Or, if I’m too busy, just ask anyone. The whole district knows all about it.”
The following morning the sun peered with dazzling force into his hotel room. Kent walked to the window and stared out over the peaceful village.
For a moment there was not a sound audible. The little spread of trees and houses lay almost dreamily under the blue, blue sky.
Kent thought quietly: He had made no mistake in deciding to spend the rest of the summer here, while, in a leisurely fashion, he carried on negotiations for the sale of the farm his parents had left him. Truth was he had been overworking.
He went downstairs and amazed himself by eating two eggs and four slices of bacon in addition to cereal and toast. From the dining room he walked to the veranda – and there was the ghost sitting in one of the wicker chairs.
Kent stopped short. The tiny beginning of a chill formed at the nape of his spine; then the old man saw him and said:
“Good morning, Mr Kent. I should take it very kind if you would sit down and talk with me. I need cheering up.”
It was spoken with an almost intimate pathos; and yet Kent had a sudden sense of being beyond his depth. Somehow the old man’s friendliness of the day before had seemed unreal.
Yet here it was again.
He shook himself. After all, part of the explanation at least was simple. Here was an old man – that ghost part was utterly ridiculous, of course – an old man, then, who could foretell the future. Foretell it in such a fashion that, in the case of Mrs Carmody, he, the old man, had actually had the impression that she had been around for months before she arrived.
Apparently, he had had the same impression about Kent. Therefore –
“Good morning, Mr Wainwright!” Kent spoke warmly as he seated himself. “You need cheering up, you say. Who’s been depressing you?”
“Oh!” The old man hesitated, his finely lined face twisted into a faint frown. He said finally, slowly. “Perhaps, it is wrong of me to have mentioned it. It is no one’s fault, I suppose. The friction of daily life, in this case Mrs Carmody pestering me about what her sister was doing in court.”
Kent was silent, astounded. The reference of the old man to the only part of the story that he, Kent, knew, was – shattering. His brain recoiled from the coincidence into a tight, corded layer of thoughts:
Was this – alien – creature a mind reader as well as seer and ghost? An old, worn-out brain that had taken on automaton qualities, and reacted almost entirely to thoughts that trickled in from other minds? Or –
He stopped, almost literally pierced by the thought that came: Or was this reference to Mrs Carmody, this illusion that Mrs Carmody was still looking after him, one of those fantastic, brain-chilling re-enactments of which the history of haunted houses was so gruesomely replete?
Dead souls, murderess and murdered, doomed through all eternity to live over and over again their lives before and during the crime!
But that was impossible. Mrs Carmody was still alive; in a madhouse to be sure, but
Kent released carefully the breath of air he had held hard in his lungs for nearly a minute. “Why don’t you tell her,” he said finally, “to ask her sister about what she was doing in court!”
The thin, gray, old face wrinkled into puzzlement. The old man said with a curious dignity:
“It is more complicated than that, Mr Kent. I have never quite understood the appearance of so many twins in the world during the recent years of my life; and the fact that so many of them are scarcely on speaking terms with each other is additionally puzzling.”
He shook his head. “It is all very confusing. For instance, this courtroom appearance of Mrs Carmody’s sister – I seem to remember having heard something else about it, but it must have struck me as unimportant at the time, for I cannot rightly recollect the details. It’s not a pleasant situation for a harmless old man to handle.”
Harmless! Kent’s eyes narrowed involuntarily. That was what people kept saying about – the ghost. First, the driver, Tom; then, according to Tom’s story, the girl Phyllis, and now the old man himself.
Harmless, harmless, harmless. Old man, he thought tensely, what about the fact that you drove a woman to murder you? What
Kent loosened the tight grip his fingers had taken on the arms of the chair. What was the matter with him, letting a thing like this get on his nerves?
He looked up. The sky was as blue as ever; the summer day peaceful, perfect. All was well with the world of reality.
There was silence, a deep, peaceful quiet during which Kent studied that long, aged face from half-closed eyes. The old man’s skin was of a normal grayish texture with many, very many crisscross lines. He had a lean, slightly hawklike nose, and a thin, rather fine mouth.
Handsome, old man; only – that explained nothing, and—
He saw that the old man was rising; he stood for a moment very straight, carefully adjusting his hat on his head; then:
“I must be on my way. It is important, in view of our strained relations, that I do not keep Mrs Carmody waiting for lunch. I shall be seeing you again, Mr Kent.”
Kent stood up, a little, fascinated thought in his mind. He had intended to walk over to the farm that had belonged to his parents and introduce himself to the tenants. But that could wait.
Why not go with the – ghost – to the deserted Wainwright place, and –
What?
He considered the question blankly; then his lips tightened. After all, this mysterious business was on his mind. To let it go would be merely to have a distraction at the back of his head, sufficient perhaps to interfere with anything he might attempt. Besides, there was no rush about the business. He was here for a rest and change as much as anything.
He stood there, still not absolutely decided, chilled by a dark miasma of mind stuff that welled up inside him:
Wasn’t it perhaps dangerous to accompany a ghost to a hide-out in an isolated, old house?
He pressed the clammy fear out of his system because – it wasn’t Mrs Carmody who had been killed. She was out of her head, yes; but the danger was definitely mental, not physical, and—
His mind grew hard, cool. No sudden panic, no totality of horrendous threats or eerie menaces would actually knock his off its base. Therefore—
Kent parted his lips to call after the old man, who was gingerly moving down the wooden walk to the wooden sidewalk. Before he could speak, a deep voice beside him said:
“I noticed you were talking to the ghost, Mr Kent.”
Kent turned and faced a great, gross fat man whom he had previously noticed sitting in a little office behind the hotel desk. Three massive chins quivered as the man said importantly:
“My name is Jenkins, sir, proprietor of the Agan Hotel.”
His pale, deep-set eyes peered at Kent. “Tom was telling me that you met our greatest local character yesterday. A very strange, uncanny case. Very uncanny.”
The old man was farther up the street now, Kent saw, an incredibly lean, sedately moving figure, who vanished abruptly behind a clump of trees. Kent stared after him, his mind still half on the idea of following as soon as he could reasonably break away from this man.
He took another look at the proprietor; and the man said heavily:
“I understand from Tom that he didn’t have time to finish the story of what happened at the Wainwright farm. Perhaps I could complete the uncanny tale for you.”
It struck Kent that the word “uncanny” must be a favorite with this dark mountain of flesh.
It struck him, too, that he would have to postpone his visit to the ghost farm, or risk offending his host.
Kent frowned and yielded to circumstances. It wasn’t actually necessary to trail the old man today. And it might be handy to have all the facts first, before he attempt to solve the mystery. He seated himself after watching the fat man wheeze into a chair. He said:
“Is there any local theory that would explain the” – he hesitated – “uncanny appearance of the ghost. You do
