‘Gone, I suppose,’ said White. ‘We must have been asleep.’
Lester arose and, stretching his stiffened limbs, dusted his clothes with his hands and went out into the corridor. White followed. At the noise of their approach a figure which had been lying asleep at the other end sat up and revealed the face of Barnes. ‘Why, I’ve been asleep,’ he said, in surprise. ‘I don’t remember coming here. How did I get here?’
‘Nice place to come for a nap,’ said Lester severely, as he pointed to the gap in the balusters. ‘Look there! Another yard and where would you have been?’
He walked carelessly to the edge and looked over. In response to his startled cry the others drew near, and all three stood staring at the dead man below.
A. F. KIDD
(1953– )
Born in Nottingham and now living in West London, Chico (A. F.) Kidd is an award-winning writer and illustrator who has taken up the story of Thomas Carnacki, a supernatural detective created by the writer, photographer, poet and strongman William Hope Hodgson in 1910. Kidd’s work reveals the events behind a series of unexplained episodes in Hodgson’s original tales. Rivalling Sherlock Holmes’s reference to the ‘giant rat of Sumatra … a story for which the world is not yet prepared’ in its tantalising potential, the events of ‘The Black Veil’ are hinted at uneasily in Hodgson’s ‘The Gateway of the Monster’ story as ‘that horrible Black Veil business. You know how that turned out.’
THE BLACK VEIL
I asked him whether he would object to my drawing a pentacle round him for the night and got him to agree, but I saw that he did not know whether to be superstitious about it or to regard it more as a piece of foolish mumming; but he took it seriously enough when I gave him some particulars about the Black Veil case, when young Aster died. You remember, he said it was a piece of silly superstition and stayed outside. Poor devil!
William Hope Hodgson, ‘The Horse of the Invisible’
WE HAD ALL SEEN the newspapers, although each of us knew that what we read there could only be a part, at best, of the full story. So none of us was surprised to receive a card in the usual vein from Carnacki, and none of us would willingly have refused the invitation.
No sooner had the four of us – Jessop, Arkwright, Taylor and myself – all presented ourselves at No. 472 than we were ushered in to dinner, during which our host was even more taciturn than was his wont. Afterwards, however, he settled himself comfortably in his great chair much as usual and waited for us to take our accustomed places.
‘I dare say you fellows have seen the newspapers,’ he remarked, puffing at his pipe. ‘Though you won’t have got much sense out of them. But you know that, of course. It’s entirely due to that sort of materialistic scepticism that Aster died. An altogether curious and unpleasant affair and I can’t say I am entirely blameless.
‘Charles Aster was a newspaper reporter. Now as you know I won’t, as a rule, have any truck with them, but there was something about his persistence which was rather – endearing, for want of a better word. The man was more like an importunate puppy than anything else, and he pestered me until I began to think I’d have to take him along on a “safe” case – as much as anything in this line could be termed “safe”. As you know, it’s a rather relative description!
‘However, before a suitable case presented itself, Aster himself sent me a rather intriguing letter. It appeared that an uncle of his, a Mr Jago, had recently purchased a property in the West Country and was experiencing what Aster described as “some odd trouble” and begged me to come and investigate. In view of what I had been thinking, I decided to agree to this request.
‘It appeared that the house had a long-standing reputation for being “queer” but Jago, far from being discouraged by this, had apparently viewed it as a positive asset! This is just the sort of thing I meant about the newspapers. However, one night spent in the house had been sufficient to disabuse him of these notions and convert him into a fervent believer in the power of the Ab-natural, with the result that Aster had suggested contacting me.
‘“What exactly was it that happened?” I asked Aster when he met me on the train.
‘“I can’t tell you, exactly,” he replied. “But there’s something about the silence in that house that makes a chap beastly frightened.”
‘It was clear that Aster’s uncle was in quite a funk. He was one of those big, fleshy men – you know the type – who bluster a lot, but when they snap, they’ve nothing to fall back upon. He was almost pathetically glad to see us when we arrived at the station, and prattled nervously all the way to the house.
‘When we turned in at the gates – the house stands in its own grounds – Jago began to cast quick, tense little glances at it as if he were trying to catch it unawares – as if it were doing something furtive that he only suspected. Then suddenly he caught Aster’s arm and whispered, “Look, look, the upper window!” His voice was that of a man who expected some horror, but who is still surprised by its appearance. Do you know what I mean?
‘By that time, it was twilight, and logically it was quite absurd to suppose that either of us saw anything, for the windows were all in deep shadow. Still Aster and I were both convinced that we saw the figure of a woman silhouetted in the window Jago was indicating. Not only that, but I had the distinct impression that she was a young woman, although her features were obscured by a long, black veil. Now as neither Aster nor I had any indication of what form the “haunting” took, there was no suspicion of auto-suggestion – indeed, had it not been for the very odd fact that we could see her at all in that light, I for one would have taken her for the housekeeper.
‘However, the effect which the sight of this woman had on Jago was extraordinary. With a cry of “The woman, the woman!” he shrank into the corner of the carriage, his face as white as cheese. But curiously enough, neither Aster nor I felt, at that stage, any sense of fear or even revulsion.
‘As soon as we entered the house, though, the silence overwhelmed me. It was like an ocean swell – wave upon wave of it. I can’t begin to describe the suddenness with which that sickening feeling overwhelmed me, and I recalled Aster’s words. I knew there was something merciless in it – something brutal. My hands started to perspire, and glancing at Aster I could see that he, too, was sweating. He turned to Jago, who stood behind us outside the doorway, unable to cross the threshold.
‘“What is it, uncle?” he asked, and his voice was not quite steady. “Is it that woman?”
‘“Not just her,” Jago whispered. “I thought it was just her at first, and she couldn’t harm me. I thought I’d give her a bit of company. But it isn’t just her.” He had actually decided to sleep in the haunted room out of sheer perverseness!
‘After a while we got him indoors and I managed to extract the story from him. Having seen, as we had, the figure of the woman from the outside, he had gone up the stairs and located the room whose window it was, with the intention, as I said, of spending a night there. I must say I marvelled at his nerve, because I had not been in the house an hour and the “creep” was crawling all over me. But according to Jago, it was not until he actually entered the room that anything happened to him.
‘“As soon as I stepped inside the door of that room, I began to have my doubts,” he said. “It was so beastly quiet in there that it made me think – though I’m not a fanciful sort of chap – that something was holding its breath, and waiting. And then, you know, everything went black. I don’t mean I passed out – I don’t think I was scared enough for that, then. No, it was as if I’d been struck blind, and if I hadn’t had my hand on the doorknob, I think I wouldn’t have got out. As it was, I gave a kind of backwards leap out into the corridor and slammed the door as I did it. And then I was outside and I could see again. I haven’t been near the room since.”
‘You remember what I told you about “making a darkness”? At first I thought that was what Jago meant, but he was quite insistent. His candle had not gone out. He rep
eated the words, “struck blind”.
‘By then it was too dark to do anything about investigating the room, although it was not late by any standards. I have to admit I was grateful for this excuse. Now I’ve gone into too many cases connected with “ghostly” things to be accused of being a cowardly chap; but sometimes, you know, there are things you just can’t face. That was one of those occasions. There was something pretty unholy in that house, and maybe I was being warned against tackling it without proper preparation. You never know, do you?
‘So I didn’t feel too bad about funking matters, but decided to go to bed and start fresh in the morning.
‘I waited until full daylight before beginning my investigations – which at this early stage consisted simply of sealing up the room in such a way that I would be able to tell instantly if something material had entered it during the coming night. First I checked every inch of the walls, ceiling and floor, tapping then with a little hammer – the room was completely empty of furniture save for a wooden window seat.
‘Aster was tremendously interested in all this and I told him I didn’t mind him watching, as long as he kept out of the way. Even in daylight, the atmosphere in the room was pretty beastly, and I didn’t want any distractions of any kind.
‘The room was not too large – only about twelve feet by ten – but it still took me a long time to cover every surface with the colourless sticky wafers I use to detect any material activity. I find them pretty foolproof for this purpose; I used to use chalk, as you know, until that “Locked Room” case in which the hoaxer was using the ceiling rose for access to the sealed room. After that I stretched hairs across the window and the window seat, which had registered as hollow, of course, but resisted all my attempts to open it. The house was only about a hundred years old and therefore unlikely to contain such things as priest’s holes, but the builder could well have put in secret passages for his own purposes. You can never take anything for granted in this sort of case.
‘As I was in the process of sealing the door, Aster asked me why I used hairs for this purpose, rather than, say, cotton thread. I explained briefly, but he seemed unconvinced, and I was too busy with my work to pursue the matter further – I wish I had realised what it would mean. After that there was nothing to be done until the following day, so I convinced Jago that he should put up at a hotel for at least the next couple of nights. It was not difficult to persuade him, and shortly I prevailed upon Aster to accompany his uncle into town.
‘You can imagine that I felt pretty small and lonely after they had gone. The winter evening was already darkening the sky, and I sat downstairs in the library with my revolver to hand, although I was more than half convinced by this time that this was a genuine “haunting”. I spent the time reviewing the notes I had recently made from the Sigsand MS. You know what I told you about the “Defences” he mentions? Naturally I had assumed them to be simply the superstitions of the time, which had been superseded by other methods of protection – the Circle of Solomon, for one. But it occurred to me subsequently to wonder whether these old, old formulae would still be valid today, in the twentieth century; and I have, as you know, tried some of his suggestions before, with modest success.
‘Still it is one thing to seal a door or window with hair and certain signs – quite another to trust one’s own self to a type of barrier unused since the fourteenth century. And that is what I was contemplating, if the seals were unbroken in the morning. I had provided myself with the requisites for constructing such a barrier – certain herbs, for instance, candles, water vessels, and some things which I might call “creative interpretations” of Sigsand. But I am anticipating, here. There was nothing further that I could do that night and so I went to bed.
‘About midnight I went up to the room and loitered in the corridor for a little while, but that malevolent silence got on my nerves. I had intended to open the door and have a quick look inside, and had popped a couple of cloves of garlic into my pockets for protection – but I tell you, it would have taken more pluck than I had that night to open that door, in the end. I had the feeling that something rotten and monstrous was waiting on the other side, and that it was smiling at me – smiling with a kind of mean, gloating anticipation. What an odd thought – eh?
‘Of course, there was no sign of any disturbance the following morning. I had hardly expected it, but I went over the room very carefully, nonetheless, as I cleared away my paraphernalia.
‘I had just unsealed the window when a cab drove round the corner of the drive and came to a halt in a flurry of gravel below me, to disgorge young Aster. He stood looking up at the window where I was, and suddenly I wondered what it was that he could see – me, or the woman? I thought I had better hail him, and knelt on the window seat to attempt to open the casement.
‘The catch was infernally stiff, but at last I got it dislodged with a shriek of disused metal and leaned out to call to Aster. As I did so I heard a sharp “snick” – like the tumblers of a lock being turned – but ignored it for the moment.
‘“Aster!” I called.
‘“I say, Carnacki, is that you?” he cried. “I’ve found out something about the ghost. Any luck your end?” But he was gone out of sight into the house before I could reply. I stood up from the window seat to try and see what had made the noise; and, do you know, it was loose! The sound I had heard was the releasing of some internal catch, which had snapped open when I opened the window.
‘Carefully, I eased open the lid. Remember, I had no idea of what, if anything, I should find in there; but I admit I was disappointed to see that it contained nothing but a mass of sooty cobwebs – or so I thought at first.
‘By that time Aster had arrived. I heard his footsteps clattering down the corridor – at least, I hoped they were his! – and now he put his head round the door and asked if he could come in.
‘“Come and tell me what you make of this,” I said.
‘“By Jove! You’ve got it open,” he exclaimed, and before I could stop him he had reached into the window box and brought out a handful of the black stuff, revealing it to be not cobwebs at all, but a couple of yards of cloth so fine or so old that his fingers tore through it as he lifted it.
‘“The black veil!” he cried excitedly. I begged him to calm down and tell me what he was talking about, and at length he explained, and explained, too, why he had returned so soon. He had got the story of the ghost from some folk in the town, where apparently it was common knowledge.
‘It was a nasty little story of the sort that one hears all too often as being behind “hauntings”. The original inhabitant of the house, one Arthur Green, had been the worst sort of brute, given to beating not only his servants and animals but his unfortunate wife as well. She, poor woman, had appealed for help to some young man, and Green, assuming that she had taken a lover, had thrashed her so savagely that he blinded her. Green then imprisoned her in her room, where she remained until her death, but was often seen standing at her window clad in a long black veil; and after she died, she was to be seen still.
‘“This must be her veil, Carnacki! What will you do with it? Bury it? Will that stop the haunting? Or does it have to be exorcised, or blessed, or something?”
‘I told him rather shortly that I knew my business better than he did, and that I intended to burn the thing, but that it was by no means certain that this would put an end to the manifestations in the house.
‘“There may be other circumstances we are not aware of,” I told him. “We shan’t know one way or another until tonight.”
‘“Do we spend the night in here?”
‘“I can’t tell you at this stage. First of all this veil must be burned.”
‘I had, as I have told you, equipped myself with a number of items out of which to construct a “Defence”, and I employed some of these to construct a pentacle around the veil before burning it. Aster watched these proceedings with a very queer look on his face, but said nothing.
&n
bsp; ‘When we went back into the house, I could tell at once that something had changed, but it seemed like a change without direction – I could not tell whether it was for the better, or not. It was just, somehow, different. I wonder if you know what I mean?
‘I spent some time checking the room once more, and by about midday had more or less decided to chance it and spend a night in there. I was fairly sure that I had achieved at least a partial advance against the haunting, and it seemed like an ideal opportunity to test the Sigsand barriers. I told Aster what I intended and invited him to observe the preparations which I should be making. He nodded thoughtfully and after a scratch luncheon I set to work.
‘Now as you know the powers and properties of herbs are well documented, and so I felt quite justified in using certain of them specified by Sigsand – hyssop, vervain, St John’s wort and so on. To this I added garlic, which I have found to be most efficacious, in a limited but most specific sort of way, and ended up with a form of protection which I thought – I hoped! – would be peculiarly powerful.
‘First I inscribed a circle, the outline of which I rubbed with garlic and swept with a spray of hyssop, the holy herb. Inside this I made a “Ringe of water and fyre”, joining lighted candles with crescents of water using the Second Sign of the Saamaa Ritual; and then drew a pentacle, making sure that each of its points touched the circle. In each of its five points I placed a wafer of certain bread and in the “vales” a small dish of holy water.
‘All this took rather longer than I had anticipated, and by the time I had completed these precautions the sky outside the window was growing dark and I was glad of the light cast by the candles in my defence. Then Aster, who had grown bored with watching, put his head round the door and remarked, in a conversational sort of way, “Are you going to let me into the joke, old man?”
‘“I assure you this is quite serious,” I replied curtly.
‘“Well, it ain’t science,” Aster retorted. “I thought you were a scientist, Carnacki.”
Tales from the Dead of Night Page 21