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sister had died
in. It wasn't a house at all, he reflected, but a mausoleum – a huge,
sprawling mausoleum. It seemed to grow out of the top of the hill like
an outsized, perverted toadstool, all gambrels and gables and jutting,
blank-windowed cupolas. A brass weather-vane surmounted the eighty
degree slant of shake-shingled roof, the tarnished effigy of a leering
little boy with one hand shading eyes Wharton was just as glad he could
not see.
    Then he was on the porch, and the house as a whole was cut off from
him. He twisted the old-fashioned bell, and listened to it echo hollowly
through the dim recesses within. There was a rose-tinted fanlight over
the door, and Wharton could barely make out the date 1770 chiseled
into the glass. Tomb is right , he thought.
    The door suddenly swung open. "Yes, sir?" The housekeeper stared
out at him. She was old, hideously old. Her face hung like limp dough
on her skull, and the hand on the door above the chain was grotesquely
twisted by arthritis.
    "I've come to see Anthony Reynard," Wharton said. He fancied he
could even smell the sweetish odor of decay emanating from the
rumpled silk of the shapeless black dress she wore.
    "Mr Reynard isn't seein' anyone. He's mournin'."
"He'll see me," Wharton said. "I'm Charles Wharton. Janine's brother."
"Oh." Her eyes widened a little, and the loose bow of her mouth
worked around the empty ridges of her gums. "Just a minute." She
disappeared, leaving the door ajar.
    Wharton stared into the dim mahogany shadows, making out highbacked
easy chairs, horse-hair upholstered divans, tall narrow-shelved
bookcases, curlicued, floridly carven wainscoting.
    Janine , he thought. Janine, Janine, Janine. How could you live here?
How in hell could you stand it?
A tall figure materialized suddenly out of the gloom, slopeshouldered,
head thrust forward, eyes deeply sunken and downcast.
Anthony Reynard reached out and unhooked the door-chain. "Come
in, Mr. Wharton, " he said heavily.
Wharton stepped into the vague dimness of the house, looking up
curiously at the man who had married his sister. There were rings
beneath the hollows of his eyes, blue and bruised-looking. The suit he
wore was wrinkled and hung limp on him, as if he had lost a great deal
of weight. He looks tired, Wharton thought. Tired and old.
"My sister has already been buried?" Wharton asked.
"Yes." He shut the door slowly, imprisoning Wharton in the decaying
gloom of the house. "My deepest sorrow, sir. Wharton. I loved your
sister dearly." He made a vague gesture. "I'm sorry."
He seemed about to add more, then shut his mouth with an abrupt
snap. When he spoke again, it was obvious he had bypassed whatever
had been on his lips. "Would you care to sit down? I'm sure you have
questions.”
"I do.” Somehow it came out more curtly than he had intended.
Reynard sighed and nodded slowly. He led the way deeper into the
living room and gestured at a chair. Wharton sank deeply into it, and it
seemed to gobble him up rather than give beneath him. Reynard sat next
to the fireplace and dug for cigarettes. He offered them wordlessly to
Wharton, and he shook his head.
He waited until Reynard lit his cigarette, then asked, "Just how did she
die? Your letter didn't say much.
Reynard blew out the match and threw it into the fireplace. It landed
on one of the ebony iron fire-dogs, a carven gargoyle that stared at
Wharton with toad's eyes.
"She fell," he said. "She was dusting in one of the other rooms, up
along the eaves. We were planning to paint, and she said it would have
to be well-dusted before we could begin. She had the ladder. It slipped.
Her neck was broken." There was a clicking sound in his throat as he
swallowed.
"She died – instantly?"
"Yes." He lowered his head and placed a hand against his brow. "I
was heartbroken.
The gargoyle leered at him, squat torso and flattened, sooty head. Its
mouth was twisted upward in a weird, gleeful grin, and its eyes seemed