By the time we arrived, and Dougal’s cases were loaded aboard the Samuel Plimsoll, the captain, Richard Boaden, was impatient to be away with the tide. I did not have as much time for my farewells as I would have liked, and gave Dougal a hasty embrace as he was helped up the gangway by one of the crew. As he stepped onto the deck, something fell from his satchel, and the sailor stooped to pick it up. The man shuddered as he handed it back, and I was sure it was the little leather journal with the strange, disquieting sigil on its cover.
Whatever it was, it, along with Dougal, was quickly lost in the bustle of the final loading and settling. I caught sight of Dougal again as the Samuel Plimsoll pulled away from the dock, and waved. He did not seem to see me, and I was about to turn away when I saw a hulking figure step up beside him. It was, without a doubt, the same man I had seen exiting my own front door only the afternoon before.
The two shook hands, and the larger man passed Dougal something, who visibly struggled with its weight. I could not be sure at such a distance, but it looked like a thick, heavy book.
The Plimsoll turned around the point of Fort Macquarie, and I lost sight of my son. I was left with a heavy, fearful weight in my gut. The next several days were ones of near madness as I went over the events of the last few days, my deep doubts refusing to be put to rest.
Was that fire in his eyes, that colour in his cheeks as we sat in the cab, a marker of the same obsession that had burned in Dougal during those long nights searching through the Library? Who was that enormous man who was now aboard ship with my son for three months? What was that book he handed over? I could not help but entertain the dreadful possibility of Dougal’s involvement with the burning of the Library.
Following this grim prospect, I went once more to try to see Robert Walker. To no avail. There was no sign of him amongst the salvagers at the ruin of the Library, and no answer when I called at his home. The dark questions I had about my son remained.
There was nothing I could do in the end, and I threw myself into work to distract myself, once more travelling away from Sydney. Gradually the fear for Dougal dissipated, and by the time I received his telegram telling me that he had arrived safely and was waiting for his uncle, I had dismissed my concerns as nonsense.
I waited eagerly for the next news of Dougal and, despite myself, my brother and the family I had long since left behind.
It did not come.
♦
MR AONGHAS CROWTHER
SCHIMEL ST
WATERLOO, NEW SOUTH WALES
DEEPLY REGRET TO INFORM YOUR SON DOUGAL HAS PASSED STOP CAUSE OF DEATH YET UNDETERMINED STOP DETAILS FORTHCOMING WHEN POSSIBLE STOP PLEASE ADVISE INSTRUCTIONS FOR BURIAL STOP
CONSTABLE GEORGE BIRMINGHAM
EDINBURGH CITY POLICE
No parent can believe they will lose a child, even one as sickly as Dougal. I maintained my composure long enough to telegraph arrangements for Dougal’s body to be preserved and returned to me in Sydney. I paid no mind to the considerable expense, and indeed, soon paid a much greater price, to both my business and my health, meted out in whisky.
It was the longest period of my life, those eighty-seven days I waited for the return of my son. No further information came from the Edinburgh Police concerning his death, and I sent telegram after telegram to my brother, seeking some explanation. I did not receive a word in reply.
I met by chance with Robert Walker again, though I was much the worse for drink at the time and have no reasonable recollection of it. Evidently the death of Dougal, which I must have blurted out in my stupor, had considerable impact upon him. Perhaps it was merely guilt, but our friendship was rekindled, though it took on more an aspect of nurse and patient. He would join me for a drink, as had been our habit, in the early evening, though he kept a careful eye on me, and took responsibility for pouring the whisky himself, putting it away when he judged I’d had enough.
He seemed genuinely distressed by my condition, and took great pains to help me keep my spirits up. He was a great boon in that dark time. When notice came that Dougal’s body had finally arrived, it was Robert who took charge of arrangements, and accompanied the casket to the house.
I had to see my son one last time. Against Robert’s advice, for he was concerned about the state of the body, I opened the coffin.
I had to steady myself against its edge to keep from falling. What I saw within made me weak at the knees. I managed to hold on for only a moment before I turned away and vomited. Then Robert was at my elbow, helping me straighten. Steeling myself, I turned back to the casket, and together we looked at the body.
The face was shrunken, the lips pulled back in a rictus scream, and the skin blue-grey and translucent, showing a black web of capillaries stretched tight over the skull beneath. It looked as though all fluid had been drained from the body, and the eyes were stuck wide open, an expression of abject terror frozen upon its gruesome visage.
But perhaps most disquieting of all was the fact that the body I looked upon was not Dougal’s.
♦
MR AONGHAS CROWTHER
SCHIMEL ST
WATERLOO, NEW SOUTH WALES
REFER TO YOUR CORRESPONDENCE REGARDING BODY OF YOUR SON STOP BODY IDENTIFIED BY SEVERAL CREW AND PASSENGERS OF SAMUEL PLIMSOLL STOP NO FURTHER INFORMATION STOP REGRET CANNOT BE OF MORE ASSISTANCE STOP
CONSTABLE GEORGE BIRMINGHAM
EDINBURGH CITY POLICE
My only concern now was to go myself to Scotland and find the truth of what had become of Dougal. But I could not simply board ship. Preparation took much longer than I would have liked. With the testimony of Robert Walker that it was not, in fact, my son, I was able to give over the disturbing, unidentified corpse to the authorities for disposal.
With Robert bereft of his work at the Library and not knowing quite what else to do with himself, I had little trouble convincing him to look after my business dealings in my absence. There was a rather painstaking process of making the necessary introductions, etcetera, but eventually I found myself free to travel without concern for my welfare.
A fortnight or thereabouts after the removal of the hideous body from my home, I was aboard the Cutty Sark, the fastest ship then sailing between Sydney and London.
For all its speed however, I had considerable time to mull over events. I tried to convince myself that Dougal had been the victim, taken in by some foul play or other. But however hard I tried, my mind remained a maelstrom of suspicion, filled with things I could not quite put together: the burning library, the great brute coming out of my door and then standing with Dougal aboard the Plimsoll, and most of all the little journal with that horrid symbol on its cover. I could not shake the feeling that whatever was going on was part of some dark design. I needed to find the Samuel Plimsoll and question her crew.
We put into the Port of London, and I wasted no time disembarking and calling at the Port Authority Building, seeking the whereabouts of the Plimsoll. She was due in this very port only a few days hence, and I spent a restless time waiting for her, unable to stop myself trawling the docks with a photograph of Dougal and asking anyone who would listen if they had seen him. They had not. My efforts with the crew of the Samuel Plimsoll yielded no more recognition than I got along the docks. Fully half of the crew who had been aboard with Dougal had gone, succumbing to the perils of the open sea or signing-on with other vessels. Of those that remained, all but a few were tight lipped and ill disposed.
I was free enough with my coin, but it did me little good, until I spoke of that enormous companion of Dougal’s. Several sailors made gestures as if to ward off evil at his mention, and I rapidly found myself alone save for one grey and gruff old salt.
“There be no good come of you looking for that malefic individual,” he growled as he gripped me hard by the arm and propelled me toward th
e gangway.
I opened my mouth to speak, but he cut me off sharply. “And no good neither of you saying more where it might get heard,” he hissed, looking about. He stopped at the edge of the deck, and slipped a card into my palm. “There’s some what would do you harm to see that,” he said, and then, “The pull of blood, be as great as that of the sea.” And he thrust me from the ship.
I wandered into the crowd a few steps, a little confused about what had just occurred. I glanced at the card in my hand, and was caught by a sudden chill. I looked back then and saw the old sailor watching me, a cold, satisfied smile on his face. He turned away quickly and was gone.
With a shudder I moved hurriedly out of sight of the Plimsoll, and when I found an uninhabited lane, I stepped out of the bustle and examined the card.
♦
MR MILLIGAN
SAMUEL PLIMSOLL
CARE/LONDON PORT AUTHORITY
FLESHMARKET CLOSE STOP YELLOW SIGN STOP TIME NOW CLOSE STOP
I had no idea what it meant, but I remembered well the reek of Fleshmarket Close. Edinburgh. From whence came the body that was not my son. I took the next train.
The haar lay thick on the city, the buildings floating ghostly out of the fog as we pulled into Waverley. Impatient, I made no time for finding a porter, and carried my case myself up the steep slope of Cockburn Street to the Star Hotel, right on the corner of Fleshmarket Close. The stench of the place, the fish and meat and the urinary scent of the public house, had not changed in all the years I’d been away. I took a room at the Star, and having arranged my small belongings, made my way up through Fleshmarket Close toward the Royal Mile, where I intended to break my fast before anything else. I did not make it that far.
I was barely half way along the Close when I was overcome by the most acute sense of disquiet. I reeled, and leant against the wall a moment to steady myself. Across from me was a narrow door, and above it a small, shuttered window. On the shutters, painted in a sickly, choleric yellow was the same symbol I had seen scratched into the cover of Dougal’s journal.
That same revulsion I had felt upon first seeing it, though immeasurably stronger, rose from my gut. I leant over and vomited. It was some time before I could gather myself, but eventually I approached the door beneath that dread sign. I did not know who, or what, I expected within, but I found in myself a strange resolve and, without so much as a knock, I forced the door open and went inside.
It was a narrow staircase, squeezed between the Star Hotel and the public house behind, and at the top a small, dim room, full of thick and foetid air, and the tiniest crack of light showing between the closed shutters. As much as I was loath to touch the bearers of that horrendous sign, I could see nothing without light. I stepped over and swung them back, taking a gulp of the only slightly fresher air from Fleshmarket Close.
The sign on the shutters was as nothing compared to the terror that greeted me in that little room. Laid out naked upon the floor was the very man I was looking for. Like the body in Sydney, his mouth was stuck in a horrid scream. It was stuffed with a scrap of cloth, perhaps tweed, and the eyes were wide and vacant. Despite his great frame he looked small, shrivelled, as though every last bit of life and soul had been sucked from him.
In danger of emptying my stomach again, I staggered down the stairs and into the close. I found a police box on the high street, and by the time they had examined and removed the body, some hours later, a great crowd had gathered. I was standing to one side, talking to Constable Birmingham who had arrived late on the scene.
“There is no doubt, Constable,” I said. “This is the same man I saw aboard the Samuel Plimsoll with my son upon Sydney Harbour.”
I said nothing, yet, of having seen him exiting my own home, thinking it best for Dougal, should he be found, not to be too closely associated with this desecrated corpse. The Constable turned a questioning gaze on me, and for a moment I wondered if he suspected I was keeping some information from him.
“You must have a canny memory, Mr Crowther,” he said. “Having seen him only the once, and all that time ago. I didnae recognise him myself, and he spent a night in one of my cells no more than a month ago. I suppose it’s the state of him, but he made quite the impression last time, so I should’ve remembered.”
“Quite the impression?”
“Oh, aye. Caused a great stramash in the Grass Market, staggering about like he couldnae control himself and screaming bloody murder. Injured near a dozen folk before we got him under control. Or semblance of control. He ceased his violence, but his raving went on most of the night. Drove the night watchman half mad, muttering and arguing with himself. Ah, he was meek as a mouse come the morning however...”
Constable Birmingham went on, but I stopped listening, taken with a sudden feeling of being watched. I looked past the Constable at the massed crowd in the high street, and saw my brother.
He looked older than I would have thought, his hair greyer than mine despite being my junior, but it was unmistakably Cormack. He was watching me avidly, and I felt unclothed and exposed beneath that stare. His eyes locked on mine for the briefest moment, and I felt a great anger rise in me, an eruption of all the fear and frustration of the last several months. I shoved past the Constable and ran at him. But he was gone. He simply disappeared into the crowd.
I searched in vain, forcing my way madly through the press, this way and that. Eventually, as the people thinned and wandered away, and still I could find no sign of him, I gave up and returned to the police. I spoke again with Constable Birmingham, answering his questions and providing what details I could. As before, I said nothing of my fears about Dougal, and in fact now that I had laid eyes on my brother, I began to wonder if I had perhaps been entirely wrong.
The constable assured me that the very best officers of Edinburgh’s police force would be investigating the case, and if my son was to be found, they would do so. I was unconvinced, however, of either the efficacy of the police, or indeed of the likelihood that Dougal was there to be found at all. Until now, I had considered the possibility that Dougal had never made landfall, having been robbed and done away with at sea. But how, and why, would Cormack have had any involvement in such a crime? And here he was, the very afternoon I arrived in Scotland.
I was deeply suspicious, and the following morning I made all haste north to Pitlochry. The day was getting on by the time I arrived, a sullen afternoon, heavy with the promise of rain. I left my case in the cloakroom at the railway station and, ignoring the hour and the threatening weather, I made my way up the path through Black Spout Wood to my family’s ancestral farm, overlooking the Distillery.
As I emerged from the ancient line of trees I saw, across the field, a stout, grey-haired figure disappear into the door of the farmhouse. Cormack. I quickened my pace, and reached the house almost at a run.
The door was ajar, and from the dim interior spewed such a wave of dismay that I was stopped in my tracks and brought to my knees upon the threshold. I fell onto my side and lay unmoving, struck down with such a bleakness I felt I might die of hopelessness right there. I lost track of how long I lay there before I was able to push myself upright, but the afternoon had waned to evening, and inky blue twilight gathered close about the house. An echo of that dire hopelessness remained, but I forced myself to my feet and opened the door.
As I stepped inside panic gripped me. My heart thundered in my ears, getting louder the further I went. I knew with certainty that I would find that abysmal symbol somewhere within.
I was not wrong. There was, of course, no sign of Cormack, or of Dougal, and there was a thick layer of dust on everything. In the kitchen I found yet another defiled and desiccated corpse. Steeling myself against the urge to retreat, I pushed into the room.
The body, bearing the same agonised scream and staring eyes, was lain upon a much larger rendition
of the abhorrent sign. Unlike the scene in the Fleshmarket, it was clothed from the waist down, the upper body and face painted in thick, flyblown blood. The limbs of the corpse were stretched out unevenly to match the symbol’s tentacular arms. It had clearly lain in place for some time, and had been chewed here and there, I can only assume by rats.
It was too much. I disgorged the contents of my stomach right there, disturbing the flies in a black cloud that buzzed sickeningly around my head. Fighting my way out of the house, flies in my nose and mouth and an altogether ungodly panic in my heart, I ran blindly back down the hill toward town. It began to rain. The woods clawed at me as I went, and I stumbled and fell many times on paths I’d once known like the lines of my palm. I emerged into the road soaked, muddy and half out of my senses.
The flies were gone, the nausea and blackness of spirit behind me, and yet it was not until I had stumbled into the taproom of the Old Mill Inn, and swallowed several measures of whisky, that I could slow the frantic beating of my heart.
I wanted nothing more than to get away, and had there been an available horse I might well have forgone waiting for the morning train. As it was, I had no choice. I informed the local constable, who would go nowhere before morning, and waited out the night in the taproom of the Old Mill.
I brooded on the ghastly error I had made in coming here, and began to think that, for my own sanity, even my life, I might best soon make my escape.
Cthulhu Lives!: An Eldritch Tribute to H. P. Lovecraft Page 24