“Rollo,” Corky blurted out, “I’ve already sold the collection.”
His smile fell off. “Huh?”
“I sold all the originals.”
“All? Even the enormous beautiful pen-and-ink drawing of Columbia by Harry Clemens?”
“All.”
Agitated, Rollo rose up, his heel catching on the protruding pair of shorts. He slipped and sat down again, one foot in the air with the Eastern-design underwear dangling from his shoe. “Gee whiz!” he said, and you could almost see the light bulb blossoming over his curly head. “It was Errol Bojack! My old nemesis, the man who beat me to the Rasmussen collection. The turkey who flew to Mentor, Ohio, and wooed an eighty-seven-year-old granny, planting insincere kisses on her raddled old cheeks so he could carry off the late General Hapgood’s priceless collection of Puck originals for eight hundred and seventy-five dollars. Golly. I wouldn’t kiss somebody I wasn’t truly in love with even — even for a Harry Clemens!”
Corky reached out and removed the shorts from Rollo’s foot. “I’m sorry to disappoint you,” she said. “Since you were so fond of Juke, maybe you’d like to buy his pipe collection.”
“Stuff his pipe collection!”
Unsmiling and red-faced, Rollo slammed out.
Because of my abilities as a handyman, Errol Bojack invited me over to look around the Fairfield Sisters’ mansion soon after he finally signed the lease on the place. He didn’t appear quite as dapper as usual and I figured he’d been courting too many widows.
“Hey!” he said suddenly while he was showing me through the main living room. He gazed up at the high ceiling.
“What is it?”
He managed a faint smile. “Oh, I thought I heard something.”
“You’ve been living in this place, haven’t you?”
He gave the ceiling another worried look. “Well, as a matter of fact, Heinie, yes, I have. There’s so much work that—”
“I’d be glad to help you.”
“Oh, no. I can do it myself. All I need from you is advice,” he said nervously. “About the plumbing in particular.”
“Old houses are usually weak in that department.”
“Should old pipes howl?”
“Howl?”
“Wail, scream, cry out like an old lady being murdered? Like two old ladies being strangled actually.”
I stared at his pale handsome face. “Come on, Errol, you’re not trying to tell me you’ve been hearing ghosts?”
“Of course not. I’m telling you I hear noisy pipes.”
“I know the Fairfield Mansion used to have a reputation for being haunted, because of what happened to those old ladies years ago,” I said, moving to the drapery-covered windows. “I myself don’t believe in any of that stuff.”
“Neither do I.” He sat in a faded loveseat, crossed his legs, uncrossed them. “Did you ever hear why the two old ladies were murdered?”
“Money, wasn’t it?”
“Gold. A fortune in gold coins, which these two miser spinsters had allegedly hidden someplace in this big old house. The killer never found the dough, nor did any of their heirs. Eventually they gave up looking and decided to get rid of the house.”
“In those days every spinster had a reputation for having cash hidden away.”
“Exactly, Heinie. It’s nothing more than folklore and superstition.” Clearing his throat, he smiled tentatively. “Could you take a look at the pipes?”
“Sure thing. I’ll start in the cellar—”
“No, not the cellar.”
“But that’s the first place—”
“I’m doing some repair work down there, a little digging. We can commence in the kitchen.”
“I don’t know if I—”
“The kitchen,” he reiterated. “You know, I’m planning to open the Funnies Museum in six weeks. There’s going to be a lot of work to do.” Grabbing me by the arm, he led me down a shadowy hallway toward the immense old kitchen. “I still have most of my originals stacked up on the second floor. I haven’t had a chance to sort out the last collection I bought.”
“That would be Corky’s?”
Errol let go of my arm. “It’s the Tollhouse collection, yes. Mrs. Tollhouse was kind enough to let me purchase it for the museum.”
“Corky’s a kind person.”
The kitchen was all white and had a musty smell as well as a population of cockroaches and other bugs who’d taken over while the mansion had stood empty.
“I don’t want the pipes screaming at the visitors when the museum is open,” said Errol, frowning at the darkest corner of the room. “Lots of school kids will be trooping through and they won’t want to hear howls of pain while they’re admiring the works of Caniff, Sickles, Kane, Herriman, Marcus, and— Do you see anybody standing in that corner over there?”
“No, it’s only a mop.”
“Ah, so it is. A mop. Well, we’ll have plenty of use for that.” His laugh was unconvincing.
“He sounds haunted,” said Zarley. “Are you implying a shrewd guy like Errol Bojack would let himself be spooked by that old mansion’s reputation?”
“I figure it was the ghost tales and his own guilt feelings about the things he’d done to people,” explained Heinz, shrugging. “You can never quite be certain what goes on inside somebody’s—”
“The plumbing,” said Zarley. “Did it really scream and howl?”
“I fiddled with the pipes. They did make a few odd gurgling sounds,” said Heinz, “but there wasn’t much I could do since he wouldn’t allow me in the cellar. I left him with a few general hints and never went back. For the rest of what I’m going to tell you I have to rely pretty much on guesswork. But I think I’m right about most of the important details.”
“Bojack was hunting for the gold coins,” I said.
Sure (resumed Heinz). My notion is that when he started tearing the Fairfield Sisters’ place apart to convert it into the Funnies Museum, Errol stumbled onto something that he took to be a clue as to where they buried their gold. During his first week there, I later found out, he did have three college boys who specialized in home repairs helping him get things set up. One afternoon he fired them all and by the time I visited him he was doing everything himself.
Actually nothing much got done and he started postponing the opening date. A couple of people who passed the mansion late at night reported seeing lights blazing in the cellar.
They did find, after everything was over, evidence of considerable digging down there.
For a guy who made his living from fast food, Errol was fairly imaginative. Living all alone in that spooky old mansion, digging in the murky cellar, he saw things. The sisters had been strangled in their beds and now Errol began to think he was catching glimpses of white-clad female figures lurking just at the edge of his vision. Most likely the lighting in the place, which was inadequate, was causing his eyes to fool him. But those glimpses somehow convinced him that the ghosts of the dead sisters were roaming the house, bent on protecting their treasure and keeping him from getting it.
Nobody was going to do that to Errol. He could always use more money — to build new Madam Curry joints, to buy more cartoon originals. He kept digging and searching, ignoring the ghosts as best he could.
Sometime about then he bought a pistol, a.32 revolver he carried in a belt holster. He wasn’t sleeping well, and began looking very lean and hollow-eyed.
Meanwhile Rollo Meech, as he pasted up the layouts for Paddle Ball Digest and their new magazine, Sports Nutrition, brooded. Brooded and lusted. “Gosh dam Bojack,” he’d mutter to himself. “Charming the collection out of Corky Tollhouse and then piling all those beautiful drawings up in that dusty mansion. What does he know about cartoons anyway? He can’t tell Milt Cross from Sals Bostwick. Golly, he’s just a packrat at heart — hardly ever looks at his collection or really savors it. Corky admitted he barely glanced at the Harry Clemens.”