The Great God Pan



by Arthur Machen





Contents



 CHAPTER I. THE EXPERIMENT

 CHAPTER II. MR. CLARKE’S MEMOIRS

 CHAPTER III. THE CITY OF RESURRECTIONS

 CHAPTER IV. THE DISCOVERY IN PAUL STREET

 CHAPTER V. THE LETTER OF ADVICE

 CHAPTER VI. THE SUICIDES

 CHAPTER VII. THE ENCOUNTER IN SOHO

 CHAPTER VIII. THE FRAGMENTS









I

THE EXPERIMENT





“I am glad you came, Clarke; very glad indeed. I was not sure you could

spare the time.”



“I was able to make arrangements for a few days; things are not very

lively just now. But have you no misgivings, Raymond? Is it absolutely

safe?”



The two men were slowly pacing the terrace in front of Dr. Raymond’s

house. The sun still hung above the western mountain-line, but it shone

with a dull red glow that cast no shadows, and all the air was quiet; a

sweet breath came from the great wood on the hillside above, and with

it, at intervals, the soft murmuring call of the wild doves. Below, in

the long lovely valley, the river wound in and out between the lonely

hills, and, as the sun hovered and vanished into the west, a faint

mist, pure white, began to rise from the hills. Dr. Raymond turned

sharply to his friend.



“Safe? Of course it is. In itself the operation is a perfectly simple

one; any surgeon could do it.”



“And there is no danger at any other stage?”



“None; absolutely no physical danger whatsoever, I give you my word.

You are always timid, Clarke, always; but you know my history. I have

devoted myself to transcendental medicine for the last twenty years. I

have heard myself called quack and charlatan and impostor, but all the

while I knew I was on the right path. Five years ago I reached the

goal, and since then every day has been a preparation for what we shall

do tonight.”



“I should like to believe it is all true.” Clarke knit his brows, and

looked doubtfully at Dr. Raymond. “Are you perfectly sure, Raymond,

that your theory is not a phantasmagoria—a splendid vision, certainly,

but a mere vision after all?”



Dr. Raymond stopped in his walk and turned sharply. He was a

middle-aged man, gaunt and thin, of a pale yellow complexion, but as he

answered Clarke and faced him, there was a flush on his cheek.



“Look about you, Clarke. You see the mountain, and hill following after

hill, as wave on wave, you see the woods and orchard, the fields of

ripe corn, and the meadows reaching to the reed-beds by the river. You

see me standing here beside you, and hear my voice; but I tell you that

all these things—yes, from that star that has just shone out in the sky

to the solid ground beneath our feet—I say that all these are but

dreams and shadows; the shadows that hide the real world from our eyes.

There _is_ a real world, but it is beyond this glamour and this vision,

beyond these ‘chases in Arras, dreams in a career,’ beyond them all as

beyond a veil. I do not know whether any human being has ever lifted

that veil; but I do know, Clarke, that you and I shall see it lifted

this very night from before another’s eyes. You may think this all

strange nonsense; it may be strange, but it is true, and the ancients

knew what lifting the veil means. They called it seeing the god Pan.”



Clarke shivered; the white mist gathering over the river was chilly.



“It is wonderful indeed,” he said. “We are standing on the brink of a

strange world, Raymond, if what you say is true. I suppose the knife is

absolutely necessary?”



“Yes; a slight lesion in the grey matter, that is all; a trifling

rearrangement of certain cells, a microscopical alteration that would

escape the attention of ninety-nine brain specialists out of a hundred.

I don’t want to bother you with ‘shop,’ Clarke; I might give you a mass

of technical detail which would sound very imposing, and would leave

you as enlightened as you are now. But I suppose you have read,

casually, in out-of-the-way corners of your paper, that immense strides

have been made recently in the physiology of the brain. I saw a

paragraph the other day about Digby’s theory, and Browne Faber’s

discoveries. Theories and discoveries! Where they are standing now, I

stood fifteen years ago, and I need not tell you that I have not been

standing still for the last fifteen years. It will be enough if I say

that five years ago I made the discovery that I alluded to when I said

that ten years ago I reached the goal. After years of labour, after

years of toiling and groping in the dark, after days and nights of

disappointments and sometimes of despair, in which I used now and then

to tremble and grow cold with the thought that perhaps there were

others seeking for what I sought, at last, after so long, a pang of

sudden joy thrilled my soul, and I knew the long journey was at an end.

By what seemed then and still seems a chance, the suggestion of a

moment’s idle thought followed up upon familiar lines and paths that I

had tracked a hundred times already, the great truth burst upon me, and

I saw, mapped out in lines of sight, a whole world, a sphere unknown;

continents and islands, and great oceans in which no ship has sailed

(to my belief) since a Man first lifted up his eyes and beheld the sun,

and the stars of heaven, and the quiet earth beneath. You will think

this all high-flown language, Clarke, but it is hard to be literal. And

yet; I do not know whether what I am hinting at cannot be set forth in

plain and lonely terms. For instance, this world of ours is pretty well

girded now with the telegraph wires and cables; thought, with something

less than the speed of thought, flashes from sunrise to sunset, from

north to south, across the floods and the desert places. Suppose that

an electrician of today were suddenly to perceive that he and his

friends have merely been playing with pebbles and mistaking them for

the foundations of the world; suppose that such a man saw uttermost

space lie open before the current, and words of men flash forth to the

sun and beyond the sun into the systems beyond, and the voice of

articulate-speaking men echo in the waste void that bounds our thought.

As analogies go, that is a pretty good analogy of what I have done; you

can understand now a little of what I felt as I stood here one evening;

it was a summer evening, and the valley looked much as it does now; I

stood here, and saw before me the unutterable, the unthinkable gulf

that yawns profound between two worlds, the world of matter and the

world of spirit; I saw the great empty deep stretch dim before me, and

in that instant a bridge of light leapt from the earth to the unknown

shore, and the abyss was spanned. You may look in Browne Faber’s book,

if you like, and you will find that to the present day men of science

are unable to account for the presence, or to specify the functions of

a certain group of nerve-cells in the brain. That group is, as it were,

land to let, a mere waste place for fanciful theories. I am not in the

position of Browne Faber and the specialists, I am perfectly instructed

as to the possible functions of those nerve-centers in the scheme of

things. With a touch I can bring them into play, with a touch, I say, I

can set free the current, with a touch I can complete the communication

between this world of sense and—we shall be able to finish the sentence

later on. Yes, the knife is necessary; but think what that knife will

effect. It will level utterly the solid wall of sense, and probably,

for the first time since man was made, a spirit will gaze on a

spirit-world. Clarke, Mary will see the god Pan!”



“But you remember what you wrote to me? I thought it would be requisite

that she—”



He whispered the rest into the doctor’s ear.



“Not at all, not at all. That is nonsense. I assure you. Indeed, it is

better as it is; I am quite certain of that.”



“Consider the matter well, Raymond. It’s a great responsibility.

Something might go wrong; you would be a miserable man for the rest of

your days.”



“No, I think not, even if the worst happened. As you know, I rescued

Mary from the gutter, and from almost certain starvation, when she was

a child; I think her life is mine, to use as I see fit. Come, it’s

getting late; we had better go in.”



Dr. Raymond led the way into the house, through the hall, and down a

long dark passage. He took a key from his pocket and opened a heavy

door, and motioned Clarke into his laboratory. It had once been a

billiard-room, and was lighted by a glass dome in the centre of the

ceiling, whence there still shone a sad grey light on the figure of the

doctor as he lit a lamp with a heavy shade and placed it on a table in

the middle of the room.



Clarke looked about him. Scarcely a foot of wall remained bare; there

were shelves all around laden with bottles and phials of all shapes and

colours, and at one end stood a little Chippendale book-case. Raymond

pointed to this.



“You see that parchment Oswald Crollius? He was one of the first to

show me the way, though I don’t think he ever found it himself. That is

a strange saying of his: ‘In every grain of wheat there lies hidden the

soul of a star.’”



There was not much furniture in the laboratory. The table in the

centre, a stone slab with a drain in one corner, the two armchairs on

which Raymond and Clarke were sitting; that was all, except an

odd-looking chair at the furthest end of the room. Clarke looked at it,

and raised his eyebrows.



“Yes, that is the chair,” said Raymond. “We may as well place it in

position.” He got up and wheeled the chair to the light, and began

raising and lowering it, letting down the seat, setting the back at

various angles, and adjusting the foot-rest. It looked comfortable

enough, and Clarke passed his hand over the soft green velvet, as the

doctor manipulated the levers.



“Now, Clarke, make yourself quite comfortable. I have a couple hours’

work before me; I was obliged to leave certain matters to the last.”



Raymond went to the stone slab, and Clarke watched him drearily as he

bent over a row of phials and lit the flame under the crucible. The

doctor had a small hand-lamp, shaded as the larger one, on a ledge

above his apparatus, and Clarke, who sat in the shadows, looked down at

the great shadowy room, wondering at the bizarre effects of brilliant

light and undefined darkness contrasting with one another. Soon he

became conscious of an odd odour, at first the merest suggestion of

odour, in the room, and as it grew more decided he felt surprised that

he was not reminded of the chemist’s shop or the surgery. Clarke found

himself idly endeavouring to analyse the sensation, and half conscious,

he began to think of a day, fifteen years ago, that he had spent

roaming through the woods and meadows near his own home. It was a

burning day at the beginning of August, the heat had dimmed the

outlines of all things and all distances with a faint mist, and people

who observed the thermometer spoke of an abnormal register, of a

temperature that was almost tropical. Strangely that wonderful hot day

of the fifties rose up again in Clarke’s imagination; the sense of

dazzling all-pervading sunlight seemed to blot out the shadows and the

lights of the laboratory, and he felt again the heated air beating in

gusts about his face, saw the shimmer rising from the turf, and heard

the myriad murmur of the summer.



“I hope the smell doesn’t annoy you, Clarke; there’s nothing

unwholesome about it. It may make you a bit sleepy, that’s all.”



Clarke heard the words quite distinctly, and knew that Raymond was

speaking to him, but for the life of him he could not rouse himself

from his lethargy. He could only think of the lonely walk he had taken

fifteen years ago; it was his last look at the fields and woods he had

known since he was a child, and now it all stood out in brilliant

light, as a picture, before him. Above all there came to his nostrils

the scent of summer, the smell of flowers mingled, and the odour of the

woods, of cool shaded places, deep in the green depths, drawn forth by

the sun’s heat; and the scent of the good earth, lying as it were with

arms stretched forth, and smiling lips, overpowered all. His fancies

made him wander, as he had wandered long ago, from the fields into the

wood, tracking a little path between the shining undergrowth of

beech-trees; and the trickle of water dropping from the limestone rock

sounded as a clear melody in the dream. Thoughts began to go astray and

to mingle with other thoughts; the beech alley was transformed to a

path between ilex-trees, and here and there a vine climbed from bough

to bough, and sent up waving tendrils and drooped with purple grapes,

and the sparse grey-green leaves of a wild olive-tree stood out against

the dark shadows of the ilex. Clarke, in the deep folds of dream, was

conscious that the path from his father’s house had led him into an

undiscovered country, and he was wondering at the strangeness of it

all, when suddenly, in place of the hum and murmur of the summer, an

infinite silence seemed to fall on all things, and the wood was hushed,

and for a moment in time he stood face to face there with a presence,

that was neither man nor beast, neither the living nor the dead, but

all things mingled, the form of all things but devoid of all form. And

in that moment, the sacrament of body and soul was dissolved, and a

voice seemed to cry “Let us go hence,” and then the darkness of

darkness beyond the stars, the darkness of everlasting.



When Clarke woke up with a start he saw Raymond pouring a few drops of

some oily fluid into a green phial, which he stoppered tightly.



“You have been dozing,” he said; “the journey must have tired you out.

It is done now. I am going to fetch Mary; I shall be back in ten

minutes.”



Clarke lay back in his chair and wondered. It seemed as if he had but

passed from one dream into another. He half expected to see the walls

of the laboratory melt and disappear, and to awake in London,

shuddering at his own sleeping fancies. But at last the door opened,

and the doctor returned, and behind him came a girl of about seventeen,

dressed all in white. She was so beautiful that Clarke did not wonder

at what the doctor had written to him. She was blushing now over face

and neck and arms, but Raymond seemed unmoved.



“Mary,” he said, “the time has come. You are quite free. Are you

willing to trust yourself to me entirely?”



“Yes, dear.”



“Do you hear that, Clarke? You are my witness. Here is the chair, Mary.

It is quite easy. Just sit in it and lean back. Are you ready?”



“Yes, dear, quite ready. Give me a kiss before you begin.”



The doctor stooped and kissed her mouth, kindly enough. “Now shut your

eyes,” he said. The girl closed her eyelids, as if she were tired, and

longed for sleep, and Raymond placed the green phial to her nostrils.

Her face grew white, whiter than her dress; she struggled faintly, and

then with the feeling of submission strong within her, crossed her arms

upon her breast as a little child about to say her prayers. The bright

light of the lamp fell full upon her, and Clarke watched changes

fleeting over her face as the changes of the hills when the summer

clouds float across the sun. And then she lay all white and still, and

the doctor turned up one of her eyelids. She was quite unconscious.

Raymond pressed hard on one of the levers and the chair instantly sank

back. Clarke saw him cutting away a circle, like a tonsure, from her

hair, and the lamp was moved nearer. Raymond took a small glittering

instrument from a little case, and Clarke turned away shudderingly.

When he looked again the doctor was binding up the wound he had made.



“She will awake in five minutes.” Raymond was still perfectly cool.

“There is nothing more to be done; we can only wait.”



The minutes passed slowly; they could hear a slow, heavy, ticking.

There was an old clock in the passage. Clarke felt sick and faint; his

knees shook beneath him, he could hardly stand.



Suddenly, as they watched, they heard a long-drawn sigh, and suddenly

did the colour that had vanished return to the girl’s cheeks, and

suddenly her eyes opened. Clarke quailed before them. They shone with

an awful light, looking far away, and a great wonder fell upon her

face, and her hands stretched out as if to touch what was invisible;

but in an instant the wonder faded, and gave place to the most awful

terror. The muscles of her face were hideously convulsed, she shook

from head to foot; the soul seemed struggling and shuddering within the

house of flesh. It was a horrible sight, and Clarke rushed forward, as

she fell shrieking to the floor.



Three days later Raymond took Clarke to Mary’s bedside. She was lying

wide-awake, rolling her head from side to side, and grinning vacantly.



“Yes,” said the doctor, still quite cool, “it is a great pity; she is a

hopeless idiot. However, it could not be helped; and, after all, she

has seen the Great God Pan.”









II

MR. CLARKE’S MEMOIRS





Mr. Clarke, the gentleman chosen by Dr. Raymond to witness the strange

experiment of the god Pan, was a person in whose character caution and

curiosity were oddly mingled; in his sober moments he thought of the

unusual and eccentric with undisguised aversion, and yet, deep in his

heart, there was a wide-eyed inquisitiveness with respect to all the

more recondite and esoteric elements in the nature of men. The latter

tendency had prevailed when he accepted Raymond’s invitation, for

though his considered judgment had always repudiated the doctor’s

theories as the wildest nonsense, yet he secretly hugged a belief in

fantasy, and would have rejoiced to see that belief confirmed. The

horrors that he witnessed in the dreary laboratory were to a certain

extent salutary; he was conscious of being involved in an affair not

altogether reputable, and for many years afterwards he clung bravely to

the commonplace, and rejected all occasions of occult investigation.

Indeed, on some homeopathic principle, he for some time attended the

seances of distinguished mediums, hoping that the clumsy tricks of

these gentlemen would make him altogether disgusted with mysticism of

every kind, but the remedy, though caustic, was not efficacious. Clarke

knew that he still pined for the unseen, and little by little, the old

passion began to reassert itself, as the face of Mary, shuddering and

convulsed with an unknown terror, faded slowly from his memory.

Occupied all day in pursuits both serious and lucrative, the temptation

to relax in the evening was too great, especially in the winter months,

when the fire cast a warm glow over his snug bachelor apartment, and a

bottle of some choice claret stood ready by his elbow. His dinner

digested, he would make a brief pretence of reading the evening paper,

but the mere catalogue of news soon palled upon him, and Clarke would

find himself casting glances of warm desire in the direction of an old

Japanese bureau, which stood at a pleasant distance from the hearth.

Like a boy before a jam-closet, for a few minutes he would hover

indecisive, but lust always prevailed, and Clarke ended by drawing up

his chair, lighting a candle, and sitting down before the bureau. Its

pigeon-holes and drawers teemed with documents on the most morbid

subjects, and in the well reposed a large manuscript volume, in which

he had painfully entered the gems of his collection. Clarke had a fine

contempt for published literature; the most ghostly story ceased to

interest him if it happened to be printed; his sole pleasure was in the

reading, compiling, and rearranging what he called his “Memoirs to

prove the Existence of the Devil,” and engaged in this pursuit the

evening seemed to fly and the night appeared too short.



On one particular evening, an ugly December night, black with fog, and

raw with frost, Clarke hurried over his dinner, and scarcely deigned to

observe his customary ritual of taking up the paper and laying it down

again. He paced two or three times up and down the room, and opened the

bureau, stood still a moment, and sat down. He leant back, absorbed in

one of those dreams to which he was subject, and at length drew out his

book, and opened it at the last entry. There were three or four pages

densely covered with Clarke’s round, set penmanship, and at the

beginning he had written in a somewhat larger hand:



Singular Narrative told me by my Friend, Dr. Phillips. He assures me

that all the facts related therein are strictly and wholly True, but

refuses to give either the Surnames of the Persons Concerned, or the

Place where these Extraordinary Events occurred.





Mr. Clarke began to read over the account for the tenth time, glancing

now and then at the pencil notes he had made when it was told him by

his friend. It was one of his humours to pride himself on a certain

literary ability; he thought well of his style, and took pains in

arranging the circumstances in dramatic order. He read the following

story:—



The persons concerned in this statement are Helen V., who, if she is

still alive, must now be a woman of twenty-three, Rachel M., since

deceased, who was a year younger than the above, and Trevor W., an

imbecile, aged eighteen. These persons were at the period of the story

inhabitants of a village on the borders of Wales, a place of some

importance in the time of the Roman occupation, but now a scattered

hamlet, of not more than five hundred souls. It is situated on rising

ground, about six miles from the sea, and is sheltered by a large and

picturesque forest.



Some eleven years ago, Helen V. came to the village under rather

peculiar circumstances. It is understood that she, being an orphan, was

adopted in her infancy by a distant relative, who brought her up in his

own house until she was twelve years old. Thinking, however, that it

would be better for the child to have playmates of her own age, he

advertised in several local papers for a good home in a comfortable

farmhouse for a girl of twelve, and this advertisement was answered by

Mr. R., a well-to-do farmer in the above-mentioned village. His

references proving satisfactory, the gentleman sent his adopted

daughter to Mr. R., with a letter, in which he stipulated that the girl

should have a room to herself, and stated that her guardians need be at

no trouble in the matter of education, as she was already sufficiently

educated for the position in life which she would occupy. In fact, Mr.

R. was given to understand that the girl be allowed to find her own

occupations and to spend her time almost as she liked. Mr. R. duly met

her at the nearest station, a town seven miles away from his house, and

seems to have remarked nothing extraordinary about the child except

that she was reticent as to her former life and her adopted father. She

was, however, of a very different type from the inhabitants of the

village; her skin was a pale, clear olive, and her features were

strongly marked, and of a somewhat foreign character. She appears to

have settled down easily enough into farmhouse life, and became a

favourite with the children, who sometimes went with her on her rambles

in the forest, for this was her amusement. Mr. R. states that he has

known her to go out by herself directly after their early breakfast,

and not return till after dusk, and that, feeling uneasy at a young

girl being out alone for so many hours, he communicated with her

adopted father, who replied in a brief note that Helen must do as she

chose. In the winter, when the forest paths are impassable, she spent

most of her time in her bedroom, where she slept alone, according to

the instructions of her relative. It was on one of these expeditions to

the forest that the first of the singular incidents with which this

girl is connected occurred, the date being about a year after her

arrival at the village. The preceding winter had been remarkably

severe, the snow drifting to a great depth, and the frost continuing

for an unexampled period, and the summer following was as noteworthy

for its extreme heat. On one of the very hottest days in this summer,

Helen V. left the farmhouse for one of her long rambles in the forest,

taking with her, as usual, some bread and meat for lunch. She was seen

by some men in the fields making for the old Roman Road, a green

causeway which traverses the highest part of the wood, and they were

astonished to observe that the girl had taken off her hat, though the

heat of the sun was already tropical. As it happened, a labourer,

Joseph W. by name, was working in the forest near the Roman Road, and

at twelve o’clock his little son, Trevor, brought the man his dinner of

bread and cheese. After the meal, the boy, who was about seven years

old at the time, left his father at work, and, as he said, went to look

for flowers in the wood, and the man, who could hear him shouting with

delight at his discoveries, felt no uneasiness. Suddenly, however, he

was horrified at hearing the most dreadful screams, evidently the

result of great terror, proceeding from the direction in which his son

had gone, and he hastily threw down his tools and ran to see what had

happened. Tracing his path by the sound, he met the little boy, who was

running headlong, and was evidently terribly frightened, and on

questioning him the man elicited that after picking a posy of flowers

he felt tired, and lay down on the grass and fell asleep. He was

suddenly awakened, as he stated, by a peculiar noise, a sort of singing

he called it, and on peeping through the branches he saw Helen V.

playing on the grass with a “strange naked man,” who he seemed unable

to describe more fully. He said he felt dreadfully frightened and ran

away crying for his father. Joseph W. proceeded in the direction

indicated by his son, and found Helen V. sitting on the grass in the

middle of a glade or open space left by charcoal burners. He angrily

charged her with frightening his little boy, but she entirely denied

the accusation and laughed at the child’s story of a “strange man,” to

which he himself did not attach much credence. Joseph W. came to the

conclusion that the boy had woke up with a sudden fright, as children

sometimes do, but Trevor persisted in his story, and continued in such

evident distress that at last his father took him home, hoping that his

mother would be able to soothe him. For many weeks, however, the boy

gave his parents much anxiety; he became nervous and strange in his

manner, refusing to leave the cottage by himself, and constantly

alarming the household by waking in the night with cries of “The man in

the wood! father! father!”



In course of time, however, the impression seemed to have worn off, and

about three months later he accompanied his father to the home of a

gentleman in the neighborhood, for whom Joseph W. occasionally did

work. The man was shown into the study, and the little boy was left

sitting in the hall, and a few minutes later, while the gentleman was

giving W. his instructions, they were both horrified by a piercing

shriek and the sound of a fall, and rushing out they found the child

lying senseless on the floor, his face contorted with terror. The

doctor was immediately summoned, and after some examination he

pronounced the child to be suffering form a kind of fit, apparently

produced by a sudden shock. The boy was taken to one of the bedrooms,

and after some time recovered consciousness, but only to pass into a

condition described by the medical man as one of violent hysteria. The

doctor exhibited a strong sedative, and in the course of two hours

pronounced him fit to walk home, but in passing through the hall the

paroxysms of fright returned and with additional violence. The father

perceived that the child was pointing at some object, and heard the old

cry, “The man in the wood,” and looking in the direction indicated saw

a stone head of grotesque appearance, which had been built into the

wall above one of the doors. It seems the owner of the house had

recently made alterations in his premises, and on digging the

foundations for some offices, the men had found a curious head,

evidently of the Roman period, which had been placed in the manner

described. The head is pronounced by the most experienced

archaeologists of the district to be that of a faun or satyr.[*]



[* Dr. Phillips tells me that he has seen the head in question, and

assures me that he has never received such a vivid presentment of

intense evil.]





From whatever cause arising, this second shock seemed too severe for

the boy Trevor, and at the present date he suffers from a weakness of

intellect, which gives but little promise of amending. The matter

caused a good deal of sensation at the time, and the girl Helen was

closely questioned by Mr. R., but to no purpose, she steadfastly

denying that she had frightened or in any way molested Trevor.



The second event with which this girl’s name is connected took place

about six years ago, and is of a still more extraordinary character.



At the beginning of the summer of 1882, Helen contracted a friendship

of a peculiarly intimate character with Rachel M., the daughter of a

prosperous farmer in the neighbourhood. This girl, who was a year

younger than Helen, was considered by most people to be the prettier of

the two, though Helen’s features had to a great extent softened as she

became older. The two girls, who were together on every available

opportunity, presented a singular contrast, the one with her clear,

olive skin and almost Italian appearance, and the other of the

proverbial red and white of our rural districts. It must be stated that

the payments made to Mr. R. for the maintenance of Helen were known in

the village for their excessive liberality, and the impression was

general that she would one day inherit a large sum of money from her

relative. The parents of Rachel were therefore not averse from their

daughter’s friendship with the girl, and even encouraged the intimacy,

though they now bitterly regret having done so. Helen still retained

her extraordinary fondness for the forest, and on several occasions

Rachel accompanied her, the two friends setting out early in the

morning, and remaining in the wood until dusk. Once or twice after

these excursions Mrs. M. thought her daughter’s manner rather peculiar;

she seemed languid and dreamy, and as it has been expressed, “different

from herself,” but these peculiarities seem to have been thought too

trifling for remark. One evening, however, after Rachel had come home,

her mother heard a noise which sounded like suppressed weeping in the

girl’s room, and on going in found her lying, half undressed, upon the

bed, evidently in the greatest distress. As soon as she saw her mother,

she exclaimed, “Ah, mother, mother, why did you let me go to the forest

with Helen?” Mrs. M. was astonished at so strange a question, and

proceeded to make inquiries. Rachel told her a wild story. She said—



Clarke closed the book with a snap, and turned his chair towards the

fire. When his friend sat one evening in that very chair, and told his

story, Clarke had interrupted him at a point a little subsequent to

this, had cut short his words in a paroxysm of horror. “My God!” he had

exclaimed, “think, think what you are saying. It is too incredible, too

monstrous; such things can never be in this quiet world, where men and

women live and die, and struggle, and conquer, or maybe fail, and fall

down under sorrow, and grieve and suffer strange fortunes for many a

year; but not this, Phillips, not such things as this. There must be

some explanation, some way out of the terror. Why, man, if such a case

were possible, our earth would be a nightmare.”



But Phillips had told his story to the end, concluding:



“Her flight remains a mystery to this day; she vanished in broad

sunlight; they saw her walking in a meadow, and a few moments later she

was not there.”



Clarke tried to conceive the thing again, as he sat by the fire, and

again his mind shuddered and shrank back, appalled before the sight of

such awful, unspeakable elements enthroned as it were, and triumphant

in human flesh. Before him stretched the long dim vista of the green

causeway in the forest, as his friend had described it; he saw the

swaying leaves and the quivering shadows on the grass, he saw the

sunlight and the flowers, and far away, far in the long distance, the

two figures moved toward him. One was Rachel, but the other?



Clarke had tried his best to disbelieve it all, but at the end of the

account, as he had written it in his book, he had placed the

inscription:



Et Diabolus incarnatus est. Et homo factus est.









III

THE CITY OF RESURRECTIONS





“Herbert! Good God! Is it possible?”



“Yes, my name’s Herbert. I think I know your face, too, but I don’t

remember your name. My memory is very queer.”



“Don’t you recollect Villiers of Wadham?”



“So it is, so it is. I beg your pardon, Villiers, I didn’t think I was

begging of an old college friend. Good-night.”



“My dear fellow, this haste is unnecessary. My rooms are close by, but

we won’t go there just yet. Suppose we walk up Shaftesbury Avenue a

little way? But how in heaven’s name have you come to this pass,

Herbert?”



“It’s a long story, Villiers, and a strange one too, but you can hear

it if you like.”



“Come on, then. Take my arm, you don’t seem very strong.”



The ill-assorted pair moved slowly up Rupert Street; the one in dirty,

evil-looking rags, and the other attired in the regulation uniform of a

man about town, trim, glossy, and eminently well-to-do. Villiers had

emerged from his restaurant after an excellent dinner of many courses,

assisted by an ingratiating little flask of Chianti, and, in that frame

of mind which was with him almost chronic, had delayed a moment by the

door, peering round in the dimly-lighted street in search of those

mysterious incidents and persons with which the streets of London teem

in every quarter and every hour. Villiers prided himself as a practised

explorer of such obscure mazes and byways of London life, and in this

unprofitable pursuit he displayed an assiduity which was worthy of more

serious employment. Thus he stood by the lamp-post surveying the

passers-by with undisguised curiosity, and with that gravity known only

to the systematic diner, had just enunciated in his mind the formula:

“London has been called the city of encounters; it is more than that,

it is the city of Resurrections,” when these reflections were suddenly

interrupted by a piteous whine at his elbow, and a deplorable appeal

for alms. He looked around in some irritation, and with a sudden shock

found himself confronted with the embodied proof of his somewhat

stilted fancies. There, close beside him, his face altered and

disfigured by poverty and disgrace, his body barely covered by greasy

ill-fitting rags, stood his old friend Charles Herbert, who had

matriculated on the same day as himself, with whom he had been merry

and wise for twelve revolving terms. Different occupations and varying

interests had interrupted the friendship, and it was six years since

Villiers had seen Herbert; and now he looked upon this wreck of a man

with grief and dismay, mingled with a certain inquisitiveness as to

what dreary chain of circumstances had dragged him down to such a

doleful pass. Villiers felt together with compassion all the relish of

the amateur in mysteries, and congratulated himself on his leisurely

speculations outside the restaurant.



They walked on in silence for some time, and more than one passer-by

stared in astonishment at the unaccustomed spectacle of a well-dressed

man with an unmistakable beggar hanging on to his arm, and, observing

this, Villiers led the way to an obscure street in Soho. Here he

repeated his question.



“How on earth has it happened, Herbert? I always understood you would

succeed to an excellent position in Dorsetshire. Did your father

disinherit you? Surely not?”



“No, Villiers; I came into all the property at my poor father’s death;

he died a year after I left Oxford. He was a very good father to me,

and I mourned his death sincerely enough. But you know what young men

are; a few months later I came up to town and went a good deal into

society. Of course I had excellent introductions, and I managed to

enjoy myself very much in a harmless sort of way. I played a little,

certainly, but never for heavy stakes, and the few bets I made on races

brought me in money—only a few pounds, you know, but enough to pay for

cigars and such petty pleasures. It was in my second season that the

tide turned. Of course you have heard of my marriage?”



“No, I never heard anything about it.”



“Yes, I married, Villiers. I met a girl, a girl of the most wonderful

and most strange beauty, at the house of some people whom I knew. I

cannot tell you her age; I never knew it, but, so far as I can guess, I

should think she must have been about nineteen when I made her

acquaintance. My friends had come to know her at Florence; she told

them she was an orphan, the child of an English father and an Italian

mother, and she charmed them as she charmed me. The first time I saw

her was at an evening party. I was standing by the door talking to a

friend, when suddenly above the hum and babble of conversation I heard

a voice which seemed to thrill to my heart. She was singing an Italian

song. I was introduced to her that evening, and in three months I

married Helen. Villiers, that woman, if I can call her woman, corrupted

my soul. The night of the wedding I found myself sitting in her bedroom

in the hotel, listening to her talk. She was sitting up in bed, and I

listened to her as she spoke in her beautiful voice, spoke of things

which even now I would not dare whisper in the blackest night, though I

stood in the midst of a wilderness. You, Villiers, you may think you

know life, and London, and what goes on day and night in this dreadful

city; for all I can say you may have heard the talk of the vilest, but

I tell you you can have no conception of what I know, not in your most

fantastic, hideous dreams can you have imaged forth the faintest shadow

of what I have heard—and seen. Yes, seen. I have seen the incredible,

such horrors that even I myself sometimes stop in the middle of the

street and ask whether it is possible for a man to behold such things

and live. In a year, Villiers, I was a ruined man, in body and soul—in

body and soul.”



“But your property, Herbert? You had land in Dorset.”



“I sold it all; the fields and woods, the dear old house—everything.”



“And the money?”



“She took it all from me.”



“And then left you?”



“Yes; she disappeared one night. I don’t know where she went, but I am

sure if I saw her again it would kill me. The rest of my story is of no

interest; sordid misery, that is all. You may think, Villiers, that I

have exaggerated and talked for effect; but I have not told you half. I

could tell you certain things which would convince you, but you would

never know a happy day again. You would pass the rest of your life, as

I pass mine, a haunted man, a man who has seen hell.”



Villiers took the unfortunate man to his rooms, and gave him a meal.

Herbert could eat little, and scarcely touched the glass of wine set

before him. He sat moody and silent by the fire, and seemed relieved

when Villiers sent him away with a small present of money.



“By the way, Herbert,” said Villiers, as they parted at the door, “what

was your wife’s name? You said Helen, I think? Helen what?”



“The name she passed under when I met her was Helen Vaughan, but what

her real name was I can’t say. I don’t think she had a name. No, no,

not in that sense. Only human beings have names, Villiers; I can’t say

anymore. Good-bye; yes, I will not fail to call if I see any way in

which you can help me. Good-night.”



The man went out into the bitter night, and Villiers returned to his

fireside. There was something about Herbert which shocked him

inexpressibly; not his poor rags nor the marks which poverty had set

upon his face, but rather an indefinite terror which hung about him

like a mist. He had acknowledged that he himself was not devoid of

blame; the woman, he had avowed, had corrupted him body and soul, and

Villiers felt that this man, once his friend, had been an actor in

scenes evil beyond the power of words. His story needed no

confirmation: he himself was the embodied proof of it. Villiers mused

curiously over the story he had heard, and wondered whether he had

heard both the first and the last of it. “No,” he thought, “certainly

not the last, probably only the beginning. A case like this is like a

nest of Chinese boxes; you open one after the other and find a quainter

workmanship in every box. Most likely poor Herbert is merely one of the

outside boxes; there are stranger ones to follow.”



Villiers could not take his mind away from Herbert and his story, which

seemed to grow wilder as the night wore on. The fire seemed to burn

low, and the chilly air of the morning crept into the room; Villiers

got up with a glance over his shoulder, and, shivering slightly, went

to bed.



A few days later he saw at his club a gentleman of his acquaintance,

named Austin, who was famous for his intimate knowledge of London life,

both in its tenebrous and luminous phases. Villiers, still full of his

encounter in Soho and its consequences, thought Austin might possibly

be able to shed some light on Herbert’s history, and so after some

casual talk he suddenly put the question:



“Do you happen to know anything of a man named Herbert—Charles

Herbert?”



Austin turned round sharply and stared at Villiers with some

astonishment.



“Charles Herbert? Weren’t you in town three years ago? No; then you

have not heard of the Paul Street case? It caused a good deal of

sensation at the time.”



“What was the case?”



“Well, a gentleman, a man of very good position, was found dead, stark

dead, in the area of a certain house in Paul Street, off Tottenham

Court Road. Of course the police did not make the discovery; if you

happen to be sitting up all night and have a light in your window, the

constable will ring the bell, but if you happen to be lying dead in

somebody’s area, you will be left alone. In this instance, as in many

others, the alarm was raised by some kind of vagabond; I don’t mean a

common tramp, or a public-house loafer, but a gentleman, whose business

or pleasure, or both, made him a spectator of the London streets at

five o’clock in the morning. This individual was, as he said, ‘going

home,’ it did not appear whence or whither, and had occasion to pass

through Paul Street between four and five a.m. Something or other

caught his eye at Number 20; he said, absurdly enough, that the house

had the most unpleasant physiognomy he had ever observed, but, at any

rate, he glanced down the area and was a good deal astonished to see a

man lying on the stones, his limbs all huddled together, and his face

turned up. Our gentleman thought his face looked peculiarly ghastly,

and so set off at a run in search of the nearest policeman. The

constable was at first inclined to treat the matter lightly, suspecting

common drunkenness; however, he came, and after looking at the man’s

face, changed his tone, quickly enough. The early bird, who had picked

up this fine worm, was sent off for a doctor, and the policeman rang

and knocked at the door till a slatternly servant girl came down

looking more than half asleep. The constable pointed out the contents

of the area to the maid, who screamed loudly enough to wake up the

street, but she knew nothing of the man; had never seen him at the

house, and so forth. Meanwhile, the original discoverer had come back

with a medical man, and the next thing was to get into the area. The

gate was open, so the whole quartet stumped down the steps. The doctor

hardly needed a moment’s examination; he said the poor fellow had been

dead for several hours, and it was then the case began to get

interesting. The dead man had not been robbed, and in one of his

pockets were papers identifying him as—well, as a man of good family

and means, a favourite in society, and nobody’s enemy, as far as could

be known. I don’t give his name, Villiers, because it has nothing to do

with the story, and because it’s no good raking up these affairs about

the dead when there are no relations living. The next curious point was

that the medical men couldn’t agree as to how he met his death. There

were some slight bruises on his shoulders, but they were so slight that

it looked as if he had been pushed roughly out of the kitchen door, and

not thrown over the railings from the street or even dragged down the

steps. But there were positively no other marks of violence about him,

certainly none that would account for his death; and when they came to

the autopsy there wasn’t a trace of poison of any kind. Of course the

police wanted to know all about the people at Number 20, and here

again, so I have heard from private sources, one or two other very

curious points came out. It appears that the occupants of the house

were a Mr. and Mrs. Charles Herbert; he was said to be a landed

proprietor, though it struck most people that Paul Street was not

exactly the place to look for country gentry. As for Mrs. Herbert,

nobody seemed to know who or what she was, and, between ourselves, I

fancy the divers after her history found themselves in rather strange

waters. Of course they both denied knowing anything about the deceased,

and in default of any evidence against them they were discharged. But

some very odd things came out about them. Though it was between five

and six in the morning when the dead man was removed, a large crowd had

collected, and several of the neighbours ran to see what was going on.

They were pretty free with their comments, by all accounts, and from

these it appeared that Number 20 was in very bad odour in Paul Street.

The detectives tried to trace down these rumours to some solid

foundation of fact, but could not get hold of anything. People shook

their heads and raised their eyebrows and thought the Herberts rather

‘queer,’ ‘would rather not be seen going into their house,’ and so on,

but there was nothing tangible. The authorities were morally certain

the man met his death in some way or another in the house and was

thrown out by the kitchen door, but they couldn’t prove it, and the

absence of any indications of violence or poisoning left them helpless.

An odd case, wasn’t it? But curiously enough, there’s something more

that I haven’t told you. I happened to know one of the doctors who was

consulted as to the cause of death, and some time after the inquest I

met him, and asked him about it. ‘Do you really mean to tell me,’ I

said, ‘that you were baffled by the case, that you actually don’t know

what the man died of?’ ‘Pardon me,’ he replied, ‘I know perfectly well

what caused death. Blank died of fright, of sheer, awful terror; I

never saw features so hideously contorted in the entire course of my

practice, and I have seen the faces of a whole host of dead.’ The

doctor was usually a cool customer enough, and a certain vehemence in

his manner struck me, but I couldn’t get anything more out of him. I

suppose the Treasury didn’t see their way to prosecuting the Herberts

for frightening a man to death; at any rate, nothing was done, and the

case dropped out of men’s minds. Do you happen to know anything of

Herbert?”



“Well,” replied Villiers, “he was an old college friend of mine.”



“You don’t say so? Have you ever seen his wife?”



“No, I haven’t. I have lost sight of Herbert for many years.”



“It’s queer, isn’t it, parting with a man at the college gate or at

Paddington, seeing nothing of him for years, and then finding him pop

up his head in such an odd place. But I should like to have seen Mrs.

Herbert; people said extraordinary things about her.”



“What sort of things?”



“Well, I hardly know how to tell you. Everyone who saw her at the

police court said she was at once the most beautiful woman and the most

repulsive they had ever set eyes on. I have spoken to a man who saw

her, and I assure you he positively shuddered as he tried to describe

the woman, but he couldn’t tell why. She seems to have been a sort of

enigma; and I expect if that one dead man could have told tales, he

would have told some uncommonly queer ones. And there you are again in

another puzzle; what could a respectable country gentleman like Mr.

Blank (we’ll call him that if you don’t mind) want in such a very queer

house as Number 20? It’s altogether a very odd case, isn’t it?”



“It is indeed, Austin; an extraordinary case. I didn’t think, when I

asked you about my old friend, I should strike on such strange metal.

Well, I must be off; good-day.”



Villiers went away, thinking of his own conceit of the Chinese boxes;

here was quaint workmanship indeed.









IV

THE DISCOVERY IN PAUL STREET





A few months after Villiers’ meeting with Herbert, Mr. Clarke was

sitting, as usual, by his after-dinner hearth, resolutely guarding his

fancies from wandering in the direction of the bureau. For more than a

week he had succeeded in keeping away from the “Memoirs,” and he

cherished hopes of a complete self-reformation; but, in spite of his

endeavours, he could not hush the wonder and the strange curiosity that

the last case he had written down had excited within him. He had put

the case, or rather the outline of it, conjecturally to a scientific

friend, who shook his head, and thought Clarke getting queer, and on

this particular evening Clarke was making an effort to rationalize the

story, when a sudden knock at the door roused him from his meditations.



“Mr. Villiers to see you sir.”



“Dear me, Villiers, it is very kind of you to look me up; I have not

seen you for many months; I should think nearly a year. Come in, come

in. And how are you, Villiers? Want any advice about investments?”



“No, thanks, I fancy everything I have in that way is pretty safe. No,

Clarke, I have really come to consult you about a rather curious matter

that has been brought under my notice of late. I am afraid you will

think it all rather absurd when I tell my tale. I sometimes think so

myself, and that’s just why I made up my mind to come to you, as I know

you’re a practical man.”



Mr. Villiers was ignorant of the “Memoirs to prove the Existence of the

Devil.”



“Well, Villiers, I shall be happy to give you my advice, to the best of

my ability. What is the nature of the case?”



“It’s an extraordinary thing altogether. You know my ways; I always

keep my eyes open in the streets, and in my time I have chanced upon

some queer customers, and queer cases too, but this, I think, beats

all. I was coming out of a restaurant one nasty winter night about

three months ago; I had had a capital dinner and a good bottle of

Chianti, and I stood for a moment on the pavement, thinking what a

mystery there is about London streets and the companies that pass along

them. A bottle of red wine encourages these fancies, Clarke, and I dare

say I should have thought a page of small type, but I was cut short by

a beggar who had come behind me, and was making the usual appeals. Of

course I looked round, and this beggar turned out to be what was left

of an old friend of mine, a man named Herbert. I asked him how he had

come to such a wretched pass, and he told me. We walked up and down one

of those long and dark Soho streets, and there I listened to his story.

He said he had married a beautiful girl, some years younger than

himself, and, as he put it, she had corrupted him body and soul. He

wouldn’t go into details; he said he dare not, that what he had seen

and heard haunted him by night and day, and when I looked in his face I

knew he was speaking the truth. There was something about the man that

made me shiver. I don’t know why, but it was there. I gave him a little

money and sent him away, and I assure you that when he was gone I

gasped for breath. His presence seemed to chill one’s blood.”



“Isn’t this all just a little fanciful, Villiers? I suppose the poor

fellow had made an imprudent marriage, and, in plain English, gone to

the bad.”



“Well, listen to this.” Villiers told Clarke the story he had heard

from Austin.



“You see,” he concluded, “there can be but little doubt that this Mr.

Blank, whoever he was, died of sheer terror; he saw something so awful,

so terrible, that it cut short his life. And what he saw, he most

certainly saw in that house, which, somehow or other, had got a bad

name in the neighbourhood. I had the curiosity to go and look at the

place for myself. It’s a saddening kind of street; the houses are old

enough to be mean and dreary, but not old enough to be quaint. As far

as I could see most of them are let in lodgings, furnished and

unfurnished, and almost every door has three bells to it. Here and

there the ground floors have been made into shops of the commonest

kind; it’s a dismal street in every way. I found Number 20 was to let,

and I went to the agent’s and got the key. Of course I should have

heard nothing of the Herberts in that quarter, but I asked the man,

fair and square, how long they had left the house and whether there had

been other tenants in the meanwhile. He looked at me queerly for a

minute, and told me the Herberts had left immediately after the

unpleasantness, as he called it, and since then the house had been

empty.”



Mr. Villiers paused for a moment.



“I have always been rather fond of going over empty houses; there’s a

sort of fascination about the desolate empty rooms, with the nails

sticking in the walls, and the dust thick upon the window-sills. But I

didn’t enjoy going over Number 20, Paul Street. I had hardly put my

foot inside the passage when I noticed a queer, heavy feeling about the

air of the house. Of course all empty houses are stuffy, and so forth,

but this was something quite different; I can’t describe it to you, but

it seemed to stop the breath. I went into the front room and the back

room, and the kitchens downstairs; they were all dirty and dusty

enough, as you would expect, but there was something strange about them

all. I couldn’t define it to you, I only know I felt queer. It was one

of the rooms on the first floor, though, that was the worst. It was a

largish room, and once on a time the paper must have been cheerful

enough, but when I saw it, paint, paper, and everything were most

doleful. But the room was full of horror; I felt my teeth grinding as I

put my hand on the door, and when I went in, I thought I should have

fallen fainting to the floor. However, I pulled myself together, and

stood against the end wall, wondering what on earth there could be

about the room to make my limbs tremble, and my heart beat as if I were

at the hour of death. In one corner there was a pile of newspapers

littered on the floor, and I began looking at them; they were papers of

three or four years ago, some of them half torn, and some crumpled as

if they had been used for packing. I turned the whole pile over, and

amongst them I found a curious drawing; I will show it to you

presently. But I couldn’t stay in the room; I felt it was overpowering

me. I was thankful to come out, safe and sound, into the open air.

People stared at me as I walked along the street, and one man said I

was drunk. I was staggering about from one side of the pavement to the

other, and it was as much as I could do to take the key back to the

agent and get home. I was in bed for a week, suffering from what my

doctor called nervous shock and exhaustion. One of those days I was

reading the evening paper, and happened to notice a paragraph headed:

‘Starved to Death.’ It was the usual style of thing; a model

lodging-house in Marylebone, a door locked for several days, and a dead

man in his chair when they broke in. ‘The deceased,’ said the

paragraph, ‘was known as Charles Herbert, and is believed to have been

once a prosperous country gentleman. His name was familiar to the

public three years ago in connection with the mysterious death in Paul

Street, Tottenham Court Road, the deceased being the tenant of the

house Number 20, in the area of which a gentleman of good position was

found dead under circumstances not devoid of suspicion.’ A tragic

ending, wasn’t it? But after all, if what he told me were true, which I

am sure it was, the man’s life was all a tragedy, and a tragedy of a

stranger sort than they put on the boards.”



“And that is the story, is it?” said Clarke musingly.



“Yes, that is the story.”



“Well, really, Villiers, I scarcely know what to say about it. There

are, no doubt, circumstances in the case which seem peculiar, the

finding of the dead man in the area of Herbert’s house, for instance,

and the extraordinary opinion of the physician as to the cause of

death; but, after all, it is conceivable that the facts may be

explained in a straightforward manner. As to your own sensations, when

you went to see the house, I would suggest that they were due to a

vivid imagination; you must have been brooding, in a semi-conscious

way, over what you had heard. I don’t exactly see what more can be said

or done in the matter; you evidently think there is a mystery of some

kind, but Herbert is dead; where then do you propose to look?”



“I propose to look for the woman; the woman whom he married. _She_ is

the mystery.”



The two men sat silent by the fireside; Clarke secretly congratulating

himself on having successfully kept up the character of advocate of the

commonplace, and Villiers wrapped in his gloomy fancies.



“I think I will have a cigarette,” he said at last, and put his hand in

his pocket to feel for the cigarette-case.



“Ah!” he said, starting slightly, “I forgot I had something to show

you. You remember my saying that I had found a rather curious sketch

amongst the pile of old newspapers at the house in Paul Street? Here it

is.”



Villiers drew out a small thin parcel from his pocket. It was covered

with brown paper, and secured with string, and the knots were

troublesome. In spite of himself Clarke felt inquisitive; he bent

forward on his chair as Villiers painfully undid the string, and

unfolded the outer covering. Inside was a second wrapping of tissue,

and Villiers took it off and handed the small piece of paper to Clarke

without a word.



There was dead silence in the room for five minutes or more; the two

men sat so still that they could hear the ticking of the tall

old-fashioned clock that stood outside in the hall, and in the mind of

one of them the slow monotony of sound woke up a far, far memory. He

was looking intently at the small pen-and-ink sketch of the woman’s

head; it had evidently been drawn with great care, and by a true

artist, for the woman’s soul looked out of the eyes, and the lips were

parted with a strange smile. Clarke gazed still at the face; it brought

to his memory one summer evening, long ago; he saw again the long

lovely valley, the river winding between the hills, the meadows and the

cornfields, the dull red sun, and the cold white mist rising from the

water. He heard a voice speaking to him across the waves of many years,

and saying “Clarke, Mary will see the god Pan!” and then he was

standing in the grim room beside the doctor, listening to the heavy

ticking of the clock, waiting and watching, watching the figure lying

on the green chair beneath the lamplight. Mary rose up, and he looked

into her eyes, and his heart grew cold within him.



“Who is this woman?” he said at last. His voice was dry and hoarse.



“That is the woman who Herbert married.”



Clarke looked again at the sketch; it was not Mary after all. There

certainly was Mary’s face, but there was something else, something he

had not seen on Mary’s features when the white-clad girl entered the

laboratory with the doctor, nor at her terrible awakening, nor when she

lay grinning on the bed. Whatever it was, the glance that came from

those eyes, the smile on the full lips, or the expression of the whole

face, Clarke shuddered before it at his inmost soul, and thought,

unconsciously, of Dr. Phillip’s words, “the most vivid presentment of

evil I have ever seen.” He turned the paper over mechanically in his

hand and glanced at the back.



“Good God! Clarke, what is the matter? You are as white as death.”



Villiers had started wildly from his chair, as Clarke fell back with a

groan, and let the paper drop from his hands.



“I don’t feel very well, Villiers, I am subject to these attacks. Pour

me out a little wine; thanks, that will do. I shall feel better in a

few minutes.”



Villiers picked up the fallen sketch and turned it over as Clarke had

done.



“You saw that?” he said. “That’s how I identified it as being a

portrait of Herbert’s wife, or I should say his widow. How do you feel

now?”



“Better, thanks, it was only a passing faintness. I don’t think I quite

catch your meaning. What did you say enabled you to identify the

picture?”



“This word—‘Helen’—was written on the back. Didn’t I tell you her name

was Helen? Yes; Helen Vaughan.”



Clarke groaned; there could be no shadow of doubt.



“Now, don’t you agree with me,” said Villiers, “that in the story I

have told you to-night, and in the part this woman plays in it, there

are some very strange points?”



“Yes, Villiers,” Clarke muttered, “it is a strange story indeed; a

strange story indeed. You must give me time to think it over; I may be

able to help you or I may not. Must you be going now? Well, good-night,

Villiers, good-night. Come and see me in the course of a week.”









V

THE LETTER OF ADVICE





“Do you know, Austin,” said Villiers, as the two friends were pacing

sedately along Piccadilly one pleasant morning in May, “do you know I

am convinced that what you told me about Paul Street and the Herberts

is a mere episode in an extraordinary history? I may as well confess to

you that when I asked you about Herbert a few months ago I had just

seen him.”



“You had seen him? Where?”



“He begged of me in the street one night. He was in the most pitiable

plight, but I recognized the man, and I got him to tell me his history,

or at least the outline of it. In brief, it amounted to this—he had

been ruined by his wife.”



“In what manner?”



“He would not tell me; he would only say that she had destroyed him,

body and soul. The man is dead now.”



“And what has become of his wife?”



“Ah, that’s what I should like to know, and I mean to find her sooner

or later. I know a man named Clarke, a dry fellow, in fact a man of

business, but shrewd enough. You understand my meaning; not shrewd in

the mere business sense of the word, but a man who really knows

something about men and life. Well, I laid the case before him, and he

was evidently impressed. He said it needed consideration, and asked me

to come again in the course of a week. A few days later I received this

extraordinary letter.”



Austin took the envelope, drew out the letter, and read it curiously.

It ran as follows:—



“MY DEAR VILLIERS,—I have thought over the matter on which you

consulted me the other night, and my advice to you is this. Throw the

portrait into the fire, blot out the story from your mind. Never give

it another thought, Villiers, or you will be sorry. You will think, no

doubt, that I am in possession of some secret information, and to a

certain extent that is the case. But I only know a little; I am like a

traveller who has peered over an abyss, and has drawn back in terror.

What I know is strange enough and horrible enough, but beyond my

knowledge there are depths and horrors more frightful still, more

incredible than any tale told of winter nights about the fire. I have

resolved, and nothing shall shake that resolve, to explore no whit

farther, and if you value your happiness you will make the same

determination.

    “Come and see me by all means; but we will talk on more cheerful

    topics than this.”





Austin folded the letter methodically, and returned it to Villiers.



“It is certainly an extraordinary letter,” he said, “what does he mean

by the portrait?”



“Ah! I forgot to tell you I have been to Paul Street and have made a

discovery.”



Villiers told his story as he had told it to Clarke, and Austin

listened in silence. He seemed puzzled.



“How very curious that you should experience such an unpleasant

sensation in that room!” he said at length. “I hardly gather that it

was a mere matter of the imagination; a feeling of repulsion, in

short.”



“No, it was more physical than mental. It was as if I were inhaling at

every breath some deadly fume, which seemed to penetrate to every nerve

and bone and sinew of my body. I felt racked from head to foot, my eyes

began to grow dim; it was like the entrance of death.”



“Yes, yes, very strange certainly. You see, your friend confesses that

there is some very black story connected with this woman. Did you

notice any particular emotion in him when you were telling your tale?”



“Yes, I did. He became very faint, but he assured me that it was a mere

passing attack to which he was subject.”



“Did you believe him?”



“I did at the time, but I don’t now. He heard what I had to say with a

good deal of indifference, till I showed him the portrait. It was then

that he was seized with the attack of which I spoke. He looked ghastly,

I assure you.”



“Then he must have seen the woman before. But there might be another

explanation; it might have been the name, and not the face, which was

familiar to him. What do you think?”



“I couldn’t say. To the best of my belief it was after turning the

portrait in his hands that he nearly dropped from the chair. The name,

you know, was written on the back.”



“Quite so. After all, it is impossible to come to any resolution in a

case like this. I hate melodrama, and nothing strikes me as more

commonplace and tedious than the ordinary ghost story of commerce; but

really, Villiers, it looks as if there were something very queer at the

bottom of all this.”



The two men had, without noticing it, turned up Ashley Street, leading

northward from Piccadilly. It was a long street, and rather a gloomy

one, but here and there a brighter taste had illuminated the dark

houses with flowers, and gay curtains, and a cheerful paint on the

doors. Villiers glanced up as Austin stopped speaking, and looked at

one of these houses; geraniums, red and white, drooped from every sill,

and daffodil-coloured curtains were draped back from each window.



“It looks cheerful, doesn’t it?” he said.



“Yes, and the inside is still more cheery. One of the pleasantest

houses of the season, so I have heard. I haven’t been there myself, but

I’ve met several men who have, and they tell me it’s uncommonly

jovial.”



“Whose house is it?”



“A Mrs. Beaumont’s.”



“And who is she?”



“I couldn’t tell you. I have heard she comes from South America, but

after all, who she is is of little consequence. She is a very wealthy

woman, there’s no doubt of that, and some of the best people have taken

her up. I hear she has some wonderful claret, really marvellous wine,

which must have cost a fabulous sum. Lord Argentine was telling me

about it; he was there last Sunday evening. He assures me he has never

tasted such a wine, and Argentine, as you know, is an expert. By the

way, that reminds me, she must be an oddish sort of woman, this Mrs.

Beaumont. Argentine asked her how old the wine was, and what do you

think she said? ‘About a thousand years, I believe.’ Lord Argentine

thought she was chaffing him, you know, but when he laughed she said

she was speaking quite seriously and offered to show him the jar. Of

course, he couldn’t say anything more after that; but it seems rather

antiquated for a beverage, doesn’t it? Why, here we are at my rooms.

Come in, won’t you?”



“Thanks, I think I will. I haven’t seen the curiosity-shop for a

while.”



It was a room furnished richly, yet oddly, where every jar and bookcase

and table, and every rug and jar and ornament seemed to be a thing

apart, preserving each its own individuality.



“Anything fresh lately?” said Villiers after a while.



“No; I think not; you saw those queer jugs, didn’t you? I thought so. I

don’t think I have come across anything for the last few weeks.”



Austin glanced around the room from cupboard to cupboard, from shelf to

shelf, in search of some new oddity. His eyes fell at last on an odd

chest, pleasantly and quaintly carved, which stood in a dark corner of

the room.



“Ah,” he said, “I was forgetting, I have got something to show you.”

Austin unlocked the chest, drew out a thick quarto volume, laid it on

the table, and resumed the cigar he had put down.



“Did you know Arthur Meyrick the painter, Villiers?”



“A little; I met him two or three times at the house of a friend of

mine. What has become of him? I haven’t heard his name mentioned for

some time.”



“He’s dead.”



“You don’t say so! Quite young, wasn’t he?”



“Yes; only thirty when he died.”



“What did he die of?”



“I don’t know. He was an intimate friend of mine, and a thoroughly good

fellow. He used to come here and talk to me for hours, and he was one

of the best talkers I have met. He could even talk about painting, and

that’s more than can be said of most painters. About eighteen months

ago he was feeling rather overworked, and partly at my suggestion he

went off on a sort of roving expedition, with no very definite end or

aim about it. I believe New York was to be his first port, but I never

heard from him. Three months ago I got this book, with a very civil

letter from an English doctor practising at Buenos Ayres, stating that

he had attended the late Mr. Meyrick during his illness, and that the

deceased had expressed an earnest wish that the enclosed packet should

be sent to me after his death. That was all.”



“And haven’t you written for further particulars?”



“I have been thinking of doing so. You would advise me to write to the

doctor?”



“Certainly. And what about the book?”



“It was sealed up when I got it. I don’t think the doctor had seen it.”



“It is something very rare? Meyrick was a collector, perhaps?”



“No, I think not, hardly a collector. Now, what do you think of these

Ainu jugs?”



“They are peculiar, but I like them. But aren’t you going to show me

poor Meyrick’s legacy?”



“Yes, yes, to be sure. The fact is, it’s rather a peculiar sort of

thing, and I haven’t shown it to any one. I wouldn’t say anything about

it if I were you. There it is.”



Villiers took the book, and opened it at haphazard.



“It isn’t a printed volume, then?” he said.



“No. It is a collection of drawings in black and white by my poor

friend Meyrick.”



Villiers turned to the first page, it was blank; the second bore a

brief inscription, which he read:



Silet per diem universus, nec sine horrore secretus est; lucet

nocturnis ignibus, chorus Ægipanum undique personatur: audiuntur et

cantus tibiarum, et tinnitus cymbalorum per oram maritimam.





On the third page was a design which made Villiers start and look up at

Austin; he was gazing abstractedly out of the window. Villiers turned

page after page, absorbed, in spite of himself, in the frightful

Walpurgis Night of evil, strange monstrous evil, that the dead artist

had set forth in hard black and white. The figures of Fauns and Satyrs

and Ægipans danced before his eyes, the darkness of the thicket, the

dance on the mountain-top, the scenes by lonely shores, in green

vineyards, by rocks and desert places, passed before him: a world

before which the human soul seemed to shrink back and shudder. Villiers

whirled over the remaining pages; he had seen enough, but the picture

on the last leaf caught his eye, as he almost closed the book.



“Austin!”



“Well, what is it?”



“Do you know who that is?”



It was a woman’s face, alone on the white page.



“Know who it is? No, of course not.”



“I do.”



“Who is it?”



“It is Mrs. Herbert.”



“Are you sure?”



“I am perfectly sure of it. Poor Meyrick! He is one more chapter in her

history.”



“But what do you think of the designs?”



“They are frightful. Lock the book up again, Austin. If I were you I

would burn it; it must be a terrible companion even though it be in a

chest.”



“Yes, they are singular drawings. But I wonder what connection there

could be between Meyrick and Mrs. Herbert, or what link between her and

these designs?”



“Ah, who can say? It is possible that the matter may end here, and we

shall never know, but in my own opinion this Helen Vaughan, or Mrs.

Herbert, is only the beginning. She will come back to London, Austin;

depend on it, she will come back, and we shall hear more about her

then. I doubt it will be very pleasant news.”









VI

THE SUICIDES





Lord Argentine was a great favourite in London Society. At twenty he

had been a poor man, decked with the surname of an illustrious family,

but forced to earn a livelihood as best he could, and the most

speculative of money-lenders would not have entrusted him with fifty

pounds on the chance of his ever changing his name for a title, and his

poverty for a great fortune. His father had been near enough to the

fountain of good things to secure one of the family livings, but the

son, even if he had taken orders, would scarcely have obtained so much

as this, and moreover felt no vocation for the ecclesiastical estate.

Thus he fronted the world with no better armour than the bachelor’s

gown and the wits of a younger son’s grandson, with which equipment he

contrived in some way to make a very tolerable fight of it. At

twenty-five Mr. Charles Aubernon saw himself still a man of struggles

and of warfare with the world, but out of the seven who stood before

him and the high places of his family three only remained. These three,

however, were “good lives,” but yet not proof against the Zulu assegais

and typhoid fever, and so one morning Aubernon woke up and found

himself Lord Argentine, a man of thirty who had faced the difficulties

of existence, and had conquered. The situation amused him immensely,

and he resolved that riches should be as pleasant to him as poverty had

always been. Argentine, after some little consideration, came to the

conclusion that dining, regarded as a fine art, was perhaps the most

amusing pursuit open to fallen humanity, and thus his dinners became

famous in London, and an invitation to his table a thing covetously

desired. After ten years of lordship and dinners Argentine still

declined to be jaded, still persisted in enjoying life, and by a kind

of infection had become recognized as the cause of joy in others, in

short, as the best of company. His sudden and tragical death therefore

caused a wide and deep sensation. People could scarcely believe it,

even though the newspaper was before their eyes, and the cry of

“Mysterious Death of a Nobleman” came ringing up from the street. But

there stood the brief paragraph: “Lord Argentine was found dead this

morning by his valet under distressing circumstances. It is stated that

there can be no doubt that his lordship committed suicide, though no

motive can be assigned for the act. The deceased nobleman was widely

known in society, and much liked for his genial manner and sumptuous

hospitality. He is succeeded by,” etc., etc.



By slow degrees the details came to light, but the case still remained

a mystery. The chief witness at the inquest was the deceased’s valet,

who said that the night before his death Lord Argentine had dined with

a lady of good position, whose name was suppressed in the newspaper

reports. At about eleven o’clock Lord Argentine had returned, and

informed his man that he should not require his services till the next

morning. A little later the valet had occasion to cross the hall and

was somewhat astonished to see his master quietly letting himself out

at the front door. He had taken off his evening clothes, and was

dressed in a Norfolk coat and knickerbockers, and wore a low brown hat.

The valet had no reason to suppose that Lord Argentine had seen him,

and though his master rarely kept late hours, thought little of the

occurrence till the next morning, when he knocked at the bedroom door

at a quarter to nine as usual. He received no answer, and, after

knocking two or three times, entered the room, and saw Lord Argentine’s

body leaning forward at an angle from the bottom of the bed. He found

that his master had tied a cord securely to one of the short bed-posts,

and, after making a running noose and slipping it round his neck, the

unfortunate man must have resolutely fallen forward, to die by slow

strangulation. He was dressed in the light suit in which the valet had

seen him go out, and the doctor who was summoned pronounced that life

had been extinct for more than four hours. All papers, letters, and so

forth seemed in perfect order, and nothing was discovered which pointed

in the most remote way to any scandal either great or small. Here the

evidence ended; nothing more could be discovered. Several persons had

been present at the dinner-party at which Lord Argentine had assisted,

and to all these he seemed in his usual genial spirits. The valet,

indeed, said he thought his master appeared a little excited when he

came home, but confessed that the alteration in his manner was very

slight, hardly noticeable, indeed. It seemed hopeless to seek for any

clue, and the suggestion that Lord Argentine had been suddenly attacked

by acute suicidal mania was generally accepted.



It was otherwise, however, when within three weeks, three more

gentlemen, one of them a nobleman, and the two others men of good

position and ample means, perished miserably in the almost precisely

the same manner. Lord Swanleigh was found one morning in his

dressing-room, hanging from a peg affixed to the wall, and Mr.

Collier-Stuart and Mr. Herries had chosen to die as Lord Argentine.

There was no explanation in either case; a few bald facts; a living man

in the evening, and a body with a black swollen face in the morning.

The police had been forced to confess themselves powerless to arrest or

to explain the sordid murders of Whitechapel; but before the horrible

suicides of Piccadilly and Mayfair they were dumbfoundered, for not

even the mere ferocity which did duty as an explanation of the crimes

of the East End, could be of service in the West. Each of these men who

had resolved to die a tortured shameful death was rich, prosperous, and

to all appearances in love with the world, and not the acutest research

should ferret out any shadow of a lurking motive in either case. There

was a horror in the air, and men looked at one another’s faces when

they met, each wondering whether the other was to be the victim of the

fifth nameless tragedy. Journalists sought in vain for their scrapbooks

for materials whereof to concoct reminiscent articles; and the morning

paper was unfolded in many a house with a feeling of awe; no man knew

when or where the next blow would light.



A short while after the last of these terrible events, Austin came to

see Mr. Villiers. He was curious to know whether Villiers had succeeded

in discovering any fresh traces of Mrs. Herbert, either through Clarke

or by other sources, and he asked the question soon after he had sat

down.



“No,” said Villiers, “I wrote to Clarke, but he remains obdurate, and I

have tried other channels, but without any result. I can’t find out

what became of Helen Vaughan after she left Paul Street, but I think

she must have gone abroad. But to tell the truth, Austin, I haven’t

paid much attention to the matter for the last few weeks; I knew poor

Herries intimately, and his terrible death has been a great shock to

me, a great shock.”



“I can well believe it,” answered Austin gravely, “you know Argentine

was a friend of mine. If I remember rightly, we were speaking of him

that day you came to my rooms.”



“Yes; it was in connection with that house in Ashley Street, Mrs.

Beaumont’s house. You said something about Argentine’s dining there.”



“Quite so. Of course you know it was there Argentine dined the night

before—before his death.”



“No, I had not heard that.”



“Oh, yes; the name was kept out of the papers to spare Mrs. Beaumont.

Argentine was a great favourite of hers, and it is said she was in a

terrible state for sometime after.”



A curious look came over Villiers’ face; he seemed undecided whether to

speak or not. Austin began again.



“I never experienced such a feeling of horror as when I read the

account of Argentine’s death. I didn’t understand it at the time, and I

don’t now. I knew him well, and it completely passes my understanding

for what possible cause he—or any of the others for the matter of

that—could have resolved in cold blood to die in such an awful manner.

You know how men babble away each other’s characters in London, you may

be sure any buried scandal or hidden skeleton would have been brought

to light in such a case as this; but nothing of the sort has taken

place. As for the theory of mania, that is very well, of course, for

the coroner’s jury, but everybody knows that it’s all nonsense.

Suicidal mania is not small-pox.”



Austin relapsed into gloomy silence. Villiers sat silent, also,

watching his friend. The expression of indecision still fleeted across

his face; he seemed as if weighing his thoughts in the balance, and the

considerations he was resolving left him still silent. Austin tried to

shake off the remembrance of tragedies as hopeless and perplexed as the

labyrinth of Daedalus, and began to talk in an indifferent voice of the

more pleasant incidents and adventures of the season.



“That Mrs. Beaumont,” he said, “of whom we were speaking, is a great

success; she has taken London almost by storm. I met her the other

night at Fulham’s; she is really a remarkable woman.”



“You have met Mrs. Beaumont?”



“Yes; she had quite a court around her. She would be called very

handsome, I suppose, and yet there is something about her face which I

didn’t like. The features are exquisite, but the expression is strange.

And all the time I was looking at her, and afterwards, when I was going

home, I had a curious feeling that very expression was in some way or

another familiar to me.”



“You must have seen her in the Row.”



“No, I am sure I never set eyes on the woman before; it is that which

makes it puzzling. And to the best of my belief I have never seen

anyone like her; what I felt was a kind of dim far-off memory, vague

but persistent. The only sensation I can compare it to, is that odd

feeling one sometimes has in a dream, when fantastic cities and

wondrous lands and phantom personages appear familiar and accustomed.”



Villiers nodded and glanced aimlessly round the room, possibly in

search of something on which to turn the conversation. His eyes fell on

an old chest somewhat like that in which the artist’s strange legacy

lay hid beneath a Gothic scutcheon.



“Have you written to the doctor about poor Meyrick?” he asked.



“Yes; I wrote asking for full particulars as to his illness and death.

I don’t expect to have an answer for another three weeks or a month. I

thought I might as well inquire whether Meyrick knew an Englishwoman

named Herbert, and if so, whether the doctor could give me any

information about her. But it’s very possible that Meyrick fell in with

her at New York, or Mexico, or San Francisco; I have no idea as to the

extent or direction of his travels.”



“Yes, and it’s very possible that the woman may have more than one

name.”



“Exactly. I wish I had thought of asking you to lend me the portrait of

her which you possess. I might have enclosed it in my letter to Dr.

Matthews.”



“So you might; that never occurred to me. We might send it now. Hark!

what are those boys calling?”



While the two men had been talking together a confused noise of

shouting had been gradually growing louder. The noise rose from the

eastward and swelled down Piccadilly, drawing nearer and nearer, a very

torrent of sound; surging up streets usually quiet, and making every

window a frame for a face, curious or excited. The cries and voices

came echoing up the silent street where Villiers lived, growing more

distinct as they advanced, and, as Villiers spoke, an answer rang up

from the pavement:



“The West End Horrors; Another Awful Suicide; Full Details!”



Austin rushed down the stairs and bought a paper and read out the

paragraph to Villiers as the uproar in the street rose and fell. The

window was open and the air seemed full of noise and terror.



“Another gentleman has fallen a victim to the terrible epidemic of

suicide which for the last month has prevailed in the West End. Mr.

Sidney Crashaw, of Stoke House, Fulham, and King’s Pomeroy, Devon, was

found, after a prolonged search, hanging dead from the branch of a tree

in his garden at one o’clock today. The deceased gentleman dined last

night at the Carlton Club and seemed in his usual health and spirits.

He left the club at about ten o’clock, and was seen walking leisurely

up St. James’s Street a little later. Subsequent to this his movements

cannot be traced. On the discovery of the body medical aid was at once

summoned, but life had evidently been long extinct. So far as is known,

Mr. Crashaw had no trouble or anxiety of any kind. This painful

suicide, it will be remembered, is the fifth of the kind in the last

month. The authorities at Scotland Yard are unable to suggest any

explanation of these terrible occurrences.”



Austin put down the paper in mute horror.



“I shall leave London to-morrow,” he said, “it is a city of nightmares.

How awful this is, Villiers!”



Mr. Villiers was sitting by the window quietly looking out into the

street. He had listened to the newspaper report attentively, and the

hint of indecision was no longer on his face.



“Wait a moment, Austin,” he replied, “I have made up my mind to mention

a little matter that occurred last night. It stated, I think, that

Crashaw was last seen alive in St. James’s Street shortly after ten?”



“Yes, I think so. I will look again. Yes, you are quite right.”



“Quite so. Well, I am in a position to contradict that statement at all

events. Crashaw was seen after that; considerably later indeed.”



“How do you know?”



“Because I happened to see Crashaw myself at about two o’clock this

morning.”



“You saw Crashaw? You, Villiers?”



“Yes, I saw him quite distinctly; indeed, there were but a few feet

between us.”



“Where, in Heaven’s name, did you see him?”



“Not far from here. I saw him in Ashley Street. He was just leaving a

house.”



“Did you notice what house it was?”



“Yes. It was Mrs. Beaumont’s.”



“Villiers! Think what you are saying; there must be some mistake. How

could Crashaw be in Mrs. Beaumont’s house at two o’clock in the

morning? Surely, surely, you must have been dreaming, Villiers; you

were always rather fanciful.”



“No; I was wide awake enough. Even if I had been dreaming as you say,

what I saw would have roused me effectually.”



“What you saw? What did you see? Was there anything strange about

Crashaw? But I can’t believe it; it is impossible.”



“Well, if you like I will tell you what I saw, or if you please, what I

think I saw, and you can judge for yourself.”



“Very good, Villiers.”



The noise and clamour of the street had died away, though now and then

the sound of shouting still came from the distance, and the dull,

leaden silence seemed like the quiet after an earthquake or a storm.

Villiers turned from the window and began speaking.



“I was at a house near Regent’s Park last night, and when I came away

the fancy took me to walk home instead of taking a hansom. It was a

clear pleasant night enough, and after a few minutes I had the streets

pretty much to myself. It’s a curious thing, Austin, to be alone in

London at night, the gas-lamps stretching away in perspective, and the

dead silence, and then perhaps the rush and clatter of a hansom on the

stones, and the fire starting up under the horse’s hoofs. I walked

along pretty briskly, for I was feeling a little tired of being out in

the night, and as the clocks were striking two I turned down Ashley

Street, which, you know, is on my way. It was quieter than ever there,

and the lamps were fewer; altogether, it looked as dark and gloomy as a

forest in winter. I had done about half the length of the street when I

heard a door closed very softly, and naturally I looked up to see who

was abroad like myself at such an hour. As it happens, there is a

street lamp close to the house in question, and I saw a man standing on

the step. He had just shut the door and his face was towards me, and I

recognized Crashaw directly. I never knew him to speak to, but I had

often seen him, and I am positive that I was not mistaken in my man. I

looked into his face for a moment, and then—I will confess the truth—I

set off at a good run, and kept it up till I was within my own door.”



“Why?”



“Why? Because it made my blood run cold to see that man’s face. I could

never have supposed that such an infernal medley of passions could have

glared out of any human eyes; I almost fainted as I looked. I knew I

had looked into the eyes of a lost soul, Austin, the man’s outward form

remained, but all hell was within it. Furious lust, and hate that was

like fire, and the loss of all hope and horror that seemed to shriek

aloud to the night, though his teeth were shut; and the utter blackness

of despair. I am sure that he did not see me; he saw nothing that you

or I can see, but what he saw I hope we never shall. I do not know when

he died; I suppose in an hour, or perhaps two, but when I passed down

Ashley Street and heard the closing door, that man no longer belonged

to this world; it was a devil’s face I looked upon.”



There was an interval of silence in the room when Villiers ceased

speaking. The light was failing, and all the tumult of an hour ago was

quite hushed. Austin had bent his head at the close of the story, and

his hand covered his eyes.



“What can it mean?” he said at length.



“Who knows, Austin, who knows? It’s a black business, but I think we

had better keep it to ourselves, for the present at any rate. I will

see if I cannot learn anything about that house through private

channels of information, and if I do light upon anything I will let you

know.”









VII

THE ENCOUNTER IN SOHO





Three weeks later Austin received a note from Villiers, asking him to

call either that afternoon or the next. He chose the nearer date, and

found Villiers sitting as usual by the window, apparently lost in

meditation on the drowsy traffic of the street. There was a bamboo

table by his side, a fantastic thing, enriched with gilding and queer

painted scenes, and on it lay a little pile of papers arranged and

docketed as neatly as anything in Mr. Clarke’s office.



“Well, Villiers, have you made any discoveries in the last three

weeks?”



“I think so; I have here one or two memoranda which struck me as

singular, and there is a statement to which I shall call your

attention.”



“And these documents relate to Mrs. Beaumont? It was really Crashaw

whom you saw that night standing on the doorstep of the house in Ashley

Street?”



“As to that matter my belief remains unchanged, but neither my

inquiries nor their results have any special relation to Crashaw. But

my investigations have had a strange issue. I have found out who Mrs.

Beaumont is!”



“Who is she? In what way do you mean?”



“I mean that you and I know her better under another name.”



“What name is that?”



“Herbert.”



“Herbert!” Austin repeated the word, dazed with astonishment.



“Yes, Mrs. Herbert of Paul Street, Helen Vaughan of earlier adventures

unknown to me. You had reason to recognize the expression of her face;

when you go home look at the face in Meyrick’s book of horrors, and you

will know the sources of your recollection.”



“And you have proof of this?”



“Yes, the best of proof; I have seen Mrs. Beaumont, or shall we say

Mrs. Herbert?”



“Where did you see her?”



“Hardly in a place where you would expect to see a lady who lives in

Ashley Street, Piccadilly. I saw her entering a house in one of the

meanest and most disreputable streets in Soho. In fact, I had made an

appointment, though not with her, and she was precise to both time and

place.”



“All this seems very wonderful, but I cannot call it incredible. You

must remember, Villiers, that I have seen this woman, in the ordinary

adventure of London society, talking and laughing, and sipping her

coffee in a commonplace drawing-room with commonplace people. But you

know what you are saying.”



“I do; I have not allowed myself to be led by surmises or fancies. It

was with no thought of finding Helen Vaughan that I searched for Mrs.

Beaumont in the dark waters of the life of London, but such has been

the issue.”



“You must have been in strange places, Villiers.”



“Yes, I have been in very strange places. It would have been useless,

you know, to go to Ashley Street, and ask Mrs. Beaumont to give me a

short sketch of her previous history. No; assuming, as I had to assume,

that her record was not of the cleanest, it would be pretty certain

that at some previous time she must have moved in circles not quite so

refined as her present ones. If you see mud at the top of a stream, you

may be sure that it was once at the bottom. I went to the bottom. I

have always been fond of diving into Queer Street for my amusement, and

I found my knowledge of that locality and its inhabitants very useful.

It is, perhaps, needless to say that my friends had never heard the

name of Beaumont, and as I had never seen the lady, and was quite

unable to describe her, I had to set to work in an indirect way. The

people there know me; I have been able to do some of them a service now

and again, so they made no difficulty about giving their information;

they were aware I had no communication direct or indirect with Scotland

Yard. I had to cast out a good many lines, though, before I got what I

wanted, and when I landed the fish I did not for a moment suppose it

was my fish. But I listened to what I was told out of a constitutional

liking for useless information, and I found myself in possession of a

very curious story, though, as I imagined, not the story I was looking

for. It was to this effect. Some five or six years ago, a woman named

Raymond suddenly made her appearance in the neighbourhood to which I am

referring. She was described to me as being quite young, probably not

more than seventeen or eighteen, very handsome, and looking as if she

came from the country. I should be wrong in saying that she found her

level in going to this particular quarter, or associating with these

people, for from what I was told, I should think the worst den in

London far too good for her. The person from whom I got my information,

as you may suppose, no great Puritan, shuddered and grew sick in

telling me of the nameless infamies which were laid to her charge.

After living there for a year, or perhaps a little more, she

disappeared as suddenly as she came, and they saw nothing of her till

about the time of the Paul Street case. At first she came to her old

haunts only occasionally, then more frequently, and finally took up her

abode there as before, and remained for six or eight months. It’s of no

use my going into details as to the life that woman led; if you want

particulars you can look at Meyrick’s legacy. Those designs were not

drawn from his imagination. She again disappeared, and the people of

the place saw nothing of her till a few months ago. My informant told

me that she had taken some rooms in a house which he pointed out, and

these rooms she was in the habit of visiting two or three times a week

and always at ten in the morning. I was led to expect that one of these

visits would be paid on a certain day about a week ago, and I

accordingly managed to be on the look-out in company with my cicerone

at a quarter to ten, and the hour and the lady came with equal

punctuality. My friend and I were standing under an archway, a little

way back from the street, but she saw us, and gave me a glance that I

shall be long in forgetting. That look was quite enough for me; I knew

Miss Raymond to be Mrs. Herbert; as for Mrs. Beaumont she had quite

gone out of my head. She went into the house, and I watched it till

four o’clock, when she came out, and then I followed her. It was a long

chase, and I had to be very careful to keep a long way in the

background, and yet not lose sight of the woman. She took me down to

the Strand, and then to Westminster, and then up St. James’s Street,

and along Piccadilly. I felt queerish when I saw her turn up Ashley

Street; the thought that Mrs. Herbert was Mrs. Beaumont came into my

mind, but it seemed too impossible to be true. I waited at the corner,

keeping my eye on her all the time, and I took particular care to note

the house at which she stopped. It was the house with the gay curtains,

the home of flowers, the house out of which Crashaw came the night he

hanged himself in his garden. I was just going away with my discovery,

when I saw an empty carriage come round and draw up in front of the

house, and I came to the conclusion that Mrs. Herbert was going out for

a drive, and I was right. There, as it happened, I met a man I know,

and we stood talking together a little distance from the carriage-way,

to which I had my back. We had not been there for ten minutes when my

friend took off his hat, and I glanced round and saw the lady I had

been following all day. ‘Who is that?’ I said, and his answer was ‘Mrs.

Beaumont; lives in Ashley Street.’ Of course there could be no doubt

after that. I don’t know whether she saw me, but I don’t think she did.

I went home at once, and, on consideration, I thought that I had a

sufficiently good case with which to go to Clarke.”



“Why to Clarke?”



“Because I am sure that Clarke is in possession of facts about this

woman, facts of which I know nothing.”



“Well, what then?”



Mr. Villiers leaned back in his chair and looked reflectively at Austin

for a moment before he answered:



“My idea was that Clarke and I should call on Mrs. Beaumont.”



“You would never go into such a house as that? No, no, Villiers, you

cannot do it. Besides, consider; what result...”



“I will tell you soon. But I was going to say that my information does

not end here; it has been completed in an extraordinary manner.



“Look at this neat little packet of manuscript; it is paginated, you

see, and I have indulged in the civil coquetry of a ribbon of red tape.

It has almost a legal air, hasn’t it? Run your eye over it, Austin. It

is an account of the entertainment Mrs. Beaumont provided for her

choicer guests. The man who wrote this escaped with his life, but I do

not think he will live many years. The doctors tell him he must have

sustained some severe shock to the nerves.”



Austin took the manuscript, but never read it. Opening the neat pages

at haphazard his eye was caught by a word and a phrase that followed

it; and, sick at heart, with white lips and a cold sweat pouring like

water from his temples, he flung the paper down.



“Take it away, Villiers, never speak of this again. Are you made of

stone, man? Why, the dread and horror of death itself, the thoughts of

the man who stands in the keen morning air on the black platform,

bound, the bell tolling in his ears, and waits for the harsh rattle of

the bolt, are as nothing compared to this. I will not read it; I should

never sleep again.”



“Very good. I can fancy what you saw. Yes; it is horrible enough; but

after all, it is an old story, an old mystery played in our day, and in

dim London streets instead of amidst the vineyards and the olive

gardens. We know what happened to those who chanced to meet the Great

God Pan, and those who are wise know that all symbols are symbols of

something, not of nothing. It was, indeed, an exquisite symbol beneath

which men long ago veiled their knowledge of the most awful, most

secret forces which lie at the heart of all things; forces before which

the souls of men must wither and die and blacken, as their bodies

blacken under the electric current. Such forces cannot be named, cannot

be spoken, cannot be imagined except under a veil and a symbol, a

symbol to the most of us appearing a quaint, poetic fancy, to some a

foolish tale. But you and I, at all events, have known something of the

terror that may dwell in the secret place of life, manifested under

human flesh; that which is without form taking to itself a form. Oh,

Austin, how can it be? How is it that the very sunlight does not turn

to blackness before this thing, the hard earth melt and boil beneath

such a burden?”



Villiers was pacing up and down the room, and the beads of sweat stood

out on his forehead. Austin sat silent for a while, but Villiers saw

him make a sign upon his breast.



“I say again, Villiers, you will surely never enter such a house as

that? You would never pass out alive.”



“Yes, Austin, I shall go out alive—I, and Clarke with me.”



“What do you mean? You cannot, you would not dare...”



“Wait a moment. The air was very pleasant and fresh this morning; there

was a breeze blowing, even through this dull street, and I thought I

would take a walk. Piccadilly stretched before me a clear, bright

vista, and the sun flashed on the carriages and on the quivering leaves

in the park. It was a joyous morning, and men and women looked at the

sky and smiled as they went about their work or their pleasure, and the

wind blew as blithely as upon the meadows and the scented gorse. But

somehow or other I got out of the bustle and the gaiety, and found

myself walking slowly along a quiet, dull street, where there seemed to

be no sunshine and no air, and where the few foot-passengers loitered

as they walked, and hung indecisively about corners and archways. I

walked along, hardly knowing where I was going or what I did there, but

feeling impelled, as one sometimes is, to explore still further, with a

vague idea of reaching some unknown goal. Thus I forged up the street,

noting the small traffic of the milk-shop, and wondering at the

incongruous medley of penny pipes, black tobacco, sweets, newspapers,

and comic songs which here and there jostled one another in the short

compass of a single window. I think it was a cold shudder that suddenly

passed through me that first told me that I had found what I wanted. I

looked up from the pavement and stopped before a dusty shop, above

which the lettering had faded, where the red bricks of two hundred

years ago had grimed to black; where the windows had gathered to

themselves the dust of winters innumerable. I saw what I required; but

I think it was five minutes before I had steadied myself and could walk

in and ask for it in a cool voice and with a calm face. I think there

must even then have been a tremor in my words, for the old man who came

out of the back parlour, and fumbled slowly amongst his goods, looked

oddly at me as he tied the parcel. I paid what he asked, and stood

leaning by the counter, with a strange reluctance to take up my goods

and go. I asked about the business, and learnt that trade was bad and

the profits cut down sadly; but then the street was not what it was

before traffic had been diverted, but that was done forty years ago,

‘just before my father died,’ he said. I got away at last, and walked

along sharply; it was a dismal street indeed, and I was glad to return

to the bustle and the noise. Would you like to see my purchase?”



Austin said nothing, but nodded his head slightly; he still looked

white and sick. Villiers pulled out a drawer in the bamboo table, and

showed Austin a long coil of cord, hard and new; and at one end was a

running noose.



“It is the best hempen cord,” said Villiers, “just as it used to be

made for the old trade, the man told me. Not an inch of jute from end

to end.”



Austin set his teeth hard, and stared at Villiers, growing whiter as he

looked.



“You would not do it,” he murmured at last. “You would not have blood

on your hands. My God!” he exclaimed, with sudden vehemence, “you

cannot mean this, Villiers, that you will make yourself a hangman?”



“No. I shall offer a choice, and leave Helen Vaughan alone with this

cord in a locked room for fifteen minutes. If when we go in it is not

done, I shall call the nearest policeman. That is all.”



“I must go now. I cannot stay here any longer; I cannot bear this.

Good-night.”



“Good-night, Austin.”



The door shut, but in a moment it was open again, and Austin stood,

white and ghastly, in the entrance.



“I was forgetting,” he said, “that I too have something to tell. I have

received a letter from Dr. Harding of Buenos Ayres. He says that he

attended Meyrick for three weeks before his death.”



“And does he say what carried him off in the prime of life? It was not

fever?”



“No, it was not fever. According to the doctor, it was an utter

collapse of the whole system, probably caused by some severe shock. But

he states that the patient would tell him nothing, and that he was

consequently at some disadvantage in treating the case.”



“Is there anything more?”



“Yes. Dr. Harding ends his letter by saying: ‘I think this is all the

information I can give you about your poor friend. He had not been long

in Buenos Ayres, and knew scarcely any one, with the exception of a

person who did not bear the best of characters, and has since left—a

Mrs. Vaughan.’”









VIII

THE FRAGMENTS





[Amongst the papers of the well-known physician, Dr. Robert Matheson,

of Ashley Street, Piccadilly, who died suddenly, of apoplectic seizure,

at the beginning of 1892, a leaf of manuscript paper was found, covered

with pencil jottings. These notes were in Latin, much abbreviated, and

had evidently been made in great haste. The MS. was only deciphered

with difficulty, and some words have up to the present time evaded all

the efforts of the expert employed. The date, “XXV Jul. 1888,” is

written on the right-hand corner of the MS. The following is a

translation of Dr. Matheson’s manuscript.]





“Whether science would benefit by these brief notes if they could be

published, I do not know, but rather doubt. But certainly I shall never

take the responsibility of publishing or divulging one word of what is

here written, not only on account of my oath given freely to those two

persons who were present, but also because the details are too

abominable. It is probably that, upon mature consideration, and after

weighting the good and evil, I shall one day destroy this paper, or at

least leave it under seal to my friend D., trusting in his discretion,

to use it or to burn it, as he may think fit.



“As was befitting, I did all that my knowledge suggested to make sure

that I was suffering under no delusion. At first astounded, I could

hardly think, but in a minute’s time I was sure that my pulse was

steady and regular, and that I was in my real and true senses. I then

fixed my eyes quietly on what was before me.



“Though horror and revolting nausea rose up within me, and an odour of

corruption choked my breath, I remained firm. I was then privileged or

accursed, I dare not say which, to see that which was on the bed, lying

there black like ink, transformed before my eyes. The skin, and the

flesh, and the muscles, and the bones, and the firm structure of the

human body that I had thought to be unchangeable, and permanent as

adamant, began to melt and dissolve.



“I know that the body may be separated into its elements by external

agencies, but I should have refused to believe what I saw. For here

there was some internal force, of which I knew nothing, that caused

dissolution and change.



“Here too was all the work by which man had been made repeated before

my eyes. I saw the form waver from sex to sex, dividing itself from

itself, and then again reunited. Then I saw the body descend to the

beasts whence it ascended, and that which was on the heights go down to

the depths, even to the abyss of all being. The principle of life,

which makes organism, always remained, while the outward form changed.



“The light within the room had turned to blackness, not the darkness of

night, in which objects are seen dimly, for I could see clearly and

without difficulty. But it was the negation of light; objects were

presented to my eyes, if I may say so, without any medium, in such a

manner that if there had been a prism in the room I should have seen no

colours represented in it.



“I watched, and at last I saw nothing but a substance as jelly. Then

the ladder was ascended again... [_here the_ MS. _is illegible_] ...for

one instance I saw a Form, shaped in dimness before me, which I will

not farther describe. But the symbol of this form may be seen in

ancient sculptures, and in paintings which survived beneath the lava,

too foul to be spoken of... as a horrible and unspeakable shape,

neither man nor beast, was changed into human form, there came finally

death.



“I who saw all this, not without great horror and loathing of soul,

here write my name, declaring all that I have set on this paper to be

true.



“ROBERT MATHESON, Med. Dr.”





...Such, Raymond, is the story of what I know and what I have seen. The

burden of it was too heavy for me to bear alone, and yet I could tell

it to none but you. Villiers, who was with me at the last, knows

nothing of that awful secret of the wood, of how what we both saw die,

lay upon the smooth, sweet turf amidst the summer flowers, half in sun

and half in shadow, and holding the girl Rachel’s hand, called and

summoned those companions, and shaped in solid form, upon the earth we

tread upon, the horror which we can but hint at, which we can only name

under a figure. I would not tell Villiers of this, nor of that

resemblance, which struck me as with a blow upon my heart, when I saw

the portrait, which filled the cup of terror at the end. What this can

mean I dare not guess. I know that what I saw perish was not Mary, and

yet in the last agony Mary’s eyes looked into mine. Whether there can

be any one who can show the last link in this chain of awful mystery, I

do not know, but if there be any one who can do this, you, Raymond, are

the man. And if you know the secret, it rests with you to tell it or

not, as you please.



I am writing this letter to you immediately on my getting back to town.

I have been in the country for the last few days; perhaps you may be

able to guess in which part. While the horror and wonder of London was

at its height—for “Mrs. Beaumont,” as I have told you, was well known

in society—I wrote to my friend Dr. Phillips, giving some brief

outline, or rather hint, of what happened, and asking him to tell me

the name of the village where the events he had related to me occurred.

He gave me the name, as he said with the less hesitation, because

Rachel’s father and mother were dead, and the rest of the family had

gone to a relative in the State of Washington six months before. The

parents, he said, had undoubtedly died of grief and horror caused by

the terrible death of their daughter, and by what had gone before that

death. On the evening of the day which I received Phillips’ letter I

was at Caermaen, and standing beneath the mouldering Roman walls, white

with the winters of seventeen hundred years, I looked over the meadow

where once had stood the older temple of the “God of the Deeps,” and

saw a house gleaming in the sunlight. It was the house where Helen had

lived. I stayed at Caermaen for several days. The people of the place,

I found, knew little and had guessed less. Those whom I spoke to on the

matter seemed surprised that an antiquarian (as I professed myself to

be) should trouble about a village tragedy, of which they gave a very

commonplace version, and, as you may imagine, I told nothing of what I

knew. Most of my time was spent in the great wood that rises just above

the village and climbs the hillside, and goes down to the river in the

valley; such another long lovely valley, Raymond, as that on which we

looked one summer night, walking to and fro before your house. For many

an hour I strayed through the maze of the forest, turning now to right

and now to left, pacing slowly down long alleys of undergrowth, shadowy

and chill, even under the midday sun, and halting beneath great oaks;

lying on the short turf of a clearing where the faint sweet scent of

wild roses came to me on the wind and mixed with the heavy perfume of

the elder, whose mingled odour is like the odour of the room of the

dead, a vapour of incense and corruption. I stood at the edges of the

wood, gazing at all the pomp and procession of the foxgloves towering

amidst the bracken and shining red in the broad sunshine, and beyond

them into deep thickets of close undergrowth where springs boil up from

the rock and nourish the water-weeds, dank and evil. But in all my

wanderings I avoided one part of the wood; it was not till yesterday

that I climbed to the summit of the hill, and stood upon the ancient

Roman road that threads the highest ridge of the wood. Here they had

walked, Helen and Rachel, along this quiet causeway, upon the pavement

of green turf, shut in on either side by high banks of red earth, and

tall hedges of shining beech, and here I followed in their steps,

looking out, now and again, through partings in the boughs, and seeing

on one side the sweep of the wood stretching far to right and left, and

sinking into the broad level, and beyond, the yellow sea, and the land

over the sea. On the other side was the valley and the river and hill

following hill as wave on wave, and wood and meadow, and cornfield, and

white houses gleaming, and a great wall of mountain, and far blue peaks

in the north. And so at last I came to the place. The track went up a

gentle slope, and widened out into an open space with a wall of thick

undergrowth around it, and then, narrowing again, passed on into the

distance and the faint blue mist of summer heat. And into this pleasant

summer glade Rachel passed a girl, and left it, who shall say what? I

did not stay long there.





In a small town near Caermaen there is a museum, containing for the

most part Roman remains which have been found in the neighbourhood at

various times. On the day after my arrival in Caermaen I walked over to

the town in question, and took the opportunity of inspecting the

museum. After I had seen most of the sculptured stones, the coffins,

rings, coins, and fragments of tessellated pavement which the place

contains, I was shown a small square pillar of white stone, which had

been recently discovered in the wood of which I have been speaking,

and, as I found on inquiry, in that open space where the Roman road

broadens out. On one side of the pillar was an inscription, of which I

took a note. Some of the letters have been defaced, but I do not think

there can be any doubt as to those which I supply. The inscription is

as follows:



DEVOMNODENT_i_

FLA_v_IVSSENILISPOSSV_it_

PROPTERNVP_tias_

_qua_SVIDITSVBVMB_ra_





“To the great god Nodens (the god of the Great Deep or Abyss) Flavius

Senilis has erected this pillar on account of the marriage which he saw

beneath the shade.”



The custodian of the museum informed me that local antiquaries were

much puzzled, not by the inscription, or by any difficulty in

translating it, but as to the circumstance or rite to which allusion is

made.





...And now, my dear Clarke, as to what you tell me about Helen Vaughan,

whom you say you saw die under circumstances of the utmost and almost

incredible horror. I was interested in your account, but a good deal,

nay all, of what you told me I knew already. I can understand the

strange likeness you remarked in both the portrait and in the actual

face; you have seen Helen’s mother. You remember that still summer

night so many years ago, when I talked to you of the world beyond the

shadows, and of the god Pan. You remember Mary. She was the mother of

Helen Vaughan, who was born nine months after that night.



Mary never recovered her reason. She lay, as you saw her, all the while

upon her bed, and a few days after the child was born she died. I fancy

that just at the last she knew me; I was standing by the bed, and the

old look came into her eyes for a second, and then she shuddered and

groaned and died. It was an ill work I did that night when you were

present; I broke open the door of the house of life, without knowing or

caring what might pass forth or enter in. I recollect your telling me

at the time, sharply enough, and rightly too, in one sense, that I had

ruined the reason of a human being by a foolish experiment, based on an

absurd theory. You did well to blame me, but my theory was not all

absurdity. What I said Mary would see she saw, but I forgot that no

human eyes can look on such a sight with impunity. And I forgot, as I

have just said, that when the house of life is thus thrown open, there

may enter in that for which we have no name, and human flesh may become

the veil of a horror one dare not express. I played with energies which

I did not understand, you have seen the ending of it. Helen Vaughan did

well to bind the cord about her neck and die, though the death was

horrible. The blackened face, the hideous form upon the bed, changing

and melting before your eyes from woman to man, from man to beast, and

from beast to worse than beast, all the strange horror that you

witness, surprises me but little. What you say the doctor whom you sent

for saw and shuddered at I noticed long ago; I knew what I had done the

moment the child was born, and when it was scarcely five years old I

surprised it, not once or twice but several times with a playmate, you

may guess of what kind. It was for me a constant, an incarnate horror,

and after a few years I felt I could bear it no more, and I sent Helen

Vaughan away. You know now what frightened the boy in the wood. The

rest of the strange story, and all else that you tell me, as discovered

by your friend, I have contrived to learn from time to time, almost to

the last chapter. And now Helen is with her companions...



THE END.





NOTE.—Helen Vaughan was born on August 5th, 1865, at the Red House,

Breconshire, and died on July 25th, 1888, in her house in a street off

Piccadilly, called Ashley Street in the story.