by Cave, Hugh
He carried the body to the very end of the attic floor and laid it there. Then he held the flashlight in his hand and pointed its circular glare above him, to where three large crossbeams supported the sloping roof. One of those crossbeams was not a beam at all, but a hollow long-box containing seven thin water pipes. He had opened it the first day, to repair one of the pipes, because the Malay servants did not know how.
He found a ladder and adjusted it carefully, and carried the blanket-wrapped body to the top of it. Resting his burden on the first and second beams, he sat a-straddle the third and pried the boards loose with his fingers. The seven pipes were of lead, and he bent them to enlarge the space. Then he stood on the beams and lowered the dead woman into the opening, and replaced the boards.
"They will never know," he said.
And he returned to his own room.
5.
Two evenings later he had dinner at the Karnery Club, and one of his friends said slyly:
"So you're keeping bachelor quarters again, Vesker. Eh?"
Vesker said: "They never stay long, these lovely ladies."
It was a very special occasion. A brilliant young government chap was being married tomorrow and having his last fling tonight. Exclusively stag. Imported whisky, wine for those who preferred it, and sufficient of both to make a regiment drunk. The doors of the Karnery Club were closed and locked to strangers. Every man of importance was present.
Vesker had come by invitation. They were sorry for him. They thought Renee LaRoque had walked out on him and taken the customary "silent leave." Most of Vesker's women had done that eventually.
"I suppose you'll be moving back to the shack, Vesker."
The "shack" was the small residential hotel exclusively reserved for government bachelors.
"Temporarily," Vesker smiled.
"Until romance wings through the window again, eh?"
"There are many fish in the water," Vesker shrugged. "Of course"—and he raised his eyebrows suggestively—"I loved her."
Ordinarily he would have been angry at their persistence, but tonight he did not mind. If they thought she had left him of her own accord, let them think so!
He spoke of it whenever the opportunity occurred. That was the best thing to do—make light of it. Left him? Of course, of course! Perhaps she had received a message from her husband, and had skipped off to him. These women!
"You've had pretty good luck with them, Vesker. More than most of us."
"Ye-e-es."
"Ever really been in love?"
"Always," Vesker grinned.
He wanted to ask certain questions. Captain Jason Fournier was here, and, as a pleasant surprise, Lord Willoughby of the British North. Willoughby knew Borneo forward and backward. He had made a special study of Dyak lore, and knew every inch of the Merasi, the Upper Barito, the black-water country, the inland—everywhere. Willoughby had spent years among the Ibans, the Penihings, the Long-Gifts, the Saputans.
But Willoughby was a hard man to talk to. You had to lead the conversation to him. And how could you switch it from women to natives?
"I have one rival," Vesker said, feeling his way along. "Heard recently about an up-river kapala who married fourteen women at the same time."
"Eh?"
"Probably a huge lie. The Dyaks don't do that, do they, Willoughby?"
Willoughby sucked the end of his pipe and uncrossed his legs. "It's possible," he said. "What tribe was it?"
"Damned if I know. The fellow was a Saputan, I think."
"Hard to believe, then, unless the chap was a blian."
One of the younger men frowned and said: "What?"
"A blian. Witch-doctor. Sorcerer. They have things pretty much their own way. If one of them wanted fourteen women, he'd take 'em."
"It's a queer thing, that," Vesker said. "The power they're supposed to have over the people, I mean. Absolute tommyrot, of course."
"Is it?"
"Eh?"
"You're a white man," Willoughby shrugged. "Being a white man, you can't see beyond the end of your all-important nose."
"You mean to say it's not tommyrot?"
"I do, emphatically!"
"I heard a tall yarn once," Vesker said hesitantly, "about a chap who murdered one of those fellows. Rather, a relative of one." Now he would have an answer to his questions! Willoughby would know and tell the honest truth. But how to ask him? How to put the case clearly, without overstepping the bounds of discretion?
"After murdering the native," he said slowly, "this chap cut the body up and buried it. And then, one night—"
One of the listeners rose, with a dry smile, and turned out two of the three electric lamps. The third lamp was behind Willoughby's chair, and Willoughby was leaning slightly forward with his face in the amber glare of it. The rest of the room was in shadow, made furtive and restless and sinister by Vesker's words.
"One night a horrible snake-like thing crawled into the murderer's room, for vengeance. It was the murdered man's arm, with five twisted fingers on the end of it!"
"And did it kill him." Willoughby asked quietly.
"I don't—" Vesker hesitated. He was going to say "I don't know," but then he would have to answer questions. And he wanted someone else to answer the questions. So he said bluntly: "Yes, it killed him."
Willoughby nodded, and the others watched him, waiting for his comment. He looked at them indifferently and said: "Well, what of it?"
"But such a thing isn't possible!" Vesker said.
"Why isn't it?"
"Why isn't it? Great Scott, man, a dead man's arm can't crawl out of its grave and—"
"Why not?"
"Well, how can it?"
Willoughby reached out and scratched a match on the cover of a book which lay on the table. He held the flame to the bowl of his pipe and stared at Vesker while he sucked the pipe-stem.
"With white men," he said, "it might be rare. Few whites know the secrets of necromancy. But you say the murdered man came of a sorcerer's family. A brother, was he?"
"I—I believe it was father and son," Vesker faltered. "Or mother and son."
"Well then, the father knew of his son's death, and the whys of it. So he raised the dead. You say the body was dismembered. He raised enough of it to return the murderer's compliment."
"You absolutely believe in necromancy, Willoughby?" a listener protested.
"Absolutely."
"Seen it work?"
"A hundred times, in Saputan kampongs."
"You should have some good stories, old chap."
Willoughby smiled. He had a reputation for his good stories. They were not bedtime tales, either. They filled his listeners with nocturnal dread and very real shudders. But men like that sort of thing.
"I'll tell you one," Willoughby said. "It's not pleasant."
Creaking rockers filled the room with suggestive sound as the men drew closer. A door opened and closed, and a newcomer said: "What the devil!" Jason Fournier silenced him with a curt word and made room for him. There was no other sound after that, except the breathing of many men and the bubbling noise of Willoughby's pipe. The lamplight was yellow and feeble.
"It happened in Ola-Baong, on the Upper Barito," Willoughby said. "The village blian was a wicked old Saputan named Mermingi. He had a particular grudge against a chap who had run off with his favorite woman."
Vesker stared. Behind Willoughby's chair a mist was forming. It was cigarette smoke, of course—or pipe smoke. But why was it taking that particular shape? Why, in the name of God, was it becoming a woman's face?
"The Saputans, you know," Willoughby said, "have a particularly gruesome form of necromancy which leads a man to horrible death. They dress a corpse in the clothes of the intended victim and hide it away in the jungle, to rot. As the corpse decays, so does the victim. I've known men to go stark mad looking for the hiding-place, to avoid such a death."
Vesker's fingers were white and bony on the arm of his chair. The shape be
hind Willoughby's head was fully materialized now, and hideously clear. It was the same shape, the same face—the same sinister old woman! Great God, was he the only one who could see it? Were the others all blind?
"Merningi, the blian," Willoughby said, "obtained the body of an old woman who had died of ben-ben, and dressed it in the clothes of his intended victim. Then he toted it into the jungle and secreted it there."
But Willoughby was not saying that! Willoughby was no longer there! His face was the woman's face, with boring black eyes and withered lips. And his body was the body of a nearly naked Saputan woman, clad in dirty gray sarong and grass sandals! In God's name, could the others not see it?
"The next day the victim took sick. There was no reason for it; he simply became ill. He didn't know what Merningi had done, you see; so he couldn't help himself. Had he known, he might have found the body and ripped his clothes off it in time to break the connection. But he became violently in the second day, and on the fourth day he began to rot."
Vesker was unable to cry out. He cursed himself for being an idiot. There was no woman there! How under heaven could any woman be sitting there when Willoughby was occupying the chair? He closed his eyes and opened them again, and the woman was looking straight at him, smiling significantly.
"The fellow died. He simply rotted away until the life was gone out of his body. I was with him when he gave up the ghost."
There was silence. Vesker leaped to his feet and cried harshly: "Stop it! Good God, stop it!"
Then one of the younger men turned on the lights and Willoughby, sitting in the chair, said with a dry smile:
"You asked for it, old man. Have a drink."
And the native woman was not there.
6.
Vesker sat up in bed and stared fearfully at the thing on the floor.
He had come home late from the club, and he had been drinking heavily. His lips were thick and sour. His sight was blurred. His stomach ached.
But before going to bed, he had packed all of his clothes and possessions into two big suit-cases, and this was his last night in the accursed house which harbored Renee LaRoque's dead body. A tramp freighter, leaving Bandjermasin in the morning, would take him to Kuching.
Climbing into bed, he had removed his clothes and tossed them on a chair. And now they were on the floor.
They were on the floor, and something was dragging them!
Vesker sat and stared. He was dreaming, of course. The whole horrible affair, from beginning to end, had been the product of his own imagination. How could a dead man's arm have life? How could it crawl along, like a snake, and drag a handful of clothes in its curled fingers? That was madness. He was drunk. Besides, he had locked his door carefully and turned the latch on the window. He looked at the window now, and it was shut tight. Faint moonlight glowed through it, illuminating the room. But the door was open, and the key was lying on the carpet!
Vesker screamed.
"I didn't mean to do it!" he shrieked. "I didn't mean to!"
The hideous thing paid no attention to him. It continued to crawl backward, pulling the clothes after it. How in the name of God had it gained admission? Had it clawed its way up the door and turned the lock with its fiendish fingers, after poking the key loose? Was there nothing it could not do?
But it was taking his clothes. What for? What good were his clothes? Did it think to imprison him in his room? Was it as foolish as that?
Vesker watched it. It slithered backward over the threshold, into the corridor. It turned to the right. Then it was gone.
Vesker leaped from the bed and slammed the door shut. He had other clothes; they were in one of the two suitcases! At the dub he could find a room for the rest of the night, and in the morning he would be far away from dead bodies and crawling hands, and faces that came from nowhere to leer at him.
Faces! He was on his knees, fumbling with the suitcase, and he remembered. He stood up, pawing his naked chest, stood with his eyes wide and his legs stiff as wood, huge and grotesque in loose-fitting pajamas. From his lips came a thick, bubbling sound.
He turned and ran to the door, and opened it. There he stopped, because the darkness of the corridor terrified him. He groped back again and sat on the bed, clawing with his fingers until the bedclothes were wrinkled and sweat-stained.
"Had he known, he might have found the body and ripped his clothes off it in time to break the connection. But he became violently ill the second day, and on the fourth day he began to rot."
Willoughby had said that. No, no, the woman had said it! Almighty God, the thing had taken his clothes! If he did not get them back—
He rushed to the open suitcase and pushed his hands deep into it, searching for a flashlight. Gaining his feet, he stood swaying. Where had the horrible creature taken his clothes? What dead body—
"Oh God, no!" he sobbed. "Not her! Not up there!"
But there was no other dead body. The thing had to have a dead body. Up there in the attic, in awful darkness, she was lying. Up there where he had put her, in the wooden casing which covered the water pipes.
He ran to the door, and the glaring eye of the flashlight preceded him crazily as he groped into the corridor. The long corridor was full of moving shapes and suggestive sounds. It loomed over him and under him, clutching at him as he paced down it. He stopped twice and looked behind him. Merciful God, why had he hidden the body up there?
He gripped the railing with his left hand and held the flashlight rigid before him as he climbed the staircase. The light only made the surrounding darkness more hideous. Below him, when he was half-way up, a well of frightful gloom lay waiting. Above him was the singsong of the wind outside the house, and the creak of wooden floors inside.
On the upper landing he found one of his socks. The hand had dropped it.
He climbed the final flight of wooden steps, counting them subconsciously as he went. Seven of them. Seven terrible ascents into a vault of horror. His slippers thumped thunderously. The hammering of his heart was even louder.
He could hear his breath whine in and out, and at the top of the seven steps he stopped to push the wet hair out of his eyes. The flashlight made a ghastly yellow-ringed glare over the floor. Then he began the march of torment to the far end of the chamber.
And then the face came.
It was the woman's face, and it hung before him in the light, like a shadow. Its eyes drilled into him, and a triumphant leer curled its thin lips. But it made no attempt to stop him; it hung always before him as he stumbled forward.
With one hand he lifted the ladder into place, because he feared to put down the flashlight. Above him hung the three black crossbeams. And the face sat on every rung, always before him, as he ascended.
He stood swaying on the beams, high above the floor. The ceiling sloped over his head. Once, when he lost his balance and clutched wildly to steady himself, the flashlight threw a crazy figure eight over ceiling, floor, and wall. And the face was always within it.
Trembling in every muscle, he lowered himself slowly and straddled the coffin which contained Renee LaRoque's body. He placed the flashlight between his legs, so that his hands were leprously white in the gleam of it as he leaned forward to loosen the boards. And on the other end of the beam, where the glare was pale, the face sat and watched him.
The boards came loose in his fingers. He dropped them and shuddered violently as they clattered to the floor beneath his perched body. One after another he let them fall. Then he stared at the thing in the coffin.
The face of Tenegai LaRoque's wife stared back at him, silent in death. His own clothes covered her body. Her yellow pajamas and the soft blanket lay neatly folded under her feet. And on the other end of the beam, the old woman was still watching him.
He clawed madly, raking his fingers in dead flesh and tearing his clothes loose from it. His own breathing was louder than the sound of his exertions. The flashlight made his task hideous and terrible, until the dead woman lay naked
under his outstretched hands.
Then he leaned back, with madness in his eyes. He held the clothes in the crook of his arm and stood erect on the beam, rocking from side to side. He glared at the face of the native woman and laughed at it, and the laugh was a jangling cackle.
"You won't kill me!" he screamed. "I know who you are! You're LaRoque's mother! You're the sorceress! But you won't kill me! I'm too strong for you!"
The face sat on the end of the beam and smiled triumphantly. It did not answer him. When he turned the flashlight and walked along the beam to the top of the ladder, it did not follow him.
He put one foot on the ladder and started down. His left hand pressed the crumpled death-clothes against his body. His right hand held the light and clung to the wooden rungs as he descended.
He reached the floor and stood swaying, and looked up triumphantly.
"You won't get me!" he shouted.
And then he stiffened. Above him on the black end of the third beam, something stirred. Vesker's lips writhed open to release a scream of terror. He flung himself backward.
He fell, and the flashlight clattered from his hand. His scream died to a whimpering moan. On hands and knees he clawed for the light, blindly, with his horrified gaze riveted on the thing above him. Then his twisted body became rigid, and he screeched wildly.
"No! No! Don't touch me! Don't—"
Above him, on the crossbeam, the thing slowly coiled.
"Don't touch me!" Vesker gibbered. "Don't—oh God, don't!"
The thing shot out and down with the speed of a leaping snake. It struck with vicious strength. A white, cold arm encircled Vesker's neck. Five twisted fingers buried themselves in the flesh of his throat.
Vesker's screech died to a gurgle. Wildly he staggered to his feet, clawing with both hands at the living-dead fingers which strangled him. Cold sweat stood out on his forehead. His eyes opened to hideous bigness and became white, glaring crescents. His breath choked in his throat. His face purpled.
He stumbled toward the exit, blindly. But he did not reach it. His legs went limp beneath him and he sagged to the floor. And the five living-dead fingers finished their task.