The Goddess
A Demon
By Richard Marsh
_Author of_
“_In Full Cry_,” “_The Beetle: A Mystery_,” “_Marvels and
Mysteries_,” “_Ada Vernham, Actress_,” &_c_.
London:
F. V. White & Co.
14, Bedford Street, Strand, W.C.
1900
CONTENTS
I. A Vision of the Night
II. The Woman who came through the Window
III. The Conquest of Mrs. Peddar
IV. Dr. Hume
V. A Curious Case
VI. The Doctor accuses
VII. The Suspicions of Mr. Morley
VIII. The Recognition of the Photograph
IX. The Revelations of “Mr. George Withers”
X. Where Miss Moore was going
XI. In the one Room--and the other
XII. What was on the Bed
XIII. She and I
XIV. He and I
XV. The Letter
XVI. My Persuasive Manner
XVII. My Unpersuasive Manner
XVIII. I am called
XIX. I leave the Court
XX. A Journey to Nowhere
XXI. A Check at the Start
XXII. A Miracle
XXIII. In the Passage
XXIV. In the Room
XXV. The Goddess
XXVI. The Legacy of the Scarlet Hands
The Goddess
CHAPTER I.
A VISION OF THE NIGHT
I was sure that I had seen Edwin Lawrence juggle with the pack. As I
lay there wide awake in bed it all came back to me. I wondered how I
could have been such an unspeakable idiot. We had dined together at
the Trocadero; then we had gone on to the Empire. The big music hall
was packed with people, the heat was insufferable.
“Let’s get out of this,” suggested Lawrence, almost as soon as we were
in. “This crush, in this atmosphere, is not to be borne.” I agreed
with him. We left. “Come into my place for an hour,” he said.
We both lived in Imperial Mansions, on the same floor. His number was
64, mine was 79. You went out of his door, along the passage, round
the corner to the right--the second door on the right was mine. I went
in with him.
“What do you say to a little gamble?” he asked. “It will be better
than nothing.”
I agreed. We had a little gamble--at first for trivial stakes. I am an
abstemious man. I had already drunk more than I was accustomed to. At
his invitation I drank still more. We increased the stakes. I really
do not know from whom the suggestion came, I know that I did not
object. I had lost all my ready money. I kept on losing. He was
dotting down, on a piece of paper, the extent of my indebtedness.
Presently, when he announced the sum total, I was amazed to learn that
it was very much more than I imagined--actually nearly a thousand
pounds. On the instant I was wide awake.
“Nine hundred and forty pounds, Lawrence! It can’t be as much as
that!”
“My dear chap, here are the figures; look for yourself.”
He handed me the piece of paper. His manner of arranging the several
amounts I found more than a little vague, but as I had been so foolish
as not to have kept count of them myself, I was hardly in a position
to dispute their accuracy; and, added together, they certainly did
come to the sum he stated. Still I felt persuaded that there was a
mistake somewhere, though in what it consisted I was unable at the
moment to perceive.
“Look here,” he said. “Be a sportsman for once in your life! I’ll give
you a chance--I’ll cut you double or quits.”
I did not want to. I would have very much rather not. Gambling on such
a scale was altogether out of my way. But he urged me, and I yielded;
I don’t know why. I must have been very much more under the influence
of drink than I imagined. We cut. I cut first--the knave of diamonds.
As it was to be highest, not a bad card. I watched him as he cut, and
saw that he dropped at least one card from the lot which he picked up;
and that after he had had an opportunity of getting a shrewd guess at
its value. The card which he faced was the queen of diamonds,
exclaiming as he did so:
“That does you!”
“But that was not the card which you originally cut--you dropped one.”
“I dropped one! What do you mean? I have not the slightest notion of
having done anything of the kind, and, anyhow, it must have been by
the sheerest accident. What are you looking at me like that for? Don’t
lose your temper because you happen to have lost.”
The insinuation was as gratuitous as it was uncalled for. There was
not the slightest danger of my losing my temper; but that I was right
in what I had said I felt assured. But then the card might have been
dropped by accident, and he might not have noticed what had happened.
And, anyhow, in face of the fact that I had been with the man on terms
of intimacy, and had never before had cause to suspect him of anything
in the least dishonourable, having regard to his explicit denial, it
was a delicate position to persist in. I got up from my chair,
conceding the point.
“That makes eighteen hundred and eighty pounds you owe me. My
sympathy, Ferguson; better luck next time.”
I mentally resolved that I would not play cards again with Edwin
Lawrence--at any rate, when we two were alone.
I was in a curious state of mind when I returned to my own chambers.
The events of the evening buzzed in my head. It was not the money
merely. Though I am very far from being a millionaire, and two
thousand pounds, less one hundred and twenty, is not a sum to be
lightly thrown away. The inquiry kept knocking at my brain--was the
man whom already I was beginning to regard as a friend such a very
poor creature after all? Was it possible that he had wilfully
manipulated those figures to his own advantage, and, with intention,
dropped that card? The more closely I followed the events of the
evening, the less I liked the conclusion to which they led me.
When I went to bed my thoughts went with me. I could not shake them
off. I tossed and tumbled in pursuit of sleep. And when, at last,
slumber did come, my sleeping experiences were even more disturbing
than my waking ones had been.
My repose is generally untroubled. I seldom am visited by dreams. But
that night I had a most extraordinary dream; so extraordinary that I
am haunted by it to this day, even in my waking hours. In appearance
of reality it was little less than supernatural. Indeed, I do not mind
admitting that I have been, and still am, at a loss to determine
whether I was not--at least in part--an actual, sentient spectator,
and not merely the subject of a vision of the night.
Of course, I am unable to say how long I had been to sleep, but it
seemed to me that I had only just closed my eyes, when something, I
knew not what, caused me to sit up in bed; and not only to sit up, but
to get out of bed. I have no recollection of putting anything on in
the shape of clothes; I am certain that I did not switch on the
electric light, I had a clear consciousness of the prevailing
darkness. And, in the darkness, I had an uncontrollable impulse to go
to Lawrence. I left the room, to the best of my belief, clad only in
my pyjamas. In the passage was a light--it is kept burning all
night,--and I distinctly remember noticing that it was burning as I
passed along. Reaching Lawrence’s door, I tapped at the panel. There
was no answer. I hesitated before knocking again; and, as I did so,
immediately became aware of a strange noise which proceeded from
within.
A stranger noise I never heard. I experience a difficulty in
describing it. It was as if some wild beast was inside the room, and
was beside itself with fury. Yelling, snarling, screeching--a horrid,
gasping noise--these sounds seemed to follow hard upon each other.
And, mingled with them, were faint cries as of some one in extremity
of both pain and terror. At that sound I ceased to hesitate. I turned
the handle. I stepped inside. The sight I saw I am not likely to
forget.
Lawrence was struggling frantically with some strange creature whose
character I was not able to distinguish. From this creature proceeded
those hideous sounds. It was a mass of whirling movement. I had never
seen a being so instinct with frenzied action. Every part seemed to be
in motion at once; and with its whole force it was assailing Lawrence.
He seemed to be offering a feeble resistance, as, hauled this way and
that, he staggered to and fro.
But, against such an attack, his efforts were vain. Presently he fell
headlong to the floor. The creature, stooping, rained on to his
motionless body a hail of blows, making all the time that horrid,
gasping noise, and then was still.
I had been conscious all the time that there was something about the
creature which was terribly human. It appeared to be covered with a
flowing robe of some shining, silken stuff, whose voluminous skirts
whirled hither and thither as it writhed and twisted. Now that it
became motionless there broke on my ears the sound of a woman’s
laughter.
I am not a nervous subject. Nor am I, I believe, a physical coward.
But I am compelled to own that, instead of attempting to interfere, or
offering the assistance which I had only too good reason to suppose
was urgently needed, at the sound of the laughter, like some
frightened cur, I turned and fled. And not the least strange part of
the whole business was that, as it seemed, immediately after, I woke
up. Woke to find that, however it might appear to the contrary, I
certainly had been asleep, for I was sitting up in bed covered with
sweat and trembling in every limb.
I looked about me. The blind was up before the long French window. I
remember drawing it up, as was my usual habit, before I got into bed.
The moon was shining through. All at once a sound caught my anxious
ear. I started forward to learn from whence it came. From the window!
I stared with all my eyes. I was wide awake now, of that there could
be no sort of doubt whatever. In the moonlight I could see that some
one was standing on the other side of the pane--a faint, mysterious
figure. The latch was raised; it was a little rusty, I could hear it
creaking. The window was pushed open, as by an unaccustomed hand, with
something of a jerk. Out of the moonbeams, like some spectral
visitant, a woman stepped into the room.