The Djinn Read Free Page B

in
brilliant sunlight, we walked across the overgrown lawns in silence and rested
at last on a rusty wrought-iron garden bench. There was a view of the
glittering, ink-colored sea, with the starched sails of yachts leaning on it;
the crumbling old house with its Gothic turret; and the neglected gardens that
ran down through the land; there was nothing but the sound of the surf and the
weathervane squeaking with every swing. Marjorie patted her graying hair
straight, took out her handkerchief, and discreetly blew her nose.
    “I’ve never
seen you like this,” I told her. “You seem frightened of something.”
    She folded her
hands in her lap and stared out toward the seashore, saying nothing at all.
    “I don’t
understand about the house,” I said. “Didn’t Max want you to keep it? Didn’t he
leave you some kind of trust fund for it?”
    Marjorie didn’t
answer. She sat as if she were posing for a formal portrait, with her black
funeral shoes side by side in the grass like a pair of obedient Labrador
puppies.
    “Well, I don’t
know,” I said resignedly. I took a pack of cigarettes out of my black vest
pocket and found they were crushed into S-shapes. I straightened one out, lit it
with my trusty Zippo, and blew the smoke across the lawn.
    The
scimitar-shaped weathervane went squeeeekkk, squeeeekkk, squeeeekkk.
    After a few
minutes, Marjorie said, “Max was not himself toward the end.”
    I nodded. “Is
that why he didn’t settle anything about the house?”
    “Oh, no,” she
said. “He was quite sure about the house.”
    “You mean Max
wanted it demolished, too?”
    “Oh, yes, he
was quite sure about that.”
    “But why? What’s the point of tearing down a historic house
like this? Max loved it!”
    Marjorie sighed
nervously. She seemed very jittery, and it was obviously an effort for her to
sit still.
    “He never
explained everything. He said that he would only tell me what I needed to know
for my own safety.”
    I laughed.
There was nothing notably funny in what Marjorie had told me, but I thought I
ought to bolster her confidence by showing her how carefree and debonair I was.
    “It sounds to
me like one of Max’s little jokes,” I told her. “You really shouldn’t worry
about it. I think you need a little holiday more than anything else. It’s a big
strain, looking after a sick man.”
    She stared at
me coldly, and my smile leaked out of my lips like air dribbling out of a
balloon.
    “It wasn’t a
joke,” she said, “and he wasn’t sick.”
    “But you just
said he wasn’t himself.” “I didn’t mean that he was sick.” “Then what did you
mean?
    You’re speaking
in riddles.”
    Marjorie picked
at the edge of her thumbnail where her nail polish was chipped. When she spoke,
her voice sounded very dry and deliberate, and I had an unsettling feeling that
she was doing her utmost to tell me the truth.
    “It was
something to do with the jar. Do you remember the jar?”
    I nodded.
“Sure. You mean the one he brought back from Arabia, the one with the blue
flowers and the horses and everything? Yes, of course I do. It used to be one
of my favorite things when I was a kid.”
    “Well,” said
Marjorie carefully, “there was something about the jar that none of us knew.
Max knew, but it was only toward the end that he told me. The jar was-well, it
was strange.” “What kind of strange? You mean rare?” “No, no,” she said. “It
had strange properties. At certain times, it used to sing. I mean, it made
singing noises. I never heard it, but Max said he did. It was usually at night.
He said he went up to his study once, at two or three in the morning, and the
jar was singing.”
    I frowned. “Singing? Singing what?” Marjorie shook her head. “It wasn’t
a particular tune or anything, but it really used to sing, or so Max said. He
went up several times after that, in the night, and it was singing.”
    “I guess it was
a freak. You know-wind blowing across the mouth of the