with an imprecation the rough backed away from the girl, turned, and in
a moment was lost in the gloom. I brought my eyes back to the girl who
had confronted me in the red light of sunset, and I stood gazing at her
dumbly, fascinated, but with never a word to say. She was burning with
anger and shame, trembling like an aspen, too.
"_It was Margot!_
"The girl glanced up at me, a look that set my heart throbbing. It was
my first real sight of her since I had seen her that afternoon with
Ombos. I had thought her pretty then, but there is a distinct gap
between a pretty woman and a lovely woman, and she was as beautiful as a
Greek marble. Indeed, but for the carmine of her lips, and long dark
eyelashes, she might have been chiselled out of pellucid stone, for her
skin was dead white. She was--or had been--beautifully and expensively
dressed, and there was breeding and refinement in every line of her
face.
"'Don't you know me?' I said.
"The girl looked at me intently.
"'I know you, of course,' she said.
"I won't waste time in trying to tell you what my thoughts and
sensations were. Rather I will tell you instead, what I did.
"It was some minutes later, and already we had started to walk slowly
back in the direction of the Rue Bar-le-Duc.
"'And now you want to know--' she said.
"'Yes--that's it--what's become of Ombos ... and the bronze statue?'
"Margot looked up at me, and a strange melancholy transformed her
face.... She was at a loss for words.... 'Poor Ombos--oh, poor, cranky
Ombos,' she muttered. 'One morning I found him dead in his room, with
all his wonderful, brown, powdery-looking books. He was leaning on a
table over an old volume that he was fond of.... And then the doctors
came. He had died, they afterwards said, of failure of the heart's
action.'
"'Dead,' I murmured mechanically....
"'Then everything was very uncomfortable. But I saved a good sum of
money, and I sent most of the valuable things to Paris to be sold--no
living soul coming forward to make any claims. Ombos left everything to
me ... bonds, securities, and all. Come this way--I have a little room
up the side-street.
"'He left me well provided for. He----'
"'Yes; but why on earth do you stay in this dead city,' I broke in.
"'Sssh!... Don't interrupt unless I ask you questions.
"'I'll tell you all about everything. It's extraordinarily
difficult....'
"I waited.
"'You see,' she picked her words carefully, 'Ombos was so--queer about
that horrible Albertus Magnus of his. He had made me promise never to
part with it and it seemed to me--stupidly perhaps--that I owed him
that--to see that his only wish was carried out to the letter. Otherwise
I should never dare to have stayed here. You couldn't expect me to move
about with a gigantic bronze figure without making ample preparations.'
"'Ah!'...
"'This is where I live,' she said in a low voice.
"Margot had halted in front of an alley leading over rough cobbles, into
a small square of what appeared to be old oak-fronted houses. A narrow
passage-way ran down by one side of the end house.
"'Won't you come inside, and--see Albertus? This way,' she said. 'It's
rather dark, I'm afraid.'
"In pitch-black darkness, guided by Margot's hand, I stumbled through a
doorway into a spacious hall--a mysterious, fusty-smelling cavern of a
place--along a passage, and then up a flight of worn stone stairs. It
was one of those old houses where one could feel the silence and hear
the shadows. The steps came out upon a bare landing with oak-lined
walls, lit only by a solitary flickering candle, and Margot, halting
before a locked door, opened it and motioned me to enter.
"The room was in darkness, and I knew not what fear, akin to that little
grey shadow of a fear, was to be found in the darkness there. At first I
hesitated. Then Margot came with the candle, and as it guttered, the
flame threw distorted shadows; at one moment lighting up a dark spot
with a sudden flash, and then sending queer, erratic reflections chasing
across the oak panelling. Then a flicker displayed the unmade bed on
which Margot had lain.... She coloured deeply.
"'You have stored the bronze statue in some other part of the house,' I
said at a venture.
"She looked at me, as I thought, a little uneasily.
"'You aren't afraid of that old statue?' she exclaimed. 'We might at
least light up the candles,' she added, as I made no reply; and she
turned and put a burning taper to the candelabra.
"As Margot spoke the candles flared up, and then, with a sudden start of
unexplained dismay, I saw in a corner by the bed stood the bronze
figure.
"As I looked at it I felt the horror of nightmare seize me, for it bore
a striking resemblance to Ombos. A dreadful exuberance and vitality
seemed to shine through the thing, an exuberance wholly malign, a
vitality that foamed and frothed with unimaginable evil. Evil beamed
from the deep cavernous eyes; it leered in the demon-like mouth....
Ugh!--
"Margot walked up to me and patted my shoulder. 'Well, and are you
really afraid of that thing,' she said, pointing to the statue.
"'But, don't you see?' said I. 'It's scarcely the face of a bronze
figure. It's almost human. No; it isn't even human. It's the face of
some devil.' Margot laughed.
"'Yes: he isn't very cheerful,' she said. 'Scarcely a boudoir ornament,
eh? I'll throw a blanket over Albertus if you like.'
"'I really wish you would,' I said, 'I don't care so long as he can't
grin at me.'
"Somehow, with the bronze figure covered up, I felt much lighter and
happier.
"I think that Margot--that Margot must have been rather overstrained
after the struggle with that brute. She seemed to be all nerves--upset:
insisted in putting her little white hand on mine in a very solemn way,
and thanking me for all sorts of imaginary favours.... Got 'a wheeze'
into her head, among other rot, that I had saved her life.
"'Look here,' I said. 'I wish you wouldn't talk so jolly silly. I'm not
a bit unselfish, I'm a novelist. There was nothin' doin' with my
crowd--regiment I mean--and so I came here to look for "copy." That was
why I persisted in seeing you home here. It was all just a matter of
"copy" to me--at the start.' I paused, and Margot turned her tourmaline
eyes full on me. Had you asked me after my first visit to old Ombos what
Margot's eyes were like I could not have told you the colour to save my
life. If I had been forced to weigh out a guess I might have said they
were a shade of grey. Grey? Name of a little dog! Yes, I should have
called 'em grey, but that would have been like describing the Pyramids
by saying they were stone. However can I describe the wonder that I
found ..."
A sort of flush appeared on Crabbe's boyish face. "I--I'm afraid I have
run off the track of my story a bit," he stammered, "but I may as well
tell you all of it."
"Take a drink of whiskey;" said Duckford slowly, "and take your own
time."
"Margot looked at me, her lips quivering. 'You've not found much "copy"
I'm afraid,' she answered despondently.
"'Now,' I said, meeting her eyes, '"copy" matters not at all ... you are
all that matters.'
"It does not in the least concern you or the story to know what manner
of a woman Margot is. But I might say that she is in fulness a
woman--not a fribble, or one of those pick-me-up-and-carry-me women. So
when I said plain words to her she did not pretend to misunderstand.
"'Don't let us be conventional,' I went on, 'It wouldn't fit in with
these wonderful days a bit. Perhaps I've no right to talk to you like
this--but Ombos is dead and you seem to have no friend in the world. We
have got caught up, you and I, in one of the marvellous tangles of this
great conflict, and God knows how it's all going to end. But it seems to
have been written in the book of fate that we should meet, and whether
Ombos and his bronze statue haunts me to the end of my days or he
doesn't, I'm glad I have met you, and to know for just one swift hour
I've used these hands of mine in your service. I wouldn't take back one
minute of these great days!'
"Margot was regarding me with her wide eyes, a little startled, but I
saw beyond those rounds of tourmaline a soft light.
"'How is it?' said Margot calmly. 'A few hours ago you hadn't spoken
more than a few words to me ... you don't know me.'
"'In times of war,' I reminded her, 'we live a year in a day.'
"Margot rested her chin on her hands. 'What a strange world it is,' she
murmured.
"'Confoundedly strange,' I agreed. 'I can't help thinking even now that
my meeting with Ombos in that weird den in the Rue Bar-le-Duc was all a
dream, and I'm going to wake up soon.'
"'I didn't mean that,' Margot said quietly. 'That didn't seem so strange
to me. Perhaps it's because I lived with Ombos for nearly four years.'
"'It was just like a page torn from the _Arabian Nights_ to me,' I said.
She smiled at me wanly.
"'The only other home I've known was with foster-parents in Paris when I
was quite a child,' she said. 'I was brought here straight from a
convent school in Brussels. Ombos was my guardian. He'--she hesitated,
shivering--'I don't think he was quite--sane, but he was always very
kind to me.'
"'Margot,' I stammered as I imprisoned her hands in mine, 'I'm going to
take you out of this mudhole of a place.... I'm going to send you over
to England. I'll stay here and look after you to-night, and to-morrow
I'll see you on your way.'
"She dragged her hands away suddenly.
"'But are you _sure_?' Margot said, half sobbing. 'Please reflect ...
you are in too much of a hurry. When an idea comes to you--the idea,
that you want me for instance--what do you do? Instead of taking the
idea for a long, cool walk, you sit down here to work it up ... it is
the eternal boyishness of the Englishman. You must first think of your
future.'
"'But do you think that the future holds anything for me now that I
wouldn't throw away with both hands for you?' I said, and the passion of
my voice whipped the blood up into that alabaster face ... she put out
her hands with a little pleading movement.
"'Don't,' she said again.
"'I must,' I said stubbornly. 'There's nothing in the world powerful
enough to take you from me ... if you will have me. Margot, you must
believe me ... you shall believe me!' I added almost savagely, and my
hands closed round her waist as she leaned against the back of a huge
old divan. Margot closed her eyes for a moment and her head dropped
gently on my shoulder. Her hair brushed my face, and the faint musky
scent that came from it is woven into all my after memories of that
moment, I drew her closer and she sighed for very happiness, while life
drifted past in uncounted minutes or hours.
"It was the next evening that I arranged to have one of the A.S.C.
cars,--then running between Ypres and St. Omer,--wait for us outside
Margot's rooms. Under cover of darkness I bundled Margot into the
motor-lorry, got the bronze statue in, and jumped up on the driver's
seat beside her, and sank down with a gasp of relief. One last glimpse
of the little bulgy window of the shop as the lorry rounded the corner,
and then I turned and looked at the girl. Tears glittered in her eyes,
and her lips were quivering. I put my hand out and closed over her
ice-cold fingers.
"'Margot!' I said, 'I'm taking you to Boulogne and then you will go to
England to my home. My people will look after you....'
"'But--' she hesitated.
"'There are no "buts,"' I said firmly, 'You are coming with me. You
can't stay in this infernal hole, like a rat in a trap.'
"Margot gave a weary little sigh and leaned closer to me, giving herself
into my care as trustfully as a child. Until that time she had been just
a figure in the great war game that might provide me with something to
'write up' into a book. That had been my principal thought. Now, all in
a few moments, her beauty, the frightened look which had shone in her
great grey eyes, her distress made me forget all that, drove all
thoughts of traffic with publishers from my mind. I knew only that it
was good to help her.
"Then I set about thinking how I could get Margot and Albertus Magnus to
England. It was going to be a difficult game. I went carefully over all
the good fellows I knew who could help me. There was old Longden of the
A.S.C. depot at St. Omer, there was Captain Chester, the transport
officer at Boulogne, and Orgles of ammunition supply at Cassel, which is
a small place where the strings of motors from the base unload.
"Well, (to get on,) we arrived late that night at St. Omer, and by a
vast amount of bribery and cajolery I got some A.S.C. men to knock up a
strong case for the Albertus Magnus and--but enough. It is sufficient to
say that an officer who was going home on leave was kind enough to see
Margot as far as Boulogne, and in the fullness of time both Albertus
Magnus and the girl came safely to England.
"I have endeavoured to give you the facts of my strange story up to this
point, without omission or exaggeration. I have been careful not to miss
out the slightest items. If I have failed, it must not be put down to
forgetfulness: for I do not think there is a single thing about old
Ombos that has not been permanently fixed in my mind. Even now I have
but to shut my eyes to see the leering face of Albertus, to stand once
more trembling with terror and see that green shadow jump into the dusk
with hellish glee and frolicsome skippings and toppings gallop away, to
walk into the old library at home and see poor Price with his knees
drawn up and eyes fixed open in extreme terror--But enough. I do not
exaggerate.
"And now I must come to what you'll call the second part of the
story--though it was all one long connected nightmare to me. I returned
from France, as you know, six months ago, with a bullet in my leg, and
thought myself in the best of luck to get a 'blighty' one; I mean a
slight wound which necessitated me being sent back to England. I went
down to a charming old house at Monk's Ely which my father had lately
moved into, and soon drifted into peaceful ways of country life. The
trivial little objects and customs of rustic life--those simple things
that are best of all--attracted me surprisingly.
"A delightful room full of my books and pictures had been prepared on
the ground floor of the house, but I was not often in it. Still, I
accorded to my bronze statue a prominent corner in the room, where he
frowned upon all my other possessions with that great look of
disinterestedness which only bronze or death can typify.
"A week or two passed without incident, except that again and again a
curious feeling that sometimes I was not _alone_ was present in my mind.
In a way I got used to it, because after being in the trenches and
looking in the face of death as a kind of hobby the feeling of release
and lightness that comes over one drives all other troubles clean away.
But after a while this feeling seemed to be growing in poignancy. In
fact at the end of the first fortnight I mentioned it to my father.
"'Strange you should have felt like that,' he said one night after
dinner, 'because for the last day or so, the same sensation has been
creeping over me. When is it that you have your ghostly visitor? Have
you any feeling now of such a thing, for instance?'
"We were having a smoke on the lawn ... it was a beautiful evening of
stars, and as he spoke I felt the unseen presence with terrific
intensity. At that moment the door that led from the library quietly
swung open, and just as quietly closed again, as if someone had passed
out into the garden.
"'Did you see that?' I said. 'There is not a breath of wind stirring:
odd thing that a door should play those kind of tricks.'
"My father was silent a moment.
"'You felt it then,' he said.
"'Frightfully!' I breathed.
"'Let's get back to the dining-room,' my father urged.
"Just as we got up to the house door (not the library door which opened
on the path), I saw, as I thought, a figure move in the bushes near the
library. Perhaps it would be better to describe it as a shadow ... but I
could swear that it was of a greenish colour. For one moment, from sheer
terror of the unseen, I stood frozen to the doorstep, and then my father
touched my arm and we walked in together.
"That evening, my friend Price, after his wont, dropped in. I had just
run the car round to the front door and was about to run into the
village to bring the vicar back to stay with us over the
week-end--besides I badly wanted to get away from those infernal gusts
of depression that swept the place. I did not scruple to keep to my
arrangements and told Price to make himself comfortable in the library
till my return. 'You'll find cigars, spirits--and _the_ spirit,' I said
jokingly. He nodded and laughed, and I jumped into the car, and quickly
put a mile between myself and--the bronze statue, for I was convinced
that Albertus of Cologne was connected in some unearthly way with the
face of Fear that often turned full on me.
"A half-hour afterwards I had pulled up at the vicarage, and was hanging
on to the bell which gave forth a mighty clamour. I was impatient to get
inside for a moment and behold the good genial face of the vicar.
Somehow, wherever the vicar went, he had a wonderful way of cheering
things up; his presence diffused an atmosphere of merriment. The door
suddenly opened and I was face to face with him:
"'My dear boy,' cried the vicar, 'I am glad to see you.'
"Then he stared at me in amazement. 'What have you done to yourself? You
have aged years since I saw you last week.'
"'Ah, I have things to tell you,' I said, 'Things that will make you
think I am off my head, but I shall convince you----'
"The vicar took my arm and walked me up to his sanctum, a fine spacious
chamber, beautified with that simplicity which throws a wonderful
dignity over all, and tends to show how in omission so much more
refinement is to be discovered than in ornament. Touches of the vicar's
keen discernment of those things which are worthy and noble were
revealed on every hand--knowledge of this sort is older than ten
thousand years. The room received one like a friend. The alcoves were
filled with well-bound books, there was a superb Persian carpet, old
gate-legged tables--oak was there everywhere; in the beams and the
shelves and the mighty writing desk. The servant had brought in a small
table with syphons and spirits, and had set a lamp upon it. 'Help
yourself,' said the vicar.
"I poured out a dose of whisky and was lifting it for a squirt of soda
when all at once I saw Fear; not apprehension, not foreboding, but
FEAR--the glass fell from my hand and my fingers sagged on the handle of
the syphon. I saw my reflection in a long glass, and my face was
bleached to an unhealthy dull whiteness.
"Suddenly like a shot, right in the middle of things, I found myself
wondering about poor Price. And I wasn't only wondering somehow I was
horribly uneasy about him. It came to me that I had been heartless to
leave him all alone with the statue. At last I couldn't stand the strain
any longer. I got up.
"'Vicar,' I said, 'I'm going back to see if Price is all right. It will
sound quite mad to you, I expect, but if you want to know the sober
truth, I will tell you that I have just seen him in a vision: he was in
trouble, I know. But come, let us get into the car. I have never told
anyone my whole story yet, but I shall like to tell you about Ombos and
his statue. I will tell you on the way back to Abbot's Ely. It is about
time, in fact, that I tried to classify what I have learned.'
"I then briefly related the story of Ombos and our acquaintance. I
concealed nothing, dwelling on the irresistible alluring influence of
the bronze statue. I described the depression, the despair, the
overpowering moral weakness which seemed to follow me since the
Albertus Magnus had become one of my possessions. In short, I lifted the
curtain, for the first time, and showed the vicar a true picture of the
strange world I had moved in for the last few weeks.
"When we had returned and backed the car into the coach house we walked
across the lawn to the back door. Here we met Clayton, the butler. He
appeared to be frightened, and told me that he had heard a kind of
quivering, sobbing voice coming from the library. He thought Mr. Price
was ill. We went to the door. It was locked, and an application of a
spare key proved that the other key had been left in the lock inside. We
knocked loudly, and called. There was no reply. Clayton's conviction
that 'something had happened' worked on my nerves frightfully, and in
the end the vicar and I forced open the door with some gardening tools.
"Something _had_ happened.
"The room was in complete darkness, and at first nothing could be
discerned at all. A slight wind had got up in the last half an hour; and
it rustled the trailers of ivy against the opened windows. The heavy
curtains moved carelessly in the draught, and the trees creaked faintly.
But beyond these inevitable noises, the room was quiet. Then gradually,
the outline of the room became visible and the framework of the window
began to shape itself dimly before my eyes. In the hazy light from the
glass doors, and the vague light of a lamp in the hall, I saw that the
chesterfield in the window bay where Price so often lounged was
tenanted. A gleam of his light tweed suit showed there and across
that.... Oh, I fully expected to see the other thing! Across that there
was an obscure greenish shadow.
"I walked towards it, when suddenly the shadow shot upwards and was lost
to sight. Then the springs of the chesterfield creaked and wheezed, the
same as they will when suddenly released from pressure. Clayton came in
at that moment holding a candelabra aloft and the feeble flames
disclosed poor old Price. He was on his back, his knees slightly drawn
up. The face was not the face of a man at all--it was a horrible mask of
contorted terror. His eyes were opened and fixed; the mouth was twisted
in a gape of fearful wonder.
"'Run, Clayton,' said I; 'a doctor and a policeman!' Clayton placed the
candelabra on the table and bounced out and down the front steps.
"Price was dead without a doubt. He had been strangled, the doctor
thought from the greenish-black marks on his neck and other
circumstances. The savage deed had been accomplished with frightful
ferociousness and strength. Soon the room was in the possession of the
police, and the vicar and I turned out. There was little evidence at
the inquest. The cries of poor Price had been heard by my man, the body
had been found--that was the practical summing-up of the whole matter.
The doctor gave his evidence as to the probability of murder, and the
police evidence tended in the same direction. It was affirmed that (some
would say) he had been baffled by Price in an attempt to rob the house,
had sacrificed the poor fellow to the fury of his checked greed, and had
afterwards escaped by the window. The jury found that Price had died by
the hand of some person unknown.
"'Well, vicar,' I asked afterwards, 'what do you think of the verdict?'
"He told me that from _his_ point of view it seemed to be the most
reasonable one that could be given; and to agree with the laws of
common-sense.
"'Yes,' I replied, 'perhaps you are right from the common-sense point of
view. Nevertheless, I know that Price did not die by any human agency.
It is too ghastly; I can still see that green shadow hovering above his
body on the couch. The huge shadow, the Elemental, the spirit of
Ombos--whatever you like to call it--was there in that room with Price.
It was there in a form that could be seen and felt. It is something more
substantial than an ordinary shadow ... it is a thing of hellish terror,
and it comes from that infernal bronze statue.'