Chapter #19The Killer in the Circle by: Seuzz   "They say you don't believe in EVP, Professor Craik." The speaker is short but powerfully built, with thick white hair combed straight back. He looks to be in his early sixties, and you're sure he's ex-military.
"I don't believe in anything, Mr. -- uh -- "
"Foley," he sighs. "You mean you don't believe in any of this?"
The sweep of his arm takes in the house and everything in it. Angley House is a rambling old brick mansion in the Victorian style, with crazily intersecting gables and a promenade that swallows the front half of the house. It was built at the end of the nineteenth century for the daughter of a railroad mogul, fell into decrepitude in the middle part of the twentieth, and has since been rescued by the Carnacki Club, a psychical society dedicated to "gentlemanly ghost hunting" in the traditional manner.
But few of the members strike you as being "gentlemen." The interloping Mr. Foley (probably a lieutenant colonel (ret.)) is the closest such thing present.
"My disbelief is not a professional skepticism," you reply. You are pacing the length of a dim hallway. "There is none more dogmatic than the skeptic who rules out the super-, para-, and preternatural because it does not conform to his metaphysical prejudices. I disbelieve all, and am therefore prepared to accept anything. On evidence, of course. As Chesterton said, Hamlet was a true philosopher, for he was prepared to believe in the ghost even as he tested its bona fides."
"Right," says the colonel (for so you can't help conceiving him).
You come to the end of the hall, where a heavy, brocaded purple curtain hangs. He stops, baffled.
"Our courtroom." You draw the drape to reveal a heavy oak door. It opens silently at your touch. "Where the evidence is sifted and weighed. And as for my not catching your name earlier -- " You smile as you gesture him in. "I believe I was distracted by Mrs. Peirce's excellent oysters."
The Club does throw delicious monthly dinners.
The "courtroom" was once the ballroom, and it is empty of furniture save for eight plush chairs arranged in a loose circle at its center. Tall windows look onto a garden that's been turned into a vegetable patch; the back wall is lined with mirrors.
You sit -- as was Professor Jonathan Craik's habit -- facing the latter, giving you a good view of yourself. You are six and half feet tall and rail thin, with thick black hair that falls over your ears and forehead. There are purplish bags under your heavy-lidded eyes; blade-like moustaches under your nose; and a dagger-like Van Dyke on your chin. You unbutton the front of your ebony swallow-tail coat, cross your long legs, and steeple pale, narrow fingers as the rest of the club follows you and the colonel in.
There are only three now: Carleton DaVeigh, the self-styled High Priest of the Synagogue of Tiamat, with his shaved head and cruel goatee; Zozu Upharsin (a.k.a., Brian Harris), the comic book writer, with his vampire's pallor and silver-tinted contact lenses; and Melanie Kyrv, royal claimant to a cloud-shrouded throne somewhere on Saturn, with her long, lank hair and a nose that, however highly lifted in the air, remains button-cute. Mrs. Peirce, who is sensibly dressed from her white bun down to her clunky shoes, putters about filling everyone's coffee cups before withdrawing.
"And now that we're alone," says DaVeigh, locking black eyes on you, "I'll say how pleased I am to see you safely returned, professor." Melanie murmurs in agreement; Upharsin, you fancy, only hisses.
"It was touch and go," you say. "I confess I nearly funked it at the end, and that if I had -- " You gesture at the empty chairs. "Our numbers might have dwindled further."
The Club has certainly had a run of bad luck recently, with half its members perishing in the course of their investigations. Well, it is dangerous work, even for talented amateurs like the Carnacki Club.
But did they merely perish? John Reilly, who subscribes to their newsletter, used the word "murder" when he wrote you. With Rosalie's blessing, you are investigating.
But you have already failed to save one member.
"As you know," you continue, "I was investigating Hamilton House, a restaurant located in a converted mansion -- not dissimilar to our headquarters -- in Eugene, Oregon. With its owners' permission, I stayed overnight to watch. I did not observe anything, so just before sunrise I performed the Rite of Belet-Seri -- " You nod at DaVeigh " -- and returned the next evening.
"As I'd hoped, the rite had the effect of stimulating activity. I witnessed at least three water goblets shatter during the dinner hours, and one patroness fainted in the lady's room for reasons I was not able to ascertain. A large fire broke out in the kitchen, and the manager took me aside to complain that a knocking was afflicting the staircase. I gathered it had been heard before, but never so loudly or persistently.
"After the restaurant closed I remained to watch with the cleaning staff. They were melancholy and closed-mouthed when I questioned them. I gained the impression that they were feeling a manifestation that they'd felt before. I considered my suspicion confirmed when a decanter of wine slid ten yards down the bar in full view of three staff members and crashed to the floor, yet no one showed any surprise. Nor did they rush to clean the accident.
"At around three in the morning the lights dimmed perceptibly, and one of the women rushed through the dining room into the kitchen, to be followed shortly by her husband and brother. I wondered at this, then became alarmed when her adolescent son appeared on the staircase, and told me we needed to get into the freezer. There was a queer light in his eye, and seizing him by the shoulder I dispelled it with the Weesack-Ootchat incantation." You weave a lazy imitation of that rite in the air. "Whereupon he fell into a violent tremble and sank to the ground. I went into the kitchen, to the walk-in freezer, and with great difficulty opened the door. The other staff members, greatly agitated and confused, were inside, and they told me they had been lured into it by what they took to be the voices of the others, only to have the door slam on them. With my encouragement, they abandoned their duties and went home early.
"I decided that I had found, if not the heart of the phenomenon, at least one of its foci. I propped the freezer door open -- hammering the wedge in place with the greatest force I could muster -- and set about constructing within the freezer entrance a boundary circle using every device in my arsenal. As you know," you add with a smile, "I have preferred redundancy ever since that business in Gimgliano, when the disembodied arm of Fra Lippi successfully breached the Pentacle of Hermes."
DaVeigh nods thoughtfully; Melanie bites her lip and looks wanly into your eyes; Upharsin's nostrils flare, and he grips the arms of his chair.
"I had woven the Fences of the Four Elementals -- I had come prepared with charged bottles -- and bound them with the quintessence when I first noticed the freezer door trying to move. I stepped aside and knocked the wedge away, and the door slammed shut with a force that shook the walls. I tell you that nearly did me in, for as we all agree, the quintessential boundary is the strongest. I wedged the door open again, and added a Ring of Iron before capping my circle with the intertwined pentacles of Hermes, Zosimus, Jabir, Paracelsus, and E. W. Hogg-Jameson. The door had been groaning against the wedge all this time, but now when I freed it, it only bounced violently off the outer fence several times before coming to a rest.
"Considering the fences complete, I stepped inside the circle and performed the Ceremony of Shay-ibn-Tell-Amath. I was rewarded in a most unexpected way."
You sink into your chair and fix the others with an unwinking gaze.
"An object fell out of the air and onto the floor," you tell them. "It struck with the ringing tone of pure gold. I picked it up, and have brought it with me tonight."
From your lapel pocket you pull a bundled handkerchief and carefully unwrap it. Inside is a ring. "Take it," you urge the others. "Examine it."
DaVeigh presses the bell for Mrs. Peirce as Melanie plucks up the ring. It is bright but plain, and after looking it all over she passes it to Foley. He only snorts over it. DaVeigh takes it next with a murmur. He holds it out to Upharsin --
You're sure you've got your killer. He won't dare touch the murder weapon.
But he takes it without hesitation, turning it over in his fingers. "Something's written on the inner surface," he says.
Perceptive man, you think, but you can't help frowning. His whole demeanor is one of calm curiosity. If it's not him who made the trap --
You hold out your hand, and he drops the ring back into the handkerchief. The housekeeper steps forward with the coffeepot. You extend the ring to her. "Mrs. Peirce, would you put this in -- "
Her eyes bulge. She gasps. She screams and drops the pot.
Foley leaps and tackles her before she can flee.
* * * * *
He reintroduces himself to you afterward: "Colonel Samuel Foley of the Hesselius Institute." You shake hands. "We Hesselians don't really get along with the Carnacki, but Harris -- er, Upharsin, likes to keep the lines open. He's been badly frightened by this business, and asked me to snoop around. And who are you, exactly?" His eyes harden. "Craik died in that freezer."
"I know. I had to reconstruct the circumstances from the evidence he left. And I managed to, ah, interview him before he died."
"It's a damned good disguise. But who are you?"
"Stellae."
His eyes widen, then drop. "Oh. It was that dangerous?"
"No." You glance at the car Mrs. Peirce is slumped inside. "Just a common murderess with an uncommon M.O."  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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