by Mark Hansom
That was the minute we were waiting for. I was intensely excited. I did not know what would happen. At the bottom of my heart I hoped that nothing might happen and in the same instant I hoped that everything might happen. My reasoning told me to look to Martin for the solution of the mystery — for the solution of all the tragedy that had touched those about him since his introduction to Sylvia.
His temporary bedroom was in the corridor in which we were waiting. We had arranged it so. We had expected that he would go to bed in the ordinary way. But he chose this night in which to sit up, and according to the doctor he was about to drop off to sleep in the study.
Grainger went down a third time; but he was hardly out of sight before he was back again with the information that the study was empty and that there was no sign of Martin.
Telling Grainger to stop where he was, I set off as fast as I could towards Sydney’s room. I ought to have studied the design of the house much more thoroughly than I had done. I had relied upon Martin’s coming to bed, so that he, in whom I felt sure the secret lay, should be under our observation. I had not reckoned on our losing sight of him in this manner.
Reaching the corridor that ended at the door of Sydney’s room, I noticed for the first time a dark flight of stone stairs that led downwards, and I realized with horror that this tower, in which I was and in which Sydney was, communicated with the lower floors independently of the main staircase and that anyone could reach Sydney’s room without the knowledge of us who had been keeping the main staircase under survey.
I was about to run the last thirty feet or so to Sydney’s door, my mind in anguish at the thought that I had not taken the precaution of telling Sydney to remain awake in case of accidents, when I heard the hollow sound of footsteps coming from the old stone stairway.
The corridor was dimly lit from the glow of the night sky, but the stairway was in total darkness. I glanced down it once, then drew back; and as I did so the person ascending reached the top and stepped out slowly into the corridor.
It was Martin. I say so now, but for a moment I did not recognize him, and, all my theories notwithstanding, I shrank back in horror.
He was in a dressing-gown; his hair was ruffled and hanging partly over his eyes, and on his face was such a look of malevolence as I had never before seen on a human visage. His gaze was concentrated in front of him. His underjaw was working, making his teeth grate together audibly. His fingers also were working. He was asleep.
Slowly, but without hesitation, he made for the door of Sydney’s room. I followed at a distance on tiptoe.
In the course of my duties I have seen some gruesome and some soul-searing sights, but never have I seen anything that affected me as this did. The effect was akin to that of seeing a brilliant intellect suddenly brought down to mumbling insanity, but this was infinitely more intense for it was crowned by an unspeakable horror.
Martin was not mad. He was acting under the impulse of a very strong volition coming from the unconscious mind — that part of us, imperfectly explored, which retains all the forces of our instincts, He was doing in his sleep that which, when awake, he would hold in abomination. He was no more guilty than we are when we dream. His dreams were deeper than ours, but that is all.
Though I followed him on tiptoe there was no need for me to do so. A noise would be unlikely to wake him, Certainly Sylvia had wakened him the night before when he attacked her; but we must assume that the impulse which drove him to attack Sylvia was not so definite in its intention as that which had driven him to kill Christopher Knight and his own cousin, and which was now driving him to kill Sydney. He could hardly have had an unconscious desire to kill Sylvia. But these men had the power to deprive him of Sylvia, and nothing short of utter destruction would satisfy his instincts.
A scientific explanation, however, did nothing to soften the horror of the moment. The man, as he walked with a measured step along that corridor in front of me, was an incalculable power for evil.
At the door he paused and, turning quickly, looked at me. Rather, he looked through me. And his eyes lit up with the most unholy ecstasy. Then, with a flourish of exultation, he clutched the handle of the door and disappeared inside.
I ran forward to follow him into the room; but what was my horror to find that he had locked the door on the inside!
I shouted. I banged with my fists and kicked with my feet on the door. I screamed out the name of my son, and continued my banging and my kicking without waiting for an answer.
Sydney, I knew, was even normally no match for Martin. And for Sydney to be caught asleep by Martin who, in his present state, had the strength of ten men was equal to certain death.
But I could hear that a fight of some sort was being put up. A scuffle was going on within the room. It was something to know that my son had not been caught by strangling fingers before he had time to defend himself.
Then I thought of the room next to this one, and hurried into it in the hope of finding a communicating door between the two. But there was nothing but the solid wall. I had turned to go to the room on the other side of Sydney’s, in a state that it is unnecessary for me to try to describe, when I heard a shriek which seemed to reach me from beyond the window. The shriek was followed by a thud that made me heave inwardly — the thud of a body on the ground far below.
It was the body of Martin. I was rushing to the window to look out, certain that I had been indirectly the cause of my son’s death, when the door of the fatal room was opened with a clatter and Sydney staggered into the dim light of the corridor.
He could not immediately explain what had happened. The poor boy was too greatly horrified by what he had experienced. But by the time the first of the household had come on the scene he was able to tell me how he had been awakened by someone who was dragging him out of bed — someone with superhuman strength. He had struggled — terror, he said, giving him a strength equal to that of his assailant — and when the struggle was carried across towards the open window it was a question of luck who would go over.
My son is alive to-day, I might remark, only because of Martin’s strong instinct of self-preservation. He might have strangled Sydney with the greatest ease in the world, but there was in his unconscious mind that which prompted him to avoid the appearance of murder.
“Where’s Martin?” Sydney asked. “Martin warned me about a ghost or something.”
“But Martin is dead,” I said. “That was Martin.”
“Martin? That face Martin’s?”
Sydney’s look of incredulity, changing to one of awful horror, made me realize more acutely than anything else the danger in which all who knew the dead man had stood while he was alive.
Two years have passed since these happenings occurred. Sylvia is now my daughter-in-law, and it does seem to be true that time is capable of obliterating the sharpness of even the most intensely painful experiences. And not the least painful of the experiences of that time was the frenzied grief of that queer old man, Makepeace. Fortunately he did not live long to mourn over the end of the House of Strange.
Finis
RAMBLE HOUSE’s
Harry Stephen Keeler Webwork Mysteries
(RH) indicates the title is available ONLY in the RAMBLE HOUSE edition
The Ace of Spades Murder
The Affair of the Bottled Deuce (RH)
The Amazing Web
The Barking Clock
Behind That Mask
The Book with the Orange Leaves
The Bottle with the Green Wax Seal
The Box from Japan
The Case of the Canny Killer
The Case of the Crazy Corpse (RH)
The Case of the Flying Hands (RH)
The Case of the Ivory Arrow
The Case of the Jeweled Ragpicker
The Case of the Lavender Gripsack
The Case of the Mysterious Moll
The Case of the 16 Beans
The Case of the Transparent Nude (RH)
The Case of the Transposed Legs
The Case of the Two-Headed Idiot (RH)
The Case of the Two Strange Ladies
The Circus Stealers (RH)
Cleopatra’s Tears
A Copy of Beowulf (RH)
The Crimson Cube (RH)
The Face of the Man From Saturn
Find the Clock
The Five Silver Buddhas
The 4th King
The Gallows Waits, My Lord! (RH)
The Green Jade Hand
Finger! Finger!
Hangman’s Nights (RH)
I, Chameleon (RH)
I Killed Lincoln at 10:13! (RH)
The Iron Ring
The Man Who Changed His Skin (RH)
The Man with the Crimson Box
The Man with the Magic Eardrums
The Man with the Wooden Spectacles
The Marceau Case
The Matilda Hunter Murder
The Monocled Monster
The Murder of London Lew
The Murdered Mathematician
The Mysterious Card (RH)
The Mysterious Ivory Ball of Wong Shing Li (RH)
The Mystery of the Fiddling Cracksman
The Peacock Fan
The Photo of Lady X (RH)
The Portrait of Jirjohn Cobb
Report on Vanessa Hewstone (RH)
Riddle of the Travelling Skull
Riddle of the Wooden Parrakeet (RH)
The Scarlet Mummy (RH)
The Search for X-Y-Z
The Sharkskin Book
Sing Sing Nights
The Six From Nowhere (RH)
The Skull of the Waltzing Clown
The Spectacles of Mr. Cagliostro
Stand By—London Calling!
The Steeltown Strangler
The Stolen Gravestone (RH)
Strange Journey (RH)
The Strange Will
The Straw Hat Murders (RH)
The Street of 1000 Eyes (RH)
Thieves’ Nights
Three Novellos (RH)
The Tiger Snake
The Trap (RH)
Vagabond Nights (Defrauded Yeggman)
Vagabond Nights 2 (10 Hours)
The Vanishing Gold Truck
The Voice of the Seven Sparrows
The Washington Square Enigma
When Thief Meets Thief
The White Circle (RH)
The Wonderful Scheme of Mr. Christopher Thorne
X. Jones—of Scotland Yard
Y. Cheung, Business Detective
Keeler Related Works
A To Izzard: A Harry Stephen Keeler Companion by Fender Tucker — Articles and stories about Harry, by Harry, and in his style. Included is a compleat bibliography.
Wild About Harry: Reviews of Keeler Novels — Edited by Richard Polt & Fender Tucker — 22 reviews of works by Harry Stephen Keeler from Keeler News. A perfect introduction to the author.
The Keeler Keyhole Collection: Annotated newsletter rants from Harry Stephen Keeler, edited by Francis M. Nevins. Over 400 pages of incredibly personal Keeleriana.
Fakealoo — Pastiches of the style of Harry Stephen Keeler by selected demented members of the HSK Society. Updated every year with the new winner.
Strands of the Web: Short Stories of Harry Stephen Keeler — 29 stories, just about all that Keeler wrote, are edited and introduced by Fred Cleaver.
RAMBLE HOUSE’s Loon Sanctuary
A Clear Path to Cross — Sharon Knowles short mystery stories by Ed Lynskey.
A Jimmy Starr Omnibus — Three 40s novels by Jimmy Starr.
A Roland Daniel Double: The Signal and The Return of Wu Fang — Classic thrillers from the 30s.
A Shot Rang Out — Three decades of reviews and articles by today’s Anthony Boucher, Jon Breen. An essential book for any mystery lover’s library.
A Smell of Smoke — A 1951 English countryside thriller by Miles Burton.
A Snark Selection — Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark with two Snarkian chapters by Harry Stephen Keeler — Illustrated by Gavin L. O’Keefe.
A Young Man’s Heart — A forgotten early classic by Cornell Woolrich.
Alexander Laing Novels — The Motives of Nicholas Holtz and Dr. Scarlett, stories of medical mayhem and intrigue from the 30s.
An Angel in the Street — Modern hardboiled noir by Peter Genovese.
Automaton — Brilliant treatise on robotics: 1928-style! By H. Stafford Hatfield.
Beast or Man? — A 1930 novel of racism and horror by Sean M’Guire. Introduced by John Pelan.
Black Hogan Strikes Again — Australia’s Peter Renwick pens a tale of the 30s outback.
Black River Falls — Suspense from the master, Ed Gorman.
Blondy’s Boy Friend — A snappy 1930 story by Philip Wylie, writing as Leatrice Homesley.
Blood in a Snap — The Finnegan’s Wake of the 21st century, by Jim Weiler.
Blood Moon — The first of the Robert Payne series by Ed Gorman.
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro Novels featuring Charlie Moon — Ogilvie, Tallant and Moon, Music When the Sweet Voice Dies, Poisonous Fruit and Dead Mice. An Ojibwa detective in SF.
Cornucopia of Crime — Francis M. Nevins assembled this huge collection of his writings about crime literature and the people who write it. Essential for any serious mystery library.
Crimson Clown Novels — By Johnston McCulley, author of the Zorro novels, The Crimson Clown and The Crimson Clown Again.
Dago Red — 22 tales of dark suspense by Bill Pronzini.
David Hume Novels — Corpses Never Argue, Cemetery First Stop, Make Way for the Mourners, Eternity Here I Come. 1930s British hardboiled fiction with an attitude.
Dead Man Talks Too Much — Hollywood boozer by Weed Dickenson.
Death Leaves No Card — One of the most unusual murdered-in-the-tub mysteries you’ll ever read. By Miles Burton.
Death March of the Dancing Dolls and Other Stories — Volume Three in the Day Keene in the Detective Pulps series. Introduced by Bill Crider.
Deep Space and other Stories — A collection of SF gems by Richard A. Lupoff.
Detective Duff Unravels It — Episodic mysteries by Harvey O’Higgins.
Dime Novels: Ramble House’s 10-Cent Books — Knife in the Dark by Robert Leslie Bellem, Hot Lead and Song of Death by Ed Earl Repp, A Hashish House in New York by H.H. Kane, and five more.
Don Diablo: Book of a Lost Film — Two-volume treatment of a western by Paul Landres, with diagrams. Intro by Francis M. Nevins.
Dope and Swastikas — Two strange novels from 1922 by Edmund Snell
Dope Tales #1 — Two dope-riddled classics; Dope Runners by Gerald Grantham and Death Takes the Joystick by Phillip Condé.
Dope Tales #2 — Two more narco-classics; The Invisible Hand by Rex Dark and The Smokers of Hashish by Norman Berrow.
Dope Tales #3 — Two enchanting novels of opium by the master, Sax Rohmer. Dope and The Yellow Claw.
Double Hot — Two 60s softcore sex novels by Morris Hershman.
Dr. Odin — Douglas Newton’s 1933 racial potboiler comes back to life.
Evidence in Blue — 1938 mystery by E. Charles Vivian.
Fatal Accident — Murder by automobile, a 1936 mystery by Cecil M. Wills.
Finger-prints Never Lie — A 1939 classic detective novel by John G. Brandon.
Freaks and Fantasies — Eerie tales by Tod Robbins, collaborator of Tod Browning on the film FREAKS.
Gadsby — A lipogram (a novel without the letter E). Ernest Vincent Wright’s last work, published in 1939 right before his death.
Gelett Burgess Novels — The Master of Mysteries, The White Cat, Two O’Clock Courage, Ladies in Boxes, Find the Woman, The Heart Line, The Picaroons and Lady Mechante. All are introduced by Richard A. Lupoff who is singlehandedly bringing Burgess back to life.
Geronimo — S. M. Barrett’s 1905 autobiography of a noble American.
Hake Talbot Novels — Rim of the Pit,
The Hangman’s Handyman. Classic locked room mysteries, with mapback covers by Gavin O’Keefe.
Hollywood Dreams — A novel of Tinsel Town and the Depression by Richard O’Brien.
I Stole $16,000,000 — A true story by cracksman Herbert E. Wilson.
Inclination to Murder — 1966 thriller by New Zealand’s Harriet Hunter.
Invaders from the Dark — Classic werewolf tale from Greye La Spina.
J. Poindexter, Colored — Classic satirical black novel by Irvin S. Cobb.
Jack Mann Novels — Strange murder in the English countryside. Gees’ First Case, Nightmare Farm, Grey Shapes, The Ninth Life, The Glass Too Many.
Jake Hardy — A lusty western tale from Wesley Tallant.
Jim Harmon Double Novels — Vixen Hollow/Celluloid Scandal, The Man Who Made Maniacs/Silent Siren, Ape Rape/Wanton Witch, Sex Burns Like Fire/Twist Session, Sudden Lust/Passion Strip, Sin Unlimited/Harlot Master, Twilight Girls/Sex Institution. Written in the early 60s and never reprinted until now.
Joel Townsley Rogers Novels and Short Stories — By the author of The Red Right Hand: Once In a Red Moon, Lady With the Dice, The Stopped Clock, Never Leave My Bed. Also two short story collections: Night of Horror and Killing Time.
Joseph Shallit Novels — The Case of the Billion Dollar Body, Lady Don’t Die on My Doorstep, Kiss the Killer, Yell Bloody Murder, Take Your Last Look. One of America’s best 50’s authors and a favorite of author Bill Pronzini.
Keller Memento — 45 short stories of the amazing and weird by Dr. David Keller.
Killer’s Caress — Cary Moran’s 1936 hardboiled thriller.
League of the Grateful Dead and Other Stories — Volume One in the Day Keene in the Detective Pulps series. In the introduction John Pelan outlines his plans for republishing all of Day Keene’s short stories from the pulps.