he had a problem, he would have taken it to me, or to one of the other priests. He would not consult an outsider.”

“Perhaps, for this problem, an outsider would have been better,” Simon replied. “And Brother Ling knew that I was a priest of sorts at one time.”

The Abbot General frowned. “You, a priest? What do you mean, at one time? Either you are now, or you never were.”

“It is a very long story, Father,” Simon Ark sighed. “Too long to tell even in any of our lifetimes. And, you would most likely not believe it anyway.”

“If you told me the truth, I would believe it.”

Simon Ark closed his eyes, and somehow it seemed that he was seeing further than anyone had ever seen before. “Would you believe it if I told you I walked the sands of Africa with Augustine, and talked with Aquinas on the road to Naples, and visited John of the Cross in the monastery at Ubeda?”

The priest’s face broke into a slight smile. “No, I suppose I wouldn’t. But I will believe what you tell me about Brother Ling. Show me this letter.”

Simon Ark hesitated and then dropped his hands to a pocket. “Here. I received it a few days ago in New York.”

The Abbot General took the letter in hands that seemed to shake slightly. “I recognize the writing. It came from Brother Ling all right. ‘My dear Simon Ark— It has been many years since we shared those days in Hong Kong, and you may be surprised to learn that I am now in your country (your adopted country, at least). In fact, I am very close to being ordained a priest in the Order of Saint John of the Cross. I wish, Simon Ark, that you could visit me here this weekend. There is something here I do not understand, or perhaps understand too well. It may be that your old enemy Satan is walking among us, in the mind of one of my friends. My own life is very possibly in danger. I will tell you more when I see you…’ ” His voice trailed off as he reached the letter’s ending.

Simon Ark took back the letter and folded it carefully. “Will you help me now?”

The Abbot General rose from his chair and walked over to the tall narrow window that looked out into the central patio. “You believe the devil is here?” he asked, without looking at us.

“Brother Ling believed it.”

“You believe that one of my priests is actually possessed of the devil?” His voice had dropped almost to a whisper, and I could tell he was being greatly moved by the tormenting thoughts of his mind.

“Holy men have been tempted before,” Simon Ark replied. “The temptation of Saint Anthony has been the subject of scores of paintings, and Satan once appeared to Saint Ignatius in the guise of a snake with multiple eyes. Even Christ Himself was tempted by the devil.”

The old man turned to face us. “As Shakespeare wrote, ’Tis one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall.’ I said that I knew my priests, and I do. None of them, not one, could be tempted to the point of committing murder.”

“Father, do you know what an energumen is?” Simon asked.

“An energumen? That was a name used during the Middle Ages for those possessed of evil spirits.”

“Correct. There have been many other names for such people down through the pages of history. They are the lost ones, the damned ones. They are always with us, but they are not so easily recognized in the modern world. In the Middle Ages, possession was quite often linked to insanity, and madmen were thought to have the devil within them.”

“But I repeat,” the Abbot General said, “that none of these are either mad or possessed.”

“Would one final bit of proof convince you?”

“What is it?”

“I found this clutched in the right hand of Brother Ling. It’s a tassel such as you all wear at the end of the white cords around your waist. Apparently he pulled it from the robe worn by his killer.”

The old man studied the tassel carefully. “All right,” he sighed finally. “What do you want to know?”

“How many monks do you have here?”

“Thirty-nine priests at the present time, and sixteen lay brothers. Of course the figure sometimes varies from week to week.”

“No other visitors?”

“None.”

“Did any of them know Brother Ling before he came here?”

The Abbot General hesitated for a moment. “No, except for the three who returned from China with him.”

Simon Ark’s eyes sharpened. “Which three?”

“It was in all the newspapers. Three of our order were captured by the Chinese Communists some six years ago. They were held prisoner, tortured somewhat—the usual things. Recently, with the change in Communist policy, they were released and returned home. Brother Ling met them in Hong Kong and accompanied them on the trip.”

“All three of them are here now?”

The Abbot General smiled through wrinkled lips. “We are not a large order in this country, sir. This is our only monastery in the United States. They are here.”

Simon Ark frowned and gazed at the cold stone walls of the little room. “Where were these three at the time Brother Ling…fell from the tower?”

“That is difficult to say. You noticed, of course, the cowls our people wear over their heads. When they were entering the chapel these unfortunately serve as almost a mask. It is impossible to place anyone definitely on the steps or in the chapel at the time of the tragedy.”

Simon Ark continued frowning and I knew that he was faced with a delicate problem. “How long do we have before the police arrive?”

“The state police? I called them only as a matter of routine, to report a death. Since I didn’t specify a murder, they might take an hour or longer to get here. We’re quite isolated, you know.”

“Perhaps the whole thing can be handled in a quiet manner,” I offered. “I know you wouldn’t want it known. …”

The Abbot General smiled. “I have yet to be fully convinced that one of my people is responsible. If it proves to be true, I am sure the Church will be able to withstand the bad publicity.”

Simon Ark gave me a sideways glance. He seemed to hesitate before proceeding. Finally he said, “My friend, you are not a Catholic, and this whole thing might be difficult for you to understand, but there is one point I must raise with the Abbot General.”

“Don’t worry about me,” I told him. “I’m neutral when it comes to religion.”

“Neutral?” the Abbot General asked, puzzled.

“It doesn’t mean anything to me,” I explained. “I can take it or leave it. I don’t commit sins, so I don’t need to go to church; so go ahead and talk.”

Simon and the priest exchanged glances, but I could not read the meaning of it. Presently Simon sighed and began to talk. “Well, unless I’m mistaken, all of your priests will have to celebrate Mass tomorrow morning, and all the lay brothers will receive Holy Communion. …”

“That’s right!” I said. “It’s Sunday tomorrow.”

The Abbot General smiled. “At a monastery, every day is Sunday. Mister Ark’s point is that the guilty person will have to go to confession, or commit still another serious sin.”

“I hardly think that would bother him now,” I remarked.

“It might,” the Abbot General said, “but I can’t see how that would help us. He might go to any one of thirty-nine priests for confession, and of course they could not reveal his identity.”

I frowned at this. “I’ve heard a lot about the seal of the confessional and all; but certainly in a case like this, involving priests, some exception would be made.”

“Hardly,” the Abbot General replied briefly. “Some other method must be found to identify the guilty person.”

Simon Ark pointed to the tassel that rested on the desk in front of us. “Perhaps we could see who is missing one of those.”

The Abbot General agreed and rose from his desk. “It’s worth a try.”

We followed him out of the office and into the long, shadowed hallway. Presently we were on a balcony looking down at the assembled monks, and Simon Ark asked, “Who are the three from China?”

“One is Father Michael, whom I believe you met when you arrived today. The others are Father Joseph and Father Mark. Here’s Father Joseph now. …”

A tall, thin monk was approaching us; he had a worried look on his face. My eyes sought out the tassels of his white cord, but they were both in place.

“Is it true what they are saying about Brother Ling?” he asked the Abbot General, ignoring our presence. “They say he might have been pushed from the bell tower.”

The Abbot General introduced us before replying, and then answered the question. “It is a possibility. Simon Ark here has kindly consented to investigate it.”

“Father Joseph, I understand you knew Brother Ling in China,” Simon said.

“That is true. After the Communists…released us, we met Brother Ling in Hong Kong and returned here with him.”

“I would like to speak to you privately about that, if the Abbot General will excuse us.”

“Certainly,” the old man replied. “Use my office. I must go now and speak to the others.” I watched him walk away from us, like a shepherd hurrying to tend his flock. He was a good man, I realized, and good men are not often met these days, especially by people like me who spend most of their waking hours in the steaming jungles of Manhattan.

Simon Ark and Father Joseph entered the little office together, and I hesitated, wondering if I should follow. Finally, Simon motioned me in, and I closed the door behind me.

“Tell me, Father,” Simon began, “just what happened over there in China?”

“You mean when we met Brother Ling?”

“No, even before that. Tell me everything. It might be important.”

Father Joseph settled his thin body back into the chair, and I could almost see his mind going back to those days that were almost, but not quite, forgotten.

“Well, I was the head of the mission school at Ying-Far, in a remote corner of China. Ours was one of the very first places to fall to the Chinese Communists. I need not tell you what happened after that.”

“I wish you would,” Simon said.

“Well, there were four of us who were captured by the Communists. Father Michael, Father Mark, myself…and Father Paul. For a time, we had no complaints at all. Though we were under house arrest, we were allowed to say Mass every day, and were treated quite well. Then, after nearly a year of this, we were transferred to a prison near the coast. It was a great, dank place that had once been used to confine pirates from the China Sea. Our…cells were in the basement, little rooms only half as large as this, with no light and poor ventilation. We were so near the water, that sometimes when there was an extra-high tide, a few drops would come into our cells.” He paused a moment and then went on, “We were there for five years. …”

I looked away and thought about the trees outside, because I could not look into the face of this man before us. Dimly, from a great distance, I heard Simon Ark asking, “What else?”

Father Joseph cleared his throat. “The usual things. You’ve seen them all in the newspapers, I’m sure. In all those five years, we never saw each other more than once or twice, though sometimes we managed to get messages to each other. Mostly, we saw only one other human being, our Communist jailer—a man named Ho Su. Once a day he brought us food, just enough to keep us alive. Sometimes he beat us, when he was drunk.”

“Three of you came back,” Simon Ark said. “What happened to this Father Paul?”

Father Joseph closed his eyes. “It was after we’d been there nearly four years. The other three of us were by this time sick in body and spirit, but Father Paul refused to be broken. One night, when Ho Su was even more drunk than usual, he had Father Paul taken out of his cell. They took him upstairs to a room where they kept a large bell that served the prison as an alarm system. Then Ho Su locked him in the room and started ringing the bell. We heard it ringing all night.”

Father Joseph opened his eyes again. In one of them a tear formed and trickled down his cheek. “I spent the night on my knees praying for him. At dawn, Ho Su came to my cell to tell me Father Paul had thrown himself out of the tower to escape the maddening ringing of that bell.”

I glanced quickly at Simon Ark, but there was no hint of an expression on his features.

“We always doubted,” Father Joseph continued, “or wanted to doubt, that Father Paul had been driven to suicide. But whatever happened up there in that bell tower, he died, and his blood was on Ho Su’s hands. Shortly thereafter, Communist policy began to change. We were released from our cells and given more food and better treatment. We never saw Ho Su again after that night, and when the Communists came to release us they said he’d been executed for killing Father Paul. However, knowing the Communist mind, it’s much more likely he was simply transferred to another post.”

He finished his story with the air of a man exhausted, and the strain of those bitter memories was actually visible on his thin face. Simon Ark cleared his throat and asked, “Just when did you meet Brother Ling?”

“He’d been with the order in Hong Kong, and he met us when we reached that city after our release. He was anxious to come to America, and finally the Order was able to arrange it. The four of us arrived here last year.”

Simon Ark studied his fingers for a moment and then said, “Brother Ling wrote to me a few days ago, and said he believed his life was in danger. Do you know anything about that?”

Father Joseph frowned. “Nothing at all. I still find it impossible to believe that one of us here had anything to do with his death.”

Simon rose from his chair. “Thank you for your assistance, Father. We must go now. There are others to see, and the time is short.”

The thin man rose, too, and led us out of the room. “I must go also. There is work to be done in the fields.” We watched him as he went down the stone steps and into the great fields beyond the monastery. Some twelve or fifteen of the monks were already out there, working among their small vegetable gardens or going about other daily duties under the hot August sun. It seemed almost as if the death of Brother Ling had been forgotten, but of course it hadn’t.

It was in the mind of every person here, and it would not soon be forgotten. Here was real tragedy, among a group of holy men, and I wondered how Simon Ark would ever be able to reach a satisfactory solution to Brother Ling’s death without bringing an everlasting disgrace to the monastery of Saint John of the Cross. …

We went then to the tower, to the winding stairway that led upward to the high bell. It was the bell that summoned the monks to prayer, and looking at its great glistening metal sides I was reminded of that other bell, far away someplace on the coast of China, that had taken the life of Father Paul.

“There’s nothing up here,” Simon Ark said. “Brother Ling must have been standing by the edge when he saw us in the crowd below—we stood out clearly among the monks’ robes. He called to me, and at that instant someone pushed him over the edge.”

There was a sound behind us and I looked around to see a little monk mounting the steps. “You are Simon Ark?” he asked me.

“No, that’s my friend here.”

“Oh. I am Father Mark. …”

Simon held out his hand in greeting. “Yes, Father. We were coming to talk to you soon.”

“I was speaking to the Abbot General and he told me you’d found one of our white tassels in poor Brother Ling’s hand after he fell.”

“That’s correct.”

“Well, I’m missing one here,” he said, holding up the ends of the white cord that bound him at the waist. “I thought I ought to tell you. …”

I looked at Simon Ark in the dimness of the bell tower and wondered what he was thinking. Certainly the priest before us seemed the perfect picture of innocence, and yet the tassel of his corded belt was missing.

“You met Brother Ling in Hong Kong, I believe,” Simon began, avoiding for the moment the subject of the tassel.

“That’s correct. After our release.”

“I spoke to Father Joseph about it earlier. He… told me what happened to all of you and to Father Paul.”

“Oh, I suppose it wasn’t really too bad. There were others who had it much worse.”

“But they killed Father Paul, didn’t they?”

The little priest’s face clouded for an instant. “Oh, yes. They killed him. …”

We stood there in silence for a moment. I knew I should say something to bridge the gap, but no words came to me. Finally, Simon Ark said, “How do you think you lost your tassel, Father Mark?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t even notice it was missing until after None. Is it possible that someone could have cut it off?”

Simon and I examined the frayed end of the cord. “It looks more as if it were pulled,” I commented.

Father Mark placed his hand to his wrinkled forehead. “Is it really possible that there is a murderer among us? Is it possible that even here, in this hidden place, the devil and his works have found assistance?”

“Perhaps,” Simon Ark said. “Satan has appeared in stranger places—even, long ago, within the walls of the Vatican itself. Tell me, Father Mark, what do you know about the Hour of None?”

The priest frowned. “None? Why, it comes from the Latin word for the ninth hour. It meant the ninth hour of daylight, or approximately three o’clock in the afternoon. Several religious orders, such as ours, still gather for prayers at this hour.”

Simon Ark’s eyes hardened in the familiar way I’d seen so many times before. “It is also the hour that Christ died on the Cross, and the hour He descended into Hell. Amalarius wrote long ago that this was the hour at which man was most open to the devil’s temptations, and that it was the hour when Satan usually came.”

Father Mark nodded. “That is true. Perhaps Satan was here this afternoon after all. …”

“Even the number nine has always been mystical,” Simon Ark continued. “It was a number of death and mourning, and funeral services were sometimes held on the ninth day. Cardinal Bona reported the ancient belief that Adam and Eve were driven from Paradise at the ninth hour—the Hour of None. …”

The priest before us continued nodding. “It is more than a coincidence that Brother Ling died at the Hour of None. There is some great evil within these walls.”

“You and Father Michael were with him in Hong Kong?”

“And Father Joseph, too. You said you talked to him.”

Simon Ark nodded. “Perhaps now we should visit Father Michael. Where might we find him?”

The little priest gazed out at the men in the fields below. “It is the working period now. Father Michael will be in his room, writing.”

“Thank you,” Simon said. “We will talk again.”

The three of us descended from the bell tower above the chapel and then separated, Father Mark going his own way.

“Well,” I offered when he was out of earshot, “he certainly wouldn’t come around and tell us about the tassel if he were the guilty one. But if he is innocent, why is the real killer trying to implicate him?”

Simon Ark shook his head. “The ways of the devil are sometimes strange indeed. Let us find Father Michael’s room.”

But as we made our way down one of the arched stone hallways, Simon suddenly pointed. “Look! A state police car. We may be too late.”

I followed him back to the Abbot General’s office, where we found the old man speaking to a tall, muscular trooper. “Well, Father,” the trooper was saying, “if there’s any hint of foul play I have to call in our Criminal Investigation Division. I realize your position here, but you should have made the facts clearer in your phone call.”

Simon Ark strode into the room and interrupted the conversation with a wave of his hand. “The police are not needed here,” he stated simply. “This is an evil of a very old sort, and I am well experienced in dealing with it.”

“Are you a detective?” the trooper asked, shifting uneasily.

“I am rather a detector,” Simon Ark corrected. “A detector of evil. Give us until tomorrow morning and I am certain we will have solved the problem.”

“I can’t do that,” the trooper tried to reason. “I have to make a report.”

“Then report only that Brother Ling fell from the bell tower; forget what else you have heard here, at least until tomorrow. After all, we have really nothing to go on ourselves except some wild guesses. Your chief would think you were crazy as we are.”

That apparently convinced him. He hesitated for another moment and then nodded. “All right. Since you’ve already moved the body, any evidence has probably been destroyed, anyhow. The undertaker should be here shortly, and I’ll drop by again in the morning. In the meantime I’ll file a report stating the death was apparently an accident.”

Simon and I watched him depart, and I remarked, “You still have a way with people, don’t you, Simon?”

He smiled slightly. “I appeal to their better nature. Now let us seek out Father Michael.” But he paused in the doorway and turned back to the Abbot General.

“We have spoken to Father Mark concerning his missing tassel. Would it be possible for you to visit each of the others in their rooms this evening and examine their cords? To see if any of the others are missing one? It certainly appears that someone is trying to frame Father Mark for this crime.”

The Abbot General nodded. “I will go shortly, as soon as I have spoken to the undertaker.”

We followed the directions to the room of Father Michael, set at the end of a dim passageway far away from the other quarters. He looked up as we entered, and the face was the same friendly one that had greeted us on our arrival.

“Hello,” he said. “How did you ever find me here? They hid me away so that the sounds of my typewriter does not disturb the others at their meditations.”

“You’re a writer?” I asked, somehow surprised.

“Of sorts.” The smile widened. “And I understand you are a publisher.”

“Of sorts.”

Father Michael beamed and produced a thick typewritten manuscript. “This,” he announced proudly, “is my Dictionary of the American Revolution, the only book of its kind ever attempted. Here are all the words, the names, the phrases, the places of the Revolutionary period. I’ve spent all my time on it since my return from China.”

“That’s really what we wanted to talk to you about,” Simon began. “About the prison and about Brother Ling.”

“They say he was murdered,” Father Michael said, with the same uncomprehending tone of voice the others had.

“It is possible,” Simon Ark admitted.

“But how? How could such a thing happen…here?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps the answer lies buried in the past, in a graveyard in a Chinese prison.”

Father Michael’s eyes sharpened. “You are referring to the killing of Father Paul by the Communists?”

“I am,” Simon said. “What can you tell us about it?”

“Nothing. Nothing that you have not already heard. I imagine you know all about Ho Su and the prison.”

Simon nodded. “Was your treatment the same as the rest of them?”

“Yes. … But perhaps I came through it better. I spent the entire five years in prayer and in thoughts about my book. I outlined the entire work in my mind, over and over again, just to give me something to do.”

I nodded. “I’d be interested in discussing this book with you in greater detail.”

The priest’s eyes twinkled and his hands returned to the manuscript. “I believe it to be a great historical work. Look,” he flipped open a page at random, “how many people know that the American Turtle was the name of an early type of submarine that guarded New York harbor during the Revolution? Or that Montresor was the British soldier who gave us the account of Nathan Hale’s dying words?”

I had to agree that it was an interesting and ambitious project, perhaps a little odd for a monk to be undertaking, but still worth looking into.

Simon Ark too seemed interested, and finally he said, “Have you done any other books, Father?”

“A brief history of the Order in younger days. And a short life of John of the Cross.”

“He was quite a man,” Simon said.

“He was indeed. And perhaps if I have some mild success with my Dictionary of the Revolution, I will do a similar one dealing with religious terms.”

“It is long past due,” Simon agreed.

“It certainly is.” The priest, with twinkling eyes, turned to me. “You are an educated man, sir, but I’d be willing to bet you couldn’t tell me the difference between Manichaeism and Metempsychosis.”

They were way over my head and I admitted it. “I give up.”

“And you, Simon Ark?”

Simon smiled. “This is my line of business, so naturally I know. Manichaeism was an early religion based on Zoroastrian Dualism. Metempsychosis is a belief that a dead person’s soul enters the body of an animal.”

Father Michael clapped his hands together. “Wonderful, wonderful! It has been many years since I spoke with such a learned man.”

Simon Ark rose from his chair. “I wish we could continue this discussion, but there is much to be done. We must go.”

“God help you to find the answer to our problem,” the priest said, and the twinkle was gone momentarily from his eyes. Then it returned, and he said, “At least it’s a good thing we’re not an order of Jesuits.”

Simon laughed and we departed from the room. “What did he mean by that?” I asked.

Simon smiled. “There was once a theory that Jesuits died in threes. Father Michael is a most intelligent man, with a wide knowledge of many subjects.”

I sighed and looked around at the dim stone walls. “Now what?”

“Now I would like to visit Brother Ling’s little room, I think,” Simon said. We went back downstairs, and across the courtyard in front of the chapel. Inside, someone was playing the organ, and here and there we caught glimpses of wandering monks.

“There’s Brother Richard,” I said. “Maybe he can tell us where the room is.”

The fat monk who looked like Friar Tuck came over to us at the sound of his name. “Can I help you, gentlemen? I fear the usual weekend schedule has been quite disrupted by the death of Brother Ling.”

“Yes,” Simon said. “You could show us Brother Ling’s room if you would.”

“Well… All right, come this way.”

The room he showed us was somewhat smaller than those of the priests, and it reminded me once more of the monks’ cells of old. There was a crucifix on the wall, but otherwise the room was plain of all decoration.

“Where would he have kept his personal effects?” Simon asked.

Brother Richard pulled out a small box from under the plain, flat bed. “We’re allowed only to keep a very few personal items. These are all he had.”

I watched as Simon fingered the various items in the box, letters written in Chinese, one or two snapshots of Brother Ling and his family, a few Chinese coins—all that was left of a man.

“Tell me,” Simon said, turning to the fat monk at our side, “did he ever say anything to you, or to the others? Anything about…someone possessed of the devil?”

Brother Richard thought about it, and finally he said, “No, he never said anything like that; but I could see something was bothering him, ever since he arrived here, and especially in recent weeks. I… there was something wrong here. We all knew it.” His voice dropped to a whisper at the end.

“Wrong? How wrong?” Simon wanted to know.

“Just… wrong. Ever since Brother Ling arrived with the three priests. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, the chapel bell would start ringing. Once, only two weeks ago, someone tried to enter Brother Ling’s room during the night.”

Simon’s face clouded. “I wish the Abbot General had told me this earlier. Thank you, Brother Richard.”

We left the little room then, and went back along the passageways with their drab sameness. Simon Ark was silent as we walked, and the silence seemed thick and clinging.

“What does it mean, Simon?” I asked him.

But he did not answer. …

The Abbot General looked up and frowned as we entered. “I have visited them all,” he said. “None are missing a tassel except Father Mark.”

“Father,” Simon Ark said, “why didn’t you tell us about the strange things happening in your monastery? The ringing bells, the attempt to enter Brother Ling’s room. …”

Suddenly the Abbot General looked very old. “They are like my children, Mister Ark. I try to guide them, to lead them on the path to God. But sometimes…”

“What is it, Father?”

“I… I don’t know. It is evil, evil in the heart of one of them. In the heart, or in the mind.”

“Tell me,” Simon Ark insisted.

“Whichever one it is, we’re convinced he doesn’t remember what he does.”

Simon Ark nodded. “And the devil came into his mind at the Hour of None. … Come. We must put an end to this.”

The Abbot General rose from behind his desk. “No. …”

“We must, Father. We must.”

And then we left the Abbot General’s office. And outside, as night was falling, the shadows lengthened through the stone-clad halls. And all was silent except for the organ in the chapel.

We walked toward the sound, closer and closer, until it was all around us. And we saw Father Mark sitting at the great organ, playing with both hands, and gazing off into space.

“Father Mark,” Simon said, very quietly.

“Oh! Have you found out who stole my tassel yet?”

“No. Not yet. I have a picture for you to look at, Father.”

The priest’s innocent face turned toward us then, and his hands left the keys of the great organ. He looked at the small photograph in Simon Ark’s hand. “Do you recognize him, Father Mark?”

“Yes,” he said, with a voice that was far away. “Yes, that is Ho Su. He was our jailer for five years.”

Simon Ark did not speak.

Then, from above us, came the ringing of the bells once more, summoning the monks of John of the Cross to evening services.

Father Mark’s innocent face clouded.

Behind us, the monks were filing in, taking their places in the pews. I saw them all, the ones we’d met that day. Father Joseph, with his troubled memories of a prison in China. Father Michael, with his books and his vast knowledge. The Abbot General, with his simple goodness. Brother Richard, with his happy face.

They were all there, and then, all at once, they seemed to sense our presence behind them, at the organ. They turned, and looked at us.

And from above, the bell still rang.

Father Mark’s hand dropped from sight, and when it returned it held a gleaming sickle from the fields.

“Father…” Simon whispered.

“Get back,” the priest said, and his voice carried above the ringing of the bells.

The sickle glistened in the candlelight.

“Stop those bells!” Simon Ark shouted over his shoulder.

The Abbot General came up behind us, and his face was more gentle than I’d ever seen it. “Is this it, Mister Ark?”

“This is it, Father. I’m sorry, but this is it. It had to be one of them, you know.”

“But Father Mark…”

“You said the person didn’t remember doing any of these things. And you said his was the only missing tassel. But if the killer of Brother Richard didn’t remember the crime, then he couldn’t have tried to frame Father Mark for it. Father Mark himself must have done it. …”

The sickle moved an inch, and the priest before us breathed more heavily. He seemed to try to comprehend our words, but failed.

Above us, somewhere, the bells stopped ringing.

“Of course I wasn’t certain until just now,” Simon Ark continued, “when I showed him one of the photographs from Brother Ling’s room—a photo of Brother Ling taken in China. Even after years in the Orient, all Chinese looked alike to Father Mark. And in his sleeping mind Brother Ling became his jailer, Ho Su, the man who had tortured and killed Father Paul back there in that bell tower in China. …”

The Abbot General stepped forward. “Give me that sickle, my son. Ho Su is dead forever. Your work is done.”

“No. …”

“Brother Ling must have known he was going to possible death when he met Father Mark in the bell tower this afternoon. He tried to stop him, to rid him of the devils in his mind. But he failed. And in that final moment Father Mark struck out at the man who had tortured him for five long years. …”

“My son, give me the sickle. …”

Father Mark backed against the organ, and raised the gleaming, curving blade high above his head. …

And let it fall to the stone floor of the chapel. …

It was over. …

Later, much later, we left the monastery in the valley, and headed back through the rolling hills of West Virginia. And the morning was bright and sunny and very fresh and good.

And Simon Ark gazed off over the horizon and said, “Perhaps the real wonder is that only one of them cracked. The other two, Father Joseph and Father Michael, came through it, somehow.”

“With the help of God, maybe,” I said, and I was surprised to hear the words on my lips. “What will they do with him, Simon?”

“With the grace of God he will be back in a few years, back to the peace and calmness of John of the Cross. After all, in a way it was not really he who pushed Brother Ling from the tower. It was a Chinese guard named Ho Su who was the real murderer.”

“Yes,” I said. “But they were all really such good men, even Father Mark himself. …”

“As I said, my friend, Satan is never more successful than when he gains control of a holy man.”

A soft breeze gently moved the limbs above our head, and I inhaled the warm freshness of the air. “You know, Simon,” I said, “it’s Sunday morning. I’d sort of like to stop at a church somewhere on the way back to New York. …”

Simon Ark looked at me and smiled. “I think that can be arranged. …”

THE WITCH IS DEAD

HER REAL NAME WAS Helen Marie Carrio, but for more years than anyone could remember she’d been known simply as Mother Fortune. She was a large, plump woman, somewhere near seventy years old, though she might easily have passed for a hundred.

As her name might have implied, Mother Fortune made her meager living by predicting the future, by peering into a mammoth crystal ball and telling you just what you wanted to hear about yourself. It was a dying profession—especially in Westchester County in the second decade of the Atomic Age—but there were still many to whom her word was almost sacred.

There were others, however, who had widely different views on the subject of Mother Fortune. There were some, in fact, who even accused her of being a modern-day witch.

And perhaps she was.

In any event, Mother Fortune died as all good witches must—in a burst of flames that would have brought cries of envy from the judges of centuries agone.

It was perhaps one of the paradoxes of life, though, that Mother Fortune’s death was to prove even more fantastic than had her life. …

It was the first week in October, and the twelfth day of an early Fall heat wave that had amazed both forecasters and suburbanites, by sending the temperatures into the high eighties. I had taken the 5:12 train from New York, as I usually did on nights when things weren’t too busy at the office.

Actually, I suppose I noticed the man in the seat ahead of me right from the very start; but it wasn’t until he left the train with me at Hudsonville that I actually caught a glimpse of his face. It had been a long time since I’d seen him, but that heavyset, wrinkled, yet somehow handsome, face was one you didn’t forget easily.

I caught up with him in front of the tiny building that served to link Hudsonville with the New Haven Railroad, and asked him, “You’re Simon Ark, aren’t you?”

The smile came at once to his tight lips. “Of course. It has been many years. …”

It had been many years. I’d first met Simon Ark in a little western mining town years before, when I was still a newspaper reporter. I hadn’t seen him since; but since he was probably the most unusual man I’d ever know, I wasn’t likely to forget him.

I led him to a coffee shop across the street, and over two steaming cups of black coffee I told him of my life during recent years. “I’m with Neptune Books now,” I said; “one of these paperbound book publishers. Been there about three years now. It’s a lot better than chasing politicians and police cars for a living. I married Shelly Constance, you know.”

“I’d heard,” Simon Ark said. “It’s quite good to see you again after all these years.”

“You certainly don’t look any older, Simon. What have you been doing with yourself?”

Simon Ark smiled again. “The usual things. I’ve been traveling mostly. To England, and other places.”

“I hope things weren’t as bad as in Gidaz.”

“Sometimes they were worse,” he replied, and the smile was no longer on his lips. “There is evil everywhere these days, and it is most difficult to separate the man-made evil from the more ancient type. …”

I’d formed many theories about Simon Ark since our brief encounter several years back, but I could see that I was still a long way from knowing the truth about him. He’d told me once that he was searching, searching for the ultimate evil, searching for the devil himself. And there were times when the look of his face seemed to tell me that he’d been searching a long, long time.

I lit a cigarette and sipped my coffee. “Well, what on earth are you doing up in Westchester, anyway? The most evil things up here are the commuters’ trains and this current heat wave.”

He frowned slightly at that. “You perhaps have not heard then about the remarkable events at the Hudsonville College for Women, or about the old woman who calls herself Mother Fortune.”

“I guess I haven’t. Maybe I don’t want to, if they’re the kind of thing to bring you to Hudsonville.”

“I hope that I am in time to prevent anything really serious,” he said, “but it is hard to say just yet.”

“What is it that’s happening, anyway?”

“Of course there hasn’t been any public announcement of it as yet—and there probably won’t be—but it seems that this woman named Mother Fortune fancies herself as something of a modern day witch. In any event, she has cast a spell of some kind over the girl students of Hudsonville College.”

I had to laugh at that. The whole idea of a witch invading a modern girls’ college was too much for me. “You’re not serious, certainly?”

“I fear that I am,” he told me. “Three of the girls are apparently near death, and some forty others have become ill.”

“Then there must be some other explanation,” I was quick to insist. “Things like that just don’t happen any more, at least not around Hudsonville.”

“Stranger things than that have happened in this world,” Simon Ark replied. “I’m going out to the school now. You may accompany me if you wish. …”

Hudsonville College for Women was like no other institute of higher learning anywhere in the east. Sixty years of traditions, plus millions of dollars from a few lucky endowments, had made it possible to recreate in Westchester some of the great wonders of ancient Rome.

At the very entrance to the campus was a line of pillars suggesting the remains of Apollo’s temple at Pompeii, and even the students’ chapel was an exact duplicate, in miniature, of the Church of San Francesco at Assisi. The main road through the campus was called, appropriately enough, the Appian Way. And the huge assembly hall, which could never be filled by Hudsonville’s moderate enrollment, was of course patterned on the Roman Forum. There was even a small bridge over a creek that bore a remarkable resemblance to Venice’s Rialto Bridge.

The whole thing was like taking a tour of all of Italy in a little over an hour; but whether it actually contributed to the task of turning out modern, cultured young ladies prepared for business and marriage was something I didn’t know. I suppose it did, however, attract a certain number of students whose mothers would otherwise have sent them up to Vassar or over to Bryn Mawr; and it had the distinction of getting regular picture stories in all the leading magazines by the simple method of staging annual pageants based on some forgotten lore of ancient Rome.

It was apparently Simon Ark’s first glimpse of the unusual campus, for he spent some minutes strolling around aimlessly before we finally headed for the administration building, which oddly enough was the only one that failed to carry out the old Roman motif. Instead, it was an ancient limestone structure that apparently dated from the college’s founding back in the mid-nineties, and had somehow survived, the Romanizing of the remainder of the college.

I’d called Shelly to tell her I’d be late for supper, though I didn’t really expect the trip to Hudsonville College to last too long. And I was still quite dubious about the whole thing when we were met at the door by a tall, scholarly-looking gentleman with a Roman nose that fitted in well with the rest of the campus.

“May I help you?” he asked quietly, and though his voice was polite I noticed that he was carefully blocking the doorway and barring our way.

“Possibly. I am Simon Ark, and this is a friend of mine. I heard that you have had some trouble here, and I thought I might be able to offer some assistance. …”

“We already have a doctor…” the tall man began.

“I’m not a doctor.”

“If you’re a newspaper reporter or anything like that, I can tell you right now we’ve nothing to say.”

Simon Ark grunted. “I’m not a reporter, either; but before I say any more could you tell us who you are?”

“Sorry,” the man said, smiling slightly. “Name’s Hugh Westwood. I’m professor of ancient history here. Now, if you could tell me your business. …”

“We…happened to hear about your troubles here, Professor Westwood. I personally specialize in the investigation of such phenomena, and I thought I might be of some little assistance.”

Westwood gazed at Simon Ark with searching eyes. “I don’t know how you found out about it, but if you mean you’ve had experience in dealing with witches, you’re certainly the man we want to see.”

“Well…” Simon Ark hesitated a moment, “I have had some small experience with witches. …”

That was all Westwood needed to hear. He led them down a long hall to his office and motioned to two chairs. In a few moments he rejoined them with an older, white-haired man and a middle-aged woman.

“This is our president, Doctor Lampton, and the Dean of Women, Miss Bagly. You said your name was…Simon Ark?”

He nodded and introduced me as his assistant. I was amazed at how quickly he seemed to be accepted by these three frightened people. Perhaps it was their fear, coupled with Ark’s compelling manner, that made them forget their aversion to publicity.

“It’s this woman…this…this Mother Fortune,” Miss Bagly began. “She’s some kind of a witch, and she’s put a spell over our girls. We…we don’t know which way to turn, Mr. Ark; we really don’t. If we reported something like this to the police, it would get into all the papers and our school would be ruined.”

Simon Ark frowned, and I knew a question was coming. “But I understand that at least a few of these girls are extremely ill. You mean to say they aren’t even receiving medical attention?”

“Oh, heavens,” Miss Bagly exclaimed, “Dr. Lampton here is a real M.D., you know. He’s been looking after them.”

“That’s correct,” the doctor said. “I haven’t had any private practice in a good many years, ever since I became president of Hudsonville, but I still know enough to give those girls proper attention.”

“Then just what’s wrong with them, Doctor?” Simon Ark asked.

“Well…by medical standards it’s very difficult to say. They just seem…well, weak, without energy. Several girls have fainted, and one or two are in a mild coma of some sort.”

“I imagine you’ve thought of narcotics.”

“Certainly. There’s no possibility of anything like that—not at Hudsonville!”

Simon Ark sighed. “I understand there have been letters. …”

I knew better than to wonder how he knew about the letters, because Simon Ark had ways of finding out such things. Doctor Lampton nodded and pulled them from his pocket. They looked like he’d been carrying them and studying them for weeks.

There were three of them in all, dated about a week apart and starting three weeks previous, around the first day of the Fall term. The writing was crude, intentionally crude, I thought. All three letters were identical in their wording: “To the president of Hudsonville College: Your cruel act of fifty years ago is at last avenged. I have cursed your school and every student in it. Before another moon has come your school will be a campus of the dead.” The notes were signed “Mother Fortune.”

Simon Ark studied them carefully. “This Mother Fortune is a local gypsy fortune teller, I understand. Do you have any idea just why she should be putting a curse on the college?”

Professor Westwood, who’d remained silent for some time, joined in the conversation then. “Unfortunately, yes. That reference to fifty years ago sent us looking back through the school’s old records, but we found it. The woman who calls herself Mother Fortune was once a student here. …”

This news made it a little easier for me to understand their reluctance to call in the police. It was bad enough to have an exclusive girls’ college hexed by a witch, but when it turns out the witch was once a student at the school, that’s even worse publicity.

“…Her name was Helen Marie Carrio at that time,” Westwood continued. “We found from the records that she was expelled just two weeks before she was to have graduated.”

“For what reason?” Simon Ark asked.

Doctor Lampton interrupted to answer. “You have to remember that this was fifty years ago, Mister Ark. Many things were different then.”

“Why was she expelled?” Ark repeated.

“For smoking cigarettes,” Lampton replied weakly. “You must realize that at the time such a thing was unknown among young girls, and at a school like Hudsonville it would have been a most serious offense.”

We were silent for a moment while we thought about it. Was it possible that such a girl, grown old fifty years later, should still remember this childhood tragedy? Was it possible that the old woman now known as Mother Fortune somehow had the power to strike down these young girls?

“Have you contacted Mother Fortune about these threats?” Simon Ark asked.

“I went to see her personally,” Doctor Lampton said. “Two weeks ago. She admitted sending the notes, and said she’d keep on sending them. She’s a very odd woman indeed—half-insane, possibly—yet with a manner about her that almost makes you believe she is some sort of…witch.” The last word was spoken very quietly, as if the president was afraid someone outside the room might be listening.

Simon Ark frowned once again. “There have been witches in this world, and quite possibly Mother Fortune is one; but it is too early to say for certain. Right now I’d like to see some of these girls who have suffered this odd sickness. Oh, and I’d like a list of their names if possible.”

Professor Westwood nodded and pulled a pad of yellow lined paper from his desk. The top sheet was covered with the usual unintelligible notes of a history professor, phrases like “Tunica Molesta,” and “Plato—IX—Jowett.” Westwood tore off the top sheet and began copying names from a typed list on his desk.

There were some forty-odd names on the list, ranging from Abbot, Mary to Yeagen, Bernice. Some had grim-looking stars after them, and I figured correctly that these were the more serious cases. Simon Ark carefully folded the yellow list and we followed the three others out of Westwood’s office.

They led us across the mildly rolling hills of the campus, past the ancient Roman columns, to a squat, three-story structure. “This is Venice Hall, the principal girls’ dorm,” Miss Bagly informed us. “All of our dorms are named after Italian cities.”

We followed her in, amidst a few questioning stares from casually dressed girls relaxing after supper. I gathered that the sick girls were simply being kept in their own rooms.

The first room we visited was a cheerful looking one on the second floor. There were two girls in it, both of them in bed. One was sitting up and reading a thick historical novel, but the other was asleep.

Simon Ark examined them both with care, but except for a somewhat tired-out expression there was nothing unusual about them. “When did you first begin to feel ill?” Ark inquired.

The girl sat up further in bed, revealing a fantastic pair of plaid pajamas. “Gosh, I don’t know. About a week ago, I guess.”

“Did you receive any burns or unusual injuries around that time?”

“No, nothing.”

“Do you smoke?”

“Sometimes. Not too much.”

“Have you had a cigarette recently?”

“Not in over a month; not since I was back home.”

I could see that Simon Ark was mildly disappointed at this. He apparently had thought that the perfect weapon of Mother Fortune’s revenge would be poisoned cigarettes of some kind. But such was not the case.

The other girl had awakened now, and I could see that she was in much worse shape. I think it gave us all an odd feeling, looking at those girls, realizing that they might be the innocent victims of a terror that couldn’t happen, but was.

Later, when we left the room and the building, Simon Ark appeared deep in thought. Once he turned to Professor Westwood and asked, “Have any teachers shown signs of this…sickness?”

“No, just the students.”

“And what symptoms have the more serious cases shown?”

“Oh…vomiting…partial paralysis of various muscles. …”

Simon Ark frowned. “Has anyone taken a blood test of the sick girls?”

“A blood test? Why, no, I hardly think so. That would involve calling in the authorities. …”

“Perhaps you could do it in your own lab. At least I suggest that a blood test of some sort be made as soon as possible.”

We left them shortly after that, and Simon Ark and I made our way across the now darkened campus to the street. Even with night upon us, the heat was still there, making us forget the fact that it was already early autumn.

“What do you think about it, Simon?” I asked after we had walked some distance.

Simon Ark gazed off into the night, and I thought for a moment he hadn’t heard my question. But then gradually he turned to me. “I think that we should pay a visit to Mother Fortune. …”

We found her, later that night, in a little street in a little city not too far from Hudsonville College. It was just another city in the southern part of the country called Westchester. And the street, usually, was just another street.

But tonight it was different. Tonight it blazed with light, light from a thousand colored bulbs that spelled out a score of gay designs against the evening sky. From every direction lighted streets shot out from the large old church at their center, the church of St. Francis of Assisi.

“It’s a celebration for the saint’s feast day,” I explained to Simon. “These old Italian churches go big for things like that. The thing is sort of one huge block party that lasts for three or four nights. You certainly don’t expect to find Mother Fortune here, do you?”

“I never expect to find evil anywhere,” Simon Ark replied, “and yet it is all around us. This poor church, I fear, is no exception.”

We walked on, beneath the colored lights and past the booths and trucks and wagons, selling everything from religious statues to hot pizza. Presently we saw a short, fat priest moving among the crowd.

Simon Ark moved quickly through the crowd and caught the priest’s arm. “Pardon, Father, but I seek information regarding a woman known as Mother Fortune. I believe she is near here.”

The little priest’s face turned dark with rage. “Sir, if you seek her out I hope it is to force her to move away from my church and my people. She came two days ago, with her trailer and her crystal ball and her fortune telling. My people—many of them—are simple superstitious Italians, not long in this country.”

Simon Ark frowned. “But don’t you have any control over who takes part in your celebration?”

“Ah, no,” the priest shrugged. “They even come here and sell meat to my people on Fridays. But there are regulations about trailers in Westchester County, as you know, and perhaps the police will force Mother Fortune to leave.”

As we’d talked, he had led us to the very end of the lighted area, and there, parked against the curb like some giant sleeping beetle, was a long house trailer with the name of Mother Fortune on its side.

The priest left us, fading into the bright lights at our backs, leaving us alone with the woman who was perhaps a witch. The trailer was a large silver one, and in addition to Mother Fortune’s name I noticed the single word “Erebus” near the front of the vehicle, like the name on the prow of a ship.

“What kind of a bus is that?” I asked Simon.

He smiled slightly. “Erebus was one of the names for hell used by the poet Milton. A fitting name for the home of a witch.”

There was no one down at that end of the street at all, and I imagined correctly that the little priest’s campaign against Mother Fortune was meeting with much success. Simon Ark pressed a tiny button by the trailer door and we waited for it to open.

When it finally did, the woman who greeted us was a surprise. I didn’t know just what I expected, and certainly Mother Fortune was no beauty, but neither was she the typical concept of a medieval witch. She was simply a very old white-haired woman, who acted as if she might be a little drunk and probably was.

“What you want?” she managed to mumble.

“My name is Simon Ark; I’d like to talk to you.”

“Want your fortune told?”

“Possibly.”

“Come in, then.”

We entered the gleaming silver trailer and found ourselves in another world. I’d expected something unusual, but I hadn’t been prepared for the ancient beaded drapes, the musty oriental furnishings, and huge glowing crystal ball that filled the center of the trailer’s main room.

The crystal ball, apparently lit by a bulb in its base, was a good three feet in diameter, and the way it gave off illumination reminded me of those big revolving glass globes they used to have in dance halls twenty years ago.

Simon Ark settled himself in one of the big overstuffed chairs with curling dragons for arms and said, “I want to talk about the trouble at Hudsonville College.”

The words were hardly out of his mouth when the old woman was on her feet, shouting in a harsh voice that was almost a scream. “They’ve been here themselves. I already told them it would do no good. It’s too late to stop me now. Too late, you hear? Too late! They can have me arrested if they want, but it will do no good. Before many moons have passed, the first of the girls will be dead! After that the rest will die quickly. They’ll regret the day they expelled Mother Fortune from their school!”

From the cigarette burns on the sleeve of her robe, it was obvious that she still had the habit that had led to her disgrace those many years before. In a way I felt sorry for this old woman whose aging brain had turned back fifty years for revenge.

“Helen,” Simon Ark began, but the woman showed no emotion at the use of her real name. “Helen, you’ve got to stop all this foolishness. You’re not a witch and you haven’t put a curse on those girls.”

“Haven’t I?” she laughed shrilly. “Haven’t I? Look at this!”

She opened a drawer and pulled out a thin book with heavily padded covers that I recognized as the yearbook of Hudsonville College. Several long black hatpins had been driven through the covers and the pages.

The sight of it was so incredulous that I would have laughed had I not remembered those girls I’d seen back at the college. Something had made them sick, and perhaps this was it. I’d learned a long time ago, at my first meeting with Simon Ark, that there are things in this world beyond our powers of explanation.

She placed the book on a table and gazed into the huge crystal ball. “Back in the Middle Ages it was believed that tobacco was invented by the devil, and that only the devil’s priests used it,” she said. “When they threw me out of Hudsonville, I began to believe it.”

I turned my face from her as she talked, unable to look at the lines of tragedy I saw there. What had happened during fifty years of heartbreak to turn this one-time college girl into a vengeful witch? That was something I never found out, and something that is perhaps better left unknown.

At length she fell silent, and I could see that Simon Ark would learn nothing more from her. “Get out of here now,” she said with finality. “I have to change my robe and get ready for the evening business.” She gestured toward the wall, where a glistening gold and purple garment decorated with blazing suns and half-moons hung from a hook.

Of course there would be no more customers for her fortunes this late at night, but she didn’t seem to realize it. In her vague way, night and day had apparently merged into one.

We left her then, and walked back through the lighted streets to the church of Saint Francis of Assisi. And when I looked at Simon Ark’s face in the light of the multi-colored bulbs, I knew that neither one of us was certain whether we had just left a modern-day servant of Satan or simply a confused old woman. …

The following morning dawned hot and bright, with the sun beating down upon leaves and grass that waited in vain for the cool slumber of autumn. It was Saturday, and I spent the morning working around the house. Shelly was an avid listener to my account of the previous night’s adventures, but by noon I had all but forgotten Simon Ark and Mother Fortune.

It was just after the church bells had sounded the mid-day hour in the distance that Shelly called to me. “Someone wants you on the telephone.”

I dropped the garden hose I’d been using and went into the house. The voice on the phone was familiar at once, but it took me a moment to identity Simon Ark on the other end.

“The witch is dead,” he said simply. “Would you like to meet me at the trailer?”

“I’ll be right over.”

With a shouted few words to Shelly, I jumped into my car and headed south toward the parish of Saint Francis of Assisi. In those first few minutes I didn’t even try to think of the meaning of Simon Ark’s words. I only knew that something had happened, something strange and unknown.

To the west dark clouds were forming on the horizon, and the shiver that went down my spine told me the barometer was falling fast. The October heat wave was on its last legs.

In the distance I thought I heard the rumble of thunder. …

The street by the church, which last night had been a brightly lighted invitation to fun and merriment, was now dark with the threat of approaching rain. It was blocked off completely by nearly a dozen police and private cars, and additional policemen were busy keeping back the crowd of curious neighbors. Some seemed almost indignant that they should be kept from seeing this bit of drama that had been played out on their street. Others simply stood silently, aware that they were in the presence of death.

Simon Ark stood in the door of the trailer, and he signaled to the police to let me through. I had long ago stopped wondering about his strange power over people, and now it seemed only natural that he was already in the confidence of the police.

“Prepare yourself,” he told me at the door; “it’s not a pleasant sight.”

And it wasn’t.

It reminded me of a time, a lifetime ago, when we’d had to blast a Japanese machine-gun nest on a lonely Pacific isle. We’d used flame throwers, and the bodies of the dead Japs came back to my memory now as I stared at the thing that had been Mother Fortune.

She lay on top of her giant crystal ball, with her arms hanging down limply almost to the floor. Her clothes had been burnt off her completely, and the withered flesh was black and scorched. Her hair, and much of the skin on her face, had been burnt away, but there was no doubt in my mind that it really was the body of the woman we’d talked to last night.

“What happened?” I asked finally.

Simon Ark continued gazing at the body as he answered. “The police came to tell her she’d have to move the trailer. They looked through the window and saw her like this.” He paused a moment before continuing. “The trailer was locked. They had to force the door to get in.”

“What started the fire?”

“The police don’t know. Even the priest doesn’t know. They think it might have been something…unnatural.”

For the first time I realized that the trailer itself was virtually unmarked by the fire; the blaze apparently had been centered on the body of the woman.

“Do you think somebody killed her, burned her because she was a witch, like they did in Salem?”

“Nobody burned her to death because she was alone in a locked trailer at the time,” Simon Ark replied. “And at Salem they hanged the witches—they hanged nineteen and pressed one to death. I know.”

And when he said it I knew that he really did know. He knew because he’d been there and seen it, just as I could tell that he’d seen something like this horror before, somewhere in the dark forgotten past of history.

The police were busy removing the body, and examining the crystal ball for some sign of the fire’s origin. But of course they found nothing.

As he left the trailer I saw the priest from St. Francis of Assisi Church making the sign of the cross over the body, and I wondered how this man could bless the corpse of a woman who’d opposed him so just a few hours earlier, when she still lived. I was even more astonished when I saw Simon Ark take an odd-looking cross from his pocket and raise it for a second over the body.

As he walked away he mumbled something in a tongue I didn’t understand. He’d told me once it was Coptic, and I suspected it was a prayer, a very old prayer from the dawn of civilization.

And then the rain began to fall, in great wet drops that brought wisps of steam from the dry hot pavement. Simon Ark followed me to my car, and we sat in the rain watching the morgue wagon pull slowly away with the body of Mother Fortune. …

“Did you ever hear of Charles Fort?” Simon Ark asked me some time later, as we sipped a glass of wine in an almost deserted oak-lined cocktail lounge. “He was a writer of some twenty-five years back who collected odd and unexplained news reports. His writings contain several references to deaths by mysterious burns.”

I’d heard of Fort, of course, but I wasn’t familiar with his writings. Simon Ark counted them off on his fingers as he mentioned the odd deaths. “There was one in Blyth, England, about fifty years ago. An old woman in a locked house, burned to death on a sofa. And in Ayer, Massachusetts, in 1890—a woman burned to death in the woods. In London, Southampton, Liverpool—always women, always old women. Fort reports only one case of an old man burning to death mysteriously. You want more cases, closer to home? St. Louis in 1889, North Carolina, San Diego. … A similar case in Rochester, N.Y., was blamed on lightning. …”

As if on cue a streak of lightning cut through the afternoon sky, followed almost at once by a crash of thunder. “Any chance that lightning could have killed Mother Fortune?” I asked.

“Hardly. The storm just started, and in any event a bolt of lightning would certainly not go unnoticed by the neighbors.”

I sipped my wine and glanced behind the bar, where the Notre Dame football team had just faded from the TV set, to be replaced by a dark-haired girl singing “That Old Black Magic,” The song seemed appropriate to the occasion.

“Then, what killed her?” I asked. “Do you know?”

“I’ve known since before she died,” Simon Ark replied unhappily. “It was one of the most difficult decisions I ever had to make, to let her die like that. But it was the only chance to save those college girls.”

“You mean the spell will be lifted now that the witch is dead?”

“Not exactly; but it’ll force a very clever killer into the open.”

“Then Mother Fortune was murdered, and by natural means!”

“She was murdered, but who is to say that any method of murder is natural? They are all weapons of the devil, in one way or another. Always remember that—every murder, every crime, is supernatural, in the sense that it was inspired by Satan.”

The bartender switched off the television set, and we were alone with the constantly irregular crashes of thunder from the outside world.

“Did Satan kill her, then?” I asked, and I knew that Simon Ark would not consider the question a foolish one. “The way all those other people were burned to death?”

“Only indirectly. Perhaps the real killer is a man who’s been dead for nearly two thousand years. Because in a way, you see, Mother Fortune was killed by the ancient Roman emperor, Lucius—better known as Nero. …”

Simon Ark would say no more on the subject of the old fortune teller’s mysterious death. He seemed to dismiss the subject from his mind and turned instead to questioning me about the activities of Hudsonville College.

“Do they have any summer courses at all?” he wanted to know.

“No, it’s closed up completely all summer. Most of these exclusive girls’ colleges are. Why do you want to know that?”

“Just filling in bits of the picture. Now I must make an important telephone call to Washington. To the Atomic Energy Commission. Perhaps then we can return to the college.”

He talked on the telephone for some time, and when he came out of the booth he seemed pleased. We left the bar and drove through the gentle rain toward the campus of Hudsonville College.

It was almost dark by the time we arrived, and already the remains of the heat wave had given way to an autumn dampness that chilled our bones. We went first to Miss Bagly’s quarters, where Simon Ark inquired as to the girls’ condition.

“It’s not good, Mr. Ark,” she told him. “Nearly all the girls in the college are sick in one way or another now. For some it’s probably all in the mind, but I’m really worried about a few of them. I do wish Dr. Lampton would allow us to call in outside help.”

“That has all been taken care of, Miss Bagly,” he told her. “There will be doctors here within a few hours. But first I must discover the cause of the evil that lurks within your walls.”

“I heard that the witch…Mother Fortune…was dead. Will that help the girls?”

“In a way it will, Miss Bagly. But I fear we’ll be unable to completely save the good name of your school.” She started to say something else, but he held up his hand to silence her. “Are you certain, Miss Bagly, that none of your faculty has been affected by this sickness?”

“Oh, yes, Mr. Ark. Just the girls have been stricken. Except, of course, for our swimming instructor, who’s not really a …”

But she never had a chance to finish her sentence. Simon Ark was already out of the room and hurrying down the steps. I ran after him, and I heard him mumble, “Of course! The swimming pool. Of course. …”

And we ran through the night, toward the shadowy building that resembled the old Roman baths. Inside, all was darkness, and even the glistening waters of the pool itself were black. We were alone, and Simon Ark drew me into the deeper shadows.

We waited, for what I did not know, and as we waited Simon Ark talked, in a voice so low it hardly reached my ears.

“Suppose,” he began, “suppose you were an agent of a foreign power, or even of some private enterprise. Suppose you stole a quantity of radioactive mineral—cobalt or something similar—to use for your own illegal purposes. Suppose you found it necessary to hide it, safely, for a period of several weeks. Where…where could you safely hide a supply of illegal radioactive mineral for several weeks? Where would it be far enough away from people so as not to harm anyone with its dangerous rays?”

And I answered him. “In the middle of a college campus closed for the summer vacation. With no one but an occasional watchman to be exposed briefly to its rays.”

The darkness was very dark then, and the evil of the unknown hung heavy around us. “Exactly,” Simon Ark continued. “And when the school reopened for the Fall before you could get rid of the deadly metal, then what would you do? What would you do to explain the radioactivity that would begin to strike down the girls?”

“You mean…?”

“I mean that this building is full of low, but dangerous, amounts of radioactivity. That’s what’s wrong with those girls, and any doctor who’d been active in recent years would probably have recognized the symptoms. Unfortunately, Doctor Lampton did not, and his pride kept him from calling in assistance. I knew it almost from the beginning, which is why I suggested the blood tests. But I didn’t know until tonight just where the source of the dangerous rays was. It had to be some place that the girls used, but not the teachers. I never thought of the swimming pool until now.”

“Then the witch business was all a blind!” I said. “The person who hid the uranium or cobalt found out about Mother Fortune’s past life and used it as an excuse for the radioactive sickness.”

“Correct. A clever but devilish plot. Of course he couldn’t depend on the assistance of a crazed old woman forever, so he had to arrange for her death when he feared she might talk.”

“But whom…?”

The question was answered for me by a sudden movement on the far side of the black pool. We were no longer alone in the building.

Simon Ark stepped out of the shadows and shouted across the width of the pool. “All right, Professor Westwood. We know all about your murderous activities. …”

Professor Hugh Westwood looked at them from across the pool, and he might have been a demon conjured up by Satan himself. Even in the darkness I could feel the evil that seemed now to radiate from him, just as another evil radiated from a rock hidden somewhere in this building.

“It’s too late to escape, Professor Westwood. I’ve already talked to Washington, and they confirmed the theft of the radioactive minerals from a testing lab in New York two months ago. There are doctors and F.B.I, agents on their way here right now. Of course your friends have already been arrested, which is why they never came for the rocks. Where is it, Professor? In the pool itself? In the drain pipe, possibly?”

But Westwood let out a cry of rage, and a tongue of fire seemed to leap from his fingers into the pool. Instantly a wall of flame shot up between Westwood and ourselves. I had just a second to realize that the water in the swimming pool was somehow on fire, and then everything was a nightmare. …

Of course we found out later that, in anticipation of danger, Westwood had poured oil on the waters of the pool and then thrown a match into it; but in that instant with the flames all around me it seemed as though the very gates of hell had opened to receive us.

I’ll never forget those final seconds, as Simon Ark and Professor Westwood stalked each other around the blazing pool, with the flames leaping high and beating at the skylight until at last the glass burst and showered down upon us.

This was hell, and here at last was Simon Ark, stalking a modern-day version of the devil himself, while the flames waited to consume them both. And then, finally, in a sudden clash of good and evil, their two bodies met and locked in deadly combat, and toppled together into the waiting flames. …

The fire died as quickly as it had started, leaving only the steaming water beneath. The oil fire had burnt itself out just in time, for I doubt if even a man such as Simon Ark could have survived another minute in the heated water under those flames. As it was, we were too late to save Professor Westwood. He was already dead when we pulled him from the water. …

Later, much later, after the doctors and the police and the F.B.I., after the finding of the thin tube of radioactive cobalt in the swimming pool drain, after everybody had talked and listened and asked…

“But how did he kill the woman, Simon? How did he kill Mother Fortune?”

He looked at me with eyes that seemed tired, and he replied. “Remember yesterday in his office, when he tore a sheet from his pad. Remember a Latin phrase that was written on that sheet? It said ‘tunica molesta,’ and that told me the answer even before the crime was committed. ‘Tunica molesta’ was a name given to one of Nero’s particularly horrible devices for killing early Christians. It was a tunic or mantle embroidered with the finest gold. Early Christians and criminals were brought into public arenas dressed in these garments, which were made of a highly combustible cloth that burst into flames when touched with the slightest spark.”

I remember the robe that had been hanging in Mother Fortune’s trailer. “You mean Westwood made one of these things and gave it to her?”

“Exactly. He no doubt told her it was a reward for her part in the scheme, though I doubt if she ever realized the true nature of his plot to cover up the cache of radioactive cobalt. She was just a confused old woman who jumped at an opportunity of revenging herself upon the school that had once expelled her.”

“But you said this garment needed a spark or something to ignite it. How did he get into the trailer to set the robe on fire?”

“He didn’t. Once he’d given it to her, he didn’t have to worry about the outcome. Remember those cigarette burns we noticed on the sleeves of her old robe? He knew that sooner or later she would smoke a cigarette while wearing the ‘tunica molesta.’ And he knew that in her clumsy manner, she’d let a single deadly spark fall onto her robe. …”

“And you knew this all the time?”

“I suspected it. As a murder method it isn’t as strange as you might think, considering the fact that the killer was a professor of ancient history at a school that specialized in the early Roman Empire. The term ‘tunica molesta’ came easily to his mind, and his only mistake was in jotting it down on his pad one day. I knew, though, that once Mother Fortune was dead he’d have to get rid of the cobalt, or the whole idea of the hex would be exploded as a fake, and Doctor Lampton would start looking for some medical reason for the girls’ illness.”

“It still seems so fantastic,” I said.

“Life itself is fantastic, and death even more so. There are men in this world far more evil and far more clever than Professor Westwood, and as long as these men live the fantastic will be commonplace. …”

He left me then, walking out through the night as suddenly as he’d come, but this time I was sure I’d not heard the last of Simon Ark. …

SWORD FOR A SINNER

THE HIGHLY DELICATE MISSION that brought Simon Ark and me to the tiny village of Santa Marta is a story in itself, and since it was to play such an important part in what followed I must start with it. Perhaps by starting with Father Hadden’s story I can at least delay for a time the setting down on paper of the horror that was to await us in the mountains. Perhaps I can wash it from my memory with a beautiful scene of Santa Marta as I first saw it, nestled on the valley floor in a sea of sunshine, a jewel unclaimed among the mountains.

Santa Marta is a village of some fifty or sixty people, located almost on the state line between Colorado and New Mexico. It lies somewhat north of Questa, and east of Antonito—in the rugged foothills of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range. The journey from New York had taken us two full days by plane, train, and bus, but finally we arrived. It was early morning when the bus dropped us at our destination, with only a quizzical glance from the driver in farewell.

“So this is Santa Marta,” I said, breathing in the warm, dry desert air. “Where is this priest we came to see?”

Simon Ark frowned into the sun. “I see a church down there, a relic of happier days here. I imagine once this was a booming oasis in the desert. Perhaps Father Hadden can be found in his church.”

The church, in stone architecture distinctly Spanish, was the last building on the street, a final resting place before the long climb into the mountains. As we approached, a few of the village people were drifting out, bound for their day of work after morning mass. This far north I was surprised to see so many Mexicans, and I was equally surprised to see Father Hadden, a rosy-cheeked man who might have been more at home in a big, sparkling church in Chicago.

“Father Hadden? I’m Simon Ark. …”

“I’m so glad you’ve come,” he said, and I could see he meant it. He had the type of personality that made him immediately an old and trusted friend.

“This is a friend of mine,” Simon explained, gesturing toward me. “A New York publisher who sometimes assists me in my wanderings. He wants to write my biography someday—but that day is surely far off.”

A hint of uncertainty crossed the priest’s face at these words. “I hope I can trust my story in your hands,” he said quietly. “It would not be the type of story that should appear in print.”

“You can trust me,” I said. “If I ever write it at all, I’d change the names and the location.”

“I admire your church,” Simon said. “It is large and fine for such a small village.”

“Thank you,” Father Hadden said with a slight smile of gratitude. “I try to keep it well, even for such a small congregation as mine. The fine old church from a better day is one of the reasons why the bishop believes it necessary to keep a priest here in Santa Marta.”

“Oh?” Simon said. “And what are the other reasons?”

“One involves a place you might have passed on the way in—a den of sin or such called the Oasis. It’s been open only a year, but it already attracts people from a hundred miles around. The other reason…has to do with something up in the hills which need not concern us now.”

“Your letter said you’d heard of my work,” Simon began, anxious to get to the matter at hand.

The priest leaned back in his chair, brushing a sun-tanned hand through thick black hair. “I have a brother at the monastery of St. John of the Cross, in West Virginia. He told me that some two years ago you rendered them a great service.”

“Oh, yes,” Simon nodded. “A case of diabolic possession. Both interesting and tragic, in a way.”

Father Hadden nodded. “My brother spoke very highly of you, and when my own…problem came up I felt you were the man to help me. I went to my bishop and received his permission to consult you about it.”

“I’m indeed gratified that your bishop ever heard of me.”

“You’re much too modest, Mr. Ark. How many men are there in the world today doing actual, physical battle with the devil himself? And I understand that you yourself were once a priest?”

It was a phase of Simon’s past he never spoke of. Now he simply brushed it aside with an impatient gesture. “In Egypt, long ago, I practiced in the Coptic rite. But let us get to your problem, Father. …”

“My problem is simpler stated than solved, I fear. It seems I find myself equipped with the power of communication with the dead. In short, Mr. Ark, I am a medium. …”

His face never changed expression as he made the statement. He might have been giving us a baseball score, or asking for an extra-large Sunday collection. He was still the friendly, smiling priest, but I thought I detected a slight chill in the warm spring air.

“A medium?” Simon Ark repeated very slowly. “Of course, the term is only a bare hundred years old. It’s odd to hear the word spoken by a priest—one who certainly holds nothing in common with the Fox sisters and other American spiritualists.”

“I use only the popular term for a somewhat unpopular gift, Mr. Ark. I believe even Margaret Fox finally admitted the presence of fraud in her little act. Still, I understand there’s a monument to her back in Rochester where much of it started.”

Simon nodded. “But tell me of your strange power, whatever its name. This is most interesting.”

The ringing of a telephone interrupted the conversation, and Father Hadden rose to answer it.

“Hello? Father Hadden here. …” As he listened, his expression changed, ever so slightly. The smile faded and was replaced by a troubled, gray look. “I’ll come at once, of course.”

“What is it, Father, trouble?” Simon asked as he hung up the phone.

“I fear so. The very worst kind of trouble. A murder at the morada of Sangre de Cristo. In the mountains. I must go there at once.”

“Could I be of service?” Simon asked. “I have had some slight experience in such matters. Perhaps on the way we could discuss your own problem further.”

But the priest waved this aside. “You are welcome to come certainly, Mr. Ark, but this is far more important than any problem I might have. This is a tragedy that could be very bad for the Church.”

“Then all the more reason for my assistance.” Simon motioned to me and we followed the priest outside to his car, a station wagon brown with dust from the plains.

Father Hadden paused at the door and turned to me. “I must ask one promise from both of you. What you are to see up here is…well, it is a sight few men have witnessed. You must promise me never to speak of this to the outside world.”

We gave him our promises, and I for one was wondering what strange world we were about to enter, what sights awaited us in these distant mountains. Before long we were bouncing over black roads, climbing ever north into the hills and valleys of the Rockies. It was beautiful country, but strange and silent too—almost menacing in the quiet calm of its mountains, in the yucca and cactus that were the only vegetation.

“These mountains,” Simon began, breaking the silence which had hung over the car, “are called the Sangre de Cristo range? Blood of Christ?”

The priest nodded. “An ironically tragic name in view of the circumstances. Have you ever heard of the Brotherhood of Penitentes, Mr. Ark?”

Surprisingly Simon nodded his head. “Is that what this is?” he asked somberly.

“I’m afraid so. They have nearly a hundred and fifty chapter houses in the southwest. They’re a group more powerful and more important than most people realize.”

“Would someone mind telling me what this is all about?” I asked.

“You will know soon enough, my friend,” Simon said, as a great stone villa came into view ahead. It stood on a flat bluff between two mountains, a relic of the Spanish conquerors forgotten by later men.

But the thing that riveted my eyes was on a hill just beyond the house. It was a great wooden cross, much too large to be simply the marker for a grave. There seemed to be some sort of banner or scarf attached to it, drifting gently in the breeze. “What’s that?” I asked.

Father Hadden didn’t even lift his eyes to it. He must have seen it many times before. “The cross,” he said simply. “You’ll see more of them inside.”

We parked in a worn brick driveway in front of the place, and I wondered about the absence of other cars. Certainly the people here must arrive somehow. Did they fly in on broomsticks or something?

There was a little cross over the door, too—a plain wooden one—and I suddenly supposed that this must be a monastery of some sort. I was about to put my thought into words when the great glass-and-metal door swung silently open in answer to our ring. The man who stood there wore a black hood over his head, a hood with only two eyeholes staring out at us. He was naked to waist, and there were a number of great bloody scratches across his chest. In that moment I thought I’d stepped into a madhouse, but there was worse to come.

The hooded doorkeeper led us in without a word, down a dim, dank hallway lit only by stained glass windows high on each side. Father Hadden hurried along with him and I could see they were speaking in low tones about the tragedy we had come to witness.

“What in hell is this anyway?” I whispered to Simon. But already we were starting down a flight of stone steps, and in a moment we found ourselves in a low, dark basement lit here and there by flickering candlelight. My first impression was that we were in a great storeroom full of life-size crucifixes. But then I realized with a chilling start that the figures on the crosses were alive, horribly fantastically alive!

There were perhaps twenty of the crosses in the room, reaching from floor almost to ceiling. And on each a nearly naked man was tied, his arms outstretched in the familiar attitude of Christ. Most of them wore only the black hoods and white loin cloths, though some had compromised by wearing bathing trunks. All had their arms and legs tied to the crosses with thick horsehair cords, and some showed the red marks of scourging on their bare chests and thighs. It was a scene from hell.

“What is this?” I gasped out. “A lodge initiation?”

“If it were only that simple,” Simon mused. And then Father Hadden shone his light on the cross at the far end of the room—and we saw there the greatest horror of all.

The last cross in the line had a man tied to it like all the others—a man wearing a black hood—but this one was different. From the left side of his body, slanting upward into his chest, protruded the slim steel shaft of a Spanish sword. …

“What is it, Simon? What is this madness?” I asked him later as we sat with Father Hadden in one of the upstairs rooms.

And Simon Ark closed his eyes and stared off into an unseeing world of his own mind. “The Brotherhood of Penitentes,” he began, very softly, “is an old, old society. Some trace its origin back to the Franciscan missionaries or even before. In a virgin country without priests or churches, perhaps it was only natural that some of the more passionate Spanish men should turn to self-torture as an act of devotion. A hundred years ago the practices of the Penitentes were so widespread and so brutal in the southwest that the Catholic Church was forced to ban such groups. But of course it didn’t stop them. They continued their rites of self-scourging and crucifixion in secret, wearing hoods to conceal their identity from the public, and sometimes from each other.”

“But if the group is banned by the Church, why does Father Hadden here deal with them?”

The priest himself answered my question. “A few years ago it was decided that the practices of the Penitentes had softened considerably, consisting now only of processions and mild scourging during Holy Week. They have again been recognized by the Church—or at least most of the chapters have been. Unfortunately, this morada is one that was not received back into the fold. Its practices continue as staggeringly brutal as they were fifty or a hundred years ago. You saw the basement—some say there have been times when the crucifixions were performed with nails rather than merely ropes. …”

“There have been deaths before?” Simon asked.

“There have been deaths,” the priest agreed. “Hushed up, but I hear of them sometimes. Never anything like this, though. I ask myself how it is possible that one of these men, in the midst of a religious fervor so great that it drove him to emulate the sufferings of Christ, could possibly commit murder.”

“Who was the man?” Simon asked. “I noticed your start of surprise downstairs when you removed the hood.”

“That is the thing that makes this all the more frightening,” Father Hadden answered. “The man is the owner of the Oasis.”

“The bar you mentioned earlier?”

The priest nodded. “The Oasis is all things to all men—drink, sex, sin, gambling. And Glen Summer is, or was, its owner and manager. His was the greatest sin of all.”

Simon frowned and was silent for a moment. Somewhere outside a cloud lifted from the sun and a single ray of light shot through one of the stained glass windows, bathing his face in a purple hue. “You believe a man like Summer would come to a place like this to atone for his sins in secret?”

“I believe it, Mr. Ark, because these others tell me it is true. But imagine what the people and the public will think! They will never believe it—they will never believe that good and evil can live side by side in the same man. They already circulate fantastic rumors about this place, and now they will claim Summer was kidnapped and murdered in some sort of religious ritual.”

I could see that Simon agreed with him. “It would be a fairly logical assumption, Father. But we have no choice except to call the local police. The murderer might not be so difficult to discover, after all. It must be one of those men downstairs.”

“But which of them, Mr. Ark? Which of them?”

Simon rose slowly from the chair and began to pace the floor, frowning. “If we sit in on the police questioning, we might learn something. How many are there downstairs?”

“Eighteen men, plus the one who let us in.”

“Who was he?”

“Their leader, in a way. His name is Juan Cruz. He’s Mexican, studied for the priesthood for a time, but was dropped because of practices like these. He drifted into the States about ten years ago and joined the Penitentes. I fear Cruz is the one who keeps this little group banded together. Without him they’d surely listen to me and funnel their passionate piety into more normal outlets.”

“You think this Cruz may have killed Summer?”

“Normally I’d answer yes to that. He was the only one not tied to a cross when we arrived, and certainly such a deed wouldn’t be beyond him if he thought it would bring some good. I have had many long talks with Juan Cruz and have yet to convince him that the end does not justify the means.” The priest paused and then continued after a moment. “And yet…I do not think he would endanger his group of Penitentes here by committing a murder during one of their rites of penance. He would kill Summer under certain conditions, but he would pick another time and another place.”

As if on cue the basement door opened and Juan Cruz appeared, fully dressed now and carrying the black hood he’d removed earlier. He was a bulky man, distinctly Spanish in appearance, with glistening black hair and tiny eyes to match. I disliked him immediately, but not for any action or word. Rather it was the dislike one often feels for a person of obvious superiority.

“They are all untied and dressed now,” he said quietly.

“Then we must call the police,” Father Hadden said. “There is no other way, Juan.”

“I suppose not,” the bulky man answered.

Simon Ark stepped once more into the purple spot of light that filtered down from above. “Do you know of any of these men who might have had a special reason for killing Glen Summer?”

“Certainly not,” Cruz answered. “He was a sinful man, but he was seeking the way back to God. I doubt if anyone else was even aware of his identity. That’s the purpose of the hoods, you know.”

“Who are the other eighteen?” Simon asked.

“For the most part they are simply poor Mexican laborers who have lived in sin for many years. A few are Americans, like Summer.”

“With the hoods to conceal identity it would be possible for an outsider to gain admittance, would it not?”

“Possible but most difficult,” Cruz replied. “I am careful.”

“The body has not been disturbed?”

“No.”

“Then I suggest we call the police immediately,” Simon said. “Too much time has already elapsed since the killing. Father Hadden and I will remain here while they question you and the others.”

Cruz nodded reluctantly and went off to the telephone. I noticed Simon motioning to me and I walked over to where he stood. “My friend, you can serve no purpose here, but you might serve a very useful one elsewhere. Perhaps you could take Father Hadden’s station wagon and drive to this place called the Oasis. You could be there when the word came in about Glen Summer, and you could see what reaction there was. It might be most interesting.”

It was agreeable with me, if only to get me away from the atmosphere of that place. Simon told Father Hadden of our plan and the priest nodded in agreement. “Take my car and see what you can learn,” he said. “You might especially observe the reaction of Summer’s wife, since I doubt very much if she knew he came to this place.”

I left them there and headed the dusty station wagon back down the road to Santa Marta. About halfway into town I passed the sheriff’s car, filled with grim-faced men, and a moment later the town’s ambulance-hearse followed.

It took me a little time to locate the Oasis, a few miles outside of town. It sat back from the road a ways, a long low building with a parking lot and a few trees around it. Now, in the afternoon sunlight, there were only two cars parked there, and the business seemed slow for a den of sin. I parked the station wagon and went inside.

The place was not unlike a thousand other bars back east. It was a neighborhood sort of joint, even out here in the middle of nowhere. Booths along one wall, the damp and glistening bar along the other. And curtains over an entrance to a back room. A bald bartender with a gray mustache was polishing glasses casually behind the bar, and the only customer appeared to be a good-looking blonde girl propped up on one of the bar stools. She was wearing a loose white blouse and blue shorts that were much too short. I guessed her age at twenty-five or younger, and the way she eyed me when I came in told me she wasn’t presently attached.

“What’ll you have?” the bartender asked without putting down the glass he was polishing.

“Beer,” I mumbled. “Too hot for anything else.” I picked out the stool just two away from the girl and lifted myself onto it. After a moment I asked, “Glen Summer around?”

The bartender placed a bottle of beer and a glass in front of me. He took his time about answering, as if trying to determine the reason for my question. Finally, he said, “Nope. Gone away today. Back tonight.”

“How about Mrs. Summer?”

“She’s in the back. Want I should get her?”

“No. Maybe I’ll wait for Glen.”

The girl in the blue shorts slid off her stool, her shapely thighs bulging a bit under the tight fabric. She picked up her glass, moved it over a bit, and sat down next to me. “Mind?” she asked in reply to my look.

“Why should I?”

“I need somebody to talk to. This town is dead dead dead.”

“So I’ve been noticing.”

“Nothing to do with your afternoons but drink them away. The Oasis is the only civilized place for fifty miles.”

She’d had a few drinks but she was far from drunk. Just unhappy, I decided. “You live in Santa Marta?”

“Nobody lives in Santa Marta. They only exist. A month ago I was working up in Denver. I lost my job and decided to travel south, and this is as far as I got.”

“What keeps you here if you don’t like it?”

She waved an arm in a vague gesture. “Oh, things. You know.”

I didn’t know, and I could see I wasn’t going to find out. “You know Glen Summer?”

“Sure do! He’s a swell fellow.”

“And his wife?”

“She’s a bitch, but that’s the way it usually turns out.”

I took a swallow of beer. “I came down through the mountains, past a big old house with a cross nearby on a hill. What is it, a convent or something?”

She peered at me from under half-closed lids. “A bunch of crazy religious nuts. They go up there and beat each other with whips and stuff. Supposed to be good for their souls.” She gave a little chuckle. “If they did it in New York they’d be locked up in ten minutes.”

“You from New York?”

“I’m from everywhere. You’re just full of questions, aren’t you?” She signaled the bartender to pour her another drink.

The only thing I’d decided about her was that she didn’t know about Summer and the Penitentes, and that wasn’t much. “What’s your name?” I asked, figuring there was nothing suspicious in the direct approach.

“Vicky Nelson,” she answered. “Twenty-four and unmarried.”

I told her my name, said I was from New York, but skipped the rest of the vital statistics. Before we could get in any more conversation I noticed a distant funnel of dust through the window. It was a car, traveling fast in our direction. A good guess told me it was the sheriff and I was right.

He was short and fat—why are sheriffs always fat?—and he wore a holstered revolver low on his hip like some left-over cowboy. He’d come alone to break the news to Mrs. Summer, and I figured that made her a pretty important person in his opinion.

“Delia around?” he asked the bartender.

“She’s in back, working on the books, Sheriff.”

“Get her for me. It’s important.”

The bartender muttered something under his breath and put down the damp cloth. As he went through the back curtains I caught a glimpse of multi-colored metal monsters lining the wall. The place was a little Las Vegas, complete with slot machines, and I was sure gambling wasn’t legal in this state.

After a moment the curtains parted once more and a tall middle-aged woman appeared. She might have been pretty once, but that day was long past. I discovered later she was only thirty-five, but just then I would have guessed her for over forty. “Hello, Sheriff. What’s the trouble?” she asked.

“I’ve got some bad news, Delia,” he said, ignoring the audience of Vicky and me. “It’s about Glen.”

“God—what happened to him?”

“Somebody killed him, Delia. Up at the morada. …”

“Killed him!” she gasped, her voice cracking. “At the morada?” I don’t know which surprised her more—the fact of her husband’s death or its place of occurrence. “What was he doing there?”

“He was…with them, Delia. He was taking part in their…rites, and somebody stabbed him with a sword.”

“I don’t believe it,” she screamed out. “You’re lying!”

The bartender came around the row of stools and took her arm. “Steady, Delia. Let me take you in back.”

The sheriff finally noticed us sitting there and nodded in agreement. “Let’s all go in back,” he decided. And the three of them disappeared through the curtains.

“Glen Summer—dead!” Vicky Nelson said when we were alone. “I just can’t believe it.”

“He was a good friend, eh?”

“He was a good guy. I’d only known him these few weeks but he was a good guy. Say, how come you were asking about that place where Glen got killed, mister?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Just coincidence. What have you heard about it?”

“Like I said, they’re huts. I sure didn’t figure Glen Summer for one of them.”

The sheriff came out of the back with Delia Summer and they got in his car. Her eyes were red but she was holding up well. The bartender returned, too, stepping behind his polished counter and picking up the damp cloth as if nothing had happened.

“Summer’s dead?” I asked him.

“Yeah.” He picked up another glass.

“How’d it happen?”

“Don’t know a thing, mister. You’ll have to ask the sheriff about it.”

“Thanks,” I said, and slid off the stool. I could see I wasn’t going to learn anything more here. “You want a ride anywhere?” I asked Vicky.

“Guess not, thanks. I need a few more of these.” She held up her glass. “See you around.”

“Yeah.” I went out and climbed back into Father Hadden’s station wagon, I didn’t want to go back to the villa in the mountains so I drove to the church where we’d first met the strange priest. It was only then, sitting there in the street before the great stone towers that I remembered the thing that had brought Simon and me to this place.

Father Hadden believed that he was a medium. That was an interesting thing to think about, at least. I didn’t remember ever hearing before about a priest who could communicate with the dead, though it did seem logical that if such things were at all possible a priest would be the person to do it.

I lit a cigarette and tried to conjure up a phantom in the smoke. If Father Hadden could talk to the dead, why couldn’t he talk to the departed Glen Summer and find out who shoved the sword into him? I filed away that thought for further conversation with Simon.

Ten minutes later, halfway through my third cigarette, the familiar sheriff’s car turned into the street before the church. I saw Simon and Father Hadden climb out, followed by the stout shape of the sheriff himself. While I was still debating whether to reveal myself, the sheriff strode quickly to my door and yanked it open. “O.K., mister, climb out. I want to talk to you.”

“What?” I mumbled something, startled by this sudden turn of events. “What did I do?”

The big sheriff rumbled on. “Never mind the wise talk. Come on inside while I get to the bottom of this.”

I slid out of the driver’s seat and followed him into Father Hadden’s rectory, because at this point there was nothing else to do, Simon and the priest were already there, sitting at a big oak table in silence.

“I got your buddy here,” the sheriff said triumphantly. “Nobody puts anything over on Ben Partell. You two were up there without any car, and then I see this joker at the Oasis drivin’ the church’s car. I just put two and three together, and I come up with all of you at the morada and this bird leavin’ for some reason. Why?”

Father Hadden cleared his throat. “Really, Sheriff Partell, there’s no excuse for this type of questioning. …”

“And you be quiet, too,” the sheriff stormed. “I ain’t runnin’ for another three years. I don’t have to worry about the Catholic vote this season.”

It was amazing to me how the calm, semi-dignified man who’d brought Delia Summer the news of her husband’s death could have given way in a brief half-hour to this growling, bullying person who now faced us.

“You think we killed the man?” Simon asked mildly.

“No, I don’t think you killed the man, but I’m sure as hell goin’ to find out, if I have to run in that whole collection of creeps. They were all hangin’ there on their damned crosses, all in the same room, and not a damned one of them saw a thing! You think I believe that?”

“The room was quite dark,” Simon said. “And the dead man was at the end of it. Since I understand the Penitentes were in the habit of entering the room one at a time at irregular intervals, any one of them could have plunged the sword into Summer and left him hanging there in the dimness.”

“But Juan Cruz tied each of them to the cross. If he didn’t do it himself, he sure as hell must know who did.” The sheriff lowered his bulk into one of the chairs and took out a fat cigar. Now that he’d shown us he was the boss, he seemed content to pursue the investigation on a somewhat more subdued level. “Cruz was constantly in and out of that cellar room. You mean to tell me that one of those eighteen guys, stripped down to shorts or a loin-cloth, could have taken the sword off the wall upstairs, carried it down to the cellar in plain sight, and stabbed Summer without anyone seeing him?”

“It is possible,” Simon said.

“Nuts! I’m taking that guy Cruz down to my office, and if he won’t talk I’ll beat the truth out of him. I’ll lock up that whole place if I have to. I’m no hick-town sheriff, you know!”

Father Hadden rose and rested a gentle hand on the sheriff’s shoulder. “I have faith that the sinner will see his way to confess before very long,” he said. “Whatever the world may think of groups like the Penitentes, there is no doubt they are deeply religious men. The very fact of murder in such a place is unthinkable—the continued concealment of the crime by the killer is fantastic. He will come forward to confess, never fear.”

But Sheriff Partell was far from satisfied. “Well, you start praying for his soul, Father. I’m going out and drag that Cruz in for questioning.” And with that he rose from the chair and went outside to his car.

For a moment we sat simply in silence, as people do when some sort of vague disaster has passed them by. Finally, I broke the silence. “He may be a slob, but he’s no dope.”

But Simon Ark only sat in continued silence, as if deep in thought. “Tell me, my friend,” he asked at last, “what adventures befell you at the Oasis?”

“Well.” I told him everything that had happened, as close as I could remember it. Neither he nor Father Hadden interrupted, but when I finished I could see they weren’t impressed.

“Delia Summer must still be up there,” Father Hadden observed. “The sheriff brought her to officially identify the body and then he took us back here.”

Simon stirred in his seat. “My friend, would you like to do a bit more traveling this day?”

“I suppose so, but let me tell you my idea first.”

“And what is that?”

I turned to the priest. “Father, you told us before that you had been in communication with the dead.”

“That is correct. …”

“Then why can’t you talk to the spirit of Glen Summer—talk to him and find out who killed him?”

The priest’s face paled at my suggestion. “I fear you do not understand my problem, not at all.”

Apparently I’d said the wrong thing, for Simon interrupted quickly. “My friend, would you take the car again and journey to the villa in the mountains? Perhaps you can somehow get a chance to speak to Juan Cruz before Partell takes him over.”

“And what should I say to him if I do? Should I ask him if he killed Summer?”

Simon ignored the sarcasm in my remark. “No, my friend. You should ask him if any member of the Penitentes was absent this morning. …”

“Absent?”

“Perhaps there was an extra man in the room. It hardly seems likely that the murderer would allow himself to be tied to a cross in the same room as his victim. But if there was a missing Brother—perhaps that is your answer.”

It sounded reasonable, if a bit far-fetched, and I agreed to go.

The unearthly quiet of the villa on my previous visit had not prepared me for the bedlam which had broken out in the few hours since I’d left. Now there were cars parked everywhere, in a crazy unpatterned manner that reminded me of harbored boats after a hurricane. The sheriff’s car was back, as I’d expected, and now it had been joined by a state police car and a number of unidentified vehicles. At least two of them had press cards in the windows.

A deputy sheriff met me at the door and asked what I wanted. I thought fast and flashed my membership card in the Overseas Press Club. Apparently that was good enough for him, because he stepped aside without a word. Inside the place was alive with reporters and photographers, popping their flash bulbs at every possible corner. A cluster of them had gathered in the big main room, where the stout Partell was standing on a chair examining a rack of antique Spanish swords. Beyond, in a sort of sitting room, I could see Delia Summer, deep in an old straight-backed chair, staring out the window in a state bordering shock. Juan Cruz was with her, speaking softly, but she seemed not to hear his words. I walked in and stood quietly behind them, listening.

“Mrs. Summer, I know it is a difficult thing to grasp,” he was saying, “but your husband came to me a month ago. He was shocked by the sin and vice the Oasis had caused in its brief existence. He wanted to repent. He wanted to join the Brothers of the Blood of Christ and suffer for the sins of his life. Just a few days ago he told me he planned to sell the Oasis and give the money to the Church. He was a man repentant, Mrs. Summer, and you can be thankful he died that way.”

I cleared my throat and he turned toward me. “Ah, you are the friend of Father Hadden and that man Ark. What can I do for you?”

“Could I talk to you alone?” I said. Delia Summer turned tired eyes in my direction but seemed not to really see me at all.

“I’m afraid the good sheriff will never let me completely out of his sight, but perhaps over in the corner. …” He motioned me to the far end of the room, under a great red-draped painting of some Franciscan missionary whose name I didn’t know.

“Simon Ark wanted me to ask you a question,” I began.

“Yes?”

“Were there any members of your Penitentes who were not present this morning?”

A cloud of something—fear?—passed over his eyes before he answered. “There was one,” he said slowly. “The man who first introduced Summer to me. Yates Ambrose, the bartender at the Oasis. …”

“You think this bartender, Ambrose, might have sneaked in here while the others were tied to those crosses? The man was his boss—he might have had a reason for killing him.”

The Mexican never had a chance to answer, because I saw Sheriff Partell bearing down on us with fire in his eyes. “Joe, show this bird to the door, and make sure he doesn’t get back in.” His orders were crisp and to the point, and the deputy he’d spoken to acted at once.

Before I had a chance to say anything else to Cruz I found myself being propelled toward the door and out down the steps to the car. “Sheriff means what he says,” the guy told me. “Stay away or we lock you up.”

I turned quickly at the bottom of the steps and only succeeded in sliding into the dust. I got up slowly like a fool. Whatever Simon and Father Hadden wanted me to find out, I surely hadn’t done it. Unless there was something about that bartender. …

I passed a careful eye over the scattered parking of cars and remembered the complete absence of them when we’d driven up this morning. But there were nineteen men—twenty, counting Summer—in that place and they must have come somehow. They sure didn’t walk.

I started the station wagon and drove slowly around to the rear of the big mansion. As I’d suspected, there was another parking lot there, with some ten or twelve cars nestled under the roof’s tiled overhang. Well, all of the Penitentes weren’t poor Mexicans.

On second thought I took back that last part. Some of them might live at the villa—it was certainly large enough. But there was something in the sand that caught my eye and I swung the car to a quick stop. It was an odd type of tire track, a double tread mark made by a tire only recently put on the market. The rows of double treads ran over the other tracks, showing that it had been the last car in. And there was another set of them on the left, coming out of the driveway. I left my car where it was and walked the fifty feet to the line of vehicles. None of them had the double-tread tires. Somebody had come and gone after they arrived. I took a quick look for footprints, but that was hopeless. With a bit of hope I headed back to the car…

The Oasis was picking up business as the afternoon dragged along, filling its parking lot with a variety of new and old cars. The one I was seeking was at the end of the line, one of the two that had been there earlier in the day. I jotted down the license number and went inside.

The place was more like a morgue than a palace of pleasure, and I guessed that the word had gotten around. The same bartender, who must have been Yates Ambrose, was serving an occasional drink to the somber crew. But what really stopped me was the girl, Vicky Nelson, She was still there, in the same tight shorts, sitting on the same stool smoking her cigarette.

Beyond the curtained partition waited a solid row of one-armed slot machines. There were a couple of green felt poker tables, too, and a cloth-covered bulge that might have been a roulette wheel. But these were quiet today, out of respect for a dead sinner. There were only the slots to greedily accept our quarters.

Vicky and I played a while and then I asked her, “Ever hear any talk about Yates Ambrose and Mrs. Summer?”

“You kidding? Not a chance! He couldn’t have gotten her with a fish net. Besides, he’s one of those religious nuts.”

“A Penitente?”

“Could be, for all I know.”

“How come he works in a place like this?”

“Who knows? Trying to convert Summer, I suppose.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re full of questions, aren’t you?”

I handed her a couple of quarters. “Play for me. I’ll be right back.”

Out in front the murmurers were still in force, holding their private wake for the late owner of the Oasis. I leaned on the end of the bar until I attracted Ambrose’s attention and I motioned him toward me.

“Got a minute, Yates?”

“Who told you my name?” He was still clutching the bar rag.

“I’m a friend of Juan Cruz.”

“Who?”

“Cut the act. I know you’re one of them. Why weren’t you up there today?”

“You must be crazy.”

“Or maybe you were up there, huh?”

“Look, mister, I don’t know anything about it. I belonged to the thing for a while, went up there a few times. I even told the boss about it and introduced him to Cruz. But I quit a couple of weeks back. That nut!”

“Was the crucifixion bit a usual thing?”

Ambrose nodded. “Every week or so. He had twenty wooden crosses in the basement room, and he’d tie us to them with horsehair cords. Sometimes he’d let himself be tied there too.”

“Did each of you have your own cross?”

Ambrose shook his head. “It wasn’t quite that organized. But Cruz never let us forget we were sinners.”

“And you weren’t out there this morning?”

“No sir! I didn’t go near the place.”

I was pretty sure he was lying, but I’d never get anywhere with him. I thanked him and went back to Vicky Nelson.

“Hi, girl. How’s things been in my absence?”

She gave me a big smile. “I beat the thing out of five dollars with one of your quarters. Put it nearly all back in, though.”

There was a stir of activity in the front and we poked our heads through the curtain. Delia Summer had returned and she was telling Ambrose to close the place up. “We’ll be open again after the funeral,” she told the crowd. “Go home now, and mourn my husband’s murder.”

They murmured and moved, slowly filing toward the door. Mrs. Summer had regained much of her composure now, but I could see she was still a shaken woman. “We have to leave,” I told Vicky. “Come on.”

“Leave? Where will I go?”

“You must have a home somewhere. Where’ve you been staying?”

She thought about that, the drink gradually beginning to cloud her vision. “A motel someplace. I don’t remember quite where. Can’t I come along with you?”

“Girl, there’s fifteen years and a wife between us.”

But by this time Delia Summer had appeared. “Haven’t I seen you somewhere before today?” she asked me, frowning in concentration.

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, we’re closing anyway, till after my husband’s funeral. You’ll have to leave.”

I shrugged and helped Vicky gather up her quarters. As soon as we were out the door Delia Summer and Yates Ambrose began closing the place up, getting ready for the period of mourning. I wondered if anyone else worked at the place and I asked Vicky.

“At night a few dealers and stick men come in,” she said. “Glen Summer hired them in Vegas.”

“And Sheriff Partell winks at all this?”

“He sure does, near as I can see. Maybe Summer was paying him off.”

One of the remaining cars in the lot apparently belonged to Vicky, but in her condition I could hardly let her drive it. She was beginning to sober up a bit, and I figured I could drive her around in the afternoon air for a while. “Climb in,” I said, holding open the station wagon door. “You can stay with me a little while and then I’ll bring you back here to your car.”

“You’re nice,” she said, climbing in.

I headed back toward Father Hadden’s church, because I was anxious to report my progress—or lack of it—to Simon. It wasn’t until I pulled up in front of the place again that I remembered Vicky’s costume. I couldn’t very well produce her in Father Hadden’s rectory in those shorts.

“Stay in the car,” I told her. “I’ll be back.”

“You’re going into church?”

“There are worse places, believe me, I’ll be back.”

Inside, Simon Ark and Father Hadden were still sitting at the table, just as I’d left them. Empty coffee cups told me the hours had been talkative and thirsty.

“I’m back. You two get everything solved?”

Simon peered at me through the lengthening afternoon shadows that were quietly stealing into the room. “We have had an interesting talk. Did you learn anything?”

I started at the beginning and told them everything that had happened, especially about the tire tracks that appeared to be from Yates Ambrose’s car. “Simon, I think he went out there this morning, took off his clothes and put on his black hood and killed Summer with the sword. It’s the only solution as I see it.”

Simon smiled a bit, as he often did when I was becoming positive about some theory of mine. “It is hardly the only solution, my friend. But perhaps we may learn something tonight. Perhaps your idea of Father Hadden communicating with the dead was not so bad after all.”

I shot a glance at the priest, but his face did not change expression. “You mean…?”

Simon nodded slightly. “Father Hadden has explained his problem—the problem that originally brought us to Santa Marta. It does indeed appear that he is able to form some sort of communication with the dead of this parish. In fact, the good Father believes he can reach anyone whose confession he ever heard during life.”

“Fantastic! Do you believe this, Simon?”

“There may be some truth to it. At times God moves in strange ways.”

I turned to the priest. “You’ll actually do it? Hold a séance or whatever they call them? Tonight?”

Father Hadden nodded reluctantly. “Mr. Ark is most persuasive. I will do as he wishes.”

“Who’s going to be here for this, Simon? Just the three of us?”

“On the contrary, my friend. I hope to have a great many people present—as many as possible. We will start by inviting the good Sheriff Partell.”

That even brought a laugh from me. “You’ll never get him down here. And if you did, he’d never sit still for anything as crazy as this.”

“Perhaps he would,” Simon mused. “Perhaps he would. In any event, I will go out now like the servant in the Gospels and assemble some guests for our gathering. I shall return by nightfall.”

“Oh—say, there’s this girl in Father’s car, the one I told you about. …”

Simon nodded. “She may want to join us, too.”

I couldn’t quite picture Vicky Nelson sitting at any table that didn’t have drinks on it, but I supposed there was always a first time. “You’d better get her some clothes first,” I warned him. “She hasn’t got many on now.”

And when Simon had left I sat for a time in silence with Father Hadden, as the sun finally began to vanish behind the meager line of shrubs and cactus in the distance. “Mr. Ark is truly a strange man,” he said at last.

“You’re right there, Father,” I agreed. “I’ve known him for twenty years, off and on, and still I don’t really know him.”

“Do you believe what he says about his past? About back there—in Egypt?”

I spread my palms flat on the table. “Frankly, he’s never told me too much about it. Just that he’s lived a long, long time. Occasionally, when the dark winds of night are passing over the moon, I even find myself thinking that perhaps he actually is over fifteen hundred years old. …”

The priest nodded. “One could believe it, very easily. He spoke of other things this afternoon, of a strange Coptic priest in the first century after Christ, who wrote a gospel glorifying the Lord. The words were devout but hardly divinely inspired. The Fathers of the Church denounced it as a fraud, and the Coptic priest lost everything. He was in a unique if impossible situation—his writings had been holy praises to God, worthy of a place in Heaven, but the deceit he’d used in circulating them as a fifth gospel made such a reward impossible. It was a situation even baffling for the Almighty, and this man could be sent neither to Heaven nor Hell. He was doomed to walk the earth forever, until such time as God would decide his fate.”

It was the first time I’d ever heard the story, and I wondered if this really was the strange secret of Simon Ark. “Did he tell you the name of this work?”

“It has come down to us, in a greatly altered form, as The Shepherd of Hermas. There is such a book. I am familiar with it.”

“And why would he tell you these things?” I asked.

“Perhaps,” said the priest slowly, “perhaps even a man as powerful as Simon Ark needs help sometimes. Perhaps he did not come solely to help me.”

“But why does he seek Satan, Father?” I asked. “Will the finding of the devil somehow break the spell of this curse that haunts him?”

But the priest only shook his head. “That I do not know, I do not even know if these words he spoke were true words. He was perhaps only telling me that the ways of God are often strange and unbelievable. He was only telling me that the fantastic, the supernatural, is possible on this earth—if it is God’s will.”

“And?”

“And he told me to accept this strange power of mine—accept it and turn it to God’s uses. He told me that tonight I must attempt to contact the spirit of Glen Summer. …”

“But aren’t such things as séances against religion?”

“He says that some good can come even out of the bad. Though the end may never justify the means, surely at times circumstances must dictate the wiseness of fools and the foolishness of wise men.”

“And so Simon thinks the killer will give himself away at the séance?”

The priest shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows? I assure you I have never done anything like this before. My…spirits have always come in private before.”

“Well, I’ve seen a few of these things in the movies. Everyone sits in a circle and holds hands, or something like that.”

Father Hadden nodded. “I suppose we must duplicate the expected conditions.”

“Could I have a cup of that coffee while we’re waiting?” I asked him. “I suddenly remembered I’ve had mighty little to eat today.”

“Surely. I think I even have enough food for us.”

And that’s what happened. I ate there with the priest while Simon Ark roamed the streets of Santa Marta, seeking out those we needed for the final act of the little drama.

And presently, as the night shadows slipped slowly across the plain, Simon returned with Sheriff Partell in tow. “I must be crazy to even come here,” he was protesting. “Am I supposed to believe this big-deal priest is goin’ to conjure up a murderer for me? I’ve already got the killer locked up, and it’s that guy Juan Cruz, believe me!”

But Simon took the renewed attack with a slight smile. “I have not yet been able to convince the good sheriff that we will need the presence of Mr. Cruz as well.”

“The hell you will!”

“Consider, Sheriff Partell, if you do not arrive at a quick and satisfactory solution to this case, the state police will move in very soon. There are already some of them around. They will move in, and ask questions, and soon they will begin to wonder about your connection with the Oasis. …”

“Damn it, I have no connection with the Oasis!”

“When a wide-open place like that operates in a town as small as this, the sheriff must have a connection with it.”

“I looked the other way, that’s all I did! Are you going to crucify—” He stopped as soon as the word was out of his mouth. “Are you going to hang me just because I let people do what they wanted to do? It’s a free country!”

I could see that Simon had him on the defensive, and he pressed his advantage. “Freedom to violate the law is not found in any constitution,” he pointed out. “It would be to your advantage to cooperate with us.”

“I’m here, ain’t I?” the sheriff growled. “How the hell much else cooperation do you want?”

“We want Juan Cruz,” Simon answered simply.

“Nuts! He stays in his cell.”

“You haven’t actually charged him with anything yet, you know. You can only hold him a few more hours.”

Partell sighed and flung up his hands, a beaten man. “O.K., O.K.—you can have him. Where is this crazy thing goin’ to take place. Here?”

Simon glanced at Father Hadden, saw the troubled frown of uncertainty on his face, and answered for him. “No, I think not. I think we should return to the villa in the mountains—to the scene of the crime, as they say. …”

And so we went back, up the hill now darkened by desert night, up and over dusty mountain roads leading nowhere, till finally the moonlight caused the image of the great wooden cross on the rise near the morada. Other cars were arriving, too, and I could see that Simon had done his work well in gathering these people together.

The great house itself was dark now, guarded only by a single deputy sheriff who snapped a quick and sloppy half-salute at Partell. The eighteen, whoever they were, had long since headed for their homes, their moment of dim suffering gone now. And if I wondered why Simon had not summoned them back, I was soon to learn the reason.

The great central room of the place seemed crowded with familiar faces, but a quick count showed only eight of us—Simon and myself, Father Hadden and Sheriff Partell, Juan Cruz, a bare-legged and puzzled Vicky Nelson, and—surprisingly—Delia Summer and Yates Ambrose. Simon’s travels had apparently carried him to the Oasis.

“If you’ll be all seated around this table,” Simon began, “I hope we can get this over with quite quickly.”

“Do you really think you can contact my husband?” Mrs. Summer wanted to know.

“We are certainly going to try, madame. But first let me say a few words of introduction.” As he spoke, we were seating ourselves around the big table. I took a chair to the left of Simon, right next to Vicky Nelson, who was still looking mildly bewildered at this whole business.

“You all know,” Simon began, “what has been happening here, in this place. A practice of medieval times, that of extreme physical penances for sins, has been revived. It has been revived and carried to extremes by a group of devout but misguided men. Perhaps Juan Cruz here was the most misguided of them all, since he was their leader.”

The eyes of us all went to Cruz, who sat opposite Simon, between the sheriff and Yates Ambrose. “Today,” Simon continued, “one of this group died, killed with a Spanish sword as he hung on a cross in the dim basement below us. As you know, he was Glen Summer, owner of the Oasis.”

Beside me, Vicky moved restlessly in her chair. Beyond the leaded glass windows I could hear a wind rising in the mountains. Perhaps there was a storm on the way. “As a few of you also know, Father Hadden here has been deeply troubled of late by a strange power that has thrust itself unwanted upon him. It is the power to communicate, under certain circumstances, with the spirits of those who have departed the earth. I’ll turn you over to Father Hadden now.”

The priest, looking uncomfortable, cleared his throat and began. “It is a generally accepted belief that the soul of a dead person does not leave the body for some hours after death. I believe that this fact is the basis of my strange power. I believe that by coming to the place of death within twelve to fifteen hours I can sometimes make contact with the soul of the departed. This is what I will try now. Please join hands to complete the circle.”

We did so, and the lights of the room dimmed, apparently on a signal to one of the waiting deputies outside. Soon the place was almost black, with only a distant glow through the windows to show us the faint outlines of each other’s faces.

“Now,” Father Hadden’s voice droned on, “silence, please…concentrate and hold hands tightly…do not break the circle…do not break the circle… I am calling upon the departed spirit of Glen Summer… Glen Summer…can you hear me?…are you still among us, Glen Summer…?”

He kept it up like that, talking to himself in the darkness, for perhaps ten minutes—until my palm began to sweat in Vicky’s grip. Then, without warning, there came a moaning sound from very close. It might have been at the center of the great round table. The moaning increased in volume until it formed words, and Vicky’s fingernails dug into my hand.

“I have come,” the voice boomed.

“That’s not my husband,” Delia Summer gasped. “That’s not his voice!”

But whoever it was, the voice continued. “Hello, Delia…hello, Juan. …”

I heard Cruz utter a startled gasp, and then Father Hadden’s voice cut in. “Who killed you, Glen? Who?”

“I…I don’t know. … Felt the sword go in. …”

“It’s some sort of trickery,” Yates Ambrose muttered across the table. “That’s not Glen.”

But Father Hadden pressed on. “Can you tell us anything at all, Glen?”

“No…except…except…”

“What? Except what?”

“Except how did the killer know which one of them was me?”

As soon as the words had been uttered I realized the truth of them, the single fantastic truth that none of us had noticed or questioned. With nineteen nearly naked men hanging on crosses in a dim cellar, their heads completely hooded, how could anyone know which one of them was Glen Summer?

And as soon as the thought entered my head I knew the answer. Only one man could have known which of those hanging figures was Summer. One man, the man who tied him to the cross—Juan Cruz.

“No!” Cruz shouted in the same instant, and leaped free of the human ring. Before I knew what was happening the lights were flooding down on us, and Juan Cruz’s terrified figure was leaping over a low sofa by the leaded windows.

“I knew it was him all the time,” Partell snorted, reaching for his gun. But, somehow, Simon was there beside him, clutching the gun hand.

And in a moment it was all over, with three deputies bearing down on top of Cruz’s struggling body. Partell shook free from Simon’s grip and finally got the revolver out. “Why didn’t you let me shoot him?” he muttered. “It would have saved the expense of a trial.”

“Because,” Simon said quietly, “he isn’t guilty.”

“What? Who the hell could have done it if he didn’t?”

And Simon Ark turned towards the others. “Suppose you answer that, Mrs. Summer. Suppose you tell him how you killed your husband. …”

We just stood there, waiting for the screams of denial that never came. I think in that first moment even I must have thought that at last Simon had made a mistake, that certainly Delia Summer could not possibly have plunged the sword into her husband’s chest. But no denial came.

“Are you crazy, Ark?” Sheriff Partell snorted, breaking the shocked silence.

“Not at all.”

“But that voice. …”

Simon smiled. “Forgive me, it was my voice, slightly disguised and removed from its usual position. Father Hadden and I really had little hope that the spirit of Glen Summer would really present itself before so many people. We hoped to scare a confession out of Mrs. Summer, but unfortunately we only succeeded in scaring the innocent Senor Cruz.”

“And why couldn’t Cruz be the killer?” Partell wanted to know.

“The reason for that goes deeply into the character of the man and the whole practice of the Penitentes. It has already been pointed out that neither Cruz nor any of the others would be a party to a simple murder in such a place as this, while in the grip of a religious fervor. Such good and evil just could not exist side by side in the same man. Besides, none of the eighteen would know which cross was occupied by Summer this day. Only Cruz would know that, and he was the most fervent of all—the one person least likely to murder within the walls of his sacred palace. There remained one possibility, however. Suppose—suppose Cruz committed the murder in a fit of religious zeal, somehow believing Summer to be evil? Suppose he had some insane quirk that dictated the very ritual murder we all feared so much.”

Sheriff Partell nodded. “I still think that’s what happened.”

But Simon Ark had not finished speaking. “Consider the man, though. Consider Juan Cruz, deciding he must murder the hanging figure on the cross. Either insane or in an uncontrollable fit of religious passion, he seizes a weapon from the wall there and heads for the basement.” He paused only a moment. “And what weapon does he seize?”

The sheriff gestured toward the wall. “All there are are swords and spears. He didn’t have much choice.”

“But he did! He had the ultimate choice. He had the choice between stabbing Glen Summer in the left side with a sword—a spear like the Roman soldier used on Christ as He hung dying on Calvary. …”

We were silent then, all of us, because, somehow, we knew he was right. But then Sheriff Partell spoke again. “O.K., but why does that make it his wife?”

“We have already shown that the killer had to be able to recognize Glen Summer hanging nearly naked in a dimly lit basement, with his entire head covered. Who could have recognized him, for his body alone? Ambrose the bartender? Possible but doubtful. Only one person could enter that basement with the certainty of recognizing the naked chest and legs of Glen Summer. Only one person—the wife who shared his bed.”

And now Vicky Nelson spoke up beside me. “I don’t know too much about this whole crazy thing, but from what I have heard I’d like you to explain how Mrs. Summer or any other woman could walk past eighteen men without being noticed. After all, they were all supposed to be naked to the waist, weren’t they?”

Simon cleared his throat. “What nearly everyone tends to forget in dealing with real-life crime is that it is not at all like crime in books. In a mystery novel a killer must have a foolproof, or seeming foolproof, method of murder before he strikes. But in real life a murderer might be impelled to strike with only a fifty-fifty chance of escape, if the motive was great enough. Delia Summer’s motive was great enough, and her chances of escape were better than fifty-fifty.”

“But how?”

“She knew about the basement room; she knew about the rite that would be going on this morning. She knew it all because her husband had told her. She entered the villa, took down the sword—perhaps she knew about that, too, or perhaps she had brought some other weapon which she discarded in favor of the sword—and then made her way down the steps to the basement. And then she walked past those hanging men, studying them in the dimness until she recognized her husband.”

“And they never saw her?”

“They never saw her, my friend, because—simply—their eyes were closed. You must remember that these men were religious mystics, in the grip of a highly emotional experience. Each man, as he hung there with the ropes cutting into his wrists, was in a sense another Christ. Each man, deep in his own prayerful thoughts, would naturally have closed his eyes—especially since there was nothing to see in the dim basement. Delia Summer guessed this, and she was right. Moving silently on the stone floor she had perfect safety—until the very moment she plunged the sword into her husband’s chest. And even then the odds were with her. Already in pain from the ropes, there was a good chance he would not cry out in the split second before death. He didn’t, and she won her only gamble.”

Through it all, Delia Summer had been silent. Now she spoke. “Why did I kill him?” she asked, not making it a denial but rather only a question. A question to which she already knew the answer.

“Because, dear lady, your husband told you he planned to sell the Oasis and donate the money to the Church. You couldn’t stand the thought of a future of poverty chained to a religious fanatic. So you had to kill him before he carried out his plan. You had to kill so you would inherit control of the Oasis. And you risked killing him here because this was the last place on earth a woman would be suspected.”

I could tell by the faces around us that he’d convinced us all, but I still had a final question. “Simon, what about Ambrose’s tire tracks outside?”

“Simple, my friend. She borrowed his car. I considered the possibility that Ambrose was guilty, but quickly rejected it. He had no obvious motive, and as I’ve explained, it was doubtful if he could have been certain of recognizing Summer’s masked body. In any event, there was a final clue pointing to Mrs. Summer. Sheriff Partell told me that when she arrived here with him, she broke away and ran sobbing to the basement. How did she know the way to the basement, or that her husband had died there? She knew because she’d been here before today—to search him out and kill him.”

“While she was prowling around she might have run into Cruz,” I objected.

“She knew he’d be at prayer. It was no more of a chance than any of the rest of it. When her husband told her of this place, he no doubt went into great detail.”

Sheriff Partell’s expression was somber. “Delia,” he said quietly, “I’m afraid I’ll have to…”

“I know,” she said. “It was the chance I took.”

“You’re confessing?”

But there was still a spark of fire in her eyes. “Not on your life! I’ll fight it out with a jury.”

Vicky Nelson turned to me with a low snort. “Didn’t I tell you she was a real bitch? Let’s get out of here. …”

Simon and I dropped Vicky back at her car, and that was the last I saw of her—though the memory of those legs stayed with me for many days. We spent the night with Father Hadden, and I know that he and Simon talked far into it, of the strange happenings and the strange things that did not happen. And when we left the next morning the priest was busy telephoning—talking to the eighteen men who were all that remained of the case’s loose ends.

A month or so later I received a letter at my New York office. It was sent to Simon Ark, in my care, and it was from Father Hadden. It had been a busy month for him, but it was a happy letter. He had succeeded in organizing the Penitentes into a group to help him with parish activities, and he had great hopes that their overwhelming piety was being channeled into more normal activities. Juan Cruz, unfortunately, had suffered a mild nervous breakdown—but Father Hadden even held out hope for him. And surprisingly enough he added a P. S. to the effect that Vicky Nelson and Yates Ambrose were planning to be married.

“He doesn’t say a word about the spirits,” I pointed out to Simon.

“It is a happy letter, my friend. Full of the joy of young love and older faith. There will be no more spirits for Father Hadden.”

And one day—it must have been a year later—the priest himself visited us, happy in the midst of a job well done. “I’m here only for a few days,” he said. “I couldn’t pass through without seeing my old friends.”

“How are Vicky and Yates?” I asked.

“Happy,” he said, and that after all was a complete answer.

And Simon smiled down on the man of God. “No more spirits?”

But the priest hesitated before answering. “Only one, Mr. Ark. Only one.”

“One?”

He nodded. “Delia Summer died in the gas chamber last month.” And that was all he would say. …

THE JUDGES OF HADES

THE NIGHTMARE BEGAN WITH eleven words in a telegram: YOUR SISTER AND FATHER KILLED IN AUTO ACCIDENT. COME AT ONCE.

That was all.

I stared at it for a full five minutes, reading it over and over, hoping that the words would somehow magically change before my eyes.

Then finally I looked away from the telegram on my desk and gazed out the window at the snowy February canyons of Manhattan. At that moment Maple Shades, Indiana, seemed a lifetime away, and even my sister and my father were merely vague figures in my memory.

But now they were dead. I would have to return to Maple Shades, Indiana, now, and stand beside the graves as their bodies were lowered into the ground, and perhaps shed a tear for what might have been.

I picked up the telephone and dialed the Westchester number where my wife would be, just starting to prepare the evening meal. “Hello, dear,” I said into the mouthpiece. “I just received a telegram from Uncle Philip. My sister and father were both killed in an auto accident. …”

“Oh, no. …” Shelly gasped on the other end of the line. “How awful!”

“Look…I guess we’re going to have to fly out there for the funeral and things. Can you be ready to go tonight?”

“Of course.”

“Good. I’ll call the airline now and see about reservations. I think there’s a plane around seven. …”

And so it began.

I stuffed the telegram into my pocket.

Luckily the major Spring book promotions were already under way at Neptune Books, so I had no thoughts of business to trouble me that night as our plane winged its way over Pennsylvania’s ragged mountains. And with Shelly in the seat next to me, I felt that I could face anything the people of Maple Shades had to offer.

It was an odd town, Maple Shades, lying as it did on the banks of the not-so-beautiful Ohio at a point where three states almost touched. For though it was actually located in the state of Indiana, its business and social life was influenced more by the fact that it was somewhat a suburb of Cincinnati, across the Ohio line. And its thinking more than once had reflected that of the South, as represented by Kentucky, the third state which bounded that odd bend in the Ohio River.

It was a combination of cultures which had made me flee from Maple Shades as soon as I was able, leaving behind the smug suburban aristocracy into which I had been born. I’d left nearly twenty years ago, to become a newspaper reporter out west; to go off to the wars; to meet and marry Shelly Constance; and finally to rise to the vice-presidency of a leading New York publishing house before the age of forty.

In all those years I’d never been back to Maple Shades, except for occasional Christmas visits—and once right after I’d married Shelly, when I knew my dying mother would want to see the girl I’d chosen.

But now it was time to return. My sister, whom I loved, and my father, who maybe wasn’t so bad after all, were dead—dead together in an automobile somewhere along the banks of the Ohio, or perhaps against one of the tall, stately maples that gave the town its name. They were gone, and when I thought about the people they’d left behind—Uncle Philip and his wife, my sister’s husband, and the rest—I wondered why it had to be those two who died.

“We’re coming into the Cincinnati airport,” Shelly said quietly, a voice at my side cutting sharply through the fog of my thoughts.

“So soon?”

“So soon,” she repeated. “Is it going to be that hard for you to go back, to face them after all these years?”

“I don’t know. I just have a feeling. …”

The plane bumped to a rocky landing and slowed suddenly as the twin propellers reversed their pitch. We were there. We were in Cincinnati, and home was only a few miles away, across the state line.

We drove through the city to Bridgetown, and then out route 264 till we picked up the modern divided highway at Cleves. It was a familiar route, and the cab driver hurried along through the gently falling snow with the air of one retracing a familiar but boring journey.

Then we were across the state line, into Indiana. And soon I saw the familiar billboard standing to the right of the road: WELCOME TO MAPLE SHADES, THE HOTTEST LITTLE TOWN IN AMERICA. POPULATION: 32,590. KIWANIS CLUB MEETS EVERY WEDNESDAY NOON.

I laughed a little to myself when I saw it, remembering a favorite high school trick of my youth. Someone was forever slipping out at night to paint over the part of the sign reading MAPLE S, and drivers in the morning were often quite startled to be confronted with a sign reading: WELCOME TO HADES, THE HOTTEST LITTLE TOWN IN AMERICA.

In spite of this, the town fathers had never changed their slogan, and I imagined the high school boys were still at it, when the spirit moved them.

But the cab had slowed now, and I was startled to find that we’d already arrived at my uncle’s rambling white house near the edge of town. Maple Shades was the county seat, and both my father and uncle served as judges, a position which called for rambling white houses in a town like this.

We paid the driver and started up the steps with our bags. I didn’t know whether Uncle Philip intended to put us up at his house during our stay; but he had plenty of room and I decided to give him the opportunity, anyway.

He opened the door at our ring, and at once he was the Uncle Philip of old, calm, dignified, sardonic. “Well,” he began in his best courtroom voice, “I’m glad to see you two could make it.” He always included Shelly in his attacks on me, as if by marrying me she had taken on the burden of my imagined guilt.

“We came as soon as I received your telegram, Philip,” I replied. “You remember Shelly, of course.”

“Of course. … Well, come on in out of the cold. The others are all here, too.”

BY “THE OTHERS” I soon saw that he meant his wife, Rita; my sister’s husband, Frank Broderick; and the local District Attorney, Hallison James. Hallison had been the family’s closest friend for years, and at the moment he was the only one of the four I was happy to see.

Rita’s eyes were red-rimmed, though I couldn’t imagine why she would ever shed tears for my father and sister. Frank was in bad shape, I saw at once, and I felt suddenly a little more kindly toward him. My sister, Stella, had been a wonderful girl, and the loss of her would be great after five years of married life.

“How did it happen?” I asked.

“We don’t know exactly,” James stated quietly. “It was down on the River Road. …”

“Who was driving?”

“They were in two separate cars,” Uncle Philip mumbled, in a voice that was hardly his. “Richard was driving his car north, and Stella was traveling south on the same road. The…the cars crashed head-on, a tremendous impact. Both of them were killed almost instantly.”

“But,” I began, “but how could such a thing have happened? There are no curves in the River Road, and it’s well-lighted. Was it icy?”

“Dry as a bone,” Uncle Philip muttered. “The snow didn’t start until later.”

My mind was in a fog, struggling to break free from the haze of half-formed horrors that lurked there. “Then how?”

Hallison James spoke with a sorrowful voice. “We don’t think it was an accident,” he said, speaking very much like the District Attorney. “We think it was a case of murder and suicide. …”

After that, everyone talked. And talked.

I listened, and after a time Shelly came over to my side and slipped her warm hand into mine. And I clung to it because it was the only real thing in a world suddenly full of shattered images and toppling towers. I was surprised myself at how much the news affected me. I was surprised at how much feeling I still had left for a father I didn’t love, and a sister I hadn’t seen in two years.

“Oh, such coincidences happen, of course,” Hallison was saying. “There was a case like it in Ohio a year or two ago. And another out West, where a woman killed her own child while she was out driving several blocks from her house. But the situation is different here. Stella couldn’t have helped recognizing her father’s black-and-white Buick, just as he must have seen her station wagon coming down the road toward him. They saw each other, because it was after eight o’clock, with plenty of daylight to see by.”

He paused to light a fresh cigar, and I took a firmer grip on Shelly’s warm hand. Frank Broderick still sat in silence, his head bowed low. And Rita and Philip stood together in somber silence across the room.

“No,” Hallison James continued, “it couldn’t have been an accident. They saw each other, and one of them pointed the automobile at the other; and they hit…”

I thought about Stella, with her fiery temper inherited from our father. Yes, either one of them might have done it, in a moment of blind rage.

“What side of the road were the cars oh?” I asked.

“They were in the middle. Apparently the intended victim tried to swerve out of the way, but didn’t quite make it.”

“Did anyone see the accident?”

“Not really. A farmer out in his field had his head turned the other way. He turned as soon as he heard the crash, then ran to his house to call the highway patrol. He reached the wreck itself within three minutes, but by that time they were both dead.”

Uncle Philip added the exacting details of the accident with a voice that was almost relish. “Stella was thrown through the windshield. She received a broken neck that killed her instantly. Her father must have died seconds later, of multiple internal injuries and a fractured skull.”

“All right, Philip,” Frank Broderick shouted, rising to his feet, “you don’t have to gloat about it. I know you hated them both, but she was my wife, you know.”

Uncle Philip produced a silk handkerchief to wipe his sweated brow. “You’re upset, my boy,” he said after a moment. “No one regrets this tragedy more than I do.”

“I’ll bet,” was Frank’s comment.

I sighed quietly to myself and wished I was back in New York. The good life in Maple Shades was the same as always—the only new element seemed to be the introduction of Frank Broderick, a young man who seemed to belong with the rest of them.

I hadn’t known Frank before my sister married him; even now I knew only that he had been a nebulous sportsman, sailing the inland waterway between the cocktail parties of Washington and the steaming sands of Florida. Stella had met him six years earlier, on a trip to the West Indies with our father. They’d still loved each other then, but many things had happened in six years.

She’d fallen in love with Frank, and they’d married a year later. And it was because of Frank that the final breakup had come, a few years back. It was then, over a complicated legal matter, that my father, the judge, had ruled against his own son-in-law in a decidedly unfair decision. From that day on, Stella and her father had never spoken to each other.

But could the memory of this unfairness have made Stella smash her car into his? I didn’t know, but it was something I had to find out.

“Of course,” James was saying, “you’ll want to keep this quiet. I can see that nothing gets in the papers about it.”

Uncle Philip’s wife, Rita, agreed. “Certainly, Hallison. But won’t people talk anyway? There’s another election this Fall and I don’t want to go through another thing like the Judges of Hades campaign.”

“What was that?” I asked. There was so much about their ordinary conversation that I didn’t understand. I was beginning to realize how much I’d really lost contact with these people who were my relatives.

“Somebody in the opposition party started calling Philip and Richard the Judges of Hades. Apparently it was a name given to a group of Greek vase paintings that someone came across.” Rita explained. “It was a clever name, especially since the boys are always painting over the sign. Of course, what they were driving at was that Philip and Richard were too strict in their verdicts.” She said it as a school teacher might; and then I remembered that she’d once been a school teacher, before she married my uncle.

Uncle Philip smiled slightly. “My brother and I were what used to be referred to as Hanging Judges. It’s a matter of degree, of course. Both Richard and I have always felt that the punishment should more than fit the crime, as a warning to future criminals.”

“Well,” Hallison interrupted, “we won’t get anywhere this way. We’re agreed to keep any hint of murder out of the papers, but there’s a further problem to be resolved.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Your uncle here feels that we should hire a private detective to make discreet inquiries about the accident.”

“What?” I almost shouted. “I thought you just said you wanted to hush the whole thing up!”

For a second everybody was talking at once; but finally they quieted down, and Uncle Philip’s voice emerged from the babble. “As I said before, I’m up for reelection this November. I don’t want somebody springing this story the week before the election unless I have the answers ready for them.”

Though I certainly didn’t go along with his motives, I was beginning to think that I, too, would like to know more about the accident on the River Road that morning. “All right,” I agreed finally. “Are you planning to get someone from Cincinnati?”

“And have the word all over town in a day?” Uncle Philip moaned. “Impossible! What we need is a total stranger. We were thinking you might know someone in New York, who could…”

The fact that I was a book publisher somehow had connected itself with private detectives in these people’s minds. I could see it was no use explaining that the only private eye I’d ever seen had been one from Kansas City, whom I’d met at a writers’ conference.

And then I thought of Simon Ark. …

“Yes,” I replied slowly. “I know a man; perhaps I could call him.”

“Certainly.” Uncle Philip motioned toward the phone. “The sooner the better.”

-2-

I took the phone into the next room and partly closed the door. It wouldn’t do for them to hear my conversation with Simon Ark. I asked for long distance, and within a minute I was connected with the night operator at the College of the Hudson.

“Professor Dark, please.”

“Who?”

“This is a long distance call from Indiana. I wish to speak to Professor Dark; he’s doing basic research in Satanism with your Ancient History department.”

“Oh! Certainly. Just a moment, please.”

The moment stretched to five, and I was beginning to think I should have called person-to-person when finally I heard the familiar voice on the other end of the line.

“Professor Dark here.”

I hadn’t quite figured out why Simon Ark was hiding his identity during his stay at the College of the Hudson; but since he was producing a definitive work on Satanism in ancient times for Neptune Books to publish, I wasn’t really concerned what name he used. For certainly no one knew more about Satan than Simon Ark, a man who’d devoted his life and work to seeking out the devil’s deeds.

“This is your publisher talking,” I told him.

“Who…?” And then he recognized my voice. “Oh, how are you this evening?”

“Pretty good, Simon. Look, I’m calling from Indiana. My father and my sister were killed this morning in an auto accident. …”

“I’m awfully sorry to hear that.”

“Thank you. The reason I’m calling is that there’s an element of mystery in the thing. I don’t want to discuss it over the phone, but I’d like you to fly out here if you could.”

“Well…” he paused, undecided by my unexpected request. “I’m not a detective, you know,” he said finally.

“We just need someone to investigate the facts, to maybe come up with something we’re all too close to see.”

“Is it…” I heard his intake of breath at the other end of the line as he spoke the words, “…is it anything…in my line of work?”

“No,” I told him. “This would be a personal favor to me.”

I knew he couldn’t refuse when I put it on a friendship basis. “All right,” he said; “I’ll be out there tomorrow. Just where are you?”

“It’s a town called Maple Shades. It’s in Indiana, but you’ll have to take a plane to Cincinnati and get a cab to take you out. It’s only about thirty-five miles outside the city.” I made a snap decision and added, “Shelly and I will be staying at the Shades Hotel. Ask for us there.”

“All right. I’ll see you around noon tomorrow.”

I hung up and returned to the others.

“Is he coming?” Uncle Philip asked.

“Yes. He’ll be here around noon.”

“Can we trust him?” Rita wanted to know.

“As much as you can trust me.”

They were silent at that, and I figured it was probably the wrong thing to say. But right then I didn’t particularly care. I looked around at them all, at Uncle Philip and Rita, at Frank Broderick, and even at Hallison James; and I felt more than ever that these people were somehow responsible for the morning’s tragedy on the River Road.

“Shelly and I will be staying at the Shades,” I told them, and nobody protested. “My man will be here around noon and we can continue things then. I suppose you’ll all be at the funeral parlor tomorrow?”

They all nodded and Frank Broderick said, “The funeral is Monday morning. We decided that two days was long enough to keep them.”

I nodded and picked up my coat. “We’ll see you in the morning, then. Come on, Shelly.”

She followed me out of the big white house and into the streets of Maple Shades, where the snow had settled down to a light but steady fall.

“They’re the same, aren’t they?” she said from my side.

“They’ll always be the same; that’s why I left twenty years ago.”

“Was it Simon Ark you called?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“Not much. He’s coming.”

“What do you think he’ll find?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you want him to find?”

“I don’t know. …”

The morning was Saturday; it was clear and cool, and very much like Indiana. The night’s snowfall had totaled possibly two inches, and here and there I could see a shopkeeper sweeping off his sidewalk.

For a long time I lay there in bed, gazing out the window at the town that had once been mine. There was no school for the children today, and I could see them running and playing much as I had myself not too many years before. It had been a good life then. It was still a good life now, but in a different way. I had Shelly, and I had my job, and I didn’t need Maple Shades any more.

I reached out my arm until I could feel Shelly’s sleeping body at my side. She awakened at my touch and rolled over with a yawn. “What time is it?”

“Let’s see. … Almost ten-thirty. We should probably be getting up. It’s going to be a busy day.”

She stretched and yawned again and rolled out of the bed. “It’ll be good to see Simon again; it’s been a long time—for me at least.”

We had breakfast in the room and were just finishing when the desk clerk rang to announce Simon Ark. In another few moments I opened the door to admit him.

Simon Ark was tall and heavy-set; yet he carried himself with an ease and dignity that often made people forget his physical features and remember only the overpowering persuasion of his manner. I’d first met him nearly twenty years earlier, at the time of my meeting with Shelly, and we’d recently renewed our friendship after a lapse of many years.

He was an odd man, without home or family, who seemed content to roam the world in search of the devil’s works. Once he’d told me he was over 1500 years old; and sometimes, after a few hours in his company, I almost believed him. His great knowledge of Satanism—especially in early times—had spurred me to talk Neptune Books into commissioning a book based on his studies. It was for this purpose that he was currently at the College of the Hudson, living there under the name of Dark while he completed his book.

“How are you, Simon?”

“Good, good. First, let me extend my sympathies to you and Shelly on your loss.”

“Thank you, Simon. How’s the book coming?”

He smiled the old sure smile he seemed to reserve for people like Shelly and me, and said, “It’s coming. The college atmosphere seems to help my thinking, if nothing else.”

“Think we’ll be ready to publish next Fall?”

“I hope so. If my…duties don’t call me away.”

Shelly poured some coffee that was left over from breakfast, and the three of us sat down. “Well, Simon,” I began, “I hated to call you away on a personal matter like this, but you don’t know my uncle. He insisted on getting some New York private detective to work on the case; I figured you’d be better all around.”

Simon Ark smiled slightly. “As I’ve constantly reminded you, my boy, I’m not in any way a detective. …”

“I know; but they don’t, and you’re first as far as they’re concerned.”

“All right,” Simon sighed. “I know when I’m beaten. Tell me about it.”

Shelly put down her coffee cup and pointed to Simon’s pocket. “From the looks of that newspaper you already know more about it than we do.”

Simon Ark unfolded the paper and passed it over to me. I looked at the two battered cars and the usual blurred half-column pictures of the victims. I looked at the round smiling face of my sister and suddenly I felt very empty deep down inside.

I remembered the picture very well, even though they’d cropped away everything but her head. It had been taken at a beach party once, and come out so well she’d had it enlarged and framed. The photo of dad was one of his campaign pictures. I folded up the paper and tossed it on the table.

“What do they say about it?” I asked Simon.

“Well, of course your father was living alone, and nobody knows just what brought him out that early in the morning. He was headed away from the courthouse, so he wasn’t on his way to work. Your brother-in-law, Frank Broderick, says that Stella awakened him quite early and said she had to go out. She didn’t say where she was going, but he has a vague impression that he heard a telephone ring shortly before she woke him. That’s about all the newspaper account covers. Of course there’s no hint of anything suspicious; but no reader can fail to see the odd coincidence of the whole matter.”

“Do you have any ideas about it, Simon?” I asked him.

“Hardly! I don’t even yet know what you want me to find out. Just why did you and your uncle want to hire a private investigator?”

“Uncle Philip tells me the cars met head-on in the center of the road. Both cars were distinctive enough to be recognized by the other driver, and there were no external conditions like darkness or ice on the road to explain the crash. In short, Simon, one of them—either my father or my sister—deliberately crashed into the other car.”

“And you want to know which one?”

“Yes. I want to know.”

“Why?”

“What?”

“Why? Why do you want to know? What difference does it make, now, whether your father killed your sister or your sister killed your father? They’re both dead, and the guilty one is being punished by a higher court.”

“I don’t know why; I just want to know. If they were your family, you’d want to know, too, Simon. Besides, my uncle is afraid if he doesn’t dig out the facts, someone will spring the whole story at election time.”

Simon Ark sighed. “All right. What would you like me to do?”

“Talk to people; see what you can dig up about the background. I’ve been away so long myself that I don’t really know too much of what’s been going on. All I can tell you is that Stella and my father were on bad terms ever since he ruled unfavorably against Frank in a court decision.”

“We’d better be getting over to the funeral parlor,” Shelly interrupted. “It’s nearly noon.”

Before I could agree, the telephone rang again and I picked it up. “Hello?”

“I’m glad I could get you, boy.” I recognized the dignified tones of District Attorney Hallison James. “Could you come right out to your sister’s house? Your brother-in-law has been attacked and badly injured.”

“What? What happened?”

“We’re not sure yet. Apparently someone was waiting for him when he returned home last night; he was pretty badly beaten.”

“We’ll be right out,” I said, and hung up.

I told Shelly and Simon about it while we gathered up our coats. Then we were downstairs and in a taxi bound for Stella and Frank’s house. And once, when I glanced sideways at Simon Ark, I noticed that the casual expression was gone from his eyes.

Now they were hard and bleak, and very dangerous; and I knew that he’d already seen something we’d missed. …

-3-

The house was Stella, and to me it always would be. Everything, every little vase and picture and chair, bore her mark. And even now, in the midst of death, Stella seemed still to be there, greeting me as I walked through the door.

The first thing I saw was Hallison James coming out of the kitchen with a uniformed policeman. “How is he, Hallison?” I asked.

“Oh, he’ll live; but he’s got a couple of cracked ribs and a bad bump on the head.” I saw him looking at Simon, so I introduced them. Then we all followed Hallison into the bedroom, where a doctor was leaning over Frank Broderick.

“I’d like to take him to the hospital for x-rays,” the doctor was saying. “I don’t think it’s too serious, but those cracked ribs might be dangerous.”

“Can you talk yet, Frank?” James asked him.

“Sure,” the man on the bed mumbled. To me he looked much the same as he had the night before, except for a bandaged head and a bruised cheek. “I don’t know who it was, though. He jumped me just as I came in the door; punched me in the face and then hit me over the head with something.”

“He must have kicked you a few times, too, judging from those ribs,” the doctor added.

“Any idea what he was after?” I asked.

“None at all,” Frank Broderick replied. “The place is pretty well messed up, especially here in the bedroom. Maybe he was just a sneak thief I surprised. If he was trying to kill me or something, I should think he’d have finished the job; I was in no shape to offer much resistance.”

“Well, go along to the hospital,” Hallison said. “This is Simon Ark, a…gentleman from New York, who’s going to look into the accident. Maybe he’ll turn up something on your assailant as well.”

“Good,” Frank Broderick said. “As soon as they take the x-rays and get me taped up, I’ll try to come over to the funeral parlor.”

An ambulance had arrived to take him to the hospital, but as we left I saw Simon Ark call the doctor aside. I moved in close and heard him ask, “Doctor, is there any chance this man’s injuries were self-inflicted?”

The doctor looked up in surprise. “Two cracked ribs? Not a chance in the world. As near as I can tell without x-rays, it’s a wonder they didn’t cut his lung open. No, people don’t go around cracking their own ribs, or kicking themselves in the chest.”

“Thank you, doctor,” Simon said, and moved back to join Shelly and me.

“What kind of idea are you playing around with?” I asked him.

“None; I simply don’t want to overlook any possibilities. The attack, on your brother-in-law is most significant, and must be fully investigated.”

“Your interest seems to have increased considerably, Simon.”

“It has. Shall we leave for the funeral parlor now? I’m quite anxious to meet the rest of your family.”

Hallison James drove us back to town, to the squat marble slab of a building that served as Maple Shades’ principal funeral parlor. Uncle Philip and his wife were already there, and while Hallison handled the introductions, I went in to look at the twin coffins that held the bodies of my father and sister.

Both tops were closed, and I asked Uncle Philip about it.

“Stella’s face was pretty much cut up when she went through the windshield,” he explained, “so we decided it would be best to keep Richard’s coffin closed as well.”

I knelt and said a silent prayer for them both, and then returned to the outer room, where Simon Ark was talking with Hallison and Uncle Philip. Shelly and Aunt Rita had disappeared somewhere into the further depths of the place.

“I just can’t understand this attack on Frank,” my uncle was saying. “There’s no possible reason for it, unless the thing was simply a robbery attempt.”

“The police are dusting the place for fingerprints,” Hallison told us, reverting to his role of District Attorney. “We hope to get a lead on whoever it was.”

“All this would have to happen in an election year,” Uncle Philip mumbled.

“At least they can’t use the old Judges of Hades tag,” Hallison said; “you’re the only one left now, Philip.”

I saw Simon Ark’s face come alive at the mention of the Judges of Hades. “What’s this?”

“Just something somebody thought up for a political campaign,” Hallison explained. “It was a painting on an old Greek vase that somebody came across in a book; and, of course, the fact that the boys are always changing the sign. …”

Simon Ark interrupted to ask about this, and we explained the ritual with the Maple Shades sign. “So this is really Hades,” he said, with a slight smile on his face. “You should have told me this over the telephone last night; I’d have been more eager to come.”

“Anyway,” James continued, “the point was that their court decisions were so lacking in human mercy that they were like the Judges of Hades. And I suppose, if Philip here will forgive me saying it, that there was something to it. The case of Frank Broderick is a perfect example.”

“I’d be interested in knowing more about that myself,” I said.

“Well, it seems that Frank Broderick owned some land that was to be used for a large shopping center. He’d bought the land for that express purpose, sinking most of his money into the deal. Just as he was about to close a deal with the backers of the shopping center, the local government re-zoned that particular piece of property into a residential area. Of course Frank fought it, claiming the town government had known of the plans for the shopping center, and had originally approved them. He took the case to court on the grounds that the re-zoning should not be allowed to interfere with the already-approved shopping center.”

He paused a moment to light a cigar, then continued. “Well, Frank’s father-in-law drew the case. Of course he should have disqualified himself at once, on the grounds of personal relationship with the plaintiff. He must have known, as everyone else did, that whatever decision he reached would immediately be thrown out by a higher court. But he sat on the case anyway, and he ruled against his son-in-law on the zoning battle. And while the high court was busy reprimanding him, and tossing out the decision, the shopping center backers got tired of waiting and bought another location.”

“With the result,” Uncle Philip interjected, “that Frank was forced to sell the property at a loss of around fifteen thousand dollars. I suppose at times I can’t blame him for his hatred of Richard and myself.”

“And this is the reason for the enmity between my father and Stella?” I asked.

“That was the main cause,” Uncle Philip agreed, “though of course there were others. After this shopping center deal fell through, your father blamed Frank for the Judges of Hades tag. It could never be proven, but I suspect myself that it was Frank’s way of getting back at us.”

Some people were arriving to pay their last respects to the dead, and Uncle Philip and his wife hurried off. Shelly, Simon Ark, Hallison and I remained in the outer room. After a moment Simon rose and strode to the window. I followed him and we stood together looking out at the drifting snowflakes.

“What is it, Simon?” I asked at last, because I knew there was something bothering him.

“I don’t quite know,” he answered. “Is your local library open on Saturdays?”

“It always used to be. Why?”

“If you can get away from here for a while and accompany me, we might possibly learn some facts of mild interest.”

That was enough for me. I left Shelly in Hallison’s care, made my excuses to the others, and we were off.

“Now what’s all this about?” I asked Simon as we walked briskly through the snow toward the library.

“Well…it probably means nothing; but since my arrival here, all of these people have been most silent on one point.”

“Which point is that, Simon?” I asked him.

“No one has even mentioned the third judge.”

“The third judge?”

“Certainly! Your knowledge of Greek vase paintings is most limited, my friend. There were always three Judges of Hades. …”

The low, sprawling building that housed the meager collection of the Maple Shades Public Library was all but deserted when we entered. Here and there a high school student was busily pondering over thick volumes, but otherwise we seemed to be the only customers. Simon Ark went immediately to the librarian and asked to see the file of local newspapers covering the last election of judges.

She gave him a curious look and then disappeared into the rear. Presently she returned, bearing a large bound volume that was already beginning to show signs of wear.

Simon turned quickly to the October issues of Maple Shades’ single daily newspaper and ran over the columns of political news he found there. Finally we found what we sought, buried halfway down a column reporting on speech of the previous night: “In an obvious reference to the three men running on the rival ticket, he said further that he does not want to see our courts presided over by the ‘Judges of Hades.’ This apparently was a reiteration of the charges that some recent court decisions have been unfair, and that jail sentences have been extremely harsh.”

“Well, said Simon, “there it is! There were three Judges of Hades, in Maple Shades as well as in ancient Greece. Now if we can only find something about the third man. …”

“But what good will that do?” I wanted to know. “It still won’t tell us about the accident; or about who attacked Frank Broderick last night.”

“You never know. Sometimes the truth lurks in unlikely places. … Here!” He pointed to the picture of a political rally on the front page of one of the papers. The photo showed a vast crowd of people, gathered before a platform on which three men stood, their hands linked above their heads in a symbol of victory. I recognized my father and Uncle Philip as two of the men. The third was a well-built man who appeared to be quite a bit younger. That was about all we could tell from the screened newspaper photo.

“Here’s his name,” I pointed out to Simon. “Conrad Mara. He apparently was running for his second term as county judge.”

Simon Ark grunted. “Conrad Mara. … A most significant name.”

“Significant? What’s significant about it? It’s not too uncommon a name.”

“It is significant nevertheless. Let us look further and see what happened to Conrad Mara.”

We looked and read; we followed the day-by-day activities of Maple Shades all through the month of October, through the fires and births and deaths, and all the common little things that happened in any small town.

Finally we came to Election Day, and the day after.

There was my father’s picture, smiling out at me from the printed page, and there was Uncle Philip smiling next to him. They had won; they had been reelected to another term in office.

But there was no picture of Conrad Mara.

There was no mention of Conrad Mara.

We looked at the tabulations and found his name, but he had run far behind his opponent; there was no mention of him elsewhere in the paper.

Simon closed the heavy volume and returned it to the librarian. “Maybe you can be of some assistance,” he told her. “We’re seeking information about Conrad Mara. He used to be a county judge here. …”

“No,” she replied, “I’m afraid I can’t help you. I know nothing of Conrad Mara.” She turned away from us and walked quickly to the rear.

Simon Ark sighed and I followed him out into the street. “Where to now?”

“Back to the funeral parlor, to see if we can find anyone who wants to tell us about Mara.”

“But why is he so important, Simon?”

“My friend,” he answered slowly, “as you know, I have pursued Satan and his works for many centuries, and I have seen him in a variety of guises. I have seen him as a desert chieftain and a crusading knight, and even as a bald-headed monk. He comes, and he lives among people for a time, and then he goes.”

I was used to hearing Simon talk like this, and I knew that it was not just talk. Whether he was a mortal man like the rest of us, or something more, I’d probably never know. But when he talked like this I listened.

“Are you trying to say that this Conrad Mara was the devil in disguise?”

“I don’t yet know for certain. But something brought the evil to Maple Shades, something brought the evil that struck down your father and sister. Because evil comes like a wet summer wind, clutching at a town, seeping into every crevice until no one is safe from it.”

“But why Conrad Mara more than anyone else?”

“Because he is no longer here. Because he has moved on, as Satan always must, after his work is done.”

“But why Mara?”

“My friend,” he answered, “do you know who Mara was?”

“Who he was?”

“Not this Mara, but the original one—many centuries ago.”

“Mara? No, I’m not familiar with the name in history.”

“ ‘Mara’ was the name given to the devil in writings of Buddha. …”

“Oh, come on now, Simon! Mara is a fairly common Italian name; you’ll find it in almost any phone book.”

“And perhaps, my friend, Conrad Mara is just a simple Italian judge. But then again, perhaps he is more. We must wait and see.”

He was excited now, in that quiet way I knew so well. He was on the trail, on the trail of something big and very evil. The memory of his original purpose in visiting Maple Shades was now buried deep in his mind, and he was again the man I’d first known, so many years ago.

-4-

We reached the funeral parlor and while I spoke briefly to the few visitors I still remembered, I noticed Simon motioning my uncle into the next room. When I could break free I joined them in time to hear Uncle Philip saying, “I have nothing to say, Mister Ark. Judge Mara is gone and that is all you need to know. He left town well over a year ago, and could have no possible connection with the accident.”

Simon Ark sighed. “Is that all you have to say?”

“That’s all,” said my uncle, and hurried back to join his wife and the other mourners.

“Now what?” I asked Simon.

“We must find out,” he answered. “I’m convinced that Conrad Mara was the cause of the evil here.”

“It does seem strange that no one will talk about him. Look, there’s Hallison James. Let’s ask him.”

Hallison joined us, glad to relax from the tiring chore of greeting visitors. “Where have you fellows been?”

“At the library, Hallison,” I said. “Trying to find out something about the third Judge of Hades, Conrad Mara.”

Hallison’s smile faded. “We’d rather forget about Mara.”

“Why?”

“It’s not something we discuss here in Maple Shades,” he said, and there was a note of finality in the words.

“Well, can you tell us where he went when he left here?” Simon asked.

“To hell, I imagine,” James replied.

“You mean he’s dead?”

“No, no, he still lives; I think he’s in Cincinnati somewhere.”

“And where did he come from?” Simon asked, his face tense as he waited for the reply.

“Well, that’s a long story. Philip could probably tell you more about it than I could.”

“Philip won’t talk,” I told him.

“Then I’ll tell you as much as I know. Philip and your father met Conrad Mara in Havana, back in 1937. You were still in your late teens then, but you’ll remember that they went down to Havana for the first Daiquiri Bowl football game on that New Years’ Day. Rita went along, too, but your mother was too sick to go; she stayed home with you and Stella.”

I remembered. It was nearly twenty years, but I remembered. The details of those last few years at home still stood out clearly in my mind.

“Well,” Hallison continued, “as you probably remember, there was a huge sports carnival in Cuba that month, just after Battista took over the government. Villanova and Auburn, I think, were the teams who played in that one and only Daiquiri Bowl game. Anyway, somewhere during the festivities the two judges met this Conrad Mara, a widower living in Havana with his ten-year-old son. He had a small law practice, but apparently he was interested in coming back to the States. After Philip and Richard returned, they kept corresponding with Mara, and pretty soon he did come up here, to Maple Shades. He’d found some people to take care of his son, and he came up here to set up a law practice. And before long he was a judge, along with the other two. …”

“Then what happened?”

“I’m afraid that’s all I can tell you. He was defeated in the last election and he moved to Cincinnati. That’s all I know. …”

I sighed reluctantly and turned to Simon. “That answer your questions?”

Hallison James left us, and Simon stood for some minutes watching the visitors entering and leaving the house of the dead. I took a minute to call the hospital and ask about Frank Broderick’s condition. He was in fair shape, and they were just keeping him overnight for observation. He’d be released in the morning.

Next I found Shelly in the undertaker’s office with Rita.

“Hello, dear. Sorry to be away so long.”

“I’m used to it by this time,” she smiled. “What did Simon find out?”

“Not too much, I’m afraid.” I thought of asking Rita about Mara, but decided she’d tell me no more than my uncle had. She was in one of her unfriendly moods, and left the room when she saw I was going to remain with my wife for a while.

“How’s your brother-in-law?” Shelly asked.

“He’ll live, I guess. They’re letting him out of the hospital in the morning.”

Simon Ark joined us and I could see a new thought had crossed his mind. “Could we go out to your father’s house? I’d like to look around.”

“Well…I suppose so. Wait a minute, and I’ll get the key from my uncle.”

I returned with the key and we were off again—this time with Shelly too, because she couldn’t take any more of facing my aunt and uncle without my support.

A cab dropped us at the big house that was so familiar to my childhood. I tried to look at it objectively, not thinking about all the good times. And all the bad times. But it was still my house, and I couldn’t get away from that simple fact.

The inside was much as I’d remembered it, with the long, wide staircase and the lighted portrait of my mother over the fireplace.

“You mean he lived in this big house all by himself?” Shelly asked me.

“He was that kind of a man,” I answered simply.

“I wish I’d known him better.”

“No you don’t; nobody who really knew him ever did,” I told her.

Simon Ark paused in his reconnaissance of the house to face us by the broad silent stairs. “My friend, before we proceed any further in this investigation, I think it would be well for you to tell me just why you hate your father so much. …”

It was out in the open now, and somehow I was glad he’d put it into words. And yet I retreated, still subconsciously fighting the thought. “Where did you get that idea?”

“It’s been quite obvious from the first. You want it to be your father who was responsible for that auto crash; you don’t want it to be your sister because you loved her.”

Shelly came to my side and the three of us stood there in silence, alone in the big house that had once been home to me. I realized that they were both waiting for me to speak, and I asked through dry lips, “Do you know which of them caused the crash?”

Simon Ark hesitated and then replied. “I’ve known that for several hours now, but the question that remains unanswered is why. Why, after all these months—and even years—of hatred between your father and your sister, did it suddenly boil to the surface?”

“Do you think you know why?”

“I believe the answer lies with the third judge, Conrad Mara.”

I didn’t understand his constant talk of this third judge, who was no longer even living in Maple Shades; but I knew from the past that Simon Ark was a wise man.

We searched briefly through my father’s study, looking for something, yet not really knowing what we’d find. Simon seemed to disregard my father’s legal papers, and even the stack of correspondence got only a brief glance from him. But finally he found what he apparently sought, and he showed it to us.

“What is it?” I asked. “A business card?”

“It’s in Spanish,” Simon replied. “It’s the card of a firm of private investigators in Havana.”

“What does that tell us?”

“Perhaps that your father was investigating the past life of Conrad Mara. …”

We looked further, and soon Shelly came upon some dusty campaign posters. “Look!” she exclaimed, holding one up. “Here’s your father, and Philip…and here’s a picture of Mara, too!”

Simon and I were at her side in an instant, looking down at the smiling face before us.

“He looks so young,” Shelly commented.

“He can’t be much under fifty if he had a ten-year-old son back in 1937,” I said.

“His face looks vaguely familiar in some way,” Shelly said, frowning at the campaign photo.

“The face of evil is always familiar,” Simon Ark spoke quietly. “It is the face of Judas at the Last Supper; of Genghis Khan charging across the Asian plains; of John Wilkes Booth as he shot Lincoln. It is the face of the serpent in Paradise, of the ultimate evil, the devil himself.”

“Perhaps,” I said, borrowing Simon’s favorite word. “If you’re right, and Mara did bring this evil to Maple Shades, then he must be found and destroyed.”

Simon Ark nodded in agreement. “Let us search further. If your father was interested enough to dig into Mara’s past, it’s quite possible he knew where he went after leaving here.”

And so we searched.

But there was nothing. Whatever reports my father might have received from the private detectives in Havana, there were no traces of them now. And even his address book contained no hints as to Judge Mara’s destination, after leaving Maple Shades.

Finally, almost in desperation, Simon picked up a Cincinnati telephone book and glanced through it. We all stared as the phone book fell open to a page with a folded corner. There, halfway down the column, one name and number had been circled, the Southern Gateway Hotel. And next to the number, in my father’s familiar scrawl, was the single word “Mara”…

We were going back, back along the broad pavement of U.S. highway 50, back to the sprawling confines of Cincinnati. We were crowded into the back seat of a taxi, and not one of the three of us spoke. Shelly’s face was white and drawn and I was beginning to be sorry we’d brought her along. On the other side of me Simon sat tense and expectant. I had a feeling that the end was near, but the end of what?

“I never even looked inside the coffins,” I mumbled, half to myself. “I don’t even know for sure that it’s them inside.”

“It’s them,” Simon Ark said. “I already considered and rejected the possibility that the whole accident was faked for some reason.”

“Then what’s the answer?” I wanted to know. “Which one of them was it? Which one of them caused the accident?” The questions had been becoming more important as the hours drifted past, and now they were the most important thing in my life—more important than my job, or Simon, or even Shelly. Because if it was Stella whose mind had been warped by this evil thing, then somehow I had failed. I had run away and left Stella at the mercy of the family, at the mercy of my father and Uncle Philip and Aunt Rita.

It had to be my father. It had to be. …

We came in Seventh Street, past the New Telephone Building, and Shillito’s, and all the other familiar and unfamiliar landmarks of a city that was no longer mine. The cab turned right, glided two blocks south into Fountain Square and Government Square, then into Main Street and south toward the river.

The Southern Gateway Hotel, when we finally reached it, was a run-down three-story structure almost at the river’s edge. Already the night shadows were slipping in around us, and from the hotel’s lounge came the mighty wail of a jazz trumpet, splitting the evening air with a mournful note. We passed through the lounge, noting the young kids and their girls, getting an early start on a Saturday night, because perhaps the Southern Gateway was not the type of place you came to later in the evening.

And I remembered them, because I’d been one of them twenty years earlier. I’d been one of the kids with pimples on their faces, escorting the girls with the jutting jaws or the pushed-in faces, and kidding themselves that they were out with the most beautiful girl in Cincinnati.

I’d listened to the blues played on a black man’s horn, and I’d watched the lithe movements of the girl singer’s hips as she went through the motions of a song in the night.

It was the same now, with these kids. It would always be the same. This, I guess, was life. At least it was life in the fifth decade of the twentieth century.

Beyond the trumpet and the piano and the bass and the girl singer the hotel’s desk clerk lounged in the doorway, enjoying the music while waiting for the customers who wouldn’t come until the night grew a little darker.

Simon Ark moved among the swaying couples on the dance floor until he reached the man’s side, and then he asked, “Is there a man named Mara staying here?”

The room clerk looked him up and down, trying to judge whether or not we were detectives. Then he saw Shelly and decided we weren’t. “Upstairs. Third floor. Room 316.”

Simon started up the dimly lit stairs, and I turned to Shelly. “You’d better wait down here, dear. If any of these creeps try to pick you up, just give a yell.”

I smiled at her and followed Simon up the stairs. The place reminded me of one I’d often stayed in while I was in the army.

And finally we were at the door of Room 316. I wondered if Satan was always this easy to find, for those who looked.

At my side, Simon said, very quietly, “Libera nos a malo. …”

“Is that another of your Coptic prayers?” I asked him.

He shook his head. “This one’s Latin,” he answered simply, and then knocked on the door of Conrad Mara’s room.

We waited. …

From inside, very softly, came the sound of music, as if from a radio. Simon Ark knocked again. “Judge Mara,” he called out; “we know you’re in there. We want to talk to you.”

And now an odor reached our nostrils, the heavy odor of a perfume, perhaps mingled with the scent of incense. Simon Ark tried the door, but it was locked.

He knocked again, and we listened. Now, in addition to the faint music, we could hear something bumping at regular intervals.

“Should I get the room clerk?” I asked.

“There’s no time; it might be too late already. Help me break down this door.”

We hit the thin wooden door together, and the lock sprang open. And then we were in the room. And we saw it. …

Conrad Mara, the third Judge of Hades, was hanging from the light fixture in the center of the small room, a thin chain wrapped tightly around his neck. He was dressed in a woman’s black bathing suit and his body was doused with perfume.

“God!” I gasped, “what is this?”

Simon Ark stared at the swollen, dead face, and at the incense burner, and at the scattered newspapers on the floor. “We’re too late,” he said simply. “We’ve come too late to save Conrad Mara, but not too late to trap the devil of Maple Shades. …”

-5-

Finally I asked, “Who killed him?” when I’d had time to recover from the shock of the scene before me.

“Perhaps his past,” Simon Ark replied. “Perhaps our modern civilization. Perhaps a force beyond our knowledge.” He paused a moment and then added, “Conrad Mara took his own life. …”

“Suicide? Like this? Why, that’s impossible, Simon. Who’d ever dress up in an outfit like that, with perfume and everything, to hang themselves?”

“A masochist,” Simon answered simply. “People talk quite openly these days about rapists and homosexuals, but there are other areas of aberration less well known to the general public. Conrad Mara received sexual pleasure from the experience of physical pain; and in hanging himself with that chain he experienced the supreme masochistic thrill. There’ve been a number of similar cases on the West Coast in recent years.”

“But…” I began, still not wholly convinced, “how can you be so certain?”

“It’s been obvious to me for several hours that Mara was being shunned by the people of Maple Shades because of some act. It wasn’t criminal, or they’d have talked about it—rather, it was some sort of sexual act, something that was discovered and ruined his career as a judge.”

“Then you never really believed he was the devil?”

“Sometimes, my friend, Satan enters the bodies of those he would destroy. Who is to say he was not inside of this body until a few hours ago?”

Simon stepped to the house phone and called downstairs. “There’s been a suicide,” he said simply. “I suggest you call the local police. And you might tell the young lady who’s waiting in the lobby that we’re all right and we’ll be down presently.” Then he hung up and turned back to me, averting the hanging corpse as much as possible.

“But why did he pick today to kill himself? Surely he must have had this…aberration for many years.”

Simon Ark pointed to the scattered newspapers on the floor. “But it was just today that he read about the accident in Maple Shades; and he realized the truth of it.”

“You mean he was in some way connected with the deaths of my father and sister?”

Simon nodded. “In a way. You might say that his existence was the cause of the deaths on the River Road yesterday morning.”

“Is it all over, then?”

“Just about, my friend. As soon as the police get here, we’ll start back to Maple Shades. There’s only one Judge of Hades left alive now. He will, perhaps, be interested to learn of these developments.”

And then the police were on the stairs, and all around us; one man was asking us questions while another was taking pictures, and two others were gently lowering the body of Conrad Mara to the floor. …

And so we went back, for the last time, to the town of Maple Shades, across the state line, and along the highway lined with the maple trees that gave the place its name, at some time in the forgotten past when pioneers in wagons and explorers in boats had first made their way into this wilderness.

I thought about it, and I thought about my own early days in Maple Shades, and about my father. And Stella.

The cab deposited the three of us in front of the funeral parlor, and we stood watching the twinkling lights of the town by night. And suddenly I knew that this was no longer my home and these were no longer my people. My home was back in New York, among the glistening towers and the narrow streets, as I always thought it had been.

“Simon,” I said, “we’re not going back in there. Shelly and I aren’t waiting around for the funeral; we’re going back to New York tonight.”

They both looked at me as if I was crazy, but I knew it was perhaps the only sane thing I’d said in the last twenty-four hours.

“Let us walk together for a ways,” Simon said quietly. “Shelly, you wait for us inside.”

And we walked, down the main street of the town that was no longer mine, passing the people I no longer knew, and the unfamiliar stores and all the glistening tributes to suburban living.

“I don’t want to know,” I told him finally, as we walked. “I thought it was the most important thing in the world to me, to know which of them it was. But I don’t want to know any more. I don’t want it to be my sister, and I don’t want it to be my father. I don’t want you to tell me which one it was.”

“I’m sorry,” Simon Ark said, “but the truth will always come out. If I don’t tell you now, some day—some night—next week or next year, you’ll want to know. You’ll be warm and happy, but suddenly you’ll be sorry you didn’t know.”

We’d passed through the main part of town now, and we faced the million-dollar county hospital rising silently in the night before us. “Come,” Simon said. “We will pay a visit to Frank Broderick and clear up the attack on him last night. It is a good starting place for my story.”

I said nothing, and followed him into the hospital. A nurse informed us it was after visiting hours, but in his usual mysterious manner Simon talked his way past her. And upstairs, on the top floor of the building, we found Frank Broderick’s room at the end of a long white hall.

“How are you getting along, Frank?” I asked as we entered. He gave a start and then relaxed when he saw who it was. “Can’t complain,” he replied. “I’ll be out of this place in the morning.” He was sitting up in a chair, reading a book, and we could see his taped ribs through the open front of his pajamas.

“We’ve come to clear up the attack on you,” Simon said.

“Oh? Did they catch the guy who did it?”

“Not exactly,” Simon replied slowly.

“Well…?” Frank Broderick looked at me with a puzzled glance that I transferred to Simon.

“Judge Mara killed himself in Cincinnati this afternoon,” Simon stated.

And then, before our eyes, Frank Broderick’s face and composure seemed to crumble. He sank deeper into the chair and watched us through thin terrified slits of eyes.

Simon Ark stepped to the room telephone and asked the operator for the number of the funeral home. After he got it he called the number and requested to speak to Hallison James.

“Mr. James? This is Simon Ark. I’d like you to come over to the hospital right away. Frank Broderick would like to make an official statement about the auto accident.”

Then he hung up, and the three of us faced each other, and Frank Broderick said through clenched teeth, “Damn you, how did you find out…?”

It was very quiet in that room, and we might have been the only three people in the universe just then. But we weren’t. District Attorney Hallison James was on his way, and Simon Ark and Frank Broderick knew what that meant, even if I didn’t.

“How did you know?” Frank Broderick repeated.

“Stella’s body was thrown through the windshield when the two cars hit,” Simon explained, in a voice that hardly rose above a whisper. “Did you ever hear of the driver of a car being thrown through the windshield in an accident? No, you never did, because the steering wheel is in the way.”

The words were a roar in my brain, and I tried to cling to the wall for support. What was he saying? What did Simon mean?

“Stella went through the windshield because she wasn’t driving, because she was sitting next to the driver at the time. And once I knew that, I asked myself who had been driving. I asked myself who would have been driving your car if Stella wasn’t, and of course there was only one possible answer. You, Frank Broderick! It was you who saw Richard’s car coming down the River Road in the morning’s dawn. It was you who aimed your car at his, disregarding your wife’s frantic screams, and then leaped to safety just before the two cars hit!”

Frank Broderick mumbled something deep in his throat, and I faced him as a stranger. It had not been my father who caused the accident; it had not been Stella. It had been this man before me.

“Perhaps,” Simon continued, “it was necessary to knock your wife out, to stop her struggles. Perhaps it was necessary to bash in your father-in-law’s head after the accident to make sure he was dead. But in any event, you still had time to pull yourself into a ditch or a field before the farmer reached the scene. And then you made your way back to your house so you could be there when the sad news came to you. But of course your leap from the death car hadn’t been completely without injury. You landed badly, and cracked a couple of ribs. You couldn’t very well just show up at a doctor’s office or the hospital with them—not right after the accident. So you waited until last night and then made up the story of the attack to account for them.

“Cracked ribs are an odd thing to get from an attacker. I’m surprised I was the only one who fitted them in with the accident. Of course I already suspected you, and was looking for some confirming injury. It would have been truly amazing if you had made that last minute jump without suffering some sort of injury.”

Frank Broderick was beginning to get back his composure. “That’s a good theory for a detective story, but you’d never convict me in court on that evidence. What was my motive?”

“You’ve hated Richard for years,” Simon replied. “And as for your wife, her death was simply necessary to your plan.”

“Exactly! I hated Richard for years! So why should I hate him any more on yesterday morning?”

Simon Ark sighed. “I have no time to play games with you. We both know the truth, and it will do you no good to deny it. You killed the judge yesterday morning because he had just discovered that Conrad Mara was your father. …”

And of course I knew it all then. The pieces all fell into place, and I saw all of Simon’s reasoning as clearly as if he’d spoken it. Conrad Mara had left a ten-year-old son in Havana, back in 1937, and Stella had first met Frank in the West Indies. And even my wife had remarked how familiar Mara’s face looked on that campaign poster.

I could picture Frank Broderick, or Frank Mara, meeting my sister in Havana—perhaps even seeking her out—and taking another name because he knew of his father’s aberration. And then he married Stella, and came to Maple Shades himself, still keeping his real identity a secret against the day when scandal would certainly ruin his father. My own father became his hated enemy; and then—as he’d feared—the ruin came down upon Conrad Mara’s head, somehow, just before the last election.

And so he was a son alone, his father an outcast who fled the town perhaps on some dark night. And he lived with his secret; he lived with it until my father received word from the private detectives in Cuba of the father-son relationship.

I knew what my father would have done then. I knew what he’d said over the telephone yesterday morning when he’d called Frank. He wouldn’t have a daughter of his married to such a man’s son!

And as he’d raced through the morning toward their house, Frank set out to meet him, on the River Road. My sister would have tried to stop him, but she would have been powerless. And then, with his car speeding along the River Road at sixty miles an hour, he would have seen my father’s car, coming the other way. He would have headed right toward it, hunting it down like an animal, and jumped free at the last second, leaving his wife and father-in-law to die in the crash, to silence those accusing lips forever.

And Conrad Mara, reading the newspaper account, had realized the truth, and hanged himself. …

The door opened, and Hallison James was in the room with us. “What is it?”

Frank Broderick, who was really Frank Mara, rose from his chair. “No,” he screamed silently. “No. …”

Before Simon or Hallison or I could stop him, he turned in a single motion and threw himself against the window. It shattered under his weight and he was gone, into the night.

And the three of us were at the window, looking down. …

It was only three floors to the ground, and he was still alive down there, pulling himself along the ground, injured, perhaps dying, but still alive.

An ambulance turned into the hospital drive, its siren cutting through the night as it returned from its errand of mercy.

He saw it.

He saw it, and with a last desperate burst of energy he hurled himself in front of it.

There was a screech of brakes and a scream that quickly died in the night, and then a babble of voices from below.

District Attorney Hallison James turned away from the window and said, to no one in particular, “There was a fellow who really wanted to die. …”

And that was the end of it.

Simon and Shelly and I stayed for the funerals on Monday after all, and then we went back to New York, leaving Maple Shades to the domain of District Attorney James and Uncle Philip.

It’s still hard for me to believe, of course, that anyone would so despise his father that he’d kill two people to keep the relationship a secret. But then, whenever I start to doubt it, I remember my own hatred, and my own desire that my father be revealed a murderer. And I think that perhaps, under different circumstances, I might have been like Frank Broderick.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Village of the Dead © 1955 by Famous Detective Stories

The Hour of None © 1957 by Double-Action Detective & Mystery

The Witch Is Dead © 1956 by Famous Detective Stories

Sword for a Sinner © 1959 by The Saint Mystery Magazine

The Judges of Hades © 1957 by Crack Detective & Mystery Stories

Copyright © 1971 by Edward D. Hoch

Cover design by Jason Gabbert

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