Chapter 4
Seven Times Death
Fergus Fillmore was just leaving the main room downstairs when I entered. Lecky, the director, looking austere and thoughtful, was standing in front of the fireplace.
I heard Fillmore say, “Here's Eric back. He and I can manage Elsie between us. And if you can think of something for Paul Bailey to do, he'll be better off out of the way.”
Lecky nodded. “Tell him I said to go to my office and wait for me there.”
“Come on, Eric,” Fillmore said to Andressen. “Get your flashbulbs and camera. We'll take pictures before we move the body.”
“All right. Where are we---uh---going to put her?”
“We'll use the crate that the cylinder of the star-camera came in. We can turn it into a makeshift sort of refrigerator with some tubing and Rex's help. We'll borrow this refrigerating unit out of the---”
Their conversation faded as they went up the steps.
Director Lecky said, “An unfortunate evening, Wunderly. I'm afraid you're not getting much of a welcome but we're glad you're here.”
“When shall I start on my duties, sir?”
“Don't worry about that. Take a day or two to familiarize yourself with the place and get to know the people you'll work with. Work is light here anyway, in bad weather.”
“Shall I help Fillmore and Andressen?” I suggested.
“They'll do all right. Andressen's a bug on photography; got enough equipment to set up as a professional. And Rex Parker will have the refrigeration ready for them when they're ready for it. Have you met Rex?”
“No. Is he another of the assistants?”
“He's our electrician-mechanic. But---Lord, I nearly forgot to tell you. Annabel went up on the roof and you're to join her there. In fact, I've delegated her to show you around.”
I found Annabel looking out over the parapet at the edge of the roof. Following her gaze, I saw a jagged, rocky landscape. Here and there one could catch glimpses of the tortuous turnings of the swollen stream.
She asked, “Did Darius talk an arm off you, Bill?”
“It was dangling by a shred,” I told her. “He gave me the manuscript of his book to read.”
“That book!” Annabel said. “It's horrible; let's not talk about it. Darius is a bit of a bore, but he really isn't as bad as that book would lead you to believe.”
“It's hardly bedtime reading,” I admitted. “But I've a hunch I'm going to find it interesting. Annabel---”
“Now, Bill, don't start talking in that tone of voice. Not tonight, anyway. Look, there's the dome down at that end of the building. Tomorrow I'll show you around inside it. It's---”
“Sixty feet high,” I said, “and houses the thirty-inch telescope, which is forty-six feet long. The dome is movable and the floor is a great elevator whose motion enables the observer to follow the eyepiece of the telescope without climbing ladders. I've read all about it, so let's talk about us.”
“Not tonight, Bill, please.”
“All right.” I sighed. “But I'm more interested in people than telescopes. Have I met everyone? Or let's put it this way: I've heard about a few people I haven't met; a housekeeper, a cook, and an electrician named Rex something. Are there any others?”
“Parker is Rex's last name. I guess that's all of us except a handy man who helps Otto the janitor. You met Otto. And---oh, yes, there's Mrs. Fillmore and Mrs. Lecky; you haven't met either of them. Neither were over at the main building tonight. And there's a stenographer who'll help you, but she's away on sick leave.”
“The three astronomers live in separate houses?”
“Lecky and Fillmore do. There's another house for the third staff member, but it's vacant because Darius Hill is a bachelor and doesn't want to live in it alone. So he rooms in, like the rest of us.”
I counted on my fingers. “Three astronomers; Lecky, Fillmore, Hill. Three assistants; Paul Bailey, Eric Andressen, and you. Rex Parker, Otto the janitor, and a handy man. Housekeeper, cook, wives of two astronomers and daughter of one. Fifteen of us here, if I counted right.”
“And Charlie Lightfoot. Not a resident but he drops in often.”
“Sixteen people,” I said, “and sixty rattlesnakes. I hope they don't drop in often. Say, about Paul Bailey. Is he---”
I never finished that question, for from somewhere below us, and outside the building, came the sound of a scream.
There is something more frightening in the scream of a man than that of a woman. Possibly it is because men, in general, scream less often and, in most cases, only with greater cause.
At any rate, I felt a tingling sensation on my scalp---as though my hair were rising on end. Annabel and I ran to the parapet on the south end of the building and looked down.
A man was running from the garage, screaming as he ran.
We heard a door of the main building jerk open and slam shut. Then Annabel and I were hurrying for the stairs that led down from the roof.
“It was Otto,” she gasped. “Do you suppose that a snake---?”
That was just what I did suppose and I didn't like to think about it. Because it was very unlikely that one snake had got loose---and there were thirty in each box.
We pounded down the stairs and ran along the hallway. A man in dungarees and a blue denim shirt almost collided with me. I guessed him to be Parker, the electrician.
He hurried past us. “Stay out of there, Miss Burke. Charlie's ripping Otto's clothes off. I'm getting ammonia.” Then he was past us.
I said, “Wait in the living room, Annabel. I'll see if I can help Charlie.”
I shoved her firmly through the door of the living room. Not because I shared Parker's prudishness but because I had in mind doing something Annabel would probably object to my doing.
From the roof I had seen that Otto had left the garage door open. That door wouldn't be visible from the windows here and the others wouldn't know about it. That door should be closed.
I pushed through into the kitchen.
Otto was stretched out on the floor there. Fergus Fillmore and the cook held him down, while Charlie Lightfoot worked on him.
About each of Otto's legs, high on the thigh, Charlie had tied a makeshift tourniquet.
Now he was busy with a sharp knife, using it with the cool precision of a surgeon. I could see that there were several gashes from that knife in each leg.
No one paid any attention to me as I sidled past. I looked out through the pane of the door, and there was moonlight enough in the yard for me to see something I didn't like at all---high grass.
But I opened the door and slipped out, closing it quickly behind me. If I hurried, maybe I could get that garage door shut in time.
I held my breath as I headed for the garage building. My eyes strained against the dimness and my ears against the silence of the night, my muscles alert to leap back at the first sound of a rattle.
I'd almost made the garage before I heard it. A five-foot rattler had been coming through the open doorway. He coiled and rattled.
I froze where I stood, six feet from him. I knew he wouldn't be able to reach me from where he was; no rattlesnake can strike farther than two-thirds of his own length.
Keeping a good distance from him, I began to circle around lo put the open door between us. Now I was in double danger, for my course took me off the path and into the high grass. If other snakes had already come out of the garage, I'd probably slop on one without seeing it.
But I didn't; I got behind the door and I threw myself forward against it and slammed it shut.
I'd have been safer walking back to the main building but I ran instead. Even running, it seemed as though it took me thirty minutes to cover the thirty steps to the kitchen door.
Then I was safe inside.
“Couldn't do a thing,” Charlie was saying. “Seven bites---and one of them---that one---hit a vein. They die in three minutes, when the fangs hit a vein.”
Otto was lying very still now.
Rex Parker burst in the door, a glass in one hand and a bottle in the other. “The ammonia. One teaspoonful in--- Oh! Too late?”
Charlie Lightfoot stood up slowly. He saw me and his eyes widened.
“Bill, you look as though--- Good Lord! I remember now I heard that door closing. Did you go out in the yard?”
I nodded and leaned back against the door behind me. Reaction had left me weak as a kitten.
“He left the garage door open,” I told them. “We saw that from the roof. I closed it.”
“You didn't get bit?”
“No.” I saw a bottle of whiskey on the table and crossed unsteadily toward it to pour myself a drink. But my hand shook and Charlie took the bottle from me. He poured a stiff shot and handed it to me.
He said, “You got guts, Wunderly.”
I shook my head. “Other way around. Too damn afraid of snakes to have slept if I'd known there were a lot of them around loose.”
I felt better when I'd downed the shot.
Charlie Lightfoot said, “I'll have to go out there and count noses, as soon as I get my puttees back on.”
Parker said, “Are you sure it isn't too---”
“I'll be safe enough, Rex. Get me a flashlight or a lantern, though.”
Fillmore's voice sounded wobbly. “We'll have to take care of Otto's body like we took care of Elsie's. Wunderly, will you tell Andressen to come help me?”
“Sure. Is he in his room?”
Fillmore nodded. “Listen. That's his cello.”
I listened and realized now, as one can realize and remember afterwards, that I had heard it all along---from the moment Annabel and I had come through the doorway passage from the roof.
I asked, “Shall I look up Dr. Lecky, too?”
“He went over to his house,” Fillmore said. “I'll call him on the house phone. It's still working, isn't it, Rex?”
Parker nodded. “Sure. But look, Mr. Fillmore, better tell Lecky not to try to come over here. There may be rattlers loose around outside, even if the door did get shut before most of them got out.”
Charlie Lightfoot put down the whiskey bottle. “Hell, yes. Tell him within half an hour I'll know how many are at large, if any. And Fillmore, how about your wife and daughter? Is there any chance either of them would go out of the house tonight? If so, you better warn them.”
“I'll do that, Charlie. They're both in for the night. But I'll phone and make sure.”
I went to the living room first, told Annabel what had happened and told her I was going up to get Andressen.
She said, “I'm going upstairs, too. I think I'll turn in.”
“Excellent idea,” I told her.
I left Annabel at the turn of the corridor, with a kiss that made my lips tingle and my head spin.
“Be sure,” I whispered, “that you lock and bolt your door tonight. And don't ask me why. I don't know.”
Andressen was playing Rimsky-Korsakoff's Cog D'Or. A pagan hymn to the sun that seemed a strange choice for an astronomer.
My knock broke off the eerie melody. The bow was still in his hand when he opened the door.
“Otto Schley is dead, Eric,” I told him. “Fillmore wants your help.”
Without asking any questions, he tossed the bow down on the bed and flicked off the light switch.
“About Mr. Hill and Paul Bailey,” I asked. “Do you know where they are?”
“Bailey's probably asleep. He had a spell of the jitters, so Darius and I gave him a sedative---and we made it strong. Darius is probably in his room.”
He hurried downstairs, and I went on along the corridor to Darius Hill's room and knocked on the door.
He called out, “Come in, Wunderly.”