Echo of a Curse

by R. R. Ryan

  Placing his hands on his powerful knees, Touchcord leaned so far forward that his breath played upon Terry’s face.

  “Don’t keep anything back, Mr. Cliffe, because it seems to you outlandish and absurd. You have thought of something else?”

  “Well, the fact is, I’ve come to wonder if Border is quite responsible . . . He says and does things at times that alarm me . . . He did in the trenches. There’s this stuff about his father. Is it some sign of mania?”

  “Why do you ask that, Mr. Cliffe?” Touchcord demanded in a way that suggested his determination to know the truth was inexorable.

  “Well . . . Of course, it may be mere nonsense on Border’s part, but, when he heard about the freak’s escape, he declared it to be his father.”

  “He said that?”

  Terry sensed vast excitement beneath the occultist’s seeming monumental calm and thought of volcanic violence boiling beneath a mountain’s still crust. He glanced at Runder, who was smiling.

  “I think, Mr. Cliffe, your neighbour is perhaps a little too sane . . . An exceedingly sharp-witted party, with a watchful eye, always ready to snatch at floating chances. A flamboyant creature, a little of the clown and always trying to create effects. A jackdaw who loves to dress up in peacock’s feathers and strut. But, if he’s a poser, he is one, I should imagine, who always poses to procure some definite advantage for himself. I should not believe that because he dribbled all that rot over you, Mr. Cliffe, he did it without some practical reason. He wished to create an occult atmosphere, but, of course, he’s no more occult than my boot. This freak’s escape appealed to the acquisitive mummer in him and I’ve no doubt that a little Paul Prying on my part would reveal the motive.”

  There ensued a curious, stony silence. These two men, each in his own way a magnificent mentality, were, Terry felt, at once firm friends and sworn enemies, who lost no chance to bombard each other’s ideology. Touchcord, by far the more massive and physically imposing, rose and stood back to the fire. He turned his steady, concentrated gaze upon Terry, who asked himself: “What do these two mental detectives think of me? Uncomfortable companions!”

  “Well, Mr. Cliffe, you see how utterly diverse our opinions are,” Touchcord said, but without a trace of rancour.

  “You entirely differ from Professor Runder’s conception of Mr. Border?” Terry asked.

  “Oh, yes! Absolutely. My friend is supreme in the world of exact science and no one has a more comprehensive knowledge of the human brain. Therefore we must unconditionally accept his affirmation that your young neighbour is sane. But I do not dispute that. On the other hand I unhesitatingly, and after as much profound research as the professor has put into robbing science of its secrets, declare that everybody, more or less—some much more, some infinitely less—has occult powers; but those who neither study nor develop them naturally ascribe what they fail to understand to material sources . . . Sceptics seem to expect occultists to prance on stages and perform like conjurers, produce phenomena at will. True occultism is a silent, secret communion, peculiar to the privacy of a being’s silent journey along secret, silent paths. It is the few that voice their doubts. Millions believe and are silent . . . It is not necessary to have ocular, aural or tactile demonstration to know that profound ‘Influences’ exist for which we have no suitable names. Upon some of us the knowledge is forced. And I would even dare to say that there is no man, no woman unaware of them as death slowly approaches.

  “I am interested in your neighbour’s aura-waves. They communicate strange things to me . . . Evil ‘Personality’ exists, though it does not work directly or in positive form. Now and again, however, errors occur, as they occur in the natural processes, and into our normal creeps the a-normal—a touch of that which man is intended not to see, know or guess; an invasion from the dark world whose myrmidons catch men unaware, use them for purposes incomprehensible even to seekers like myself, but never appear in concrete shape so that men may say ‘This and that exists.’ But the whole of mankind has an instinct that gropingly knows the ‘this-and-that’ exists and in desperate confession cries Devil, Demon, Vampire, Un-dead—while the empirics jeer . . . because they are never seen, cannot be dissected; as if one had never heard of rationalization.”

  “Do you suggest,” Terry asked almost irritably, “that Mr. Border is actively related to vampires and demons?”

  He glanced from one man to the other and was aware of Runder’s quiet smile.

  But Touchcord still continued to survey him gravely.

  “I do not suggest anything extravagant, or what we term supernatural, Mr. Cliffe . . . I think your neighbour is conscious of unusual forces and inclinations in himself and that he is in alliance with, or possibly in alliance with, what we should term malign powers. At the same time we might pronounce him more victim than free agent. It is probable he fights hard against urges which he himself hardly understands.”

  Suddenly Terry found himself telling the whole story of Vin and Mary, to which both men listened intently and without uttering a word. At the conclusion of this tale, however, Touchcord turned to his collaborator and asked:

  “You see nothing significant in:

  “One. Border’s declaration regarding his father’s beliefs and pursuits?

  “Two. His claim to blood relationship with this so-called freak?

  “Three. The freak’s coming to this town, his unexplainable escape, his lurking in the Border garden, his appearance to the mother of Border’s child—and lastly, Border’s fit?”

  “I see a chain of events fully capable of commonsense explanation. I agree with Border, evidently concerned for the welfare of his child, that Mrs. Border, having brooded to an unhealthy degree over this monster, and clearly affected by a phenomenal storm, imagined she saw what she did not. As for the young fellow’s fit, having formed a definite opinion about his play-acting propensities—well, there you are!”

  “Why,” Touchcord asked slowly, “has the monster not been apprehended, if merely, as you believe, a degraded mixture of human and animal life?”

  “It will be, my friend.”

  “It—will—never—be.”

  Terry turned to the speaker.

  “You believe THE INEXPLICABLE to be supernatural?”

  Touchcord paused, then asked:

  “During your service in the trenches—were you able to explain everything you saw and heard in terms of natural science?”

  The question staggered Terry, for he, like innumerable others of his fellow soldiers, had found himself in touch with incidents—often of little importance—that puzzled him and frightened others less controlled by will and mind.

  “THE INEXPLICABLE has magically vanished?” Runder whispered with a quizzical tilt to one eyebrow. It was too charmingly suggested, this question, to cause offence, had Touchcord been one easily offended, which, Terry thought, he was not.

  “THE INEXPLICABLE is—buried,” the occultist replied as softly.

  “You are suggesting common murder?”

  “I am suggesting what is definitely best left to the oblivion to which it has been committed.”

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  His two extremely interesting and certainly unexpected visitors left Terry in a puzzled frame of mind.

  “Good lord,” he thought, “I’m more in two minds about Vincent Border now than when they came!”

  Both men had so well-supported their theories, and if the prosaicness, the literalness of life, in which one so easily finds explanations for apparent mystery inclined him to accept Runder’s infinitely more probably conclusions, Terry had to acknowledge much evidence in favour of Touchcord’s improbabilities, not least of which was that “oblique” aspect of Vin’s mental and physical behaviour.

  According to Runder, Vincent Border was what police and other evidence bore him out to be, a plausible rogue, out for the softest spot he could wrest from life, and a little too sane. According to Touchcord, he was dark-ridden, a victim of phantoms more elusive t
han the shadows of ghosts; a creature to some extent aware of being curiously cursed and secretly rebellious. In either case certainly no husband for a lovely and dear creature like Mary . . .

  Which of these two men was right, the child would sooner or later prove. If in due course it showed itself a normal and decent human soul, triumph for Runder.

  Meanwhile Mary was safely with his mother and the only problem remaining at present was where THE INEXPLICABLE was hiding. Strange if it never was found, as Touchcord predicted. Strange, too, that its keeper had vanished. Was the man a rogue? Had he been foisting a fraud upon the public, a doctored, faked-up wolf, and now feared the consequences of exposure?

  Time would show.

  Time did show. THE INEXPLICABLE was never seen again by mortal eye.

  Writing to Mary, Terry said:

  “ . . . Things are still quiet and orderly in our little sphere. Everybody now takes it definitely for granted that the freak creature is gone for good. It would hardly be an exaggeration to say every leaf has been separately examined; and after all this time there seems little likelihood of its showing up.

  “All’s perfectly in order next door. Vin seems to be exercising an extraordinary control upon himself and is as quiet as the Rev. Mr. James. So far as it is possible to tell he no longer drinks at all. He’s been shutting himself up at nights with hefty-looking books.

  “Personally, I imagine he’s pulled up his socks because . . .”

  In another letter he wrote:

  “ . . . Would you believe it: Vin’s won £700 in a football pool and for the moment is a local celebrity . . .?”

  And in another:

  “ . . . When I called on Aunt Charlotte to-day, she told me she had made up her mind to go home. She looks rather feeble and I imagine is truly homesick . . . No doubt you have heard direct . . .

  “Mrs. T. has seen Dr. Grove and made the arrangements; but she wrote to you, Mother tells me, by the same post.

  “Mum tells me we won’t see her for the event after all and that her next brief visit will be her last for a considerable time. She’s going to America as a member of some fantastical committee. Personally, I think she misses Dad dreadfully and is trying to occupy her mind with work . . .

  “Incidentally, how I miss you . . .”

  CHAPTER IX

  It was quite by accident that Vincent Border met Holly Chambers. The meeting took place in the public library, where Vin, in his new rôle of bookworm, had gone one lunch hour to change his books: a volume of Poe’s poems and the other a history of alchemy.

  There was an affinity between these two that each immediately recognized and did not try to retard. Holly was tall, with wide shoulders, pronounced breasts, big, long, well-curved thighs, a head of natural chestnut curls and seductive, heavy, provocative blue eyes. Added to these charms, she could boast an unflawed, creamy skin.

  Vin liked her physically, but it was, despite this liking, something in her mentality that attracted and bound him to her from the first instant of meeting. The attraction was quite mutual. In Vin Holly saw not only the most dangerously handsome man of her career, but also recognized, unconsciously perhaps, another of her own kind.

  There was a flash of the eyes between them—and the fates smiled.

  In turning he had knocked her book to the floor.

  “Dreadfully sorry,” he said languidly, before he’d seen her face and met her gaze. Then he darted for the book.

  “These aisles are very narrow,” he suggested, returning the book.

  “Yes, they are,” she agreed, returning his smile.

  “The whole place is stuffy and out-of-date, like most public libraries.”

  “Well, museum would be the right name for most of them.”

  “You’ve said it! You seem to have a pretty close acquaintance with them—various ones, I mean.”

  “Oh, I’ve traveled about England and Scotland pretty extensively. I’m a nurse.”

  “Oh, are you nursing in this little burg temporarily?”

  “Not exactly, though I don’t know how long I may stay. I’m attached to Dr. Grove’s Nursing Home.”

  “Really! He’s our doctor.”

  “Well, that doesn’t tell me much,” she murmured with a smile, looking at him closely.

  “My name’s Border.”

  “Vincent Border, who won that £700 in the coupon business—football wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, I’m that celebrity.”

  “Then your wife’s going to be a patient before long, I think.”

  “D’you mean you may be the nurse?”

  “I might be. I daresay I could be by a little manipulation.”

  They were eyeing each other under lowered lids.

  “I say,” he exclaimed suddenly, noting her pretty and tasteful mufti, “are you off duty?”

  “For the day.”

  “Well, I’m just going to have lunch. What about a spot?”

  “That would be delightful!” She turned, then added, “My name is Holly Chambers.”

  “Holly! That name suits you, somehow.”

  They began to flirt. Vin felt blazing inside. This girl was just his sort. And he agreed with the implication when she said that during her probationary days she had been known as Jolly.

  “Sometimes it was Jolly-Holly,” she told him.

  She spoke well, which pleased him. Uneducated himself, he yet managed to pass as a polished person; and Holly, it was evident, shared this gift; for she had known no greater initial advantages than he. Her father, it appeared—and this struck Vin as a strange coincidence—had been a showman, had made sufficient with exhibiting novelties at fairs to retire and live quietly in Cornwall.

  “He’s a wonderful man!” she exclaimed. “At fifty-two you’d think he was forty; and he’s as strong as a horse.”

  “You’re very fond of him?”

  “We get on well together; we’re excellent friends; but I don’t know about very fond. I don’t believe in getting so attached to a person that you can’t live without him—or her.”

  He shot her a glance. Yes, she was just his sort. That was his sentiment. Life had suddenly blossomed. Since that night of the storm he had rigidly forsworn drink and, therefore, things hadn’t been too bright. Life threatened to become boring—which, to his temperament, was dangerous—but now!

  She was, he could see, as interested in the main chance as he himself. And wary! Yes, she was wary. Before lunch was over he contemplated a liaison and knew perfectly well she reciprocated his desire. There’d be little obtainable in life she’d deny herself; but she’d help herself secretly; always with an eye to number one.

  They met again and again, becoming more and more friendly.

  And then the opportunity occurred for their liaison to begin. She could get away from the home, could pass the night with him—an easy thing to do undiscovered in his empty house. But she did not jump at the idea. He had not expected she would; for Holly knew her own value.

  “I’ve kept clear of silly risks, young man,” she told him.

  He reassured her.

  “Oh, yes; I’ve heard all that before. But even the smartest of us make mistakes. Even Lily.”

  “Lily?”

  “My sister. She thought she was smart, but she wasn’t quite smart enough and now . . . Well, bless my soul . . . She’ll have her baby practically at the same time as your wife’ll have hers. Strange!”

  “I don’t see it . . .” He began to argue, knowing full well that she was not really afraid, that she, of all women, knew how to take care of herself, even protect herself, for she was exceedingly strong, stronger than he.

  “Is your sister a nurse, too?”

  “No. She’s married. Her husband’s an Indian civil servant. He’s coming home next summer to a job here . . . Lily couldn’t stand the climate out there and’s been home some months . . . She’s pretty desperate. He’ll know it’s not his child, of course . . .”

  “What’ll she do?”
/>   Holly laughed; there was, Vin thought, rather a sinister quality in her laugh and this drew him even closer to her. He comprehended that laugh intimately and all kinds of cruel little excitements within sprang from nowhere to dance a second upon the floor of his mind.

  “She’s offered me a fairly large sum—what folks in our position call large sums—to help her.”

  “Well, can’t you?”

  “I can; but I won’t. I’m taking no risks like that . . . She’s got herself into the mess, she must get herself out.”

  Holly was suddenly aware that Vin watched her with strange attention. His ears, she saw, were pricked up in a way that made her think of zoological creatures and she thought:

  “Hello! What’s he got on his mind? Something to his advantage—and against mine. He’ll be disappointed.”

  Though she desired Vin and in her calculating way loved him, she was not prepared to take the smallest risk for his sake—unless a reward was offered greater than the risk.

  But, whatever his thoughts were, he said nothing. Then. Instead he pressed his suit.

  “You know there’s no risk for us. You get no fun in this life if you’re too cautious.”

  This was true and she smiled. Vin need not have concerned himself; she had no intentions of foregoing this particular luxury.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Time swept on. Holly and Vin pursued their amour with discretion. He, on his part, derived profound material satisfaction from their relationship and no longer craved for drink. He was deeply preoccupied with this admirable new companion.

  Even Terry and the women of his household failed to discover the truth of what was happening next door.

  “It certainly looks, Mr. Terry, as if he’s turned over a new leaf.”

  “Yes, it does.”

  “And maybe he’ll be a good father.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  It was with infinite surprise that Vin one day received a letter from Mary announcing her imminent return. So the time was at hand.