Then I heard the door open and two masked monks entered, beckoning to someone outside, and along the corridor came the sound of silk rustling, till through the door came the beautiful girl I had seen in the Tapestry Room. She was very pale, as though suffering great emotion, but her step was firm and her eyes determined, while the poise of her head was most proud. The masked monks closed the door and shot the bolts. Then with hands folded on their breasts and heads bowed, they moved towards a dark shadow on the wall which looked like a door. As they passed me I saw that each clutched a trowel in his hands.
I wondered if once again I was to be a witness of her doing penance, but in her glorious carriage there was nothing of the penitent about her, for she walked defiantly towards the Abbot who was muttering Latin prayers in a low monotone. Suddenly he stopped and stared at her, his eyes growing large and hypnotic. It was then that she seemed to weaken and slowly knelt down before him. He then handed her a chalice from the altar, and she drank the contents to the dregs. I glanced at Carnaby beside me. His eyes were closed tightly as though in agony, and in spite of the awful fascination, I found my eyes were closing too, but not before I saw her slender fingers loosening her bodice at her shoulders. I could hear the Abbot mumbling prayers again, and then my eyes opened once more.
She was walking naked towards the black shadow where the monks stood, and the hideous Porfirio, stepping down upon the heap of her discarded finery, followed her with the empty chalice in his hands.
Knowing a hellish deed was about to be completed, I cried out to Carnaby and seized his wrist. Immediately the Chapel walls vanished, and I was back in the Tapestry Room, but still grasping Carnaby’s wrist as he stood beside my bed.
“Sorry if I startled you,” he said quietly, “I rang the bell as I promised, but I think Hoadley must be asleep, poor old chap, and Hogarth isn’t in his room, so I came to you. Can you manage to get down with me to the Chapel? There’s something going on there, I don’t understand. It’s a sound. The kind of sound silk makes being rustled. I want you to tell me it’s not just my imagination. I’m sure it’s not. Anyway, I’m not imaginative. I’m convinced that the noise whatever it is is purely physical—not psychic. Do come.”
I pulled on a dressing-gown, and with his help and the crutches got downstairs into the hall. Here we saw Hoadley coming out of the Library door, who told us that his master had been in such pain for the last two hours that he had given up trying to sleep and had come downstairs. “He feels more comfortable in the Library, gentlemen. You see, the influences ain’t so strong there. Was they very bad in your rooms?”
Telling him that we would join his Master in a few moments, we hurried along the corridor to the Chapel door.
Carnaby switched on the lights and we went to the fire, leaning against the mantel-piece and listening.
Sure enough the sound was not only as Carnaby had described it, but exactly like the noise of that glorious girl’s silk robes. Only it was far more distinct than in my dream, which I then began to describe.
“Now that’s an idea,” he said, as though thinking aloud.
“A medieval monastery—an unscrupulous Abbot and a pretty girl. As you suggest—some hellish deed—those two monks. Were they masked to prevent carnal thoughts or because they were executioners? The trowels they carried suggest the practice, common enough in those cruel days, of bricking up alive. But that sound’s no ghost—it’s real. Listen. We must ask Hogarth if he has tested these walls beneath the plaster. It sounds from over there, and that’s the outside wall.”
Sleep being now out of the question, we decided on a conference right away, and went back to the Library, where we found Hogarth feeling, as he said, considerably better for his upright chair. He would not own to believing in Hoadley’s theory of influences, but I had a strong feeling that he did. But to Carnaby’s query about likely hollows in the Chapel’s outside wall, he was very definite. “It’s a strange thing on the face of it,” he explained, “that a house like this, possessing such amazingly thick walls even for that period, should have a comparative shell to protect the Chapel. One theory puts the blame upon Islip, who is known to have robbed Peter to pay Paul on many occasions. He certainly took a large proportion of the masonry and woodwork for his River Palace, but he left plenty of good faced stone behind. No—my notion is that the original builders found that more seating space was required for the monks than they had estimated, and so rather than widen the outside of the wall, which would have spoiled the symmetry from the courtyard, they sliced several feet away from the inside. You couldn’t brick up a body in a wall barely two feet deep. In this room, though, you could brick up a cathedral chapter.”
I could see, however, that Carnaby was not satisfied, and was only waiting for daylight to examine it himself.
Hoadley brought in coffee and suggested breakfast, but we all felt it was too early for that, so the inevitable happened—and our Master of the Macabre was urged to take all our minds from our lack of sleep by producing another relic from the case.
“Very well, then,” says the Master. “I believe Kent favours the white moth with the broken wing. What was it you said, pathetic? No, my dear fellow, the influence of that harmless little beast gave birth to a homicidal maniac and a long succession of unsolved brutal murders.
“When I was about nineteen and was beginning to organize my eccentric hobby that was to become my life’s work, into some sort of coherent system, I drew up a list of what I considered to be peculiar professions and trades, ranging from steeplejacks to stockbrokers, with the resolve that just as soon as possible I would make myself acquainted with at least one member of each calling, in the hopes that I might collect some stories that were unusual. I mention this because in looking over that old list I find included—Keeper of Lunatic Asylum. This item I had marked with a star as being very hopeful.
“It was in Westmorland that I succeeded in making this necessary acquaintance. I was staying with cousins for my summer holiday, and through them I contacted a Doctor Godden, who was not only a well-known psycho-analyst, but was the resident consulting principal of a mental home, situated in a thickly wooded estate opposite my cousin’s house.
“He was a stocky little man of fifty-eight, with bushy black eyebrows and mass of grey hair which he wore very long, because he hated going to the barber’s. A strong face, but kindly when he smiled. You couldn’t help liking him, though when he got irritable he was rather alarming. Perhaps that was his only fault—irritability. He hated stupid people, and sometimes I thought it a pity that he couldn’t take a rest cure in his own establishment. In many cases he was as mad as his patients. He had a passion for old melodramas of the blood and thunder type, and kept a large bookcase full of them. These he loved to read to people, which he would do with great gusto when lucky enough to find anyone willing to listen, and that was how I came into his picture. I became his voluntary victim, incidentally picking up many an interesting yarn about lunatics he had treated. Every evening after dinner I would go in for a chat, which always terminated with some thrilling five-act drama. But I quite enjoyed watching the old boy ‘tearing a passion to tatters,’ and twirling an imaginary moustache to plant the reading of the Heavy Man.
“There was a sort of tame Hoadley about the place, called Robertson, who used to beat very hasty retreats from the study when he saw a play-book in his master’s hand, and he never interrupted unless there was the most urgent reason. That was an unwritten law.
“Upon the evening which was to end with that poor old butler’s sudden death, Doctor Godden was in one of his most enthusiastic moods.
“ ‘Great treat for you to-night, Charles, my boy,’ he cried, as I was shown in by Robertson. ‘An absolute corker from the top shelf which I’ve never read to you. “Simon Lee,” or “The Vicissitudes of a Serving Maid.” I warn you we shall be bathed in tears at the last scene. If you interrupt us, Robertson, you shall share the scaffold with poor Simon.’
“ ‘Simon, sir?’ as
ked the bewildered old man. ‘Do I know him?’
“ ‘You will, if you disturb me,’ replied the Doctor sharply. Which unspeakable crime Robertson committed at about half-past ten, just when his master was well embarked on the last act. He came creeping in, holding out a silver tray with a visiting card on it.
“With a yowl of agony, which the butler took to be genuine, Godden picked up the card and glanced at it, then flung it back on the tray.
“ ‘What on earth are you about, Robertson?’ he cried testily. ‘I have never heard of Nathaniel Skinner.’
“ ‘So I understand, sir, but the young man says you will see him.’
“ ‘Nonsense. Find out his business. If important—ten sharp to-morrow morning—and add—the fee will be two guineas a minute. That’ll teach him to interrupt Simon Lee. And here’s another interruption. I’m reading this play from a spare copy. You must have mine, Charles. The end leaves haven’t been cut. Pass me the paper-knife, will you?’
“Robertson left the room to find out the visitor’s business and I handed Godden the knife from his desk. It was a real dagger with a very sharp blade. Godden began to cut the leaves, saying irritably, ‘Nathaniel Skinner, indeed—of course I shan’t see him.’
“ ‘Oh, yes, you will.’
“We both turned towards the door, and saw the young man who spoke in a high staccato voice.
“The Doctor raised his bushy eyebrows and said in a reproving tone, ‘Really!’
“ ‘And you need not worry about money for your fees and my keep,’ went on the queer figure. He was an albino of, say, twenty-five—very thin-faced—and one of his red eyes had a cast in it. ‘I have plenty of money, for all my relations are now dead, and each one left me better off. Now, I come to you, Doctor Godden, because you are the Principal of this mental home, and what is a mental home? Merely a polite modern term for what used to be called honestly—a madhouse. Now you have got to be as honest with me as I am with you—for it is essential that I should be placed in a madhouse without delay. No time like the present, eh?’
“ ‘You consider yourself to be insane?’ asked the bewildered Godden, for only the previous evening he had told me that real lunatics always imagined they were sane.
“ ‘To-night? Yes. But unless you lock me up at once I shall be worse than insane. I shall be——’ He broke off to chuckle. ‘I shall be following my fate, doing my proper job and being—oh, a genius at it. You’ll hear and read about me then, I can tell you. Now, are you going to lock me up? I cannot be honest with you for long.’
“I could see that Doctor Godden was forgetting Simon Lee, because his professional interest was caught. He motioned the visitor to take one of the easy chairs. But Skinner shook his head and brought an upright one from just inside the door to the side of the desk. Here he sat—stiff as a poker—hands on knees and staring straight at the Doctor. Godden offered him a cigarette.
“ ‘I neither drink nor smoke,’ was the answer.
“ ‘Your case becomes more interesting then,’ said Godden. ‘I think you had better tell me all about yourself.’
“I made a gesture to go, but he stopped me by telling his patient that he could speak freely before me—that I was a young man in his confidence who was studying mental analysis under him. Well—I suppose I was really.
“Immediately the Albino plunged into a torrent of words—rapidly telling the story of his life. I will not go into the full details of this narration, for it has little to do with what followed. His earlier life was not very interesting. Let me just tell you that he was alone in the world with plenty of money—that he had tried his hand at all sorts of professions, but given them up because he felt they were not the thing for him. He finished with the words, ‘Yes, sir—a failure—but not now—not since last night—not since my great discovery—if you go on long enough any one can succeed in doing anything—I succeeded last night in discovering my star—and I know now the one course to take which will lead me to success. Why then should this little thread of decency no stronger than the thread of a spider guide me to here to you who can put a stop to my doing what I want to do? I cannot answer that piece of idiocy.’
“ ‘Perhaps I can,’ returned the Doctor. ‘Tell us briefly what it is you want to do.’
“Then he began that part of his history which held us, and which you must hear, and it had started only a few days before.
“ ‘However well you may know this part of the country, gentlemen, it is more than likely that you have never heard of Golt Hollow. There is but one house there—Golt Farm. It is a forgotten place—deep down—and hidden—a mere socket—a rounded cavity into which the sun can never penetrate, for it is cupped around with rugged, formidable hills. Don’t ask me why I have bought an option on such a detestable old place, which the house agent’s office call an “Ancient and desirable residence.” My only satisfaction is that I can now make the agents suffer—unless, of course, you think otherwise. As to ever setting foot upon my property again, why—I would rather do—well—almost anything. Suppose you had the power to take me back, shall I tell you what I would do? I would stab you to the heart with this paper-knife,’ and his fingers closed round the handle of the dagger which lay before him on the desk. ‘But you wouldn’t take me back—not when I tell you why Golt Farm is so abominable. At first sight of it, I said to myself, “This house is charged from cellars to garrets with some loathsome influence, the poisonous vapours of which ooze into every room and down all those innumerable passages.” There you get the mental effect it had on me. Now let me try to tell you some of the physical causes which nourished and fed those germs of fear that I had developed into my system at the first unlocking of the front door. To begin with—the grounds that surrounded it—if the extensive garden had ever been cared for, it must have been centuries ago—for there was not one pretty thing—no—not so much as a wild flower to relieve the abominable ugliness of that weedy entanglement of dank undergrowth.
“ ‘Over the sometime flower-beds lopped the most unhealthy vegetation—vegetation of the most pestilential order, the damnable corruption of which contaminated the very atmosphere which was tepidly clammy and altogether poisonous. Myriads of mosquitoes—disgusting dragon-flies and glossy slugs thrived the live-long day in that accursed garden, and when night set in, they in their turn were prey to the bat, the toad and the owl. But these did not disgust me so much as that debauched host of blowfly that crawled lazily upon the ground and gorged upon the puffy fungi accumulated within that rotten wilderness of mildewed plants.
“ ‘The utter abhorrence that I bore towards the grounds kept me a compulsory prisoner within the house, where, indeed, I was in no better plight, for the floorings and walls, especially those of the ground floor, were overrun with the most detestable of house vermin. Beetles scuttled everywhere—rats fed noisily upon the dry-rot beneath the floors, and cut catacombs behind the oak panelling. I was not master in my own house—the vermin had the whip hand of me. But let me tell you what it was that drove me to abandon utterly the ground floor and hide myself day and night in my bedroom. It was during the first evening that I was there, and already suffering from a ghastly loneliness, for there were no servants—a morose-looking woman in the pay of the agents who had promised to come in and cook my dinners, took one look at me and fled. She had never seen an albino before, evidently. There was no one else I could get. The nearest village was six miles away, over the moors. I ate chocolate and nothing else. Oh, yes—a few biscuits—but I gave up that, as you can guess it was fatal to drop any crumbs. They disappeared so quickly. Things would come out for them, right under my feet. They say Hunger drives out Fear. With them it did—but not with me. Well, I was sitting there in the library of mildewed books, with the door ajar—for its hinges were corroded and it would not shut—when I saw a black object run past the door. I tried to deceive myself that it was but a shadow—some illusion of the eye, for I was tired out with my journey and disappointment, but I was convinced in
my own mind that what I had seen was assuredly some thief-prowling rat. I arose to shut the door, forgetful for the moment of the faulty hinges. My hand had barely touched the broken handle when another black object, seemingly larger than the first, raced across the shaft of light that shot from the room across the passage.
“ ‘Now, whatever the first object may have been, I would have staked my life that this was no rat. Its run was more rhythmic—more mechanical even than that of a rat. A curiosity that I had every reason to regret overpowered me. I would satisfy myself as to the nature of these evil-looking, black, cadaverous creatures that made themselves so damnably at home in my house. I picked up the large oil lamp that stood upon the library table, making up my mind to trace these two venomous things that were running somewhere in the passage, and destroy them, thus striking the first blow towards the purification of the pest-ridden house. I passed out of the door and took five paces down the passage, then stopped dead—for in my way lay a large bat. By the convulsive beating of one of its wings, I knew it to be alive—but upon it, assiduously gorging the unwholesome, yet quick flesh, stood three enormous spiders—black—carnivorous. I knew that England could never breed such specimens in the normal way, and my mind went back to a clumsy-looking incubator with a broken glass that I had seen on a shelf in one of the hot-houses, and I remembered something said at the agent’s about a former tenant—an entomologist—who had made a moonlight flit, without paying his rent. I had noticed a book he had written on tropical spiders, which he had left behind in the library. I am convinced that these creatures were some that he had bred in that horrid machine and that they had escaped and driven him out.
The Master of the Macabre Page 22
