He shook his head. “It is all very confusing. For instance, this courtroom appearance of Mrs Carmody’s sister – I seem to remember having heard something else about it, but it must have struck me as unimportant at the time, for I cannot rightly recollect the details. It’s not a pleasant situation for a harmless old man to handle.”
Harmless! Kent’s eyes narrowed involuntarily. That was what people kept saying about – the ghost. First, the driver, Tom; then, according to Tom’s story, the girl Phyllis, and now the old man himself.
Harmless, harmless, harmless. Old man, he thought tensely, what about the fact that you drove a woman to murder you? What is your purpose? What—
Kent loosened the tight grip his fingers had taken on the arms of the chair. What was the matter with him, letting a thing like this get on his nerves?
He looked up. The sky was as blue as ever; the summer day peaceful, perfect. All was well with the world of reality.
There was silence, a deep, peaceful quiet during which Kent studied that long, aged face from half-closed eyes. The old man’s skin was of a normal grayish texture with many, very many crisscross lines. He had a lean, slightly hawklike nose, and a thin, rather fine mouth.
Handsome, old man; only – that explained nothing, and—
He saw that the old man was rising; he stood for a moment very straight, carefully adjusting his hat on his head; then:
“I must be on my way. It is important, in view of our strained relations, that I do not keep Mrs Carmody waiting for lunch. I shall be seeing you again, Mr Kent.”
Kent stood up, a little, fascinated thought in his mind. He had intended to walk over to the farm that had belonged to his parents and introduce himself to the tenants. But that could wait.
Why not go with the – ghost – to the deserted Wainwright place, and –
What?
He considered the question blankly; then his lips tightened. After all, this mysterious business was on his mind. To let it go would be merely to have a distraction at the back of his head, sufficient perhaps to interfere with anything he might attempt. Besides, there was no rush about the business. He was here for a rest and change as much as anything.
He stood there, still not absolutely decided, chilled by a dark miasma of mind stuff that welled up inside him:
Wasn’t it perhaps dangerous to accompany a ghost to a hide-out in an isolated, old house?
He pressed the clammy fear out of his system because – it wasn’t Mrs Carmody who had been killed. She was out of her head, yes; but the danger was definitely mental, not physical, and—
His mind grew hard, cool. No sudden panic, no totality of horrendous threats or eerie menaces would actually knock his off its base. Therefore—
Kent parted his lips to call after the old man, who was gingerly moving down the wooden walk to the wooden sidewalk. Before he could speak, a deep voice beside him said:
“I noticed you were talking to the ghost, Mr Kent.”
Kent turned and faced a great, gross fat man whom he had previously noticed sitting in a little office behind the hotel desk. Three massive chins quivered as the man said importantly:
“My name is Jenkins, sir, proprietor of the Agan Hotel.”
His pale, deep-set eyes peered at Kent. “Tom was telling me that you met our greatest local character yesterday. A very strange, uncanny case. Very uncanny.”
The old man was farther up the street now, Kent saw, an incredibly lean, sedately moving figure, who vanished abruptly behind a clump of trees. Kent stared after him, his mind still half on the idea of following as soon as he could reasonably break away from this man.
He took another look at the proprietor; and the man said heavily:
“I understand from Tom that he didn’t have time to finish the story of what happened at the Wainwright farm. Perhaps I could complete the uncanny tale for you.”
It struck Kent that the word “uncanny” must be a favorite with this dark mountain of flesh.
It struck him, too, that he would have to postpone his visit to the ghost farm, or risk offending his host.
Kent frowned and yielded to circumstances. It wasn’t actually necessary to trail the old man today. And it might be handy to have all the facts first, before he attempt to solve the mystery. He seated himself after watching the fat man wheeze into a chair. He said:
“Is there any local theory that would explain the” – he hesitated – “uncanny appearance of the ghost. You do insist that he is a ghost, in spite of his substantial appearance.”
“Definitely a ghost!” Jenkins grunted weightily. “We buried him, didn’t we? And unburied him again a week later to see if he was still there; and he was, dead and cold as stone. Oh, yes, definitely a ghost. What other explanation could there be?”
“I’m not,” said Kent carefully, “not exactly – a believer – in ghosts.”
The fat man waved the objection aside with a flabby hand. “None of us were, sir, none of us. But facts are facts.”
Kent sat silent; then: “A ghost that tells the future. What kind of future? Is it all as vague as that statement of his to Mrs Carmody about her sister coming out of the courthouse?”
Sagging flesh shook as Mr Jenkins cleared his throat. “Mostly local events of little importance, but which would interest an old man who lived here all his life.”
“Has he said anything about the war?”
“He talks as if it’s over, and therefore acts as if the least said the better.” Mr Jenkins laughed a great husky, tolerant laugh. “His point about the war is amazement that prices continue to hold up. It confuses him. And it’s no use keeping after him, because talking tires him easily, and he gets a persecuted look. He did say something about American armies landing in northern France, but” – he shrugged – “we all know that’s going to happen, anyway.”
Kent nodded. “This Mrs. Carmody – she arrived when?”
“In 1933, nearly nine years ago.”
“And Mr Wainwright has been dead five years?”
The fat man settled himself deeper into his chair. “I shall be glad,” he said pompously, “to tell you the rest of the story in an orderly fashion. I shall omit the first few months after her arrival, as they contained very little of importance—”
The woman came exultantly out of the Wholesale Marketing Co. She felt a renewal of the glow that had suffused her when she first discovered this firm in Kempster two months before.
Four chickens and three dozen eggs – four dollars cash.
Cash!
The glow inside her dimmed. She frowned darkly. It was no use fooling herself; now that the harvesting season was only a week away, this makeshift method of obtaining money out of the farm couldn’t go on— Her mind flashed to the bank book she had discovered in the house, with its tremendous information that the Wainwrights had eleven thousand seven hundred thirty-four dollars and fifty-one cents in the Kempster Bank.
An incredible fortune, so close yet so far away—
She stood very still in front of the bank finally, briefly paralyzed by a thought dark as night. If she went in – in minutes she’d know the worst.
This time it wouldn’t be an old, old man and a young girl she’d be facing. It would be—
The banker was a dapper little fellow with horn-rimmed glasses, behind which sparkled a large pair of gray eyes.
“Ah, yes, Mrs Carmody!” The man rubbed his fingers together. “So it finally occurred to you to come and see me.”
He chuckled. “Well, well, we can fix everything; don’t worry. I think between us we can manage to look after the Wainwright farm to the satisfaction of the community and the court, eh?