They return at evening A book of ghost stories
Not to impress you, but to see _how_ they impressed you. Had you
appeared disgusted, I should have known it was useless to pursue our
acquaintanceship. All my life I have been a law unto myself, and that
is probably why the Law has always shown so much interest in me. I know
myself to be a being apart, one to whom the codes and conventions of
the herd can never be applied. I have sampled every so-called ‘vice,’
including every known drug. Always, however, with an object in view.
Mere purposeless debauchery is not in my character. My Art, to which
you have so kindly referred, must always come first. Sometimes it
demands that I sleep with a negress, that I take opium or hashish;
sometimes it dictates rigid asceticism, and I tell you, my friend,
that if such an instruction came again to-morrow, as it has often
come in the past, I could, without the slightest effort, lead a life
of complete abstinence from drink, drugs and women for an indefinite
period. In other words, I have gained absolute control over my senses
after the most exhaustive experiments with them. How many can say the
same? Yet one does not know what life can teach till that control is
established. The man of superior power--there are no such women--should
not flinch from such experiments, he should seek to learn every lesson
evil as well as good has to teach. So will he be able to extend and
multiply his personality, but always he must remain absolute master of
himself. And then he will have many strange rewards, and many secrets
will be revealed to him. Some day, perhaps, I will show you some which
have been revealed to me.”
“Have you absolutely no regard for what is called ‘morality’?” asked
Bellamy.
“None whatever. If I wanted money I should pick your pocket. If I
desired your wife--if you have one--I should seduce her. If someone
obstructs me--something happens to him. You must understand this
clearly--for I am not bragging--I do nothing purposelessly nor
from what I consider a bad motive. To me ‘bad’ is synonymous with
‘unnecessary.’ I do nothing unnecessary.”
“Why is revenge necessary?” asked Bellamy.
“A plausible question. Well, for one thing I like cruelty--one of my
unpublished works is a defence of Super-Sadism. Then it is a warning to
others, and lastly it is a vindication of my personality. All excellent
reasons. Do you like my _Thus spake Eblis_?”
“Masterly,” replied Bellamy. “The perfection of prose, but, of course,
its magical significance is far beyond my meagre understanding.”
“My dear friend, there is only one man in Europe about whom that would
not be equally true.”
“Who is that?” asked Bellamy.
Clinton’s eyes narrowed venomously.
“His name is Solan,” he said. “One of these days, perhaps----” and
he paused. “Well, now, if you like I will tell you of some of my
experiences.”
* * * * *
An hour later a monologue drew to its close. “And now, Mr. Bellamy,
what is your rôle in life?”
“I’m a barrister.”
“Oh, so you _are_ connected with the Law?”
“I hope,” said Bellamy smiling, “you’ll find it possible to forget it.”
“It would help me to do so,” replied Clinton, “if you would lend me ten
pounds. I have forgotten my note-case--a frequent piece of negligence
on my part--and a lady awaits me. Thanks very much. We shall meet
again, I trust.”
“I was just about to suggest that you dined with me one day this week?”
“This is Tuesday,” said Clinton. “What about Thursday?”
“Excellent, will you meet me at the Gridiron about eight?”
“I will be there,” said Clinton, mopping his eye. “Good-night.”
* * * * *
“I can understand now what happened to Franton,” said Bellamy to Mr.
Solan the next evening. “He is the most fascinating and catholic talker
I have met. He has a wicked charm. If half to which he lays claim is
true, he has packed ten lives into sixty years.”
“In a sense,” said Mr. Solan, “he has the best brain of any man living.
He has also a marvellous histrionic sense and he is _deadly_. But he is
vulnerable. On Thursday encourage him to talk of other things. He will
consider you an easy victim. You must make the most of the evening--it
may rather revolt you--he is sure to be suspicious at first.”
* * * * *
“It amuses and reassures me,” said Clinton at ten fifteen on Thursday
evening in Bellamy’s room, “to find you have a lively appreciation of
obscenity.”
He brought out a snuff box, an exquisite little masterpiece with an
inexpressibly vile design enamelled on the lid, from which he took a
pinch of white powder which he sniffed up from the palm of his hand.
“I suppose,” said Bellamy, “that all your magical lore would be quite
beyond me.”
“Oh yes, quite,” replied Clinton, “but I can show you what sort of
power a study of that lore has given me, by a little experiment. Turn
round, look out of the window, and keep quite quiet till I speak to
you.”
It was a brooding night. In the south-west the clouds made restless,
quickly shifting patterns--the heralds of coming storm. The scattered
sound of the traffic in Kingsway rose and fell with the gusts of the
rising wind. Bellamy found a curious picture forming in his brain. A
wide lonely waste of snow and a hill with a copse of fir trees, out
from which someone came running. Presently this person halted and
looked back, and then out from the wood appeared another figure (of a
shape he had seen before). And then the one it seemed to be pursuing
began to run on, staggering through the snow, over which the Shape
seemed to skim lightly and rapidly, and to gain on its quarry. Then
it appeared as if the one in front could go no further. He fell and
rose again, and faced his pursuer. The Shape came swiftly on and flung
itself hideously on the one in front, who fell to his knees. The two
seemed intermingled for a moment....
“Well,” said Clinton, “and what did you think of that?”
Bellamy poured out a whisky and soda and drained it.
“Extremely impressive,” he replied. “It gave me a feeling of great
horror.”
“The individual whose rather painful end you have just witnessed once
did me a dis-service. He was found in a remote part of Norway. Why he
chose to hide himself there is rather difficult to understand.”
“Cause and effect?” asked Bellamy, forcing a smile.
Clinton took another pinch of the white powder.
“Possibly a mere coincidence,” he replied. “And now I must go, for
I have a ‘date,’ as they say in America, with a rather charming and
profligate young woman. Could you possibly lend me a little money?”
When he had gone Bellamy washed his person very thoroughly in a hot
bath, brushed his teeth with zeal, and felt a little cleaner. He tried
to read in bed, but between him and Mr. Jacobs’s ‘Night-Watchman’ a
bestial and persistent phantasmagoria forced its way. He dressed again,
went out, and walked the streets till dawn.
Some time later Mr. Solan happened to overhear a conversation in the
club smoking-room.
“I can’t think what’s happened to Bellamy,” said one. “He does no work
and is always about with that incredible swine Clinton.”
“A kink somewhere, I suppose,” said another, yawning. “Dirty streak
probably.”
“Were you referring to Mr. Edward Bellamy, a friend of mine?” asked Mr.
Solan.
“We were,” said one.
“Have you ever known him do a discreditable thing?”
“Not till now,” said another.
“Or a stupid thing?”
“I’ll give you that,” said one.
“Well,” said Mr. Solan, “you have my word for it that he has not
changed,” and he passed on.
“Funny old devil that,” said one.
“Rather shoves the breeze up me,” said another. “He seems to know
something. I like Bellamy, and I’ll apologise to him for taking his
name in vain when I see him next. But that bastard Clinton!----”
* * * * *
“It will have to be soon,” said Mr. Solan. “I heard to-day that he will
be given notice to quit any day now. Are you prepared to go through
with it?”
“He’s the Devil incarnate,” said Bellamy. “If you knew what I’d been
through in the last month!”
“I have a shrewd idea of it,” replied Mr. Solan. “You think he trusts
you completely?”
“I don’t think he has any opinion of me at all, except that I lend him
money whenever he wants it. Of course, I’ll go through with it. Let it
be Friday night. What must I do? Tell me exactly. I know that but for
you I should have chucked my hand in long ago.”
“My dear Bellamy, you have done marvellously well, and you will finish
the business as resolutely as you have carried it through so far. Well,
this is what you must do. Memorise it flawlessly.”
* * * * *
“I will arrange it that we arrive at his rooms just about eleven
o’clock. I will ring up five minutes before we leave.”
“I shall be doing my part,” said Mr. Solan.
Clinton was in high spirits at the Café Royal on Friday evening.
“I like you, my dear Bellamy,” he observed, “not merely because you
have a refined taste in pornography and have lent me a good deal of
money, but for a more subtle reason. You remember when we first met
I was puzzled by you. Well, I still am. There is some psychic power
surrounding you. I don’t mean that you are conscious of it, but there
is some very powerful influence working for you. Great friends though
we are, I sometimes feel that this power is hostile to myself. Anyhow,
we have had many pleasant times together.”
“And,” replied Bellamy, “I hope we shall have many more. It has
certainly been a tremendous privilege to have been permitted to enjoy
so much of your company. As for that mysterious power you refer to, I
am entirely unconscious of it, and as for hostility--well, I hope I’ve
convinced you during the last month that I’m not exactly your enemy.”
“You have, my dear fellow,” replied Clinton. “You have been a charming
and generous companion. All the same, there is an enigmatic side to
you. What shall we do to-night?”
“Whatever you please,” said Bellamy.
“I suggest we go round to my rooms,” said Clinton, “bearing a bottle
of whisky, and that I show you another little experiment. You are now
sufficiently trained to make it a success.”
“Just what I should have hoped for,” replied Bellamy enthusiastically.
“I will order the whisky now.” He went out of the grill-room for a
moment and had a few words with Mr. Solan over the telephone. And then
he returned, paid the bill, and they drove off together.
Clinton’s rooms were in a dingy street about a hundred yards from the
British Museum. They were drab and melancholy, and contained nothing
but the barest necessities and some books.
It was exactly eleven o’clock as Clinton took out his latchkey, and it
was just exactly then that Mr. Solan unlocked the door of a curious
little room leading off from his study.
Then he opened a bureau and took from it a large book bound in plain
white vellum. He sat down at a table and began a bizarre procedure. He
took from a folder at the end of the book a piece of what looked like
crumpled tracing paper, and, every now and again consulting the quarto,
drew certain symbols upon the paper, while repeating a series of short
sentences in a strange tongue. The ink into which he dipped his pen for
this exercise was a smoky sullen scarlet.
Presently the atmosphere of the room became intense, and charged with
suspense and crisis. The symbols completed, Mr. Solan became rigid and
taut, and his eyes were those of one passing into trance.
* * * * *
“First of all a drink, my dear Bellamy,” said Clinton.
Bellamy pulled the cork and poured out two stiff pegs. Clinton drank
his off. He gave the impression of being not quite at his ease.
“Some enemy of mine is working against me to-night,” he said. “I feel