The Monsters of the Mind

Part 17

Balls clacked together before two of them fell into the pockets of the pool table. Harvey stood beside the pool table, billard pole in hand and one eye focused on the ball.

When Harvey had held out his hand to me,  I took it - surprised that I could feel a slight warmth from the specter that stood before me. The two of us shook hands, Harvey looking down at our grasp.

"A good strong handshake,"  he muttered, "though you're not what I expected."

I looked down at myself, still wearing Mrs. Cesari's borrowed dress, and smiled sheepishly, "I'm not usually dressed like this. I needed to help someone, so I disguised myself as her to lure Jimmy away."

"Smart girl," Harvey chuckled, "Now, before anything else happens, let's get the boy in question somewhere where he can't... disrupt us. I have much to tell you, and only so much time to do so."

It had taken us a bit of time to get Jimmy into his room on the second floor - primarily because Harvey was a spirit and couldn't lift Jimmy as he had wanted to. I had to swing Jimmy's arm around my shoulder and lift his body with my other arm as Harvey helped lead me to where the proprietor's bedroom was. Thankfully, the door was unlocked and we were able to pull Jimmy into the room and place him on the bed.

I winced at the bruise on his forehead, much larger than my own.

"Don't worry, Miss Martin," Harvey had smiled when he noticed my uneasiness, "Jimmy will be fine. That bump at least was a lesson to not mess with someone like you."

"Regardless, I'm nervous about what that other side of Jimmy - Hugo - will do," I looked down at the unconscious man.

"So, it has a name after all," Harvey placed his pipe in his mouth, tapping the base of it in thought, "Makes me wonder how long Rose knew..."

I turned, looking up at Harvey in curiosity, "Dr. Bose seemed to know about it."

Harvey pulled the pipe from his mouth, "Not here, Miss Martin. Let's talk privately in the arcade room. We need to let the boy rest - it's been a few trying days."

I could only agree, following the ghost to the elevator and riding with him down to the ground floor.

I had perched on a bar stool in one corner of the room, watching as Harvey pulled his jacket off of his shoulders and loosened his tie from around his neck before rolling up his sleeves. It was strange to see a spirit that could touch and hold things like a normal human, but still be gone completely from this world.

When I made the comment, Harvey only laughed, "Yes... and dead are supposed to stay dead, isn't that it?"

"I'm not sure what to think anymore," I answered.

Harvey shot another ball into a pocket, "Well, you wouldn't be the first. I know that felt in the same boat around the time Oliver was arrested, " he set the rod down, leaning against the pool table and shaking his head, "I just couldn't believe that a man like him - who had been practicing medicine for twenty plus years, mind you - would do something like rape and attack a child. And if he had in the past, why didn't anyone report in before?"

I scratched at my arm, feeling the case of goose pimples raise on them, "Was... Was this around the time that Dr. Bose killed himself in the basement?"

"Maybe about a week before," Harvey nodded, "You see, what was told to us - Rose and I - was something I could've sworn I heard before. I knew that Jimmy's mind sometimes ran away from him, but I just couldn't believe what was said. There was something off.

"I decided to hunt for clues myself, as Rose wanted to put the whole thing behind us and forget about it. She didn't even want to send Jimmy to therapy - which was a red flag I should have seen later on. I knew that Jimmy had some sort of scrapbook lying around that had newspaper clipping in it. I wasn't entirely sure what was in them, only that Jimmy would take the papers from the main lobby of the hotel if they were more than a week old and cut pieces out of them that he found interesting. And I was interested in what I saw in those newspaper clippings he kept."