And Afterward, the Dark

by Basil Copper

  Mr. Appleton was conscious of a great weight on his heart; even breathing was an effort. The silence of the room was like a black cloud which made respiration difficult. Then a passing motor vehicle vibrated the windows and he moved again.

  He went over and sat in one of the fireside chairs; he remained motionless for more than an hour, straining his ears for the slightest sound from the windows. Towards tea-time he heard the scratching again. He put off the moment as long as possible and then went over. The silent writer had completed the inscription of his own name.

  Mr. Appleton went quickly out; his shirt was wringing wet and clung stickily to his back. He turned the key in the door behind him and went into the dining-room with an unnecessary speed and noise. Mrs. Grice looked surprised but said nothing. Somehow Mr. Appleton forced some tea and biscuits into his mouth, though he was unconscious of what he was eating. He had neither taste nor feeling at the moment. He sat with his spoon poised, his head on one side, as though he could hear the minutest sound from the study, now separated from him by two walls and the width of the corridor. Then Mrs. Grice came in and the spoon clattered loudly against the side of the cup.

  The housekeeper's face looked white in the cool dimness of the dining-room, with its heavy oak furniture.

  "I'm off now, Mr. Appleton," she said. "If there's anything else you want...."

  He made a perfunctory remark and waited until he heard her go into the kitchen. Then he was in the study, hardly noticing the door was ajar, making for the window. He stared incredulously at the sill, his mind suddenly stirred to furious activity. He made a gasping noise in his throat; his heart started to pump heavily. He stared again at the window sill, unable to take in the implications of what he saw; then he looked out through the window. He began to run towards the door like a madman.

  Mrs. Grice, on the opposite pavement, turned at his call. She saw her employer gesticulating wildly at the gate of the house. Mr. Appleton was not aware of the surprised faces about him in the street; he strode rapidly towards Mrs. Grice, one question only hanging tremulously on his tongue. He saw Mrs. Grice throw up her hands; there was a great noise in the sky and an intolerable pain in his body. The fading daylight changed to all the colours of the rainbow and he had time to note the horror on Mrs. Grice's face before all consciousness faded.

  The jury returned a verdict of accidental death and the matter was closed, though the Coroner, a patient and prosaic sort of man, could not help observing that it was difficult to see why a gentleman of Mr. Appleton's ordered and temperate habits should rush headlong into the path of a heavy lorry which he had apparently neither seen nor heard. Indeed, other witnesses had testified that he had looked neither right nor left as he hurried into the road.

  It was a minor mystery as mysteries go and though it remained for long a matter for speculation in the village, the jury preferred to deal with the available facts. Mr. Appleton's book appeared in the autumn and Mrs. Grice, though not addicted to what she felt was an essentially morbid type of literature, read it with great interest. If Mrs. Grice sometimes thinks of Mr. Appleton today it is perhaps merely to reflect what could have upset him. For of course she had no way of knowing that her thoughtful action in dusting off the study window sill had erased the warning of his own death.

  Camera Obscura

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

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

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

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

  The money-lender's sallow face brightened momentarily, as he thought of his increasing prosperity, but then he frowned again as he remembered the purpose of his errand. Gingold must be made to toe the line, he told himself, as he set out over the last half-mile of his journey. If he couldn't raise the necessary cash there must be many valuables in that rambling old house of his which he could sell and realize on.

  As Mr. Sharsted forged his way deeper into this forgotten corner of the town, the sun, which was low in the sky, seemed already to have set, the light was so constricted by the maze of small courts and alleys into which he had plunged. He was panting again when he came at last, abruptly, to a large green door, set crookedly at the top of a flight of time-worn steps. He stood arrested for a moment or two, one hand grasping the old balustrade, even his mean soul uplifted momentarily by the sight of the smoky haze of the town below, tilted beneath the yellow sky.

  Everything seemed to be set awry upon this hill so that the very horizon rushed slanting across the far distance, giving the spectator a feeling of vertigo. A bell pealed faintly as he seized an iron scrollwork pull set into a metal rose alongside the front door. The money-lender's thoughts were turned to irritation again; everything about Mr. Gingold was peculiar, he felt. Even the fittings of his household were things one never saw elsewhere.

  Though this might be an advantage if he ever gained control of Mr. Gingold's assets and had need to sell the property; there must be a lot of valuable stuff in this old house he had never seen, he mused. Which was another reason he felt it strange that the old man was unable to pay him his dues; he must have a great deal of money, if not in cash, in property, one way or another.

  He found it difficult to realize why Mr. Gingold kept hedging over a matter of three hundred pounds; he could easily sell the place and go to live in a more attractive part of town in a modern, well-appointed villa and still keep his antiquarian interests. Mr. Sharsted sighed. Still, it was none of his business. All he was concerned with was the matter of the money; he had been kept waiting long enough and he wouldn't be fobbed off any longer. Gingold had got to settle by Monday or he'd make things unpleasant for him.

  Mr. Sharsted's thin lips tightened in an ugly manner as he mused on, oblivious of the sunset staining the upper storeys of the old houses and dyeing the mean streets below the hill a rich carmine. He pulled the bell again impatiently, and this time the door was opened almost immediately. Mr. Gingold was a very tall, white-haired man with a gentle, almost apologetic manner. He stood slightly stooping in the doorway, blinking as though astonished at the sunlight, half afraid it would fade him if he allowed too much of it to absorb him.

  His clothes, which were of good quality and cut, were untidy and sagged loosely on his big frame; they seemed washed out in the bright light of the sun and appeared to Mr. Sharsted to be all of a part with the man himself; indeed, Mr. Gingold was rinsed to a pale, insipid shade by the sunshine so that his white hair and face and clothing ran into one another, and somehow the different aspects of the picture became blurred and indeterminate.

  To Mr. Sharsted he bore the aspect of an old photograph which had never been properly fixed and had turned brown and faded with time. Mr. Sharst
ed thought he might blow away with the breeze that had started up, but Mr. Gingold merely smiled shyly and said, "Oh, there you are, Sharsted, come on in," as though he had been expecting him all the time. Surprisingly, Mr. Gingold's eyes were of a marvellous shade of blue and they made his whole face come vividly alive, fighting and challenging the overall neutral tints of his clothing and features.

  He led the way into a cavernous hall. Mr. Sharsted followed cautiously, his eyes adjusting with difficulty to the cool gloom of the interior. With courteous, old-world motions Mr. Gingold beckoned him forward. The two men ascended a finely carved staircase, whose balustrades, convoluted and serpentine, seemed to writhe sinuously upwards into the darkness.

  "My business will only take a moment," protested Sharsted, anxious to present his ultimatum and depart. But Mr. Gingold merely continued to ascend the staircase.

  "Come along, come along," he said gently, as though he hadn't heard Mr. Sharsted's expostulations. "You must take a glass of wine with me, I have so few visitors."

  Mr. Sharsted looked about him curiously; he had never been in this part of the house. Usually, Mr. Gingold received his occasional callers in a big, cluttered room on the ground floor. This afternoon, for some reason known only to himself, he had chosen to show Mr. Sharsted another part of his domain. Mr. Sharsted thought that perhaps Mr. Gingold intended to settle the matter of his repayments. This might be where he transacted business, perhaps kept his money. His thin fingers twitched with nervous excitement.

  They continued to ascend what seemed to the money-lender to be enormous distances. The staircase still unwound in front of their measured progress. From the little light which filtered in through rounded windows, Sharsted caught occasional glimpses of objects that aroused his professional curiosity and acquisitive sense. Here a large oil painting swung into view round the bend of the stairs; in the necessarily brief glance that Mr. Sharsted caught, he would have sworn it was a Poussin. A moment later a large sideboard laden with porcelain slid by the corner of his eye. He stumbled on the stair as he glanced back over his shoulder, and in so doing, almost missed a rare suit of Genoese armour which stood concealed in a niche set back from the staircase.

  The money-lender had reached a state of confused bewilderment when at length Mr. Gingold flung aside a large mahogany door, high up in the house, and motioned him forward. Mr. Gingold must be a wealthy man and could easily realize enormous amounts on any one of the objets d'art Sharsted had seen; why then, thought the latter, did he find it necessary to borrow so frequently, and why was it so difficult to obtain repayment? With interest, the sum owed Sharsted had now risen to a considerable figure; Mr. Gingold must be a buyer of rare items.

  Allied to the general shabbiness of the house as seen by the casual visitor, it must mean that his collector's instinct would refuse to allow him to part with anything once bought, which had made him run himself into debt. The money-lender's lips tightened again; well, he must be made to settle his debts like anyone else. If not, perhaps Sharsted could force him to part with something—porcelain, a picture—that could be made to realize a handsome profit on the deal. Business was business and Gingold could not expect him to wait forever. His musings were interrupted by a query from his host and Sharsted muttered an apology as he saw that Mr. Gingold was waiting, one hand on the neck of a heavy silver and crystal decanter.

  "Yes, yes, a sherry, thank you," he murmured in confusion, moving awkwardly. The light was so bad in this place that he felt it difficult to focus his eyes, and objects had a habit of shifting and billowing as though seen under water. Mr. Sharsted was forced to wear tinted spectacles, as his eyes had been weak from childhood. They made these apartments seem twice as dark as they might be. But though Mr. Sharsted squinted over the top of his lenses as Mr. Gingold poured the sherry, he still could not make out objects clearly. He really would have to consult his oculist soon, if this trouble continued.

  His voice sounded hollow to his own ears as he ventured a commonplace when Mr. Gingold handed him the glass. He sat down gingerly on a ladder-back chair indicated to him by Mr. Gingold, and sipped at the amber liquid in a hesitant fashion. It tasted uncommonly good, but this unexpected hospitality was putting him on a wrong footing with Gingold. He must assert himself and broach the subject of his business. But he felt a curious reluctance and merely sat on in embarrassed silence, one hand round the stem of his goblet, listening to the soothing tick of an old clock, which was the only thing which broke the silence.

  He saw now that he was in a large apartment, expensively furnished, which must be high up in the house, under the eaves. Hardly a sound from outside penetrated the windows, which were hung with thick blue velvet curtains; the parquet floor was covered with exquisitely worked Chinese rugs and the room was apparently divided in half by heavy velvet curtains to match those which masked the windows. Mr. Gingold said little but sat at a large mahogany table, tapping his sherry glass with long fingers; his bright blue eyes looked with mild interest at Mr. Sharsted as they spoke of everyday matters.

  At last Mr. Sharsted was moved to broach the object of his visit. He spoke of the long-outstanding sum which he had advanced to Mr. Gingold, of the continued applications for settlement, and of the necessity of securing early payment. Strangely, as Mr. Sharsted progressed, his voice began to stammer and eventually he was at a loss for words; normally, as working-class people in the town had reason to know, he was brusque, business-like, and ruthless. He never hesitated to distrain on debtor's goods, or to evict if necessary, and that he was the object of universal hatred in the outside world bothered him not in the slightest. In fact he felt it to be an asset; his reputation in business affairs preceded him, as it were, and acted as an incentive to prompt repayment.

  If people were fool enough to be poor or run into debt and couldn't meet their dues, well then, let them; it was all grist to his mill and he could not be expected to run his business on a lot of sentimental nonsense. He felt more irritated with Mr. Gingold than he need have been, for his money was obviously safe; but what continued to baffle him was the man's gentle docility, his obvious wealth, and his reluctance to settle his debts.

  Something of this must have eventually permeated his conversation, for Mr. Gingold shifted in his seat, made no comment whatever on Mr. Sharsted's pressing demands, and only said, in another of his softly spoken sentences, "Do have another sherry, Mr. Sharsted."

  The money-lender felt all the strength going out of him, as he weakly assented. He leaned back on his comfortable chair with a swimming head and allowed the second glass to be pressed into his hand, the thread of his discourse completely lost. He mentally cursed himself for a dithering fool and tried to concentrate, but Mr. Gingold's benevolent smile, the curious way the objects in the room shifted and wavered in the heat haze, the general gloom and the discreet curtaining, came more and more to weigh on and oppress his spirits.

  So it was with something like relief that Sharsted saw his host rise from the table. He had not changed the topic but continued to speak as though Mr. Sharsted had never mentioned money to him at all; he merely ignored the whole situation and with an enthusiasm Sharsted found difficult to share, murmured soothingly on about Chinese wall paintings, a subject of which Mr. Sharsted knew nothing. He found his eyes closing and with an effort opened them again.

  Mr. Gingold was saying, "I think this will interest you, Mr. Sharsted. Come along...."

  His host had moved forward and the money-lender, following him down the room, saw that the large expanse of velvet curtaining was in motion. The two men walked through the parted curtains which closed behind them, and Mr. Sharsted then saw that they were in a semicircular chamber.

  This room was, if anything, even dimmer than the one they had just left. But the money-lender's interest began to revive; his head felt clearer and he took in a large circular table, some brass wheels and levers which winked in the gloom, and a long shaft which went up to the ceiling.

  "This has almost become an obs
ession with me," murmured Mr. Gingold, as though apologizing to his guest. "You are aware of the principles of the camera obscura, Mr. Sharsted?"

  The money-lender pondered slowly, reaching back into memory.

  "Some sort of Victorian toy, isn't it?" he said at length. Mr. Gingold looked pained, but the expression of his voice did not change.

  "Hardly that, Mr. Sharsted," he rejoined. "A most fascinating pursuit. Few people of my acquaintance have been here and seen what you are going to see.''

  He motioned to the shafting, which passed up through a louvre in the ceiling.

  "These controls are coupled to the system of lenses and prisms on the roof. As you will see, the hidden camera, as the Victorian scientists came to call it, gathers a panorama of the town below and transmits it here onto the viewing table. An absorbing study, one's fellow man, don't you think? I spend many hours up here."

  Mr. Sharsted had never heard Mr. Gingold in such a talkative mood and now that the wretchedness which had assailed him earlier had disappeared, he felt more suited to tackle him about his debts. First, he would humour him by feigning interest in his stupid toy. But Mr. Sharsted had to admit, almost with a gasp of surprise, that Mr. Gingold's obsession had a valid cause.

  For suddenly, as Mr. Gingold moved his hand upon the lever, the room was flooded with light of a blinding clarity and the money-lender saw why gloom was a necessity in this chamber. Presumably a shutter over the camera obscura slid away upon the rooftop and almost at the same moment, a panel in the ceiling opened to admit a shaft of light directed upon the table before them.

  In a second of God-like vision, Mr. Sharsted saw a panorama of part of the old town spread out before him in superbly natural colour. Here were the quaint, cobbled streets dropping to the valley, with the blue hills beyond; factory chimneys smoked in the early evening air; people went about their business in half a hundred roads; distant traffic went noiselessly on its way; once even, a great white bird soared across the field of view, so apparently close, that Mr. Sharsted started back from the table.