MURGUNSTRUMM AND OTHERS
Hugh B. Cave
Smashwords edition published at Smashwords by Crossroad Press
© 2011 / The Estate of Hugh B. Cave
Copy-edited by: Legion
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Contents
The Strange Death of Ivan Gromleigh
The Affair of the Clutching Hand
Foreword
This book was conceived back in January, 1972, when its editor, Karl Edward Wagner, happened to see a story of mine in Good Housekeeping. Karl wrote to the magazine, asking whether the Hugh Cave whose name appeared on the story might be the Hugh B. Cave who used to write for the pulps. For years I had written for The Saturday Evening Post, American, Redbook, Country Gentleman and other slickpaper magazines under the old name, but for reasons known only to themselves, Good Housekeeping's editors had dropped the middle initial. (The "B" by the way, in case you're curious, stands for "Barnett".)
Good Housekeeping replied to Karl's letter saying yes, their Cave was indeed the pulp-writer from way back when, and Karl wrote to me at the address they gave him. After a pleasant exchange of letters he inquired whether anyone had ever put together a volume of my old pulp stories, especially those from such magazines as Weird Tales, Strange Tales, and the many shudder publications. If not, would I look with favor on such a venture or was I one of those writers who, having moved from the pulps into the slicks and books, preferred not to remember the old days of work done in too big a hurry for low, low rates.
I was in an awkward position. When I was writing those pulp stories back in the thirties and early forties—under various names I must have done about 800 of them-1 had proudly saved a copy of every story. But in the early sixties I lost every one of those copies in a fire. Every one of them, God's truth. I couldn't, therefore, read some of them over and decide from my reaction to them what to say in reply to Karl's suggestion. I could only explain my position and ask him what he thought of the stories.
He came back with: "You wrote some excellent weird-fantasy stories. A good example is Murgunstrumm, which you did for the last issue of Strange Tales. I doubt if many readers today have read this, and yet I would consider it a classic paced with a relentless ferocity that few writers have ever brought off." And in another letter: "Your stories were head and shoulders over the bulk of the weird-menace field; considering how fast you must have turned them out, it's astonishing how well-crafted they were. Stories like Death Stalks the Night are classic examples of the pulp formula, and display far superior writing than was usually given this type of story."
(You see what I'm doing here, Karl, old boy? Passing the buck to you, just in case.) Justin Case, by the way, was a pen-name of mine in the old pulp days. Ah, we had fun then with pen-names and sly jokes.
So . . . after a further exchange of letters, Karl Wagner and I reached an understanding as follows: He, not I, would select the best of my old weird-fantasy stories. (I hadn't any copies of them anyway.) Lee Brown Coye would illustrate them. (Wonderful!) "Turning Coye loose on something like this is like giving a straight razor to a psychopath," Karl wrote. "This is going to be quite a book. For sheer unrestrained horror, I don't think there's ever been anything like it. You and Coye together ought to flood the coronary care units all across the country!"
From Lee Brown Coye himself came some marvelous letters including one that contained a remark about rabbits. "Your stuff really turns me on, and I wish I could do nothing else. I bought two black rabbits a few weeks ago and named them Mulvahey's Ghost and Jum Peters from your Dead Man's Belt, which I was making drawings for at the time. They are fine rabbits."
As I said above, we had fun in the old pulp days. It seems we still can. And to me, after a writing career that began in high school and is still going on at age 66, the enjoyment part is important.
One final word, please. When Karl Wagner first suggested this volume, I made up my mind that I would not be persuaded to change these old stories in order to "improve" them. Being a writer himself (a mighty good one) Karl did not even suggest that I do so, bless him. I am convinced that if stories such as these have any lasting value, it is in revealing the kind of work we young pulp-writers were doing in those days when rates were low and one had to make a typewriter smoke in order to keep eating. I was just out of high school when I sold my first pulp story, and about thirty when I moved on to books and the slicks. Perhaps I could make some of these stories more readable by reworking them today. But they wouldn't be authentic then, would they?
I recently began doing this kind of story again, by the way. First loves die hard. Ladies in Waiting is one of the new ones. If you can't tell the difference, it must mean . . . well, never mind.
Have fun, anyway.
Hugh B. Cave
Pompano Beach, Florida May, 1976
Murgunstrumm
1. 3A.M.
The night hours are terrifying in that part of the country, away from traveled roads and the voices of sane men. They bring the moan of lost winds, the furtive whisper of swaying trees, the agony wail of frequent storms. They bring madness to men already mad, and fear and gibbering and horrible screams of torment. And sometimes peals of wild hideous laughter a thousand times worse.
And with the dread of darkness, that night, came other fears more acute and more terrifying, to clutch viciously at the man who sought to escape. Macabre horrors of the past, breeding anew in the slough of his memory. Visions of the future, huge and black before him. Grim dread of detection!
The square clock at the end of the long corridor, radium-dialed for the guard's benefit, told him silently that the hour was 3 A.M. The hour when darkness deepens before groping dawn; when man is so close to that other-world of mystery that a mere closing of his eyes, a mere clutching of the subconscious, brings contact with nameless shapeless entities of abhorrent magnitude. The hour when the night watch in this grim gray structure, and the solitary guard on the outer walls, would be least alert. His hour, for which he had waited seven months of eternity!
His eyes were wide, staring, fearful. He crept like a cat along the corridor, listening for every separate sound. Somewhere in the tiers above him a man was screeching violently, thumping on a locked door with frenzied fists. That would be Kennery, whom they had dragged in only a week ago. They had warned him to be still at night, poor devil. In the morning he would learn the awful loneliness and silence of solitary confinement. God! And men like that had to go on living, had to wait for death, slowly!
He prowled forward again, trembling, hugging the wall with thin fingers. Three more corridors now and he would be in the yard. He clutched the key feverishly, looking down at it with hungry eyes. The yard, then the last great gate to freedom, and then…
His groping hands touched a closed door. He stopped abruptly. Over his head hung the number 23. The V. D. ward. And he shuddered. Someone was mumbling, laughing, inside—Halsey, the poor diseased idiot who had been here eighteen endless years. He would be on hands and knees, crawling over the floor, searching for beetles. He would seek and seek; and then, triumphant at last, he would sit for hours on his cot, holding a terrified insect cupped in his huge hands while he laughed gleefully at its frantic struggles.
Sickness surged over the fugitive's crouching body. He slunk on again quickly. God, he was glad when that mad caterwauling was smothered by a bend in the corridor! It clung in his brain as he tiptoed to the end of the passage. He fingered the key savagely. Eagerness glared in his eyes.
That key was his. His own! His own cunning had won it. During the past month he had obtained an impression of every separate lock between him and escape. Furtively, secretly, he had taken chewing-gum forms of every infernal slot. And no one knew. No one but Martin LeGeurn, Ruth's brother, who had come once each week, on visiting day, and carried the impressions back to the city, and had a master key made. A master key! Not successful at first. But he himself, with a steel nail file, had scraped and scraped at the thing until it fitted. And now, tonight . . . .
He descended the staircase warily, feeling his way every step. It was 3:10 now. The emergency ward would be open, with its stink of ether and its ghastly white tables on wheels. He could hide there until the guard passed. Every move according to schedule!
The door was open. He crept toward it, reached it, and stopped to peer anxiously behind him. Then he darted over the threshold and clung silently to the wall, and waited.
Hours passed. Frantic hours of doubt and uncertainty. Strange shapes came out of nowhere, out of his distorted mind, to leer and point at him. God! Would those memories never die? Would the horrors of that hour of madness, seven months gone, torment him forever, night after night, bringing back visions of those hideous creatures of living death and the awful limping thing of the inn? Was it not enough that they had already made a soul-twisted wreck of him and sent him to this black house of dread? Would they—
Footsteps! They were audible now, approaching down the corridor outside. They came closer, closer. They scuffed past with an ominous shf-shf-shf, whispering their way. With them came the muffled clink of keys, dangling from a great ring at the guard's belt. And the sounds died away.
The fugitive straightened up and stepped forward jerkily. And then he was running wildly down the passage in the opposite direction. A massive door loomed before him. He flung himself upon it, thrusting his own key into the lock. The door swung open. Cold, sweet air rushed into his face. Outside lay the yard, bleak, empty, and the towering walls that barred the world beyond.
His terror was gone now. His movements were mechanical and precise. Silently he locked the barrier behind him and slunk sideways along the wall of the building. If he made the slightest sound, the slightest false move, those glaring, accusing, penetrating searchlights would clank on and sweep the enclosure from one end to the other. The great siren would scream a lurid warning for miles and miles around, howling fiendishly that Paul Hill had escaped.
But if he went cautiously, noiselessly, he would be only a part of the darkness. There was no moon. The night was like pitch. The guard on the wall would not see.
A step at a time he moved along the stone, hesitating before each venture. Now a hundred feet lay between him and the gate. Now fifty; and the guard had not heard. Now twenty....
His breath caught in his throat as he darted across the final ten feet. Flat against the last barrier of all, he fumbled with the huge lock. His fingers turned the key with maddening slowness, to muffle any fatal thud. Then, putting his shoulder to the mass, he pushed. The big gate inched outward.
Without a sound he squeezed through the narrow aperture. His teeth were clenched; his lips tasted of blood. But he was out, outside! No one had seen him! Feverishly he pushed the great block of iron back into place. On hands and knees he crawled along the base of the wall, crawled and crawled, until the guard's turret was only a grim gray blur against the black sky. Then, rising abruptly to his feet, he stumbled into the well of darkness beyond.
"Thank God!" he whispered hoarsely. And then he was hacking, slashing his way through tangled black underbrush, with huge trees massed all about him and the inky sky blotted out overhead.
2. Armand LeGeurn
No one that night, saw the disheveled gray-clad figure that stumbled blindly from the woods and slunk silently, furtively down the state road. No one saw the unholy lust for freedom in his eyes, or the thin whiteness of his compressed lips.
He was violently afraid. He turned continually to glance behind him. But his fists were clenched viciously. If that hideous siren sounded now, when he was so close to ultimate freedom, they would never take him back there alive. Never! Once before, during his seven hellish months of confinement, the siren had screamed. That was the time Jenson—foolish, idiotic Jenson, mad as a hatter—had scaled the walls. The bloodhounds had uncovered his hiding place in the heart of the woods, and he had been dragged back, whimpering, broken.
But not this time! This time the escaped fugitive was no madman. Horror, not madness, had thrust him into that den of cackling idiots and screeching imbeciles. Stark horror, born of an experience beyond the minds of men. Horror of another world, a world of death and undead demons. And tonight, at four o'clock, Martin LeGeurn would be waiting at the crossroads, with a car. Martin would not be late.
Paul Hill began to run. On and on he ran. Once he turned abruptly and plunged into the edge of the woods as a passing bus roared up behind him. Then, as the bus bellowed past, he leaped to the shoulder of the road again, racing frantically.
A sob of relief soughed through his lips as he rounded the last sharp bend and saw, far ahead, a pair of stationary headlights glaring dimly toward him. He stumbled, caught himself. His legs were dead and heavy and aching sullenly, but he lurched on. And then he was gripping the side of the car with white nerveless hands, and Martin LeGeurn was dragging him into the seat.
There was no delay now. Everything had been arranged! The motor roared sharply. The roadster jerked forward and gathered momentum. The clock on the dash said five minutes past four. By five o'clock they would be in the city. The city, and Ruth, and—and then he would be free to finish it in his own way. Free to fight!
He fumbled with the leather bag under his feet.
"Why didn't Ruth come to see me?"
"Listen!" Martin LeGeurn said sibilantly.
Paul stiffened. He heard it. The sound was a moaning mutter, trembling on the still air, somehow audible above the drone of the motor. It rose higher, clearer, vibrating like a living voice. Paul's fingers dug cruelly into the leather seat cushion. The color seeped out of his face.
He knew that sound. It was a lurid screaming now, filling the night with shrill significance. The night watch had discovered his absence. He had blundered somewhere. Some door left open; some twist of unforeseen fate—and now, up there in the tower, a black-faced fiend was whirling the handle of the great siren faster and faster, gloating over its hellish voice. The same awful wail had seared the countryside when Jenson had fled into the woods, four months ago.
A terrible shudder shook Paul's body. He cringed against his companion. Courage left him. Incoherent mumblings came from his mouth.
"They know," Martin said jerkily. "In ten minutes the road will be patrolled. Every car will be stopped. Get into your clothes. Quick!"
Paul stiffened. Suddenly he sat erect, fists clenched savagely.
"They'll never take me back! I'll kill them! Do you hear? I'll kill them all!"
Then he was tearing at the leather bag between his knees. He got it open, dragged out the light brown suit and tan shirt, the necktie and shoes. Feverishly, as the car rushed on at reckless speed with Martin LeGeurn hunched over the wheel, he ripped off his asylum garb and struggled into the other. Deliberately he stuffed the gray clothes into the bag, and snapped the lock.
"Get off this road. Take the first right."
Martin glanced at him quickly, frowning.
"It's madness. If we hurry, they may not—"
"We can't make it. The state police will—"
"But if we turn off—"
"I know the way,! Tell you! Let me drive!"
Martin's foot jammed on the brake. Even before the car had trembled to a stop, Paul snapped his door open and leaped out. And he was no longer a ghastly spectre in gaunt gray as he stumbled in the glare of the headlights. He was a lean, powerful young man, decently dressed, resolute and determined and fighting viciously to overcome his own natural terror. He slid behind the wheel without a word. The car shot forward again under more expert hands. Roaring over the crest of the hill, it swerved suddenly to the right and lumbered into a narrow sub-highway of dirt and gravel.
And the siren screeched behind it. The whole of creation was vibrant with that infernal moan. It would throb and throb all through the night, flinging its message over an unbelievable radius. It would never stop!
But Paul paid no attention to it. He said curtly: "Heave that bag out. They'll never find it in here." And later, when Martin had obeyed, he said abruptly, scowling: "Why didn't Ruth come to see me?"
"She—she just couldn't, Paul."
"Why?"
"You wouldn't understand."
"She's waiting for me now. Is she?"
"I"—Martin stared straight at the windshield, biting his lips—"I don't know, Paul."
"She never tried to help me," Paul said bitterly. "Good God, she knew why I was in there! She could have gone to Kermeff and Allenby and made them listen."
"They left the city," Martin mumbled.
"That's a lie."
"She—"
"I know," Paul said heavily. "She went to them and they wouldn't listen. They're not supposed to listen. Doctor Anton Kermeff and Doctor Franklin Allenby,"—the words were bitter as acid—"that's who they are. Too big to believe the truth. Their job was to put me away and sign a statement that I was mad. That's all they cared."
"I don't think Ruth went to see them, Paul."
Paul's hands tightened on the wheel. The stiffening of his body was visible, so visible that Martin said abruptly, as the car lurched dangerously to the side of the road and jerked back again:
"You—you don't understand, Paul. Please! Wait until you've talked to Father."
"Father?" And the voice was tinged with sudden suspicion. "Why not Ruth?"
"You'll know everything soon, Paul. Please."
Paul was silent. He did not look at his companion again. A vague dread caught at him. Something was wrong. He knew it. He could feel it, like a lurking shape leering and grinning beside him. Like those other lurking undead demons of seven months ago. But Martin LeGeurn could not tell him. Martin was his friend. Someone else would have to blurt out the truth.
The big roadster droned
on through the night.
It was daylight when they reached the city. Murky, sodden daylight, choked with drizzling rain. Street lights still smirked above drooling sidewalks. The elevated trestle loomed overhead, a gleaming, sweating mastodon of steel. Silence, which had held sway for the past hour over black country roads, gave way to a rumble of sound.
"Better let me take the wheel," Martin LeGeurn said dully. And when Paul had swung the car to the curb: "We're safe now. They won't look for you here. Not yet."
Not yet! Paul's laugh was mockery. Before the day was over, the news of his escape would be in every headline, glaring over town. Newsboys would be shrilling it. News flashes on the radio would blurt it to millions of listeners. "Special Journal Dispatch! At an early hour this morning, Paul Hill, twenty three-year-old inmate of the State Insane Asylum, escaped . . .
The car moved on again through slanting rain. The windshield wiper clicked monotonously, muttering endless words to the beat of Paul's brain. "Police of this state and neighboring states are conducting an unceasing search for the escaped madman who eluded the dragnet last night. . .
"You want to go straight to the house?" Martin LeGeurn said suddenly.
"Of course. Why shouldn't I?"
"I'm not going in with you."
"Why?"
"I've got something to do. Got to go to Morrisdale, and get there before night. But Father's waiting for you. You can talk to him."
He drove on. The streets were deserted, here in the lower downtown sector. The roadster picked its way through intricate short cuts and sideways, and emerged presently on the South Side, to purr softly along glistening boulevards.
"You're going to Morrisdale?" Paul frowned.
''Yes.''
"What for?"
"For—Ruth," Martin said grimly. "It's your own idea, Paul. Your method of escape. Just what I couldn't think of myself, though I sat up night after night, half mad."
"What do you mean?"
"I'll tell you—when it's over," Martin muttered. He was staring through the crescent of gleaming glass before him. His lips were tight, bloodless. "We're almost there," he said abruptly.
They were entering the residential sector of the South Side. The car groped its way more slowly. Paul stared on both sides, remembering the houses, the great church on the corner, the rows of stores: things he had forgotten during the past months. And presently Martin swung the wheel. The roadster skidded into a tree-lined road. Lovely homes with immaculate driveways and wide lawns loomed gray in the drizzle. The car slowed to an awkward stop. Martin turned abruptly, thrusting out his hand.
"Goodbye, Paul. Don't worry."
"But—"
"I've got to go. Got to reach Morrisdale on time tonight. Talk to Father, Paul. And trust me."
Paul gripped the outstretched hand. Then he was out of the car, hurrying up the drive. And the car was roaring down the road again, into the murk, like a great greyhound.
Paul's fingers pressed the bell. He waited, nervously. The door opened. Old Armand LeGeurn, Ruth's father, stood there on the sill, arms outthrust.
After that, things blurred. The door closed, and Paul was pacing down the thick carpet with LeGeurn's arm around him. Then he was in the luxurious library, slumped in a huge chair, folding and unfolding his hands, while Old LeGeurn talked slowly, softly.
"She couldn't come to see you, Paul. They've sent her away. The same two physicians, Kermeff and Allenby. Less than a week after they sent you. Mad, they said. They're big men, Paul. Too big. She never returned here after leaving the hospital at Marssen. They took her straight from there to Morrisdale."
"Morrisdale," Paul muttered feebly. Suddenly he was on his feet, eyes wide and body tense. "That's where Martin's gone!"
"He's been often, Paul. That's how you got your letters. He mailed them from here. She didn't want you to know."
"But there must be some way of getting her out."
"No, Paul. Not yet. We've tried. Tried everything—money, influence, threats. Kermeff and Allenby are bigger than that, boy. They put their names to the paper. No power on earth can convince them they're wrong. No power on this earth—yet."
"Then she's got to stay?" Paul pleaded. "She's got to . . . ." He relaxed again with a heavy shudder. "It's not right, Mr. LeGeurn! It's horrible! Why, those places are—are . . . ."
"I know what they are, boy. We're doing all we can. But we must wait. She still remembers those other things: Murgunstrumm and the awful creatures of the inn. They rush upon her. They affect her—queerly. You understand, boy. You know what it means. Until she's forgotten all that, we can only wait. No physician in the country would disagree with Kermeff and Allenby. Not with such evidence. In time she'll forget."
"She'll never forget, in there!" Paul cried harshly. "At night, in the dark, the whole thing comes back. It's awful. Night after night it haunted me. I could hear that horrible laughter, and the screams. And those inhuman shapes would come out of nowhere, grinning and pointing and leering. She'll never forget. If we don't get her away . . .
"Escape, son?"
"Yes! Escape!"
"It won't do. She couldn't face it. She's not strong enough to be hunted down as you'll be."
Paul stood up savagely, pushing his fingers through his hair. He stared mutely at the man before him. Then his nerves gave way. He buried his face in his hands, sobbing.
"You'll stay here tonight, Paul?" he heard Armand LeGeurn asking.
Paul shook his head heavily. No, he couldn't stay here. The first place they'd look for him would be here in Ruth's home. As soon as they discovered that he had wriggled through their unholy dragnet, they'd come here and question, and search, and watch.
"I want to think," he said wearily. "It's all so tangled. I want to be alone."
"I know, son." Armand LeGeurn rose quietly and offered his hand. "Let me know where you are, always. If you need money or help, come here for it. We believe in you."
Paul nodded. He didn't need money. There was a wallet in the pocket of the coat Martin had given him. He could go and get a room somewhere, and think the thing out alone. More than anything else he wanted to be by himself.
"I'll go to the North End," he said, "and—"
But Armand LeGeurn was pacing to the door. When he returned, he carried a small suit-case in his hand.
"Take this," he advised. "It won't do for you to go prowling about the stores, getting what you need. Everything is here. And—be careful, Paul."
Paul took the suit-case silently. Abruptly he thrust out his hand. Then he hurried down the hall and went out the front door.
3. "To Rehobeth"
Paul found lodgings in a third-rate rooming house, deep in the twisted cobble-stoned streets of the North End slums. There, late in the afternoon, he sat on the slovenly bed and stared fixedly at the single window. The suit-case, open but not unpacked, lay between his feet; and on top, grinning up at him like a black beetle nestling in the clean white folds of the shirt beneath it, lay a loaded revolver. Armand LeGeurn, acting evidently on the spur of the minute, had dropped it there just before clicking the bag shut.
It was raining. A drooling porous mist fogged the window pane. The room was a chill, dark, secluded retreat high above the muttering side street below. A radio, somewhere in the bowels of the house, mumbled dance music and crooning voices.
Paul sat motionless. He was not afraid of realities any more. It was not fear of tangible things that kept the color out of his face and made him sit rigid. The police would never look here for him, at least not until they had combed the rest of the city first. He was in no immediate danger. He had money, clothes, and friends if he needed them.
But the torment had returned—torment a hundred times more vicious than fear of capture. Macabre shadows stalked the room. Nameless voices laughed horribly. Fingers pointed at him. Red, red lips, set fiendishly in chalk-colored dead-alive faces, curled back over protruding teeth to grin malignantly. A significant malicious name hissed back and forth, back and forth, never ceasing. Murgunstrumm! Murgunstrumm!
Ruth was in the asylum at Morrisdale. Martin LeGeurn had gone there. Something was wrong. Martin had seemed preoccupied, mysterious. He hadn't wanted to talk. Now he was gone. Only Armand LeGeurn was left, and Armand had tried every method possible; had tried to convince Kermeff and Allenby that she was not mad.
Paul's fists clenched. He mouthed the two names over and over, twisting them bitterly. Kermeff and Allenby. It was their fault! He jerked to his feet, clutching at the wooden bed-post with both hands, cursing loudly, violently.
Then he sat down again, staring at the black revolver which leered up at him. A truck rumbled over the cobblestones, far below. Someone was turning the dials of the radio, bringing in snatches of deep-throated music and jangling voices. Paul reached down slowly and took the revolver in his hands. He fingered it silently, turning it over and over. Then he sat very still, looking at it.
Ten minutes later, without a word, he stood up and put the revolver in his pocket He bent over the suit-case. Very quietly he walked to the door. His lips were thin and tight, and his eyes glaring.
He paced noiselessly down the narrow stairs to the lower hall. The street door opened and closed. He hurried out into the rain, along the sidewalk.
Suit-case in hand, he groped his way through the maze of gleaming streets, avoiding the lighted thoroughfares as much as possible, yet bearing ever toward the uptown sector. He glanced neither to right nor left, but strode along without hesitating, carried forward recklessly by the hate in his heart and the sudden resolution which had come to him. Not until he reached the outskirts of the slums did he consider his own peril again. Then he stopped, stepped quickly into a black doorway, and stared furtively about him.
He was mad, walking through the streets like this. What if the police down here had been given his description? What if they were even now looking for him? Probably they had and they were. If he stepped on a bus or boarded a street car, or even hailed a cab, he would be playing squarely into their hands. He couldn't reach the LeGeurn home that way. And he couldn't go on walking, like a blind fool, waiting for some stranger to peer suddenly into his face and scream an alarm.
He studied the street in both directions. A hundred yards distant, on the corner, a red-and-white electric sign, blinking in the drizzle, designated a drugstore. Warily Paul crept out of the doorway and moved along the sidewalk. He was afraid again now, and nervous. He kept his face hidden when hurrying men and women brushed past him. Reaching the drugstore, he slipped inside without attracting attention and looked quickly for a telephone booth. An instant later, with a little gasp of relief, he swung the booth door behind him and groped in his pockets for a coin.
The nickel jangled noisily. With stiff fingers Paul dialed the LeGeurn number and waited fretfully until the resultant hum clicked off.
A masculine voice, Armand LeGeurn's, answered almost inaudibly.
"Mr. LeGeurn," Paul said slowly, fumbling for the right thing to say. "I want to—"
His words had a surprising effect. LeGeurn, instead of waiting for him to finish, interrupted with a hearty laugh and sputtered quickly:
"Hello, Frank, hello! By the Lord, man, it's a downright joy to hear that voice of yours. I'm all tied up here. Police watching the house, and the phone wires tapped in the bargain. Damned inconvenient, I'm telling you! What's up? What d'you want?"
Paul's reply choked on his lips. He stiffened, and his fingers tightened on the receiver. Phone wires tapped! Police at the house! Then abruptly he understood Armand LeGeurn's ruse. Regaining his composure, he answered with assumed astonishment:
"Police? Why, what's wrong?"
"What's wrong! Don't you read the papers?"
"You don't mean," Paul said, frowning, "it's about that chap who got away from the nut house? Good Lord, what's that got to do with you?"
"Plenty. Tell you later, when you're sober."
"I'm sober now. That is, almost."
"What's on your mind then?"
"Nothing much." Then Paul added quickly: "That is, nothing but the fact that I'm getting thoroughly soaked and I'm stranded in the slums without a sou in my pocket, old man. I was going to demand your car to escort me home, if your pugilistic chauffeur isn't asleep or something. But if you're tied up. . . ."
"The car, eh? Where'd you say you were?"
"Down in the heart of the most miserable, sloppy, filthy section of this confounded city, my boy." Paul flung back desperately. "And not enjoying it a bit."
"Really? Well, you can have the car. Welcome to it. Where'll I send it?"
Paul named the streets hurriedly. As an afterthought he said as carelessly as he could: "Tell Jeremy to pull up at the dinky little drugstore just around the corner of Haviland. Yeah, I'll be in there getting my feet dry. And say—thanks, mister. Thanks a lot. I appreciate it."
The telephone clicked ominously. Releasing it, Paul leaned against the side of the booth, limp, frightened, with cold sweat trickling down his face. It was another moment before he could steel himself to open the door and step out.
Then, with a forced slouch, he picked up his bag, pushed the door wide, and strode across the tile floor.
He couldn't wait in the store. That would be dangerous. The police might see fit to check the call and send someone to investigate. But he could wait outside, in some convenient doorway a short distance up the street. And then, when he saw the car coming, he could walk casually toward it without being seen.
Outside, with the rain beating in his face, he sought a suitable niche and found one. Huddled there, he wondered if his plan was plausible. It wasn't. The element of risk was too great. If the police came to the drugstore, seeking him, they would be suspicious when they found him gone. They too would wait for the car. Then, if he stepped out . . . .
But the car, coming from the suburbs, would have to pass along the avenue before turning into Haviland Street. That was it! Paul knew the machine by sight—a long low black roadster, inconspicuous among others, but easily discerned by one who knew it intimately. And it would have to cross the avenue intersection, have to pass the lights.
Very quickly Paul slipped out of the doorway and hurried into the rain.
He had to wait long when he reached the square. While he waited, leaning against the wall of a building, with his coat collar pulled high above his neck and face, he watched the lights blink from red to green and green to red, endlessly. Slow lights they were, and the corner was a dangerous one, choked with traffic and scurrying pedestrians. The cars that snaked past, scintillating and gleaming, were like huge moving gems as they groped their way with sluggish caution.
The whole square was bright with illumination. Brilliant store windows threw out walls of color. Sparkling electric signs twinkled overhead. Street-lamps glared accusingly, sullenly, striving to penetrate the rain. It was maddening to stand there, waiting and waiting . . . .
Once a policeman, in rustling rubber coat, swung past with mechanical steps. Paul stiffened and watched him. But pedestrians were waiting at the same time for the traffic lights to become red and yellow; and the policeman paid no attention. He passed on idly, and Paul relaxed with a shudder.
Five minutes passed, and ten. And then the car came. The lights were against it. It slowed cautiously as it approached; and as it stopped, Paul darted forward across the gleaming avenue. Skirting two intervening machines, he leaped to the running-board and clawed the door open. And then he was in the seat beside the lean, wily form of Matt Jeremy, and muttering harshly:
"I prayed for that light, Jeremy, prayed it would be red when you came. If you hadn't stopped . . ."
Jeremy glanced at him quickly, bewildered.
"What's wrong, sir? I was going to the drugstore, like you told Mr. LeGeurn. I thought you wanted—"
The light changed. Paul clutched the man's arm and said abruptly, thickly:
"Turn right. Get out of here quickly!"
Jeremy grunted. The car jerked forward, hesitated an instant to nose its way through cross traffic, and swung sharply off the avenue. Gaining speed, it droned on through the rain, leaving the clamor and congestion of the main thoroughfare behind.
"You'll have to get home the best way you can," Paul said evenly, a little later. "I've got to have the machine."
"That's what Mr. LeGeurn said, sir," Jeremy nodded.
"He'll understand. That's why I phoned."
"Yes, sir. He understands all right. He said for me to go with you."
"What?"
"I'm to stick with you, sir. That's what he said. If you want me."
Paul drew a deep breath and stared squarely into the man's grinning face.
"Want you! Jeremy, I—"
"I might come in handy, maybe," Jeremy shrugged. "Trouble's my middle name, sir. Where to?"
"To Rehobeth," Paul said grimly. "To Rehobeth and the Gray Toad Inn. And the rest is up to God, if there is a God in that unholy place."
4. "They Don't Come Out, Sir."
For years, old Henry Gates had squeezed a meager existence out of the ancient Rehobeth Hotel. For years he had scuffed quietly about the village, minding his own affairs and seldom intruding, but wise in his knowledge of what went on about him. For years he had lived in silent dread of what might someday happen.
Tonight he stood silently on his veranda, gazing down into the deepening dusk of the valley below. The air was cold and sweet with the smell of rain-soaked earth. Darkness was creeping in on all sides, hovering deep and restless above the village.
Across the way a light blinked, announcing that Tom Horrigan's boy was working in the stables. Other lights, feeble and futile, winked on either side. Beyond them the woods were still and dark, and the leaden sky hung low with threatening rain.
"A night of evil," Gates mumbled, sucking his pipe. "There'll be doin's tonight. There'll be laughin' and screamin' on the Marssen Road."
The light across the way went out suddenly. A boy appeared, framed in the stable doorway. The door creaked on rusty wheels, jarring shut. The boy turned, glanced toward the hotel, waved his hand.
"Hi there, Mr. Gates! A fair black night it'll be, hey? I was walkin' to town."
"Ye've changed your mind, I'm thinkin'," Gates retorted.
"That I have. I'll be goin' home and to bed, and lockin' my windows this night."
The boy hurried away. Other lights blinked out. Henry Gates gazed into the valley again, muttering to himself.
"There'll be screamin' and laughin' in the old inn tonight."
He turned and hobbled inside. The door closed; the bolt thudded noisily. The village of Rehobeth was dormant, slumbering, huddled and afraid, waiting for daylight to arouse it.
An hour later the black roadster purred softly out of the darkness. The car was a dusty gaunt shape now, after three hours travel over sixty-odd miles of paved highways and black, deserted country roads. Matt Jeremy hung wearily over the wheel. Paul Hill, slumped beside him, stretched arms and legs with a grumble of complaint, and opened the door.
Shadows filled the valley below. Here the road, after climbing steadily for five miles, rested in the uncouth little hamlet before venturing the last mile or so over the ridge into the next state. And Rehobeth had not changed since that day, more than seven months past, when Paul Hill had stood in this same spot—stood here with Ruth LeGeurn and laughed, because they were marooned with a broken-down car and had to spend the night in the ancient hotel beside them.
No, Rehobeth had not altered. It was still the same lonely isolated village, looking down upon a world all its own—a shadowed gray world, blanketed with bleak snow during the long winter months, swathed in murky sunlight through the summer. Only sixty miles from the big city, only twenty-odd miles from civilization, but in reality a million miles from anywhere, sordid, aloof, forgotten.
"Well, what do you think?" Paul said with a shrug. "Like the place?"
"Not much, sir," Jeremy confessed. "Still, I reckon it's a pretty good hideaway, and it ain't so far you can't keep track of things."
"I'm not hiding, Jeremy."
"No? Then what are we doin' here, sir? I thought"—Jeremy released the wheel and slid out—"I thought we were just goin' to lay low and wait."
Paul climbed the hotel steps slowly. The door was locked. Evidently it was bolted on the inside, and the inmates of the place had gone to bed.
"Old Gates," Paul smiled, "must be upstairs. They don't expect visitors at this hour."
He hammered loudly. "Gates!" he called out. "Henry Gates!"
A long interval passed, and presently a scuff-scuff of footsteps was audible inside. But the door did not open immediately. A face was suddenly framed in the window at the right, and a groping glare of lamplight illuminated the veranda. Then the face and the light vanished, and the bolt rattled. The door opened cautiously.
"Ye're lookin' for me, sir?"
"You're Gates?" Paul said, knowing that he was.
"Yes, sir. I am that."
"Good. We're staying here a day or two, Gates. You've two good rooms vacant?"
"Ye're stayin' here, sir? Here?"
"Yes. Why not? Full up, are you?"
"No, no, sir. I've got rooms. Sure I've got 'em. Only the likes of you, with an automobile like that un, don't generally—"
Paul forced a laugh. He knew what Gates was thinking.
"That's all right," he shrugged. "Quite all right. We want to do a bit of looking around. Might even decide to set up a hunting camp around here somewhere. Just show us the rooms and never mind about the car."
Old Gates was willing enough, once his fears were allayed. He held the door wide. Paul and Jeremy passed inside casually and gazed about them.
There was nothing inspiring. Bare, cracked walls leered down as if resenting the intrusion. A musty lounge, long unused, leaned on scarred legs. A squat table, bearing the flickering oil lamp which Gates had first held, stood in the middle of the floor. Beyond, a flight of stairs angled up into darkness.
"D'ye mind tellin' me your names, sir?" Gates said hesitantly. "I'll show ye to your rooms, and then I'll be makin' out the register."
"Mr. James Potter will do," Paul nodded. "James Potter and chauffeur. And by the way, Gates, have you a typewriter?"
"Typewriter, sir?" Gates hobbled behind the desk and took down a key. "Afraid not, sir. I used to have, but you see business ain't what it used to be." He wheezed up the stairs with Paul and Jeremy following him. "Rehobeth be such an out-of-the-way place, sir, and nobody comes this way very often lately, and...."
The rooms were at the end of the upper corridor, adjoining each other and connected by an open door. Paul inspected them quietly and smiled, and pressed a bill into the old man's hand. And presently, alone in Paul's chamber with the hail door shut, the two newcomers stared at each other and nodded grimly. That much was over with.
"Didn't recognize me," Paul said evenly.
"Recognize you, sir?" Jeremy frowned.
"This is the place, Jeremy, where Miss Ruth and I stopped that night. You don't know the details. You were in Florida with Mr. LeGeurn."
"Oh. I see, sir. And you thought he might—"
"Remember me? Yes. But seven months is a long time. The madhouse can change a man in less time than that. Open the bag, Jeremy, will you?"
Jeremy did so, putting his knee to the leather and jerking the straps loose. Lifting the suit-case to the bed, Paul fumbled a moment with the contents, then stepped to the old-fashioned desk and sat down with paper and fountain pen in hand.
And he wrote two letters, one to Doctor Anton Kermeff, the other to Doctor Franklin Allenby, addressing both to the State Hospital in the city he had just left. The letter to Kermeff read:
My dear Kermeff
You will, I am sure, consider this note most carefully and act upon it as soon as possible. Mr. Paul Hill, the young man whom you and Allenby declared insane some seven months ago, and who escaped only very recently from confinement, is now at the Rebobeth Hotel in a state of most complete and mystifying coma. Fortunately I am on my vacation and was passing through Rehobeth at the time of his attack, and I am now attending him.
The case, I assure you, is worth your gravest attention. It is the most unusual condition I have ever had the fortune to stumble upon. Of course, I am remaining here incognito. The name is James Potter. I suggest that you come at once, saying nothing to arouse undue attention to yourselves or to me. Later, of course, the patient must be returned to confinement; but meanwhile I believe I have something worthy of your esteemed consideration.
A copy of this letter I am also sending to Allenby, since you are both equally interested in the case.
Yours in haste,
Hendrick Von Heller, M.D.
The letter to Allenby was an exact duplicate. Paul sat very still, staring at what he had created. He was gambling, of course. Only one thing he was sure of: that Von Heller, the very noted specialist, was actually somewhere in this part of the state, on vacation. Von Heller had discussed that with the doctors at the asylum, on one of his regular Visits.
As for the rest, Von Heller was known, by reputation at least, to both Kermeff and Allenby. But would the handwriting of the letters prove fatal? That was the risk. It might; it might not. Possibly Kermeff and Allenby had never seen, or never particularly noticed, Von Heller's script. Perhaps—and it was very likely, considering the man's importance and prestige—he had employed a secretary. At any rate, the element of chance was there. A typewriter would have lessened it, and could easily have been purchased on the way here. But old Gates had none, and it was too late now.
"We'll have to face it," Paul shrugged. "We can't be sure."
"If it means a scrap, sir . . .
"It might, Jeremy. Part of it might. But we'll need minds, as well. Wills."
"Well now—"
"Never mind," Paul said. "It's getting late. Come."
He shoved the door open. Henry Gates had lighted the oil burners in the corridor, filling the upper part of the inn with a furtive, uneasy, yellowish glare. Probably those burners had not been ignited in months past. Perhaps not for seven months. And the lower lobby, illuminated only by the oil lamp on the desk, was deep with moving shadows, gaunt and repelling.
Gates was writing in the register when Paul and Jeremy descended. He looked up and grunted, obviously startled. Holding his pen at an awkward angle, he said hurriedly:
"Just puttin' your names down, sir, I was. Be ye goin' out?"
"For a short drive," Paul nodded.
"M-m-m. It be a dark night, sir. Not a star in the sky when I looked out the window just now. And no moon at all to speak of. These be lonely roads about here."
Paul smiled bitterly. Lord, what mockery! Gates, huddled here, mumbling to him—to him—about the loneliness of the surrounding roads! As if he didn't know! As if he hadn't learned every conceivable horror there was to learn, seven months ago!
"You've a mail box here?" he questioned curtly.
"I'll take it, sir," Gates replied, eyeing the white oblongs in Paul's hand. "Two of 'em, hey? Ain't often the postman gets anythin' here, sir. He'll be comin' by in the mornin', on his route."
"They'll get to the city before night?"
"Well, sir, the postman takes 'em to Marssen in his tin lizzie."
"That's quite all right, then. Come, Jeremy."
"Be ye goin' anywheres in particular, sir?" Gates blinked, raising his eyebrows.
"I thought we might turn down the old road that cuts in a mile or so below here. Looked rather interesting when we came through. Leads to Marssen, doesn't it?"
"It does that."
"Hm-m. I think I've been over it before. Vaguely familiar, somehow. If I'm right, there ought to be an old inn about two miles down. The Gray Goose, or the Gray Gull, or—"
"Ye mean the Gray Toad?"
"That's it, I guess. Closed up, is it?"
"No, sir," Gates' voice was a whisper as he came out from behind his bar like desk and scuffed forward ominously."It ain't closed, sir. And if I was you—"
"Who runs the place, I wonder? Do you know?"
"I know, sir. Yus, I know. It's a queer cripple as runs it, sir. A queer foreigner what never goes nowhere nor comes into the village, nor ever does anythin' but limp around inside his own dwellin'. Murgunstrumm is his name, sir. Murgunstrumm."
"Strange name," Paul mused, keeping his voice level with an effort. "And what's so wrong about the place, Gates?"
"I dunno, sir. Only I've heard noises which ain't the kind I like to hear. I've seen automobiles stop there, sir—fine automobiles, too—and ladies and gentlemen go inside, all dressed up in fine clothes. But I ain't never seen 'em again. They don't come out, sir. And I know one thing, as I'm certain of."
"Yes?"
"About seven months ago it happened, sir. I'm sittin' here behind my desk one night along about evenin', and a young couple comes walkin' down the road from the woods. A pretty girl she was, if ever there was one; and the young man was about your height and looks, only not—excusin' me, sir—so kind of pale lookin' and thin. They said as how their car was broke down about a mile up the road, and could they use my telephone to call a garage feller in Marssen. And then—"
Gates peered furtively about him and came a step nearer. He was rubbing his hands together with an unpleasant sucking sound, as if he feared the consequences of saying too much.
"They had supper here, sir, the two of them, and then they went out for a walk. Said they might walk down the valley, seem' as how it was such a fine night. But they didn't get there, sir. No, sir, they didn't ever get there."
"They got lost?" Jeremy said curtly.
"I'm not knowin'. All I know is, I'm sittin' here about one o'clock in the mornin', havin' a bite to eat with the garage man after he'd got their automobile fixed up and waitin' for them to come back for it—and we sudden hear footsteps stumblin' up the steps. There's a shout, and we run out. And it's the young man, sir, walkin' like one in a dream and white as a ghost. And he's carryin' the girl in his arms, like she's dead; only she ain't dead, sir, because she's moanin' and mumblin' like she's gone clean mad .. .
Gates' voice choked off to a faltering hiss, leaving only a feeble echo to chase fretfully around the room. Jeremy was staring at him with wide eyes. Paul stood very stiff, white and silent.
"And what happened then?" Jeremy whispered.
"Well, the young man fell down on the floor here like a dead one for sure, and he never moved a muscle when me and the garage feller bent over him. The girl, she lay here twitchin' and sobbin' and talkin' a lot of words which didn't make sense. Then the garage man and me, we got both of 'em into the young man's car, and the garage feller he drove 'em as quick as he could to Marssen, to the hospital there. They called up the city for some real good doctors, and"—Gates shuddered violently and peered around him again—"and both the young man and his lady friend was put away in the insane-house," he finished fearfully.
There was silence for an instant. An unnatural, ugly silence, broken only by the sound of men breathing and the pft-pft-pft of the oil lamp on the desk. Then Paul laughed softly, queerly.
"The insane-house, eh?" he shrugged. "A good story, Gates. Not bad at all. And they're still there?"
"It's the God's honest truth, sir. I swear it is. And the young people are still locked up, they are. I'm tellin' ye, sir, I think of it even now on dark nights, sir, and I fair get the horrors from it!"
"Thanks. I guess we'll be moving along, Gates. We'll have a look at your ghastly inn."
"But nobody goes along that road no more, sir. Not after nightfall!"
"All right, old man," Paul shrugged, knowing that his voice faltered slightly and his assumed indifference lacked the sincerity he strove to stuff into it. "Don't sit up and worry about us. We won't come back the way the others did. I'd have a hard job carrying you, eh, Jeremy?"
Jeremy's laugh, too, was vaguely harsh. But he turned and followed to the door. And an instant later, leaving Gates stiff-legged and staring in the middle of the unclean floor, with the sputtering oil lamp casting spider-shadows on the wall behind him, Paul and Jeremy stepped over the threshold. The door creaked shut behind them. They descended the wooden steps slowly.
5. Murgunstrumm
The lonely untraveled road between Rehobeth and the buried little town of Marssen, twelve miles distant, was particularly black and abandoned that night. Leaving the main dirt highway a mile or so below the last of Rehobeth's straggling houses, it plunged immediately into sullen unbroken woods, where all sounds died to nothingness and the light was a dim, uneven, flickering gloom.
The mud-crusted black roadster, with Jeremy at the wheel, careened recklessly down the main road, boring its way with twin beams of bright light. At the intersection, it slowed to a crawl, and Jeremy swung the wheel. Then, more slowly, the car proceeded down the Marssen road; and presently it was moving at snail-speed, groping along a snake track of deep ruts and loose, damp sand.
"It ain't," Jeremy said laconically, "what you'd want to call a pleasure drive, sir. Fair gives me the creeps, it does, after the old guy's talk."
Paul nodded. He said nothing. He was thinking again, and remembering, in spite of himself. What Gates had narrated back at the hotel was true, and the old man's words had awakened memories which were better a thousand times dead.
Paul's face was strained, colorless now. His hands were clenched defensively. He stared straight ahead of him through the dirty windshield, watching every sudden twist of the way, every looming shadow. Once he touched the revolver in his pocket and felt suddenly relieved. But he remembered again, and knew that the weapon would mean nothing. And presently, after ten minutes of slow, cautious progress, he said quietly:
"Stop the car here, Jeremy."
"Here, sir?"
"We'll walk the rest. It isn't far. They mustn't see us."
Jeremy grunted. The roadster turned to the side of the road, scraped noisily against the thick bushes, and came to a jerky stop.
"Will I lock it, sir?"
"Yes. And keep the key in your hand. We may need it quickly."
Jeremy glanced at him quizzically. Then, with a shrug, he turned the ignition key, removed it, and slid out of his seat. In a moment Paul was beside him, gripping his arm.
"Sure you want to come, Jeremy?"
"Why not, sir? I'm pretty handy with my fists, ain't I?"
"That won't help, Jeremy. Nothing will help, if we're seen."
"Well then, we won't be seen. You're shiverin', sir!"
"Am I?" Paul's laugh was harsh, toneless. "That's bad. I shouldn't be. Not after what happened before. Shivering won't help, either. Come on."
They passed down the narrow road, leaving the roadster half hidden, black and silent, behind them. Paul, thinking again, peered furtively on either side, fighting back his fear of the darkness. Shadows leaped at him from matted walls of gloom. Faint whispers sucked down from above as the night breeze whimpered and muttered through rustling leaves. The horrors of the madhouse came back, vivid and close. Supernatural voices laughed hideously and screamed, and everywhere ahead, in the gloom, a limping shape seemed to be waiting and leering and pointing triumphantly.
Jeremy, more or less indifferent to intangible terror, plodded along with a set frown on his square features. Shadows and whispers did not trouble him. He did not know. And Paul, pressing close to him, found relief in the man's presence, and courage in his stolidness.
So they walked on and on, until presently out of the darkness ahead of them, on the right, a gray mass took form with maddening slowness. Paul stood quite still, drawing his companion close.
"That's the place," he said almost inaudibly.
"There's a light, sir," Jeremy observed.
Yes, there was a light. But it was a feeble thing, a mere oblong slit of illumination, visible faintly through a cracked shutter. And the house itself, upstairs and down, was sinister with darkness. Like an enormous humpbacked toad it squatted just off the road, isolated in its own desolate clearing, hemmed in on three sides by unbroken walls of gloom and silence.