Corpses at Indian Stone Read Free Page A

he thought, to bring the associations of Congo voodooism to the United States. He was always doing things like that. The price you paid for being an anthropologist.

    Sarah was settling herself for a talk. He helped her arrange the bedcovers. John knocked lightly on the door and came in. "Mr. Calder's outside," he said. "He wants to talk to you."

    Aggie looked at his aunt with feigned dismay and said flatly to the old man, "His daughter Beth is with him, I suppose? Has he got a wedding license filled out in triplicate? A ring? Tell him I never marry except on Thursdays."

    Old John was perplexed. "Miss Calder isn't there. He's alone. He seems disturbed."

    Aggie glanced at his aunt--and his glance held. Something had happened to her.
    She looked afraid--or worried. He said, "You'd better interview this cluck after you get some sleep. Isn't he the cad who ran off with the doctor's wife--and then left her in California--a fate worse than death?"

    Sarah did not smile. "Tell him to come in, John. Aggie, beat it."

    "I will not. I'm your guardian--for a change. I stay. What does this oaf want?
    Why. are you suddenly full of hornets?"

    "I'm not," Sarah said. "It's just that--well--nobody cares for Jim Calder--much. He rarely comes up here. His family does--his daughter--and his son--and his son's wife. But Jim has hurt so many people--that he's--"

    There were steps in the hall.

    The man who came in looked unlike either a home-wrecker or a robber of widows and orphans. He was a gaunt, weary-appearing person with a short, iron-gray pompadour and liver-spotted hands. Although it was a warm evening, he wore a dark, wool business suit and a stiff white collar. His dull plaid tie had too tight a knot in it. His face was sanctimonious; his eyes were blue, hard, and not particularly pleasant. He said, in a crackling voice, "Oh--Sarah--you had a wire from Bogarty--?" and then he saw Aggie.

    He did not introduce himself, or wait for an introduction, or even allow Aggie to perform the amenities. He said, "John didn't tell me you had anybody here! The old fool is probably getting senile! I want to see you alone."

    Sarah's gray eyes were placid. "Probably, Jim, you didn't give poor old John a chance to tell you anything. You generally don't. Your manners were always cheesy."

    That did not disturb Jim Calder in the least. He stared at Aggie. "Will you leave the room, please?" He added, "whoever you are."

    Aggie found himself angry. Calder's rudeness was of the deliberate, meaningless sort that evokes rudeness in others. He replied, after a second, "Why, I'm sorry. My aunt's ill. I'm a doctor. I was going to treat her. But you need treatment more--for too much gall."

    A faint flush tinged Calder's pallid cheek. It increased as he perceived that Sarah was giggling. "Who are you?" he asked. "Sarah, are you sick?"

    "Jim," she said, "for heaven's sake, sit down. You'd think, at your age, you'd have learned that you don't have to beat everybody on earth to the draw. Yes, I heard from Hank. Here's the wire. And this is my nephew--the famous Dr. Plum, of Brandon University. Make an obeisance, Aggie, and beat it."

    Mr. Calder's expression was still uncompromising. "Oh," he said. "Yes. Heard of you. Excuse us."

    Aggie wandered to the door. "Rudeness is pretty inexcusable," he said, "when you consider it abstractly. Nevertheless, Mr. Calder, inasmuch as I have no further desire to stay here--"

    "Oh--for mercy's sake, man--get going!"

    Aggie went. He found old John standing uneasily in the living room. "That man, "
    said the servant, exercising the liberty of long habit, "always makes me boil!"

    "Like dry ice," said Aggie. "Has he a daughter named Beth?"

    "Oh, yes, Mr. Aggie. And a son. Bill. Neither of them anything like their father."

    "I should think not. The impossibility of tribal survival for the completely misanthropic strain--"

    "I beg pardon, sir?"

    "I said, among savages, upon whom we so-called civilized people look down, such a