They Return at Evening 3 – Wakefield · Library Across
Literature · Short Stories
They Return at Evening 3“He Cometh and He Passeth by”
18
Literature · Short Stories
They Return at Evening 3
“He Cometh and He Passeth by”
WakefieldEnglish
“HE COMETH AND HE PASSETH BY!”
Edward Bellamy sat down at his desk, untied the ribbon round a formidable bundle of papers, yawned and looked out of the window.
On that glistening evening the prospect from Stone Buildings, Lincoln’s Inn, was restful and soothing. Just below the motor mowing-machine placidly “chug-chugged” as it clipped the finest turf in London. The muted murmurs from Kingsway and Holborn roamed in placidly. One sleepy pigeon was scratching its poll and ruffling its feathers in a tree opposite, two others--one coyly fleeing, the other doggedly in pursuit--strutted the greensward. “A curious rite of courtship,” thought Bellamy, “but they seem to enjoy it; more than I enjoy the job of reading this brief!”
Had these infatuated fowls gazed back at Mr. Bellamy they would have seen a pair of resolute and trustworthy eyes dominating a resolute, nondescript face, one that gave an indisputable impression of kindliness, candour and mental alacrity. No woman had etched lines upon it, nor were those deepening furrows ploughed by the higher exercise of the imagination marked thereon.
By his thirty-ninth birthday he had raised himself to the unchallenged position of the most brilliant junior at the Criminal Bar, though that is, perhaps, too flashy an epithet to describe that combination of inflexible integrity, impeccable common sense, perfect health and tireless industry which was Edward Bellamy. A modest person, he attributed his success entirely to that “perfect health,” a view not lightly to be challenged by those who spend many of their days in those Black Holes of controversy, the Law Courts of London. And he had spent nine out of the last fourteen days therein. But the result had been a signal triumph, for the Court of Criminal Appeal had taken his view of Mr. James Stock’s motives, and had substituted ten years’ penal servitude for a six-foot drop. And he was very weary--and yet here was this monstrous bundle of papers! He had just succeeded in screwing his determination to the sticking point when his telephone bell rang.
He picked up the receiver languidly, and then his face lightened.
“I know that voice. How are you, my dear Philip? Why, what’s the matter? Yes, I’m doing nothing. Delighted! Brooks’s at eight o’clock. Right you are!”
So Philip had not forgotten his existence. He had begun to wonder. His mind wandered back over his curious friendship with Franton. It had begun on the first morning of their first term at Univ., when they had both been strolling nervously about the quad. That it ever had begun was the most surprising thing about it, for superficially they had nothing in common. Philip, the best bat at Eton, almost too decorative, with a personal charm most people found irresistible, the heir to great possessions. He, the crude product of an obscure Grammar School, destined to live precariously on his scholarships, gauche, shy, taciturn. In the ordinary way they would have graduated to different worlds, for the economic factor alone would have kept their paths all through their lives at Oxford inexorably apart. They would have had little more in common with each other than they had with their scouts. And yet they had spent a good part of almost every day together during term time, and during every vacation he had spent some time at Franton Hall, where he had had first revealed to him those many and delicate refinements of life which only great wealth, allied with traditional taste, can secure. Why had it been so? He had eventually asked Philip.
“Because,” he replied, “you have a first-class brain, I have a second or third. I have always had things made too easy for me. You have had most things made too hard. Ergo, you have a first-class character. I haven’t. I feel a sense of respectful shame towards you, my dear Teddie, which alone would keep me trotting at your heels. I feel I can rely on you as on no one else. You are at once my superior and my complement. Anyway, it has happened, why worry? Analysing such things often spoils them, it’s like over-rehearsing.”
And then the War--and even the Defence of Civilisation entailed subtle social distinctions.
Philip was given a commission in a regiment of cavalry (with the best will in the world Bellamy never quite understood the privileged rôle of the horse in the higher ranks of English society); he himself enlisted in a line regiment, and rose through his innate common sense and his unflagging capacity for finishing a job to the rank of Major, D.S.O. and bar, and a brace of wound-stripes. Philip went to Mesopotamia and was eventually invalided out through the medium of a gas-shell. His right lung seriously affected, he spent from 1917-1924 on a farm in Arizona.
They had written to each other occasionally--the hurried, flippant, shadow-of-death letters of the time, but somehow their friendship had dimmed and faded and become more than a little pre-War by the end of it, so that Bellamy was not more than mildly disappointed when he heard casually that Philip was back in England, yet had had but the most casual, damp letter from him.
But there had been all the old cordiality and affection in his voice over the telephone--and something more--not so pleasant to hear.
At the appointed hour he arrived in St. James’s Street, and a moment later Philip came up to him.
“Now, Teddie,” he said, “I know what you’re thinking, I know I’ve been a fool and the rottenest sort of type to have acted as I have, but there is a kind of explanation.”
Bellamy surrendered at once to that absurd sense of delight at being in Philip’s company, and his small resentment was rent and scattered. None the less he regarded him with a veiled intentness. He was looking tired and old--forcing himself--there was something seriously the matter.
“My very dear Philip,” he said, “you don’t need to explain things to me. To think it is eight years since we met!”
“First of all let’s order something,” said Philip. “You have what you like, I don’t want much, except a drink.” Whereupon he selected a reasonable collation for Bellamy and a dressed crab and asparagus for himself. But he drank two Martinis in ten seconds, and these were not the first--Bellamy knew--that he had ordered since 5.30 (there was something wrong).
For a little while the conversation was uneasily, stalely reminiscent. Suddenly Philip blurted out, “I can’t keep it in any longer. You’re the only really reliable, unswerving friend I’ve ever had. You will help me, won’t you?”
“My dear Philip,” said Bellamy, touched, “I always have and always will be ready to do anything you want me to do and at any time--you know that.”
“Well, then, I’ll tell you my story. First of all, have you ever heard of a man called Oscar Clinton?”
“I seem to remember the name. It is somehow connected in my mind with the nineties, raptures and roses, absinthe and poses; and the other Oscar. I believe his name cropped up in a case I was in. I have an impression he’s a wrong ’un.”
“That’s the man,” said Philip. “He stayed with me for three months at Franton.”
“Oh,” said Bellamy sharply, “how was that?”
“Well, Teddie, anything the matter with one’s lungs affects one’s mind--not always for the worse, however. I know that’s true, and it affected mine. Arizona is a moon-dim region, very lovely in its way and stark and old, but I had to leave it. You know I was always a sceptic, rather a wooden one, as I remember; well, that ancient, lonely land set my lung-polluted mind working. I used to stare and stare into the sky. One is brought right up against the vast enigmas of time and space and eternity when one lung is doing the work of two, and none too well at that.”
Edward realised under what extreme tension Philip had been living, but felt that he could establish a certain control over him. He felt more in command of the situation and resolved to keep that command.
“Well,” continued Philip, filling up his glass, “when I got back to England I was so frantically nervous that I could hardly speak or think. I felt insane, unclean--mentally. I felt I was going mad, and could not bear to be seen by anyone who had known me--that is why I was such a fool as not to come to you. You have your revenge! I can’t tell you, Teddie, how depression roared through me! I made up my mind to die, but I had a wild desire to know to what sort of place I should go. And then I met Clinton. I had rushed up to London one day just to get the inane anodyne of noise and people, and I suppose I was more or less tight, for I walked into a club of sorts called the ‘Chorazin’ in Soho. The door-keeper tried to turn me out, but I pushed him aside, and then someone came up and led me to a table. It was Clinton.
“Now there is no doubt he has great hypnotic power. He began to talk, and I at once felt calmer and started to tell him all about myself. I talked wildly for an hour, and he was so deft and delicate in his handling of me that I felt I could not leave him. He has a marvellous insight into abnormal mental--psychic--whatever you like to call them--states. Some time I’ll describe what he looks like--he’s certainly like no one else in the world.
“Well, the upshot was that he came down to Franton next day and stayed on. Now, I know that his motives were entirely mercenary, but none the less he saved me from suicide, and to a great extent gave back peace to my mind.
“Never could I have imagined such an irresistible and brilliant talker. Whatever he may be, he’s also a poet, a profound philosopher and amazingly versatile and erudite. Also, when he likes, his charm of manner carries one away. At least, in my case it did--for a time--though he borrowed £20 or more a week from me.
“And then one day my butler came to me, and with the hushed gusto appropriate to such revelations murmured that two of the maids were in the family way and that another had told him an hysterical little tale--floating in floods of tears--about how Clinton had made several attempts to force his way into her bedroom.
“Well, Teddie, that sort of thing is that sort of thing, but I felt such a performance couldn’t possibly be justified, that taking advantage of a trio of rustics in his host’s house was a dastardly and unforgivable outrage.
“Other people’s morals are chiefly their own affair, but I had a personal responsibility towards these buxom victims--well, you can realise just how I felt.
“I had to speak about it to Clinton, and did so that night. No one ever saw him abashed. He smiled at me in a superior and patronising way, and said he quite understood that I was almost bound to hold such feudal and socially primitive views, suggesting, of course, that my chief concern in the matter was that he had infringed my droit de seigneur in these cases. As for him, he considered it was his duty to disseminate his unique genius as widely as possible, and that it should be considered the highest privilege for anyone to bear his child. He had to his knowledge seventy-four offspring alive, and probably many more--the more the better for the future of humanity. But, of course, he understood and promised for the future--bowing to my rights and my prejudices--to allow me to plough my own pink and white pastures--and much more to the same effect.
“Though still under his domination, I felt there was more lust than logic in these specious professions, so I made an excuse and went up to London the next day. As I left the house I picked up my letters, which I read in the car on the way up. One was a three-page catalogue raisonné from my tailor. Not being as dressy as all that, it seemed unexpectedly grandiose, so I paid him a visit. Well, Clinton had forged a letter from me authorising him to order clothes at my expense, and a lavish outfit had been provided.
“It then occurred to me to go to my bank to discover precisely how much I had lent Clinton during the last three months. It was £420. All these discoveries--telescoping--caused me to review my relationship with Clinton. Suddenly I felt it had better end. I might be mediæval, intellectually costive, and the possessor of much scandalously unearned increment, but I could not believe that the pursuit and contemplation of esoteric mysteries necessarily implied the lowest possible standards of private decency. In other words, I was recovering.
“I still felt that Clinton was the most remarkable person I had ever met. I do to this day--but I felt I was unequal to squaring such magic circles.
“I told him so when I got back. He was quite charming, gentle, understanding, commiserating, and he left the next morning, after pronouncing some incantation whilst touching my forehead. I missed him very much. I believe he’s the devil, but he’s that sort of person.
“Once I had assured the prospective mothers of his children that they would not be sacked and that their destined contributions to the population would be a charge upon me--there is a codicil to my will to this effect--they brightened up considerably, and rather too frequently snatches of the Froth-Blowers’ Anthem cruised down to me as they went about their duties. In fact, I had a discreditable impression that the Immaculate Third would have shown less lachrymose integrity had the consequences of surrender been revealed ante factum. Eventually a brace of male infants came to contribute their falsettos to the dirge--for whose appearance the locals have respectfully given me the credit. These brats have searching, malign eyes, and when they reach the age of puberty I should not be surprised if the birth statistics for East Surrey began to show a remarkable--even a magical--rise.
“Oh, how good it is to talk to you, Teddie, and get it all off my chest! I feel almost light-hearted, as though my poor old brain had been curetted. I feel I can face and fight it now.
“Well, for the next month I drowsed and read and drowsed and read until I felt two-lunged again. And several times I almost wrote to you, but I felt such lethargy and yet such a certainty of getting quite well again that I put everything off. I was content to lie back and let that blessed healing process work its quiet kindly way with me.
“And then one day I got a letter from a friend of mine, Melrose, who was at the House when we were up. He is the Secretary of ‘Ye Ancient Mysteries,’ a dining club I joined before the War. It meets once a month and discusses famous mysteries of the past--the Mary Celeste, the ‘McLachlan Case,’ and so on--with a flippant yet scholarly zeal; but that doesn’t matter. Well, Melrose said that Clinton wanted to become a member, and had stressed the fact that he was a friend of mine. Melrose was a little upset, as he had heard vague rumours about Clinton. Did I think he was likely to be an acceptable member of the club?
“Well, what was I to say? On the one side of the medal were the facts that he had used my house as his stud-farm, that he had forged my name and sponged on me shamelessly. On the reverse was the fact that he was a genius and knew more about Ancient Mysteries than the rest of the world put together. But my mind was soon made up; I could not recommend him. A week later I got a letter--a charming letter, a most understanding letter, from Clinton. He realised, so he said, that I had been bound to give the secretary of the Ancient Mysteries the advice I had--no doubt I considered he was not a decent person to meet my friends. He was naturally disappointed, and so on.
“How the devil, I wondered, did he know--not only that I had put my thumbs down against him, but also the very reason for which I had put them down!
“So I asked Melrose, who told me he hadn’t mentioned the matter to a soul, but had discreetly removed Clinton’s name from the list of candidates for election. And no one should have been any the wiser; but how much wiser Clinton was!
“A week later I got another letter from him, saying that he was leaving England for a month. He enclosed a funny little paper pattern thing, an outline cut out with scissors with a figure painted on it, a beastly-looking thing. Like this!”
And he drew a quick sketch on the table-cloth.
Certainly it was unpleasant, thought Bellamy. It appeared to be a crouching figure in the posture of pursuit. The robes it wore seemed to rise and billow above its head. Its arms were long--too long--scraping the ground with curved and spiked nails. Its head was not quite human, its expression devilish and venomous. A horrid, hunting thing, its eyes encarnadined and infinitely evil, glowing animal eyes in the foul dark face. And those long vile arms--not pleasant to be in their grip. He hadn’t realised Philip could draw as well as that. He straightened himself, lit a cigarette, and rallied his fighting powers. For the first time he realised, why, that Philip was in serious trouble! Just a rather beastly little sketch on a table-cloth. And now it was up to him!
“Clinton told me,” continued Philip, “that this was a most powerful symbol which I should find of the greatest help in my mystical studies. I must place it against my forehead, and pronounce at the same time a certain sentence. And, Teddie, suddenly, I found myself doing so. I remember I had a sharp feeling of surprise and irritation when I found I had placarded this thing on my head and repeated this sentence.”
“What was the sentence?” asked Bellamy.
“Well, that’s a funny thing,” said Philip. “I can’t remember it, and both the slip of paper on which it was written and the paper pattern had disappeared the next morning. I remember putting them in my pocket book, but they completely vanished. And, Teddie, things haven’t been the same since.” He filled his glass and emptied it, lit a cigarette, and at once pressed the life from it in an ash tray and then lit another.
“Bluntly, I’ve been bothered, haunted perhaps is too strong a word--too pompous. It’s like this. That same night I had read myself tired in the study, and about twelve o’clock I was glancing sleepily around the room when I noticed that one of the bookcases was throwing out a curious and unaccountable shadow. It seemed as if something was hiding behind the bookcase, and that this was that something’s shadow. I got up and walked over to it, and it became just a bookcase shadow, rectangular and reassuring. I went to bed.
“As I turned on the light on the landing I noticed the same sort of shadow coming from the grandfather clock. I went to sleep all right, but suddenly found myself peering out of the window, and there was that shadow stretching out from the trees and in the drive. At first there was about that much of it showing,” and he drew a line down the sketch on the table-cloth, “about a sixth. Well, it’s been a simple story since then. Every night that shadow has grown a little. It is now almost all visible. And it comes out suddenly from different places. Last night it was on the wall beside the door into the Dutch garden. I never know where I’m going to see it next.”
“And how long has this been going on?” asked Bellamy.
“A month to-morrow. You sound as if you thought I was mad. I probably am.”
“No, you’re as sane as I am. But why don’t you leave Franton and come to London?”
“And see it on the wall of the club bedroom! I’ve tried that, Teddie, but one’s as bad as the other. Doesn’t it sound ludicrous? But it isn’t to me.”
“Do you usually eat as little as this?” asked Bellamy.
“‘And drink as much?’ you were too polite to add. Well, there’s more to it than indigestion, and it isn’t incipient D.T. It’s just I don’t feel very hungry nowadays.”
Bellamy got that rush of tip-toe pugnacity which had won him so many desperate cases. He had had a Highland grandmother from whom he had inherited a powerful visualising imagination, by which he got a fleeting yet authentic insight into the workings of men’s minds. So now he knew in a flash how he would feel if Philip’s ordeal had been his.
“Whatever it is, Philip,” he said, “there are two of us now.”
“Then you do believe in it,” said Philip. “Sometimes I can’t. On a sunny morning with starlings chattering and buses swinging up Waterloo Place--then how can such things be? But at night I know they are.”
“Well,” said Bellamy, after a pause, “let us look at it coldly and precisely. Ever since Clinton sent you a certain painted paper pattern you’ve seen a shadowed reproduction of it. Now I take it he has--as you suggested--unusual hypnotic power. He has studied mesmerism?”
“I think he’s studied every bloody thing,” said Philip.
“Then that’s a possibility.”
“Yes,” agreed Philip, “it’s a possibility. And I’ll fight it, Teddie, now that I have you, but can you minister to a mind diseased?”
“Throw quotation to the dogs,” replied Bellamy. “What one man has done another can undo--there’s one for you.”
“Teddie,” said Philip, “will you come down to Franton to-night?”
“Yes,” said Bellamy. “But why?”
“Because I want you to be with me at twelve o’clock to-night when I look out from the study window and think I see a shadow flung on the flag-stones outside the drawing-room window.”
“Why not stay up here for to-night?”
“Because I want to get it settled. Either I’m mad or---- Will you come?”
“If you really mean to go down to-night I’ll come with you.”
“Well, I’ve ordered the car to be here by 9.15,” said Philip. “We’ll go to your rooms, and you can pack a suitcase and we’ll be there by half past ten.” Suddenly he looked up sharply, his shoulders drew together and his eyes narrowed and became intent. It happened that at that moment no voice was busy in the dining-room of the Brooks’s Club. No doubt they were changing over at the Power Station, for the lights dimmed for a moment. It seemed to Bellamy that someone was developing wavy, wicked little films far back in his brain, and a voice suddenly whispered in his ear with a vile sort of shyness, “He cometh and he passeth by!”
As they drove down through the night they talked little. Philip drowsed and Bellamy’s mind was busy. His preliminary conclusion was that Philip was neither mad nor going mad, but that he was not normal. He had always been very sensitive and highly strung, reacting too quickly and deeply to emotional stresses--and this living alone and eating nothing--the worst thing for him.
And this Clinton. He had the reputation of being an evil man of power, and such persons’ hypnotic influence was absurdly underrated. He’d get on his track.
“When does Clinton get back to England?” he asked.
“If he kept to his plans he’ll be back about now,” said Philip sleepily.
“What are his haunts?”
“He lives near the British Museum in rooms, but he’s usually to be found at the Chorazin Club after six o’clock. It’s in Larn Street, just off Shaftesbury Avenue. A funny place with some funny members.”
Bellamy made a note of this.
“Does he know you know me?”
“No, I think not, there’s no reason why he should.”
“So much the better,” said Bellamy.
“Why?” asked Philip.
“Because I’m going to cultivate his acquaintance.”
“Well, do look out, Teddie, he has a marvellous power of hiding the fact, but he’s dangerous, and I don’t want you to get into any trouble like mine.”
“I’ll be careful,” said Bellamy.
Ten minutes later they passed the gates of the drive of Franton Manor, and Philip began glancing uneasily about him and peering sharply where the elms flung shadows. It was a perfectly still and cloudless night, with a quarter moon. It was just a quarter to eleven as they entered the house. They went up to the library on the first floor which looked out over the Dutch Garden to the Park. Franton is a typical Georgian house, with charming gardens and Park, but too big and lonely for one nervous person to inhabit, thought Bellamy.
The butler brought up sandwiches and drinks, and Bellamy thought he seemed relieved at their arrival. Philip began to eat ravenously, and gulped down two stiff whiskies. He kept looking at his watch, and his eyes were always searching the walls.
“It comes, Teddie, even when it ought to be too light for shadows.”
“Now then,” replied the latter, “I’m with you, and we’re going to keep quite steady. It may come, but I shall not leave you until it goes and for ever.” And he managed to lure Philip on to another subject, and for a time he seemed quieter, but suddenly he stiffened, and his eyes became rigid and staring. “It’s there,” he cried, “I know it!”
“Steady, Philip!” said Bellamy sharply. “Where?”
“Down below,” he whispered, and began creeping towards the window.
Bellamy reached it first and looked down. He saw it at once, knew what it was, and set his teeth.
He heard Philip shaking and breathing heavily at his side.
“It’s there,” he said, “and it’s complete at last!”
“Now, Philip,” said Bellamy, “we’re going down, and I’m going out first, and we’ll settle the thing once and for all.”
They went down the stairs and into the drawing-room. Bellamy turned the light on and walked quickly to the French window and began to try to open the catch. He fumbled with it for a moment.
“Let me do it,” said Philip, and put his hand to the catch, and then the window opened and he stepped out.
“Come back, Philip!” cried Bellamy. As he said it the lights went dim, a fierce blast of burning air filled the room, the window came crashing back. Then through the glass Bellamy saw Philip suddenly throw up his hands, and something huge and dark lean from the wall and envelop him. He seemed to writhe for a moment in its folds. Bellamy strove madly to thrust the window open, while his soul strove to withstand the mighty and evil power he felt was crushing him, and then he saw Philip flung down with awful force, and he could hear the foul, crushing thud as his head struck the stone.
And then the window opened and Bellamy dashed out into a quiet and scented night.
At the inquest the doctor stated he was satisfied that Mr. Franton’s death was due to a severe heart attack--he had never recovered from the gas, he said, and such a seizure was always possible.
“Then there are no peculiar circumstances about the case?” asked the Coroner.
The doctor hesitated. “Well, there is one thing,” he said slowly. “The pupils of Mr. Franton’s eyes were--well, to put it simply to the jury--instead of being round, they were drawn up so that they resembled half-moons--in a sense they were like the pupils in the eyes of a cat.”
“Can you explain that?” asked the Coroner.
“No, I have never seen a similar case,” replied the doctor. “But I am satisfied the cause of death was as I have stated.”
Bellamy was, of course, called as a witness, but he had little to say.
About eleven o’clock on the morning after these events Bellamy rang up the Chorazin Club from his chambers and learned from the manager that Mr. Clinton had returned from abroad. A little later he got a Sloane number and arranged to lunch with Mr. Solan at the United Universities Club. And then he made a conscientious effort to estimate the chances in Rex v. Tipwinkle.
But soon he was restless and pacing the room. He could not exorcise the jeering demon which told him sniggeringly that he had failed Philip. It wasn’t true, but it pricked and penetrated. But the game was not yet played out. If he had failed to save he might still avenge. He would see what Mr. Solan had to say.
That personage was awaiting him in the smoking room. Mr. Solan was an original and looked it. Just five feet and two inches--a tiny body, a mighty head with a dominating forehead studded with a pair of thrusting frontal lobes. All this covered with a thick, greying thatch. Veiled, restless little eyes, a perky, tilted, little nose and a very thin-lipped, fighting mouth from which issued the most curious, resonant, high and piercing voice. This is a rough and ready sketch of one who is universally accepted to be the greatest living Oriental Scholar--a mystic--once upon a time a Senior Wrangler, a philosopher of European repute, a great and fascinating personality, who lived alone, save for a brace of tortoise-shell cats and a housekeeper, in Chester Terrace, Sloane Square. About every six years he published a masterly treatise on one of his special subjects; otherwise he kept himself to himself with the remorseless determination he brought to bear upon any subject which he considered worth serious consideration, such as the Chess Game, the works of Bach, the paintings of Van Gogh, the poems of Housman, and the short stories of P. G. Wodehouse and Austin Freeman.
He entirely approved of Bellamy, who had once secured him substantial damages in a copyright case. The damages had gone to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
“And what can I do for you, my dear Bellamy?” he piped, when they were seated.
“First of all, have you ever heard of a person called Oscar Clinton? Secondly, do you know anything of the practice of sending an enemy a painted paper pattern?”
Mr. Solan smiled slightly at the first question, and ceased to smile when he heard the second.
“Yes,” he said, “I have heard of both, and I advise you to have nothing whatsoever to do with either.”
“Unfortunately,” replied Bellamy, “I have already had to do with both. Two nights ago my best friend died--rather suddenly. Presently I will tell you how he died. But first of all, tell me something about Clinton.”
“It is characteristic of him that you know so little about him,” replied Mr. Solan, “for although he is one of the most dangerous and intellectually powerful men in the world he gets very little publicity nowadays. Most of the much-advertised Naughty Boys of the Nineties harmed no one but themselves--they merely canonised their own and each other’s dirty linen, but Clinton was in a class by himself. He was--and no doubt still is--an accomplished corrupter, and he took, and no doubt still takes, a jocund delight in his hobby. Eventually he left England--by request--and went out East. He spent some years in a Tibetan Monastery, and then some other years in less reputable places--his career is detailed very fully in a file in my study--and then he applied his truly mighty mind to what I may loosely call magic--for what I loosely call magic, my dear Bellamy, most certainly exists. Clinton is highly psychic, with great natural hypnotic power. He then joined an esoteric and little-known sect--Satanists--of which he eventually became High Priest. And then he returned to what we call civilisation, and has since been ‘moved on’ by the Civil Powers of many countries, for his forte is the extraction of money from credulous and timid individuals--usually female--by methods highly ingenious and peculiarly his own. It is a boast of his that he has never yet missed his revenge. He ought to be stamped out with the brusque ruthlessness meted out to a spreading fire in a Californian forest.
“Well, there is a short inadequate sketch of Oscar Clinton, and now about these paper patterns.”
Two hours later Bellamy got up to leave. “I can lend you a good many of his books,” said Mr. Solan, “and you can get the rest at Lilley’s. Come to me from four till six on Wednesdays and Fridays, and I’ll teach you all I think essential. Meanwhile, I will have a watch kept upon him, but I want you, my dear Bellamy, to do nothing decisive till you are qualified. It would be a pity if the Bar were to be deprived of your great gifts prematurely.”
“Many thanks,” said Bellamy. “I have now placed myself in your hands, and I’m in this thing till the end--some end or other.”
Mr. Plank, Bellamy’s clerk, had no superior in his profession, one which is the most searching test of character and adaptability. Not one of the devious and manifold tricks of his trade was unpractised by him, and his income was £1,250 per annum, a fact which the Inland Revenue Authorities strongly suspected but were quite unable to establish. He liked Mr. Bellamy, personally well enough, financially very much indeed. It was not surprising, therefore, that many seismic recording instruments registered sharp shocks at four p.m. on June 12th, 192-, a disturbance caused by the precipitous descent of Mr. Plank’s jaw when Mr. Bellamy instructed him to accept no more briefs for him for the next three months. “But,” continued that gentleman, “here is a cheque which will, I trust, reconcile you to the fact.”
Mr. Plank scrutinised the numerals and was reconciled.
“Taking a holiday, sir?” he asked.
“I rather doubt it,” replied Bellamy. “But you might suggest to any inquisitive enquirers that that is the explanation.”
“I understand, sir.”
From then till midnight, with one short pause, Bellamy was occupied with a pile of exotically bound volumes. Occasionally he made a note on his writing pad. When his clock struck twelve he went to bed and read The Wallet of Kai-Lung till he felt sleepy enough to turn out the light.
At eight o’clock the next morning he was busy once more with an exotically bound book, and making an occasional note on his writing pad.
Three weeks later he was bidding a temporary farewell to Mr. Solan, who remarked, “I think you’ll do now. You are an apt pupil; pleading has given you a command of convincing bluff, and you have sufficient psychic insight to make it possible for you to succeed. Go forth and prosper! At all times I shall be fighting for you. He will be there at nine to-night.”
At a quarter past that hour Bellamy was asking the door-keeper of the Chorazin Club to tell Mr. Clinton that a Mr. Bellamy wished to see him.
Two minutes later the official reappeared and led him downstairs into an ornate and gaudy cellar decorated with violence and indiscretion--the work, he discovered later, of a neglected genius who had died of neglected cirrhosis of the liver. He was led up to a table in the corner, where someone was sitting alone.
Bellamy’s first impression of Oscar Clinton remained vividly with him till his death. As he got up to greet him he could see that he was physically gigantic--six foot five at least, with a massive torso--the build of a champion wrestler. Topping it was a huge, square, domed head. He had a white yet mottled face, thick, tense lips, the lower one protruding fantastically. His hair was clipped close, save for one twisted and oiled lock which curved down to meet his eyebrows. But what impressed Bellamy most was a pair of the hardest, most penetrating and merciless eyes--one of which seemed soaking wet and dripping slowly.
Bellamy “braced his belt about him”--he was in the presence of a power.
“Well, sir,” said Clinton in a beautifully musical voice with a slight drawl, “I presume you are connected with Scotland Yard. What can I do for you?”
“No,” replied Bellamy, forcing a smile, “I’m in no way connected with that valuable institution.”
“Forgive the suggestion,” said Clinton, “but during a somewhat adventurous career I have received so many unheralded visits from more or less polite police officials. What, then, is your business?”
“I haven’t any, really,” said Bellamy. “It’s simply that I have long been a devoted admirer of your work, the greatest imaginative work of our time in my opinion. A friend of mine mentioned casually that he had seen you going into this Club, and I could not resist taking the liberty of forcing, just for a moment, my company upon you.”
Clinton stared at him, and seemed not quite at his ease.
“You interest me,” he said at length. “I’ll tell you why. Usually I know decisively by certain methods of my own whether a person I meet comes as an enemy or a friend. These tests have failed in your case, and this, as I say, interests me. It suggests things to me. Have you been in the East?”
“No,” said Bellamy.
“And made no study of its mysteries?”
“None whatever, but I can assure you I come merely as a most humble admirer. Of course, I realise you have enemies--all great men have; it is the privilege and penalty of their pre-eminence, and I know you to be a great man.”
“I fancy,” said Clinton, “that you are perplexed by the obstinate humidity of my left eye. It is caused by the rather heavy injection of heroin I took this afternoon. I may as well tell you I use all drugs, but am the slave of none. I take heroin when I desire to contemplate. But tell me--since you profess such an admiration for my books--which of them most meets with your approval?”
“That’s a hard question,” replied Bellamy, “but A Damsel with a Dulcimer seems to me exquisite.”
Clinton smiled patronisingly.
“It has merits,” he said, “but is immature. I wrote it when I was living with a Bedouin woman aged fourteen in Tunis. Bedouin women have certain natural gifts”--and here he became remarkably obscene, before returning to the subject of his works; “my own opinion is that I reached my zenith in The Songs of Hamdonna. Hamdonna was a delightful companion, the fruit of the raptures of an Italian gentleman and a Persian lady. She had the most naturally--the most brilliantly vicious mind of any woman I ever met. She required hardly any training. But she was unfaithful to me, and died soon after.”
“The Songs are marvellous,” said Bellamy, and he began quoting from them fluently.
Clinton listened intently. “You have a considerable gift for reciting poetry,” he said. “May I offer you a drink? I was about to order one for myself.”
“I’ll join you on one condition--that I may be allowed to pay for both of them--to celebrate the occasion.”
“Just as you like,” said Clinton, tapping the table with his thumb, which was adorned with a massive jade ring curiously carved. “I always drink brandy after heroin, but you order what you please.”
It may have been the whisky, it may have been the pressing nervous strain or a combination of both, which caused Bellamy now to regard the mural decorations with a much modified sang-froid. Those distorted and tortured patches of flat colour, how subtly suggestive they were of something sniggeringly evil!
“I gave Valin the subject for those panels,” said Clinton. “They are meant to represent an impression of the stages in the Black Mass, but he drank away his original inspiration, and they fail to do that majestic ceremony justice.”
Bellamy flinched at having his thoughts so easily read.
“I was thinking the same thing,” he replied; “that unfortunate cat they’re slaughtering deserved a less ludicrous memorial to its fate.”
Clinton looked at him sharply and sponged his oozing eye.
“I have made these rather flamboyant references to my habits purposely. Not to impress you, but to see how they impressed you. Had you appeared disgusted, I should have known it was useless to pursue our acquaintanceship. All my life I have been a law unto myself, and that is probably why the Law has always shown so much interest in me. I know myself to be a being apart, one to whom the codes and conventions of the herd can never be applied. I have sampled every so-called ‘vice,’ including every known drug. Always, however, with an object in view. Mere purposeless debauchery is not in my character. My Art, to which you have so kindly referred, must always come first. Sometimes it demands that I sleep with a negress, that I take opium or hashish; sometimes it dictates rigid asceticism, and I tell you, my friend, that if such an instruction came again to-morrow, as it has often come in the past, I could, without the slightest effort, lead a life of complete abstinence from drink, drugs and women for an indefinite period. In other words, I have gained absolute control over my senses after the most exhaustive experiments with them. How many can say the same? Yet one does not know what life can teach till that control is established. The man of superior power--there are no such women--should not flinch from such experiments, he should seek to learn every lesson evil as well as good has to teach. So will he be able to extend and multiply his personality, but always he must remain absolute master of himself. And then he will have many strange rewards, and many secrets will be revealed to him. Some day, perhaps, I will show you some which have been revealed to me.”
“Have you absolutely no regard for what is called ‘morality’?” asked Bellamy.
“None whatever. If I wanted money I should pick your pocket. If I desired your wife--if you have one--I should seduce her. If someone obstructs me--something happens to him. You must understand this clearly--for I am not bragging--I do nothing purposelessly nor from what I consider a bad motive. To me ‘bad’ is synonymous with ‘unnecessary.’ I do nothing unnecessary.”
“Why is revenge necessary?” asked Bellamy.
“A plausible question. Well, for one thing I like cruelty--one of my unpublished works is a defence of Super-Sadism. Then it is a warning to others, and lastly it is a vindication of my personality. All excellent reasons. Do you like my Thus spake Eblis?”
“Masterly,” replied Bellamy. “The perfection of prose, but, of course, its magical significance is far beyond my meagre understanding.”
“My dear friend, there is only one man in Europe about whom that would not be equally true.”
“Who is that?” asked Bellamy.
Clinton’s eyes narrowed venomously.
“His name is Solan,” he said. “One of these days, perhaps----” and he paused. “Well, now, if you like I will tell you of some of my experiences.”
An hour later a monologue drew to its close. “And now, Mr. Bellamy, what is your rôle in life?”
“I’m a barrister.”
“Oh, so you are connected with the Law?”
“I hope,” said Bellamy smiling, “you’ll find it possible to forget it.”
“It would help me to do so,” replied Clinton, “if you would lend me ten pounds. I have forgotten my note-case--a frequent piece of negligence on my part--and a lady awaits me. Thanks very much. We shall meet again, I trust.”
“I was just about to suggest that you dined with me one day this week?”
“This is Tuesday,” said Clinton. “What about Thursday?”
“Excellent, will you meet me at the Gridiron about eight?”
“I will be there,” said Clinton, mopping his eye. “Good-night.”
“I can understand now what happened to Franton,” said Bellamy to Mr. Solan the next evening. “He is the most fascinating and catholic talker I have met. He has a wicked charm. If half to which he lays claim is true, he has packed ten lives into sixty years.”
“In a sense,” said Mr. Solan, “he has the best brain of any man living. He has also a marvellous histrionic sense and he is deadly. But he is vulnerable. On Thursday encourage him to talk of other things. He will consider you an easy victim. You must make the most of the evening--it may rather revolt you--he is sure to be suspicious at first.”
“It amuses and reassures me,” said Clinton at ten fifteen on Thursday evening in Bellamy’s room, “to find you have a lively appreciation of obscenity.”
He brought out a snuff box, an exquisite little masterpiece with an inexpressibly vile design enamelled on the lid, from which he took a pinch of white powder which he sniffed up from the palm of his hand.
“I suppose,” said Bellamy, “that all your magical lore would be quite beyond me.”
“Oh yes, quite,” replied Clinton, “but I can show you what sort of power a study of that lore has given me, by a little experiment. Turn round, look out of the window, and keep quite quiet till I speak to you.”
It was a brooding night. In the south-west the clouds made restless, quickly shifting patterns--the heralds of coming storm. The scattered sound of the traffic in Kingsway rose and fell with the gusts of the rising wind. Bellamy found a curious picture forming in his brain. A wide lonely waste of snow and a hill with a copse of fir trees, out from which someone came running. Presently this person halted and looked back, and then out from the wood appeared another figure (of a shape he had seen before). And then the one it seemed to be pursuing began to run on, staggering through the snow, over which the Shape seemed to skim lightly and rapidly, and to gain on its quarry. Then it appeared as if the one in front could go no further. He fell and rose again, and faced his pursuer. The Shape came swiftly on and flung itself hideously on the one in front, who fell to his knees. The two seemed intermingled for a moment....
“Well,” said Clinton, “and what did you think of that?”
Bellamy poured out a whisky and soda and drained it.
“Extremely impressive,” he replied. “It gave me a feeling of great horror.”
“The individual whose rather painful end you have just witnessed once did me a dis-service. He was found in a remote part of Norway. Why he chose to hide himself there is rather difficult to understand.”
“Cause and effect?” asked Bellamy, forcing a smile.
Clinton took another pinch of the white powder.
“Possibly a mere coincidence,” he replied. “And now I must go, for I have a ‘date,’ as they say in America, with a rather charming and profligate young woman. Could you possibly lend me a little money?”
When he had gone Bellamy washed his person very thoroughly in a hot bath, brushed his teeth with zeal, and felt a little cleaner. He tried to read in bed, but between him and Mr. Jacobs’s ‘Night-Watchman’ a bestial and persistent phantasmagoria forced its way. He dressed again, went out, and walked the streets till dawn.
Some time later Mr. Solan happened to overhear a conversation in the club smoking-room.
“I can’t think what’s happened to Bellamy,” said one. “He does no work and is always about with that incredible swine Clinton.”
“A kink somewhere, I suppose,” said another, yawning. “Dirty streak probably.”
“Were you referring to Mr. Edward Bellamy, a friend of mine?” asked Mr. Solan.
“We were,” said one.
“Have you ever known him do a discreditable thing?”
“Not till now,” said another.
“Or a stupid thing?”
“I’ll give you that,” said one.
“Well,” said Mr. Solan, “you have my word for it that he has not changed,” and he passed on.
“Funny old devil that,” said one.
“Rather shoves the breeze up me,” said another. “He seems to know something. I like Bellamy, and I’ll apologise to him for taking his name in vain when I see him next. But that bastard Clinton!----”
“It will have to be soon,” said Mr. Solan. “I heard to-day that he will be given notice to quit any day now. Are you prepared to go through with it?”
“He’s the Devil incarnate,” said Bellamy. “If you knew what I’d been through in the last month!”
“I have a shrewd idea of it,” replied Mr. Solan. “You think he trusts you completely?”
“I don’t think he has any opinion of me at all, except that I lend him money whenever he wants it. Of course, I’ll go through with it. Let it be Friday night. What must I do? Tell me exactly. I know that but for you I should have chucked my hand in long ago.”
“My dear Bellamy, you have done marvellously well, and you will finish the business as resolutely as you have carried it through so far. Well, this is what you must do. Memorise it flawlessly.”
“I will arrange it that we arrive at his rooms just about eleven o’clock. I will ring up five minutes before we leave.”
“I shall be doing my part,” said Mr. Solan.
Clinton was in high spirits at the Café Royal on Friday evening.
“I like you, my dear Bellamy,” he observed, “not merely because you have a refined taste in pornography and have lent me a good deal of money, but for a more subtle reason. You remember when we first met I was puzzled by you. Well, I still am. There is some psychic power surrounding you. I don’t mean that you are conscious of it, but there is some very powerful influence working for you. Great friends though we are, I sometimes feel that this power is hostile to myself. Anyhow, we have had many pleasant times together.”
“And,” replied Bellamy, “I hope we shall have many more. It has certainly been a tremendous privilege to have been permitted to enjoy so much of your company. As for that mysterious power you refer to, I am entirely unconscious of it, and as for hostility--well, I hope I’ve convinced you during the last month that I’m not exactly your enemy.”
“You have, my dear fellow,” replied Clinton. “You have been a charming and generous companion. All the same, there is an enigmatic side to you. What shall we do to-night?”
“Whatever you please,” said Bellamy.
“I suggest we go round to my rooms,” said Clinton, “bearing a bottle of whisky, and that I show you another little experiment. You are now sufficiently trained to make it a success.”
“Just what I should have hoped for,” replied Bellamy enthusiastically. “I will order the whisky now.” He went out of the grill-room for a moment and had a few words with Mr. Solan over the telephone. And then he returned, paid the bill, and they drove off together.
Clinton’s rooms were in a dingy street about a hundred yards from the British Museum. They were drab and melancholy, and contained nothing but the barest necessities and some books.
It was exactly eleven o’clock as Clinton took out his latchkey, and it was just exactly then that Mr. Solan unlocked the door of a curious little room leading off from his study.
Then he opened a bureau and took from it a large book bound in plain white vellum. He sat down at a table and began a bizarre procedure. He took from a folder at the end of the book a piece of what looked like crumpled tracing paper, and, every now and again consulting the quarto, drew certain symbols upon the paper, while repeating a series of short sentences in a strange tongue. The ink into which he dipped his pen for this exercise was a smoky sullen scarlet.
Presently the atmosphere of the room became intense, and charged with suspense and crisis. The symbols completed, Mr. Solan became rigid and taut, and his eyes were those of one passing into trance.
“First of all a drink, my dear Bellamy,” said Clinton.
Bellamy pulled the cork and poured out two stiff pegs. Clinton drank his off. He gave the impression of being not quite at his ease.
“Some enemy of mine is working against me to-night,” he said. “I feel an influence strongly. However, let us try the little experiment. Draw up your chair to the window, and do not look round till I speak.”
Bellamy did as he was ordered, and peered at a dark façade across the street. Suddenly it was as if wall after wall rolled up before his eyes and passed into the sky, and he found himself gazing into a long faintly-lit room. As his eyes grew more used to the dimness he could pick out a number of recumbent figures, apparently resting on couches. And then from the middle of the room a flame seemed to leap and then another and another until there was a fiery circle playing round one of these figures, which slowly rose to its feet and turned and stared at Bellamy; and its haughty, evil face grew vast, till it was thrust, dazzling and fiery right into his own. He put up his hands to thrust back its scorching menace--and there was the wall of the house opposite, and Clinton was saying, “Well?”
“Your power terrifies me!” said Bellamy. “Who was that One I saw?”
“The one you saw was myself,” said Clinton smiling, “during my third reincarnation, about 1750 B.C. I am the only man in the world who can perform that quite considerable feat. Give me another drink.”
Bellamy got up (it was time!). Suddenly he felt invaded by a mighty reassurance. His ghostly terror left him. Something irresistible was sinking into his soul, and he knew that at the destined hour the promised succour had come to sustain him. He felt thrilled, resolute, exalted.
He had his back to Clinton as he filled the glasses, and with a lightning motion he dropped a pellet into Clinton’s which fizzled like a tiny comet down through the bubbles and was gone.
“Here’s to many more pleasant evenings,” said Clinton. “You’re a brave man, Bellamy,” he exclaimed, putting the glass to his lips. “For what you have seen might well appal the devil!”
“I’m not afraid because I trust you,” replied Bellamy.
“By Eblis, this is a strong one,” said Clinton, peering into his glass.
“Same as usual,” said Bellamy, laughing. “Tell me something. A man I knew who’d been many years in the East told me about some race out there who cut out paper patterns and paint them and send them to their enemies. Have you ever heard of anything of the sort?”
Clinton dropped his glass on the table sharply. He did not answer for a moment, but shifted uneasily in his chair.
“Who was this friend of yours?” he asked, in a voice already slightly thick.
“A chap called Bond,” said Bellamy.
“Yes, I’ve heard of that charming practice. In fact, I can cut them myself.”
“Really, how’s it done? I should be fascinated to see it.”
Clinton’s eyes blinked and his head nodded.
“I’ll show you one,” he said, “but it’s dangerous and you must be very careful. Go to the bottom drawer of that bureau and bring me the piece of straw paper you’ll find there. And there are some scissors on the writing table and two crayons in the tray.” Bellamy brought them to him.
“Now,” said Clinton, “this thing, as I say, is dangerous. If I wasn’t drunk I wouldn’t do it. And why am I drunk?” He leaned back in his chair and put his hand over his eyes. And then he sat up and, taking the scissors, began running them with extreme dexterity round the paper. And then he made some marks with the coloured pencils.
The final result of these actions was not unfamiliar in appearance to Bellamy.
“There you are,” said Clinton. “That, my dear Bellamy, is potentially the most deadly little piece of paper in the world. Would you please take it to the fireplace and burn it to ashes?”
Bellamy burnt a piece of paper to ashes.
Clinton’s head had dropped into his hands.
“Another drink?” asked Bellamy.
“My God, no,” said Clinton, yawning and reeling in his chair. And then his head went down again. Bellamy went up to him and shook him. His right hand hovered a second over Clinton’s coat pocket.
“Wake up,” he said, “I want to know what would make that piece of paper actually deadly?”
Clinton looked up blearily at him and then rallied slightly.
“You’d like to know, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Bellamy. “Tell me.”
“Just repeating six words,” said Clinton, “but I shall not repeat them.” Suddenly his eyes became intent and fixed on a corner of the room.
“What’s that?” he asked sharply. “There! there! there! in the corner.” Bellamy felt again the presence of a power. The air of the room seemed rent and sparking.
“That, Clinton,” he said, “is the spirit of Philip Franton, whom you murdered.” And then he sprang at Clinton, who was staggering from his chair. He seized him and pressed a little piece of paper fiercely to his forehead.
“Now, Clinton,” he cried, “say those words!”
And then Clinton rose to his feet, and his face was working hideously. His eyes seemed bursting from his head, their pupils stretched and curved, foam streamed from his lips. He flung his hands above his head and cried in a voice of agony:
“He cometh and he passeth by!”
And then he crashed to the floor.
As Bellamy moved towards the door the lights went dim, in from the window poured a burning wind, and then from the wall in the corner a shadow began to grow. When he saw it, swift icy ripples poured through him. It grew and grew, and began to lean down towards the figure on the floor. As Bellamy took a last look back it was just touching it. He shuddered, opened the door, closed it quickly, and ran down the stairs and out into the night.
