Nine Times Nine (1940) by Anthony Boucher; H. H. Holmes

Author:Anthony Boucher; H. H. Holmes [Holmes, Anthony Boucher; H. H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Suspense
ISBN: 9780930330378
Google: zOXpJhLHT0QC
Amazon: 0930330374
Barnesnoble: 0930330374
Goodreads: 17687272
Publisher: Orion
Published: 1939-12-31T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Despite the invitations of the Harrigan family, Matt did not attend the requiem mass on Tuesday morning. This was not, as he gathered, the actual funeral mass; burial could not take place until after the inquest, which had been postponed till the latter part of the week. (He imagined that Marshall was reluctant to lay before a coroner’s jury such a tangled mess of improbabilities, and optimistically hoped that a few days’ more work might show him a way out.)

He would only feel embarrassed, Matt decided, in the midst of family mourning and incomprehensible ritual; he could best show the very real sadness which he felt at Wolfe Harrigan’s death by staying home and carrying on Wolfe’s work. So while the Dies Irae was chanted and the censers were swung in a solemn high mass, Matt stayed at his dead employer’s desk and labored in a fashion which he hoped was not too unworthy of its former occupant.

The file on Ahasver particularly engrossed his attention. It was taking shape excellently; he had already at least enough material for a feature article which should prove at once destructive and non-libelous. But he was exasperated by one gap and one superfluity. The gap, of course, was Wolfe’s lost conjecture as to the identity of Ahasver and of the power behind him. The superfluity was Matt’s own note, hastily jotted down in the Temple of Light, concerning the mammon of iniquity. How that phrase fitted into the picture he could not determine; and yet it had seemed somehow to strengthen Wolfe in whatever his hypothesis had been.

Throughout this work he examined carefully every last scrap of paper, far more thoroughly than he had been able to do in the rapid going-over with the Lieutenant. Hopefully he searched for two things: the codicil to the will, and those most secret notes on the identity of Ahasver’s backer. In both matters, he was forced to confess ruefully, his search was absolutely futile.

At last, weary of this persistent futility, he leaned back in the chair and picked up a dart. His first toss went wild, hit the wall, and clattered on the floor. The second struck the edge of the board and hung there quivering. Matt felt encouraged. A few more tries . . . Perhaps Wolfe was right about this dart business as a relaxation in the midst of work. Matt himself, unimaginatively, had always used solitaire.

The third dart was no better and no worse than the second, and the fourth repeated the fiasco of the first. Matt held the fifth poised for what he swore would be a really perfect toss, when a light rap at the door interrupted him.

It was Concha who obeyed his shouted command to come in. “Hello,” he began cheerfully, then paused and looked at her. “What’s the matter?”

She sat down on the couch. “I’ve been crying. Isn’t that silly?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes it helps.”

“I knew you’d say that. Men always think that no matter what’s wrong with a woman, a good cry will fix things.

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