The Walker in Shadows

I

I thought you said Peter had given up aimless poltergeist action," Josef remarked, as they stood in the doorway of Mark's room contemplating the mess.

"This was deliberate," Mark said. "It couldn't find what it was looking for, so it went storming up and down smashing things. Damn it, Mr. Friedrichs, this knocks your poltergeist theory all to hell. There wasn't a living soul in this room last night. According to the conventional theories, a poltergeist needs a human catalyst. I had the car keys, so you can't accuse Kathy of-"

He gulped, his eyes widening, as he realized the impli-: cations, but Josef shook his head, looking at Mark with grudging respect.

"You're too smart to incriminate yourself that way. If you had planned a stunt like this you'd have made damned good and sure you weren't found within a mile of those keys. Where did you go last night, Mark?"

"I'll tell you, I'll tell you," Mark said. "I'm just trying to think how to explain it."

In a stupor of distress Pat knelt down and began to pick up broken scraps. Josef took her arm and raised her to her feet.

"We'll form a cleanup team later, Pat. Come on downstairs while Mark tries to figure out how to break his latest bad news to us."

Muted howls and meows led them to the kitchen, where they found both animals waiting on the back porch. When Pat opened the door Jud bolted in, flung himself at her feet, and writhed delightedly. Albert still refused to come in, but indicated that he was faint with hunger, so Pat took a bowl of food out onto the porch.

In an effort to postpone what was clearly going to be a painful revelation, Mark turned on the radio. Rock and roll blasted out.

"Turn that off," Josef shouted.

Mark lowered the volume. "Coffee, anyone?" he asked brightly.

"Talk," Josef said.

"All right, all right, I said I'd tell you, didn't I? But you have to understand the reason. I got to thinking yesterday about some of our assumptions. The discrepancies have been small, but they have been piling up, and that made me wonder if maybe we weren't on the wrong track."

The song ended as such numbers often do, trailing off in discordant howls of woe; an announcer's bright cheery voice began to report the usual international disasters: an earthquake in Iran, a revolution in South America, the failure of the latest talks between the Arabs and the Israelis.

"What do you mean, 'we'?" Josef demanded. "All the assumptions have been yours. You practically shoved them down our collective throats."

"Oh, the basic idea is right," Mark said. "I'm certain of that. What I might have been slightly mistaken about is-er-well, let me put it this way-"

"And now," said the announcer, "for local news. A shop in New Market-"

"Shut that damned thing off," Josef snarled, reaching for the knob. As he touched it, however, the content of what was being said finally penetrated. His fingers froze on the switch, defeating Mark's belated attempt to silence the voice.

"… a number of valuable books," the announcer continued. "The proprietor, Colonel William Blake, estimates their value at approximately fifty thousand dollars. The thief gained entrance through an upper window. The police have made casts of tire tracks in the alley behind the shop, and they hope for an early arrest."

Three pairs of eyes focused on Mark.

"Don't worry," he said hastily. "They aren't yours. I wasn't dumb enough to park where I would leave tracks."

Josef rubbed his forehead.

"Where are the books?" he asked gently.

"In your trunk. I had to take a bunch of them. If I had just swiped the one, he'd have suspected you right away, since you even told him who you were and where you lived and all. Now, keep cool, Mr. Friedrichs. Don't get excited. It's bad for your health."

"In my trunk," Josef repeated. "Fifty thousand… That's grand larceny, Mark. Very grand. Plus breaking and entering-"

"I wore gloves," Mark said.

Josef face was a bright, dangerous crimson. He folded his arms on the tabletop and lowered his head onto them. His shoulders shook.

"Josef." Pat found her voice. "Mark, curse you-look what you've done." In considerable alarm she reached for Josef's wrist. Before she could locate his pulse he raised his head and she saw, incredulously, that he was gasping with laughter.

"He'll have to go away to school," he wheezed. "To Hawaii, or Tibet -someplace where there is only one flight a month out…"

Relieved and unregenerate, Mark grinned at him.

"You're a good sport," he said approvingly. "I was afraid you might be mad."

"Mad?" Josef's alarming color faded, and his mouth closed like a trap. "Mad? What would your father have done to you, Mark, if he caught you in a trick like this?"

"Uh." Mark sobered. "I hate to think," he admitted.

"Think. Because whatever it is, that's what is going to happen to you. I'll ponder the subject. Your dad sounds like a man of considerable ingenuity, but I'll try to come up with something.

"In the meantime, we must deal with the situation as it stands. Just tell me one thing. Was it worth it?"

"Yes," Mark said. He got to his feet. "You'll see. I'll show you."

He slunk out of the room. Kathy, her eyes blazing, turned on her father like a miniature Fury.

"He did it for me, Dad. How dare you yell at him!"

Her father's face softened. "All right, honey. I do understand, but-"

"He has to be punished, Kathy," Pat said. "Good intentions don't count."

"What would your husband have done?" Josef asked.

"Made him pay for the books, I suppose. But, Josef- fifty thousand-"

"That's the Colonel's estimate. We'll find out the true market value." Josef grinned. "That will be a suitable job for the young swindler: getting the prices without leaving evidence of his interest in those particular books. I'll lend him the money, and he can figure out how to reimburse the Colonel anonymously. If he gets a job right now, after school, and works straight through the summer, he'll be able to pay me back. Plus eight percent interest on the loan, of course."

The idea obviously appealed to him. He was about to develop it further when Mark returned carrying the letters of Mary Jane Turnbull. The book bristled with little slips of paper, evidence that Mark had spent the remainder of the night, after the raid on the bookstore, in perusing his prize.

"The cloth is too rough to take fingerprints," he announced cheerfully, making sure the table was clean and dry before he put the book down. "I turned the pages with my fingertips, and-"

"You are unnecessarily obsessed with fingerprints," Josef said. "There is only one chance in a million that our overworked county police would… Wait a minute. Are your prints on record?"

"Certainly not," Mark said indignantly.

"It wouldn't surprise me," Josef said. "All right, Mark, what revelations have you come upon?"

"I want you to hear it straight from the horse's mouth," Mark said. "See if you get the same impression I did. I'll read it aloud."

"That will take all day," Pat objected, looking at the thick volume.

"No, it won't. I've already marked the relevant passages." Without further ado Mark opened the book.

"Background first," he began. "These letters were written by Mary Jane to her friend, who lived in Richmond. Cordelia kept them. Ten years after the war was over she had them published, 'as a memorial to a martyr to that Holy Cause for which so many died.' " Josef started to speak; Mark raised an admonitory finger. "Wait. We'll discuss our conclusions later. I want you to hear this first.

"The ladies had been corresponding for some time before hostilities broke out. I won't waste time with the earlier letters; the first one of interest to us has the date of April twentieth, 1861.

"Surely this is the most momentous era of human history. Events follow one another so rapidly that a weak female pen can scarcely do them justice; yet, my dear Cordelia, I find relief in writing to you, since I can express my true feelings here only within these four walls. We are surrounded by enemies, the most hateful of them only a few feet from our door. The new wall keeps them from our sight, but we cannot forget their horrid presence.

"The news of Fort Sumter made us thrill with pride. The apelike monster who was inaugurated in March (would that the gallant citizens of Baltimore had succeeded in destroying him; but he stole through the city by night, like the coward he is!) then called for volunteers. On his head lies the onus of beginning the destruction! Virginia has joined the glorious roll of freedom, and to Virginia my noble father has gone, to lend his arm to the Cause.

"We are left a household of women, for my dear brother was sent away to school in Lynchburg after the incident I wrote you of. Thank God I was able to save him from its fatal consequences. His heart is too susceptible to the machinations of vile persons. It will turn now to the Cause; and if, which God forbid, he should perish, that fate would be preferable to the one his trusting heart might have been duped into seeking."

Mark stopped reading. "Nice lady, isn't she?"

"I don't know which is worse, her literary style or her vindictiveness," Pat said.

"The style is typical of the time," Mark said tolerantly. "They all wrote that way. The important thing is her reference to an incident that caused Peter to be sent away. It isn't mentioned in the earlier letters, so either some letters were lost, or Cordelia edited them for publication. But it's obvious, isn't it, what the incident was?"

Josef cleared his throat. "I will admit that Mary Jane's catty remarks can be interpreted as referring to a romantic attachment on Peter's part, an attachment of which she did not approve-"

"That's putting it mildly," Mark interrupted. "She says she would rather see him dead than engaged to… All right, Mr. Friedrichs, I won't say it; she doesn't mention the girl's name, I admit that.

"Okay. We roll merrily on, to First Bull Run, in 1861.

That was the first big battle of the war. Bull Run, or Manassas, is only about twenty miles from Washington, and a lot of the dumber congressmen and senators went out to watch the fighting. They ran like rabbits when the Union lines broke.

"In August of 1862 the same damned thing happened, at the same place. Second Bull Run. This time Lee decided to follow up the victory and invade the North. He crossed the Potomac at Leesburg, and here's Mary Jane's comment:

"Lee is in Maryland! Words, weak words-how can they express our exultation! First in the hearts of all loyal to the Cause must be the triumph of our arms, but, Cordelia, allow me to confess that my heart burns with equal fervor to behold again my honored parent and beloved brother. Yes, they were here-only briefly, for duty drove them. They succeeded in their aim of finding horses for the Confederacy. No less than fourteen mounts came from the pastures of Mr. Habitan, at Fern's Folly-a crony of those whose name I have sworn never to mention. How I laughed as Peter described, with his inimitable humor, the rage of the white-haired old man, who rained stuttering curses on those who removed his horses. War has made a man of my darling brother. Bronzed and slender, his hair bleached to whiteness, his eyes a fiery blue, he must turn many a maiden's heart. A loyal Southern maiden, one must hope…"

"Dear me," Pat said. "She couldn't drop the subject, could she? I wonder if Peter tried to see Susan while he was at home."

"He'd try, if only out of spite." Josef looked disapproving. "Charming young man, wasn't he? I particularly like his inimitable humor about robbing a helpless old man."

"He was eighteen that year," Mark said.

"Is that an excuse or an explanation?" Josef inquired.

"Go on," Pat said quickly.

"Well, they fought after that at Harpers Ferry and at South Mountain, near Hagerstown. A lot of it was right around here, you know. Union troops, pursuing Lee, passed through Poolesville. The maneuvering of the armies ended on September seventeenth, in the bloodiest one-day battle of the war-Antietam, or Sharpsburg, as the Confederates called it. The whole countryside became a huge hospital, as far south as Frederick, with wounded soldiers in barns, private homes, and churches."

"I remember reading that the mortality rate among the wounded was incredibly high," Pat said, with a shiver. "Of course they had no idea of antisepsis then."

"A few days after the battle, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation," Mark said. "He had been waiting for a victory, so it wouldn't look as if he did it out of desperation. But Antietam wasn't a victory for either side. At best it was a bloody draw. Of course, to Mary Jane it was a Confederate triumph.

"We ache for those sisters, wives and mothers who have lost all, but believe me, Cordelia, they will return, the weary but indomitable men in gray! And our men are safe. We received a letter yesterday from Papa, through the usual channel. Peter was wounded slightly in the left arm, but we are assured it was trivial. No doubt a black silk sling adds to his romantic looks, but I wish I could be near him to nurse him.

"Cousin Alex was with us last week. He is recovering from his illness and we hope to have news of his safe recovery soon. He was here when the news of the infamous Proclamation arrived, and we had a good laugh over the irony of it; for only blacks in what Lincoln is pleased to call "the rebellious states" will be freed on January next. There were many sulky looks when I explained this to our people. No doubt others of them will run away, but we shall do very well without them.

"One result of the Proclamation is that our neighbors have now condescended to join the fray. The old devil has taken a post with the government in Washington, and the young one has enlisted. The absence of the men will make our work easier, but I could wish that one other member of that household had been removed from it."

"Guess who," Kathy said.

"Now," said Mark. "We skip almost a year. The following June, 1863, Lee again crossed the Potomac into Maryland.

"He had to win this time. The North had lost a lot of battles, but they were winning the war. The blockade, Grant pressing in the west, no help from Europe -the South needed a big victory, deep in enemy territory. Well, they had the big one. Gettysburg.

"They fought for three days-the first, second, and third of July. For two weeks before that Lee's men were all over Maryland, burning bridges, capturing horses, generally raising Cain. On June twenty-ninth Stuart's cavalry captured some Union supply wagons in Rockville. Stuart was a dashing, brilliant commander, but that time he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. If he hadn't been fooling around in Maryland he might have arrived at Gettysburg in time… It was awfully close, you know? So damned close…

"Don't digress," Josef said.

"What? Oh. Well, guess who was among the gallant horsethieves in Maryland? Right. The Turnbulls came home for a visit, and Mary Jane got off her pedestal for once.

"They have suffered so much. I have never seen Father eat with such voracity, almost forgetting his table manners. He is horribly thin. Peter says he insists on sharing everything with his men; and there has been little to share. He is too old for war. God help us, cannot we let the old men rest?

"But when I look at my brother, my spirits revive, and I know we must conquer. He too is thin, but deprivation and battle have only hardened him. He is so handsome! He wore a buttonhole of roses, the gift of some admiring girl along their route. If I could only be sure he has abandoned that other attachment! When I quizzed him about it we came close to quarreling…

"They stayed only to eat, and to embrace us; Union troops are all over the area. Now they are on their way north, to carry the war into the enemy's camp.

"Mrs. Turnbull forced herself to vivacity while they were with us, but I saw that her appearance shocked my father. As soon as they left she collapsed again. I fear she is not long for this world."

"Is that how she speaks of her stepmother, after twenty years?" Pat demanded. "And what's that about her illness?"

"Mary Jane mentioned it before, rather casually," Mark said. "Obviously she didn't much care what happened to poor old Lavinia." He looked up from the book. "And that, friends, is Mary Jane's last letter."

"What? But that was only 1863. The war went on for two more years. Did she die, or something?"

"Something, " Mark said. "This is what her friend Cordelia wrote at the end of the book:

"This was not my dear friend's last letter; but it was the last I could spare for the eyes of posterity. Sudden, devastating tragedy struck thereafter: an entire family wiped out, almost at a single stroke. Major Turnbull died at Gettysburg, his blood staining the bullet-riddled flag he had snatched up when the standard-bearer fell. The news of his death stopped the heart of his affectionate wife. Mary's beloved young brother was also a casualty of the great battle, though no news ever came to his grieving sister of where or how he fell. Bereaved of all she had loved, my poor friend lost her family home and lived out her days in penury and illness, in a retreat in Poolesville. I received the news of her death last year, and determined to publish these letters, as a tribute to a heroine of the Confederacy."

"She goes on and on," Mark added. "But that's about it. Well? What do you think?"

"I see one obvious discrepancy," Josef said. "The pamphlet stated that the Turnbull men were killed in a local skirmish. According to this source, it was at Gettysburg."

"Mary Jane's letter proves that they were still alive in late June of 1863," Mark said. "Of course that was before Gettysburg, just before… There's another discrepancy. We've been assuming the Turnbulls were with White's Raiders. Officially, the Raiders were Company B of the Twenty-fifth Virginia Battalion-and it wasn't formed till the summer of 1862. They must have been with some other unit. At least the old man was; he joined up in 1861."

"What are you driving at?" Josef demanded in exasperation.

"I told you. I want to find out where and when Peter Turnbull died. We can't do that unless we know what his unit was. Maybe it was the First Virginia Cavalry. Company K was a Maryland unit; it was formed at Leesburg, Virginia, in 1861."

Josef eyed his stepson-to-be with poorly concealed hostility.

"Mark, will you stop making mysteries about everything? Tell us what you have in mind."

"I can't! There's a piece missing, and it's the key to the whole business. You'd laugh if I told you what I'm thinking now. I was hoping you'd have the same reaction to Mary Jane's letters that I did."

"My reaction is that the book isn't worth the trouble of stealing it," Josef snapped. "You can't admit that, can you?"

"I just don't agree, that's all." Mark brooded in silence. Then he brightened. "Maybe if we had some lunch it would stimulate our thinking."

"Lunch! You had breakfast less than…" Josef broke off; apparently he had decided he might as well resign himself to Mark's appetite. It was, after all, one of Mark's lesser faults.

Josef rose. "I'm going in to the office for a few hours. I can't afford to lose my job. It seems clear that my expenses are going to increase drastically in the near future."

He walked out the back door, letting it slam behind him.

"What did he mean by that?" Mark asked.

Pat debated briefly with herself, and then decided this was not the time to tell Mark about her personal plans. Anyway, she hadn't quite made up her mind what she meant to do about Josef. She could hardly marry a man who hated her son.

"I think he was talking about the possibility of selling the house," she answered, for this was certainly true, as far as it went. "He'll take a loss on it if he does."

"That's no solution," Mark muttered. "And you know it."

Before Pat could reply, the back door opened again. Josef looked even grimmer than he had when he left.

"If you think the mess upstairs is bad, come and see a real masterpiece," he said.

"Of course!" Mark jumped up. "Why didn't I think of that? Naturally it would…"

He dashed out the back door. Kathy followed him, and Josef met Pat halfway across the kitchen. For a few moments they stood holding one another, without speaking.

"I feel like the lover in one of those old-fashioned French farces," Josef said after a time. "Looking over my shoulder for the husband to turn up, snatching kisses in corners… When are you going to tell Mark, my darling? Or shall I ask him formally for your hand?"

"He'd love that," Pat said, with a weak laugh. "Can't you see him imitating an outraged Victorian father- 'Begone, sir, never darken our door again!' No, I'll break it to him. I doubt that he will be enthusiastic."

"I'm trying," Josef said, with unaccustomed humility. "I understand how he'll feel… But I can't wait too long, Pat. I feel like some idiot eighteen-year-old; I want to brag about you."

"I'll tell him," Pat promised. "But not until this is over. I can't concentrate on anything else."

"One good thing has come out of this mess, anyway," Josef said. "Damn it, Pat, I can't be too pessimistic. We'll figure it out somehow. We'll sell both the houses, move west, or south, or into New England… the cursed thing must have some geographical limitations. Maybe if we leave, it will give up. After all, it was quiescent for years. You know, I can't help wondering…"

Gently Pat removed herself from his embrace.

"I do know. I've wondered the same thing. Did Mark and/or Kathy unwittingly do something to stir the thing into life? Obviously Mark has information he's keeping from us. But it won't do any good to nag him about it, he's as stubborn as his father. Shall we go and view the damage?"

"It's pretty bad," Josef warned.

Pat tried not to show how shaken she was by the extent of the destruction. Kathy's room was the worst; every small breakable object in the place had been smashed. But the trail of breakage ran from room to room, and down the stairs.

Kathy and Mark were in the dining room. Mark was fingering a deep gouge in the wall. A small but heavy bronze statuette, a copy of the Michelangelo David, lay on the floor. Mark picked it up and weighed it in his hand.

"It must weigh about ten pounds," he said.

Pat leaned against the wall. "I hate to think what the kitchen must look like," she said.

"It went thataway," Mark agreed, indicating the fragments of a crystal bowl that lay in the doorway.

"Not funny," Pat snapped.

"No, I mean it. The living room is intact-didn't you notice? It came down the stairs, into the dining room, and… Let's see."

A short, rather dark hall connected dining room and kitchen. There were no windows, only doors leading to the basement and the back stairs, and to a series of cupboards.

Squaring his shoulders, Josef took the lead. They looked over his shoulder, with surprise and relief, into a sparkling, untouched kitchen.

At first no one could think of an appropriate comment. Mark was, of course, the first to recover himself.

"It decided nobody was home," he said. "So it went to our place…"

"Theories, theories," Josef muttered.

"Well, there's plenty it could have broken here," Mark said.

The statement could not be denied. The canisters containing sugar, coffee, flour and so on were of clear glass; the electric clock hung insecurely from a single nail; and a collection of antique plates was suspended on brackets along the walls. The cupboard doors were closed, but that, Pat imagined, would have been no problem for the poltergeist, and no doubt the shelves behind the closed doors were crowded with glassware and dishes.

"It means something," Mark muttered. "What?"

"It means I don't get to work today," Josef said. "Kathy, we've still got most of the cartons left over from the move. Let's pack the breakables that have survived, and your clothes. We'll go to a motel again tonight. Tomorrow I'll rent an apartment in the District."

"But-" Mark began. He stopped with a gulp and a start. Pat looked sharply at Kathy, who met her eyes with a candid stare. She was, as usual, standing so close to Mark that they might have been Siamese twins, but if she had jabbed Mark in the ribs she had done it very neatly.

"The boxes are in the basement," Kathy said gently.

"Uh," Mark said. "Okay. I'll get them."

He went out, followed by his shadow. They returned with an armful of boxes, and Kathy said, "I'm going to pack my clothes. Mark?"

"Huh? Oh, sure. I'll help you."

As soon as Mark and Kathy had left, Josef reached for Pat's hand.

"You have to tell him now, Pat. I can't leave you in that house. If you think Mark will object to our living in sin, we can get married right away."

"I can't," Pat said agitatedly. "It's confusing. There are too many problems. All my things-and the animals-"

"The dog can go to a kennel for a few weeks, till we find another house. We'll smuggle the damned cat into the apartment, if you insist-"

"Josef, you're moving too fast. I can't decide." Then she saw his face, and remorse swept over her. "Oh, my darling, I don't mean that; I've no doubts about that. It's simply a matter of logistics. Give me a little time."

"I'm sorry." He smiled at her, and her heart thumped. "We'll work it out, Pat. Take all the time you want."

But there wasn't time; she knew that as well as he did. The alternative to the hasty decision he had urged was the unbelievable situation they had faced too long already.

For a while they worked in companionable silence, Josef handing dishes to Pat, who wrapped them in newspaper and stowed them away in the boxes. The monotonous, meticulous task ought to have been soothing; but her mind continued to flutter incoherently from one problem to the next. Close up the house… what would Nancy say? And the other neighbors? Rumors were sure to circulate… Jud hated kennels, he grew morose and melancholy if he was away from Mark… Mark. How would he take the news that she intended to marry Josef Friedrichs? The answer came only too readily. Mark wouldn't take it well. He needed time, not only to rid himself of his prejudices against Kathy's father, but to grow accustomed to the idea that his mother was a person, with needs of her own. He had to be consulted in the decision, not just notified of the grownups' wishes. He thought he could solve the case… His ego would be assaulted on every possible level by what Josef had proposed.

Suddenly Pat jumped to her feet, dropping a cup. Fortunately it fell on top of a half-filled box and the newspapers kept it from breaking.

"What's the matter?" Josef looked at her with concern.

"Mark," Pat said. "He and Kathy, up there… He didn't argue with us. He's helping her pack, and he hasn't mentioned lunch."

Comprehension lighted Josef's eyes. As Pat pushed through the door and ran along the hall, she heard him close on her heels. He did understand Mark. Their minds worked rather similarly, allowing for the difference in age. That was probably a hopeful sign. But at that moment Pat forgot her personal concerns in a more urgent matter. What was Mark doing up there in Kathy's room? She would have laid odds that he was not helping her pack.

She pounded up the stairs, with Josef close behind. Together they made almost as much noise as Mark could have made. But the two young people did not hear them until they burst into the room. They had other schemes afoot.

They were sitting close together, at Kathy's desk. A sheet of blank paper lay on the desk top, and Mark's hand, holding a pencil, was poised above it.

Mark jumped several inches as his mother flung the door open. The pencil jabbed into the paper, tearing a hole, but Pat was infinitely relieved to see that there was no other mark on the virgin surface.

"What the hell are you doing?" she shouted.

"Nothing." Though visibly shaken, Mark tried, simul taneously, to put the pencil in his pocket and hide the paper.

"You were trying that-that automatic writing," Pat exclaimed. "How dare you! Of all the stupid, dangerous-"

"Well, we have to do something. He came through once before. I thought maybe if we gave him another chance he'd say something that-"

"You-horrible-" For once Pat was so angry that she moved faster than her son. Her hand shot out, avoiding the hand he lifted, as if in anticipation of a blow, and snatched at the paper. She had nothing particular in mind; she only wanted to claw at something, crumple it, crush it between her hands… Better a blank sheet of paper than Mark's face.

Then she realized she was not the only one who was reaching for an object on the desk. A small white hand slid swiftly but surreptitiously toward something half hidden by the sheet of paper.

Pat's calloused hand slapped down hard on Kathy's fingers, and the girl let out a squeal. Pat snatched up the book Kathy had reached for.

Even in her rage and fright she knew that the book was no ordinary object from a library or bookstore. The cover felt slick and damp under her fingers.

She stepped back and for a moment or two they were silent, staring at one another and breathing hard. Josef looked in bewilderment from his beloved, whose infuriated face was barely recognizable, to his daughter, whose big blue eyes filled with tears as she nursed her stinging fingers.

Luckily for Josef, he did the right thing. After a baffled moment he stepped to Pat, put his arm around her shaking shoulders, and included his darling daughter with Mark in an all-inclusive scowl.

"All right, you two. Speak up. Kathy, apologize to Mrs. Robbins."

Pat's saving sense of humor came to the rescue. With a laugh that was half sob, she said, "I guess I should apologize to Kathy. I didn't mean to hit you, honey; it was pure reflex. Mark can tell you I've done the same thing to him."

"She sure has," Mark said coolly. "She's a very impetuous lady. Where she loves, there does she chastise most heavily-"

"And you!" Pat turned, with pleasure, to a worthier opponent. "You and your stupid half-baked quotations! This is all your fault. Your idea. You nasty young… person, you've been holding out on us all along. What is this book? Where did you get it? It's old. It's…"

With a dramatic gesture, worthy of Mark at his ham-miest, she opened the volume, and the words died on her lips as a sentence seemed to leap up from the page at her. She read it aloud.

"Peter told Eddie he must get the cake while cook was not looking. He didn't want to, but Peter…"

"It's Susan Bates's diary," Pat gasped.

Mark made a gesture of resignation and defeat.

"You've got it, lady."

II

Mark took the little book from his mother's nerveless hand and put it gently on the desk.

"It's in bad shape," he said reproachfully. "You shouldn't handle it so roughly."

"Where… what…" Anger and amazement robbed Pat of speech.

"So that's where you've been getting your information," Josef said. "I knew there was something. Where did you find it, Mark?"

"In the oak tree," Mark said. "You see, it was like…" He glanced at Kathy, whose cheeks had bloomed into a lovely pink blush, and grinned rather sheepishly. "I told you this was going to be complicated, Kath. Let me think just how to put it…"

Pat collapsed onto the bed. Josef stood by her, his hand on her shoulder. Mark was too immersed in his own difficulties to see this gesture, but Kathy did; her blue eyes took on a look of guileful speculation, and she spoke without embarrassment.

"We met there, Mark and I. After you told Mark we couldn't see each other. It was only a couple of times. The tree is awfully old, there are holes in the trunk. Mark found the book one time when he was waiting for me and I was late. It was wrapped in several layers of cloth and oiled paper."

Pat wondered, with some apprehension, how Josef would take this revelation. His heavy dark brows drew together, but when he spoke his voice was milder than she had expected.

"I'm sure you enjoyed meeting clandestinely, thwarting the heavy father. Romantic as hell, wasn't it? Well, never mind. May I see the diary, or is it reserved for those under thirty?"

"Be careful," Mark said, handing him the book. "It was well wrapped, but damp got in, all the same, and since it's been exposed to the air it has deteriorated. If you don't mind, Mr. Friedrichs, I've got a suggestion…"

"Well?"

"Maybe Mom could transcribe it," Mark said. "She's pretty good on the typewriter." He grinned at his mother, the recollection of last-minute term papers hastily typed fresh in his mind. Pat did not grin back at him.

"It will take forever," she protested.

"Not so long. She didn't keep a day-by-day diary, she just wrote things down when she was in the mood, or when something important happened. And a lot of the text is illegible-rotted by damp, or too faded to read."

"But you've already read it-so I assume," Pat said. "We've got a lot of packing to do. If the poltergeist comes back tonight, it may smash the things that are left."

"Mom-trust me, will you?" Mark leaned forward. A lock of dark hair fell across his forehead, and his eyes burned with sincerity. "I'm right on the verge. I really am. Let's go over it once more. Anyhow…"A look of such consternation came over his face that Pat recoiled, wondering what horrific revelations were in store. "Anyhow," Mark went on, "it's way past lunchtime. No wonder my brain is so weak. You type, I'll read aloud… and Kathy can get lunch."

III

Pat found it easier than she had expected to keep up with Mark's dictation. Damp had disfigured the edges of the pages, so that the only legible portions were in the middle. There were no dates; presumably they had been written on the illegible tops of the pages. Yet, scattered and broken as the fragments were, floating in time, they formed a picture in Pat's mind as her fingers reproduced the words.

Three children, growing up in the wilderness of western Maryland… The girl, small and delicate and blond, dressed in the calico simplicity her father's spartan creed required: had not the Apostle Paul warned against vanity in women? Her brother, as dark as she was fair, trained to sobriety by the same rigorous faith, yet fascinated by and tempted to mischief by the imperious older cousin.

In all their schemes Peter was the ringleader and Edward was the one who got caught. It was Peter who dared Edward to climb the tallest tree in the yard, but when the younger boy, shorter of limb and breath, was unable to get down, he was blamed, and punished. The idea of dressing up like ghosts and scaring "the darkies" was Peter's; but it was Edward who tripped over the trailing sheets in the act of escaping and was soundly thrashed by his father. Even when Peter was caught, his indulgent parents refused to punish him. "Uncle Al laughed very loud," Susan recorded, on one occasion when the three had gotten tipsy on homemade wine. Poor Edward had to eat his dinner off the mantel for several days after that scandalous affair.

Gradually, over the years, the tone of the diary changed. The early accounts of childhood mischief turned to a young girl's inarticulate record of parties and beaux. The first was Sammy Hart, who kissed Susan at a school picnic. But Sammy did not last long. "He has spots on his face," Susan recorded contemptuously. References to contemporary historical events were few and far between. Like most fifteen-year-olds, Susan was much more interested in her own emotional problems than in national disasters.

Kathy, who was already familiar with the material, made sandwiches, then took over the typewriter while Pat snatched a bite and a cup of coffee. Somehow Mark managed to read and eat simultaneously. Pat went back to the typewriter after a brief interval. She was conscious of a queer feeling of urgency, as if some sort of deadline were approaching, and as Mark read on, her fingers flicked over the keys with a speed that exceeded her best record.

In 1859, outside events shook Susan's peaceful world.

"Father and Uncle Al quarreled again. Something about that Mr. Brown at Harpers Ferry. Usually Uncle Al laughs when they argue, but this time…"

"Go on," Pat said, her fingers poised.

No one answered. She looked up and saw, with a shock of inexplicable alarm, that considerable time had passed. The windows were darkening.

"The rest of that entry is gone," Mark said. "II doesn't require much imagination to finish it, though."

Pat leaned back in the chair, flexing stiff fingers. Josef bent over her.

"Take a break," he urged. "You've been working loo hard."

"Want me to type for a while?" Kathy asked.

"That's okay. Let's all rest for a minute. Isn't it funny what a clear picture we're getting of these people? Mr. Turnbull sounds like an easygoing sort of man."

"I don't think Mr. Bates was so bad either," Kathy said. "He must have relaxed his Puritan ideas as he got older, because Susan talks about pretty clothes and jewelry- and he went all the way to Philadelphia to get the doll she wanted for her birthday-"

"And her mother made a complete wardrobe for it," Pat said. "A little fur muff, and bonnets, and everything."

"They sound like a nice family," Josef agreed. He added sardonically, "Too nice to be poltergeists, is that the idea?"

The others ignored this cynical question.

"The really shadowy figure is Mrs. Turnbull," Pat said thoughtfully. "Susan only mentions her once or twice."

"I guess the poor woman really was sickly," Kathy said. "I though, when we first read the references to her being ailing, that she was a professional hypochondriac." "Women were supposed to be fragile and fainting," Pat said. "The men loved it; it made them feel like heroes."

"Mary Jane wasn't fragile," Kathy said. "No wonder she never caught a husband-as they said in those days."

"She sounds like a tough lady," Pat agreed, smiling, as she recalled Susan's caustic comments about the big sister who spoiled so many of their games and scolded her for being unwomanly because she liked to go fishing with the boys. "But don't forget Mary Jane was already a grown woman when they were still children. She probably thought she was only doing her duty. She never did marry, did she? I wonder why."

"Maybe she was homely," Josef suggested frivolously. "Ugly women don't catch husbands, even today." He smiled at Pat.

"That shows how much you know," she said. "A well-dowered young lady could always get a husband. And I suspect the same thing is true today."

"So, maybe she didn't have a dowry," Josef said. "I suspected Turnbull's financial position was shaky."

Mark had fallen into a brown study, fingering the crumbling pages of the diary. Now he looked up at the others, scowling.

"Do you guys want to hear the rest of this, or are you enjoying your historical gossip? I mean, my God, you sound like Mom and Mrs. Groft when they get started on the neighbors."

"I guess we do at that," Pat said. "All right, Mark, I'm ready. Go ahead."

"It gets worse from now on," Mark said. "The condition of the diary, I mean. Whole pages are stuck together. The next thing I can decipher comes in the middle of a sentence. It just says, '… away to school. I don't know how they found out. We were so careful. Someone must have seen us. I never saw Father so angry. Always before, when I cried, he, would soften; but not this time. He found the loose board in the wall and nailed it shut. But it doesn't matter. Nothing matters now because he is gone and…' "

Mark's voice faded into silence as the writing faded out.

"He being Peter, I gather," Josef said. "Mark, you've known this all along. Why didn't you tell us, instead of pretending to make wild guesses?"

"I didn't know, though," Mark said. "She never mentions his name. Sure, I suspected-the way she talks about him, even when they were kids, like he was God or something… But I wasn't certain till I read Mary Jane's letters. Let me go on. There isn't much more."

Unlike Mary Jane and the other literate ladies of the period, who had been conscious of history, Susan was not concerned with the great events of the succeeding years. She used her diary to express her private feelings, and as the remaining fragments showed, these were unre-lievedly doleful. Reiterated expressions of sorrow and loneliness appeared on the faded paper, whose condition deteriorated rapidly as the book neared its end. Mark, who knew the material practically by heart, skipped over the fragmentary passages and focused on one that had survived.

"I must see him, though conscience says I should not. Yet how can I deny him, when he comes through such dangers, when any day may bring the news that he will never come again? If my kind parents knew…"

" Through such dangers,' " Pat repeated. "Then he must have been in the army at that time. I suppose he sent her a message somehow, when his cavalry troop was in the area on one of those raids you told us about. How foolish to take such a risk!"

"Not necessarily." Kathy's eyes were shining; and Pat thought, uncharitably, that the young of all centuries seemed to prefer romance to common sense. "He'd be safe at home-in the Turnbull house-if he could get there without being seen. I'm surprised the Federal government didn't hassle the Turnbulls."

"Why should they?" Josef said. "Two women alone, one of them an invalid? I wouldn't be surprised if Mr. Bates's influence kept them from being bothered. It sounds as if his bark was worse than his bite."

"Let's finish this," Pat said. "Go on, Mark."

"Huh?" Absorbed in some dark, deep thought of his own, Mark started. "Oh. There isn't any more, Mom. The rest of the book is illegible. Except for this."

He held up a sheet of paper. It had been folded several times. The damp that had ruined the remainder of the diary had stained the outside of the sheet, but the message, though badly faded, had survived. The handwriting, now so familiar, needed no identification. But it was not Peter Turnbull's writing that made the hairs on Pat's neck prickle. It was the message-the same message, word for word, that she had read only a few days earlier, written to Kathy by her son. "Meet me at midnight, the same place. Love…" At the bottom of the sheet, in a smaller, more even hand, was the addition, "His last letter."

Pat looked up from the page and met her son's troubled eyes.

"Had you read this, before…?" She couldn't finish the sentence.

"No," Mark said. "I found this book after I wrote the note to Kathy. It was the same place for them that it was for us. That's probably why Susan left her diary there, after… Mom. Let's try the automatic writing thing again."

"No!"

"Then," Mark said resignedly, "there's only one thing left to do. Mr. Friedrichs-"

"What?" Josef asked, visibly bracing himself.

"We'll have to tear down your basement walls."

IV

As she descended the steep wooden stairs, Pat was again struck with a fact she kept forgetting-that the two houses had originally been identical. The upper regions were so altered by structural changes and by differences in decor that the similarities were less apparent, but here, in the utilitarian regions belowstairs, the resemblance was so striking as to be rather unnerving. The same whitewashed walls, the same low ceiling, the same impressing atmosphere. The floor of her basement was of concrete, this one was brick. Otherwise they were the same.

After his initial apoplectic objection, Josef had shrugged and agreed to let Mark go ahead. Mark was as irritating as only he could be, refusing coyly to explain what he hoped to find. One of his bright ideas had backfired. He had insisted on bringing Jud with them- with, Pat surmised, some notion of using the unfortunate animal as a sort of psychic bloodhound. Jud, not the brightest of dogs, had welcomed the excursion with gambols and waggings of tail, and the others trailed along, watching, while Mark escorted the animal through the entire house. But at the top of the basement stairs Jud had come to a sudden halt and refused to budge. When Mark took his collar and dragged him, he howled and produced a puddle-his invariable habit when deeply angry or disturbed.

"I suppose that proves something," Josef remarked with restraint, eyeing the mess on his polished floor.

"It confirms something I had suspected," Mark replied austerely. "Kath, you better take Jud home."

"Or vice versa," Pat said, as the dog retreated at full speed, towing the girl with him.

"We'll need tools," Mark said. "Something heavy, like a sledgehammer."

"All the tools I own are on the workbench," Josef said. He sat down on the bottom step, pulled Pat down beside him, and put his arm around her. Mark paid no attention. Flashlight in hand, he surveyed the walls, mumbling to himself.

"… mirror image… has to be here. Or changed, for the sake of security? Psychologically…"

A door upstairs banged and Kathy came to the top of the stairs.

"Mark? Any luck?"

"Not yet. Come on down."

Kathy obeyed. Her father rose to let her pass. He sat down again, and the two young people retreated into a corner, where they stood whispering.

"Time," Pat said suddenly. "What time is it?"

Josef glanced at his watch. "A little after nine. Do you realize that boy hasn't asked for his dinner? He must be on to something big."

Mark walked along the far wall, giving it an occasional thump with the hammer he held. When he reached the corner he stopped, his nose inches from the neighboring wall surface, and stood still so long that his mother, whose nerves were already twitching, said sharply, "Mark, if you are going into another trance, this whole deal is off, do you hear?"

"Mom, for God's sake." Mark turned and glared at her. "You make it sound like I didn't clean up my room or something." He transferred his attention to Kathy, who stood close by him, watching him expectantly. "It's here, Kath. Down below. Must be in the floor somewhere."

He squatted, examining the bricks, and then looked accusingly at Josef. "You had this fixed. It's new mortar."

"Oh, God, give me patience," Josef said, to nobody in particular. "Forgive me, Mark. I had meant to have the bricks taken up and concrete poured, but someone convinced me that would be a sin against history. These bricks are of the Civil War period, I was told, so…"

He paused, forgetting his annoyance as he realized what he had just said. "Civil War… Do you suppose-"

Mark was already at the workbench, throwing hammers and screwdrivers aside, as he searched for what he wanted. He returned to the corner with a chisel and mallet. Kathy moved back out of range as chips of mortar began to fly.

Josef looked at Pat. She moved a little closer to him, and his arm tightened around her shoulders.

It took Mark almost an hour to remove a section of floor two feet square. He rejected Kathy's offer of help. No our else offered. Despite the damp coolness of the cellar, perspiration was pouring down his neck by the time he finished. He then uttered a word his mother had forbidden him to use in her presence.

"Watch your mouth, bud," she said.

"Sorry. I thought I'd find… But it's dirt. Packed, beaten earth."

"Ha," said Josef, leaning back.

"Well, but naturally," Kathy said. Squatting on her haunches, she leaned forward to inspect the site of Mark's labors. "She'd have to put something over it, to hide it, before she had the slaves lay the bricks."

"What are you talking about?" Pat asked.

The others ignored her.

"Hey, that's right," Mark said. "Kathy. Shovel."

"In the garage," said Josef. He slid to one side so that Kathy could pass him. Again he and Pat exchanged eloquent glances.

"We've got to watch the time," she whispered.

"Almost three hours yet. Don't worry, I'll keep track."

Kathy returned with the demanded implement and handed it to Mark. He began to dig. The earth was hard-packed, but it was damp and-as it turned out-only about eight inches thick. Pat and Josef, abandoning their pretense of disinterest, watched as Mark gradually uncovered a flat wooden surface. The rusted iron ring made its function clear.

"Trapdoor," Josef muttered. "I'll be damned."

But for a moment no one moved. Mark leaned picturesquely on his shovel, mopping his damp forehead with his sleeve; and Josef, too fascinated to resist any longer, came to his assistance. He tugged at the ring, his face reddening with effort.

"Stuck," he grunted. "We need a chisel, Mark. On the workbench."

Mark pried and Josef pulled. At first it seemed that they were making no progress. The hinges gave way all at once, sending Josef sprawling. A dark, square hole gaped. From it came a breath of air as stale as death itself.

Mark turned on the flashlight. Its beam showed sagging wooden steps descending into darkness.

"Wait," Josef said, as Mark turned preparatory to descending. "Those steps don't look very solid."

Mark put his foot on the top step and pressed. The whole structure collapsed in a shower of splinters.

"Termites," Mark said. "Or damp. The floor is only about six feet down. Here, hold the flashlight."

He handed it to Josef and lowered himself, disregarding his mother's groan of protest. Josef kept the flashlight steady. It illumined Mark's sweating face as he stared up, but showed nothing else.

"I'm standing on the floor," Mark said. "Come on down."

"At the risk of sounding like a coward, I'd like to be sure I can get up again," Josef said. "Wait till I get a stepladder."

He lowered it to Mark, who held it steady while first Pat and then Kathy went down. Pat had caught the fever. Forbidding as the dark hole appeared, she would have fought anyone who suggested she remain above. Josef was the last to descend. He brought the flashlight with him, and handed it to Mark. Not until then did Pat see the nature of the place into which they had descended.

The room had once been virtually airtight, every crack carefully sealed. It was so no longer. The insidious damp of Maryland soil had crumbled the mortar between the stones; water had seeped in and dried and seeped again, so that the lichen-stained walls bulged ominously in places. The damp had affected the objects in the room too. There was nothing left of the bed except a low, irregular platform, and even less remained of what had lain upon the bed. Its shape was due more to suggestion than to actual form; but enough was there to bring a suppressed cry from Kathy.

"It's okay," Mark said-but his own voice was not quite steady. "Could be worse."

He turned the flashlight beam full on the bed.

The rotted remains of a sheet or blanket covered the shape below, but things protruded here and I here:.1 rounded curve of skull, the end of a long bone-a femur, probably, Pat guessed.

"Human," she said softly.

"Oh, yes." Mark said, turning the light away from the pitiful remains. It illumined smaller piles of decay and stopped at one. There was little to distinguish this heap from the others-once pieces of furniture-but Mark stepped to it and fumbled in the debris for a few minutes before producing a handful of metal disks.

"Buttons," he said. "Stamped 'CSA.' He put his uniform on the chair before…"

"A Confederate soldier," Josef muttered. "Then this room was something like a priest's hole. The Trumbulls concealed fugitives-"

"And spies," Mark said. "You guys are really dense. Didn't you understand all those hints in Mary Jane's letters? She couldn't be explicit, not at the time she was writing, but her friend knew what she meant. This was one of the stations on the Confederate spy circuit. The location is perfect-isolated, only a few Billet from the river-"

"With the Bateses right next door?"

"There was a wall," Mark said. "Remember? The houses aren't that close. On a moonless night one man, creeping through the underbrush, wouldn't be seen or heard. The very fact that it was so close to the Bateses would disarm suspicion. People would think they wouldn't dare. But it was typical of the Turnbulls-that damn-your-eyes bravado."

"This man was no spy," Josef said. "He was in uniform. A fugitive from one of the nearby battles, perhaps. Wounded, hidden by the Turnbulls… Come on, Kathy, stop sniveling; it's only bones."

Kathy gulped and wiped her face with her fingers.

"She's got more sense than you have," Mark said in disgust. "You still don't get it, do you? Not just anybody's old bones. They're his."

"You don't mean-"

"Yes, I do mean. They're his. That's Peter Turnbull- what's left of him."