The Collection (93 page)

A ghoul hath murdered sleep, the innocent sleep, sleep that
knits . . .

"Thanks, Dr. Skibbine," I said. "I--I guess
it will do me good, at that."

It would get me out of here, somewhere where I could think
without a lot of people talking. If I could get the unicorns and rhinoceros out
of my mind, maybe I had the key. Maybe, but it didn't make sense yet.

I put on my hat and went outside and walked around the
building into the dark alley.

Bill Drager's face was a dim patch in the light that came
through the circular hole in the wall where the ventilator had been.

He saw me coming and called out sharply, "Who's
that?" and stood up. When he stood, he seemed to vanish, because it put
him back in the darkness.

"It's me--Jerry Grant," I said. "Find out
anything, Bill?"

"Just what you see. The ventilator comes out, from the
outside. But it isn't a big enough hole for a man." He laughed a little
off-key. "A ghoul, I don't know. How big is a ghoul, Jerry?"

"Can it, Bill," I said. "Did you do that in
the dark? Didn't you bring a flashlight?"

"No. Look, whoever did it earlier in the night, if
somebody did, wouldn't have dared use a light. They'd be too easy to see from
either end of the alley. I wanted to see if it could be done in the dark."

"Yes," I said thoughtfully. "But the light
from the inside shows."

"Was it on between midnight and two?"

"Um--no. I hadn't thought of that."

I stared at the hole in the wall. It was just about a foot
in diameter. Large enough for a man to stick his head into, but not to crawl
through.

Bill Drager was still standing back in the dark, but now that
my eyes were used to the alley, I could make out the shadowy outline of his
body.

"Jerry," he said, "you've been studying this
superstition stuff. Just what is a ghoul?"

"Something in Eastern mythology, Bill. An imaginary
creature that robs graves and feeds on corpses. The modern use of the word is
confined to someone who robs graves, usually for jewelry that is sometimes
interred with the bodies. Back in the early days of medicine, bodies were
stolen and sold to the anatomists for purposes of dissection, too."

"The modern ones don't--uh--"

"There have been psychopathic cases, a few of them.
One happened in Paris, in modern times. A man named Bertrand. Charles Fort
tells about him in his book
Wild Talents."

"Wild Talents,
huh?"
said Bill. "What happened?"

"Graves in a Paris cemetery were being dug up by
something or someone who--" there in the dark alley, I couldn't say it
plainly--"who--uh--acted like a ghoul. They couldn't catch him but they
set a blunderbuss trap. It got this man Bertrand, and he confessed."

Bill Drager didn't say anything, just stood there. Then,
just as though I could read his mind, I got scared because I knew what he was
thinking. If anything like that had happened here tonight, there was only one
person it could possibly have been.

Me.

Bill Drager was standing there silently, staring at me, and
wondering whether I--

Then I knew why the others had stopped talking when I had
come up the stairs just a few minutes before, back at the morgue. No, there was
not a shred of proof, unless you can call process of elimination proof. But
there had been a faint unspoken suspicion that somehow seemed a thousand times
worse than an accusation I could deny.

I knew, then, that unless this case was solved suspicion
would follow me the rest of my life. Something too absurd for open accusation.
But people would look at me and wonder, and the mere possibility would make
them shudder. Every word I spoke would be weighed to see whether it might
indicate an unbalanced mind.

Even Bill Drager, one of my best friends, was wondering
about me now.

"Bill," I said, "for God's sake, you don't
think--"

"Of course not, Jerry."

But the fact that he knew what I meant before I had
finished the sentence, proved I had been right about what he had been thinking.

There was something else in his voice, too, although he had
tried to keep it out. Fear. He was alone with me in a dark alley, and I
realized now why he had stepped back out of the light so quickly. Bill Drager
was a little afraid of me.

But this was no time or place to talk about it. The
atmosphere was wrong. Anything I could say would make things worse.

So I merely said, "Well, so long, Bill," as I
turned and walked toward the street.

Half a block up the street on the other side was an
all-night restaurant, and I headed for it. Not to eat, for I felt as though I
would never want to eat again. The very thought of food was sickening. But a
cup of coffee might take away some of the numbness in my mind.

Hank Perry was on duty behind the counter, and he was
alone.

"Hi, Jerry," he said, as I sat down on a stool at
the counter. "Off early tonight?"

I nodded and let it go at that.

"Just a cup of black coffee, Hank," I told him,
and forestalled any salestalk by adding, "I'm not hungry. Just ate."

Silly thing to say, I realized the minute I had said it.
Suppose someone asked Hank later what I had said when I came in. They all knew,
back there, that I had not brought a lunch to work and hadn't eaten. Would I,
from now on, have to watch every word I said to avoid slips like that?

But whatever significance Hank or others might read into my
words later, there was nothing odd about them now, as long as Hank didn't know
what had happened at the morgue.

He brought my coffee. I stirred in sugar and waited for it
to cool enough to drink.

"Nice night out," Hank said.

I hadn't noticed, but I said, "Yeah."

To me it was one terrible night out, but I couldn't tell
him that without spilling the rest of the story.

"How was business tonight, Hank?" I asked.

"Pretty slow."

"How many customers," I asked, "did you have
between midnight and two o'clock?"

"Hardly any. Why?"

"Hank,"
I said, "something happened then. Look, I can't tell you about it now,
honestly. I don't know whether or not it's going to be given out to the
newspapers. If it isn't, it would lose me
my job even
to mention it. But will you think hard if you saw anybody or anything out of
the ordinary between twelve and two?"

"Um," said Hank, leaning against the counter
thoughtfully. "That's a couple of hours ago. Must have had several
customers in here during that time. But all I can remember are regulars. People
on night shifts that come in regularly."

"When you're standing at that grill in the window
frying something, you can see out across the street," I said. "You
ought to be able to see down as far as the alley, because this is a pretty wide
street."

"Yeah, I can."

"Did you see anyone walk or drive in there?"

"Golly," said Hank. "Yeah, I did. I think it
was around one o'clock. I happened to notice the guy on account of what he was
carrying."

I felt my heart hammering with sudden excitement.

"What was he carrying? And what did he look
like?"

"I didn't notice what he looked like," said Hank.
"He was in shadow most of the time. But he was carrying a bowling
ball."

"A bowling ball?"

Hank nodded. "That's what made me notice him. There
aren't any alleys --I mean bowling alleys--right around here. I bowl myself so
I wondered where this guy had been rolling."

"You mean he was carrying a bowling ball under his
arm?"

I was still incredulous, even though Hank's voice showed me
he was not kidding.

He looked at me contemptuously.

"No. Bowlers never carry 'em like that on the street.
There's a sort of bag that's made for the purpose. A little bigger than the
ball, some of them, so a guy can put in his bowling shoes and stuff."

I closed my eyes a moment to try to make sense out of it.
Of all the things on this mad night; it seemed the maddest that a bowling ball
had been carried into the alley by the morgue--or something the shape of a
bowling ball. At just the right time, too. One o'clock.

It would be a devil of a coincidence if the man Hank had
seen hadn't been the one.

"You're sure it was a bowling ball case?"

"Positive. I got one like it myself. And the way he
carried it, it was just heavy enough to have the ball in it." He looked at
me curiously. "Say, Jerry, I never thought of it before, but a case like
that would be a handy thing to carry a bomb in. Did someone try to plant a bomb
at the morgue?"

"No."

"Then if it wasn't a bowling ball --and you act like
you think it wasn't--what would it have been?"

"I wish I knew," I told him. "I wish to high
heaven I knew."

I downed the rest of my coffee and stood up.

"Thanks a lot, Hank," I said. "Listen, you
think it over and see if you can remember anything else about that case or the
man who carried it. I'll see you later."

What I needed was some fresh air, so I started walking. I
didn't pay any attention to where I was going; I just walked.

My feet didn't take me in circles, but my mind did. A
bowling ball! Why would a bowling ball, or something shaped like it, be carried
into the alley back of the morgue? A bowling ball would fit into that
ventilator hole, all right, and a dropped bowling ball would have broken the
glass of the case.

But a bowling ball wouldn't have done--the rest of it.

I vaguely remembered some mention of bowling earlier in the
evening and thought back to what it was. Oh yes. Dr. Skibbine and Mr. Paton had
been going to bowl a game instead of playing a second game of chess. But
neither of them had bowling balls along. Anyway, if Dr. Skibbine had told the
truth, they had both been home by midnight.

If not a bowling ball, then what? A ghoul? A spherical
ghoul?

The thought was so incongruously horrible that I wanted to
stop, right there in the middle of the sidewalk and laugh like a maniac. Maybe
I was near hysteria.

I thought of going back to the morgue and telling them
about it, and laughing. Watching Quenlin's face and Wilson's when I told them
that our guest had been a rnan-eating bowling ball. A spherical--

Then I stopped walking, because all of a sudden I knew what
the bowling ball had been, and I had the most important part of the answer.

Somewhere a clock was striking half-past three, and I
looked around to see where I was. Oak Street, only a few doors from Grant
Parkway. That meant I had come fifteen or sixteen blocks from the morgue and
that I was only a block and a half from the zoo. At the zoo, I could find out
if I was right.

So I started walking again. A block and a half later I was
across the street from the zoo right in front of Mr. Paton's house. Strangely,
there was a light in one of the downstairs rooms.

I went up onto the porch and rang the bell. Mr. Paton came
to answer it. He was wearing a dressing gown, but I could see shoes and the
bottoms of his trouser legs under it.

He didn't look surprised at all when he opened the door.

"Yes, Jerry?" he said, almost as though he had
been expecting me.

"I'm glad you're still up, Mr. Paton," I said.
"Could you walk across with me and get me past the guard at the gate? I'd
like to look at one of the cages and verify--something."

"You guessed then, Jerry?"

"Yes, Mr. Paton," I told him. Then I had a sudden
thought that scared me a little. "You were seen going into the
alley," I added quickly, "and the man who saw you knows I came here.
He saw you carrying--"

He held up his hand and smiled.

"You needn't worry, Jerry," he said. "I know
it's over--the minute anybody is smart enough to guess. And--well, I murdered a
man all right, but I'm not the type to murder another to try to cover up,
because I can see where that would lead. The man I did kill deserved it, and I
gambled on--Well never mind all that."

"Who was he?" I asked.

"His name was Mark Leedom. He was my assistant four
years ago. I was foolish at that time--I'd lost money speculating and I stole
some zoo funds. They were supposed to be used for the purchase of--Never mind
the details. Mark Leedom found out and got proof.

"He made me turn over most of the money to him, and
he--retired, and moved out of town. But he's been coming back periodically to
keep shaking me down. He was a rat, Jerry, a worse crook than I ever thought of
being. This time I couldn't pay so I killed him."

"You were going to make it look like an accident on
the Mill Road?" I said. "You killed him here and took him--"