Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine Annual, No. 3, 1973

Cord took the canvas waterbag over to the round-bottomed Lister bag which hung suspended from a needlewood tripod, and half filled it. He begrudged wasting even that much water. Couldn’t be helped though. Huffer might be watching from the tent. He went down the path to the truck and climbed up in back to suspend the waterbag to the gas-can rack. Then he punched a slit in the bottom seam.

Nobody — if there ever should be an investigation — would notice that any more than they would notice the slit in the water hose. The only possible question would concern the empty gas cans. But Cord could always claim he knew nothing about them. Maybe the truck had a gas leak.

Anything could happen to a man alone on a desert. Everyone knew that.

Huffer, his face as bright and clean as baby skin, met him on the path and put out his hand. “No more damper dough and tea for us, partner,” he said, smiling. “Caviar and champagne only.”

“That’s right, mate,” Cord said and he shook hands.

They parted and Cord went on up to camp. He had banged up and down the Back o’ Beyond for many years and had seen the remains of men who had died of thirst out there. It had never been pretty. Just thinking of what was shortly going to happen to Huffer gave him a need for a drink, and he went for the canteen.

It was empty. He knew it the moment he picked it up. He dropped the canteen and ran around to the back of the tent to the Lister bag. The last trickle of water was piddling into the thirsty sand.

That’s why he wanted to shave, Cord thought. Then he spun on the spot and started running back down the path, yelling.

“Bill! Bill, wait! You’re going to kill us both!”

But even as he screamed and ran he knew he was way too late. He could hear the choggity old motor of the truck carrying the complacently smiling Bill Huffer off into the salt bush stubs, as the burning morning sun settled into its fiery red sweep toward the west.

Guided Tour by William Garvin

Somewhere in that house a dead lady waited. Waited impatiently — for the next one to die...

* * *

At first sight the house did not look frightening at all. Anyone could see it was just another forlorn old structure of oak and stone, with a central turret, a slate roof and crumbling, moss-streaked terraces. In appearance at least, it seemed to be as prosaic and peaceful as a dozen other uninhabited country houses they’d passed on the drive from London. And seeing this at the very beginning, they were reassured.

When the wheezing relic of a Rolls finally panted to a halt squarely before the front entrance, there were audible sighs of relief from a couple of the passengers, as if both were thinking the same thing: this isn’t going to be so bad after all.

Even Mr. Norton, their driver-guide, contributed to the easing of tension with his first words.

“There she be, folks,” he said cheerfully, holding the limousine door open. “Endrayde House herself, and she never claimed no victims yet from her visitors, so don’t be scared before we even get inside.”

Two of the male passengers smiled dutifully as they stepped out — Randall, the American tire company executive, and the paunchy little professor from Canada named Wilkes — although the latter might have been amused only by Norton’s pronunciation.

The third passenger to emerge did not smile. His name was Mr. Sebastian, and he was a tall, startlingly thin man in his mid-thirties with dark eyes and an odd, elusive accent the others had not been able to identify.

“But it looks so — ordinary,” said Mrs. Randall, getting out last. “Not at all what I expected.”

“And what was that, Madam?” Mr. Sebastian asked.

She gazed at the house. In the deepening twilight it seemed subtly larger than it had only a moment before, with its edges and angles softened and its broad facade bulkier, more substantial.

“Oh, I suppose the conventional haunted house. Bats flying out the windows” — she gestured with a dramatic sweep of her arm — “and creaking shutters; that sort of thing. This place looks almost ordinary.”

Professor Wilkes nodded in agreement. He was conscious of a slight disappointment on his own part. As an occasional student of the occult, he had paid the stiff three-pound fee for this visit and endured an uncomfortable ride in a decrepit automobile in the hope that there would be something rewarding to see — exactly what, he didn’t know, but something. Certainly this simple old mausoleum did not promise much. So far, at any rate.

Shrugging, the professor decided to reserve judgment until they actually went inside, but he couldn’t shake off a wriggling, needling worry that he had been bilked.

“Let’s get this deal started,” Randall said.