Абрахам Меррит - Creep, Shadow!

He said, slowly: "You forget I tried that on Dick, and it didn't work."

"I don't give a damn about that," I said. "It worked on you."

I hoped he'd believe me. It would help build up his resistance if the Demoiselle tried any more of her tricks on him. Not that I was any too sanguine. Bill was a psychiatrist of sorts, knew far more about the quirks and aberrations of the human mind than I did, and if he hadn't been able to convince himself of the hallucinatory aspect of the shadows how could I expect to?

Bill sat quietly for a minute or two, then sighed and shook his head: "That's all you're going to tell me, Alan?"

"That's all I can tell you, Bill. It's all there is to tell." He sighed again, then looked at his watch: "Good God, it's seven o'clock!"

I said: "How about staying here for dinner? Or are you busy tonight?"

Bill brightened. "I'm not. But I'll have to call up Lowell." He took up the telephone. I said: "Wait a minute. Did you tell Lowell about my little party with the Demoiselle?"

He said: "Yes. You don't mind, do you? I thought it might help."

I said: "I'm glad you did. But did you tell Helen?"

He hesitated: "Well – not everything."

I said, cheerfully: "Fine. She knows what you left out. And it saves me the time. Go ahead and 'phone."

I went downstairs to order dinner. I thought both of us were entitled to something extra. When I came back to the room Bill was quite excited. He said:

"McCann is coming tonight to report. He's found out something. He'll be at Lowell's about nine o'clock."

I said: "We'll get dinner and go up. I want to meet McCann."

We had dinner. At nine o'clock we were at Lowell's. Helen wasn't there. She hadn't known I was coming, nor had Lowell told her about McCann. She had gone to the theater. I was glad of that, and sorry. A little after nine McCann came in.

I liked McCann from the start. He was a lanky, drawling Texan. He had been the underworld leader Ricori's trusted bodyguard and handyman; a former cow-puncher; loyal, resourceful and utterly without fear. I had heard much of him when Bill had recounted the story of that incredible adventure of Lowell and Ricori with Mme. Mandilip, the doll-maker, whose lover this de Keradel had been. I had the feeling that McCann took the same instant liking to me. Briggs brought in decanters and glasses. Lowell went over and locked the door. We sat at the table, the four of us. McCann said to Lowell:

"Well, Doc – I reckon we're headed for about the same kind of round- up we was last time. Only mebbe a mite worse. I wish the boss was around…"

Lowell explained to me: "McCann means Ricori – he's in Italy. I think I told you."

I asked McCann: "How much do you know?" Lowell answered: "Everything that I know. I have the utmost faith in him, Dr. Caranac."

I said: "Fine." McCann grinned at me. He said:

"But the boss ain't around, so I guess you'd better cable him you need some help, Doc. Ask him to cable these fellers – " he thrust a list of half a dozen names to Lowell "-an' tell 'em he wants 'em to report to me an' do what I say. An' ask him to take the next ship over."

Lowell asked, uncertainly: "You think that is justified, McCann?"

McCann said: "Yeah. I'd even go as far as to put in that cable that it's a matter of life an' death, an' that the hag who made dolls was just a nursery figure compared to the people we're up against. I'd send that cable right off, Doc. I'll put my name to it, too."

Lowell asked again: "You're sure, McCann?"

McCann said: "We're going to need the boss. I'm telling you, Doc."

Bill had been writing. He said: "How's this?" He passed the paper to McCann. "You can put in the names of the people you want Ricori to cable."

McCann read:

Ricori. Doll-maker menace renewed worse than before. Have urgent immediate need of you. Ask you return at once. In meantime cable (so-and-so) to report to McCann and follow implicitly his orders. Cable when can expect you.

"That's O.K.," McCann said. "I guess the boss'll read between the lines without the life and death part."

He filled in the missing names and handed it to Dr. Lowell. "I'd get it right off, Doc."

Lowell nodded and wrote an address on it. Bill ran the message off on the typewriter. Lowell unlocked the door and rang for Briggs; he came, and the message to Ricori was on its way.

"I hope to God he gets it quick an' comes," said McCann, and poured himself a stiff drink. "An' now," he said, "I'll begin at the beginning. Let me tell the whole thing my own way an' if you got questions, ask them when I'm through."

He said to Bill: "After you give me the layout, I head for Rhode Island. I got a sort of hunch, so I take along a big roll of bills. Most of 'em is phoney but imposing in the herd. An' I don't aim to dispose of the mavericks – just display 'em. I see by the road map there's a place called Beverly down that locality. It's the nearest place on the map to this de Keradel ranch. On beyond, it's empty country or big estates. So I head the car that way an' give her the spur. I get there about dark. It's a nice little village, old-fashioned, one street running down to the water, some stores, a movie. I see a shack with a sign Beverly House an' figure to bed down there for the night. Far as I can see de Keradel an' his gal have got to ride through here to get to the ranch, an' mebbe they do some buying of their truck here. Anyway, I'm betting that there's talk going 'round, an' if so then the gent that runs this Beverly House knows all of it.

"So I go in an' there's an old galoot who looks like a cross between a goat an' a human question mark at the desk an' I tell him I'm looking for shelter for the night an' maybe a day or so longer. He asks if I'm a tourist, an' I say no, an' hesitate, an' then say I got a piece of business on my mind. He pricks up his ears at that, an' I say where I come from we put our stake on the table before we play, an' pull out the roll. He waggles his ears at that, an' after I've talked him down about two bits on the tariff he's not only plumb curious but got quite a respect for me. Which is the impression I want.

"I go in an' have a darn good meal, and when I'm near through the old goat comes an' asks me how things is an' so on, an' I tell him fine an' to sit down. He does. We talk of this an' that, an' after a while he gets probing what my business is, an' we have some dam good applejack. I get confidential an' tell him I been nursing cows for years down Texas way, an' they've left me sitting mighty pretty. Tell him my grand-pap came from round these parts an' I've got a yearning to get back.

"He asks me grand-pap's name an' I tell him Partington, an' what I'd hoped to do was buy back the old house, but I was too late learning it was on the market an' I'd found some Frenchman called de Keradel had bought it from the estate an' so I supposed that was out. But mebbe, I say, I could pick up a place near, or mebbe the Frenchman would sell me some of the land. Then I'd wait till mebbe this Frenchman got tired of it an' I could pick the old house up cheap."

Bill explained to me: "This place de Keradel bought had belonged to the Partington family for generations. The last one died about four years ago. I told McCann all that. Go on, McCann."

"He listened to this with a queer look on his face, half-scared," said McCann. "Then he opined my grand-pap must have been Eben Partington who went West after the Civil War, an' I said I guessed so because pap's name was Eben, an' he seemed to hold quite a grudge against the family an' never talked much about 'em, which was mainly what made me want to get hold of the old place. I said I thought buying it back an' living in it might rile the ghosts of them who kicked grand-pap out.

"Well, that was a shot in the dark, but it hit the mark. The old goat gets more talkative. He said I was a grandson of Eben all right, for the Partingtons never forgot a grudge. Then he said he didn't think there was a chance of me getting the old place back because the Frenchman had spent a lot of money on it, but there was a place right close he knew of that I could get an' if I'd put it in his hands he'd get me the lowest price for it. Also, he was sure I couldn't buy in on the Partington ranch, an' with that same queer look said he didn't think I'd like it there if I could. An' he kept staring at me as though he was trying to make up his mind about something.