They return at evening A book of ghost stories
of the world put together. But my mind was soon made up; I could not
recommend him. A week later I got a letter--a charming letter, a most
understanding letter, from Clinton. He realised, so he said, that I had
been bound to give the secretary of the Ancient Mysteries the advice
I had--no doubt I considered he was not a decent person to meet my
friends. He was naturally disappointed, and so on.
“How the devil, I wondered, did he know--not only that I had put my
thumbs down against him, but also the very reason for which I had put
them down!
“So I asked Melrose, who told me he hadn’t mentioned the matter to
a soul, but had discreetly removed Clinton’s name from the list of
candidates for election. And no one should have been any the wiser; but
how much wiser Clinton was!
“A week later I got another letter from him, saying that he was
leaving England for a month. He enclosed a funny little paper pattern
thing, an outline cut out with scissors with a figure painted on it, a
beastly-looking thing. Like this!”
And he drew a quick sketch on the table-cloth.
Certainly it was unpleasant, thought Bellamy. It appeared to be a
crouching figure in the posture of pursuit. The robes it wore seemed to
rise and billow above its head. Its arms were long--too long--scraping
the ground with curved and spiked nails. Its head was not quite human,
its expression devilish and venomous. A horrid, hunting thing, its
eyes encarnadined and infinitely evil, glowing animal eyes in the foul
dark face. And those long vile arms--not pleasant to be in their grip.
He hadn’t realised Philip could draw as well as that. He straightened
himself, lit a cigarette, and rallied his fighting powers. For the
first time he realised, why, that Philip was in serious trouble! Just
a rather beastly little sketch on a table-cloth. And now it was up to
him!
“Clinton told me,” continued Philip, “that this was a most powerful
symbol which I should find of the greatest help in my mystical studies.
I must place it against my forehead, and pronounce at the same time a
certain sentence. And, Teddie, suddenly, I found myself doing so. I
remember I had a sharp feeling of surprise and irritation when I found
I had placarded this thing on my head and repeated this sentence.”
“What was the sentence?” asked Bellamy.
“Well, that’s a funny thing,” said Philip. “I can’t remember it, and
both the slip of paper on which it was written and the paper pattern
had disappeared the next morning. I remember putting them in my pocket
book, but they completely vanished. And, Teddie, things haven’t been
the same since.” He filled his glass and emptied it, lit a cigarette,
and at once pressed the life from it in an ash tray and then lit
another.
“Bluntly, I’ve been bothered, haunted perhaps is too strong a word--too
pompous. It’s like this. That same night I had read myself tired in the
study, and about twelve o’clock I was glancing sleepily around the room
when I noticed that one of the bookcases was throwing out a curious
and unaccountable shadow. It seemed as if something was hiding behind
the bookcase, and that this was that something’s shadow. I got up and
walked over to it, and it became just a bookcase shadow, rectangular
and reassuring. I went to bed.
“As I turned on the light on the landing I noticed the same sort of
shadow coming from the grandfather clock. I went to sleep all right,
but suddenly found myself peering out of the window, and there was
that shadow stretching out from the trees and in the drive. At first
there was about that much of it showing,” and he drew a line down the
sketch on the table-cloth, “about a sixth. Well, it’s been a simple
story since then. Every night that shadow has grown a little. It is now
almost all visible. And it comes out suddenly from different places.
Last night it was on the wall beside the door into the Dutch garden. I
never know where I’m going to see it next.”
“And how long has this been going on?” asked Bellamy.
“A month to-morrow. You sound as if you thought I was mad. I probably
am.”
“No, you’re as sane as I am. But why don’t you leave Franton and come
to London?”
“And see it on the wall of the club bedroom! I’ve tried that, Teddie,
but one’s as bad as the other. Doesn’t it sound ludicrous? But it
isn’t to me.”
“Do you usually eat as little as this?” asked Bellamy.
“‘And drink as much?’ you were too polite to add. Well, there’s more to
it than indigestion, and it isn’t incipient D.T. It’s just I don’t feel
very hungry nowadays.”
Bellamy got that rush of tip-toe pugnacity which had won him so many
desperate cases. He had had a Highland grandmother from whom he had
inherited a powerful visualising imagination, by which he got a
fleeting yet authentic insight into the workings of men’s minds. So now
he knew in a flash how he would feel if Philip’s ordeal had been his.
“Whatever it is, Philip,” he said, “there are two of us now.”
“Then you do believe in it,” said Philip. “Sometimes I can’t. On a
sunny morning with starlings chattering and buses swinging up Waterloo
Place--then how can such things be? But at night I know they are.”
“Well,” said Bellamy, after a pause, “let us look at it coldly and
precisely. Ever since Clinton sent you a certain painted paper pattern
you’ve seen a shadowed reproduction of it. Now I take it he has--as
you suggested--unusual hypnotic power. He has studied mesmerism?”
“I think he’s studied every bloody thing,” said Philip.
“Then that’s a possibility.”
“Yes,” agreed Philip, “it’s a possibility. And I’ll fight it, Teddie,
now that I have you, but can you minister to a mind diseased?”
“Throw quotation to the dogs,” replied Bellamy. “What one man has done
another can undo--there’s one for you.”
“Teddie,” said Philip, “will you come down to Franton to-night?”
“Yes,” said Bellamy. “But why?”
“Because I want you to be with me at twelve o’clock to-night when I
look out from the study window and think I see a shadow flung on the
flag-stones outside the drawing-room window.”
“Why not stay up here for to-night?”
“Because I want to get it settled. Either I’m mad or---- Will you come?”
“If you really mean to go down to-night I’ll come with you.”
“Well, I’ve ordered the car to be here by 9.15,” said Philip. “We’ll
go to your rooms, and you can pack a suitcase and we’ll be there by
half past ten.” Suddenly he looked up sharply, his shoulders drew
together and his eyes narrowed and became intent. It happened that at
that moment no voice was busy in the dining-room of the Brooks’s Club.
No doubt they were changing over at the Power Station, for the lights
dimmed for a moment. It seemed to Bellamy that someone was developing
wavy, wicked little films far back in his brain, and a voice suddenly
whispered in his ear with a vile sort of shyness, “He cometh and he
passeth by!”
As they drove down through the night they talked little. Philip drowsed
and Bellamy’s mind was busy. His preliminary conclusion was that
Philip was neither mad nor going mad, but that he was not normal. He
had always been very sensitive and highly strung, reacting too quickly
and deeply to emotional stresses--and this living alone and eating
nothing--the worst thing for him.
And this Clinton. He had the reputation of being an evil man of power,
and such persons’ hypnotic influence was absurdly underrated. He’d get
on his track.
“When does Clinton get back to England?” he asked.
“If he kept to his plans he’ll be back about now,” said Philip
sleepily.
“What are his haunts?”
“He lives near the British Museum in rooms, but he’s usually to be
found at the Chorazin Club after six o’clock. It’s in Larn Street, just
off Shaftesbury Avenue. A funny place with some funny members.”
Bellamy made a note of this.
“Does he know you know me?”
“No, I think not, there’s no reason why he should.”
“So much the better,” said Bellamy.
“Why?” asked Philip.
“Because I’m going to cultivate his acquaintance.”
“Well, do look out, Teddie, he has a marvellous power of hiding the
fact, but he’s dangerous, and I don’t want you to get into any trouble
like mine.”
“I’ll be careful,” said Bellamy.
Ten minutes later they passed the gates of the drive of Franton Manor,
and Philip began glancing uneasily about him and peering sharply where
the elms flung shadows. It was a perfectly still and cloudless night,
with a quarter moon. It was just a quarter to eleven as they entered
the house. They went up to the library on the first floor which looked
out over the Dutch Garden to the Park. Franton is a typical Georgian
house, with charming gardens and Park, but too big and lonely for one
nervous person to inhabit, thought Bellamy.
The butler brought up sandwiches and drinks, and Bellamy thought he
seemed relieved at their arrival. Philip began to eat ravenously, and
gulped down two stiff whiskies. He kept looking at his watch, and his
eyes were always searching the walls.
“It comes, Teddie, even when it ought to be too light for shadows.”
“Now then,” replied the latter, “I’m with you, and we’re going to keep
quite steady. It may come, but I shall not leave you until it goes and
for ever.” And he managed to lure Philip on to another subject, and
for a time he seemed quieter, but suddenly he stiffened, and his eyes
became rigid and staring. “It’s there,” he cried, “I know it!”
“Steady, Philip!” said Bellamy sharply. “Where?”
“Down below,” he whispered, and began creeping towards the window.
Bellamy reached it first and looked down. He saw it at once, knew what
it was, and set his teeth.
He heard Philip shaking and breathing heavily at his side.
“It’s there,” he said, “and it’s complete at last!”
“Now, Philip,” said Bellamy, “we’re going down, and I’m going out
first, and we’ll settle the thing once and for all.”
They went down the stairs and into the drawing-room. Bellamy turned the
light on and walked quickly to the French window and began to try to
open the catch. He fumbled with it for a moment.
“Let me do it,” said Philip, and put his hand to the catch, and then
the window opened and he stepped out.
“Come back, Philip!” cried Bellamy. As he said it the lights went dim,
a fierce blast of burning air filled the room, the window came crashing
back. Then through the glass Bellamy saw Philip suddenly throw up his
hands, and something huge and dark lean from the wall and envelop him.
He seemed to writhe for a moment in its folds. Bellamy strove madly to
thrust the window open, while his soul strove to withstand the mighty
and evil power he felt was crushing him, and then he saw Philip flung
down with awful force, and he could hear the foul, crushing thud as his
head struck the stone.
And then the window opened and Bellamy dashed out into a quiet and
scented night.
At the inquest the doctor stated he was satisfied that Mr. Franton’s
death was due to a severe heart attack--he had never recovered from
the gas, he said, and such a seizure was always possible.
“Then there are no peculiar circumstances about the case?” asked the
Coroner.
The doctor hesitated. “Well, there is one thing,” he said slowly.
“The pupils of Mr. Franton’s eyes were--well, to put it simply to the
jury--instead of being round, they were drawn up so that they resembled
half-moons--in a sense they were like the pupils in the eyes of a cat.”
“Can you explain that?” asked the Coroner.
“No, I have never seen a similar case,” replied the doctor. “But I am
satisfied the cause of death was as I have stated.”
Bellamy was, of course, called as a witness, but he had little to say.
* * * * *
About eleven o’clock on the morning after these events Bellamy rang up
the Chorazin Club from his chambers and learned from the manager that