The House of Souls

The House of Souls Page 4

by Arthur Machen

  The Great God Pan

  I

  THE EXPERIMENT

  'I am glad you came, Clarke; very glad indeed. I was not sure you couldspare the time.'

  'I was able to make arrangements for a few days; things are not verylively just now. But have you no misgivings, Raymond? Is it absolutelysafe?'

  The two men were slowly pacing the terrace in front of Dr. Raymond'shouse. The sun still hung above the western mountain-line, but it shonewith a dull red glow that cast no shadows, and all the air was quiet; asweet breath came from the great wood on the hillside above, and withit, at intervals, the soft murmuring call of the wild doves. Below, inthe long lovely valley, the river wound in and out between the lonelyhills, and, as the sun hovered and vanished into the west, a faint mist,pure white, began to rise from the banks. Dr. Raymond turned sharply tohis friend.

  'Safe? Of course it is. In itself the operation is a perfectly simpleone; any surgeon could do it.'

  'And there is no danger at any other stage?'

  'None; absolutely no physical danger whatever, I give you my word. Youare always timid, Clarke, always; but you know my history. I havedevoted myself to transcendental medicine for the last twenty years. Ihave heard myself called quack and charlatan and impostor, but all thewhile I knew I was on the right path. Five years ago I reached the goal,and since then every day has been a preparation for what we shall doto-night.'

  'I should like to believe it is all true.' Clarke knit his brows, andlooked doubtfully at Dr. Raymond. 'Are you perfectly sure, Raymond, thatyour theory is not a phantasmagoria--a splendid vision, certainly, but amere vision after all?'

  Dr. Raymond stopped in his walk and turned sharply. He was a middle-agedman, gaunt and thin, of a pale yellow complexion, but as he answeredClarke and faced him, there was a flush on his cheek.

  'Look about you, Clarke. You see the mountain, and hill following afterhill, as wave on wave, you see the woods and orchards, the fields ofripe corn, and the meadows reaching to the reed-beds by the river. Yousee me standing here beside you, and hear my voice; but I tell you thatall these things--yes, from that star that has just shone out in the skyto the solid ground beneath our feet--I say that all these are butdreams and shadows: the shadows that hide the real world from our eyes.There _is_ a real world, but it is beyond this glamour and this vision,beyond these "chases in Arras, dreams in a career," beyond them all asbeyond a veil. I do not know whether any human being has ever liftedthat veil; but I do know, Clarke, that you and I shall see it liftedthis very night from before another's eyes. You may think all thisstrange nonsense; it may be strange, but it is true, and the ancientsknew what lifting the veil means. They called it seeing the god Pan.'

  Clarke shivered; the white mist gathering over the river was chilly.

  'It is wonderful indeed,' he said. 'We are standing on the brink of astrange world, Raymond, if what you say is true. I suppose the knife isabsolutely necessary?'

  'Yes; a slight lesion in the grey matter, that is all; a triflingrearrangement of certain cells, a microscopical alteration that wouldescape the attention of ninety-nine brain specialists out of a hundred.I don't want to bother you with "shop," Clarke; I might give you a massof technical detail which would sound very imposing, and would leave youas enlightened as you are now. But I suppose you have read, casually, inout-of-the-way corners of your paper, that immense strides have beenmade recently in the physiology of the brain. I saw a paragraph theother day about Digby's theory, and Browne Faber's discoveries. Theoriesand discoveries! Where they are standing now, I stood fifteen years ago,and I need not tell you that I have not been standing still for the lastfifteen years. It will be enough if I say that five years ago I made thediscovery to which I alluded when I said that then I reached the goal.After years of labour, after years of toiling and groping in the dark,after days and nights of disappointment and sometimes of despair, inwhich I used now and then to tremble and grow cold with the thought thatperhaps there were others seeking for what I sought, at last, after solong, a pang of sudden joy thrilled my soul, and I knew the long journeywas at an end. By what seemed then and still seems a chance, thesuggestion of a moment's idle thought followed up upon familiar linesand paths that I had tracked a hundred times already, the great truthburst upon me, and I saw, mapped out in lines of light, a whole world, asphere unknown; continents and islands, and great oceans in which noship has sailed (to my belief) since a Man first lifted up his eyes andbeheld the sun, and the stars of heaven, and the quiet earth beneath.You will think all this high-flown language, Clarke, but it is hard tobe literal. And yet; I do not know whether what I am hinting at cannotbe set forth in plain and homely terms. For instance, this world of oursis pretty well girded now with the telegraph wires and cables; thought,with something less than the speed of thought, flashes from sunrise tosunset, from north to south, across the floods and the desert places.Suppose that an electrician of to-day were suddenly to perceive that heand his friends have merely been playing with pebbles and mistaking themfor the foundations of the world; suppose that such a man saw uttermostspace lie open before the current, and words of men flash forth to thesun and beyond the sun into the systems beyond, and the voices ofarticulate-speaking men echo in the waste void that bounds our thought.As analogies go, that is a pretty good analogy of what I have done; youcan understand now a little of what I felt as I stood here one evening;it was a summer evening, and the valley looked much as it does now; Istood here, and saw before me the unutterable, the unthinkable gulf thatyawns profound between two worlds, the world of matter and the world ofspirit; I saw the great empty deep stretch dim before me, and in thatinstant a bridge of light leapt from the earth to the unknown shore,and the abyss was spanned. You may look in Browne Faber's book, if youlike, and you will find that to the present day men of science areunable to account for the presence, or to specify the functions of acertain group of nerve-cells in the brain. That group is, as it were,land to let, a mere waste place for fanciful theories. I am not in theposition of Browne Faber and the specialists, I am perfectly instructedas to the possible functions of those nerve-centers in the scheme ofthings. With a touch I can bring them into play, with a touch, I say, Ican set free the current, with a touch I can complete the communicationbetween this world of sense and----we shall be able to finish thesentence later on. Yes, the knife is necessary; but think what thatknife will effect. It will level utterly the solid wall of sense, andprobably, for the first time since man was made, a spirit will gaze on aspirit-world. Clarke, Mary will see the god Pan!'

  'But you remember what you wrote to me? I thought it would be requisitethat she----'

  He whispered the rest into the doctor's ear.

  'Not at all, not at all. That is nonsense, I assure you. Indeed, it isbetter as it is; I am quite certain of that.'

  'Consider the matter well, Raymond. It's a great responsibility.Something might go wrong; you would be a miserable man for the rest ofyour days.'

  'No, I think not, even if the worst happened. As you know, I rescuedMary from the gutter, and from almost certain starvation, when she was achild; I think her life is mine, to use as I see fit. Come, it isgetting late; we had better go in.'

  Dr. Raymond led the way into the house, through the hall, and down along dark passage. He took a key from his pocket and opened a heavydoor, and motioned Clarke into his laboratory. It had once been abilliard-room, and was lighted by a glass dome in the centre of theceiling, whence there still shone a sad grey light on the figure of thedoctor as he lit a lamp with a heavy shade and placed it on a table inthe middle of the room.

  Clarke looked about him. Scarcely a foot of wall remained bare; therewere shelves all around laden with bottles and phials of all shapes andcolours, and at one end stood a little Chippendale bookcase. Raymondpointed to this.

  'You see that parchment Oswald Crollius? He was one of the first to showme the way, though I don't think he ever found it himself. That is astrange saying of his: "In every grain of wheat there lies
hidden thesoul of a star."'

  There was not much of furniture in the laboratory. The table in thecentre, a stone slab with a drain in one corner, the two armchairs onwhich Raymond and Clarke were sitting; that was all, except anodd-looking chair at the furthest end of the room. Clarke looked at it,and raised his eyebrows.

  'Yes, that is the chair,' said Raymond. 'We may as well place it inposition,' He got up and wheeled the chair to the light, and beganraising and lowering it, letting down the seat, setting the back atvarious angles, and adjusting the foot-rest. It looked comfortableenough, and Clarke passed his hand over the soft green velvet, as thedoctor manipulated the levers.

  'Now, Clarke, make yourself quite comfortable. I have a couple ofhours' work before me; I was obliged to leave certain matters to thelast.'

  Raymond went to the stone slab, and Clarke watched him drearily as hebent over a row of phials and lit the flame under the crucible. Thedoctor had a small hand-lamp, shaded as the larger one, on a ledge abovehis apparatus, and Clarke, who sat in the shadows, looked down the greatdreary room, wondering at the bizarre effects of brilliant light andundefined darkness contrasting with one another. Soon he becameconscious of an odd odour, at first the merest suggestion of odour, inthe room; and as it grew more decided he felt surprised that he was notreminded of the chemist's shop or the surgery. Clarke found himself idlyendeavouring to analyse the sensation, and, half conscious, he began tothink of a day, fifteen years ago, that he had spent in roaming throughthe woods and meadows near his old home. It was a burning day at thebeginning of August, the heat had dimmed the outlines of all things andall distances with a faint mist, and people who observed the thermometerspoke of an abnormal register, of a temperature that was almosttropical. Strangely that wonderful hot day of the 'fifties rose up inClarke's imagination; the sense of dazzling all-pervading sunlightseemed to blot out the shadows and the lights of the laboratory, and hefelt again the heated air beating in gusts about his face, saw theshimmer rising from the turf, and heard the myriad murmur of the summer.

  'I hope the smell doesn't annoy you, Clarke; there's nothing unwholesomeabout it. It may make you a bit sleepy, that's all.'

  Clarke heard the words quite distinctly, and knew that Raymond wasspeaking to him, but for the life of him he could not rouse himself fromhis lethargy. He could only think of the lonely walk he had takenfifteen years ago; it was his last look at the fields and woods he hadknown since he was a child, and now it all stood out in brilliant light,as a picture, before him. Above all there came to his nostrils the scentof summer, the smell of flowers mingled, and the odour of the woods, ofcool shaded places, deep in the green depths, drawn forth by the sun'sheat; and the scent of the good earth, lying as it were with armsstretched forth, and smiling lips, overpowered all. His fancies made himwander, as he had wandered long ago, from the fields into the wood,tracking a little path between the shining undergrowth of beech-trees;and the trickle of water dropping from the limestone rock sounded as aclear melody in the dream. Thoughts began to go astray and to minglewith other recollections; the beech alley was transformed to a pathbeneath ilex-trees, and here and there a vine climbed from bough tobough, and sent up waving tendrils and drooped with purple grapes, andthe sparse grey-green leaves of a wild olive-tree stood out against thedark shadows of the ilex. Clarke, in the deep folds of dream, wasconscious that the path from his father's house had led him into anundiscovered country, and he was wondering at the strangeness of it all,when suddenly, in place of the hum and murmur of the summer, an infinitesilence seemed to fall on all things, and the wood was hushed, and for amoment of time he stood face to face there with a presence, that wasneither man nor beast, neither the living nor the dead, but all thingsmingled, the form of all things but devoid of all form. And in thatmoment, the sacrament of body and soul was dissolved, and a voice seemedto cry 'Let us go hence,' and then the darkness of darkness beyond thestars, the darkness of everlasting.

  When Clarke woke up with a start he saw Raymond pouring a few drops ofsome oily fluid into a green phial, which he stoppered tightly.

  'You have been dozing,' he said; 'the journey must have tired you out.It is done now. I am going to fetch Mary; I shall be back in tenminutes.'

  Clarke lay back in his chair and wondered. It seemed as if he had butpassed from one dream into another. He half expected to see the walls ofthe laboratory melt and disappear, and to awake in London, shuddering athis own sleeping fancies. But at last the door opened, and the doctorreturned, and behind him came a girl of about seventeen, dressed all inwhite. She was so beautiful that Clarke did not wonder at what thedoctor had written to him. She was blushing now over face and neck andarms, but Raymond seemed unmoved.

  'Mary,' he said, 'the time has come. You are quite free. Are you willingto trust yourself to me entirely?'

  'Yes, dear.'

  'You hear that, Clarke? You are my witness. Here is the chair, Mary. Itis quite easy. Just sit in it and lean back. Are you ready?'

  'Yes, dear, quite ready. Give me a kiss before you begin.'

  The doctor stooped and kissed her mouth, kindly enough. 'Now shut youreyes,' he said. The girl closed her eyelids, as if she were tired, andlonged for sleep, and Raymond held the green phial to her nostrils. Herface grew white, whiter than her dress; she struggled faintly, and thenwith the feeling of submission strong within her, crossed her arms uponher breast as a little child about to say her prayers. The bright lightof the lamp beat full upon her, and Clarke watched changes fleeting overthat face as the changes of the hills when the summer clouds floatacross the sun. And then she lay all white and still, and the doctorturned up one of her eyelids. She was quite unconscious. Raymond pressedhard on one of the levers and the chair instantly sank back. Clarke sawhim cutting away a circle, like a tonsure, from her hair, and the lampwas moved nearer. Raymond took a small glittering instrument from alittle case, and Clarke turned away shuddering. When he looked again thedoctor was binding up the wound he had made.

  'She will awake in five minutes.' Raymond was still perfectly cool.'There is nothing more to be done; we can only wait.'

  The minutes passed slowly; they could hear a slow, heavy ticking. Therewas an old clock in the passage. Clarke felt sick and faint; his kneesshook beneath him, he could hardly stand.

  Suddenly, as they watched, they heard a long-drawn sigh, and suddenlydid the colour that had vanished return to the girl's cheeks, andsuddenly her eyes opened. Clarke quailed before them. They shone with anawful light, looking far away, and a great wonder fell upon her face,and her hands stretched out as if to touch what was invisible; but in aninstant the wonder faded, and gave place to the most awful terror. Themuscles of her face were hideously convulsed, she shook from head tofoot; the soul seemed struggling and shuddering within the house offlesh. It was a horrible sight, and Clarke rushed forward, as she fellshrieking to the floor.

  Three days later Raymond took Clarke to Mary's bedside. She was lyingwide-awake, rolling her head from side to side, and grinning vacantly.

  'Yes,' said the doctor, still quite cool, 'it is a great pity; she is ahopeless idiot. However, it could not be helped; and, after all, she hasseen the Great God Pan.'

  II

  MR. CLARKE'S MEMOIRS

  Mr. Clarke, the gentleman chosen by Dr. Raymond to witness the strangeexperiment of the god Pan, was a person in whose character caution andcuriosity were oddly mingled; in his sober moments he thought of theunusual and the eccentric with undisguised aversion, and yet, deep inhis heart, there was a wide-eyed inquisitiveness with respect to all themore recondite and esoteric elements in the nature of men. The lattertendency had prevailed when he accepted Raymond's invitation, for thoughhis considered judgment had always repudiated the doctor's theories asthe wildest nonsense, yet he secretly hugged a belief in fantasy, andwould have rejoiced to see that belief confirmed. The horrors that hewitnessed in the dreary laboratory were to a certain extent salutary; hewas conscious of being involved in an affair not altogether reputable,and for
many years afterwards he clung bravely to the commonplace, andrejected all occasions of occult investigation. Indeed, on somehom[oe]opathic principle, he for some time attended the seances ofdistinguished mediums, hoping that the clumsy tricks of these gentlemenwould make him altogether disgusted with mysticism of every kind, butthe remedy, though caustic, was not efficacious. Clarke knew that hestill pined for the unseen, and little by little, the old passion beganto reassert itself, as the face of Mary, shuddering and convulsed withan unknowable terror, faded slowly from his memory. Occupied all day inpursuits both serious and lucrative, the temptation to relax in theevening was too great, especially in the winter months, when the firecast a warm glow over his snug bachelor apartment, and a bottle of somechoice claret stood ready by his elbow. His dinner digested, he wouldmake a brief pretence of reading the evening paper, but the merecatalogue of news soon palled upon him, and Clarke would find himselfcasting glances of warm desire in the direction of an old Japanesebureau, which stood at a pleasant distance from the hearth. Like a boybefore a jam-closet, for a few minutes he would hover indecisive, butlust always prevailed, and Clarke ended by drawing up his chair,lighting a candle, and sitting down before the bureau. Its pigeonholesand drawers teemed with documents on the most morbid subjects, and inthe well reposed a large manuscript volume, in which he had painfullyentered the gems of his collection. Clarke had a fine contempt forpublished literature; the most ghostly story ceased to interest him ifit happened to be printed; his sole pleasure was in the reading,compiling, and rearranging what he called his 'Memoirs to prove theExistence of the Devil,' and engaged in this pursuit the evening seemedto fly and the night appeared too short.

  On one particular evening, an ugly December night, black with fog, andraw with frost, Clarke hurried over his dinner, and scarcely deigned toobserve his customary ritual of taking up the paper and laying it downagain. He paced two or three times up and down the room, and opened thebureau, stood still a moment, and sat down. He leant back, absorbed inone of those dreams to which he was subject, and at length drew out hisbook, and opened it at the last entry. There were three or four pagesdensely covered with Clarke's round, set penmanship, and at thebeginning he had written in a somewhat larger hand:

  Singular Narrative told me by my Friend, Dr. Phillips. He assures me that all the facts related therein are strictly and wholly True, but refuses to give either the Surnames of the Persons concerned, or the Place where these Extraordinary Events occurred.

  Mr. Clarke began to read over the account for the tenth time, glancingnow and then at the pencil notes he had made when it was told him by hisfriend. It was one of his humours to pride himself on a certain literaryability; he thought well of his style, and took pains in arranging thecircumstances in dramatic order. He read the following story:--

  The persons concerned in this statement are Helen V., who, if she isstill alive, must now be a woman of twenty-three, Rachel M., sincedeceased, who was a year younger than the above, and Trevor W., animbecile, aged eighteen. These persons were at the period of the storyinhabitants of a village on the borders of Wales, a place of someimportance in the time of the Roman occupation, but now a scatteredhamlet, of not more than five hundred souls. It is situated on risingground, about six miles from the sea, and is sheltered by a large andpicturesque forest.

  Some eleven years ago, Helen V. came to the village under ratherpeculiar circumstances. It is understood that she, being an orphan, wasadopted in her infancy by a distant relative, who brought her up in hisown house till she was twelve years old. Thinking, however, that itwould be better for the child to have playmates of her own age, headvertised in several local papers for a good home in a comfortablefarmhouse for a girl of twelve, and this advertisement was answered byMr. R., a well-to-do farmer in the above-mentioned village. Hisreferences proving satisfactory, the gentleman sent his adopted daughterto Mr. R., with a letter, in which he stipulated that the girl shouldhave a room to herself, and stated that her guardians need be at notrouble in the matter of education, as she was already sufficientlyeducated for the position in life which she would occupy. In fact, Mr.R. was given to understand that the girl was to be allowed to find herown occupations, and to spend her time almost as she liked. Mr. R. dulymet her at the nearest station, a town some seven miles away from hishouse, and seems to have remarked nothing extraordinary about thechild, except that she was reticent as to her former life and heradopted father. She was, however, of a very different type from theinhabitants of the village; her skin was a pale, clear olive, and herfeatures were strongly marked, and of a somewhat foreign character. Sheappears to have settled down easily enough into farmhouse life, andbecame a favourite with the children, who sometimes went with her on herrambles in the forest, for this was her amusement. Mr. R. states that hehas known her go out by herself directly after their early breakfast,and not return till after dusk, and that, feeling uneasy at a young girlbeing out alone for so many hours, he communicated with her adoptedfather, who replied in a brief note that Helen must do as she chose. Inthe winter, when the forest paths are impassable, she spent most of hertime in her bedroom, where she slept alone, according to theinstructions of her relative. It was on one of these expeditions to theforest that the first of the singular incidents with which this girl isconnected occurred, the date being about a year after her arrival at thevillage. The preceding winter had been remarkably severe, the snowdrifting to a great depth, and the frost continuing for an unexampledperiod, and the summer following was as noteworthy for its extreme heat.On one of the very hottest days in this summer, Helen V. left thefarmhouse for one of her long rambles in the forest, taking with her, asusual, some bread and meat for lunch. She was seen by some men in thefields making for the old Roman Road, a green causeway which traversesthe highest part of the wood, and they were astonished to observe thatthe girl had taken off her hat, though the heat of the sun was alreadyalmost tropical. As it happened, a labourer, Joseph W. by name, wasworking in the forest near the Roman Road, and at twelve o'clock hislittle son, Trevor, brought the man his dinner of bread and cheese.After the meal, the boy, who was about seven years old at the time, lefthis father at work, and, as he said, went to look for flowers in thewood, and the man, who could hear him shouting with delight over hisdiscoveries, felt no uneasiness. Suddenly, however, he was horrified athearing the most dreadful screams, evidently the result of great terror,proceeding from the direction in which his son had gone, and he hastilythrew down his tools and ran to see what had happened. Tracing his pathby the sound, he met the little boy, who was running headlong, and wasevidently terribly frightened, and on questioning him the man at lastelicited that after picking a posy of flowers he felt tired, and laydown on the grass and fell asleep. He was suddenly awakened, as hestated, by a peculiar noise, a sort of singing he called it, and onpeeping through the branches he saw Helen V. playing on the grass with a'strange naked man,' whom he seemed unable to describe more fully. Hesaid he felt dreadfully frightened, and ran away crying for his father.Joseph W. proceeded in the direction indicated by his son, and foundHelen V. sitting on the grass in the middle of a glade or open spaceleft by charcoal burners. He angrily charged her with frightening hislittle boy, but she entirely denied the accusation and laughed at thechild's story of a 'strange man,' to which he himself did not attachmuch credence. Joseph W. came to the conclusion that the boy had woke upwith a sudden fright, as children sometimes do, but Trevor persisted inhis story, and continued in such evident distress that at last hisfather took him home, hoping that his mother would be able to soothehim. For many weeks, however, the boy gave his parents much anxiety; hebecame nervous and strange in his manner, refusing to leave the cottageby himself, and constantly alarming the household by waking in the nightwith cries of 'The man in the wood! father! father!'

  In course of time, however, the impression seemed to have worn off, andabout three months later he accompanied his father to the house of agentleman in the neighbourhood, for whom Joseph W. occasionally
didwork. The man was shown into the study, and the little boy was leftsitting in the hall, and a few minutes later, while the gentleman wasgiving W. his instructions, they were both horrified by a piercingshriek and the sound of a fall, and rushing out they found the childlying senseless on the floor, his face contorted with terror. The doctorwas immediately summoned, and after some examination he pronounced thechild to be suffering from a kind of fit, apparently produced by asudden shock. The boy was taken to one of the bedrooms, and after sometime recovered consciousness, but only to pass into a conditiondescribed by the medical man as one of violent hysteria. The doctorexhibited a strong sedative, and in the course of two hours pronouncedhim fit to walk home, but in passing through the hall the paroxysms offright returned and with additional violence. The father perceived thatthe child was pointing at some object, and heard the old cry, 'The manin the wood,' and looking in the direction indicated saw a stone head ofgrotesque appearance, which had been built into the wall above one ofthe doors. It seems that the owner of the house had recently madealterations in his premises, and on digging the foundation for someoffices, the men had found a curious head, evidently of the Romanperiod, which had been placed in the hall in the manner described. Thehead is pronounced by the most experienced archaeologists of thedistrict to be that of a faun or satyr.[1]

  [1] Dr. Phillips tells me that he has seen the head in question, andassures me that he has never received such a vivid presentment ofintense evil.

  From whatever cause arising, this second shock seemed too severe for theboy Trevor, and at the present date he suffers from a weakness ofintellect, which gives but little promise of amending. The matter causeda good deal of sensation at the time, and the girl Helen was closelyquestioned by Mr. R., but to no purpose, she steadfastly denying thatshe had frightened or in any way molested Trevor.

  The second event with which this girl's name is connected took placeabout six years ago, and is of a still more extraordinary character.

  At the beginning of the summer of 1882 Helen contracted a friendship ofa peculiarly intimate character with Rachel M., the daughter of aprosperous farmer in the neighbourhood. This girl, who was a yearyounger than Helen, was considered by most people to be the prettier ofthe two, though Helen's features had to a great extent softened as shebecame older. The two girls, who were together on every availableopportunity, presented a singular contrast, the one with her clear,olive skin and almost Italian appearance, and the other of theproverbial red and white of our rural districts. It must be stated thatthe payments made to Mr. R. for the maintenance of Helen were known inthe village for their excessive liberality, and the impression wasgeneral that she would one day inherit a large sum of money from herrelative. The parents of Rachel were therefore not averse from theirdaughter's friendship with the girl, and even encouraged the intimacy,though they now bitterly regret having done so. Helen still retained herextraordinary fondness for the forest, and on several occasions Rachelaccompanied her, the two friends setting out early in the morning, andremaining in the wood till dusk. Once or twice after these excursionsMrs. M. thought her daughter's manner rather peculiar; she seemedlanguid and dreamy, and as it has been expressed, 'different fromherself,' but these peculiarities seem to have been thought too triflingfor remark. One evening, however, after Rachel had come home, her motherheard a noise which sounded like suppressed weeping in the girl's room,and on going in found her lying, half undressed, upon the bed, evidentlyin the greatest distress. As soon as she saw her mother, she exclaimed,'Ah, mother, mother, why did you let me go to the forest with Helen?'Mrs. M. was astonished at so strange a question, and proceeded to makeinquiries. Rachel told her a wild story. She said--

  Clarke closed the book with a snap, and turned his chair towards thefire. When his friend sat one evening in that very chair, and told hisstory, Clarke had interrupted him at a point a little subsequent tothis, had cut short his words in a paroxysm of horror. 'My God!' he hadexclaimed, 'think, think what you are saying. It is too incredible, toomonstrous; such things can never be in this quiet world, where men andwomen live and die, and struggle, and conquer, or maybe fail, and falldown under sorrow, and grieve and suffer strange fortunes for many ayear; but not this, Phillips, not such things as this. There must besome explanation, some way out of the terror. Why, man, if such a casewere possible, our earth would be a nightmare.'

  But Phillips had told his story to the end, concluding:

  'Her flight remains a mystery to this day; she vanished in broadsunlight; they saw her walking in a meadow, and a few moments later shewas not there.'

  Clarke tried to conceive the thing again, as he sat by the fire, andagain his mind shuddered and shrank back, appalled before the sight ofsuch awful, unspeakable elements enthroned as it were, and triumphant inhuman flesh. Before him stretched the long dim vista of the greencauseway in the forest, as his friend had described it; he saw theswaying leaves and the quivering shadows on the grass, he saw thesunlight and the flowers, and far away, far in the long distance, thetwo figures moved toward him. One was Rachel, but the other?

  Clarke had tried his best to disbelieve it all, but at the end of theaccount, as he had written it in his book, he had placed theinscription:

  ET DIABOLUS INCARNATUS EST. ET HOMO FACTUS EST.

  III

  THE CITY OF RESURRECTIONS

  'Herbert! Good God! Is it possible?'

  'Yes, my name's Herbert. I think I know your face too, but I don'tremember your name. My memory is very queer.'

  'Don't you recollect Villiers of Wadham?'

  'So it is, so it is. I beg your pardon, Villiers, I didn't think I wasbegging of an old college friend. Good-night.'

  'My dear fellow, this haste is unnecessary. My rooms are close by, butwe won't go there just yet. Suppose we walk up Shaftesbury Avenue alittle way? But how in heaven's name have you come to this pass,Herbert?'

  'It's a long story, Villiers, and a strange one too, but you can hear itif you like.'

  'Come on, then. Take my arm, you don't seem very strong.'

  The ill-assorted pair moved slowly up Rupert Street; the one in dirty,evil-looking rags, and the other attired in the regulation uniform of aman about town, trim, glossy, and eminently well-to-do. Villiers hademerged from his restaurant after an excellent dinner of many courses,assisted by an ingratiating little flask of Chianti, and, in that frameof mind which was with him almost chronic, had delayed a moment by thedoor, peering round in the dimly-lighted street in search of thosemysterious incidents and persons with which the streets of London teemin every quarter and at every hour. Villiers prided himself as apractised explorer of such obscure mazes and byways of London life, andin this unprofitable pursuit he displayed an assiduity which was worthyof more serious employment. Thus he stood beside the lamp-post surveyingthe passers-by with undisguised curiosity, and with that gravity onlyknown to the systematic diner, had just enunciated in his mind theformula: 'London has been called the city of encounters; it is more thanthat, it is the city of Resurrections,' when these reflections weresuddenly interrupted by a piteous whine at his elbow, and a deplorableappeal for alms. He looked around in some irritation, and with a suddenshock found himself confronted with the embodied proof of his somewhatstilted fancies. There, close beside him, his face altered anddisfigured by poverty and disgrace, his body barely covered by greasyill-fitting rags, stood his old friend Charles Herbert, who hadmatriculated on the same day as himself, with whom he had been merry andwise for twelve revolving terms. Different occupations and varyinginterests had interrupted the friendship, and it was six years sinceVilliers had seen Herbert; and now he looked upon this wreck of a manwith grief and dismay, mingled with a certain inquisitiveness as to whatdreary chain of circumstance had dragged him down to such a dolefulpass. Villiers felt together with compassion all the relish of theamateur in mysteries, and congratulated himself on his leisurelyspeculations outside the restaurant.

  They walked on in silence for some time, and more than one passer-byst
ared in astonishment at the unaccustomed spectacle of a well-dressedman with an unmistakable beggar hanging on to his arm, and, observingthis, Villiers led the way to an obscure street in Soho. Here herepeated his question.

  'How on earth has it happened, Herbert? I always understood you wouldsucceed to an excellent position in Dorsetshire. Did your fatherdisinherit you? Surely not?'

  'No, Villiers; I came into all the property at my poor father's death;he died a year after I left Oxford. He was a very good father to me, andI mourned his death sincerely enough. But you know what young men are; afew months later I came up to town and went a good deal into society. Ofcourse I had excellent introductions, and I managed to enjoy myself verymuch in a harmless sort of way. I played a little, certainly, but neverfor heavy stakes, and the few bets I made on races brought me inmoney--only a few pounds, you know, but enough to pay for cigars andsuch petty pleasures. It was in my second season that the tide turned.Of course you have heard of my marriage?'

  'No, I never heard anything about it.'

  'Yes, I married, Villiers. I met a girl, a girl of the most wonderfuland most strange beauty, at the house of some people whom I knew. Icannot tell you her age; I never knew it, but, so far as I can guess, Ishould think she must have been about nineteen when I made heracquaintance. My friends had come to know her at Florence; she toldthem she was an orphan, the child of an English father and an Italianmother, and she charmed them as she charmed me. The first time I saw herwas at an evening party. I was standing by the door talking to a friend,when suddenly above the hum and babble of conversation I heard a voicewhich seemed to thrill to my heart. She was singing an Italian song. Iwas introduced to her that evening, and in three months I married Helen.Villiers, that woman, if I can call her woman, corrupted my soul. Thenight of the wedding I found myself sitting in her bedroom in the hotel,listening to her talk. She was sitting up in bed, and I listened to heras she spoke in her beautiful voice, spoke of things which even now Iwould not dare whisper in blackest night, though I stood in the midst ofa wilderness. You, Villiers, you may think you know life, and London,and what goes on day and night in this dreadful city; for all I can sayyou may have heard the talk of the vilest, but I tell you you can haveno conception of what I know, not in your most fantastic, hideous dreamscan you have imaged forth the faintest shadow of what I have heard--andseen. Yes, seen. I have seen the incredible, such horrors that even Imyself sometimes stop in the middle of the street, and ask whether it ispossible for a man to behold such things and live. In a year, Villiers,I was a ruined man, in body and soul--in body and soul.'

  'But your property, Herbert? You had land in Dorset.'

  'I sold it all; the fields and woods, the dear old house--everything.'

  'And the money?'

  'She took it all from me.'

  'And then left you?'

  'Yes; she disappeared one night. I don't know where she went, but I amsure if I saw her again it would kill me. The rest of my story is of nointerest; sordid misery, that is all. You may think, Villiers, that Ihave exaggerated and talked for effect; but I have not told you half. Icould tell you certain things which would convince you, but you wouldnever know a happy day again. You would pass the rest of your life, as Ipass mine, a haunted man, a man who has seen hell.'

  Villiers took the unfortunate man to his rooms, and gave him a meal.Herbert could eat little, and scarcely touched the glass of wine setbefore him. He sat moody and silent by the fire, and seemed relievedwhen Villiers sent him away with a small present of money.

  'By the way, Herbert,' said Villiers, as they parted at the door, 'whatwas your wife's name? You said Helen, I think? Helen what?'

  'The name she passed under when I met her was Helen Vaughan, but whather real name was I can't say. I don't think she had a name. No, no, notin that sense. Only human beings have names, Villiers; I can't say anymore. Good-bye; yes, I will not fail to call if I see any way in whichyou can help me. Good-night.'

  The man went out into the bitter night, and Villiers returned to hisfireside. There was something about Herbert which shocked himinexpressibly; not his poor rags nor the marks which poverty had setupon his face, but rather an indefinite terror which hung about himlike a mist. He had acknowledged that he himself was not devoid ofblame; the woman, he had avowed, had corrupted him body and soul, andVilliers felt that this man, once his friend, had been an actor inscenes evil beyond the power of words. His story needed no confirmation:he himself was the embodied proof of it. Villiers mused curiously overthe story he had heard, and wondered whether he had heard both the firstand the last of it. 'No,' he thought, 'certainly not the last, probablyonly the beginning. A case like this is like a nest of Chinese boxes;you open one after another and find a quainter workmanship in every box.Most likely poor Herbert is merely one of the outside boxes; there arestranger ones to follow.'

  Villiers could not take his mind away from Herbert and his story, whichseemed to grow wilder as the night wore on. The fire began to burn low,and the chilly air of the morning crept into the room; Villiers got upwith a glance over his shoulder, and shivering slightly, went to bed.

  A few days later he saw at his club a gentleman of his acquaintance,named Austin, who was famous for his intimate knowledge of London life,both in its tenebrous and luminous phases. Villiers, still full of hisencounter in Soho and its consequences, thought Austin might possibly beable to shed some light on Herbert's history, and so after some casualtalk he suddenly put the question:

  'Do you happen to know anything of a man named Herbert--CharlesHerbert?'

  Austin turned round sharply and stared at Villiers with someastonishment.

  'Charles Herbert? Weren't you in town three years ago? No; then you havenot heard of the Paul Street case? It caused a good deal of sensation atthe time.'

  'What was the case?'

  'Well, a gentleman, a man of very good position, was found dead, starkdead, in the area of a certain house in Paul Street, off Tottenham CourtRoad. Of course the police did not make the discovery; if you happen tobe sitting up all night and have a light in your window, the constablewill ring the bell, but if you happen to be lying dead in somebody'sarea, you will be left alone. In this instance as in many others thealarm was raised by some kind of vagabond; I don't mean a common tramp,or a public-house loafer, but a gentleman, whose business or pleasure,or both, made him a spectator of the London streets at five o'clock inthe morning. This individual was, as he said, "going home," it did notappear whence or whither, and had occasion to pass through Paul Streetbetween four and five a. m. Something or other caught his eye at Number20; he said, absurdly enough, that the house had the most unpleasantphysiognomy he had ever observed, but, at any rate, he glanced down thearea, and was a good deal astonished to see a man lying on the stones,his limbs all huddled together, and his face turned up. Our gentlemanthought his face looked peculiarly ghastly, and so set off at a run insearch of the nearest policeman. The constable was at first inclined totreat the matter lightly, suspecting common drunkenness; however, hecame, and after looking at the man's face, changed his tone, quicklyenough. The early bird, who had picked up this fine worm, was sent offfor a doctor, and the policeman rang and knocked at the door till aslatternly servant girl came down looking more than half asleep. Theconstable pointed out the contents of the area to the maid, who screamedloudly enough to wake up the street, but she knew nothing of the man;had never seen him at the house, and so forth. Meanwhile the originaldiscoverer had come back with a medical man, and the next thing was toget into the area. The gate was open, so the whole quartet stumped downthe steps. The doctor hardly needed a moment's examination; he said thepoor fellow had been dead for several hours, and it was then the casebegan to get interesting. The dead man had not been robbed, and in oneof his pockets were papers identifying him as--well, as a man of goodfamily and means, a favourite in society, and nobody's enemy, so far ascould be known. I don't give his name, Villiers, because it has nothingto do with the story, and because it's no good
raking up these affairsabout the dead when there are no relations living. The next curiouspoint was that the medical men couldn't agree as to how he met hisdeath. There were some slight bruises on his shoulders, but they were soslight that it looked as if he had been pushed roughly out of thekitchen door, and not thrown over the railings from the street or evendragged down the steps. But there were positively no other marks ofviolence about him, certainly none that would account for his death; andwhen they came to the autopsy there wasn't a trace of poison of anykind. Of course the police wanted to know all about the people at Number20, and here again, so I have heard from private sources, one or twoother very curious points came out. It appears that the occupants of thehouse were a Mr. and Mrs. Charles Herbert; he was said to be a landedproprietor, though it struck most people that Paul Street was notexactly the place to look for county gentry. As for Mrs. Herbert, nobodyseemed to know who or what she was, and, between ourselves, I fancy thedivers after her history found themselves in rather strange waters. Ofcourse they both denied knowing anything about the deceased, and indefault of any evidence against them they were discharged. But some veryodd things came out about them. Though it was between five and six inthe morning when the dead man was removed, a large crowd had collected,and several of the neighbours ran to see what was going on. They werepretty free with their comments, by all accounts, and from these itappeared that Number 20 was in very bad odour in Paul Street. Thedetectives tried to trace down these rumours to some solid foundation offact, but could not get hold of anything. People shook their heads andraised their eyebrows and thought the Herberts rather "queer," "wouldrather not be seen going into their house," and so on, but there wasnothing tangible. The authorities were morally certain that the man methis death in some way or another in the house and was thrown out by thekitchen door, but they couldn't prove it, and the absence of anyindications of violence or poisoning left them helpless. An odd case,wasn't it? But curiously enough, there's something more that I haven'ttold you. I happened to know one of the doctors who was consulted as tothe cause of death, and some time after the inquest I met him, and askedhim about it. "Do you really mean to tell me," I said, "that you werebaffled by the case, that you actually don't know what the man died of?""Pardon me," he replied, "I know perfectly well what caused death. Blankdied of fright, of sheer, awful terror; I never saw features sohideously contorted in the entire course of my practice, and I have seenthe faces of a whole host of dead." The doctor was usually a coolcustomer enough, and a certain vehemence in his manner struck me, but Icouldn't get anything more out of him. I suppose the Treasury didn't seetheir way to prosecuting the Herberts for frightening a man to death; atany rate, nothing was done, and the case dropped out of men's minds. Doyou happen to know anything of Herbert?'

  'Well,' replied Villiers, 'he was an old college friend of mine.'

  'You don't say so? Have you ever seen his wife?'

  'No, I haven't. I have lost sight of Herbert for many years.'

  'It's queer, isn't it, parting with a man at the college gate or atPaddington, seeing nothing of him for years, and then finding him pop uphis head in such an odd place. But I should like to have seen Mrs.Herbert; people said extraordinary things about her.'

  'What sort of things?'

  'Well, I hardly know how to tell you. Every one who saw her at thepolice court said she was at once the most beautiful woman and the mostrepulsive they had ever set eyes on. I have spoken to a man who saw her,and I assure you he positively shuddered as he tried to describe thewoman, but he couldn't tell why. She seems to have been a sort ofenigma; and I expect if that one dead man could have told tales, hewould have told some uncommonly queer ones. And there you are again inanother puzzle; what could a respectable country gentleman like Mr.Blank (we'll call him that if you don't mind) want in such a very queerhouse as Number 20? It's altogether a very odd case, isn't it?'

  'It is indeed, Austin; an extraordinary case. I didn't think, when Iasked you about my old friend, I should strike on such strange metal.Well, I must be off; good-day.'

  Villiers went away, thinking of his own conceit of the Chinese boxes;here was quaint workmanship indeed.

  IV

  THE DISCOVERY IN PAUL STREET

  A few months after Villiers's meeting with Herbert, Mr. Clarke wassitting, as usual, by his after-dinner hearth, resolutely guarding hisfancies from wandering in the direction of the bureau. For more than aweek he had succeeded in keeping away from the 'Memoirs,' and hecherished hopes of a complete self-reformation; but, in spite of hisendeavours, he could not hush the wonder and the strange curiosity thatthat last case he had written down had excited within him. He had putthe case, or rather the outline of it, conjecturally to a scientificfriend, who shook his head, and thought Clarke getting queer, and onthis particular evening Clarke was making an effort to rationalize thestory, when a sudden knock at his door roused him from his meditations.

  'Mr. Villiers to see you, sir.'

  'Dear me, Villiers, it is very kind of you to look me up; I have notseen you for many months; I should think nearly a year. Come in, comein. And how are you, Villiers? Want any advice about investments?'

  'No, thanks, I fancy everything I have in that way is pretty safe. No,Clarke, I have really come to consult you about a rather curious matterthat has been brought under my notice of late. I am afraid you willthink it all rather absurd when I tell my tale. I sometimes think somyself, and that's just why I made up my mind to come to you, as I knowyou're a practical man.'

  Mr. Villiers was ignorant of the 'Memoirs to prove the Existence of theDevil.'

  'Well, Villiers, I shall be happy to give you my advice, to the best ofmy ability. What is the nature of the case?'

  'It's an extraordinary thing altogether. You know my ways; I always keepmy eyes open in the streets, and in my time I have chanced upon somequeer customers, and queer cases too, but this, I think, beats all. Iwas coming out of a restaurant one nasty winter night about three monthsago; I had had a capital dinner and a good bottle of Chianti, and Istood for a moment on the pavement, thinking what a mystery there isabout London streets and the companies that pass along them. A bottle ofred wine encourages these fancies, Clarke, and I dare say I should havethought a page of small type, but I was cut short by a beggar who hadcome behind me, and was making the usual appeals. Of course I lookedround, and this beggar turned out to be what was left of an old friendof mine, a man named Herbert. I asked him how he had come to such awretched pass, and he told me. We walked up and down one of those longdark Soho streets, and there I listened to his story. He said he hadmarried a beautiful girl, some years younger than himself, and, as heput it, she had corrupted him body and soul. He wouldn't go intodetails; he said he dare not, that what he had seen and heard hauntedhim by night and day, and when I looked in his face I knew he wasspeaking the truth. There was something about the man that made meshiver. I don't know why, but it was there. I gave him a little moneyand sent him away, and I assure you that when he was gone I gasped forbreath. His presence seemed to chill one's blood.'

  'Isn't all this just a little fanciful, Villiers? I suppose the poorfellow had made an imprudent marriage, and, in plain English, gone tothe bad.'

  'Well, listen to this.' Villiers told Clarke the story he had heard fromAustin.

  'You see,' he concluded, 'there can be but little doubt that this Mr.Blank, whoever he was, died of sheer terror; he saw something so awful,so terrible, that it cut short his life. And what he saw, he mostcertainly saw in that house, which, somehow or other, had got a bad namein the neighbourhood. I had the curiosity to go and look at the placefor myself. It's a saddening kind of street; the houses are old enoughto be mean and dreary, but not old enough to be quaint. As far as Icould see most of them are let in lodgings, furnished and unfurnished,and almost every door has three bells to it. Here and there the groundfloors have been made into shops of the commonest kind; it's a dismalstreet in every way. I found Number 20 was to let, and I went to theagent's and got the
key. Of course I should have heard nothing of theHerberts in that quarter, but I asked the man, fair and square, how longthey had left the house, and whether there had been other tenants in themeanwhile. He looked at me queerly for a minute, and told me theHerberts had left immediately after the unpleasantness, as he called it,and since then the house had been empty.'

  Mr. Villiers paused for a moment.

  'I have always been rather fond of going over empty houses; there's asort of fascination about the desolate empty rooms, with the nailssticking in the walls, and the dust thick upon the window-sills. But Ididn't enjoy going over Number 20, Paul Street. I had hardly put my footinside the passage before I noticed a queer, heavy feeling about the airof the house. Of course all empty houses are stuffy, and so forth, butthis was something quite different; I can't describe it to you, but itseemed to stop the breath. I went into the front room and the back room,and the kitchens downstairs; they were all dirty and dusty enough, asyou would expect, but there was something strange about them all. Icouldn't define it to you, I only know I felt queer. It was one of therooms on the first floor, though, that was the worst. It was a largishroom, and once on a time the paper must have been cheerful enough, butwhen I saw it, paint, paper, and everything were most doleful. But theroom was full of horror; I felt my teeth grinding as I put my hand onthe door, and when I went in, I thought I should have fallen fainting tothe floor. However, I pulled myself together, and stood against the endwall, wondering what on earth there could be about the room to make mylimbs tremble, and my heart beat as if I were at the hour of death. Inone corner there was a pile of newspapers littered about on the floor,and I began looking at them; they were papers of three or four yearsago, some of them half torn, and some crumpled as if they had been usedfor packing. I turned the whole pile over, and amongst them I found acurious drawing; I will show it you presently. But I couldn't stay inthe room; I felt it was overpowering me. I was thankful to come out,safe and sound, into the open air. People stared at me as I walked alongthe street, and one man said I was drunk. I was staggering about fromone side of the pavement to the other, and it was as much as I could doto take the key back to the agent and get home. I was in bed for a week,suffering from what my doctor called nervous shock and exhaustion. Oneof those days I was reading the evening paper, and happened to notice aparagraph headed: "Starved to Death." It was the usual style of thing; amodel lodging-house in Marylebone, a door locked for several days, and adead man in his chair when they broke in. "The deceased," said theparagraph, "was known as Charles Herbert, and is believed to have beenonce a prosperous country gentleman. His name was familiar to the publicthree years ago in connection with the mysterious death in Paul Street,Tottenham Court Road, the deceased being the tenant of the house Number20, in the area of which a gentleman of good position was found deadunder circumstances not devoid of suspicion." A tragic ending, wasn'tit? But after all, if what he told me were true, which I am sure itwas, the man's life was all a tragedy, and a tragedy of a stranger sortthan they put on the boards.'

  'And that is the story, is it?' said Clarke musingly.

  'Yes, that is the story.'

  'Well, really, Villiers, I scarcely know what to say about it. Thereare, no doubt, circumstances in the case which seem peculiar, thefinding of the dead man in the area of Herbert's house, for instance,and the extraordinary opinion of the physician as to the cause of death;but, after all, it is conceivable that the facts may be explained in astraightforward manner. As to your own sensations, when you went to seethe house, I would suggest that they were due to a vivid imagination;you must have been brooding, in a semiconscious way, over what you hadheard. I don't exactly see what more can be said or done in the matter;you evidently think there is a mystery of some kind, but Herbert isdead; where then do you propose to look?'

  'I propose to look for the woman; the woman whom he married. _She_ isthe mystery.'

  The two men sat silent by the fireside; Clarke secretly congratulatinghimself on having successfully kept up the character of advocate of thecommonplace, and Villiers wrapt in his gloomy fancies.

  'I think I will have a cigarette,' he said at last, and put his hand inhis pocket to feel for the cigarette-case.

  'Ah!' he said, starting slightly, 'I forgot I had something to show you.You remember my saying that I had found a rather curious sketch amongstthe pile of old newspapers at the house in Paul Street? Here it is.'

  Villiers drew out a small thin parcel from his pocket. It was coveredwith brown paper, and secured with string, and the knots weretroublesome. In spite of himself Clarke felt inquisitive; he bentforward on his chair as Villiers painfully undid the string, andunfolded the outer covering. Inside was a second wrapping of tissue, andVilliers took it off and handed the small piece of paper to Clarkewithout a word.

  There was dead silence in the room for five minutes or more; the two mensat so still that they could hear the ticking of the tall old-fashionedclock that stood outside in the hall, and in the mind of one of them theslow monotony of sound woke up a far, far memory. He was lookingintently at the small pen-and-ink sketch of the woman's head; it hadevidently been drawn with great care, and by a true artist, for thewoman's soul looked out of the eyes, and the lips were parted with astrange smile. Clarke gazed still at the face; it brought to his memoryone summer evening long ago; he saw again the long lovely valley, theriver winding between the hills, the meadows and the cornfields, thedull red sun, and the cold white mist rising from the water. He heard avoice speaking to him across the waves of many years, and saying,'Clarke, Mary will see the God Pan!' and then he was standing in thegrim room beside the doctor, listening to the heavy ticking of theclock, waiting and watching, watching the figure lying on the greenchair beneath the lamplight. Mary rose up, and he looked into her eyes,and his heart grew cold within him.

  'Who is this woman?' he said at last. His voice was dry and hoarse.

  'That is the woman whom Herbert married.'

  Clarke looked again at the sketch; it was not Mary after all. Therecertainly was Mary's face, but there was something else, something hehad not seen on Mary's features when the white-clad girl entered thelaboratory with the doctor, nor at her terrible awakening, nor when shelay grinning on the bed. Whatever it was, the glance that came fromthose eyes, the smile on the full lips, or the expression of the wholeface, Clarke shuddered before it in his inmost soul, and thought,unconsciously, of Dr. Phillips's words, 'the most vivid presentment ofevil I have ever seen.' He turned the paper over mechanically in hishand and glanced at the back.

  'Good God! Clarke, what is the matter? You are as white as death.'

  Villiers had started wildly from his chair, as Clarke fell back with agroan, and let the paper drop from his hands.

  'I don't feel very well, Villiers, I am subject to these attacks. Pourme out a little wine; thanks, that will do. I shall feel better in a fewminutes.'

  Villiers picked up the fallen sketch and turned it over as Clarke haddone.

  'You saw that?' he said. 'That's how I identified it as being a portraitof Herbert's wife, or I should say his widow. How do you feel now?'

  'Better, thanks, it was only a passing faintness. I don't think I quitecatch your meaning. What did you say enabled you to identify thepicture?'

  'This word--"Helen"--written on the back. Didn't I tell you her name wasHelen? Yes; Helen Vaughan.'

  Clarke groaned; there could be no shadow of doubt.

  'Now, don't you agree with me,' said Villiers, 'that in the story I havetold you to-night, and in the part this woman plays in it, there aresome very strange points?'

  'Yes, Villiers,' Clarke muttered, 'it is a strange story indeed; astrange story indeed. You must give me time to think it over; I may beable to help you or I may not. Must you be going now? Well, good-night,Villiers, good-night. Come and see me in the course of a week.'

  V

  THE LETTER OF ADVICE

  'Do you know, Austin,' said Villiers, as the two friends were pacingsedately along Pi
ccadilly one pleasant morning in May, 'do you know I amconvinced that what you told me about Paul Street and the Herberts is amere episode in an extraordinary history? I may as well confess to youthat when I asked you about Herbert a few months ago I had just seenhim.'

  'You had seen him? Where?'

  'He begged of me in the street one night. He was in the most pitiableplight, but I recognized the man, and I got him to tell me his history,or at least the outline of it. In brief, it amounted to this--he hadbeen ruined by his wife.'

  'In what manner?'

  'He would not tell me; he would only say that she had destroyed him,body and soul. The man is dead now.'

  'And what has become of his wife?'

  'Ah, that's what I should like to know, and I mean to find her sooner orlater. I know a man named Clarke, a dry fellow, in fact a man ofbusiness, but shrewd enough. You understand my meaning; not shrewd inthe mere business sense of the word, but a man who really knowssomething about men and life. Well, I laid the case before him, and hewas evidently impressed. He said it needed consideration, and asked meto come again in the course of a week. A few days later I received thisextraordinary letter.'

  Austin took the envelope, drew out the letter, and read it curiously. Itran as follows:--

  'MY DEAR VILLIERS,--I have thought over the matter on which you consulted me the other night, and my advice to you is this. Throw the portrait into the fire, blot out the story from your mind. Never give it another thought, Villiers, or you will be sorry. You will think, no doubt, that I am in possession of some secret information, and to a certain extent that is the case. But I only know a little; I am like a traveller who has peered over an abyss, and has drawn back in terror. What I know is strange enough and horrible enough, but beyond my knowledge there are depths and horrors more frightful still, more incredible than any tale told of winter nights about the fire. I have resolved, and nothing shall shake that resolve, to explore no whit farther, and if you value your happiness you will make the same determination.

  'Come and see me by all means; but we will talk on more cheerful topics than this.'

  Austin folded the letter methodically, and returned it to Villiers.

  'It is certainly an extraordinary letter,' he said; 'what does he meanby the portrait?'

  'Ah! I forgot to tell you I have been to Paul Street and have made adiscovery.'

  Villiers told his story as he had told it to Clarke, and Austin listenedin silence. He seemed puzzled.

  'How very curious that you should experience such an unpleasantsensation in that room!' he said at length. 'I hardly gather that it wasa mere matter of the imagination; a feeling of repulsion, in short.'

  'No, it was more physical than mental. It was as if I were inhaling atevery breath some deadly fume, which seemed to penetrate to every nerveand bone and sinew of my body. I felt racked from head to foot, my eyesbegan to grow dim; it was like the entrance of death.'

  'Yes, yes, very strange, certainly. You see, your friend confesses thatthere is some very black story connected with this woman. Did you noticeany particular emotion in him when you were telling your tale?'

  'Yes, I did. He became very faint, but he assured me that it was a merepassing attack to which he was subject.'

  'Did you believe him?'

  'I did at the time, but I don't now. He heard what I had to say with agood deal of indifference, till I showed him the portrait. It was thenhe was seized with the attack of which I spoke. He looked ghastly, Iassure you.'

  'Then he must have seen the woman before. But there might be anotherexplanation; it might have been the name, and not the face, which wasfamiliar to him. What do you think?'

  'I couldn't say. To the best of my belief it was after turning theportrait in his hands that he nearly dropped from his chair. The name,you know, was written on the back.'

  'Quite so. After all, it is impossible to come to any resolution in acase like this. I hate melodrama, and nothing strikes me as morecommonplace and tedious than the ordinary ghost story of commerce; butreally, Villiers, it looks as if there were something very queer at thebottom of all this.'

  The two men had, without noticing it, turned up Ashley Street, leadingnorthward from Piccadilly. It was a long street, and rather a gloomyone, but here and there a brighter taste had illuminated the dark houseswith flowers, and gay curtains, and a cheerful paint on the doors.Villiers glanced up as Austin stopped speaking, and looked at one ofthese houses; geraniums, red and white, drooped from every sill, anddaffodil-coloured curtains were draped back from each window.

  'It looks cheerful, doesn't it?' he said.

  'Yes, and the inside is still more cheery. One of the pleasantest housesof the season, so I have heard. I haven't been there myself, but I'vemet several men who have, and they tell me it's uncommonly jovial.'

  'Whose house is it?'

  'A Mrs. Beaumont's.'

  'And who is she?'

  'I couldn't tell you. I have heard she comes from South America, but,after all, who she is is of little consequence. She is a very wealthywoman, there's no doubt of that, and some of the best people have takenher up. I hear she has some wonderful claret, really marvellous wine,which must have cost a fabulous sum. Lord Argentine was telling me aboutit; he was there last Sunday evening. He assures me he has never tastedsuch a wine, and Argentine, as you know, is an expert. By the way, thatreminds me, she must be an oddish sort of woman, this Mrs. Beaumont.Argentine asked her how old the wine was, and what do you think shesaid? "About a thousand years, I believe." Lord Argentine thought shewas chaffing him, you know, but when he laughed she said she wasspeaking quite seriously, and offered to show him the jar. Of course, hecouldn't say anything more after that; but it seems rather antiquatedfor a beverage, doesn't it? Why, here we are at my rooms. Come in, won'tyou?'

  'Thanks, I think I will. I haven't seen the curiosity-shop for sometime.'

  It was a room furnished richly, yet oddly, where every chair andbookcase and table, and every rug and jar and ornament seemed to be athing apart, preserving each its own individuality.

  'Anything fresh lately?' said Villiers after a while.

  'No; I think not; you saw those queer jugs, didn't you? I thought so. Idon't think I have come across anything for the last few weeks.'

  Austin glanced round the room from cupboard to cupboard, from shelf toshelf, in search of some new oddity. His eyes fell at last on an oldchest, pleasantly and quaintly carved, which stood in a dark corner ofthe room.

  'Ah,' he said, 'I was forgetting, I have got something to show you.'Austin unlocked the chest, drew out a thick quarto volume, laid it onthe table, and resumed the cigar he had put down.

  'Did you know Arthur Meyrick the painter, Villiers?'

  'A little; I met him two or three times at the house of a friend ofmine. What has become of him? I haven't heard his name mentioned forsome time.'

  'He's dead.'

  'You don't say so! Quite young, wasn't he?'

  'Yes; only thirty when he died.'

  'What did he die of?'

  'I don't know. He was an intimate friend of mine, and a thoroughly goodfellow. He used to come here and talk to me for hours, and he was one ofthe best talkers I have met. He could even talk about painting, andthat's more than can be said of most painters. About eighteen months agohe was feeling rather overworked, and partly at my suggestion he wentoff on a sort of roving expedition, with no very definite end or aimabout it. I believe New York was to be his first port, but I never heardfrom him. Three months ago I got this book, with a very civil letterfrom an English doctor practising at Buenos Ayres, stating that he hadattended the late Mr. Meyrick during his illness, and that the deceasedhad expressed an earnest wish that the enclosed packet should be sent tome after his death. That was all.'

  'And haven't you written for further particulars?'

  'I have been thinking of doing so. You would advise me to write to thedoctor?'

  'Certainly. And what
about the book?'

  'It was sealed up when I got it. I don't think the doctor had seen it.'

  'It is something very rare? Meyrick was a collector, perhaps?'

  'No, I think not, hardly a collector. Now, what do you think of thoseAinu jugs?'

  'They are peculiar, but I like them. But aren't you going to show mepoor Meyrick's legacy?'

  'Yes, yes, to be sure. The fact is, it's rather a peculiar sort ofthing, and I haven't shown it to any one. I wouldn't say anything aboutit if I were you. There it is.'

  Villiers took the book, and opened it at haphazard.

  'It isn't a printed volume then?' he said.

  'No. It is a collection of drawings in black and white by my poor friendMeyrick.'

  Villiers turned to the first page, it was blank; the second bore a briefinscription, which he read:

  _Silet per diem universus, nec sine horrore secretus est; lucet nocturnis ignibus, chorus AEgipanum undique personatur: audiuntur et cantus tibiarum, et tinnitus cymbalorum per oram maritimam._

  On the third page was a design which made Villiers start and look up atAustin; he was gazing abstractedly out of the window. Villiers turnedpage after page, absorbed, in spite of himself, in the frightfulWalpurgis Night of evil, strange monstrous evil, that the dead artisthad set forth in hard black and white. The figures of Fauns and Satyrsand AEgipans danced before his eyes, the darkness of the thicket, thedance on the mountain-top, the scenes by lonely shores, in greenvineyards, by rocks and desert places, passed before him: a world beforewhich the human soul seemed to shrink back and shudder. Villiers whirledover the remaining pages; he had seen enough, but the picture on thelast leaf caught his eye, as he almost closed the book.

  'Austin!'

  'Well, what is it?'

  'Do you know who that is?'

  It was a woman's face, alone on the white page.

  'Know who it is? No, of course not.'

  'I do.'

  'Who is it?'

  'It is Mrs. Herbert.'

  'Are you sure?'

  'I am perfectly certain of it. Poor Meyrick! He is one more chapter inher history.'

  'But what do you think of the designs?'

  'They are frightful. Lock the book up again, Austin. If I were you Iwould burn it; it must be a terrible companion even though it be in achest.'

  'Yes, they are singular drawings. But I wonder what connection therecould be between Meyrick and Mrs. Herbert, or what link between her andthese designs?'

  'Ah, who can say? It is possible that the matter may end here, and weshall never know, but in my own opinion this Helen Vaughan, or Mrs.Herbert, is only the beginning. She will come back to London, Austin;depend upon it, she will come back, and we shall hear more about herthen. I don't think it will be very pleasant news.'

  VI

  THE SUICIDES

  Lord Argentine was a great favourite in London Society. At twenty he hadbeen a poor man, decked with the surname of an illustrious family, butforced to earn a livelihood as best he could, and the most speculativeof money-lenders would not have entrusted him with fifty pounds on thechance of his ever changing his name for a title, and his poverty for agreat fortune. His father had been near enough to the fountain of goodthings to secure one of the family livings, but the son, even if he hadtaken orders, would scarcely have obtained so much as this, and moreoverfelt no vocation for the ecclesiastical estate. Thus he fronted theworld with no better armour than the bachelor's gown and the wits of ayounger son's grandson, with which equipment he contrived in some way tomake a very tolerable fight of it. At twenty-five Mr. Charles Aubernounsaw himself still a man of struggles and of warfare with the world, butout of the seven who stood between him and the high places of his familythree only remained. These three, however, were 'good lives,' but yetnot proof against the Zulu assegais and typhoid fever, and so onemorning Aubernoun woke up and found himself Lord Argentine, a man ofthirty who had faced the difficulties of existence, and had conquered.The situation amused him immensely, and he resolved that riches shouldbe as pleasant to him as poverty had always been. Argentine, after somelittle consideration, came to the conclusion that dining, regarded as afine art, was perhaps the most amusing pursuit open to fallen humanity,and thus his dinners became famous in London, and an invitation to histable a thing covetously desired. After ten years of lordship anddinners Argentine still declined to be jaded, still persisted inenjoying life, and by a kind of infection had become recognized as thecause of joy in others, in short, as the best of company. His sudden andtragical death therefore caused a wide and deep sensation. People couldscarce believe it, even though the newspaper was before their eyes, andthe cry of 'Mysterious Death of a Nobleman' came ringing up from thestreet. But there stood the brief paragraph: 'Lord Argentine was founddead this morning by his valet under distressing circumstances. It isstated that there can be no doubt that his lordship committed suicide,though no motive can be assigned for the act. The deceased nobleman waswidely known in society, and much liked for his genial manner andsumptuous hospitality. He is succeeded by,' etc., etc.

  By slow degrees the details came to light, but the case still remained amystery. The chief witness at the inquest was the dead nobleman's valet,who said that the night before his death Lord Argentine had dined with alady of good position, whose name was suppressed in the newspaperreports. At about eleven o'clock Lord Argentine had returned, andinformed his man that he should not require his services till the nextmorning. A little later the valet had occasion to cross the hall and wassomewhat astonished to see his master quietly letting himself out at thefront door. He had taken off his evening clothes, and was dressed in aNorfolk coat and knickerbockers, and wore a low brown hat. The valet hadno reason to suppose that Lord Argentine had seen him, and though hismaster rarely kept late hours, thought little of the occurrence till thenext morning, when he knocked at the bedroom door at a quarter to nineas usual. He received no answer, and, after knocking two or threetimes, entered the room, and saw Lord Argentine's body leaning forwardat an angle from the bottom of the bed. He found that his master hadtied a cord securely to one of the short bed-posts, and, after making arunning noose and slipping it round his neck, the unfortunate man musthave resolutely fallen forward, to die by slow strangulation. He wasdressed in the light suit in which the valet had seen him go out, andthe doctor who was summoned pronounced that life had been extinct formore than four hours. All papers, letters, and so forth seemed inperfect order, and nothing was discovered which pointed in the mostremote way to any scandal either great or small. Here the evidenceended; nothing more could be discovered. Several persons had beenpresent at the dinner-party at which Lord Argentine had assisted, and toall these he seemed in his usual genial spirits. The valet, indeed, saidhe thought his master appeared a little excited when he came home, buthe confessed that the alteration in his manner was very slight, hardlynoticeable, indeed. It seemed hopeless to seek for any clue, and thesuggestion that Lord Argentine had been suddenly attacked by acutesuicidal mania was generally accepted.

  It was otherwise, however, when within three weeks, three moregentlemen, one of them a nobleman, and the two others men of goodposition and ample means, perished miserably in almost precisely thesame manner. Lord Swanleigh was found one morning in his dressing-room,hanging from a peg affixed to the wall, and Mr. Collier-Stuart and Mr.Herries had chosen to die as Lord Argentine. There was no explanationin either case; a few bald facts; a living man in the evening, and adead body with a black swollen face in the morning. The police had beenforced to confess themselves powerless to arrest or to explain thesordid murders of Whitechapel; but before the horrible suicides ofPiccadilly and Mayfair they were dumb-foundered, for not even the mereferocity which did duty as an explanation of the crimes of the East End,could be of service in the West. Each of these men who had resolved todie a tortured shameful death was rich, prosperous, and to allappearances in love with the world, and not the acutest research couldferret out any shadow of a lurking motive in ei
ther case. There was ahorror in the air, and men looked at one another's faces when they met,each wondering whether the other was to be the victim of the fifthnameless tragedy. Journalists sought in vain in their scrap-books formaterials whereof to concoct reminiscent articles; and the morning paperwas unfolded in many a house with a feeling of awe; no man knew when orwhere the blow would next light.

  A short while after the last of these terrible events, Austin came tosee Mr. Villiers. He was curious to know whether Villiers had succeededin discovering any fresh traces of Mrs. Herbert, either through Clarkeor by other sources, and he asked the question soon after he had satdown.

  'No,' said Villiers, 'I wrote to Clarke, but he remains obdurate, and Ihave tried other channels, but without any result. I can't find out whatbecame of Helen Vaughan after she left Paul Street, but I think she musthave gone abroad. But to tell the truth, Austin, I haven't paid verymuch attention to the matter for the last few weeks; I knew poorHerries intimately, and his terrible death has been a great shock to me,a great shock.'

  'I can well believe it,' answered Austin gravely; 'you know Argentinewas a friend of mine. If I remember rightly, we were speaking of himthat day you came to my rooms.'

  'Yes; it was in connection with that house in Ashley Street, Mrs.Beaumont's house. You said something about Argentine's dining there.'

  'Quite so. Of course you know it was there Argentine dined the nightbefore--before his death.'

  'No, I haven't heard that.'

  'Oh, yes; the name was kept out of the papers to spare Mrs. Beaumont.Argentine was a great favourite of hers, and it is said she was in aterrible state for some time after.'

  A curious look came over Villiers's face; he seemed undecided whether tospeak or not. Austin began again.

  'I never experienced such a feeling of horror as when I read the accountof Argentine's death. I didn't understand it at the time, and I don'tnow. I knew him well, and it completely passes my understanding for whatpossible cause he--or any of the others for the matter of that--couldhave resolved in cold blood to die in such an awful manner. You know howmen babble away each other's characters in London, you may be sure anyburied scandal or hidden skeleton would have been brought to light insuch a case as this; but nothing of the sort has taken place. As for thetheory of mania, that is very well, of course, for the coroner's jury,but everybody knows that it's all nonsense. Suicidal mania is notsmall-pox.'

  Austin relapsed into gloomy silence. Villiers sat silent also, watchinghis friend. The expression of indecision still fleeted across his face;he seemed as if weighing his thoughts in the balance, and theconsiderations he was revolving left him still silent. Austin tried toshake off the remembrance of tragedies as hopeless and perplexed as thelabyrinth of Daedalus, and began to talk in an indifferent voice of themore pleasant incidents and adventures of the season.

  'That Mrs. Beaumont,' he said, 'of whom we were speaking, is a greatsuccess; she has taken London almost by storm. I met her the other nightat Fulham's; she is really a remarkable woman.'

  'You have met Mrs. Beaumont?'

  'Yes; she had quite a court around her. She would be called veryhandsome, I suppose, and yet there is something about her face which Ididn't like. The features are exquisite, but the expression is strange.And all the time I was looking at her, and afterwards, when I was goinghome, I had a curious feeling that that very expression was in some wayor other familiar to me.'

  'You must have seen her in the Row.'

  'No, I am sure I never set eyes on the woman before; it is that whichmakes it puzzling. And to the best of my belief I have never seenanybody like her; what I felt was a kind of dim far-off memory, vaguebut persistent. The only sensation I can compare it to, is that oddfeeling one sometimes has in a dream, when fantastic cities and wondrouslands and phantom personages appear familiar and accustomed.'

  Villiers nodded and glanced aimlessly round the room, possibly in searchof something on which to turn the conversation. His eyes fell on an oldchest somewhat like that in which the artist's strange legacy lay hidbeneath a Gothic scutcheon.

  'Have you written to the doctor about poor Meyrick?' he asked.

  'Yes; I wrote asking for full particulars as to his illness and death. Idon't expect to have an answer for another three weeks or a month. Ithought I might as well inquire whether Meyrick knew an Englishwomannamed Herbert, and if so, whether the doctor could give me anyinformation about her. But it's very possible that Meyrick fell in withher at New York, or Mexico, or San Francisco; I have no idea as to theextent or direction of his travels.'

  'Yes, and it's very possible that the woman may have more than onename.'

  'Exactly. I wish I had thought of asking you to lend me the portrait ofher which you possess. I might have enclosed it in my letter to Dr.Matthews.'

  'So you might; that never occurred to me. We might send it now. Hark!What are those boys calling?'

  While the two men had been talking together a confused noise of shoutinghad been gradually growing louder. The noise rose from the eastward andswelled down Piccadilly, drawing nearer and nearer, a very torrent ofsound; surging up streets usually quiet, and making every window a framefor a face, curious or excited. The cries and voices came echoing upthe silent street where Villiers lived, growing more distinct as theyadvanced, and, as Villiers spoke, an answer rang up from the pavement:

  'The West End Horrors; Another Awful Suicide; Full Details!'

  Austin rushed down the stairs and bought a paper and read out theparagraph to Villiers as the uproar in the street rose and fell. Thewindow was open and the air seemed full of noise and terror.

  'Another gentleman has fallen a victim to the terrible epidemic ofsuicide which for the last month has prevailed in the West End. Mr.Sidney Crashaw, of Stoke House, Fulham, and King's Pomeroy, Devon, wasfound, after a prolonged search, hanging from the branch of a tree inhis garden at one o'clock to-day. The deceased gentleman dined lastnight at the Carlton Club and seemed in his usual health and spirits. Heleft the Club at about ten o'clock, and was seen walking leisurely upSt. James's Street a little later. Subsequent to this his movementscannot be traced. On the discovery of the body medical aid was at oncesummoned, but life had evidently been long extinct. So far as is known,Mr. Crashaw had no trouble or anxiety of any kind. This painful suicide,it will be remembered, is the fifth of the kind in the last month. Theauthorities at Scotland Yard are unable to suggest any explanation ofthese terrible occurrences.'

  Austin put down the paper in mute horror.

  'I shall leave London to-morrow,' he said, 'it is a city of nightmares.How awful this is, Villiers!'

  Mr. Villiers was sitting by the window quietly looking out into thestreet. He had listened to the newspaper report attentively, and thehint of indecision was no longer on his face.

  'Wait a moment, Austin,' he replied, 'I have made up my mind to mentiona little matter that occurred last night. It is stated, I think, thatCrashaw was last seen alive in St. James's Street shortly after ten?'

  'Yes, I think so. I will look again. Yes, you are quite right.'

  'Quite so. Well, I am in a position to contradict that statement at allevents. Crashaw was seen after that; considerably later indeed.'

  'How do you know?'

  'Because I happened to see Crashaw myself at about two o'clock thismorning.'

  'You saw Crashaw? You, Villiers?'

  'Yes, I saw him quite distinctly; indeed, there were but a few feetbetween us.'

  'Where, in Heaven's name, did you see him?'

  'Not far from here. I saw him in Ashley Street. He was just leaving ahouse.'

  'Did you notice what house it was?'

  'Yes. It was Mrs. Beaumont's.'

  'Villiers! Think what you are saying; there must be some mistake. Howcould Crashaw be in Mrs. Beaumont's house at two o'clock in the morning?Surely, surely, you must have been dreaming, Villiers, you were alwaysrather fanciful.'

  'No; I was wide awake enough. Even if I had been dreaming as you say,w
hat I saw would have roused me effectually.'

  'What you saw? What did you see? Was there anything strange aboutCrashaw? But I can't believe it; it is impossible.'

  'Well, if you like I will tell you what I saw, or if you please, what Ithink I saw, and you can judge for yourself.'

  'Very good, Villiers.'

  The noise and clamour of the street had died away, though now and thenthe sound of shouting still came from the distance, and the dull, leadensilence seemed like the quiet after an earthquake or a storm. Villiersturned from the window and began speaking.

  'I was at a house near Regent's Park last night, and when I came awaythe fancy took me to walk home instead of taking a hansom. It was aclear pleasant night enough, and after a few minutes I had the streetspretty much to myself. It's a curious thing, Austin, to be alone inLondon at night, the gas-lamps stretching away in perspective, and thedead silence, and then perhaps the rush and clatter of a hansom on thestones, and the fire starting up under the horse's hoofs. I walked alongpretty briskly, for I was feeling a little tired of being out in thenight, and as the clocks were striking two I turned down Ashley Street,which, you know, is on my way. It was quieter than ever there, and thelamps were fewer; altogether, it looked as dark and gloomy as a forestin winter. I had done about half the length of the street when I heard adoor closed very softly, and naturally I looked up to see who was abroadlike myself at such an hour. As it happens, there is a street lamp closeto the house in question, and I saw a man standing on the step. He hadjust shut the door and his face was towards me, and I recognized Crashawdirectly. I never knew him to speak to, but I had often seen him, and Iam positive that I was not mistaken in my man. I looked into his facefor a moment, and then--I will confess the truth--I set off at a goodrun, and kept it up till I was within my own door.'

  'Why?'

  'Why? Because it made my blood run cold to see that man's face. I couldnever have supposed that such an infernal medley of passions could haveglared out of any human eyes; I almost fainted as I looked. I knew I hadlooked into the eyes of a lost soul, Austin, the man's outward formremained, but all hell was within it. Furious lust, and hate that waslike fire, and the loss of all hope and horror that seemed to shriekaloud to the night, though his teeth were shut; and the utter blacknessof despair. I am sure he did not see me; he saw nothing that you or Ican see, but he saw what I hope we never shall. I do not know when hedied; I suppose in an hour, or perhaps two, but when I passed downAshley Street and heard the closing door, that man no longer belonged tothis world; it was a devil's face I looked upon.'

  There was an interval of silence in the room when Villiers ceasedspeaking. The light was failing, and all the tumult of an hour ago wasquite hushed. Austin had bent his head at the close of the story, andhis hand covered his eyes.

  'What can it mean?' he said at length.

  'Who knows, Austin, who knows? It's a black business, but I think we hadbetter keep it to ourselves, for the present at any rate. I will see ifI cannot learn anything about that house through private channels ofinformation, and if I do light upon anything I will let you know.'

  VII

  THE ENCOUNTER IN SOHO

  Three weeks later Austin received a note from Villiers, asking him tocall either that afternoon or the next. He chose the nearer date, andfound Villiers sitting as usual by the window, apparently lost inmeditation on the drowsy traffic of the street. There was a bamboo tableby his side, a fantastic thing, enriched with gilding and queer paintedscenes, and on it lay a little pile of papers arranged and docketed asneatly as anything in Mr. Clarke's office.

  'Well, Villiers, have you made any discoveries in the last three weeks?'

  'I think so; I have here one or two memoranda which struck me assingular, and there is a statement to which I shall call yourattention.'

  'And these documents relate to Mrs. Beaumont? It was really Crashaw whomyou saw that night standing on the doorstep of the house in AshleyStreet?'

  'As to that matter my belief remains unchanged, but neither my inquiriesnor their results have any special relation to Crashaw. But myinvestigations have had a strange issue. I have found out who Mrs.Beaumont is!'

  'Who she is? In what way do you mean?'

  'I mean that you and I know her better under another name.'

  'What name is that?'

  'Herbert.'

  'Herbert!' Austin repeated the word, dazed with astonishment.

  'Yes, Mrs. Herbert of Paul Street, Helen Vaughan of earlier adventuresunknown to me. You had reason to recognize the expression of her face;when you go home look at the face in Meyrick's book of horrors, and youwill know the sources of your recollection.'

  'And you have proof of this?'

  'Yes, the best of proof; I have seen Mrs. Beaumont, or shall we say Mrs.Herbert?'

  'Where did you see her?'

  'Hardly in a place where you would expect to see a lady who lives inAshley Street, Piccadilly. I saw her entering a house in one of themeanest and most disreputable streets in Soho. In fact, I had made anappointment, though not with her, and she was precise both to time andplace.'

  'All this seems very wonderful, but I cannot call it incredible. Youmust remember, Villiers, that I have seen this woman, in the ordinaryadventure of London society, talking and laughing, and sipping hercoffee in a commonplace drawing-room with commonplace people. But youknow what you are saying.'

  'I do; I have not allowed myself to be led by surmises or fancies. Itwas with no thought of finding Helen Vaughan that I searched for Mrs.Beaumont in the dark waters of the life of London, but such has been theissue.'

  'You must have been in strange places, Villiers.'

  'Yes, I have been in very strange places. It would have been useless,you know, to go to Ashley Street, and ask Mrs. Beaumont to give me ashort sketch of her previous history. No; assuming, as I had to assume,that her record was not of the cleanest, it would be pretty certain thatat some previous time she must have moved in circles not quite sorefined as her present ones. If you see mud on the top of a stream, youmay be sure that it was once at the bottom. I went to the bottom. I havealways been fond of diving into Queer Street for my amusement, and Ifound my knowledge of that locality and its inhabitants very useful. Itis, perhaps, needless to say that my friends had never heard the name ofBeaumont, and as I had never seen the lady, and was quite unable todescribe her, I had to set to work in an indirect way. The people thereknow me; I have been able to do some of them a service now and again, sothey made no difficulty about giving their information; they were awareI had no communication direct or indirect with Scotland Yard. I had tocast out a good many lines, though, before I got what I wanted, and whenI landed the fish I did not for a moment suppose it was my fish. But Ilistened to what I was told out of a constitutional liking for uselessinformation, and I found myself in possession of a very curious story,though, as I imagined, not the story I was looking for. It was to thiseffect. Some five or six years ago, a woman named Raymond suddenly madeher appearance in the neighbourhood to which I am referring. She wasdescribed to me as being quite young, probably not more than seventeenor eighteen, very handsome, and looking as if she came from the country.I should be wrong in saying that she found her level in going to thisparticular quarter, or associating with these people, for from what Iwas told, I should think the worst den in London far too good for her.The person from whom I got my information, as you may suppose, no greatPuritan, shuddered and grew sick in telling me of the nameless infamieswhich were laid to her charge. After living there for a year, or perhapsa little more, she disappeared as suddenly as she came, and they sawnothing of her till about the time of the Paul Street case. At first shecame to her old haunts only occasionally, then more frequently, andfinally took up her abode there as before, and remained for six or eightmonths. It's of no use my going into details as to the life that womanled; if you want particulars you can look at Meyrick's legacy. Thosedesigns were not drawn from his imagination. She again disappeared, andthe people of the
place saw nothing of her till a few months ago. Myinformant told me that she had taken some rooms in a house which hepointed out, and these rooms she was in the habit of visiting two orthree times a week and always at ten in the morning. I was led to expectthat one of these visits would be paid on a certain day about a weekago, and I accordingly managed to be on the look-out in company with mycicerone at a quarter to ten, and the hour and the lady came with equalpunctuality. My friend and I were standing under an archway, a littleway back from the street, but she saw us, and gave me a glance that Ishall be long in forgetting. That look was quite enough for me; I knewMiss Raymond to be Mrs. Herbert; as for Mrs. Beaumont she had quite goneout of my head. She went into the house, and I watched it till fouro'clock, when she came out, and then I followed her. It was a longchase, and I had to be very careful to keep a long way in thebackground, and yet not lose sight of the woman. She took me down tothe Strand, and then to Westminster, and then up St. James's Street, andalong Piccadilly. I felt queerish when I saw her turn up Ashley Street;the thought that Mrs. Herbert was Mrs. Beaumont came into my mind, butit seemed too improbable to be true. I waited at the corner, keeping myeye on her all the time, and I took particular care to note the house atwhich she stopped. It was the house with the gay curtains, the house offlowers, the house out of which Crashaw came the night he hanged himselfin his garden. I was just going away with my discovery, when I saw anempty carriage come round and draw up in front of the house, and I cameto the conclusion that Mrs. Herbert was going out for a drive, and I wasright. I took a hansom and followed the carriage into the Park. There,as it happened, I met a man I know, and we stood talking together alittle distance from the carriage-way, to which I had my back. We hadnot been there for ten minutes when my friend took off his hat, and Iglanced round and saw the lady I had been following all day. "Who isthat?" I said, and his answer was, "Mrs. Beaumont; lives in AshleyStreet." Of course there could be no doubt after that. I don't knowwhether she saw me, but I don't think she did. I went home at once, and,on consideration, I thought that I had a sufficiently good case withwhich to go to Clarke.'

  'Why to Clarke?'

  'Because I am sure that Clarke is in possession of facts about thiswoman, facts of which I know nothing.'

  'Well, what then?'

  Mr. Villiers leaned back in his chair and looked reflectively at Austinfor a moment before he answered:

  'My idea was that Clarke and I should call on Mrs. Beaumont.'

  'You would never go into such a house as that? No, no, Villiers, youcannot do it. Besides, consider; what result ...'

  'I will tell you soon. But I was going to say that my information doesnot end here; it has been completed in an extraordinary manner.

  'Look at this neat little packet of manuscript; it is paginated, yousee, and I have indulged in the civil coquetry of a ribbon of red tape.It has almost a legal air, hasn't it? Run your eye over it, Austin. Itis an account of the entertainment Mrs. Beaumont provided for herchoicer guests. The man who wrote this escaped with his life, but I donot think he will live many years. The doctors tell him he must havesustained some severe shock to the nerves.'

  Austin took the manuscript, but never read it. Opening the neat pages athaphazard his eye was caught by a word and a phrase that followed it;and, sick at heart, with white lips and a cold sweat pouring like waterfrom his temples, he flung the paper down.

  'Take it away, Villiers, never speak of this again. Are you made ofstone, man? Why, the dread and horror of death itself, the thoughts ofthe man who stands in the keen morning air on the black platform, bound,the bell tolling in his ears, and waits for the harsh rattle of thebolt, are as nothing compared to this. I will not read it; I shouldnever sleep again.'

  'Very good. I can fancy what you saw. Yes; it is horrible enough; butafter all, it is an old story, an old mystery played in our day, and indim London streets instead of amidst the vineyards and the olivegardens. We know what happened to those who chanced to meet the GreatGod Pan, and those who are wise know that all symbols are symbols ofsomething, not of nothing. It was, indeed, an exquisite symbol beneathwhich men long ago veiled their knowledge of the most awful, most secretforces which lie at the heart of all things; forces before which thesouls of men must wither and die and blacken, as their bodies blackenunder the electric current. Such forces cannot be named, cannot bespoken, cannot be imagined except under a veil and a symbol, a symbol tothe most of us appearing a quaint, poetic fancy, to some a foolish tale.But you and I, at all events, have known something of the terror thatmay dwell in the secret place of life, manifested under human flesh;that which is without form taking to itself a form. Oh, Austin, how canit be? How is it that the very sunlight does not turn to blacknessbefore this thing, the hard earth melt and boil beneath such a burden?'

  Villiers was pacing up and down the room, and the beads of sweat stoodout on his forehead. Austin sat silent for a while, but Villiers saw himmake a sign upon his breast.

  'I say again, Villiers, you will surely never enter such a house asthat? You would never pass out alive.'

  'Yes, Austin, I shall go out alive--I, and Clarke with me.'

  'What do you mean? You cannot, you would not dare ...'

  'Wait a moment. The air was very pleasant and fresh this morning; therewas a breeze blowing, even through this dull street, and I thought Iwould take a walk. Piccadilly stretched before me a clear, bright vista,and the sun flashed on the carriages and on the quivering leaves in thepark. It was a joyous morning, and men and women looked at the sky andsmiled as they went about their work or their pleasure, and the windblew as blithely as upon the meadows and the scented gorse. But somehowor other I got out of the bustle and the gaiety, and found myselfwalking slowly along a quiet, dull street, where there seemed to be nosunshine and no air, and where the few foot-passengers loitered as theywalked, and hung indecisively about corners and archways. I walkedalong, hardly knowing where I was going or what I did there, but feelingimpelled, as one sometimes is, to explore still further, with a vagueidea of reaching some unknown goal. Thus I forged up the street, notingthe small traffic of the milk-shop, and wondering at the incongruousmedley of penny pipes, black tobacco, sweets, newspapers, and comicsongs which here and there jostled one another in the short compass of asingle window. I think it was a cold shudder that suddenly passedthrough me that first told me that I had found what I wanted. I lookedup from the pavement and stopped before a dusty shop, above which thelettering had faded, where the red bricks of two hundred years ago hadgrimed to black; where the windows had gathered to themselves the fogand the dirt of winters innumerable. I saw what I required; but I thinkit was five minutes before I had steadied myself and could walk in andask for it in a cool voice and with a calm face. I think there musteven then have been a tremor in my words, for the old man who came outfrom his back parlour, and fumbled slowly amongst his goods, lookedoddly at me as he tied the parcel. I paid what he asked, and stoodleaning by the counter, with a strange reluctance to take up my goodsand go. I asked about the business, and learnt that trade was bad andthe profits cut down sadly; but then the street was not what it wasbefore traffic had been diverted, but that was done forty years ago,"just before my father died," he said. I got away at last, and walkedalong sharply; it was a dismal street indeed, and I was glad to returnto the bustle and the noise. Would you like to see my purchase?'

  Austin said nothing, but nodded his head slightly; he still looked whiteand sick. Villiers pulled out a drawer in the bamboo table, and showedAustin a long coil of cord, hard and new; and at one end was a runningnoose.

  'It is the best hempen cord,' said Villiers, 'just as it used to be madefor the old trade, the man told me. Not an inch of jute from end toend.'

  Austin set his teeth hard, and stared at Villiers, growing whiter as helooked.

  'You would not do it,' he murmured at last. 'You would not have blood onyour hands. My God!' he exclaimed, with sudden vehemence, 'you cannotmean this, Villiers, that you will make yourself a hangman?'


  'No. I shall offer a choice, and leave Helen Vaughan alone with thiscord in a locked room for fifteen minutes. If when we go in it is notdone, I shall call the nearest policeman. That is all.'

  'I must go now. I cannot stay here any longer; I cannot bear this.Good-night.'

  'Good-night, Austin.'

  The door shut, but in a moment it was opened again, and Austin stood,white and ghastly, in the entrance.

  'I was forgetting,' he said, 'that I too have something to tell. I havereceived a letter from Dr. Harding of Buenos Ayres. He says that heattended Meyrick for three weeks before his death.'

  'And does he say what carried him off in the prime of life? It was notfever?'

  'No, it was not fever. According to the doctor, it was an utter collapseof the whole system, probably caused by some severe shock. But he statesthat the patient would tell him nothing, and that he was consequently atsome disadvantage in treating the case.'

  'Is there anything more?'

  'Yes. Dr. Harding ends his letter by saying: "I think this is all theinformation I can give you about your poor friend. He had not been longin Buenos Ayres, and knew scarcely any one, with the exception of aperson who did not bear the best of characters, and has since left--aMrs. Vaughan."'

  VIII

  THE FRAGMENTS

  [Amongst the papers of the well-known physician, Dr. Robert Matheson, of Ashley Street, Piccadilly, who died suddenly, of apoplectic seizure, at the beginning of 1892, a leaf of manuscript paper was found, covered with pencil jottings. These notes were in Latin, much abbreviated, and had evidently been made in great haste. The MS. was only deciphered with great difficulty, and some words have up to the present time evaded all the efforts of the expert employed. The date, 'XXV Jul. 1888,' is written on the right-hand corner of the MS. The following is a translation of Dr. Matheson's manuscript.]

  'Whether science would benefit by these brief notes if they could bepublished, I do not know, but rather doubt. But certainly I shall nevertake the responsibility of publishing or divulging one word of what ishere written, not only on account of my oath freely given to those twopersons who were present, but also because the details are tooabominable. It is probably that, upon mature consideration, and afterweighing the good and evil, I shall one day destroy this paper, or atleast leave it under seal to my friend D., trusting in his discretion,to use it or to burn it, as he may think fit.

  'As was befitting, I did all that my knowledge suggested to make surethat I was suffering under no delusion. At first astounded, I couldhardly think, but in a minute's time I was sure that my pulse was steadyand regular, and that I was in my real and true senses. I then fixed myeyes quietly on what was before me.

  'Though horror and revolting nausea rose up within me, and an odour ofcorruption choked my breath, I remained firm. I was then privileged oraccursed, I dare not say which, to see that which was on the bed, lyingthere black like ink, transformed before my eyes. The skin, and theflesh, and the muscles, and the bones, and the firm structure of thehuman body that I had thought to be unchangeable, and permanent asadamant, began to melt and dissolve.

  'I knew that the body may be separated into its elements by externalagencies, but I should have refused to believe what I saw. For herethere was some internal force, of which I knew nothing, that causeddissolution and change.

  'Here too was all the work by which man had been made repeated before myeyes. I saw the form waver from sex to sex, dividing itself from itself,and then again reunited. Then I saw the body descend to the beastswhence it ascended, and that which was on the heights go down to thedepths, even to the abyss of all being. The principle of life, whichmakes organism, always remained, while the outward form changed.

  'The light within the room had turned to blackness, not the darkness ofnight, in which objects are seen dimly, for I could see clearly andwithout difficulty. But it was the negation of light; objects werepresented to my eyes, if I may say so, without any medium, in such amanner that if there had been a prism in the room I should have seen nocolours represented in it.

  'I watched, and at last I saw nothing but a substance as jelly. Then theladder was ascended again ... [_here the MS. is illegible_] ... for oneinstant I saw a Form, shaped in dimness before me, which I will notfarther describe. But the symbol of this form may be seen in ancientsculptures, and in paintings which survived beneath the lava, too foulto be spoken of ... as a horrible and unspeakable shape, neither man norbeast, was changed into human form, there came finally death.

  'I who saw all this, not without great horror and loathing of soul, herewrite my name, declaring all that I have set on this paper to be true.

  'ROBERT MATHESON, Med. Dr.'

  * * * * *

  ... Such, Raymond, is the story of what I know and what I have seen. Theburden of it was too heavy for me to bear alone, and yet I could tell itto none but you. Villiers, who was with me at the last, knows nothing ofthat awful secret of the wood, of how what we both saw die, lay upon thesmooth, sweet turf amidst the summer flowers, half in sun and half inshadow, and holding the girl Rachel's hand, called and summoned thosecompanions, and shaped in solid form, upon the earth we tread on, thehorror which we can but hint at, which we can only name under a figure.I would not tell Villiers of this, nor of that resemblance, which struckme as with a blow upon my heart, when I saw the portrait, which filledthe cup of terror at the end. What this can mean I dare not guess. Iknow that what I saw perish was not Mary, and yet in the last agonyMary's eyes looked into mine. Whether there be any one who can show thelast link in this chain of awful mystery, I do not know, but if there beany one who can do this, you, Raymond, are the man. And if you know thesecret, it rests with you to tell it or not, as you please.

  I am writing this letter to you immediately on my getting back to town.I have been in the country for the last few days; perhaps you may beable to guess in what part. While the horror and wonder of London was atits height--for 'Mrs. Beaumont,' as I have told you, was well known insociety--I wrote to my friend Dr. Phillips, giving some brief outline,or rather hint, of what had happened, and asking him to tell me the nameof the village where the events he had related to me occurred. He gaveme the name, as he said with the less hesitation, because Rachel'sfather and mother were dead, and the rest of the family had gone to arelative in the State of Washington six months before. The parents, hesaid, had undoubtedly died of grief and horror caused by the terribledeath of their daughter, and by what had gone before that death. On theevening of the day on which I received Phillips's letter I was atCaermaen, and standing beneath the mouldering Roman walls, white withthe winters of seventeen hundred years, I looked over the meadow whereonce had stood the older temple of the 'God of the Deeps,' and saw ahouse gleaming in the sunlight. It was the house where Helen had lived.I stayed at Caermaen for several days. The people of the place, I found,knew little and had guessed less. Those whom I spoke to on the matterseemed surprised that an antiquarian (as I professed myself to be)should trouble about a village tragedy, of which they gave a verycommonplace version, and, as you may imagine, I told nothing of what Iknew. Most of my time was spent in the great wood that rises just abovethe village and climbs the hillside, and goes down to the river in thevalley; such another long lovely valley, Raymond, as that on which welooked one summer night, walking to and fro before your house. For manyan hour I strayed through the maze of the forest, turning now to rightand now to left, pacing slowly down long alleys of undergrowth, shadowyand chill, even under the midday sun, and halting beneath great oaks;lying on the short turf of a clearing where the faint sweet scent ofwild roses came to me on the wind and mixed with the heavy perfume ofthe elder, whose mingled odour is like the odour of the room of thedead, a vapour of incense and corruption. I stood at the edges of thewood, gazing at all the pomp and procession of the foxgloves toweringamidst the bracken and shining red in the broad sunshine, and beyondthem
into deep thickets of close undergrowth where springs boil up fromthe rock and nourish the water-weeds, dank and evil. But in all mywanderings I avoided one part of the wood; it was not till yesterdaythat I climbed to the summit of the hill, and stood upon the ancientRoman road that threads the highest ridge of the wood. Here they hadwalked, Helen and Rachel, along this quiet causeway, upon the pavementof green turf, shut in on either side by high banks of red earth, andtall hedges of shining beech, and here I followed in their steps,looking out, now and again, through partings in the boughs, and seeingon one side the sweep of the wood stretching far to right and left, andsinking into the broad level, and beyond, the yellow sea, and the landover the sea. On the other side was the valley and the river and hillfollowing hill as wave on wave, and wood and meadow, and cornfield, andwhite houses gleaming, and a great wall of mountain, and far blue peaksin the north. And so at last I came to the place. The track went up agentle slope, and widened out into an open space with a wall of thickundergrowth around it, and then, narrowing again, passed on into thedistance and the faint blue mist of summer heat. And into this pleasantsummer glade Rachel passed a girl, and left it, who shall say what? Idid not stay long there.

  In a small town near Caermaen there is a museum, containing for the mostpart Roman remains which have been found in the neighbourhood at varioustimes. On the day after my arrival at Caermaen I walked over to thetown in question, and took the opportunity of inspecting this museum.After I had seen most of the sculptured stones, the coffins, rings,coins, and fragments of tessellated pavement which the place contains, Iwas shown a small square pillar of white stone, which had been recentlydiscovered in the wood of which I have been speaking, and, as I found oninquiry, in that open space where the Roman road broadens out. On oneside of the pillar was an inscription, of which I took a note. Some ofthe letters have been defaced, but I do not think there can be any doubtas to those which I supply. The inscription is as follows:

  DEVOMNODENT_i_ FLA_v_IVSSENILISPOSSV_it_ PROPTERNVP_tias_ _qua_SVIDITSVBVMB_ra_

  'To the great god Nodens (the god of the Great Deep or Abyss) FlaviusSenilis has erected this pillar on account of the marriage which he sawbeneath the shade.'

  The custodian of the museum informed me that local antiquaries were muchpuzzled, not by the inscription, or by any difficulty in translating it,but as to the circumstance or rite to which allusion is made.

  * * * * *

  ... And now, my dear Clarke, as to what you tell me about Helen Vaughan,whom you say you saw die under circumstances of the utmost and almostincredible horror. I was interested in your account, but a good deal,nay all, of what you told me I knew already. I can understand thestrange likeness you remarked both in the portrait and in the actualface; you have seen Helen's mother. You remember that still summer nightso many years ago, when I talked to you of the world beyond the shadows,and of the god Pan. You remember Mary. She was the mother of HelenVaughan, who was born nine months after that night.

  Mary never recovered her reason. She lay, as you saw her, all the whileupon her bed, and a few days after the child was born she died. I fancythat just at the last she knew me; I was standing by the bed, and theold look came into her eyes for a second, and then she shuddered andgroaned and died. It was an ill work I did that night when you werepresent; I broke open the door of the house of life, without knowing orcaring what might pass forth or enter in. I recollect your telling me atthe time, sharply enough, and rightly enough too, in one sense, that Ihad ruined the reason of a human being by a foolish experiment, based onan absurd theory. You did well to blame me, but my theory was not allabsurdity. What I said Mary would see, she saw, but I forgot that nohuman eyes could look on such a vision with impunity. And I forgot, as Ihave just said, that when the house of life is thus thrown open, theremay enter in that for which we have no name, and human flesh may becomethe veil of a horror one dare not express. I played with energies whichI did not understand, and you have seen the ending of it. Helen Vaughandid well to bind the cord about her neck and die, though the death washorrible. The blackened face, the hideous form upon the bed, changingand melting before your eyes from woman to man, from man to beast, andfrom beast to worse than beast, all the strange horror that youwitnessed, surprises me but little. What you say the doctor whom yousent for saw and shuddered at I noticed long ago; I knew what I had donethe moment the child was born, and when it was scarcely five years old Isurprised it, not once or twice but several times with a playmate, youmay guess of what kind. It was for me a constant, an incarnate horror,and after a few years I felt I could bear it no longer, and I sent HelenVaughan away. You know now what frightened the boy in the wood. The restof the strange story, and all else that you tell me, as discovered byyour friend, I have contrived to learn from time to time, almost to thelast chapter. And now Helen is with her companions....

 

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