Manly Wade Wellman - John Thunstone 01 (4 page)

 
          
He
might be the only foreigner just now in Claines, but he was not truly a
foreigner, because he saw and felt things so vividly.

 
          
He
looked across
Trail Street
at a very small cottage, hardly larger than a tool shed. In the yard
stood a sign, POLICE STATION, and by the doorstep stood Dymock, the policeman
he had met earlier, of whom Gates had spoken sympathetically. His helmet was
off, and he held a china mug in his hand and sipped from it. On impulse,
Thunstone strolled across and into the yard.

 
          
“Yes,
sir?” said Dymock. “Anything wrong, sir?”

           
“Not a thing/' Thunstone assured
him. “You sent me to Mr. Gates, and he spoke about you in a way that made me
feel I'd like to be better acquainted."

 
          
“He
spoke of me?" Dymock asked above his mug.

 
          
“
Yes,
and quite cordially. He said that you and he were
somewhat alike. Both university men, and both called to fine careers—he to
uphold Christian faith, you to uphold the law. And that both of you had come
here to Claines, in hopes of advancement in your careers."

 
          
“That's
kind of him," said Dymock. A smile twitched his mustache. “Yes, I always
wanted to do police work, and after I graduated at
Reading
I took criminology courses at Hendon. I
hope to get into the CID, all that. But they start you out at the bottom, and
let you find your own way up from there."

 
          
“The
bottom," said Thunstone after him.
“In the police
department at Claines."

 
          
Dymock
smiled again. “I'm the whole police department in Claines, the one constable on
duty here. I daresay that makes me the
chief,
and the
whole force as well."

 
          
It
was a new notion to Thunstone. “You make it sound as if you're always on
duty."

 
          
“Well,
yes, I suppose I am.
When I'm needed, wherever I'm needed.
If more is needed than just
myself
, Gerrinsford will
send over help—even a sergeant, even an inspector. But that almost never
happens. I watch the little children get on and off the school bus to Gerrinsford.
At night I check along
Trail Street
to make sure that shopkeepers have their doors locked. It’s been some
months since any true emergency rose here."

 
          
“Tell
me one thing," said Thunstone. “Is there anything unusual in Claines? I
mean,
a hint of something supernatural?"

 
          
Dymock
took a sip from the mug. “You've been talking to Mr. Gates, the curate, haven’t
you, sir? Well, if you look for it, you may find it, then. Some people here do
have interesting beliefs. You're staying at Mrs. Fothergill’s, as I think.
Well, Mrs. Fothergill has a young girl to help her out there, and—"

 
          
He
stopped a moment. Then: “But perhaps I shouldn’t speak of that."

           
“I wish you would,” said Thunstone
earnestly. “The supernatural happens to be a chief study of mine.”

 
          
“Well,
someone else is bound to tell you; it’s a known thing. That girl's name is
Constance Bailey, and she calls herself a witch.”

 
          
“But
witchcraft's no longer a crime in
England
,” Thunstone pointed out.

 
          
“No
more it is. There are witch groups all over, very public about themselves. Some
of them call themselves churches. Constance Bailey makes a point of being a
white witch, using sorcery for good.”

 
          
“And
is there anything else out of the ordinary?”

 
          
“Only
talk here and there. Some do think there are shadowy shapes on the move after
dark, just at this time of the year. I haven't taken any such talk seriously.”

 
          
“Naturally not.”
Thunstone shook hands with Dymock. “It's
been interesting to hear about this. 1
think
I'll go
and hunt up some dinner.”

 
          
“And
it’s been interesting to hear what you say, too,” said Dymock.

 
          
Thunstone
went back across
Trail Street
. It was well past
five o'clock
. He had been in Claines for less than three
hours, and he felt a sense of mystery there. Mystery was an active preoccupation
with Thunstone.

 
          
Swinging
his cane, he strolled back along the line of shops. At the fish-and-chips
stand, someone came out with a package rolled in newspaper and someone else
went in, probably to buy another package. He stopped at the post office to buy
stamps, then went to the Moonraven and entered.

 
          
Customers
lined the bar and several sat at tables. Thunstone went to the bar for a pint
of bitter, carried it to an empty table. He brought out his notebook and
studied it. Pen in hand, he underscored words and phrases in what he had
written, and added the name of Constance Bailey he had heard from Dymock.

 
          
“Yes, sir?”
It was a chubby, brown-haired girl in a red and
yellow apron, smiling beside his table. “Could I bring you something?”

           
“If it's something to eat,” said
Thunstone, smiling back. “What’s for dinner this evening?”

 
          
“Well,
the ordinary is a cut off the joint—leg of lamb today. But if you’d prefer, we
can do you a chump chop with two veg and a boiled potato.”

 
          
“Thanks,
I’ll have the chop.”

 
          
“Right, sir.”

 
          
She
scurried away on clicking high heels, fetched back a knife and fork and a
folded paper napkin, then clicked away again. Thunstone returned to writing in
his notebook. Now and then he glanced around the room. Customers here and there
looked back at him, the American stranger in town. One, at least, rather
glowered. That was black- bearded Porrask, the garageman, as big as Thunstone,
heavily built in his crumpled blue shirt. From that first moment along
Trail Street
, Porrask had seemed not to like Thunstone,
and Thunstone wondered why.

 
          
The
plump girl waited on customers at other tables. People sitting there greeted
her genially. Thunstone heard them call her Rosie. She called them by their
first names, too. At last she came to Thunstone again, bearing a plate with
meat and vegetables and another with bread and butter. He thanked her and paid
for the food. She smiled when he gave her a florin for herself. He began to eat
the savory chop, a thick one cut off the loin. He felt hungry enough to relish
everything, even some rather watery peas. Rosie came yet again to ask if he would
have a dessert. He declined with thanks and sipped at what was left of his pint
of bitter.

           
Someone else came and stopped beside
his table. Not the waitress; this time a young woman, not much more than a
girl, with a round face and a pointed chin. Her hair, as softly black as soot,
hung in banners to either shoulder of the green dress she wore.

 
          
She
sat down opposite him before he could rise. “Mr. Thunstone, I want to talk to
you/’ she said, in a murmuring whisper. “Would you give me a drink?”

 
          
“Of
course,” he said. “What will you have?”

 
          
“Might
I have a pink gin?”

 
          
He
went to the bar and ordered the pink gin and brought it back to the table, then
sat in his own chair. She took a sip. The glass trembled in her hand.

 
          
“My
name’s Constance Bailey,” she said in her whispering way. “I help at Mrs.
Fothergill’s. I was there and heard you talking to her, and I watched you go
out.”

 
          
“I
knew that somebody watched; I could feel that,” Thunstone said. “And I’ve heard
your name. I’ve heard that you call yourself a white witch.”

 
          
She
widened her eyes when he said that. They were eyes of flecked green. Her lips
parted as if to speak, then closed, then opened again.

 
          
“Oh,”
she said at last.

 
          
“A
white witch is supposed to use her spells for good,” said Thunstone, and took
another sip of bitter.

 
          
Across
the floor, Porrask watched from his table and scowled. His hairy hand clamped
his beer mug.

 
          
“I
do try to use my spells for good,” said Constance Bailey. “I’ve cured poor sick
children; I’ve charmed a pest away from gardens. I’ve told fortunes when
somebody wanted a fortune told, and didn’t ask for pay. But you make me realize
I’m talked about in Claines. And you’re talked about in Claines, too, Mr.
Thunstone.”

 
          
“Well,”
he said, “I suppose a stranger is a rarity.”

 
          
“You’re
the sort of stranger who’s noticed by people. They wonder about someone like
you. Mrs. Fothergill has told some of the neighbors about you, said you’re
curious about traditions here.”

           
“Which is the truth,” said
Thunstone. “Will you help me about traditions?”

 
          
“Should
I?” she asked, her glass at her lips again. “Mr. Thunstone, there are shadows
in Claines, and some people realize the shadows are here. Claines is only a
small place, but it's so old that nobody knows how it began.”

 
          
“Mr.
Gates said something like that, Mr. Gates, the curate. And so did Constable
Dymock.”

 
          
“You've
been questioning people, finding out things. That can cause talk, can't it
then? And the questions you ask—perhaps you're sensitive?
Psychic?”

 
          
“I
wouldn't want to claim that,” said Thunstone. “That's a special sense that has
to be developed. I do observe things and try to puzzle them out.”

 
          
“Well,”
she said, “I'm psychic, right enough. I was psychic when I was a little girl,
when I was getting my basic training, if you care to call it that, in my white
witchcraft. I'm able to see and feel that Claines is haunted.”

 
          
“Haunted?”
Thunstone repeated.

 
          
“Please,
sir, not so loud. You'd not want to include these other people in what we're
saying. Yes, haunted. I look out nights, here and there. And this time of year,
there's shadows
close at hand. Sometimes I see them in
the dark.”

 
          
She
shuddered.

 
          
“Ghosts
of the dead, you think?” he asked.

 
          
“And
how long dead, it's not for me to say. Maybe all the way back to the beginnings
here, whenever those were.
Thousands of years ago.”

 
          
“I'd
like to be with you after dark and see if I could sense them, too,” he said.

 
          
“No,”
she said, and took a swallow of pink gin. “Be careful, sir.
Especially
now, this time of the moon.”

 
          
“I’m
always careful if I can manage,” and again he smiled to reassure her. “Not
always clever, but always careful.
But what about this time
of the moon?
I've heard about this time of year, but what about the
moon?”

           
"It’s like this,” said
Constance Bailey, drawing out her words. “The moon's on the wax now. It'll be
full a week from now. And as it grows in the sky, the shadows are easier to
see. Maybe the moon brings them. And then, there are folks here and there in
Claines who come on to act strange like when the moon's full.”

 
          
“There
are folks all over the world who act strange at that time,” said Thunstone.

 
          
She
had finished her drink. “I've been trying to warn you,” she said, “and I don't
seem to be doing a good job of it.”

 
          
“I've
been interested in everything you say, and I thank you.” She rose, and he rose
with her. She walked away to the outer door. Porrask scowled after her, then
turned back to scowl at Thunstone. When Constance Bailey had gone out, Porrask
rose heavily, with a hunch of his big shoulders. He clumped toward Thunstone,
carrying his mug. Reaching the table, he stared down. His lips looked loose and
ill-humored in his beard.

 
          
“Your
name's Thunstone, they tell me,” he growled.

 
          
“Yes,
it is.”

 
          
“Mind
if I sit down here a moment?”

 
          
“Please
do.”

 
          
Porrask
took the chair where Constance Bailey had sat. He put down his mug and crossed
his arms on the table. It was a gesture that big men know, to make themselves
look bigger.

 
          
“My
name's Porrask,” he said. “Albert Porrask.”

 
          
“I
saw your name on your garage,” nodded Thunstone.

 
          
“You
mean to be in these parts for long?”

 
          
“For
several days, at least,” Thunstone replied. “I'm studying Claines, in a way.”

 
          
“Ahr,”
grunted Porrask. He stared into his mug. “I want another of these. Can I bring
you one?”

 
          
“No,
I thank you,” said Thunstone, looking into his own pint pot. “I have enough
here.”

 
          
For
just then, he had no wish for any favors from this big, resentful garageman.

 
          
Porrask
got up and stamped to the bar. All his movements were of a bear like heaviness.
He brought back his filled mug, sat down again, and drank noisily. “I'm a plain
man, Mr. Thunstone,” he said, “and
I’ll
just
ask you a plain question. Wot is it youTe up to in Claines?” “A plain
question,” agreed Thunstone, “and Pll give you a plain answer. What I'm doing
here comes under the head of my business.” Porrask blinked, but refused to be
snubbed. “People do say you ask about Old Thunder and the Dream Rock. And
you've been at the curate and Constable Dymock about them.”

 
          
“News
about me seems to travel fast in these parts,” said Thunstone. “Maybe I ought
to feel flattered.”

 
          
“Ow,”
said Porrask, “ain't much as goes on here but wot I hear word of it. And then,
you're smarming up to Connie Bailey.”

 
          
“I
talked to her about Claines,” said Thunstone evenly. “She came to my table to
talk, just as you did.”

 
          
“Talk
about wot?”

 
          
“That
also comes under the head of my business.”

 
          
Porrask
blinked again. “Look 'ere, sir, you ain't being friendly like, but I'll speak
as a friend. Connie Bailey's a witch girl.”

 
          
“Is
she, now?”

 
          
“Likely
you don’t believe in witchcraft.”

 
          
“Yes,
I do.”

 
          
“Well
then, Connie Bailey's a witch. And they used to hang witches, they used. Or
burnt them or drowned them.”

 
          
“Those
old laws have been repealed,” Thunstone reminded. “Witches can practice their
arts today, if they don't break some other law. Anyway, I hear that Constance
Bailey is a white witch, does no harm.”

 
          
Porrask
grimaced so fiercely that his beard crawled on his face. He drank a great gulp
of beer.

 
          
“Just
let me tell you a home truth, Mr. Thunstone. If you've come to pry into things
about Claines, you'd best go have some talk with Mr. Gram Ensley.”

 
          
“I've
heard the name,” said Thunstone. “I believe he owns the big house called
Chimney Pots.”

 
          
“He
owns not only that 'ouse but near all the 'ouses in Claines,” said Porrask.
“Likewise land hereabouts, a good bit of that, all directions. He's rich, is
Mr. Ensley, spite of the 'eavy taxes, 'eavy expenses. Why, he's even got
servants. You've got to respect such a man as that."

           
Thunstone wondered to himself why
such a man must be respected. “And what else about Mr. Ensley, beyond the money
and property he has?"

 
          
“Ow,"
said Porrask, “he's got brains, too.
Knows things as goes on
'ere.
Likely by now, he’s 'ad word of you. My advice is, go 'ave some
talk with him."