“A toast to one who—”
They were his last words.
A bolt of white-hot pain seemed to crash into his brain, even as the words echoed in his ears.[3] The glass in his hand splintered as his hand closed spasmodically, and the wine splashed over his shirt front.
Then he crashed to the floor.
A woman screamed, and the music jerked to a ragged stop. A crowd clustered about Colegrave’s lifeless figure, until the manager arrived and had the body carried to his office.
Then the police were called.
The coroner called it a heart attack, although he said it should more accurately be called a mind attack. The tissues of the brain were seared and shattered into shapeless shreds.
From the standpoint of the police there was one very fortunate angle to the mysterious death. For, when a certain safety deposit box corporation learned of it, they handed to the guardians of the law a document which convicted beyond all doubt a certain Mr. Ruzzoni as being behind the double killing of the mayor and the district attorney.
Ruzzoni, however, saved the state a job by committing suicide while the police were smashing in the door of his apartment.
[1] Schizophrenia—A mental disease resulting from a split personality. The victim has two natures, generally diametrically opposed to. each other.
[2] Anyone who has read Freud will understand the manner by which Colegrave built up the terrific, though artificial frustration in his mind. Since he was a schizophrenic, with two separate personalities, he created a tremendous repression in his subconscious by willing one out of existence.
A physical example of what Colegrave did would be in the case of a man who, with an extreme effort of will, denied himself even the thought of food or drink. In that case, if this were carried to its conclusion, the man would certainly die. Colegrave “killed” his secondary nature by denying its existence absolutely.
This “death” was in the form of a mighty repression which built up pressure day by day, just as a hot water boiler might. Then when the ultimate repression was reached something had to give. In Colgrave’s case, by the aid of strange drugs, a physical manifestation of his subconscious was created. The drugs might possibly be those of Indian origin which are responsible for schizoid transformation in small animals. It was from a base of this type that the fictional transformation of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde was supposed to have been effected.
[3] What Colegrave, for all his cleverness, didn’t realize, was that his own subconscious mind would be shattered in the electric chair. When he accomplished the physical cleavage between his dual personality, his own subconscious intellect activated the body of his secondary nature. Thus when the electric current shot through the body of the mayor and the district attorney’s assassin, it was the mind of Colegrave that was destroyed by the bolt.
BERTIE AND THE BLACK ARTS
First published in the April 1942 issue of Fantastic Adventures.
Black arts or not, one thousand tickets to the big game were worth $50 per—so Bertie sold ‘em!
WHEN the Moss wood college football special rattled to a stop in the sleepy little depot on the outskirts of Mosswood, it disgorged some three hundred pennant-waving, red-faced, drunkenly vociferous alumni. These blithe spirits swarmed over the waiting room, shouting to friends, yelling at cab drivers and in general behaving with the careless abandon that is the stamp of men released from the sober vigilance of their wives.
Among this carnival of happy souls Bertie Crimmins stood out like a beacon on a dark night. Or like a professional pallbearer in the midst of a New Year’s Eve celebration.
He was a tall, slim young man and, except for the pleasantly vacant look on his face he might have been considered handsome. He stood out in the crowd because he was wearing his hat instead of waving it wildly over his head. Also he was sober. On top of all this he carried no pennants and was not pounding someone on the back and shouting at the top of his voice.
There was, however, a certain wistful light in his eyes, as he surveyed the antics of his companions. Once, as the chorus of the Mosswood school song was being chanted by an inebriated and off-key quartet, his lips began to move automatically and the song almost poured forth of its own volition.
As he stood in the center of the depot looking about expectantly, a chubby, red-faced chap holding a bottle in one hand stumbled into him.
“Ssssorry,” he mumbled, swaying slightly. Then his eyes lighted with recognition. “My old pal, Bertie Crimmins!” he cried emotionally. “I didn’t know you were coming down for the ol’ game. Have a drink, pal, have a drink.”
He shoved the bottle toward Bertie.
Bertie looked at it longingly, but shook his head.
“I’m not using the stuff,” he said weakly.
His cock-eyed friend stared at him with incredulous disbelief.
“You don’t say,” he mumbled in astonishment. “You were the best ol’ rum pot in school when I was here. Member the time ol’ Prexy caught the two of us, blind drunk, in the girl’s dressing room at the Senior Prom? That was some time, wasn’t it?”
“Y—yes it was,” Bertie said hastily. He wiped his suddenly damp brow, and glanced nervously about the depot.
“You know sumpn’,” his drunken chum tittered, “I always wondered what ol’ Prexy was doing there, himself.”
In spite of conscience, Bertie found himself warming to the subject.
“Was odd, wasn’t it?” he said. “Do you suppose the old bounder—”
“Hello, Bertrand,” a soft voice beside him said.
BERTIE froze in mid-sentence. At his side was a slim, lovely blonde girl with deep blue eyes. There was just a touch of frost in those lovely eyes now.
“Darling,” Bertie cried nervously. “You’re looking wonderful. Positively radiant. Let’s go outside. Out in the clean, fresh air. Away from these—er—gross people.”
He turned to the chubby drunk and said firmly,
“There are no more trains arriving today, my good man. That’s all you wanted to know, is it not?”
Without waiting for an answer, he grabbed the lovely blonde girl by the arm and towed her out of the depot into the fresh air.
There he breathed deeply, not for health’s sake, but from sheer relief.
Ann Turner, the lovely blonde girl, regarded him dubiously.
“Bertie, dear,” she said, “you haven’t broken any of your promises have you?”
“Silly girl,” Bertie laughed. “I have been the epitome of respectability these last two months.”
“No drinking?”
“Not a drop.”
“Poker?”
“Certainly not.”
“Horses?”
“My dear little cherub, I haven’t even nodded to a milkman’s horse. That should prove that I can be the steady, reliable type, what?”
Bertie Crimmins’ problem was not a new one. In college he had been a happy, care-free soul and the stigma of his undergraduate days had a nasty way of sticking to him. When he had met The Girl, it turned out that she had heard of his primrosy path and, as a result, was dubious about the double harness idea he had suggested one moonlight night. So he had been put on probation and, to his credit, he had survived the ordeal manfully.
“You do look different,” Ann said thoughtfully. “You have a very respectable look in your eyes.”
Inwardly, Bertie sighed. He had slipped far if his stare at a luscious girl could be described as respectable. But he said:
“Right you are. Babbit Bertie, they call me. Now will you marry me?”
“What will we live on?” Ann asked practically.
BERTIE almost swooned with delight at this time-honored question. For it meant that The Girl was practically in his arms for keeps.
“A sensible question,” he said approvingly. “But you may cease worrying on that score. My brother, who is a good enough chap in his way, controls the purse strings of the Crimmins estates. The foolish chap cares nothing for money himself, but h
e has refused to pass along any of the bonny green stuff to me. You see he hasn’t much confidence in me. But when he sees the remarkable transformation I have undergone, he will give me his blessings and large chunks of lettuce with which we can furnish our nest.”
“Where is your brother?”
“Right here at Mosswood. He’s assistant professor of almost forgotten languages, or something like that. Odd, what?”
“Will you see him today?”
“First thing,” Bertie answered cheerfully. “I’ll drop you home and then speed the body over to his rooms to show him what a sterling chap I’ve turned into.”
He waved for a cab.
A half hour later Bertie stepped from the cab, a feeling of virtuous confidence in his heart. He had dropped Ann off a few minutes before and her farewell had been affectionately tender. It was obvious that she was impressed by the New Bertie.
Bertie paid off the driver with his last remaining change and headed up the elm-lined walk that led to the unpretentiously dignified house where his brother lived and labored.
There was a song in his heart and a bounce in his stride as he trotted up the steps and punched the doorbell. His brother’s housekeeper opened the door and after murmuring “speak of the devil” or something equally cheery, admitted him.
She led the way to his brother’s study in a grim silence. She did not approve of Bertie Crimmins interrupting his brother in the middle of his work. She paused before an oak-paneled door.
“Mister Arthur is very busy these days,” she said coldly. “I hope you will not disturb him too much.”
“Oh, I won’t,” Bertie said warmly. “I’ll only be here for the week-end.”
“Only? Couldn’t you manage to stay a full week?”
Sarcasm was lost on Bertie.
“Nice of you,” he said brightly, “but it just can’t be done. Sorry and all that.”
WITH a warm feeling of being in demand he opened the oak-paneled door and strode into his brother’s study.
“What?” he cried.
His brother, a lean scholarly looking chap, with graying temples and hornrimmed glasses, looked up from his desk where he had been intently examining a faded piece of parchment.
There was a distinct trace of annoyance in his tired blue eyes.
“Must you bellow?” he said impatiently.
“Sorry,” Bertie said. “Didn’t realize the old vocal chords had that much vim and vigor. Must be the old brotherly affection cropping out.”
“Stop babbling,” his brother said. “Come in and close the door. I’m busy here. Be through in a moment. Sit down.”
“Right hoi” Bertie said. “Don’t let me disturb the great brain. Let it ramble on. I’ll sit and watch.”
“In silence,” his brother qualified.
Bertie found a comfortable chair and threw his lean body over it in a position that a professional contortionist might have envied. His brother had turned back to his desk, his head bent close to the ancient parchment. He only changed his position to turn the pages of a huge leather bound book resting on the desk beside him.
Bertie gazed about at the book lined walls and sighed. It didn’t hardly seem decent to give a million dollars to a buzzard who spent his waking hours digging into the remains of obscure authors.
He was disturbed by an exultant exclamation from his brother.
“Got a nibble?” he asked companionably.
His brother’s thin frame was trembling with excitement.
“If,” he muttered tensely, “I can prove a relationship between the recurrence of this symbol and the recurrence of the letter V in the Phoenician alphabet, I may have something.”
“Probably alphabet soup,” Bertie said brightly. “Get it! Letter ‘e’ mixed up with something else and you get alphabet soup. It’s a joke, what?”
His brother turned to him, the scientific zeal in his eyes fading slowly.
“Bertie,” he said slowly, “you are a blithering moron. On top of that—”
“Tut! Tut!” Bertie said hastily. “Mustn’t forget the old brotherly affection.”
“You make it easy to,” his brother said sadly.
“It’s nice of you to say so,” Bertie beamed. “Now I’ve a surprise for you. I’m getting married. Congratulate me.”
“Married?” his brother said sharply.
“Right ho! It’s a blow, but you must be strong. You’re not losing a brother, you know, you’re gaining a sister.”
HIS brother lighted a pipe carefully and peered over the flame at Bertie as one might at an amiable nit wit.
“What are you going to live on?” he asked.
“Glad you brought that up, old bean,” Bertie said. “We’ll be needing a spot of assistance and I thought that you might bless the union with a hearty hunk of the old necessary.”
“Translated, that means I am to finance your marriage?”
“Crudely put, but accurate,” Bertie admitted.
“I shall do no such thing. In my opinion you are about as competent to handle money as a two-months-old baby. The bulk of the family estate will revert to you when I think you are capable of handling it intelligently. That date, I regret to say, does not seem imminent.”
“You mean,” Bertie said glumly, “that it’s no soap.”
“I mean precisely that.”
“But I’m a new man,” Bertie said frantically. “Old salt of the earth, backbone of the Nation. No more of the cup that cheers, no more of the gay race tracks. All over, all done with.”
His brother looked at him skeptically.
“In the vernacular, I am from the state of Missouri. If you are actually the paragon of masculine virtue that you claim, I might reconsider.”
“A chance is all I ask,” Bertie said dramatically. “Tell me,” he said in a more conventional tone, “does the family estate mount up to a tidy bit?”
“Very tidy,” his brother answered. “Several millions at least.”
Bertie had no conception of amounts over ten, but he knew a million to be a hefty lot of money. He wondered if it would be enough to pay off his debts and set him and Ann up in a cozy fiat?
His brother disrupted his thoughts by rising to his feet and picking up the parchment from the desk with a gesture of disgust.
“Money is the most helpless thing in the world,” he said scathingly. “It is nothing in itself. Men’s cupidity lends it value. The real and lasting things of this world are the things that can be locked away in the vaults of the mind. I would trade all the riches of the world for the translation of this parchment I hold in my hand.”
Bertie looked at the parchment with new respect.
“What is it?” he asked. “A new system on the ponies?”
His brother sighed and placed the parchment carefully in the drawer of the desk. There was a despairing gleam in his eye.
“Make yourself at home,” he said. “I am going out. In the park the birds are chattering and the loons are on the lake, so I will be thinking of you, Bertrand.”
AFTER his brother had left Bertie prowled about the library, glancing vaguely at the grimly titled books on the shelves, and musing darkly on his own troubles.
Things did look pretty blackish, he decided with a sigh. It was apparent that his brother’s opinion concerning him had not undergone any changes for the better in the past months. And if his brother didn’t change his mind, Lohengrin was a long way off.
Saddened, Bertie slumped into the chair before his brother’s desk. But Bertie’s mind, such as it was, was incapable of dwelling for more than two consecutive minutes on any problem. Even his own feeling of frustration and disappointment faded away, leaving him again his vacantly cheerful self.
Whistling, he picked up the massive, black leather bound book from his brother’s desk. In the back of his mind was the vague idea that since his brother practically burned incense before these crypts of entombed learning, it would do him no harm to dip into their musty depths and see what was what.
The first yellowed page of the book bore, in archaic lettering, the ominous inscription,
Black Arts of the
Nether Cosmos.
Interested, Bertie turned another page. There, he learned after glancing down a few paragraphs, the proper technique for summoning forth the demons from the sixth pit of the fourth lower world.
“Well, well,” muttered Bertie. “It’s darned simple at that. If anybody wanted a demon it shouldn’t be hard to arrange things.”
Thoroughly entranced, he browsed on, until he came to a tattered page which was headed in solid black letters,
FORMULA FOR MYSTIC
CLARIFICATION
There he paused. As nearly as he could figure it out one had simply to mutter a bit of mumbo-jumbo and—presto! everything became as clear as crystal. He thought wistfully of the excellent use he could have put this device in his college days.
It was typical of Bertie that a book of mysterious incantations, designed to call up demons and impart superhuman knowledge, would cause him no surprise. He had a naive confidence in the printed word; to the extent that anything on paper was automatically true.
As he was about to turn the page a wonderful thought popped into his head. It was so beautifully simple that it took his breath away.
QUICKLY he re-read the directions on the Mystic Clarification page. They weren’t difficult. In fact it only took him a few minutes to repeat aloud the incantation that was part of the ritual. He waited a moment then, expecting something in the way of a blazing ball to explode in his head, but nothing happened.
Undaunted he pulled open the drawer of his brother’s desk and removed the heavy parchment which his brother had been vainly attempting to translate.
After a quick glance over the symbols inscribed on its ancient surface he chuckled heartily.
“It works,” he cried gleefully.
Picking up a pencil from the desk he scribbled down the translation on the back of a piece of scratch paper. This would certainly set him in solid with his brother. It was wonderfully simple. Why, it was just as easy as reading something written in English.
Collected Fiction (1940-1963) Page 78
