The Weird Fiction Megapack

by Various Writers

  “Still I refused to let my mind follow the channel it was getting into. Evelyn had never given any evidence of any psychological weakness or ‘nerves’; she’s always been a level-headed girl, wholesome and natural. But I began to think she was subject to crazy impulses. Most of us have felt the impulse to leap from tall buildings. And sometimes a person feels a blind, childish and utterly reasonless urge to harm someone. We pick up a pistol, and the thought suddenly enters our mind how easy it would be to send our friend, who sits smiling and unaware, into eternity with a touch of the trigger. Of course we don’t do it, but the impulse is there. So I thought perhaps some lack of mental discipline made Evelyn susceptible to these unguided impulses, and unable to control them.”

  “Nonsense,” I broke in. “I’ve known her since she was a baby. If she has any such trait, she’s developed it since she married you.”

  It was an unfortunate remark. Gordon caught it up with a despairing gleam in his eyes. “That’s just it—since she married me! It’s a curse—a black, ghastly curse, crawling like a serpent out of the past! I tell you, I was Richard Gordon and she—she was Lady Elizabeth, his murdered wife!” His voice sank to a blood-freezing whisper.

  I shuddered; it is an awful thing to look upon the ruin of a keen clean brain, and such I was certain that I surveyed in James Gordon. Why or how, or by what grisly chance it had come about I could not say, but I was certain the man was mad.

  “You spoke of three attempts.” It was John Kirowan’s voice again, calm and stable amid the gathering webs of horror and unreality.

  “Look here!” Gordon lifted, his arm, drew back the sleeve and displayed a bandage, the cryptic significance of which was intolerable.

  “I came into the bathroom this morning looking for my razor,” he said. “I found Evelyn just on the point of using my best shaving implement for some feminine purpose—to cut out a pattern, or something. Like many women she can’t seem to realize the difference between a razor and a butcher-knife or a pair of shears.

  “I was a bit irritated, and I said: ‘Evelyn, how many times have I told you not to use my razors for such things? Bring it here; I’ll give you my pocket-knife.’”

  “‘I’m sorry, Jim,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know it would hurt the razor. Here it is.’

  “She was advancing, holding the open razor toward me. I reached for it—then something warned me. It was the same look in her eyes, just as I had seen it the day she nearly ran over me. That was all that saved my life, for I instinctively threw up my hand just as she slashed at my throat with all her power. The blade gashed my arm as you see, before I caught her wrist. For an instant she fought me like a wild thing; her slender body was taut as steel beneath my hands. Then she went limp and the look in her eyes was replaced by a strange dazed expression. The razor slipped out of her fingers.

  “I let go of her and she stood swaying as if about to faint. I went to the lavatory—my wound was bleeding in a beastly fashion—and the next thing I heard her cry out, and she was hovering over me.

  “‘Jim!’ she cried. ‘How did you cut yourself so terribly?’

  Gordon shook his head and sighed heavily.

  “I guess I was a bit out of my head,” he went on. “My self-control snapped.

  “‘Don’t keep up this pretense, Evelyn,’ I said. ‘God knows what’s got into you, but you know as well as I that you’ve tried to kill me three times in the past week.’

  “She recoiled as if I’d struck her, catching at her breast and staring at me as if at a ghost. She didn’t say a word—and just what I said I don’t remember. But when I finished I left her standing there white and still as a marble statue. I got my arm bandaged at a drug store, and then came over here, not knowing what else to do.

  “Kirowan—O’Donnel—it’s damnable! Either my wife is subject to fits of insanity—” He choked on the word. “No, I can’t believe it. Ordinarily her eyes are too clear and level—too utterly sane. But every time she has an opportunity to harm me, she seems to become a temporary maniac.”

  He beat his fists together in his impotence and agony.

  “But it isn’t insanity! I used to work in a psychopathic ward, and I’ve seen every form of mental unbalance. My wife is not insane!”

  “Then what—” I began, but he turned haggard eyes on me.

  “Only one alternative remains,” he answered. “It is the old curse—from the days when I walked the Earth with a heart as black as hell’s darkest pits, and did evil in the sight of man and of God. She knows, in fleeting snatches of memory. People have seen before—have glimpsed forbidden things in momentary liftings of the veil, which bars life from life. She was Elizabeth Douglas, the ill-fated bride of Richard Gordon, whom he murdered in jealous frenzy, and the vengeance is hers. I shall die by her hands, as it was meant to be. And she—” he bowed his head in his hands.

  “Just a moment.” It was Kirowan again. “You have mentioned a strange look in your wife’s eyes. What sort of a look? Was it of maniacal frenzy?”

  Gordon shook his head. “It was an utter blankness. All the life and intelligence simply vanished, leaving her eyes dark wells of emptiness.”

  Kirowan nodded, and asked a seemingly irrelevant question. “Have you any enemies?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “You forget Joseph Roelocke,” I said. “I can’t imagine that elegant sophisticate going to the trouble of doing you actual harm, but I have an idea that if he could discomfort you without any physical effort on his part, he’d do it with a right good will.”

  Kirowan turned on me an eye that had suddenly become piercing.

  “And who is this Joseph Roelocke?”

  “A young exquisite who came into Evelyn’s life and nearly rushed her off her feet for a while. But in the end she came back to her first love—Gordon here. Roelocke took it pretty hard. For all his suaveness there’s a streak of violence and passion in the man that might have cropped out but for his infernal indolence and blasé indifference.”

  “Oh, there’s nothing to be said against Roelocke,” interrupted Gordon impatiently. “He must know that Evelyn never really loved him. He merely fascinated her temporarily with his romantic Latin air.”

  “Not exactly Latin, Jim,” I protested. “Roelocke does look foreign, but it isn’t Latin. It’s almost Oriental.”

  “Well, what has Roelocke to do with this matter?” Gordon snarled with the irascibility of frayed nerves. “He’s been as friendly as a man could be since Evelyn and I were married. In fact, only a week ago he sent her a ring which he said was a peace-offering and a belated wedding gift; said that after all, her jilting him was a greater misfortune for her than it was for him—the conceited jackass!”

  “A ring?” Kirowan had suddenly come to life; it was as if something hard and steely had been sounded in him. “What sort of a ring?”

  “Oh, a fantastic thing—copper, made like a scaly snake coiled three times, with its tail in its mouth and yellow jewels for eyes. I gather he picked it up somewhere in Hungary.”

  “He has traveled a great deal in Hungary?”

  Gordon looked surprised at this questioning but answered: “Why, apparently the man’s traveled everywhere. I put him down as the pampered son of a millionaire. He never did any work, so far as I know.”

  “He’s a great student,” I put in. “I’ve been up to his apartment several times, and I never saw such a collection of books—”

  Gordon leaped to his feet with an oath, “Are we all crazy?” he cried. “I came up here hoping to get some help—and you fellows fall to talking of Joseph Roelocke. I’ll go to Doctor Donnelly—”

  “Wait!” Kirowan stretched out a detaining hand. “If you don’t mind, we’ll go over to your house. I’d like to talk to your wife.”

  Gordon dumbly acquiesced. Harried and haunted by grisly forebodings, he knew not which way to turn, and welcomed anything that promised aid.

  * * * *

  We drove over in his car, and scarc
ely a word was spoken on the way. Gordon was sunk in moody ruminations, and Kirowan had withdrawn himself into some strange aloof domain of thought beyond my ken. He sat like a statue, his dark vital eyes staring into space, not blankly, but as one who looks with understanding into some far realm.

  Though I counted the man as my best friend, I knew but little of his past. He had come into my life as abruptly and unannounced as Joseph Roelocke had come into the life of Evelyn Ash. I had met him at the Wanderer’s Club, which is composed of the drift of the world, travelers, eccentrics, and all manner of men whose paths lie outside the beaten tracks of life. I had been attracted to him, and intrigued by his strange powers and deep knowledge. I vaguely knew that he was the black sheep younger son of a titled Irish family, and that he had walked many strange ways. Gordon’s mention of Hungary struck a chord in my memory; one phase of his life Kirowan had once let drop fragmentarily. I only knew that he had once suffered a bitter grief and a savage wrong, and that it had been in Hungary. But the nature of the episode I did not know.

  At Gordon’s house Evelyn met us calmly, showing inner agitation only by the over-restraint of her manner. I saw the beseeching look she stole at her husband. She was a slender, soft-spoken girl, whose dark eyes were always vibrant and alight with emotion. That child try to murder her adored husband? The idea was monstrous. Again I was convinced that James Gordon himself was deranged.

  Following Kirowan’s lead, we made a pretense of small talk, as if we had casually dropped in, but I felt that Evelyn was not deceived. Our conversation rang false and hollow, and presently Kirowan said: “Mrs. Gordon, that is a remarkable ring you are wearing. Do you mind if I look at it?”

  “I’ll have to give you my hand,” she laughed. “I’ve been trying to get it off today, and it won’t come off.”

  She held out her slim white hand for Kirowan’s inspection, and his face was immobile as he looked at the metal snake that coiled about her slim finger. He did not touch it. I myself was aware of an unaccountable repulsion. There was something almost obscene about that dull copperish reptile wound about the girl’s white finger.

  “It’s evil-looking, isn’t it?” She involuntarily shivered. “At first I liked it, but now I can hardly bear to look at it. If I can get it off I intend to return it to Joseph—Mr. Roelocke.”

  Kirowan was about to make some reply, when the doorbell rang. Gordon jumped as if shot, and Evelyn rose quickly.

  “I’ll answer it, Jim—I know who it is.”

  She returned an instant later with two more mutual friends, those inseparable cronies, Doctor Donnelly, whose burly body, jovial manner and booming voice were combined with as keen a brain as any in the profession, and Bill Bain, elderly, lean, wiry, acidly witty. Both were old friends of the Ash family. Doctor Donnelly had ushered Evelyn into the world, and Bain was always Uncle Bill to her.

  “Howdy, Jim! Howdy, Mr. Kirowan!” roared Donnelly. “Hey, O’Donnel, have you got any firearms with you? Last time you nearly blew my head off showing me an old flintlock pistol that wasn’t supposed to be loaded!”

  “Doctor Donnelly!”

  We all turned. Evelyn was standing beside a wide table, holding it as if for support. Her face was white. Our badinage ceased instantly. A sudden tension was in the air.

  “Doctor Donnelly,” she repeated, holding her voice steady by an effort, “I sent for you and Uncle Bill—for the same reason for which I know Jim has brought Mr. Kirowan and Michael. There is a matter Jim and I can no longer deal with alone. There is something between us—something black and ghastly and terrible.”

  “What are you talking about, girl?” All the levity was gone from Donnelly’s great voice.

  “My husband—” She choked, then went blindly on: “My husband has accused me of trying to murder him.”

  The silence that fell was broken by Bain’s sudden and energetic rise. His eyes blazed and his fists quivered.

  “You young pup!” he shouted at Gordon. “I’ll knock the living daylights—”

  “Sit down, Bill!” Donnelly’s huge hand crushed his smaller companion back into his chair. “No use goin’ off half cocked. Go ahead, honey.”

  “We need help. We cannot carry this thing alone.” A shadow crossed her comely face. “This morning Jim’s arm was badly cut. He said I did it. I don’t know. I was handing him the razor. Then I must have fainted. At least, everything faded away. When I came to myself he was washing his arm in the lavatory—and—and he accused me of trying to kill him.”

  “Why, the young fool!” barked the belligerent Bain. “Hasn’t he sense enough to know that if you did cut him, it was an accident?”

  “Shut up, won’t you?” snorted Donnelly. “Honey, did you say you fainted? That isn’t like you.”

  “I’ve been having fainting spells,” she answered. “The first time was when we were in the mountains and Jim fell down a cliff. We were standing on the edge—then everything went black, and when my sight cleared, he was rolling down the slope.” She shuddered at the recollection.

  “Then when I lost control of the car and it crashed into the tree. You remember—Jim called you over.”

  Doctor Donnelly nodded ponderously.

  “I don’t remember you ever having fainting spells before.”

  “But Jim says I pushed him over the cliff!” she cried hysterically. “He says I tried to run him down in the car! He says I purposely slashed him with the razor!”

  Doctor Donnelly turned perplexedly, toward the wretched Gordon.

  “How about it, son?”

  “God help me,” Gordon burst out in agony; “it’s true!”

  “Why, you lying hound!” It was Bain who gave tongue, leaping again to his feet. “If you want a divorce, why don’t you get it in a decent way, instead of resorting to these despicable tactics—”

  “Damn you!” roared Gordon, lunging up, and losing control of himself completely. “If you say that I’ll tear your jugular out!”

  Evelyn screamed; Donnelly grabbed Bain ponderously and banged him back into his chair with no overly gentle touch, and Kirowan laid a hand lightly on Gordon’s shoulder. The man seemed to crumple into himself. He sank back into his chair and held out his hands gropingly toward his wife.

  “Evelyn,” he said, his voice thick with laboring emotion, “you know I love you. I feel like a dog. But God help me, it’s true. If we go on this way, I’ll be a dead man, and you—”

  “Don’t say it!” she screamed. “I know you wouldn’t lie to me, Jim. If you say I tried to kill you, I know I did. But I swear, Jim, I didn’t do it consciously. Oh, I must be going mad! That’s why my dreams have been so wild and terrifying lately—”

  “Of what have you dreamed, Mrs. Gordon?” asked Kirowan gently.

  She pressed her hands to her temples and stared dully at him, as if only half comprehending.

  “A black thing,” she muttered. “A horrible faceless black thing that mows and mumbles and paws over me with apish hands. I dream of it every night. And in the daytime I try to kill the only man I ever loved. I’m going mad! Maybe I’m already crazy and don’t know it.”

  “Calm yourself, honey.” To Doctor Donnelly, with all his science, it was only another case of. His matter-of-fact voice seemed to soothe her, and she sighed and drew a weary hand through her damp locks.

  “We’ll talk this all over, and everything’s goin’ to be okay,” he said, drawing a thick cigar from his vest pocket. “Gimme a match, honey.”

  She began mechanically to feel about the table, and just as mechanically Gordon said: “There are matches in the drawer, Evelyn.”

  She opened the drawer and began groping in it, when suddenly, as if struck by recollection and intuition, Gordon sprang up, white-faced, and shouted: “No, no! Don’t open that drawer—don’t—!”

  Even as he voiced that urgent cry, she stiffened, as if at the feel of something in the drawer. Her change of expression held us all frozen, even Kirowan. The vital intelligence vanished from he
r eyes like a blown-out flame, and into them came the look Gordon had described as blank. The term was descriptive. Her beautiful eyes were dark wells of emptiness, as if the soul had been withdrawn from behind them.

  Her hand came out of the drawer holding a pistol, and she fired point-blank. Gordon reeled with a groan and went down, blood starting from his head. For a flashing instant she looked down stupidly at the smoking gun in her hand, like one suddenly waking from a nightmare. Then her wild scream of agony smote our ears.

  “Oh God, I’ve killed him! Jim! Jim!”

  She reached him before any of us, throwing herself on her knees and cradling his bloody head in her arms, while she sobbed in an unbearable passion of horror and anguish. The emptiness was gone from her eyes; they were alive and dilated with grief and terror.

  I was making toward my prostrate friend with Donnelly and Bain, but Kirowan caught my arm. His face was no longer immobile; his eyes glittered with a controlled savagery.

  “Leave him to them!” he snarled. “We are hunters, not healers! Lead me to the house of Joseph Roelocke!”

  I did not question him. We drove there in Gordon’s car.

  I had the wheel, and something about the grim face of my companion caused me to hurl the machine recklessly through the traffic. I had the sensation of being part of a tragic drama which was hurtling with headlong speed toward a terrible climax.

  I wrenched the car to a grinding halt at the curb before the building where Roelocke lived in a bizarre apartment high above the city. The very elevator that shot us skyward seemed imbued with something of Kirowan’s driving urge for haste. I pointed out Roelocke’s door, and he cast it open without knocking and shouldered his way in. I was close at his heels.

  Roelocke, in a dressing-gown of Chinese silk worked with dragons, was lounging on a divan, puffing quickly at a cigarette. He sat up, overturning a wine-glass which stood with a half-filled bottle at his elbow.