The Book of the Dead (19 page)

“He was wrong, anyway. Pike had an early supper and went to bed; or I suppose he went to bed. Boucher and I had a later meal, and I went to bed. Boucher went back to the gate-house. He was to call me early; he did.

“At six o'clock I was knocked awake; message brought across the square by a boy. Here it is.”

Schenck took a hand off the wheel and fished in a pocket. He brought out an envelope, scrawled in pencil:

We are leaving on the half past six bus Boston via Springfield. Get to bus stop in Springfield before we do if you can
.

“It seems,” continued Schenck, “that Boucher hadn't a second to call me. It all happened in no time—Pike must have had his seat engaged on this bus, which starts from up state at God knows what hour in the morning, and gets to Springfield at 8:30 A.M. You can engage a seat on it through the Inn. Pike pulled a fast one that time; we never knew a thing about it—he never went outdoors from the time he came with his bag to the time—before six—when he walked out of the front door, lugging the bag as per usual. We knew about the other bus, of course, the one Miss Daker took for New York yesterday afternoon; I saw her get on it myself at four P.M. We never thought of this terrible thing that stops everywhere and ends up in Boston.

“Boucher of course left the Inn just as he was—luckily he had his hat, you can't separate Boucher from that snap-brim of his—and streaked after Pike. Bus came in, Pike's suitcase was stowed, and Pike told them Springfield; Boucher had just time to grab himself a seat—right in the rear—and scribble that note to me, and pay a boy to deliver it. And the way he did get a seat was to hold a kid in his lap. The mother was French Canadian, and they had a great talk all the way, Pike was not paying any more attention to them than he paid to the driver. I'll say this much for that Sunrise Special, it's quite easygoing and human. The Canadian woman and Boucher fixed it all up between them, Boucher giving the kid a quarter for itself and paying the extra fare.”

“Boucher ought to have a medal.”

“How about me? We now return to me, checking out from the Long Valley Inn, lots of time, I'd have no trouble passing the bus, all O.K. I wasted no time, though; threw our things into the bags, and walked out to the garage with the night clerk very kindly carrying one suitcase for me. We got to the garage, and found it locked up tight and not a soul there.

“The night man, old war emergency substituting for the one who's now in the Coast Guard, had gone home at his usual hour without waiting for the day man; locked up and took his key with him. The day man's wife was sick; we telephoned, but by that time he'd started from back country somewhere. The end of it was that I got my car and got going at 7:15. I didn't overtake the bus; I never even caught up with it.”

“Naturally you didn't.”

“But I found a note from Boucher waiting for me at the bus stop in Springfield; it said that he and Pike had changed buses, and that I was to come after them to a place called the Crab Apple Inn; the man at the bus stop gave Pike directions about a short cut from a filling station, but Boucher didn't know the route they'd follow; I had to get that myself.

“I got it and followed. Saw the short cut—a path through the woods that comes out on the golf course behind the Inn. I drove around by road; circling the woods north and then west. I stopped short of the Inn behind a screen of elms, but Boucher saw me—can see all the roads—from his lookout on the golf course; he came down and told me his awful story.”

They were now driving along a pleasant highway, green fields on their left and right, wooded country ahead. In front of them loomed a blot on the scene which Gamadge recognized as a filling station. Schenck continued, his eyes on the road:

“Pike didn't see Boucher get off the bus; Boucher took care of that; but the trouble was that Pike had to be allowed to walk off, dragging his suitcase, into the woods by that footpath, and Boucher didn't dare even start after him for five minutes. Never saw or heard him once. When the trees began to thin, Boucher waited again; and when he came stealthily out on the golf course, there wasn't a soul in the landscape. Crab Apple Inn down in a hollow in front, caddie house near it on the right, big garage on the left, and the road I afterwards came by passing the Inn and getting lost in the distance.

“Pike had had ten minutes to vanish in, and he's gone; disparu. We think he had a car waiting by appointment, and simply got in and went off—anywhere you like to guess. Boston? No. He'd have arranged to go on by that first bus.

“Wooded roads, you know, car wouldn't be seen half a minute after it left. And Boucher had no car; and he hardly dared come down off the golf course. Because Pike just possibly
might
have checked in at that Crab Apple Inn, miracles do happen. He just might have joined the kitchen staff, or gone to the garage, or holed up in the caddie house—which is a one- or two-room bungalow, with a lean-to shed for the caddies. But why hide in a caddie house, when he wasn't hiding at all, and had every chance, even as early as that—nine o'clock—of meeting up with golfers or caddies or a caddie master?

“Well, of course Boucher had to make inquiries down at the Inn. He went carefully, along the edge of the trees, and tried first at the back door. Cook said nobody had come that way with or without a suitcase, no new man at all, and she wasn't lying. From there he cut across to the garage; not a soul in it, all open. Then he walked up to the front door of the Inn and very reluctantly entered the lounge. He wasn't feeling presentable, and no wonder. He's a neat little guy, but he was getting a trifle grubby.”

Gamadge interrupted: “Has either of you had any breakfast?”

“Boucher had a cup of coffee while he was waiting for the second bus to get under way. I haven't.”

“Words can't express how I feel about all this.”

“It's losing Pike we care about now. A very nice woman runs the place; she was at her desk. She said nobody had checked in, no newcomer at all.
She
wasn't lying. No, she told him, his friend hadn't come.

“He went out again, and he thought it over; would he or wouldn't he try the caddie house? If Pike was there—and why should he be, where would he go
from
there?—what would happen if Boucher walked in on him? Boucher doesn't give a hang about himself—he's too old a hand for that, and to tell you the truth I don't think he thinks he has much to live for now—but it wouldn't do you much good if he was shot. However, he finally did edge up to the place. It's only a few yards from the side door of the Inn; convenient for the golfers. Door was shut; he peeked in. Nobody, not a sound. He went in; nothing. Two rooms and a washroom. Empty.

“He went back up to the first tee and sat down behind the knoll and leaned out to watch the road; and the Inn.

“That's where he was when I drove up; as I said. He came down and told me the story, and then went back up the hill while I drove in for you. There isn't a house within a mile of the Inn, and the place is as quiet as a tomb. No cars, no golfers. Here's where we turn.”

They left the filling station on their right, and drove along the edge of the woods. Pastures rolled away to the south and east. Gamadge leaned out to look at the footpath along which Pike had lately walked; along which Boucher had not dared to follow him too closely.

“What Boucher and I want to know,” continued Schenck, “is why Pike ever came to the place at all; unless to be picked up and go on somewhere else. And you'll notice he left a trail.”

“Yes,” said Gamadge with a smile, “Pike left a trail.”

“The Crab Apple is marooned; you'd think a bus conductor would remember somebody asking about the Crab Apple and getting off at that filling station.”

“You would.”

“Pike doesn't seem to care whether he's followed or not.”

“Why should he, if he can vanish?”

“He's miles away by now. Boucher feels pretty sick.”

“I'm sorry he does.”

They drove northward around a curve in the road. Here were elms, screening a fine old house with a fine old sloping lawn. Schenck slowed the car, stopped it; a small figure began to descend a green knoll in the middle distance, and approached them along the dark wall of trees that fringed the nearer side of the property.

Alexis Boucher, limping a little, came up to the car. He was thin and rather pale, with gray hair; he had a small gray moustache, a high Norman nose, and half-closed gray eyes. In his gray town “complet,” his somewhat battered gray felt hat, his dusty black shoes, he could not have looked much less conspicuous if he had been not Pike's shadow but his own. When he spoke, gently and in a low voice, when his half-closed eyes rested on the person spoken to, that person knew very well without being told that M. Boucher had the authority of a long training and a vast experience.

He now laid a hand on the ledge of the car window. “Mr. Gamadge,” he said, not in apology but in regret, “this is too bad.”

“Boucher, for God's sake get in here and rest yourself.”

Boucher got into the back of the car, sat down, and stretched out one leg. “Now that we have the car again—this splendid car, how well it followed our Pike to Baylies!—I don't feel so helpless. At least if he is still here, he won't get away.”

“What do you think? Did he get away?”

“I don't know. He may very well have got off with friends while I was waiting till the coast was clear. He had ten minutes. But I cannot answer for what he is capable of. Mr. Gamadge, this Pike is formidable.”

G
AMADGE,
his elbow on the back of the seat, had turned to face Boucher squarely. “Formidable, is he?”

“Even Mr. Schenck admits it now.”

Schenck said: “I admitted it as soon as I heard about that round trip of his—from Stonehill to Unionboro via Baylies. There's more to him—” Schenck's mouth turned down at the corners—“than meets the eye.”

“Now, literally!” agreed Boucher. “But I always thought so. The trouble was that I never saw him close, and—of course—I usually saw the back of his head. But I got one clear view of him at the funeral, one.

“And another trouble was and is that I don't know the American types. In France I should have known whether he really was a commission agent in a small way; petit bourgeois, or mechanic rising out of his milieu by the ambition to be earning a salary instead of wages. But here I could not tell. You in this country—so many of you, some most successful—came from a farm. So many like to—what is it?—
go back to the farm
. In vacation. To relax, take off their collars, help to pitch the hay. They can speak like the men who pitch the hay for a living.”

“And often do,” said Gamadge gravely.

“Then what was Pike? A country type, as Mr. Crenshaw described him, or an equal of Crenshaw's socially—
in the world
—masquerading?”

“I dare say our values often do seem a little mixed to a European.”

“No, you are yourselves. Your values are your own. But whatever the truth about Pike might be, I knew that he had an inner force. The force of the rustic philosopher, and innocent? Or the balance and the confidence of a man playing a part, playing it superbly? I thought that he was dangerous—because to me there was something wrong about him. Not spiritually, you know; physically. I can't explain this feeling. I couldn't study him. But there was something louche. Can you translate that for me?”

“Equivocal? It won't do—not strong enough.”

“It will do. Equivocal. And that's all I can say.”

“Well, that's quite enough. Now, since we can't even guess where he got to if he was met and carted off, let's go and register at the Crab Apple. You and Schenck must be fed and have a good rest, and I won't say no to a nap myself, later.”

Boucher heaved a deep sigh and sank back against the upholstery. Schenck drove up to the Inn, straight past the front to the side door; a porch, constructed for carriages in the past, offered conveniences for unloading baggage—the door of the car just cleared it.

“If they're short-handed, like every other place we've been at in the last two days,” explained Schenck, “we may have to carry our own bags.”

No porter appeared. They got out, unloaded the bags, and went into a short side hall. Gamadge led the way through an arch into the big lounge on the right.

A stout lady with cropped gray hair, steel spectacles on her nose, came from behind her table-desk to greet them. She wore the roughest and toughest of Harris tweeds, her manner was easy, and her voice amiable but gruff.

“Rooms?” she asked, with a fleeting glance at Boucher.

“For a night or two.”

“I'm the manager and proprietor. My name's Crabbe. Miss Crabbe.”

“Mine's Henry Gamadge, and these are my friends Mr. Boucher and Mr. Schenck. We're all from New York,” said Gamadge, “arrived by the Unionboro Express.”

“At Springfield? It doesn't stop.” Miss Crabbe looked benignly interested.

“We got off, but unfortunately our clubs didn't.”

“What a shame. Anything can happen now.”

“And it doesn't look well to bat an eye.”

“No, golf clubs don't loom so very important nowadays.”

“Except to owners on holiday. The thing is, Miss Crabbe, we've heard great things of the Crab Apple; we still hope very much that they can fix us up at the caddie house.”

Miss Crabbe was sympathetic. “You know how things are,” she said. “There's plenty of room for you, but you won't find the greens what they ought to be, and we only have a few caddies, and they're on call. Nobody gets here. Our caddie master is in the Air Force, and old McBride, who was once our pro, seldom shows up. But he doesn't live far away, and he used to make excellent clubs. He ought to be able to fix you up with spares, if you can get around with less than usual. I only carry five myself.”