The Door of the Unreal

by Gerald Biss

  Dorothy was dressed in the simplest white and only slipped on a light wrap, as it was a warm night: and she sat between us in the two-seater, supported morally as well as physically on both sides. I had explained everything to her, and she was glad to face the ordeal, though not unnaturally a little fearful and nervous: but, at her expressed desire, the ceremony was to be as private as possible.

  It did not take us long before we reached the hatefulness of the Dower House hollow, a strange place in the dusk, and merely the empty shell of early associations; and I felt her tremble as we drove up the drive.

  “Hold her tight, Burge,” I said in a concentrated voice: “and pray as never before for your great love’s sake.”

  And while I made my preparations swiftly, everything being arranged ready to hand, they knelt in the dusk under the old trees, which made it almost dark, the moon not yet being very bright or luminous.

  First I drew a circle of seven-foot radius just in front of the old stone steps, all charred and scorched, and at the centre I made certain magical figures—in yellow chalk—representing Mercury; and round them I drew in white chalk a triangle within a circle of three-foot radius, having the same centre as the larger circle.

  And then I took Dorothy and bound her securely hand and foot, and made her kneel within the inner circle, whilst round the outer circle I placed, at equal distances, seven hand-lamps burning olive oil. Then I built a rough altar of wood, about a foot to the south-east circumference of the inner circle: and opposite the altar, about a foot and a half to the far side of the circumference of the inner circle, I made a fire of wood, and placed over it a tripod with an iron pot, into which I poured two pints of pure spring water.

  Then I added two drachms of sulphur, half an ounce of castoreum, six drachms of opium, three drachms of asafoetida, half an ounce of hypericum, three-quarters of an ounce of ammonia, and half an ounce of camphor. And, when I had stirred and mixed it thoroughly, I added a portion of mandrake root, a live serpent, and a fungus.

  Then, dipping a cup in the hot liquid, I dashed it over Dorothy, regardless of everything, and I poured the rest round her within the magic circle, calling, in a loud voice, three times upon the Evil Spirit—the unspeakable elemental who had defiled the temple of her body by taking up its dwelling therein—in the name Almighty God to begone.

  And at that moment, with a strangled cry, Dorothy fell forward on her face, and a strange grey cloud, formless, yet not without form, seemed to pass upwards like a pyramid of foul smoke, disappearing and disintegrating into the air.

  XIX

  A week later Dorothy and Burgess were made man and wife at eight o’clock on a brilliant June morning, with the happy augury of the sun pouring into the old Saxon church on the fringe of the Clymping estate; and I had the great honour and happiness of standing beside them as “best man.”

  ***

  And this is the real end and true story of the appalling mysteries of the Brighton Road, still unrevealed so far as the public are concerned; and by now they have written them off in their short memories amongst the many undiscovered crimes chalked up against Scotland Yard, which is not always so much to blame as they think.

  ***

  And now my task is finished, thank Heaven. This manuscript, by the unanimous will of all concerned, is to be placed in the custody of the British Museum, and not to be available to the general public for a century—until all the actors in the ghoulish drama are dead and forgotten. Then the whole horrible truth can be revealed to those curious enough to dig up a tragedy a century old.

  ***

  Postscriptum. I may be allowed to add that the future of Tony Bullingdon and Ann has, in the meanwhile, solved itself upon lines I had foreseen for some time. Love, I often think, has a great deal to thank environment for: and certainly it is opportunity which makes the lover as well as the thief.

  THE END

  NOTE:

  Amongst the many works consulted and made use of by the author in studying the lore of lycanthropy, he wishes to make special acknowledgment of his indebtedness to Mr. Elliott O’Donnell’s “Werewolves,” the most comprehensive work upon the subject—in the English language, at any rate.

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