City of Brass

And Other Simon Ark Stories

Edward D. Hoch

Contents

CITY OF BRASS

THE VICAR OF HELL

-2-

-3-

-4-

HOOFS OF SATAN

FOR BOB LOWNDES, WHO FIRST DISCOVERED THE SIMON ARK STORIES AND THEIR AUTHOR.

CITY OF BRASS

I REALIZE NOW THAT Henry Mahon was a man who never really grew up.

He went through four years of college and three years of army life without appreciably changing his ways, and those who’d known him before were by degrees happy or discouraged that the “new” Henry proved to be the same as the old one. After the army he settled down in Baine City, where he’d spent his childhood, and wasted away the next sixteen months of life helping his friends get engaged and finally married, one by one—or perhaps two by two.

He ran with a crowd in which every third fellow already owned either a Thunderbird or some foreign sports car, a crowd that thought it great fun to spend the weekend between Christmas and New Year’s at one of the nearby ski resorts each year. The fellows and girls always got to know each other better on such occasions, even if they didn’t get in much skiing.

It was on one of these between-holiday weekends that Henry Mahon met the Clark sisters, most especially Jean Clark. They drank together on Friday night, skied together on Saturday, and slept together on Sunday. It was not the first girl for Henry, but Jean at least was convinced it would be the last. When they returned to civilization in the shape of Baine City, Jean Clark served notice on Henry Mahon that she expected him to make an honest woman of her. He laughed it off for a week, then tried to drink it off for a second week. Had he been more of an “adult” he would surely have found a way out of it, but as I said Henry Mahon never really grew up.

Cornered and run to earth at last, Henry consented to the sentence of marriage. And it took place at the first burst of spring, on April second in Henry’s parish church. He joked at the time that he was lucky it was the day after April Fool’s, but perhaps really it wasn’t any joke.

Henry Mahon and Jean Clark were married, and the story had begun. …

I was passing through Baine City on the way back to New York, driving down from Buffalo where I’d been in hasty conference with our printer. It was one of those rare times when a couple of the major airlines were on strike and the others crowded to capacity, and since no one ever took the train any more I’d driven up to Buffalo on the Thruway—a fast nine-hour trip that wasn’t half bad. I was figuring I could cut the return down to eight by stepping on the gas a bit, but as it happened I decided to stop off in Baine City.

It was a city of better than a quarter of a million people, with a lake at one end and a fairly wide river splitting it down the middle. Sometimes the Chamber of Commerce liked to call it the City of Brass, in recognition of Baine Brass, the single great industry that made the city what it was. Almost everybody worked for Baine Brass, or had relatives who worked for Baine Brass—there was no escaping it.

I don’t really know just what made me turn off the Thruway for a pause at Baine City. Perhaps it was just that the long hours of driving were beginning to tell on me at last. Certainly it was not primarily to visit Henry Mahon and his bride, though he was the only person I knew in Baine City. We’d met some five years back, when he’d made a brief try at breaking into New York publishing, and for some reason I’d felt sorry for the guy. He certainly wasn’t the type to make friends easily with his eternal attitude of a spoiled rich boy, but I guess I kept hoping there was something better underneath.

Anyway, we’d become friends of a sort, corresponding occasionally and seeing each other on Henry’s semi-annual fun trips to Manhattan. He’d always been urging me to stop off in Baine City for a visit, and since I was feeling like taking a break just then I wheeled the car off the Thruway and into town.

His name was in the phone book, of course, and I wasn’t too surprised when he answered himself. It was only four o’clock, but he would never be one for working a full day.

“It’s not really you!” he greeted me with an overly friendly voice. “After all these years …”

“I’m only passing through on the way back to New York, Hank. I have to be back on the road by six if I’m to get home by midnight.”

“Well, hell, that’s two hours, man. Zip down and have a drink with the bride and me. You’ve got the address.”

I agreed to that and hung up. Fifteen minutes later I was parking my car before a rolling length of lawn that seemed to flow like a calm river from the house at its head. Not a big place, the home of Henry Mahon and his bride still had that modernistic look that put a $25,000 price tag on it. The house could have been the place next door to me in Westchester, but it wasn’t a Thunderbird in the garage—only a last year’s Buick.

Henry was waiting for me in the doorway, looking slick and neat with a drink the color of Scotch in his left hand. “Come in, old man. Damn but it’s good to see you up here. Gotta introduce you to Jean.”

He called to her and almost immediately a tall brunette appeared from the depths of the house. Her hair was caught back in some sort of knot, and she seemed quite relaxed in a knit sweater and tight black pants that showed off her long legs. She had the shape and gestures of a New York model, and I was a bit surprised at such class in a place like Baine City. Her mouth was a bit too wide and her eyes flashed a trifle too much, but these were minor complaints in a sea of near perfection.

Yes, she went with the place. She went with Henry Mahon and his crowd. She went with the story he’d told me about the weekend at the ski resort. She was the type of girl who lived that way—a few years of fun and then a quick marriage to a likely young rich boy who went too far.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” I told her. “Happy to meet you at last. This is certainly a nice place you’ve got here.”

She smiled a slow, careful smile that showed years of careful practice before a mirror. “We like it, though I imagine you find it quite tame after New York.”

“New York is a state of mind, full of sound and fury signifying nothing,” I said with a smile. “Did you ever live there?”

“For a time. I think every girl should spend a year there. It’s like a post-graduate course in modern living. I wanted to be a model once, long before I met Henry.”

Mahon interrupted with a jolly chuckle. “Come on, let’s have a drink. Still like rum?”

“Anything, as long as it’s wet. Those printers up in Buffalo are strictly a beer drinking crowd.” I followed Mahon into the living room as Jean went off to the kitchen in search of glasses.

It was a rich man’s house, without doubt. It screamed its wealth from the ornate gold clock over the fireplace to the tiny but expensive glass animals scattered here and there on coffee tables and window sills. I picked the most comfortable-looking chair and settled into it. “What are you doing with yourself these days, Hank?” I asked him. “Last I heard you were going to start your own public relations firm.”

He waved his hand in a vague gesture of dismissal. “Didn’t pan out. My partner got cold feet about sinking that much money into it. He’s got a fine, safe, dull job with the local TV station and he’s happy to keep it that way. You know, gotta have money to put the kids through college—all that sort of hogwash.”

He was the same old Henry Mahon, I decided. He’d never change. Jean appeared at my elbow with a tray of drinks and I chose a light one that looked good and frosty. As she moved across the room to her husband her buttocks rippled under the tight pants.

“I understand you’ve got a sister,” I said.

“Hasn’t everybody?” she retorted. “Mine is just a little bit louder and livelier than most. Cathy Clark, the terror of every college campus from here to Cleveland. How’s the drink, OK?”

“Best all week.” I turned back to Mahon. “So what did you say you were doing now?”

“Oh, I’m just up at the University,” he said, sipping his drink. “You know, foxing around the profs and such. Doing a bit of public relations for them, actually. Big fund raising drive coming up next month.”

“Fund raising? I thought Baine Brass practically supported the place.”

“Ah! A typical New Yorkish half-truth, my friend. Baine set up a trust fund for medical research and also several scholarship funds in the science field, but as far as the Arts College goes it’s practically self-supporting. I guess old man Baine didn’t hold much with liberal arts as a field of higher education, and his son just followed along in the same footsteps.”

“But he likes it,” Jean said. “Being around those college girls all day is his idea of heaven. I don’t know when he ever gets his work done.”

Mahon lit a cigarette and settled back with his drink. “I’ve got a little office squeezed in between the gym and the research lab. The money’s good and the work is easy—high-class, you know.”

“Yeah.” I downed the rest of my drink.

“So how are things at Neptune?”

“The same. Hectic. We’re putting in a new distribution system for our paperbound books.” I went on to mention a few mutual friends and launched into some New York small talk.

“Say, it’s almost supper time,” Jean observed. “How about staying for a meal.”

I shook my head sadly. “Still gotta make New York tonight—or Westchester, at least. The wife would never forgive me.”

“Call her long distance,” Mahon suggested. “Tell her you’ve decided to stay the night with us.”

“Afraid not. Thanks for the drink and the conversation, but I’ve got to be back on the road now.”

They insisted, and I was firm, and finally I won the battle and started down the walk to the car, with a final wave at Jean standing in the doorway. Henry Mahon followed me to the car and stood there a moment, wanting to say something.

“What is it, Hank? Something bothering you?”

“I … I didn’t want to speak in front of Jean, but there is something. Sure you can’t stay?”

“No can do. Can’t you make it brief?”

“Well … it’s the University. It’s …”

“A girl?”

“Nothing like that. This friend of yours—this Simon Ark you mentioned once—could he come here and help me?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Simon Ark is a sort of investigator. He’s interested only in the strange and unusual.”

“Believe me, this is the strangest thing you ever heard.”

“I don’t know,” I hedged. “Simon’s been out of town. I don’t even know if I could locate him. And I’d certainly have to tell him something.”

“Tell him … tell him …” He broke off as Jean came trotting down to the car.

“What’s the big discussion? Exchanging phone numbers?”

“I’ll write you,” Mahon finished quickly. “Have a good trip back.”

I said my goodbyes again and was off, heading south toward the Thruway. Actually, I didn’t give a second thought to Mahon’s questions about Simon Ark. People were constantly cornering me at cocktail parties and dinners to suggest a meeting with the fabled but all but unknown man who was my friend. I suppose they thought he was some kind of fortune teller, or latter-day prophet to work miracles in an age that no longer believed them. But Simon was none of these things—he was only a curious wanderer across the earth, a man in search of truth and the evil that these days was sometimes the only truth some men followed.

So I thought no more of it, and concentrated on the winding ribbon of road ahead, chasing the lines of red tail lights headed south toward New York and home …

But the letter came.

Just two days later it was sitting on my desk, waiting to be opened because the personal on the envelope had scared my secretary away. I delayed the act till well in the afternoon, because the press of business was squeezing me into a corner throughout most of the morning.

But finally I got to it, ripping open the envelope to disclose a fairly brief note typed on Baine University stationery. “It was good to see you yesterday, and I’m only sorry we didn’t have time to talk alone. The thing that concerns me—concerns several of us here—has to do with a series of experiments being carried out by Professor Kane Wilber here. The experiments, in the fields of heredity and evolution, are of a type that I’m convinced are harmful to present-day society. I can only hope that someone like your friend Simon Ark can get to the bottom of the thing before it’s too late. Hope to hear from you by return mail.”

Well, it meant nothing much to me and I tossed it down on my desk. What in hell was he getting at, anyway? A mad scientist at one of the country’s largest universities? More likely it was something Mahon feared might damage his forthcoming fund-raising campaign. Perhaps a professor who drank too much, or was kidnapping neighborhood dogs to carry out his experiments. Nothing certainly that would interest Simon Ark.

I buzzed my secretary to dictate a reply but then dismissed her with a wave of my hand. Hell, what was there to say? I didn’t want to hurt the guy’s feelings by telling him he was just a rich spoiled kid with a ton of money who saw madmen behind every test tube. He belonged back at the ski resort, in bed with Jean, without a care in the world. He had Jean Mahon now, but he still needed Jean Clark.

I tossed the letter into a desk drawer and promptly forgot about it. …

Another week passed and we were into the summer sunshine of June. Simon Ark returned to New York on June first, as usual vaguely silent about his latest trip, and I had dinner with him in one of the little foreign restaurants off Sixth Avenue.

It was that night, on my homeward journey to Westchester, that the girl accosted me in Grand Central. “You don’t know me,” she said, making a firm statement of it.

“You’re right there. I don’t,” I agreed, even though there was something not completely strange about her face. She was very blonde, with long hair caught back in a knot, and very young—probably not over twenty-two at best. Her mouth was a bit too wide, but—

Of course! She was Jean Mahon’s sister. “My name is Cathy Clark,” she was saying. “I think you met my sister a couple of weeks back.”

“Oh! Up in Baine City.”

“That’s right. I must talk with you.”

“Well …” I shifted my weight on anxious feet, thinking of Shelly waiting for me at home. “How did you happen to find me here?”

“I … I followed you from your office, if you must know.”

“What? All evening?”

She hung her head guiltily, managing to make it cute. “I’m afraid so. I was going to speak to you as you left your building, but you were with that strange looking man.”

I mentally chuckled at her description of Simon. “How did you recognize me?”

“The elevator starter pointed you out. I told him I was a writer and wanted to meet you.”

“Well, come on—I’ll buy you a cup of coffee and listen to your sad story. That’s the least I can do, I suppose.”

“Thanks,” she said, shaking her blonde head in gratitude.

We found stools at one of the countless Grand Central lunch counters and settled down over cigarettes and coffee. “It’s about Henry and Jean,” she opened.

“I expected it would be.”

“He says he wrote you.”

My first reaction was surprise that she even knew about it. Certainly Mahon had gone to some pains to keep this problem from his wife’s ears, so why tell his sister-in-law all about it? “That’s right,” I admitted. “He wrote me about a week ago. But the letter was pretty vague—just general rumblings, you know.”

“He needs help badly!”

“Well … what can I say? He’s a friend, but there’s really nothing I can do, you know. First of all, I don’t think I even fully understand the direct cause of all this anxiety. He vaguely mentioned a Professor Wilber at the University …”

She ground out her cigarette and immediately lit another with nervous gestures. “It’s not the kind of thing you can put into words.”

“The nameless horror?” I asked with a chuckle.

But there was no responding laughter in her eyes. “Exactly.”

“Well,” I tossed down a quarter for the coffees, “if you want any help from me you’ll have to name it.” I amazed myself with the words. Now, suddenly, I was giving her a sort of backhanded agreement of aid. “And in a hurry, too,” I added, to retreat a bit toward my former unyielding position. “I’ve got a train to catch.”

She sighed. “It’s not the kind of thing you can put into words. But believe me, it could rock Baine City to its foundations. If you’re not interested in helping, or in telling this Simon Ark about it …”

“I see Hank told you everything. Well, Miss Clark, it might interest you to know that the strange man you saw me with this evening was Simon Ark—in the flesh.”

“It was! Where is he now? Where can I reach him?”

“He’s not the kind of man you look up in the phone book,” I told her. “And I’m afraid he’d be no more interested in your problems than I am.”

“Then you won’t help me?” Was the throb in the voice a little too intense?

“Look,” I tried to explain, “I’m not a detective. I’m not even a lonely hearts advisor or a friend to the needy. Neither is Simon Ark. I happen to be the vice president of a publishing company, and it’s a full-time occupation. If I ever have any free time—maybe in ten or twenty years—I’ll be happy to take a run up to Baine City and see this Professor Wilber, but until then I can’t help you. Sorry.”

Cathy Clark gave her blonde head a defiant toss. “All right,” she said. “We’ll do something without you.” She finished her coffee and slid off the stool in sudden haste.

“Sorry,” I repeated, and I really was. But what could I do? There were times when you had to say no.

“Thanks for the coffee, anyway,” she said, and was gone—out into the evening crowds headed this way and that in the eternal maze of Grand Central.

I watched her receding rear for a moment before it was swallowed up, then turned back to the dregs of a good cup of coffee. As I finished it and started to rise I found myself suddenly looking once more into the deep bright eyes of Simon Ark.

“Simon! What in the heck are you doing here?”

“Who was the girl?” he asked me with just a hint of a smile.

“You saw her?”

“She was following us all evening. I wondered why.”

“You mean you saw her and didn’t tell me?”

The smile broadened a bit. “She may have been a discarded love, or a current one.”

“You decided she wasn’t?”

He nodded. “But why was she following you?”

“Believe it or not, she wanted to see you—only she didn’t know it at the time. She’s Henry Mahon’s sister-in-law. That’s the fellow up in Baine City that I mentioned once or twice. Both of them have got some crazy idea that something pretty horrible’s happening up at Baine U. It turns out Hank is running a fund raising drive for the University in a couple of weeks, and I guess he’s worried about the bad publicity.”

“What kind of a thing?”

“Huh? I don’t know. Some guy named Professor Wilber is experimenting—probably got a drug to pep up the football team or something crazy like that.”

“Do you think I should look into it?”

“What could it be to interest you, Simon? It’s research being carried out on a grant from Baine Brass. They’re surely not making hidden atomic bombs or anything like that.”

“But if he’s a friend of yours …”

“Well, I’ll tell you—maybe next week we can run up there. I may have to go to Buffalo again, and we can drive up.”

Simon Ark frowned. “Evil often does not choose to wait, but perhaps as you say there is nothing in this but the overworked imaginations of a few people.”

“I’m afraid Henry Mahon is not the most realistic person in the world,” I said. “Let’s wait and see what develops …”

So we didn’t make the trip to Baine City the following week. Summer was upon us suddenly, and the New York heat made the beaches of Long Island the only fit goals for a drive. Simon drifted away without my even being conscious of his going, off to some other city or some other country half a world away. The days lengthened out into the glorious warmth of life that seemed suddenly so important to a man of forty, and I had the happy feeling that life was far from being over for men. There was Shelly, seemingly as young and lovely as when I’d first married her, and there was my job—more challenging but more rewarding with each passing year.

And so Henry Mahon and his wife and Cathy Clark were forgotten. They were people of a borderland at best, people who helped fill up your life without ever really being a part of it. And summer—a fortieth summer—was especially a time for being oneself. Shelly and I discovered the secluded little beaches that dotted Long Island’s north shore, and there was only the sun to see us and approve as we basked in its warmth.

There was always the radio, filling the sand and the air with gentle music for a quiet mood, with occasional well-timed interruptions for the news of the world—just to remind one that men still plotted and schemed and lived and died, even on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

This day, the Saturday that marked the beginning of a long July Fourth weekend, we were alone together on a little strip of sand not far from the Eaton’s Neck lighthouse. Shelly was reading a recent novel by Graham Greene and I was puttering around with the charcoal grill, trying to get a fire going for supper.

“Germany, China, Egypt.” Shelly moaned. “We might as well be fighting a war already the way those newscasters talk.” And then she fell silent as the droning voice of the announcer shifted to local matters.

“The upstate New York community of Baine City has a real murder mystery on its hands today with the discovery of the bullet-riddled body of a young girl.” I sat up at the name of Baine City and dropped what I was doing. “The girl, twenty-two-year-old Cathy Clark, had graduated only last month from Baine University. Her body was found some miles out of the city on a side road where she apparently was shot to death while seated in her car.”

That was all. Then he was off again to an oil explosion in Texas. “Baine City,” Shelly said. “Isn’t that the place …”

“That’s the place. And that’s the girl who followed me the night I was late getting home. God, what could have happened?”

“She was the one who wanted Simon to help her?”

I nodded, running sand nervously through my fingers. “And I didn’t listen to her.”

“But what could you have done?”

“I don’t know. Something. Apparently anything would have been better than nothing. Come on, let’s pack up and get back to town. I want to get the details of this.”

It took us the better part of two hours to reach the Triborough Bridge, battling the traffic of a hot holiday weekend every mile of the way. I bought all three Saturday afternoon papers on the way, but only one had the story. That was enough.

It was on page three, under a flash photograph showing a late model sports car with its door open on the driver’s side. She was hanging there, half in and half out of the car, with her long blonde hair reaching down to the pavement. There was a stain below her head which might have been blood or perhaps only a random oil stain. The printed account carried little I hadn’t already heard on the radio. A highway repair crew had found her in the early hours of Saturday morning while answering an emergency call. She’d apparently been seated in the front seat when someone had fired six pistol shots through the windshield and side window. There were no signs that she’d been attacked, the report concluded, meaning she hadn’t been raped. I was mildly surprised to see no mention of her parents. Only Jean Mahon was mentioned as a survivor.

“I’d better try to locate Simon,” I said when we reached home. “He’ll want to know about this.”

“I thought he was out of town.”

“Maybe he’s back for the weekend. There’s always a chance.”

I had a long list of telephone numbers Simon Ark had given me once, and I started through them. The Institute for Egyptian Studies was closed for the weekend and there was no one but the janitor to answer the phone. The little hotel on 84th Street hadn’t seen him in weeks, and Father Toole at Fordham thought he was out of town. I tried a Long Island number and one in Jersey, but the answer was the same.

“Well, I’d better fly up to Baine City tonight,” I told Shelly.

“Alone? Why in heaven’s name? Why go up there? You hardly knew the girl.”

“Well, for one thing, Hank Mahon might be in trouble too. If she was killed because of this Professor Wilber’s experiments, maybe Mahon is next. They asked me to help—to have Simon Ark help—and now I’ve got to do something.”

She didn’t like it, I know, but I had to go. I caught an evening plane and was checking into the Baine City Hotel at midnight …

Sunday morning in a city, any city, is a day set apart. It is a day of rest, and for those few who have to work it is a day tilled with quiet activity. It is not a day for judging a city, because all cities have a certain charm in the peaceful quiet of a Sunday morning.

Baine City, on the third of July, was a city deserted by many of its residents. The three-day weekend had lured them away, to the nearby beach where many had cottages, or further a bit, to the mountains that could just be seen on a clear day from the tops of the taller buildings. The city could have been mine that morning as I stood at my hotel window seeing the sweep and flow of it. The streets shot out like empty arrows before me, and I realized after a time that the hotel was located at the point of a wide V. Far at the end of one set of streets was a great factory that I took to be Baine Brass. In the other direction, down the left arm of the V, I could see a typical college bell tower rising behind the buildings.

Baine Brass and Baine University, linked together by the network of streets that was Baine City. I wondered about this man whose name they bore, this man Baine who had carved his city in the heart of New York State and put his stamp on everything in it.

I called Mahon from the hotel. “I was sorry to hear about Cathy,” I told him. “It was a shock.”

“Believe me, it was a shock for us too. Jean is in bad shape.”

“Can I come out?”

He hesitated a bit. “What for?”

“Well, you asked for help once. About Professor Wilber, out at the University.”

“Oh. Well, I don’t think you could do anything now. That’s all blown over.”

“But Cathy is dead,” I insisted.

“I know, but that had nothing to do with Wilber. It—it was a wild crowd she was running around with.”

“Mighty wild, to pump six bullets into her.”

He sounded somehow different to me, troubled, unsure of himself. He cleared his throat and went on. “Well, there’s nothing that can be done about it now. I appreciate your calling.”

“Look, Hank, I flew up here last night just to see you. I’m trying to locate Simon Ark and get him up here too. If you don’t want any help, just say so.”

“I thought I’d said it, fella. The police will catch Cathy’s killer. There’s nothing for us to do.”

“What about Professor Wilber’s experiments?”

“I told you—there’s nothing to it. My imagination got the better of me.”

“Cathy saw me in New York. She was upset about Wilber too.”

“Oh for God’s sake! There’s nothing to it, forget it, can’t you?”

Another thought struck me. “Your fund raising drive—is it on now?”

“Yeah, all this month. And I don’t want you and Ark stirring up a storm. Not this month. I’m getting one percent of everything I bring in, and it’s tough enough as it is. You wouldn’t believe there could be so much resentment against old Baine in this city.”

“So the fund raising goes on, and Cathy Clark goes unmourned.”

“What can I do? What can you do?”

“Maybe nothing,” I admitted. “I’ll be seeing you, Hank.”

And I hung up.

Henry Mahon was a damned spoiled fool who loved nobody but himself and never had. This much I knew, but of course I’d known it for a long time really. The only problem now was my own course of action. I could catch the next plane back to New York and forget all about Mahon and Jean and Cathy and the mysterious professor, or I could stay and putter around on my own.

On my own, there was no real choice. I reached for the phone to call the airport, but it jumped into life as my hand touched it. “Hello?” I questioned softly, half expecting it to be Mahon calling back to say he was sorry.

“This is Simon,” the familiar voice answered. “I’m downstairs. Shelly told me about the trouble …”

We ate breakfast downstairs, and over coffee I told him about my phone conversation with Henry Mahon. He settled back in the chair to think about it for a moment.

“What do you say? Should we retreat under fire, or should we look into the doings at Baine University?”

“Do you think we’d really find something, Simon? Do you think we’ll find Professor Wilber crouched over a rack of bubbling test tubes, changing himself into a Mr. Hyde?”

Simon Ark smiled. “I hardly think a true mad scientist would find it necessary to resort to bullets for his murders. Perhaps Mahon was correct about this wild crowd.”

“Well, let’s take a run out there anyway,” I suggested. “Out to the University. We can at least look around.”

Simon shrugged in agreement and we finished our coffee. Outside the hotel we found a single taxi with a sleepy driver who was happy to find a fare on a Sunday morning. “Nobody at the University, you know,” he volunteered. “Summer courses don’t start till the fifth. That’s Tuesday.”

“We know.”

“Just don’t want to steal your money. Here we are. Want me to wait?”

It was only a half-mile walk back to the hotel, so I paid him and sent him on his way. Then Simon and I set off on foot across the rolling green of the campus, toward the distant stone buildings where familiar ivy was beginning to creep up the walls.

“What do you think of it, Simon?”

“They are all alike, your American colleges. Space and air and the feeling of youth and age somehow combined. Places for fun, perhaps for too much fun.”

“There’s a lot of knowledge mixed in with the fun, though,” I said, pausing a moment to study a sign that directed us left for the science building. “Our colleges today are the backbone of a vast educational system that promotes knowledge in every possible field. You’re no doubt aware that much of the work on the atomic and hydrogen bombs had its beginnings in our universities, in science buildings not too much different from this one.”

But Simon only sighed. “Education for destruction. You would certainly not argue that the world is a good place for all of that.”

“I wouldn’t argue anything with you, Simon. You’ll probably still be around when I’m long dead.”

“No doubt.”

“Come on—this door is open. It must lead somewhere.”

He followed me into the science building, down a whitewashed hallway that seemed to take us only deeper into the bowels of the place. And as we walked a queer chattering sound reached our ears—the sound of many creatures, animals, birds, something.

“What do you make of that, Simon?”

“We shall know in another moment, my friend.”

We turned the final corner and found ourselves before a pair of open glass doors. Beyond was a laboratory, with rows of cages lining the walls. Monkeys, mostly, with occasional rabbits and birds—and at the far end great cages that held four good-sized apes. And in the midst of it all was a little man wearing a white coat and thick, horn-rimmed glasses.

“Professor Wilber?” I asked, a bit uncertainly.

“Yes, I am Professor Wilber.” His voice was like the rest of him—small and withdrawn, with only a bare hint of power and authority behind it.

“You work even on Sundays?”

He waved his arms vaguely. “My work is never done here. Just what can I do for you gentlemen?”

We introduced ourselves and I made some bumbling comments about the possibility of doing a book on Baine City and the University. “We heard you were engaged in basic research on the subjects of birth and heredity, with funds from Baine Brass.”

“Oh, correct, correct, but hardly complete.” He bustled about as he spoke, giving more the impression of being absentminded than mad. Behind him a monkey screeched in its cage. “Yes see, I am looking into the very nature of life itself, looking into the mysteries of all creation. I plan to publish a paper on my findings.”

I remembered some experiments carried out in Mexico some years back. “Are you trying to create life?”

“No, no, nothing like that. I do not picture myself as God, gentlemen. Not yet. Tell me, how is the weather outside?”

“Warm.”

“Summer.” He opened one of the rabbit cages and seemed to inject the beast with a small hypodermic needle. “Summer is the best time of all. Perchance next summer I will be out of this filthy clean room and into the warmth of the sun. And tomorrow is a holiday too!”

Simon Ark had been standing in the very center of the room, well away from any of the cages. But now he moved a bit toward the apes at the end of the wall. “You even work tomorrow?” he asked, contributing to the conversation.

“Every day, every day, because I never know which day the thing might go wrong. All a lifetime’s work could go in a moment’s time.”

My thoughts went back to Cathy Clark. “Tell me, Professor, do you ever have some of the science coeds assist you here?”

The idea seemed to shock him. “No, no, no such thing. You see these large apes? This baboon is of the species that Burton once saw attempt to rape a girl in Cairo.”

He was over my head but I stuck with it. “What?”

Simon interrupted. “Richard Burton—I believe in his writings he mentions an attack on a woman, in Cairo—1856. The beast was killed before he could do any damage.

“And because of that you don’t have women assisting you? What about a girl named Cathy Clark?”

If he knew the name his face did not show it. “Clark? Clark?”

“She was killed yesterday,” Simon said.

“Oh, I read something in the newspaper. Too bad, too bad.”

“We have reason to believe she was connected with you in some manner, Professor Wilber.”

“With me? With me? Impossible! I may have seen her about the campus, but nothing further. I spend sometimes sixteen to twenty hours a day in this room, and as I have said no women work here.”

“But your researches are supported by Baine Brass?”

He bowed his head to one side in a gesture of assent. “The entire science program here is financed by the worthy donations of Foster Baine.”

I pressed on, certain there was something to uncover here. “This Foster Baine is the president of Baine Brass?”

“Correct, correct. Grandson of the founder. Carrying on in a great tradition,”

“But I understand he contributes nothing to the Arts College. Isn’t that strange?”

Professor Wilber tossed his head. “Why strange? The Baine family stands for technological and scientific advancement. Thus that is the field of their endowments.”

“One more question, Professor …”

He gave me a queer look. “Are you people detectives or what? So many questions!”

“I was just wondering if you knew a young fellow named Henry Mahon. He’s a public relations man who’s handling the current fund-raising drive.”

“Don’t know him,” Wilber answered shortly. He was convinced now that we were investigators of some sort, and he was clamming up.

There was nothing more to gain there so we left him, returning outside to the summer warmth. “Well, Simon, what do you think?”

“A strange man, but hardly a sinister one. More dedicated than anything else, I think. Your friend must have been imagining things.”

“So where does that leave us?” I watched a flight of pigeons lazily circling the campus bell tower.

“It leaves us only with the murder of Cathy Clark,” he said. “That much is real.”

“Too real. Let’s find the funeral parlor where she’s laid out. If nothing else we can at least pay our last respects …”

It looked like a great marble tomb, set suddenly in the very midst of the city to remind one of the immediacy of death—and perhaps that wasn’t such a bad idea for an undertaker after all. We knew it was the right place because a police car was parked in front, its silent red light flashing meaningfully.

And inside all was thickly carpeted silence, respectful of the waiting dead. A black felt signboard carried only the white lettered name of Catherine Clark, with an equally white arrow directing us through a low alcove.

And there she was, strangely beautiful in death, her hands meeting across her chest, her hair magnificently blonde and young. Only twenty-two.

I looked down at her and felt I’d known her for many years. There was a subtle difference about her in death, but if anything it was a glorious difference. She seemed older, more worldly-wise, more ready for what life held. I only hoped she had been ready for what death held. I turned away, thankful now only that none of the bullets had ruined the simple beauty of her face as they were taking her life.

“Hello,” someone said behind me, and I turned to see Jean Mahon standing there, all in black, a veil covering her forehead and eyes.

“I was awfully sorry to hear about your sister.”

“Thank you.”

“This … this is a friend, Simon Ark.” They shook hands with solemn silence and brief nods. “Is your husband here?”

“No. Henry is home. It’s hard on him—she was so much like me.”

“You have no other relatives?”

Jean Mahon shook her head. “Our parents were killed in an auto accident three years ago. There was just Cathy and me, and now …” The tears were very close and she broke off with a cracking voice.

“Do they have any idea who could have done it?”

She motioned toward a tall slim man holding an unlit pipe in his left hand. “That man’s from the police. He’s been questioning me about it.”

The tall man had already started toward us, and my first impression was that surely he was not the type of detective to leave his car outside with the red light flashing. He was young and handsome and might have stepped out of Esquire.

“I’m George Quinn,” he said, and the voice went with the rest of him. “Baine City Police. Were you friends of the deceased?”

“Not really,” I answered. “I’d met her just once, briefly, about a month ago.”

“An odd case,” he said.

Simon had moved near enough to hear his quiet comment. “Odd how?” he asked. “Isn’t all murder odd?”

Quinn obviously did not want to strike up a lengthy conversation in the presence of the victim. He motioned us into an adjoining room, and I noticed Jean give him a curious glance. When he had us alone he closed a sliding door and offered a cigarette. I took one but Simon declined.

“She was a strange girl, really,” he began. “Not that I knew her personally, but I’d heard stories. There was some money—thirty or forty thousand dollars according to the rumors—and it all went to Jean with the stipulation that she provide for Cathy’s education.”

“So Mahon married money,” I mused. “Interesting, interesting.”

“The part about Mahon and Jean Clark was a little bit surprising,” Quinn continued, being unusually talkative for a detective on a case. “She was always the quiet one of the pair—the older sister in every sense. Cathy on the other hand was as wild as they come, running with the hotrodders when she wasn’t busy at fraternity beer parties.”

“Strange,” I said, “she didn’t impress me that way at all.”

“She was a girl of many moods. That’s what makes this case so difficult right from the beginning. It might have been one of the college crowd that shot her, or one of this hotrod gang, or somebody else entirely.”

“It said in the paper that she hadn’t been raped.”

He shook his head. “Not even touched. But for all of that she was no virgin.”

“Pregnant?”

“No, but no virgin. Not a surprising bit of news, really.”

But it was surprising to me in my innocence. I always thought of promiscuous women as the other ones, the ones I did not know. All unmarried girls were virgins to my mind, and I still remembered the shocked surprise I’d felt in high school when the cute blonde kid down the street had left school three months before graduation to have her illegitimate baby in some private hospital fifty miles away. I’d never seen her again, and I’d spent endless weeks afterward speculating on which of my classmates had been guilty of the deed. Some years later I learned that any one of six boys could have been responsible, and that only added to the sense of shock.

And it was somewhat the same feeling that was inside me now—not that I’d really known Cathy Clark that well, because of course I hadn’t. But, maybe, it was just that somehow she reminded me of that lost blonde girl from my youth. Lost, and never found again.

“You think the killer will turn up here?” I asked. “You think it was one of her boy friends?”

“I don’t know,” he said, his voice carrying a trace of that eternal pessimism that seemed the lot of all true policemen. “Maybe a boy, maybe a jealous girl, maybe a wandering hobo no one will ever see again. Sometimes, as hard as we try, these things stay unsolved.”

Simon Ark murmured something I didn’t catch, and Quinn gave him an odd look. He put the pipe in his mouth for a thoughtful moment, then removed it and asked, “What did you say your name was?”

Simon scowled and told him. “Ark. Simon Ark, sir.”

“Simon Ark. You knew the girl too?”

“I never met her.”

“You people from New York?” His policeman’s suspicions were being awakened now. “You come all the way up to see this girl you hardly know?”

“Did I say we were from New York?”

“You talk like New Yorkers. Not Mr. Ark, maybe, but you sure do. I like to study people’s speech habits. Mr. Ark here is foreign, though I’d guess he’s been in this country a long time.”

“A long time,” Simon agreed with a smile.

George Quinn leaned back against the wall, chewing thoughtfully on the pipe stem. “Baine City is an odd place. We like visitors, especially New York visitors. We appreciate your interest in this poor dead girl. We’re friendly—you can see that. But all the same …”

“All the same what?” I asked.

“All the same, don’t go playin’ detective or anything like that. I get paid to catch murderers—you don’t.”

“You get paid whether you catch them or not.”

There was a tiny flicker of steel in his eyes. “I’ll get the man who killed Cathy Clark,” he said quietly, and I knew he meant it. The face behind the pipe relaxed quickly into the familiar smile and he slid back the folding doors. “Anyway, thanks for listening to me,” he concluded. “Sorry to take up your time.”

“Not at all,” Simon said. I followed him back into the room with the casket and the jumbled mountains of flowers. He paused for a moment and I thought he might be praying. Then we left the place and walked across the street to a little triangle of green that was a park.

“It’s a city,” I said.

“A city,” Simon nodded. “We must stay, my friend, and look beneath the surface of this city. It has a heart, if only a brass one.”

“You think Wilber knows something about her death?”

“A possibility. But I think it is time we visited your friend, Henry Mahon. …”

We found him in front of the house, strangely puttering with his rose bushes. It seemed an odd action for a man who had just lost his sister-in-law. He looked up as I parked our rented car, and I thought I saw a flicker of uncertainty on his face.

“Hello, Hank,” I said, leading Simon up the easily spaced steps.

“I told you there was nothing for us to do,” he said. Then, “I see you brought Simon Ark.” He made it a statement, not a question, and I wondered how he could be so sure. Simon’s face was anything but well known, and I’d told Mahon I was having trouble locating him. And yet he knew this was Simon. Had somebody called to tip him off? His wife, or Quinn or even Wilber? Anything was possible, I supposed.

“We were out to the University,” I said. “We talked with Professor Wilber. He seems a nice sort.”

Mahon grunted. “I understand you were at the funeral home too.” Apparently it had been his wife who’d called him.

“We stopped by,” I admitted. “After all, I did know her in a way.” I wondered why I was bothering to apologize to him.

“Come in,” he said suddenly, his manner changing in an unaccountable way. “How about a drink?”

We agreed, and I flopped into the same chair I’d occupied on my last visit. The house hadn’t changed much, actually, though I noticed that a small framed picture of Mahon and Jean was missing now from its place of honor on the coffee table. The drink tasted good after the day we’d spent in laboratories and funeral homes, and I for one was willing to devote the rest of Sunday afternoon to investigating the rest of the bottle.

Mahon, too, seemed intent on being the perfect host, producing a large poster from somewhere for our inspection. “How do you like it?” he asked. “I had two thousand of ’em printed up.”

It was a gaudy thing, done in black, yellow and fluorescent red, bouncing its vivid message out at you with uncompromising fury: GIVE! DOLLARS FOR SCHOLARS!

“That headline was my idea,” he said proudly. “Like it?”

I grunted something meant to be affirmative. “How’s the drive going?”

“Well, hell, considering the time of the year and everything, not too bad at all. You know, people are up at their summer cottages and stuff—they don’t like to be bothered with fund raisers. Some of them don’t even have phones and I have to write them if I can track them down.”

“Do you approach Baine Brass on something like this?”

“Well, not officially, though of course I sent a letter to Foster Baine. He graduated from the place back in ’40, you know. Granddad was still alive then, throwing his money around like he had an endless supply—and maybe he had. Foster Baine has the whole works now, at a fairly young age, and I suppose he’s doing a good enough job. You know, this is an odd city in a way. I can’t think of another place in the country with a population as big as ours that is so completely dominated by one industry—one single company. Baine City and the University and our largest theatre are all named after the original Baine. The family is the social leader, the business leader, the cultural leader. When the city needs a new hospital, or a park for the kids, the mayor just calls up Foster Baine or his wife, and there’s usually a fat check in the morning mail. And a fine spread in the following morning’s newspaper. That’s life in Baine City, and I suppose there’s nothing really wrong with it.”

“There was something wrong with it,” I reminded him. “Something in Professor Wilber’s laboratory.”

He sighed and sipped his drink. “You’re really persistent, aren’t you? All right, I’ll tell you everything I know—but I warn you, it isn’t much. The whole thing was Cathy’s doing, really. She came to me in May—nearly two months ago—with a story of being in Wilber’s lab one day and glancing through some of his secret notes. She told me, or rather she didn’t tell me, what it was all about—though she hinted that he was going against orders and doing some basic research in a forbidden field. We were both afraid that the news might break just at the start of my fund-raising activities.”

Simon Ark cleared his throat to give warning of an impending interruption. “The good Professor Wilber led us to believe that women were never allowed in his laboratory.”

I nodded in agreement. “Something about being afraid the apes would attack them.”

Mahon snorted. “I think that Wilber’s really nuts. Anyway, all I know is what she told me. And now she’s dead.”

“You think Wilber had a hand in it?”

“I don’t really know what to think,” he said. “I’m baffled. I can only suppose she took up with a bad crowd—those hotrodders from the end of town.”

“Do you know any of their names?” Simon asked.

“No … Zenny was one of them. Zenny something. There were others too. She seemed to think she was learning about life or something, hanging around with that wild crowd. At times she even talked about writing a book on sociology, but I don’t think she was ever serious. Jean couldn’t do a thing with her.”

Quite suddenly Simon Ark was on his feet, thanking Mahon for the drink and making it obvious he wanted to leave. It was an odd action for him, but I had no choice but to follow. I shook hands with Mahon and assured him I’d be talking with him.

“Are you staying for the funeral Tuesday?” he asked.

I hesitated, not knowing what Simon had in mind. “We may, though I should be back at Neptune Tuesday morning. I’ll see.”

We went back to the car, and Mahon went back to his flowers. I headed in the general direction of the hotel, waiting for Simon to say something, but for a long time he was silent. Finally he said, “I think this situation is worth looking into further.”

“You want to stay?”

“I think so. Until tomorrow, at least.”

“Well, maybe I can get you a room at the hotel. What are you going to do?”

He thought about it. “Two fields must be investigated a bit. The University and the hotrodders. Do you have any preference?”

“Look, Simon, it’s like Quinn said—we’re not detectives. Why not stay out of it? There’s nothing here to interest you. No witchcraft or ghosts or anything.”

“Still …”

“You want to stay. All right, we stay, but just overnight. I’ve got no reason to stick around for the funeral of a girl I hardly knew. But if you’re going to do any sneaking around you can do it on your own.”

Our route had taken us back toward the funeral parlor, and I swung the car around the grassy triangle to see what might be going on.

“Interesting,” Simon said.

“What? Did I miss something?”

“Professor Kane Wilber, just going in. Since he said he didn’t know her it’s interesting that he should leave his work to come here.”

“Maybe he wanted to make sure.”

“Perhaps,” Simon mused. “Please leave me off at the next corner. I will probably see you at the hotel later tonight.”

There was no talking to him when he got in one of those moods. I dropped him off as he’d requested and circled the block to the hotel. But my curiosity got the better of me. I parked the rented car and went back around the corner on foot.

Simon was easy to spot, even with the late afternoon’s sun in my eyes. Tall and black against the brighter colors of summer foliage, he was a man apart. I watched a moment and saw the door of the funeral home open. It was indeed Professor Wilber, and now he was leaving, walking with a quick firm pace back in the direction of the campus. Simon waited silently and then fell into step about a block behind him.

Well, where did that leave me? Should I go take in a movie or pick up one of the competition’s books to read in my hotel room? I certainly wasn’t going to fall in line behind Simon and add to this crazy procession. The door of the funeral parlor opened once more and a young fellow, maybe nineteen or twenty, came out. He was well dressed, more or less, but even the clothes seemed somehow uncomfortable. I could make a good guess that this was one of Cathy’s hotrod friends, possibly even the one named Zenny. Anyway, he was heading my way, and I figured I had nothing to lose. “Hi, Zenny,” I said, making it friendly. He twisted around at the sound of the name, going into a modified fighting crouch.

“Whoreyou?” Like that. All one word. It sounded like a dirty word.

“A friend of Cathy’s. She told me about you.”

“Cathysdead. I seen her.” Was he sorry or just resigned?

“Could I come with you a ways, Zenny? Just to talk?”

“You a cop.” He made it a statement, not a question. And he made it obvious he didn’t like cops.

“No, I’m a book publisher. From New York.”

“Huh! New York.”

“Some people like it, Zenny. Mind if I call you Zenny?”

“Call me anything you like.” He seemed resigned to my presence now, and he’d settled into a slower speech pattern.

“You were a friend of Cathy Clark?”

“I knew her. She wasn’t one of these damn stuck-up college kids who think they’re too good for you. She came around with the gang. She was lots of fun.

“What kind of fun, Zenny?”

“You must be a cop. Go get lost.”

“She must have been two or three years older than you. Why did she hang around with a crowd of young toughs when she probably could have had her pick of the college crowd?”

“Damn!” he snorted, his face reddening. “You get lost, mister, or I’m goin’ to flatten you, cop or no cop. I was just as good to Cathy as any damned college bastard.”

I was silent for a moment, trying to decide on the best course of action. “Look,” I said finally, “I’m no cop, I told you. I want to talk about Cathy, to meet some of her friends.”

“Quinn’s already talked about Cathy. You know Quinn, don’t you?”

“I know Quinn, but that still doesn’t make me a cop. I know the mayor of New York but I’m no politician. Besides, Quinn seems like a good enough guy for a cop.”

He snorted and fumbled for a crumpled pack of cigarettes. “There are no good cops. If they were good they wouldn’t be cops.” He seemed ill at ease in the suit jacket and I figured he was anxious to get back to wearing his regular clothes, whatever they might be—probably blue jeans and a soiled sweatshirt.

“What’s the matter with Quinn?”

“Oh, he’s always suckin’ around. One time about a year ago, when Cathy first started hangin’ around with our crowd, he comes stormin’ in one night to rescue her or somethin’. I guess he thought there was goin’ to be a gang rape. She told him off good, I guess. You know, he went for her himself.”

“Quinn?” He’d told us at the funeral parlor he never knew her personally. I turned that thought over in my mind but said nothing.

“Sure Quinn. Who you think I’m talking about? Hell, you’re nowhere. Get lost, mister. There’s the gang waitin’ for me.” He left my side and darted off toward a battered blue Ford that looked to be seven or eight years old. A dark girl in sweater and tight jeans stood by the door waiting for him, and there was another couple inside.

“Zenny! Wait …” He turned a moment as if to stop, but the girl held open the door for him. She never looked directly at me, only almost through me as if I didn’t exist. Perhaps for her I didn’t. If she was Zenny’s girl this was probably a big day for her, welcoming him back from Cathy Clark’s coffin. The Ford took off with a roar

The Ford took off with a roar as soon as Zenny was inside, and I could tell from the sound that there was something special under the hood. Then they were gone, and all was quiet again in the early evening.

In the lonely silence that settled around me I heard somewhere the familiar pop of a firecracker, and I remembered that the Fourth of July was now only hours away. Tomorrow.

A girl hurried by, hex heels tapping out a sort of melody on the concrete, and somewhere mixed with the fireworks was the distant tolling of a church bell. It was six o’clock. I walked, heading nowhere, wandering in a fairly straight line that I soon saw would carry me near the towering stacks and low structures of Baine Brass. Well, that was as good a goal as any.

I wondered where Simon was now. Maybe lurking outside Professor Wilber’s lab, watching him inject monkeys with the deadly serum that would turn them all into King Kongs. Hell, this whole trip was fantastic, and I was crazy to even be here, alone on a street I never knew, walking toward the twin brick towers that now reflected the dying sun back into my eyes. As I drew nearer, I saw that the sun was reflecting off two giant webs of neon tubing, forming the letters BB.

There was activity at Baine Brass tonight, and I guessed there must be a shift that finished up at six. Men, mostly, tired but joking, glad the long Sunday was over.

And also a few women, in slacks that were the badge of the girl production worker, lighting their cigarettes and glancing around to call out to friends. I stood by a tree for a time, watching them waiting for their buses, watching many of the men and a few of the women wandering across the street to the little bar. There was always a little bar across the street from factories, I decided, to purge the men of their paychecks and their troubles.

BB. Baine Brass.

After this there was no place left to go. There would be nothing beyond Baine Brass, so I turned to retrace my steps. Behind me, two of the home-bound workers were casually discussing the murder.

“What do you think of that killing?”

“You know how these rich girls are. Probably her boy friend got her pregnant and then shot her.”

“They claim it was nothing like that.”

“Who claims—the papers? They’re all in Baine’s pocket. If his son or any of his friends got the girl in trouble the papers would sure keep it quiet. That’s what happened all right. Foster Baine owns this damn city. I don’t think they’d even commit a murder without his OK.”

It was an interesting if somewhat narrow theory, and the other man didn’t bother to reply. I figured it was just the eternal war between labor and management being carried on at a more personal level. They turned off into one of the side streets and the evening was silence again.

I was back almost to the funeral parlor when I glimpsed Simon Ark headed down the next block in the same direction. I stepped up my pace and caught him. “Learn anything?”

He didn’t look at me, but rather kept his eyes fixed at an alley leading around the rear of the funeral home. “I learned that our Professor Wilber is indeed quite strange. Come—quickly!”

“What… ?”

“Wilber is in there. He came back for some reason.”

“But it’s the dinner hour. No one will be there now.”

“No one but Cathy Clark,” he reminded me.

We went down the alley to the back door. It was open except for a battered screen door that didn’t quite close. “He went in this way?”

Simon nodded and signaled me to silence. Very carefully he pulled the screen door open, hesitating every few inches lest a squeak should give us away. Then we were inside the familiar hallway, creeping into the room where we’d spoken to Quinn. The place was empty, with only the dim funeral lights casting a glow over mounds of flowery anthills. The white folding door was half open, and through the crack we could see the coffin of Cathy Clark. We could see that, and something more.

The dim but certain shape of Professor Kane Wilber, bending over the casket like some fiend from hell. Bending over the casket and running his fingers through the corpse’s hair …

For a long moment that seemed like an hour we were frozen there, unable to move or utter a sound before this scene of sheer horror. Then, shaking myself free of the icy chill that gripped me, I started forward—intent on stopping him from this deed of. darkness—but Simon held me back with a firm hand.

“Not yet,” he whispered. “Wait—and watch.”

Presently Professor Wilber rose from his task, his back still toward us, and rubbed his hands together. Then he seemed to be rearranging the ruffled hairs, covering the signs of his deed. And in the madness of my mind just then I wondered if somehow he had cut out her brain for use in some half-imagined monster. No, that was not possible, but his real task must have been no less sinister.

Then, while we watched, he was gone, slipping as silently as he’d come back through the screen door to the alley. The undertaker had heard nothing, the dead girl was undisturbed. He had only run his fingers through her hair.

“Strange,” Simon said. He pulled back the folding door and went quickly to the coffin, bending over it much as Wilber had done. But he did not touch the glistening blonde hair. He only looked, at the hair, and face, and body of Cathy Clark. “Why?” he asked, more of himself than of me. “Why?”

“He’s crazy, that’s why. What else could it be?”

“I don’t know,” he answered slowly, “but I intend to find out. The ways of genius are sometimes strange, and we must not leap to conclusions.”

“Did you discover what he’s doing in that lab—what Cathy Clark was so upset about?”

Simon sighed and turned away from the casket. “No, I discovered nothing. It is a curious matter.”

When we were outside once more I told him of my meeting with the boy called Zenny, and my stroll past Baine Brass. He listened intently but had no comments to offer. His mind seemed somehow far away, listening but not hearing. Somewhere distant another illegal firecracker exploded but there was no other sound to intrude our silent thoughts. The city was lonely again, but I couldn’t help wondering where Professor Wilber had gone now …

Strange, city strange, darkness settling slowly like fog over streets so quiet. A Sunday evening, July third, lonely July. I sat in my hotel window, on the ledge, smoking a cigarette, watching what might have been a bat circling high above the buildings, looking, seeking—what? The same as me? The cigarette was good in the night air, cooling from the heat of day, but still there was a certain odor about the city—not the Manhattan odor of exhaust fumes and pizza parlors, but rather perhaps the smell of hot brass if hot brass had a smell.

Still the lights burned bright in the factory at street’s end, still the activity seemed to center there in this city at sleep. Still still. July third. Below me a girl hurried along, her blonde hair gleaming, and for an impossible moment it might have been Cathy Clark risen from the coffin for a last walk through this city of dreams. The night was like that.

Simon Ark sat across the room from me, twisting the dial of the quarter-an-hour radio until he found a program of symphony music from a New York City station. Then he settled back in the chair and closed his eyes.

“Why do they do it, Simon? Why do men kill?”

“Why do men love, why do they hate? Why do they journey through life’s great adventure as individuals rather than a self-helping group? I sometimes think, my friend, that if all the peoples of earth could look beyond this life to the hereafter, they would end warfare and hatred forever—end it and spend their years in peaceful preparation for the beyond.”

I grunted. “There’ll always be evil in this world, Simon. You’ve found it yourself in almost every possible place—even monasteries.”

“Evil, yes. Because evil is the devil’s product. As long as Satan walks the earth, evil walks with him. Even here, in this quiet city of brass, someone has held hands with the devil, and fired those deadly bullets into a poor girl’s body.”

“Who?” I asked.

“The eternal question, but sometimes not so important as why. That is the most important question in the entire universe. Why is there evil? Why did Cathy Clark have to die? Why was Kane Wilber running his fingers through a dead girl’s hair? Why?”

I lit another cigarette, watching a couple of hotrods dragging down the main street of town. Even the police seemed on holiday tonight, and I wondered if the youth called Zenny was in one of those cars. I wondered too if Cathy Clark had ever ridden there by his side. A dozen, thousand, images leaped up to confront me—images of Cathy beside the boy Zenny, naked and hot beside him. Images of Foster Baine, a man I’d never met, ruling this city with a brass fist. Images and dreams.

Nine o’clock. There were fireworks in the distance now, skyrockets lighting the night air with glistening colored sparks. They would be coming now from the lake resort area, a few miles to the north. The rich of Baine City would be there this weekend, just as the rich of Westchester would be out on the Sound with their boats.

“Simon, is there something about water that attracts wealth?” I asked casually, putting words to my random thoughts.

But suddenly I realized that Simon was no longer in the room. He had gone silently off somewhere, leaving me alone in the semi-darkness, with only a flashing red neon sign for company. And then the phone rang, and I answered it.

“This is Jean Mahon,” the voice said. “Can I talk to you?”

“Certainly. Where are you?”

“In the lobby.”

“I’ll be right down.”

She was the same, but still a little different, as she seemed every time I saw her. She had been a different girl at the funeral parlor, beside her sister’s coffin, and now she was a bit different again, perhaps a bit more alive.

“Hello,” she said. “Thank you for coming down.”

“It’s nothing. You must have put in a rough day—can I buy you a drink?”

“I shouldn’t,” she hesitated, but only for a moment. Then we were off to the hotel bar, a depressing place of phony tropical plants and overly polite waiters in red jackets.

“You look pretty good, considering,” I told her over drinks. “Didn’t Hank come down at all?”

She shook her head. “He can’t stand to see dead people. Something about the shock of seeing his grandfather dead years ago. Of course that makes it harder for me.”

Here, under the pale lights of the bar, she looked more than ever like Cathy. I remembered the night of our brief talk in Grand Central, and in the dimness this might almost have been the same girl. She had the wide, too-wide, mouth I’d noticed before, and the same habit of tilting her head a bit when talking or listening intently. I could see how she would have appealed to Mahon, especially on a cold ski weekend.

“Do you know anyone who could have wanted to kill your sister?” I asked.

“Now you sound like the police. No, no one. Cathy was a lovely, likeable girl.”

“She was younger than you?”

Jean Mahon nodded. “By almost two years. She was still a bit wild, but we all go through that stage.”

“There was a fellow named Zenny …”

“I’ve heard her mention the name, but I never met him.”

“He was at the funeral parlor this afternoon.”

“Oh? There were so many of her younger friends …”

“I lit a cigarette. “What was it you wanted to talk about?”

“Well, nothing really. Henry mentioned that you were checking on Professor Wilber, out at the University.”

“You know him?”

“Slightly, from when I attended the arts college. He was always scampering around, acting crazy. I … do you really think he might have a connection with my sister’s death?”

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I’m no detective, you realize. I understand she was hanging around with a pretty wild crowd.”

“Oh, Zenny and those others! I suppose they were a bit wild, but everyone goes through that stage, I think.”

“You said that.”

She smiled. “I am repeating myself, aren’t I? Time to head for home, I guess.”

I thought she was kidding, but she wasn’t. She downed the rest of the drink and rose to leave. “You’re really going?”

“Yes. Thank you for the drink. Good night.”

I watched her leave the place, her strong, youthful beauty still drawing stares from the line at the bar. Well, she’d called me up and said she’d wanted to talk. We’d had a drink, she’d said nothing at all of any importance, and then she’d gone off. What in hell did it mean, if anything? Was I crazy, or had she had some secret motive in her brief conversation with me?

I thought about it as I downed my drink and wondered vaguely where Simon was. Was the whole world crazy tonight or just me, just this place called Baine City? “I’ll have one more, bartender,” I called out. At least it was better than returning to the window sill in my room to stare out on the vacant city. I stayed there nursing my drink, and it was there that Simon Ark found me, a half-hour later.

“Get out the car, my friend,” he greeted me. “We have traveling to do.”

“Where? Back to New York, I hope.”

“No, to the lake nearby. I have learned that Foster Baine and his wife are spending the weekend at a summer home there.”

“What in hell do you want to see Foster Baine about? And at this time of night? It’s ten o’clock already.”

Simon nodded. “I know, but I believe we have an increasingly dangerous situation here. I think it narrows down to two possibilities—either Cathy Clark was slain by Professor Wilber or someone connected with his experiments, or she was killed by someone from the personal side of her life, someone like this Zenny It is most important that we learn once and for all just what experiments Wilber is carrying out. In spite of your friend Mahon’s insistence that Baine knows nothing about the experiments, I feel certain that he must have at least a general knowledge of them. In a city like this, someone like Foster Baine would know everything.”

“All right,” I said. “I’ll drive you out there but you go in by yourself. He’ll probably have the police on us for getting him out of bed.”

“Hardly, my friend. Today’s newspaper reports a giant midnight fireworks display on the lake to welcome in the fourth. Surely the Baines will be up for that.”

He was probably right, and I really didn’t feel like bed yet anyway, so we got out the rented car and headed in the general direction of the lake. The night was a lively sort, with a brisk breeze blowing blue clouds across a bluer sky, and it was almost a pleasure to drive beneath it, even bound for so questionable a destination.

The lake we sought was named Iroquois, after the Indian tribes that had long ago claimed the region for their own. It rested like a great blue puddle in the lap of a valley, surrounded on all sides by cottages big and small. Now, even at night, there was a certain beauty about it all, and we swept down the lake road like a winged dragon coming for the conquest. One end, or side, of Iroquois Lake was given over to the mammoth summer homes and boat houses of the wealthy, and there we found the sprawling fenced-in grounds of Foster Baine’s place of play.

The gate was open, and a number of cars stood in the cindered drive. We parked behind them and started off on foot for the house. Simon looked at me and smiled. “I thought you were staying in the car.”

“I changed my mind. OK?”

“OK, my friend. No need to be upset.”

“It’s almost midnight. I suppose these fireworks are going to blast off pretty soon.”

“Soon,” Simon nodded. “It would appear that Mr. Baine is entertaining house guests for the display.”

We went up silently onto a cobblestoned terrace, seeing through partly opened French doors the laughing, talkative crowd inside. There were perhaps a dozen or more men and women, all in the late thirties-early forties age group, and dressed in that casually expensive look of the very wealthy. A colored houseboy was serving a tray of cocktails and all was very, very proper. These were the rulers of the city of brass.

“Can I help you?” someone said behind us.

I turned and stared into the muzzle of a .38 revolver held tightly in the hairy hand of a smiling little man. “What?” I was startled by the sight of the gun, though Simon seemed almost not to notice it in the dim light.

“Pardon me,” the man said, keeping the smile in place, “but there’ve been a number of robberies lately. Could you state your business?”

Simon Ark cleared his throat. “We wish to speak with Foster Baine. It’s very important.”

The little man put away the gun but kept the smile. “Wait here.” Then he vanished through the open doors, into the midst of the party.

“What do you make of him?” I asked Simon. “Special guard?”

Simon shrugged, and we turned to look out at the water, its little wind-driven waves beating at the stony shore. There were men along this shore now, shadow men, standing every twenty or thirty feet, waiting at their posts like soldiers guarding against invasion. They would be watching the glowing dials of their watches now, waiting for the midnight stroke that would signal the start of the fireworks. The lake soon would seem a sea of fire, and somehow I supposed it would reflect the passing of another year of independence.

A tall, not unhandsome man in a summer jacket stepped onto the porch, closely followed by the guard who’d greeted us. Apparently Foster Baine didn’t interview strangers alone. “Good evening, gentlemen,” he said, his voice surprisingly mild. “May I be of assistance?”

“Foster Baine?” Simon asked, and when the tall man nodded slightly he went on. “I am Simon Ark. You do not know me, but I have come some little distance to speak with you.”

The man waved his hand with irritation. “You see I’m entertaining. Can’t it wait till Wednesday? I’ll be back at the office then.”

“It can’t wait,” Simon said quietly. “It concerns the murder of Cathy Clark.”

If Simon’s statement surprised him he didn’t show it. Rather he seemed just the least bit annoyed, chewing nervously on his lower lip. “The girl who was murdered? What has she to do with me?”

“She was a recent graduate of Baine University.”

Foster Baine snorted. “Am I now to be held responsible for every person who passes through the portals of that place? I never met the girl, or heard her name, before this weekend when she was killed … Just who are you gentlemen, anyway?”

He looked down on me with a decidedly superior attitude as he spoke, but Simon was his equal in height and more than his equal in staring people down. “Mr. Baine,” he said, bringing into play the full range of his startlingly powerful voice, “we have reason to believe that the death of Miss Clark may be in some manner linked with a series of experiments being currently carried on at Baine University by a Professor Kane Wilber.”

“Am I supposed to know about those, too?”

“We thought you might, since you support the various research programs of the University.”

His eyes broke with Simon’s gaze and he turned away, toward the water. “I know Professor Wilber. I’ve known him for a good many years. He is without doubt one of the finest brains in the country in the field of heredity.”

Simon moved a step closer to the man. “And what is the nature of the experiments being currently carried on?”

At that moment a flare fizzled into life across the lake, then another, and another, until the entire lake seemed ablaze in a matter of seconds. Rockets screeched through the black and blue night, bursting above us to litter the area with the sudden, already dying, brightness of a thousand suns. Almost at once we found ourselves surrounded by the rest of Baine’s party, and for the moment further talk was impossible. We were all simply an audience now, held captive by the spectacle of color that bathed so briefly the lake before us.

What was the last question Simon had asked? The nature of the experiments being carried on? I thought about it as I watched the constantly changing brightnesses reflecting off the face of Foster Baine. No, he was not a man to make monsters—he was an empire builder, a pioneer for all of his inherited riches. He was Baine Brass, as surely as his father and grandfather had been.

Another rocket burst far overhead, sprinkling colors like lights on some animated Christmas tree. Christmas in July. From inside the occasional music of a stereo phonograph drifted through to us over the sound of the bursting fireworks. It wasn’t Christmas music—maybe rather July music, music for a summer night. Something from the twenties, dreamy.

The lights flickered and changed again, and I was looking at a face somehow familiar. A blonde girl, standing next to, and a little behind, Foster Baine. A girl who for one crazy instant could have been Cathy Clark in Grand Central Station, over a cold cup of coffee. I knew her, I knew this girl, from somewhere far in the past. Further back than Cathy Clark …

It had been a summer, like this one, at a lake like this one, perhaps only because as one approaches forty all summers and all lakes seem much the same. I had forgotten everything about her—even her name—many years ago, because after all it had been summer at a lake. I remembered only that in those days, she’d looked well in a bathing suit, that she could do a Charleston like some imagined image of Clara Bow, and that she kissed me one night on the sandy beach, with little pebbles pressing into my back.

Now, as she turned, aware somehow of my questioning gaze, the same sort of half-remembering expression passed over her face—passed and was gone, all in an instant. “Pardon me,” I said. “Don’t I know you?”

A bit of a smile played about her lips as she answered. “Do you? I am Mrs. Foster Baine.”

Yes, his wife now. A rich man’s wife. “It was a long time ago,” I began.

The smile stayed on her lips, but not in her eyes. “I think you must be mistaken.”

“Perhaps,” I replied, because there was nothing else to say just then.

We watched the fireworks for another ten minutes, until finally the bursts grew a little less frequent, the flares a little less bright. And the music from the stereo swelled up around us again, with a dreamy instrumental of an old song called Dancing On The Ceiling. The party was breaking up now, with guests and their ladies saying courteous good-nights to Mr. and Mrs. Foster Baine. It was not the kind of gathering where half-drunk friends lingered till daybreak, dancing sensuously to unheard music. These were the proper people of Baine City—they had seen their spectacle and now it was time to go home.

And even as I watched them go I wondered at that strange quirk of modern society. Sometimes the rich and powerful were also the lawless and sinful, but there was a certain point of wealth and power that precluded all this—as if when a man reached a certain goal he ended his public sinning and started practicing it in private.

Then we were alone, Foster Baine and his wife and Simon and I, and we went back to the living room of the beach house. It was a room to be appreciated, a room to be studied and savored like a fine painting. There were trimmings of brass, of course, everywhere you looked. Brass fireplace screen, a huge brass clock on the mantel, even brass legs on all the furniture.

“Well,” Foster Baine said, taking up a position on one side of the great open fireplace. “Where were we?”

I tried to catch Mrs. Baine’s eye, but she wasn’t having any. Like her husband, she was concentrating on the tall, commanding figure of Simon Ark. “We were discussing the current experiments of Professor Wilber,” Simon said. “And the murder of Cathy Clark.”

Her eyelids may have flickered at that. I couldn’t be sure. But her husband might have been a block of brass. “Well, as I said, he has one of the finest brains in the entire country. As to his present work, I’m afraid I can’t enlighten you there.”

“Can’t? Or won’t?”

He gave us a hard smile. “What you will. The experiments are of a confidential nature. At the proper time full data will be released.”

“I have been told that these experiments are of a somewhat startling nature,” Simon said.

Baine shrugged his shoulders. “These days life is startling. Rockets circle the moon, planes fly the ocean in a few hours. Professor Wilber and others like him are only working for an even better tomorrow.”

Simon Ark frowned. “Tomorrow seems only better because it is not here. Today’s evil will never bring tomorrow’s good.”

“The experiments are not evil,” Baine retorted.

“You know their exact nature?”

Baine hesitated a moment and then nodded.

“But you refuse to reveal them?”

“What good would be served by it? They are in no way connected with the death of Miss Clark. Why should I speak of such matters with two perfect strangers?”

He was beginning to get annoyed at Simon’s persistence, and I noticed that the little guard had returned, standing casually just inside the door. It was time to go.

Simon apparently realized this too, for he rose and said, “We must be going. I am sorry to have kept you up like this after midnight, but we felt it was important.”

Baine gave a wave of his hand. “Perfectly all right.”

When we were outside in the dark I led the way back to the car. “What do you make of it, Simon?”

He looked up at the stars for a moment before replying. “I don’t really know, my friend. A man like Baine is always difficult to figure out. He is a ruler here, like some feudal prince. The problem is whether his goals are the good of the people or merely his own selfish fame.”

“I think I used to know his wife,” I remarked, starting the car and heading back toward Baine City.

“Oh?”

“She wouldn’t admit it, but I think I knew her one summer down on Long Island. It was a long time ago.”

“A girl friend?”

“Not really. Not at all, in fact. That’s why I can’t quite figure out the cold shoulder I got. I never saw her or heard about her again, after that summer. She meant nothing to me.”

“Perhaps that’s why, my friend. Women like to mean something to a man.”

“Well, she found her man, anyway. She found Baine Brass.”

Simon cleared his throat. “Were you aware that a car was following us, my friend?”

“What?” My eyes shot to the rear-view mirror, picking out the twin headlights cutting through the night behind us. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” he said quietly. And even as he spoke the car picked up speed and began jockeying to pass us. “Be careful.”

“Damn!” I twisted the wheel as the lights moved along side. “If I had my own car I’d run him off the road.” He was next to us now, edging us over, crowding us toward a blackness that could only be a ditch. I took my eyes off the road an instant to concentrate on the shadowed figure bent over the steering wheel. I wanted to see what death looked like when he came for me.

But it was not the bone-smooth face I’d half expected to see. It was the face of the youth named Zenny. There was someone beside him, a girl whose face I couldn’t see. Just as I looked he swerved the wheel of his car, crowding me and bumping my fender. I slammed on the brakes and stopped with my right front wheel already on the edge of the ditch. Zenny brought his car to a halt some dozen yards ahead.

“This looks like trouble,” I said. “That’s Zenny, the Clark girl’s boy friend.”

“Would you prefer that I …?”

“No, I’ll handle it.” I slid out from behind the wheel and stood there waiting for him. “Hello, Zenny. You wanted me for something?”

He halted a dozen feet away, sizing me up like a fighter about to move in for the knock-down. “What you want, anyhow, mister? You’re workin’ for Baine, aren’t you?”

“No.”

“I see you leavin’ his place just now. Baine and I aren’t exactly friends.” He moved a step closer.

“That’s too bad. Did you and the girl friend follow me all the way out here just to tell me that?”

“We weren’t following you. We just seen you.” Behind him the girl had gotten out of the car. I thought it was the same girl who’d been waiting for him that afternoon at the funeral parlor. She wore the same tight sweater and jeans, but now her lipstick was smeared. He glanced at her and spat, “Get back in the car, Bun.”

“God, Zenny, don’t try nothing! There’s another one in the car watching you. If they are cops they probably got guns.”

He thought about this, sizing me up all the while. “I’m not going to hurt him, not yet. This was just a warning. Hear that, mister?”

“What kind of warning? I don’t think I understand.”

He stepped in closer, only an arm’s length away. “This kind of warning. You tell Baine he’s not framing me for Cathy’s killing. You can tell him he’d better lay off or his wife will wish he had.”

My left arm shot out and I felt my fingers catch his shirt collar. “What do you mean by that?” I asked angrily, yanking him off balance. I thought I had him, but he was too experienced at that type of fighting. Before I knew what was happening his right hand was coming up under my arm, a sudden switch-blade catching the gleam from my headlights. It was only the girl’s scream of fright that warned me in time.

We broke, and then the girl was on him, pulling the knife arm back. “No, Zenny, you damn fool! Let’s get out of here.”

Apparently he was convinced, because he started backing away, letting himself be dragged back to the waiting car by the girl in the tight jeans. He flung back only one shout. “Remember it, mister. You and Baine both remember it.”

Then they were in the car, and it was jumping to life with the familiar cough of a souped-up engine. I watched until the red tail lights vanished around the curve and then went back to Simon.

“Tough guy,” I said.

“My friend, Shelly would not like the thought of mixing with knife-wielding thugs. You’re much too old for it.”

I started the car, carefully backing away from the ditch. “I was never the right age, believe me. I think I’ll head back to New York, where there’s nothing to kill you but the traffic.”

“We must stay another day, now. Things are moving to a head.”

“Sure they are. I’ll get knifed by Zenny tomorrow sure.”

“Perhaps not, my friend. Perhaps not. We will wait to see what tomorrow brings.”

And he would say no more. We drove slowly back to town, in silence. Behind us the night was dark …

Fourth of July.

Dawning bright, crackling with the odor of burnt powder, singing with the distant sound of a parade. A picnic, a walk in the park, a familiar political speech. Midsummer day—holiday time, vacation time. I rolled out of bed just before ten and stood looking out at the city of brass, watching great white clouds chart a brief path across the sky, past Baine University, past Baine Brass. They were like some unknown islands in the sky, always there, yet changing with every tide of wind that blew across them.

It was so in Paris and London, Los Angeles and Washington, and here in Baine City. Just another place under the sun, where men lived and died, and life went on because it had to. Even today there’d be shifts at the brass plant, running the great forming and polishing machines. There’d be men standing around, taking a cigarette break, cursing the foreman, reliving the previous night’s date with the well-stacked blonde. It was life.

And I wondered what life ever was to men like Simon Ark. Did he have a woman somewhere, anywhere, to rest him when the burden got too tough? Even as I thought it, there was a knock on the door and he was standing there, looking the same as yesterday, the same as when I’d first seen him twenty years ago.

“A pleasant morning,” he said.

“Pleasant.” I started dressing, turning over the random thoughts that were running through my mind. “Simon?”

He’d settled into one of the hotel chairs and crossed his hands as if in prayer. “Yes, my friend?”

“Have you ever had a woman, Simon? I’ve known you for all these years, and yet I really know so little about you.”

I don’t know what reaction I’d expected, but I was surprised when he dropped” his eyes to the carpeted floor. “A woman? Well, now it has been a long time … I am very old, you know, so very old …” And then his eyes lifted, and he went on. “Did you know, my friend, that in ancient Greece the women of the streets—prostitutes—sometimes carved messages on the soles of their sandals, so when they walked along they imprinted messages in the sand or dirt of the streets?”

“What kind of messages?”

“Usually something like follow me or words to that effect.”

“It’s a queer world.”

“Yes, and perhaps there is always a woman at its center. Perhaps woman is the real ruler of man. At least they need each other, and always will.”

I nodded and put on my shirt. “Until someone comes up with a foolproof method of artificial insemination.”

I’d said it mostly as a joke, but Simon didn’t smile. “Most methods of artificial insemination are quite immoral,” he said, and then fell silent a moment, as if deep in thought.

An idea struck me and I turned away from the window. “Simon, we know that Wilber has been working on experiments concerning birth and the life process. Is it possible that when we saw him bending over the coffin yesterday he was really studying Cathy’s skull? Is it possible he intends to attempt to bring her back to life?”

Simon smiled a bit at that. “All things are possible in this world, my friend, but I fear you are being overly influenced by the current offerings of movies and television. I doubt very strongly if Professor Wilber is contemplating anything like that.”

“So, where do we go from here?”

“It’s a holiday. Why go anywhere?”

“Seriously, Simon, who do you think killed her?”

“If I told you, I doubt if you’d believe me. I hardly believe myself.”

“Then you know!”

But he shook his head. “I have a suspicion, nothing more. A suspicion that cannot yet be put into words.”

The phone buzzed and I picked it up, wondering who’d be calling us on this holiday morning. It was Henry Mahon, downstairs in the lobby and waiting to come up. I told him to come ahead.

“Mahon,” I told Simon.

“Interesting.”

“Very.”

He came, a few moments later, looking somehow worn and red-eyed. I wondered if he’d been drinking the night before. “Good morning,” he mumbled, sitting gingerly on the edge of the bed.

“Hello, Hank. What brings you down here at this early hour?”

“I … well, I thought you might have gotten the wrong idea about our conversation yesterday. I do care about my sister-in-law’s death, really! I don’t want to give the impression that I’m more interested in raising money for the University than in tracking down her killer.”

He was nervous today, even more so than the last time we’d seen him, and all the familiar wildness seemed gone from him. Perhaps Cathy’s death had hit him harder than we’d thought. Perhaps, but I doubted it.

“We have some leads,” Simon told him. “Despite our reluctance to act as detectives, we have uncovered a few interesting facts.”

“Oh, have you?” He was interested now, and I couldn’t help feeling that this information had been the real purpose of his visit. I sat back and let Simon take it from there.

“Yes,” he said, like a cautious hunter laying out the bait, “we’ve learned quite a bit concerning Professor Wilber, for instance. We followed him yesterday and saw him return to the funeral home during the supper hour. Amazing thing—he was in there all alone with the body.”

“Alone?”

Simon nodded. “He was running his fingers through her hair.”

Mahon was in the act of lighting a cigarette when Simon spoke the words, and his fingers faltered. “What? Why would he do that?”

“My friend here believes he might be planning to bring her back to life.”

He looked at me as if I were crazy. “You really think that?”

“Well, not really. It was sort of a joke.”

“Is this whole thing a joke? Do you know who killed her or don’t you?”

“Sometimes life is a joke,” Simon answered, “but we know who killed her.”

“Who?”

Simon closed his eyes. “The murderer will be at the funeral tomorrow morning.”

“That’s all you’ll say?”

“That is all I’ll say.”

Mahon sighed as if disappointed and got up to leave. It was obvious that he was unhappy with the state of the interview, but there was nothing much for him to do about it. After mumbled thanks and promises to see us later he departed.

“There’s a guy who’s really changed,” I observed. “He’s certainly not the rich playboy type any more.”

“Men change for a reason,” Simon said. “Find the reason and you learn much.”

“I gather from your conversation with him that we’re staying for the funeral tomorrow. Right?”

“Right. One extra day, might make a great difference. I want you to do certain things for me while I am busy elsewhere today.”

“What kind of things?” I always hated chasing around on missions for him like some third-rate Doctor Watson, but I could see I had little choice.

“You must contact Quinn, the detective. Tell him to be at the funeral tomorrow morning. Tell him he must have some of his men in the crowd.”

“He’d probably be there anyway,” I said. “Why do I need to tell him?”

“Just so he’ll be prepared. Do it, will you?”

“OK. Where are you going to be?”

“At the University, with Professor Wilber. I believe a conversation with him might clear up the last of the haziness.”

We went downstairs for breakfast and then separated. I was sorry to see him go, especially since I had only a vague knowledge of my real mission. Was it possible that Simon somehow suspected Quinn of being mixed up in the affair and wanted to scare him into the open. I’d met the man only briefly, but now I remembered the conflicting stories about his acquaintance with Cathy Clark. Well, stranger things had happened. Maybe Quinn was involved in some way.

Baine City Police Headquarters was an old sandstone building badly in need of a cleaning. Outside, flanking a short stretch of steps, stood two battered brass lamp posts surmounted by green glass globes. It was the police station of the twenties brought strangely back to life, and as I entered I half expected to see a chorus line of flappers being booked for indecent exposure, or a bootlegger paying his token fine. All was dusty with neglect, like a library in a country of the blind. Maybe that was it—maybe there just wasn’t any crime in Baine City. No crime but murder.

“Is Captain Quinn around?” I asked the man behind the desk, taking a wild guess at his rank.

“You mean Sergeant Quinn?” he asked with a slight smile. “Yeah, he’s around somewhere. Have a seat.”

I lowered myself onto a long dusty bench to wait. Presently one of the distant doors opened and I saw Quinn approaching with a well-dressed woman. It was Mrs. Foster Baine.

“Fellow’s waiting for you, Sarge,” the man at the desk said.

If Quinn was surprised to see me he didn’t show it. He said goodbye to Mrs. Baine and came over to me with an outstretched hand. My eyes followed her out of the place but she purposely avoided glancing my way.

“Well,” Quinn said, “good to see you again. Can I help you?”

I was still puzzled by Mrs. Baine’s strange appearance, but I tried not to show it. Obviously Quinn wasn’t planning to discuss her visit with me. “Simon Ark asked me to talk with you,” I said. “He has a lead on the Clark killing.”

“Ark? The man who was with you yesterday?”

“That’s right. He said to tell you the killer will be at the funeral tomorrow morning. You should be there with some men.”

Quinn made a noise somewhere between a grunt and a sigh. “Is your friend Ark going to unmask the killer at the funeral—pull him like a rabbit out of the hat? Maybe get the corpse to stand up and point an accusing finger like in Poe?”

“I don’t know. I’ve seen Simon do stranger things.”

“I’ll be there, don’t worry.”

I started to turn away and then paused. “Say, didn’t you tell us you’d never met Cathy Clark?”

Quinn’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“I just heard from somebody that you knew her.”

I’d tried to make my tone casual, but he wasn’t having any. I was like a fisherman who finally gets a bite and finds it’s a whale. “Who?” he rasped, seeming to tower over me as he spoke. “Who told you that?”

“A kid named Zenny.”

He nodded. “Cathy’s friend. You know him?”

“We’ve met.”

“He’s a nut. Be in trouble someday. Know why they call him Zenny?” I shook my head. “He’s trying to be one of those beat characters like you have in New York. You know—Kerouac and all that. He reads books about Zen Buddhism and stuff, so his gang started calling him Zenny. He liked it and it stuck.”

“He said you rescued Cathy from them one night. Took her home or something.”

He shrugged. “Maybe I did. I usually try to get a girl out of their clutches, unless she’s asking for it. Cathy Clark might have been one of them.”

It was hard to decide whether or not he was telling the truth. Certainly he was an honest, educated man—and probably a good cop as well. I was inclined to take his word for it. “Then you’ll be there tomorrow—at the funeral?”

“I’ll be there.”

With that he turned back toward his office and I left him, heading for the street. My mind was still on the conversation with Quinn when I saw Mrs. Foster Baine waiting for me outside. It startled me so that I couldn’t be certain she was really after me until she spoke, calling me by name.

“Could I talk to you?” she asked.

“Any time. This is a surprise, after last night.”

“I’m sorry about last night. I can explain it.”

She was edging me toward a cream-colored convertible I’d noticed on my way in. It was parked in a striped No Parking zone not twenty feet from Police Headquarters, but I suppose that didn’t bother people like Mrs. Foster Baine. “Your car?”

She nodded. “Want a ride?”

“Where to?”

“Just around. While we talk.”

“What will your husband think?”

“There comes a time when it just doesn’t matter much any more,” she answered, opening the car door for me.

“And this is the time?”

“Maybe. I thought about it all night, I couldn’t sleep.” She went down the main street, in a direction I didn’t know, driving with a skill that surprised me.

“It’s been a good many years,” I said. “What have you been doing?”

She twisted her lips into a sort of smiling sneer. “I got married.”

“And pretty well, too—Baine Brass isn’t just the corner drugstore.”

“She sighed a bit. “Ten years of it now. That’s a long time for anything. I’ll bet even Adam and Eve got tired after the first ten years. That’s probably why it was so easy for the serpent.”

“I didn’t think anyone ever tired of money. Baine must be worth a cool hundred million, and it’s family owned—no stockholders to get in your hair.”

The warm breeze caught at her hair and pulled it free behind her, billowing out in a beautiful way I remembered from the first time I’d seen her. She was still a pretty girl, though some others might have now considered her a beautiful woman. She was Mrs. Foster Baine … I searched my memory for her first name and finally came up with it.

“Betty.”

“What?”

“Betty Baine. They go together.”

“Yes,” she answered seriously, “I suppose they do.”

“Tell me about it?”

“What is there to tell? He was charming, rich, and in love with me. I was past twenty-five and beginning to look over my shoulder at my youth. One night I just sat alone in my room thinking about it, and I guess I decided to marry the first man who came along. Foster Baine was that man.”

“Too bad I didn’t come back.” I didn’t really know if I meant it, but it was something to say.

“You’re married now?”

I nodded.

“Children?”

“No. Shelly—my wife—well …” I stumbled to a lame halt. There was no reason to discuss personal matters with Betty Baine. She’d only been the briefest of shadows in my past, a girl whose very name I’d had trouble remembering.

“Where did you meet her?”

“Out west. In a little town called Gidaz. It’s a long story. That’s where I met Simon Ark too.”

“That strange man who was with you last night …Who is he?”

“So many times people have asked me that question, and to tell you the truth I still haven’t got the answer. At least I haven’t got an answer that satisfies me. He’s a man, a wanderer, a searcher. Perhaps in a way he is all men, seeking the ultimate truth that can never be found.”

“Only fools seek truth,” she said. “Others are content with appearances. Life is too short.”

“It has been longer for Simon Ark,” I said. “He has the time to seek truth.”

She turned down a narrow street that seemed to be leading out of the city. Gradually the houses grew further apart and soon here and there a farm appeared on the landscape. A cow grazing in a field of high grass, the stalks of corn just beginning their annual spurt of growth …

“What’s your interest in Cathy Clark?” she asked suddenly.

“No interest in the girl personally. I only met her once, very briefly. But I’ve known Mahon for several years.”

“He’s got money,” she said. “So’s his wife. The Clarks were a wealthy family once, and Jean got it all.”

“You know her?”

“Not really. She’s a bit under my age group, you know. But of course I’ve heard of her. The whole city knows how she trapped Henry Mahon into marrying her.”

“They seem happy.”

“She is a beautiful, wealthy, intelligent girl. He has no complaint.”

“What about Cathy? I understand she got shortchanged on the money end.”

Betty Baine gave a slight shrug. “Her sister took good care of her. She always got everything she wanted.”

It was all country now, with acres of rolling farmland in every direction. I’d always admired upstate New York for this virtue—it could be agricultural when it wanted without the intruding glare of wheat fields by the mile that were so typical of the midwest.

I was beginning to get restless, though, riding like this toward nowhere with a woman I hardly knew any more. “Would you mind telling me where we are going?”

She half turned her head toward me. “If it was anyone but you I couldn’t do this. But I feel you’ll understand.”

“Understand what?” Was she about to seduce me?

“Foster—my husband—has a great many problems, personal problems. I think it would kill him if they were made public.”

“I’m not interested in making trouble for your husband, Betty.”

“You’re interested in Cathy Clark, aren’t you? And in Professor Wilber?”

“Yes,” I admitted.

“And don’t you realize that in a city like this all roads of scandal lead directly to our doorstep? Don’t you realize that if Cathy Clark’s killing involves Professor Wilber it also involves Foster Baine and me?”

“You’re worried about the scandal? You’re apparently not worried about being seen driving around town with an old boy friend.”

“That kind of talk never worried me,” she answered smugly, and turned the car onto a bumpy dirt road. “Hang on, we’re almost there.”

“Almost where?”

“To the Baine family secret. The skeleton in the closet.”

“Does your husband know you’re taking me out here?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Some things have to be done. You want to know about Professor Wilber’s work and I’m going to tell you. Maybe then you’ll be convinced it doesn’t concern Cathy Clark’s killing.”

I sat back in the seat, trying to relax, and presently we topped a ridge to look down on a rambling old house that might have been something out of Hawthorne or Dickens. Certainly it was a house from the past, a house that had seen a good century of life and death. Yet some small attempts had been made to modernize it—a bright brick chimney contrasted sharply with the drabness of the faded gray sideboards. We passed a single wooden name sign bearing the simple word Baine, and this too looked somehow old and faded.

“The family homestead?” I asked her.

She nodded. “Foster was born in this house.”

“But his parents are dead, aren’t they?”

She pulled up and parked behind a black Ford, the only other car in sight. “Most people think so. You lose track so easily of widows after their famous husbands pass on.”

“You mean Foster Baine’s mother is still living in there?” I asked, but she didn’t answer. She was already out of the car, heading up the front steps with quick, sure strides. I followed, a bit uncertainly.

The door was opened to her ring by a dumpy, middle-aged woman who could only have been a cook. “Hello, Gerta,” Betty Baine said. “How is she today?”

The woman shrugged. “The same. She’s always the same.”

“Has Father Fox been here today?”

“Sure. He comes every morning, sometimes before I’m up.”

I’d figured Mrs. Baine for some rare illness, but this mention of a priest threw me for a loss. What type of illness required the daily ministrations of a priest?

“We want to see her,” Betty said. “Just for a moment.”

The woman called Gerta eyed me suspiciously. “Does the mister know about him?”

“It’s all right. I’ll take full responsibility.” She turned to me. “Come on, this way.”

I followed her toward the front of the house, until we reached a locked door. Betty motioned to the woman and she produced a key from somewhere, inserting it in the gleaming lock that was like a sleeping eye to the heavy wooden door. Inside, all was semi-darkness. Blinds were tight on the windows and there was only the dim glow of dying embers from the fireplace to cast a flickering fire over the room. But my eyes went first to the woman who sat upright on a straight-backed chair in the very center of the room. Her eyes had been closed, but now she opened them, gazing out at us from a wrinkled yet strangely peaceful face. She was not a young woman, and I would have guessed her age at near seventy-five. That was Foster Baine’s mother I had no doubt—the face bore the Baine look, as little of it as I’d seen.

“Hello, mother,” Betty said. “I brought you a visitor.”

The old woman focused her eyes on me. “Who?” she asked, nothing more.

“Just a friend, Mrs. Baine,” I answered. “You don’t know me.”

A shadow seemed to pass across the face and the old head nodded a bit. Then her eyes flickered shut. “She’s sleeping,” Betty Baine said.

“What’s this all about, anyway?” I asked her.

“Look.” Betty walked over and opened one of the blinds a bit, so that a ray of sunlight fell across the room and onto the woman’s sleeping figure. Then she came back and reached for the two wrinkled hands lightly clasped in Mrs. Baine’s lap. I bent over to see what she was trying to show me.

In the palm of each hand was a dark area, like a wound yet somehow different. I’d never seen anything like it before. “What is it?” I asked.

“Stigmata. The wounds of Christ.”

“What?” I wasn’t sure I’d heard her clearly.

“Mrs. Baine carries the wounds of the crucified Christ on her body. On her hands, her feet, and her side. In addition, she subsists solely on Communion given her each morning by Father Fox. She has eaten nothing in over five years.”

I let out my breath in a low sigh. “That’s fantastic.”

“Nevertheless, it’s true. Foster Baine’s mother is a living saint.”

“And you keep her here like this, locked up in this room?”

“There’s no room in Baine City for a saint, especially when she happens to be Foster Baine’s mother.”

“You’re Catholics?”

She shook her head. “No, but Mrs. Baine was—is.”

“And this Father Fox—what does he say about all this?”

“Nothing. He comes, every morning, to give her Holy Communion, but he never talks about it. I get the impression he doesn’t believe his own eyes.”

“What do the doctors say?”

“Only her family doctor has seen her since it started. He’s at a loss for any normal explanation. And Professor Wilber, of course.”

I’d forgotten about Wilber. “What’s his connection?”

She closed the blinds again, leaving us with only the fireplace glow. “He’s investigating it. He has been out here and carried on several experiments.”

I had to admit I could see no connection between this sainted woman and Cathy Clark. But why would Henry Mahon have thought this shocking? Odd, curious, fantastic—yes. But shocking? There was still something—many things—I didn’t understand.

The old woman stirred again in her chair. Her eyes opened and focused on me. “Are you a friend?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“They keep me here. I am alone with my God.”

“Are you a prisoner?” I asked, and caught a sharp look from Betty.

“A prisoner, yes. I must go out, into the world, to spread the word of God. She waved her hands with their ghastly wounds.

“Come,” Betty said, urging me out. “We must leave now. She’s getting excited.”

There was nothing more I could do. But I knew that Simon Ark would be most interested in this strange woman with the wounds of Christ on her body. I followed Betty out of the room, and we drove back to Baine City in tight-lipped concentration. Very possibly Betty was beginning to regret her action in showing off the family secret …

Surprisingly enough, Simon Ark was sitting in my hotel room, staring at the city. He turned as I entered and smiled a greeting. “My friend, the pieces of the puzzle are now complete.”

“That’s what you think, Simon. I’ve got a whole new bag of puzzles—enough to baffle even you.”

“Oh?”

“Did you learn anything about Professor Wilber?”

He nodded. “I learned the nature of his experiments.”

“So did I.”

This seemed to surprise him. “About the animals?”

“Animals? No, this is something else.” And I quickly told him about my visit to the country house of Mrs. Baine.

When I’d finished I saw that he was profoundly moved by the events I’d narrated. “You actually saw the markings on her hands?” he asked. “There was no trickery with the lighting?”

“They were there,” I insisted. “What point would they have in faking it? No one ever sees her.”

“Stigmata is rare, almost unheard of in this country,” he mused. “And yet—perhaps …”

“What about the animals, Simon? What did you learn?”

“That can wait,” he said. “We have much to do before morning.”

“I’m tired.”

“There will be time to rest later. Right now—we may still be in time to prevent another murder …”

Then we were in Professor Kane Wilber’s laboratory once again, with the afternoon sunlight filtering through high windows. He’d been surprised to see us again, and now he was cautious—a man at bay, backed against one of his own monkey cages.

“What is it this time, gentlemen?” he asked.

“You work long hours on a holiday,” Simon observed.

“There is much to do.”

“With the animals?”

He looked away. “That and other things.”

“We know about old Mrs. Baine, Professor,” Simon said quietly.

“You do?” He made no effort to hide his surprise.

“What we want from you now is an account of these experiments we’re told you carried out.”

He was still on the defensive but he’d advanced from the cages now. “That information you’ll have to get from Foster Baine. I can tell you nothing.”

“You can tell us nothing about Cathy Clark, either?”

“Nothing.”

Simon moved a step closer, until he towered over the man. “You know much about this matter, Professor. You are too deeply involved.”

But Wilber only shrugged. “I can say nothing.”

“Very well,” Simon said. “Perhaps then I must release to the newspapers the information about the exact nature of your experiments with those apes.”

Wilber’s eyes narrowed. “You’re bluffing.”

“Am I? Should I mention the name of Mirza Ali Akbar to you?”

Whatever the name meant, it had its effect on Wilber. He seemed to shrink a bit inside. “Very well,” he said. “What do you wish to know about Mrs. Baine?”

“Is she really a stigmatic?”

Professor Wilber shrugged. “I have discovered no other explanation. They called me in some time ago to investigate the thing, but of course it’s a bit out of my field. I do know that she bears strange wound-like markings on her hands, feet and side. And she apparently needs no food or liquid nourishment to live. I have conducted careful searches of her room for any hiding places where food might be kept, but I have found nothing. It would appear to be a supernatural thing, from start to finish.”

Simon Ark was growing more interested by the minute, and I figured he’d already forgotten the Cathy Clark case and his promise to Quinn to reveal the murderer in the morning. Now he was filled with an excitement I’d rarely seen before, and as quickly as we’d arrived he was ready to depart.

“We will meet again, Professor,” Simon told him. “Until later, thank you.”

I followed him out and across the campus to where we’d parked the rented car. “What was that name you scared him with, Simon? And why didn’t you ask him some meaty questions while you had him on the run? Why didn’t you ask him what he was doing running his fingers through Cathy Clark’s hair?”

“There was no need of that last question, my friend. I already know the answer.”

“Great!” He might know but I surely didn’t. “So now what?”

“Now you take me to the house of Mrs. Baine.”

“The old lady? Nothing doing! Besides, that Gerta dame would never let us in alone anyway.”

“There are two ways of getting by her.”

“Yeah, but you’ve never seen her. Besides, you won’t get a thing out of the old lady. I tried.”

“Still …”

We’d just reached the car when we saw the flashing red of a police vehicle heading toward us. “Now what?” I muttered. The squad car pulled up ten feet away and Sergeant Quinn climbed out. His face was grim and there was no humor in his eyes.

“One of my cars said you were up here,” he said. “You’d better come along with me.”

His eyes were on me, not Simon, and I asked him what it was all about.

“You were with Betty Baine this afternoon?”

“For a short time, yes,” I admitted.

“Well,” he said, “she’s disappeared. And you’re the last person seen with her.”

“Disappeared? That’s crazy!”.

“Sure it is,” Quinn agreed. “But she’s Foster Baine’s wife, and if she doesn’t turn up right quick you’ve really had it, man …”

Baine City, twilight, July Fourth. Monday madness, quiet groups standing in the street corner, the word spreading from one to the other. Mrs. Baine missing. Mrs. Baine kidnapped.

Mrs. Baine raped and murdered?

In a ditch somewhere?

A city alive, a city with a small town mentality, alive now with the scent of sensation. Betty Baine, the social leader, the woman in the cream convertible. Gone now, in trouble. No longer to be envied but only prayed for.

Past the funeral home where I could see Jean Clark Mahon standing by the curtained window, past the hotel, to the familiar police station with Quinn.

“Where do the boys go in the evening?” I asked.

“Huh?”

“The boys with the fireworks. I haven’t heard one in hours.”

“All out, I guess,” Quinn answered absently. “Against the law, you know.”

From the window of his office I could still see Baine Brass, where the second shift would be working now. I wondered if the word had reached them yet, at their machines. Probably.

“… found her car, the white convert, in a ditch on the way back to the cottage. When did you leave her?”

“She dropped me at the hotel maybe two hours ago.”

“Where were you with her?”

“For a drive.”

“In the country? You were seen on the East Road.”

“So what?”

“You went there for a little loving? Foster Baine thinks you knew his wife before.”

“I knew her. When I was in college. Is there a law against that?”

“There’s a law against kidnapping.”

“Go to hell.”

Quinn had been silent through much of the questioning, interjecting only an occasional comment. Now he came forward and pulled up a chair facing me. “Man, you’re in bad trouble, don’t you realize that?”

“Ask Simon Ark. I was with him all the time.”

“You lie and he swears to it. Where did you and Mrs. Baine go this afternoon?”

“Get Foster Baine in here and I’ll tell him. I can’t tell anyone else.”

Quinn slapped his knee. “By God, we’ll do just that.”

He went off somewhere and I looked around the bleak office for some sign of Simon. But he was gone, perhaps to one of the other offices. The cop who’d been questioning me offered a cigarette. “Get up and stretch your legs,” he said, sounding friendly enough.

“Thanks.”

Outside the grimy station window the night was gathering its forces. What had they called it during the Middle Ages—the Blind Man’s Holiday? The period of day just before the candles were lit? And even as I watched, the lights of Baine City were going on, in silent response to some far-off electrical impulse. Their yellow glow fell on people, standing, talking, waiting. It was a big night in Baine City. Their queen had disappeared.

“Queens have died young and fair,” I quoted, half to myself.

“What?” the detective asked.

“Thomas Nash. A quotation.”

“Oh.”

“You think she’s dead?”

The detective looked up quickly. “Who?”

“Betty Baine.”

“Mrs. Baine? No—her kind lives forever. They’ll find her, unless you did something to her yourself.”

I grunted and turned back to the window. A car full of curious teenagers went by and I was reminded of Zenny.

Zenny!

Of course! The half-veiled threat to get Mrs. Baine. He’d said something like that, just the night before. There was no reason, only madness, but perhaps people like Zenny didn’t need a reason.

Quinn came back into the room, with Simon Ark behind him. “You two sure got your stories down pat,” he grumbled. “Maybe too pat.”

I ignored him. “Simon, remember when Zenny forced us off the road last night? Didn’t he say something about Mrs. Baine?”

Quinn looked surprised. “Zenny?”

“Zenny,” Simon Ark repeated slowly. “Do you know where he can be found, Sergeant Quinn?”

Quinn scratched his head. “Cathy Clark’s old friend, huh? I figured this would all tie in together.”

“Where can we find him?”

“Should I believe you guys?”

Simon sighed. “You must believe somebody, someday, Sergeant.”

“OK,” he decided, “let’s go—but no tricks. Joe, bring up a squad car in front and clear some of those people away. We don’t want an audience …”

Screaming through the night, screaming silently so our siren would not give us away. Quinn and Simon and another and I. Through the black bright dark of Baine City.

“The funeral’s tomorrow, tomorrow at nine.”

“Better to be hers than mine.”

“Better …”

Around a corner, bright headlights picking out the sights and sounds of a sleeping city. Cathy Clark’s neighborhood. Where the Cathys prowled, through black alleys, searching searching. Zenny, here Zenny, come quickly and quietly. Simon tense at my side, Quinn intent on the twin beamed targets.

“See Zenny?”

“Not a sign.”

“Keep driving.”

“Zenny?”

“Zenny?”

“No Zenny.”

Then—“There, it’s his girl, Bun!” Quinn barked an order and the car rolled to a stop. “Bun, where’s Zenny?”

“Don’t know.” A summer night’s dream in tight red shorts, very short. Ready to take on the toughest of the boys.

“You’d better tell us, Bun. He’s in big trouble.”

“Big.”

And Simon gazed up at the antique buildings around us. Brick apartment houses topped with a Bronx-like forest of TV antennas. Babes in the woods.

“Where?”

“Don’t know.”

People, crowds gathering even here. People all the damned people in the world staring at me here and there and everywhere and.

“He snatched Mrs. Baine, didn’t he, Bun?”

She shifted her bare legs, showing off the round smooth buttock cloth of her shorts. “Don’t know a thing.”

“Take her,” Quinn said. And into the car with us, in the rear seat between Simon and me, with her hot bare legs pressing against my pants. And on further, slowly now, deeper into the night that was like some long dark cave.

A jazz joint, shouting its praise to the world. Brassily announcing that life was eager and gay. The corner drugstore because there always was one. The neoned bar with the red sign flickering for lack of money. Tired, like its people.

“That’s his car,” I spotted. “Parked there.”

She went for my eyes, twisting and scratching like a wildcat. Simon was on her, pulling her away, muffling the scream of warning already forming in her throat.

“This is it,” Quinn said. “Hold her down.”

“Take the riot gun, Sergeant.”

“Hell, man, that’s Baine’s wife. No guns.”

Up the stairs, Quinn, Simon, me, with the other detective hanging fast to Bun. “Which apartment, Bun?”

“You figure it, copper!”

Quinn figured it. “Let her go,”

“What?”

“Let her go.”

She broke free, looking up and down like a trapped tiger as her mind tried to comprehend, the snarl of the trap. To warn him or not? To run with him or without. Quinn had guessed right—she headed up.

“Zenny, they’re here—run for it!”

And like a crazy fool he threw open the door to see what the yelling was about. He had a six-inch switch-blade and Quinn had nothing, but the detective took him with one quick blow to the neck. He toppled like a hundred-year-old tree.

“You killed him,” she sobbed.

“No such luck.”

Inside was a dull and dusty mess of confusion. The unmade bed and dirty dishes told their own story, but there was no sign of Betty Baine. “Struck out,” Quinn murmured.

“Third base,” I said, pointing to a scattered handbag open in one corner of the room. Simon was already going through the connecting door to the next apartment.

And there she was, tied to a wooden kitchen chair with her skirt pulled up to her hips and her stockings shredded with runs. Quinn undid the gag and tried to sound sorry. “Are you all right, Mrs. Baine?”

She made a sour face and worked her jaw to loosen it. “I guess so,” she answered, “but it’s been one heck of a holiday …”

Quinn’s office at ten-thirty that night was crowded to overflowing. The mayor himself was there, expressing the city’s concern and sorrow to Foster Baine. Quinn was there, and a handcuffed Zenny, and a sobbing Bun, along with Simon Ark and myself, and the center of all the attention, Betty Baine.

“Get this guy out of here,” Quinn ordered, indicating Zenny. “I’ll take care of him later.”

Foster Baine had his arm around Betty’s shoulder, comforting her, and Simon Ark was standing quietly in one corner, as if trying to pass unnoticed. As soon as Zenny and the girl Bun had been led away, Quinn went over to Mr. and Mrs. Baine.

“Did he … say anything at all when he forced your car off the road, Mrs. Baine? Anything as to why he might have done it?”

“I don’t know,” she answered thoughtfully. “I got the awful impression he was doing it to get back at Foster somehow. He said something about Foster trying to frame him for the Cathy Clark murder.”

Quinn sighed deeply. “It all leads back to that, doesn’t it?”

And that was when Simon Ark stepped from his corner. “If you would allow me the interruption, I could name for you the killer of that girl.”

“Then you really do know?” Quinn asked, half doubting still.

“I believe so.”

“Then name ahead.”

But—“No!” It was the firm voice of Foster Baine, speaking up over the hush of expectant breath. Quinn turned questioningly toward Baine, but he didn’t have to ask him the reason for the outburst. Baine was all too willing to continue. “This … this whole thing is closing about me like a web. First some young punk kidnaps my wife and now this mental wizard here is going to try to implicate me in a girl’s murder.”

But Simon held up a peaceful palm. “Not at all, my friend. I intend only to implicate the guilty.”

“You’re implicating Professor Wilber, aren’t you? That’s as bad as me. It’s almost the same thing.”

I thought I saw the dark shadow of Foster Baine’s mother pass across his face as he spoke, and Simon must have had the same feeling. He said, “It is the country house you really fear, is it not, Mr. Baine? And its occupant?”

If the words surprised him he didn’t show it. “That does not even enter into the discussion,” he answered coldly.

“Ah, but it does, my friend,” Simon insisted. “At times the ways of the gods are indeed strange. Take me there this night, let me spend a few lonely hours with your mother, and perhaps I can help this too.”

“No one can help this too. Not the priest nor the policeman.”

“We shall see.”

“No one,” Baine repeated.

Quinn interrupted with a puzzled voice. “Your mother’s still alive, Mr. Baine? I thought …”

And then Betty spoke. “Heavens, Foster—it had to come out someday. Let this man see her. Perhaps he can help.”

“Perhaps, perhaps! You’re sounding like him now! And what were you doing driving with this other one this afternoon.” His finger jabbed accusingly at me.

“If you must know, I took him out there to see her.”

It was the last blow to an already crumbling Foster Baine. “You took him out …?”

“They have to know, Foster. It’s time everybody knew!”

He wiped his forehead with a damp handkerchief. “Why? Why is it time? She’ll be dead and gone in a few years. So little time …”

Quinn had wisely stepped aside now. It was between Baine and his wife, with Simon Ark waiting for his moment. Finally he decided it had come. “I make you this promise, Mr. Baine. Let me see her tonight, let me speak to the priest, Father Fox, and by morning your problems will be solved.”

And the man of brass seemed slowly to shrink within his shell. “What else is left now?” he murmured. “Very well, we will go tonight. She doesn’t sleep.”

Quinn made a move to follow, but Simon restrained him. “Tomorrow will be your day, Sergeant. Tonight is mine …”

It was close to midnight before I once again topped the ridge and saw brief burning lights that told me somebody still stirred in the great old house. Simon and I were in the car alone, with Foster and Betty Baine bringing up the rear in their own car. Quinn had stayed behind, grumbling but convinced that he would not be needed.

Now, as I saw the house once more, I said to Simon, “It’s late.”

“It’s always late, my friend. Always a little too late.”

“Why do you think Zenny did it? Kidnapped Betty Baine like that?”

Simon thought about it a moment and then replied. “Perhaps it is one of the paradoxes of modern times, my friend. Each man strives for the fleeting thing called fame, yet most men secretly detest the famous. Thus the youth named Zenny rebelled against imagined wrongs by striking out at the city’s most famous man. And perhaps in this manner he hoped for some slight fame himself. John Wilkes Booth is never remembered as an actor—only as the man who shot Lincoln—and even his brother Edwin seems sometimes in danger of being only the brother of the man who shot Lincoln. Of course such is not always the case. Herostratus destroyed the Temple of Diana, one of the seven wonders of the world, solely to achieve everlasting fame. Yet today his name is but a forgotten footnote to history.”

I parked in the familiar space behind the black Ford, which I decided must belong to the woman named Gerta. The Baines were right behind us and there was another car coming over the rise. I guessed it would be Father Fox, whom Baine had called before leaving.

“This is the place?” Simon asked, studying the towering reaches of the old house.

“This is the place.” I went over to meet Baine and his wife. He was still looking unhappy at the prospect, and I could see it was only Betty that kept him from changing his mind about the whole business.

“That would be Father Fox,” Betty said, and the black figure detached itself from the last car in line. It was indeed a priest, a short, squat man with a kindly yet firm face. He spoke not a word about the lateness of the hour, but shook hands all around like a pastor greeting his flock on a Sunday morning.

“Ark, Simon Ark,” he repeated, when I’d introduced them. “I have read that name somewhere.”

Simon I knew would be smiling slightly, though I did not turn to look at him. “I have traveled,” he told the priest. “You may have seen my name in the papers, or perhaps even read a brief little book I wrote on witchcraft.”

“Yes,” the priest nodded vigorously. “That was it.”

We entered the house in a group, and the woman named Gerta appeared from somewhere to greet us. “You come late at night,” she mumbled sleepily.

“We come to see my mother,” Baine said. “Tell her we’re here.”

Simon and I had fallen back with the little priest and now I spoke to him. “Father, do you believe this business about the stigmata?”

The priest shrugged. “I believe what my eyes tell me, with some reservations.”

“Have you reported the case to your bishop?”

“Of course. But that is all. I certainly have not recommended any official church action. As long as the woman remains here, in seclusion, what harm is done?”

Simon’s eyebrows raised a trifle. “You are implying …?

“I imply nothing,” the little priest said. “Let us go in.”

We entered the room, and to me it was much as I’d left it that afternoon. There was even still the wisp of a fire in the grate, and the old woman sat upright in the same stone-like position. “Why do you all come here by night?” she asked with a little gasp. Then she saw Father Fox and said, “Is it time already, Father? Is it morning?”

Simon Ark knelt in silence by the woman and carefully examined the palms of her hands. For a long time there was no word spoken in the room. We simply stood and watched, and I think even the priest was wondering about this man who was still sometimes a stranger even to me. And as we watched, Simon spoke to her.

“Mrs. Baine, Mrs. Baine, can you hear me? My name is Simon Ark. I have come a long way to speak with you.”

“Yes,” she answered.

The flickering glow of fireplace embers danced on their faces, and they might have been in a world apart. “When did you last eat, Mrs. Baine?”

“It has been many years now. I need only the Communion of Father Fox now. I am very close to my God.”

Foster Baine sighed and would have stepped forward to end it, but the little priest held him back with a touch on the shoulder. We stood and listened as these two before us continued their strange conversation.

“Is your God a good God, Mrs. Baine?” Simon asked quietly.

“He is all good, all powerful.”

“Then why do you use such trickery to gain the glory of Heaven? Why do you live this great lie, Mrs. Baine?”

She turned on him with old eyes flashing. “How dare you question the wisdom of the Lord!”

But Simon would not retreat. “You do not eat, yet even now there are cracker crumbs on your lap.”

The eyes closed, the body shuddered, and we waited. “Go,” she said. “Go.”

Simon stood up and looked around the room. “Professor Wilber said he’d searched this place. But perhaps … Get me water—a pitcher of water. Quickly!”

“Simon, what are you looking for?”

It was Betty Baine who produced the requested water from the kitchen, while the rest of us just stood there transfixed. Simon pulled open the fireplace screen and hurled the water onto the glowing embers. There was a sizzling puff of smoke as fire and water met.

Then Simon was clawing the soggy logs out of the way with a poker, feeling around till the metal tip caught on something else of metal beneath the ashes. “A new fireplace,” Simon said, half to himself. “I thought it would have a trap door for ash disposal. And … here’s a little bundle wired to the inside of the trap.”

The woman in the chair gave a sobbing scream and sprang forward. She was almost upon Simon when suddenly she gasped and clutched at her breast. “Catch her someone,” I shouted, and they all made a grab for her at once. It was Father Fox who stood up finally, gave a little shake of his head and began to pray over her.

And as they covered her old face with a sheet from the bed I thought the look on Foster Baine’s face might have even been one of relief …

“She was injecting turpentine under the skin of her hands and feet with a syringe,” Simon told us later. “It causes the appearance of stigmata, and of course with the look of a saint about her it was easy to persuade old Gerta to slip her occasional food. She kept the turpentine and syringe in a small bag in the ash chute at the rear of the fireplace, where even Wilber never thought to look.”

We were back in Quinn’s office now, with the Sergeant sitting in unofficially on the conversation. Baine and his wife were gone now, off somewhere with the body of the old lady at last free from her room in the old house. “But how did you know, Simon?” I asked him.

“The turpentine trick has been used before. I came across it in France some years ago. And the fireplace just struck me as the most likely hiding place.”

“But why? Why would she do it?”

“Why do any of them do it? Sometimes, especially in older women, religion can be a driving force that becomes too much for the mind to bear. I think Father Fox suspected something, but of course he had no real evidence.”

“And now she’s dead,” Quinn said.

“She’s released,” Simon corrected. “I’m certain there will be a degree of forgiveness for her actions.”

“Was she implicated in the death of Cathy Clark?”

Simon sighed. “No, my friend, she was not. But the chain of circumstances that seems to link everyone in Baine City reached to her as well. Perhaps it would be best if I told you a little about it.”

Quinn rolled a pencil between his fingers. “I’m just interested in who killed the girl, that’s all.”

“Well,” Simon began, “you see, I am not the only one to discover the murder’s identity. Professor Wilber knows, and has known all along.”

“He knows and wouldn’t tell?”

“He couldn’t tell, for two reasons. Foster Baine feared that the involvement of Wilber would lead to the discovery of his mother’s supposed condition. So he was bringing pressure to bear. And the real murderer was blackmailing Wilber with the threat to reveal still another activity of the Professor—a series of experiments that even Baine knew nothing about.”

“The ones Henry Mahon mentioned!” I said, beginning to see the pattern.

“Exactly,” Simon nodded. “But now that Baine’s problem has been removed I think we can get Wilber to talk.”

Quinn glanced at his watch. “There isn’t much time for anything any more. The funeral’s in four hours, you know.”

Simon Ark stood up. “That will be all the time I need. I will be there, with Wilber and with our murderer …”

Funerals are always sadder on a sunny day. Somehow you expect it when the skies open up to pour down rain, but the restless beating of the sun on the covered casket is more than a sensitive soul can sometimes stand.

This day, as I followed the six men with their burden down the steps of the funeral parlor and to the edge of the waiting hearse, I had the distinct feeling that a climax was near. It was the end of a life, but it was also the end of something more. Perhaps it was even the end of a city.

I was watching the curiously tense Henry Mahon leading Jean into the third car, just behind the hearse, and for that reason I didn’t really notice the car with Simon Ark and Professor Wilber fall into line at the end of the procession. My eyes were busy counting out the detectives in the crowd, seeing how many I could spot.

Quinn was there, of course, because this was his day. But there was no evidence of Betty Baine and her husband. They would have a death of their own to contend with this day. I wondered vaguely what those people would say at the news of Mrs. Baine’s final death—those people who’d thought she’d been dead for years.

The graveyard was small and detached when we reached it, nestled in a niche between two groves of trees, behind an old country church that had somehow made its way into the city’s outskirts. We’d weaved our way around, past Baine Brass, past Baine University, finally pausing here at the final resting place of Cathy Clark.

I knelt with the others for a moment by the grave, as a minister spoke the usual saddening words. Then we crowded nearer the casket as it was placed over the open grave, the noonday sun reflecting off the brass nameplate. Yes, there would be Baine Brass even at the end of it all.

And then Simon Ark spoke up, stepping through the crowd with Professor Wilber at his side. “Wait!” he spoke commandingly. “Don’t lower that coffin yet!”

They turned, men and women, to stare at this fantastic interruption. And with the sun still beating down upon us Simon turned to Wilber. “Tell them, Professor.”

Professor Kane Wilber cleared his throat. “I’m sorry about this all, but I feel I must speak now. The …”

The sentence was never finished. From across the grave I saw a brief streak of light, the sun reflecting off a sudden gun barrel. It was a gun in the hand of Henry Mahon, as I’d somehow known it would be, and even as I watched it spat a single simple shot.

Wilber grabbed at his side and went down, and somewhere in the crowd a woman screamed. I never knew what madness Mahon planned next. They were on him, of course, in an instant, battering him to the ground while they wrestled the gun away from him. I saw that Wilber was only nicked, and Simon was helping him to his feet.

“Mahon killed his sister-in-law?” Quinn asked, somehow not wanting to believe it until Simon himself spoke the words.

I looked to Simon for the familiar slight nod, but it wasn’t coming. Instead he slowly shook his head. “Henry Mahon never killed anyone. He’s just someone who never grew up.”

“What?” Quinn released his grip on Mahon’s shoulder. “Hell, if he didn’t do it then who did kill Cathy Clark?”

And Simon in his moment of glory pulled himself up tall in the sunlight, like an ancient figure of an avenging angel. “That is just the point, my friend. No one killed Cathy Clark.”

“No one …?”

“The girl in the coffin is Jean Clark Mahon, and Cathy Clark is standing right over there. Stop her, Quinn!”

And that was the end of it …

I suppose, in some fantastic manner, I should have known. I should certainly have known as quickly as Simon Ark knew—Simon who had never even met Cathy Clark before the murder. I should have known when Jean (or Cathy) came to the hotel that night to have the drink with me and then quickly depart. Of course she’d wanted only to make certain I hadn’t penetrated her disguise.

And there were a thousand other things, too. Even I had commented on the similarity between the girls. Even I had noticed that the color of their hair was the major difference between them. But their parents were dead, and the dead girl’s two closest kin—her sister and Mahon—were ready to swear she was Cathy Clark. Zenny never noticed the difference, nor did I. But Professor Wilber did, of course, and returned to the funeral parlor to run his fingers through the dead girl’s hair, searching for evidence that the hair had been bleached to its blonde color. He found the evidence, and then he was sure. Jean’s hair had been bleached after death, just as the real Cathy had dyed hers black to assume her sister’s role.

Motive? Cathy’s motive was the small fortune her parents had left to Jean instead of her. And Henry Mahon’s motive in going along with it was resentment at being trapped into marriage with a girl he’d never really loved. For someone like him, Cathy would probably have seemed a great improvement over Jean. So he’d stood aside while Cathy killed his wife and stole her identity. He’d stood aside then, and later at the end had even tried to shoot his way out of it for her. When he’d heard about Wilber examining the dead girl’s head and hair, he’d known Wilber knew—but he’d counted on the blackmail to keep the professor shut up.

But even after it was all over I still had a few questions for Simon. “Why did they try to get you and me up here last month, anyway? Was that part of it?”

“At the time it must have been,” Simon replied. “They must have had some other plan for killing Jean and possibly framing Wilber. But then they failed to hook us and changed to his plan—which certainly didn’t call for our presence. We almost spoiled things right from the beginning by arriving so suddenly.”

“And that was why Mahon wouldn’t come to the funeral parlor? Because he couldn’t face seeing his wife there, in her sister’s coffin?”

“Exactly. It was a twisted crime, one with very little chance of success, and yet they really did almost get away with it.”

And so we left them all behind. Baine City and Baine Brass and the so many twisted lives. And I really didn’t think I would ever go back there again.

“Simon?”

“Yes, my friend?”

“What was Wilber’s secret experiment?”

“I fear that must remain a secret. He tells me it was a failure anyway, and certainly I cannot help but feel that too was for the best.”

“Do I have to paw through reference books till I find out who Mirza Ali Akbar was?”

And Simon smiled a bit. “You remembered the name.”

“I remembered. Who was he?”

And he looked away, far away, as if peering into another world. “Can’t you ask me something else? Like whether or not Cathy and Wilber were once lovers? Because they were, you know.”

“I guessed that,” I lied. “Otherwise how would he have spotted Jean in the coffin when everyone else missed it. But to get back to the subject …?”

“There is no subject. The experiments are at an end.”

“Mirza Ali Akbar?”

And finally Simon Ark sighed in surrender. “He was a man from India, a hundred years ago, who was interested in the possibilities of breeding large female apes with human males …”

I remembered the ape in Wilber’s laboratory, and his conversation with us that first day, and I asked no more questions. Whatever the truth of the matter was, I felt I already knew too much …

THE VICAR OF HELL

CONSIDERING THE FACT THAT Sir Francis Bryan was, during his lifetime, one of the most notorious men in the British Isles, it is unusual that he should have become one of the forgotten men of history, overlooked by virtually every modern encyclopedia and text book.

Since my business is publishing, it was this fact, more than any other, that took me to England that winter on a strange quest. And before my long search was ended I was to find my very life threatened by a murder that took place over four hundred years ago …

The first thing I heard, as I left the big four-motored plane at London airport, was a small portable radio playing one of Gershwin’s old tunes, “A Foggy Day.” It was indeed a foggy day in London town, and for a time there’d been some doubt about our ability to land the plane. They told me such fog was common in London during the winter months, and I guess that was supposed to settle any complaints I might have voiced.

Actually, it had just turned December by the calendar; but in a city like London, where the annual mean temperature was only around 51 degrees, anything past the middle of November could be considered winter.

Had I been planning a sight-seeing visit to the tightly sprawling city on the Thames, I’m sure I’d have picked a better month than December. But this was a business trip; and though the whole thing had been my idea in the first place, I hadn’t much choice over the time of the year.

And so there I was, in London in the middle of a mild fog, bound for a meeting with a girl bearing the unusual name of Rain Richards.

I’d first seen the name at the bottom of a letter sent to our London office, and forwarded to me in New York. Since I was a married man approaching the age of forty, I had not even considered the fact that Miss Rain Richards might be young and beautiful and intelligent. But she was all three of these—and much more besides—as I realized the moment she’d opened the thick oak door of her house in the London suburbs.

She was tall and slim, with the stature of a fashion model, and yet there was something about her that hinted at a darkness beneath the surface. “I’ve been expecting you,” she said after I’d introduced myself. “Please come in.”

She led me down a narrow, dusky hall into a large room that might have been a study. Three walls were hung with a variety of small arms—guns, revolvers and automatics of all types. I judged there to be close to a hundred of them in the collection.

“Yours?” I motioned toward the walls, never dreaming that they were.

“Yes,” she surprised me by saying. “Shooting is a hobby with me.”

“Interesting. Now, about this matter, Miss Richards …”

“You can call me Rain.”

“That really is your name? I could hardly believe it when I saw the letter.”

“I was born in India during the monsoon,” she said, by way of explanation. “I guess my folks had a sense of humor or something.”

From the looks of her, I would have guessed her age to be about twenty-seven, but it was hard to tell. I might have been five years off in either direction. She lit a cigarette as she talked, and casually blew smoke out her nostrils. “But you don’t want to hear about me, of course. You’ve come about my letter.”

“That’s correct. You were quite right in saying that we’d be interested in this book you mention. Suppose you tell me a little more about it.”

She relaxed deep into the chair and began to talk, with a soft toneless voice that flowed through the room like a glistening stream.

“You’ve heard of Sir Francis Bryan? Good! Very few people have, you know. I myself first became interested in Bryan while I was at your Columbia University. One day I came across a line in Milton which refers to him as the ‘Vicar of Hell,’ and that started me searching. It was a hard, long job, because most modern historians seem to have completely forgotten Bryan. But I finally found a few facts.”

She paused long enough to take another draw on her cigarette, and then continued. “Bryan lived during the first half of the sixteenth century, and he was a friend and advisor to Henry VIII. He was also a cousin of the ill-fated Anne Boleyn, and when she was put on trial, which resulted in her execution death in 1536, he deserted her in order to remain in Henry’s good graces. This deed caused Thomas Cromwell to refer to him in a letter as ‘the Vicar of Hell,’ a name that stuck with him until his death—though some historians credit Henry with first calling him that.”

“But what about this unsolved murder you mentioned in your letter?” I asked her.

“Oh yes. Well, in 1548, James Butler—an Irishman and the Ninth Earl of Ormonde—was poisoned while visiting here in London. Because they feared that his widow might marry an enemy of the crown, and thus strengthen his land-holdings, certain highly placed persons persuaded Francis Bryan, himself a widower, to woo and marry her—for the good of the country. Bryan succeeded in this last duty for his country, and he moved to Ireland to take over his new lands. However, he lived only two years, and died mysteriously in 1550.”

“So you have two mysterious deaths on your hands—James Butler and Bryan himself.”

“Yes,” she continued, in an earnest voice that he was beginning to like. “Now my researches have turned up further information, unknown thus far to any of the historians. Sometime during the 17th century, about a hundred years after these deaths, there was published a large volume which claimed to give a somewhat shocking solution to these deaths. The book was immediately suppressed by the government, and all copies were seized and destroyed.”

“Then what makes you think you can turn up a copy, three hundred years later?”

She rose from the chair and began striding back and forth across the room, her long legs moving quickly beneath the tight folds of her skirt. “Two weeks ago I received a letter from a man who’d heard of my quest. He offered to obtain a copy of the suppressed book for ten thousand pounds.”

I relaxed and felt for my own American cigarettes. “So that’s why you contacted a book publisher. You expect us to put up … What? Around $30,000? Put up around $30,000 for a book that might not even exist!”

“No; I simply want you to go with me to see this man. He refused even to see me unless I brought someone along who could offer that kind of money. Actually, ten thousand pounds isn’t very much for a book that may have been written by another Boswell.”

I sighed, and puffed on the cigarette. “I suppose not,” I admitted. “At least it’s worth talking to this fellow.” Actually since I’d crossed the ocean on this mission already, I had no intention of going back empty-handed. But there was no reason for letting Rain Richards know that—at least not yet.

“Good,” she said; “let me call him.”

She placed a call to a number in the Kensington Gardens section of London, “At least that’s where he told me he was located,” and waited until a man’s voice answered. “Hello? Mister Hugo Carrier? This is Rain Richards. I have an interested party over from the States. Can we get together sometime tonight? Oh … well, how about first thing in the morning? Fine … Let me jot down the address … Good, we’ll see you around ten in the morning.”

She hung up and turned back to me. “He can’t see us until ten in the morning; will that be all right with you?”

“Guess it’ll have to be. I’ll stop by here for you around nine-thirty.”

“Fine,” she replied, the hint of a smile lingering on her face. “Till then …”

I left her in the doorway and walked back toward my hotel. With the coming of night, the fog seemed even thicker, but I found Waterloo Bridge after nearly an hour of walking and hailed a cab for the remaining distance.

Back in my hotel room, I found myself preoccupied with the memory of the girl named Rain. I took out a book and started to read, but it didn’t help. I found myself comparing her with my wife, Shelly, and presently I took out my wallet and gazed at the photo of Shelly—the one I’d taken at the beach some three years ago.

Finally, unable to settle the troubled thoughts of my own mind, I climbed into bed and dropped off into a sound sleep …

The morning dawned, bright and sunny, with only a slight mist to remind me of the fog of the night before. It was almost like a morning in New York, when the canyons of Manhattan seem like valleys for the flowering river of mist.

Now that I realized just how far Rain lived from the center of London, I took a cab the entire distance. She met me at the door, looking as young and cool as I remembered her. “Come in,” she greeted me. “I’m just doing a little shooting downstairs. You may watch, if you like.”

I followed her to the basement, where I found a sandbagged area, with targets on the far wall, that apparently served as her shooting gallery. On a shelf in front of her were a number of hand guns, and I recognized a U.S. Army .45 and .25 pocket automatic, and several foreign pistols.

“This is my favorite,” she said, choosing a tiny weapon from the shelf. “A .41 caliber Derringer. Watch!”

She brought the gun up to eye level with a single sweeping motion that my eye could hardly follow. There was a deafening roar as both of its twin barrels spouted flame, and I could see the bull’s eye of one of the targets fly away at the bullets’ impact.

“You’re quite a shot.”

“I had to be. I was in Burma when the Japanese invaded; they killed my folks.”

“I’m sorry …”

“I’m over it now,” she said. “I’m back in jolly old England, where everybody’s respectable; and the war seems a long ways back. I suppose I’m lucky that my family had money back here, so I can devote myself to foolish projects like searching for lost manuscripts, and such.”

As she spoke, she traded the Derringer for a tiny Colt .25 automatic and let go with five quick shots at another target. We walked over to examine it together. Four of the bullets had circled the bull’s eye; the fifth was off to one side.

“That should have been in the center,” she complained. “Well, what say we go to see Mister Carrier? It’s nearly ten now.”

I agreed and she put away the guns. “Have to clean them later—that’s one part of it I don’t like. Here, I’ll take the Derringer with me; never can tell when it’ll come in handy.”

She dropped it into her purse and I raised my eyebrows lightly. “Do you have a permit for that?”

“The bobbies don’t carry guns around here. Somebody has to have one, or there’s no telling what would happen.”

I shrugged and followed her out. The trip to Hugo Carrier’s tiny flat on the other side of London was made in a swift little MG with Rain at the wheel. It was my first ride in one of them, but it seemed to handle well under her command.

Presently we came to a halt before a run-down block of apartments off Bayswater Road. “This is the address he gave me; he’s on the second floor.”

We climbed the shadowy stairs to the first landing, and in the dim light of a single naked bulb read the names on the doors. “Here it is,” I said. “Hugo Carrier.”

I knocked at the door and waited, but no one came. I knocked again.

“It’s only five minutes after ten,” Rain said. “He must be here.”

“Maybe he’s still asleep.” I tried the knob of the door, more as a reflex action than for any other reason. It swung open at my touch, and in that instant I already knew what we would find inside.

But I was unprepared for the horror that met our eyes. For there, pinned to the opposite wall of the room, was the body of a man. His arms were spread in a cross, and the hands pinned to the wall with long arrows through each palm. A third arrow protruded from the man’s chest.

Behind me, Rain Richards screamed

-2-

The room seemed filled with the quiet men from Scotland Yard, popping their flashbulbs and dusting for fingerprints. We told our story for the tenth time to the inspector, who seemed to be in charge.

“You hadn’t previously met this man, Miss Richards?” he wanted to know.

“No,” she shook her head. “I’d only talked to him on the phone.”

“And have you any knowledge of this mark on the floor?” He was pointing to something that Rain and I had missed in the first shock of our discovery. It was a sort of pentagram, in a circle, drawn in red on the floor in front of Carrier’s body. There was no doubt that the design had been drawn with the dead man’s blood …

They took us down to the yards for further questioning, but they seemed to be getting nowhere. Presently we were introduced to still another questioner, an Inspector Ashly.

As soon as I heard the name, something clicked in my mind, like the tumblers of a safe. “Ashly! Inspector Ashly!” I exclaimed. “Simon Ark told me about you once.”

Ashly’s face became alert at the mention of that name. “You know Simon Ark?”

“Very well; I met him years ago back in the States. He told me of the odd happening at Devonshire a few years back.”

Ashly was interested now. “I sometimes thought it was all a bad dream; I doubted, somehow, that the man ever really existed. It’s certainly a relief to talk to someone else who knows him.”

Ashly was a short man with a deep, booming voice, and I well remembered Simon Ark’s tale of their adventures together in the snows of Devonshire. He was much as Simon had described him, and in that moment I knew that the odd murder of Hugo Carrier was another case that called for Simon’s special talents.

“But did you know that Simon Ark was in England?” I asked him.

“No! Where is he?”

“I have no idea, but he left New York over a month ago. If we could find him, I’m sure he could help us on this case.”

Inspector Ashly frowned. “He’s not a detective, though. And there hardly seem to be any supernatural elements in this case …”

“I wouldn’t be too sure,” I replied. “You’ve probably heard that a pentagram was drawn in blood on the floor of the room. Isn’t that an old symbol of witchcraft and satanism?”

Ashly struck the table with his fist. “I believe you’re right. And if so, we can build up a newspaper story that’s sure to attract Simon Ark if he’s anywhere around.”

After that, we left the buildings of New Scotland Yard, and walked through the chill December air toward Westminster Abbey. Whitehall was buzzing with midday activity, and before we’d gone two blocks there was already a newsboy shouting about the “weird murder in Kensington.”

We walked on, aimlessly, until at last Rain asked, “Who is this Simon Ark you both seemed to know, anyway? Is he a detective?”

“No,” I replied, searching for the right words to explain the fantastic story. “He’s perhaps the wisest man in the world, a man with a past that may date back to the beginning of the Christian era. He’s been searching the world for a long time, perhaps for centuries, in hopes of meeting the devil in combat.”

“But … are you trying to kid me? Is he some sort of crazy man, or what?”

A double-decked bus rumbled by us, and we turned west on Victoria Street. Behind us, Big Ben was just tolling the hour of one o’clock.

“Whatever he is, he’s not crazy,” I told her. “Actually, the Comte de Saint-Germain claimed to have lived for four thousand years, and it’s possible that he did. And the German physician, Paracelsus, is once supposed to have fought bodily with Satan. Certainly Simon Ark’s story is no more fantastic than theirs.”

“But who is he? Where did he come from?”

“That’s something nobody knows. My own guess is that he was once a Coptic priest, back in the early centuries after Christ; but he never says much about it. He told me once, though, that he knew Saint Augustine, personally—which would make him well over 1500 years old.”

Rain laughed at that and gripped my arm with hers. “I was beginning to think you were serious, but you’re just having some fun with me.”

“Believe me, I am serious.”

“Well, then you’ll have to show me this man and let me judge for myself. I saw many unusual things in India, but never a man who claimed to be over 1500 years old.”

A breeze somewhat cooler than the rest hit us then, and she pushed closer to me. “Let’s get inside somewhere, out of this confounded cold air.”

“What we should be doing is trying to find that book Carrier had for us,” I told her. “If the book was the cause of his murder, it must be certainly worth having.”

She was excited now, with the hint of intrigue in the air. “You mean that you really think there might be a connection between the book and his murder?”

“It’s certainly possible; we should have searched the place for it.”

“Oh, the police would have found it if it were there,” she replied. “It’s a folio, you know. Hardly the thing you hide behind a picture or anything.”

“It does seem odd, though, that if all the copies were destroyed three hundred years ago, Carrier should come up with one now. Maybe the whole thing was a swindle of some sort.”

“I doubt that,” she said. “He seemed only interested in receiving payment for the book.”

We’d reached Victoria Station by this time, and we decided to hail a cab for the long trip back to Rain’s place, rather than return for the MG. Even the taxi trip across London was slow at this time of day, and it was nearly two when we reached her house.

“Let me bring in the mail,” she said. “Not that there’s ever …” She paused and ripped open an envelope that had been addressed in a quick, almost illegible scrawl.

“Look!” she exclaimed, “It’s from Carrier.”

“What? Let me see that!” I took it away from her shaking hands and read: I may not be alive tomorrow when you come. If they get me first, I will at least have cheated them of their secret. The book you seek is titled ‘The Worship Of Satan,’ and together with accounts of diverse crimes of the 16th and 17th centuries’ it also includes the forbidden rituals of devil worship. The only copy still in existence in London is in an ancient dwelling at 65 Crashaw Place, behind the Blue Pig Pub. You will find a room there which was once a priest’s hole, during the Elizabethan persecution of the Catholics. The book is in this room, though to insure payment of the agreed sum, I cannot tell you more as to its location. I sincerely hope that my fears will prove groundless. Hugo Carrier.”

She had been reading it over my shoulder, and she said, “What’s all this about devil worship? What has that got to do with Sir Francis Bryan?”

“I don’t know, Rain; I don’t know. I just hope that we succeed in contacting Simon Ark.”

“Maybe you were right about this all being some sort of gigantic swindle.”

I frowned and shook my head. “He sounds like an educated man, which doesn’t mean he might not have been planning a swindle—but the fact of his murder seems to bear out his honesty. In fact, he’s one of those men I sort of wish I’d met during his life.”

She lit a cigarette and dropped the letter on a table. “Are you sorta glad you met me?”

I raised my eyebrows to look at her, but she’d already gone into the kitchen in search of drinks for us. I ignored the question and said, “We should probably go to this place he mentions and look around. We might be able to turn up the book.”

She returned with two tall frosted glasses. “I’m beginning to think it’s not worth all the trouble. After all, we might end up with arrows in us, too.”

“It’s certainly a weird business,” I agreed as I sipped my drink. “Say, these are pretty good. What’s in them?”

“A secret love potion,” she murmured with a grin; “let’s have a little music.”

“I’m a married man, you know,” I told her, trying unsuccessfully to keep it sounding light.

She came to me then, with the radio behind her playing something soft by Mantovani, and the clatter of passing traffic drifting in from the street. And it was as I’d feared it would be since I first met her.

I tried to think about Shelly, and our little house in Westchester; but gradually the memories faded from my brain, and I was just a man of flesh and desire …

Later, too long later, as night drifted slowly in from the east, we left the house and started out for the address in Crashaw Place. In the night’s already deepening shadows, an occasional bird glided down from above, and it might have been a bat or a gull. I only knew it was a moving, living creature up there in the dark, and maybe I wished I was up there too.

“It’s not too far,” Rain told me, in a voice that made even a casual remark into a hint of intimacy. “We can follow the river all the way.”

The Thames was winding on its never-ending journey to the sea, and as we followed along its banks, the whole of London seemed to sleep, even at this early hour. It was as if we were alone in the city, alone without the cluster of crowds and the rumble of civilization.

I paused a moment to light a cigarette, and it was then I saw two men moving in on us. “Rain!” I shouted. “Lookout!”

She whirled quickly and a blow from the first man’s blackjack caught her on the shoulder. I hurled myself at him, and we went down in a heap. I tried to see where our second attacker was, but the first one was keeping me busy.

Finally I broke free and grabbed up Rain’s hand. “Come on,” I managed to shout, dragging her with me down a flight of stone steps that led to the water’s edge.

I could feel them behind us as we hurtled down the stairs, and at the bottom step I felt strong fingers of steel tear at my throat. I lost my grip on Rain and went tumbling backwards, the hulking attacker on top of me. I struggled to free myself from those murderous fingers, but already I saw one hand leave my throat and come up with a glistening knife.

“Die, damn you,” the raspy voice squeaked, and in that instant I thought I had reached the end of everything. But suddenly a roar split the air and his face seemed to fly apart before me. His dying grip relaxed on my neck, and I saw the little smoking Derringer in Rain’s steady hand.

“I didn’t want to kill him,” she sobbed; “but there was no time for a good shot.”

“Don’t worry. Where’s the other one now?”

“Up there!” She pointed to the top of the steps, where the second assassin stood outlined against the dark sky.

“Duck! He’s got a gun!” I pulled her down just as the man fired.

“It’s a .45,” she told me between gasps. “And my gun is empty.”

I glanced fearfully at the dim river a few feet away. “Can you swim?”

“A little, but we’d never make it to the water.”

“We’ll have to try, Come on.” He saw us the instant we made our move, and I saw his gun hand move around for a second shot at us.

Then suddenly he seemed to falter, and for the first time I saw the dim figure in the darkness behind him. The .45 slipped from his hand and clattered to the concrete below; then he followed it, diving over in a graceful arc that thudded his body against the very edge of the bank and then hurled it into the black river.

We stood rooted to the spot, looking up at the dim figure who moved down the steps toward us. And then I recognized the tall, heavy-set features of Simon Ark …

–3–

“Simon! You certainly arrived just in time. How did you ever find us?”

He smiled slightly, as he always did, and replied, “There are ways. I see you already disposed of one of them.”

We looked down at the bloody face of the man Rain’s bullets had killed. “Luckily for me,” I said. “This is Rain Richards, a most unusual girl, and a crack shot with a pistol.”

Simon Ark grunted a greeting and bent to examine the body. “Do you think this is connected in any way with the death of Hugo Carrier last night?” he asked us.

“I don’t know,” I replied, “but Rain received a letter from Carrier this noon. He told us of a pub where something was hidden, and we were on our way there now.”

“Hidden,” he repeated, suddenly interested. “What is it you seek?”

“A book,” I told him. “A book called ‘The Worship Of Satan,’ written during the 17th century, but banned by the government, which destroyed all copies. The book supposedly gives the solution to the 1548 murder of Sir James Butler and the mysterious death two years later of Sir Francis Bryan.”

“Sir Francis Bryan,” Simon Ark muttered: “The Vicar of Hell …”

“You’ve heard of him,” Rain said, sounding surprised.

“I’ve heard of him …”

Simon Ark was the same as when I’d last seen him, back in the States a few months earlier. He still had the mysterious quality about him that sometimes made you wonder at the things he said. In that moment, I felt certain he’d known Francis Bryan personally, somehow in the dark past.

“Your old friend Inspector Ashly is working on the case,” I told him.

“I saw his name in the papers; he’s a brilliant man. I’ll call him now and tell him what happened here. Then we can be on our way to this pub you mentioned.”

“You’re coming with us?” Rain asked.

“Certainly. ‘The Worship Of Satan’ is a most unusual book. If there is a copy still remaining, I would like to see it.”

We had climbed the steps from the river now, and in the distance I could see a police car, apparently called by some alert neighbor, bearing down upon us.

“Simon, do you really think this devil worship business is tied in with Carrier’s murder?”

He gazed out across the river, as if looking at something far away which only he could see, and then he answered. “In the year 1100, King William the Second was slain by an arrow in the New Forest. His death was part of a human sacrifice of a cult of devil worshippers. Today they still worship, and kill, in much the same way.”

His words sent a chill through me, and I put my arm around Rain’s slim shoulders. Then the police joined us, and Simon spoke quickly to them, in that old manner of his which could somehow convince anyone of anything. He wrote a brief message to Chief Inspector Ashly and then we departed.

“I believe this pub should be our first stop,” he said. “Do you know the way?”

Rain nodded and led us down a dark alley, away from the river. “I feel better now with you two strong men to protect me,” she said.

“I doubt if they’ll bother us further,” Simon Ark comforted her. “They must have learned from Hugo Carrier that he’d sent you the letter.”

A slight mist was beginning to gather in the streets, and I suspected we were in for more fog. “Doesn’t the fog ever lift around here?” I mumbled.

“This is the season for it,” Simon Ark said. “London has been foggy in December for as long as I can remember. The Fall is the worst time for it.”

Presently, we reached Crashaw Place and ahead of us we could make out the weather-beaten sign of the Blue Pig, “By Appointment To His Majesty King George V.” It was a run-down place that might have looked better thirty years earlier, under George’s reign. Now it was badly in need of a paint job, and I couldn’t help thinking that a bit of good old American neon would have pepped up the swaying sign.

Inside, a few obviously regular customers lined the bar, and turned as we entered, in mild expectation of seeing some of their nightly drinking companions. Rain was the only girl in the place, but none of them seemed to mind. We ordered three beers because that seemed to be the thing everyone was drinking, and carried them to a table.

Presently, when Simon Ark was certain he’d identified a stout, balding gentleman as the owner, he rose and walked over to him. “Pardon me, sir, but I’m a visitor in your country …”

“Oh,” the stout man said. “Well, we’re always happy to entertain foreigners at the Blue Pig, sir. My name is George Kerrigan. I’m the owner of this here place.”

“Very pleased to meet you, Mr. Kerrigan. I’m Simon Ark, and these are my friends. We’ve been told that the rear of this building dates back to the 17th century, and we’re very anxious to examine it further.”

“Glad to be of service,” Kerrigan smiled at us. “Yes, sir, this here’s just about the only old building like it still standing. You know, there was that God-awful fire back in 1666, and it just about burned down the whole damned town.” He spoke as if he’d witnessed it personally, with just the right degree of awe.

“We understand,” Simon Ark continued, “that you even have a room where Catholic priests hid during the persecutions.”

“That we have, sir—or at least them’s the stories what goes with the old place. Come on back this way and I’ll show you.”

We followed him down a musty corridor which led into the rear of the pub. Here, in a house that was obviously much older than the front, he paused to unlock a door and throw it open before us. “Haven’t been in here myself in a good many months,” he told us. “Wait a minute while I get some candles.”

“No electricity?” Rain asked, somewhat startled.

“Not in this room, miss; we never use it, so we never bothered to wire it.”

He returned in a moment with a multi-branched candlestick held high, and led us into the room. It was no more, really, than an enclosed space some twenty feet square, without windows, and with only the one door through which we’d entered. An ancient, musty smell hung over the place, suggesting that even the air we were now breathing might have been several hundred years old. The walls were covered with a fantastic blaze of colored wallpaper, which even now was just beginning to fade. The only bit of furniture in the room was a huge old carved table, some ten feet long, which stood against the opposite wall. Its top had been covered with newspapers, apparently to preserve the finish.

Kerrigan was busy telling us the history of the room, from its priest hole days through the reigns of various kings and queens, but I noticed that Simon Ark was far more concerned with the ancient table. He brushed aside the dusty newspapers, which I noticed were some four weeks old, and smiled slightly when he came upon a shallow drawer in the table’s side. But the smile faded when he found the drawer empty.

I, meanwhile, had strolled over to one of the walls and was trying to decipher some patterns from the faded rainbows of color. But the paper seemed to be designed without any purpose, a weird reminder of 17th century England.

Simon Ark was on his knees, examining the bottom of the long table now; but if Kerrigan thought this odd, he made no comment. He had trapped Rain in a corner and was continuing his brief history of England. “You know, miss, George III himself once visited this very pub, near the end of his reign. Of course there are those who say he was crazy at the time, but he was certainly a friendly one. My great-grandfather used to tell me about those days when I was very small …”

“Pardon me,” Simon Ark interrupted, resuming an upright position. “But if this room was once a hiding place for priests, I’m sure it has more than one exit. Suppose you show us the secret way out.”

Kerrigan never blinked an eye, but simply led us to one of the room’s corners as if he’d intended to show it to us all along. “Here it is,” he said, and gave a yank to an almost invisible metal ring set flush with the floor. A well-oiled trap door rose out of the floor and we peered down into the darkness below.

“It simply leads to the cellar,” Kerrigan explained. “I don’t even store anything down there any more. Too many rats.” He lowered the candles a bit so we could see that the cellar was truly empty.

“Well, thank you very much for the tour,” Simon told him. “I think that’s about all we wanted to see.”

He relocked the room behind us and led the way back to the pub’s main room. “Have a beer on me before you go,” he told us. “And stop by again sometime.”

“Thanks,” Rain replied. “We will.”

Soon afterwards, we departed and headed back through the gathering fog to Rain’s house. When we were a safe distance away from the Blue Pig I asked Simon, “What do you think about it? Any idea where the book might be hidden?”

“I have ideas about many things,” he told us; “I even have ideas about the odd-looking stains on that tabletop.”

“Stains?” I wondered. “I didn’t notice any.”

Simon Ark grunted. “In any event, we have much more here than simply the mystery of the Vicar of Hell. Although certainly the death of Carrier suggests that the missing book is involved.”

By the time we reached Rain’s place, the fog had closed in completely, and visibility was down to some fifty yards. We followed her in, on her invitation to make some coffee, and settled down around the fireplace.

I tossed a couple of logs on, and before long the room was alive with the glow of leaping flames. Simon Ark settled back in his chair, closed his eyes, and began to talk.

“Although most history books merely imply that the one-eyed Sir Francis Bryan earned the title of ‘Vicar of Hell’ by deserting his cousin, Anne Boleyn, when she needed him most, it seems probably there were further reasons. And in a period when witch cults and black magic were running wild throughout England, perhaps it is not too fantastic to suspect that Bryan himself was involved in one of these cults. Certainly that, more than anything else, would have earned him the odd title.”

Rain arrived with the steaming coffee and passed it to us. “But what about the murder of James Butler in 1548? And Bryan’s own mysterious death two years later?”

“There are two possible solutions which immediately present themselves. Bryan himself could have poisoned James Butler in order to marry his wife, Joan. Then, when Joan discovered this, she herself killed her husband’s murderer.”

Rain sipped her coffee and lit a cigarette. “And I suppose you’ll say the other possibility is that Joan killed both of her husbands.”

Simon Ark smiled and nodded. “I admit that was my thought.” And then, half to himself, he added, “I only regret that I never had the honor of meeting the Vicar of Hell …”

Rain shot me a glance at that, but I was used to such remarks from Simon’s lips. I ignored it and asked instead, “Do you really think this book, ‘The Worship Of Satan,’ has something in it about Bryan?”

“Very possible, or else there would have been no reason for the government to ban it at the time; books on devil worship and the like were quite common. From the size of it, I would say it must also have included several large illustrations.”

We talked further on the subject, but presently, as midnight drew near, Simon Ark departed, promising to call us in the morning. “It might be a good idea to get some sleep,” he cautioned me. “Tomorrow might be a long day.”

“Why?”

“Because there will be a full moon tomorrow night,” he said, and then he was gone, into the fog.

I came back into Rain’s living room, puzzling over these words. I looked at a calendar and saw that there would indeed be a full moon on the following night. “What do you suppose he meant by that?” Rain asked me.

“I don’t know. But let’s forget about all that for now.” I walked over and sat next to her on the couch.

“Should we forget about your wife back in New York, too?”

I didn’t answer her.

Instead, my hand went out and found hers, and I drew her close to me in the flickering light from the fireplace …

-4-

Simon Ark was at my hotel room before noon on the following morning, and I was surprised to see that Inspector Ashly was with him. “Good morning,” I greeted them. “What’s up?”

“Everything, from what Simon’s been telling me,” Ashly said. “You fellows must have had a pretty busy night, shooting up would-be killers and such.”

“We’re lucky we’re even alive,” I said; “Simon arrived just in time last night.”

“He told me. He also had me check on the two dead men, and I find they both frequented the Blue Pig pub.”

“That figures,” I said, lighting a before-breakfast cigarette. “There’s something funny about that place.”

Simon Ark chuckled. “The understatement of the year, certainly. If you had been a little more observant, I’m sure you would have come to the same conclusions that I did about the Blue Pig, and its mysterious back room.”

“And just what are your conclusions?” I asked, aware that he’d already outlined his ideas to Inspector Ashly.

“I’m convinced that a Black Mass, and various other ceremonies of Satanism, are being carried on at the Blue Pig, in that very room. And I’m further convinced that there’s another meeting of the group being held this evening.”

“I’ll admit that I suspected something funny, but I think now you’re going a little overboard, aren’t you, Simon?”

“He’s got me convinced,” Ashly boomed out in that deep voice which still amazed me. “Wait until you’ve heard the whole thing.”

I settled back and sighed. “OK, Simon. Go ahead and convince me.”

“Well,” he began, “the arrow murder of Hugo Carrier hinted at some sort of ritual crime; and, as I already told you, this type of slaying has been used before by devil worshippers. The attack on you and Rain proved that Carrier’s murder was caused by his knowledge of the book, ‘The Worship Of Satan.’ The people who killed him did so because they feared he would reveal the location of the book. Therefore the book itself, or its location, or both, are dangerous to them.”

“All right so far,” I admitted. “But why does that make it the Blue Pig?”

“First, the men who attacked you were from the Blue Pig. Second, Carrier gave that as the location of the book. Third, George Kerrigan lied to us when we visited him last night.”

“Lied? About what?”

“He said he never stored things in the cellar, yet the secret trap-door was well-oiled. And he said he hadn’t been in the room in months, yet the newspapers covering the table were four weeks old.”

“So I’ll agree he lied. But why does it have to be devil worship? Maybe he just runs a card game in that room.”

Simon Ark closed his eyes once more. “Those were bloodstains on the table top,” he said very quietly. “It was used as an altar, for animal—or perhaps human—sacrifices …”

The three of us were silent for a moment. It was hard for me to believe that such a thing could happen in twentieth century London. And yet I knew, from past experiences with Simon Ark, that there were things happening every day beyond human knowledge. It was sometimes as if a vast alternate world of evil were operating all the time, giving us an occasional glimpse into its horrible scenes.

“But why?” I asked. “Why, of all places, should they choose an ancient pub like the Blue Pig?”

“Because it was once a hiding place for priests, a place where actual Mass was celebrated, the next best thing to a church. And because it later became the resting place of the only existing copy of The Worship Of Satan’.”

“Horrible …” Inspector Ashly muttered. “Now tell us how you’re so certain they’ll meet again tonight.”

“Many strange things happen when the moon is full. Cults of devil worshippers do not necessarily, or always, meet at the time of the full moon; but when I noticed that the newspapers covering the table were just four weeks old—dated on the first day of last month’s full moon—I guessed this was the time of their previous meeting. Thus, since there is another full moon beginning tonight, I believe well find them there again.”

Ashly rose to his feet. “My men will be ready to close in whenever you give the word, Simon. I know from the last time we met that your theories are usually correct.”

I lit another cigarette and began to think about the breakfast I was missing. “Since when is it against the law to carry on religious rites in a private dwelling?” I asked.

Ashly bristled slightly at my question. “This isn’t a religion; and you seem to have forgotten the poor devil they left pinned to the wall with three arrows in him.”

“I guess I did for a moment,” I admitted, feeling slightly subdued. “So—what’s our plan of action?”

“The Inspector and his men will surround the place, early in the evening, and await my signal to move in,” Simon Ark explained. “I will be in the basement, under that trap door, and you can join me if you wish.”

“I wouldn’t miss it,” I told him. “If you’re going to find Satan himself in that room, I want to be along, too.”

Ashly sighed. “I believe you two are crazy to risk discovery like that, but I know better than to try arguing with Simon here.”

“It might be best,” Simon said, “if you could get a gun from somewhere, though. Could you borrow one from Rain?”

“Sure could.”

“Don’t let me hear anything about this,” Ashly muttered. “In London, even the police have a difficult time getting permission to carry guns.”

“Well, you’d better have them tonight,” Simon Ark told him. “These people are very close to insanity, all of them; when cornered, they might do anything.”

After that, they left me, and then I was alone with my thoughts of the night to come. And my thoughts of Rain and of my own house in Westchester, and of Shelly who waited there for me. For the first time I wondered if I would ever go back to her …

The cab carried me through Piccadilly Circus, past the neon signs now darkened in the light of day where Gordon’s Gin and Wrigley’s Gum fought each other for the customer’s attention. And presently I was back at Rain’s place in the suburbs. “Hello, again,” she greeted me at the door. “Have a good night’s sleep?”

“Fine.” I quickly outlined the details of Simon Ark’s revelations. “How’s chances of borrowing a gun till tomorrow?”

“Sure,” she said, leading me to a cabinet. “Which one do you want?”

“I used a .45 in the Military Police. That’s the only one I’m sure of, so I’d better take one of those.”

She handed me the heavy automatic, together with an empty clip and a box of bullets. I shoved seven of them into the clip and then rammed it into the butt. “Thanks a lot, Rain. I’ll have it back in the morning.”

“Let me come with you,” she said then. “I’ll go crazy sitting home here, thinking about it.”

“Sorry; that’s out of the question. Ashly’s even worried with Simon and I on the scene. But I’ll call you as soon as it’s over.”

“Is that a promise?”

“That’s a promise.” I kissed her lightly on the lips and then went out into the street, the automatic hanging heavy in my topcoat pocket.

I took time out to cable the New York office that I expected to obtain the missing book that evening, and close the deal. Then I went to a middle-class bar in downtown London and spent the rest of the afternoon trying to think about nothing at all.

When I got back to the hotel I found an air mail letter from Shelly awaiting me. I tossed it on the bed without opening it.

I wondered, for just a second, if possibly I was going to the Blue Pig that night in some subconscious hope that death would solve my problem for me.

Because now I was convinced that I loved Rain Richards …

The basement of the Blue Pig Pub was a surprisingly easy place to enter, and it took Simon and me only a few moments to locate the door to the old cellar and place ourselves beneath the trap door.

I took the .45 from my pocket, and jacked a bullet into the chamber; after that we waited.

And waited …

Presently, when my wrist watch glowed 11:30, and I had just about given up hope, we heard some movement in the room above. At almost the same instant we caught the sound of people entering through the basement, as we had come.

We took shelter behind some musty packing cases, and watched several men and a few women entering the room through the trap door. Finally, when the sounds from above told us the ceremony had begun, we resumed our post beneath the door.

Simon Ark edged it up a fraction of an inch, and through the opening I saw a scene I’ll never forget. There, behind the long table, stood the white-robed figure of George Kerrigan, his arms outstretched toward the ceiling. On either end of the table burned dozens of long black candles, sending their dancing flames over the kneeling figures of some twenty men and women who nearly filled the small room.

The brightly colored wallpaper had been covered in spots by hanging pictures of basilisks and other mythical monsters, and behind Kerrigan I saw a statue of Jupiter, the ancient god. “Like the one the pagans erected on Calvary, after Christ’s death,” Simon Ark whispered. “We are in the midst of evil here.”

“What are we waiting for, then?” I asked; “let’s go!”

“Be patient. There is still more to be seen.”

The kneeling figures above were swaying back and forth now, as if under the influence of some narcotic. And a low murmuring chant was slowly building up among them.

“It’s horrible,” I said, half to myself.

Simon Ark let the trap door fall into place and he said, very quietly, “Perhaps, though, the evil up there is no greater than the evil in your own heart.”

“What?” I muttered. “What do you mean?”

“Who is to say that the sin of adultery is any less serious than the sin of devil worship?” he asked, quietly. “Certainly they are both works of Satan.”

“Are you crazy, Simon? Why pick a time like this to give me a lecture on morality?”

“It is as good a time as any, my old friend. I came here searching for the devil, and perhaps I have found him in the least likely of all places—inside of you!”

The chanting from above had grown louder, and it pounded at my eardrums as I listened to Simon’s words. “No …” I mumbled. “No …”

“Leave this woman, and go home to Shelly, before it is too late.”

Suddenly, the chanting above turned to shouting, and there was a rush of movement. I lifted the trap door again and saw a startling sight. “It’s Rain! They’ve got Rain!”

Simon Ark was at my side; and he, too, saw the struggling girl in the grip of two strong men. “She must have sneaked in, and Kerrigan recognized her. The little fool!”

And I saw that the white-robed Kerrigan had already produced his deadly bow and arrows. His right hand was drawing back on the bow string and the trembling arrow was pointing through the flickering stillness at Rain’s struggling body.

I waited no longer. While my left hand slammed up on the trap door, my right was already bringing the heavy .45 into firing position.

George Kerrigan half-turned toward me, and the look of utter surprise was spreading over his face when my bullet tore into his shoulder.

After that, it was chaos …

I came out of it with a bloody nose and a torn sleeve, thanks mostly to the prompt arrival of Inspector Ashly and his men. My bullet had completely shattered Kerrigan’s shoulder, and he was unconscious by the time the ambulance arrived. His followers were quickly rounded up and led away, and soon only Simon and Ashly and Rain and I remained in the room.

“That bow and arrow should be enough to convict them of Carrier’s murder,” Ashly said. “I only hope the newspapers don’t get ahold of this devil worship angle, or I fear they’ll have you stripped nude and about to be sacrificed on the altar, Miss Richards. These reporters are great at building up a sensational story.”

“I’m just happy to be alive,” Rain answered. “Right now I don’t care what they say about me. When I saw that arrow pointing at my chest, all I could remember was poor Carrier pinned to the wall.”

“You owe your life to your friends here,” Ashly told her.

“I know. Now I just wish Simon would tell us where the book is hidden so we could all go home.”

“That’s right, Simon,” I agreed. “Where is this elusive copy of ‘The Worship Of Satan’?”

He sighed, and motioned around the room, now brightly lit by several portable police spotlights. “Right where it’s always been, my friends; it should have been obvious to you from the beginning. After all, why was it necessary to kill Carrier to keep him from telling its location? Why didn’t they simply move it to a new hiding place?”

“That’s right,” I agreed. “Why didn’t they move it?”

“Because they couldn’t; because it was the one part of this room that could not easily be disposed of or transported to another place.”

We looked around at the long table, and at the pictures, and at the statue, but we saw nothing.

“Where?” Rain asked simply.

Simon Ark closed his eyes. “During the 17th Century, when a book was banned by a government censor, it was not always burned. If the book was a large one, like a folio, the pages were damasked into wallpaper …”

“Wallpaper!”

“Certainly. The text was blotted out by overprinting with a heavy design in bright colors, and it was used for wallpaper. Here,” he motioned around the room at the multi-colored walls, “here is the last remaining copy of ‘The Worship Of Satan,’ and with it is the final secret of the Vicar of Hell …”

After that, much later, I walked with Rain Richards through the mist of a cold London morning …

“I’ll get the University Laboratory to work on that wallpaper right away,” she said, “but it’ll still be months before the original printing is readable.”

“I know,” I said, “but somehow it isn’t as important as it was a few days ago. Whether Bryan was a murderer himself, or whether he was merely the second victim of his murderous wife, is something that need not concern us, really. The punishment for the crimes has been meted out long ago by a much higher court than ours.”

“I suppose so,” she agreed reluctantly. “It’s only too bad that it had to cause so much trouble and death.”

We walked further in silence, and then I said, “You know, it’s all over between us …”

“Yes, I know …”

“Simon Ark talked to me tonight, while we waited in that basement.”

“He’s quite a man, isn’t he?”

“Yes, I suppose he is.”

“Remember me to your wife.”

“Yes,” I said, but we both knew that I never would.

“Goodbye …”

“Goodbye, Rain …”

I watched her as she walked away into the morning mist. I watched her until she was out of sight and then I went back to my hotel room.

The air mail letter from Shelly was still on the bed; I tore it open, and settled down in a chair to read it …

THE HOOFS OF SATAN

THE VILLAGE OF NORTH Bradshire is much the same as a thousand others that dot the English countryside. It lies at the edge of a great forest, on one of the main highways from London to the coast, a relic of the Middle Ages that somehow survived to the twentieth century.

If the traveler is curious enough, he can find the history of the village engraved on a bronze plaque in the town square. But time and the weather have made the few short paragraphs almost unreadable. It really didn’t matter, anyway, because everyone knew of the famous battle that had made the name of North Bradshire famous in the pages of history. The fact that the Battle had been fought nearly a thousand years earlier did not bother the present citizens in the least. For North Bradshire was a town that lived in the past.

It was not until the late winter of 1954 that another event occurred to bring public attention to the village. And, as before, this second event brought Death, as well as Fame, to North Bradshire …

It was a cold morning in early March, and the four inches of snow from the previous day remained on the ground covering the fields with an unbroken white coat. Unbroken, that is, except for the single line of odd tracks that ran from the woods to the side door of a nearby house, and then back to the woods again. The milkman, making his usual morning rounds, was the first to notice the tracks in the snow.

He told others about them, and the word spread swiftly, as it does in places like North Bradshire. By noon of that day, half of England knew about the tracks in the snow.

That was why, on the afternoon express to North Bradshire, two men sat in a coach discussing the odd occurrence.

One was Chief Inspector Ashly of New Scotland Yard, a short, almost tiny man who nevertheless had the deep thundering voice of a much bigger man. “My voice never fails to amaze people,” he was saying. “It is, perhaps, my greatest asset.” He paused a moment and studied the big man with the placid face in the seat opposite him.

“What did you say your name was?” the Chief Inspector asked.

“I didn’t.” He exhaled a thick cloud of blue tobacco smoke, which hung suspended in the air between them. “But the name is Simon Ark. I, also, am on my way to North Bradshire.”

“About these tracks in the snow?”

The man called Simon Ark nodded. He was a heavy, well-built person, who might have been extremely handsome twenty years ago. But now his flabby face and wrinkled brow gave him the appearance of a man much older than he actually was.

The train rumbled on, through the white-covered fields, and occasionally through a patch of woods where the thick branches had protected the grounds from the snow.

Simon Ark shifted his gaze from the beauties of the English countryside, and asked, “Since when do prints in the snow bring Chief Inspectors from Scotland Yard to investigate?”

Inspector Ashly frowned. “The circumstances involved are most peculiar. Of course, since the news of these latest tracks interested you, also, I imagine you are well aware of the legend.”

Simon Ark nodded. “Although I would not exactly call it a legend. Even though it happened a hundred years ago, the story is certainly true. The people of Devonshire and several other villages awoke one morning to find strange cloven hoof-prints in the fresh snow. The tracks were single, and in a perfectly straight line, about eight inches apart, as if made by some one-legged animal running across the snow. But they were the tracks of no known creature. The tracks led across fields, over fences and rivers, and even over the roofs of houses. The townspeople followed the trail with dogs; but when they reached the woods nearby, the dogs commenced to howl and refused to go further. The legend grew that the strange foot or hoof-prints had been made by the devil himself. In later years, similar prints were discovered in the snow at other places in the area, but no satisfactory explanation was ever arrived at.”

The Inspector looked at Simon Ark with new admiration. “I see you’ve made quite a study of the matter.”

“I have made a study of all the strange and unexplained happenings during the past several centuries. I find it a fascinating hobby.”

“Might I inquire what your real occupation is?”

Simon Ark’s thick lips twisted into what might have been a smile. “I fear, my dear Inspector, that you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

They rode in silence for some time after that, until Simon Ark said, “You still haven’t told me why the police are interested in this matter.”

The Inspector shrugged. “As you remarked, sir, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

The train roared through a tunnel, then into the afternoon light once more. Ahead, stretching out along both sides of the tracks, they could see the groups of tiny shops and houses that made up the village of North Bradshire. “This is it,” Inspector Ashly remarked, as he rose from his seat …

This was indeed it. Inspector Ashly was met at the station by a portly, middle-aged man who was revealed to be the mayor of North Bradshire.

Mayor Beverson was a very excited man. “Tracks in the snow, Inspector. I saw them myself; this isn’t like the other times.”

Inspector Ashly grunted doubtfully. “Mayor Beverson, I must warn you that we believe this to be another publicity stunt dreamed up by yourself to keep North Bradshire on the front pages of the newspapers.” He half turned to Simon Ark, who had followed him off the train. “We expect a great many tourists to come over this summer for the Festival of Britain. The mayor, here, apparently is attempting to attract visitors to his town by using any number of quaint devices.”

Mayor Beverson had grown gradually pale with anger as the Inspector spoke. Now, when he replied, his words tumbled over each other, making his whole speech almost incoherent. “This is not a publicity-stunt of any kind, Inspector. I will admit that the other events of the past week were planned, but I knew nothing of this. And I certainly did not ask anyone to send you up here. In fact, what are you …?”

Inspector Ashly held up a thick hand to silence the mayor. “All right, all right! Take us to see these tracks of yours.”

The mayor shrugged, and turning, led the way down the winding white road. Behind him, Inspector Ashly, Simon Ark, and a score of the townspeople followed.

They passed the usual English country houses, lining the quiet road like silent sentries. Finally they halted before an old house that was small in comparison to the others. A tall, blond man of uncertain age came out to greet them, and the curious townspeople pressed closer.

The mayor cleared his throat, as if about to give a speech. “This is Mr. Roland Summers. The … tracks are on his property.”

Roland Summers held out a muscular hand to greet Inspector Ashly, but the Scotland Yard man ignored it. “Summers? Summers? That name is familiar.”

The tall man smiled slightly. “I was on the stage for some time, in the ballet, you might have seen me.”

Ashly snorted. “I doubt it. Let’s see these tracks of yours.”

Roland Summers led the small group around to the side of the house. There were no breaks in the virgin snow. It stretched as far as the eye could see; a white vastness that seemed to reflect the awful whiteness of the winter sky.

Then they saw it.

From the woods a quarter of a mile away, there stretched a single line of indentations in the snow. They were almost round, and ran in a single line, each print being about eight inches from the previous one. They might have been the hoof-prints of some one-legged beast.

Simon Ark’s eyes followed the prints across the snow from the woods to the house, and then back into the woods again.

Inspector Ashly grunted and bent over, studying the prints. “They’re all practically identical; there must be some animal …”

“Some animal with one leg?” Simon Ark asked.

“Those are not the tracks of any animal I have ever seen,” Mayor Beverson insisted.

“Mr. Summers,” the Inspector turned to the tall man, “did you hear any unusual noises during the night?”

“None, Inspector. But then, I’m a very sound sleeper.”

Ashly grunted. “This … thing … apparently came right up to your back door. Was anything taken?”

“No, Inspector, the door was locked from the inside. Whatever it was couldn’t have gotten in.”

Ashly turned back to the mayor. “I suggest you might call all zoos within fifty miles of here and find out if any animals have escaped.”

As Mayor Beverson moved off to carry out the assignment, Simon Ark spoke from the edge of the group. “Inspector, it might be advisable to get some dogs on the trail of this thing. It may be in the woods nearby.”

The man from Scotland Yard seemed puzzled for a moment; then his face cleared. “Oh, yes. According to the legend, the dogs always stopped at the edge of the woods. All right, we can try it if you find some dogs.”

Ten minutes later, Simon Ark had obtained four large hunting dogs, and they were ready to start. Mayor Beverson returned with the news that no animals had escaped from nearby zoos, and the news failed to surprise anyone. None of them really believed that the tracks in the snow had been made by something as simple as an animal. Or at least none of them wanted to believe it, for as much as they dreaded the other alternative, the thought of it was somehow fascinating.

But the expedition was postponed for a few moments by the arrival of a strikingly beautiful woman.

Diana Hunt was one of those women who was always unpopular with members of her own sex, while at the same time having a great attraction for the opposite sex. She was dressed in riding clothes, and her jet-black hair hung halfway down her back. But it was her eyes that Simon Ark noticed first. They seemed almost to be separate living pools, completely detached from the remainder of her mask-like face.

Simon Ark bowed slightly, when she was introduced to him. “I have seen you on the screen many times, Miss Hunt.” Until her marriage two years ago to a wealthy manufacturer, Diana Hunt had been one of England’s most glamorous motion picture stars. Now, as the wife of a socially prominent businessman, she had settled down to a quiet life in the country.

Diana Hunt flashed one of her famous smiles. “The name is now Mrs. Mark Eagen. I have retired from the films.”

“Where is your husband this morning, Mrs. Eagen?” Mayor Beverson inquired.

The smile vanished for an instant, then reappeared. “He’s gone to London on business, he should return late in the day.”

“I suggest we get on the trail of this thing at once,” Inspector Ashly said. “It’s already got a twelve-hour start on us.”

The others agreed, and the small band started out, led by the dogs. Simon Ark brought up the rear with Mrs. Eagen and Roland Summers.

“Really, Diana,” Summers was saying, “you should go back to the house; there’s no telling what we may find out here.”

Diana frowned. “They must expect to find something, or else why send a Scotland Yard man?” She hurried ahead to join the others.

Simon Ark watched her long legs kicking up snow as she ran. “What is her husband’s business. Mr. Summers?”

Roland Summers hesitated. “Why, I believe Mark Eagen is in the chemical industry. He owns a small but profitable plant that manufactures dry ice and other chemical refrigerants.”

“Dry ice?” Simon Ark repeated with interest.

“Yes. He often takes long trips about the country on business. I’m afraid his wife finds it very lonely here. He rarely takes her with him.”

“I’m sure that a beautiful woman like Mrs. Eagen would never be too lonely,” Simon Ark replied.

Summers grunted. He was watching the group ahead with keen interest now. They were almost to the point where the odd tracks disappeared into the woods.

Once into the densely-wooded area, the hoof-prints became harder to follow. Little snow had fallen here, and the ground, for the most part, was covered with damp leaves.

They had gone about fifty yards into the woods when suddenly the four hunting dogs stopped dead in their tracks and began to howl.

Simon Ark glanced quickly around and saw the expression of terror and disbelief of their faces.

Inspector Ashly pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

The four dogs continued their mournful howling …

Gradually, like some evil demon slipping over them, night came to the quiet English countryside, giving the snow a darker hue that seemed somehow in keeping with the events of the day. The people had returned to their homes, but in everyone’s mind was the same thought. Would the thing come again tonight …?

Simon Ark and Inspector Ashly sat facing each other across one of the ancient oak tables in the local pub. They had consumed a few beers and a little time, while waiting for darkness.

“I still can’t understand why the dogs acted that way this afternoon,” Ashly said.

“I fear that there is something of great evil hiding in those woods,” Simon Ark remarked.

“Don’t tell me you believe this legend about the devil coming to the village!”

Simon Ark’s face grew serious, and deep furrows appeared in his brow. “I believe that Satan did visit North Bradshire last night.”

“What?”

“And he’s still here, out in those woods, waiting …” Simon Ark rose and walked toward the door. “Please excuse me. Inspector, but I have a few calls to make.”

He continued down the lonely street, his dim eyes seemingly intent upon the glistening snowflakes that now and then drifted down from the black void above. Ahead, he caught a glimpse of Mayor Beverson hurrying across the street on some mission of his own.

Simon Ark paused for a moment in the town square, and tried to read the bronze plaque that rested there, but the single street light served only to cast dim shadows over it. After a time, he gave it up and moved on.

His first stop was the small home of Roland Summers. He rang the bell twice and waited, but no one came. After a few minutes’ wait, he tried the knob and found the door unlocked.

Inside, a single light burned in the study, and another came from a stairway that apparently led to the basement. From there came the regular sounds of an axe hitting wood. Simon Ark descended the treacherous steps and found Summers swinging the axe at a decaying tree trunk which lay in a damp spot on the floor.

“Oh! It’s you, Ark. Sorry I didn’t hear the bell; I was busy chopping up some firewood.”

“You seem to have enough of it there. That trunk must weigh over a hundred pounds.”

Summers grunted and took a few more swings with the axe. “It’s all damp and decayed. I’m afraid it won’t be any good for firewood after all.” He tossed the axe down in disgust and smiled slightly. “Well, enough of that. Let’s go upstairs and have a drink, Mr. Ark.”

Simon Ark followed him upstairs and accepted a partly-filled glass of scotch and water.

“Just what is your capacity in this investigation, Mr. Ark? Are you with Scotland Yard, also?” Summers downed his drink.

“Oh, heavens, no! I’m just what you might call an interested party.”

Roland Summers grunted. “I suppose it’s the factory on the other side of the woods that makes this whole thing so important, eh?”

“Factory? What factory?” Simon Ark’s eyebrows went up with interest.

“Oh, I thought everybody knew about the factory. It’s some kind of a super-secret defense plant, probably making atomic bombs, or something.”

“So that’s why Scotland Yard takes such an interest in the area.”

Summers nodded, “Every time something happens up here, we’re immediately investigated by the Yard, Army Intelligence, and several other governmental agencies.”

Simon Ark lit a cigarette and appeared to study a faded painting on the opposite wall. “The Inspector mentioned something about Mayor Beverson’s attempts to get publicity for the town.”

The other man laughed. “Yes, he’s trying to attract tourists for the big festival this summer. But this doesn’t look to me like one of his stunts.”

“To tell you the truth,” Simon Ark commented, “this doesn’t look like much of anything to me.”

Summers answered with a questioning stare.

“I’ve made quite a study of the old appearances of tracks at Devonshire and other cities during the last century,” the heavy man began. “These things in your back yard, while admittedly not the prints of any known animal, certainly bear little resemblance to drawings of the Devonshire tracks. And I’m at somewhat of a loss to understand why the comparison was ever made. I came up here to investigate what I believed to be a supernatural occurrence, and I find instead a publicity-seeking mayor, a spy-hunting Inspector, and an ex-movie queen.” He took another puff on his cigarette and then ground it out in the ashtray. “Which reminds me, I have another stop to make tonight. If you’ll excuse me, Mr. Summers …”

“Certainly. Glad you dropped in. How long do you expect to remain in town?”

Simon Ark’s lips curled in what might have been a thin smile. “I hope to finish my business tonight.”

Outside, it was snowing harder now, at times all but obscuring vision. In another hour, the mysterious tracks would disappear forever.

It took him a few moments to discover in which house Mr. and Mrs. Mark Eagen lived. When he found it, he was not surprised. It was apparently the largest house in town, with arches, gables and pillars stretching into the sky in a sort of quiet mockery of the staid English architecture that dominated the rest of the town.

He rang the bell and waited. Presently the door was opened by Mrs. Eagen herself, looking more like the old Diana Hunt than ever.

“Come in, Mr. …?”

“Ark. Simon Ark. I’d like to talk to you.”

She wore a simple green dress that seemed to add to her beauty in some unexplainable way. Simon followed her into the living room, where she poured two drinks in silence. “I saw you with the Inspector this morning,” she said finally. “Are you a detective?”

He moved his great bulk in the narrow confines of the chair and took a sip of the drink she’d offered him. “Not exactly. I really came over here to speak to your husband, Mrs. Eagen; has he returned?”

“No,” she answered simply. They sat in silence for another few moments before she continued. “Well, I might as well tell someone. The whole town will know in another day or two.”

Simon Ark sat very still and waited.

“The truth is, Mr. Ark, that my husband has left me. He departed during the night without a word.”

“Did you have a quarrel?”

“Yes. He … he had some foolish idea about me seeing too much of our neighbor, Roland Summers. Of course he’s always been jealous, ever since he married me.”

Simon Ark nodded. “I can understand his concern. You have no idea where he has gone?”

“None whatever. For a time, I thought he would return; but now I fear he is gone for good.”

“Could I see a picture of your husband, please?”

She rose and walked to the fireplace. The framed photograph she returned with showed her in a wedding gown, accompanied by a small, pleasant-looking man who appeared to be about forty years old.

“Thank you very much, Mrs. Eagen. I’ll no doubt be talking to you again later.”

And then he was out in the street again, where the snow was still falling.

He knew where he was going next, yet he was mildly surprised when his feet carried him around to the back of the line of houses, and he headed steadily toward the woods.

Once more the snow had covered everything, obscuring the tracks of the night before. He reached the edge of the woods and paused a second, listening.

But he heard nothing …

Nothing …

The white curtain of snow in front of him, the black curtain of trees behind him …

He waited …

Presently he moved on, carefully examining the ground at his feet. Somewhere a dog howled …

He paused …

And heard it. The soundless noise of hoofbeats in the snow …

It was coming again, as it had the night before, and as it might continue to …

He waited …

A dark shape formed against the white background. Closer …

But it was not a devil; only Inspector Ashly. “Ark! What are you doing out here?”

“Solving your mystery for you, Inspector. I know what made those tracks. And the thing you want is here in the woods, now!”

“Satan?” The Inspector was laughing.

“I told you there was a great evil in these woods, and I was right.”

“Ark, if you’re referring to the government’s factory on the other side …”

“No, Inspector, this evil is much more ancient than atomic bombs.”

“What, then?”

Simon Ark spoke grimly. “We need men, a lot of them. And some searchlights. We’re going into the woods. Now! Tonight!”

“But, why? What did you see in this village that I missed? How do you know it’s in the woods now?”

Simon Ark said very quietly, “Because a man was chopping wood in his basement …”

Roland Summers opened the door and greeted Simon Ark with a smile. “Well, back again!”

“Yes, Mr. Summers.”

“What’s all the activity in the woods? There seems to be a lot of men back there. And spotlights.”

“That’s right. They’re digging.” Simon Ark followed him into the small book-lined study.

“Digging? For what?”

“They’re searching for the body of Mr. Mark Eagen, the man you murdered last night …”

“The evil that came to North Bradshire last night was of a very ancient type—lust for another man’s wife.” Simon Ark spoke quietly, his eyes never leaving the pale face of Roland Summers.

“And the devil was here last night, Mr. Summers. But he wasn’t out there making tracks in the snow. He was inside of you, when you killed Diana Hunt’s husband.”

“I … you’re crazy.”

“I don’t suppose it was premeditated. He came to your house to tell you to keep away from his wife. There was a fight, and you killed him. Then you were faced with the problem that always confronts murderers; you had to get rid of the body. It couldn’t be left in your house. You decided the best thing would be to bury it. But the ground was frozen; covered with snow, except in the woods where the trees protected the ground. So you decided to carry the body from your house to the woods and bury it.”

Roland Summers sat frozen in the chair. His cigarette had almost burned down to his fingers.

“But that immediately presented a problem. A fresh snow had fallen, making the area you had to cross a spotless white carpet. In the morning, someone would be sure to notice the footprints leading from your house to the woods and back again. And if Diana Hunt became alarmed at her husband’s absence, the police might have connected his disappearance with the footprints leading from your house to the woods. So you devised a way to make your tracks look like those of an animal.”

“Those didn’t look like any animal tracks.” Summers’ face had turned ashen now.

“No, but they might have passed an uninterested observer. They were better than footprints, anyway. Unfortunately for you, Mayor Beverson saw another opportunity to publicize his town; he called attention to the fact that they slightly resembled some mysterious tracks found in the area a hundred years ago. That was what really spoiled things for you; because sooner or later someone was sure to realize that the prints didn’t necessarily start and end in the woods. They could just as well have started and returned to your house.”

“And … and how do you suggest I was able to make almost round indentations like those in the snow?” He seemed almost afraid of the answer he knew would come.

Simon Ark said, “Very simple. They are the prints of the toes of ballet shoes or slippers. When you carried Mark Eagen into the woods, you walked on your toes …”

The cigarette fell from Roland Summers’ limp fingers.

“I know it sounds fantastic, even to carry a small man any distance while keeping on your toes, but a skilled ballet dancer like yourself must have much strength in his legs. And putting one foot directly ahead of the other when you walked would also be simple for you.”

Roland Summers was staring at him with glassy eyes.

“Of course, the howling dogs this afternoon suggested that there was something, possibly a body, buried in those woods. And Mark Eagen was the only person who had disappeared last night. The prints, which were the only ones between the town and the woods, came from your house, which made you the logical suspect.”

Simon Ark paused and listened to the renewed voice from the direction of the woods. Then he continued.

“And when I found you chopping up that old tree trunk in your basement, I was certain. It was obviously no good for firewood, and it had just as obviously been carried from the woods recently. Yet there were none of your footprints in the snow—only the odd cleverest part of your whole scheme. You carried a hundred-pound corpse into the woods, so you carried a hundred-pound tree stump out of the woods, thus making sure that the depth of the tracks in the snow was about the same, both coming and going. Otherwise, it would have been obvious that something had been carried into the woods.”

Roland Summers continued to sit stiffly in the chair …

Simon Ark was closing the door behind him when Inspector Ashly came up. “We dug up Eagen’s body, Mr. Ark. It was where you said, near the spot where the dogs started howling. Is Summers inside?”

“Yes, he is …”

“I suppose Eagen’s wife was the cause of it all.”

But Simon Ark did not reply. He was walking slowly through the snow to the road.

Inspector Ashly opened the door and went into Roland Summers’ house. He found Summers in the study, still staring at the wall with glassy eyes …

He was pulling a pair of handcuffs from his pocket when he suddenly realized that Roland Summers was dead …

A heavy fog was obscuring London the next day, as Inspector Ashly sat in the office of his superior.

The man behind the desk shuffled some papers and said, “Summers apparently died of heart failure, as a result of some great shock. It all seems very odd, especially since he died while he was alone with this man, Simon Ark, who now seems to have vanished completely.”

Ashly frowned and spoke very slowly. “It may sound fantastic, sir, but somehow I don’t believe that Simon Ark belonged to our world. He came to North Bradshire because he believed he might find the devil there; instead he found only a murderer.”

“What do you mean, he thought he would find the devil? Why should anyone go looking for the devil?”

Ashly rose and walked to the window, where he stood looking out at the gray mist that hung like a curtain over the city. “I don’t exactly know, sir, but I found this on the table next to Roland Summers’ body. Simon Ark must have left it there.”

And he took a small wooden object from his pocket and held it out for his superior to see. It was shaped like the letter T, with a small circle on top, and it appeared to be very old.

“What is it, Ashly?”

“At the museum they told me it was an ansated cross, an early symbol of Egyptian Christians …”

“Egyptian …”

“I know it seems fantastic, sir, but I believe Simon Ark is searching for Satan. I believe he has been searching for a long, long time. I wonder what will happen when they meet …”

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.

City of Brass © 1959 The Saint Mystery Library

The Hoofs of Satan © 1956 Famous Detective

The Vicar of Hell © 1956 Famous Detective

Copyright © 1971 by Edward D. Hoch

Cover design by Jason Gabbert

978-1-4804-5641-9

This 2013 edition published by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.mysteriouspress.com

www.openroadmedia.com

EBOOKS BY

EDWARD D. HOCH

FROM MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM

AND OPEN ROAD MEDIA

Available wherever ebooks are sold

Otto Penzler, owner of the Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan, founded the Mysterious Press in 1975. Penzler quickly became known for his outstanding selection of mystery, crime, and suspense books, both from his imprint and in his store. The imprint was devoted to printing the best books in these genres, using fine paper and top dust-jacket artists, as well as offering many limited, signed editions.

Now the Mysterious Press has gone digital, publishing ebooks through MysteriousPress.com.

MysteriousPress.com offers readers essential noir and suspense fiction, hard-boiled crime novels, and the latest thrillers from both debut authors and mystery masters. Discover classics and new voices, all from one legendary source.

FIND OUT MORE AT

WWW.MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM

FOLLOW US:

@emysteries and Facebook.com/MysteriousPressCom

MysteriousPress.com is one of a select group of publishing partners of Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

Open Road Integrated Media is a digital publisher and multimedia content company. Open Road creates connections between authors and their audiences by marketing its ebooks through a new proprietary online platform, which uses premium video content and social media.

Videos, Archival Documents, and New Releases

Sign up for the Open Road Media newsletter and get news delivered straight to your inbox.

Sign up now at

www.openroadmedia.com/newsletters

FIND OUT MORE AT

WWW.OPENROADMEDIA.COM

FOLLOW US:

@openroadmedia and

Facebook.com/OpenRoadMedia