Corpses at Indian Stone Read Online Free

to his room, he felt Bogarty's card in his pocket. That reminded him of the knife he had left on the veranda rail, and, since there was no chance that Sarah would see him bring it in, he went out to get it.

    The knife was gone. He hurried down the front steps and lit matches to search behind Sarah's ferns, but it had not rolled off the rail. Someone had taken it. He returned and asked John--but the old man denied having been on the porch.

    "Well," Aggie said, "maybe Calder saw it and took it. He seems to have a habit of grabbing everything he can."

    "No doubt," John said.

    Aggie bade him good night, and started up the stairs. His eyes grew misty when he went into his room. The objects there--banners, pictures, trophies, knickknacks and books--had belonged to a twelve-year-old boy. The scientist sat down on his bed, trying to summon that youngster back to existence: a boy who'd been slight, sun-tanned, shy, knowing. An interested kid--one who was afraid of grown people. He still was, the man finally thought.

    He undressed and put on faded flannelette pajamas. He turned back the covers of the bed, slid into it, and did not especially try to go to sleep, which was why he found himself waking from a deep repose at the sound of stair-creaks. Only his mountainous aunt could make such noises. He had a light on and was sitting up when she knocked.

    "Come in."

    Her face was blotchy. She was panting slightly. There was a diamond dust of sweat on her skin. "I'm a hysterical old woman," she said thickly. "But, Aggie, I feel extraordinarily ill. My jaws are like a vice. I was on the verge of sleep when I thought of tetanus. It scared me so, I popped awake--and I've worked myself into a first-class tizzie.
    I hated to bother anybody--and yet--I found myself coming up to see you."

    He was standing, then, pulling his trousers over his pajamas. "I'll drive over and get Dr. Davis right away. If he's here. If not, I'll push on into town and raise somebody."
    He knew that she wanted him to do that--although she was protesting. "I don't think it's tetanus--I've seen a few cases. But I haven't any idea what it is. Do you still keep the car keys in the teapot?"

    "The new ones-the shiny ones-are for the station wagon."

    He helped her back to bed.

    Outdoors, it was still pitch-dark. But he could have found his way around to the garage blindfolded. He switched on a light. The place had once been a stable--and somehow it still smelled like a stable, although there had been neither horse nor harness in it for more than a quarter of a century. He heard Windle's feet hit the floor in the servants' rooms above and called, "It's me, Windle! Sarah feels badly and I'm going for the doctor. Don't bother to come down." Then he was driving over the familiar roads--by memory-paths that he had not known were still in his brain.

    The Davis house, much like Sarah's, was called "Medicine Lodge" in quaint if obvious adherence to the local tradition. There was no doorbell. He banged the door with his fist, waited, banged again, and waited again. From the vast interior he presently heard quick, sharp footfalls--the steps of a woman--and soon he saw a light moving inside.
    Because that was not what he had expected, he looked into a window.

    A woman was coming down the stairs; she carried a candelabrum. As she descended, she lighted more candles. Her mules--pale green--made the sharp steps, and her negligée--half green, and, crazily, he thought, half mauve--floated behind her. She had smooth, red-gold hair that curled at the ends--just below her shoulders. She was young and opulently beautiful. Aggie had no idea who she was, but he imagined that perhaps Dr. Davis had married again--and he thought that he would hate to be a man in late middle age with a wife like that.

    The woman didn't ask, "Who's there?" She somehow was not that sort of person.
    She merely opened the door and said, "Yes?"

    "I'm looking for the doctor. My aunt--Sarah Plum--is ill. Very