The Valancourt Book of Horror Stories, Volume Two

by James D. Jenkins

  The dice also, he was happy to find, answered his expectations. He found a company engaged at play, and, by the break of day, he had met with so much luck, that he was immediately able to travel back to the baths, and to redeem his child and his word of honour.

  In the baths he now made as many new acquaintances as the losses were important which he had lately sustained. He was reputed one of the wealthiest cavaliers in the place; and many who had designs upon him in consequence of this reputed wealth, willingly lost money to him to favor their own schemes; so that in a single month he gained sums which would have established him as a man of fortune. Under countenance of this repute, and as a widower, no doubt he might now have made successful advances to the young lady whom he had formerly pursued, for her father had an exclusive regard to property, and would have overlooked morals and respectability of that sort in any candidate for his daughter’s hand; but with the largest offers of money, he could not purchase his freedom from the contract made with his landlord’s daughter, – a woman of very disreputable character. In fact, six months after the death of his first wife, he was married to her.

  By the unlimited profusion of money with which his second wife sought to wash out the stains upon her honour, Rudolph’s new-raised property was as speedily squandered. To part from her, was one of the wishes which lay nearest his heart. He had, however, never ventured to express it a second time before his father-in-law, for, on the single occasion when he had hinted at such an intention, that person had immediately broken out into the most dreadful threats. The murder of his first wife was the chain which bound him to his second. The boy whom his first wife had left him, closely as he resembled her in features and in the bad traits of her character, was his only comfort, if indeed his gloomy and perturbed mind would allow him at any time to taste of comfort.

  To preserve this boy from the evil influences of the many bad examples about him, he had already made an agreement with a man of distinguished abilities, who was to have superintended his education in his own family. But all was frustrated. Madame von Schrollshausen, whose love of pomp and display led her eagerly to catch at every pretext for creating a fête, had invited a party on the evening before the young boy’s intended departure. The time which was not occupied in the eating-room was spent at the gaming-table, and dedicated to the dice, of whose extraordinary powers the owner was at this time availing himself with more zeal than usual, having just invested all his disposable money in the purchase of a landed estate. One of the guests having lost very considerable sums in an uninterrupted train of ill-luck, threw the dice, in his vexation, with such force upon the table, that one of them fell down. The attendants searched for it on the floor, and the child also crept about in quest of it. Not finding it, he rose, and in rising stept upon it, lost his balance, and fell with such violence against the edge of the stove, that he died in a few hours of the injury inflicted on the head.

  This accident made the most powerful impression upon the father. He recapitulated the whole of his life from the first trial he had made of the dice; from them had arisen all his misfortunes; in what way could he liberate himself from their accursed influence? Revolving this point, and in the deepest distress of mind, Schroll wandered out towards nightfall, and strolled through the town. Coming to a solitary bridge in the outskirts, he looked down from the battlements upon the gloomy depths of the waters below, which seemed to regard him with looks of sympathy and strong fascination. ‘So be it then!’ he exclaimed, and sprang over the railing; but instead of finding his grave in the waters, he felt himself below seized powerfully by the grasp of a man, whom, from his scornful laugh, he recognized as his evil counsellor. The man bore him to the shore, and said, ‘No, no! my good friend; he that once enters into a league with me, him I shall deliver from death even in his own despite.’

  Half crazy with despair, the next morning Schroll crept out of the town with a loaded pistol. Spring was abroad; spring flowers, spring breezes, and nightingales. They were all abroad, but not for him or his delight. A crowd of itinerant tradesmen passed him, who were on the road to a neighboring fair. One of them, observing his dejected countenance with pity, attached himself to his side, and asked in a tone of sympathy what was the matter. Two others of the passers-by Schroll heard distinctly saying, ‘Faith, I should not like, for my part, to walk alone with such an ill-looking fellow.’ He darted a furious glance at the men, separated from his pitying companion with a fervent pressure of his hand, and struck off into a solitary track of the forest. In the first retired spot he fired the pistol, and behold the man who had spoken to him with so much kindness lies stretched in his blood, and he himself is without a wound. At this moment, while staring half unconsciously at the face of the murdered man, he feels himself seized from behind. Already he seems to himself in the hands of the public executioner. Turning round, however, he hardly knows whether to feel pleasure or pain on seeing his evil suggester in the dress of a grave-digger. ‘My friend,’ said the grave-digger, ‘if you cannot be content to wait for death until I send it, I must be forced to end with dragging you to that from which I began by saving you, – a public execution. But think not thus, or by any other way, to escape me. After death, thou wilt assuredly be mine again.’

  ‘Who, then,’ said the unhappy man, ‘who is the murderer of the poor traveller?’

  ‘Who? why, who but yourself? Was it not yourself that fired the pistol?’

  ‘Ay, but at my own head.’

  The fiend laughed in a way that made Schroll’s flesh creep on his bones. ‘Understand this, friend, that he whose fate I hold in my hands cannot anticipate it by his own act. For the present, begone, if you would escape the scaffold. To oblige you once more, I shall throw a veil over this murder.’

  Thereupon the grave-digger set about making a grave for the corpse, whilst Schroll wandered away, – more for the sake of escaping the hideous presence in which he stood, than with any view to his own security from punishment.

  Seeing by accident a prisoner under arrest at the guardhouse, Schroll’s thoughts reverted to his own confinement. ‘How happy,’ said he, ‘for me and for Charlotte, had I then refused to purchase life on such terms, and had better laid to heart the counsel of my good spiritual adviser!’ Upon this a sudden thought struck him, that he would go and find out the old clergyman, and would unfold to him his wretched history and situation. He told his wife that some private affairs required his attendance for a few days at the town of ——. But, say what he would, he could not prevail on her to desist from accompany­ing him.

  On the journey his chief anxiety was lest the clergyman, who was already advanced in years at the memorable scene of the sand-hill, might now be dead. But at the very entrance of the town he saw him walking in the street, and immediately felt himself more composed in mind than he had done for years. The venerable appearance of the old man confirmed him still more in his resolution of making a full disclosure to him of his whole past life: one only transaction, the murder of his first wife, he thought himself justified in concealing; since, with all his penitence for it, that act was now beyond the possibility of reparation.

  For a long time the pious clergyman refused all belief to Schroll’s narrative; but being at length convinced that he had a wounded spirit to deal with, and not a disordered intellect, he exerted himself to present all those views of religious consolation which his philanthropic character and his long experience suggested to him as likely to be effectual. Eight days’ conversation with the clergyman restored Schroll to the hopes of a less miserable future. But the good man admonished him at parting to put away from himself whatsoever could in any way tend to support his unhallowed connection.

  In this direction Schroll was aware that the dice were included: and he resolved firmly that his first measure on returning home should be to bury in an inaccessible place these accursed implements, that could not but bring mischief to every possessor. On entering the inn, he was met by his wife, who was in the highest spirits, and l
aughing profusely. He inquired the cause. ‘No,’ said she: ‘you refused to communicate your motive for coming hither, and the nature of your business for the last week: I, too, shall have my mysteries. As to your leaving me in solitude at an inn, that is a sort of courtesy which marriage naturally brings with it; but that you should have travelled hither for no other purpose than that of trifling away your time in the company of an old tedious parson, that (you will allow me to say) is a caprice which seems scarcely worth the money it will cost.’

  ‘Who, then, has told you that I have passed my time with an old parson?’ said the astonished Schroll.

  ‘Who told me? Why, just let me know what your business was with the parson, and I’ll let you know in turn who it was that told me. So much I will assure you, however, now, – that the cavalier, who was my informant, is a thousand times handsomer, and a more interesting companion, than an old dotard who is standing at the edge of the grave.’

  All the efforts of Madame von Schrollshausen to irritate the curiosity of her husband proved ineffectual to draw from him his secret. The next day, on their return homewards, she repeated her attempts. But he parried them all with firmness. A more severe trial to his firmness was prepared for him in the heavy bills which his wife presented to him on his reaching home. Her expenses in clothes and in jewels had been so profuse, that no expedient remained to Schroll but that of selling without delay the landed estate he had so lately purchased. A declaration to this effect was very ill received by his wife. ‘Sell the estate?’ said she; ‘what, sell the sole resource I shall have to rely on when you are dead? And for what reason, I should be glad to know; when a very little of the customary luck of your dice will enable you to pay off these trifles? And whether the bills be paid to-day or to-morrow cannot be of any very great importance.’ Upon this, Schroll declared with firmness that he never meant to play again. ‘Not play again!’ exclaimed his wife, ‘pooh! pooh! you make me blush for you! So, then, I suppose it’s all true, as was said, that scruples of conscience drove you to the old rusty parson; and that he enjoined as a penance that you should abstain from gaming? I was told as much: but I refused to believe it; for in your circumstances the thing seemed too senseless and irrational.’

  ‘My dear girl,’ said Schroll, ‘consider – ’

  ‘Consider! what’s the use of considering? what is there to consider about?’ interrupted Madame von Schrollshausen: and, recollecting the gay cavalier whom she had met at the inn, she now, for the first time, proposed a separation herself. ‘Very well,’ said her husband, ‘I am content.’ ‘So am I,’ said his father-in-law, who joined them at that moment. ‘But take notice that first of all I must have paid over to me an adequate sum of money for the creditable support of my daughter: else – ’

  Here he took Schroll aside, and the old threat of revealing the murder so utterly disheartened him, that at length in despair he consented to his terms.

  Once more, therefore, the dice were to be tried; but only for the purpose of accomplishing the separation: that over, Schroll resolved to seek a livelihood in any other way, even if it were as a day-labourer. The stipulated sum was at length all collected within a few hundred dollars; and Schroll was already looking out for some old disused well into which he might throw the dice, and then have it filled up; for even a river seemed to him a hiding-place not sufficiently secure for such instruments of misery.

  Remarkable it was on the very night when the last arrears were to be obtained of his father-in-law’s demand – a night which Schroll had anticipated with so much bitter anxiety – that he became unusually gloomy and dejected. He was particularly disturbed by the countenance of a stranger, who for several days running had lost considerable sums. The man called himself Stutz; but he had a most striking resemblance to his old comrade Weber, who had been shot at the sand-hill; and differed indeed in nothing but in the advantage of blooming youth. Scarce had he leisure to recover from the shock which this spectacle occasioned, when a second occurred. About midnight another man, whom nobody knew, came up to the gaming-table, and interrupted the play by recounting an event which he represented as having just happened. A certain man, he said, had made a covenant with some person or other that they call the Evil One, – or what is it you call him? – and by means of this covenant he had obtained a steady run of good luck at play. ‘Well, sir,’ he went on, ‘and would you believe it, the other day he began to repent of this covenant; my gentleman wanted to rat, he wanted to rat, sir. Only, first of all, he resolved privately to make up a certain sum of money. Ah, the poor idiot! he little knew whom he had to deal with: the Evil One, as they choose to call him, was not a man to let himself be swindled in that manner. No, no, my good friend. I saw – I mean, the Evil One saw – what was going on betimes; and he secured the swindler just as he fancied himself on the point of pocketing the last arrears of the sum wanted.’

  The company began to laugh so loudly at this pleasant fiction, as they conceived it, that Madame von Schrollshausen was attracted from the adjoining room. The story was repeated to her; and she was the more delighted with it, because in the relater she recognized the gay cavalier whom she had met at the inn. Everybody laughed again, except two persons, – Stutz and Schroll. The first had again lost all the money in his purse; and the second was so confounded by the story, that he could not forbear staring with fixed eyes on the stranger, who stood over against him. His consternation increased when he perceived that the stranger’s countenance seemed to alter at every moment; and that nothing remained unchanged in it, except the cold expression of inhuman scorn with which he perseveringly regarded himself.

  At length he could endure this no longer: and he remarked, therefore, upon Stutz again losing a bet, that it was now late; that Mr Stutz was too much in a run of bad luck; and that on these accounts he would defer the further pursuit of their play until another day. And thereupon he put the dice into his pocket.

  ‘Stop!’ said the strange cavalier; and the voice froze Schroll with horror; for he knew too well to whom that dreadful tone and those fiery eyes belonged.

  ‘Stop!’ he said again; ‘produce your dice!’ And tremblingly Schroll threw them upon the table.

  ‘Ah! I thought as much,’ said the stranger; ‘they are loaded dice!’ So saying, he called for a hammer, and struck one of them in two. ‘See!’ said he to Stutz, holding out to him the broken dice, which in fact seemed loaded with lead. ‘Stop! vile impostor!’ exclaimed the young man, as Schroll was preparing to quit the room in the greatest confusion; and he threw the dice at him, one of which lodged in his right eye. The tumult increased; the police came in; and Stutz was apprehended, as Schroll’s wound assumed a very dangerous appearance.

  Next day Schroll was in a violent fever. He asked repeatedly for Stutz. But Stutz had been committed to close confinement; it having been found that he had travelled with false passes. He now confessed that he was one of the sons of the mutineer Weber; that his sickly mother had died soon after his father’s execution; and that himself and his brother, left without the control of guardians, and without support, had taken to bad courses.

  On hearing this report, Schroll rapidly worsened; and he unfolded to a young clergyman his whole unfortunate history. About midnight, he sent again in great haste for the clergyman. He came. But at sight of him Schroll stretched out his hands in extremity of horror, and waved him away from his presence; but before his signals were complied with, the wretched man had expired in convulsions.

  From his horror at the sight of the young clergyman, and from the astonishment of the clergyman himself, on arriving and hearing that he had already been seen in the sick-room, it was inferred that his figure had been assumed for fiendish purposes. The dice and the strange cavalier disappeared at the same time with their wretched victim, and were seen no more.

  CAMERA OBSCURA by Basil Copper

  Basil Copper (1924-2013) was a prolific writer of novels and short stories, including the series of hard-boiled thrillers featuring Los Angele
s detective Mike Faraday and several works featuring the character Solar Pons, a pastiche of Sherlock Holmes. Three of his novels – the Lovecraftian gem The Great White Space (1974), the Victorian gaslight Gothic Necropolis (1980), and the old-fashioned werewolf novel The House of the Wolf (1983) – have been reissued by Valancourt Books. His horror stories in particular were highly regarded, with Colin Wilson calling him ‘one of the last great traditionalists of English fiction’ and Michael and Mollie Hardwick declaring him to be ‘in the same class as M. R. James and Algernon Blackwood’. ‘Camera Obscura’, one of his earliest tales, first appeared in the sixth volume of Herbert Van Thal’s legendary Pan Book of Horror Stories series and is perhaps one of the most outright chilling tales in this volume.

  As Mr Sharsted pushed his way up the narrow, fussily conceived lanes that led to the older part of the town, he was increasingly aware that there was something about Mr Gingold­ he didn’t like. It was not only the old-fashioned, outdated air of courtesy that irritated the moneylender but the gentle, absent-minded way in which he continually put off settlement. Almost as if money were of no importance.

  The moneylender hesitated even to say this to himself; the thought was a blasphemy that rocked the very foundations of his world. He pursed his lips grimly and set himself to mount the ill-paved and flinty roadway that bisected the hilly terrain of this remote part of the town.

  The moneylender’s narrow, lopsided face was perspiring under his hard hat; lank hair started from beneath the brim, which lent him a curious aspect. This, combined with the green-tinted spectacles he wore, gave him a sinister, decayed look, like someone long dead. The thought may have occurred to the few, scattered passers-by he met in the course of his ascent, for almost to a person they gave one cautious glance and then hurried on as though eager to be rid of his presence.

  He turned in at a small courtyard and stood in the shelter of a great old ruined church to catch his breath; his heart was thumping uncomfortably in the confines of his narrow chest and his breath rasped in his throat. Assuredly, he was out of condition, he told himself. Long hours of sedentary work huddled over his accounts were taking their toll; he really must get out more and take some exercise.