The Allen Affair
Luther Balor was woken from his dozing by the hard strike of a match. The faint smell of burned sulfur lingered as he blinked hard and turned his eyes to the butler hovering beside him: a young man dressed sharply in the customary tuxedo of a servant; a white tie knotted snugly around his throat.
“Light, sir?” he asked, offering the match.
Luther looked blankly at the small orange flame as it slowly crawled down toward the man’s long fingers. With mild surprise he noted that the meerschaum pipe in his cupped hand was packed and ready. He lifted the bowl to the flame and drew deeply, letting his eyes wander around the room. His head was still in a fog, but it was starting to clear. He knew the room, recognized the lavish furniture of the brownstone’s sitting room: the red and gold carpet, the wingback chairs. With a couple of puffs, it all came back to him.
He was in his private club: The Twist. He had come for his usual weekly game of seven card stud, and he had had a good night. It seemed the fates had seen fit to furnish him with one winning hand after another. After celebrating with a double whiskey or three, he sat down before the fire in his favorite chair. At some point he must have drifted off.
He turned back to the butler and saw a hint of a smile on the man’s placid face. He appeared freshly groomed with his raven hair parted cleanly on the side and combed back flat against his skull. Luther’s face twisted with confusion.
“Poole?” he asked, brow furrowed.
“Stango, sir,” he said and cast the spent match into the marble fireplace where the dying fire flickered weakly in the small heap of ash.
“Where are the others?” Luther asked, noting the empty room.
“Others, sir? What others?”
“The others. Howard, Dubin, Walters… the others.”
“Oh, them, sir. I suppose they had other things to attend to. One could hardly expect them to stay in the club indefinitely.”
“No. I suppose not.” He looked at the large grandfather clock standing silently at the end of the room. “What time is it? You’ve neglected the clock. It’s stopped.”
“Half-past, sir.”
“Half-past what?”
“Sir?”
“The hour, man. Good God. What did you think I meant?” He took another long drag on his pipe as Stango drew his watch from his pocket and studied its face. “Well?”
“One o’ clock, sir.”
“One-thirty.”
“One-thirty-two.” The watch disappeared back into his pocket.
“No wonder the others have gone. I’m usually woken by the chime of midnight. Damn it all to—don’t you ever wind that thing?”
“The mechanics must be broken. I’ll see to it that it’s repaired.”
“See that you do. What was your name again?”
“Name, sir?”
“Yes, your name. Are you deaf or simply slow?”
“Stango, sir.”
“Stango, hmm. You must be new.”
“Oh, no sir,” he said, letting his smile widen with pride. “I’ve always been here.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Well, I don’t remember seeing you.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ve always felt that the measure of a servant lies in his ability to perform his duties without drawing attention to himself.”
“Well, congratulations. You must be a first-rate steward. A… consummate minion.” He took another puff from his pipe and found it spent. With a light groan he reached for the crystal ashtray on the end table. Stango pushed it closer with a graceful nudge of his finger, and Luther tapped the ash from his bowl. Stango lifted an empty tumbler from the table.
“Drink, sir?”
Luther grumbled a kind of protest as if to say, Well, I really shouldn’t. Then said, “Make it a short one.”
Stango carried the glass to the bar.
“Neat? Or…” he said, pulling the stopper from the decanter.
“As it is.”
“As it is. Very good, sir.” He poured. “There we are.”
When Luther accepted his drink, he saw the pour was nearer to three fingers than one but did not complain. Stango took a split log from the basket and added it to the fire.
“Pine,” he said, adjusting its position with the poker. “Quick to ignite but quick to burn.” He replaced the poker and dusted off his hands. Tilting back his head, his eyes ran over the ceiling’s elegant molding. “I understand your reluctance to leave. It’s such a beautiful building.” Luther felt the familiar burn of the whiskey trail down his throat and smoothed his neatly trimmed mustache with his finger. “It’s cozy, yet grand. Of course, there was a time when that wasn’t exactly true. As I am sure you know.”
Stango took a folded cloth from his inner pocket and wiped a spot of dust from the hearth.
“I’m not sure I follow you,” Luther said into his glass.
“That terrible business with the Allen Family. Grisly affair. Such a scandal.” Stango slipped the cloth back into his jacket and examined Luther’s blank expression. “You must have heard.”
Luther gave the slightest shake of the head.
“No?”
“If memory serves me correctly, Dubin bought this place back in 19… 1901 I think it was. Established the club a year later. The Twist,” Luther said with a sarcastic roll of the eyes.
“I believe you hit the nail on the head.” Stango’s head tilted a little as if searching his memory. “The Twist. Rather peculiar name. I confess I am ignorant of its origin. Do you think it comes from a fondness for Dickens?”
Luther snorted out a hard laugh. “God, no. Dubin’s family made their fortune growing tobacco, and if I may say, Dubin isn’t known for his extensive imagination. Where is the bastard anyway? Did he really leave? I doubt he was lured home by the charms of his wife. Whale of a woman.” He finished off his drink.
“I think I understand. Like a twist of tobacco. Is that what you meant?”
“The very same.”
“I see.”
A silence fell over the room as Stango turned his attention to the empty vase on the mantle and meticulously adjusted its position in relation to its twin.
“Stangooo…” Luther said irritably.
“Sir?”
“You’ve wandered off the path.”
“I’m sorry?”
“This ‘grisly affair’ you were talking about. Do tell.”
“Oh, yes. Forgive me, sir.” Stango’s hands clasped together. “Well, I hope I am not speaking out of turn, but I venture Mr. Dubin fetched a bargain price when he bought the house. Such an incident could only depreciate the value of the property.”
“Oh? And what incident might that be?”
Stango hesitated. “Perhaps I shouldn’t.”
“Stango, stop yanking my chain. I pay my dues. And I don’t care to be left in the dark. What is it that old Dubin hasn’t told me?” Luther held out his empty glass.
“Very well, sir.” Stango dutifully poured him another double and returned to the fireplace. “Of course you’re right. It’s not my place to withhold from a member. Perhaps it would be best to start from the beginning,” he said and touched his finger to a spot on the scrollwork of the mantel. To his surprise, Luther saw the rectangular panel below pop out an inch. Stango pulled out the hidden drawer and reached inside.
“My God, I didn’t know that was there.”
“Houses, like people, have their own secrets.” He took out a thin, black book and pushed the drawer back into place. With his handkerchief, he wiped the thick layer of dust from the cover. Luther twisted in his chair as he watched Stango carry the book to the mahogany card table at the back of the room and pull out a chair.
“If you would be so kind,” Stango said, gesturing to the open seat.
Luther pushed himself out of his chair and stumbled to his feet as he felt the world tilt and level out again.
Stango pushed his chair in behind him, plucked some lint from Luther’s shoulder, and finally took the seat opposite. Setting aside a deck of cards, he laid the book flat between them, presenting it like an ancient relic. ALLEN was stamped on the cover in large, Gothic type. With great delicacy, he opened it.
“The Allen family was never a very large family,” Stango said, turning to the first photo in the album. “This is George Allen Sr.”
Luther leaned over the portrait of the white-haired man with bushy mutton chops sitting neatly in a spindle back chair. He held a pair of white, calf skin gloves in one hand, and as his gut pushed at the buttons of his waistcoat, he stared coolly into the distance somewhere left of the camera.
“He moved into this house in 1862. He had only one child by his first wife—George Allen Jr.—before she succumbed to consumption. Then a daughter by his second wife—Sarah Allen—before his third and final child arrived—Edward Allen.” He turned the stiff page over by its corner. The three Allen children were arranged in descending order with junior standing on the left, Edward on the right, and their sister seated between them. Luther judged the eldest to be no more than twenty, perhaps twenty-one, and yet he could see from his straight back posture and his firmly set jaw that he was ready to assume his role as head of the family. In contrast, Edward, who appeared to be around fifteen years of age, largely resembled an unruly fledgling. A tangled mop of dark curls spilled down toward his ears and a faint smirk graced his lips as he rested one hand on his sister’s shoulder, not far below his own.
“George Sr. died in 1879, passing the family’s mining interests on to the eldest. But it was only a year or two before the tragedy that befell the mother, fell upon the son, and George Jr. died in 1881 to that same terrible disease. That left only Edward to run the family business at the ripe age of nineteen. He proved to have no head or instinct for business whatsoever. By the time he was twenty-two, their holdings were in such a shambles that his sister was able to convince him to turn over control to her husband. He still received a regular share of the profits of course, which left him to live the life of an aimless socialite.
“He set out to establish himself as a patron of the arts. But as a wild pleasure seeker, he quickly gained a reputation as a playboy with a taste for, shall we say, the risqué. He was a frequent subject in the society pages. But after a couple of small scandals, including rumors surrounding his relationship to the mayor’s fifteen-year-old daughter, he finally settled down and married a young actress named Ida. They lived in this very house.”
He turned to the next photograph. Edward was now a good foot and a half taller with a thin, neatly trimmed mustache and the same curly crop of hair, only now there was an attempt to tame it with an application of pomade. Beside him sat a beautiful young woman in a billowing dress with lace that weaved around her slender neck. Her features were slight yet mesmerizing in their symmetry. Luther saw a light in her eyes, a tender glow. In her lap she held a baby dressed in the customary white gown, rendering its sex a mystery.
“She was universally adored. Kindhearted. Generous. And the hub of this terrible drama. You see, in addition to her blessings of beauty and a kind soul, she also carried a curse. She adored children but struggled to have any of her own. There were countless miscarriages. Two of her children passed while still in the crib. And young Albert here,” Stango tapped a finger on the child in white. “He almost made it to his second birthday before he went to sleep and never woke up.”
“Poor woman,” Luther said with a grunt and a shake of the head.
“Indeed. And as you can imagine, all that death took its toll. She fell permanently ill, rarely finding the strength to get out of bed. And to make matters even worse, her husband was not at all sympathetic.”
“How so?”
“He… sought comfort with other women. Even going so far as to bring his mistresses into their home. Mrs. Allen had moved from their bedroom to a sickroom, but she was no fool. And Edward made no attempt to hide his adultery.”
“Repulsive,” Luther said, again studying Ida’s angelic features.
“Yes. The very word I would use. Repulsive.”
“So how does this sad story end?”
“Well, Edward grew bolder, and his lustful appetites turned to the domestic staff. You see, the Allens employed a small staff of live-in servants. A family of three, actually. The husband acted as butler and chauffeur, the wife as maid and cook, and their boy ran errands and saw to all the chores in between. One night, the butler awoke to find himself alone in bed. Searching for his wife, he carried a lamp upstairs and followed a sound to the master bedroom.”
“Caught them in the act?”
“Going at it like a pair of feral dogs, so they say. Didn’t even notice when he opened the door. Now sir, you are a gentleman, and I judge you have a sense of honor. What would your reaction be to discovering that a man was taking liberties with your wife? Not just discovered but caught them in the act. How would you respond?”
Luther straightened up in his chair. “Firmly,” he said without humor.
“Yes, exactly. Possibly with rage? Perhaps even violently?”
“Distinctly possible.”
“It would only be natural. One becomes more beast than man in such a situation. I put it to you that the only unnatural thing to do would be to avert your eyes and slink away quietly so your master could finish pleasuring himself with your woman. Yet this is what he did. Retreated like a spineless snail.” Stango pulled at the lapels of his jacket. “No dignity. Can you imagine.”
Luther grunted and drained his glass.
“Of course, things only got worse from there. Well, you could hardly expect them to get any better. The servant’s wife started showing up with new hats, dresses from the finest houses, all silk and lace. Jewelry too.” Stango gestured toward his neck. “A jeweled necklace she could never hope to afford. Proudly displaying the bounty of her whoring. Strutting around, apparently daring her husband to say a word. Which of course, he never did. Can you imagine possessing such a weak soul?”
Luther slowly shook his head.
“Nor can I. And then there was poor Mrs. Allen. Ida. An angel on Earth if there ever was one. Confined to her deathbed. Made weaker every day by a merciless disease while her husband trapeses around with a married woman. The maid of all people. And her husband standing idly by. I mean, what a scene. I do not envy the devils who judge which is the greater sinner. One can only speculate as to the contents of their twisted minds. The greed. The lust. The maid must have thought she would be the next Mrs. Allen. If one could be foolish enough to think such a thing, and I am afraid to say she was such a fool.”
Luther flinched when Stango’s hand shot out over the table and slapped the photo album shut. For a moment the only sound in the room was the soft crackling of the fire as Luther watched Stango stare off into space, his face expressionless.
It took Luther a moment to find his words.
“You said…” He felt a small lump form in his throat as Stango’s cool eyes fixed on his own. “You said there was a boy. The servants’ boy. Where was he during all of this?”
“Oh, he was there. A scraggly little thing of about thirteen, and small for his age too. He saw it all. Everyone seemed to think he was either too young or too ignorant to know what was happening. He was neither. He spent most of his time attending to Mrs. Allen. As much as he could. The one ray of light in that abysmal dark. As ill-fated as it may have been.” Stango adjusted his cuffs. “It carried on like that for nearly two months. Everyone pretending everything was business as usual. That it was normal for the maid to wear a silk gown and a diamond necklace. Pretending not to hear the moans of that harlot every night. Oh, it made the boy’s blood boil.” Stango’s hand squeezed into a fist on the table’s green felt, turning his knuckles white. His hand unfurled, and he was suddenly relaxed again, serene.
“Then there was a moment of clarity. The boy… he was reading to Mrs. Allen from her favorite book of poems, Byron it was. ‘She walks in beauty, like the night, of cloudless climes and starry skies…’ And when he looked up, he saw she was gone. Skin pale. Utterly pale. He closed her unblinking eyes, drew the sheet over her head, and even placed a kiss on her cheek to say goodbye.
“He retreated from the sick room into the hall where he heard it immediately: the lustful thumping from the room above. But it was soon replaced. Drowned out by something much more glorious. The voice of an angel. Jophiel, bearer of the flaming sword. She offered the boy her wisdom. Told him to tend to his father. So, the boy did as he was told. Who was he to question the guidance of an archangel?
“He walked calmly down to the servant’s quarters below where he found his father sitting on his bed in his nightshirt, smoking. He did not notice the boy enter at first. His mind was understandably preoccupied. Standing in the doorway, the boy relayed the passing of their mistress. The father said nothing at first, just smoked. Then finally he said, ‘lucky for her.’
“The boy made no reply. He only watched as he smoked. Once finished, he stood before his father, placed a hand upon his head and said softly, ‘It will be all right now. There’s no more to worry about.’ And he felt the angel work through him. Felt divine light cleanse his father of his craven sins.
“There are many reasons to kill. Some merciful, some vengeful. And I’m afraid both took place that night. The servant never felt a thing. The kitchen mallet struck a clean blow. Swift and decisive.” Stango’s fist struck the table, sending another jolt through Luther.
“Killed his father?” Luther muttered, clutching his empty glass to his chest.
“Mother and master too. Only not as quickly, and not nearly as cleanly. Took a cleaver and the sharpest knife from the kitchen and came upon them sprawled out naked in the master bedroom. Mr. Allen was furious. Shouting indignation. Ordering him to leave. That was of course until one swipe of the cleaver severed all the fingers on his right hand. Except for the pinky, which managed to hang on by a narrow flap of skin.
“The neighbors heard the screams. Their endless screaming. But when the police finally entered, it was all over. They found the boy in the kitchen, calmly cleaning his tools. They gasped at the sight of him. Streaked in blood from head to toe. When they came to the sight of the murder, one of the men vomited and promptly fainted. The boy had neatly stacked all their body parts into a tidy pile in the center of the room. Arms and legs stacked like cordwood. There was so much blood it seeped down to the floor below, dripping from the parlor chandelier.”
Stango pointed up and Luther lifted his eyes to the whitewashed ceiling. He looked back at Stango, and for the first time, he noticed the loose fit of his oversized tuxedo.
“And… what became of the boy?”
“Carted off to the loony bin. Mangrove asylum for the criminally insane. Though he probably would have preferred a standard prison, where the conditions were a little less medieval. In the asylum, the inmates were nothing more than lab rats.”
“Is that so?” Luther said, forcing his voice to remain soft.
Stango nodded. “The head doctor there was a man named Fergeson. He loved having the boy as a patient.”
“Really?”
Stango nodded again. “You see, the doctor liked to lead perspective donors on guided tours, and the boy was one of the main attractions. He would parade them in front of his cell and recite his story in grisly detail. ‘He looks like a perfectly innocent young man,’ he would say, ‘but don’t let him fool you.’ He never came right out and said it, but the message was clear. Give me your money or this is the kind of monster that gets released back on the street. They all paid.”
“And he’s still there?”
Stango shrugged. “Who knows. Most likely. That is, if Dr. Fergeson doesn’t get too complacent. If he doesn’t say… oh, I don’t know… agree to a game of chess. Alone. In his office. Though he might. After years of polite conversation.”
“Jophiel’s wisdom again?”
“Indeed. A vassal can hardly refuse. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Ah, yes.” Luther managed a stiff nod. “And… how long did you say you worked here?”
A thin, polite smile appeared on Stango’s face. “Like I said, sir. I’ve always been here. Plenty of work to be done. Messes to clean. A servant’s work is never done.”
“Quite.”
“Another drink, sir?”
Luther looked down into his glass. “Um… no. I… I think I’ve had enough. One must know one’s limit,” he said and gave an unconvincing laugh. Stango only looked at him blankly. “Well, I think it was about time I was on my way.”
“Very good, sir,” Stango said dryly. He made no effort to see him out or to fetch his coat. He only sat, eyes fixed.
“Right.” Luther cleared his throat and stood, nearly knocking the chair to the floor with his clumsy movements. He could feel Stango’s eyes drilling into his back as he crossed the room, passing the end table where his pipe sat cold.
“Goodnight,” he called over his shoulder as he neared the thick oak door of the front entrance. The door rattled stiffly in its frame as he attempted to pull it open, but it would not budge. He searched in vain for a draw latch before his finger fell upon the empty keyhole. He spun around and faced the empty hall and heard the burst of a wood knot in the fireplace.
“S-Stango?” he said. “The door… it appears to be locked.” He tried to sound natural, but it was difficult with his heart thumping and the terrible stillness piercing his ears.
He willed his feet to move, drawn back to the sitting room by the heavy pulse of brass cogs. The pendulum of the clock was again swinging inside its long case, but there was no sign of Stango, just the black book resting squarely on the green felt. He tip-toed down the main hall, toward the back, listening for footsteps or the drawn latch of a door, but there was nothing. He stumbled over a wrinkle in the hall rug and found himself reaching out to the wall for balance. He had had one too many whiskeys.
Outside the entry to the kitchen, he pressed his ear to the door and listened. A sudden hard bong made him gasp and clench his chest. Back in the sitting room, the grandfather clock chimed and announced the hour.
Luther regained his composure with a deep breath and pushed through the door. One step in, he felt his feet slide out beneath him. He grasped for the counter on his way down, but his mind was still half a step behind, and he fell hard onto something wet.
He stared into the cold, dead eyes of Poole the servant lying beside him, the handle of an icepick jutting out from his left temple. And on top of Poole lay Dubin, his throat cut. Luther tried to restrain his cries and shouts, but it was no use as his eyes fixed on Dubin’s exposed windpipe. He realized with horror that his hands and chest were coated in sticky blood. He tried to stand but only landed back down on his ass. The door to the servants’ quarters swung open and Stango stood, looking down at him impassively. His black jacket was gone, replaced by a clean, white apron, and in his hand, he held a sturdy cleaver.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said, his voice soft and businesslike. “I have to tidy up now.”
About the Author
Ian Swinehart lives in Michigan where he is slowly succumbing to his addiction to typewriters. In his free time, he enjoys writing short horror fiction, and his work has previously appeared in The Other Stories.