Quests of Simon Ark (17 page)

Simon smiled a bit, as he often did when I was becoming positive about some theory of mine. “It is hardly the
only
solution, my friend. But perhaps we may learn something tonight. Perhaps your idea of Father Hadden communicating with the dead was not so bad after all.”

I shot a glance at the priest, but his face did not change expression. “You mean …?”

Simon nodded slightly. “Father Hadden has explained his problem—the problem that originally brought us to Santa Marta. It does indeed appear that he is able to form some sort of communication with the dead of this parish. In fact, the good Father believes he can reach anyone whose confession he ever heard during life.”

“Fantastic! Do you believe this, Simon?”

“There may be some truth to it. At times God moves in strange ways.”

I turned to the priest. “You’ll actually do it? Hold a seance or whatever they call them? Tonight?”

Father Hadden nodded reluctantly. “Mr. Ark is most persuasive. I will do as he wishes.”

“Who’s going to be here for this, Simon? Just the three of us?”

“On the contrary, my friend. I hope to have a great many people present—as many as possible. We will start by inviting the good Sheriff Partell.”

That even brought a laugh from me. “You’ll never get him down here. And if you did, he’d never sit still for anything as crazy as this.”

“Perhaps he would,” Simon mused. “Perhaps he would. In any event, I will go out now like the servant in the Gospels and assemble some guests for our gathering. I shall return by nightfall.”

“Oh—say, there’s this girl in Father’s car, the one I told you about …”

Simon nodded. “She may want to join us, too.”

I couldn’t quite picture Vicky Nelson sitting at any table that didn’t have drinks on it, but I supposed there was always a first time. “You’d better get her some clothes first,” I warned him. “She hasn’t got many on now.”

And when Simon had left I sat for a time in silence with Father Hadden, as the sun finally began to vanish behind the meager line of shrubs and cactus in the distance. “Mr. Ark is truly a strange man,” he said at last.

“You’re right there, Father,” I agreed. “I’ve known him for twenty years, off and on, and still I don’t
really
know him.”

“Do you believe what he says about his past? About back there—in Egypt?”

I spread my palms flat on the table. “Frankly, he’s never told me too much about it. Just that he’s lived a long, long time. Occasionally, when the dark winds of night are passing over the moon, I even find myself thinking that perhaps he actually is over fifteen hundred years old …”

The priest nodded. “One could believe it, very easily. He spoke of other things this afternoon, of a strange Coptic priest in the first century after Christ, who wrote a gospel glorifying the Lord. The words were devout but hardly divinely inspired. The Fathers of the Church denounced it as a fraud, and the Coptic priest lost everything. He was in a unique if impossible situation—his writings had been holy praises to God, worthy of a place in Heaven, but the deceit he’d used in circulating them as a fifth gospel made such a reward impossible. It was a situation even baffling for the Almighty, and this man could be sent neither to Heaven nor Hell. He was doomed to walk the earth forever, until such time as God would decide his fate.”

It was the first time I’d ever heard the story, and I wondered if this really was the strange secret of Simon Ark. “Did he tell you the name of this work?”

“It has come down to us, in a greatly altered form, as
The Shepherd of Hernias.
There is such a book. I am familiar with it.”

“And why would he tell you these things?” I asked.

“Perhaps,” said the priest slowly, “perhaps even a man as powerful as Simon Ark needs help sometimes. Perhaps he did not come solely to help me.”

“But why does he seek Satan, Father?” I asked. “Will the finding of the devil somehow break the spell of this curse that haunts him?”

But the priest only shook his head. “That I do not know, I do not even know if these words he spoke were true words. He was perhaps only telling me that the ways of God are often strange and unbelievable. He was only telling me that the fantastic, the supernatural, is possible on this earth—if it is God’s will.”

“And?”

“And he told me to accept this strange power of mine-accept it and turn it to God’s uses. He told me that tonight I must attempt to contact the spirit of Glen Summer …”

“But aren’t such things as seances against religion?”

“He says that some good can come even out of the bad. Though the end may never justify the means, surely at times circumstances must dictate the wiseness of fools and the foolishness of wise men.”

“And so Simon thinks the killer will give himself away at the seance?”

The priest shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows? I assure you I have never done anything like this before. My … spirits have always come in private before.”

“Well, I’ve seen a few of these things in the movies. Everyone sits in a circle and holds hands, or something like that.”

Father Hadden nodded. “I suppose we must duplicate the expected conditions.”

“Could I have a cup of that coffee while we’re waiting?” I asked him. “I suddenly remembered I’ve had mighty little to eat today.”

“Surely. I think I even have enough food for us.”

And that’s what happened. I ate there with the priest while Simon Ark roamed the streets of Santa Marta, seeking out those we needed for the final act of the little drama.

And presently, as the night shadows slipped slowly across the plain, Simon returned with Sheriff Partell in tow. “I must be crazy to even come here,” he was protesting. “Am I supposed to believe this big-deal priest is goin’ to conjure up a murderer for me? I’ve already got the killer locked up, and it’s that guy Juan Cruz, believe me!”

But Simon took the renewed attack with a slight smile. “I have not yet been able to convince the good sheriff that we will need the presence of Mr. Cruz as well.”

“The hell you will!”

“Consider, Sheriff Partell, if you do not arrive at a quick and satisfactory solution to this case, the state police will move in very soon. There are already some of them around. They will move in, and ask questions, and soon they will begin to wonder about your connection with the Oasis …”

“Damn it, I have no connection with the
Oasis!”

“When a wide-open place like that operates in a town as small as this, the sheriff must have a connection with it.”

“I looked the other way, that’s all I did! Are you going to crucify—” He stopped as soon as the word was out of his mouth. “Are you going to hang me just because I let people do what they wanted to do? It’s a free country!”

I could see that Simon had him on the defensive, and he pressed his advantage. “Freedom to violate the law is not found in any constitution,” he pointed out. “It would be to your advantage to cooperate with us.”

“I’m here, ain’t I?” the sheriff growled. “How the hell much else cooperation do you want?”

“We want Juan Cruz,” Simon answered simply.

“Nuts! He stays in his cell.”

“You haven’t actually charged him with anything yet, you know. You can only hold him a few more hours.”

Partell sighed and flung up his hands, a beaten man. “O.K., O.K.—you can have him. Where is this crazy thing goin’ to take place. Here?”

Simon glanced at Father Hadden, saw the troubled frown of uncertainty on his face, and answered for him. “No, I think not. I think we should return to the villa in the mountains—to the scene of the crime, as they say …

And so we went back, up the hill now darkened by desert night, up and over dusty mountain roads leading nowhere, till finally the moonlight caused the image of the great wooden cross on the rise near the
morada.
Other cars were arriving, too, and I could see that Simon had done his work well in gathering these people together.

The great house itself was dark now, guarded only by a single deputy sheriff who snapped a quick and sloppy half-salute at Partell. The eighteen, whoever they were, had long since headed for their homes, their moment of dim suffering gone now. And if I wondered why Simon had not summoned them back, I was soon to learn the reason.

The great central room of the place seemed crowded with familiar faces, but a quick count showed only eight of us—Simon and myself, Father Hadden and Sheriff Partell, Juan Cruz, a bare-legged and puzzled Vicky Nelson, and—surprisingly—Delia Summer and Yates Ambrose. Simon’s travels had apparently carried him to the
Oasis.

“If you’ll all be seated around this table,” Simon began, “I hope we can get this over with quite quickly.”

“Do you really think you can contact my husband?” Mrs. Summer wanted to know.

“We are certainly going to try, madame. But first let me say a few words of introduction.” As he spoke, we were seating ourselves around the big table. I took a chair to the left of Simon, right next to Vicky Nelson, who was still looking mildly bewildered at this whole business.

“You all know,” Simon began, “what has been happening here, in this place. A practice of medieval times, that of extreme physical penances for sins, has been revived. It has been revived and carried to extremes by a group of devout but misguided men. Perhaps Juan Cruz here was the most misguided of them all, since he was their leader.”

The eyes of us all went to Cruz, who sat opposite Simon, between the sheriff and Yates Ambrose. “Today,” Simon continued, “one of this group died, killed with a Spanish sword as he hung on a cross in the dim basement below us. As you know, he was Glen Summer, owner of the Oasis.”

Beside me, Vicky moved restlessly in her chair. Beyond the leaded glass windows I could hear a wind rising in the mountains. Perhaps there was a storm on the way. “As a few of you also know, Father Hadden here has been deeply troubled of late by a strange power that has thrust itself unwanted upon him. It is the power to communicate, under certain circumstances, with the spirits of those who have departed the earth. I’ll turn you over to Father Hadden now.”

The priest, looking uncomfortable, cleared his throat and began. “It is a generally accepted belief that the soul of a dead person does not leave the body for some hours after death. I believe that this fact is the basis of my strange power. I believe that by coming to the place of death within twelve to fifteen hours I can sometimes make contact with the soul of the departed. This is what I will try now. Please join hands to complete the circle.”

We did so, and the lights of the room dimmed, apparently on a signal to one of the waiting deputies outside. Soon the place was almost black, with only a distant glow through the windows to show us the faint outlines of each other’s faces.

“Now,” Father Hadden’s voice droned on, “silence, please … concentrate and hold hands tightly … do not break the circle … do not break the circle … I am calling upon the departed spirit of Glen Summer … Glen Summer … can you hear me? … are you still among us, Glen Summer …?”

He kept it up like that, talking to himself in the darkness, for perhaps ten minutes—until my palm began to sweat in Vicky’s grip. Then, without warning, there came a moaning sound from very close. It might have been at the center of the great round table. The moaning increased in volume until it formed words, and Vicky’s fingernails dug into my hand.

“
I have come,
” the voice boomed.

“That’s not my husband,” Delia Summer gasped. “That’s not his voice!”

But whoever it was, the voice continued.
“Hello, Delia
…
hello, Juan
…

I heard Cruz utter a startled gasp, and then Father Hadden’s voice cut in. “Who killed you, Glen? Who?”

“
I
…
I don’t know
…
Felt the sword go in
…”

“It’s some sort of trickery,” Yates Ambrose muttered across the table. “That’s not Glen.”

But Father Hadden pressed on. “Can you tell us anything at all, Glen?”

“No
…
except
…
except
…
”

“What? Except what?”

“Except how did the killer know which one of them was me?”

As soon as the words had been uttered I realized the truth of them, the single fantastic truth that none of us had noticed or questioned. With nineteen nearly naked men hanging on crosses in a dim cellar, their heads completely hooded, how could anyone know which one of them was Glen Summer?

And as soon as the thought entered my head I knew the answer. Only one man could have known which of those hanging figures was Summer. One man, the man who tied him to the cross—Juan Cruz.

“No!” Cruz shouted in the same instant, and leaped free of the human ring. Before I knew what was happening the lights were flooding down on us, and Juan Cruz’s terrified figure was leaping over a low sofa by the leaded windows.

“I knew it was him all the time,” Partell snorted, reaching for his gun. But, somehow, Simon was there beside him, clutching the gun hand.

And in a moment it was all over, with three deputies bearing down on top of Cruz’s struggling body. Partell shook free from Simon’s grip and finally got the revolver out. “Why didn’t you let me shoot him?” he muttered. “It would have saved the expense of a trial.”

“Because,” Simon said quietly, “he isn’t guilty.”

“What?
Who the hell could have done it if he didn’t?”

And Simon Ark turned toward the others. “Suppose you answer that, Mrs. Summer. Suppose you tell him how you killed your husband …”

We just stood there, waiting for the screams of denial that never came. I think in that first moment even I must have thought that at last Simon had made a mistake, that certainly Delia Summer could not possibly have plunged the sword into her husband’s chest. But no denial came.

“Are you crazy, Ark?” Sheriff Partell snorted, breaking the shocked silence.

“Not at all.”

“But that voice …”

Simon smiled. “Forgive me, it was my voice, slightly disguised and removed from its usual position. Father Hadden and I really had little hope that the spirit of Glen Summer would really present itself before so many people. We hoped to scare a confession out of Mrs. Summer, but unfortunately we only succeeded in scaring the innocent Senor Cruz.”