Echo of a Curse

by R. R. Ryan

“But Vin holds her—somehow. There is a tie between them that does not exist between her and me. She may not be as bound to him by love as she is bound to me, but his bond is stronger.” She paused and added: “And happiness bought at the price of justice must always have a worm at its roots.”

  “Justice?”

  “Why yes. What have we against Vin all these years? He’s kept his bargain. More than kept it. And what little share he’s been allowed in the children’s up-bringing he’s done well, if quietly. Would he not have the right to say, ‘Why wait until I’m beginning to be old before . . .?”

  “Old, Vin?” Terry said wonderingly. “Great Scott, yes; he’s over fifty . . . It doesn’t seem possible. He seems still the same age to me.”

  “So you see . . .”

  “I see you’ve made out a wonderful case for him and against us . . . You’d make a fine K.C., Mary . . . but why not let me sound Vin?”

  “Are you not reckoning without the sordidness of the human mind? Wouldn’t his reaction be immediately to suspect us, Terry? Wouldn’t he say, ‘Oh, so you two have been secretly in love all these years? No wonder Terry was so anxious to live under our roof.’ ”

  The eager light faded from Terry’s eyes.

  “You make my determination sound hopeless,” he said sadly.

  She said nothing, because she had known all the time his secret intention was and always had been hopeless, unless a free and barrierless road presented unexpected access to that happiness they now both saw clearly at hand—even if forbidden.

  Mary took out her compact and began to remove all signs of recent tears; and Terry by force of habit fiddled with deeds lying on his desk.

  “What about Govina?” he asked dully.

  She hesitated, then rose sick of her nays.

  “I’ll do as you wish, Terry. I’ll explain on Saturday that I find the arrangement inconvenient and ask him to go. I can suggest Mrs. Clifford.”

  He looked up suddenly and smiled. Again a rush of mingled fondness and desire, sweet because so strangely like the return of spring in autumn, swept over her. Did she not indeed owe a debt to Terry that was greater than the debt she owed to Vin?

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  She did not see the old reporter crossing the road towards the doorway she had just passed through. Wrapt in her thoughts, alternately uplifting and depressing, she had sight only for the visions of her own mind.

  However, the old reporter saw Mary and hesitated until it was clear her attention was not directed to immediate things; then with a faint smile he passed on, up to Terry’s office, gaining almost immediate admission.

  Terry stared at this gaunt, white-haired stranger, made aristocrat by age, without being able to place him. What was his nationality? What was his standing?

  Then the old man said:

  “My name is Chambers.”

  Terry raised his brows; the name conveyed nothing to him.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Chambers?”

  For answer the old man leaned forward and laid a cutting on Terry’s desk. It was similar to that which had not long since troubled Vin at Mary’s breakfast table. And as its contents penetrated Terry’s understanding a gloomy premonition enveloped his mind. What the special significance in all their lives that little cutting might have Terry was quite unable to determine, yet without any pretensions to second sight he felt very sure that it and this old man had some deplorable concern with his, with Mary’s, with Faith’s, with Don’s, with Vincent Border’s immediate fates. A show woman, an incomprehensible freak, part man, part wolf, part ape and a killer. Was it the long lost INEXPLICABLE?

  He glanced up to find his visitor’s keen gaze fixed on him with a sort of fierce interrogation.

  “What has this to do with me?” Terry asked quietly.

  “A very great deal.”

  There was both power and authority in the old man’s voice.

  “A tough type,” Terry thought. “Likely to be hale at a hundred.” Aloud he said: “Perhaps you’ll be good enough to explain.”

  The other leaned forward and tapped the cutting with a long, dark finger.

  “That means something to you.”

  “Well?”

  “It is here . . . in this town.”

  Terry’s heart, war-toughened, missed a beat. He felt a huge, dark shadow approach, chilling his blood: coming events. Already prescient knowledge was tapping for admission.

  “I think it would help a lot,” he said tersely, “if you’d be plain. You say this creature is in this town? Where?”

  “In Mrs. Border’s house.”

  That black prescience had expected this; but Terry’s heart seemed to sink—into icy water, into viscid, chilly mud, where it froze.

  He was about to say, “You’re talking rubbish!” when a sudden vision checked the words. Gleaming eyes. Fangs. Two men, commonplace, healthy-minded, literal creatures, seeing luminous eyes, fangs. A strange certainty of crisis sobered him, driving away his impulse to irritability. Love. Mary. Marriage. How remote—now. Instead, battle, war with an enemy to him and his, ten times more subtle, ten times more dangerous than that the ingredients of which he knew so well.

  “I think you have a tale to tell; and it seems to me, Mr. Chambers, you’d better tell it without preamble.”

  The old man nodded abruptly. He was a curt, tart, brief being, too; one, it was plain, completely divorced from verbiage and fairy tales.

  “The ‘man’ to whom Mrs. Border has let her rooms is the thing referred to in that cutting.” He leaned abruptly forward and spoke in a hoarse whisper. “But it’s no man. Nor is it merely a beast. It’s something to which this earth should not give shelter.”

  “Are you English?” Terry rapped suddenly.

  “Cornish.”

  “English by extraction?”

  “Hungarian gipsy stock.”

  “Quite. Go on.”

  The old man’s eyes flashed. His hawklike face tautened.

  “My daughter,” he said, in angry, deep tones as if to a disbeliever, “was the nurse who delivered from Vincent Border’s wife . . . (He suddenly shouted) . . . that thing which has killed the same woman who brought it into this world.”

  The full implication of this hit Terry like a blow. All sorts of issues belonging to this cataclysmic statement seemed to float in and out of his mind. He caught sudden clear glimpses of facts that, seen, swam out of vision . . . Don—alien. Don—strangely like this old man . . . The storm—Mary’s curse . . . The mystery of Dr. Grove’s hoax-call.

  He put his hands over his face.

  “Tell me the whole tale,” he muttered.

  He was obeyed, in graphic, bitting phrases; and Terry listened, now in amazement, now in consternation, now in anger, now in derision. Yes, this man was a truth-teller. But was above all a lore-monger. Had been born saturated in superstition and credulity. Apparently he believed Vin “touched” with forbidden attributes, that THE INEXPLICABLE had been of the were-wolf order and that Mary’s son was something out of the foul, forbidden world which Chambers believed to ride parallel with ours and which was inseparable from the unimaginable vast in whose enormity we are lost. Because he was filled with some indefinable horror that strove with his everyday mentality he felt a wild anger against the teller of this monstrous tale . . . His facts were true; his surmises false. That creature in Mary’s house, ghoul in appearance only, might have luminous eyes, might have fangs, might have some exceptional—natural to itself—hypnotic power; but these were details belonging to a freak; their possession certainly did not require any sane man to believe it hyperphysical. It could be shut up. It could be destroyed . . . And that, of course, was a matter for the authorities . . . Mary had certainly given birth to an unnatural being, a monster—call it; but the explanation was clear: that other freak bursting in upon her at the dramatic moment that it did, with all the circumstances as they were, she laying her hands upon her hidden embryo at that vital instant, there was only nature’s own magic in al
l that, and it was no more marvelous than a birthmark.

  “What is your object in coming with this tale to me?” he asked suddenly.

  A tremor passed through the old man’s being, his face twitched.

  “I did very, very wrong in countenancing Holly’s deception. I protested against it at the time . . . And now I’ve lived to see the consequences of my own folly and Holly’s greed . . . I’m an old man. I don’t want to end my days in prison . . .”

  “You realize, then, the public enormity of what you did?”

  “Yes. I came to you, knowing you to be a life-long friend of Mrs. Border’s. Friendship, it seems to me, is needed in dealing with the situation that has arisen. There is much that you would, I take it, wish to conceal. You, being a legal man, will know how to approach the authorities, without making bad worse. As for me, I have said, I’m old . . . I want a chance, having told the truth of my share in an act that was meant to be merciful, I want a chance to get away.”

  “That, even if I consented, would not be easy. The police will be after you with a warrant . . .”

  “Spare all your explanations. You’re telling me nothing I do not know. But you may trust me to take care of myself. The police won’t get me.” He paused, looked keenly at Terry, then said: “Will you act, in my place?”

  The younger stared up at the now risen elder with indetermination showing in his eyes and manner for the first time since the interview began . . . Was there no way of dealing with the affair without full exposure, with all its incumbent disgrace and suffering for Mary?

  “It will be kinder to her for you to take on the job; but, if you’re doubtful, say the word and I’ll go now to the police station. It’ll start killing, then things will be too late. I don’t want more blood and innocent blood on my conscience.”

  Kill! Terry’s face froze. Mary, Anne alone with . . .

  Both men faced each other. Chamber’s eyes were wild and concerned with his own soul.

  “You must ask yourself why it has come here,” he said in a low, harsh voice. “Not in love. Of that you may be certain. And, if it hates, whom does it hate? Not Border. He is of the thing’s own kind. It has turned against the womb that conceived it in its present shape. It has considerable intelligence. My daughter wrote to me; so far as I can remember she said something like this: ‘It is half human, half animal. Both human and animal mentalities are above the average. It picks up foreign languages with ease and can converse with considerable ability; but in the middle of a perfectly rational conversation its intellect is apt to fail, when it will growl or snarl. I have done my best to educate the human side, because that would be fine for show work; but I’ve not dared to let it hold long conversations in public, in case it suddenly reverts.’ Another time she said: ‘To tell you the truth, Father, I am afraid of it. I have discovered it has powers denied to ordinary beings; just as you said. How I wish I’d listened to your advice . . . It hypnotizes people. Suppose it tried that on me. I shall have to cage it. Yet I’m afraid to do this because it talks. THE INEXPLICABLE was silent . . .’ ” Chambers gave a gesture of despair. “Evidently she took too great a risk and left the caging till too late . . . Or maybe the creature knew her intention and slew her. Holly, one supposes, told it the truth about its birth, or it may have overheard some conversation . . . Again, it could read. Holly and I corresponded unguardedly . . .” He broke off and was silent once more. But before Terry could speak he burst out: “So, you see, action must be taken. Maybe it’s my duty to go to the police . . . Yet the thought of a cell galls my wild streak . . . I’d rather die by my own hand.” He looked sternly, almost accusingly at Terry, as if it were he who had erred in the past and was now culpable. “What shall you do?”

  Terry frowned and rose, moved to the window, as Mary had done a little earlier, and stared out unseeingly. What should he do? He felt the need to think, to comprehend fully all he had heard and its exact relation to Mary . . .

  He suddenly understood the urge to crime that comes upon quite good, but threatened, people . . . A shot would settle this . . . But no, not while this old man lived to tell his tale. Moreover, if he, Terry, were arraigned for an apparently motiveless crime, that would still ensure suffering for Mary.

  There was so much! That thing Mary’s son, Faith’s brother! And Don? Not even of Mary’s blood. No wonder he seemed alien!

  Hate of Vin flamed in his heart, mind, brain, blood. He’d see and confront him with this dreadful revelation. Meanwhile here was this old man expecting some definite assurance. But how could he say, ‘Yes, I’ll make a public exposure of the woman I love, and . . .’

  He turned to Chambers.

  “All this is utterly strange to me, while you have had the circumstances in your mind for years. I must have time for reflection.”

  “Delay is dangerous.”

  “I do not take your extreme view, you know. It’s in your blood to accept contra-to-reason points-of-view. Give me till to-night. Meet me here at eight and I’ll tell you my decision.”

  “It is too long, but I’ll agree.”

  He rose, put on his hat and again turned.

  “It is the dark that is the dangerous time. It is dark at eight. I will wait here from six onwards. Reflection may hasten you decision.”

  Leaving Terry no chance to reply, he marched out like—the lawyer commented to the closed door—some imperious emperor.

  Terry strode about wildly. While reason must dispute Chambers’ far-fetched suppositions, it could not deny that there was acute danger in harbouring such a being in one’s house. The danger to Mary must be profound. Nevertheless, anything but exposure . . . How proclaim to her that this man-beast was her son, how tell Faith it was her brother, how rob Don of a home and parentage that he had fully accepted as his own; and how deluge Mary, the most innocent of all, in public shame?

  How serious was the danger? How immediate? Why had the thing not already struck? Vin might know. And without question Vin must be confronted with this rotten tale.

  He strode to the telephone . . . and learnt that Vin was not in the Institute, being away on some business or other; would probably not be back till five.

  “When he comes in, please ask him to step over to Mr. Cliffe’s office on a matter of the utmost urgency.”

  “Mr. Govina went out this morning, Terry,” Mary told him at lunch, “and has not come in. Anne’s taken his food up and left it as instructed. I promised yesterday to take Anne with me to that New Home Exhibition at the Round Hall. Do you think it’ll be all right?”

  “Good lord, yes! Govina’s told you not to fuss about him. It’s not your fault if he’s out for lunch. It’s cold, anyway. Just leave his grub, in case he comes in unexpectedly.”

  Terry was infinitely relieved at this news. It at least meant some hours of surcease from absolute concern. The exhibition, he knew, was not over until five and, since there were several important demonstrations, it was unlikely that Mary, at least, would leave before that hour. Tea at home, he knew, was usually about five-thirty. Perhaps by that time he’d have had his interview with Vin and decided on his course of action; and that seemed, inevitably, the police. The creature must be removed and kept in safe custody.

  He saw Mary and Anne to the exhibition before returning to his office, where he spent the most profitless, the most restless, afternoon of his life thus far. He counted the moments and had to exert considerable will power to resist phoning the Institute to ask whether or not Vin had returned.

  Periods of profound revulsion seized him. Typically an Englishman and a natural, irrevocable opponent of unhealthy doctrines, this position, with its whispered suggestion of devilry, nauseated Terry. Nor did he relish the forthcoming interview with Vin, far from a natural, typical Englishman. Nevertheless, he was steeled to it.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Vin’s step. He came in. The clerks had gone. They were quite alone.

  Already dusk was gathering and the mingled glows of twilight quarreled violently with
the artificial glare from a great street-standard that shed its somewhat ghostly rays through Terry’s window.

  Within the office it was as yet too light to justify electricity and Terry was glad of the vaguely gathering dusk, since it is an insular impulse to hide from the exotic.

  The visitor came tiptoeing in, as if afraid of being overheard, and looked, Terry thought, even in this slightly uncertain light, desperately ill. His cheeks were hollow, his flesh sallow . . . But how those eyes danced! Yet what inscrutability! The mincing had returned to his step. Here was surely the old Vin. But no! Something towered over and subdued the old Vin. Behind the smirk there was pain. This was no mere sadistic clown, this was plainly a being torn two ways, manipulated by two profound inward forces, each, maybe, trying to possess and use secret potentialities for entirely different ends.

  Terry, seated back to the great arc light without, faced Vin, who had perforce to sit in its full flood. Terry felt startled by the restlessness of the other’s eyes.

  Suddenly—because about to speak of him—Terry remembered Chambers and rose, glancing down at the entrance to these offices. A tall, dark figure lurked in the portal. The old gipsy, he supposed.

  He sat again.

  “Border, an old man named Chambers visited me to-day.”

  Terry paused; but observed no reaction to the sharply uttered name.

  “He showed me a cutting from a newspaper.”

  With a swift, deft movement Vin produced a slip of paper which he flipped onto the desk in front of Terry, who immediately saw it was just such another cutting as had been shown him earlier in the day.

  “Then you knew?”

  “I saw that.”

  “Chambers told me of the conspiracy between him, his daughter and you.”

  “Yes?”

  “He told me who Mr. Govina is. You knew?”

  “Yes.”

  “You see the outcome of your conspiracy. You have brought not only terror into Mary’s life—to which, perhaps, you’re indifferent—but also into Faith’s life, and presented us with a problem impossible to assess.”