Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 44, No. 7 & 8, July/August 1999

Claud by David Braly

I first saw him when I was seven years old. A realtor who specialized in country estates was showing us the living room of a house on a seventy acre nonworking “farm” in Connecticut. It was a red brick house with white storm shutters, and nearby there was a gentle rock-strewn brook that tumbled quietly through an ancient oak grove. The house would be ample for my parents, my two sisters, and myself without requiring a housekeeper or other help. The living room had a vaulted ceiling, built-in bookcases, a maple floor, a stone fireplace, and tall, clear, very large multipaned windows. The broker, a perpetually smiling middle-aged man of lofty stature and prematurely silver hair, was pointing to a three-pronged electrical outlet as proof that the old house had been rewired. Being a child, I saw no significance in the fact, since the wires were inside the walls, i.e. invisible, and therefore it shouldn’t matter whether they were old or new, but my father seemed pleased to hear it. I assumed that he was only being polite. My father — and my mother too, for that matter — were polite to a fault. It was at that moment that a lanky, slightly stooped man of sixty or more years dressed in a denim workshirt and faded overalls walked through the front door. He nodded to us as he crossed the living room toward a door that led into the hall. He disappeared through the door.

For a moment everyone was too stunned to say anything.

“That’s just Claud Heister,” said the broker at last. He laughed. “He comes with the house.”

My parents laughed, so I and my sisters — although too young to understand the joke — did also. The broker resumed showing the remainder of the property, and Claud Heister was forgotten.

After the tour my father told the broker that he would call tomorrow to let him know if he was interested in making an offer. I was hoping that he would be interested. I really liked the place. There was plenty of room to play and to ride the horse that I believed I would receive someday. My sisters, who at five and four were too young to understand what was happening, watched and listened to the conversation without perception or bias. But I wanted him to buy.

My parents had been actively looking for a house in Connecticut for almost a month. It was to serve as a weekend and holiday retreat from our home in New York City. Most of our friends owned retreats in Connecticut or the Hamptons. For me, the place we had seen that day was perfect.

It turned out that my view wasn’t an isolated one. After we’d all slid into my father’s Imperial, my father asked Mother what she thought of the farm. “I think it’s perfect,” she said.

“Good,” he said. “I feel the same. It’s larger than we’d discussed, and will cost more than we’d budgeted, but we can swing it.”

Swing it they did. Several days of negotiation ended with the purchase. There was a further delay in our going there while Mother acquired exactly the right sort of furniture she wanted for the living room, dining room, master bedroom, and the two bedrooms that we kids would occupy. Furniture for the other rooms could wait, but Mother insisted on acquiring the basic stuff immediately.

Finally, after days of impatient waiting, moving day arrived. This was the long-awaited moment when the movers would haul all the furnishings from the storage warehouse in the Bronx to the house in Connecticut. They would follow the Imperial, and later Mother would direct them in the placement of the new furniture. Actually, because Mother had complete charge of where things went, there was little need for the rest of us, but Father was the family’s only licensed driver and they couldn’t have kept us children away without enduring more crying, whining, and complaining than it would have been worth.

When we reached the farm, my father parked beyond the front porch so the movers would have plenty of room. He had already cautioned us children to stay out of the way and out of the house, and he did it again right after we left the car. When Father went to open the front door of the house, he found it unlocked. He looked surprised but not concerned. The movers backed their van up to the front porch and began unloading. I remember that the first item they took out was the long mahogany cabinet that now belongs to my sister Alicia. Mother followed the movers into the house to show them where she wanted it, while Father strolled over to a garage that once had been a barn. My sisters and I stayed to watch the movers.

The movers came out and went back in with another item while Mother remained inside. The process was repeated several times before she came out again. It was while she was outside pointing to the piece of furniture she next wanted taken inside that Claud came out the front door onto the porch. When Mother turned and saw him, she sort of gasped. Evidently he’d been inside the house the whole time that they’d been taking in furniture. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I was in my room and didn’t hear you folks arrive or I woulda been out earlier to help you.”

Before she could say anything, one of the movers said, “We can always use some free help.”

Claud went right to it, helping move the lighter pieces, and Mother said nothing. Of course, what could she say? She didn’t know what he was doing there, but she wasn’t really sure that he had no business being there because sometimes Father arranged for things without telling her. She tried to ignore the circumstances and treat him like he was just another one of the movers. After the lighter stuff had been taken inside, he disappeared. I doubt that she forgot about him exactly, but I suspect, knowing her, that she refused to admit to herself that the whole situation wasn’t resolved by his temporary disappearance.

When Father reappeared, she mentioned nothing about it to him. Of course she was still busy, getting the last pieces of furniture placed just right and getting dinner fixed at the same time. Part of the problem with country living is the lack of pizza delivery systems.

Dinner was served in the small dining room. The living room was to one side, and a door that led into the big kitchen and pantry was to the other. The room was more long than wide, with cream-colored walls and a couple of windows with a splendid view of the countryside. The table was a long, heavy, elaborately carved black walnut piece Mother had found in a store that specialized in antique furniture. It dated from the mid-nineteenth century. She took great delight in anticipating the first setting of it. It didn’t matter that eight chairs came with the table but there were only five of us.

Or rather, as it turned out, six of us.

Just as she finished setting the table, Claud reappeared. He walked into the kitchen where she and my older sister were, sniffed the air, and asked, “What’re we having?”

“Uh... roast beef with candied yams and sweet peas.”

“That oughta be good. I ain’t had a good female-cooked meal since this place went on the market four months ago. Mrs. Carstairs could sure cook up a fine dinner. Made good waffles for breakfast, too. Do you make waffles for breakfast, Mrs. Hinton?”

“Uh... yes... sometimes.”

“Good. I sure like waffles for breakfast. Of course, anything you fix is fine with me. I ain’t particular. How long before dinner’s ready?”

“Ready? Oh, about another five minutes.”

“Just enough time to wash my hands.” He left, and Mother went looking for Father. Unfortunately Father had found something urgent that needed doing outdoors, and she couldn’t find him. She didn’t have a full five minutes to look because she needed to set another place at the table.

By the time Father finished his odd job we were all seated at the table: Mother, myself, Alicia, Janet, and Claud. Father sort of flinched when he saw Claud there, but he didn’t ask any questions or say a word about it. Claud looked up at him, smiled, and nodded, and Father stalled and nodded back at him and then took his seat at the table. Father looked at Mother and then at Claud and then back at Mother, but he said nothing. While eating, though, he kept sneaking glances at Claud.

Nobody said much during dinner other than to ask people to pass this or pass that. But it wasn’t because of Claud. Mother and Father believed it impolite to talk during meals, and so it wasn’t done. Claud must have been of the same opinion because he didn’t say anything either.

After dinner Mother began clearing away the dishes, and Father went into the living room. He pretended as though he were intent on surveying his new property from the big living room windows, but actually the tight clasping and unclasping of his hands behind his back signaled that he was bursting with questions that his politeness wouldn’t allow him to ask. Claud stopped in the living room after he left the table.

“Do you play cards, Mr. Hinton?” he asked.

“Cards? No. No, I don’t. Why? Do you?”

“Mostly patience. Sometimes, when there’s someone around who’s game, a little poker.”

“Uh-huh. Well, I... I don’t play cards.”

“Too bad. Mr. Carstairs could play a mean hand of draw poker. So could Mr. Tillman.”

“Tillman? I don’t recognize that name.”

“He used to own this place.”

“You mean before Mr. Carstairs?”

“Yes. Not just before him. There were two owners between them... Well, I’ll just head for my room. I’m in the middle of a good western novel. Do you read westerns, Mr. Hinton?”

“No. Nonfiction, a few mysteries, that’s about it.”

“I see. Well, I’ll just head for my room.”

Father watched him go. More than that, my usually polite and circumspect Father shadowed him part of the way. He had reason, though: he wanted to discover which room was Claud’s so he wouldn’t accidentally walk into it uninvited.

Which isn’t to say that my parents immediately accepted this puzzling situation. They did not. On the contrary, I learned much later, they stayed up half the night discussing it. Mostly they tried to recall exactly what the real estate broker had said about Claud Heister and the way he’d said it. They finally went to bed after agreeing that the following morning Father would drive into New York to see the broker and discover exactly who Claud was and what he was doing in their new house. One thing only Father was certain of: there was no mention of Claud Heister in the real estate sales agreement.

The next morning Mother fixed waffles for breakfast. Normally she didn’t. Waffles were always something of a treat. Usually we had Quaker Oats or cream of wheat on cold mornings, and pancakes, bacon, and eggs or cold cereal on other mornings. It was obvious that she’d made them for Claud. It was the polite thing to do, of course.

“My oh my,” he said after he’d tasted one, which he’d saturated with Brer Rabbit molasses. “That is certainly a first-class waffle, Mrs. Hinton.”

“Is it as good as Mrs. Carstairs’ waffles?”

He took another bite, chewed very carefully, his eyes up at the ceiling, as though carefully weighing the question with both his brains and his tastebuds. We all watched him and waited for his verdict.

“You know,” he said at last, “I believe they are as good.”

Everybody breathed in relief. Even Father appeared pleased by the judgment.

That did not prevent him from driving into New York to see the broker. It did not help his disposition that the broker was out of town showing a house and that he had to wait at the man’s office until midafternoon.

I was not present for the meeting, of course, and only learned about it years later. Although polite as ever, Father was adamant in demanding an explanation. The broker said he’d told Father that Claud came with the house, but Father was having none of that. He had taken it as a joke, he said. Anyone would take such a comment as a joke. I don’t know what the broker thought he was doing when he tried to excuse the situation so lamely because obviously the effort would fail. Nobody would believe himself legally informed by such a casual statement.

In the end the broker had to provide a full explanation that made some sort of sense. I say “some sort” because no complete sense was ever made of the situation.

According to the broker, Claud Heister had lived in the house for at least three decades. No one — or more accurately, no one the broker knew of — was exactly sure how long he’d been there. He literally came with the house. He was not mentioned in the contracts, but he was there. Every new owner had been surprised in turn by his presence (apparently it was a practice of both seller and broker not to inform the buyer of everything he was getting) but had eventually accepted it.

“They recognized that Claud is a benefit,” said the broker.

“A benefit? How is it beneficial to have a man we don’t know living in our house?”

“Your country house,” corrected the broker. “You’re usually not there.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“Claud’s presence is a deterrent to thieves and vandals. Your house is safer because he’s in it. And when you are there, he’s barely noticeable. He occupies one bedroom.”

“But he’s not a member of my family.”

“Look at it this way. You have a watchman on your property, guarding it day and night twelve months of the year, paid for by the government.”

“The government?” asked Father.

“He lives on his Social Security. You pay him nothing. In return, your house is protected. You suffer no real inconvenience at his hands. All you give up is one bedroom in a five-bedroom house.”

“But... but he isn’t part of my family.”

“Mr. Hinton, he’s lived there for at least three decades. At least three. Do you really want to be responsible for evicting this man from his home?”

Of course that was the best argument in the world to use with my father. He caved. Claud became a permanent fixture at the Hinton country house — as he’d been before the Hintons had the country house.

Naturally, at the time, my sisters and I knew nothing of these events or the dismay produced in my mother when she learned we had acquired a permanent houseguest. What we did know was that Claud was always at the farm. In the way of children, we did not question his presence, did not question who he was, did not question what his function might be. The adult world was filled with things too complex for us to understand, so there were things we seldom questioned and this especially included why certain adults happened to be in certain places. We always assumed, for example, that a waitress was a waitress because that’s what she was, not because it was what she chose to be or what she had to be. We never looked into anyone’s motives for being in a certain job or a certain place. Claud was Claud and he was at the country house; that was all there was to it.

Perhaps some questions might have formed in our minds if we had come to know him better. But we never did come to know Claud. He appeared at meals; otherwise we saw him infrequently. Sometimes we would see him walking toward the front gate, going somewhere, and sometimes we would see him coming from the front gate, coming from somewhere, but he never did anything on the farm itself. He never worked or played. He just came and went. Indoors, other than at meals, the only times we saw him — and they were seldom — were when he was seated at the otherwise empty dining table playing patience. On those occasions he wore a green plastic eyeshade.

It was because of Claud that we kept the country house when Father experienced severe financial trouble during a recession. He needed money, and he wanted to sell the farm. But he couldn’t because of Claud. Father was simply too much of a gentleman to allow a broker not to warn a potential new buyer about Claud, yet obviously nobody would buy it knowing that a permanent houseguest came as part of the package. So we kept the farm and Father barely avoided bankruptcy. It put him through the wringer. In the end it turned out well because Father survived without selling the farm.

Claud died last summer. It was sudden and unexpected. He was walking down the road and just dropped dead of a heart attack. The doctor said that sort of heart attack seldom happened. Father claimed it was the best way to go. I’m not so sure; I think I would want some warning.

Father paid for Claud’s burial in the nearest cemetery and for a nice headstone after a quick investigation confirmed that he had no family.

It was only then, when Father was going through Claud’s papers in his room (the court appointed him and a local lawyer co-executors) that he found the promissory note. Forty years earlier it had been given to Claud Heister, farmhand, by the then owner of the farm, John Williams. The note was for accumulated back wages, which Williams was unable to pay, amounting to two thousand three hundred dollars. The interest was eight percent a year, compounded annually. An attached statement signed by Williams stipulated that Claud Heister would be allowed to live on the farm rent-free until the note and interest were paid and that the promise was binding on Williams’ heirs, assigns, and other successors in ownership of the farm.

We have since wondered, and probably will wonder ever after, whether Claud had slyly refrained from mentioning the debt to later owners after it had been forgotten, realizing that the free room was a better deal than the money (although the money would have amounted to almost fifty thousand dollars by the time he died), and if someone ever did order him to leave he could always produce the note and collect the money. But maybe that wasn’t the reason he’d never referred to the note. Maybe he’d simply been too polite to mention it.