A gravel drive led up to just the sort of big stone mansion he had imagined—turreted, slate-roofed, heavy-eaved, in the style of the 1890’s.
But the gate and fence were rusty, tall weeds encroached on the drive, lawn and flowerbeds were a wilderness, the upper windows were blank and curtainless, most of them broken, those on the first floor were boarded up and the door as well. Pigeon droppings whitened the somber brown stone, and in the center of the lawn, half hidden by the weeds, stood a weather-bleached sign:
FOR SALE
Chapter Six
Gigolo’s Home
Carr pushed doubtfully at the iron gate. It opened a couple feet, then squided to a stop against gravel still slightly damp from yesterday’s rain. He stepped inside.
The house seemed unquestionably deserted. Still, recluses have been known to live in unlikely places.
Or a place like this might be secretly used by intruders. Eyes might even now be peering through the cracks between the boards covering the lower windows.
His feet were carrying him up the driveway, which led back behind the house, passing under a porte-cochere. He had almost reached it when he noticed the footprints.
They were a woman’s, quite fresh, and yet sunk more deeply than his own. They must have been made since the rain. There were two sets, one leading toward the porte-cochere, the other back from it.
Looking at the black ruined flowerbeds, inhaling their dank odor, Carr was relieved that there were footprints.
He examined them more closely. Those leading toward the porte-cochere were deeper and more widely spaced. He remembered that Jane had been almost running.
But the most startling discovery was that the footprints never reached the house at all. They stopped a good six feet from the soil-streaked steps. They cluttered confusedly there, then they returned toward the gate. Evidently Jane had run under the porte-cochere, waited until she was sure he was gone, then retraced her steps.
She apparently had wanted him to think that she lived in a mansion.
He walked back to the gate. A submerged memory from last night was tugging at his mind. He looked along the iron fence fronting the sidewalk. A scrap of paper just inside caught his eyes. It was lodged in the low black shoots of some leafless shrub.
He remembered something white fluttering down from Jane’s handbag in the dark, drifting down.
He worked his way to it, pushing between the fence and the shrubbery. Unpruned shoots caught at his coat.
The paper was twice creased and the edges were yellow and frayed, as if it had been carried around for a long time. It was not rain-marked. Unfolding it, he found the inside filled with a brown-inked script vividly recalling Jane’s scribbled warning, yet much smaller and more crabbed, as if a pen were to her a chisel for carving hieroglyphs. With some difficulty, holding the paper up and moving toward the center of the tangled lawn to catch the failing light, he read:
Always keep up appearances.
Always be doing something.
Always be first or last.
Always be on the streets or alone.
Always have a route of escape.
Avoid: empty stores, crowded theaters, restaraunts, queues.
Safe places: libraries, museums, churches, bars.
Never hesitate, or you’re lost.
Never do anything odd—it wouldn’t be noticed.
Never move things—it makes gaps.
Never touch anyone—DANGER! MACHINERY!
Never run—they’re faster.
Never look at a stranger—it might be one of them.
These are the signs: contemptuousness, watchfulness, bluff; unveiled power, cruelty, lust; they use people; they are incubi, succubi. No one every really notices them—so don’t you.
Some animals are really alive.
Carr looked over his shoulder at the boarded-up house. A bird skimmed up from the roof. It looked leaner than a pigeon. Perhaps a nighthawk. Somewhere down the block footsteps were clicking on concrete.
He considered the shape of the paper. It was about that of an envelope and the edges were torn. At first glance the other side seemed blank. Then he saw a faded postmark and address. He struck a match and, shielding it with the paper, made out the name—Jane Gregg; and the city—Chicago. The postmark was a little more than a year old. The address, lying the crease, presented more difficult, but he deciphered it: 1924 Mayberry Street.
The footsteps had come closer. He looked up. Beyond the fence a couple were passing. He could see a bit of white wing-collar and the glitter of a sequined comb. The gait was elderly. He guiltily whipped out the match, but they walked by without turning their heads.
After a moment he slipped through the gate, pulled it shut, and set out in the same direction they were going, cutting across the street before he passed them.
The street lights winked on. The leaves near the lights looked an artificial green. He walked faster.
In this direction there was no abrupt zone-wall, but rather a gradual deterioration. The houses shouldered closer to each other, grew smaller, crept toward the street. The trees straggled, gave out, the grass died. Down the cross-streets neon signs began to glow, and the drone of busses, radios and voices grew in volume. Suddenly the houses coalesced, reached the sidewalk with a rush, shot up in towering brick combers, became the barracks of the middle classes, with only a narrow channel of sidewalk between their walls and the rows of cars parked bumper to bumper.
Carr thought wryly of his shattered theory of thick-carpeted halls, candlelight and a persecuted heiress. Mayberry Street wasn’t that.
The strange notes Jane had inked on the envelope kept flashing in his consciousness. If anything had ever read more like a paranoid’s rulebook—! And yet…
A bent yellow street-sign said Maxwell. At the next corner, Marston. Then, following the mindless association pattern that so often governs the selection of street names, Mayberry.
He looked at the gold numerals painted on the glass door of the first apartment house. They were 1954-58.
As he went down the street, he had the feeling that he was walking back across the years.
The first floor of 1922-24 was lighted on the 24 side, except for a small dark sun-porch. Behind one window he noticed the edge of a red-upholstered davenport and a gray-haired man in shirtsleeves reading a newspaper. Inside the low-ceilinged vestibule he turned to the brass letter boxes on the 24 side. The first one read: Herbert Gregg. After a moment he pushed the button, waited, pushed it again.
There was no response, neither a mumble from the speaking tube, nor a buzz from the lock of the door to the stairs.
Yet the “Herbert Gregg” apartment ought to be the one in which he had seen the old man sitting.
Beyond the inner door, in the darkness of the stair well, he thought he saw something move. He couldn’t tell what it was. When he stepped closer and peered in, he saw nothing. He went outside. He craned his neck. The man was still sitting there. An old man—perhaps deaf?
Then, as Carr watched, the man put down his paper, settled back, looked across the room, and from the window came the opening triplets of the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata.
Carr felt the wire that fenced the tiny, nearly grassless plot press his calf and realized that he had taken a backward step. He reminded himself that he’d only heard Jane play the third movement. He couldn’t know she’d play the first just this way.