The House that Stood Still Page 4

  The realization that he was already thinking in terms of a courtroom galvanized him.

  “Mr. Tannahill,” he said earnestly, “we’ve got to get to the bottom of this affair as quickly as possible. I have an awful suspicion that somebody is trying to pin a murder rap on you. The murder of the caretaker. That’s putting it bluntly, and whether it turns out to be true or not we’ve got to be prepared for it Several times in your story you referred to a memory of having been buried alive. I’m not sure you noticed that you did so; it came in rather incidentally. Just what did you mean?”

  There was silence.

  “Mr. Tannahill, I honestly don’t think you should keep anything back right now.”

  Silence.

  Stephens yielded. “Perhaps,” he said quietly, “you would prefer to wait until Mr. Peeley arrives and we can talk over with him everything that has happened.”

  This time Tannahill spoke. His tone was far away, as if his mind had retreated into a great distance.

  “It was a dream,” he said. ‘I dreamed I was buried alive. I told you I was subject to nightmares.”

  His voice changed. “And now, Mr. Stephens—” More briskly— “I think we had better conclude our interview. I have several plans in mind, and I will outline them to you tomorrow if you will come up to the Grand House to see me. Perhaps by then you will have succeeded in contacting Peeley. Tell him to come down here at once.”

  He stood up slowly, and leaned on his cane. “I think, Mr. Stephens,” he said, “we had better leave here separately. It wouldn’t do if Mr. Howland discovered that we had come—” he hesitated, then finished quietly— “that the Tannahill heir and his lawyer had come into a graveyard to check on the date of a man’s funeral.”

  Stephens said, “There are several bad aspects to it. I hope you have a license to carry a gun, sir. That would—”

  “I don’t carry a gun.”

  “But—”

  There was a chuckle in the darkness, and then the shadowy cane came up and jabbed Stephens just above his belt.

  “How does it feel?” said Tannahill.

  Stephens said, “Oh!”

  “I may call you tomorrow, but perhaps not till after Christmas,” Tannahill went on, “and we’ll arrange a meeting. Now, is there anything else?”

  “Yes.”

  Stephens hesitated. He had a question so vital to the whole issue that he felt he might be rushing things to ask it now. And yet, either now or later, it must be answered. He said slowly:

  “The papers mentioned that your wound had seriously interfered with your memory. And your story gave that an even greater importance. Are you willing to tell me the extent of your amnesia?”

  The reply came after the barest pause. “I remember nothing of my life before I woke up in the hospital. I can talk, I can think, I can reason, but my memory for anything before I woke up last spring is virtually a blank. I didn’t even know my own name until I heard it while I was partially unconscious.” He laughed curtly. “I assure you it has made things difficult. And now, Mr. Stephens—”

  He paused, then continued earnestly, “I hope you realize that I have trusted you with information which I have told no other living soul. I did it because I accept your good faith for the moment at least, and because I need other people to help me work out this situation.”

  Stephens said, “You can count on me in every way.”

  “You’ll tell no one, unless I give permission?”

  “No one.”

  Stephens returned to his car and sat in it for several minutes, considering his next move. He was tired, but he was also anxious about his job. There were just too many fantastic questions without answers. Why was someone hinting that a nephew and uncle were the same man? And why did everyone—including himself—seriously consider this possibility instead of laughing at it? The fact that no one had ever seen the nephew until the uncle was dead was not enough. What was the meaning of the masks—masks so perfectly made that he was willing to accept that they could be worn without being detected? For a minute, Stephens had a complete feeling of unreality, of being involved in a madman’s nightmare. He shrugged it off.

  The one clue that had emerged sharply from his conversation with Tannahill was the reference to Mistra Lanett.

  It seemed to tie in the gang.

  Stephens started the motor and drove towards the Waldorf Arms. He had no definite plan, no idea of what he would do when he got there. But he left stubbornly convinced that it must be a center from which the group was operating, or the name wouldn’t have come up so often on the books of the Mexican Import Company.

  He parked his car near the building, but did not get out immediately. In the darkness, the unusual domed architecture of the superstructure was only vaguely apparent. Lower down, it was quite an ordinary building, even a little old-fashioned, in its square, brick appearance.

  Stephens was about to climb out of the car, when he saw a small man walking rapidly toward the entrance. Unmistakable small man with unmistakable nose—Tezlacodanal, who had drawn a knife on him the night before. Tense with excitement, Stephens climbed to the pavement.

  He had unquestionably found a hot trail.

  V

  From the shadows beside his car, Stephens watched the little man turn into the bright entranceway, and go inside. Swiftly, Stephens followed. He arrived at the door breathless, and took a look through the glass.

  Hastily, he drew back, then edged forward again till he could just see the interior. The Indian was standing at a magazine stand. His back was only partially toward Stephens, and he was reading a thin newspaper which, at that near distance, Stephens saw was titled The Almirante Herald. He saw, also, that what interested the other was the article about the arrival of Tannahill.

  With a shrug, Tezlacodanal tucked the paper under his arm, and started across the spacious lobby in the general direction of the elevator. He nodded to the elevator man, but walked past the elevator and along a brightly gleaming hallway. He paused at a doorway about halfway down, took out a key, fumbled for a moment with the lock, and disappeared. He did not reappear.

  Stephens forced his way through a thin hedge and moved slowly along the side of the building. He paused beside a window from which a vague light gleamed through closed venetian blinds.

  The window was open, and the blinds moved gently in a quiet breeze that blew slantwise against them. That was the only sound. Nor was there a movement of a shadow against the light to indicate that anyone was inside.

  After a determined half hour of waiting for the light to go out, Stephens began to wonder if he had estimated his distance accurately. Was this the apartment that Tezlacodanal had entered?

  He made his way rearward, pausing at each window. The blinds were partly open and so he was able to verify that the rooms within were all part of the same suite as the first.

  Stephens drew back into the shadow of an overhanging shrub, and once more waited. Time passed slowly, and it grew steadily cooler. The moon came up over the trees to his left, a lemon-colored slice of light that crept higher and higher in the sky. He began to feel the eeriness of his vigil. As a lawyer, he was earning his money the hard way. Only the light behind the blind remained unchanged, a dim brightness, defying his purpose. He grew restless; then he grew angry at Tezlacodanal for not going to bed; then angry at himself for believing that the continuance of the glow meant that the man was necessarily still awake. It was that thought that brought him to action.

  He approached the open window and pressing aside the blind, peered into the room. He saw a divan, a reddish rug, a chair and an open door. It was through this door that the light streamed. It came from a floor lamp standing beside a desk. There were bookshelves visible just beyond the desk and the lamp and several clay figures.

  Stephens moved cautiously to the other side of the window. He pushed that end of the blind aside carefully and peered in. Shadow. More chairs, and only reflected light. The open door was not visible. There was still
no sign of a human being, nor a sound of life.

  Caution was strong upon him now, but he did not hesitate. It took only a moment to push the window high enough for his body. He balanced himself on the sill, took hold of the blind and, lifting it, slid under it onto the chesterfield beneath. He lowered the blind into place, listened for several seconds, then stepped noiselessly onto the rug. Five quick strides, and he was across the room and standing beside the door.

  There was no one in the second room, but a partly closed door led from it. And it was as he stood beside it, listening, that he heard from inside the regular breathing of a man asleep.

  Stephens did not move immediately. What did he want? Information. But what kind of information did he expect to obtain?

  He glanced indecisively around the room. The den was not so large as it had appeared from the window, and all the books were in the one case. Stephens peered at them briefly, and he was about to turn away, intent on his main problem, when his gaze lighted on a title: Tanequila the bold. It was a thin volume, and it required scarcely any time at all to slip it into his pocket Intent now, he skimmed the other titles. They were mostly in Spanish, a language of which he had little knowledge. But there were three others of those in English that interested him. Carefully holding the books, he retreated into the living room and to the window.

  Safe outside, he grew more and more astonished, not that he had retreated, but that he had ever gone in.

  Arrived home, he found that his telephone had been repaired, and promptly contacted the phone company. But his call to Peeley had not yet been put through.

  That done, determined to wait up for a reply, he put on his pajamas and dressing gown and sat down on the living room couch with the books he had stolen. They were all about the Grand House or its family, and he couldn’t recall ever having seen any of them before, not even in the Almirante public library’s special Tannahill section.

  Stephens picked up first the History of the Grand House, and glanced at the flyleaf.

  Limited First Edition

  Fifty-three Copies Published

  Privately Distributed

  January Eighteen Seventy

  He turned the page to the beginning of Chapter One. The first paragraph read:

  For a thousand years or more, a remarkable house has stood on a high hill overlooking the old sea. There is no satisfactory record of who built it.

  Stephens flicked his gaze down the rest of the page, then he leafed slowly through the next few pages, reading an occasional paragraph and absorbing the gist of the rest The manner of writing was very positive. It reminded him of historical novels he had read. The author’s imagination had pumped up details of what was undoubtedly one of the least known eras in the history of the world: Old Mexico and southern California from 900 A.D. to the coming of the Spaniards.

  The intricacy of detail rang false to Stephens. He had enough familiarity with Mayan and Toltec history to recognize that the known details depended upon excavation and deciphering of a crude system of recording facts. Here were the names of priests, of private soldiers, of a man named Uxulax who had been transfixed with arrows for a crime not named. Nearly a thousand years before, this wretch emerged from oblivion, was executed and buried on “the east side of the hill in a grove of pine trees later chopped down by the Toltecs”—all in two sentences and for no apparent purpose.

  The Toltecs, when they came, “in long lines of soldiery, sweating wearily along the coast in the heat of early fall,” at first intended to destroy the Grand House. But, like the other expeditions that came laboriously up to this remote frontier from time to time, they lacked the equipment to dismantle a marble structure.

  The priest-soldiers made an additional discovery. The comforts left by the previous tenants “who had retreated hastily to the safety of a Pueblo village farther to the north,” were superior to anything they had ever had. They salved their consciences by erecting a wooden temple on an artificial mound (so that it towered above the house) and then, Kukulcan apparently satisfied, they used the house as a residence for themselves and their women. The favorite lady of a long line of priest-commanders was—”

  The name was blacked out. Stephens stared at the elision, puzzled. There seemed no reason for it, but the ink was extremely dark. Not a trace of the lettering underneath was visible.

  Stephens shrugged, and read on. The account now that he was further into it had a fascination of its own. The quantity of the detail built up a picture and a mood. The crisis of the Toltec occupation came when year after year passed without the arrival of a relief expedition. The priest in charge had finally been more than ten years in his office, and, since he was a stupid individual, it was decided by— (another blackout) that he must be assassinated before he discovered “the secret of the Grand House.”

  Stephens’ gaze flicked to the top of the next page. And stopped. The first sentence there had no relation to what had gone before. He scowled at the page, and then he saw what was wrong. Pages 11 and 12, containing the details of the assassination, and presumably containing also an account of the mysterious “secret” of the Grand House, had been torn out.

  He put down the history finally, and picked up the Tannahill biography. The title, Tanequila the Bold, had its own exciting attraction. The beginning chapters started too soon in the man’s life for Stephens. They dealt extensively with Capitán Tanequila’s early life, his birth in northern Spain, his voyages down the coast of Africa, his questionable methods of becoming wealthy and his final voyage to America which ended in the wreck of his flagship, the Almirante, on the California shore during a severe storm in the year 1643, more than three hundred years before.

  Stephens pondered sleepily on the time, striving to remember the life and death dates of the Tanequila buried in the cemetery. That Tanequila had died in 1770, if he recalled correctly. His impression that it was the first of the line was wrong, evidently, by more than a hundred years.

  He turned over the page. The new chapter that began at that point was titled After the Storm. So far, Stephens had only glanced idly at the book. That chapter he read from beginning to end.

  AFTER THE STORM

  By noon, we were all ashore, all the survivors, that is. Of Espanta, de Courgil, Margineau and Kerati there was no sign, and we had no doubt that they were drowned. I regretted Margineau. He was a sardonic scoundrel, but the other three were merely sullen dock scum, who will rot in hell for the trouble they have caused me. To satisfy the crew I will probably have to say a litany for their souls, but for the moment I set up a cross in the sand, mumbled a few words, and then set them to work.

  There was actually no time to waste. Alonzo had seen several natives hovering about and we could not be sure that they were the usual stupid, friendly breed. It was imperative that we rescue our weapons from the sinking Almirante.

  By two o’clock, Cahunja observed that the storm was abating, and so I sent him with twelve men in two boats to begin the work of unloading and dismantling. The wind and the waves abated hour by hour, and by evening a calm sea was running. By evening, too, we had two one-pounders and a quantity of muskets ashore, so I ceased to worry about the natives, and, in fact, the following morning, I sent out a patrol to make overtures to any that would expose themselves, for the purpose of obtaining food.

  It was a wild coast on which we found ourselves. In every direction were low hills, heavy with verdure, for it was winter and there had been much rain. There were several inland marshes near our camp. The thick growth in them swarmed with wild birds, whose squawks and cries never ended all the day. Our food parties shot three deer and located a number of edible roots, which, together with food from the ship, rendered us safe from immediate starvation. At no time after the first day were we in danger of going hungry. In my whole life I had never seen land that was so abundantly rich and at the same time was favored with such an equable climate. This opinion, formed during those first weeks, time has borne out. Here is one of the most satisfactory
year-around gardenlands of earth.

  On the fifth day, the sentries brought an Indian into the camp, a small, ugly man, who spoke excellent Spanish. He was obviously a scoundrel, and my impulse was to listen to what he had to say, and then drown him. But he proved too invaluable as an interpreter, and besides he brought good news. He informed us of what we had already suspected, that there was a Pueblo village farther north, and the great chief who lived in a house on the high hill above the village wanted us to be his guests, although he unfortunately would have to be away for some time, and therefore could not welcome us in person. This information was eagerly received by the women, who had been having a wretched time of it in the open, but I confess I was suspicious. Why would any man smart enough to become a chieftain invite a group of Spaniards to take over his home, when he must know that it meant his tenancy was at end on the day we arrived?

  Not that it mattered. With our guns we could defeat any treachery. Besides, it finally seemed obvious that the so-called great chief was withdrawing from his home until he could evaluate the menace we presented. I determined to kill him the moment he decided that he could safely risk a return. Such cleverness in a native promised to be dangerous to the new owner, myself, if it was allowed to be successful.

  The occupation proved even simpler than anticipated. We had eight cannon, and by locating these behind stone embankments around the crest of the hill, we dominated the countryside. In a week we were in such firm possession that only heavily-armed Europeans could have threatened our position. There was no resistance. The retainers of the mysteriously absent “great chief” accepted our arrival in the most normal fashion, and not one of them seemed to think it strange that I should occupy the former owner’s bedroom.