Ghost Story

have gone through a series of changes. And maybe it would have been helpless.'

'A lot of maybes,' Ricky said.

'That's all we have.'

'If we accept your theory.'

'If you have a better one I'll listen to it. But through Peter Barnes we know what happened to Freddy Robinson and Jim Hardie. Also, I checked with her agent and found out some things about Ann-Veronica Moore. She came literally from nowhere. There is no record at all of her in the town she said she was born in. Because there couldn't be-there never was an Ann-Veronica Moore until the day she enrolled in acting class. She just arrived, plausible and well documented, at the door of a theater, knowing it was a way to get to Edward Wanderley.'

'Then these-these things you think exist-are even more dangerous. They have wit,' Sears said.

'Yes, they do have wit. They love jokes, and they make longterm plans, and like the Indians' Manitou, they love to flaunt themselves. This second book gives a good example of that.' He picked it up and showed the spine to the two men. 'I Came This Way, by Robert Mobley. He was the painter Alma claimed was her father. I made the mistake of never looking at his autobiography until today. Now I think that she wanted me to read it and discover that in calling herself Mobley she was making a pun on an earlier appearance. The fourth chapter is called 'Dark Clouds'-it's not a very well-written autobiography, but I want to read you a few paragraphs from that chapter.'

Don opened the book to a marked page, and neither of the two old men stirred.

' 'Even in a life so apparently fortunate as mine has been, dark and troubling periods have intruded and marked months and years with indelible grief. The year 1958 was one such; only by hurling myself with the utmost concentration into my work, I believe, did I maintain my sanity during that year. Knowing the sunny watercolors and rigid formal experimentation in oils which had been characteristic of my work during the five years previous, people have often questioned me about the stylistic transformation which led to my so-called Supernatural Period. I can say now only that my mind was very likely unbalanced, and the violent disorder of my emotions found expression in the work I forced myself to do.

' 'The first painful event of the year was the death of my mother, Jessica Osgood Mobley, whose affection and wise advice had…' I'll skip a page or two here.' Don scanned the page, and turned it over. 'Here we are. 'The second, even more shattering loss was the death by his own hand in his eighteenth year of my elder son, Shelby. I shall mention here only the circumstances surrounding Shelby's death which led directly to my work of the so-called Supernatural Period, for this book is chiefly an account of my life in painting: yet I must assert that my son's was a gay, innocent and vibrant spirit, and I am certain that only a great moral shock, the apprehension of a hitherto unsuspected evil, could have led him to take his life.

' 'Shortly after the death of my mother, a spacious house near our own was sold to an evidently prosperous, attractive woman in her mid-forties whose sole family consisted of a niece of fourteen who had become her ward after the death of the girl's parents. Mrs. Florence de Peyser was friendly and reserved, a woman with charming manners who wintered in Europe as my own parents had: in fact she seemed altogether more representative of another age than our own, and for a time I speculated about doing her portrait in watercolor. She collected paintings, as I saw when invited to her house, and was even knowledgeable about my own work- though my abstractions of the period would have fitted oddly with her French Symbolists! But for all Mrs. de Peyser's charm, the principle attraction of her household soon became her niece. Amy Monckton's beauty was almost ethereal, and I believe that she was the most feminine being I have ever seen. Every action she undertook, be it merely entering a room or pouring a cup of tea, spoke a volume of quiet grace. The child was an enchantment, entirely self-possessed and modest- as delicate as (but perhaps more intelligent than) Pansy Osmond, for whose sake Henry James's Isobel Archer sacrificed herself so willingly. Amy was a welcome guest in our home: both of my sons were drawn to her.'

'And there she is,' Don said. 'A fourteen-year-old Alma Mobley, under the guidance of Mrs. de Peyser.

Poor Mobley didn't know what he was letting into his house. He goes on: 'Though Amy was the same age as Whitney, my younger son, it was Shelby-sensitive Shelby-who became closer to her. At the time, I thought it was proof of Shelby's politesse, that he gave so much time to a girl four years younger than himself. And even when I picked up clear signs of affection (poor Shelby blushed when the girl's name was mentioned), I could never have imagined that they indulged in any behavior of a morbid, degrading or precocious kind. In truth, it was one of the delights of my life to observe my tall, handsome son walking through our garden with the pretty child. And I was not surprised, though perhaps a bit amused, when Shelby confided to me that when she was eighteen and he twenty-two, he would marry Amy Monckton.

' 'After several months I noticed that Shelby had become increasingly withdrawn. He was no longer interested in his friends, and in the last months of his life, he concentrated exclusively on the de Peyser household and Miss Monckton. They had lately been joined by a servant of sinister and Latin appearance named Gregorio. I distrusted Gregorio on sight, and attempted to warn Mrs. de Peyser about him, but was informed that she had known him and his family for many years, and that he was an excellent chauffeur. I felt I could say no more.

' 'In this short account I can say only that my son became haggard in appearance and secretive in manner during the last two weeks of his life. I played the heavy parent for the first time in my life and forbade him to communicate with the de Peyser household. His attitude led me to believe that under Gregorio's influence, he and the child were experimenting with drugs-perhaps also with illicit sensuality. That noxious and debasing weed, marijuana, was even then to be found in the lower sections of New Orleans. And I feared also that they experimented too with some gimcrack form of Creole mysticism. That sort of thing suits the drug milieu.

' 'Whatever Shelby had been drawn into, its results were tragic. He disobeyed my orders and continued clandestinely to frequent the de Peyser house; and on the last day of August he returned home, took the service revolver I kept in a drawer in my bedroom, and shot himself. It was I, painting in my studio, who heard the shot and discovered his body.

' 'What occurred next must have been the result of shock. I did not think to call the police or an ambulance: I wandered outside, imagining somehow that help would already have arrived. I found myself on the road outside our house. I was looking at Mrs. de Peyser's residence. What I saw there nearly made me lose consciousness.

' 'I imagined I saw the chauffeur Gregorio standing at an upper window, sneering down at me. Malevolence seemed to flow from him. He was exultant I tried to scream and could not. I looked down and saw something worse. Amy Monckton stood by the side of the house, similarly staring at me, but with a calm, expressionless gaze and a grave face. Her feet were not touching the ground! Amy appeared to be floating nine or ten inches above the grass. Exposed to them, I felt an utter terror, and pressed my hands to my face. When I removed them and could see again, they were gone.

' 'Mrs. de Peyser and Amy sent flowers to Shelby's funeral, but by then had gone to California. Though I was and am now convinced that I had imagined my last sight of the child and the chauffeur, I burned the flowers rather than let them adorn Shelby's coffin. The paintings of my so-called Supernatural Period, which I propose now to discuss, flowed from this experience.' '

Don looked at the two old men. 'I read that for the first time today. You see what I mean by flaunting themselves? They want their victims to know, or at least to suspect, what sort of things happened to them. Robert Mobley got a shock that nearly unhinged him, and he did the best paintings of his life; Alma wanted me to read about it and know that she had lived in New Orleans with Florence de Peyser under another name and killed a boy as surely as she killed my brother.'

'Why hasn't Anna Mostyn killed us already?' Sears asked. 'She's had every opportunity. I can't even pretend not to be convinced by what you've told us, but why has she waited? Why aren't the three of us as dead as the others?'

Ricky cleared his throat. 'Edward's actress told Stella that I'd be a good enemy. I think what she was waiting for was the moment when we knew exactly what we were up against.'

'You mean now,' Sears said.

'Do you have a plan?' Ricky asked.

'No, just a few ideas. I'm going to go back to the hotel and pick up my things and move back here. Maybe in the tapes she made with my uncle there'll be some information we can use. And I want to break into Anna Mostyn's home. I hope you will come with me. We might find something there.'

'What you'll find in there is a long walk on a short pier,' Sears said.

'No, I don't think they'll be there anymore. The three of them will know that we'll try the house first. They'll