Crimson Shore

46

Walt Adderly, proprietor of the Captain Hull Inn, sat at the bar of the Chart Room, listening to Benjamin Franklin Boyle regale the regulars — yet again — with the story of how he found the corpse of the historian. The normally taciturn Boyle was in an expansive mood, rolling his eyes theatrically, gesturing with his mug of beer, and in general putting on a good show. He’d had more than his usual pint, his skinflint habits thrown to the wind on this special day. Like many seafaring men, Boyle was an accomplished storyteller, and it seemed the crowd just couldn’t get enough. The power had gone out an hour before, which somehow only added to the festive mood. Candles had been brought out and set up along the bar, the patrons drinking and celebrating the bizarre end to the murder mystery. As the drinks and conversation flowed, there was a general feeling of relief that Exmouth had returned to normal. Naturally, most were shocked by the involvement of the Dunwoodys, although there was a minority that opined as to how they’d “never trusted that family.” Adderly himself had never had a problem with his longtime bartender, Joe Dunwoody, aside from the stealing of food. He even felt sorry for him in a way.

Boyle had just gotten to the point in the story where he was about to turn over the corpse with his clam rake when the front door to the Inn slammed, hard.

Adderly looked toward the sound as Boyle fell silent. He leaned back in his chair, then called out down the dark hall to the front parlor. “Come in, friend, and get yourself out of that filthy weather!”

Boyle returned to the story. He was flush with the attention and the beer.

But no one appeared from the direction of the front parlor. Adderly held up his hand for silence. He looked back down the hall. “Come on in, don’t be shy!” And then, in a sudden impulse of generosity, he added: “Round’s on the house!”

This announcement was greeted with a murmur of approval all around. Boyle turned to the bartender and twirled a finger. “Fill ’er up!” He suspended the story while Pete, the backup bartender, began refilling everyone’s mugs.

A loud crash came from the dark hallway. It sounded to Adderly like someone falling down. Apparently their new visitor, whoever it was, already had a head start on the celebrations.

“Hey, Andy, that guy out in the hall needs a little help,” Adderly said to the man perched on the stool closest to the door.

Andy Gorman got off his stool, picking up one of the candles. “Don’t resume till I get back.”

“No problem,” said Boyle, burying his lips in the frosty brew.

Shielding the candle, Gorman walked out of the bar and down the hall, a wavering point of light in the darkness.

A moment of silence — and then a piercing scream came from the hall. Adderly almost dropped his own mug in surprise and swung around, staring down the black corridor. Everyone rose at once. Gorman’s candle seemed to have gone out: the hall was black. The storm shook and rattled the old structure.

People exchanged glances. “What the hell?” someone said after a moment.

“Andy? Andy!”

At that moment, a smell rolled out of the hall: a stench of death and rot and fecal matter that overwhelmed Adderly’s nostrils. All was silent; no one moved. And out of that silence, over the rattle of the storm, Adderly heard the rapid, breathy sound of animal panting.

In his room on the top floor of the Inn, Pendergast sat up in bed. He listened intently, but the scream from downstairs had abruptly cut off and he heard nothing more save for the storm. The celebratory noise from the bar had also ceased.

He slipped out of bed, swiftly donned his clothes, grabbed a flashlight, and strapped on his Les Baer. He ran down the hall, descended one flight, and then — after the briefest of pauses — grasped the doorknob to Constance’s room. When he found it locked, he rapped on it.

“Constance,” he said. “Please open this door.”

No response.

“Constance,” he repeated. “I’m very sorry for what happened, but this is no time for melodramic gestures. Something is—”

Even as he spoke, he heard a sudden chorus of cries erupt from downstairs, a cacophony of shrieks mingling with the sounds of a ferocious stampede, the crashing sound of chairs being overturned, glassware breaking, and feet thundering on the wooden floor.

Without waiting any longer, he turned his shoulder to the door and, in one blow, broke it down.

The room was empty, the bed still made. There was no sign anywhere of the flashlight he had given her.

Pandemonium had broken out downstairs. He scrambled down the stairs, pulling out his weapon as he did so, to arrive in the front hall. His flashlight revealed the front door yawning wide and swinging in the howling wind. A body lay sprawled over the threshold.

He turned and ran down the hall into the bar, where a scene of extreme violence greeted his eye: a second eviscerated figure lay on the floor, while half a dozen others were crouching, terrified but unhurt, behind the bar.

“What was it?” Pendergast rapped out.

“God help us, help us!” a man shrieked, triggering a storm of wild importuning from the huddled group, with the words monster and demon and ape and hound mingling unintelligibly with the cries of the terrified patrons.

“Where did it go?” Pendergast said.

A man pointed out the door.

Pendergast turned and raced back down the hall and out into the storm, leaving the patrons crying futilely after him for protection. He could see bare footprints crossing the porch and the sandy walk beyond, already being erased by the rain. He hesitated, peering into the storm in the direction the creature had gone: southeastward, into the salt marshes. Whatever it was, it had wreaked havoc and then escaped.

His mind shifted. Constance was missing. She hadn’t retired — she must have left the Inn some time ago, perhaps immediately after the abrupt conclusion of their conversation. He passed a hand across his forehead.

Where did they go? she had asked. What happened to them? The only place south of the site you discovered in the marshes is Oldham.

That, Pendergast felt certain, was where she had gone: Oldham, the long-abandoned town that, for reasons he could not fathom, she had focused on. Not two hours before, she had all but implied that the heart of the mystery remained unsolved. Even as he considered this, he felt a twinge that perhaps he had dismissed her concerns too readily — that her intuition had told her something that his own cold analysis had overlooked.

The killer was barefooted, in a storm, with the temperature dropping into the forties. That fact, more than any other, profoundly disturbed him, as it indicated there was something about the case he had missed completely — something fundamental — just as Constance had insisted. And yet, even as he pondered the mystery of the bare footprints, he couldn’t find even the glimmer of a solution.

With a burning sense of chagrin, he set off into the storm, following the faint and quickly disappearing marks in the sand.