Half in Shadow Read online

  HALF

  IN

  SHADOW

  Mary

  Elizabeth

  Counselman

  WILLIAM KIMBER

  1980

  CONTENTS

  Three Marked Pennies

  The Unwanted

  The Shot-Tower Ghost

  Night Court

  The Monkey Spoons

  The Smiling Face

  A Death Crown for Mr. Hapworthy

  The Black Stone Statue

  Seventh Sister

  Parasite Mansion

  The Green Window

  The Tree’s Wife

  Twister

  A Handful of Silver

  Three Marked Pennies

  EVERY one agreed, after it was over, that the whole thing was the conception of a twisted brain, a game of chess played by a madman—in which the pieces, instead of carved bits of ivory or ebony, were human beings.

  It was odd that no one doubted the authenticity of the “contest.” The public seems never for a moment to have considered it the prank of a practical joker, or even a publicity stunt. Jeff Haverty, editor of the News, advanced a theory that the affair was meant to be a clever, if rather elaborate, psychological experiment—which would end in the revealing of the originator’s identity and a big laugh for every one.

  Perhaps it was the glamorous manner of announcement that gave the thing such wide-spread interest. Blankville (as I shall call the Southern town of about 30,000 people in which the affair occurred) awoke one April morning to find all its trees, telephone poles, house-sides and store-fronts plastered with a strange sign. There were scores of them, written on yellow copy-paper on an ordinary typewriter. The sign read:

  “During this day of April 15, three pennies will find their way into the pockets of this city. On each penny there will be a well-defined mark. One is a square; one is a circle; and one is a cross. These three pennies will change hands often, as do all coins, and on the seventh day after this announcement (April 21) the possessor of each marked penny will receive a gift.

  “To the first: $100,000 in cash.

  “To the second: A trip around the world.

  “To the third: Death.

  “The answer to this riddle lies in the marks on the three coins: circle, square, and cross. Which of these symbolizes wealth? Which, travel? Which, death? The answer is not an obvious one.

  “To him who finds it and obtains the first penny, $100,000 will be sent without delay. To him who has the second penny, a first-class ticket for the earliest world-touring steamer to sail will be presented. But to the possessor of the third marked coin will be given—death. If you are afraid your penny is the third, give it away—but it may be the first or the second!

  “Show your marked penny to the editor of the ‘News’ on April 21, giving your name and address. He will know nothing of this contest until he reads one of these signs. He is requested to publish the names of the three possessors of the coins April 21, with the mark on the penny each holds.

  “It will do no good to mark a coin of your own, as the dates of the true coins will be sent to Editor Haverty.”

  By noon every one had read the notice, and the city was buzzing with excitement. Clerks began to examine the contents of cash register drawers. Hands rummaged in pockets and purses. Stores and banks were flooded with customers wanting silver changed to coppers.

  Jeff Haverty was the target for a barrage of queries, and his evening edition came out with a lengthy editorial embodying all he knew about the mystery, which was exactly nothing. A note had come that morning with the rest of his mail—a note unsigned, and typewritten on the same yellow paper in a plain stamped envelope with the postmark of that city. It said merely: “Circle—1920. Square—1909. Cross—1928. Please do not reveal these dates until after April 21st.”

  Haverty complied with the request, and played up the story for all it was worth.

  The first penny was found in the street by a small boy, who promptly took it to his father. His father, in turn, palmed it off hurriedly on his barber, who gave it in change to a patron before he noted the deep cross cut in the coin’s surface.

  The patron took it to his wife, who immediately paid it to the grocer. “It’s too long a chance, honey!” she silenced her mate’s protests. “I don’t like the idea of that death-threat in the notice... and this certainly must be the third penny. What else could that little cross stand for? Crosses over graves—don’t you see the significance?”

  And when that explanation was wafted abroad, the cross-marked penny began to change hands with increasing rapidity.

  The other two pennies bobbed up before dusk—one marked with a small perfect square, the other with a neat circle.

  The square-marked penny was discovered in a slot-machine by the proprietor of the Busy Bee Café. There was no way it could have got there, he reported, mystified and a little frightened. Only four people, all of them old patrons, had been in the café that day. And not one of them had been near the slot-machine— located at the back of the place as it was, and filled with stale chewing-gum which, at a glance, was worth nobody’s penny. Furthermore, the proprietor had examined the thing for a chance coin the night before and had left it empty when he locked up; yet there was the square-marked penny nestling alone in the slot-machine at closing time April 15.

  He had stared at the coin a long time before passing it in change to an elderly spinster.

  “It ain’t worth it,” he muttered to himself. “I got a restaurant that’s makin’ me a thin livin’, and I ain’t in no hurry to get myself bumped off, on the long chance I might get that hundred thousand or that trip instead. No-sirree!”

  The spinster took one look at the marked penny, gave a short mouse-like squeak, and flung it into the gutter as though it were a tarantula.

  “My land!” she quavered. ”I don’t want that thing in my pocket-book!” But she dreamed that night of foreign ports, of coolies jabbering in a brittle tongue, of barracuda fins cutting the surface of deep blue water, and the ruins of ancient cities.

  A negro workman picked up the penny next morning and dung to it all day, dreaming of Harlem, before he succumbed at last to gnawing fear. And the square-marked penny changed hands once more.

  The circle-marked penny was first noted in a stack of coins by a teller of the Farmer’s Trust.

  “We get marked coins every now and then,” he said. “I didn’t notice this one especially—it may have been here for days.”

  He pocketed it gleefully, but discovered with a twinge of dismay next morning that he had passed it out to some one without noticing it.

  “I wanted to keep it!” he sighed. “For better or for worse!” He glowered at the stacks of some one else’s money before him, and wondered furtively how many tellers ever really escaped with stolen goods.

  A fruit-seller had received the penny. He eyed it dubiously. “Mebbe you bring-a me those mon, heh?” He showed it to his fat, greasy wife, who made the sign of horns against the “evil eye.”

  “Trow away!” she commanded shrilly. “She iss bad lode!” Her spouse shrugged and sailed the circle-marked coin across the street. A ragged child pounced on it and scattered away to buy a twist of licorice. And the circle-marked penny changed hands once more—clutched at by avaricious fingers, stared at by eyes grown sick of familiar scenes, relinquished again by the power of fear.

  Those who came into brief possession of the three coins were fretted by the drag and shove of conflicting advice.

  “Keep it!” some urged. “Think! It may mean a trip around the world! Paris! China! London! Oh, why couldn’t I have got the thing?”

  “Give it away!” others admonished. “Maybe it’s the third penny—you can
’t tell. Maybe the symbols don’t mean what they seem to, and the square one is the death-penny! I’d throw it away, if I were you.”

  “No! No!” still others cried. “Hang on to it! It may bring you $100,000. A hundred thousand dollars! In these times! Why, fellow, you’d be the same as a millionaire!”

  The meaning of the three symbols was on every one’s tongue, and no one agreed with his neighbor’s solution to the riddle.

  “It’s as plain as the nose on my face,” one man would declare. “The circle represents the globe—the travel-penny, see?”

  “No, no. The cross means that. ’Cross’ the seas, don’t you get it? Sort of a pun effect. The circle means money—shape of a coin, understand?” “And the square one------?”

  “A grave. A square hole for a coffin, see? Death. It’s quite simple. I wish I could get hold of that circle one!”

  ’’You’re crazy! The cross one is for death—everybody says so. And believe me, eveiybody’s getting rid of it as soon as they get it! It may be a joke of some kind... no danger at all... but I wouldn’t like to be the holder of that cross-marked penny when April 21 rolls around!”

  “I’d keep it and wait till the other two had got what was due them. Then, if mine turned out to be the wrong one, I’d throw it away!” one man said importantly.

  “But he won’t pay up till all three pennies are accounted for, I shouldn’t think,” another answered him. “And maybe the offer doesn’t hold good after April 21—and you’d be losing $100,000 or a world tour just because you’re scared to find out!”

  “That’s a big stake, man,” another murmured. “But frankly, I wouldn’t like to take the chance. He might give me his third gift!”

  “He” was how every one designated the unknown originator of the contest; though, of course, there was no more clue to his sex than to his identity.

  “He must be rich,” some said, “to offer such expensive prizes.” “And crazy!” others exploded, “threatening to kill the third one. He’ll never get away with it!” “But clever,” still others admitted, “to think up the whole business. He knows human nature, whoever he is. I’m inclined to agree with Haverty—it’s all a sort of psychological experiment. He’s trying to see whether desire for travel or greed for money is stronger than fear of death.”

  “Does he mean to pay up, do you think?”

  ‘’That remains to be seen!”

  ON the sixth day, Blankville had reached a pitch of excitement amounting almost to hysteria. No one could work for wondering about the outcome of the bizarre test on the morrow.

  It was known that a grocer’s delivery boy held the square-marked coin, for he had been boasting of his indifference as to whether or not the square did represent a yawning grave. He exhibited the penny freely, making jokes about what he intended to do with his hundred thousand dollars—but on the morning of the last day he lost his nerve. Seeing a blind beggar woman huddled in her favorite corner between two shops, he passed close to her and surreptitiously dropped the cent piece into her box of pencils.

  “I had it!” he wailed to a friend after he had reached his grocery. “I had it right here in my pocket last night, and now it’s gone! See, I’ve got a hole in the darn’ thing—the penny must have dropped out!”

  It was also known who held the circle-marked penny. A young soda clerk, with the sort of ready smile that customers like to see across a marble counter, had discovered the coin and fished it from the cash drawer, exulting over his good fortune.

  “Bud Skinner’s got the circle penny,” people told one another, wavering between anxiety and gladness. “I hope the kid does get that world tour—it’d tickle him so! He seems to get such a kick out of life; it’s- a sin he has to be stuck in this slow burg!”

  Finally it was found who held the cross-marked cent piece. “Carlton... poor devil!” people murmured in subdued tones. “Death would be a godsend to him. Wonder he hasn’t shot himself before this. Guess he just hasn’t the nerve.” The man with the cross-marked penny smiled bitterly. “I hope this blasted little symbol means what they all think it means!” he confided to a friend.

  At last the eagerly awaited day came. A crowd formed in the street outside the newspaper office to see the three possessors of the three marked coins show Haverty their pennies and give him their names to publish. For their benefit the editor met the trio on the sidewalk out’ side the building, so that all might see them.

  The evening edition ran the three people’s photographs, with the name, address, and the mark on each one’s penny under each picture. Blankville read... and held its breath.

  ON the morning of April 22, the old blind beggar woman sat in her accustomed place, musing on the excitement of the previous day, when several people had led her—she knew by the odor of fish from the market across the street—to the newspaper office. There some one had asked her name and many other puzzling things which had bewildered her until she had almost burst into tears.

  “Let me alone!” she had whimpered. “I ask only enough food to keep from starving, and a place to sleep. Why are you pushing me around like this and yelling at me? Let me go back to my corner! I don’t like all this confusion and strangeness that I can’t see—it frightens me!”

  Then they had told her something about a marked penny they had found in her alms-box, and other things about a large sum of money and some impending danger that threatened her. She was glad when they led her back to her cranny between the shops.

  Now as she sat in her accustomed spot, nodding comfortably and humming a little under her breath, a paper fluttered down into her lap. She felt the stiff oblong, knew it was an envelope, and called a bystander to her side.

  “Open this for me, will you?” she requested. “Is it a letter? Read it to me.”

  The bystander tore open the envelope and frowned. “It’s a note,” he told her. “Typewritten, and it’s not signed. It just says—what the devil?—just says: ‘The four corners of the earth are exactly the same.’ And... hey! Look at this!... oh, I’m sorry; I forgot you’re... it’s a steamship ticket for a world tour! Look, didn’t you have one of the marked pennies?”

  The blind woman nodded drowsily. “Yes, the one with the square, they said.” She sighed faintly. “I had hoped I would get the money, or... the other, so I would never have to beg again.”

  “Well, here’s your ticket.” The bystander held it out to her uncertainly. “Don’t you want it?” as the beggar made no move to take it.

  “No,” snapped the blind woman. “What good would it be to me?” She seized the ticket in sudden rage, and tore it into bits.

  At nearly the same hour, Kenneth Carlton was receiving a fat manila envelope from the postman. He frowned as he squinted at the local postmark over the stamp. His friend Evans stood beside him, paler than Carlton.

  “Open it, open it!” he urged. “Read it—no, don’t open it, Ken. I’m scared! After all... it’s a terrible way to go. Not knowing where the blow’s coming from, and------”

  Carlton emitted a macabre chuckle, ripping open the heavy envelope. “It’s the best break I’ve had in years, Jim. I’m glad! Glad, Jim, do you hear? It will be quick, I hope... and painless. What’s this, I wonder. A treatise on how to blow off the top of your head?” He shook the contents of the letter onto a table, and then, after a moment, he began to laugh... mirthlessly... hideously.

  His friend stared at the little heap of crisp bills, all of a larger denomination than he had ever seen before. “The money! You get the hundred thousand, Ken! I can’t believe . . He broke off to snatch up a slip of yellow paper among the bills. “Wealth is the greatest cross a man cdn bear,” he read aloud the typewritten words. “It doesn’t make sense... wealth? Then... the cross-mark stood for wealth? I don’t understand.”

  Carlton’s laughter cracked. “He has depth, that bird—whoever he is! Nice irony there, Jim—wealth being a burden instead of the blessing most people consider it. I suppose he’s right, at that. But I wonder if he kn
ows the really ironic part of this act of his little play? A hundred thousand dollars to a man with— cancer. Well, Jim, I have a month or less to spend it in... one more damnable month to suffer through before it’s all over!”

  His terrible laughter rose again, until his friend had to clap hands to ears, shutting out the sound.

  But the strangest part of the whole affair was Bud Skinner’s death. Just after the rush hour at noon, he had found a small package, addressed to him, on a back counter in the drug store. Eagerly he tore off the brown paper wrappings, a dozen or so friends crowding about him.

  A curiously wrought silver box was what he found. He pressed the catch with trembling fingers and snapped back the lid. An instant later his face took on a queer expression—and he slid noiselessly to the tile floor of the drug store.

  The ensuing police investigation unearthed nothing at all, except that young Skinner had been poisoned with crotalin —snake venom—administered through a pin-prick on his thumb when he pressed the trick catch of the little silver box.

  This, and the typewritten note in the otherwise empty box: “Life ends where it began—nowhere,” were all they found as an explanation of the clerk’s death. Nor was anything else ever brought to light about the mysterious contest of the three marked pennies—which are probably still in circulation somewhere in the United States.

  The Unwanted

  DRUDGING up the stony mountain road, with the relentless Alabama sun beating down on my head, I began to wish two things, in order of their intensity: I wished I had a’ big, cold, frosted-over glass of something—iced tea, lemonade, water, anything wet. And I wished I had never applied to my prolific Uncle Sam for this job as census-taker!

  I sat down under a gnarled old tree, glaring up at the steep incline ahead of me, and decided that there are entirely too many citizens of the United States, and that they live too far apart. The district I was supposed to cover was a section of the Blue Ridge foothills, in which all the inhabitants were said to have one leg shorter than the other—from living on that sheer cliff of a mountain! Already I had covered the few scattered farms along this winding road that seemed determined to end at the gates of Heaven. Suspicious mountain-eyes had peeked at me from every cranny of wind-worn little shacks, built of slab pine. Lean old hound dogs had run put at me, roaring annihilation, then leaping up to lick me all over the face. Small tow-headed children in flour-sack dresses scattered before me like chickens before a hawk.