THE TESTAMENT OF AMBROSE ABERNATHY
Ambrose Abernathy burst into the
director's office, jowls quivering. He was a small man, just short of being a
dwarf, but every inch was shaking with outraged dignity. He slammed a sealed
folder crookedly onto the edge of the dark oak desk.
"No more!" he said. He
swept off his bell crown topper and ran a trembling hand through his hair. His
long curls flew like wings on either side of his thinning scalp. He struck his
walking stick firmly on the floorboards. "I am done, do you hear me,
Frobisher? Finished! I will not take this, this mockery any longer. I
resign!"
Mr. Frobisher, the longtime
director of the Department of Extranatural Affairs, looked up with a rheumy
eye. He had been having quite a pleasant nap until the diminutive agent had
come storming into his presence. The old man, now well into his nineties, made
sure to dress himself in the very latest fashions, though his body always
seemed to be crumbling down inside his clothes. He stretched his neck up out of
his collar on ropy wattles and peered out under a bushy white thicket of
eyebrows.
"Why, Mr. Abernathy,
whatever is the matter?"
"I joined this organization
because I believed! I wanted to test that belief, to prove to society what I
felt to be true in my heart, that an unseen world moved, invisibly, side by
side with that which was verifiable with the common senses. But case after case
I find only frauds and fakes, the chicanery of rogues and the misperceptions of
fools!
"Mr. Frobisher." There
were almost tears in his eyes. He held his gloved hands out imploring.
"Mr. Frobisher, I know there are wonders all around us. The other agents
speak of them unceasingly, wearily, ploddingly. They seem jaded with marvels,
bored with the outré monde. I sense the weird in my blood, fugitive, forever
fleeing when I turn to pursue. Why am I never given such a case? Is this
persecution?"
"This case." He stabbed
the file on the desk dramatically with his forefinger. "This last case is
the final straw. You remember what you assigned me? A haunted opera, a walking
ghost. By the time I arrived, a gang of nosey juveniles had already apprehended
the culprit, a disgruntled singer out for revenge. Their slobbering hound
actually had the disguise in his jaws.
It was a sheet, just a plain white sheet, from a bed! I took the
criminal off their hands, ready to turn him over to the police, and through
gritted teeth had to congratulate the hooligans on a job well done. As I turned
away, I swear I could hear their dog grumble some kind of insult in its throat!”
The tears squeezed out and
trickled down the agent's flushed cheeks.
"Mr. Frobisher, when even
the brute creation seems to be mocking your efforts, it's time to quit, before
madness ensues."
Frobisher retracted his neck and
appraised Abernathy from the caverns of his clothing, his ancient wrinkled
hands netted in a knobby cluster. He saw that the little man had more tears
standing in his eyes, and that his bushy, grey-streaked mustache was puffing in
and out with indignant frustration, the breast of his waistcoat heaving up and
down like an unquiet sea. The old lawyer cocked a bristling eyebrow.
"If that is what you
wish," he finally croaked, "I shall of course accept your
resignation. But before I do, I would entreat you to pursue one last mission,
to be sure that your decision is not undertaken in the heat of passion."
He bent down to his desk
creakily, like a tired spider, and with some difficulty opened a stiffly
groaning drawer. Slowly, almost enticingly, he drew out a slim folder.
Abernathy could see it was the pale pink color reserved for puzzling cases that
had been investigated but not resolved. Almost involuntarily he raised his
brows and sniffed, taking a half-step forward before stopping himself.
"Why?" he said angrily,
drawing back, striking a tragic pose. "Why should I put myself through
such demeaning torture again, like a drunkard clutching the bottle for a
farewell drink? 'Twere best to have done, once and for all."
"Let us be pragmatic, not
dramatic." The old lawyer placed the folder gently, squarely in the middle
of his desk, like a delicate prize. "It may be you will change your mind,
once you settle down. It may be you will realize the worth of exposing frauds,
amid the chance of a true revelation. How many paying jobs will afford you that
opportunity? And, in this economy, where will you find a job that pays so
well?"
"My aspirations ... my hopes
...," Abernathy stammered angrily. "Filthy lucre ..." His voice
faltered into silence and his eyes fixated on Frobisher's fingers, which were
now caressing the folder with an almost silken touch, as if they were tracing
invisible signs and circles on the cardboard cover. He looked up into the old
man's face.
"If I take this one last
case," he said sternly, "Then I can go, without hindrance?"
"You won't hear another word
from me against it," Frobisher answered sweetly. "I'll take this
meeting as your two weeks’ notice, give you a letter of recommendation, and
tell you hale and farewell. Hell, we might even throw you a good-bye
party." He nudged the pink folder forward slightly with his fingertips.
Abernathy hesitated and chewed
his mustache, his soft brown eyes darting up to the ceiling, down to the
folder, then up again to his director's reasonable, smiling expression.
"You never can tell,"
Frobisher said. "This could even be the seventh wave that lifts the boat.
This could be, at last, the revelation you hope for."
The words hung in the air for a
long moment. Then the little agent strode forward and snatched up the file with
a disgusted sneer, as if to prove that it was not this last blandishment that
had broken his resolve.
"I'll take this case,"
he said, voice quivering. "And then I'll be back to resign." He
turned and headed for the door, then twisted around. "In case you're
wondering, I'd like chocolate cake and brandy punch. For the farewell party.
I'll be back in a twinkling after resolving this ... this so-called
mystery." He stomped out, slamming the door after him.
Dust tinkled from the rafters in
the aftershock, glinting in the afternoon sun. Frobisher settled back into his
chair, shutting his weary eyes.
"Maybe you will." He
chuckled dryly. "Maybe you will." In a moment he had drifted off onto
wild seas of speculation. A moment after that he began to snore.
Three weeks later Mr. Frobisher,
accompanied by his long-time secretary Mr. Williams, appeared at the St.
Thomas' Hospital for the Indigent Poor in answer to a telegraphic summons. An
unknown patient, deposited anonymously and with no identification, had
recovered senses and health enough to finally make himself known as Mr. Ambrose
Abernathy, and to ask that Frobisher be notified of his location.
The neat, wiry Williams, slim
writing case in hand, held the heavy oak door of the infirmary open as
Frobisher shuffled into the cavernous room, his tapping cane rousing echoes as
he entered at a tortoise pace. The place was lined with iron beds covered in
cotton mattresses; despite the flowers and the tang of soap in the air, there
was also a recurring waft of human decay. The sister in charge rose.
"Mr. Abernathy,
please," the director said, his voice husky in deference to the hushed
atmosphere. The scrawny little nun led the gentlemen to an occupied bed about
two-thirds down the chamber. It was as well she did, for neither could have identified
him. The patient's head was swathed in bandages and at one point his moustache
seemed to have been shaved off, the paler skin testifying to its recent
denudement. The rest of the body was swaddled like an Egyptian mummy. Frobisher
looked down and wondered if they had found the right man.
Williams turned to the sister.
"Do you have any chairs? We
may be here some time, and the Director, as you see ..." He gestured, as
if to indicate his superior's obvious decrepitude. The older man scowled.
"This way, please," she
whispered, and led the secretary back out into the hallway. Frobisher watched
them go sourly, thinking that Williams would be just as happy as he for a place
to squat while they conducted this business. No reason to bring age into it.
When he turned back, he found himself looking into the unmistakable liquid
brown eyes and the trembling lip of Ambrose Abernathy.
"Ah! Abernathy! How are you
doing, my boy?" he husked.
The little man's jaw worked back
and forth, like a machine trying to start up, followed by a squeaky whimper
that finally pushed out broken words. His eyes squinted in pain, tears
squeezing onto his bandaged cheeks.
"Oh, Mr. Frobisher!" he
managed. "The horror! The... horror...!"
The old man leaned forward and
lightly patted the patient with a bird-like claw. The little man winced and
squirmed at the gentle weight.
"There, there, Abernathy,
you're safe enough now. We'll take your report and you can tell me all about
it, as soon as Williams gets back with those chairs."
"But, sir, the security of
the nation ... perhaps the safety of the entire world..." The bandages
wobbled in terror.
"Can bloody well wait till I
get a seat under my hunkers. Where the hell ... Oh, there you are, Mr.
Williams. You can put my chair up here at the head (yes, I'll take the one with
the cushion, damn ye), and you be sure yours is in the light. Set up your
tablets and let's get this man's report so he can rest."
Abernathy's eyes boggled as the
secretary, with an officious little smile, fussily began to set up the chairs,
then carefully helped lower the director into his seat, and started to remove
writing materials from his battered brown portfolio with careful precision. The
little agent writhed on the bed with impatience.
"Mr. Frobisher," he
spluttered. "My report is quite urgent..."
The old man leaned forward into
Abernathy's face, hands cradled on his cane, eyes hooded like a vulture.
Williams looked up and gazed expectantly at him, pencil poised mid-air to take
notes. The little man froze for an instant in the sudden attention, then
swallowed and blinked, and began to unfold his tale.
He had arrived by coach at the
small southerly township of Ashbourne early in the afternoon of October the
seventh. By the time he had procured directions to the Kindermass house and
found his way to its location, lost in the straggling town outskirts almost
three miles away, the sun was already touching the hilly horizon and shadows
had started to gather.
It was an old farmhouse,
obviously fancy in its day, that had been overtaken by Ashbourne's sprawling
growth. There was an ancient well, about half-way up the overgrown front yard.
Desperately parched from his dusty walk, Abernathy had paused, balancing his
case kit on the stone lip, and tried to draw up a much-needed drink.
Here the first of his misfortunes
befell him, for a stray knock from his elbow as he struggled with the rusted
machinery sent the leather case plunging into the darkness below, scraping and
bumping the sides until it landed out of sight with a dry, distant crash.
For a moment he was overcome with
loss. The case kit held all the supplies for any contingency an agent might
encounter: salt, rowan twigs, a Bible, an ash stake, a crucifix, holy water,
candles, chalk, a gun loaded with silver bullets, a pint of rum, a horseshoe, a
five-pointed talisman of green soapstone, and a small explosive device of great
power. He had carried it on every mission for eight years.
The next moment he damned the
case and consigned it to oblivion. Good riddance. He had lugged it around for
eight long years and never used its contents once; it was practically mint
condition. It wasn't even his, in any real sense; it was Bureau property, and
as such not even his financial concern. Agents lost their kits or bits of them
all the time, just to have them replaced by the department.
He raised himself up from where
he had been gazing down the well's abyss, tugged his coat straight, removed his
hat and ran a hand through his sweaty hair. He headed on up to the house,
thirst unassuaged but chin held high.
He could barely make his way to
the front door through the profusion of potted plants that crowded the covered
porch. He knocked firmly but politely, and while he waited for his summons to
be answered he looked around. He noticed that a slow, cooling wind had started
to blow, stirring the fronds and tendrils of the congested greenery. He turned
his head and saw that a long line of grey clouds had started crawling up behind
him. He removed his handkerchief and blotted his streaming face.
That's about right,
Abernathy thought. A nice breeze, just in time to do me no good whatsoever.
The title of The Case of
Ambrose Abernathy (aka The Testament of Ambrose Abernathy) can refer to three different things: the case he
investigates, the case that he loses down the well, and himself as a case
studied by the Bureau of Shadows. Abernathy himself is loosely based, at least
in appearance, on Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose portrait graces the head of this
tale.
Reference is made, of
course, to Scooby Doo, the early cases of which always turned out to
have a natural explanation. Abernathy’s loss of his investigating case recalls
a similar disheartening loss by Dr. Ambronsius in The Fearless Vampire
Killers.
The story itself turns out
to be rather Lovecraftian in form, with its hint of cosmic horror and
miscegenation. It is also one of the lengthier Tales of the Bureau of
Shadows, and must be broken into several parts. It was quite a marathon to
write.
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