Quests of Simon Ark Read online

  There was silence when he finished speaking, and the four of us who were with him in the room looked at each other with questioning glances. There was something here which was beyond our understanding. Something …

  Doctor Hager broke the silence. “How …how did this man … this Kaspar Hauser die?”

  “He was stabbed to death while walking alone in a park. There were no other footprints in the snow, and yet the wound could not have been self-inflicted. The mystery has never been solved.”

  As if with one body our eyes went toward the window where last we’d seen Douglas Zadig walking. And I knew there was but a single thought in our minds.

  Doctor Hager pulled a coat from the closet and threw it over his shoulders. “No, not that way,” he said, giving voice to the fear that was in all our minds. “He’ll come back the other way, at the rear of the house.”

  We ran out, Hager and Simon Ark in the lead, closely followed by Kingsley, Mrs. Brent and myself. We gave only a passing glance to the single set of footprints leading off over the hill, and then we ran around the back of the big white house.

  It was cold, but somehow we didn’t notice the cold. We saw only the snow—clear and white and unmarked ahead of us—and far away in the distance across the field, the lone figure of Douglas Zadig walking back toward us.

  He walked quickly, with the steady gait of a young, vigorous man. The thin layer of snow did not impede his feet, and his short jacket flapped in the breeze as if it were a summer’s day. When he saw us he waved a greeting, and seemed to walk a little faster toward us.

  He was perhaps a hundred yards away when it happened. He stopped short, as if struck by a blow, and his hands flew to his left side. And even at this distance we could see the look of shock and surprise on his face.

  He staggered, almost fell, and then continued staggering toward us, his hands clutching at his side. “I’ve been stabbed,” he shouted, “I’ve been stabbed.” And already we could see the bloody trail he was leaving in the snow …

  Doctor Hager was the first to break the spell, and he dashed forward to meet the wounded man, with the rest of us in close pursuit. When Hager was still some twenty yards from him, Douglas Zadig fell to his knees in the snow; and now the blood was reddening his shirt and gushing out between his fingers. He looked at us once more, with that same surprised expression on his face, and then he toppled over in the snow.

  Hager was the first to reach him, and he bent over and quickly turned the body back to examine the wound. Then he let it fall again and looked up at us.

  “He’s dead …” he said simply …

  We knew it was impossible, and we stood there and looked down at the impossible and perhaps we prayed.

  “He must have been shot,” Eve Brent said; but then Doctor Hager showed us the wound, and it was clearly that of a knife.

  “He stabbed himself,” Charles Kingsley said, but I knew that Kingsley didn’t even believe it himself. There was no knife in the wound, no knife back there in the snow; and Hager settled it by pointing out that such a wound would be difficult to self-inflict, and impossible while the five of us watched him.

  We went back to where the bloodstains started, and searched in the snow for something, anything—even the footprints of an invisible man. But there was nothing. The snow was unmarked, except for the bloodstains and the single line of footprints.

  And then we stood there and looked at the body and looked at each other and waited for somebody else to say something.

  “I suggest we call the local police, or the state troopers,” Simon Ark said finally.

  And so we left the body of Douglas Zadig where it lay in the snow and went back into the house. And waited for the police.

  And when they came—a bent old man, who was the local barber and also at times the constable, and a wiser one, who was the town doctor and also its coroner, we knew no more.

  Could the wound have been inflicted by someone on the other side of the hill, before he came into view? That was my question, but the half-formed theory in my mind died even before it was born. The blood had only started at the point where we’d seen him grip his side; and besides that both doctors agreed that such a wound would cause almost instantaneous death. It was a wonder he’d even managed to walk as far as he did.

  And presently the barber, who was the constable, and the doctor who was the coroner, left, taking the body of Douglas Zadig with them.

  Simon Ark continued to gaze out the window at the occasional snowflakes that were drifting down from above. Mrs. Brent and I managed somehow to make coffee for the others, but for a long time no one spoke.

  Presently I heard Simon Ark mumble, “The man from nowhere … Nowhere …” And seeing me watching him, he continued, “Dear, beauteous death, the jewel of the just! Shining nowhere but in the dark; what mysteries do lie beyond thy dust, could man outlook that mark!”

  When he saw my puzzled expression, he explained, “The lines are not original with me. They were written back in the seventeenth century by Henry Vaughan.”

  “Does that tell you what killed Douglas Zadig out there in the snow?”

  He smiled at me, something he rarely did. “The answer to our mystery might better be found in Shakespeare than in Vaughan.”

  “Then you do know!”

  “Perhaps …”

  “I read a story once, about a fellow who was murdered with a dagger made of ice.”

  “That melted and left no trace? Well, you’d hardly expect a dagger of ice to melt when the outside temperature is below freezing, would you?”

  “I guess not,” I admitted. “But if it wasn’t done in any of the ways we’ve mentioned, then it must have been supernatural. Do you really mean that Douglas Zadig was possessed of the devil?”

  But Simon Ark only repeated his favorite word. “Perhaps …”

  “I don’t care,” Charles Kingsley was saying, in the loud voice I’d come to expect from him. “I’m not a suspect, and I don’t intend to stay here any longer. I came because I believed in the teachings and writings of Douglas Zadig; now that he’s dead there’s no reason for me to remain any longer.”

  Doctor Hager shrugged and gave up the argument. “You’re certainly free to leave any time you want to, Mister Kingsley. Believe me, this awful tragedy strikes me a much greater blow than anyone else.”

  Mrs. Brent had taken out a checkbook and her pen. “Well, I’ll still give you the money as I promised, Dr. Hager. If nothing else perhaps you can erect a memorial of some sort.”

  I could see that she was serious. I had known Douglas Zadig for only a short time on the final day of his life, but I could see that he’d had a profound effect on the lives of these people and others like them. To me he had been only a name half-remembered from the news stories of ten years ago, but to some he had become apparently the preacher of a new belief.

  And then Simon Ark spoke again. “I would like you people to remain for another hour if you would. I think I will be able to show you the manner in which Douglas Zadig died.”

  “If you can do that,” Kingsley said, “it’s worth waiting for. But if there really is some sort of devil around here, I sure don’t want to stay.”

  “I promise you that I’ll protect you all from the force that struck down Douglas Zadig,” Simon Ark said. “I have one question, though: Dr. Hager, do you keep any chickens here?”

  “Chickens?” Hager repeated with a puzzled frown. “Why, no; there’s a place down the road that raises them, though. Why?”

  “I wondered,” he replied, and then he would say no more. After that, he disappeared into a remote section of the house and the four of us were left alone. We knew that the state police would be arriving before long, to continue the investigation; and I could understand why Kingsley and Mrs. Brent were anxious to get away.

  They were beginning to grow restless again when Simon Ark reappeared, this time holding in his hands the small ansated cross he always carried. “If you people will accompany me o
utside, I believe I will be able to show you how Douglas Zadig met his death.”

  “You mean you know who killed him.”

  “In a way I suppose I was responsible for his death,” Simon Ark answered. “The least I can do is to avenge it …”

  We followed him outside, to the snow-covered field very near the spot where Douglas Zadig had died just an hour earlier. The four of us paused at the edge of the snow, but Simon Ark walked on, until he was some fifty feet away from us.

  Then he stood there, looking up at the bleak November sky and at the distant trees and mountains. And he seemed to be very much alone …

  He held the strange ansated cross above his head, and chanted a few words in the Coptic language I’d come to know so well.

  From somewhere a large bird swooped in a giant circle overhead. It might have been an eagle, or a vulture, lured north into the cold weather by some unknown quirk of nature. We watched it until it disappeared into a low brooding cloud bank, and then our eyes returned to Simon Ark.

  He stood there, chanting in the strange tongue, as if calling upon some demons from the dark past. He stood there for what seemed an eternity, and what must have been the longest five minutes of my life.

  And then it happened.

  Again.

  He dropped his hands suddenly to his side, and when they came away we could see the blood. He took a single step forward and then collapsed on his face in the snow, one outstretched hand still clutching the ansated cross.

  We rushed forward behind Adam Hager, and I could feel my knees growing weak at the sight before us. Simon Ark, whom I’d come to think of as almost an invincible man, had been struck down by the same force that had killed Douglas Zadig …

  Dr. Hager reached him first, and felt for his heart. And then …

  … In a moment I’ll never forget, Simon Ark suddenly came alive, and rolled over in the snow, pinning Hager beneath him.

  And we all saw, in Hager’s outstretched helpless hand, the gleaming blade of a thin steel dagger …

  “They were just a couple of small-time swindlers who came close to hitting the big money,” Simon Ark said later, when the state police had taken away the cursing, struggling, figure of Dr. Hager.

  We were back inside—Kingsley, Mrs. Brent, several police officers, and myself—and listening to Simon Ark’s explanation. Somehow the tension of the past few hours was gone, and we were a friendly group of people who might have been discussing the results of the day’s football games.

  “It’s always difficult to imagine yourself as the victim of a swindler,” he was saying, “but I saw at once that Zadig and Hager had invited you two here for the purpose of getting money from you. We might never know how many dozens were here before you, people who’d read Zadig’s book and written to him. If you’ll check further, I think you’ll find that the book’s publication was paid for by Zadig and Hager, and that most of his speaking engagements were phony, too—like his occasional limping.”

  “He did ask us for money to carry out various projects,” Kingsley admitted.

  “As I’ve already told you,” Simon Ark continued, “the very fact that his name, his life, and his so-called doctrine were copied from the past made me suspect a swindle of some sort. There was just nothing original about the man; his was a life copied out of an encyclopedia. I suppose after he met Hager in London, the two of them thought up the scheme. I imagine you’ll find that Hager has tried this sort of thing before under various names.”

  “But what about the murder?” Mrs. Brent wanted to know. “Why should Hager kill his partner in crime?”

  “I fear it was because of my arrival. My detailed questions about Zadig’s teachings caught them both off guard; and Hager, especially, knew that I might uncover their whole phony plot. When I mentioned the parallels between the attacks on Zadig and Kaspar Hauser, as well as those between the doctrines of Zadig and Zoroaster, Hager knew I was getting too close. When he and Zadig went out on the porch together before, I imagine they set up the final act of the Hauser drama, in which Zadig was to be wounded by a devil that had taken possession of him. I suppose this was the final try for the money, and perhaps they’d done the whole performance before.”

  “Only this time it was real,” I said; “this time Hager really killed him …”

  “Correct. You’ll remember it was Hager who asked how Hauser had been killed—and Hager who got us out of the house, so we could have front row seats for the final act. The actual mechanics of the murder are simple, once you know they were both swindlers. There’s an old trick among confidence men—I believe it’s called a ‘cackle-bladder’—a small membranous bag filled with chicken blood or the like, which the swindler crushes to his body in order to appear wounded, after his confederate has fired a blank pistol at him. Douglas Zadig, walking toward us across the field, simply burst the bladder on his side and did a good job of acting. Hager, who naturally was expecting it all, easily managed to move fastest and reach the ‘body’ first. At this point, to make it look as realistic as possible, Hager was to wound Zadig slightly with a spring-knife hidden up his sleeve …”

  He paused, and we remembered the scene in the snow; and the horror of what was coming dawned on us all.

  “And then, while Douglas Zadig braced himself so as to remain motionless when the knife cut into him, his partner released the spring knife up his sleeve, and sent the steel blade deep into Zadig’s side, straight for the heart …”

  Charles Kingsley stirred slightly, and Mrs. Brent was beginning to look sick. But there wasn’t much more, and Simon Ark continued. “Both doctors told us such a wound would have caused almost instantaneous death, and that made me wonder about the wounded man walking as far as he did. Anything’s possible, of course, but it seemed far more likely that Hager had killed him as he bent over the body.”

  “But,” I objected, “why did he have the nerve to try to kill you in the same way? When you pulled the trick with the chicken blood he must have realized you knew.”

  “It wasn’t chicken blood,” Simon Ark corrected with a slight smile. “I was forced to use ordinary ketchup, but I knew Hager would try to kill me, even though he realized I was only waiting to grab the knife from his sleeve. He had no choice, really. Once I was on to his trick, I had only to explain it; and an analysis of the various blood stains on Zadig’s shirt would have proved me correct. His only chance was to be faster with his spring-knife that I was with my hands. Luckily, he wasn’t, or you might have had a second impossible death on your hands.”

  He said it as if he meant it; but somehow I had the feeling that his life had never really been in danger. I had the feeling that it would be awfully difficult to kill Simon Ark …

  And so we departed from the little town in Maine, and journeyed back toward the slightly warmer wilds of Manhattan. A search of the house had turned up nearly a hundred thousand dollars in contributions from Zadig’s swindled followers, and we began to think that Hager had possibly been thinking of that, too, when he plunged the knife into his partner’s side.

  “One thing, though, Simon,” I said as the train thundered through the New England night. “Just where did Douglas Zadig ever come from? What happened in that London mist ten years ago?”

  “There are things that are never explained,” he answered simply. “But several explanations present themselves. The copy of the novel in French suggests—now that we know the man’s true character—that even at this early age he was trying to fool the public into thinking him French instead of English. I don’t know the real answer, and probably never will; but if a young man had avoided military service during England’s darkest hours, he might well have had to think up a scheme to protect himself in a postwar world full of returning veterans.”

  “Of course!” I agreed. “He was a draft-dodger; that would explain why his fingerprints weren’t on file with the army, or elsewhere!”

  But Simon Ark was gazing out the window, into the night, and he replied in a quiet vo
ice. “There are other possible explanations, of course, but I prefer not to dwell on them. Douglas Zadig is dead, like Kasper Hauser before him, and there are some things better left unexplained, at least in this world.”

  And after that he said no more about it …

  THE VICAR OF HELL

  CONSIDERING THE FACT THAT Sir Francis Bryan was, during his lifetime, one of the most notorious men in the British Isles, it is unusual that he should have become one of the forgotten men of history, overlooked by virtually every modern encyclopedia and textbook.

  Since my business is publishing, it was this fact, more than any other, that took me to England that winter on a strange quest. And before my long search was ended I was to find my very life threatened by a murder that took place over four hundred years ago …

  The first thing I heard, as I left the big four-motored plane at London airport, was a small portable radio playing one of Gershwin’s old tunes, “A Foggy Day.” It was indeed a foggy day in London town, and for a time there’d been some doubt about our ability to land the plane. They told me such fog was common in London during the winter months, and I guess that was supposed to settle any complaints I might have voiced.

  Actually, it had just turned December by the calendar; but in a city like London, where the annual mean temperature was only around 51 degrees, anything past the middle of November could be considered winter.

  Had I been planning a sight-seeing visit to the tightly sprawling city on the Thames, I’m sure I’d have picked a better month than December. But this was a business trip; and though the whole thing had been my idea in the first place, I hadn’t much choice over the time of the year.

  And so there I was, in London in the middle of a mild fog, bound for a meeting with a girl bearing the unusual name of Rain Richards.

  I’d first seen the name at the bottom of a letter sent to our London office, and forwarded to me in New York. Since I was a married man approaching the age of forty, I had not even considered the fact that Miss Rain Richards might be young and beautiful and intelligent. But she was all three of these—and much more besides—as I realized the moment she’d opened the thick oak door of her house in the London suburbs.