Manly Wade Wellman - John Thunstone 01 (17 page)

 
          
"Yes,
yes,” broke in Spayte impatiently. "I’ve heard that all, many times
before. Thunstone says he got into it in the dark. But surely, Thunstone, there
are lights all over this little village of yours.” "They have streetlights
all along their main way,
Trail Street
, and in shops and houses,” said Thunstone.
"But when I turn out the light in my room
it’s
full darkness there, and then the other landscape comes back, all dark night
except for stars overhead, and no village at all.”

 
          
Spayte
tweaked his elegant beard. "Thunstone, you know by now how much I like
you,” he said. "You’ve been entertained at my home, and my wife
rhapsodizes about you until I begin to be jealous. But I must protest against
these imaginings. Imagination can’t come into something like this.”

 
          
"Can
it not?” said Vickery, his warrior face seamed into a smile. "I’ve read
the statement of a great, great man that imagination is more important than
knowledge.”

 
          
Spayte
swung his own face toward Vickery. "What’s that you’re saying? Whoever
offered such drivel as that?”

 
          
"I
can answer that,” said Thunstone, himself smiling. "It was written by
someone we’ve just been discussing—Albert Einstein, in an essay he called ‘On
Science.’ It’s comforted me in the past.”

           
"And it’s comforted me, too,”
seconded Vickery. "Come now, Spayte, you aren’t going to fly up and have a
fit in the face of Einstein, now are you?”

           
Spayte furrowed his brow. “All this
is interesting. I'll look that passage up. But let’s just get back to
Thunstone.”

 
          
“From
the sublime to the ridiculous,” said Thunstone.

 
          
Spayte
shook his head impatiently. “Let’s get back to you without so many sarcasms.
You make everything dark in your room, you say, and that brings you back into
what you think is the distant past.” Spayte shook his head again. “Could we do
that?”

 
          
“Maybe
not everybody can,” said Thunstone. “Maybe it calls for something in a special
individual, as with those two schoolmistresses at
Versailles
.”

 
          
“Or
like you, at Claines,” said Vickery. “Or your little witch girl, Constance
Bailey you called her. Is she pretty? I do hope so.”

           
“This man Ensley, who’s been such a
stumbling block to honest researchers,” said Spayte. “What does he think about
all this?
Popping back and forth in time, and so on.”

           
“What he thinks he isn’t about to
tell,” replied Thunstone. “He can irritate you by saying nothing, while all the
time he hints that he could say a good deal. He does have one thing he repeats,
a reference to ten thousand years ago. Well, I’m going to have dinner with him
at his Chimney Pots house tomorrow.”

 
          
“I
hope it’s a good dinner,” said Vickery.

 
          
“Well,”
said Thunstone, “I've already had a good lunch there. Luncheon, I suppose I
should say. But now, gentlemen, I wanted to talk to
both of
you face to face, give you my report, get your reactions, clarify things by
talking. So I’ll go catch a bus back to Claines.”

           
“This evening?” said Spayte. “I’d
hoped you’d come and stay at my place.”

           
“I’m going to church there tomorrow
morning.”

 
          
“Church?”
Vickery almost squeaked, as though that was the
strangest thing he had heard from Thunstone. “Look here, I’m coming to Claines
with you.”

 
          
“And
I’ll do the same, if you’ll just give me time to telephone my wife and buy a
toothbrush somewhere,” said Spayte. “I daresay this Fothergill lady will have
lodging for us.”

 
          
“No,
please,” said Thunstone. “Don’t either of you come.”

 
          
“Whyever not?”
Vickery protested. “All three of us should be
there; we could do a lot more than just one.”

 
          
“I
doubt if three could do anything,” said Thunstone. “Just I myself have come in
for a lot of notice in that little hamlet. Three of us together would be just
too rich for the blood of the people. If there's anything to be found out, you
can bet it would be squirreled * away out of our collective sight.”

 
          
Spayte
frowned at him. “You're going back there alone, then? And whatever are you
going to be up to?”

 
          
“Frankly,
I'm not sure,” said Thunstone. “But let me have tonight and tomorrow—Sunday—and
Sunday night. They're going to turn the Dream Rock at
midnight
Sunday, and it's plain that something
special is due to happen. If you and Vickery want to visit Claines, come on
Monday morning. Ask for me at the Moonraven—that's a good pub, almost as good
as this one—or across the street at Mrs. Fothergill’s.”

 
          
“I
see,” said Vickery. “And what if you aren't there when we come?”

 
          
“Then
it will be up to you two to find out what's happened to me,” Thunstone answered
him, “and if you have to do that, get hold of a young constable there by the
name of Dymock, and maybe he'll get more police help if he thinks it's needed.”

 
          
Spayte
drained the last drops in his mug. “You talk about this Ensley man of yours and
how he can be mysterious. I must say that you've learned the trick from him,
learned it very well indeed. Very good, Thunstone, we'll see you sometime
Monday morning, I hope.”

           
“I hope,” Thunstone echoed him.

           
They left the Friend at Hand. Spayte
headed for his office at the university and Vickery took the underground with
Thunstone to see him off at the bus terminal.

 
          
The
ride to Claines was uneventful. Thunstone occupied his time with jotting down
in his notebook some of the things his friends had said at lunch. He pondered
the adventure of the Englishwomen at the Trianon gardens as summarized by
Vickery, wished he had their book to read, and promised himself to get hold of
it as soon as possible.

 
          
He
got off the bus at the Moonraven parking lot at some time after
four o’clock
and crossed to Mrs. Fothergill’s. He
entered his room, and had a sense of familiarity there, as though that had been
his living quarters for much longer than three days. The bed had not been
disturbed. He pulled back the coverlet and the sheet and saw that the spear lay
exactly as he had left it. He took it out and examined it thoroughly.

 
          
The
haft, he decided, was of ash, and it was as straight as a measuring rod. The
point was beautifully chipped to a tapering point, perfectly symmetrical, with
toothed edges on both sides of the blade. And the lashing was of stout sinew,
of what animal Thunstone could not decide. He hefted the weapon at the balance,
wondering how far his unskilled effort could send it.

 
          
One
thing was certain; it looked new, looked recently and knowledgeably made.
Nothing about it suggested a hundred centuries of age. If he showed it to
Spayte or Vickery, it would hardly convince them.

 
          
Again
he made it up in his bed, and went out again.

 
          
Mrs.
Fothergill met him in the lower hall. She wore a dress the color of daffodils.
“So you’re back from
London
after so short a trip; Mr. Hawes said you were going there. On
business, I daresay.”

 
          
“I
went to talk to a couple of my friends there,” said Thunstone, “and I told them
some things about Claines that interested them. They said they might come here
for a visit, and I recommended your house to them.”

 
          
“Thank
you so much. Any friends of yours would be entirely welcome here.” She smiled
again. “By the way, Mr. Thunstone, I thought I’d invite you to take dinner with
me after church service tomorrow.”

 
          
“You’re
very kind, but I’m invited to Chimney Pots at
noon
,” said Thunstone, rather surprised that one
small fact about him was unknown throughout Claines.

 
          
“Oh,
ah,” she said. “If you’ll be with Mr. Ensley at
noon
, might we make it Sunday night supper here,
then?”

 
          
“Thank
you, yes; I’ll be with you at supper.”

 
          
“Just
some simple thing, it will be. Pd planned a ham and veal pie; would that suit
you?”

 
          
“I’ll
look forward to it,” he said. “Sam Weller liked ham and veal pie, as I
remember.”

 
          
“Who?
Oh, Sam Weller. In that Pickwick book, isn’t he? Yes.
Then I’ll expect you, Mr. Thunstone.”

 
          
He
bowed and she simpered. He crossed the street again and walked as far as the
post office. Dymock stood in front and greeted him with: “Back from
London
, I see, Mr. Thunstone.”

 
          
“News
of my comings and goings does seem to get around,” said Thunstone.

 
          
“In
a place no larger than Claines, everyone knows all about everyone else, and
imagines the rest. And you, sir, an American stranger going here and there, are
more or less the topic of the day.
London
, eh?
Great place, that. I hope to be there some
day.”

           
“With Scotland Yard,” ventured
Thunstone.

           
“Yes, sir, if I’m so fortunate and
they decide to want me. By the way, sir, have you seen Connie Bailey about?”

 
          
“No,
not since I got back from
London
. Perhaps she’s somewhere about Mrs. Fothergill’s.”

 
          
“Not
there,” said Dymock. “I called around at the back door there not long ago, and
she wasn’t in.”

 
          
“Might
she be somewhere in the open, perhaps gathering the herbs she uses in her cures
and charms?” Thunstone suggested.

 
          
“If
so, I hope she didn’t go up on Sweepside,” said Dymock.

 
          
“I
doubt if she would, considering that Gram Ensley warned her away pretty
sharply,” said Thunstone.

 
          
“I
wasn’t thinking of Mr. Ensley in particular. I say, see here, Mr. Thunstone,”
and Dymock swung around to face him. “I think I can flatter myself that you and
I have become friends of a sort. I can trust you with what some would call
fantastic—ridiculous.”

 
          
“The
fantastic isn’t necessarily ridiculous,” Thunstone said.

 
          
“All
right, it’s this. We’re at a special time of year in Claines, when they shape
Old Thunder up, and at midnight 6n the fourth day of the month—that’s your
Fourth of July, tomorrow, Sunday midnight—a bunch of men turns the Dream Rock
over. The thing can be uncanny for any man of imagination, but this year, this
particular year, the time seems more of a time than it should. A little much,
if you take my meaning.”

 
          
“I
confess I don't quite,” said Thunstone.

 
          
“Just
more than the usual sense of tenseness,” said Dymock. “Sir, in your place I'd
be watchful and careful.”

 
          
“Thanks,”
said Thunstone. “I will.”

 
          
He
walked along to Ludlam's store and inside. He searched at counters until he found
a display of hanks and balls of cord. Looking these over, he found one, of lean
but strong plastic, with the label 100
feet.
There was another of the same kind. He took the two to a man behind the
counter.