The train puffed into the station. The Inspector gently assisted Elizabeth aboard.
As the train was departing, Elizabeth held up her battered sewing case. “Poor Clarence’s socks,” she explained tearfully. “I couldn’t very well leave them behind, could I?”
Keeper of the Crypt
by Clark Howard
It is a matter of record that an habitual corpse-gazer, should he indulge overlong, may very well experience hallucinations of reincarnation.
Finch moved like a specter across the cemetery, his footfalls cushioned in silence by the thick turf of the grounds. His thin body, stooped and grey, blended almost invisibly into the light morning fog that still hovered eerily around the tombstones. At the edge of clearing where the crypt stood, Finch stopped and peered through the haze. A clean-cut young man, dressed in a tan chauffeur’s uniform, was working on the crypt door. Finch stood quietly for a moment, admiring the young man’s shiny leather boots, the knifelike creases of his coat sleeves, the easy, confident movements of his gloved hands as he slid the barrel of a small oil can from one hinge to another, lubricating metal that had not moved in nine years.
Lucky you are, Gerald Stander, Finch thought; a good clean job with uniform provided; a fine car to drive and polish; handsome face to get you that fleshly little wife of yours; even a furnished house on the grounds of the manor to keep her in. Aye, lucky you are, all right; luckier than me, down here in the fog and nobody but the dead for company. Living in that ugly caretaker’s cottage, talking to myself of late.
But never mind, he thought. He looked beyond the crypt to the nearest tombstone at the edge of the clearing. That was where his tunnel ended. It wouldn’t be long now.
The young man, Gerald Stander, turned toward him and Finch immediately started walking on to the clearing, lest Gerald suspect he had been watching and wondering.
“Good morning, Finch,” young Stander greeted him.
“I thought I’d find you here,” Finch said without preliminary. He walked up to the crypt and looked at the heavy metal hinges with their dry rust thirstily drinking in the fresh oil. “So his lordship, the Earl of Sheel, is finally dead, eh?”
“Aye,” said Stander, “he is that.”
“Well, bloody few’ll miss the arrogant old devil,” Finch observed. “How did it happen?”
“The epilepsy got him. Late in the night it was Strangled on his own tongue.”
“Vile tongue it was, too,” Finch muttered. He walked with Stander back to the steel-grey limousine that belonged to Murfee Manor. Some of the fog had blown away now and Finch could look up and see the great house high atop a hill. “When’ll they be bringing him down?” he asked.
“This afternoon, I expect. There are no heirs left, not even distant, you know. The family solicitor’s coming from London with the key to the crypt. He’ll keep the services fairly simple, I expect.”
“Close the crypt back up tonight, will they?” Finch asked casually.
“Got to,” said the young chauffeur. “They that ain’t embalmed have to be sealed in an airtight crypt within twenty-four hours.” Stander looked curiously at Finch. “You ought to know that, old man, being the gravetender. It’s the law, ain’t it?”
“Yes, yes, so it is,” said Finch. “I’d forgot.” He turned and looked back at the crypt, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully. “How many of the family’s in there now, would you know?”
“There’s five, I’m told. The eldest son, who killed himself; the Earl’s brother, who was a bit odd and never married; Lady Murfee, who drank herself to death; and the daughter and a younger son who died together in a speeding auto crash.”
“So the old man’ll make it an even half dozen,” Finch observed.
“Aye, and that’ll close the crypt for good.”
“Yes,” Finch said softly, “yes, it will.” He took a deep breath of the chill morning air. “Well, I’d best be getting back to my cottage. I’ve things to tend to.”
Gerald Stander watched the stooped gravetender walk out of the clearing. Dull, stupid fool, the young chauffeur thought. Just because he lives down here all alone, he has to skulk around like a ghost. I’d give a lot to be in his place, I would. Get out of these stiff clothes, away from that harping wife of mine. Have a nice little house out here away from it all, place to bring that little barmaid from the pub. Ah well, it won’t be long now. Soon as they get his lordship stretched out in that crypt. I’ll rid myself of this place once and for all, I will.
The solicitor, a tall, stuffy man with an uneven moustache, had an obvious distaste for cemeteries in general and cemetery crypts in particular. With his briefcase in one hand an ornate jewel box under one arm, he stood by the open steel door that afternoon and watched, dutifully if impatiently, as six hired pallbearers carried into the crypt the coffin containing Tyron Murfee, last Earl of Sheel.
With the solicitor stood the Earl’s doctor, a Lloyd’s of London representative, and the manager of the Evanshire branch of the Dover Bank, in which the Murfee estate was entrusted. Gathered behind that esteemed group, at a respectable distance, were the assorted servants, groundskeepers, stable-hands, and other domestics and manor help, numbering sixteen, and including in their forefront, Gerald Stander, appropriately dressed in his dark-grey chauffeur’s uniform.
Off to one side, alone, stood Finch.
When the coffin had been set upon its bier and the hired pallbearers discharged, the solicitor summonded into the crypt all those remaining. The group filed inside and gathered round the bier in solemn obedience. All eyes, naturally curious, lingered for a moment on the five airtight caskets resting in a precise row on other biers along one wall. A common shudder tickled the collective spines of the watchers at being, so close to so much death.
The solicitor took his place next to the coffin. He cleared his throat, loudly but rather reluctantly, for he was certain the air in the musty little structure was surely unfit.
“A preamble to the Earl of Sheel’s last will and testament,” the solicitor announced, “directs that the document be opened and read here, in the final resting place of his beloved deceased family.”
“Beloved, indeed,” one of the servants whispered knowingly. “He drove ’em all to this very crypt.”
“Representatives of the Earl’s bank and insurance carrier are present,” the solicitor continued, “as is the doctor who last attended the Earl. Mr. Finch represents the cemetery on which the crypt stands and will certify to the sealing of the door when this ceremony concludes.”
The solicitor hesitated for a moment, unconsciously wetting his lips; then, realizing what he was doing, hastily withdrew his tongue lest the tainted air reach it.
“There are two more parts to the preamble,” he said distastefully. Opening the ornate jewel box, which he had placed on the bier edge, he showed its contents to all present. “As has been customary in the Earl’s family for many years, the personal jewellery of departed members is laid to rest with the deceased. In the Earl’s case, he being the last of the line, this will consist of all the remaining rings, signets, coat of arms, and other standards of the House of Sheel. They are all contained here in this box, as has been certified by the gentleman from Lloyd’s. I ask you now to witness their deposit in the coffin.”
The solicitor extracted from his pocket a pair of suede gloves which he pulled on to his hands. He grasped the edge of the coffin lid and exerted pressure to raise it. The lid gave an inch, then stuck. The solicitor grunted, straining vainly at the jammed cover.