The Lower Deep by Hugh B. Cave

Author:Hugh B. Cave
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Horror
Publisher: Crossroad Press & Macabre Ink Digital
Published: 2012-02-05T21:00:00+00:00

17

The news of Ginette Jourdan's disappearance swept through Dame Marie like a brushfire.

The girl had left home Thursday night and been reported missing by her parents Friday morning. All day Friday, Lieutenant Etienne and his men searched the town and its environs for her. By Saturday the community talked of little else.

Ginny's schoolmates discussed her disappearance wherever they happened to be gathered. Some, recalling her fondness for going alone to Anse Douce, went looking for her there.

They failed to find her. But at the end of the beach, where it became a gully filled with huge chunks of coral, they did find something of note.

There, kicking sand as he walked, a boy turned up a bit of pink and white striped flannel.

"Hey, what's this?" he yelled, and pulled up a pajama jacket. Then on his knees he dug deeper like a dog after a buried bone and uncovered the pants as well.

The kids took their find to Dame Marie's little army post, and Lieutenant Etienne drove to the Azagon with it. There he unwrapped the pajamas on Steve Spence's desk. "Take a look at these, Doctor. Are they the ones your manager fellow was wearing the night he claimed he went swimming and came back naked?"

Steve did not know, but carried the pajamas to Henninger's room where the Belgian was still in bed. The answer to his question did not really startle him.

"Yes, oh, yes!" Henninger sat up with more vigor than he had displayed in days. "Now can I hope you'll believe me?"

"I never said I didn't believe you, Paul. But tell me something. The kids who found these said they were buried. Not just dropped and covered by drifting sand, but buried. I wouldn't buy the drifting sand theory anyway because, if you remember, Lawton Lindo and I walked the whole cove that night and saw nothing. Do you recall burying them?"

Henninger shook his head. "I don't recall anything. As I told you, I must have walked there in my sleep."

"Well, either you buried them or someone else did. At least, we've found them. That's a small step toward solving one of our mysteries, at any rate."

But it was no help in the town's collective effort to find Ginny Jourdan. Nothing of hers was discovered at Anse Douce or anywhere else.

Etienne had questioned young Eddie Forbin, the girl's boyfriend, soon after Ginny was reported missing. After the discovery of the pajamas he interrogated the youth again. This time he did so at Forbin's home in the presence of his parents, who were two of Dame Marie's most respected citizens.

"You say you haven't been out with Ginny in more than two weeks, Eddie?"

"That's right, sir. I'm not saying I didn't try. She just wasn't interested anymore, she told me."

"Has she been going out with someone else, do you know?"

"I don't think so. Not with anyone in town, for sure, or I'd have heard about it."

"I want to ask you a question that mustn't go beyond this room, Eddie. You understand?"

"Yes, sir.

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