“THE BLACK MASS”
Thus far the stranger's appalling story had progressed when that
singular cloak in which hypnotically he had enwrapped me seemed to drop,
and I found myself clutching the edge of the table and staring into the
gray face of the speaker.
I became suddenly aware of the babel of voices about me, of the noisome
smell of Malay Jack's, and of the presence of Jack in person, who was
inquiring if there were any further orders. I was conscious of nausea.
“Excuse me,” I said, rising unsteadily, “but I fear the oppressive
atmosphere is affecting me.”
“If you prefer to go out,” said my acquaintance, in that deep voice
which throughout the dreadful story had rendered me oblivious of my
surroundings, “I should be much favoured if you would accompany me to a
spot not five hundred yards from here.”
Seeing me hesitate:
“I have a particular reason for asking,” he added.
“Very well,” I replied, inclining my head, “if you wish it. But
certainly I must seek the fresh air.”
Going up the steps and out through the door above which the blue lantern
burned, we came to the street, turned to the left, to the left again,
and soon were threading that maze of narrow ways which complicates the
map of Pennyfields.
I felt somewhat recovered. Here, in the narrow but familiar highways the
spell of my singular acquaintance lost much of its potency, and already
I found myself doubting the story of Dr. Kreener and Tcheriapin. Indeed,
I began to laugh at myself, conceiving that I had fallen into the hands
of some comedian who was making sport of me; although why such a person
should visit Malay Jack's was not apparent.
I was about to give expression to these new and saner ideas when my
companion paused before a door half hidden in a little alley which
divided the back of a Chinese restaurant from the tawdry-looking
establishment of a cigar merchant. He apparently held the key, for
although I did not actually hear the turning of the lock I saw that he
had opened the door.
“May I request you to follow me?” came his deep voice out of the
darkness. “I will show you something which will repay your trouble.”
Again the cloak touched me, but it was without entirely resigning myself
to the compelling influence that I followed my mysterious acquaintance
up an uncarpeted and nearly dark stair. On the landing above a gas
lamp was burning, and opening a door immediately facing the stair the
stranger conducted me into a barely furnished and untidy room.
The atmosphere smelled like that of a pot-house, the odours of stale
spirits and of tobacco mingling unpleasantly. As my guide removed
his hat and stood there, a square, gaunt figure in his queer, caped
overcoat, I secured for the first time a view of his face in profile;
and found it to be startlingly unfamiliar. Seen thus, my acquaintance
was another man. I realized that there was something unnatural about the
long, white hair, the gray face; that the sharp outline of brow, nose,
and chin was that of a much younger man than I had supposed him to be.
All this came to me in a momentary flash of perception, for immediately
my attention was riveted upon a figure hunched up on a dilapidated sofa
on the opposite side of the room. It was that of a big man, bearded and
very heavily built, but whose face was scarred as by years of suffering,
and whose eyes confirmed the story indicated by the smell of stale
spirits with which the air of the room was laden. A nearly empty bottle
stood on a table at his elbow, a glass beside it, and a pipe lay in a
saucer full of ashes near the glass.
As we entered, the glazed eyes of the man opened widely and he clutched
at the table with big red hands, leaning forward and staring horribly.
Save for this derelict figure and some few dirty utensils and scattered
garments which indicated that the apartment was used both as sleeping
and living room, there was so little of interest in the place that
automatically my wandering gaze strayed from the figure on the sofa to
a large oil painting, unframed, which rested upon the mantelpiece above
the dirty grate, in which the fire had become extinguished.
I uttered a stifled exclamation. It was “A Dream at Dawn”--evidently the
original painting!
On the left of it, from a nail in the wall, hung a violin and bow, and
on the right stood a sort of cylindrical glass case or closed jar, upon
a wooden base.
From the moment that I perceived the contents of this glass case a sense
of fantasy claimed me, and I ceased to know where reality ended and
mirage began.
It contained a tiny and perfect figure of a man. He was arrayed in a
beautifully fitting dress-suit such as a doll might have worn, and he
was posed as if in the act of playing a violin, although no violin
was present. At the elfin black hair and Mephistophelian face of this
horrible, wonderful image, I stared fascinatedly.