by Robert Bloch
“So you went to the church,” Fiske said.
“Wouldn’t you have done the same thing?” parried Dr. Dexter. “If Blake had come to you with this story, told you of what he feared, wouldn’t his death have moved you to action? I assure you, I did what I thought best. Rather than provoke a scandal, rather than expose the general public to needless fears, rather than permit the possibility of danger to exist, I went to the church. I took the books. I took the Shining Trapezohedron from under the noses of the authorities. And I chartered a boat and dumped the accursed thing in Narragansett Bay, where it could no longer possibly harm mankind. The lid was up when I dropped it—for as you know, only darkness can summon the Haunter, and now the stone is eternally exposed to light.
“But that is all I can tell you. I regret that my work in recent years has prevented me from seeing or communicating with you before this. I appreciate your interest in the affair and trust my remarks will help to clarify, in a small way, your bewilderment. As to young Blake, in my capacity as examining physician, I will gladly give you a written testimony to my belief in his sanity at the time of his death. I’ll have it drawn up tomorrow and send it to your hotel if you give me the address. Fair enough?”
The doctor rose, signifying that the interview was over. Fiske remained seated, shifting his briefcase.
“Now if you will excuse me,” the physician murmured.
“In a moment. There are still one or two brief questions I’d appreciate your answering.”
“Certainly.” If Dr. Dexter was irritated, he gave no sign.
“Did you by any chance see Lovecraft before or during his last illness?”
“No. I was not his physician. In fact, I never met the man, though of course I knew of him and his work.”
“What caused you to leave Providence so abruptly after the Blake affair?”
“My interests in physics superseded my interest in medicine. As you may or may not know, during the past decade or more, I have been working on problems relative to atomic energy and nuclear fission. In fact, starting tomorrow, I am leaving Providence once more to deliver a course of lectures before the faculties of eastern universities and certain governmental groups.”
“That is very interesting to me, Doctor,” said Fiske. “By the way, did you ever meet Einstein?”
“As a matter of fact, I did, some years ago. I worked with him on—but no matter. I must beg you to excuse me now. At another time, perhaps, we can discuss such things.”
His impatience was unmistakable now. Fiske rose, lifting his briefcase in one hand and reaching out to extinguish a table lamp with the other.
Dr. Dexter crossed swiftly and lighted the lamp again.
“Why are you afraid of the dark, Doctor?” asked Fiske, softly.
“I am not af—”
For the first time the physician seemed on the verge of losing his composure. “What makes you think that?” he whispered.
“It’s the Shining Trapezohedron, isn’t it?” Fiske continued. “When you threw it into the bay you acted too hastily. You didn’t remember at the time that even if you left the lid open, the stone would be surrounded by darkness there at the bottom of the channel. Perhaps the Haunter didn’t want you to remember. You looked into the stone just as Blake did, and established the same psychic linkage. And when you threw the thing away, you gave it into perpetual darkness, where the Haunter’s power would feed and grow.
“That’s why you left Providence—because you were afraid the Haunter would come to you, just as it came to Blake. And because you knew that now the thing would remain abroad forever.”
Dr. Dexter moved toward the door. “I must definitely ask that you leave now,” he said. “If you’re implying that I keep the lights on because I’m afraid of the Haunter coming after me, the way it did Blake, then you’re mistaken.”
Fiske smiled wryly. “That’s not it at all,” he answered. “I know you don’t fear that. Because it’s too late. The Haunter must have come to you long before this—perhaps within a day or so after you gave it power by consigning the Trapezohedron to the darkness of the Bay. It came to you, but unlike the case of Blake, it did not kill you.
“It used you. That’s why you fear the dark. You fear it as the Haunter itself fears being discovered. I believe that in the darkness you look different. More like the old shape. Because when the Haunter came to you, it did not kill but instead, merged. You are the Haunter of the Dark!”
“Mr. Fiske, really—”
“There is no Dr. Dexter. There hasn’t been any such person for many years, now. There’s only the outer shell, possessed by an entity older than the world; an entity that is moving quickly and cunningly to bring destruction to all mankind. It was you who turned ‘scientist’ and insinuated yourself into the proper circles, hinting and prompting and assisting foolish men into their sudden ‘discovery’ of nuclear fission. When the first atomic bomb fell, how you must have laughed! And now you’ve given them the secret of the hydrogen bomb, and you’re going on to teach them more, show them new ways to bring about their own destruction.
“It took me years of brooding to discover the clues, the keys to the so-called wild myths that Lovecraft wrote about. For he wrote in parable and allegory, but he wrote the truth. He has set it down in black and white time and again, the prophecy of your coming to earth—Blake knew it at the last when he identified the Haunter by its rightful name.”
“And that is?” snapped the doctor.
“Nyarlathotep!”
The brown face creased into a grimace of laughter. “I’m afraid you’re a victim of the same fantasy-projections as poor Blake and your friend Lovecraft. Everyone knows that Nyarlathotep is pure invention—part of the Lovecraft mythos.”
“I thought so, until I found the clue in his poem. That’s when it all fitted in; the Haunter of the Dark, your fleeing, and your sudden interest in scientific research. Lovecraft’s words took on a new meaning:
And at the last from inner Egypt came
The strange dark One to whom the fellahs bowed.”
Fiske chanted the lines, staring at the dark face of the physician.
“Nonsense—if you must know, this dermatological disturbance of mine is the result of exposure to radiation at Los Alamos.”
Fiske did not heed; he was continuing Lovecraft’s poem:
“—That wild beasts followed him and licked his hands.
Soon from the sea a noxious birth began;
Forgotten lands with weedy spires of gold;
The ground was cleft, and mad auroras rolled
Down on the quaking citadels of man.
Then, crushing what he chanced to mould in play,
The idiot Chaos blew Earth’s dust away.”
Dr. Dexter shook his head. “Ridiculous on the face of it,” he asserted. “Surely, even in your—er—upset condition, you can understand that, man! The poem has no literal meaning. Do wild beasts lick my hands? Is something rising from the sea? Are there earthquakes and auroras? Nonsense! You’re suffering from a bad case of what we call ‘atomic jitters’—I can see it now. You’re preoccupied, as so many laymen are today, with the foolish obsession that somehow our work in nuclear fission will result in the destruction of the earth. All this rationalization is a product of your imaginings.”
Fiske held his briefcase tightly. “I told you it was a parable, this prophecy of Lovecraft’s. God knows what he knew or feared; whatever it was, it was enough to make him cloak his meaning. And even then, perhaps, they got to him because he knew too much.”
“They?”
“They from Outside—the ones you serve. You are their Messenger, Nyarlathotep. You came, in linkage with the Shining Trapezohedron, out of inner Egypt, as the poem says. And the fellahs—the common workers of Providence who became converted to the Starry Wisdom sect—bowed before the ‘’ they worshipped as the Haunter.
“The Trapezohedron was thrown into the Bay, and soon from the sea came this noxious birth—your
birth, or incarnation in the body of Dr. Dexter. And you taught men new methods of destruction; destruction with atomic bombs in which the ‘ground was cleft, and mad auroras rolled down on the quaking citadels of man.’ Oh, Lovecraft knew what he was writing, and Blake recognized you, too. And they both died. I suppose you’ll try to kill me now, so you can go on. You’ll lecture, and stand at the elbows of the laboratory men urging them on and giving them new suggestions to result in greater destruction. And finally you’ll blow earth’s dust away.”
“Please.” Dr. Dexter held out both hands. “Control yourself—let me get you something! Can’t you realize this whole thing is absurd?”
Fiske moved toward him, hands fumbling at the clasp of the briefcase. The flap opened, and Fiske reached inside, then withdrew his hand. He held a revolver now, and he pointed it quite steadily at Dr. Dexter’s breast.
“Of course it’s absurd,” Fiske muttered. “No one ever believed in the Starry Wisdom sect except a few fanatics and some ignorant foreigners. No one ever took Blake’s stories or Lovecraft’s, or mine for that matter, as anything but a rather morbid form of amusement. By the same token, no one will ever believe there is anything wrong with you, and with so-called scientific investigation of atomic energy, or the other horrors you plan to loose on the world to bring about its doom. And that’s why I’m going to kill you now!”
“Put down that gun!”
Fiske began suddenly to tremble; his whole body shook in a spectacular spasm. Dexter noted it and moved forward. The younger man’s eyes were bulging, and the physician inched toward him.
“Stand back!” Fiske warned. The words were distorted by the convulsive shuddering of his jaws. “That’s all I needed to know. Since you are in a human body, you can be destroyed by ordinary weapons. As so I do destroy you—Nyarlathotep!”
His finger moved.
So did Dr. Dexter’s. His hand went swiftly behind him, to the master light-switch on the wall. A click, and the room was plunged into utter darkness.
Not utter darkness—for there was a glow.
The face and hands of Dr. Ambrose Dexter glowed with a phosphorescent fire in the dark. There are presumable forms of radium poisoning which can cause such an effect, and no doubt Dr. Dexter would have so explained the phenomenon to Edmund Fiske, had he the opportunity.
But there was no opportunity. Edmund Fiske heard the click, saw the fantastic flaming features, and pitched forward to the floor.
Dr. Dexter quietly switched on the lights, went over to the younger man’s side, and knelt for a long moment. He sought a pulse in vain.
Edmund Fiske was dead.
The doctor sighed, rose, and left the room. In the hall downstairs he summoned his servant.
“There has been a regrettable accident,” he said. “That young visitor of mine—a hysteric—suffered a heart attack. You had better call the police, immediately. And then continue with the packing. We must leave tomorrow, for the lecture tour.”
“But the police may detain you.”
Dr. Dexter shook his head. “I think not. It’s a clear-cut case. In any event, I can easily explain. When they arrive, notify me. I shall be in the garden.”
The doctor proceeded down the hall to the rear exit and emerged upon the moonlit splendor of the garden behind the house on Benefit Street.
The radiant vista was walled off from the world, utterly deserted. The dark man stood in moonlight, and its glow mingled with his own aura.
At this moment two silken shadows leaped over the wall. They crouched in the coolness of the garden, then slithered forward toward Dr. Dexter. They made panting sounds.
In the moonlight, he recognized the shapes of two black panthers.
Immobile, he waited as they advanced, padding purposefully toward him, eyes aglow, jaws slavering and agape.
Dr. Dexter turned away. His face was turned in mockery to the moon as the beasts fawned before him and licked his hands.
The Man Who Collected Poe
DURING THE WHOLE of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, by automobile, through a singularly dreary tract of country, and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of my destination.
I looked upon the scene before me—upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain—upon the bleak walls—upon the vacant eye-like windows—upon a few rank sedges—and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees—with a feeling of utter confusion commingled with dismay. For it seemed to me as though I had visited this scene once before, or read of it, perhaps, in some frequently re-scanned tale. And yet assuredly it could not be, for only three days had passed since I had made the acquaintance of Launcelot Canning and received an invitation to visit him at his Maryland residence.
The circumstances under which I met Canning were simple; I happened to attend a bibliophilic meeting in Washington and was introduced to him by a mutual friend. Casual conversation gave place to absorbed and interested discussion when he discovered my preoccupation with works of fantasy. Upon learning that I was traveling upon a vacation with no set itinerary, Canning urged me to become his guest for a day and to examine, at my leisure, his unusual display of memorabilia.
"I feel, from our conversation, that we have much in common," he told me. "For you see, sir, in my love of fantasy I bow to no man. It is a taste I have perhaps inherited from my father and from his father before him, together with their considerable acquisitions in the genre. No doubt you would be gratified with what I am prepared to show you, for in all due modesty, I beg to style myself the world's leading collector of the works of Edgar Allan Poe."
I confess that his invitation as such did not enthrall me, for I hold no brief for the literary hero-worshipper or the scholarly collector as a type. I own to a more than passing interest in the tales of Poe, but my interest does not extend to the point of ferreting out the exact date upon which Mr. Poe first decided to raise a mustache, nor would I be unduly intrigued by the opportunity to examine several hairs preserved from that hirsute appendage.
So it was rather the person and personality of Launcelot Canning himself which caused me to accept his proffered hospitality. For the man who proposed to become my host might have himself stepped from the pages of a Poe tale. His speech, as I have endeavored to indicate, was characterized by a courtly rodomontade so often exemplified in Poe's heroes—and beyond certainty, his appearance bore out the resemblance.
Launcelot Canning had the cadaverousness of complexion, the large, liquid, luminous eye, the thin, curved lips, the delicately modeled nose, finely molded chin, and dark, web-like hair of a typical Poe protagonist.
It was this phenomenon which prompted my acceptance and led me to journey to his Maryland estate which, as I now perceived, in itself manifested a Poe-esque quality of its own, intrinsic in the images of the gray sedge, the ghastly tree-stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows of the mansion of gloom. All that was lacking was a tarn and a moat—and as I prepared to enter the dwelling I half-expected to encounter therein the carved ceiling, the somber tapestries, the ebon floors, and the phantasmagoric armorial trophies so vividly described by the author of TALES OF THE GROTESQUE AND ARABESQUE.
Nor, upon entering Launcelot Canning's home was I too greatly disappointed in my expectations. True to both the atmospheric quality of the decrepit mansion and to my own fanciful presentiments, the door was opened in response to my knock by a valet who conducted me, in silence, through dark and intricate passages to the study of his master.
The room in which I found myself was very large and lofty. The windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a distance from the black oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessible from within. Feeble gleams of encrimsoned light made their way through the trellised panes, and served to render sufficiently distinct the more prominent objects around; the eye, however, struggled in vain to reach the remoter angles of the
chamber or the recesses of the vaulted and fretted ceiling. Dark draperies hung upon the walls. The general furniture was profuse, comfortless, antique, and tattered. Many books and musical instruments lay scattered about, but failed to give any vitality to the scene.
Instead they rendered more distinct that peculiar quality of quasi-recollection; it was as though I found myself once again, after a protracted absence, in a familiar setting. I had read, I had imagined, I had dreamed, or I had actually beheld this setting before.
Upon my entrance, Launcelot Canning arose from a sofa on which he had been lying at full length, and greeted me with a vivacious warmth which had much in it, I at first thought, of an overdone cordiality.
Yet his tone, as he spoke of the object of my visit, of his earnest desire to see me, and of the solace he expected me to afford him in a mutual discussion of our interests, soon alleviated my initial misapprehension.
Launcelot Canning welcomed me with the rapt enthusiasm of the born collector—and I came to realize that he was indeed just that. For the Poe collection he shortly proposed to unveil before me was actually his birthright.
Initially, he disclosed, the nucleus of the present accumulation had begun with his grandfather, Christopher Canning, a respected merchant of Baltimore. Almost eighty years ago he had been one of the leading patrons of the arts in his community and as such was partially instrumental in arranging for the removal of Poe's body to the southeastern corner of the Presbyterian Cemetery at Fayette and Green Streets, where a suitable monument might be erected. This event occurred in the year 1875, and it was a few years prior to that time that Canning laid the foundation of the Poe collection.
"Thanks to his zeal," his grandson informed me, "I am today the fortunate possessor of a copy of virtually every existing specimen of Poe's published works. If you will step over here"—and he led me to a remote corner of the vaulted study, past the dark draperies, to a bookshelf which rose remotely to the shadowy ceiling—"I shall be pleased to corroborate that claim. Here is a copy of AL AARAAF, TAMERLANE, AND OTHER POEMS in the eighteen twenty-nine edition, and here is the still earlier TAMERLANE, AND OTHER POEMS of eighteen twenty-seven. The Boston edition, which, as you doubtless know, is valued today at fifteen thousand dollars. I can assure you that Grandfather Canning parted with no such sum in order to gain possession of this rarity."