“Funny you should mention that, Sam. We’re putting together an antique auction for the war-bond rally and someone donated the ornate oak front door from the Black Cloister. You can see it along with the other antiques down at the town hall.”
“Maybe I’ll take a look. When is this all going to happen?”
“Next Tuesday, the twentieth. That’s the day after the Boston rally. They’re tying it in with Patriots’ Day and the Boston Marathon.” Easter Sunday that year was not until April twenty-fifth, the latest it could be.
We took our seats at the table as Annabel came in with our salads. “I was just talking to Vera about the rally,” she told me. “I told her I wanted to help out, too.”
“A lot of people are. April at my office said she’d help. There’s nothing like a movie star to brighten things up.”
“Rusty Wagner isn’t exactly a heartthrob,” Vera remarked, plunging her fork into the salad. “Sometimes his face looks like it went through a meat grinder.”
“He makes a perfect villain, though,” Annabel said. “I saw a couple of his films before we were married.” Turning to me, she said, “Sam, we have to start going to the movies more.”
Somehow the conversation never did get back to the fire at the Black Cloister. It wasn’t until Sunday afternoon, two days before the scheduled rally, when I accompanied Annabel to the town hall and stood before the fire-scorched door, that I remembered the burned building. The thick oak door was indeed a thing of beauty, leaning against the wall. Its front showed a bas-relief of a hooded monk kneeling in prayer, and this is what would have greeted visitors to the Cloister.
“You can see the door was badly scorched in the fire,” Vera said as she came up to join us. We were in the ornate lobby of the town hall, where a score of items of all shapes and sizes had been assembled for the auction.
I ran my fingers over the bas-relief, admiring the carving. “Looks as if there are a few little wormholes in it, though,” Annabel remarked.
There were indeed, toward the sides and top of the door. I pulled it away from the wall, but the back was smooth and unmarked, without a trace of scorching. “What was the story about this fire?” I asked Vera. “It was before I moved here.”
“I was pretty young then myself, but I remember the Cloister as some sort of religious community. There was a fire and one young man died. After that the rest of the community just scattered.”
“Who owns the property?”
“I have no idea. Felix Pond at the hardware store donated the door. He said it had been in the family for years, but I don’t know that they ever owned the place.”
“How does this charity auction sell war bonds?” Annabel asked.
Vera Lens explained. “People bid by purchasing the bonds, so it’s not really costing them anything. They get their money back when the bonds are redeemed. The items are all donated and I don’t imagine they have any great value. But something like this door could be cleaned up and painted and put to good use. Some church might even like it.”
I ran my fingers over the wood once more, again impressed by the workmanship. “I wonder who carved this. Was it someone locally, or perhaps one of the residents at the Black Cloister?”
“It’s possible Mayor Bensmith might know.”
“I think I’ll ask him.”
Cyril Bensmith had a dairy farm on the North Road. His tall, gaunt frame reminded some of Abraham Lincoln, though he’d never thought of entering politics until his wife died a few years earlier. They had no children, and perhaps in search of a new beginning he’d run for mayor and been elected handily. He still worked his farm every day. Being mayor of Northmont was not a time-consuming occupation.
He had just arrived at the town hall and was greeting people with a handshake when I went up to him. “How are you, Sam? Good to see you here. I think the rally on Tuesday’s going to be a big success.”
“It should be,” I agreed, “especially with Rusty Wagner’s appearance.”
“Rusty’s an old friend. I haven’t seen him in years, but we’ve stayed in touch.”
“I was admiring that door from the old Cloister,” I explained, gesturing toward it. “Know anything about it?”
“No more than you. Felix Pond at the hardware store donated it.”
“I was wondering if the carving was by a local person.”
“I couldn’t tell you that. If there’s an opportunity you might ask Rusty when he’s here Tuesday.”
“Rusty?”
“He was living at the Black Cloister at the time of the fire.”
“How old would he have been at that time?”
“Eighteen, I think. Same age as me. He and another boy, Fritz, were caught stealing a car in Hartford. The judge suggested they could avoid jail by spending the summer doing farm work at the Cloister and they agreed quickly enough. That’s how I got to know Rusty. His name was George then, but he never liked it. We saw a lot of each other that one summer, before the fire.”
He moved on to greet others, and I was left with unanswered questions.
On Monday Sheriff Lens stopped by my office in a wing of Pilgrim Memorial Hospital. He was chatting with April as I finished seeing the morning’s last patient and I invited him into my examining room. “Everything set for the bond rally tomorrow, Sheriff?”
“I guess so. Vera’s had me run ragged, picking up donations for the auction.”
“I was talking to our mayor yesterday and he tells me Rusty Wagner was a resident of the Black Cloister. You never did finish about the fire.”
“It was so long ago I can barely remember it now. Like I said, it was the summer of ’twenty-one. The Cloister was home to about a dozen men, some from a Trappist monastery that had closed, and others from various Protestant denominations. They were men with problems or at loose ends. There were also those two kids doing farm work to avoid prison. I guess Rusty Wagner was one of them. The other fellow was killed in the fire.”
“Tell me about it.”
Sheriff Lens sighed. “Don’t you have enough mysteries in the present to satisfy you, Doc? This was no impossible crime or anything. No crime at all, far as I know. The fire started in the kitchen somehow and spread to the rest of the house. It was in the afternoon and the other residents were out in the fields working. Wagner and this other young fellow, whose name I don’t recall-”
“The mayor said it was Fritz.”
“That’s right, Fritz Heck. Anyway, they were preparing the evening meal when it happened. Wagner managed to get out with a few bad burns, but the other boy didn’t make it. I suppose that little scarring on Wagner’s face didn’t hurt when he started playing villain roles.”
That was pretty much all he remembered, but I was still interested in tracking down the origin of that door. I drove over to Felix Pond’s hardware store on my lunch hour and waited while he took care of a couple of customers. Pond was a bristling, bearded man who seemed strong as an ox, constantly carrying lumber and supplies out to waiting wagons. I was not one of his regular customers, but he knew me by sight. “Dr Hawthorne! What brings you here? Got a need for a hammer or screwdriver?”
“Curiosity brings me,” I told him. “I was admiring that door from the old Cloister and they told me you’d donated it. I wondered how you came by it.”
“That’s easy,” he said with a grin. “I stole it, years ago. The place seemed to be just rotting away after the fire. The residents had all scattered and no one was even sure who owned the property. It was a sin to see that fancy door just sit there and decay like that so I took it home with me. Stored it in my supply shed out back and forgot all about it till somebody asked me about it last year.”
“It might be worth some money,” I speculated.
“Sure might! It’s fine workmanship, made by one of the original residents of the Cloister. But I figured I couldn’t really sell it since it wasn’t mine to begin with. When someone suggested I donate it for the bond auction it seemed like a good idea.”