Later I climbed the cliffs as the moon rose over the sea, making a path of silver light across the waves. I again turned my mind toward the conversation. Words and phrases flitted through my mind, and putting them together to piece out complete thoughts was like a puzzle.
Finally I gave it up entirely, and one day, wandering among the cliffs, decided to visit the Witch of Wolf
's Cavern. She was among the few humans who would tolerate me for a short while, for I always gave her the village gossip, garbled and labored to be sure, but from the gibberish she could usually piece together information to use to her own advantage. I was in awe of her somewhat, but had I had intelligence I would have despised her, for, far from having enough knowledge of the occult to understand my vague talk of lecas and gerbas and the like, she clothed those beings with the likenesses of the demons and familiars of her own tawdry and filthy witchcraft. She considered me devil-ridden, haunted by her own worldly spirits, whereas I was simply an imbecile, an inhabitant of two worlds.
Her cave overlooked the lake-ridden fen, and she usually sat, cross-legged, staring into the fire which burned incessantly. Beatrice--strange name for a witch; but she had once been beautiful.
Spectres in the Dark
The following item appeared in a Los Angeles paper, one morning in late summer:
"A murder of the most appalling and surprizing kind occurred at 333--Street late yesterday evening. The victim was Hildred Falrath, 77, a retired professor of psychology, formerly connected with the University of California. The slayer was a pupil of his, Clement Van Dorn, 33, who has, for the last few months, been in the habit of coming to Falrath's apartment at 333----Street for private instruction. The affair was particularly heinous, the aged victim having been stabbed through the arm and the breast with a dagger, while his features were terribly battered. Van Dorn, who appears to be in a dazed condition, admits the slaying but claims that the professor attacked him and that he acted only in self defense. This plea is regarded as the height of assumption, in view of the fact that Falrath has for many years been confined to a wheel chair. Van Dorn gave bail and is under surveilance."
I had settled myself comfortably with a volume of Fraser's Golden Bough when a loud and positive rap on my door told me that I was not to enjoy an evening alone. However, I laid the book down with no very great reluctance, for as all raps have their peculiarities, I knew that Michael Costigan craved a few hours' chat and Michael was always an interesting study.
He lumbered in, filling the room in his elephantine way, as out of place among the books, paintings and statues as a gorilla in a tea-room. He snarled something in reply to my greeting and seated himself on the edge of the largest chair he could find. There he sat silent for a moment, chafing his mallet-like hands together, his head bent between his huge shoulders. I watched him, unspeaking, taking in again the immensity of him, the primitive aura which he exuded; admiring again the great fists with their knotty, battered knuckles, the low, sloping forehead topped by a rough mass of unkempt hair, the narrow, glinting eyes, the craggy features marked by many a heavy glove. I sat, intrigued by the workings of his heavy features as the clumsy brain sought to shape words to suit the thought.
"Say," he spoke suddenly but gropingly as he always spoke at first. "Say, lissen, do youse believe in ghosts?"
"Ghosts?" I looked at him a moment without replying, lost in a sudden revery--ghosts; why this man himself was a ghost of mine, a spectre of my old, degenerate days, always bringing up the years of wandering and carousal and drifting.
"Ghosts?" I repeated. "Why do you ask?"
He seemed not entirely at ease. He twined his heavy fingers together and kept his gaze concentrated on his feet.
"Youse know," he said bluntly, "youse know dat I killed Battlin' Roike a long time ago."
I did. I had heard the story before and I wondered at the evident connection of his remarks about ghosts, and about the long dead Rourke. I had heard him before disclaim any feelings of remorse or fear of after judgment.
"De breaks uh de game," he expressed it. Yet now:
"Ev'body knows," he went on slowly, "dat I had nuttin' agin him. Roike knows dat himself."
I wondered to hear him speak of the man in the present tense.
"No, it wuz all in de game. We had bad luck, dat wuz all, bad fer Roike an' bad fer me. We wuz White Hopes--dat wuz de jinx--youse know."
I tapped a finger nail on the chair arm and nodded, thinking of Stanley Ketchel, Luther McCarty, James Barry and Al Palzer, all White Hopes, touted to wrest the heavy-weight title from the great negro, Jack Johnson, and all of whom died violent deaths, at the height of their fame.
"Yeh, dat wuz it. I come up in Jeffries' time but after I beat some good men dey began to build me fer a title match, as uh White Hope. I wuz matched wid Battlin' Roike, another comer an' de winner wuz tuh fight Johnson. For nineteen rounds it wuz even," his great hands were clenched, a steely glint in his eyes as if he were again living through that terrible battle--"we wuz bot' takin' a lotta punishment--den we bot'
went down in de twentieth round at de same time. I got on me feet just as the referee wuz sayin' 'Ten!'
but Roike died dere in de ring. De breaks uh de game, dat's wot it wuz and dat's all. Bat Roike knows I had nuttin' agin him and he ain't got no reason tuh be down on me."
The last sentence was spoken in a strangely querulous manner.
"Why should you care?" I asked in the callous manner of my earlier life. "He's dead, isn't he?"
"Yeh--but say, lissen. I wouldn't say dis to anybody else, see? But you got savvy; you're my kind, under de skin, see? You been in de gutter and you know de ropes. You know a boid like me ain't got no more noives den uh rhino. You know I ain't afraid uh nuttin', don'tcha? Sure yuh do. But lissen. Somethin'
damn' queer is goin' on in my rooms. I'm gittin' so's I don't like tuh be in de dark an' de landlady is raisin' Cain 'cause I leave de light on all night. Foist t'ing I saw dat wuzn't on de up-an'-up wuz several nights ago w'en I come in me room. I tell yuh, somethin' wuz in dere! I toined on de light an' went t'rough de closets an' under de bed but I didn't find a t'ing an' dere wuz no way for a man tuh git out without me seein' him. I fergot it, see, but de next night it wuz de same way. Den I began to SEE things!"
"See things!" I started involuntarily. "You better lay off the booze."
He made an impatient gesture. "Naw, 'tain't de booze; I can't go dis bootleg stuff an' anyway I got outa de habit when I wuz trainin'. Jes' de same, I see t'ings."
"What kind of things."
"Things." He waved his hand in a vague manner. "I don't jes' see 'um, but I feel 'um."
I regarded him with growing wonder. Hitherto imagination had formed a small part in his makeup.
"Shadows, like," he continued, evidently at a loss to explain his exact sensations. "Stealin' an' slidin'
around w'en the light's off. I can't see 'um but I can see 'um. I know they're there, so I'm bound tuh see
'um, ain't I?
"Yeh, dey--or it--I don't know which. De udder night I nearly saw 'um." His voice sank broodingly. "I come in an' shut de door an' stand dere in de dark a minute, den I KNOW dat somethin' is beside me. I let go wid me left but all I do is skin me hand an' knock a panel outta de door. W'en I toin on de light, de room is empty. I tell yuh"--the voice sank yet lower and the wicked eyes avoided mine sullenly--"I tell yuh, either I'm bugs or Bat Roike is hauntin' me!"
"Nonsense." I spoke abruptly but I was conscious of a queer sensation as if a cold wind had blown upon me from a suddenly opened door. "It's neither. You changed your habits too much; from a gregarious, restless adventurer, you've become almost a recluse. The change from the white lights and the clamor of the throng to a second rate boarding house and a job in a poolhall is too great. You brood too much and think too much about the past. That's the way with you professional athletes; when you quit active competition, you forget the present entirely. Get out and tramp some more; forget Battling Rourke; change boarding places. It isn't good for a man of your nature to think too much. You're too much of an extrovert--if you know what that means. You need lights and crowds and fellowship, too."