Ever since I’d known Simon Ark he’d been searching for the devil. More often than not he found death instead. On the evening he visited my home in Westchester, I hardly expected him to find either one. I certainly never thought I’d see him confronting a robed and cowled Death, complete with a bloody scythe, in my family room.
But I’d better begin with my wife Shelly, because in a way she was the cause of it all. I was a very young journalist when we met in a small Western town over forty years ago. I met Simon Ark at the same time, and they were to become the two most important people in my life. Shelly and I were married six months after we met. I took a New York job in publishing and rose to become editor-in-chief of Neptune Books. Soon we had a modest home in Westchester County. We had no family, and Shelly filled her days with community activities. Occasionally she’d even write poetry, publishing it in obscure literary quarterlies under her maiden name of Shelly Constance.
My frequent journeys with Simon Ark, which seemed to increase following my retirement, had been a source of constant irritation to Shelly. She viewed this tall black-garbed man whose appearance seemed never to change as some sort of freak best to be avoided. It was one night in spring, following my return after a lengthy stay in England with Simon, that Shelly and I had a real battle.
“He claims to be two thousand years old. Isn’t it time he was dead?”
“For God’s sake, Shelly! He’s our oldest friend!”
“In more ways than one.”
I sighed and threw down the newspaper I’d been reading. “What do you want me to do? Never see him again?”
We didn’t speak for the next couple of hours, but that didn’t last. In all our years of marriage we’d never gone to bed angry. As I turned out the light Shelly asked, “What would you think if I invited Simon to speak to the Quilters?”
“The Quilters?”
It took just a moment for the name to register. The Quilters was a group of a dozen ladies, all of them over fifty, who met once a month for some purpose I’d never quite been able to grasp. Shelly had joined them under the impression they were some sort of poetry society, but she’d confided to me almost at once that they seemed more interested in what was known in the publishing trade as New Age topics — mysticism, astrology, spiritualism, and alternative medicine. I’d never thought of the group in connection with Simon Ark, but perhaps my wife had a point.
I rolled over in the bed and snapped the light back on. “Can you picture Simon helping to make a quilt?”
“Silly! They haven’t done anything like that since I’ve been going. They bring in speakers on New Age topics and discuss things like crop circles and interplanetary visitors.”
I tried to make light of it. “So that’s what you do on your nights out!”
“It’s a nice diversion once a month when you’re halfway around the world with Simon Ark. I don’t have to believe any of it.”
“Do you really think they’d be interested in listening to Simon? He can be a dull speaker at times.”
“I’m glad you finally admitted it!”
“Really, Shelly—”
“I’m trying to be nice! I’m trying to make amends for all the bad things I’ve said about him. Look, the next meeting is at our house in two weeks and we’re having a woman speak to us on death and dying. Simon would be the perfect balance because he claims to be living forever!”
“I don’t know that he’s ever put it exactly like that.”
“Ask him! Ask him if he’d be interested in giving a twenty-minute talk to the Quilters. Tell him one of our members is a retired movie star. That might intrigue him.”
Shelly had mentioned Grace Merrit before. Back in the forties when I was just beginning to discover the wonders of a motion picture on a Saturday afternoon, she’d played various exotic types, usually in World War II spy films with Alan Ladd or Ray Milland. Like so many other young actresses, she dropped out of films after a decade or so, when the parts became scarcer. I saw her on television once or twice in the fifties and then nothing. Shelly seemed to think her departure from Hollywood wasn’t just the result of ageing but also of some vague scandal. In any event, she’d married the publisher of a string of weekly newspapers up the Hudson. They were divorced now but she was living comfortably, enjoying life in her advanced years.
“I can’t imagine Simon being interested in an ageing glamour girl,” I told her, “but I’ll mention it.”
“Grace has been very active in our little group. In fact, she’s the one who gave it the name the Quilters.”
“I wonder where she came up with that.”
Simon Ark was lecturing on Indonesian mysticism as part of a seminar on the Far East being held at Columbia University. I met him afterwards and we had a drink at a nearby bar. “How’d it go?” I asked.
“My friend, it always goes well for me. The audience is another matter. You said on the telephone you wished to offer me another speaking assignment. I trust it is not to a university audience.”
“No, hardly that. Shelly belongs to a little group of older women called the Quilters. She’s wondering if you’d like to give a brief talk to them at their next meeting.”
“I know nothing about quilting,” he said with a weak smile.
“That’s just a name they chose. It has more to do with New Age topics. The other speaker will talk on death and dying. Shelly thought you could make a nice balance.”
“I’m beginning to think your wife doesn’t like me,” he said with a sigh. “This is really not my—”
“She said to tell you an old movie star would be there, an actress named Grace Merrit. She’s one of the Quilters.”
There was the slightest flicker of his eyelids at the mention of her name. “The Faraway Quilters,” he said softly, almost to himself. “Of course!”
“Then you’ll come?”
“Certainly. What did you say the date was?”
I think Shelly was as surprised as I was that Simon had accepted her invitation to speak to the Quilters. “He seemed interested in Grace Merrit,” I told her. “That’s what decided him.”
The Quilters meetings were always held on the second Thursday of the month, when I usually managed to be away. This time I had to remain and greet Simon, who surprised us by arriving a full thirty minutes early. “I am sorry to come so soon,” he told Shelly with unaccustomed grace. “I took an early train from New York so I wouldn’t be late.”
“That’s perfectly all right.” She showed him the family room where extra chairs had been brought in. “There’ll be eleven of us tonight. Kate Brady’s husband will probably come, too, because she doesn’t like to drive after dark. Usually he just drops her off and comes back later to pick her up, but if he sees other men around he may stay in the kitchen to chat.”
Simon Ark nodded. “And Grace Merrit?”
“You’ll find she’s quite nice, not at all the movie queen type. She usually comes with Mona Emberry. I think she had some small movie parts, too.”
In fact, they were the first to arrive, about ten minutes early. Mona was a large, take-charge woman, slightly masculine, who came in still clutching her key ring. “You must be Simon Ark,” she said, standing almost as tall as he did. “I read your witchcraft book.”
“There are very few of you around,” he said with some modesty. Almost at once he turned to her companion, a shorter woman, a bit plump but with a lovely face that seemed ageless. I figured she had to be at least eighty yet she moved like a much younger woman. “You must be Grace Merrit.”