Murgunstrumm and Others

by Cave, Hugh

  "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 decl
ared 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.