Ghost Story

Couldn't he see her?'

'She vanished a while back. That's why he was anxious.'

'Oh, poor Edward. He doesn't have to worry about that girl. She's good as gold. You should see her. She's absolutely lovely. She looks better than she has all night.'

'Well.' He pushed himself out of the stiff chair. 'Do you want help finding Edward?'

'No, no, no. You just carry on. I'll find him. I'll try the bedrooms. Though what he'd be doing there-'

'Still looking, I expect.'

John wheeled around, muttering that he couldn't help but worry, and went back through the consulting rooms. Ricky slowly followed.

Harold Sims was dancing with Stella, holding her tightly and keeping up a steady stream of talk into her ear. The music was so loud that Ricky wanted to scream. Nobody but Sears had left, and the young people, many of them now drunk, whirled about, hair and arms flying. The little actress cavorted with the editor, Lewis was talking to Christina Barnes on the couch. Both were oblivious to the presence of sleeping Milly Sheehan, not eight inches away. Ricky wished profoundly that he were in his bed. The noise gave him a headache. His old friends, Sears excepted, seemed to have lost their minds. Lewis had his hand on Christina Barnes's knee, and his eyes were unfocused. Was he really trying to seduce his banker's wife? In the presence of her husband and son?

Upstairs, something heavy fell over, and only Ricky heard it. He went back out onto the landing and saw John Jaffrey standing at the top of the stairs.

'Ricky.'

'What's wrong, John?'

'Edward. It's Edward.'

'Did he knock something over?'

'Come up here, Ricky.'

Ricky went up, growing a little more worried with each step. John Jaffrey seemed very shaken.

'Did he knock something over? Did he hurt himself?'

Jaffrey's mouth opened. Finally sounds emerged. 'I knocked a chair over. I don't know what to do.'

Ricky reached the landing and looked into Jaffrey's ruined face. 'Where is he?'

'The second bedroom.'

Since Jaffrey did not move, Ricky went across the hall to the second door. He looked back; Jaffrey nodded, swallowed and finally came toward him. 'In there.'

Ricky's mouth was dry. Wishing that he were anywhere else, doing anything but what he was doing, he put a hand on the doorknob and turned it. The door swung open.

The bedroom was cold, and almost bare. Two coats, Edward's and the girl's, were lain across an exposed mattress. But Ricky saw only Edward Wanderley. Edward was on the floor, both hands clutched to his chest and his knees drawn up. His face was terrible.

Ricky stepped back and nearly fell over the chair that John Jaffrey had overturned. There was no question that Edward was still alive-he did not know how he knew it, but he knew-yet he asked, 'Did you try to feel his pulse?'

'He doesn't have a pulse. He's gone.'

John was trembling just inside the door. Music, voices came up the stairwell.

Ricky forced himself to kneel by Edward's side. He touched one of the hands gripping Edward's green shirt He worked his fingers around to the underside of the wrist. He felt nothing, but he was no doctor. 'What do you think happened?' He still could not look again at Edward's distorted face.

John came further into the room. 'Heart attack?'

'Do you think that's what it was?'

'I don't know. Yes, probably. Too much excitement But-'

Ricky stared up at Jaffrey and took his hand from Edward's still warm hand. 'But what?'

'I don't know. I can't say. But, Ricky, look at his face.'

He looked: rigid muscles, mouth drawn open as if to yell, empty eyes. It was the face of a man being tortured, flayed alive. 'Ricky,' John said, 'it's not a very medical thing to say, but he looks as if he was scared to death.'

Ricky nodded and stood. That was just how Edward looked. 'We can't let anyone come up here. I'll go down and phone for an ambulance.'

6

And that was the ending of Jaffrey's party: Ricky Hawthorne telephoned for an ambulance, switched off the record player and said that Edward Wanderley had 'had an accident' and was beyond help, and sent thirty people home. He permitted no one to go upstairs. He looked for Ann-Veronica Moore, but she had already left.

Half an hour later, Edward's body was on its way to hospital or morgue. Ricky drove Stella home. 'You didn't see her leave?' he asked.

'One minute she was dancing with Ned Rowles, the next minute she was out the door. I thought she was going to the bathroom. Ricky, how horrible.'

'Yes. It was horrible.'

'Poor Edward. I don't think I really believe it.'

'I don't think I do either.' Tears filled his eyes, and for some seconds he drove blindly, seeing only a streaky blur. To try to take the image of Edward's face from his mind, he asked, 'What did she say to you that surprised you so much?'

'What? When? I barely spoke to her.'

'In the middle of the party. I saw her talking to you, and I thought she said something that startled you.'

'Oh.' Stella's voice rose. 'She asked me if I was married. I said, 'I'm Mrs. Hawthorne.' And then she said, 'Oh, yes, I've just seen your husband. He looks like he'd be a good enemy.' '

'You couldn't have heard her correctly.'

'I did.'

'It doesn't make sense.'

'That's what she said.'

And a week later, after Ricky had telephoned the theater where the girl was working, trying to return her coat, he heard that she had returned to New York the day after the party, abruptly quit the play and left town. Nobody knew where she was. She had vanished for good-she was too young, too new, and she left behind not even enough reputation for a legend. That night, at what looked like being the final meeting of the Chowder Society, he had, inspired, turned to a morose John Jaffrey and asked, 'What's the worst thing you've ever done?' And John saved them all by answering, 'I won't tell you that, but I'll tell you the worst thing that ever happened to me,' and told them a ghost story.

Part Two: Dr Rabbitfoot's Revenge

Follow a shadow, it still flies you;

Seem to fly it, it will pursue.

-Ben Jonson

I - Just Another Field, but What

They Planted There

From the journals of Don Wanderley