"Look!" I cried.
The flames were now leaping out around it, engulfing the thing in great yellow waves. Even where we were standing, some distance away, the head was terrific.
I was getting so dizzy that I had to lean against the sheriff for support. I could feel him take in a deep breath.
"Come down here, Gribold!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.
The thing on the landing looked down. Then out of its mouth rose that same ungodly wail I had heard before -- the thrill cry of a woman tortured by agony!
For a long, hideous moment that cry stabbed out through the night, chilling my nerves even in the face of the almost unbearable heat.
I could still hear the cry even after the thing had turned. It leaped through the open doorway and was swallowed up in that blazing inferno. I thought I could still hear it faintly, while the sheriff was half carrying, half dragging me away from the manor. I had collapsed to the ground at his feet.
Persistently that cry rang in my ears for over two months after they had taken me to the sanitarium. When I was finally able to speak coherently, I was invited to describe in detail my experiences to the psychiatrist in residence.
On the day scheduled for my dismissal from the sanitarium, I entered the doctor's office. The morning paper was clutched in my hand. He waved me cordially into the big chair by his desk.
He listened attentively to my story and examined the letter I had originally received from Rakor Gribold. The doctor was especially interested in the skin sack containing the gold nuggets. He declared it to be human skin, as I had suspected.
"From my observation of you here in the sanitarium," he said, "I am convinced that you are telling me exactly what you saw or heard occur at Gribold Manor. There is only one unclear point in your story, which I'll speak of later. There I believe our vision was distorted by the nervous tension to which you were being subjected. Otherwise I think it is a true account of actual experiences."
"You believe, then, that Rakor Gribold was four armed? I asked.
"Yes. The Gribold family, since the archduke, has probably exhibited a recessive quadrumanous tendency appearing only in the male offspring. The old archduke's bride was undoubtedly driven insane when she became aware of her husband's deformity on their wedding night. Her insanity was mistaken by the villagers as bewitchment and Gribold Manor and its occupant s were henceforth shunned.
"Believing the stories of her own bewitchery, this insane woman began dabbling in the Black Arts. When her little son was born four armed, she realized the full horror of the Gribold curse. She probably killed her husband and modeled his likeness with some plastic hardening substance that she had concocted in the cauldron after the formulas in her old witchcraft books.
"This would be the famous Statue of Gribold, perhaps seen at various times by carpenters or masons called up to repair the aging manor. They must have begun the superstition. Because the Gribolds were shunned, they were unable to get food honestly from the village market or from the farmers. So they were forced to go forth at night and steal livestock or whatever they could lay their hands on.
"Ostracized from the mores of society, the step to cannibalism for the Gribolds was a natural one. They could recognize little difference between men and beasts. So cannibalism became inculcated in their religion. It was passed down by the old witch as part of necessity. Human meat is very nourishing and the hunting of it would greatly relieve the monotony of their stranded existence in the lonely manor."
I was following the doctor's opinions very closely.
"Then you believe that Rakor Gribold's plan, after he ate Mason, was to include me on his menu?"
Undoubtedly," replied the doctor. "You were doomed to Mason's fate. But not until you had finished repairing the statue, which he had called you to 'mend' or 'heal,' as e put it in his letter to you. HIs reference in t he letter to 'a life depends upon our succeeding' indicates that Gribold himself believed the statue to be alive. He paid you, incidentally, with some of the old archduke's vast treasure.
"How the statue's wrist was broken we'll never know. But when you were fighting Gribold and twisted his wrist he bellowed with pain. It had been injured coincidentally, probably when Plow Hendricks, the farmer, fired his shotgun at Gribold, who was out hunting for meat and was peering in at the farmer.
With the exception of one point, that sounded reasonable.
"But the pieces of green stuff that the sheriff picked up next morning outside of Plow Hendricks' window -- " I asked. "What were they?"
"Undoubtedly pieces from Gribold's cane, which he carried as a weapon. The spraying buckshot form Henricks' shotgun lodged in Gribold's wrist and shattered the upper part of his cane at the same time. You said the cane was apparently fashioned not of wood or metal, but of a greenish stone that had been broken.
"The cane was probably made from the same stuff as the statue -- material that was highly inflammable, as proved by the speed with which it ignited when you spilled the cauldron into the flaming pit. That's why cigarettes were taboo around the statue. Also, Gribold must have had the ability to make his voice assume a feminine quality."
"But the bullet holes?" I said. "I saw them appear in the creature's forehead when I fired! And I saw them later in identically the same place on the statue's head."
"This latter point is the one place where your story strays from fact," said the doctor slowly. "The bullet holes appeared in Gribold's forehead because he had an extremely thick skull, and you were firing .22 caliber bullets. They lodged in t eh thick supraorbital structure. But when you though you saw these same holes in the statue's forehead in the dungeon, your vision was obscured by the smoke and flames pouring out of the pit. And furthermore, Mr. Renton, your nerves were near the breaking point.
"Probably this one delusion, more than anything else, was responsible for your long confinement here in this sanitarium." The doctor rose and extended his hand. "Good-bye, Mr. Renton -- and good luck."
I shook hands with the doctor and thanked him. Before I turned to leave I handed him the newspaper I had brought in with me. I pointed to an obscure news item on the back page.
Gribold Village was stunned by the double murder of its sheriff and a farmer known as "Plow" Hendricks here last night. Both men were clubbed death while asleep in their homes near the outskirts of the village. Their assailant is unknown.
"Interesting coincidence," I remarked, and walked out.
The End
Table of Contents
Chapter I: A Note from Hell
Chapter II: Master of the Manor
Chapter III: The Fearful Workroom
Chapter IV: Four Arms of Hell
Hybrid of Horror Page 4
