Эд Макбейн: Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here

374 MacArthur Lane was at the end of the road that curved past the Hamilton Bridge. The house was a huge gray stone structure with a slate roof and scores of gables and chimneys jostling the sky, perched high in gloomy shadow above the Harb. As he stepped from the car, Meyer could hear the sounds of river traffic, the hooting of tugs, the blowing of whistles, the eruption of a squawk box on a destroyer midstream. He looked out over the water. Reflected lights glistened in shimmering liquid beauty, the hanging globes on the bridge’s suspension cables, the dazzling reds and greens of signal lights on the opposite shore, single illuminated window slashes in apartment buildings throwing their mirror images onto the black surface of the river, the blinking wing lights of an airplane overhead moving in watery reflection like a submarine. The air was cold, a fine piercing drizzle had begun several minutes ago. Meyer shuddered, pulled the collar of his coat higher on his neck, and walked toward the old gray house, his shoes crunching on the driveway gravel, the sound echoing away into the high surrounding bushes.

The stones of the old house oozed wetness. Thick vines covered the walls, climbing to the gabled, turreted roof. He found a doorbell set over a brass escutcheon in the thick oaken doorjamb and pressed it. Chimes sounded somewhere deep inside the house. He waited.

The door opened suddenly.

The man looking out at him was perhaps seventy years old, with piercing blue eyes, bald except for white thatches of hair that sprang wildly from behind each ear. He wore a red smoking jacket and black trousers, a black ascot around his neck, red velvet slippers.

“What do you want?” he asked immediately.

“I’m Detective Meyer of the Eighty-seventh—”

“Who sent for you?”

“A woman named Adele Gorman came to the—”

“My daughter’s a fool,” the man said. “We don’t need the police here,” and slammed the door in his face.

Meyer stood on the doorstep feeling somewhat like a horse’s ass. A tugboat hooted on the river. A light snapped on upstairs, casting an amber rectangle into the dark driveway. He looked at the luminous dial of his watch. It was 2:35 A.M. The drizzle was cold and penetrating. He took out his handkerchief, blew his nose, and wondered what he should do next. He did not like ghosts, and he did not like lunatics, and he did not like nasty old men who did not comb their hair and who slammed doors in a person’s face. He was about to head back for his car when the door opened again.

“Detective Meyer?” Adele Gorman said. “Do come in.”

“Thank you,” he said, and stepped into the entrance foyer.

“You’re right on time.”

“Well, a little early actually,” Meyer said. He still felt foolish. What the hell was he doing in Smoke Rise investigating ghosts in the middle of the night?

“This way,” Adele said, and he followed her through a somberly paneled foyer into a vast, dimly lighted living room. Heavy oaken beams ran overhead, velvet draperies hung at the window, the room was cluttered with ponderous old furniture. He could believe there were ghosts in this house, he could suddenly believe it. A young man wearing dark glasses rose like a specter from the sofa near the fireplace. His face, illuminated by the single standing floor lamp, looked wan and drawn. Wearing a black cardigan sweater over a white shirt and dark slacks, he approached Meyer unsmilingly with his hand extended — but he did not accept Meyer’s hand when it was offered in return.

Meyer suddenly realized that the man was blind.

“I’m Ralph Gorman,” he said, his hand still extended. “Adele’s husband.”

“How do you do, Mr. Gorman,” Meyer said, and took his hand. The palm was moist and cold.

“It was good of you to come,” Gorman said. “These apparitions have been driving us crazy.”

“What time is it?” Adele asked suddenly, and looked at her watch. “We’ve got five minutes,” she said. There was a tremor in her voice. She seemed suddenly very frightened.

“Won’t your father be here?” Meyer asked.

“No, he’s gone up to bed,” Adele said. “I’m afraid he’s bored with the whole affair and terribly angry that we notified the police.”

Meyer made no comment. Had he known that Willem Van Houten, former Surrogate’s Court judge, had not wanted the police to be notified, Meyer would not have been here in the first place. He debated leaving now, but Adele Gorman had begun talking again, and it was impolite to depart in the middle of another person’s sentence.

“...is in her early thirties, I would guess. The other ghost, the male, is about your age — forty or forty-five, something like that.”

“I’m thirty-seven,” Meyer said.

“Oh.”

“The bald head fools a lot of people.”

“Yes.”

“I was bald at a very early age.”

“Anyway,” Adele said, “their names are Elisabeth and Johann, and they’ve probably been—”

“Oh, they have names, do they?”

“Yes. They’re ancestors, you know. My father is Dutch, and there actually were an Elisabeth and Johann Van Houten in the family centuries ago, when Smoke Rise was still a Dutch settlement.”

“They’re Dutch, um-huh, I see,” Meyer said.

“Yes. They always appear wearing Dutch costumes. And they also speak Dutch.”

“Have you heard them, Mr. Gorman?”

“Yes,” Gorman said. “I’m blind, you know...” he added, and hesitated, as though expecting some comment from Meyer. When none came, he said, “But I have heard them.”

“Do you speak Dutch?”

“No. My father-in-law speaks it fluently, though, and he identified the language for us and told us what they were saying.”

“What did they say?”

“Well, for one thing, they said they were going to steal Adele’s jewelry, and they damn well did.”

“Your wife’s jewelry? But I thought—”

“It was willed to her by her mother. My father-in-law keeps it in his safe.”

“Kept, you mean.”

“No, keeps. There are several pieces in addition to the ones that were stolen. Two rings and also a necklace.”

“And the value?”

“Altogether? I would say about forty thousand dollars.”

“Your ghosts have expensive taste.”

The floor lamp in the room suddenly began to flicker. Meyer glanced at it and felt the hackles rising at the back of his neck.

“The lights are going out, Ralph,” Adele whispered.

“Is it two forty-five?”

“Yes.”

“They’re here,” Gorman whispered.

Mercy Howell’s roommate had been asleep for close to four hours when they knocked on her door. But she was a wily young lady, hip to the ways of the big city, and very much awake as she conducted her own little investigation without so much as opening the door a crack. First she asked them to spell their names slowly. Then she asked them their shield numbers. Then she asked them to hold their shields and their ID cards close to the door’s peephole, where she could see them. Still unconvinced, she said through the locked door, “You just wait there a minute.” They waited for closer to five minutes before they heard her approaching the door again. The heavy steel bar of a Fox lock was pushed noisily to the side, a safety chain rattled on its track, the tumblers of one lock clicked open, and then another, and finally the girl opened the door.

“Come in,” she said, “I’m sorry I kept you waiting. I called the station house and they said you were okay.”

“You’re a very careful girl,” Hawes said.

“At this hour of the morning? Are you kidding?” she said.

She was perhaps twenty-five, with her red hair up in curlers, her face cold-creamed clean of makeup. She was wearing a pink quilted robe over flannel pajamas, and although she was probably a very pretty girl at 9 A.M., she now looked about as attractive as a Buffalo nickel.