holds a conqueror. Sphinxes draw him. They turn in opposite directions to rend him apart.
GRINDLE, EZRA, industrialist, b. Bright’s Falls, N. Y. Jan. 3, 1878, s. Matthias Z. and Charlotte (Banks). Brewster Academy and Columbia U. grad. 1900 engineering. m. Eileen Ernst 1918, d. 1927. Joined sales staff, Hobbes Chem. and Dye, 1901, head of Chi. office 1905; installed plants Rio de Janeiro, Manila, Melbourne 1908-10; export mgr. 1912. Dollar-a-year man, Washington, D. C. 1917-18. Amer. Utilities, gen. mgr. 1919, v.p. 1921. Founded Grindle Refrigeration 1924, Manitou Casting and Die 1926 (subsidiary), in 1928 merged five companies to form Grindle Sheet Metal and Stamping. Founded Grindle Electric Motor Corp. 1929, pres. and chairman of board. Author: The Challenge of Organized Labor, 1921; Expediting Production: a Scientific Guide, 1928; Psychology in Factory Management (with R. W. Gilchrist) 1934. Clubs: Iroquois, Gotham Athletic, Engineering Club of Westchester County. Hobbies: billiards, fishing.
From The Roll Call-1896, Brewster Academy:
EZRA GRINDLE (“Spunk”) Major: Math. Activities: chess club, math club, manager of baseball 3 years, business manager of The Roll Call 2 years. College: Columbia. Ambition: to own a yacht. Quotation: “By magic numbers and persuasive sound”- Congreve.
When the red-haired kid looked up he saw a man standing by the counter. The clerical collar, the dead-black suit, the panama with a black band, snapped him to life.
“My son, I wonder if you would be so kind as to help me on a little matter?” He slipped a breviary back into his pocket.
“Sure, Father. What can I do for you, Father?”
“My son, I am preparing a sermon on the sin of destroying life before birth. I wonder if you could find me some of the clippings which have appeared in your newspaper, recounting the deaths of unfortunate young women who have been led to take the lives of their unborn infants. Not the most recent accounts, you understand-of these there are so many. I want to see some of the older accounts. Proving that this sin was rampant even in our parents’ time.”
The kid’s forehead was pulled up with the pain of thought. “Gee, Father, I’m afraid I don’t getcha.”
The smooth voice lowered a little. “Abortions, my son. Look under A-B.”
The kid blushed and pounded away importantly. He came back with an old envelope. ABORTION, DEATHS-1900-10.
The man in the clerical collar riffled through them quickly. 1900: MOTHER OF TWO DIES FROM ILLEGAL OPERATION. SOCIETY GIRL… HUSBAND ADMITS… DEATH PACT…
DEATH OF A WORKING GIRL
BY ELIZABETH McCORD
Last night in Morningside Hospital a slender young girl with raven tresses covering her pillow turned her face to the wall when a youth fought his way into the ward where she lay on the brink of death. She would not look upon him, would not speak to him although he begged and implored her forgiveness. And in the end he slunk away, eluding Officer Mulcahy who had been stationed in the hospital to watch for just such an appearance of the man responsible for the girl’s condition and untimely death. He did not escape, however, before a keen-eyed little probationer nurse had noted the initials E.G. on his watch fob.
Somewhere in our great city tonight a coward crouches and trembles, expecting at any moment the heavy hand of the law to descend on his shoulder, his soul seared (let us hope) by the unforgiving gesture of the innocent girl whose life he destroyed by his callous self-interest and criminal insistence.
This girl-tall, brunette and lovely in the first bloom of youth-is but one of many…
The man in black clucked his tongue. “Yes-even in our parents’ time. Just as I thought. The sin of destroying a little life before it has been born or received Holy Baptism.”
He stuffed the clippings back into the envelope and beamed his thanks on the kid with red hair.
In Grand Central the good father picked up a suitcase from the check room. In a dressing cubicle he changed into a linen suit, a white shirt, and a striped blue tie.
Out on Madison Avenue he stopped, grinning, as he turned the pages of a worn breviary. The edges were crinkled from rain; and on the fly leaf was written in faded, Spencerian script, “Fr. Nikola Tosti” and a date. The blond man tossed it into a trash can. In his pocket was a clipping, the work of a sob sister thirty years ago. May 29, 1900.
The morgue office of Morningside Hospital was a room in the basement inhabited by Jerry, the night attendant, a shelf of ancient ledgers, and a scarred wreck of a desk. There were two kitchen chairs for visitors, a radio, an electric fan for hot nights and an electric heater for cold ones. The fan was going now.
A visitor in soiled gray slacks and a sport shirt looked up as Jerry came back into the room.
“I borrowed a couple of shot glasses from the night nurse on West One-the little number with the gams. These glasses got markings on ’em but don’t let that stop us. Fill ’em up. Say, brother, it’s a break we got together over in Julio’s and you had this bottle. I hadn’t had a chance to wet the whistle all evening. I was dying for a few shots.”
His new friend pushed a straw skimmer further back on his head and filled the medicine glasses with applejack.
“Here’s lead in the old pencil, huh?” Jerry killed his drink and held out the glass.
Blondy filled it again and sipped his brandy. “Gets kind of dull, nights, eh?”
“Not so bad. I listen to the platter programs. You get some good records on them programs. And I do lots of crossword puzzles. Say, some nights they don’t give you a minute’s peace around here-stiffs coming down every ten minutes. That’s mostly in the winter and in the very hot spells-old folks. We try not to get ’em in here when they’re ready to put their checks back in the rack but you can’t keep ’em out when a doctor says ‘In she goes.’ Then we got the death entered on our books and the city’s books. It don’t look good. Thanks, don’t care if I do.”
“And you got to keep ’em entered in all these books? That would drive me nuts.” The blond man put his feet on the desk and looked up at the shelf full of ledgers.
“Naa. Only in the current book-here, on the desk. Them books go all the way back to when the hospital started. I don’t know why they keep ’em out here. Only once in a while the Medical Examiner’s office comes nosing around, wanting to look up something away back, and I dust ’em off. This ain’t a bad job at all. Plenty of time on your hands. Say-I better not have any more right now. We got an old battle-ax, the night supervisor. She might come down and give me hell. Claim I was showing up drunk. I never showed up drunk on the job yet. And she never comes down after three o’clock. It ain’t bad.”
Cool blue eyes had picked out a volume marked 1900.
Jerry rattled on. “Say, y’know that actress, Doree Evarts-the one that did the Dutch night before last in the hotel across the way? They couldn’t save her. This evening, ’bout eight o’clock, I got a call to collect one from West Five-that’s private. It was her. I got her in the icebox now. Wanna see her?”
The stranger set down his glass. His face was white but he said, “Sure thing. I ain’t never seen a dead stripper. Boy, oh, boy, but I seen her when she was alive. She used to flash ’em.”
The morgue man said, “Come on. I’ll introduce you.”
In the corridor were icebox doors in three tiers. Jerry went down the line, unlatched one and pulled out a tray. On it lay a form covered by a cheap cotton sheet which he drew back with a flourish.
Doree Evarts had cut her wrists. What lay on the galvanized tray was like a dummy, eyes half open, golden hair damp and matted. The nostrils and mouth were plugged with cotton.
There were the breasts Doree had snapped by their nipples under the amber spotlight, the belly which rotated for the crowd of smoke-packed old men and pimply kids, the long legs which spread in the final bump as she made her exit. Her nail polish was chipped and broken off; a tag with her name on it was tied to one thumb; her wrists were bandaged.
“Good-looking tomato-once.” Jerry pulled up the sheet, slid in the drawer and slammed the door. They went back to the office and the visitor knocked off two quick brandies.
Doree had found the end of the alley. What had she been running from that made her slice at her veins? Nightmare coming closer. What force inside her head, under the taffy-colored hair, pushed her into this?
The dank office swam in the heat of the brandy as Jerry’s voice clattered on. “You get lotsa laughs some nights. One time -last winter it was-we had a real heavy night. I mean a real night. They was conking out like flies, I’m telling you. Lotsa old folks. Every five, ten minutes the phone’d ring: ‘Jerry, come on up, we got another one.’ I’m telling you, I didn’t get a minute’s peace all night. Finally I got the bottom row of boxes filled and then the second row. Now, I didn’t want to go sticking ’em up in that top row-I’d have to get two ladders and two other guys to help me lift ’em. Well, what would you do? Sure. I doubled ’em up. Well, along about four o’clock the old battle-ax phones down and asks me where such-and-such a stiff is and I tell her-it was a dame. Then she asks about a guy and I look up the book and I tell her. Well, I’d shoved ’em into the same box. What the hell-they was dead people! She blows up and you shoulda heard her.”
Good Christ, was this guy never going to shut up and get out for a minute? Just one minute would be enough. On the shelf over Jerry’s head. 1900.
“She was raising hell. She says, ‘Jerry’-you shoulda heard her; you wouldn’t believe it-‘Jerry, I think you might have the decency’-those was her very words-‘I think you might have the decency not to put men and women together in the same refrigerator compartment!’ Can you beat that? I says to her, I says, ‘Miss Leary, do you mean to insinuate that I should go encouraging homo-sex-uality amongst these corpses?’ ” Jerry leaned back in his swivel chair, slapping his thigh, and his companion laughed until tears came, getting the tightness worked out of his nerves.
“Oh, you shoulda heard her rave then! Wait a minute-there’s the phone.” He listened, then said, “Right away, keed,” and pushed back his chair. “Got a customer. Be right back. Gimme a shot before I go.”
His hard heels rang off down the corridor. The elevator stopped, opened, closed, and hummed as it went up.
1900. May 28th. Age: 95, 80, 73, 19… 19… Doris Mae Cadle. Diagnosis: septicemia. Admitted-hell, where was she from? No origin. Name, age, diagnosis. The only young one on the 28th and on the page before and after it. The elevator was coming down and he shoved the ledger back in its place.
Jerry stood in the doorway, swaying slightly, his face glistening. “Wanna give me a hand? A fat one! Jesus!”
“No. She ain’t lived here in my time. ’Course, I only took over the house eight years ago. Mis’ Meriwether had the house before me. She’s been in the Home for the Blind ever since. Cataracts, you know.”
A soft, cultured voice said: “Mrs. Meriwether, I hate to bother you with what is, after all, only a hobby of mine. I am a genealogist, you see. I am looking up the branches of my mother’s family-the Cadles. And in an old city directory I noted that someone by that name lived at the house which you ran as a rooming house about thirty-five years ago. Of course, I don’t expect you to remember.”
“Young man, I certainly do remember. A fine girl she was, Doris Cadle. Remember it like it was yesterday. Some kind of blood poisoning. Took her to the hospital. Too late. Died. Buried in Potter’s Field. I didn’t know where her folks was. I would have put up the money to get her a plot only I didn’t have it. I tried to get up a purse but none of my roomers could make it up.”
“She was one of the Cadles of New Jersey?”
“Might a been. Only, as I recall, she come from Tewkesbury, Pennsylvania.”
“Tell me, Mrs. Meriwether, are you related to the Meriwethers of Massachusetts?”
“Well, now, young man, that’s right interesting. I had a grandmother come from Massachusetts. On my father’s side she was. Now, if you’re interested in the Meriwethers-”
“Mrs. Cadle, I thought I had all the data I needed but there are a couple of other questions I’d like to ask for the government records.” The dark suit, the brief case, the horn-rimmed glasses over a polka-dot bow tie, all spoke of the servant of government.
“Come in. I been tryin’ to find Dorrie’s pitcher. Ain’t seen it sence I showed it to you a while ago.”
“Doris Mae. That was your second child, I believe. But you put the picture back in the Bible, Mrs. Cadle.”
His voice sounded dry and bored. He must get awful tired, pestering folks this way all day and every day.
“Let’s look again. Here-here it is. You just didn’t look far enough. Did I ask you the date of your daughter’s graduation from high school?”
“Never graddiated. She took a business course and run off to New York City and we never seen her no more.”
“Thank you. You said your husband worked in the mines from the age of thirteen. How many accidents did he have in that time? That is, accidents that caused him to lose one or more days from work?”
“Oh, Lord, I can sure tell you about them! I mind one time just after we was married…”
The collector of vital statistics walked slowly toward the town’s single trolley line. In his brief case was a roll of film recording both sides of a postcard. One was a cheap photograph of a young girl, taken at Coney Island. She was sitting in a prop rowboat named Sea Breeze, and holding an oar. Behind her was a painted lighthouse. On the message side was written in precise, characterless handwriting:
Dear Mom and all,
I am sending this from Coney Island. It’s like the biggest fair you ever saw. A boy named Spunk took me. Isn’t that a silly nickname? I had my picture taken as you can see. Tell Pop and all I wish I was with you and hug little Jennie for me. Will write soon.
Fondly,
DORRIE
Conversation flattened out to an eager rustle as the Rev. Carlisle entered the room and walked to the lectern in the glass alcove, where ferns and palms caught the summer sun in a tumult of green. The rest of the room was cool and dark, with drawn hangings before the street windows.
He opened the Bible with the gold-plated clasps, ran his hands once over his hair, then gazed straight out above the heads of the congregation which had assembled in the Church of the Heavenly Message.
“My text this morning is from Ephesians Five, verses eight and nine: ‘For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light: for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth…”’
Mrs. Prescott was late, damn her. Or was it the mark who was holding up the works? He must be the kind of bastard that always comes late-thinks the world will hold the curtain waiting for him.
Blue eyes lifted from the page and smiled their blessing on the faces before them. About twenty in the house with a few odd husbands dragged along; and a couple of male believers.
“Dearly beloved, on this day of summer, with God’s glorious sunlight illuminating the world, we find an object lesson in its brilliance…”
Where was Tallentyre? She was supposed to ride herd on Prescott and the mark.
“… for we, who once walked in darkness of fear and ignorance and doubt, find our path through the earth-plane made bright and shining by the surety of our faith.”
At the other end of the shadowy room the front door opened and closed. In the dim light two stout women in flowered print dresses came in-Tallentyre and Prescott. Son-of-a-bitch! Did the chump back out at the last minute? With a flash of anxiety Stan wondered if somebody might have wised him up.
Then in the doorway a man appeared, big, in a light gray flannel suit, holding a panama in his hand. A black silhouette in the gentle glow cast by the fanlight. The spread of shoulder spoke of arrogant ownership. The man was an owner-land, buildings, acres, machines. And men. Two round, owl-like saucers of light winked from the dark head-the light of the conservatory reflected from rimless glasses as he turned his head, whispering to Prescott. Then he sat down in the back row, pulling out one of the bridge chairs to make room for his legs.
The Rev. Carlisle drew breath and fixed his eyes on the gold-embossed Bible before him.
“My dear friends, let me tell you a story. There was a man who had been in the Great War. One dark night he was sent scouting into No Man’s Land with one of his buddies-a star shell rose from the enemy trenches and illuminated the field. Well might he have prayed at that moment with David, ‘Hide me from my deadly enemies who compass me about.’ The man of whom I speak dashed for the security of a shell hole, pushing his companion aside, while the machine guns of the Germans began to fill the field with death.”
Ezra Grindle was fanning himself idly with his panama.
“The soldier who was left without cover fell, mortally wounded. And before the baleful glare of the star shell died, the other soldier, crouching in the shell crater, saw his companion’s eyes fixed on him in a mute look of scorn and accusation.
“My dear friends, years passed. The survivor became a pillar of society-married, a father, respected in his community. But always, deep in his soul, was the memory of that dying boy’s face-the eyes-accusing him!”
The panama was motionless.
“This man recently became interested in Spiritual Truth. He began to attend the church of a medium who is a dear friend of mine in a city out west. He unburdened his heart to the medium. And when they finally established contact with the ‘buddy’ whose earth life was lost through his cowardice, what do you suppose were the first words the friend in spirit uttered to that guilt-ridden man? They were, ‘You are forgiven.’
“Picture to yourselves, my friends, the unutterable joy which rose in that man’s tortured heart when the crushing weight of guilt was lifted from him and for the first time in all those years he was a free man-drinking in the sun and the soft wind and the bird song of dawn and eventide.”
Grindle was leaning forward, one hand on the back of the chair in front of him. Mrs. Prescott whispered something in his ear; but he was deaf to it. He seemed caught and held by the voice of the man behind the lectern, a man in white linen with a black clerical vest, whose hair, in the shaft of summer sun, was as golden as his voice.
“My dear friends, there is no need for God to forgive us. How can we sin against the wind which blows across the fields of ripening grain, how can we injure the soft scent of lilacs in the spring twilight, the deep blue of an autumn sky or the eternal glory of the stars on a winter’s night? No, no, my friends. We can sin only against mankind. And man, in his next mansion of the soul, says to us tenderly, lovingly, ‘You are forgiven, beloved. When you join us you will know. Until then, go with our love, rejoice in our forgiveness, take strength from us who live forever in the shadow of his hand.”’
The tears had mounted to the clergyman’s eyes and now, in the light of the alcove, they glistened faintly on his cheeks as he stopped speaking, standing erect with the bearing of an emperor in his chariot.
“Let us pray.”
At the back of the room a man who had spent his life ruining competitors, bribing congressmen, breaking strikes, arming vigilantes, cheating stockholders, and endowing homes for unwed mothers, covered his eyes with his hand.
“Reverend, they tell me you bring voices out of trumpets.”
“I have heard voices from trumpets. I don’t bring them. They come. Mediumship is either a natural gift or it is acquired by devotion, by study, and by patience.”
The cigars had cost Stan twenty dollars; but he pushed the box across the desk easily and took one himself, holding his lighter for the tycoon. The Venetian blinds were drawn, the windows open, and the fan whirring comfortably.
Grindle inhaled the cigar twice, let the smoke trickle from his nostrils, approved it, and settled farther back in his chair.
As if suddenly remembering an appointment, the spiritualist said, “Excuse me,” and jotted notes on a calendar pad. He let Grindle smoke on while he made a telephone call, then turned back to him, smiling, waiting.
“I don’t care about trumpet phenomena in your house. I want to see it in my house.”
The clergyman’s face was stern. “Mr. Grindle, spirit phenomena are not a performance. They are a religious experience. We cannot say where and when they will appear. They are no respecters of houses. Those who have passed over may reveal themselves in the humble cottage of the laborer and ignore completely the homes of wealth, of culture, and of education.”
The big man nodded. “I follow you there, Carlisle. In one of your sermons you said something about Spiritualism being the only faith that offers proof of survival. I remember you said that the command ‘Show me’ is the watchword of American business. Well, you hit the nail right on the head that time. I’m just asking to be shown, that’s all. That’s fair enough.”
The minister’s smile was unworldly and benign. “I am at your service if I can strengthen your resolve to find out more for yourself.”
They smoked, Grindle eyeing the spiritualist, Carlisle seemingly deep in meditation.
At the left of Grindle’s chair stood a teakwood coffee table, a relic of the Peabody furnishings. On it sat a small Chinese gong of brass. The silence grew heavy and the industrialist seemed to be trying to force the other man to break it first; but neither broke it. The little gong suddenly spoke-a clear, challenging note.
Grindle snatched it from the table, turning it upside down and examining it. Then he picked up the table and knocked the top with his knuckles. When he looked up again he found the Rev. Carlisle smiling at him.
“You may have the gong-and the table, Mr. Grindle. It never before has rung by an exudation of psychic power-what we call the odylic force-as it did just now. Someone must be trying to get through to you. But it is difficult-your innate skepticism is the barrier.”
On the big man’s face Stan could read the conflict-the fear of being deceived against the desire to see marvels and be forgiven by Doris Mae Cadle, 19, septicemia, May 28, 1900: But I tell you, Dorrie, if we get married now it will smash everything, everything.
Grindle leaned forward, poking the air with the two fingers which gripped his cigar. “Reverend, out in my Jersey plant I’ve got an apothecary’s scale delicate enough to weigh a human hair -just one human hair! It’s in a glass case. You make that scale move and I’ll give your church ten thousand dollars!”
The Rev. Carlisle shook his head. “I’m not interested in money, Mr. Grindle. You may be rich. Perhaps I am too-in a different way.” He stood up but Grindle stayed where he was. “If you wish to arrange a séance in your own home or anywhere else, I can try to help you. But I should warn you-the place does not matter. What matters is the spiritual environment.” He had been speaking slowly, as if weighing something in his mind, but the last sentence was snapped out as if he had come to a decision.
“But God damn it-pardon me, Reverend-but I know all this! You’ll get full co-operation from me. I’ve got an open mind, Carlisle. An open mind. And the men I’ll pick for our committee will have open minds too-or they’ll hear from me later. When can you come?”
“In three weeks I shall have a free evening.”
“No good. In three weeks I’ll have to be up in Quebec. And I’ve got this bee in my bonnet. I want to find out once and for all, Carlisle. Show me one tiny speck of incontrovertible evidence and I’ll listen to anything else you have to say. Can’t you consider this an emergency and come out to the plant tonight?” Stan had moved toward the door and Grindle followed him. “Mr. Grindle, I believe you are a sincere seeker.”
They descended the carpeted stairs and stood for a moment at the front door. “Then you’ll come, Reverend? Tonight?”
Carlisle bowed.
“That’s splendid. I’ll send the car for you at six. Will that be all right? Or how about coming out earlier and having dinner at the plant? We all eat in the same cafeteria, right with the men. Democratic. But the food’s good.”
“I shall not want anything very heavy, thank you. I’ll have a bite before six.”
“Right. The car will pick you up here at the church.” Grindle smiled for the first time. It was a chilly smile, tight around the eyes, but was probably his best attempt. Stan looked at the big man closely.
Hair thin and sandy. Forehead domed and spattered with freckles. A large rectangle of a face with unobtrusive, petulant features set in the center of it. Habitual lines about the mouth as if etched there by gas pains, or by constantly smelling a faintly foul odor. Voice peevish and high-pitched, bluster on the surface, fear underneath. Afraid somebody will get a dime away from him or a dime’s worth of power. Waistline kept in by golf and a rowing machine. Maybe with shoulder braces to lean against when troubles try to make him stoop like one of his bookkeepers. Hands large, fingers covered with reddish fur. A big, irritable, unsatisfied, guilt-driven, purse-proud, publicity-inflamed dummy -stuffed with thousand dollar bills.
The hand which the Rev. Carlisle raised as a parting gesture was like a benediction-in the best possible taste.
When Stan got back to the apartment it was two o’clock in the afternoon. Molly was still asleep. He jerked the sheet off her and began tickling her in the ribs. She woke up cross and laughing. “Stan, stop it! Oh-oh, honey, it must be good news! What is it?”
“It’s the live One, kid. He’s nibbling at last. Séance tonight out at his joint in Jersey. If it goes over we’re set! If not, we’re in the soup. Now go out and get me a kitten.”
“A what? Stan, you feeling okay?”
“Sure, sure, sure. Fall into some clothes and go out and find me a delicatessen store that has a kitten. Bring it back with you. Never mind if you have to swipe it.”
When she had gone he eased the eraser from the end of a pencil, wedged the pencil in the jamb of a door and bored into the shaft with a hand drill. Then he pushed the eraser back and put the pencil in his pocket.
The kitten was a little tiger tom about three months old.
“Damn, it couldn’t be a white one!”
“But, honey, I didn’t know what you wanted with it.”
“Never mind, kid. You did okay.” He shut himself and the kitten up in the bathroom for half an hour. Then he came out and said to Molly, “Here. Now you can take him back.”
“Take him back? But I promised the man I’d give him a good home. Aw, Stan, I thought we could keep him.” She was winking back tears.
“Okay, okay, kid. Keep him. Do anything you want with him. If this deal goes over I’ll buy you a pedigreed panther.”
He hurried back to the church, and Molly set a saucer of milk on the floor and watched the kitten lap it up. She decided to call him Buster.
“Here’s where the Grindle property starts, sir,” said the chauffeur. They had rolled through Manhattan, under the river with the tunnel walls gleaming, past the smoke of North Jersey and across a desolation of salt marshes. Ahead of them, over a flat waste of cinders and struggling marsh grass, the smokestack and long, glass-roofed buildings of the Grindle Electric Motor Corporation rose glittering in the last sunlight.
The car slowed down at a gate in a barbed fence around the top of which ran wire held by insulators.
The private cop on duty at the gate nodded to the chauffeur and said, “Go right in, Mr. Carlisle. Report at Gatehouse Number Five.”
They drove down a gravel road and came to another wire fence and Gatehouse Number Five. “Have to go in and register, sir,” said the chauffeur.
Inside the concrete shack a man in a gray military shirt, a Sam Browne belt and a dark blue cap, was sitting at a desk. He was reading a tabloid; when he looked up Stan read his life history from the face: Thrown off some small city police force for excessive brutality; or caught in a shakedown and sent up-the face bore the marks of the squad room and the prison, one on top of the other.
“Carlisle? Waiting for you. Sign this card.” It projected from a machine like a cash register. Stan signed. Then the cop said, “Pull the card out.” Stan grasped its waxed surface and pulled. “Watch out-don’t tear it. Better use both hands.”
The Rev. Carlisle used both hands. But what was it all about? He handed the card to Thickneck, then realized that he had left them a record of his fingerprints on its waxed surface.
“Now step inside here and I’ll go through the regulations.”
It was a small dressing room.
“Take off your coat and hand it to me.”
“May I ask what this is for?”
“Orders of Mr. Anderson, Head of Plant Security.”
“Does Mr. Grindle know about this?”
“Search me, Reverend; you can ask him. Now give me your coat. Anderson is tightening up on regulations lately.”
“But what are you searching for?”
Stumpy fingers felt in pockets and along seams. “Sabotage, Reverend. Nothing personal. The next guy might be a senator, but we’d have to frisk him.” The examination included the Rev. Carlisle’s shoes, his hatband and the contents of his wallet. As the cop was returning the vest a pencil fell out; he picked it up and handed it to the clergyman who stuck it in his pocket. On his way out Stan gave the cop a cigar. It was immediately locked up in the green metal desk, and the Great Stanton wondered if it was later tagged, “Bribe offered by the Rev. Stanton Carlisle. Exhibit A.”
At the door of the plant a thin, quick-moving man of thirty-odd with black patent-leather hair stepped out and introduced himself. “My name’s Anderson, Mr. Carlisle. Head of Plant Security.” The left lapel of his blue serge suit bulged ever so slightly. “The committee is waiting for you.”
Elevators. Corridors. Plaster walls pale green. A white spot painted on the floor in all the corners. “They’ll never spit in a corner painted white.” The hum of machines and the clank of yard engines outside. Then one glass-paneled door opening on a passage walled with oak. Carpets on the floor. The reception room belonged in an advertising agency; it was a sudden burst of smooth, tawny leather and chrome.
“This way, Mr. Carlisle.”
Anderson went ahead, holding open doors. The directors’ room was a long one with a glass roof but no windows. The table down its center must have been built there; certainly it could never be taken out now.
Grindle was shaking his hand and presenting him to the others: Dr. Downes, plant physician; Mr. Elrood of the legal staff; Dr. Gilchrist, the industrial psychologist, also on the plant staff; Professor Dennison, who taught philosophy at Grindle College; Mr. Prescott (“You know Mrs. Prescott, I believe, through the church.”) and Mr. Roy, both directors of the company. With Anderson and Grindle they made eight-Daniel Douglas Home’s traditional number for a séance. Grindle knew more than he let on. But didn’t his kind always?
At the far end of the table-it seemed a city block away-stood a rectangular glass case a foot high; inside it was an apothecary’s precision balance, a cross arm with two circular pans suspended from it by chains.
Grindle was saying, “Would you care to freshen up a little? I have an apartment right off this room where I stay when I’m working late.”
It was furnished much like Lilith’s waiting room. Stan shut the bathroom door and washed sweat from his palms. “If I get away with it this time,” he whispered to the mirror, “it’s the Great Stanton and no mistake. Talk about your Princeton audiences…”
One last look around the drawing room revealed a flowing cloud of blue fur, out of which shone eyes of bright yellow as the cat streamed down from a chair and floated along the floor toward him. Stan’s forehead smoothed out. “Come to papa, baby. Now it’s in the bag.”
When he joined the committtee he was carrying the cat in his arms and Grindle smiled his tight, unpracticed smile. “I see you’ve made friends with Beauty. But won’t she disturb you?”
“On the contrary. I’d like to have her stay. And now, perhaps you gentlemen will tell me what this interesting apparatus is and how it works.” He dropped the cat gently to the carpet, where she tapped his leg once with her paw, demanding to be taken up again, then crawled under the table to sulk.
The head of Plant Security stood with his hand resting on top of the glass. “This is a precision balance, Mr. Carlisle. An apothecary’s scale. The indicator in the center of the bar registers the slightest pressure on either of the two pans. I had one of our boys rig up a set of electrical contacts under the pans so that if either one is depressed-by so much as the weight of a hair- this electric bulb in the corner of the case flashes on. The thing is self-contained; flashlight batteries in the case supply current. The balance has been set level and in this room there are no vibrations to disturb it. I watched it for an hour this afternoon and the light never flashed. To turn on that light some force must depress one of the pans of the balance. Is that clear?”
The Rev. Carlisle smiled spiritually. “May I inspect it?”
Anderson glanced at Grindle, who nodded. The private police chief opened the doors of the case and hovered close. “Don’t touch anything, Reverend.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand much about electricity. But you’re sure that this lighting device hasn’t interfered with the free movement of the scale? What are these copper strips?” He pointed to them with the end of a pencil from which the eraser was missing, indicating two narrow metal strips leading from under the pans of the balance to insulated connections behind it.
“They’re contact points. Two on each side. If either pan moves it touches these points, closes the circuit and the light goes on.” Anderson swiftly shut the glass doors and latched them.
The Rev. Carlisle was not listening. His face had grown blank. Moving as if in a dream, he returned to the far end of the room and slipped down into the chair at the end of the table, thirty feet from the mechanism in its glass house.
Without speaking, Grindle motioned the others to their places -Anderson on Stan’s left, Grindle taking a chair on his right, the rest on either side. The precision balance had half the long table to itself.
The Rev. Carlisle closed his eyes, folded his arms, and placed his head upon them as if trying to catch a nap. His breathing deepened, jerky and rasping. Once he stirred and muttered something incoherent.
“He’s gone into a trance?”
The boss must have shut the speaker up with a look.
Silence grew. Then Grindle scratched a match to light a cigar and several others took courage and smoked. The room was in semi-darkness and the tension of the waiting men piled up.
The medium had been searched at the gate. Their eyes had been on him very second since he arrived. He had never touched the instrument-Anderson had been watching him for the slightest move. They had all been warned to look out for threads, or for attempts to tilt the massive table. Mr. Roy had quietly slipped from his chair and was sitting on the floor, watching the medium’s feet beneath the table even though they were thirty feet from the balance. The scale was enclosed in glass; Anderson had latched the doors. And this medium claimed to be able to move solids without touching them! They waited.
On his right Stan could feel the great man, his attention frozen on the rectangular glass frame. They waited. Time was with the spiritualist. This was a better break than he had ever dreamed of. First the cat showing up, then this magnificent nerve-racking stall for the committee. Would it work after all?
He heard Grindle whisper, “Beauty-Beauty, come here!”
Stan raised his head, moaning a little, and from under one eyelid saw that the cat had wriggled from Grindle’s lap and now stood gazing into the balance case.
A gasp ran around the waiting circle. The light had snapped on, burning clear and ruby-red, a tiny bulb, Christmas-tree size, in an upright socket in one corner.
Stan moaned again, his hands closing into fists. The light went out; his fists relaxed.
Grindle cut short the buzzing whispers by a snap of his fingers.
Another wait. Stan’s breath came heavier. He felt the saliva in his mouth thickening; his tongue was dry, the saliva like cotton; he forced it out over his lower lip. This was one time when he didn’t have to fake the foam.
The light flared again and the medium’s breathing became a whistling, agonizing battle.
Off again. Stan let out a sigh.
Silence. Time ticking by on someone’s wrist watch. At the foot of the table the Persian looked back, frowning, at Grindle, saying in cat talk, “Let me get into that glass box.”
The light again. This time it stayed on. Anderson slid from his seat while Stan’s heart pounded but Grindle motioned him back and he compromised by standing in his place. From under folded arms Stan could see Anderson’s lean hand, the nails softly polished, braced against the mahogany as he bent forward. The light went out.
This time the medium trembled and threw himself back in his chair, his head lolling. Thickly he said, “Open the case. Let the air into it! Take the cover off and examine the apparatus. Hurry!”
Anderson was already there. The Rev. Carlisle crumpled down in his chair, eyes closed, the foam thick on his lower lip and chin.
Through slit lids he could see Anderson and the psychologist taking the balance from its box. Beauty had stood close by and now was tapping with her paw at the metal contacts on the floor of the case. Grindle picked her up, squirming, and shut her up in the apartment.
Then Stan felt something touch his lips; he let his eyelids flick open. The doctor was standing over him, holding a bit of sterile gauze which he dropped into a flat glass culture dish, putting it back in his pocket. Go ahead, you goddamned wisenheimer townie, analyze it for soap! I could give you a good specimen right in the eye.
Now Grindle had Stan by the arm and was leading him toward the apartment. Over his shoulder he said, “Good evening, gentlemen. You may go.”
With Grindle alone Stan began to recover. The industrialist offered him brandy and he drank it slowly. Beauty stared at him from hot, yellow eyes.
“I’ll have the car take you back to New York, Mr. Carlisle, as soon as you feel up to traveling.”
“Oh, thank you so much. I-I feel a little shaky. Did any phenomena occur?”
“The light in the cabinet went on three times.” Behind the rimless glasses Grindle’s gray, small eyes almost flashed. “That’s proof enough for me, Mr. Carlisle. I shan’t drag you all the way out here again. I told you I’m a hard-headed man. I needed proof. Well-” His voice broke with a tiny shading of emotion which habitual restraint could not hide. “I’ve seen something tonight that cannot possibly be explained by fraud or trickery. The conditions were absolutely air-tight. Some force inside the case depressed the pans of that balance and if anybody ever talks to me about magnets I’ll laugh right in his face. The instrument is made of brass. This plant is miles from city vibrations-it’s rooted in concrete. There were no threads. You never came near the thing; never touched it…”
Grindle was pacing the carpet, smoking furiously, his face flushed.
The Rev. Carlisle finished his brandy and stretched out an affectionate hand to the Persian cat. Safe! This was the money-bags mountain and he stood, not on the top of it, but in sight of the top. He rose at last, rubbing his eyes wearily. The great man had been talking.
“… ten thousand dollars. I told you I’d do it and I mean what I say. The check will reach you.”
“Please, Mr. Grindle, let’s not talk about money. If I have given you proof-”
“Well, you have. You have, man! Let me-”
“The church can always use donations, Mr. Grindle. You can take care of that through Mrs. Prescott. I know she will be pleased. A fine, devoted woman. But for me it is enough to know that some little corner of the glorious truth has been revealed.”
Beauty, lolling in the most comfortable chair in the room, suddenly started up and began to scratch her chin with her hind foot. Stan eased Grindle away toward the door. As it closed behind them he saw Beauty biting industriously at the fur over her ribs.
On the steps of the plant its owner paused. From his pocket he took out two envelopes, held them to the light and handed one to Stan. “Here-might as well give you this now, Carlisle. I was going to send it to Mrs. Prescott as you suggested, but you can save me the trouble. This other we won’t need.” He tore the envelope and its contents to bits.
“I don’t understand, Mr. Grindle.”
The smile broke out again with a glitter of white teeth. “It was a warrant for your arrest-in case you tried any fraudulent methods of producing phenomena. It wasn’t my idea, Mr. Carlisle. I have to take advice once in a while, you know, from some of the boys who look after my interests.”
Stan was erect and the blue eyes were hard. “That warrant was signed by a judge?”
“I presume so.”
“And on what grounds was I supposed to be arrested-if you or one of your employees thought he detected trickery?”
“Why, with conspiracy with intent to defraud.”
“And how would I have defrauded you, Mr. Grindle? Out of taxi fare from New York?”
The big man frowned. “You understand, I had nothing to do with it. Mr. Anderson-”
“You may tell Mr. Anderson,” said the Rev. Carlisle tautly, “that I would be quite capable of suing for false arrest. I have never taken a penny for exercising gifts of mediumship. I never shall. Good night, sir.”
He got into the waiting car and said coldly to the driver, “Just to the railroad station-don’t drive me all the way in to New York.”
Grindle stood gaping after him, then turned and went back to the plant.
Anderson was a good lad, devoted, devoted. Couldn’t ask for more loyalty. But God damn it, he didn’t understand. He just didn’t understand the deeper, the spiritual things of life. Well, from now on Andy would be told to keep his nose out of psychic research.
The others had left the directors’ room but Anderson was still there. He was attacking the end of the conference table with mighty heaves, trying to make the light flash.
“Give it up, Andy,” the Chief said acidly. “On home. Go on.”
“I’ll find out how he did it! He did something.”
“Andy, you can’t find it in your soul anywhere to admit that it might have been an odylic force that you can’t see or feel or measure?”
“Nuts, Chief. I know a hustler when I see one.”
“I said go home, Andy.”
“You’re the boss.”
As he was leaving Grindle called to him: “And fire the woman you had taking care of Beauty’s coat. It’s a disgrace-she’s been neglected.”
Anderson’s voice was smoldering but weary. “What is it now, Chief?”
“It’s disgusting-Beauty’s coat is swarming with fleas.”
“Okay, Chief. She gets the gate tomorrow.” He walked quickly from the plant, found his car in the parking lot and rammed in the ignition key irritably. That goddamned phoney reverend. He would be just the one to weasel inside the Chief. And the Chief would protect him. But how in the jumping blue blazes of merry hell did he ever turn that light on and off inside the case? Odylic force, balls!
“Is that your odylic force, Reverend?”
“Yeah. That’s it, babe. Like it?”
She chuckled, warm and enfolding, beneath him in the dark of the bedroom.
“Wait, lover. Let’s rest.”
They rested. Stan said, “He’s going overboard, all right. He’s not so tough-just another chump.”
“Go easy with him, Stan.”
“I’m easy. Every test a little stronger until he’s fattened up for the full-form stuff. There’s only one thing-”
“Molly?”
“Yeah, Molly. That dame’s going to give us a lot of trouble.”
“She can be handled.”
“Yeah. But it wears you out, handling. Lilith, I’m sick of the dame. She’s like a rock around my neck.”
“Patience, darling. There’s no one else.”
They lay silent for a time, seeing each other with their finger tips and with their mouths.
“Lilith-”
“What, lover?”
“What does that guy really want? I’ve beaten him over the head with ‘forgiveness’ but I get only half a response. He doesn’t gobble it. There’s something else. Okay. We bring back the dead dame. She tells him he’s forgiven and everything’s jake. But where do we go from there?”
Dr. Lilith Ritter, at the moment in a very unethical but satisfying position in relation to one of her patients, laughed deep in her throat.
“What does he want to do? With his first love? Don’t be so naïve, lover. He wants to do this… and this…”
“But-no; that’s no good. Not with Molly. She’ll never-”
“Oh, yes, she will.”
“Lilith, I know that dame. She never stepped out of line once in all the years we been teamed up. I can’t sell her on jazzing the chump.”
“Yes, you can, darling.”
“Christ’s sake, how?”
The warm mouth closed his and he forgot Molly and the con game which kept him in a torment of scheming. Through their pressed lips Lilith murmured, “I’ll tell you when the time comes.”
The psychic lamp, provided by the Rev. Carlisle, shed no light except through a single dark-red disc in the center of its tin slide. The medium, dressed in a black silk robe, black silk pajamas and slippers, lay back in an armchair on one side of the billiard-room doorway. Grindle, in his shirtsleeves, sat opposite him, the lamp on a coffee table at his side. Dark curtains covered the door and a faint breeze tugged at them. Carlisle had raised one window in the inner room a few inches for ventilation. It was not open far enough for a man to stick his head through and it had been sealed. Grindle had pressed his signet ring into the hot wax. The other windows were sealed shut. There was a fifteen foot drop to the lawn outside, which sloped down to the river.
Beyond the darkened billiard room the two men waited. The medium’s head was thrown back. His left wrist was fastened to Grindle’s right by a long strand of copper wire, and he had poured salt water on their wrists.
The heel of the reverend’s slipper was pressed tight against the leg of his chair.
Rap!
It seemed to come from the table bearing the red lantern.
Rap!
“Is there one in spirit life speaking?” The medium’s words were a hoarse whisper.
Rap! Rap! Rap!
“We greet you. Are conditions favorable? May we turn up the lamp a little?”
Three more raps answered him. Grindle leaned over and raised the lamp’s wick until a warning rap commanded him to stop. His big face was intent and ill at ease, but Stan detected no craft or outright skepticism. He was interested, moving in the right direction.
They waited. More silence. Then from beyond the dark draperies of the doorway came another knock-a hollow, musical sound, as if something had struck the window. Grindle started from his chair but the warning, upraised hand of the spiritualist stopped him. Carlisle’s breathing came fast now, and heavy, and he seemed to lose consciousness.
The “sitter” began to sweat. Did he imagine a tingling discharge of current at his wrist where the wire was bound?
Another sound, a distinct click, from the billiard room. Then a whole chorus of clicks which he made out to be billiard balls, knocking against one another, sometimes in rhythm, as if they were dancing.
Sweat began to roll from the industrialist’s forehead. It was a hot night, but not that hot. His shirt was sticking to his chest and his hands were dripping.
The ghostly billiard game went on; then a white ivory ball rolled out from under the curtains and hit the table-leg between him and the medium.
Carlisle stirred uneasily and a voice came from his stiff lips: “Hari Aum! Greetings, newcomer to the Life of Spiritual Truth. Greetings, our new chela. Believe not blindly. Believe the proof of the mind given you by the senses. They cannot give you the Truth but they point the Path. Trust my disciple, Stanton Carlisle. He is an instrument on which spiritual forces play as a lover plays his sitar beneath the window of his beloved. Greetings, Ezra. A friend has come to you from Spirit Life. Hari Aum!”
The resonant, accented chanting broke off. Grindle snapped his attention from the lips of the medium to the curtains before the darkened room. The clicks of billiard balls now sounded closer, as if they were rolling and knocking on the floor just beyond the curtains. He stared, his lips drawn back from his dentures, his breath whistling. A white ball rolled slowly from under the curtains and stopped six inches inside the room where they sat. The red cue ball followed it. Click!
While he watched, the hairs on the back of the big man’s neck raised, the skin drew tight over his temples. For in the dim, ruby light a tiny hand felt its way out from under the curtains, groped delicately for the red ball, found it, and rolled it after the white one. Click! And the hand was gone.
With an unconscious shout Grindle leaped up and threw himself after the vanishing hand, only to spin around and claw at the curtains of the doorway to keep himself from falling. For his right wrist was firmly secured by copper wire to the wrist of the medium who was now groaning and gasping, his eyes half open and rolled up, until the whites looked as stark as the eyes of a blind beggar.
Then Grindle felt the room beyond them to be empty and still. He stood, fighting for breath, making no further attempt to enter.
The medium drew a long breath and opened his eyes. “We can remove the wire now. Were there any phenomena of note?”
Grindle nodded, still watching the doorway. “Get me out of this harness, Reverend! I want a look in there.”
Stan helped unwind the wire and said, “One favor, Mr. Grindle -I wonder if you could get me a glass of brandy?”
His host poured him one and knocked off two straight ones himself. “All set?”
He drew the curtains and snapped the wall switch.
A reassuring glow fell from the hanging lamp above the billiard table. Stan’s hand on his arm restrained him from entering.
“Careful, Mr. Grindle. Remember our test precautions.”
The floor had been thickly sprinkled with talcum powder. Now it bore traces, and as Grindle knelt to examine them he saw with a chill that they were the unmistakable bare footprints of a small child.
He rose, wiping his face with a wad of handkerchief. The room had been the scene of grotesque activity. Cues had been taken from their racks and thrust into the open mouths of stuffed sailfish on the wall. The cue chalk had been thrown down and smashed. And everywhere were the tiny footprints.
Carlisle stood in the doorway for a moment, then turned back and sank into his chair and covered his eyes with his hand as if he were very tired.
At last the light in the billiard room snapped off and Grindle stood beside him, pale, breathing heavily. He poured himself another brandy and gave one to the medium.
Ezra Grindle was shaken as no stock-market crash or sudden South American peace treaty could have shaken him. For with a crumb of cue chalk a message had been written on the green felt of the billiard table. It held the answer to a vast, secret, shameful ache inside him-a canker which had festered all these years. Not a soul in the world could know of its existence but himself-a name he had not spoken in thirty-five years. It held the key to an old wrong which he would willingly give a million hard-earned dollars to square with his conscience. A million? Every cent he owned!
The message was in a characterless, copybook hand:
Spunk darling,
We tried to come to you but the force was not strong enough. Maybe next time. I so wanted you to see our boy.
DORRIE
He drew the doors together and locked them. He raised his hand for the bell rope, then dropped it, and poured himself another brandy.
At his side stood the tall, silken figure in black, his face compassionate.
“Let us pray together-not for them, Ezra, but for the living, that the scales may fall from their eyes…”
The train to New York was not due for half an hour and Mrs. Oakes, who had been visiting her daughter-in-law, had read the time table all wrong; now she would have to wait.
On the station platform she walked up and down to relieve her impatience. Then, on a bench, she saw a little figure stretched out, its head pillowed on its arms. Her heart was touched. She shook him gently by the shoulder. “What’s the matter, little man? Are you lost? Were you supposed to meet mamma or papa here at the station?”
The sleeper sat up with a snarl. He was the size of a child; but was dressed in a striped suit and a pink shirt with a miniature necktie. And under his button nose was a mustache!
The mustachioed baby pulled a cigarette from his pocket and raked a kitchen match on the seat of his trousers. He lit the cigarette and was about to snap away the match when he grinned up at her from his evil, old baby face, thrust one hand into his coat and drew out a postcard, holding the match so she could see it.
Mrs. Oakes thought she would have a stroke. She tried to run away, but she couldn’t. Then the train came and the horrible little creature swung aboard, winking at her.