by Mike Ashley
She lay back, exhausted and overcome. Her filmy eyes closed; she breathed laboriously through her mouth.
Scurrying into action, Miss Vanning injected medication into the frail body of the woman and quickly ushered us from the room.
As we drove to Comptonvale through the desolate winter landscape, Leffing gazed moodily at the snow-covered tamaracks which bordered the highway.
“I trust you see the picture clearly enough, Brennan. The spirit, psychic residue—call it what you will—of Martin Keeler, earth-bound by hatred, plus the physical and mental anguish which marked his tragic death, clung to that schoolhouse cellar grave. To such a surviving remnant, time has no meaning, no reality, as we know it. Decades may be no more than minutes. Over the years, moreover, his unforgiving spirit has reinforced itself, as it were, with the vital energies of those who remained in that schoolhouse. In the beginning the force of hate and vengeance was quite naturally focussed on Miss Rasters. But even with her departure, the haunting did not cease. The Pasquettes, although innocent of any involvement, have been partially drained of psychic strength by the unrelenting and vindictive attacks of this fearful residual survivor. Its power has grown until it now—as we know—has sufficient force to project itself in visible form. It has become, down the years, a vampiric projection of evil, bearing, perhaps, little actual resemblance to the original spirit of Martin Keeler. I might almost say that its hatred survives through force of habit, bizarre as that may sound.”
“How can we be rid of it then?” I asked.
“There may be one solution,” Leffing replied. “With the removal of the remains of Martin Keeler from that cellar pit, the thing may dissipate—abruptly or gradually. It is impossible to predict.”
I frowned. “One prosaic but vital problem puzzles me. Pasquette told you that the house had no cellar!”
Leffing nodded. “A good point. But I have little doubt that the original cellar pit was filled, either by the town, or by Mr. Verton of Fairfield, after he bought the school.”
A subsequent investigation disclosed that the town itself had filled the cellar hole before putting up the structure for sale. The town clerk told us that the dirt walls were caving in and that town officials, not wishing to spend any more than was necessary on the building, had simply packed gravel into the pit and sealed up the trap door.
The Pasquettes listened to our recital of Miss Rasters’ confession with a mixture of horror, relief—and foreboding. They welcomed any solution to their problem, but Pasquette admitted frankly that he simply did not have sufficient money to move the house and dig out the old cellar hole.
Subsequently, town officials of Comptonvale held a private meeting, with Leffing in attendance, and agreed to shoulder expenses. The tiny house was moved aside with surprising ease and the old cellar pit was cleared of fill. In the dirt floor, exactly where Miss Rasters had indicated, the poor, twisted skeleton of Martin Keeler was found. Although no surviving relatives could be located, the remains were given Christian burial in the Comptonvale Congregational churchyard.
Long before her confession became public knowledge, poor old Miss Rasters had passed away.
After their house was returned to its original site, the Pasquettes moved back in, albeit with many misgivings. From that day on, however, the haunting ceased. The Pasquettes lived without fear and slept without nightmares.
I like to think that Leffing brought lasting peace not only to them and to a tormented old woman who must have paid many times over for a foolish and tragic act—but also to the spirit of a poor doomed child who had died after fearful suffering—filled with unforgiving fury and hatred, and a desire for vengeance so intense that it survived and transcended his own pitiful death.
MONSIEUR DELACROIX IN
THE GARDEN OF PARIS
ERIC WILLIAMS
Eric C. Williams (1918–2010) is rather the forgotten man of British science fiction. Although he was there in the early days of fandom and the original Science Fiction Association just before the outbreak of World War Two, mingling with the likes of Arthur C. Clarke and John Beynon Harris (he had yet to become John Wyndham), and placing a few stories in the fan magazines, he remained behind the scenes and made little mark on the field until almost thirty years later. Then, after years working in various establishments, including as a bookdealer, and spending his days and nights building telescopes, he suddenly started to be published professionally in John Carnell’s anthology series New Writings in SF and elsewhere. Amongst these anthologies was Weird Shadows from Beyond, which included the following story, the first outing for Monsieur Delacroix, a man who is called in by the UNO when something odd crops up. He was in some ways the first investigator of the “X-Files,” but in Paris. Williams wrote several other stories featuring Delacroix, but they remained unpublished until his final years when they were run in Philip Harbottle’s Fantasy Annual series and companion volumes. Yet this first story remains the most dramatic.
THE MESSENGER DISTRIBUTING MAIL TO THE VARIOUS MINISTERIAL offices occupying the top floor of the Palais de Chaillot, Paris, reached into the bag hanging from his shoulder and extracted one last bundle. It was a thick packet of odd-shaped and coloured envelopes, all tom open, in varying degrees of impatience, and all with two words scrawled across each “Delacroix-Chaillot.” The Messenger gave his habitual groan of disgust and plodded to the end of the corridor where he ascended a short flight of stone steps that let out of one wall and led to a redwood door upon a small landing. A card tacked to the door announced “Monsieur Delacroix UNO.” The Messenger opened the door and said in an irritated voice, “Good morning, Mademoiselle Lamaroux, early as usual.” The office was small, its ceiling low, its two windows made to look small by virtue of the overhanging eaves just above them, and the whole effect of cramp exaggerated by two large, old-fashioned desks and equally as dated filing cabinets that occupied all but various narrow lanes on the floor.
Mademoiselle took the preferred bundle with the barest of smiles. She did not deign to answer the implied criticism which had been put in one form or another almost daily for the past ten years. How could she explain that she came early through love for her boss. She had loved him for twenty years, but ten years ago being by chance early in the office, she had arranged all the letters in alphabetic order of sender’s name and this had pleased him very much. Since then, she had done him this ridiculous service each morning at the cost of twenty minutes of her own time per day. She knew that now if she omitted to do this gratuitous act he would be most ill pleased and think her remiss. Not that her love could ever be assuaged or even revealed since Monsieur Delacroix was a most respectable man and had been married fifteen years. But the habit of love died hard in her breast and every day she allowed Monsieur Delacroix to be a king in his office, speaking only when she sensed he required talk, making his coffee, cleaning his desk, not moving while he thought, and being altogether an inferior being.
Monsieur Delacroix held a peculiar position in UNO. To his office were sent each day all those letters which UNO, by virtue of its idealistic nature, attracts from thousands of idealists who insist they have a scheme or information that must be acted upon for the good of Mankind. These writers are a persistent race and pester the various offices of UNO year in and year out with their letters. Mixed with these ravings, and often indistinguishable to the unpractised eye, is the occasional far-fetched but pregnant scheme and the anonymous warning with real information. Paris set Monsieur Delacroix up in a remote office, out of reach of the more insistent evangelists and appointed him to answer the cranks and sift out the gold from the brass. He did this job thoroughly and better than most. His mind was so uncomplicated and literal in its appraisal of things that he had much in common with the people who wrote the letters he was given to answer, and was thus able to sense unbridled sincerity when he read it and to discard it. Whenever, on the other hand, he encountered the flavour of sincerity plus knowledge, he investigated.
This morning, af
ter the unvarying succession of actions and words that accompanied his entry and passage across the office each day, he picked up the pile of letters, placed them in the middle of the blotting-pad before him, saying, without really listening for an answer, “Anything interesting, Mademoiselle?” He was already intent upon opening the first letter which was written by a M. Abime, he read: “Once again I have to report that I heard a scream from the grounds of the Jardin des Plantes. This was at 3.0 during the morning of September 6th. On looking from my window I saw, as on other occasions, lights shining through the trees of the grounds. I am convinced that we have here in the heart of Paris a cell of the sinister ‘Union d’execution’ set up by Moscow and of which I have sent you many details. I pray you to hasten to eradicate this nauseatious limb of . . .”
Monsieur Delacroix did not read on: his inner ear had caught something. Across the top of the letter was written “Please answer. This character has written us and the police 50 odd letters over the past 5 years. There is nothing in it. Put him off. Vesta extension 7211.”
Monsieur Delacroix picked up the phone and asked for Monsieur Vesta’s number.
“Hallo!” said a high-pitched, genial voice.
Monsieur Delacroix introduced himself, “I would like to see some of those other letters,” he said “and if you have it, the report of the investigation. I don’t feel I can answer properly without a bit more background.”
“Certainly, certainly. I have a complete file here, police correspondence and everything. I’ll send it along. Only for heaven’s sake, get him off my neck. I’ll be getting nightmares if I read many more of these things about screams in the night!”
Two days later Monsieur Delacroix felt himself in a position to write to Monsieur Abime. Vesta had not exaggerated; there were fifty letters in the file, plus correspondence between UNO and the police requesting investigation of the matter and a long report adding up to very little except that these letters always came at or near full moon, and as no murders were actually committed in the grounds of the Jardin des Plantes, it could only be assumed that Monsieur Abime was affected by the full moon.
Monsieur Delacroix dictated a polite letter expressing interest and suggesting that both he and Monsieur Abime should keep vigil together at the next full moon in eight days time in the hope of hearing screams issuing from the Jardin des Plantes. His suggestion was accepted by return of post.
In the intervening weekend, Monsieur Delacroix took his family to the Jardin des Plantes to get a clear picture in his mind of the layout of this park cum zoo cum botanical school cum museum. He himself had not been to the Jardin since his teens, when he remembered taking a young lady to see the monkeys, but his children knew the place well and unerringly led their parents to the most sensational of the animals, and then at their father’s request, to the labyrinth adjacent to Rue Geoffroy St. Hilaire where Monsieur Abime had his flat.
They climbed the spiral track around the tree-covered hillock that comprised the labyrinth, but were unable to reach the derelict gazebo on the crest as the path had been railed off by the authorities. Monsieur Delacroix stood for some moments at this highest permissible point surveying the probable scene of Monsieur Abime’s reported screams. The place was quite wild and tangled in shrubbery. The paths were edged with high iron-rod fences that precluded any possibility of sightseers leaving the path, although Monsieur Delacroix could see no reason to protect what seemed such a dreary, untidy wilderness. Below, through the trees, he could see the Administration Buildings on the left and the hothouses on the right. Beyond the Administration Buildings would be the zoo, and beyond the hothouses the formal beds of the botanical gardens; fifty or so metres behind him was the wall of the Jardin with the noise of occasional traffic echoing from the tall, concrete-fronted buildings overlooking the Jardin from the other side of the street. This corner of the Jardin seemed old and forgotten and drear as if the vitality of the soil had been used up.
“I feel cold,” complained Madame Delacroix. “I don’t like this place. What are you up to, standing there like Napoleon watching Moscow?”
Monsieur Delacroix in no way resembled Napoleon at Moscow except perhaps that he, too, was suddenly cold. He took Madame Delacroix’s arm and briskly walked her down to the sunlight at the foot of the mound.
“I shall be watching the hill from across the road next Wednesday night,” he told her. “I wished to see it at close hand before then. I must say I’m disappointed in the place.”
Madame Delacroix gave her husband a penetrating look, but simply said: “You will be careful, dear!”
To which Monsieur Delacroix replied, “Let’s go in the cactus house; I’m chilled. It’s as cold as a morgue under those trees.”
Being early September, it was quite dark when Monsieur Delacroix rang the bell which announced him to Monsieur Abime’s apartment. There was a long pause, and then the tall wooden door opened and a shadowy figure in the dim-lit vestibule asked Monsieur Delacroix to enter.
“We have no concierge,” apologised Monsieur Abime, leading the way into an elevator just large enough to accommodate them both. “My place is on the top floor.” The elevator rose with obvious effort to the fourth floor. Monsieur Abime had left the door of his apartment open and showed Monsieur Delacroix directly into the well-lit lounge.
“This building is very quiet,” observed Monsieur Delacroix. “I presume they were offices we passed on the lower floors.” He studied Monsieur Abime for signs of full moon madness as he said this, but there was nothing peculiar about Monsieur Abime’s visage except its pallor. His eyes were gentle, there were no tics about his mouth.
“Yes,” confirmed Monsieur Abime. “It is very quiet. At two or three in the morning you can hear every bit of chatter from the zoo. I believe I am the only resident in the whole street.”
“No,” said Monsieur Delacroix, “there are other residents, but as it happens none of them sleep overlooking the Jardin. The point was checked by the police.”
“Let me show you my bedroom,” said Monsieur Abime, rising. “You will be able to see the view I have.”
He opened a door leading to another room which was lined with books, even between the two tall windows overlooking the street. There was a bed and a table, but no wardrobe.
Monsieur Delacroix saw all this in the light from the inner room, then Monsieur Abime shut the door and there was darkness except from the pale light of the street lights forty feet below.
Monsieur Abime threw open one set of the door-like windows. There was a narrow balcony outside. It seemed to Monsieur Delacroix as he carefully leaned out of the window, that the leaves of the trees in the Jardin were a mere arm’s length away.
“The moon will not be full until about 1.0 a.m.,” said Monsieur Abime. “Until then, I think I had better tell you all I know about the Union d’execution.”
“Where is the nearest entrance to the Jardin,” asked Monsieur Delacroix, deliberately ignoring Monsieur Abime’s suggestion.
Monsieur Abime pointed a little way to the left. “Just there on the corner of Rue Cuvier. There’s another about a hundred metres down Rue Cuvier.”
“And to the right?”
“Oh, right up at the far end of the Zoological Museum where this street joins Rue Buffon. I have a large-scale map next door which shows all the entrances to the Jardin.”
The two men retired to the lounge where, with the map open on the table and a glass of brandy each, they speculated upon the probable source of the light Monsieur Abime claimed to have seen whenever there were screams from the Jardin. In this way Monsieur Delacroix prevented Monsieur Abime from airing his particular obsession for some time, and finally, there was only time for a brief outline before it was necessary for the silent vigil to begin.
They returned to the dark bedroom, carrying chairs, and sat at the open windows.
An occasional car hurtled down the street below, but as 1.0 a.m. came and went, all noise of human life died out leaving only faint, sporad
ic, noises from the zoo. Monsieur Abime sat motionless at his window. Monsieur Delacroix dozed and woke and dozed and woke in the warm air, his eyes fixed on the dark trees on the other side of the street. The sky seemed pale-blue with the light of the moon now standing vertically above, but below the trees was intense black.
Suddenly Delacroix realised that he was looking at several spots of yellow light through the trees and that Abime was gesticulating violently at him. Immediately Monsieur Delacroix shook off sleep and concentrated his attention. The light seemed to float indeterminately in a line somewhere in the direction of the cactus house, but it was impossible to know whether it was a moving light or the effect of swaying boughs in front of a stationary light.
Suddenly a most appalling shriek tore Monsieur Delacroix’s nerves to cringing pieces. It exploded like a magnesium flare of sound on the silent night. Delacroix involuntarily turned away in horror. Almost immediately the shriek became muffled and then ceased.
Monsieur Abime was on his feet in triumph.
“There!” he called. “That’s it! You heard that.”
“Quick,” said Delacroix, “let us get down to Rue Cuvier; we may see someone come from the Jardin.”
The elevator descended quicker than it ascended, but it still seemed funereal to Delacroix. He burst from the building and ran down the street towards the junction with Rue Cuvier. Abime hurried behind. As they came to the junction a small car drew away from the front of the entrance heading their way accelerating fast. Monsieur Delacroix teetered on the kerb between heroic excitement and caution, and in a second the car had roared past and away.
“Don’t worry,” said Monsieur Abime, “I got his number.”
They returned to the flat and as a good, public servant Monsieur Delacroix forthwith reported the scream over the telephone to the police. He was told by a voice already committed to disbelief that the matter would be investigated.
