Up Close with Maude Collins
Dr. Miller interrupts Maude as she’s about to get into her car (the same one containing three very large, angry-looking men). Val follows Dr. Miller while the rest of the investigators watch from the house. Val intentionally antagonizes Maude and the men in the car. When one of the men tries to get out to pound Val into the pavement, Maude brings him to heel with a wave of her hand.
Dr. Miller asks Maude the following questions and receives the following answers.
Are you related to Ellie Dunn? No, who’s that. She’s in Kendrick? Poor dear.
Why have you given up asking us about the book? Well, you’ve searched the whole house and it’s not here, so I though I’d pursue other avenues. Give me a call if it turns up.
What do you know about Hylmunder? It’s some kind of pagan god, I think. Has to do with light and energy? How curious that you’d ask me about that.
Okay, what do you know about Adaru? I’ve…hm…I’ve never heard of that. (She’s lying)
How about Tiovvoru? Well, he's a fire deity. The rage of fire, specifically. They call him "The Consumer" and they say that every fire is a portal to his domain. He's often confused with Hylmunder, for obvious reasons. But really, doctor, are you going to ask me about every pagan deity you’ve ever heard of? I must be going.
The Monsignor
Monsignor Gregory Montag
After Maude leaves, the rest of the investigators decide to take a little break and plan their next move. Father Wilk takes this opportunity to visit Saint Dymphna’s church (also the site of the hospital and Catholic school of the same name), so that he can talk to Monsignor Montag, the highest-ranked Catholic in Port Harbor.
Saul drives but does not go with him into the meeting. Instead, he takes out a pack of cards and starts playing a unique, Germanic form of solitar on the car hood.
Father Wilk discusses his concerns with the Heartfire Church, including their bizarre faith, the fact that they may be a cult, the fact that they may be a con, and their likely hand in the disappearance of Molly Scott. The monsignor agrees that the church is a problem, but he can’t do anything without evidence of wrongdoing. Father Wilk recalls something that Val told him about Alpha Solaris Maxima Est—namely that she’s a former confidence woman whose real name is Ruth Green.
The monsignor is delighted to hear this. He writes Ruth’s name on a piece of paper and prepares to visit the police station to tell someone all about it. As the monsignor is halfway out the door, Father Wilk asks him about the religious affiliation of Chief Murphy. The monsignor replies that the chief is a Catholic (albeit a lapsed one), and that he has been trying to get Murphy to come to church for the last several years.
Moishe Danziger
A friendly, older man notices that Saul is playing a Germanic solitare variant and strikes up a conversation. Saul soon realizes that the man is, like him, a German immigrant, and so switches to German. This makes their conversation quite a bit easier.
The man introduces himself as Moishe Danziger. He lives with his wife in Altergarten, relatively near the Fresno house. He invites Saul to Temple Tephareth Israel for the religious services and community and listens to Saul’s recollections of the very strange few days he’s had in Port Harbor.
The two men laugh about, “that’s what you get, hanging around with Gentiles,” just as Father Wilk emerges from the church and hops into the car. With a wink and a smile, Moishe toddles off.
Moishe Danzinger
The Hot Dog Man
Once the car is back at the house, Dale takes it over to the train station to talk to Charlie (of the Charlie Dogs). Several others, including Saul, go with him. Dale asks Charlie about the bank robbery, but Charlie admits he hasn’t heard or seen anything. The investigators depart without any new information, but with bellies full of hot dog.
Back to the Bank
By the time Dale and company return to the house, the others have hatched a new plan. They want to talk to one of the bank tellers—specifically, the one who insisted he was out sick the day before, but who another teller claimed was in all day.
Fortunately, the bank is still open for a few more minutes, so the investigators head over there post haste. Mr. Letty, the bank manager, apologizes once again for the robbery and asks if they have other questions or concerns. The investigators reassure him that they are only there to take some money out of their account.
During the transaction, Dr. Miller is able to talk to the bank teller in question, Wilton MacKnight. Dr. Miller’s friendly and persuasive demeanor wins Wilton over, and he admits to Dr. Miller that he has been having quite a few headaches and health issues. He arranges for Dr. Miller to come by his apartment at 6:00 later that evening to do a house call.
Visiting Wilton
Wilton MacKnight at Work
Promptly at 6:00 pm, Dr. Miller goes to Wilton’s apartment. He is accompanied by Val, who has disguised herself as a nurse, and by Ada. Wilton welcomes them into his tidy, but sparsely furnished apartment, and offers them either tap water or the half-full bottle of milk that was delivered earlier in the day. The trio declines.
Dr. Miller gives Wilton a physical, while Val assists and Ada looks over the apartment. Wilton turns out to be in good condition, though he complains of the occasional headache and of being laid up in bed for a couple of days every month. This has occurred for the past six months or so.
Dr. Miller also learns that Wilton’s usual doctor, Dr. Gardener, hasn’t seen him in several months. It turns out that Wilton is self-medicating with some cough syrup that Dr. Gardener gave him about a year ago. This is unfortunate, but not necessarily untoward.
Val leaves Dr. Miller’s side to help Ada search. She discovers a curious occult symbol that has been carved in an unobtrusive place on Wilton’s bed. She then steps out into the hall to get a good look at the immediate surroundings.
While there, she notices one of Wilton’s neighbors—a very large man shaped roughly like a refrigerator—has come out of his apartment to take the trash out. Val lays in wait for the man to come back. When he does, she realizes he is one of the three men who was in Maude’s car earlier in the day.
Thanks to her disguise, the man doesn’t recognize Val. She pretends to be a poor, lost nurse looking in vain for Wilton MacKnight’s apartment. The man grunts and points at Wilton’s door, before trying to escape into his own apartment. Val tries to continue the conversation, but the man proves to be not at all chatty. She manages to learn that his name might be Al before he leaves her alone in the hall.
Meanwhile, inside the apartment, Dr. Miller searches Wilton’s bedroom. Vall has not yet told him or Ada about the occult symbol, which proves to be disastrous. Dr. Miller accidentally touches the symbol and immediately loses consciousness.
Panic ensues. Ada and Val carry Dr. Miller out to the couch while Wilton frets and stammers apologies. Once Dr. Miller is situated, Val runs outside and uses the hall phone to call the Fresno house. Val maintains her vocal disguise (something akin to a Southern belle) and speaks in code, so as not to arouse the attention of Al, who might be able to hear her talking on the phone from his apartment.
After a bit of confusion, Father Wilk realizes that it’s Val who’s calling, and that Dr. Miller is in trouble. The cavalry bundles into the car and drives over to Wilton’s apartment.
A Voice and a Discovery
The others arrive and use gentle percussion to bring Dr. Miller around.
As he regains consciousness, he hears a woman’s voice speaking. It says, “oh, Doctor Miller. It seems that I have you now. How unfortunate for you.”
He awakens on Wilton’s lumpy couch, with the rest of the investigators staring down at him.
A frantic Wilton offers the new arrivals some tap water or the half-bottle of milk from earlier in the day. The investigators refuse, until Val gets an idea and insists that someone get the milk—and the bottle. Martin asks and is given the bottle of milk. When Wilton fetches it for him, Val notices that there is a second, empty milk bottle in Wilton’s ice box. She takes it when no one is looking.
Father Wilk searches the apartment, using the pretext that he is “saying blessings” to move around unimpeded. He also notices the occult symbol carved into Wilton’s bed.
This information is shared with Dr. Miller, who, fearing that he has been woken up too soon, runs back into the bedroom and vigorously grasps the symbol. Once again, he goes unconscious.
Once again, he hears the voice, “Dr. Miller, here you are again. What on earth are you doing? Is this how a psychiatrist typically deals with things? No wonder there’s so many patients in Kendrick that seem to be beyond hel—”
Once again, Dr. Miller awakens. As he does, he sees Val scraping away the symbol with a knife she has acquired from somewhere.
“Yes, this might be the culprit,” Val says, enthusiastically. “This is a certain type of varnish that has toxins in it that cause hallucinations. Where did you get this bed?”
“Secondhand, from a store in Old Town,” says Wilton, baffled.
“Ah, okay, well, you have to be careful getting things second hand. We’ll analyze a sample of this later, back at the office, but I wouldn’t sleep in your bed for…oh, at least a week? Right, doctor?”
Dr. Miller agrees as he gets up off the floor. The investigators depart a short time later, with a baffled Wilton wishing them a good night.
Thursday, November 20, 1924
Read All About It!
The investigators get some rest. The next morning, Saul goes out to get some food for breakfast and also picks up a child’s chemistry set. He puts the set and his pharmaceutical skills to good use to see if Wilton’s milk has anything unusual in it.
The half-full bottle of milk is entirely normal, but the residue in the empty milk bottle is thoroughly laced with some powerful barbiturates. This leads the group to suspect that Maude Collins and her band of merry men have been periodically drugging Wilton MacKnight in order to impersonate him and get access to the Second National Bank.
On the heels of this discovery, the morning newspaper arrives. The story about the house fire bears startling similarities to the circumstances of Nicholas Fresno’s death.
Alarmed, Dr. Miller makes a call to one of the people in his underground doctor’s network. He learns that the fire did indeed happen at the house where Zebulon Davis was being treated, and that Zebulon “checked himself out of the hospital” at about the same time that the fire started.
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