Clay Read Free Page A

veil of mystery swathing her life, Cassandra Heath would have been a striking person. As it was, I was fascinated.
    We had walked some distance before the girl spoke again. The moon had risen and phantom rocks glistened in its watery glow. The ocean pounded choppily on a rain-sodden beach and our feet left moist rubbery prints that disappeared as quickly as they were made. Moving with long graceful strides, Cassandra Heath talked in a level monotone.
    “I suppose you’ve heard tales about my father. You can’t live in Kalesmouth any length of time without hearing about old Lazarus Heath....” Grim humor touched the warm lips.
    “Solly-Jo did a bit of talking,” I admitted.
    “You mustn’t believe everything you hear, Doctor. My father is ill. He has been for some years. We prefer to keep to ourselves at Heath House. When people can’t talk to you, they talk about you.... They tell stories about father....”
    “Miss Heath,” I ventured. “Do you think that your father...”
    “Is insane?” the girl supplied. “Two years ago... last year, even, I should have said ‘no.’... Now, I can’t be certain. My father has led a strange life, Doctor... a strenuous one.... Here of late, he’s been given to brooding. He was always moody and quiet, but this is something different. He... he’s afraid of something, I think.... Then, too, there are the disappearances....”
    “Disappearances?”
    “He’s taken to wandering off at night.... Four times in the last couple of months I searched the whole length of the Strand and couldn’t find him....”
    “Maybe, he’d gone to the mainland...
    “I think not; someone would have seen him. No... he went somewhere... somewhere much farther away....” For the first time, a note of puzzled fear crept into Cassandra Heath’s voice. “... Much farther...She seemed to come back with an effort. “He did that tonight, Doctor. Just before the storm broke.... I... I found him later... hours later... wandering in a small cove beyond the house. He was talking strangely... and singing.... A funny little tune. He’s in his room, now... still talking... still singing that song....”
    Onyx eyes flashed up to meet mine; in that brief moonlit instant, I saw all the doubtful terror, the puzzled anxiety that Cassandra Heath would not admit, even to herself. I had no time to question her further, to attempt to link together her last broken phrases so that I could guess at the real meaning that lay hidden in them. Kalesmouth Strand had suddenly narrowed, and now, on either side of us, midnight ocean licked possessively at the land. A tortuous path, tangled with sea brambles and rocks, snaked to the shadow-choked veranda of Heath House. Weather-wasted planks groaned in protest under unaccustomed footsteps.
    *
    At a gentle pressure of Cassandra’s hand the ponderous mahogany door swung back soundlessly. Even before I stepped into the candlelit, gloom-encrusted hallway, I could smell it—that loathsome, clinging effluvium of rotting marine flesh of which Solly-Jo had muttered. It swirled sickeningly in the clammy atmosphere of a foyer that was like the dusty nave of some forgotten cathedral, rising along lushly paneled walls to the sightless dark far above. A wide, twisting staircase wound upward to some higher labyrinth, and as I followed Cassandra Heath up stairs whose ancient gray carpet was worn thin by the tread of forgotten feet, the fetor became ever more powerful, more noisome.
    Through dream-like corridors, I followed the fitful glow of the candelabrum the girl carried. Another door opened, then closed behind me. I stood in a chamber that seemed drawn from the dark maw of lost aeons. Tremendous oaken furniture dwarfed the figure sprawled limply on a dais-raised bed, and, though the small-paned casements stood wide, chilling sea-fog swirling through them into the room, the stench was overpowering. Cassandra set the candelabrum on an antique cabinet-de-nuit; an eerie luster flickered