“I think you’re Mr. Ritson,” he said.
The other turned bitter, beady eyes upon him, clamped the thin mouth between sharp nose and sharp chin. “So you know who I am,” came the grumpiest of voices. “I know who you are, too—this Thurston fellow who’s come to poke into what ain’t none of his business, huh? And you want to ask me something.”
“Yes,” said Thunstone evenly. “I thought I’d ask you what you’d like to drink.”
“Eh?” The beady eyes quartered him, then gazed into an empty glass. “I’ll have what you’re having.”
The bartender brought the drinks. Ritson gulped at his. Thunstone lifted his own glass but did not sip.
“I’ve been told that you know past history here, Mr. Ritson,” he tried again. “About the case of a man named Marrowby, long ago hanged for murder and buried here.”
Skimpy gray brows drew down above the unfriendly eyes. “Why in hell should I tell you a word of what I know?”
“If you don’t,” said Thunstone, “I’ll have to go to Mr. Packer, the clerk.”
“Packer?” Ritson squealed. “What does he know? Hell, mister, he wasn’t even born here. He doesn’t know old-time town history, he just sort of mumbles about it.”
“But if you won’t talk to me, I must look for information wherever I can get it.”
“What information could Packer give you? Look here, my folks was here ever since the town was built, away back before the Revolution. Sure I know about the Marrowby thing. When I was a boy, my great-grandmother told me what she’d heard from her grandfather, who was young here at the time—better than two hundred and forty years back, I calculate.”
Ritson swigged down the rest of his drink.
“Bring this gentleman another,” Thunstone told the bartender, putting down some money. “Now, Mr. Ritson, what did you hear from your great-grandmother?”
“It happened long lifetimes ago. They’d had Marrowby up for his magic doings—he could witch people’s dinners off their tables to his house, he’d made a girl leave her true love to come to him. All the law gave him for that was just a year in the jailhouse.”
“But he was hanged at last,” said Thunstone.
“That he was, higher than Haman,” nodded Ritson above his second drink. “The way it was told to me, he killed a preacher—can’t recollect the preacher’s name—who’d read him out of the church.”
“The preacher’s name was Walford,” supplied Thunstone.
“Whatever the name was, he died of a stab in the heart. And at Marrowby’s house, they found a wax dummy of the preacher, with a needle stuck in it.”
“Where was Marrowby’s house?” asked Thunstone.
“Why, out yonder where the Trumbull house is, where them young folks took over. Maybe the charge wouldn’t have stood, but Marrowby pleaded guilty in court. And they built a scaffold in the courthouse yard and strung him up.” Ritson drank. “I heard the whole tale. He stood up there and confessed to black magic, confessed to murder. He said he had to repent, or else he’d go to hell. He warned the folks who watched.”
“What was his confession?” Thunstone asked.
“Seemed like he warned all who were there not to follow black magic. Said he must confess and repent. And he said a thing I don’t know the meaning of.”
“Here,” said Thunstone, “I haven’t touched this drink.” He shoved the glass to Ritson’s hand. “What did he say?”
“It didn’t make sense. He warned them not to be familiar.”
“Familiar?” echoed Thunstone, interested.
“Said, ‘Let familiar alone’. The like of that—strange words. Said, ‘Rouse him not.’ And swung off.”
“And that’s all?”
“Yes. They buried him outside the churchyard, and drove an ash stake into his heart to make sure be wouldn’t rise up. That’s the whole tale. But don’t you go writing it.”
“I won’t write it,” Thunstone promised him.
“Mind that you don’t. Now, I’ve told you what I heard, and I hope it’s enough.”
“I hope the same,” said Thunstone. “Will you excuse me? Good afternoon.”
“What’s good about it?” snorted Ritson, halfway through his third drink.
*
Thunstone went to his motel and changed into rougher clothes, chino slacks and a tan shirt and a light brown jacket. He thrust a flashlight into the jacket pocket. Around his neck hung a tarnished copper crucifix. He found a lunch stand and bought a plastic bucket of barbecued ribs, a container of slaw, and bottles of beer. Then he drove to the Bracy house.
The Bracys welcomed him in and enthused hungrily over the barbecue. “It just so happens that I’m baking cornbread,” said Prue.
“That will go well with it.”
As the sun sank toward the trees, they ate with good appetite. Prue asked about Thunstone’s crucifix, and he told her he had inherited it from his mother. When they had finished eating, Prue carried the dishes to the kitchen and came back with blankets over her arm.
“Will these be all right for tonight?”
“They’ll be splendid, many a night I’ve lain on harder beds than your sofa. But before I do that, there’s business to be done outside, as soon as it gets dark.”
“I’ll come along,” volunteered Bill, but Thunstone shook his massive head.
“No, two of us out there will be a complication,” he said quietly. “This business will require careful handling, and some luck and playing by ear.”
“Whatever you say,” granted Bill, and Prue looked relieved.
“I won’t promise to win ahead of things,” went on Thunstone, “but I’ll be specially equipped. Look here.”
He grasped the shank of his cane in his left hand and turned the crook with his right. The cane parted at the silver ring, and he drew out a lean, pale-shining blade.
“That’s a beautiful thing,” breathed Prue. “It must be old.”
“As I understand, it was forged by St. Dunstan, something like a thousand years ago. See what these words say at the edge?”
Both Bracys leaned to study. Bill moved his bearded lips soundlessly.
“It looks like Latin,” he said. “I can’t make it out.”
“Sic pereant inimici tui, Domine,” Thunstone read out the inscription. “So perish all thine enemies, O Lord,” he translated. “It’s a silver blade, and St. Dunstan was a silversmith, and faced and defeated Satan himself.”
Bill was impressed. “That must be the only thing of its kind in the world,” he ventured.
“No, there’s another.” Thunstone smiled under his mustache. “It belongs to a friend of mine, Judge Keith Hilary Pursuivant. Once I defeated a vampire with this blade, and twice I’ve faced werewolves with it. As well as other things.”
“I don’t feel right, letting you go out while I stay here,” said Bill, almost pleadingly.
“Do me a favor and stay here with Prue,” Thunstone bade him. “Stay inside, even if you hear trouble out there.”
He got to his feet, the bared blade in his hand.
“It’s dark now,” he said. “Time for strange things to stir.”
“Stir?” Bill echoed him, his band to his bearded chin. “Will that old sorcerer stir, the one they called Marrowby?”
“Not as I see it,” said Thunstone. “Not if they drove an ashen stake through him to keep him quiet in his grave. No, something else I judge. I expect to see you later, when things are quieter.”
He went to the front door and through it, and closed it behind him.
*
Night had crawled swiftly down around the house. Thunstone’s left hand rummaged out his flashlight and turned it on, while his right hand carried the silver blade low at his side. The light showed him the grass of the yard, the corner of the house. He went around to the open space at the back. He heard something, a noise like a half-strangled growl. It led him toward the circle, while the bright beam of the flash quested before him. He came to where the ring
of hard brownness bordered the soft, damp greenness. Again the noise stole, upward, the strangled snarl of it.
Thunstone stooped and directed the beam of the light, then thrust the mess with the keen point of his blade. Powerfully he stirred it around.
“All right,” he said, hoping his words would be understood. “All right. Come out and let’s settle things.”
The snarl rose to a reedy shrillness, and he felt a clutch on his silver weapon. He drew it out, and thought the edge sliced something. Louder rose the voice, a true scream now, and something showed itself there in the swampiness.
A lump like a head rose into view, with two larger lumps like shoulders just below it. Thunstone made a long, smooth stride backward, keeping his light trained on what was there. Two slab-like paws caught the bald rim of the circle, and a great, shaggy shape humped itself up and out and stood erect before him.
It was taller even than Thunstone, broader even than he was. And it looked nothing natural. In the dancing light of the torch, it seemed to be thatched over with dark, wet fronds and tussocks. Its head was draped with such stuff, through which gleamed two closely set eyes, pale as white-hot iron.
A mouth opened in the tangle and out came a rumbling shout, like the roar of a great beast. It slouched heavily toward him, on two feet like shovels.
Thunstone slid warily to one side, keeping the beam of the light upon the creature, at the same time poising his blade.
“So here you’ve stayed,” he said to it. “Marrowby repented, forswore you. He’s dead, but you’re alive. You’re evil.”
It roared again. Its great, long forelimbs rose like derricks. Thunstone saw talons, pale and deadly.
“Well, come on,” said Thunstone, his voice quiet and steady. “Come on and see what you can do, and what I can do.”
It approached in a squattering charge. Thunstone sidestepped at the last instant and sped a slashing cut at the bulk as it floundered past. This time it screamed, so shrilly that his ears rang. It swung around toward him, and he turned the ray of his flash back upon it.
“Hurt you, did I?” said Thunstone. “That’s the beginning. Come again. Maybe I won’t dodge this time.”
It rushed at him with ungainly speed. He stood his ground. As it hurtled almost upon him, he lunged, a smooth fencer’s lunge.
His point went home where its chest should be. The blade went smoothly, sleekly in, with a whisper of sound. It penetrated to the very hilt, and liquid gushed upon Thunstone’s hand. He smelled an odor as of ancient decay.
A louder, more piercing scream than before. The weedy bulk almost forced him back. Then, abruptly, it fell away and down, and as it went he cleared his point with a strong, dragging pull. He stood over his adversary, shining his light to see it thrash and flounder on the ground.
“Did that do your business?” he asked it. “Perhaps not quite. Here, I’ll do this.”
He probed with the point where the neck would be, and lifted the blade and drove it down with all his strength, as he would swing an axe.
The head-lump went bounding away on the coarse grass, a full dozen feet. The body slumped flaccidly and lay still.
“Sic pereant inimici tui, Domine,” intoned Thunstone, like a priest saying a prayer for the dead. He stood tense and watched. No motion. He walked to where the head lay. It, too, was as silent as a weed-tufted rock.
A moment, and then he turned back and went to the house, finding his way with the flash beam. His feet felt tired and heavy as he mounted the steps. Pocketing his flashlight again, he opened the door.
Bill and Prue Bracy stood inside, arms around each other, eyes strained wide in terror.
“It’s all over,” Thunstone comforted them, and went to the sofa and sat down heavily. He fished out a handkerchief and wiped his silver blade. The liquid on it was thick and slimy, like blood, but it was green and not red.
“When old Mr. Ritson said that Marrowby had warned about something familiar, I felt pretty sure,” he said.
“F-familiar?” stammered Prue.
“A sorcerer makes his pact with the powers of evil,” said Thunstone, “and from the powers of evil he receives a familiar. Marrowby repented and died repenting, but his familiar stayed here, stayed hidden, without guidance, but wishing to do evil. I’ve put an end to that.”
“What was it?” wondered Bill Bracy.
“It’s hard to describe. When it’s light tomorrow morning, maybe you and I will take spades and bury it. It’s not pretty, I promise you that. But its evil is finished. I know words to say over its grave to ensure that.”
He smiled up at the blank-faced Prue.
“My dear, could we have a fire there on the hearth? I want to burn this filthy handkerchief.”
Still smiling, he slid the cleaned blade into the cane again.
Titus Crow
DE MARIGNY’S CLOCK
by BRIAN LUMLEY
Titus Crow is tall and broad-shouldered, and it is plain to see that in his younger days he had been a handsome man. Now his hair has greyed a little and his eyes, though they are still very bright and observant, bear the imprint of many years spent exploring rarely trodden paths of mysterious and obscure learning.
During World War II, as a young man, he was employed by the War Department; his work in London was concerned with cracking Nazi codes and advising on Hitler’s predilection for the occult: those dark forces which Der Führer attempted to enlist in his campaign for world domination.
Following the end of the war, he fought Satan wherever he found him and with whichever tools of his trade were available to him at the time. Crow became a world-acknowledged master in such subjects as magic, specifically the so-called “Black Books” of various necromancers and wizards, and their doubtful arts; in archaeology, palaeontology, cryptography, antiques and antiquities in general; in obscure or avant-garde works of art—with particular reference to such as Aubrey Beardsley, Chandler Davies, Hieronymous Bosch, Richard Upton Pickman, etc.—in the dimly forgotten or neglected mythologies of Earth’s prime, and in anthropology in general, to mention but a handful.
Brian Lumley’s Titus Crow made his debut in ‘Billy’s Oak’ in the sixth issue of August Derleth’s magazine/catalogue The Arkham Collector (Winter, 1970). He made another appearance the following issue in ‘An Item of Supporting Evidence’ (Summer, 1970) and both stories were included in the author’s first book, the Arkham House collection The Caller of the Black (1971), which also featured Crow in the title story plus ‘The Mirror of Nitocris’ and ‘De Marigny’s Clock’.
Next, Crow and his assistant Henri-Laurent de Marigny became the main protagonists of a trio of Lovecraftian novels: The Burrowers Beneath (1974), The Transition of Titus Crow (1975) and The Clock of Dreams (1978). Two more Crow stories, ‘The Viking’s Stone’ and ‘Darghud’s Doll’, were included in Lumley’s second Arkham House collection, The Horror at Oakdeene and Others (1977), and the novellas ‘Name and Number’ and ‘Lord of the Worms’ appeared in the July 1982 Kadath and Weirdbook #17 (1983), respectively.
De Marigny himself was the hero of In the Moons of Borea (1979), a sequel to Spawn of the Winds (1978), and a coda to the series, ‘The Black Recalled’, was published in the World Fantasy Convention 1983 souvenir book. All the Titus Crow stories are collected in The Compleat Crow (1987).
ANY INTRUSIONS OTHER than those condoned or invited upon the privacy of Titus Crow at his bungalow retreat, Blowne House, on the outskirts of London, were almost always automatically classified by that gentleman as open acts of warfare. In the first place for anyone to make it merely to the doors of Crow’s abode without an invitation—often even with one—was a sure sign of the appearance on the scene of a forceful and dogmatic character; qualities which were almost guaranteed to clash with Crow’s own odd nature. For Blowne House seemed to exude an atmosphere all its own, an exhalation of impending something which usually kept the place and its grounds free even from birds and mice; and it was quite unusual for Crow himself to invi
te visitors. He kept strange hours and busied himself with stranger matters and, frankly, was almost antisocial even in his most “engaging” moments. Over the years the reasons for this apparent inhospitality had grown, or so it seemed to Crow, increasingly clear-cut. For one thing, his library contained quite a large number of rare and highly costly books, many of them long out of print and some of them never officially in print, and London apparently abounded with unscrupulous “collectors” of such items. For another his studies, usually in occult matters and obscure archaeological, antiquarian or anthropological research, were such as required the most concentrated attention and personal involvement, completely precluding any disturbances from outside sources.
Not that the present infringement came while Crow was engaged with any of his many and varied activities—it did not; it came in the middle of the night, rousing him from deep and dreamless slumbers engendered by a long day of frustrated and unrewarding work on de Marigny’s clock. And Titus Crow was not amused.
“What the hell’s going on here? Who are you and what are you doing in my house?” He had sat bolt upright in bed almost as soon as the light went on. His forehead had come straight into contact with a wicked-looking automatic held in the fist of a most unbeautiful thug. The man was about five feet eight inches in height, thick set, steady on legs which were short in comparison with the rest of his frame. He had a small scar over his left eye and a mouth that slanted downward—cynically, Crow supposed—from left to right. Most unbeautiful.
“Just take it easy, guv, and there’ll be no bother,” the thug said, his voice soft but ugly.
Crow’s eyes flicked across the room to where a second hoodlum stood, just within the bedroom door, a nervous grin twisting his pallid features.
“Find anything, Pasty?” the man with the pistol questioned, his eyes never leaving Crow’s face for a second.
“Nothing, Joe,” came the answer, “a few old books and bit of silver, nothing worth our while—yet. He’ll tell us where it is, though, won’t you, chum?”
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