The Best of Robert Bloch Read Free

grinned.
    "Very well," Baston muttered. "Friends—I give you this bundle from Britain. Your witness."
    Then the ribbing started. I meant to listen, but at that moment Lydia Dare saw me and dragged me off into the vestibule for one of those Darling-I-waited-for-your-call-all-day routines.
    By the time I got rid of her and went back, the impromptu quiz session was in full swing. From the attitude of the crowd, I gathered that Sir Guy was doing all right for himself.
    Then Baston himself interjected a question that upset the apple-cart.
    "And what, may I ask, brings you to our midst tonight? What is your mission, oh Walrus?"
    "I'm looking for Jack the Ripper."
    Nobody laughed.
    Perhaps it struck them all the way it did me. I glanced at my neighbors and began to wonder .
    LaVerne Gonnister. Hymie Kralik. Harmless. Dick Pool. Nadia Vilinoff. Johnny Odcutt and his wife. Barclay Melton. Lydia Dare. All harmless.
    But what a forced smile on Dick Pool's face! And that sly, self-conscious smirk that Barclay Melton wore!
    Oh, it was absurd, I grant you. But for the first time I saw these people in a new light. I wondered about their lives—their secret lives beyond the scenes of parties.
    How many of them were playing a part, concealing something?
    Who here would worship Hecate and grant that horrid goddess the dark boon of blood?
    Even Lester Baston might be masquerading.
    The mood was upon us all, for a moment. I saw questions flicker in the circle of eyes around the room.
    Sir Guy stood there, and I could swear he was fully conscious of the situation he'd created, and enjoyed it.
    I wondered idly just what was really wrong with him. Why he had this odd fixation concerning Jack the Ripper. Maybe he was hiding secrets, too. . . .
    Baston, as usual, broke the mood. He burlesqued it.
    "The Walrus isn't kidding, friends," he said. He slapped Sir Guy on the back and put his arm around him as he orated. "Our English cousin is really on the trail of the fabulous Jack the Ripper. You all remember Jack the Ripper, I presume? Quite a cut-up in the old days, as I recall. Really had some ripping good times when he went out on a tear.
    "The Walrus has some idea that the Ripper is still alive, probably prowling around Chicago with a Boy Scout knife. In fact—" Baston paused impressively and shot it out in a rasping stage whisper—"in fact, he has reason to believe that Jack the Ripper might even be right here in our midst tonight."
    There was the expected reaction of giggles and grins. Baston eyed Lydia Dare reprovingly. "You girls needn't laugh," he smirked. "Jack the Ripper might be a woman, too, you know. Sort of a Jill the Ripper."
    "You mean you actually suspect one of us?" shrieked LaVerne Gonnister, simpering up to Sir Guy. "But that Jack the Ripper person disappeared ages ago, didn't he? In 1888?"
    "Aha!" interrupted Baston. "How do you know so much about it, young lady? Sounds suspicious! Watch her, Sir Guy—she may not be as young as she appears. These lady poets have dark pasts."
    The tension was gone, the mood was shattered, and the whole thing was beginning to degenerate into a trivial party joke. The man who had played the March was eyeing the piano with a scherzo gleam in his eye that augured ill for Prokofieff. Lydia Dare was glancing at the kitchen, waiting to make a break for another drink.
    Then Baston caught it.
    "Guess what?" he yelled. "The Walrus has a gun."
    His embracing arm had slipped and encountered the hard outline of the gun in Sir Guy's pocket. He snatched it out before Hollis had the opportunity to protest.
    I stared hard at Sir Guy, wondering if this thing had carried far enough. But he flicked a wink my way and I remembered he had told me not to be alarmed.
    So I waited as Baston broached a drunken inspiration.
    "Let's play fair with our friend the Walrus," he cried. "He came all the way from England to our party on this mission. If none of you is willing to confess, I suggest we give him a chance to find