The Avenger 29 - The Nightwitch Devil (4 page)

There was no rain that night, only a fine mist.

MacMurdie eased open his bedroom window, stepped out on the ledge, and dropped to the grassy lane ten feet below.

Most of the town seemed to be asleep.

The bells in the old church steeple sounded, indicating it was eleven-thirty.

Mac made his way down the lane, away from the inn and out to the street. Anne Barley had drawn him a map to show him how to get to Deacon’s Meadow, how to get there the least traveled way. The girl thought the coven would be meeting again tonight, and Mac didn’t want to run into any of them while they were en route.

The mist swirled around him, dampening his face, chilling him. The scent of the sea was strong all around. Mac stopped all at once and pressed into a dark doorway.

A thickset fisherman went stumbling by, singing to himself. Not a sea chantey, something from the “Hit Parade.” He didn’t notice MacMurdie.

A moment later the Scot resumed his journey. He encountered no one else in the silent town. Soon he was away from the streets and the low buildings, out in the countryside.

The thickening mist rubbed at every thing, blurring the fields and the twisted trees, muffling the cries of night birds.

Mac felt as though he had the whole of the twisting hillside road to himself; indeed, it was as though he had the whole world to himself. There was nothing but misty silence.

Then he heard something. Very faint, off to his right.

At first he thought it might be an animal, whimpering.

“Nae, ’tis a woman,” he decided, listening more carefully. “Aye, a woman in trouble, from the sound of her.”

It was a sobbing, a dry, even sobbing, a hopeless sound.

There were trees all along this side of the roadway, maples, oaks. The trees grew close together, branches interlocked. Narrowing his eyes, the Scot tried to see where the crying woman was.

The sobbing continued.

MacMurdie always carried a small flashlight with him. He knew it wouldn’t do any good in this mist—all he’d get would be a reflection of the beam. Carefully, he stepped off the road and made his way through the dark trees.

He saw her, huddled on the ground beneath a tree, holding tight to herself. She rocked back and forth as she cried, like a mourner at an old country funeral.

Approaching her, Mac said, “What’s wrong?”

The sobbing stopped. The woman stood up, drew her dark cloak tighter around her. She laughed.

Anne Barley sat up in the armchair, awake again.

The dawn light showed at the windows of her cottage. She brushed her hair back, then compared the time showing on her wristwatch with that of the mantel clock.

“After six-thirty,” she said. She stood up, stretching. She’d dozed, this last time, for almost two hours. “And still no sign of him.”

MacMurdie had been made to promise, no matter how late it was, he’d stop by at her cottage when he returned from Deacon’s Meadow. Anne had wanted to accompany him, but the Scot had vetoed that.

“I should have insisted,” she said, pacing the small parlor. “Those meetings never last more than two hours, usually.”

She went to a window and looked out at the beginning day. There was no rain, no mist. The sun would show today. “He may have gotten lost,” she reflected.

It hardly seemed likely. A man like MacMurdie, a man who’d been with Justice, Inc., since its founding, wouldn’t get lost.

“They’ve done something to him.” She stayed, very still, beside the window and watched the lane.

When the church bells rang, she realized it was seven. She’d been standing there almost a half-hour. “He’s not coming,” she said, biting at her knuckle.

It was possible, of course, MacMurdie simply hadn’t kept his promise. He might have gone straight to the inn when he returned to town last night. He might be there now.

Anne hurried into the hall to her phone. “Oh, yes, good morning, Hulda.”

“You’re up bright and early, Annie,” replied the phone operator.

“So are you.” Mrs. Dolittle seemed to be on the job no matter when you picked up the phone. “Can you connect me with the inn, please?”

“No sooner said than done, Annie.”

After five rings a weary voice answered, “Good morning, Colonial Inn.”

“I’d like Mr. MacMurdie’s room, please.”

“A mite early in the day to be disturbing him, don’t you think?”

“It’s very important.”

“Well, hang on and I’ll buzz him.”

The phone in MacMurdie’s room rang a half-dozen times, and a half-dozen more.

“That’s enough to wake the dead,” said the clerk. “I’d say he ain’t in.”

“All right, thank you.”

“Any messages for—”

Anne hung up. “I’ll wait a bit longer. Yes, and then I’ll . . . what?” She wasn’t sure what she should do next.

Nightwitch had a police chief, and an assistant police chief. Anne didn’t think they could be of much help, but she might have to go to them if she couldn’t think of anything else to do.

She waited fifteen minutes more, then threw on a tan coat and left the cottage.

The coupé pulled up beside her, its old brakes causing it to swing slightly to the left. “Anne, what are you doing out here?”

The girl, who was on foot, halted at the side of the winding country road. “Good morning, Gil.”

The young attorney set the brake, switched off the motor, and climbed out of the car. “I’ve got an early appointment with old man Millman,” he said. “Where are you going?”

“It doesn’t concern you.”

“Of course it does,” he said. “Does it have something to do with this so-called gathering of witches?”

“You’ll be late. Mr. Millman will be annoyed.”

“He’s always annoyed, no matter what time I get there. Are you going to Deacon’s Meadow?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Why?”

“I think the so-called witches may have done something to a friend of mine.”

“What do you—”

“Never mind, Gil. You think it’s all a fantasy, some kind of hallucination of mine. So go on about your business.”

“You’re my business,” he said. “You’re so preoccupied with witches and spooks, Anne, you seem to have forgotten that we’re engaged.”

“Informally.”

“Okay, informally, until I find out for sure whether I’m going to be drafted or not,” said Gil. “But engaged.”

She looked up at him. “Will you, please, help me?”

After a second of hesitation, he answered, “Yes, Anne.”

“Come up there to the meadow with me. I want to see if I can find any trace of Mr. MacMurdie.”

“Who exactly is MacMurdie?” He opened the passenger door for her.

As they drove up into the hills she told Gil about MacMurdie and what he’d set out to do.

“You mean you think this bunch has done something to Dr. Ruyle, too?”

“Yes.”

“I really don’t know what to think,” said the lawyer. “It seemed to me that playing at witchcraft was harmless, not anything to—”

“Wait now, Gil,” said the girl. “You told me you did know about this coven even before I mentioned it to you.”

Keeping his eyes on the road, Gil replied, “I’ve lived here most of my life, Anne. Lately, sure, I’ve heard a few rumors, but nothing to indicate—”

“Yet you gave me the impression you thought I was an idiot.”

“I didn’t feel it’d do you any good to tangle with these people. Believe me, I thought they were only playing games with some old-time superstitions.”

“A gathering of witches isn’t the same thing as a quilting bee,” said the girl. “Do you know who the members are?”

“I could probably guess at least a few.”

“Do you know who the Devil is?”

“No.”

“You can’t guess?”

“No.”

Anne slowly sighed out her breath. “Honestly, Gil, what did you think they were up to? I mean they’ve been holding Black Masses, Lord knows what else.”

“Old people, simple people, they need something to divert them,” he said. “I really think this is—”

“Honestly, Gil. You can’t be that naive. These people, and they certainly aren’t all little old ladies, are vicious.”

“All right, I’m a simple rustic.” He pulled the car over to the edge of a field. “We’ll have to walk from here.”

Anne jumped from the coupé before he got around to help her. “But you’re not stupid, Gil. That’s why I can’t understand how—”

“Maybe I have other things on my mind.” He followed her up through the slanting field. “Such as trying to plan for the future—our future, I mean.”

They found only silence when they reached the cave at Deacon’s Meadow.

Gil went in first, clicking on the flashlight he’d brought from his car. “No sign of anything here,” he said after a moment.

“They have their altar right . . .” Anne lowered her hand.

There was no altar there now.

“Whatever was here is gone now.” Gil shone the light on the spot she’d pointed at.

“But there are scratches there, in the earth.” Anne moved closer to the circle of yellow light. “You can see where it stood. And there’s something . . .” Kneeling, she moved her hand across a black patch on the cave floor. “What is it?”

Her fingers were stained a darkish red. “Blood,” she said.

“Spring is nigh,” observed Cole, putting his knee up against the dashboard.

Frowning out at the pale yellow midday, Smitty said, “Not nigh enough.”

“Nightwitch three miles,” read Cole from a signpost. “Via that road there.”

Smitty swung their car onto the side road. “What do you think we’re going to find in this burg?”

“I have a fervent hope that it’s a damsel in distress. To me an investigation, no matter how stimulating a problem it presents, is nothing unless there is a charming young girl somewhere close to its center.”

“What I’m getting at,” said the giant, “is do you think they got witches?”

“Witches, warlocks, and Mr. Lucifer Satan in person, according to Fergus.”

The big man glanced round at the bleak fields, the trees that hadn’t yet begun to bud. “Two or three hundred years ago, I guess, they all believed in that black magic stuff around these parts.”

“At least a dozen of them—a baker’s dozen, that is—apparently believe in it right now today.”

“I don’t think there can really be witches,” said Smitty. “Any magic that’s going to be worked nowadays, it’s going to be done by scientists. You take, for example, the possibilities of atomic energy. Why, I bet—”

“Colonial Inn coming up on our right.”

Smitty guided the car into a parking place on the small town square. “What about the spy angle on this thing?” he said as he turned off the ignition.

“I’d say there has to be one.”

“Yeah, what makes you so sure?”

Easing out of the car, Cole said, “Richard seems to have a hunch there’s a connection between MacMurdie’s hobgoblins and the increasing sabotage rate in this part of New England. I have a great deal of faith in his hunches.”

Smitty scratched his head. “Maybe so.”

Cole was studying the statue of a Civil War general that stood on a high pedestal at the square’s center. Several seagulls were resting on the general’s shoulders and hat. “There are a good many things you can use a quiet harbor town for,” he said. “And now let’s join Mac.”

The lobby of the inn was filled with furniture of the last century, bentwood rockers, plump Morris chairs, marble-top tables. The small middle-aged clerk had come out from behind the reception desk to stand with his back to the empty fireplace.

“Yes, gentlemen?” he asked.

“We’d be obliged,” grinned Cole, “if you’d announce our arrival to Mr. MacMurdie.”

From an easy chair in a dim corner of the room came a cough. A thin, sparse-haired man rose up out of the chair. “Would you be friends of Mr. MacMurdie’s?” he asked.

“Friends,” replied Cole, “and colleagues.”

The thin man rubbed at his head, then poked his finger into the left-hand pocket of his gray vest. “Name is Miller Storm,” he told them. “I’m chief of police.”

Frowning, Smitty said, “Where’s Mac?”

Chief Storm said, “Was hoping you could tell me.”

“Isn’t he here?”

“Nope.”

“Went off late last night,” put in the little clerk, getting behind his desk. “Nobody’s seen him since. All sorts of folks been asking after him. Some girl I think was that Miss Barley, and Sam Hollis over to the newspaper. I begin to wonder what was up, so to speak.”