The Djinn (3 page)

“It sounds to
me like one of Max’s little jokes,” I told her. “You really shouldn’t worry
about it. I think you need a little holiday more than anything else. It’s a big
strain, looking after a sick man.”

She stared at
me coldly, and my smile leaked out of my lips like air dribbling out of a
balloon.

“It wasn’t a
joke,” she said, “and he wasn’t sick.”

“But you just
said he wasn’t himself.” “I didn’t mean that he was sick.” “Then what did you
mean?

You’re speaking
in riddles.”

Marjorie picked
at the edge of her thumbnail where her nail polish was chipped. When she spoke,
her voice sounded very dry and deliberate, and I had an unsettling feeling that
she was doing her utmost to tell me the truth.

“It was
something to do with the jar. Do you remember the jar?”

I nodded.
“Sure. You mean the one he brought back from Arabia, the one with the blue
flowers and the horses and everything? Yes, of course I do. It used to be one
of my favorite things when I was a kid.”

“Well,” said
Marjorie carefully, “there was something about the jar that none of us knew.
Max knew, but it was only toward the end that he told me. The jar was-well, it
was strange.” “What kind of strange? You mean rare?” “No, no,” she said. “It
had strange properties. At certain times, it used to sing. I mean, it made
singing noises. I never heard it, but Max said he did. It was usually at night.
He said he went up to his study once, at two or three in the morning, and the
jar was singing.”

I frowned.
“Singing?
Singing what?” Marjorie shook her head. “It wasn’t
a particular tune or anything, but it really used to sing, or so Max said. He
went up several times after that, in the night, and it was singing.”

“I guess it was
a freak.
You know-wind blowing across the mouth of the jar,
something like that.”

“No,” said
Marjorie adamantly. “Max said he thought of that, and he put the jar in the
attic. It still went on singing. Anyway, the top of the jar was sealed with
wax, if you remember, so it couldn’t have made a noise.”

I thought for a
while, smoking my cigarette. “Maybe there was something; inside of it-spices or
something-and they made a gas that was leaking out of the seal.”

“Then why just
at night?” asked Marjorie. “Why didn’t it sing all the time?”

“Because the
surrounding air is colder at night-time,” said Albert Einstein the Second. “The
pressure inside the jar was relatively greater at night, so the gases inside it
were forced out”

Marjorie shrugged.
“I don’t know, Harry. All I know was that Max began to grow very-peculiar.

He was nervous
and worried, and he often complained of headaches and biliousness. He spent a
lot of time in his study, and he said he was writing his memoirs or something, but
I never saw any writing and he never showed me any. I asked him about it quite
often, but he always said he had a great deal of research to do before he
actually put pen to paper. I was very worried about him. I tried to get him to
see the doctor, but he always said that the sickness would pass.”

I watched a
two-masted yacht in the distance, bouncing through the foam. Overhead, an
airplane droned, circling Hyannis Airport.

“What about the
paintings?” I asked her. “Why did he take all those paintings down?”

“I don’t know.
He said we must. He said it would be a great mistake to leave any kind of
portrait or photograph in the house. He had all his books taken away, in case
there was a picture in any of them, and he had all our tapestry furniture
removed.”

I tossed away
my cigarette butt “That sounds very weird indeed. What would he want to do a
thing like that for?”

“He said there
were pictures of people on the tapestry furniture, so we couldn’t leave them in
the house. There were to be no portraits of any kind, ever. He used to look
through the groceries to see if any of the packets had pictures of people on
them; and if they did, he used to soak off the labels and burn them.”

“Marjorie,” I
said. “It really sounds as if Max was-well. . .”

“I know!” she
said simply. “That’s why I didn’t want to tell anyone what happened. Nobody
liked him much anyway, in his later years. He was a very hard man to get on
with. He was always fretting and nagging and losing his temper. I’ve had six or
seven years of it, Harry, and I don’t mind saying I’m almost glad he’s gone.”

“Mmmm,” I said.
“I can understand.” Marjorie shook her head. “That’s more than I do. He was
always going on about his beastly jar. He almost used to talk as if it were a
privileged guest who mustn’t be disturbed, I was always telling him to get rid
of it, but he said he couldn’t. I threatened to smash it once, and he almost
went mad with rage. In the end, he locked it in the turret.”

I turned my
head and stared across at the Gothic turret on the ocean side of the house. Its
windows were dark and vacant, and on its pointed roof, the weathervane squeaked
monotonously.

“You mean-it’s
still there?”

Marjorie
nodded. “He sealed the door. I used to like going up in the turret to sew. You
know what a beautiful view it has. But he insisted on sealing the jar inside,
and he wouldn’t let me go near it. I know it sounds absurd, and I used to think
sometimes he was completely mad, but in everything else he did, he so obviously
wasn’t. There was something about the jar that worried him, and he felt he had
to lock it away.”

I scratched my
head. “I’d like to see it.”

Marjorie
immediately gripped my hand. She went quite pale and I was almost sorry I’d
spoken.

“Oh, no-you
mustn’t do that. Please, Harry. Max said specifically that the jar was not to
be touched. We were to burn down the house and not to touch the jar.”

“Burn the house
down? Marjorie, this gets nuttier by the minute. I think the best thing we can
do is have a look at this old jar of Max’s and see what he was so worried
about. I mean-maybe it has some diseased old clothing in it or something, and
Max was concerned that we’d all get infected with some Arabian plague. For
Christ’s sake, you can’t be afraid of a jar?”

“Max was.”

I sniffed. “I
know, Marjorie, but I’m not. And I don’t really think it’s the wisdom of the
East if you commit arson on your own property for the sake of some ancient pot
that’s probably full of preserved figs.”

At that moment,
Anna came walking across the unkempt grass, her veil fluttering in the mild sea
breeze.

“Who’s that?”
asked Marjorie. “Is she a friend of yours?”

“A newly
acquired friend,” I said. “Her name’s Anna. I met her just now.”

Marjorie seemed
to be right on the verge of asking me another question, but Anna came up and
stood a few feet away, and she changed her mind.

“I don’t like
to rush you,” she said, “but
it’s
past one o’clock,
and I’m getting awfully hungry.”

“Is that the
time?” said Marjorie. “I didn’t realize.”

“I promised to
take Anna to lunch at the Plymouth,” I explained. “I want her to experience
their broiled lobster tails.”

“Yes, they’re
very good,” Marjorie said. “It’s been a long time since I went to the
Plymouth.”

“Come with us,”
said Anna. “I’m sure Harry would like to treat his godmother as well as a
perfect stranger like me;”

I glanced up.
Anna was extremely attractive, but right then I could have kicked her in the
shins.

The last thing
that was going to enhance my seductive style was the fretful presence of
Marjorie Greaves, babbling on about jars and portraits and food labels. My
fantasy of spending a warm and cozy lunchtime at the Plymouth, followed by a
brief drive to the beach for a little tussling in the sand, began to evaporate
fast. I looked across at her lynx-eyed, red-lipped, dark-haired, delicious face
and pulled the sourest smile I could. All she did, the provocative bitch, was
pull an even sourer smile back.

Most of the
funeral guests were leaving as we got back to the house, and we waited while
Marjorie said her farewells and accepted their condolences. The sun was hotter
than ever, and inside my black suit I was slowly melting away. By the time we
were ready to go, I felt five pounds thinner.

The Plymouth
was one of those quiet, elegant restaurants in a small, well-manicured Cape Cod
community. There was a colonial church just across the street, with a gilded
clock, and a neat village green which looked as if it had been trimmed with
nail scissors. Under the spreading chestnut tree nestled the white-painted Plymouth
Restaurant, where we sat at a dark oak table behind eighteenth-century windows
and enjoyed the attentions of a fussbudget old lady with a country apron and a
talent for dropping crackers in your lap.

Anna and I both
ordered the lobster tails, and then I strolled up the street to buy a bottle of
Chablis to drink along with them. It was a roasting hot afternoon by then. A
black-and-white spotted dog lay under a nearby tree with its tongue lolling
out, and not far away, the local cop rested in his car, his hat tilted forward
and his eyes closed.

When I got back
to the restaurant and sat down, I found that Anna and Marjorie were talking
about Max’s ridiculous jar. Marjorie was just explaining about the jar being
sealed in the turret, and Anna was listening with rapt attention.

“Oh, God,” I
groaned. “Are we
back
to that again? Honestly,
Marjorie, I think you’d be better off if you threw the damned thing away and
forgot all about it.”

Anna looked
offended. “I think it’s interesting,” she said. “Perhaps it’s a magic jar.”

I uncorked the
Chablis and filled our glasses. “Sure, and this is magic aphrodisiac.”

Anna sipped her
wine. “It doesn’t taste like it to me. What did it cost?
Seventy-five
cents a bottle?”

I looked at the
label. “I’ll have you know this is genuine 105 percent French Chablis from
Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Drink twenty bottles of this and you won’t know what hit
you.”

Our food
arrived. The lobster tails were as juicy and buttery as they always were, and
the lettuce was crisp and fresh. Marjorie stuck to a cottage cheese salad, but
then I guess it’s not every day you bury your husband, cantankerous old bastard
or not. We ate in silence for a while.

“You know
something,” said Anna. “I think we ought to investigate this jar.”

“That’s what I
said,” I told her. “I’m sure it’s a perfectly natural phenomenon. There’s an
explanation for almost everything that seems like
it’s
occult.”

“I don’t agree
with that,” retorted Anna. I think it’s magic. But I do think we ought to have
a look.”

Marjorie didn’t
look at all happy about that idea. “Max did say not to touch it,” she reminded
me. “I’m not trying to fool you, Harry. It worried him more than anything ever
worried him before.”

“That’s what I
don’t understand,” I said. “Max was always so pragmatic. Why should it worry
him so much?”

“Maybe it was
black magic,” said Anna. “The Arabs were tremendous wizards in their time.”

I poured some
more wine. Marjorie hadn’t even touched hers. If I were her, I would have been
as drunk as a skunk by now, but then Marjorie had always been a gentle,
realistic woman. She sat there, bowed over her half-finished cottage cheese
salad, like a meek shellfish that had found itself lunching in a seafood
restaurant and was trying to eat discreetly in case it was spotted and devoured
by its fellow diners.

“I think, quite
seriously, that we ought to have a look at this jar,” I told her. “You can’t
set fire to the house anyway. It’s against fire regulations.”

“Max did
insist,” she said anxiously.

“I know Max
insisted, but Max is-well, Max is no longer with us. It’s pretty hard to insist
on anything from Restful Lawns.”

“I think
Harry’s right, Mrs. Greaves,” said Anna. “You can’t let the whole thing get you
down like this. Perhaps your husband was right, and there is something strange
about the jar. You really ought to find out what it is.”

“I don’t know,”
said Marjorie. “I just don’t know what to do.”

“Leave it to
us,” said Anna reassuringly. “Harry and I will go take a look at the turret
this afternoon, and we’ll find out what this whole jar business is all about.
If you like, we’ll take it away and sell it for you-won’t we, Harry?”

“Huh? Oh, sure.
I mean, there’s no sense getting worked up over some hideous old piece of
pottery. Really, Marjorie, I believe Max was imagining things. Maybe he was
overworked or something.”

“He was
retired,” said Marjorie curtly.

“Well, that’s
it,” I said. “A lot of active men start feeling useless and unwanted when they
retire.

Perhaps he
invented this jar business to give himself something important to do. He was
suffering from
strain, that
was all.”

Marjorie was
very pale. She dabbed her lips with her linen napkin, then laid it neatly on
the table.

“I think I
ought to tell you something,” she said.

“Sure.
Anything.
We’ll understand.”

“I don’t know
whether you’ll understand this. Nobody else does. It’s only because of Dr.
Jarvis that I’ve been able to keep it quiet.”

I frowned.
“Keep what quiet, Marjorie? Is there something wrong?”

Marjorie
lowered her beady little eyes. I reached my hand sympathetically across the
table, but she didn’t take it.

“It was the way
Max died,” she said simply. “It wasn’t very nice.”

I looked
quickly across at Anna, and she looked back at me. I was just going to say
something, but Anna raised her finger across her lips and silenced me.

“It was last
Thursday,” Marjorie continued. “I woke up in the middle of the night and found
that Max wasn’t there. That wasn’t unusual, especially in recent years. He
often wandered around the house at night. I lay there for a while and listened
to see if I could hear where he was. Then I felt thirsty, and I got up to have
a drink of water from the bathroom.”