Part 1

THE DEVIL DOWNSTAIRS

By P. F. COSTELLO

_This was the Devil's boast: "Without me, you mortals would be in trouble. Your whole world would go to hell!" And he proved his point. Before long the world was crying: "Come back, Lucifer! All is forgiven!"_

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Fantastic January 1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

[Illustration: Beautiful women were Satan's main weapon. They made sin look so attractive.]

"Joe! There's a burglar in the house!"

Joe Emerald grunted and pulled the sheets over his head. "Lemme sleep," he muttered.

"Wake up, Joe!" This time his wife's fingers dug into his shoulder. "I tell you, somebody's in the house! For heaven's sake, wake up!"

"Let him," mumbled Joe again. "What d'ya want me to do, get up and make him a cup of coffee? Go to sleep, Pearl, there's nobody...." He began to snore.

Out in the living room, a lamp fell to the floor with a crash, Joe sat erect, startled, awake. "Whassat!" he exclaimed.

"I _told_ you there was a burglar in the house," said Pearl.

"In a private dick's house?" asked Joe. "And what could he find here--except bills?"

"He could be a kidnapper!" said his wife in a frantic whisper. "Joe, please get your gun and go out there, before I do it myself!"

A door opened somewhere in the house.

"He's going into the children's bedroom!" gasped Pearl. "Oh, Joe...." She leaped from bed, fumbled for her bathrobe.

"Stay right here!" said Joe, almost savagely. He was out of bed now, and his fingers closed around his gun in its shoulder holster hanging over the chair. He opened the bedroom door, stepped out into the darkness of the living room beyond. A few quick steps took him to the door of the children's room, which was closed. He laid a hand on the knob, then whirled swiftly as a door shut softly somewhere at the rear of the house.

"Basement door," he muttered. "He's going down in the basement; must have heard Pearl yakking. Well, he won't get out that way!"

He made his way swiftly to the kitchen, halted an instant at the basement door. Beyond it he heard a queer scurrying, clicking noise. Then silence.

The basement had no outlet other than the door at which he stood, and the windows were merely glass blocks set into the concrete wall, and did not open, except for small ventilators built into them. Whoever was down there would have to come up this stairway if he intended to leave the house. But Joe did not intend to let him leave.

He opened the door, slid his hand inside in the darkness, flicked on the light switch. The basement was instantly flooded with brilliant light from the hundred-watt bulbs Joe had put in. Up at the head of the stairs it was less glaring to Joe's eyes than it must have been to the intruder. He had an advantage, and he followed it up quickly. He leaped down the stairway, halfway, and brandished his gun. "Put 'em up!" he snarled. "Don't make a move, or I'll put lead in your liver!"

There was no sound.

Slowly Joe advanced down the stairs, crouching to get as early a view as possible of the entire basement, until his head came below the floor joists. Nothing was in sight, but he heard a slight sound behind the oil burner, which was the only place in the basement beyond view.

"Okay," he said. "You're behind the oil burner. Just step out with your hands up, and don't make any false moves. And don't think you can pot me--I'm the best pistol shot in this state, bar none. When Joe Emerald shoots at something, he hits it."

There was no answer. Cautiously Joe stepped down the last two steps to the concrete floor, then walked toward the oil burner's square bulk. He approached it from the end that offered the widest passage between it and the wall, eyes alert for the slightest sign of a protruding gun. But there was nothing.

He took the last step that gave him a clear view of the space behind the burner and stopped dead in his tracks.

"Oh, my beer-guzzling aunt!"

"A commendable habit, if done to sufficient excess," said a deep, hoarse, almost animal-like voice.

Joe Emerald stared at the creature confronting him, and the creature stared back.

"The devil!" he gasped.

"Are you swearing, or simply making an observation?" asked the hairy creature, eyeing him intently with its slanted, lidless eyes.

Joe swallowed hard. "You are _green_!" he said, in startled tones.

"So you're _observing_," said the creature in disappointment. "Yes, I'm green. What of it?"

"I'd rather expected you to be red."

"And with a forked tail?"

* * * * *

Joe looked closely. "You haven't one, have you?"

"No. I never had. The whole thing is an ecclesiastical calumny."

"A what?"

"A dirty lie."

"You should talk!" exclaimed Joe.

"You don't seem to question my identity," observed the creature. "Most people think the devil is human. Merely a case of identifying themselves with a superior being, I assure you."

"If you're so superior, what are you doing in my basement?"

"I came down here to direct a crime wave--the most ambitious I've attempted in years. This is a very corrupt town, you know."

"How right you are," agreed Joe. "But why from _my_ basement?"

"What better place than the home of a private detective? I always like to have the law on my side, and it usually is."

"What makes you think I'd be on your side?"

* * * * *

The Devil grinned. Joe almost dropped his gun. It was hardly a face adaptable to grinning. The resulting grimace was only recognizable as such with the aid of a sort of sixth sense. The intended humor came through, but the physical aspect was soul-shaking.

"Ever hear of possession?" he asked.

Joe stiffened, gripped his gun tighter. "Don't make a move!" he warned.

"I won't need to," the Devil assured him. "I do it all with hypnotism. In a few minutes you will walk back up those stairs, just as you came down them, and tell your wife what she heard was only a cat, and that you put it out. She won't suspect that _you_ are still in the basement, temporarily occupying my body, while the man returning to the delights of his wedded chamber is a being truly capable of utilizing her particular talents to the greatest advantage. She may wonder at your sudden virility, but I believe she will be rather pleased, if not delighted."

The Devil sniffed. "By the way, do you own a dog?"

"Not now. Used to have a police dog, but my wife made me get rid of it--too savage with kids around, she said. I used to keep it chained down here."

"Oh, excellent," said the Devil. "I see the chain now, fastened to the wall. Must have been a big devil. Ideal! A collar and all. Will be handy to see that you don't walk off with my body while I'm using yours."

He turned his slant eyes on Joe's and stared.

It was Joe's turn to grin. He did so crookedly. "Won't work," he said. "I'm not suggestible. Can't be hypnotized, in other words. Sorry to disappoint you."

"I'm not disappointed," said the Devil. "Very interested! You are rather unusual."

"So, what now with the possession business?"

The Devil shrugged. "I'll have to resort to an old stand-by."

"And what's that?"

"Force. Tried and true, my most effective method. All through the ages I've used force. Great conquerors have done my work merely by force of arms. More lately I've preferred intrigue, cold war stuff, you know, but since you are from the old school, I'll just have to overpower you."

The Devil advanced slowly, flexing his hairy arms and going into a crouch, almost ludicrously reminiscent of a boxer's stance.

Deliberately Joe leveled his gun and pulled the trigger. The blast was deafening in the close confines of the basement, but the Devil didn't waver. He grinned his horrible grin once more and pointed to a flattened piece of lead on the floor. "Neat trick, don't you think?" he asked. "If I were vulnerable to bullets, I'd have been holed rather frequently. Even silver bullets, silly superstition, are of no avail. Put up your dukes, my friend. I'm going to slap you silly."

* * * * *

The door at the head of the stairs opened, and Pearl's voice rang through the basement. "Joe! Joe, are you all right!"

"Don't come down!" yelled Joe. "I've got the Devil cornered down here."

"_Cornered!_" exclaimed the Devil. "Why you grandstander, you! Even while facing me, you can blow your horn to your wife! What a phony. Maybe it's time she got a real break...."

Joe Emerald threw his gun carefully and swiftly through the air, and as the Devil ducked it neatly, he hurled his six-foot-one of well-trained muscle and bone at the hairy figure. They came together with a crash, and for an instant the Devil reeled back.

"If it's force you want," snarled Joe, "maybe I'm not unversed in its application. Ever seen any jiu jitsu?"

"Invented it," said the Devil, evading a hold, and applying one of his own. Joe whirled through the air and went to the concrete floor with a crash. But he was up in an instant, his hurtling body cracked into the Devil's knees, and both went down in a heap. In an instant they were thrashing around in a violent tangle of arms and legs. Joe crashed a fist home into the Devil's mid-section, and the Devil grunted. Then a back-handed slap from the Devil's hand rattled the teeth in Joe's skull. Brilliant lights danced before his eyes. Instantly the Devil threw his hairy body atop Joe's and bore him back, both shoulders flat against the floor. A taloned claw gripped his throat, and began to squeeze. Joe thrashed around, but he could not throw off the Devil's weight, which seemed to increase immensely by the second.

"Great help, the knowledge of how to increase gravity," observed the Devil, tightening his grasp on Joe's throat. "As soon as consciousness leaves you, I'll make the transference, and then we'll chain you by your own dog's collar and leave you here."

Joe Emerald thrashed wildly, but the lights in the basement began to grow dim as his wind was cut off. Despair swept over him in a wave as black as the approaching unconsciousness.

There was a dull thud, a groan, and the grip on his throat lessened, fell away altogether. In a whirling haze of black, he heard a mumble, "Women ... always bruising my head...."

* * * * *

Then Pearl was bending over him, sobbing, lifting him, shaking him wildly.

"Get up, Joe!" she begged. "Please get up. I've knocked him out with the snow shovel."

Joe shook his head to clear it, and the lights seemed to come back on. He climbed to his feet, stood wavering as he stared about. Pearl was clinging to him, staring down at the floor. He looked down. The Devil was lying flat on his stomach, and across him lay the snow shovel with which Pearl had hit him. There was a goose-egg on the back of the Devil's bald head, and it was getting bigger by the second.

"You really walloped him hard!" exclaimed Joe.

"We've got to get out of here!" said Pearl. "Get the kids and go! He'll come to pretty soon and then..." she began to shudder uncontrollably. "He's the Devil!" she sobbed.

"I guess he is," admitted Joe. "But it won't do any good to run from him. Has never helped in the past."

His eyes roved about the basement, fell upon the chain fastened to the wall, with its steel collar.

"That's it!" he exclaimed. "We'll chain him to the wall with Rover's chain. That'll give us time to decide what to do."

He grabbed the Devil by the heels, dragged him over to the wall. Opening the collar, he placed it around the Devil's thick neck, and snapped it shut. It clicked with a satisfying air of finality. Joe jerked it several times to see that it was tight.

"He's coming to!" exclaimed Pearl.

"And I think the kids have heard the commotion and are coming to investigate," said Joe. "You get upstairs--head them off. We can't let them see this..."

Pearl ran for the stairs, and called up to them. "No, Jimmy--Sally, don't come down! Mother's coming up. Everything's all right."

The sleepy sound of the children's voices came to Joe's ears as she disappeared up the stairs, and they were cut off suddenly as she shut the door. He could hear the sound of their feet on the floor above as she marshalled them back to their beds.

* * * * *

Beside him the Devil stirred. "Ow," he groaned. "What was it she hit me with?"

"A snow shovel."

"Never had any use for snow shovels," said the Devil, struggling to a sitting position. The chain around his neck rattled and his eyes widened. He looked at the chain, and at the bolt that held it into the wall. He took the chain in both hands.

"Never saw a chiseling contractor's cement I couldn't pull a bolt out of," he said.

Joe picked up the snow shovel and stood watchfully waiting. The Devil tugged at the bolt, then yanked furiously. At length he leaned back against the wall, breathing heavily.

"No cheap contractor put that in," said Joe. "I did it myself."

"What were you building, a fortification?" snarled the Devil.

"Just made up my mind there wasn't going to be any plaster cracking in this house," said Joe.

"It doesn't seem that it will," said the Devil. "But never mind, it won't make any difference in the long run. If there's anything I've got lots of, it's time. I'll figure out a way to get out of here. Meantime I'd advise you to stay out of my reach. And don't think that shovel would help you--it's only women who can put dents in my noggin. And your wife won't get a second chance--the woman doesn't live whom I can't hypnotize in one second."

"Thanks for telling me," said Joe. "I'll see that she stays out of the basement."

"Why don't you go back to bed," advised the Devil. "I've got to think about this situation."

"Go back to bed?"

"What else can you do?" asked the Devil.

Joe thought a minute. "Nothing," he agreed finally. "But it seems to me that you are in the same boat. You can't loose yourself from that chain, and as long as I keep people out of the basement, your presence here will be a secret. Okay, you think about it, and I'll go upstairs and do the same. Seems to me that this thing can be turned to good, somehow."

"While I'm down here you can't do much else," said the Devil dourly. "But it can't last--it never has. This concrete will disintegrate finally..."

Joe Emerald stared at the Devil a moment, then turned and went thoughtfully up the stairs. At the top, he flicked the switch and the basement went dark. Peering down, he could see only two balefully glowing yellow orbs, slanted and evil, shining in the darkness.

He opened the cellar door, stepped into the room above and closed the door behind him. Pearl stood in the doorway of the living room, staring anxiously at him. He looked at her a moment, and suddenly he grinned.

"Pearl," he said. "We've got the Devil downstairs, chained to the wall!"

"Oh, Joe," she said with a wail. "What are we going to do?"

He walked over and took her in his arms and kissed her. "It's not what we're going to do," he said. "What's _he_ going to do?"

She stared up at him. "What _can_ he do?"

"Nothing, so far as I can see," said Joe. "As long as nobody goes near him, he's helpless." His eyes lit up. "Maybe this is the beginning of that thousand years the Bible says he's to be chained!"

"Here, in _our_ basement?" asked Pearl.

"Why not? He's down there right now, isn't he?"

"Yes," she said hesitantly.

"Well, can you think of any reason why he shouldn't stay there?"

"No," she said, but there was doubt in her voice.

* * * * *

As the weeks passed, her doubt began to fade. It began to become increasingly evident that the Devil couldn't break the chain that held him, and he had even ceased rattling it. Joe had nailed the basement door shut so the kids couldn't open it, and had promised them a spanking if they tried. Strangely enough, they had accepted the warning without comment, and had, indeed, behaved like little angels. Neither of them had even approached the door. As a matter of fact, they had been a source of constant surprise because of their good behavior in all respects. There hadn't even been a quarrel over toys.

"What's the matter with the kids?" asked Joe one night.

"Why, nothing," said Pearl. "They've been just as happy and contented as they can be."

"Aren't they a little too happy and contented?"

Pearl looked at him sharply. "Of course not. How can they be too happy?"

"I think they are. When's the last time Jimmy has complained about Sally kicking him?"

"I..." Pearl hesitated. "Sally hasn't been kicking him. So why should he complain?"

"Why hasn't Sally been kicking him?"

"Joe, what on earth's the matter with you? Do you _want_ Sally to kick him?"

"Of course not. But the point is, she hasn't."

"Not much of a point," said Pearl. "I think it's natural she should outgrow it."

"Have you been listening to the news reports?" asked Joe.

"Certainly. I have the television on at noon every day. Richard Z. Hardlett gives the complete news every day."

"Okay, what's been happening?"

"Not much of anything. Just things like the National Association of Church Socials is holding a big social in Washington, and the President's going to attend...."

"Kind of exciting, eh?"

"Not very."

"No murders, no robberies, no sex crimes, no Jack-the-Rippers, no embezzlings, no politicians stirring up trouble in Syria so they can raise the price of American gasoline?"

"What are you driving at?"

"I'm driving at another point," said Joe. "The second point is that the world's kind of peaceful all of a sudden--some change!"

* * * * *

Pearl looked at him, then her eyes lit up. "Of course!" she exclaimed.

"Of course what?"

"It's the Devil. He's chained up in our basement, and he can't go around stirring up trouble! _That's_ why there isn't any crime going on! Crime has taken a holiday while the Devil is chained up. Oh, Joe, isn't it wonderful!"

"Yes," said Joe. "It's wonderful. If it gets much more wonderful, I don't see how we're going to pay our bills."

"Pay our bills?"

"Yes. I haven't made a dime in two weeks! Not one single client has come into my office since the night we chained old Beelzebub to the basement wall."

* * * * *

Pearl looked thoughtful. "Do you really think that he can't do any mischief while he's chained up? It doesn't seem to me that he's always been present at the scene of every crime. How could he be? Why, he'd have to be in a million places at once."

Joe shrugged. "I used to think that he did it all with a sort of world-wide influence. Something like a powerful mental wave that suggested all sorts of evil things to susceptible people--which is almost everybody."

"Or maybe he has his imps to carry out his orders--and they can't get to him now to get their usual briefing."

"Seen any imps around the house?" asked Joe.

She shook her head. "No. And even at night, when you have been at the office, I've not felt alarmed at the possibility of a prowler. I've had a sort of confidence that there wouldn't be any. I do believe it's true--the Devil is completely helpless to spread his evil influence outside our basement."

"I guess you're right," admitted Joe. "I've felt the same thing--that feeling of there being nothing to worry about. I even trust the other guy when he's coming up behind me on the road, not to try to pass on a hill or a curve. He doesn't even blow his horn when you miss the red light changing to green. Everything's sweetness and light."

"Well," said Pearl, "there's only one answer that I can see."

"What's that?"

"You'll just have to get another job. If you're not to get any more clients, you might as well quit being a private detective and look for something else to do."

"I'll _have_ to," said Joe. "Our bank account won't last that long if we have to tap it each month for all our living expenses, that's sure! And we've got to keep up our payments on the mortgage, or we'll lose the house."

"We can't let that happen!" exclaimed Pearl. "If anybody ever goes down in that basement, the Devil will be loose again, and he'll be awful mad. The world would take a real beating...."

"I rather suspect he'd go hog-wild for a time," Joe agreed. "And he'd probably want to take it all out on us. Revenge would be his first thought."

"Then you've _got_ to get another job. Right away. We don't want to miss a single payment!"

"Nor any meals," said Joe. "Which reminds me, I wonder if the Devil ever gets hungry?"

"I never thought of it," confessed Pearl, a slight expression of contrition crossing her features. "The idea of the Devil eating is just something that I've never considered, nor knew anybody who did consider it."

"I don't believe he eats," said Joe. "Why should he need food? He's immortal."

"I'd hate to think of him starving down there," said Pearl hesitantly.

"Don't you even begin to think he might!" said Joe in sudden alarm. "He doesn't eat, that's all there is to it. Even if he did, it would be just for pleasure--and it won't hurt him to go without. Besides, it would be the best thing that ever happened on this old world if he _did_ starve to death."

"Don't worry," said Pearl. "I couldn't go down in that basement for love or money!"

Joe looked at her sharply. "You'd better not--for either of them!" he said. "I'll do the loving around here, and I'll make the money!"

* * * * *

The sound of running feet interrupted him, and he turned to the door to see Jimmy and Sally coming in from their play. Their faces were flushed, shining with exertion and health.

"Daddy," said Sally. "Will you read us a fairy-story before supper?"

Joe lifted her in his arms and held her high with a grin. "Sure thing, little girl," he said. "Come on into the parlor, Jimmy, and we'll rattle one off."

"I'll get the book," said Jimmy, racing for the bookcase.

Joe seated himself on the easy chair and plumped Sally down beside him. He took the book from Jimmy and made room for the boy opposite Sally. He opened the book and read the title.

"Pandora's Box," he said. "The story of the little girl whose curiosity loosed all the troubles upon the wor...." He stopped suddenly and looked toward the kitchen where Pearl was rattling dishes preparing the supper.

"What's the matter, Daddy?" asked Jimmy. "Why don't you read the story?"