Quests of Simon Ark (10 page)

“We came as soon as I received your telegram, Philip,” I replied. “You remember Shelly, of course.”

“Of course … Well, come on in out of the cold. The others are all here, too.”

By “the others” I soon saw that he meant his wife, Rita; my sister’s husband, Frank Broderick; and the local District Attorney, Hallison James. Hallison had been the family’s closest friend for years, and at the moment he was the only one of the four I was happy to see.

Rita’s eyes were red-rimmed, though I couldn’t imagine why she would ever shed tears for my father and sister. Frank was in bad shape, I saw at once, and I felt suddenly a little more kindly toward him. My sister, Stella, had been a wonderful girl, and the loss of her would be great after five years of married life.

“How did it happen?” I asked.

“We don’t know exactly,” James stated quietly. “It was down on the River Road …”

“Who was driving?”

“They were in two separate cars,” Uncle Philip mumbled, in a voice that was hardly his. “Richard was driving his car north, and Stella was traveling south on the same road. The … the cars crashed head-on, a tremendous impact. Both of them were killed almost instantly.”

“But,” I began, “but how could such a thing have happened? There are no curves in the River Road, and it’s well-lighted. Was it icy?”

“Dry as a bone.” Uncle Philip muttered. “The snow didn’t start until later.”

My mind was in a fog, struggling to break free from the haze of half-formed horrors that lurked there. “Then how?”

Hallison James spoke with a sorrowful voice. “We don’t think it was an accident,” he said, speaking very much like the District Attorney. “We think it was a case of murder and suicide …”

After that, everyone talked. And talked.

I listened, and after a time Shelly came over to my side and slipped her warm hand into mine. And I clung to it because it was the only real thing in a world suddenly full of shattered images and toppling towers. I was surprised myself at how much the news affected me. I was surprised at how much feeling I still had left for a father I didn’t love, and a sister I hadn’t seen in two years.

“Oh, such coincidences happen, of course,” Hallison was saying. “There was a case like it in Ohio a year or two ago. And another out West, where a woman killed her own child while she was out driving several blocks from her house. But the situation is different here. Stella couldn’t have helped recognizing her father’s black-and-white Buick, just as he must have seen her station wagon coming down the road toward him. They saw each other, because it was after eight o’clock, with plenty of daylight to see by.”

He paused to light a fresh cigar, and I took a firmer grip on Shelly’s warm hand. Frank Broderick still sat in silence, his head bowed low. And Rita and Philip stood together in somber silence across the room.

“No,” Hallison James continued, “it couldn’t have been an accident. They saw each other, and one of them pointed the automobile at the other; and they hit …”

I thought about Stella, with her fiery temper inherited from our father. Yes, either one of them might have done it, in a moment of blind rage.

“What side of the road were the cars on?” I asked.

“They were in the middle. Apparently the intended victim tried to swerve out of the way, but didn’t quite make it.”

“Did anyone see the accident?”

“Not really. A farmer out in his field had his head turned the other way. He turned as soon as he heard the crash, then ran to his house to call the highway patrol. He reached the wreck itself within three minutes, but by that time they were both dead.”

Uncle Philip added the exacting details of the accident with a voice that was almost relish. “Stella was thrown through the windshield. She received a broken neck that killed her instantly. Her father must have died seconds later, of multiple internal injuries and a fractured skull.”

“All right, Philip,” Frank Broderick shouted, rising to his feet, “you don’t have to gloat about it. I know you hated them both, but she was my wife, you know.”

Uncle Philip produced a silk handkerchief to wipe his sweated brow. “You’re upset, my boy,” he said after a moment. “No one regrets this tragedy more than I do.”

“I’ll bet,” was Frank’s comment.

I sighed quietly to myself and wished I was back in New York. The good life in Maple Shades was the same as always—the only element seemed to be the introduction of Frank Broderick, a young man who seemed to belong with the rest of them.

I hadn’t known Frank before my sister married him; even now I knew only that he had been a nebulous sportsman, sailing the inland waterway between the cocktail parties of Washington and the steaming sands of Florida. Stella had met him six years earlier, on a trip to the West Indies with our father. They’d still loved each other then, but many things had happened in six years.

She’d fallen in love with Frank, and they’d married a year later. And it was because of Frank that the final breakup had come, a few years back. It was then, over a complicated legal matter, that my father, the judge, had ruled against his own son-in-law in a decidedly unfair decision. From that day on, Stella and her father had never spoken to each other.

But could the memory of this unfairness have made Stella smash her car into his? I don’t know, but it was something I had to find out.

“Of course,” James was saying, “you’ll want to keep this quiet. I can see that nothing gets in the papers about it.”

Uncle Philip’s wife, Rita, agreed. “Certainly, Hallison. But won’t people talk anyway? There’s another election this Fall and I don’t want to go through another thing like the Judges of Hades campaign.”

“What was that?” I asked. There was so much about their ordinary conversation that I didn’t understand. I was beginning to realize how much I’d really lost contact with these people who were my relatives.

“Somebody in the opposition party started calling Philip and Richard the Judges of Hades. Apparently it was a name given to a group of Greek vase paintings that someone came across.” Rita explained. “It was a clever name, especially since the boys are always painting over the sign. Of course, what they were driving at was that Philip and Richard were too strict in their verdicts.” She said it as a school teacher might; and then I remembered that she’d once been a school teacher, before she married my uncle.

Uncle Philip smiled slightly. “My brother and I were what used to be referred to as Hanging Judges. It’s a matter of degree, of course. Both Richard and I have always felt that the punishment should more than fit the crime, as a warning to future criminals.”

“Well,” Hallison interrupted, “we won’t get anywhere this way. We’re agreed to keep any hint of murder out of the papers, but there’s a further problem to be resolved.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Your uncle here feels that we should hire a private detective to make discreet inquiries about the accident.”

“What?” I almost shouted. “I thought you just said you wanted to hush the whole thing up!”

For a second everybody was talking at once; but finally they quieted down, and Uncle Philip’s voice emerged from the babble. “As I said before, I’m up for re-election this November. I don’t want somebody springing this story the week before the election unless I have the answers ready for them.”

Though I certainly didn’t go along with his motives, I was beginning to think that I, too, would like to know more about the accident on the River Road that morning. “All right,” I agreed finally. “Are you planning to get someone from Cincinnati?”

“And have the word all over town in a day?” Uncle Philip moaned. “Impossible! What we need is a total stranger. We were thinking you might know someone in New York, who could …”

The fact that I was a book publisher somehow had connected itself with private detectives in these people’s minds. I could see it was no use explaining that the only private eye I’d ever seen had been one from Kansas City, whom I’d met at a writers’ conference.

And then I thought of Simon Ark …

“Yes,” I replied slowly. “I know a man; perhaps I could call him.”

“Certainly.” Uncle Philip motioned toward the phone. “The sooner the better.”

I took the phone into the next room and partly closed the door. It wouldn’t do for them to hear my conversation with Simon Ark. I asked for long distance, and within a minute I was connected with the night operator at the College of the Hudson.

“Professor Dark, please.”

“Who?”

“This is a long distance call from Indiana. I wish to speak to Professor Dark; he’s doing basic research in Satanism with your Ancient History department.”

“Oh! Certainly. Just a moment, please.”

The moment stretched to five, and I was beginning to think I should have called person-to-person when finally I heard the familiar voice on the other end of the line.

“Professor Dark here.”

I hadn’t quite figured out why Simon Ark was hiding his identity during his stay at the College of the Hudson; but since he was producing a definitive work on Satanism in ancient times for Neptune Books to publish, I wasn’t really concerned what name he used. For certainly no one knew more about Satan than Simon Ark, a man who’d devoted his life and work to seeking out the devil’s deeds.

“This is your publisher talking,” I told him.

“Who …?” And then he recognized my voice. “Oh, how are you this evening?”

“Pretty good, Simon. Look, I’m calling from Indiana. My father and my sister were killed this morning in an auto accident …”

“I’m awfully sorry to hear that.”

“Thank you. The reason I’m calling is that there’s an element of mystery in the thing. I don’t want to discuss it over the phone, but I’d like you to fly out here if you could.”

“Well …” he paused, undecided by my unexpected request. “I’m not a detective, you know,” he said finally.

“We just need someone to investigate the facts, to maybe come up with something we’re all too close to see.”

“Is it …” I heard his intake of breath at the other end of the line as he spoke the words, “… is it anything …in my line of work?”

“No,” I told him. “This would be a personal favor to me.”

I knew he couldn’t refuse when I put it on a friendship basis. “All right,” he said; “I’ll be out there tomorrow. Just where are you?”

“It’s a town called Maple Shades. It’s in Indiana, but you’ll have to take a plane to Cincinnati and get a cab to take you out. It’s only about thirty-five miles outside the city.” I made a snap decision and added, “Shelly and I will be staying at the Shades Hotel. Ask for us there.”

“All right. I’ll see you around noon tomorrow.”

I hung up and returned to the others.

“Is he coming?” Uncle Philip asked.

“Yes. He’ll be here around noon.”

“Can we trust him?” Rita wanted to know.

“As much as you can trust me.”

They were silent at that, and I figured it was probably the wrong thing to say. But right then I didn’t particularly care. I looked around at them all, at Uncle Philip and Rita, at Frank Broderick, and even at Hallison James; and I felt more than ever that these people were somehow responsible for the morning’s tragedy on the River Road.

“Shelly and I will be staying at the Shades,” I told them, and nobody protested. “My man will be here around noon and we can continue things then. I suppose you’ll all be at the funeral parlor tomorrow?”

They all nodded and Frank Broderick said, “The funeral is Monday morning. We decided that two days was long enough to keep them.”

I nodded and picked up my coat. “We’ll see you in the morning, then. Come on, Shelly.”

She followed me out of the big white house and into the streets of Maple Shades, where the snow had settled down to a light but steady fall.

“They’re the same, aren’t they?” she said from my side.

“They’ll always be the same; that’s why I left twenty years ago.”

“Was it Simon Ark you called?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“Not much. He’s coming.”

“What do you think he’ll find?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you want him to find?”

“I don’t know …”

The morning was Saturday; it was clear and cool, and very much like Indiana. The night’s snowfall had totaled possibly two inches, and here and there I could see a shopkeeper sweeping off his sidewalk.

For a long time I lay there in bed, gazing out the window at the town that had once been mine. There was no school for the children today, and I could see them running and playing much as I had myself not too many years before. It had been a good life then. It was still a good life now, but in a different way. I had Shelly, and I had my job, and I didn’t need Maple Shades any more.

I reached out my arm until I could feel Shelly’s sleeping body at my side. She awakened at my touch and rolled over with a yawn. “What time is it?”

“Let’s see … Almost ten-thirty. We should probably be getting up. It’s going to be a busy day.”

She stretched and yawned again and rolled out of the bed. “It’ll be good to see Simon again; it’s been a long time—for me at least.”

We had breakfast in the room and were just finishing when the desk clerk rang to announce Simon Ark. In another few moments I opened the door to admit him.

Simon Ark was tall and heavy-set; yet he carried himself with an ease and dignity that often made people forget his physical features and remember only the overpowering persuasion of his manner. I’d first met him nearly twenty years earlier, at the time of my meeting with Shelly, and we’d recently renewed our friendship after a lapse of many years.

He was an odd man, without home or family, who seemed content to roam the world in search of the devil’s works. Once he’d told me he was over 1,500 years old; and sometimes, after a few hours in his company, I almost believed him. His great knowledge of Satanism—especially in early times—had spurred me to talk Neptune Books into commissioning a book based on his studies. It was for this purpose that he was currently at the College of the Hudson, living there under the name of Dark while he completed his book.