They return at evening A book of ghost stories
an influence strongly. However, let us try the little experiment. Draw
up your chair to the window, and do not look round till I speak.”
Bellamy did as he was ordered, and peered at a dark façade across the
street. Suddenly it was as if wall after wall rolled up before his
eyes and passed into the sky, and he found himself gazing into a long
faintly-lit room. As his eyes grew more used to the dimness he could
pick out a number of recumbent figures, apparently resting on couches.
And then from the middle of the room a flame seemed to leap and then
another and another until there was a fiery circle playing round
one of these figures, which slowly rose to its feet and turned and
stared at Bellamy; and its haughty, evil face grew vast, till it was
thrust, dazzling and fiery right into his own. He put up his hands to
thrust back its scorching menace--and there was the wall of the house
opposite, and Clinton was saying, “Well?”
“Your power terrifies me!” said Bellamy. “Who was that One I saw?”
“The one you saw was myself,” said Clinton smiling, “during my third
reincarnation, about 1750 B.C. I am the only man in the world who can
perform that quite considerable feat. Give me another drink.”
Bellamy got up (it was time!). Suddenly he felt invaded by a mighty
reassurance. His ghostly terror left him. Something irresistible was
sinking into his soul, and he knew that at the destined hour the
promised succour had come to sustain him. He felt thrilled, resolute,
exalted.
He had his back to Clinton as he filled the glasses, and with a
lightning motion he dropped a pellet into Clinton’s which fizzled like
a tiny comet down through the bubbles and was gone.
“Here’s to many more pleasant evenings,” said Clinton. “You’re a brave
man, Bellamy,” he exclaimed, putting the glass to his lips. “For what
you have seen might well appal the devil!”
“I’m not afraid because I trust you,” replied Bellamy.
“By Eblis, this is a strong one,” said Clinton, peering into his glass.
“Same as usual,” said Bellamy, laughing. “Tell me something. A man I
knew who’d been many years in the East told me about some race out
there who cut out paper patterns and paint them and send them to their
enemies. Have you ever heard of anything of the sort?”
Clinton dropped his glass on the table sharply. He did not answer for a
moment, but shifted uneasily in his chair.
“Who was this friend of yours?” he asked, in a voice already slightly
thick.
“A chap called Bond,” said Bellamy.
“Yes, I’ve heard of that charming practice. In fact, I can cut them
myself.”
“Really, how’s it done? I should be fascinated to see it.”
Clinton’s eyes blinked and his head nodded.
“I’ll show you one,” he said, “but it’s dangerous and you must be very
careful. Go to the bottom drawer of that bureau and bring me the piece
of straw paper you’ll find there. And there are some scissors on the
writing table and two crayons in the tray.” Bellamy brought them to him.
“Now,” said Clinton, “this thing, as I say, is dangerous. If I wasn’t
drunk I wouldn’t do it. And why am I drunk?” He leaned back in his
chair and put his hand over his eyes. And then he sat up and, taking
the scissors, began running them with extreme dexterity round the
paper. And then he made some marks with the coloured pencils.
The final result of these actions was not unfamiliar in appearance to
Bellamy.
“There you are,” said Clinton. “That, my dear Bellamy, is potentially
the most deadly little piece of paper in the world. Would you please
take it to the fireplace and burn it to ashes?”
Bellamy burnt a piece of paper to ashes.
Clinton’s head had dropped into his hands.
“Another drink?” asked Bellamy.
“My God, no,” said Clinton, yawning and reeling in his chair. And then
his head went down again. Bellamy went up to him and shook him. His
right hand hovered a second over Clinton’s coat pocket.
“Wake up,” he said, “I want to know what would make that piece of paper
actually deadly?”
Clinton looked up blearily at him and then rallied slightly.
“You’d like to know, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Bellamy. “Tell me.”
“Just repeating six words,” said Clinton, “but I shall not repeat
them.” Suddenly his eyes became intent and fixed on a corner of the
room.
“What’s that?” he asked sharply. “There! there! there! in the corner.”
Bellamy felt again the presence of a power. The air of the room seemed
rent and sparking.
“That, Clinton,” he said, “is the spirit of Philip Franton, whom you
murdered.” And then he sprang at Clinton, who was staggering from his
chair. He seized him and pressed a little piece of paper fiercely to
his forehead.
“Now, Clinton,” he cried, “say those words!”
And then Clinton rose to his feet, and his face was working hideously.
His eyes seemed bursting from his head, their pupils stretched and
curved, foam streamed from his lips. He flung his hands above his head
and cried in a voice of agony:
“He cometh and he passeth by!”
And then he crashed to the floor.
* * * * *
As Bellamy moved towards the door the lights went dim, in from the
window poured a burning wind, and then from the wall in the corner a
shadow began to grow. When he saw it, swift icy ripples poured through
him. It grew and grew, and began to lean down towards the figure on the
floor. As Bellamy took a last look back it was just touching it. He
shuddered, opened the door, closed it quickly, and ran down the stairs
and out into the night.
PROFESSOR POWNALL’S OVERSIGHT
PROFESSOR POWNALL’S OVERSIGHT
A note by J. C. Cary, M.D.:
About sixteen years ago I received one morning by post a parcel, which,
when I opened, I found to contain a letter and a packet. The latter was
inscribed, “To be opened and published fifteen years from this date.”
The letter read as follows:
“Dear Sir,
“Forgive me for troubling you, but I have decided to entrust the
enclosed narrative to your keeping. As I state, I wish it to be
opened by you, and that you should arrange for it to be published.
I enclose five ten-pound notes, which sum is to be used, partly to
remunerate you, and partly to cover the cost of publication, if such
expenditure should be found necessary. About the time you receive
this, I shall disappear. The contents of the enclosed packet, though
to some extent revealing the cause of my disappearance, give no index
as to its method.--E.P.”
The receipt of this eccentric document occasioned me considerable
surprise. I attended Professor Pownall (I have altered all names,
for obvious reasons) in my professional capacity four or five times
for minor ailments. He struck me as a man of extreme intellectual
brilliance, but his personality was repulsive to me. He had a virulent
and brutal wit which he made no scruple of exercising at my and
everyone else’s expense. He apparently possessed not one single friend
in the world, and I can only conclude that I came nearer to fulfilling
this rôle than anyone else.
I kept this packet by me for safe keeping for the fifteen years, and
then I opened it, about a year ago. The contents ran as follows:
The date of my birth is of complete unimportance, for my life began
when I first met Hubert Morisson at the age of twelve and a half at
Flamborough College. It will end to-morrow at 6.45 p.m.
I doubt if ever in the history of the human intellect there has been
so continuous, so close, so exhausting a rivalry as that between
Morisson and myself. I will chronicle its bare outline. We joined the
same form at Flamborough--two forms higher, I may say, than that in
which even the most promising new boys are usually placed. We were
promoted every term till we reached the Upper Sixth at the age of 16.
Morisson was always top, I was always second, a few hundred marks
behind him. We both got scholarships at Oxford, Morisson just beating
me for Balliol. Before I left Flamborough, the Head Master sent for
me and told me that he considered I had the best brain of any boy who
had passed through his hands. I thought of asking him, if that were
so, why I had been so consistently second to Morisson all through
my school career; but even then I thought I knew the answer to that
question.
He beat me, by a few marks, for all the great University prizes for
which we entered. I remember one of the examiners, impressed by my
papers, asking me to lunch with him. “Pownall,” he said, “Morisson
and you are the most brilliant undergraduates who have been at Oxford
in my time. I am not quite sure why, but I am convinced of two
things; firstly, that he will always finish above you, and secondly,
that you have the better brain.”
By the time we left Oxford, both with the highest degrees, I had
had remorselessly impressed upon me the fact that my superiority
of intelligence had been and always would be neutralised by some
constituent in Morisson’s mind which defied and dominated that
superiority--save in one respect: we both took avidly to chess, and
very soon there was no one in the University in our class, but I
became, and remained, his master.
Chess has been the one great love of my life. Mankind I detest and
despise. Far from growing wiser, men seem to me, decade by decade, to
grow more inane as the means for revealing their ineptitude become
more numerous, more varied and more complex. Women do not exist for
me--they are merely variants from a bad model: but for chess, that
superb, cold, infinitely satisfying anodyne to life, I feel the
ardour of a lover, the humility of a disciple. Chess, that greatest
of all games, greater than any game! It is, in my opinion, one of the
few supreme products of the human intellect, if, as I often doubt, it
is of human origin.
Morisson’s success, I realise, was partly due to his social gifts; he
possessed that shameless flair for making people do what he wanted,
which is summed up in the word “charm,” a gift from the gods, no
doubt, but one of which I have never had the least wish to be the
recipient.
Did I like Morisson? More to the point, perhaps, did I hate him?
Neither, I believe. I simply grew profoundly and terribly used to
him. His success fascinated me. I had sometimes short and violent
paroxysms of jealousy, but these I fought, and on the whole conquered.
He became a Moral Philosophy Don at Oxford: I obtained a similar but
inevitably inferior appointment in a Midland University. We used to
meet during vacations and play chess at the City of London Club.
We both improved rapidly, but still I kept ahead of him. After ten
years of drudgery, I inherited a considerable sum, more than enough
to satisfy all my wants. If one avoids all contact with women one
can live marvellously cheaply: I am continuously astounded at men’s
inability to grasp this great and simple truth.
I have had few moments of elation in my life, but when I got into the
train for London on leaving that cesspool in Warwickshire, I had a
fierce feeling of release. No more should I have to ram useless and
rudimentary speculation into the heads of oafs, who hated me as much
as I despised them.
Directly I arrived in London I experienced one of those irresistible
impulses which I could never control, and I went down to Oxford.
Morisson was married by then, so I refused to stay in his house, but
I spent hours every day with him. The louts into whom he attempted
to force elementary ethics seemed rather less dingy but even more
mentally costive than my Midland half-wits, and, so far as that went,
I envied him not at all. I had meant to stay one week; I was in
Oxford for six, for I rapidly came to the conclusion that I ranked