by Otto Penzler
“Bon idea, young woman, but you will find the experience a bit raw. You’ve no notion how uncanny these big deserted buildings can be.”
“That’s so,” nodded young Wells. “I once spent a night in a haunted house.”
Sonia looked at him with her habitual interest. He was short and thick-set, with a three-cornered smile which appealed to her.
“Did you see anything?” she asked.
“No, I cleared out before the show came on. Windy. After a bit, one can imagine anything.”
It was then that Poke introduced a new note into the discussion by his own theory of the mystery deaths.
Sitting alone in the deserted Gallery, Sonia preferred to forget his words. She resolutely drove them from her mind while she began to settle down for the night.
Her first action was to cross to the figure of Cardinal Wolsey and unceremoniously raise his heavy scarlet robe. From under its voluminous folds, she drew out her cushion and attaché-case, which she had hidden earlier in the evening.
Mindful of the fact that it would grow chilly at dawn, she carried on her arm her thick white tennis-coat. Slipping it on, she placed her cushion in the angle of the wall, and sat down to await developments.
The Gallery was far more mysterious now that the lights were out. At either end, it seemed to stretch away into impenetrable black tunnels. But there was nothing uncanny about it, or about the figures, which were a tame and conventional collection of historical personages. Even the adjoining Hall of Horrors contained no horrors, only a selection of respectable-looking poisoners.
Sonia grinned cheerfully at the row of waxworks which were visible in the lamplight from the street.
“So you are the villains of the piece,” she murmured. “Later on, if the office is right, you will assume unpleasant mannerisms to try to cheat me into believing you are alive. I warn you, old sports, you’ll have your work cut out for you … And now I think I’ll get better acquainted with you. Familiarity breeds contempt.”
She went the round of the figures, greeting each with flippancy or criticism. Presently she returned to her corner and opened her notebook ready to record her impressions.
Twelve o’clock. The first hour has passed almost too quickly. I’ve drawn a complete blank. Not a blessed thing to record. Not a vestige of reaction. The waxworks seem a commonplace lot, without a scrap of hypnotic force. In fact, they’re altogether too matey.
Sonia had left her corner, to write her entry in the light which streamed through the window. Smoking was prohibited in the building, and, lest she should yield to temptation, she had left both her cigarettes and matches behind her, on the office table.
At this stage she regretted the matches. A little extra light would be a boon. It was true she carried an electric torch, but she was saving it, in case of emergency.
It was a loan from young Wells. As they were leaving the office together, he spoke to her confidentially.
“Did you notice how Poke glared at you? Don’t get up against him. He’s a nasty piece of work. He’s so mean he’d sell his mother’s shroud for old rags. And he’s a cruel little devil, too. He turned out his miserable pup, to starve in the streets, rather than cough up for the license.”
Sonia grew hot with indignation.
“What he needs to cure his complaint is a strong dose of rat-poison,” she declared. “What became of the poor little dog?”
“Oh, he’s all right. He was a matey chap, and he soon chummed up with a mongrel of his own class.”
“You?” asked Sonia, her eyes suddenly soft.
“A mongrel, am I?” grinned Wells. “Well, anyway, the pup will get a better Christmas than his first, when Poke went away and left him on the chain … We’re both of us going to over-eat and over-drink. You’re on your own, too. Won’t you join us?”
“I’d love to.”
Although the evening was warm and muggy the invitation suffused Sonia with the spirit of Christmas. The shade of Dickens seemed to be hovering over the parade of the streets. A red-nosed Santa Claus presided over a spangled Christmas-tree outside a toy-shop. Windows were hung with tinselled balls and coloured paper festoons. Pedestrians, laden with parcels, called out seasonable greetings.
“Merry Christmas.”
Young Wells’s three-cornered smile was his tribute to the joyous feeling of festival. His eyes were eager as he turned to Sonia.
“I’ve an idea. Don’t wait until after the holidays to write up the Waxworks. Make it a Christmas stunt, and go there tonight.”
“I will,” declared Sonia.
It was then that he slipped the torch into her hand.
“I know you belong to the stronger sex,” he said. “But even your nerve might crash. If it does, just flash this torch under the window. Stretch out your arm above your head, and the light will be seen from the street.”
“And what will happen then?” asked Sonia.
“I shall knock up the miserable porter and let you out.”
“But how will you see the light?”
“I shall be in the street.”
“All night?”
“Yes; I sleep there.” Young Wells grinned. “Understand,” he added loftily, “that this is a matter of principle. I could not let any woman—even one so aged and unattractive as yourself—feel beyond the reach of help.”
He cut into her thanks as he turned away with a parting warning.
“Don’t use the torch for light, or the juice may give out. It’s about due for a new battery.”
As Sonia looked at the torch, lying by her side, it seemed a link with young Wells. At this moment he was patrolling the street, a sturdy figure in an old tweed overcoat, with his cap pulled down over his eyes.
As she tried to pick out his footsteps from among those of the other passers-by, it struck her that there was plenty of traffic, considering that it was past twelve o’clock.
“The witching hour of midnight is another lost illusion,” she reflected. “Killed by nightclubs, I suppose.”
It was cheerful to know that so many citizens were abroad, to keep her company. Some optimists were still singing carols. She faintly heard the strains of “Good King Wenceslas.” It was in a tranquil frame of mind that she unpacked her sandwiches and thermos.
“It’s Christmas Day,” she thought, as she drank hot coffee. “And I’m spending it with Don and the pup.”
At that moment her career grew misty, and the flame of her literary ambition dipped as the future glowed with the warm firelight of home. In sudden elation, she held up her flask and toasted the waxworks.
“Merry Christmas to you all! And many of them.”
The faces of the illuminated figures remained stolid, but she could almost swear that a low murmur of acknowledgment seemed to swell from the rest of her company—invisible in the darkness.
She spun out her meal to its limit, stifling her craving for a cigarette. Then, growing bored, she counted the visible waxworks, and tried to memorise them.
“Twenty-one, twenty-two … Wolsey. Queen Elizabeth, Guy Fawkes, Napoléon ought to go on a diet. Ever heard of eighteen days, Nap? Poor old Julius Caesar looks as though he’d been sun-bathing on the Lido. He’s about due for the melting-pot.”
In her eyes they were a second-rate set of dummies. The local theory that they could terrorise a human being to death or madness seemed a fantastic notion.
“No,” concluded Sonia. “There’s really more in Poke’s bright idea.”
Again she saw the sun-smitten office—for the big unshielded window faced south—with its blistered paint, faded wall-paper, ink-stained desks, typewriters, telephones, and a huge fire in the untidy grate. Young Wells smoked his big pipe, while the sub-editor—a ginger, pig-headed young man—laid down the law about the mystery deaths.
And then she heard Poke’s toneless deadman’s voice.
“You may be right about the spiritualist. He died of fright—but not of the waxworks. My belief is that he established contact with
the spirit of his dead friend, the alderman, and so learned his real fate.”
“What fate?” snapped the sub-editor.
“I believe that the alderman was murdered,” replied Poke.
He clung to his point like a limpet in the face of all counter-arguments.
“The alderman had enemies,” he said. “Nothing would be easier than for one of them to lie in wait for him. In the present circumstances, I could commit a murder in the Waxworks, and get away with it.”
“How?” demanded young Wells.
“How? To begin with, the Gallery is a one-man show and the porter’s a bonehead. Anyone could enter, and leave, the Gallery without his being wise to it.”
“And the murder?” plugged young Wells.
With a shudder Sonia remembered how Poke had glanced at his long, knotted fingers.
“If I could not achieve my object by fright, which is the foolproof way,” he replied, “I should try a little artistic strangulation.”
“And leave your marks?”
“Not necessarily. Every expert knows that there are methods which show no trace.”
Sonia fumbled in her bag for the cigarettes which were not there.
“Why did I let myself think of that, just now?” she thought. “Really too stupid.”
As she reproached herself for her morbidity, she broke off to stare at the door which led to the Hall of Horrors.
When she had last looked at it, she could have sworn that it was tightly closed … But now it gaped open by an inch.
She looked at the black cavity, recognizing the first test of her nerves. Later on, there would be others. She realized the fact that, within her cool, practical self, she carried a hysterical, neurotic passenger, who would doubtless give her a lot of trouble through officious suggestions and uncomfortable reminders.
She resolved to give her second self a taste of her quality, and so quell her at the start.
“That door was merely closed,” she remarked as, with a firm step, she crossed to the Hall of Horrors and shut the door.
One o’clock. I begin to realize that there is more in this than I thought. Perhaps I’m missing my sleep. But I’m keyed up and horribly expectant. Of what? I don’t know. But I seem to be waiting for—something. I find myself listening—listening. The place is full of mysterious noises. I know they’re my fancy … And things appear to move. I can distinguish footsteps and whispers, as though those waxworks which I cannot see in the darkness are beginning to stir to life.
Sonia dropped her pencil at the sound of a low chuckle. It seemed to come from the end of the Gallery which was blacked out by shadows.
As her imagination galloped away with her, she reproached herself sharply.
“Steady, don’t be a fool. There must be a cloak-room here. That chuckle is the air escaping in a pipe—or something. I’m betrayed by my own ignorance of hydraulics.”
In spite of her brave words, she returned rather quickly to her corner.
With her back against the wall she felt less apprehensive. But she recognized her cowardice as an ominous sign.
She was desperately afraid of someone—or something—creeping up behind her and touching her.
“I’ve struck the bad patch,” she told herself. “It will be worse at three o’clock and work up to a climax. But when I make my entry, at three, I shall have reached the peak. After that every minute will be bringing the dawn nearer.”
But of one fact she was ignorant. There would be no recorded impression at three o’clock.
Happily unconscious, she began to think of her copy. When she returned to the office—sunken-eyed, and looking like nothing on earth—she would then rejoice over every symptom of groundless fear.
“It’s a story all right,” she gloated, looking at Hamlet. His gnarled, pallid features and dark, smouldering eyes were strangely familiar to her.
Suddenly she realized that he reminded her of Hubert Poke.
Against her will, her thoughts again turned to him. She told herself that he was exactly like a waxwork. His yellow face—symptomatic of heart-trouble—had the same cheesy hue, and his eyes were like dull black glass. He wore a denture which was too large for him, and which forced his lips apart in a mirthless grin.
He always seemed to smile—even over the episode of the lift—which had been no joke.
It happened two days before. Sonia had rushed into the office in a state of molten excitement because she had extracted an interview from a Personage who had just received the Freedom of the City. This distinguished freeman had the reputation of shunning newspaper publicity, and Poke had tried his luck, only to be sent away with a flea in his ear.
At the back of her mind, Sonia knew that she had not fought level, for she was conscious of the effect of violet-blue eyes and a dimple upon a reserved but very human gentleman. But in her elation she had been rather blatant about her score.
She transcribed her notes, rattling away at her typewriter in a tremendous hurry, because she had a dinner-engagement. In the same breathless speed she had rushed towards the automatic lift.
She was just about to step into it when young Wells had leaped the length of the passage and dragged her back.
“Look, where you’re going!” he shouted.
Sonia looked—and saw only the well of the shaft. The lift was not waiting in its accustomed place.
“Out of order,” explained Wells before he turned to blast Hubert Poke, who stood by.
“You almighty chump, why didn’t you grab Miss Fraser, instead of standing by like a stuck pig?”
At the time Sonia had vaguely remarked how Poke had stammered and sweated, and she accepted the fact that he had been petrified by shock and had lost his head.
For the first time, she realized that his inaction had been deliberate. She remembered the flame of terrible excitement in his eyes and his stretched ghastly grin.
“He hates me,” she thought. “It’s my fault. I’ve been tactless and cocksure.”
Then a flood of horror swept over her.
“But he wanted to see me crash. It’s almost murder.”
As she began to tremble, the jumpy passenger she carried reminded her of Poke’s remark about the alderman.
“He had enemies.”
Sonia shook away the suggestion angrily.
“My memory’s uncanny,” she thought. “I’m stimulated and all strung up. It must be the atmosphere … Perhaps there’s some gas in the air that accounts for these brainstorms. It’s hopeless to be so utterly unscientific. Poke would have made a better job of this.”
She was back again to Hubert Poke. He had become an obsession.
Her head began to throb and a tiny gong started to beat in her temples. This time, she recognized the signs without any mental ferment.
“Atmospherics. A storm’s coming up. It might make things rather thrilling. I must concentrate on my story. Really, my luck’s in.”
She sat for some time, forcing herself to think of pleasant subjects—of arguments with young Wells and the Tennis Tournament. But there was always a point when her thoughts gave a twist and led her back to Poke.
Presently she grew cramped and got up to pace the illuminated aisle in front of the window. She tried again to talk to the waxworks, but, this time, it was not a success.
They seemed to have grown remote and secretive, as though they were removed to another plane, where they possessed a hidden life.
Suddenly she gave a faint scream. Someone—or something—had crept up behind her, for she felt the touch of cold fingers upon her arm.
Two o’clock. They’re only wax. They shall not frighten me. But they’re trying to. One by one they’re coming to life … Charles the Second no longer looks sour dough. He is beginning to leer at me. His eyes remind me of Hubert Poke.
Sonia stopped writing, to glance uneasily at the image of the Stuart monarch. His black velveteen suit appeared to have a richer pile. The swart curls which fell over his lace collar looked less like horse
-hair. There really seemed a gleam of amorous interest lurking at the back of his glass optics.
Absurdly, Sonia spoke to him, in order to reassure herself.
“Did you touch me? At the first hint of a liberty, Charles Stuart, I’ll smack your face. You’ll learn a modern journalist has not the manners of an orange-girl.”
Instantly the satyr reverted to a dummy in a moth-eaten historical costume.
Sonia stood, listening for young Wells’s footsteps. But she could not hear them, although the street now was perfectly still. She tried to picture him, propping up the opposite building, solid and immovable as the Rock of Gibraltar.
But it was no good. Doubts began to obtrude.
“I don’t believe he’s there. After all, why should he stay? He only pretended, just to give me confidence. He’s gone.”
She shrank back to her corner, drawing her tennis-coat closer, for warmth. It was growing colder, causing her to think of tempting things—of a hot-water bottle and a steaming tea-pot.
Presently she realized that she was growing drowsy. Her lids felt as though weighted with lead, so that it required an effort to keep them open.
This was a complication which she had not foreseen. Although she longed to drop off to sleep, she sternly resisted the temptation.
“No. It’s not fair. I’ve set myself the job of recording a night spent in the Waxworks. It must be the genuine thing.”
She blinked more vigorously, staring across to where Byron drooped like a sooty flamingo.
“Mercy, how he yearns! He reminds me of—— No, I won’t think of him … I must keep awake … Bed … blankets, pillows … No.”
Her head fell forward, and for a minute she dozed. In that space of time, she had a vivid dream.
She thought that she was still in her corner in the Gallery, watching the dead alderman as he paced to and fro, before the window. She had never seen him, so he conformed to her own idea of an alderman—stout, pompous, and wearing the dark-blue, fur-trimmed robe of his office.
“He’s got a face like a sleepy pear,” she decided. “Nice old thing, but brainless.”