“That’s because of the area of interest,” Hawthorne said. “More and more people come into the field every day.”
“And what is the field?” Joshua asked. “What kind of books was he collecting?”
“Haven’t you seen them?”
“I believe they’re on bookshelves in his study,” Joshua said. “Many of them are very old books, and a lot of them have leather bindings. I didn’t realize there was anything unusual about them. I haven’t taken time to look closely.”
“They were occult titles,” Hawthorne said. “I only sell books dealing with the occult in all its many manifestations. A high percentage of my wares are forbidden books, those that were banned by church or state in another age, those that have not been brought back into print by our modern and skeptical publishers. Limited edition items, too. I have more than two hundred steady customers. One of them is a San Jose gentleman who collects nothing but books on Hindu mysticism. A woman in Marin County has acquired an enormous library on Satanism, including a dozen obscure titles that have been published in no language but Latin. Another woman in Seattle has bought virtually every word ever printed about out-of-body experiences. I can satisfy any taste. I’m not merely polishing my ego when I say that I’m the most reputable and reliable dealer in occult literature in this country.”
“But surely not all of your customers spend as much as Mr. Frye did.”
“Oh, of course not. There are only two or three others like him, with his resources. But I’ve got a few dozen clients who budget approximately ten thousand dollars a year for their purchases.”
“That’s incredible,” Joshua said.
“Not really,” Hawthorne said. “These people feel that they are teetering on the edge of a great discovery, on the brink of learning some monumental secret, the riddle of life. Some of them are in pursuit of immortality. And some are searching for spells and rituals that will bring them tremendous wealth or unlimited power over others. Those are persuasive motivations. If they truly believe that just a little more forbidden knowledge will get them what they want, then they will pay virtually any price to obtain it.”
Joshua swung around in his swivel chair and looked out the window. Low gray clouds were scudding in from the west, over the tops of the autumn-somber Mayacamas Mountains, bearing down on the valley.
“Exactly what aspect of the occult interested Mr. Frye?” Joshua asked.
“He collected two kinds of books loosely linked to the same general subject,” Hawthorne said. “He was fascinated by the possibility of communicating with the dead. Séances, table knockings, spirit voices, ectoplasmic apparitions, amplification of ether recordings, automatic writing, that sort of thing. But his greatest interest, by far, lay in literature about the living dead.”
“Vampires?” Joshua asked, thinking about the strange letter in the safe-deposit box.
“Yes,” Hawthorne said. “Vampires, zombies, creatures of that sort. He couldn’t get enough books on the subject. Of course, I don’t mean that he was interested in horror novels and cheap sensationalism. He collected only serious nonfiction studies–and certain select esoterica.”
“Such as?”
“Well, for instance … in the esoterica category … he paid six thousand dollars for the hand-written journal of Christian Marsden.”
“Who is Christian Marsden?” Joshua asked.
“Fourteen years ago, Marsden was arrested for the murders of nine people in and around San Francisco. The press called him the Golden Gate Vampire because he always drank his victim’s blood.”
“Oh, Yes,” Joshua said.
“And he also dismembered his victims.”
“Yes.”
“Cut off their arms and legs and heads.”
“Unfortunately, I remember him now. A gruesome case,” Joshua said.
The dirty gray clouds were still rolling across the western mountains, moving steadily toward St. Helena.
“Marsden kept a journal during his year-long killing spree,” Hawthorne said. “It’s a curious piece of work. He believed that a dead man named Adrian Trench was trying to take over his body and come back to life through him. Marsden genuinely felt that he was in a constant, desperate struggle for control of his own flesh.”
“So that when he killed, it wasn’t really him killing, but this Adrian Trench.”
“That’s what he wrote in his journal,” Hawthorne said. “For some reason he never explained, Marsden believed that the evil spirit of Adrian Trench required other people’s blood to keep control of Marsden’s body.”