The Castle on Deadman's Island (2 page)

Whoever it was, Graham did not want to get mixed up with them. He smiled to himself. What a shock the man in the gray fedora must have had when he saw someone else looking through that book, reading the note meant only for him.

But that was the end of it, as far as Graham was concerned. Nothing more than an amusing incident to tell his friend Neil, when they walked to school together in the morning.

It never occurred to Graham that the subject of the book – castles – could have anything to do with the note he'd found. Far-out speculation was for day-dreamers – like Neil. Graham's mind dealt only in hard facts.

On the way home, Graham caught up with three girls from his high school, walking arm in arm, pleated knee-length skirts swinging, saddle shoes stepping in unison. He hesitated. He wanted to pass them, but he was awkward with girls – he couldn't seem to stop babbling in their presence. Still, he couldn't dawdle along at their pace either, or they'd think he was following them. One of them glanced back and said something to the other two, which made them giggle. Graham decided to cross the road.

Traffic was light – with the war and gas rationing, traffic in Kingsport was always light – and Graham was preoccupied with the piece he'd read in
Popular Mechanics
on the new technological marvel, television. He stepped blithely onto the road.

One of the girls screamed. Graham looked up and saw the grille of a car bearing down on him. He jumped back, felt a fender brush his hip and something whack him on the elbow. Then the car sped away in a flash of green. The driver was hunched over
the wheel, his gray fedora pushed back, as the car disappeared around the corner, tires squealing.

Graham stood stunned. The road was now empty, and he wondered for a moment if he'd imagined the whole thing. The throb in his elbow told him he hadn't.

The girls clustered around him. “Are you all right, Graham?” one asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Something hit me, though – the door handle or the mirror – right on the funny bone. My arm's all numb and tingly” He rubbed his elbow. “It's not the bone that causes the tingling sensation actually, it's the ulnar nerve. That's the nerve that runs down the arm and controls the third and fourth fingers of …” He stopped, seeing the girls glance at each other as if confirming that he really was weird.

“The car didn't even slow down,” another girl said. “It swerved right at you. Good thing Jennie screamed.”

“Thank you for alerting me,” Graham said. “I wasn't paying attention. I was cogitating.” Seeing them frown, he worried that they thought he'd used a dirty word.

The girls continued up the street, shaking their heads, while Graham, carefully looking both ways, crossed over and took the shortcut home through MacDonald Park.

It had been a strange day, he reflected. When he saw Neil in the morning, he'd tell him about finding
the note in the library book and about the man trying to hide behind a newspaper while he spied on him. But he'd downplay his near miss with the car. Neil was too much of a worrier already.

Neil waited until after school to make one last try to convince Graham that he should take his close call with the car more seriously.

“So what do you want me to do?” Graham said. “Run whenever I see a man in a gray fedora?”

“Look, the guy saw you reading the note meant for his eyes only,” said Neil. “I figure he's worried that you've twigged to their scheme, whatever it is, and he can't take any chances.”

“I suppose you could be right,” Graham conceded.

“He's worried enough to try to eliminate you, or at
least scare you off. So whatever it is they're up to, it must be something shady.”

Graham stopped to pick up a pebble, sparkling in the sunshine. “Sedimentary limestone,” he said, examining it. “With embedded quartz crystals. Paleozoic era.” He tucked the pebble in his pocket. “Anyway don't worry, I can easily find out what he's up to. Then I'll know whether to take it seriously or not.”

“How can you find out?”

“Simple. I'll eavesdrop on the meeting they arranged in that note.
‘Meet me at the usual place – coal pile end,'
the note said. You know where that is, don't you?”

Neil's brow knitted. There were coal piles all over town – coal warmed Kingsport's homes and fueled its factories. “Ward's Coal, down by the bridge?” he guessed. He liked the slogan painted on the fence. He read it every time they went by in his father's old Ford:
WARD KEEPS COAL, AND COAL KEEPS WARD
.

“Ward's Coal?” Graham shook his head. “Unlikely. They'd be too conspicuous there. Think of a place where there are benches for people to sit and talk.”

“I get it now,” Neil said. “The waterfront!” It was his favorite place to go and watch the waves roll in. At the far end of the waterfront walkway was a dock where boats unloaded coal for the hospital power plant.

“Exactly,” Graham said. “The perfect place for a rendezvous. They'd blend in and nobody would give them a second glance. Except yours truly. I shall just happen to be strolling by at eight o'clock tonight.”

“You can't,” Neil said.

Graham looked up sharply. “What do you mean? You've been urging me to take this seriously, and when I do …”

“I mean they know what you look like. One of them does, anyway – the guy who tried to run you down.”

“I'll go in disguise then,” Graham said. “Glue some bristles from my father's shaving brush on my lip, borrow his fedora, and –”

“Graham,” Neil interrupted, “that's not good enough. Chances are the guy will still recognize you. Then he'll know he hasn't scared you off, and he'll really be after you. No, I'll go instead.”

“You?”

“Sure. He won't suspect me. He's never seen me before.”

Graham sneezed and dug out his handkerchief again. “Maybe you're right. No chance he'll mistake you for me, that's for sure.” He looked up at his friend. “You're a good foot taller than shortie here and a lot thinner. But are you sure you want to get involved in this mess?”

“Of course I do – you've helped me often enough.” Neil was thinking of their last detective venture together and of the countless times Graham had come to the rescue when he was stumped by some math problem. “I'll just saunter by casual-like, and get a look at them. I may not be able to hear much of what they're saying, but at least we'll know who you have to watch out for. It'll be a cinch.”

Actually, I'll be scared stiff, Neil thought, but I won't let Graham know that.

“It's starting to rain,” Neil said. People strolling along the waterfront were opening umbrellas and picking up their pace. “Maybe they won't come.”

“It's only sprinkling,” Graham said. “They'll come.” A few minutes later, he nudged Neil and pointed. “Must be them now, right on schedule.”

Up ahead, two figures could be seen settling down on the last bench at the far end of the walkway. “Wait here,” Neil said, and he set out alone.

As he neared the bench, Neil saw that one of the men wore the gray fedora and ugly green sports coat Graham had described. But the other, to Neil's surprise, was dressed in a dark blue suit. Graham had expected the second person might be a seedy criminal type, depending on how you interpreted the note. But
this guy looked like a prosperous businessman, with his conservative clothes and furled umbrella.

The two men on the bench were arguing and gesticulating, but stopped as Neil approached. He glanced sideways at them as he went by. When he reached the end of the pavement, Neil turned and walked back, his hands in his pockets, whistling, which may have seemed odd behavior when it was getting dark and threatening rain. The two men looked up at him as he passed.

Neil hurried back to where Graham was waiting. “I heard some of what they said. They were arguing and the one said, ‘But we can't go that far!' Then the one with the gray fedora said, ‘Why the hell can't we? Serve her right.' They clammed up when I went by, but I got a good look at them and I know I've seen them before.”

“You have? Where?”

“Not sure. I remember their pictures from somewhere. The newspaper, maybe.” Neil stared at the darkening sky, trying to concentrate. “Something to do with a will …”

“Not Major Tripe's will?”

“Yeah, that's it!”

Graham slapped his forehead. “The major's will! Then it must be Grimsby and Snyder over there.”

Neil wondered who they were and why Graham suddenly looked so concerned.

“You know, Major Tripe's castle was left to three people to share,” Graham said. “It was in the paper.”

“I guess I saw it, but I wasn't that interested. What's it got to do with some guy trying to run you down?” Neil stopped suddenly.
“Uh-oh,
look out. Here they come.”

Busy talking, neither he nor Graham had noticed the two men get up from their bench and come towards them. It was too late to flee.

“Don't let them see you,” Neil hissed. But there was no place to hide. Graham turned and pretended to be watching the waves.

One of the men stopped and stared at Graham's back. He said something to the other and nodded in Graham's direction. For a moment both men looked hard at him, then they walked on, their faces set.

“So now will you tell me what this is all about?” Neil said. They were in his room, just back from their encounter on the waterfront. “Why are those guys out to get you?”

“In a nutshell,” Graham said, “it's about money. And a man with a strange sense of humor who left his castle in the Thousand Islands to three people to share – three people who hate each other. One of the three is Jake Grimsby –”

“The guy with the gray fedora?”

“Right. The other is Carson Snyder –”

“The one who looks like a prosperous businessman?”

“Right again.”

“But if they hate each other, why were they together?”

“That's what I'm worried about. Judging from what was in that note, they could be joining forces to get rid of the third person they're supposed to share the castle with.”

“And who is that?”

“My aunt, Henrietta Stone. Aunt Etta, I call her.”

“Your aunt! Then you'd better warn her.”

Graham stood looking out the window at the rain slanting against the streetlight. “I would if I could.”

“What d'you mean?”

“I mean Aunt Etta isn't here to warn. She told my mother that Grimsby and Snyder were both busy in town, so this was her chance to spend two weeks at the castle on her own. She's there now.”

“Then phone her.”

“There's no phone line to the island. Apparently the major didn't intend to be bothered by phone calls from people wanting to drop in.”

Isolated in a castle on an island, Neil could picture all sorts of grim things happening to Graham's aunt. But then he was always told he had an overactive imagination. “Where exactly is this castle?”

“On Deadman's Island.”

“Deadman's! Isn't that the one that's supposed to be cursed?”

“Oh, that,” Graham said. “It's just some superstition the locals have. The major didn't pay any attention to it when he bought the place, though I must admit he died there of a mysterious illness.”

“I still think you should warn your aunt,” Neil said. “Go there, if you can't phone. I'll come with you if you want.”

“Easier said than done. We'd need a boat. Besides, Aunt Etta's a very independent person and she likes her privacy.”

“Tell your folks, then. Maybe your dad would drive us downriver and help us find a boat.”

Graham shook his head. “He'd never take us seriously – he'd say we were just playing Dick Tracy again. And it would only worry my mother. You know what my folks are like – the less said, the better.”

“Then we'd better hope your aunt comes back to town soon.”

“That's just it. She won't,” Graham said. “She called my mother before she took off for the castle and said she's going on a long car trip afterwards.”

“This gets worse and worse. A car trip where?”

“She wouldn't say. She said she was sick of all this
will business – her name in the paper and people giving her funny looks, laughing behind her back. When she leaves the castle, she's just going to get in her old Packard and drive south – she's been saving her gas coupons. She isn't sure when she'll come back, maybe not for a long time … until it all blows over.”

“So if you don't get to her now, who knows when you'll see her again,” Neil said.

“That's about the size of it, I'm afraid. Aunt Etta's always been able to take care of herself. I just hope she leaves before Grimsby and Snyder get there.”

At Graham's house, his mother was concerned about Henrietta too. Not about Jake Grimsby or Carson Snyder harming her sister – that thought never occurred to her. After all, they were both well-known, though not well-liked, businessmen. Her concern was that the two would somehow manage to cheat Henrietta out of her rightful share.

As head of the Historical Society, Henrietta clashed regularly with Grimsby and Snyder over the preservation of Kingsport's old limestone buildings. Snyder, a real-estate agent known for sharp dealings, wanted to sell them to the highest bidder. Grimsby, a slum landlord, wanted to buy them cheap to add to his string of rundown rooming houses.

And now these three were to share a castle in the Thousand Islands! The major even put in a clause stating that the castle was not to be sold, and if it was, the entire proceeds would revert to the animal shelter. Nor could an owner's share be passed on to his heirs. On an owner's death, his or her shares would revert to the other surviving owners. The major, who got along with everybody, apparently wanted his three friends to see the error of their ways and learn to tolerate each other.