“Well,” Rose said, “we’ve had none of that sort of thing.”
Jack grinned. “I guess Elizabeth is the only one of us who’s immune to the family curse.” He laughed, but his laughter faded when he noticed that the doctor had not joined him.
“Ah, yes,” Dr. Belter said, leaning back once more and closing his eyes. “The Conger family curse.”
“You’ve heard about it?” Jack said.
“Around Port Arbello, who hasn’t? As a matter of fact, I probably know more about your family curse than you do.”
“Oh?” Jack said guardedly. “How so?”
Dr. Belter smiled at him. “I make it a practice to find out everything I can about all my patients, and their families. So when I first met you people, I started snooping.”
“And what did you find?” Rose asked.
“A certain Reverend Caspar Winecliff,” Dr. Belter said, savoring the name.
“You mean the old Methodist minister?” Jack said, his brows arching. “We hardly know the man.”
“Ah, but he knows you,” the doctor intoned, enjoying the baffled looks on the Congers’ faces. Then he dropped the air of mystery.
“Actually, Caspar Winecliff simply has a passion for local legend and folklore, particularly with reference to New England curses and that sort of thing. My personal opinion is that he enjoys the subject because he thinks it’s wicked and flies in the face of his good Methodist background. If you ask me, he believes every word of every legend he’s ever heard, though of course he denies it. And the Conger legend happens to be his favorite.”
“You’re kidding,” Jack said. “I knew the legend wasn’t any great secret, but I didn’t know anybody was that interested in it.”
“I didn’t either, until I was down at the library one day asking some questions. I was hoping to find some old papers or something that would have the legend written up. They didn’t, but the librarian put me onto Caspar Winecliff. How much do you know about your legend?”
Jack recounted as much of it as he knew, and when he was finished the doctor nodded his head.
“That’s it, all right, except for the story about the little girl.”
Jack and Rose glanced at each other, and Dr. Belter thought he saw alarm in their eyes.
“What little girl?” Jack said apprehensively. For some reason, an image of the portrait in the study came to his mind.
“It has to do with the relative who went off the cliff,” the doctor began, looking inquiringly at Jack.
“I know about him,” Jack said. “I’m not sure what his name was.”
“It was John Conger, actually,” Dr. Belter said seriously. “The same as yours.”
Jack felt a chill in his spine. “What about him?”
“Well,” Dr. Belter said, “the story is that the reason he jumped off the cliff was that he had just molested and killed a little girl. His daughter.”
The blood drained from Jack’s face, and he stared coldly at the doctor.
“Just what are you trying to say?”
The doctor smiled reassuringly. “I’m not trying to say anything. I’m just telling you the story. And, of course, it could be entirely apocryphal. Caspar Winecliff tells me they never found a body, and, for that matter, there don’t seem to be any records of John Conger’s ever having had a daughter.”
Rose saw the portrait in her mind’s eye, with the nameplate removed from the bottom of the frame.
“Did Reverend Winecliff have any idea of how old the girl was, or what she looked like?” She was almost afraid to hear the answer.
Dr. Belter shook his head. “Nothing about what she looked like, but she was supposed to have been about ten or eleven years old.”
“About the same age as Sarah?” Jack said, a distinct edge in his voice.
“yes,” Dr. Belter said, meeting his troubled gaze, “about the same age as Sarah.”
“Dr. Belter,” Rose said, “just what are you getting at? It sounds as though you believe in the whole silly legend.”
Dr. Belter thought carefully before he answered, and when he spoke he chose his words precisely.
“Whether or not I believe in the legend isn’t what’s at issue here. What’s at issue is whether or not your husband believes in it. Do you, Mr. Conger?”
Jack started to speak, but the doctor stopped him.
“Don’t answer quickly, please. Think about it And try to think about it on two levels. I’m sure your conscious mind doesn’t believe that there could be any kind of curse on your family. In this day and age we tend to think of such things as silly. But there is also your subconscious mind.