The Horror on the Links

by Seabury Quinn

  I followed him up the stairs, down the first gallery to the second flight and down the upper balcony to the bare, forbidding room Miss O’Shane used as studio. “Ah,” he breathed as he struck a wax match and ignited the candles before the drawing-board, “did I not say it? Parbleu, Friend Trowbridge, Mademoiselle O’Shane has indulged in more than one unconscious art this night, or Jules de Grandin is a liar!”

  As the candle flames leaped to burning points in the still air of the room I started forward, then shrank back from the sketch their radiance revealed. Progress had been made on the picture since we had viewed it earlier in the evening. The hooded figure in the foreground was now clearly drawn, and it was no monk, but a steel-clad warrior with long white surtout worn over his armor and a white hood pulled forward, half concealing his thin, bearded face. But there was a face there, where there had been none before—a thin, vulpine, wicked face with set, cruel eyes which gloated on the prostrate figure before him. The upraised arm which had no hand when Miss O’Shane showed us the drawing after dinner now terminated in a mailed fist, and between the steel-sheathed fingers it held the stem of a chalice, a lovely, tulip-shaped cup of crystal, as though it would scatter its contents to the polished stone with which the picture room was paved. One other thing I noted before my glance shifted to the female figure—the long, red passion cross upon the white surtout was reversed, its long arm pointing upward, its transverse bar lowered, and even as I saw this I remembered vaguely that when knightly orders flourished it was the custom of heraldic courts thus to reverse a sir-knight’s coats of arms when he was degraded from his chivalry as unworthy to maintain his traditions.

  What had been the rough outlines of the manger were now firmly drawn into the representation of an altar, complete with the crucifix and tabernacle, but veiling the cross, so lightly sketched that, stare as I would, I could not make it out, was an odd-shaped, winged form, somewhat resembling a bat with outstretched wings.

  Before the altar’s lowest step the female figure, now drawn with the detail of an engraving, groveled starkly, chin and breasts, knees and elbows, instep and wrists pressed tightly to the stones; open, suppliant hands stretched forward, palms upward; rippling masses of hair flowing forward, like a plume of smoke blown in the wind, and obscuring the face.

  And what was that upon the second step leading to the sanctuary? At first I thought it an alms-basin, but a second glance showed me it was a wide, shallow dish, and in it rested a long, curve-bladed knife, such as I had seen French butchers wear in their belts while enjoying a noonday smoke and resting for a space from their gory trade before the entrance of an abattoir.

  “Good heavens!” I gasped, turning from the grisly scene with a feeling of physical sickness. “This is terrible, de Grandin! What are we going to do—?”

  “Barbe et tête de Saint Denis, we do this!” he replied in a furious hissing voice. “Parbleu, shall Jules de Grandin be made a fool of twice in one night? Not if he knows it!”

  Seizing an eraser from the tray, he bent forward, and with half a dozen vigorous strokes reduced the picture to a meaningless smear of black and gray smudges.

  “And now,” he dusted his hands one against the other, as though to cleanse them of something foul, “let us to bed once more, my friend. I think we shall find something interesting to talk of tomorrow.”

  Shortly after breakfast next morning he found an excuse for separating Dunroe O’Shane from the rest of the company. “Will you not have pity on our loneliness, Mademoiselle?” he asked. “Here we lie, imprisoned in this great jail of a house, without so much as a radio program to cheer us through the morning hours. May we not trespass on your kindness and beg that you play for our delectation?”

  “I play?” the girl answered with a half-incredulous smile. “Why, Dr. de Grandin. I don’t know one note from another. I never played the piano in my life!”

  “U’m?” He looked polite doubt as he twisted the ends of his mustache. “It is perhaps that I do not plead our cause fervently enough, Mademoiselle?”

  “But truly, I can’t play,” she persisted.

  “That’s right, Dr. de Grandin,” one of the young men chimed in. “Dunroe’s a whiz at drawing, but she’s absolutely tone-deaf. Can’t carry a tune in a basket. I used to go to school with her, and they always gave her a job passing out programs or selling tickets when the class chorus sang.”

  De Grandin shot me a quick glance and shook his head warningly.

  “What does it mean?” I asked as soon as we were together once more. “She declares she can’t play, and her friends corroborate her, but—”

  “But stranger things have happened, and Mordieu, still stranger ones will happen again, or the presentiment which I have is nothing more than the consequences of a too hearty breakfast!” he broke in with one of his quick, elfin smiles. “Let us play the silly fool, Friend Trowbridge; let us pretend to believe that the moon is composed entirely of green cheese and that mice terrorize the pussy-cat. So doing, we shall learn more than if we attempt to appear filled with wisdom which we do not possess.”

  IV

  “OH, I KNOW WHAT let’s do!” Miss Prettybridge, the lady of the scintillating teeth, whom de Grandin had squired to dinner the previous evening, exclaimed shortly after ten o’clock that night. “This is such a romantic old house—I’m sure it’s just full of memories. Let’s have a séance!”

  “Fine, splendid, capital!” chorused a dozen voices. “Who’ll be the medium? Anybody got a Ouija board or a planchette table?”

  “Order, order, please!” the self-constituted chairwoman rapped peremptorily on a bridge table with her lorgnette. “I know how to do it! We’ll go into the dining room and gather about the table. Then, when we’ve formed the mystic circle, if there are any spirits about we’ll make ’em talk to us by rapping. Come on, everybody!”

  “I don’t think I like this,” Miss O’Shane murmured as she laid her hand on my arm. Her usually pale face was paler still, and there was an expression of haunted fear in her eyes as she hesitated at the doorway.

  “I don’t care much for such nonsense myself,” I admitted as we followed the others reluctantly into the refectory.

  “Be close to me while this progresses, Friend Trowbridge,” de Grandin whispered as he guided me to a seat beside him. “I care not much for this business of the monkey, but it may be the old she-fool yonder will serve our purpose unwittingly. The greatest danger is to Mademoiselle Dunroe. Keep watch on her.”

  The candles in the dining-room wall sconces were extinguished, and with Miss Prettybridge at the head of the table, the entire company was seated at the board, each one with his hands outspread on the dark, polished oak before him, his thumbs touching lightly, his little fingers in contact with those of his neighbors to right and left.

  “Spirits,” Miss Prettybridge, in her role of priestess, threw out the customary challenge, “spirits, if you are here tonight, signify your presence by rapping once on the table.”

  Thirty seconds or so elapsed without an answer to the lady’s invitation. A woman half-way down the board tittered in half-hysterical embarrassment, and her neighbor silenced her with an impatient “sh-s-s-sh!” Then, distinctly as though thumped with a knuckle, the ancient table gave forth a resounding crack.

  “If the spirit is a man, rap once; if a woman, twice,” instructed Miss Prettybridge.

  Another pause, somewhat longer, this time, then slowly, distinctly, two soft knocks from the very center of the table.

  “Oh, a woman!” trilled one of the girls. “How perfectly thrilling!”

  “And your name is—what?” demanded the mistress of ceremonies in a voice which trembled slightly in spite of her effort at control.

  Thirteen slow, clear strokes sounded on the table, followed by one, then by eighteen, then others in series until nine distinct groups of blows were recorded.

  “M-a-r-i-e-a-n-n-e Marie Anne—a French girl!” exclaimed Miss Prettybridge. “Whom do you wish to speak with
, Marie Anne? Rap when I come to the name as I call the roll. Dr. Trowbridge?”

  No response.

  “Dr. de Grandin?”

  A sharp, affirmative knock answered her, and the visitant was bidden to spell out her message.

  Followed a rapid, telegraphic series of blows on the table, sometimes coming so quickly that it was impossible for us to decode them.

  I listened as attentively as I could; so did everyone else, except Jules de Grandin. After a moment, during which his sleek blond head was thrust forward inquiringly, he turned his attention to Dunroe O’Shane.

  The logs were burning low in the fireplace, but a shifting, flickering glow soaked through the darkness now and again, its red reflection lighting up the girl’s face with a strange, unearthly illumination like the nimbus about the head of a saint in a medieval painting.

  I felt the Frenchman’s fingers stiffen against mine, and realized the cause of his tenseness as I stole a fleeting glance at Miss O’Shane. Her eyes had closed, and her red, petulant lips were lightly parted, as though in sleep. Over her small, regular features had crept a look of longing ecstasy.

  Even my limited experience with psychotherapy was sufficient to tell me she was in a condition verging on hypnosis, if not actually over the borderline of consciousness, and I was about to leap from my seat with an offer of assistance when the insistent pressure of de Grandin’s fingers on mine held me back. Turning toward him, I saw his head nod sharply toward the doorway behind the girl, and following his silent bidding, I cast my glance into the passageway in time to see someone slip quickly and noiselessly down the hall.

  For a moment I sat in wondering silence, debating whether I had seen one of the servants creep past or whether I was the victim of an optical illusion, when my attention was suddenly compelled to a second figure, then a third, a fourth and a fifth passing the archway’s opening like flashes of light against a darkened wall. My reason told me my eyes were playing pranks, for the gliding, soundless figures filing in quick procession past the proscenium of the dining-room door were tall, bearded men encased in gleaming black armor, and shrouded from shoulder to spurs in sable cloaks.

  I blinked my eyes and shook my head in bewilderment, wondering if I had fallen into a momentary doze and dreamed the vision, but sharply, with theatrical suddenness, there sounded the raucous, brazen bray of a bugle, the skirling squeal of an unoiled windlass reeling out rope, the thud of a drawbridge falling into place; then, above the whistling November wind there winded another trumpet flourish and the clatter of iron-shod hooves against stone paving-blocks.

  “Why, what was that?” Miss Prettybridge forgot the spirit message still being thumped out on the table and threw back her head in momentary alarm.

  “Sounds like a troop of scouts out for an evening’s lark,” put in our host, rising from the table. “Queer they should come out here to toot their bugles, though.”

  “Ha, Parbleu, you say rightly, my friend,” de Grandin, broke in, rising so suddenly that his chair tilted back and fell to the floor with a resounding crash. “It is queer, most damnably queer. Boy scouts did you say? Pray they be not scouts of evil in search of some hapless little lad while a company of empty-headed fools sit idly by listening to the chatter of their decoy!

  “Did none of you recognize the message the spirit had for me?”

  We looked at him in silent astonishment as he lighted the wall-candles one after another and faced us with a countenance gone livid with fury.

  “Ah bah, it is scarcely worth troubling to tell you,” he cried, “but the important message the spirit had for me was a silly little nursery rhyme:

  Great A, little a,

  Bouncing B.

  The cat’s in the cupboard,

  And can’t see me!

  “No, the cat might not see that accursed decoy spirit, but Jules de Grandin could see the others as they slunk past the door upon their devil’s work! Trowbridge, mon vieux, look at Mademoiselle O’Shane, if you will.”

  Startled by his command, I turned round. Dunroe O’Shane had fallen forward across the table, her long, tawny hair freed from its restraining pins and lying about her head like a pool of liquid bronze. Her eyes were still closed, but the peaceful expression had gone from her face, and in its stead was a look of unutterable fear and loathing.

  “Take her up, some of you,” de Grandin almost shrieked. “Bear her to her chamber and Dr. Trowbridge and I will attend to her. Then, Monsieur Van Riper, if you will be so good, I shall ask you to lend us one of your swiftest motor cars.”

  “A motor car—now?” Van Riper’s incredulous tone showed he doubted his ears.

  “Précisément, Monsieur, permit that I compliment you on the excellence of your hearing,” the Frenchman replied. “A swift motor car with plenty of fuel, if you please. There are certain medicines needed to attend this sickness of body and soul, and to strike directly at its cause, and we must have them without delay. Dr. Trowbridge will drive; you need not trouble your chauffeur to leave his bed.”

  Ten minutes later, having no more idea of our destination than I had of the underlying causes of the last half hour’s strange events, I sped down the turnpike, Van Riper’s powerful motor warming up with every revolution, and gaining speed with every foot we traveled.

  “Faster, faster, my friend,” the little Frenchman besought as we whirled madly around a banked curve in the road and started down the two-mile straightaway with the speedometer registering sixty-five miles an hour.

  Twin disks of lurid flame arose above the crest of the gradient before us, growing larger and brighter every second, and the pounding staccato of high powered motorcycles driven at top speed came to us through the shrieking wind.

  I throttled down our engine to a legal speed as the State Troopers neared, but instead of rushing past they came to a halt, one on each side of us. “Where you from?” demanded the one to our left, on whose arm a sergeant’s chevrons showed.

  “From Mr. Van Riper’s house—the Cloisters,” I answered. “I’m Dr. Trowbridge, of Harrisonville, and this is Dr. de Grandin. A young lady at the house had been taken ill, and were rushing home for medicine.”

  “Ump?” the sergeant grunted. “Come from th’ Cloisters, do you? Don’t suppose you passed anyone on the road?”

  “No—” I began, but de Grandin leaned past me.

  “For whom do you seek, mon sergent?” he demanded.

  “Night riders!” the words fairly spat from the policeman’s lips. “Lot o’ dam’ kidnapers, sir. Old lady down th’ road about five miles—name o’ Stebbens—was walkin’ home from a neighbor’s with her grandson, a cute little lad about three years old, when a crowd o’ bums came riding hell-bent for election past her, knocked her for a loop an’ grabbed up the kid. Masqueraders they was—wore long black gowns, she said, an’ rode on black horses. Went away whoopin’ an’ yellin’ to each other in some foreign language, an’ laughin’ like a pack o’ dogs. Be God, they’ll laugh outa th’ other side o’ their dirty mouths if we catch ’em!”

  “Come on, Shoup, let’s roll,” he ordered his companion.

  The roar of their motorcycles grew fainter and fainter as they swept down the road, and in another moment we were pursuing our way toward the city, gathering speed with every turn of the wheels.

  V

  WE HAD GONE SCARCELY another mile before the slate-colored clouds which the wind had been piling together in the upper sky ripped apart and great clouds of soft, feathery snowflakes came tumbling down, blotting out the road ahead and cutting our speed to a snail’s pace. It was almost gray light before we arrived at the outskirts of Harrisonville, and the snow was falling harder than ever as we headed up the main thoroughfare.

  “Hélas, my friend, there is not the chance that we can return to the Cloisters before noon, be our luck of the best,” de Grandin muttered disconsolately; “therefore I suggest that we go to your house and obtain a few hours’ rest.”

  “But how about the medicine you w
anted?” I objected. “Hadn’t we better see about getting that first?”

  “Non,” he returned. “It will keep. The medicine I seek could not be administered before tonight—if that soon—and we can secure it later as well as now.”

  Rather surprised at our unheralded return, but used to the vagaries of a bachelor physician and his eccentric friend, Nora McGinnis, my housekeeper and general-factotum, prepared a toothsome breakfast for us the next morning, and we had completed the meal, lingering over coffee and cigarettes a little longer than usual, when de Grandin’s face suddenly went livid as he thrust the folded newspaper he had been reading into my hand.

  “Look, mon ami,” he whispered raspingly. “Read what is there. They did not wait long to be about their deviltry!”

  STATE COP DEAD IN MYSTERY KILLING

  announced the headline to which he had directed my attention. Below was a brief dispatch, evidently a bit of last-minute news, sandwiched between the announcement of a sheriff’s sale and a patent medicine advertisement:

  JOHNSKILL—Sergeant Rosswell of the state constabulary is dead and Private Shoup in a serious condition as the result of a battle with a mysterious band of masked ruffians near this place early this morning. Shortly after ten o’clock last night Matilda Stebbens, of Osmondville, who was returning from a visit to a neighbor’s with her three-year-old grandson, George, was attacked by a company of men mounted on black or dark-colored horses and enveloped in long black gowns, according to her story to the troopers. The leader of the gang struck her a heavy blow with a club or blackjack, evidently with the intention of stunning her and seized the little boy, lifting him to his saddle. Had it not been for the fact that Mrs. Stebbens still affects long hair and was wearing a stiff felt hat, the blow would undoubtedly have rendered her unconscious, but as it was she was merely knocked into the roadside ditch without losing consciousness, and as she lay there, half stunned from the blow, she heard the kidnapers exchange several words in some foreign language, Italian, she thought, before they set out at a breakneck pace, giving vent to wild whoops and yells. The direction of their flight was toward this place, and as soon as she was able to walk, Mrs. Stebbens hobbled to the nearest telephone and communicated with the state police.