The Stuff of Dreams: The Weird Stories of Edward Lucas White (Dover Horror Classics)

by Edward Lucas White

  ‘A pet monkey!’ I exclaimed.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You know how a dog, a Newfoundland, or a terrier, will sit up in an auto and look grand and superior and enjoy himself? Well, that monkey sat there just like that turning his head one way and the other taking in the view.’

  ‘What was he like?’ I asked.

  ‘Sort of dog-faced ape,’ Thwaite told me, ‘more like a mastiff.’

  Rivvin grunted.

  ‘This isn’t business,’ Thwaite went on, ‘we’ve got to get down to business. The point is the wall is their only guard, there’s no dog, perhaps because of the pet monkey as much as anything else. They lock Mr Eversleigh up every night with only one valet to take care of him. They never interfere whatever noise they hear or light they see, unless the alarm is sent out and I have located the alarm wires you are to cut. That’s all. Do you go?’

  Rivvin was sitting close to me, half on me. I could feel his great muscles and the butt of his pistol against my hip.

  ‘I come with you,’ I said.

  ‘Of your own accord?’ Thwaite insisted.

  The butt of that pistol moved as Rivvin breathed.

  ‘I come of my own accord,’ I said.

  III

  Afoot Thwaite led as confidently as he had driven the car. It was the stillest, pitchiest night I ever experienced, without light, air, sound or smell to guide anyone: through that fog Thwaite sped like a man moving about his own bedroom, never for a second at a loss.

  ‘Here’s the place,’ he said at the wall, and guided my hand to feel the ring-bolt in the grass at its foot. Rivvin made a back for him and I scrambled up on the two. Tip-toe on Thwaite’s shoulders I could just finger the coping.

  `Stand on my head, you fool!’ he whispered.

  I clutched the coping. Once astraddle of it I let down one end of the silk ladder.

  ‘Fast!’ breathed Thwaite from below.

  I drew it taut and went down. The first sweep of my fingers in the grass found the other ring-bolt. I made the ladder fast and gave it the signal twitches. Rivvin came over first, then Thwaite. Through the park he led evenly. When he halted he caught me by the elbow and asked:

  ‘Can you see any lights?’

  ‘Not a light,’ I told him.

  ‘Same here,’ he said, ‘there are no lights. Every window is dark. We’re in luck.’

  He led again for a while. Stopping he said only:

  ‘Here’s where you shin up. Cut every wire, but don’t waste time cutting any twice.’

  The details of his directions were exact. I found every handhold and foothold as he had schooled me. But I needed all my nerve. I realized that no heavyweight like Rivvin or Thwaite could have done it. When I came down I was limp and tottery.

  ‘Just one swallow!’ Thwaite said, putting a flask to my lips. Then we went on. The night was so black and the fog so thick that I saw no loom of the building till we were against its wall.

  ‘Here’s where you go in,’ Thwaite directed.

  Doubly I understood why I was with them. Neither could have squeezed through that aperture in the stone. I barely managed it. Inside, instead of the sliding crash I had dreaded, I landed with a mere crunch, the coal in that bin was not anthracite. Likewise the bin under the window was for soft-coal. I blessed my luck and felt encouraged. The window I got open without too much work. Rivvin and Thwaite slid in. We crunched downhill four or five steps and stood on a firm floor. Rivvin flashed his electric candle boldly round. We were between a suite of trim coal-bins and a battery of serried furnaces. There was no door at either end of the open space in which we stood. I had a momentary vision of the alternate windows and coal-chutes above the bins, of two big panels of shiny, colored tiling, of clear brick-work, fresh-painted, jetty iron and dazzling-white brass-ringed asbestos, of a black vacancy between two furnaces. Toward that I half heard, half felt Rivvin turn. During the rest of our adventure he led, Thwaite followed and I mostly tagged or groped after Thwaite, often judging of their position or movement by that combination of senses which is neither hearing nor touch, though partly both.

  Rivvin’s torch flashed again. We were in a cement-floored, brick-walled passage, with a door at each end and on the side facing us doors in a bewildering row. In the darkness that came after the flash I followed the others to the right. Well through the doorway we stood still, breathing and listening. When Rivvin illuminated our environment we saw about us thousands of bottles, all set aslant, neck down, in tiers of racks that reached to the ceiling. Edging between them we made the circuit of the cellar, but found no sign of any door save that by which we had entered. A whispered growl from Rivvin, a nudge from Thwaite and we went back the full length of the passage. Again we found ourselves in a wine vault, the duplicate of that we had left, and with the same peculiarity.

  Our curiosity overcame any prudence. Rivvin, instead of flashing his torch at intervals, kept the light steady, and we scrutinized, examined and whispered our astonishment. As in its fellow there was not in all this vault any spare space, the aisles were narrow, the racks reached the girders supporting the flat arches, every rack was so full that a holder empty of its bottle was scarcely findable. And there was not in all that great cellar, there was not among all those tens of thousands of bottles a magnum, or a quart or even a pint. They were all splits. We handled a number and all had the same label. I know now what the device was, from seeing it so often and so much larger afterwards, but there it seemed a picture of a skirt-dancer leading an alligator by a dog chain. There was no name of any wine or liquor on any bottle, but each label had a red number, I7, or 45 or 328, above the picture, and under it:

  ‘Bottled for Hengist Eversleigh.’

  ‘We know his name now,’ Thwaite whispered.

  Back in the passage Rivvin took the first door to the left. It brought us to an easy stone stair between walls, which turned twice to the left at broad landings.

  When we trod a softer footing we stood a long time breathing cautiously and listening

  Presently Rivvin flashed his light. It showed to our left a carpeted stair, the dull red carpet bulging up over thick pads and held down by brass stair-rods; the polished quartered oak of the molded door-jamb or end of wainscot beyond it; the floorcovering of brownish-yellow or yellowish brown linoleum or something similar, made to look like inlaid wood; and the feet, legs and thighs of a big stocky man. The light shone but the fraction of a second, yet it showed plain his knee-breeches, tight stockings on his big calves, and bright buckles at his knees and on his low shoes.

  There was no loud sound, but the blurred brushy noise of a mute struggle. I backed against a window-sill and could back no further. All I could hear was the shuffling, rasping sounds of the fight, and panting that became a sort of gurgle.

  Again the light flashed and stayed full bright. I saw that it was Thwaite struggling with the man, and that one of his big hands was on Thwaite’s throat. Thwaite had him round the neck and his face was against Thwaite’s chest. His hair was brownish. Rivvin’s slung-shot crunched horribly on his skull. Instantly the light went out.

  Thwaite, radiating heat like a stove, stood gasping close by me. I heard no other noise after the body thudded on the floor except that on the carpeted stair I seemed to hear light treads, as it were of a big dog or of a frightened child, padding away upward.

  ‘Did you hear anything?’ I whispered.

  Rivvin punched me.

  After Thwaite was breathing naturally, he turned on his torch and Rivvin did the same.

  The dead man was oldish, over fifty I should judge, tall, large in all his dimensions, and spare, though heavy. His clothing was a gold-laced livery of green velvet, with green velvet knee breeches, green silk stockings and green leather pumps. The four buckles were gold.

  Thwaite startled me by speaking out loud.

  ‘I take it, Rivvin,’ he said, ‘this is the trusted valet. He would have yelled if there had been anybody to call. Either we have this building to ourselves o
r we have no one to deal with except Mr Hengist Eversleigh.’

  Rivvin grunted.

  ‘If he is here,’ Thwaite went on, ‘he’s trying to send the alarm over the cut wires, or he’s frightened and hiding. Let’s find him and finish him, if he’s here, and then find his diamonds. Anyway let’s find those diamonds.’

  Rivvin grunted.

  Swiftly they led from room to room and floor to floor. Not a door resisted. We had been curious and astonished in the wine-vaults; above we were electrified and numb. We were in a palace of wonders, among such a profusion of valuables that even Rivvin, after the second or third opportunity, ceased any attempt to pocket or bag anything. We came upon nothing living, found no door locked and apparently made the tour of the entire building.

  When they halted, I halted. We were delirious with amazement, frantic with inquisitiveness, frenzied with curiosity, incredulous, hysterical, dazed and quivering.

  Thwaite spoke in the dark.

  ‘I’m going to see this place plain, all over it, if I die for it.’

  They flashed their torches. We were right beside the body of the murdered footman. Rivvin and Thwaite did not seem to mind the corpse. They waved their torches until one fell on an electric-light button.

  ‘Hope those wires are underground,’ Thwaite remarked. He pushed the button and the electric lights came on full and strong. We were apparently at the foot of the back stairs, in a sort of lobby, an expanded passage-way out of which opened several doors.

  We all three regarded the knobs of those doors. As we had half seen by flash-light on every door everywhere each door had two knobs, one like any door-knob, the other about half way between it and the floor. Rivvin opened one which proved to lead into a broom closet. He tried the knobs, Thwaite and I watching too. The lock and latch were at the upper knob, but controlled by either knob indifferently. They tried another door, but my eyes would roam to the dead body.

  Rivvin and Thwaite paid no more attention to it than if it had not been there. I had never seen but one killed man before and neither wanted to be reminded of that one nor relished the sight of this one. I stared down the blackness of the stone stair up which we had come or glanced into the dimness of the padded stairway.

  Then Rivvin, feeling inside the open door, found the button and turned on the lights. It was a biggish dining-room, the four corners cut off by inset glass-framed shelved closets, full of china and glassware. The furniture was oak.

  ‘Servants dining-room,’ Thwaite commented.

  Turning on the lights in each we went through a series of rooms; a sort of sitting-room, with card-tables and checker-boards; a library walled with bookcases and open book-shelves, its two stout oak tables littered with magazines and newspapers; a billiard room with three tables, a billiard-table, a pool-table and one for bagatelle; a sort of lounging room, all leather-covered sofas and deep armchairs; an entry with hat-hooks and umbrella-stands, the outer door dark oak with a great deal of stained-glass set in and around it.

  ‘All servants’ rooms,’ Thwaite commented. ‘Every bit of the furniture is natural man-size. Let’s go on.’

  Back we went along a passage and into a big kitchen beyond the dining-room.

  ‘Never mind the pantries till we come down again,’ Thwaite commanded. ‘Let’s go upstairs. We’ll do the banqueting-hall after those bedrooms, and the writing rooms and study last. I want a real sight of those pictures.’

  They passed the dead flunkey as if he had not been there at all.

  On the floor above Thwaite touched Rivvins’ elbow.

  ‘I forgot these,’ he said.

  We inspected a medium-sized sitting-room with a round center-table, an armchair drawn up by it, and in the armchair a magazine and a sort of wadded smoking-jacket. Next this room was a bedroom and a bathroom.

  ‘Mr Footman’s quarters,’ Thwaite remarked, staring unconcernedly at a photograph of a dumpy young woman and two small children, set on the bureau. ‘All man-size furniture here, too.’

  Rivvin nodded.

  Up the second flight of that back-stair we went again. It ended in a squarish hallway or lobby or room with nothing in it but two settees. It had two doors.

  Rivvin pushed one open, felt up and down for the electric button and found it.

  We all three gasped; we almost shouted. We had had glimpses of this gallery before, but the flood of light from a thousand bulbs under inverted trough-reflectors dazzled us; the pictures fairly petrified us.

  The glare terrified me.

  ‘Surely we are crazy,’ I objected, ‘to make all this illumination. It’s certain to give the alarm.’

  ‘Alarm nothing,’ Thwaite snapped. ‘Haven’t I watched these buildings night after night. I told you he is never disturbed at any hour, lights or no lights.’

  My feeble protest thus brushed away I became absorbed, like the others, in those incredible paintings. Rivvin was merely stupidly dazed in uncomprehending wonder, Thwaite keenly speculative, questing for a clue to the origin of their peculiarities, I totally bewildered at the perfection of their execution, shivering at their uncanniness.

  The gallery was all of ninety feet long, nearly thirty wide and high. Apparently it had a glass roof above the rectangle of reflectors. The pictures covered. all four walls, except the little door at either end. None was very small and several were very large. A few were landscapes, but all had figures in them, most were crowded with figures.

  Those figures!

  They were human figures, but not one had a human head. The heads were invariably those of birds, animals or fishes, generally of animals, some of common animals, many of creatures I had seen pictures of or had heard of, some of imaginary creatures like dragons or griffons, more than half of the heads either of animals I knew nothing of or which had been invented by the painter.

  Close to me when the lights blazed out was a sea picture, blurred grayish foggy weather and a heavy ground-swell; a strange other-world open boat with fish heaped in the bottom of it and standing among them four human figures in shining boots like rubber boots and wet, shiny, loose coats like oilskins, only the boots and skins were red as claret, and the four figures had hyenas’ heads. One was steering and the others were hauling at a net. Caught in the net was a sort of merman, but different from the pictures of mermaids. His shape was all human except the head and hands and feet; every bit of him was covered with fish-scales all rainbowy. He had flat broad fins in place of hands and feet and his head was the head of a fat hog. He was thrashing about in the net in an agony of impotent effort. Queer as the picture was it had a compelling impression of reality, as if the scene were actually happening before our eyes.

  Next it was a picnic in a little meadow by a pond between woods with mountains behind it higher up. Every one of the picnickers about the white tablecloth spread on the grass had the head of a different animal, one of a sheep, one of a camel, and the rest of animals like deer, not one of them known to me.

  Then next to that was a fight of two compound creatures shaped like centaurs, only they had bulls’ bodies, with human torsos growing out of them, where the necks ought to be, the arms scaly snakes with open-mouthed, biting heads in place of hands; and instead of human heads roosters’ heads, bills open and pecking. Under the creatures in place of bulls’ hoofs were yellow roosters’ legs, stouter than chickens’ legs and with short thick toes, and long sharp spurs like game roosters’. Yet these fantastic chimeras appeared altogether alive and their movements looked natural, yes that’s the word, natural.

  Every picture was as complete a staggerer as these first three. Every one was signed in the lower left hand corner in neat smallish letters of bright gold paint:

  ‘Hengist Eversleigh’

  and a date.

  ‘Mr Hengist Eversleigh is a lunatic that’s certain,’ Thwaite commented, ‘but he unquestionably knows how to paint.’

  There must have been more than fifty pictures in that gallery, maybe as many as seventy-five, and every one a nig
htmare.

  Beyond was a shorter gallery of the same width, end on to the side of the first, and beyond that the duplicate of the first; the three taking up three sides of the building. The fourth side was a studio, the size of the second gallery; it had a great skylight of glass tilted sideways all along over one whole wall. It was white-washed, very plain and empty-looking, with two easels, a big one and a little one.

  On the little one was a picture of some vegetables and five or six little fairies, as it were, with children’s bodies and mice’s heads, nibbling at a carrot.

  On the big one was a canvas mostly blank. One side of it had a palm-tree in splashy, thick slaps of paint and under it three big crabs with cocoanuts in their claws. A man’s feet and legs showed beside them and the rest was unfinished.

  The three galleries had fully three hundred paintings, for the smaller gallery contained only small canvases. Besides being impressed with the grotesqueness of the subjects and the perfection of the drawing and coloring, two things struck me as to the pictures collectively.

  First, there was not represented in any one of all those paintings any figure of a woman or any female shape of any kind. The beast-headed figures were all, whether clothed or nude, figures of men. The animals, as far as I could see, were all males.

  Secondly, nearly half of the pictures were modifications, or parallels or emulations (I could hardly say travesties or imitations), of well-known pictures by great artists, paintings I had seen in public galleries or knew from engravings or photographs or reproductions in books or magazines.

  There was a picture like Washington crossing the Delaware and another like Washington saying farewell to his generals. There was a batch of Napoleon pictures; after the paintings of Napoleon at Austerlitz, at Friedland, giving the eagles to his regiments, on the morning of Waterloo, coming down the steps at Fontainebleau, and on the deck of the ship going to St. Helena. There were dozens of other pictures of generals or kings or emperors reviewing victorious armies; two or three of Lincoln. One that hit me hardest, obviously after some picture I had never seen or heard of, of the ghost of Lincoln, far larger than a life-size man, towering above the surviving notabilities of his time on the grandstand reviewing the homecoming Federal army marching through Washington.