condition, Mr. Abrahams suffered me to lead him upstairs, where a
repast had been laid out for him to which he did ample justice. The
mysterious little bag he carried along with him, and deposited it under
his chair during the meal. It was not until the table had been cleared
and we were left together that he broached the matter on which he had
come down.
"I hunderstand," he remarked, puffing at a trichinopoly, "that you want
my 'elp in fitting up this 'ere 'ouse with a happarition."
I acknowledged the correctness of his surmise, while mentally wondering
at those restless eyes of his, which still danced about the room as if
he were making an inventory of the contents.
"And you won't find a better man for the job, though I says it as
shouldn't," continued my companion. "Wot did I say to the young gent
wot spoke to me in the bar of the Lame Dog? 'Can you do it?' says he.
'Try me,' says I, 'me and my bag. Just try me.' I couldn't say fairer
than that."
My respect for Jack Brocket's business capacities began to go up very
considerably. He certainly seemed to have managed the matter
wonderfully well. "You don't mean to say that you carry ghosts about in
bags?" I remarked, with diffidence.
Mr. Abrahams smiled a smile of superior knowledge. "You wait," he said;
"give me the right place and the right hour, with a little of the
essence of Lucoptolycus"--here he produced a small bottle from his
waistcoat-pocket--"and you won't find no ghost that I ain't up to.
You'll see them yourself, and pick your own, and I can't say fairer
than that."
As all Mr. Abraham's protestations of fairness were accompanied by a
cunning leer and a wink from one or other of his wicked little eyes,
the impression of candour was somewhat weakened.
"When are you going to do it?" I asked reverentially.
"Ten minutes to one in the morning," said Mr. Abrahams, with decision.
"Some says midnight, but I says ten to one, when there ain't such a
crowd, and you can pick your own ghost. And now," he continued, rising
to his feet, "suppose you trot me round the premises, and let me see
where you wants it; for there's some places as attracts 'em, and some
as they won't hear of--not if there was no other place in the world."
Mr. Abrahams inspected our corridors and chambers with a most critical
and observant eye, fingering the old tapestry with the air of a
connoisseur, and remarking in an undertone that it would "match
uncommon nice." It was not until he reached the banqueting-hall,
however, which I had myself picked out, that his admiration reached the
pitch of enthusiasm. "'Ere's the place!" he shouted, dancing, bag in
hand, round the table on which my plate was lying, and looking not
unlike some quaint little goblin himself. "'Ere's the place; we won't
get nothin' to beat this! A fine room--noble, solid, none of your
electro-plate trash! That's the way as things ought to be done, sir.
Plenty of room for 'em to glide here. Send up some brandy and the box
of weeds; I'll sit here by the fire and do the preliminaries, which is
more trouble than you think; for them ghosts carries on hawful at
times, before they finds out who they've got to deal with. If you was
in the room they'd tear you to pieces as like as not. You leave me
alone to tackle them, and at half-past twelve come in, and I'll lay
they'll be quiet enough by then."
Mr. Abraham's request struck me as a reasonable one, so I left him with
his feet upon the mantelpiece, and his chair in front of the fire,
fortifying himself with stimulants against his refractory visitors.
From the room beneath, in which I sat with Mrs. D'Odd, I could hear
that after sitting for some time he rose up, and paced about the hall
with quick impatient steps. We then heard him try the lock of the door,
and afterwards drag some heavy article of furniture in the direction of
the window, on which, apparently, he mounted, for I heard the creaking
of the rusty hinges as the diamond-paned casement folded backwards, and
I knew it to be situated several feet above the little man's reach.
Mrs. D'Odd says that she could distinguish his voice speaking in low
and rapid whispers after this, but that may have been her imagination.
I confess that I began to feel more impressed than I had deemed it
possible to be. There was something awesome in the thought of the
solitary mortal standing by the open window and summoning in from the
gloom outside the spirits of the nether world. It was with a
trepidation which I could hardly disguise from Matilda that I observed
that the clock was pointing to half-past twelve, and that the time had
come for me to share the vigil of my visitor.
He was sitting in his old position when I entered, and there were no
signs of the mysterious movements which I had overheard, though his
chubby face was flushed as with recent exertion.
"Are you succeeding all right?" I asked as I came in, putting on as
careless an air as possible, but glancing involuntarily round the room
to see if we were alone.
"Only your help is needed to complete the matter," said Mr. Abrahams,
in a solemn voice. "You shall sit by me and partake of the essence of
Lucoptolycus, which removes the scales from our earthly eyes. Whatever
you may chance to see, speak not and make no movement, lest you break
the spell." His manner was subdued, and his usual cockney vulgarity had
entirely disappeared. I took the chair which he indicated, and awaited
the result.
My companion cleared the rushes from the floor in our neighbourhood,
and going down upon his hands and knees, described a half circle with
chalk, which enclosed the fireplace and ourselves. Round the edge of
this half circle he drew several hieroglyphics, not unlike the signs of
the zodiac. He then stood up and uttered a long invocation, delivered
so rapidly that it sounded like a single gigantic word in some uncouth
guttural language. Having finished this prayer, if prayer it was, he
pulled out the small bottle which he had produced before, and poured a
couple of teaspoonfuls of clear transparent fluid into a phial, which
he handed to me with an intimation that I should drink it.
The liquid had a faintly sweet odour, not unlike the aroma of certain
sorts of apples. I hesitated a moment before applying it to my lips,
but an impatient gesture from my companion overcame my scruples, and I
tossed it off. The taste was not unpleasant; and, as it gave rise to no
immediate effects, I leaned back in my chair and composed myself for
what was to come. Mr. Abrahams seated himself beside me, and I felt
that he was watching my face from time to time while repeating some
more of the invocations in which he had indulged before.
A sense of delicious warmth and languor began gradually to steal over
me, partly, perhaps, from the heat of the fire, and partly from some
unexplained cause. An uncontrollable impulse to sleep weighed down my
eyelids, while, at the same time, my brain worked actively, and a
hundred beautiful and pleasing ideas flitted through it. So utterly
lethargic did I feel that, though I was aware that my companion put his
hand over the region of my heart, as if to feel how it were beating, I
did not attempt to prevent him, nor did I even ask him for the reason
of his action. Everything in the room appeared to be reeling slowly
round in a drowsy dance, of which I was the centre. The great elk's
head at the far end wagged solemnly backward and forward, while the
massive salvers on the tables performed cotillons with the claret
cooler and the epergne. My head fell upon my breast from sheer
heaviness, and I should have become unconscious had I not been recalled
to myself by the opening of the door at the other end of the hall.
This door led on to the raised dais, which, as I have mentioned, the
heads of the house used to reserve for their own use. As it swung
slowly back upon its hinges, I sat up in my chair, clutching at the
arms, and staring with a horrified glare at the dark passage outside.
Something was coming down it--something unformed and intangible, but
still a _something_. Dim and shadowy, I saw it flit across the
threshold, while a blast of ice-cold air swept down the room, which
seemed to blow through me, chilling my very heart. I was aware of the
mysterious presence, and then I heard it speak in a voice like the
sighing of an east wind among pine-trees on the banks of a desolate
sea.
It said: "I am the invisible nonentity. I have affinities and am
subtle. I am electric, magnetic, and spiritualistic. I am the great
ethereal sigh-heaver. I kill dogs. Mortal, wilt thou choose me?"
I was about to speak, but the words seemed to be choked in my throat;
and, before I could get them out, the shadow flitted across the hall
and vanished in the darkness at the other side, while a long-drawn
melancholy sigh quivered through the apartment.
I turned my eyes toward the door once more, and beheld, to my
astonishment, a very small old woman, who hobbled along the corridor
and into the hall. She passed backward and forward several times, and
then, crouching down at the very edge of the circle upon the floor, she
disclosed a face the horrible malignity of which shall never be
banished from my recollection. Every foul passion appeared to have left
its mark upon that hideous countenance.
"Ha! ha!" she screamed, holding out her wizened hands like the talons
of an unclean bird. "You see what I am. I am the fiendish old woman. I
wear snuff-coloured silks. My curse descends on people. Sir Walter was
partial to me. Shall I be thine, mortal?"
I endeavoured to shake my head in horror; on which she aimed a blow at
me with her crutch, and vanished with an eldritch scream.
By this time my eyes turned naturally toward the open door, and I was
hardly surprised to see a man walk in of tall and noble stature. His
face was deadly pale, but was surmounted by a fringe of dark hair which
fell in ringlets down his back. A short pointed beard covered his chin.
He was dressed in loose-fitting clothes, made apparently of yellow
satin, and a large white ruff surrounded his neck. He paced across the
room with slow and majestic strides. Then turning, he addressed me in a
sweet, exquisitely-modulated voice.
"I am the cavalier," he remarked. "I pierce and am pierced. Here is my
rapier. I clink steel. This is a blood-stain over my heart. I can emit
hollow groans. I am patronized by many old Conservative families. I am
the original manor-house apparition. I work alone, or in company with
shrieking damsels."
He bent his head courteously, as though awaiting my reply, but the same
choking sensation prevented me from speaking; and, with a deep bow, he
disappeared.
He had hardly gone before a feeling of intense horror stole over me,
and I was aware of the presence of a ghastly creature in the room of
dim outlines and uncertain proportions. One moment it seemed to pervade
the entire apartment, while at another it would become invisible, but
always leaving behind it a distinct consciousness of its presence. Its
voice, when it spoke, was quavering and gusty. It said, "I am the
leaver of footsteps and the spiller of gouts of blood. I tramp upon
corridors. Charles Dickens has alluded to me. I make strange and
disagreeable noises. I snatch letters and place invisible hands on
people's wrists. I am cheerful. I burst into peals of hideous laughter.
Shall I do one now?" I raised my hand in a deprecating way, but too
late to prevent one discordant outbreak which echoed through the room.
Before I could lower it the apparition was gone.
I turned my head toward the door in time to see a man come hastily and
stealthily into the chamber. He was a sunburned powerfully-built
fellow, with earrings in his ears and a Barcelona handkerchief tied
loosely round his neck. His head was bent upon his chest, and his whole
aspect was that of one afflicted by intolerable remorse. He paced
rapidly backward and forward like a caged tiger, and I observed that a
drawn knife glittered in one of his hands, while he grasped what
appeared to be a piece of parchment in the other. His voice, when he
spoke, was deep and sonorous. He said, "I am a murderer. I am a
ruffian. I crouch when I walk. I step noiselessly. I know something of
the Spanish Main. I can do the lost treasure business. I have charts.
Am able-bodied and a good walker. Capable of haunting a large park." He
looked toward me beseechingly, but before I could make a sign I was
paralyzed by the horrible sight which appeared at the door.
It was a very tall man, if, indeed, it might be called a man, for the
gaunt bones were protruding through the corroding flesh, and the
features of a leaden hue. A winding sheet was wrapped round the figure,
and formed a hood over the head, from under the shadow of which two
fiendish eyes, deep-set in their grisly sockets, blazed and sparkled
like red-hot coals. The lower jaw had fallen upon the breast,
disclosing a withered, shrivelled tongue and two lines of black and
jagged fangs. I shuddered and drew back as this fearful apparition
advanced to the edge of the circle.
"I am the American blood-curdler," it said, in a voice which seemed to
come in a hollow murmur from the earth beneath it. "None other is
genuine. I am the embodiment of Edgar Allan Poe. I am circumstantial
and horrible. I am a low-caste spirit-subduing spectre. Observe my
blood and my bones. I am grisly and nauseous. No depending on
artificial aid. Work with grave-clothes, a coffin-lid, and a galvanic
battery. Turn hair white in a night." The creature stretched out its
fleshless arms to me as if in entreaty, but I shook my head; and it
vanished, leaving a low sickening repulsive odour behind it. I sank
back in my chair, so overcome by terror and disgust that I would have
very willingly resigned myself to dispensing with a ghost altogether,
could I have been sure that this was the last of the hideous
procession.
A faint sound of trailing garments warned me that it was not so. I
looked up, and beheld a white figure emerging from the corridor into
the right. As it stepped across the threshold I saw that it was that of
a young and beautiful woman dressed in the fashion of a bygone day. Her
hands were clasped in front of her, and her pale proud face bore traces
of passion and of suffering. She crossed the hall with a gentle sound,
like the rustling of autumn leaves, and then, turning her lovely and
unutterably sad eyes upon me, she said,
"I am the plaintive and sentimental, the beautiful and ill-used. I have
been forsaken and betrayed. I shriek in the night-time and glide down
passages. My antecedents are highly respectable and generally
aristocratic. My tastes are aesthetic. Old oak furniture like this would
do, with a few more coats of mail and plenty of tapestry. Will you not
take me?"
Her voice died away in a beautiful cadence as she concluded, and she
held out her hands as in supplication. I am always sensitive to female
influences. Besides, what would Jorrocks' ghost be to this? Could
anything be in better taste? Would I not be exposing myself to the
chance of injuring my nervous system by interviews with such creatures
as my last visitor, unless I decided at once? She gave me a seraphic
smile, as if she knew what was passing in my mind. That smile settled
the matter. "She will do!" I cried; "I choose this one;" and as, in my
enthusiasm, I took a step toward her, I passed over the magic circle
which had girdled me round.
"Argentine, we have been robbed!"
I had an indistinct consciousness of these words being spoken, or
rather screamed, in my ear a great number of times without my being
able to grasp their meaning. A violent throbbing in my head seemed to
adapt itself to their rhythm, and I closed my eyes to the lullaby of
"Robbed, robbed, robbed." A vigorous shake caused me to open them
again, however, and the sight of Mrs. D'Odd in the scantiest of
costumes and most furious of tempers was sufficiently impressive to
recall all my scattered thoughts, and make me realize that I was lying
on my back on the floor, with my head among the ashes which had fallen
from last night's fire, and a small glass phial in my hand.
I staggered to my feet, but felt so weak and giddy that I was compelled
to fall back into a chair. As my brain became clearer, stimulated by
the exclamations of Matilda, I began gradually to recollect the events
of the night. There was the door through which my supernatural visitors
had filed. There was the circle of chalk with the hieroglyphics round
the edge. There was the cigar-box and brandy bottle which had been
honoured by the attentions of Mr. Abrahams. But the seer himself--where
was he? and what was this open window with a rope running out of it?
And where, O where, was the pride of Goresthorpe Grange, the glorious
plate which was to have been the delectation of generations of D'Odds?
And why was Mrs. D. standing in the gray light of dawn, wringing her
hands and repeating her monotonous refrain? It was only very gradually
that my misty brain took these things in, and grasped the connection
between them.
Reader, I have never seen Mr. Abrahams since; I have never seen the
plate stamped with the resuscitated family crest; hardest of all, I
have never caught a glimpse of the melancholy spectre with the trailing
garments, nor do I expect that I ever shall. In fact my night's
experiences have cured me of my mania for the supernatural, and quite
reconciled me to inhabiting the humdrum nineteenth century edifice on
the outskirts of London which Mrs. D. has long had in her mind's eye.
As to the explanation of all that occurred--that is a matter which is
open to several surmises. That Mr. Abrahams, the ghost-hunter, was
identical with Jemmy Wilson, _alias_ the Nottingham crackster, is
considered more than probable at Scotland Yard, and certainly the
description of that remarkable burglar tallied very well with the
appearance of my visitor. The small bag which I have described was
picked up in a neighbouring field next day, and found to contain a
choice assortment of jimmies and centrebits. Footmarks deeply imprinted
in the mud on either side of the moat showed that an accomplice from
below had received the sack of precious metals which had been let down
through the open window. No doubt the pair of scoundrels, while looking
round for a job, had overheard Jack Brocket's indiscreet inquiries, and
had promptly availed themselves of the tempting opening.
And now as to my less substantial visitors, and the curious grotesque
vision which I had enjoyed--am I to lay it down to any real power over
occult matters possessed by my Nottingham friend? For a long time I was
doubtful upon the point, and eventually endeavoured to solve it by
consulting a well-known analyst and medical man, sending him the few
drops of the so-called essence of Lucoptolycus which remained in my
phial. I append the letter which I received from him, only too happy to
have the opportunity of winding up my little narrative by the weighty
words of a man of learning.
"Arundel Street.
"Dear Sir,--Your very singular case has interested me extremely.
The bottle which you sent contained a strong solution of chloral,
and the quantity which you describe yourself as having swallowed
must have amounted to at least eighty grains of the pure hydrate.
This would of course have reduced you to a partial state of
insensibility, gradually going on to complete coma. In this
semi-unconscious state of chloralism it is not unusual for
circumstantial and _bizarre_ visions to present themselves--more
especially to individuals unaccustomed to the use of the drug. You
tell me in your note that your mind was saturated with ghostly
literature, and that you had long taken a morbid interest in
classifying and recalling the various forms in which apparitions
have been said to appear. You must also remember that you were
expecting to see something of that very nature, and that your
nervous system was worked up to an unnatural state of tension.
Under the circumstances, I think that, far from the sequel being an
astonishing one, it would have been very surprising indeed to
anyone versed in narcotics had you not experienced some such
effects.--I remain, dear sir, sincerely yours,
"T. E. STUBE, M.D.
"Argentine D'Odd, Esq.,
The Elms, Brixton."
X
THE MAN WITH THE PALE EYES
Guy de Maupassant
Monsieur Pierre Agenor de Vargnes, the Examining Magistrate, was the
exact opposite of a practical joker. He was dignity, staidness,
correctness personified. As a sedate man, he was quite incapable of
being guilty, even in his dreams, of anything resembling a practical
joke, however remotely. I know nobody to whom he could be compared,
unless it be the present president of the French Republic. I think it
is useless to carry the analogy any further, and having said thus much,
it will be easily understood that a cold shiver passed through me when
Monsieur Pierre Agenor de Vargnes did me the honour of sending a lady
to await on me.
At about eight o'clock, one morning last winter, as he was leaving the
house to go to the _Palais de Justice_, his footman handed him a card,
on which was printed:
DOCTOR JAMES FERDINAND,
_Member of the Academy of Medicine,
Port-au-Prince,
Chevalier of the Legion of Honour._
At the bottom of the card there was written in pencil: _From Lady
Frogere_.
Monsieur de Vargnes knew the lady very well, who was a very agreeable
Creole from Hayti, and whom he had met in many drawing-rooms, and, on
the other hand, though the doctor's name did not awaken any
recollections in him, his quality and titles alone required that he
should grant him an interview, however short it might be. Therefore,
although he was in a hurry to get out, Monsieur de Vargnes told the
footman to show in his early visitor, but to tell him beforehand that
his master was much pressed for time, as he had to go to the Law
Courts.
When the doctor came in, in spite of his usual imperturbability, he
could not restrain a movement of surprise, for the doctor presented
that strange anomaly of being a negro of the purest, blackest type,
with the eyes of a white man, of a man from the North, pale, cold,
clear blue eyes, and his surprise increased, when, after a few words of
excuse for his untimely visit, he added, with an enigmatical smile:
"My eyes surprise you, do they not? I was sure that they would, and, to
tell you the truth, I came here in order that you might look at them
well, and never forget them."
His smile, and his words, even more than his smile, seemed to be those
of a madman. He spoke very softly, with that childish, lisping voice,
which is peculiar to negroes, and his mysterious, almost menacing
words, consequently, sounded all the more as if they were uttered at
random by a man bereft of his reason. But his looks, the looks of those
pale, cold, clear blue eyes, were certainly not those of a madman. They
clearly expressed menace, yes, menace, as well as irony, and, above
all, implacable ferocity, and their glance was like a flash of
lightning, which one could never forget.
"I have seen," Monsieur de Vargnes used to say, when speaking about it,
"the looks of many murderers, but in none of them have I ever observed
such a depth of crime, and of impudent security in crime."
And this impression was so strong, that Monsieur de Vargnes thought
that he was the sport of some hallucination, especially as when he
spoke about his eyes, the doctor continued with a smile, and in his
most childish accents: "Of course, Monsieur, you cannot understand what
I am saying to you, and I must beg your pardon for it. To-morrow you
will receive a letter which will explain it all to you, but, first of
all, it was necessary that I should let you have a good, a careful look
at my eyes, my eyes, which are myself, my only and true self, as you
will see."
With these words, and with a polite bow, the doctor went out, leaving
Monsieur de Vargnes extremely surprised, and a prey to this doubt, as
he said to himself:
"Is he merely a madman? The fierce expression, and the criminal depths
of his looks are perhaps caused merely by the extraordinary contrast
between his fierce looks and his pale eyes."
And absorbed by these thoughts, Monsieur de Vargnes unfortunately
allowed several minutes to elapse, and then he thought to himself
suddenly:
"No, I am not the sport of any hallucination, and this is no case of an
optical phenomenon. This man is evidently some terrible criminal, and I
have altogether failed in my duty in not arresting him myself at once,
illegally, even at the risk of my life."