The Diviners - Page 102/196

In the doorway, Jericho cleared his throat and waited to be recognized. He dropped the late-edition paper on Will’s desk. “You might want to read this.”

“ ‘Exclusive to the New York Daily News, by T. S. Woodhouse. Museum Makes a Pentacle Killing,’ ” Will read aloud. He frowned and waved the paper about. “What’s this?”

Evie snatched the paper away and kept reading. “ ‘New York City, that bustling metropolis, is no stranger to violence. Bugsy Siegel, Meyer Lansky, and the rest of the Brownsville Boys of Murder, Inc., have kept the bodies piling up faster than the cops can take bribes to look the other way. But the Pentacle Murders have given even hardened New Yorkers the heebie-jeebies. Mothers won’t let their children play stickball on the streets after dark. Shopgirls spend their hard-earned dough on taxis straight home to their cold-water flats in Murray Hill and Orchard Street. The Sultan of Swing, Mr. Babe Ruth himself, has promised a five-hundred-dollar reward for information leading to the capture of the foul fiend. But in the midst of this Manhattan murder mania, there is one joint that’s raking it in—the Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult. That’s the Museum of the Creepy Crawlies to you folks in the know.’ Unc, the museum made the papers!”

Evie continued. “ ‘Their business is anything spooky, and anything spooky is good for business. On a recent Friday, this reporter witnessed a mob scene parked outside the doors of the old Cornelius T. Rathbone mansion near Central Park. That’s because the curator of the museum, Professor William Fitzgerald’—oh, Unc! That’s you!” Evie exclaimed. “ ‘… is helping the New York boys in blue figure out what makes this diabolical killer tick in the hope of finding him before he strikes again. He’s aided in his work by his niece, Miss Evie O’Neill, late of Zenith, Ohio, a comely seventeen-year-old Sheba who knows her onions about everything from witches’ coifs to the bones of Chinese conjurers. But when this reporter tried to get the goods on the hunt for a killer, the dame played coy. “I’m afraid I can’t comment on that,” she said and batted those baby blues. Fellas, start lining up. There’s more than one killer in this town.’ ”

Evie tried to keep the grin from her face. T. S. Woodhouse had come through after all.

“Evangeline, did you speak to this Woodhouse fellow?” Will demanded.

Evie’s eyes went wide. “Unc, I had no idea he was a reporter! He was a paying customer. I gave him the tour. When he started asking questions, I stonewalled him. He played me for a chump, that cad!”

“You have to be more careful. Develop a New Yorker’s skin.” Will tapped a second cigarette against the table, packing down the tobacco before lighting it. “Whatever happened to objective, truthful reporting?”

“Haven’t you heard? It doesn’t sell papers,” Jericho said.

“You’re so right, Unc. That Woodhouse is a rat. But he did mention the museum, at least,” Evie said. “Do you know what this means?”

Will blew twin streams of smoke from his nostrils. “Trouble,” he said.

The phone rang, startling them all. Will took the call, his expression hardening. “We’ll meet you there.”

“What is it?” Evie asked.

“The Pentacle Killer has struck again.”

THE BOGEYMAN

Will and Evie were met at the front door of the Grand Masonic Lodge by a small man with a thin mustache whose round black spectacles magnified his eyes into two large, blinking blue orbs that made Evie think of an owl.

“This way,” the man said nervously. “The police are already here, of course.” He led them through a wood-paneled hallway to a plain door. A brass plaque designated it the Gothic Room. The small man opened the door into a stuffy antechamber before opening a second door into a large room like a church’s sanctuary. The smell hit Evie right away—a terrible, cloying odor of smoke and cooked flesh that sat at the back of her throat.

Evie’s eyes focused first on the grandeur of the room: the high, wood-beamed ceilings and large chandeliers. At one end was a pipe organ; at the other was the letter G placed inside a sun. In the center of the room, a phalanx of cops and a coroner surrounded a small altar. They moved aside and Evie gasped. On the altar was the badly burned body of the Pentacle Killer’s latest victim.

“One of our Brotherhood found the body this morning around ten o’clock,” the blinking man said. He stumbled over the word body and his mustache crinkled in distaste. “The Most Worshipful Grand Master has been notified by cable. He is away with his family.”