The Conjure-Man Dies: A Harlem Mystery. Rudolph Fisher
there was simply the atmosphere of an exceptionally well ordered, decided masculinity.
‘What do you think?’ asked Dr Archer.
‘Woman hater,’ repeated Dart conclusively.
‘Or a Lothario of the deepest dye.’
The detective looked at the doctor. ‘I get the deep dye—he was blacker’n me. But the Lothario—’
‘Isn’t it barely possible that this so very complete—er—repudiation of woman is too complete to be accidental? May it not be deliberate—a wary suppression of evidence—the recourse of a lover of great experience and wisdom, who lets not his right hand know whom his left embraceth?’
‘Not good—just careful?’
‘He couldn’t be married—actively. His wife’s influence would be—smelt. And if he isn’t married, this over-absence of the feminine—well—it means something.’
‘I still think it could mean woman-hating. This other guess-work of yours sounds all bass-ackwards to me.’
‘Heaven forfend, good friend, that you should lose faith in my judgment. Woman-hater you call him and woman-hater he is. Carry on.’
A narrow little room the width of the hallway occupied that extent of the front not taken up by the master bedroom. In this they found a single bed, a small table, and a chair, but nothing of apparent significance.
Along the hallway they now retraced their steps, trying each of three successive doors that led off from this passage. The first was an empty store-room, the second a white tiled bathroom, and the third a bare closet. These yielded no suggestion of the sort of character or circumstances with which they might be dealing. Nor did the smaller of the two rooms terminating the hallway at its back end, for this was merely a narrow kitchen, with a tiny range, a table, icebox, and cabinet. In these they found no inspiration.
But the larger of the two rear rooms was arresting enough. This was a study, fitted out in a fashion that would have warmed the heart and stirred the ambition of any student. There were two large brown-leather club chairs, each with its end table and reading lamp; a similarly upholstered divan in front of a fireplace that occupied the far wall, and over toward the windows at the rear, a flat-topped desk, upon which sat a bronze desk-lamp, and behind which sat a large swivel armchair. Those parts of the walls not taken up by the fireplace and windows were solid masses of books, being fitted from the floor to the level of a tall man’s head with crowded shelves.
Dr Archer was at once absorbed. ‘This man was no ordinary fakir,’ he observed. ‘Look.’ He pointed out several framed documents on the upper parts of the walls. ‘Here—’ He approached the largest and peered long upon it. Dart came near, looked at it once, and grinned:
‘Does it make sense, doc?’
‘Bachelor’s degree from Harvard. N’Gana Frimbo. N’Gana—’
‘Not West Indian?’
‘No. This sounds definitely African to me. Lots of them have that N’. The “Frimbo” suggests it, too—mumbo—jumbo—sambo—’
‘Limbo—’
‘Wonder why he chose an American college? Most of the chiefs’ sons’ll go to Oxford or bust. I know—this fellow is probably from Liberia or thereabouts. American influence—see?’
‘How’d he get into a racket like fortune telling?’
‘Ask me another. Probably a better racket than medicine in this community. A really clever chap could do wonders.’
The doctor was glancing along the rows of books. He noted such titles as Tankard’s Determinism and Fatalism, a Critical Contrast, Bostwick’s The Concept of Inevitability, Preem’s Cause and Effect, Dessault’s The Science of History, and Fairclough’s The Philosophical Basis of Destiny. He took this last from its place, opened to a flyleaf, and read in script, ‘N’Gana Frimbo’ and a date. Riffling the pages, he saw in the same script pencilled marginal notes at frequent intervals. At the end of the chapter entitled ‘Unit Stimulus and Reaction,’ the pencilled notation read: ‘Fairclough too has missed the great secret.’
‘This is queer.’
‘What?’
‘A native African, a Harvard graduate, a student of philosophy—and a sorcerer. There’s something wrong with that picture.’
‘Does it throw any light on who killed him?’
‘Anything that throws light on the man’s character might help.’
‘Well, let’s get going. I want to go through the rest of the house and get down to the real job. You worry about his character. I’ll worry about the character of the suspects.’
‘Right-o. Your move, professor.’
MEANWHILE Jinx and Bubber, in Frimbo’s waiting-room on the second floor, were indulging in one of their characteristic arguments. This one had started with Bubber’s chivalrous endeavours to ease the disturbing situation for the two women, both of whom were bewildered and distraught and one of whom was young and pretty. Bubber had not only announced and described in detail just what he had seen, but, heedless of the fact that the younger woman had almost fainted, had proceeded to explain how he had known, long before it occurred, that he had been about to ‘see death.’ To dispel any remaining vestiges of tranquillity, he had added that the death of Frimbo was but one of three. Two more were at hand.
‘Soon as Jinx here called me,’ he said, ‘I knowed somebody’s time had come. I busted on in that room yonder with him—y’all seen me go—and sho’ ’nough, there was the man, limp as a rag and stiff as a board. Y’ see, the moon don’t lie. ’Cose most signs ain’t no ’count. As for me, you won’t find nobody black as me that’s less suprastitious.’
‘Jes’ say we won’t find nobody black as you and stop. That’ll be the truth,’ growled Jinx.
‘But a moonsign is different. Moonsign is the one sign you can take for sho’. Moonsign—’
‘Moonshine is what you took for sho’ tonight,’ Jinx said.
‘Red moon mean bloodshed, new moon over your right shoulder mean good luck, new moon over your left shoulder mean bad luck, and so on. Well, they’s one moonsign my grandmammy taught me befo’ I was knee high and that’s the worst sign of ’em all. And that’s the sign I seen tonight. I was walkin’ down the Avenue feelin’ fine and breathin’ the air—’
‘What do you breathe when you don’t feel so good?’
‘—smokin’ the gals over, watchin’ the cars roll by—feelin’ good, you know what I mean. And then all of a sudden I stopped. I store.’
‘You whiched?’
‘Store. I stopped and I store.’
‘What language you talkin’?’
‘I store at the sky. And as I stood there starin’, sump’m didn’t seem right. Then I seen what it was. Y’ see, they was a full moon in the sky—’
‘Funny place for a full moon, wasn’t it?’
‘—and as I store at it, they come up a cloud—wasn’t but one cloud in the whole sky—and that cloud come up and crossed over the face o’ the moon and blotted it out—jes’ like that.’
‘You sho’ ’twasn’t yo’ shadow?’
‘Well there was the black cloud in front o’ the moon and the white moonlight all around it and behind it. All of a sudden I seen what was wrong. That cloud had done took the shape of a