The Master of the Macabre

by Russell Thorndike

  As on the night previously, he finished the story by putting the two relics back in the specimen case.

  “But how on earth did you manage to get hold of them?” I asked. “Considering the adventure happened in the days of Charles the Second, how did you begin to track down the relics?”

  “By an incredible fluke, my dear fellow,” he laughed. “Near London Wall there was an old house I knew for many years. The ground floor was a shop and there were living premises above it. It was, I should think, the finest half-timbered building in the City. It is now one of my many quarrels with the Germans; for although it successfully escaped the Fire of 1666, it was utterly destroyed during the Blitz. You will appreciate the connection to my story when I tell you that the same family had lived there since Tudor days, and the emblazoned sign hanging over the narrow street bore the words Joseph Sunderland & Sons. Instrument makers. Clocks et cetera. All that time running the same business, and then—the whole family wiped out with their house. It was a direct hit. I was recommended to them when I wanted to buy a compass for one of my long journeys, and so made the acquaintance of the old man. Thinking his trade might be a likely hiding-place for some good stories, I confided in him the object of my proposed journey. He told me that his family records only contained one queer story, concerning the purchase by one of his ancestors, a Joe Sunderland, who lived during the Restoration, of a fine old case-clock. A regular great-grandfather, he called it. He showed it to me where it had stood since the year of the Plague—in a corner of the room behind the shop, which he used as an office. You couldn’t tell the time by it in that room, because you couldn’t see the face. The case was over nine feet high, and when wound up it took the great lead weights a year to reach the ground. As there had been no ceiling high enough to house it, his ancestor had cut through the floor of the upstair parlour, and there you had to go to see the face, which struck me as being somewhat ironic, that one had to look down on the floor to see the time of the tallest house-clock one was ever likely to meet. When he opened the case-door in the office, he unhooked that wig and cord beneath which a piece of parchment had been pasted, saying, ‘The gag used by some person or persons unknown, who caused the death of Walter Collins, serving-man to John Wilkes, Alderman of the City. Death due to suffocation.’ This, you see, proves that the Tale-Makers’ Club kept Master Gabond’s secret.”

  “Then how on earth did you piece out the rest of the story,” I asked.

  “Ah, that’s where the incredible fluke I mentioned comes in,” he answered. “He showed me the record of purchase in his records. It seems that the wife of John Wilkes could not bear to live in the sight of a clock that had such a ghastly connection with murder, so Wilkes sold it to the clock maker and locksmith of our story. Naturally, the wig and cord went with it, and Joe Sunderland, knowing as he did later the true facts, preserved the relics in the clock, taking care not to incriminate his fellow club member.”

  “And did the clock or compass maker that you knew give them to you?”

  “I tried to buy the clock which, of course, he wouldn’t sell,” explained my host. “But he made a bargain in jest, which finally he had to keep, saying that if I could solve the mystery of the serving-man’s death I could have the wig and cord, which, you’ll agree, seemed a safe enough bet on his side. But he reckoned without the fluke, and it happened in Charing Cross Road. I have always been fascinated by beautiful print, and I happened to see in a bookshop window a very fine example in the title page of an open Bible. Two things struck me at once. The date and the superscription. 1625—and in ink, aged brown, ‘JOSEPH SUNDERLAND: HIS BOOKE. From his fonde parents to commemorate your confirmation at Olde Paul’s, upon December the fifth in this year of Grace 1625.’ Thinking this would interest my instrument maker, I went in and bought it. Such a weighty volume demanded a taxi, which I took straight away to the City. Old Man Sunderland was so delighted that he offered me the wig and cord in exchange, but this I would not accept, and in any case I did not consider that these relics had earned them a place in my specimen case, for the story on the face of it was too thin for my collection.

  “Late that night, however, I took another taxi to the house on London Wall. My instrument maker had telephoned to me the news that I had not only won the relics, but had also unearthed a yarn that was very odd indeed. He had found between the leaves of the Bible a folded printed broadsheet of the story as I have told it to you. It contained a footnote stating that in accordance with Rule Seven of the Tale-Makers’ Club, a privately printed version of this year’s winning story is thus forwarded to each member, who is reminded that this paper must on no account pass into other hands or be seen by other eyes. No doubt our friend the locksmith put his copy into the safe custody of his Bible thinking that like himself no one would take the trouble to open such a book. I imagine that that double-faced picker of his own locks must have parted with his Bible to pay for drinks when doing his time in Newgate, no doubt forgetting that he had left the incriminating story against Gabond in its leaves. Otherwise the Bible would have descended like the clock from father to son. A grim story, my dear fellow?”

  “Most grim—and certainly macabre,” I said. “And may I add—very well told.”

  “Well, the credit for that is not all mine,” he answered. “I had the advantage of making a copy of that broadsheet. I will show it to you in a few minutes. It is still in typescript bound up with other stories of the past. I have not yet had time to make the printed copy. But before I get it, I want you to do me a favour which you may or may not like. Do you take snuff?”

  “Not as a habit,” I said, puzzled. “But I quite like it. Why?”

  “I should like you to take a pinch with me—out of this gold box.” He took it from his pocket and held it out.

  I took a pinch, and so did he. When he had shut the lid I asked him if I could look at it.

  It was small but heavy and beautifully chased.

  “It’s magnificent,” I said. “Is it very old?”

  “Yes, and no,” he answered. “The box isn’t old as a box, because I made it.”

  “You?” I cried. “Is there anything you can’t do?”

  “I don’t know,” he said lightly. “You see, I’ve been a lot of things in my time. I didn’t do the engraving—that is very old. As a matter of fact I made the box out of the clasp that belonged to Joe Sunderland’s Bible. I found it shining in the rubble of their wrecked house. I thought a snuff-box appropriate to the Restoration period. And it’s useful whereas a clasp without the lock to it is not much good. You were certainly entitled to that pinch, because you are the very first person to whom I have told Antony Gabond’s adventure.”

  He then showed me the volume from his notebooks that contained his typescript of the story. I have never seen typing look more attractive. The lettering was quite different to the usual standard, and I asked him what machine he used.

  “It’s just a Remington,” he answered, “only I re-cast the letters into the old English style. I like old printing best.”

  We talked late that night, for old Hoadley had been sent to bed and it was my host who played the valet to me in the Tapestry Room. Once more he was going to sleep in the Chapel. I tried to dissuade him, but he argued, “I intend to give Porfirio every chance of making contact with us. When I don’t know all about a thing, it irritates me. Somehow I feel that your coming here is going to bring things to a head. I am certainly not going to let that old blighter disturb you till you are better, and then—well, if you want another dose of the Chapel—you shall. But perhaps he’ll make me see what he’s getting at first.”

  I laughed. “I’ll be quite frank. I should hate to sleep in that Chapel to-night of all things.”

  When he left me to the peace of the Tapestry Room and I heard him going downstairs, alone, to that lonely Chapel, I felt heartily sorry for him. And in the morning I found that I had had every reason for feeling the way I did.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  conce
rning two nightmares and a mysterious overcoat

  I slept well. Only once was I interrupted during the night. I heard four o’clock strike on the church clock. As I counted the strokes, I had that instinctive feeling that I was not alone in the room. Hoadley’s splendid log-fire was dying down, but I could still see every detail of the furniture, even to the many figures on the tapestries. I suppose I saw them by the light of the fire, or was the whole thing just a dream? I don’t know. Anyhow, this is what I saw, thought I saw, or dreamt I saw.

  Standing by the door that led on to the landing was the figure of a young woman. At the same time I recognized that sweet perfume that I had experienced the night before. Her face was turned to the door, but that didn’t prevent me from knowing exactly what she was like, and when eventually she did turn to look towards the bed, I found that I was right. A lovely little face it was—oval and delicate, but with an expression in her large grey eyes of proud determination. Her figure was perfect, lithe and feminine, though very youthful. I remember thinking how impossible it is to describe her in words. It needs the art of a great sculptor to give her any faithful reproduction.

  Now the same instinct that made me look for her, somehow enabled me to tell exactly what she was thinking. I knew that she had taken a daring decision and was now eager to complete it. Whatever it was, it had something to do with the door by which she stood, listening. Yes—she was expecting someone to come along and open it—someone terribly important to her, who had the key in his pocket, and who would fit it in the lock outside. As she waited I knew, without seeing her face, that her excited joy was turning into a bewildered anxiety. And then the key fell behind her with a chinking noise. She turned suddenly and saw it lying on the oak floor. I could tell the strength of her emotion by the rapid rising and falling of the rich tight bodice covering her youthful breasts. The tapestry moved and a cold draught came into the room. I felt it and shivered. Yes—the tapestry was being held aside, revealing a dark cavity in the wall behind it. The cavity was an open door leading to a dark staircase. She looked up from the key and saw, as I did, a hand with a great gold signet ring shining on one of the fingers. I knew it for the Abbot’s ring before Porfirio himself glided into the room, after pulling the door close behind him.

  If I had loathed the vision of him the night he appeared in the Chapel, my abhorrence was even greater now. It must have been the contrasting beauty of the girl which made him the uglier.

  He appeared as he was when he had scourged himself, which in itself seemed an added offence, being in the presence of this young and beautiful girl. There was something obscene in that massive torso with the tiny head—that great back and chest; lacerated with old wounds of scourging. In his right hand he grasped the thick handle of the lead-loaded thongs. In her right hand she grasped the collar of a dark hooded mantle which trailed on the floor beside her. In her eyes terror had grown as she stared at the awful monk. Then he spoke, in a low, sneering tone as he watched her with his horrid animal eyes. I could see his small mouth with the lips turned up at the corners into a perpetual smile, articulating words that sounded like a purring cat. Some of his words I didn’t understand, and many sentences were lost through his long habit of ecclesiastical intoning, but on the whole I gathered the evil gist of his menacing message to the girl, which ran somewhat as follows:

  “So you were willing to commit deadly sin with your lover, without the consent and blessing of Holy Church. Do you realize that your mere willingness has committed the sin? For there is no difference, daughter, between the willingness and the act itself. Now learn the truth. Your lover is not here. He has never been lodged in this room. It was I who tested you—not he. I who sent that tempting message of evil which can nevertheless bring you to eventual salvation. You must not blame the pretty Sister Anna for betraying you. Like many a nun, she is a woman still—a very pretty one. She will do anything for me, who has the power to forgive her any sin. Take comfort that I can do the same for you. When Sister Anna showed you the secret way from the convent opposite, she did it because I ordered her, though the poor weak creature envies you the opportunity to-night of showing your complete devotion to the Church. You are my ward; I am your ghostly protector. I suspected you would be lavish with your beauty to gratify the pleasure of the prince’s page, who brought me letters from his royal master here to-day. But he rode back. There was no thought of housing him in this royal guest-room. That was my trap to snare you. Do you suppose that I would sanction the Prince himself enjoying the most luscious fruit in my orchard? No—then how much less his page, however handsome the boy may be, however nobly born. Yet you were willing. I could lay a solemn curse upon you that would wither up your beauty of body and soul. But I am merciful. You shall abase yourself. With me you shall do penance, and then atone with me. Get ready.”

  Her beautiful eyes were riveted to his as in terrified submission she collapsed upon her knees before him. I thought of a beautiful rabbit fascinated by a loathsome snake. Porfirio raised his scourge—swung it round and sent the thongs hissing through the air. They licked round his body opening the old flesh wounds, and then he pointed the red, dripping implement of torture at the girl. She knew what he meant. There was no escape, and while still held by his hypnotic stare, her slender fingers fumbled with the laces of her bodice. Sadistically he waited, gripping the scourge; then as she drew the garment down from her shoulders, baring her breasts and back, he crept towards her. Then, as though from Hell itself, a flame of fire lit up the room, and in the light of it the figures vanished.

  The last great log had fallen in the hearth and flickered every detail of the room. Perhaps the noise and flare of it had woken me. It died down and went out, and I lay still in darkness. I thought of groping for the light switch, but there suddenly stole over me that same sweet perfume, and in its protection, I was once more sound asleep.

  All this came back to me suddenly, as I sipped my morning tea, and listened to Hoadley’s account of a catastrophe which had befallen his Master.

  It seemed he had dreamt of the black monk who had tried to get him out into the grounds through that door at the side of the stone altar which no longer existed; for, as Hogarth argued with himself, ‘What was the use of a material body trying to follow a ghostly one through a solid wall? It was not feasible. In fact, it was nonsensical.’

  This, according to Hoadley, had so angered the wicked spirit that he had pronounced a terrible curse against his Master.

  “He is in great agony, sir,” explained the old servant with indignation. “When I handed him his cup of tea an hour ago he couldn’t hold it. Crippled he is again with what I take to be neuritis. Worse than when you first saw him, sir. The Master won’t hold with my idea, that he is the victim of a Latin curse. In fact, he goes so far, does the Master, as to say that it was just ordinary neuritis givin’ him pain that caused him to get a bad nightmare. Now I don’t hold with that. It’s a clear case of a Latin curse put on him by the malignant spirit that haunts this place. Well, we’ll have to see what the Doctor has to say, though he’s apt to joke too much is our local. Told me over the telephone just now that any gentleman who chooses to go to bed in a haunted chapel, with a tomb for a bath and a high altar for a dressing-table, is downright askin’ for trouble.”

  “Perhaps he’s right there, Hoadley,” I suggested. “Or do you think your Master and myself should both give up the pleasant luxury of good port and old brandy before retiring?”

  Hoadley looked at me keenly. “Why, sir, was you troubled in the night? Not in here, surely, sir?”

  “I certainly had a nightmare, and a bad one,” I confessed. “Otherwise, I’ll not deny I slept very soundly. If there are ghosts, Hoadley, and I’m waiting to be convinced, there’s a very beautiful one belonging to this room who counteracts evil.”

  I then told him of my dream, which he assured me was not one at all, but an actual vision, and off he goes downstairs to the Chapel to recount it to his Master.

  When he ca
me back to superintend my bath which I had asked him to get ready, he gave me my host’s compliments and begged that, as I was feeling like getting up for breakfast, I would take it with him in the Chapel.

  To this I consented willingly, for the place had no terrors for me in the daylight, and in less than an hour I was seated at a table by his bedside, making a hearty meal. He, on the other hand, was in great pain, one side of him being completely paralysed.

  “But whatever the doctor says,” he declared, “I shall spend the day in the Library, though I may be forced to annex your invalid chair. This Latin curse as Hoadley persists in calling it, is a damned nuisance, just as I thought I was fit again. However, I shall sleep here again to-night and see if Old Porfirio won’t change his tactics. If he heals me, as he seemed to do before, I’ll make a date to join him in the garden by the back door. If I believed in ghosts, like Old Hoadley, I should think he was trying to show me some long-forgotten secret that keeps him from his rest.”

  “Perhaps the missing treasure of Old Islip’s time,” I laughed.

  “That would indeed be a welcome addition to my macabre museum. And while on that subject,” he went on, “I had another dream last night, apart from the nightmare you have heard. Oh—quite ordinary—but I dreamt our mutual friend Carnaby came in. He was in a terrible huff because I have not yet examined the package you brought me down. So that has made me change my mind. I will not devote the whole day to Old Porfirio and the Lady of your Dreams soaked in perfume—in fact, I may give the pair of them a miss till I come back here to sleep. Instead, we’ll open the packet and see what Carnaby can tell us of a problem that has irritated me since 1912.”

  “In what way has it irritated you?” I asked.

  “Because the damned thing has all the ingredients for a very good story,” he laughed, “and there isn’t one in it. Just a curious preamble, a few mysterious incidents, and then—no explanation. However, Carnaby had high hopes of being able to help me, and the packet will be his answer, no doubt.”