Black Moon Read online

  “He shouted ‘Tails!’ almost before the silver left her hand. It came up heads again, and I was safe.”

  “And so—”

  “Just so. The Bokoli couldn’t understand our words, of course, but they knew that Everton had lost by his demeanor, and they were on him in a second, pinioning his arms against his sides with grass rope before he had a chance to draw his gun and shoot himself.

  “Considering what he was headed for, you could hardly blame him, but it seemed degrading, the way he begged for life. We’d seen him in a dozen desperate fixes when his chance of coming through alive seemed absolutely nil, but he seemed like another person, now, pleading with us to shoot him, or die fighting for him, making us the most outlandish offers, promising to be our slave and work for ever without wages if we’d only save him from the savages. Even old Shamboko seemed to feel embarrassed at the sight of such abysmal cowardice in a white man, and he’d ordered his young men to drag their victim off when Everton chanced to kick the silver coin which sent him to his fate. The florin shone and twinkled in the moonlight when he turned it over. Then he and I and all of us realized. It was a trick piece Lysbeth used, an old Dutch florin with two heads. There hadn’t been a chance her man could lose the toss, for she’d told him to call heads, and she’d flipped the coin herself, so none of us could see it was a cheat.

  “Everton turned sober in a second. Rage calmed him where his self-respect was powerless to overcome his fear of torture, and he rose with dignity to march away between the Bokoli warriors. But just before he disappeared with them into the bush he turned on us. ‘You’ll never know a moment’s safety, any of you,’ he bellowed. ‘The shadow of the jungle will be on you always, and it’ll take the dearest things you have. Remember, you’ll each lose the thing you love most dearly.’

  “That was all. The Bokoli marched him off, and we never saw him again.”

  “But, Monsieur—”

  “But two weeks later, when we were almost at the outskirts of the Boer country, I woke up in the night with the sound of screaming in my ears. Cogswell lay face downward by the campfire, and just disappearing in the bush was a great silver-backed gorilla with Lysbeth struggling in his arms.”

  “You pursued—”

  “Not right away. I was too flabbergasted to do more than gape at what I saw for several seconds, and the big ape and the woman were gone almost before you could say ‘knife.’ Then there was Cogswell to look after. He’d had a dreadful beating, though I don’t suppose the beast had more than merely flung him from his way. They’re incredibly powerful, those great apes. Cogswell had a dislocated shoulder and two broken ribs, and for a while I thought he’d not pull through. I pulled his shoulder back in place and bandaged him as best I could, but it was several weeks before he regained strength to travel, and even then we had to take it slowly.

  “I kept us alive by hunting, and one day while I was gunning I found Lysbeth. It was a week since she’d been stolen, but apparently she’d never been more than a mile or so away, for her body hung up in a tree-fork less than an hour’s walk from camp, and was still warm when I found it.

  “The ape had ripped her clothing off as he might have peeled a fruit, and apparently he’d been none too gentle in the process, for she was overlaid with scratches like a net. Those were just play marks, though. It wasn’t till he tired of her—or till she tried to run away—he really used his strength on her. Down her arms and up her thighs were terrible, great gashes, deep enough to show the bone where skin and flesh had been shorn through in places. Her face was beaten absolutely flat, nose, lips and chin all smashed down to a bloody level. Her neck was broken. Her head hung down as if suspended by a string, and on her throat were bruise marks and the nailprints of the great beast’s hands where he had squeezed her neck until her spinal column snapped. I”—Lefètre faltered and we saw the shadow of abysmal horror flit across his face—“I don’t like to think what had happened to the poor girl in the week between her kidnapping and killing.”

  Costello looked from our host to de Grandin. “’Tis a highly interestin’ tale, sor,” he assured the Frenchman, “but I can’t say as I sees where it fits in. This here now Everton is dead—ain’t he?” he turned to Lefètre.

  “I’ve always thought—I like to think he is.”

  “Ye saw ’im march off wid th’ savages, didn’t ye? They’re willin’ workers wid th’ knife, if what ye say is true.”

  De Grandin almost closed his eyes and murmured softly, like one who speaks a poem learned in childhood and more than half forgotten: “It was December 2, 1923, that Lieutenant José Garcia of the Royal Spanish Army went with a file of native troops to inspect the little outpost of Akaar, which lies close by Bokoliland. He found the place in mourning, crazed with sorrow, fear and consternation. Some days before a flock of fierce gorillas had swept down upon the village, murdered several of the men and made away with numerous young women. From what the natives told him, Lieutenant Garcia learned such things had happened almost for a year in the Bokoli country, and that the village of the chief Shamboko had been utterly destroyed by a herd of giant apes—”

  “That’s it!” Lefètre shrieked. “We’ve never known. We heard about the ape raids and that Shamboko’s village had been wrecked by them, but whether they destroyed it before Everton was put to death or whether they came down on it in vengeance—Cogswell and I both thought he had been killed, but we couldn’t know. When his daughter disappeared I didn’t connect it with Africa, but that paper Cogswell clutched when he dropped dead, those hairs you found in Emerline’s room—”

  “Exactement,” de Grandin nodded as Lefètre’s voice trailed off. “Perfectly, exactly, quite so, Monsieur. It is a very large, impressive ‘but.’ We do not know, we cannot surely say, but we can damn suspect.”

  “But for th’ love o’ mud, sor, how’d, this here felly git so chummy wid th’ apes?” Costello asked. “I’ve seen some monkeys in th’ zoo that seemed to have more sense than many a human, but—”

  “You don’t ask much about companions’ former lives in Africa,” Lefètre interrupted, “but from scraps of information he let drop I gathered Everton had been an animal trainer in his younger days and that he’d also been on expeditions to West Africa and Borneo to collect apes for zoos and circuses. It may be he had some affinity for them. I know he seemed to speak to and to understand that great ape in the jungle—d’ye suppose—”

  “I do, indeed, Monsieur,” de Grandin interrupted earnestly. “I am convinced of it.”

  “SURE, IT’S TH’ NUTTIEST business I iver heard of, sor,” Costello declared as we drove home. “’Tis wild enough when he stharts tellin’ us about a man that talks to a gorilly, but when it’s intaymated that a ape clomb up th’ buildin’ an’ sthold th’ gur-rl—”

  “Such things have happened, mon ami,” de Grandin answered. “The records of the Spanish army, as well as reports of explorers, vouch for such kidnappings—”

  “O.K., sor; O.K. But why should th’ gorillies choose th’ very gur-rls this felly Everton desired to have sthold? Th’ apes ye tell about just snatch a woman—any woman—that chances in their way, but these here now gorillies took th’ very—”

  “Restez tranquil,” de Grandin ordered. “I would think, I desire to cogitate. Nom d’un porc vert, I would meditate, consider, speculate, if you will let me have a little silence!”

  “Sure, sor, I’ll be afther givin’ ye all ye want. I wuz only—”

  “Nature strikes her balance with nicety,” de Grandin murmured as though musing aloud. “Every living creature pays for what he has. Man lacks great strength, but reinforces frailty with reason; the bloodhound cannot see great distances, but his sense of smell is very keen; nocturnal creatures like the bat and owl have eyes attuned to semi-darkness. What is the gorilla’s balance? He has great strength, a marvelous agility, keen sight, but—parbleu, he lacks the sense of smell the lesser creatures have! You comprehend?”

  “No, sor, I do not.”
/>
  “But it is simple. His nose is little keener than his human cousins’, but even his flat snout can recognize the pungent scent of crude musk at considerable distance. We do not know, we cannot surely say the Cogswell girl received an envelope containing musk upon the night she disappeared. We know that Mademoiselle Lefètre did.” Abruptly:

  “What sort of day was it Miss Cogswell disappeared?” he asked Costello.

  The Irishman considered for a moment; then: “It wuz a wet, warm day in March, much like yesterday,” he answered.

  “It must have been,” de Grandin nodded. “The great apes are susceptible to colds; to risk one in our northern winter out of doors would be to sign his death warrant, and this one was required for a second job of work.”

  Costello looked at him incredulously. “I s’pose ye know how old th’ snatchin’ monkey wuz?” he asked ironically.

  “Approximately, yes. Like man, gorillas gray with age, but unlike us, their gray hairs show upon their backs and shoulders. A ‘silverback’ gorilla may be very aged, or he may still be in the vigor of his strength. They mature fully at the age of fourteen; at twenty they are very old. I think the ape we seek is something like fifteen years old; young enough to be in his full prime, old enough to have been caught in early youth and trained consistently to recognize the scent of musk and carry off the woman who exuded it.”

  “TH’ TELLYPHONE’S BEEN RINGIN’ for a hour,” Nora McGinnis told us as we drew up at my door. “’Tis a Misther Lefètre, an’ he wants ye to call back—”

  “Merci bien,” de Grandin called as he raced down the hall and seized the instrument. In a moment he was back. “Quick, at once, right away, my friends,” he cried. “We must go back to Nyack.”

  “But, glory be, we’ve just come down from there,” Costello started to object, but the look of fierce excitement in the Frenchman’s face cut his protest short.

  “Monsieur Lefètre has received a note like that which killed his friend Cogswell,” de Grandin announced. “It was thrust beneath his door five minutes after we had gone.”

  “And this,” de Grandin tapped the scrap of ragged paper, “this shall be the means of trapping him who persecutes young girls.”

  “Arrah, sor, how ye’re goin’ to find ’im through that thing is more than I can see,” Costello wondered. “Even if it has his fingerprints upon it, where do we go first?”

  “To the office of the sheriff.”

  “Excuse me, sor, did ye say th’ sheriff?”

  “Your hearing is impeccable, my friend. Does not Monsieur le Shérif keep those sad-faced, thoughtful-looking dogs, the bloodhounds?”

  “Be gob, sor, sure he does, but how’ll ye know which way to lead ’em to take up th’ scent?”

  De Grandin flashed his quick, infectious grin at him. “Let us consider local geography. Our assumption is the miscreant we seek maintains an ape to do his bidding. Twice in three months a young girl has been kidnapped from the Shelton School—by this gorilla, we assume. America is a wondrous land. Things which would be marvels otherwhere pass unnoticed here, but a gorilla in the country is still sufficiently a novelty to excite comment. Therefore, the one we seek desires privacy. He lives obscurely, shielded from his neighbors’ prying gaze. Gorillas are equipped to walk, but not for long. The aerial pathways of the trees are nature’s high roads for them. Alors, this one lives in wooded country. Furthermore, he must live fairly near the Shelton School, since his ape must be able to go there without exciting comment, and bring his quarry to his lair unseen. You see? It is quite simple. Somewhere within a mile or so of Shelton is a patch of densely wooded land. When we have found that place we set our hounds upon the track of him whose scent is on this sacré piece of paper, and—voilà!”

  “Be gorry, sor, ye’ll have no trohble findin’ land to fit yer bill,” Costello assured him. “Th’ pine woods grow right to th’ Shelton campus on three sides, an’ th’ bay is on th’ other.”

  THE GENTLE BLOODHOUNDS WAGGED their tails and rubbed their velvet muzzles on de Grandin’s faultlessly creased trousers. “Down, noble ones,” he bade, dropping a morsel of raw liver to them. “Down, canine noblemen, peerless scenters-out of evil doers. We have a task to do tonight, thou and I.”

  He held the crudely lettered scrap of paper out to them and bade them sniff it, then began to lead them in an ever-widening circle through the thick-grown pine trees. Now and then they whimpered hopefully, their sadly thoughtful eyes upon him, then put their noses to the ground again. Suddenly one of them threw back his head and gave utterance to a short, sharp, joyous bark, followed by a deep-toned, belling bay.

  “Tallis au!” de Grandin cried. “The chase is on, my friends. See to your weapons. That we seek is fiercer than a lion or a bear, and more stealthy than a panther.”

  Through bramble-bristling thicket, creeping under low-swung boughs and climbing over fallen trees, we trailed the dogs, deeper, deeper, ever deeper into the pine forest growing in its virgin vigor on the curving bay shore. It seemed to me we were an hour on the way, but probably we had not followed our four-footed guides for more than twenty minutes when the leprous white of weather-blasted clapboards loomed before us through the wind-bent boughs. “Good Lord,” I murmured as I recognized the place. “It’s Suicide Chapel!”

  “Eh? How is it you say?” de Grandin shot back.

  “That’s what the youngsters used to call it. Years ago it was the meeting-place of an obscure cult, a sort of combination of the Holy Rollers and the Whitests. They believed the dead are in a conscious state, and to prove their tenets their pastors and several members of the flock committed suicide en masse, offering themselves as voluntary sacrifices. The police dispersed the congregation, and as far as I know the place has not been tenanted for forty years. It has an evil reputation, haunted, and all that, you know.”

  “Tenez, I damn think it is haunted now by something worse than any of the old ones’ spooks,” he whispered.

  The ruined church was grim in aspect as a Doré etching. In the uncertain light of an ascending moon its clapboard sides, almost nude of paint, seemed glowing with unearthly phosphorescence. Patches of blue shadow lay like spilled ink on the weed-grown clearing round the edifice; the night wind keened a mournful threnody in the pine boughs. As we scrambled from the thicket of scrub evergreen and paused a moment in reconnaissance the ghostly hoot of an owl echoed weirdly, through the gloom.

  De Grandin cradled his short-barreled rifle in the crook of his left arm and pointed to the tottering, broken-sided steeple. “He is there if he is here,” he announced.

  “I don’t think that I follow ye,” Costello whispered back. “D’ye mane he’s here or there?”

  “Both. The wounded snake or rodent seeks the nearest burrow. The cat things seek the shelter of the thickets. The monkey folk take to the heights when they are hunted. If he has heard the hounds bay he has undoubtlessly—mordieu!”

  Something heavy, monstrous, smotheringly bulky, dropped on me with devastating force. Hot, noisome breath was in my face and on my neck, great, steelstrong hands were clutching at my legs, thick, club-like fingers closed around my arms, gripping them until I thought my biceps would be torn loose from my bones. My useless gun fell clattering from my hands, the monster’s bristling hair thrust in my eyes, my nose, my mouth, choking and sickening me as I fought futilely against his overpowering strength. Half fainting with revulsion I struggled in the great ape’s grasp and fell sprawling to the ground, trying ineffectually to brace myself against the certainty of being torn to pieces. I felt my head seized in a giant paw, raised till I thought my neck would snap, then bumped against the ground with thunderous force. A lurid burst of light blazed in my eyes, followed by a deafening roar. Twice more the thunderous detonations sounded, and as the third report reverberated I felt the heavy weight on top of me go static. Though the hairy chest still bore me down, there was no movement in the great encircling arms, and the vise-like hands and feet had ceased their torturing pressure on
my arms and legs. A sudden sticky warmness flooded over me, wetting through my jacket and trickling down my face.

  “Trowbridge, mon vieux, mon brave, mon véritable ami, are you alive, do you survive?” de Grandin called as he and Costello hauled the massive simian corpse off me. “I should have shot him still more quickly, but my trigger finger would not mind my brain’s command.”

  “I’m quite alive,” I answered as I got unsteadily upon my feet and stretched my arms and legs tentatively. “Pretty well mauled and shaken, but—”

  ”S-s-sh,” warned de Grandin. “There is another we must deal with. Holà l’haut!” he called. “Will you come forth, Monsieur, or do we deal with you as we dealt with your pet?”

  STARK DESOLATION REIGNED WITHIN the ruined church. Floors sagged uncertainly and groaned protestingly beneath our feet; the cheap pine pews were cracked and broken, fallen in upon themselves; throughout the place the musty, faintly acrid smell of rotting wood hung dank and heavy, like miasmic vapors of a marsh in autumn. Another smell was noticeable, too; the ammonia-laden scent of pent-up animals, such as hovers in the air of prisons, lazarets and primate houses at the zoo.

  Guided by the odor and the searching beam shot by de Grandin’s flashlight, we crossed the sagging floor with cautious steps until we reached the little eminence where in the former days the pulpit stood. There, like the obscene parody of a tabernacle, stood a great chest, some eight feet square, constructed of stout rough-sawn planks and barred across the front with iron uprights. A small dishpan half filled with water and the litter of melon rinds told us this had been the prison of the dead gorilla.

  De Grandin stooped and looked inside the cage. “Le pauvre sauvage,” he murmured. “It was in this pen he dwelt. It was inhuman—pardieu!” Bending quickly he retrieved a shred of orange satin. He raised it to his nose, then passed it to us. It was redolent of musk.