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Voodoo
by Samuel Shellabarger
writing as John Esteven
Chapter 1
Fear
"Of course the motive in both cases may have been burglary." The judge's metallic, rasping voice trailed off. His forefinger, taut as an eagle's claw, scraped at the leather of the chair arm. "But I don't think so, Inspector. I've come to you as an expert. I'm not a timid man. I haven't flinched from things. But the point is . . ."
He paused again; the nail scraped back and forth, seaming the leather. Then, looking up, he met the other's scrutiny, and Norse saw once more gather and focus in the eyes of his caller the startled light which had at first impressed him. He was unprepared, however, for the change of tone, sunk to a whisper.
"But the point is: I'm afraid."
"Of what?"
Question evaded question. "Do you believe in premonitions?"
"No. I believe rather in facts."
Massive and yet gaunt, bloodless, deliberate, Judge Frole leaned back in an attitude that was still rigid. Before him, one arm on his desk and chin in hand, Rae Norse, chief of the metropolitan detective service, waited. Outside, shading the window, loomed, far-flung and gigantic, the city skyline.
"I must tell you," said Frole, "that my study at home communicates directly with the back yard or garden by means of glass doors. The garden itself, which is one of the few remaining in that section of the city, is shut off from the alleyway by an eight-foot brick wall. On the evening of September 17th — it was during the last heat wave — I went out for a breath of air."
"At what time?" interposed Norse.
"About nine-thirty. It was dark and pleasant. I was tired and sat down on a bench close to the wall, four or five yards from the study door. Maybe I dozed. At all events, suddenly I discovered two men standing on either side of the door and peering in. It was good luck, I think, that they had not seen me on the bench, which was in complete shadow. Evidently they expected to find me in the room. I heard one of them whisper 'ausente', absent, and I caught the word 'volvera', he'll return, and the word 'esperar', to wait."
"Spanish," observed Norse.
"Yes, but the men were negroes. The light from the room shone full on them. Somehow, I did not dare to stir. They were powerful men of the blunt, brutal kind. They remained crouching on either side of the door. I don't know what would have happened or what they intended. Fortunately a bell rang; one of our servants knocked at the inside door of the study, announcing a caller. The men leaped the wall like shadows. But they lost this."
Reaching to a side pocket, Frole removed an object which he placed with a faint jingle in front of Norse.
"Handcuffs," remarked the latter, examining it. "Well, sir, did anything further happen?"
"I bought a watchdog," answered Frole. "A month passed. Yesterday he disappeared and yesterday night my house was entered. It was like this. At about eleven I went to the butler's pantry for a glass of water. Everyone had retired except myself. Having passed through the dining room, which was unlighted, I pushed against the swinging door of the pantry, but I can tell you I felt startled when it did not yield. There was an equal pressure on the other side. This was removed slowly. Then I found myself looking into the darkness beyond. I confess that I was shaken, but I groped for the lights, switched them on, searched the kitchen beyond. There was a window open. Whoever it was had gone out that way. This morning a patrolman told me that he had seen two men last night lounging in the street outside and had moved them along. They also were negroes."
A moment's silence followed. It was broken by Frole. "Well, Mr. Norse, am I justified in troubling you? Do you think this is serious or not?" And the startled light, so strangely at variance with the pale, relentless face, once again gathered in his eyes.
The other nodded. "It's serious enough that the premises of a federal judge of this district should be twice invaded by suspicious persons whatever their motive. But I agree with you that the motive was not burglary." "What then?"
Norse shrugged. "I'm inclined to think that it was not murder." He fingered the handcuffs absently. "And I'm tempted to believe that the men you saw were agents for someone else."
"Why?"
"Your description: blunt, brutal, powerful. That type is generally the tool of a subtler brain. Is there anyone to your knowledge hostile enough and unscrupulous enough who harbors a grudge against you? Your zeal, for example, in the enforcement of prohibition laws means rancor in certain quarters."
An acid complacency betrayed itself in the judge's answer. "I am no sentimentalist. I have not swerved to left or right in the interpretation of any law. My decisions are governed by the letter of the statute, let the chips fall where they will."
"To be sure," agreed Norse.
He was aware of an illogical, but growing, distaste for his caller. According to reputation, Frole was a man whom age had hardened, narrowed, dehumanized instead of mellowing — an intolerant pedant, proof, men declared, against any generous feeling, a zealot of the code. But all this was none of Norse's business. He got up and began pacing the length of the office, but paused at last near the window, against which his alert, chiseled features and lithe form stood out in silhouette.
"I'm to take it then that you suspect no one in particular?" And receiving an affirmative nod, "You'll forgive me if I ask some questions. They're indiscreet, you may think them impertinent, but I must start in the clear about certain unfortunate episodes."
An even sterner line straightened the judge's lips. "You refer to the conviction and sentence of my worthless son for liquor smuggling. Well?"
"At the time of his trial your attitude was above criticism. It received merited praise and sympathy in the national press. While declining yourself to judge the case, you completely repudiated your son and refused him any assistance. Entirely admirable. But rumor maintains that he resented this and that your wife and daughter supported him. If I remember correctly, his sentence expired a month ago. But the ring he served is still active. You will recall besides that several negro underlings were involved with him and were convicted at the same time. Now, without wishing in the least to suggest anything fantastic or unnatural, I am curious about your relations with Essex Frole."
"He lives at my house," came the frigid answer. "I feed and clothe him. Our relations end there. He hates me, I suppose. His mother sides with him."
Like scissors' blades, the thin lips closed, shutting off whatever passion may have been behind. The pale eyes met Norse's steadily.
"One further question," said the latter. "You have a distant relative, James Ackerson, who became your son-in-law."
This time a phantom of color rose to the judge's cheeks. "Against my will, as you may have heard, against my absolute refusal. No friend of mine, and I make no secret of it. I broke with him years back. And now this corrupt middle-aged wastrel entangles my daughter, marries her secretly, and makes sport of me." The words were driven out in angry jerks, as if timed by an inflamed pulse. "I have cut Doris off and forbidden him the house. But what of Ackerson?"
"Would you mind telling me the original grounds for your break with him?" countered Norse.
"By no means. He made the law and me unwitting instruments of a cowardly personal spite. You may know that he was originally in the navy, but resigned his commission in 1907. I learned afterward that he had been guilty of dishonorable conduct, and that the resignation was forced, but at the time not a hint of this reached me. Naturally enough, the investigation which preceded his withdrawal had been conducted by his superior officer, one Dryden Senart, and against this gentleman Ackerson conceived a bitter hatred. Perhaps it added to the sting that they were both natives of the same Southern town. At all events, but in what way I never learned, Ackerson discovered the trace of negro blood in Senart's ancestry. A grandfather on the maternal side had been a Bermudan and a mulatto, but of this even Senart had been ignorant. Then appeared anonymous letters, the publication of documents — proof. Senart was a proud man. He resigned from the navy."
"I remember the case," observed Norse, "but I didn't know of Ackerson's share in it."
"No; he remained prudently in the shadow. Though, of course, Senart understood. But this was not enough; his rancor extended even to Senart's child, a girl of seven. There is segregation of races in the Southern schools. Ackerson contrived anonymously to have her privilege of attendance at a white school challenged. The case was brought to court, and as it happened that I was then on the Southern bench it was tried before me. I decided, of course, that the girl was technically colored though to all appearances white."
"Do you mean to say," exclaimed Norse, for a moment distracted from his immediate problem by this example of Frole's pedantry, "do you mean to say that you would exclude a child with so small a proportion of negro blood from the traditions and privileges of her race?"
"I could be guided only by fact and evidence," rasped Frole. "I believe in race integrity at any cost, though naturally later, when I was informed by Senart of the background of the case, I could feel nothing but contempt for Ackerson's motives, and I washed my hands of him. But it was no business
of mine. He was a relative; there were family considerations. Time passed and Senart disappeared, together with his wife and daughter. I kept silence; but now I have made it plain to him that I will do so no longer. He — "
"That was perhaps unwise," interrupted Norse. "I asked you about him for this reason: it is definitely suspected that his ostensible brokerage business has been unsuccessful, that he is attempting to maintain himself by the liquor traffic, and that your son was connected with the same organization. If such a man is your enemy — "
"Yes," proclaimed Frole, "he is my enemy."
"If we assume," continued Norse, "that the two occurrences at your house are connected, they point, I think, to some enterprise of vengeance, but curiously enough with the primary purpose, at least, rather of kidnapping than of violence. The appearance of Spanish-speaking negroes suggests liquor smuggling, and I shall begin tentatively from that point." "What do you propose doing?"
"Among other things, to spend tonight and perhaps several nights at your house."
The comparative animation he had shown during his exposure of Ackerson had now vanished, leaving Frole granite-like as ever, except for the flutter in his eyes. After a considerable pause, he spoke.
"You will not succeed, Mr. Norse."
"In what?"
"In protecting me."
"Why?"'
"Oh, you do not believe in premonitions." With something of an effort, the judge rose from his chair and stood towering above the smaller man. Stout of body and will, strong-featured beneath his shock of grizzled hair, there was still a reflection in his gaze of something Norse had seen in the expression of condemned men.
"For the last few mornings," muttered Frole, "on the breakfast table or on my desk, or before the hearth, I have found this."
Opening a pocketbook, he removed with a rustle and held out to the other a withered leaf. It was an oak leaf recently fallen. "I have made inquiries and kept watch," he said, "to no purpose. It's curious how a little thing like that begins to haunt a man, occupies one's thoughts, becomes an object of dread."
"Why did you not speak of this before?" asked Norse.
"I did," said Frole. "Can withered leaves be anything but premonitions that have taken form?" He gave a silent laugh and held out his hand. "I'll expect you this evening then."
Norse detained him. "You have told no one, I hope, of your intention to call on me?"
"No one except my secretary, Miss Trayne."
"You can rely on her?"
"Absolutely."
"Then impress on her the need of secrecy."
The door closed, and for a moment the judge's footsteps could be heard retreating along the corridor outside. Illogically the sound became a word in Norse's mind. Doomed, doomed, doomed.
He turned impatiently. Ridiculous! He apprehended nothing in this case that could not be handled simply and effectively. Supervision of Ackerson and Essex Frole, a reconnaissance here and there by practiced agents along the waterfront, and temporarily his own protection of the house. Frole was an important man; for every reason he must supervise this affair himself. He had been much employed of late and felt jaded. That alone could account for the absurd reiteration of those footsteps in his mind.
He paused for a moment in front of one of the long bookshelves surrounding the office, which disclosed the range and versatility of his interests, but for once the inclination to find relief in reading failed him, and he walked instead to the window, where he stood for a time looking out. Temporarily also his shoulders drooped from their usual carriage. On such occasions he regretted that he was not like so many of his comrades on the force, men of exclusively practical training, undisturbed in the exercise of their profession by any but tangible, logical considerations. The criminologist in Norse, the social theorist, disturbed at times with abstract implications the clear-cut problems of official business. He found it hard to isolate the individual instance from its general bearing. Fifteen years of arduous service had not dulled this tendency, and now at forty, both in expert knowledge and mental acumen, he could have held his own among philosophic specialists — but philosophy proves often enough disquieting.
This case of Frole, for instance. A degenerate son, a daughter already prominent in backstairs gossip, a wife whom Norse remembered once to have seen at court, rouged, conspicuous, and affected. A family, moreover, torn within itself, but rich, socially accepted, long established — like many. That was the element that now, more than this immediate affair, intruded upon Norse's thought. Like many. Too many. The click of the retreating footsteps maintained its half-subconscious echo. He looked out upon the wide sweep of the city: shafts of granite, ridges of stone and steel, amazing towers, and beneath them the roaring canons of modern life; streamers of smoke, drone of aircraft, arrogant power. But for once a shadow stained the impression: he might have defined it as the shadow of Time, the sense that all this gave of completion, an ended cycle, maturity, but with maturity, decay. He refused to follow the cheerless speculation.
Doomed, doomed.
What nonsense! His glance shifted from the window to an object he still held, revolving its stem between thumb and finger, a fragile hieroglyph, the withered leaf.
