“And he invites you out here and shows off a haunted house so you can poke fun at his pet spooks on a nationwide hookup? I don’t believe it.”
“No, it isn’t that. It seems that Skelton Island has other psychic attractions. Madame Rappourt.”
“Oh. The Colonel’s prize medium. But he didn’t invite you out to see her.”
“Yes, he did.” Merlini nodded. “Exactly that. Did you read that newest book of his, Modern Mediums?”
“The one that kicked up all the Sunday supplement discussion? No.”
“You should. It’s an unintentionally revealing psychological study — of its author. He tries so hard to be coldly scientific, but his desire to get a positive result just manages to trip him up. The book is largely a brief for Rappourt. The Colonel says that, finally, after years of investigation, he’s turned up in her a real, first-class genuine psychic. He even goes so far as to say that psychical research can rest its whole case on her phenomena. Which rather puts him out on a limb, because if she ever should prove phony — well, he’s put all his eggs in one basket.”
“And he invites you out to pass on her? He must be awfully sure she’s the real McCoy.”
“No, just the opposite. All of a sudden he has doubts. She’s up to something even stranger than usual. He wants an outside opinion.”
It still didn’t make good sense to me. “If Eva Rappourt has agreed to put on her act before a professional magician, she must have something so close to genuine that—”
“She hasn’t agreed. She won’t know we’re there — at least I hope not — until it’s too late. Just before the séance Watrous is going to beg off with a headache, and as soon as it has started he’ll let us into the house via a sun deck on the second floor. We enter through his room and station ourselves on the stairway that goes down directly into the living-room where the séance will be in progress. Whenever I dig you in the ribs, you snap a picture. The Colonel said you should focus at about twenty feet, minus the usual quarter-inch turn correction for infra-red, whatever that means.”
“It means he wants his evidence pretty badly. Not being an owl, I’ll have to aim my camera by guess and by God. The setup needs a wide-angle lens, but I can’t use that with this trick lighting short of a time exposure. I’m certainly not going to guarantee any results, and if Rappourt catches wise before we get positive evidence on film, there’ll be a lovely row. What about friend Sigrid? She sitting in on this?”
“Yes. She’s staying on the island at present. Her mother was a Skelton and she spends her summers here with Aunt Linda and studies in town at the American School of the Ballet while her father is on the road. You must have heard me mention him. Tim Verrill, the best advance man in show business. He’s with Baker’s Colossal-Combined Outfit this year.”
“She had things on her mind when I saw her. She find you at the Garden?”
“Yes. She’s not sold on Rappourt either. The old girl doesn’t seem to be as convincing as usual, somehow. Sigrid rather suspects her of trying to annex a big helping of the Skelton fortune.”
“Sounds reasonable. Aunt Linda’s wealthy, then?”
“A million or two. And apparently a pushover for the occult. Sigrid says Rappourt has her jumping through hoops. Sigrid hasn’t been able to spot the gimmick but she’s a hard-headed young lady and skeptical.”
“What is it this time? Ectoplasm, spirit lights, slates—?”
For answer, Merlini’s hand gripped mine suddenly and one long arm pointed. “Did you see that, Ross?”
Skelton Island moved past on our starboard side. It lies with its near-by neighbors, North Brother and South Brother Islands, in midchannel where Hell Gate widens out into Long Island Sound. Half a mile beyond I could just make out the faint, dotted-line pattern of lights from the windows of the city prison on the larger Riker’s Island.
The lighthouse on North Brother winked brightly at us, but Skelton Island was dark, except for one small gleam low on the water.
A projecting arm of the island moved between us and the light as I watched, blotting it out. “Houseboat, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, I think so. But that’s not what I meant. Up at the top of the island. Watch it.”
At its northern end, the island sloped upward to a high point on which a dark boxlike shape loomed above the trees, its heavy silhouette reminiscent of Nantucket and New Bedford. An ornamental balustrade encircled the flat roof, set back slightly from its projecting, topheavy eaves. There were gaps in the rows of flamboyantly carved balusters and in the array of squat wooden urns spaced out along the top rail. Two massive brick chimneys, one partly fallen in, rose within this enclosure on either side of a square pillbox of a penthouse that was the “Captain’s room.” This in turn was surmounted by a somewhat simpler balustrade that leaned in a rickety tired way enclosing the “widow’s walk.” The whole had a foreboding air of distinctly down-at-the-heel dignity.
“Watrous,” Merlini said quietly, his mouth close to my ear, “says that Miss Skelton won’t let anyone in the old place. Keeps it locked up tight. If so, perhaps we do meet a ghost.”
“Why? What did you see?”
“A light. Up high, in the little top room. There!”
I saw it that time, a taint ghostly flicker that moved for an instant and was gone.
I looked at my wrist watch. It was just 9:40.
Chapter Three:
THE GHOST OF CAPTAIN SKELTON
The island on this side rose abruptly from the water, and the old house sat shakily out on the very edge as if its builder had almost hated to build on land at all. The windows were all tightly shuttered and boarded over, except for one, high up in the Captain’s room. There a single shutter swung on rusty hinges as if in ill-tempered protest at our approach.
As our boat moved slowly in, the driver spoke over his shoulder. “I can’t put you in here. No place to—”
Merlini, leaning forward, pointed to the right toward a black square shadow that lay against the foundation stones at water level. “Put your searchlight on that,” he directed.
The white beam shot out, ate into the shadow, and we saw that the river ran in under one corner of the house to a small boat-landing nearly concealed and protected beneath the first floor. We moved slowly toward it.
“Flashlight,” Merlini said, and I tore open the paper parcel that contained the two I had purchased.
The boat, silent now, floated in under the house and bumped against the landing. Merlini and I scrambled out. The damp green of the stone floor was slippery underfoot. As Merlini stopped to speak to our ferryman, I moved my torch in an exploratory circle and discovered a low arched doorway above a short flight of stone steps. The heavy weatherbeaten door stood open, and a large, old fashioned padlock hung from an iron hasp, unlocked.
I went up the steps and peered in. My light, cutting its long conical tunnel through the black, revealed an untidy litter on the floor: old bottles, a broken-down chair, a rust-eaten coal stove, the scattered pieces of a rowboat. I could hear the slow drip of water from the cold stone walls.
Behind me the boat’s motor roared, loud within the small space. I turned to see it backing out.
“What’s the idea of that?” I asked. “Shouldn’t we reserve a line of retreat?”
“I don’t know how long we’ll be here,” Merlini said. “The island has a boat service of its own and there’s a phone — That door unlocked?”
“Yes. Cellar,” I said. “Do we go in?”
He moved to my side and examined the interior with his flash as I had done. I noticed another open doorway inside in the farther wall and on our right a stairway going up.