Page:Weird Tales volume 32 number 05.djvu/42

552 road through Winsted, but considerably beyond the center, almost out in the country. Theirs is a large, old house set on a corner lot; there is plenty of land around that house, a big garden and a yard with lawn chairs and swings scattered about, and horseshoe pits staked out in a level spot.

about two o'clock in the afternoon when we drove into the Winns' yard. We had purposely taken our time, stopping here and there on our way to smell the flowers—like Ferdinand—and lingering over a leisurely lunch at a small roadside grill. Fred, when we arrived, was pitching horseshoes in the yard with a slender, white-haired gentleman I had never met before; Laura was in the house making deep-fat doughnuts. Laura, smiling broadly, came out on the side porch, and Ruth jumped out of the car and they hugged each other and went into the house together. I climbed more slowly from behind the wheel and went over to the quoits game. "Go ahead, finish your game," I said; I knew that quoits was a small mania with Fred. I'll watch." I sat down on a shaded bench, stretched out my legs and relaxed. Fred and the stranger smiled and nodded, and finished out their game. Then they pulled handkerchiefs from their pockets and, wiping their faces and hands, came over to me. "So, Mac," Fred grinned, "good to see you again. Pleasant surprise. Can you stay over? Meet Doctor Bowen—Jim Bowen; Thorp McClusky. Shake hands; make yourselves acquainted."

The doctor glanced at me with an odd, wary curiosity as we shook hands. That fleeting expression on his face puzzled me; it was so peculiarly questioning. Then it passed, and we were tossing genial remarks back and forth. Fred volunteered the information that the doctor owned a camp on Highland Lake—that he spent his summer vacations there. "Awful lot of cottages at Highland Lake," I blurted. "Not much solitude left up there nowadays." "Yes, there's little solitude left around Highland Lake," Doctor Bowen admitted, with a dry laugh. "I used to prefer occasional solitude, but no more. Fact is, at one time I owned an old farm up in the hills back of New Hartford, and I used to go up there summers, all alone. I'm a bachelor, you know. But I sold it in 1928, and built the place on the lake. I'm growing more gregarious with the years, I guess." Right then I knew, with intuitive certainty, that there was a story behind the sale of that farm. But it was just as apparent that Doctor Bowen had no intention of telling us more. "Why, New Hartford's had quite a cosmopolitan summer colony for years," I persisted, with more doggedness than tact. "Efrem and Alma Gluck Zimbalist are there quite frequently. Didn't you meet them?" "No, I didn't," he said almost bruskly. "I had only one friend in New Hartford—and he's dead." The muscles of his face smiled quickly, then, but there was no lightening in his eyes. "Shall we have a game of quoits, Mac?—I may call you Mac? Do you play?"

"Mac's a writer," Fred hurriedly explained.

Surprisingly, Doctor Bowen nodded.

"I know he is. I recognized his name when we were introduced." He said directly to me, "I've read some of your more imaginative stories."

It struck me as definitely odd that he hadn't mentioned this before.