Chapter 17
Thou wilt never make from others the One that thou seekest, except there first be made one thing of thyself. Gerard Dorn: “Philosophia meditativa”
In 1923, Herbert West’s star fell from the sky. The first intimations of disaster were harmless enough. In January, I was in Boston on Library business and went to see Alma, who was living in an apartment in the South End. As always, we had a good deal of catching up to do. Alma asked me about various Arkham colleagues and friends, and I was eager to hear about her burgeoning career as a journalist.
At length, a silence fell between us. Alma broke it by saying, “Something interesting, Charles – recently I happened to meet a journalist I’d known in England. She’s writing a series of stories called ‘Mysteries of the Great War.’ One of them is about the disappearance of General Clapham-Lee – remember him, that associate of Herbert West’s I mentioned in one of my letters?
“I remember.” I felt a trickle of unease.
“Well, this journalist, Kate Winter, says that she has spoken to the man’s son, Edward Clapham-Lee. He’s a doctor in London. He said something about following up a lead in America, in Arkham, to be precise. What do you think of that? I was sure West had something to do with Clapham-Lee senior’s disappearance.”
“Wait a minute, Alma. Just because Arkham was mentioned, it doesn’t necessarily implicate West. There are twenty thousand people in Arkham.”
“Ah, but only one of them was recently written up everywhere for performing miracles of surgery on a famous singer. This Edward Clapham-Lee specifically mentioned that.” She sat back in her chair, looking pleased with herself.
“Well, what did you say?”
“What did I say to Kate? Merely that I was acquainted with Herbert West and that he’d been a Medical Officer with the Canadian Army in France. But I don’t think that was news to her.”
When I returned to Arkham, I lost no time in telephoning West to tell him that I had a matter of some urgency to discuss with him. He seemed irritated, but said he could see me that evening.
In his study I recounted what Alma had told me. “Now I don’t know anything about Clapham-Lee except that he was an associate of yours. But I thought you should know about this.”
“Well I do, as a matter of fact. Edward Clapham-Lee has already been in communication with Professor Hobson.”
“Hobson!” He was one of West’s undoubted enemies.
“Yes. I can imagine what Hobson told Clapham-Lee about me,” West said. He did not look particularly distressed, however.
“But Herbert, is there anything for Edward Clapham-Lee to find? That you’d rather he didn’t, I mean.”
“There is, but in effect there isn’t. Have you ever read Poe’s Purloined Letter? It’s like that. Hidden in plain view. Is that all of your urgent business?”
“No, actually.” Now that I had come to the point I was more nervous than I had anticipated. “Herbert, I need to talk with you.”
He gave me a look in which exasperation was mingled with amusement. “Here I am, Charles. So talk. What are you getting at, exactly?”
He was not helping me at all. I felt as though I had been digging a hole and had managed to fall into it. But I kept digging.
“I think you’ve been revivifying corpses and operating on them. That strange person – woman – found on the Aylesbury Road last fall, I’m sure you had something to do with that, even though you told me you didn’t.” Having found it exceedingly difficult to get this far, I didn’t have the courage to admit I had searched his house too.
“Before I respond, let me ask you something. It seems you’ve been doing some investigating. What, precisely, is your purpose? Do you consider yourself a minion of justice? Or are you going to join Alma Halsey in the journalistic profession, if it can be called that? Or do you fancy that our friendship gives you the privilege to pry into my business and play the role of my conscience?”
The coldness and sarcasm of his tone dismayed, then angered me. I was glad of the anger because it gave me courage. “None of those, Herbert,” I said. “I thought you would recognize friendship when you saw it. I don’t propose to exercise moral judgment on you, but there are others who’ll do just that, Professor Hobson for one. I’m sure they’re ready to pry into your affairs, as you put it. If you’re engaged in activities that break their rules, you’re vulnerable to attack. Like Allan Halsey was. Remember him?”
West began to laugh. He laughed loudly and long, with what sounded like a trace of hysteria. When he stopped, he said, “Well spoken, Charles. All right, you’ve convinced me you have my interests at heart and I must admit that you of all people have never shown any signs of betraying me. Unfortunately, I must disappoint you. I will say only that you were right about that wretched creature on the Aylesbury Road. It was indeed my… creation. But don’t exercise that vivid imagination of yours by speculating about its sufferings. There were none. I took good care to ensure that, but it was criminally careless of me to let it escape. That’s all I’m going to say on the subject, and in the interests of friendship I think it’s time you left.”
He showed me out of his house without another word.
I did not see much of West after that. Whenever I met him on the street or on the campus, he was cordial enough but he no longer invited me to his home.
One evening early in March I stayed late at my work and it was after seven o’clock when I locked the door of the Cataloguing Department. The great hall on the main floor of the Library was warmly lit and full of students consulting the card catalogue and making notes. There were only a few weeks before papers were due and examinations impending.
Outside, I was surprised at how dark it was. At my usual quitting time, it would not even be dusk, but the additional two hours had made a greater difference than I had expected, especially since the day had been an overcast one. The lights around the campus quadrangle seemed dim, as though they fought an unequal battle with the night. A cold blue mist had gathered, obscuring the Administration Building opposite.
I felt a weight settle on my spirit, as though inhaling the dark air had poisoned me. I had intended to go to Alfred’s Restaurant on Main Street, a frequent haunt of mine as an alternative to the uninspired meals produced by my landlady’s cook. But the prospect of the familiar routine of ordering soup and a cutlet from the motherly Mrs. Alfred (“A very good choice, Mr. Milburn; you won’t be disappointed”) and chatting with other lone diners about the weather or whatever we were reading in our newspapers, seemed futile and drab. But no more so than an even more solitary meal in my apartment. It was too late to find a colleague for company and I was getting cold, standing irresolute in front of the Library, an obstacle to hurrying students. For lack of any better idea, I started toward Main Street.
I was halfway down a narrow passageway between the Library and the Arts Building when I saw someone cross its far end at right angles to my own path, a hurrying figure clad in a long coat and a hat. It could have been anyone, but I thought it was West. I quickened my steps. If I could get within hailing distance, I would greet him. Maybe we could share a meal and find our friendship still intact.
The light at the near end of Howard’s Alley was burned out and in my hurry I had forgotten the irregularities in the brick pavement, where water always collected in wet weather. My shoes were in need of repair and to avoid puddles, I slowed down and picked my way, trying to remember where the depressions were. Even so, I plunged one foot ankle-deep before I was clear of the treacherous section. By then, West was only a dim silhouette against the lights on distant River Street.
I broke into a run, cursing the puddles and the limp that slowed me down. I was further delayed on Main Street by a glut of cars crawling past a broken-down truck. I managed to negotiate a zig-zag course among them, but by the time I reached River Street, I had no idea where West had gone. Shops were shutting for the night and only a few people were on the sidewalks, going home from work or to some even
ing entertainment.
Not surprisingly, the promenade along the Miskatonic was deserted on this damp, raw evening. A row of yellow lights marched eastward and westward. As I passed each lamppost, my shadow raced along before me or lagged behind, as though growing tired of the chase. The dark river water gurgled along the wall but no one lingered in the riverside park, with its wet benches and leafless trees. With a pang of sadness, I remembered my walks here with Alma on summer evenings long ago. My leg was starting to hurt and I was hungry. Whether or not it had been West I had seen, he was gone. I had lost him.
Because of this useless detour, it was too late to go to Alfred’s. They closed promptly at eight, and it was now ten minutes to. There was nothing left but to go home.
I took a final look up and down the river. Far to the east, where the promenade ended and the lights blurred together into a dim yellow glow, I saw someone moving. Someone. A man wearing a long coat and a hat, who might have been Herbert West.
I decided to follow, despite my sore leg and my hunger, and a suspicion that it was a futile effort. But now, even if I did catch up to him, he would be no longer a friend met by chance. Now he was my quarry. I would have to think of a reason for following him. Perhaps the simple truth would do? “Hello, Herbert, I saw you from Howard’s Alley, and wondered if you’d want to join me for supper. I really hated the thought of dining alone, so I followed you all this way.” It sounded absurd and pathetic. He would either laugh at me or be annoyed. And where was he going, anyway? Was this why he was too busy to spend time with his old friend – because he had to walk the streets of Arkham by night?
He continued along River Street, past a row of ancient houses that leaned together in the mist as though to reassure one another that they would stand for another century, having already survived more than two. I nearly lost him again in the greater dimness here, where buildings hid the river vista and more street lamps were burned out. But I could hear his footsteps, faintly – each one a small, precise tap on the pavement. Surely this had to be West! His steps always sounded like this, quick, deliberate, purposeful. I would have to keep just far enough behind him that he wouldn’t notice me if he happened to turn around. I no longer intended to get his attention, but wanted only to see where he was going and what he was up to.
We were now in East Arkham, the nucleus of the old town, which had degenerated into a slum. The gambrel-roofed houses, no longer occupied by solid Puritan burghers, were a teeming warren of foreigners – Poles, French-Canadians, Italians, even a few Syrians, not to mention native-born Americans who had fallen into poverty. Cheap rooming-houses tottered against one another, with vacant lots here and there, like missing teeth. The few shops were dimly lit and patronized by furtive figures who rummaged among unthinkable merchandise in the dingy aisles. From taverns occasional sounds erupted, of drunken conviviality.
West ignored all this. He kept moving at a steady pace, past crooked doorways, decrepit automobiles, slinking cats. He did not speak to anyone we passed, not the tired-looking workmen in their patched jackets and flat caps, nor the women of indeterminate age huddled in coats and headscarves, nor the rabbles of skinny kids, one of which nearly knocked me down as they raced by, sniggering.
But I would not lose my way.. Ironically, this disreputable part of Arkham was not unknown to me, and my familiarity with it was a result of my friendship with West and my failed love affair with Alma.
I no longer cherished any illusions about my situation. My father’s bankruptcy and suicide had been the first of my misfortunes. If not for that, I would by now be a professor of classics at some prosperous college. I would probably have a wife and two or three little children. On a night like this one, I would be warm and dry before my own hearth after a good meal, not walking the cold streets with holes in my shoes and a chill on my heart.
True, I had a profession which, while peculiar, satisfied me. Once I had a woman who (I thought) loved me, and a friend who was remarkable, a law unto himself. But I had lost them both. (I saw again that chimerical hearth and home, except this time it was Alma by my side. I saw West, rapt and exalted, waiting for life to emerge from death). They were so different from one another that I could not explain their removals from me as mere quirks of individual fancy. No, I thought, realizing that it had begun to rain, a cold rain that could turn into sleet at any moment – it was largely because of my loyalty to West that I had lost Alma. And where had that loyalty brought me? To this drab street, alone in the rain, following someone who was most likely a stranger.
I stuck my cold hands into my coat pockets and wished that I had brought gloves. Both of my feet were wet, my bad leg hurt and my hunger had evolved into a feeling of faintness. Moreover, I could no longer see West. He must have made a couple of quick turns I had missed. It was time to abandon the chase.
Was it only by coincidence that I found myself on Powder Mill Street? There was a house where lonely fellows like me were welcome, provided we had a few dollars in our pockets. I had come to know it during the war years. The furniture was elegant, in a way, and the atmosphere both welcoming and secretive. That was part of its dubious charm. The ornaments in the parlour were familiar to me by now – artificial flowers under a glass dome and a plenitude of embroidered cushions. A plaster copy of a statue from India that reminded me of Mr. Burton’s book in the Library’s vault. Some naughty Japanese prints. Lamps with fringed and bobbled shades, intended to cast a discreetly dim light.
Well. So much for the parlour. One of the women looked like Alma. Or at least, that was what I told myself. She was blonde, her body strong and supple, not full-breasted. With her hair cut short or hidden under a cap, she could have passed for a boy. She called herself Sadie; I never knew her real name. Our transactions were just that – transactions, but conducted with a certain grace. When I told her I was a librarian, she said she read books sometimes. I did not ask her about them; there were others with whom I could discuss books. From her I wanted something else.
I was cold, wet and hungry. The sensible thing would be to go home and warm up the greasy chop and mashed potatoes awaiting me on the covered plate on my table. I would follow them with a small glass of whiskey (the remains of a supply procured for me by West) and the illusion of company offered by the characters of the novel I was reading. Then I would go to bed.
But my rooms were a long way off and the rain had turned to sleet. I could telephone for a taxi, afterward. I had done that before. I went up the steps and rang the bell. Someone always answered the bell, and tonight was no exception. “Oh sir, my but you’re wet! We haven’t seen you in a while. Come on in. Sadie’ll be glad to see you. Just wait in the parlour for a few minutes and I’ll tell her you’re here.”
An hour of warmth, companionship, intimacy. Cheap at the price.
Later, after the taxi had deposited me in front of my house, I got my car and drove westward along College. Near the hospital, I parked on a side street and walked slowly along Boundary Street, past West’s house. A light burned in the porch and another somewhere on the second floor. But it was a dim light and even though it shone through the parlour windows, it was not in the parlour. In the hall, perhaps. His study was dark. As I stood and watched, someone passed the parlour windows, a dim silhouette, dimmed even more by the panes of coloured glass. Only once. Then all was as before.
So he was home now, at any rate. But perhaps it was only Andre I had seen. Or someone else. A guest? There was no point in speculating. I knew nothing, not even whether there was something I should know.
I went home again, and to bed. As I waited for sleep, I wondered if West might have been seeking in East Arkham something like that which I had found in the end. Probably not; Arkham may have been haunted by evils of its past, but I did not think that its Puritan roots would have indulged aberrations such as his. I thought I knew now at least one purpose of his trips to larger cities. I envisioned him in a parlour rather like the one I knew so well – dim, velvety, suggestive. A curta
in was drawn aside, and from behind it emerged a young man, dark, faun-like, his face grave and beautiful, with high cheekbones and a mouth of self-possessed irony. He held out his hands, whispering..
I could go no further with these imaginings. As I slipped toward sleep, I thought again of sweet, seductive Sadie, the alluring way in which her eyes feigned innocence while her hands and mouth betrayed experience. I saw her head on the pillow in a halo of bright hair, her lips slightly parted, her eyes like opals..
Sleep is like death, some say, except that the dead do not dream.
The Friendship of Mortals Page 29
