The Lost Bradbury Page 3

  The candle held centre stage, misting the weapons into the background. It pervaded all, seemed, rather, to be already aflame and spilling a steady, pure glow over all the window; and out, touching Jules’ face with a soft finger of pastel light.

  But it was not lighted. And yet it emanated light, it was luminescent.

  * * * *

  There was something infinitely peaceful about this candle. The figure was postured erect, but it seemed relaxed, contented. The face had the unrippled, dreamlike contour of the Lotus Buddha. It promised many things with its serenity.

  It offered surcease from worry and—something else. Something ominously fleeting. Other lights flickered within the candle torso, things uninterpretable. Jules considered the guns again, and then the candle, and, once more, the guns.

  And even in these hours of many emotions, predominant in Jules was curiosity. Curiosity and appreciation of beauty.

  So it was that Jules’ thin hand was upon the knob of the shop-door before he realized it. The door sagged in on hoarse hinges, shut behind him, complaining.

  Momentarily, Marcott had forgotten his wife, Helen. Now he had seen something intangible and wished to touch it, perhaps even buy it.

  A candle so unusual that it offered to fill the vacant portions of his soul. A candle that offered—what?—better things than guns to solve his problem.

  Out of the cool cavern of the shop, from a gloomy alcove behind a counter, appeared the proprietor. He was a contrast to Jules.

  Where Marcott was tall, pale, jet-haired and thin, this proprietor was short, round, apple-cheeked. A toothless, big-nosed ancient with a shock of winter-snow hair tangling about full ears.

  The proprietor moved quietly, smacking his lips, wiping hands on a dirty smock that covered his bulging stomach, wagging his head. He was a little too cheerful amidst the dust and rusted metal and shadows.

  “What, sir?” he said, cheerfully. “There’s no doubt but you’ll have either a pistol or the candle!”

  He sized Marcott up with two quick thrusts of his eyes, which, though blue, did not offer the friendliness displayed by the body. They were strangely alert and not warm.

  Jules felt a distinct dislike for the man, for the man’s abrupt attitude. It was a little too sudden and strange.

  Marcott did not speak immediately. He could give no reason for entering the shop; could find no explanation for his curious action. He was bewildered.

  “No. No,” he said suddenly, awkwardly. “I—I don’t want a pistol!”

  “Of course you don’t.”

  The proprietor blinked rapidly, shaking a finger. “Of course you don’t. Pistols are much too messy.” The fat body waddled between cluttered counters thick with nails, knobs and other glittering objects. Reaching the window he bent, breathing asthmatically, and with gentle, chubby hands picked up a pale-blue candle. His face creased into a toothless grin as he returned to Marcott.

  “And if you do not wish a pistol, then you want the candle. Everyone who comes to my shop buys either a gun or this taper.” He shook his head. “The fools use the guns in their desperation.”

  He offered the unlighted taper to Jules. “And the wise man lights a taper. Here.”

  The candle was bedded in a small heavy circlet of bronze, exquisitely carved with puckish elfin heads and an inscription in some ancient scrawl.

  As Jules clasped it he felt a quick warm snake of confidence strike him and crawl twining up his arms into his being. It was like dawn after a thunderstorm.

  The proprietor gestured to the window. “I do a great business,” he declared, heartily. “Not in hardware, and not to the ordinary person. I sell to fools and wise men. Mostly fools.” The red lips smacked moistly. “The world is full of them. Now—this candle—”

  He paused, and his eyes became slits, his voice dropped. “This candle, when lighted of an evening, will perform many tasks in many ways. Both pleasant and unpleasant.”

  He tapped the bronze candle base.

  “The inscription—”

  Marcott could not readily translate it. Its foreign scrabble gave no message to his dark eyes. He shook his head.

  The proprietor translated:

  * * * *

  “The man who will in trouble be,

  Soon surely sees the light in me.”

  * * * *

  Marcott stared unblinkingly at the blue tallow, his fingers tight upon the base.

  “How do you know I am in trouble?” he asked.

  A streak of white moved across the dim shop floor. A milk-furred kitten ceased running and stopped to play tag with Marcott’s overcoat. Jules ignored it as the proprietor gave answer.

  “All who come here bear one form of trouble or other. None enter here for nails and hammers. I have seen to that. And you, like the others, are tormented. I know not what shape or form this torment may assume, but now it darkens your existence and you wish to forget it. And forgetting can only be accomplished, at times, by destroying something. What do you wish to destroy?”

  Marcott did not trust the proprietor. He did not speak aloud. But in his brain six words materialized instantly, vividly:

  “I wish to kill a man!”

  The shadows in the hardware shop wavered a fraction closer. The blue candle, though flameless, glowed, and the milk-white kitten who gambolled at Marcott’s feet paused and cocked its head up, staring at him with large green eyes, as if it knew his every thought.

  Marcott wet his lips thoughtfully, feeling that he should say something. So, he said, “This candle isn’t a weapon,” rather matter-of-factly.

  “The kiss of a woman,” replied the proprietor, “is the most lethal of all weapons. Yet, who looks on it as such? Judge a thing not by its looks, but by its deeds.”

  Jules doubted.

  “This candle will destroy,” said the proprietor.

  “How?”

  Jules thought angrily of Eldridge, the man he hated, the man he wished to kill. And he thought of Helen.

  The proprietor answered. His voice was cheerless.

  “You light the candle in the evening hours. You wait until it has flamed steadily for a number of minutes. Then, three times, you breathe the name of the person you wish to destroy.

  “This done, the designated individual will conclude his existence immediately.”

  Marcott was wary. The passing minutes had given him opportunity to collect his wits. It sounded too utterly simple to be accepted in the sunlight of reason, to stand the probing of the scalpel of intellect.

  But Marcott’s problem demanded a solution. This trouble with Helen, his wife, and Eldridge, her lawyer friend, was not an easy one.

  Marcott held the candle close, forming words.

  “How do I know that this candle works?” he said. “What sort of witchcraft is this?”

  “You do not believe?”

  “No. I do not.”

  “Then—I will show you.”

  The proprietor struck a match. The flame glittered in his deep blue eyes, and on the snowy hair and ruddy face.

  He lit the candle. He waited a few moments.

  Previously, without flame, the candle had filled the room with soft, wondrous light from its phosphorescent body. Now, flamed, it shot out torrents of soul-filling brilliance that was like the illuminating of a great full moon.

  Marcott sensed something moving softly against his legs. He looked down. It was the furry white cat with the huge green eyes still staring up at him, mewing, clawing at his coat-tail, exposing a red tongue.

  Marcott heard the proprietor murmuring three times. Three times the old man spoke, and his breath made the candle flame lean to one side, quivering.

  The candle flickered….

  And the cat, one moment playfully alert at Jules�
�� feet, the next crying out in animal pain, leaped as if kicked, clawed the air, rolling and writhing and spitting.

  For a moment it recovered. It leaped up, gained a hold upon the counter next to Jules and tumbled over into a nest of metal. Then it spat froth and blood, snarling. Its little, milk-coloured head twisted as if an invisible hand were wringing it. The green eyes bulged nightmarishly. The little red tongue was caught between clamped teeth. It gave one last convulsive shudder, jerked, and fell silent, its tail twitching.

  * * * *

  It was dead.

  Jules sickened suddenly. His face paled, his thin lips were dry and he swayed unsteadily. He turned away from the kitten and looked at the candle with the oddly peaceful feminine figure, the contented face.

  The proprietor blew the flame out. “You see—it works?”

  Jules nodded.

  The proprietor handed the candle back to Marcott. “I cannot sell you the candle,” he said, softly. “But I can rent it to you for a short period of time. You pay half when you rent, half when you accomplish your work and return. Fair?”

  A throng of thoughts crowded Jules’ mind. He had little money saved. And he had proof, horrible proof, that the candle worked. Here in the shadows he could not doubt. Rationality had fled. But he didn’t want to spend too much money. A bullet might be cheaper—maybe—

  He feared to ask the price.

  “Three thousand dollars….” came the answer to the unworded question.

  THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS!

  As well demand a ton of soil from the planet Mars! Jules Marcott’s bank account advanced to three pitiful figures.

  But with the unreasoning blindness of a potential killer, Marcott would not, could not give up this candle and its alleged powers.

  He whirled and started for the door.

  “I have no money,” he said. “Let me use the candle and pay later!”

  “Money!” The proprietor poked out a red fist. “Or return the candle, quickly! I hold no commerce with the poor!”

  “I’ll pay you when I get the money! I—”

  “Wait, then!”

  The proprietor lunged at Marcott with open hands.

  Jules wheeled to one side, snatched up the first fistful of metal touching his hands, a cumbersome blunderbuss, and struck with it, clumsily.

  The weapon hit. The proprietor shrieked with pain, fell flat, unconscious. Not dead.

  Hastily, hiding the blue candle figurine in his overcoat, Jules departed the shop of cluttered shadows. He hurried into the marrow-biting chill and strode down the street. Through his mind slipped the vision of the kitten dying, the translation of the ancient inscription on the bronze candle-base:

  * * * *

  “He who will in trouble be,

  Will quickly see the light in me!”

  * * * *

  And now—to mete out vengeance on the head of the man who loved and took Helen away. And simultaneously to teach Helen a lesson she would never forget.

  Her divorce from Jules would be of no avail now. Eldridge, her lover, would die.

  Marcott walked swiftly, confidently.

  * * * *

  Jules Marcott fitted the red ribbon bow to the package with trembling fingers. Then he penned a carefully worded note to his wife, slipped it into an envelope and attached it to the box containing the blue candle.

  It was much better this way. To send the package, the candle and the curse directly to Helen, let her follow slightly altered directions. Let hers be the lips to pronounce the doom and death of Eldridge, hers the white fingers to light the taper, bringing destruction.

  Better this way. More ironic. More searing, more unbearable for her. He wanted to hurt her intensely. For now, with all the power of a blighted existence, he hated Helen.

  Jules thought, was it not Oscar Wilde who wrote: “Each man kills the thing he loves?”

  So let Helen kill John Eldridge.

  Jules checked the package very carefully. He picked it up, handed it to the waiting Western Union messenger.

  “Deliver this immediately—to Helen Marcott, 413 Grant Street.”

  The messenger left.

  Marcott broke seal on a new packet of cigarettes. He noted the time. Eight o’clock. A night wind mourned outside.

  It would take the messenger twenty minutes to deliver the candle. And Helen scheduled her leave for Reno in the morning, to divorce Jules and marry Eldridge.

  Twenty minutes for the package to be delivered. Five minutes for her to open it, read the enclosed note.

  And then—how long?

  How many minutes before Eldridge died? An hour, two hours, and, if Helen were rushed, perhaps not tonight, but surely tomorrow night. Helen was sentimental. Jules counted on that quality. She would follow directions implicitly.

  Marcott lit his third cigarette.

  When he finished his tenth cigarette it was nine-fifteen. The package had been delivered. Now, all he had to do was wait. Go to bed and restlessly count the hours? No. Better to get out and walk in the park, breathe the night air. He’d know soon enough about Eldridge.

  Marcott chuckled. What if Eldridge fell dead right in front of Helen? Lord, would that be revenge!

  Jules laughingly ground out his cigarette and left his small, transient apartment.

  So Helen was going to get a divorce. She disapproved of Jules and his meddling with psychology and mental diseases. She didn’t like this and she didn’t like that. So she was skipping off to Reno like a confused little animal.

  Marcott smiled as he locked the door and pocketed the key. What was it she had said only three weeks ago? Something about Svengali, meaning Jules, and herself as Trilby? That was funny.

  Strange that a woman could run off because of one quarrel. But Helen was a changeable woman. Anyway—

  Tomorrow morning—obituary column—the name Eldridge—

  * * * *

  Busy with his thoughts, Jules scarce noticed the direction in which he wandered until it was too late. He strode in a mist of hopes and desires, until his ears, coming out of the fog of thought, heard brisk scuffling heels catching up with him. The sound of asthmatic breathing filled the night air.

  A fat hand clutched Marcott’s coat, twisted him about. A red, chubby face, toothless and angry, was thrust close. “Where is the candlestick?”

  The hardware store proprietor!

  Marcott expressed no immediate excitement. After all, Helen had the candle. Even now the final curtain in John Eldridge’s life was being rung down.

  Jules quietly lit another cigarette before he answered the shopkeeper. Then:

  “I don’t know your name, but you’re definitely impolite. I assure you that if I did know your name I would promptly light the candle and put an end to you.”

  The shopkeeper clenched thick fists in rage. “I’ll call the police!”

  “Come now.” Jules laughed softly. “Being in your sort of business, such an action wouldn’t pay, would it?” He flicked his cigarette ashes disdainfully. “I’ll return your candlestick when it has done its work.”

  “I demand it now!”

  “I don’t have it.”

  “Who—”

  “I sent it to my wife.”

  “What’s your name?”

  The dark smile did not leave Jules’ face. “If you knew my name and retrieved the candle, then I’d be in a pretty fix, wouldn’t I?” He shook his head. “You won’t know it. Because if you did, then I’d take measures to insure your never finding your precious candle again.”

  The fat shopkeeper stopped breathing as hastily. He waited a moment, licking fat cherry-red lips, fingers shaking, the fat body swaying. Finally: “You—you will—you promise to return the candlestick?” There was a flicker of pleading
in the voice.

  “Was that your only wonder-working device?” laughed Marcott. “How inefficient! Yes, I’ll return it as soon as possible, granting of course that you never know my name. You should be thankful I didn’t look you up in the phone book to give your life to the flame.”

  “You should not have let it get out of your hands,” muttered the old man. “What if it is lost?”

  “It will not be lost. I sent it to my wife, enclosing a note, telling her it was—well, it was a clever idea of mine, all around. She’s divorcing me, plans on marrying a man named Eldridge. They plane to Reno in the morning. But I thought of a rather interesting and different way of utilizing the candle to get rid of Eldridge. I’ll let Helen—”

  A brisk wind came up, drowning out Jules’ voice, so that he had to speak louder, but speak he did. The little shopkeeper listened, nodding, approving in spite of himself, almost smiling.

  The wind blew wilder and the stars were very clear. Jules thought, it is a glorious night. But—

  One more question.

  “The victim of the candle,” asked Jules. “When the spell is cast, what happens? Is it very bad?”

  The shopkeeper nodded ominously.

  “You saw what happened to the cat? Well—”

  * * * *

  Helen Marcott jerked back as the hand cracked across her cheek for the second time. Tears started to her full brown eyes and the marks of John Eldridge’s fingers scarred her face.

  Eldridge stood over her. Then he whirled and went to the door. He turned, his face ugly and suffused. His eyes cut first at Helen Marcott and then at the freshly opened box, the box in which reclined the feminine blue-pastel candle.

  “Gifts from your husband! Behind my back!” he grated. “What am I supposed to think? After all we supposedly meant to each other! Well, if you want me, you’ll find me at—”

  The door slammed, slicing off Eldridge’s voice.

  Helen Marcott heard his footsteps drumming down the hall out of her life. And tears streaked down her cheeks over the fresh red marks left by Eldridge’s hand when he had slapped her.