The Ghost of Christmas Present and Other Stories Read online

  Stepping closer to confirm his suspicions, he swallowed the lump in his throat as he saw that these were indeed three of Shaw’s men, who were now bullet-ridden corpses.

  “That’s odd,” he mused. “Do spirits use weapons?”

  None of the bodies were Shaw himself, and neither was Carver Pendleton among them. Bernard wasn’t sure if he was relieved or not.

  Stepping away from the corpses, he examined the scene that included remains of a campfire and a few tents that had collapsed under the weight of the snow. There were boot prints a-plenty, everywhere, and it appeared that the men had abandoned most of their excavating equipment.

  Signs of fresh blood in the snow, suggested there were more wounded. One set of tracks was fresher than the others, and they came from the same direction as the estate.

  Bernard stood and frowned.

  Sticking his hand in his waistcoat pocket, he pulled out and rubbed the silver face of a pocket watch in thought. An heirloom, he rarely used the piece to tell time, instead finding that he focused his thoughts more easily, when he used it as a worry stone. As a result, nearly all the engraved gilding on its outer surface was worn away.

  This place, these bodies, those tracks… They were all meant to produce answers, not questions. Unfortunately, questions were all he could think of.

  “Where were the rest of the men? What happened to these corpses? Who would be coming towards them from the same direction as myself, and why didn’t I see him on the way here? Did Whitehall send someone after me or before?”

  Bernard’s mind reeled, and nothing vexed him more than a riddle he couldn’t solve. He’d have to follow the tracks, if not to find the men then to find answers.

  Chapter X

  If anyone had told Jim Shaw that Bernard Wellington was a relentless pursuer of the truth, he would’ve called them a bold faced liar, and he’d have been right. At least, until it came to puzzling matters that Wellington couldn’t solve on his own.

  Bernard was the sort who needed to know what had truly happened at the camp, if only to satisfy his own curiosity. To that purpose, he would pursue those answers to the ends of the earth, or at least, until the consequences of pursuit outweighed his desire for answers.

  Grateful that they had reached their new home base without further incident, Jim thoughtfully weighed their options. On the one hand, if Wellington was as keen as he boasted, he’d be well on his way to finding them holed up in this cave. That begged the question, what was he after?

  Was he coming to help or to hinder? The obvious answer would be neither. He was simply sent to check on the status of things, but there were too many other variables for Jim to be comfortable letting it go at that.

  If Whitehall had truly murdered one of his men, what was to keep him from sending Wellington to finish the job? The latter was hardly an intimidating man, though, and at the most, he would find three more bodies at the campsite, which would leave eight still alive.

  Unless Wellington was an excellent tracker, he would likely not know that Jim had only convinced two men to stay with Pendleton and him – the other four men having chosen to leave, Cook among them for obvious reasons. Hopefully, they would go where he had sent them and remain silent, until their smaller group returned.

  Jim rubbed his temples with his left hand, his right arm loosely hanging in his makeshift sling.

  “Headache?” Pendleton asked.

  “Hm? No.” Jim walked back from the mouth of the cave and slid down the rock wall to sit next to the small fire the others had made. “Well, yes, but only from thinking too much.”

  “New territory for you, I take it?” Pendleton teased, sipping hot tea from an aluminum mug.

  “Ha, ha.” Jim grimaced. “I’m talking about what to do with Wellington when he shows up. If he shows up.”

  “You think he won’t?”

  “I think he’d faint face first in the snow, if he laid eyes on that ghost.”

  Both men chuckled at the thought, and Jim felt he was probably right. Still, Wellington might continue after them, and that was something worth planning for.

  “How much damage could he really do?” Pendleton broke through Shaw’s thoughts “I’ve seen you in action. I’d wager that you’ve had training in your past. If he did force a confrontation, he’d be dead before he could draw his pistol.”

  “Maybe so, but at the same time, Wellington may not be the only one Whitehall sends,” Jim pointed out. “We don’t know if he’s coming to help and what help he might offer. In my opinion, worst case is he’s coming as a spy for Whitehall.

  “Once the latter knows that the majority of the men have gone, he’s likely to go after them. If he finds out we know about his secrets, I warrant he’ll do something drastic.”

  “Like what?”

  “Whitehall’s rich and crazy.” Jim ran his fingers through his hair. “People like that get creative when they want to.”

  He hated feeling trapped, waiting for something that might or might not be an unpleasant experience. Most of his childhood had been spent with that same feeling. The empowerment that came with police training was one of the reasons he’d chosen to join the force, but with that had come inevitable constrictions of chain-of-command, the main reason he’d left.

  “If we can find the Mansion, even if there’s no treasure there, we can use it as leverage against him.” Pendleton reasoned. “If we run, we have nothing.”

  Shaw stared past the old sailor into the campfire. The other two men with them, John Forsythe and Albert Miller, sat across from each other chatting softly about something.

  The more Jim thought about it, the more he knew Pendleton was right. Running now would mean looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life, and he wasn’t about to settle for that.

  “Fine,” he agreed. “You have the right of it. With only the four of us, we should make better time. Hopefully, we can find Bower Mansion and set up a better defense perimeter tomorrow, if this damnable forest doesn’t go on forever.”

  “It feels like it does sometimes, but that may be in our favor,” Pendleton replied.

  “Jim, we’ve been talking over here.” John rose from his crouched position by the fire. “Al and I think we should move on.”

  Shaw couldn’t believe what he had just heard. “Are you both feeling alright?”

  “I know it don’t make proper sense, but neither does sitting here waiting for the bogeyman to poke his head ’round the corner.” John motioned towards the mouth of the cave. “And besides, we have these.” He motioned toward the corner, where they had stacked what little equipment they’d brought, including hard hats with lights attached to them in case night fell too soon.

  “He’s just one man, and he’ll be traveling faster,” Pendleton pointed out. “Although the cave is relatively warm and dry, it’s also a trap. There’s no back way out of this place, if we get cornered in here.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” Jim huffed a resigned sigh. “If he shows up to finish what Whitehall started, we’d be forced to confront him in the open air anyway. There’s no cover here. Alright, we move out again.”

  “On s-second thought, m-maybe we should s-stay.” Al stared at the cave entrance.

  In tandem, the other three men whipped their heads around in time to see the apparition of the young girl floating silently at the cave entrance, the dark holes where her eyes should’ve been focused on them.

  Jim cursed as he scrambled to his feet and slid along the cave wall away from the entrance.

  “Stop! Don’t move.” Pendleton remained where he stood. “Remember what I said, she’s never harmed anyone before. Keep still.”

  For a moment, they watched as she did nothing, but then she moved slowly towards Pendleton, who took a step back, wondering if he’d bet on the wrong horse.

  Stopping mere inches from the old sailor’s face, she turned and raised a hand towards the cave wall next to where Jim stood. Light flashed from her fingertips, and they all shielded the
ir eyes.

  When they looked up, satisfied it was safe, she had vanished, and on the wall next to Jim was a scorched symbol, black and smoking.

  “Would you look at that.” Pendleton examined the newly burned mark.

  “She could’ve killed me.” Jim’s voice shook a bit more than he would have liked.

  “She didn’t kill you,” Pendleton reminded him. “That’s what counts. Come here, and take a look at this.”

  The four men pondered the symbol – a circle with a smaller circle inside. On the outer ring were four large marks that, if connected, formed a perfect cross. At the bottom left of the smaller circle, was a triangle pointing in between the bottom and left marks on the outer circle.

  “It’s a compass!” Jim started, his revelation surprising him more than anyone.

  “You’re right,” Pendleton agreed, “and I’d bet my last coin that she’s pointing us to the Manor.”

  “I thought you said she was warning us away from the Manor.” Jim shook his head.

  “No, I said I thought she was warning us.” The old sailor shrugged. “I didn’t say what about, because I have no idea. In any case, the compass points southwest. If we’re headed out again, let’s get going.”

  Despite their renewed reminder that there were creatures other than woodland animals in this forest, the men picked up their gear, put out the fire, and headed southwest from the cave mouth at a brisk pace.

  Five minutes later, Jim held his arm in the air – a silent command to stop and keep still. His men obeyed, but Carver hadn’t taken orders from any man, since his days as a sailor.

  “What is it?” The older man pushed his way through the other two and came to a halt next to their leader. “We haven’t got time for sight-seeing.”

  “Shut up for a second.” Jim cocked his head to one side. “I thought I heard something.”

  “It’s a forest.” Carver nodded towards a tree. “There are lots of sounds in a place like this.”

  “Shhh, just give me a minute.”

  Carver reluctantly complied, and the four of them listened for anything out of the ordinary.

  The old sailor had expected to hear the chirping of birds or the settling of heavy snow on the surrounding tree branches. At most, he had feared the thud of approaching horse’s hooves, but he had not been prepared for the noise that now reached his ears.

  Chapter XI

  Alex Whitehall was a great many things, but a fool was not one of them. He’d proven that with his great love of strategy games as a child. Now, he tapped his fingers on the marble kitchen countertops as he waited for Thomas to re-appear.

  He’d known that his butler had a bad habit of eavesdropping on the study. Given this, most likely, the old retainer had heard the gunshot and the following conversation from the evening before.

  Whitehall wasn’t too concerned about the old man, but he still had a deep-seated mistrust of people in general. All things considered, though, he felt his bases were covered.

  If Thomas had gone to Shaw with what he knew, it wasn’t that big a deal, since Wellington was on his way to sort things out with the men left in the forest, one way or another, anyway.

  If Thomas had gone to the police, even that had been carefully taken care of, as the self-proclaimed genius Wellington now had the murder weapon covered in his own fingerprints in his possession.

  There was nothing left to tie Whitehall to any crimes. He’d even made sure that Wellington’s fingerprints were on the journal, in case that was confiscated as additional evidence.

  Certainly, there could be a fair amount of disagreement as to whether or not a crime had taken place in his own study, but even that worked to his advantage, since the fingerprints of the home’s owner would naturally be all over the place.

  In addition, despite the fact that Thomas had overheard things, he hadn’t seen anything. It would be the word of an old butler against his, if it came to that.

  Whitehall smirked as he remembered the pills for mental instability he had ordered in Thomas’s name a few years ago – insurance in case the old man ever saw anything he wasn’t supposed to see or, as in this case, heard.

  He’d been planning for decades, and nothing could stop him now. If worse came to worse, he would change his identity and disappear. He’d done it before, quite successfully in fact, and he could do it again.

  The rear kitchen door creaked as Thomas snuck back in.

  Whitehall put on his best poker face and waited for the old man to turn around.

  Thomas started when he saw his employer, but recovered quickly.

  “Sir, you startled me! I’ve just come from checking at the stables to make sure Mister Wellington acquired suitable tack for his steed.” Thomas smoothed his jacket and brushed the excess snow from his collar.

  “And did he?” Whitehall smiled.

  “Indeed, sir. He took the bay mare. I tried to warn him that she startles sometimes, but he didn’t seem too interested in the advice. Nonetheless, he’s on his way to…wherever he’s off to.”

  He’s smart, Whitehall thought, perhaps a bit too smart for his own good. Nevertheless, he would let this falsehood play out. After all, he’d learned a long time ago that secrets were a man’s best friend, and other people’s secrets were even more valuable.

  “Very well Thomas, but inform me the next time you’ll be out for a while. I was worried.”

  Thomas’s expression didn’t quite return to its normal emotionless mask. “Of course, sir, whatever you say.”

  “Indeed.” Whitehall stalked through the kitchen doorway and along the hall.

  The men of ill repute he had hired to move the body to some undisclosed location were finished, and the flooring was already being taken up and replaced. With money, a man could move mountains, but with enough money, a man could pay someone else to move mountains for him – a simple enough philosophy that Whitehall had clung to for a long time now.

  With a mind far darker than anyone else knew, his depravity was seated in an evil genius that constantly moved bits and fragments behind the scenes. The more people thought of him as an eccentric man of wealth, he believed, the less they would suspect his true nature.

  For so many years now, he’d been running from his past. For so many nights, he had dreamed of retaking what was rightfully his. The board was set. The pieces were in play. Now, it was only a matter of time.

  Chapter XII

  “Help! For God’s sake, somebody help me!”

  Shaw and Pendleton looked at each other. Coming from the area ahead of them, deeper into the forest, the shrieking voice sounded like a terrified woman.

  “Could be a banshee or some such,” Albert muttered.

  “Any other day and any other place, I’d say you were drunk, but I’m not in the mood to take chances,” Jim replied as the shrieks continued.

  “It’s coming from ahead.” Carver appeared less than pleased with his conclusion. “We’ll have to circle around to avoid it.”

  “Go around? No, we’re investigating.” Jim made his position clear. “After all, it could legitimately be someone in trouble. We’ll just have to sneak up and see first.”

  The four men hunkered low to the ground and crouch-walked towards the hideous noises. When they arrived at a small clearing, Jim motioned for the others to look ahead. Caught in a leg trap and hanging upside down, shrieking his head off, was Bernard Wellington.

  “Well, I’ll be,” Carver whispered. “How the hell did he get past us?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m not passing up the opportunity,” Shaw stated. “The rabbit’s caught in a trap, and I’ve got questions that need answering. He’s in no position to be a threat, so what do you say?”

  “I say who set the trap?” Pendleton rubbed his jaw.

  “Mm…good question. One to add to the list.” Jim straightened and moved from behind the trees, still out of Wellington’s line of sight. “You armed, Bernard?”

  The trapped man screamed, and then hung still,
his arms flopping below his head towards the ground like a ragdoll’s.

  Carver chuckled as he moved to check the now silent man’s pulse, “I do believe you made him faint.”

  “Good, that shrieking put fighting cats to shame.” Jim hid his pistol with a satisfied smirk. He’d waited a long time for this. “Check him for weapons. I’ll wake him up, and then we’ll have a brief chat.”

  Chapter XIII

  “I won’t ask again, Wellington,” Shaw stated, his tone dangerous. “Why did Whitehall set us up out here? What’s he after?”

  “For heaven’s sake, you blustering, American buffoon, I’ve got a headache the size of the English Channel. Get me down from here right now!”

  Bernard looked a mess – his arms folded, one leg stuck out at an awkward angle, and the other caught in a rope. His face was bright red, and a distinct purple vein throbbed at his temple.

  “Alright boys, he’s had enough of our time.” Jim pretended he was packing to leave. “Let’s move on.”

  “Hold on a minute,” Bernard screamed, as he tried for the hundredth time to reach up and untie himself. “You can’t leave me like this!”

  “We can, and we will, unless you tell me what I want to know.” Jim’s tone had lost none of its firmness.

  “You whiskey-guzzling jerk. You have no right to blackmail me like this!”

  “Don’t I?” Jim let out a dry chuckle. “You and your partner have already murdered one of my men. I’d be within my rights to shoot you between the eyes and call it self-defense.”

  “Certainly, and I imagine the police would look fondly on this scenario – me unarmed and dangling from a rope like meat at the butcher.”

  “Obviously, we’d cut you down first,” Carver interjected casually. “Then we’d shoot you.”

  An awkward silence passed for a moment, as Bernard came to terms with the fact that he was utterly outmatched with no options at this point.