It was a reckless thing to say, and I had instant cause to regret it. Before I could move, Charlie was past me and had Celia’s arms pinned in a paralyzing grip.
“Did you dare go into her room?” he raged, shaking her savagely. “Tell me!” And then, getting an immediate answer from the panic in her face, he dropped her arms as if they were red hot, and stood there sagging, with his head bowed.
Celia reached out a placating hand toward him. “Charlie,” she whimpered, “don’t you see? Having her things around bothers you. I only wanted to help you.”
“Where are her things?”
“By the stairs, Charlie. Everything is there.”
He started down the hallway, and with the sound of his uncertain footsteps moving away I could feel my heartbeat slowing down to its normal tempo. Celia turned to look at me, and there was such a raging hated in her face that I knew only a desperate need to get out of that house at once. I took my things from the bed and started past her, but she barred the door.
“Do you see what you’ve done?” she whispered hoarsely. “Now I will have to pack them all over again. It tires me, but I will have to pack them all over again-just because of you.”
“That is entirely up to you, Celia,” I said coldly.
“You,” she said. “You old fool. It should have been you along with her when I-”
I dropped my stick sharply on her shoulder and could feel her wince under it. “As your lawyer, Celia,” I said, “I advise you to exercise your tongue only during your sleep, when you can’t be held accountable for what you say.”
She said no more, but I made sure she stayed safely in front of me until I was out in the street again.
From the Boerum house to Al Sharp’s Bar and Grill was only a few minutes’ walk, and I made it in good time, grateful for the sting of the clear winter air in my face. Al was alone behind the bar, busily polishing glasses, and when he saw me enter he greeted me cheerfully. “Merry Christmas, counsellor,” he said.
“Same to you,” I said, and watched him place a comfortable-looking bottle and a pair of glasses on the bar.
“You’re regular as the seasons, counsellor,” said Al, pouring out two stiff ones. “I was expecting you along right about now.”
We drank to each other, and Al leaned confidingly on the bar. “Just come from there?”
“Yes,” I said.
“See Charlie?”
“And Celia,” I said.
“Well,” said Al, “that’s nothing exceptional. I’ve seen her too when she comes by to do some shopping. Runs along with her head down and that black shawl over it like she was being chased by something. I guess she is, at that.”
“I guess she is,” I said.
“But Charlie, he’s the one. Never see him around at all. Did you tell him I’d like to see him some time?”
“Yes,” I said. “I told him.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing. Celia said it was wrong for him to come here while he was in mourning.”
Al whistled softly and expressively, and twirled a forefinger at his forehead. “Tell me,” he said, “do you think it’s safe for them to be alone together like they are? I mean, the way things stand, and the way Charlie feels, there could be another case of trouble there.”
“It looked like it for a while tonight,” I said. “But it blew over.”
“Until next time,” said Al.
“I’ll be there,” I said.
Al looked at me and shook his head. “Nothing changes in that house,” he said. “Nothing at all. That’s why you can figure out all the answers in advance. That’s how I knew you’d be standing here right about now talking to me about it.”
I could still smell the dry rot of the house in my nostrils, and I knew it would take days before I could get it out of my clothes.
“This is one day I’d like to cut out of the calendar permanently,” I said.
“And leave them alone to their troubles. It would serve them right.”
“They’re not alone,” I said. “Jessie is with them. Jessie will always be with them until that house and everything in it is gone.”
Al frowned. “It’s the queerest thing that ever happened in this town, all right. The house all black, her running through the streets like something hunted, him lying there in that room with only the walls to look at, for-when was it Jessie took that fall, counsellor?”
By shifting my eyes a little I could see in the mirror behind Al the reflection of my own face: ruddy, deep jowled, a little incredulous.
“Twenty years ago,” I heard myself saying. “Just twenty years ago tonight.”
THE ADVENTURE OF THE UNIQUE DICKENSIANS by August Derleth
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the plethora of Holmesian pastiches produced since the 1880s might have been gratifying to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, had not so many of them been so poor.
Among the best of the imitators of the Sacred Writings was August (William) Derleth, who was born in Sauk City, Wisconsin, and who, starting at the age of thirteen, produced a large and varied collection of literary products. Cofounder of Arkham House and Mycraft & Moran, publishers of supernatural and mystery books, he claimed that he was “the most versatile and voluminous writer in quality writing fields.” Mystery fans, however, remember him for his creation of Solar Pons.
“This Christmas season,” said Solar Pons from his place at the windows of our quarters at 7B, Praed Street, “holds the promise of being a merry one, after the quiet week just past. Flakes of snow are dancing in the air, and what I see below enchants me. Just step over here, Parker, and have a look.”
I turned down the book I was reading and went over to stand beside him.
Outside, the snowflakes were large and soft, shrouding the streetlight, which had come on early in the winter dusk, and enclosing, like a vision from the past, the scene at the curb-a hansom cab, no less, drawn by a horse that looked almost as ancient as the vehicle, for it stood with a dejected air while its master got out of the cab, leaning on his stick.
“It has been years since I have seen a hansom cab,” I said. “Ten, at least-if not more. And that must surely be its owner.”
The man getting out of the cab could be seen but dimly, but he wore a coat of ankle length, fitting his thin frame almost like an outer skin, and an old beaver hat that added its height to his, and when he turned to look up at the number above our outer entrance, I saw that he wore a grizzled beard and square spectacles.
“Could he have the wrong address?” I wondered.
“I fervently hope not,” said Pons. “The wrong century, perhaps, but not, I pray, the wrong address.”
“No, he is coming in.”
“Capital, capital!” cried Pons, rubbing his hands together and turning from the window to look expectantly toward the door.
We listened in silence as he applied below to Mrs. Johnson, our landlady, and then to his climbing the stairs, a little wheezily, but withal more like a young man than an old.
“But he clutches the rail,” said Pons, as if he had read my thoughts. “Listen to his nails scrape the wall.”
At the first touch of the old fellow’s stick on the door, Pons strode forward to throw it open.
“Mr. Solar Pons?” asked our visitor in a thin, rather querulous voice.
“Pray come in, sir,” said Pons.
“Before I do, I’ll want to know how much it will cost,” said our client.
“It costs nothing to come in,” said Pons, his eyes dancing.
“Everything is so dear these days,” complained the old fellow as he entered our quarters. “And money isn’t easily come by. And too readily spent, sir, too readily spent.”
I offered him a seat, and took his hat.
He wore, I saw now, the kind of black half-gloves customarily worn by clerks, that came over his wrists to his knuckles. Seeing me as for the first time, he pointed his cane at me and asked of Pons, “Who’s he?”