Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth

by Stephen Jones

  Then Violet found a hinge. Two, in fact.

  Dick got out his magnifying glass and examined the hinges. Recently oiled, he noted. Where there were hinges, there must be a door. Hidden.

  “Where’s the handle?” asked Ernest.

  “Inside,” said Violet.

  “What’s the use of a door it only opens from one side?”

  “It’d keep out detectives, like us,” suggested Violet.

  “There was no open door when Sellwood was here,” observed Dick. “It closed behind him. He’d want to open it again, rather than go home the long way.”

  “He had two big strong men with hammers,” said Violet, “and we’ve got you and Ernest.”

  Dick tried to be patient.

  He stuck his fingers into a crack in the rock, and worked down, hoping to get purchase enough to pull the probable door open.

  “Careful,” said Violet.

  “Maybee…”

  “Shut up, Ernest,” said Dick.

  He found his hand stuck, but pulled free, scraping his knuckles.

  There was an outcrop by the sticking point, at about the height where you’d put a door-handle.

  “Ah-hah,” said Dick, seizing and turning the rock.

  A click, and a section of the cliff pulled open. It was surprisingly light, a thin layer of stone fixed to a wooden frame.

  A section of rock fell off the door.

  “You’ve broken it now,” said Ernest.

  It was dark inside. From his coat-of-many-hidden-pockets, Dick produced three candle-stubs with metal holders and a box of matches. For his next birthday, he hoped to get one of the new battery-powered electrical lanterns—until then, these would remain RRDA standard issue.

  Getting the candles lit was a performance. The draught kept puffing out match-flames before the wicks caught. Violet took over and mumsily arranged everything, then handed out the candles, showing Ernest how to hold his so wax didn’t drip on his fingers.

  “Metal’s hot,” said Ernest.

  “Perhaps we should leave you here as look-out,” said Dick. “You can warn us in case any dogs come along.”

  The metal apparently wasn’t too hot, since Ernest now wanted to continue. He insisted on being first into the dark, in case there were monsters.

  Once they were inside, the door swung shut.

  They were in a space carved out of the rock and shored up with timber. Empty barrels piled nearby. A row of fossil-smashing hammers arranged where Violet could spit at them. Smooth steps led upwards, with the rusted remains of rings set into the walls either side.

  “‘Brandy for the parson, ’baccy for the clerk’,” said Violet.

  “Indubitably,” responded Dick. “This is clear evidence of smuggling.”

  “What do people smuggle these days?” asked Violet. “Brandy and tobacco might have been expensive when we were at war with France and ships were slow, but that was ages ago.”

  Dick was caught out. He knew there was still contraband, but hadn’t looked into its nature.

  “Jewels, probably,” he guessed. “And there’s always spying.”

  Ernest considered the rings in the wall.

  “I bet prisoners were chained here,” he said, “until they turned to skellytones!”

  “More likely people hold the rings while climbing the slippery stairs,” suggested Violet, “especially if they’re carrying heavy cases of… jewels and spy-letters.”

  Ernest was disappointed.

  “But they could be used for prisoners.”

  Ernest cheered up.

  “If I was a prisoner, I could ’scape”, he said. He put his hand in a ring, which was much too big for him and for any grown-up too. Then he pulled and the ring came out of the wall.

  Ernest tried to put it back.

  Dick was tense, expecting tons of rock to fall on them.

  No collapse happened.

  “Be careful touching things,” he warned his friends. “We were lucky that time, but there might be deadly traps.”

  He led the way up.

  IV

  DH JTIFBSQQS

  The steps weren’t steep, but went up a long way. The tunnel had been hewn out of rock. New timbers, already bowed and near-cracking, showed where the passage had been shored after falls.

  “We must be under the Priory,” he said.

  They came to the top of the stairs, and a basement-looking room. Wooden crates were stacked.

  “Cover your light,” said Dick.

  Ernest yelped as he burned his hand.

  “Carefully,” Dick added.

  Ernest whimpered a bit.

  “What do you suppose is in these?” asked Violet. “Contraband?”

  “Instruments of evil?” prompted Ernest.

  Dick held his candle close to a crate. The slats were spaced an inch or so apart. Inside were copies of Omphalos Diabolicus.

  “Isn’t the point of smuggling to bring in things people want?” asked Violet. “I can’t imagine an illicit market for unreadable tracts.”

  “There could be coded spy messages in the books,” Dick suggested hopefully.

  “Even spies trained to resist torture in the dungeons of the Tsar wouldn’t be able to read through these to get any message,” said Violet. “My deduction is that these are here because Sellwood can’t get anybody to buy his boring old book.”

  “Maybee he should change his name to Sellwords.”

  Dick had the tiniest spasm of impatience. Here they were, in the lair of an undoubted villain, having penetrated secret defenses, and all they could do was make dubiously sarky remarks about his name.

  “We should scout further,” he said. “Come on.”

  He opened a door and found a gloomy passageway. The lack of windows suggested they were still underground. The walls were panelled, wood warped and stained by persistent damp.

  The next room along had no door and was full of rubble. Dick thought the ceiling had fallen in, but Violet saw at once that detritus was broken-up fossils.

  “Ammonites,” she said, “also brachiopods, nautiloids, crinoids, plagiostoma, coroniceras, gryphaea and calcirhynchia.”

  She held up what looked like an ordinary stone.

  “This could be the knee-bone of a scelidosaurus. One was discovered in Charmouth, in Liassic cliffs just like these. The first near-complete dinosaur fossil to come to light. This might have been another find as important. Sellwood is a vandal and a wrecker. He should be hit on the head with his own hammers.”

  Dick patted Violet on the back, hoping she would cheer up.

  “It’s only a knee,” said Ernest. “Nothing interesting about knees.”

  “Some dinosaurs had brains in their knees. Extra brains to do the thinking for their legs. Imagine if you had brains in your knees.”

  Ernest was impressed.

  “If I’d found this, I wouldn’t have broken it,” said Violet. “I would have named it. Biolettosaurus, Violet’s Lizard.”

  “Let’s try the next room,” said Dick.

  “There might still be useful fragments.”

  Reluctantly, Violet left the room of broken stone bones.

  Next was a thick wooden door, with iron bands across it, and three heavy bolts. Though the bolts were oiled, it was a strain to pull them—Dick and Violet both struggled. The top and bottom bolts shifted, but the middle one wouldn’t move.

  “Let me try,” said Ernest. “Please.”

  They did, and he didn’t get anywhere.

  Violet dipped back into the fossil room and returned with a chunk they used as a hammer. The third bolt shot open.

  The banging and clanging sounded fearfully loud in the enclosed space.

  They listened, but no one came. Maybee, Dick thought—recognizing the Ernestism—Sellwood was up in his tower, scanning the horizon for spy-signals, and his Brethren were taking afternoon naps.

  The children stepped through the doorway, and the door swung slowly and heavily shut behind them.

 
; This room was different again.

  The floor and walls were solid slabs which looked as if they’d been in place a long time. The atmosphere was dank, slightly mouldy. A stone trough, like you see in stables, ran along one wall, fed by an old-fashioned pump. Dick cupped water in his hand and tasted it. There was a nasty, coppery sting, and he spat.

  “It’s a dungeon,” said Ernest.

  Violet held up her candle.

  A winch-apparatus, with handles like a threshing machine, was fixed to the floor at the far side of the room, thick chain wrapped around the drum.

  “Careful,” said Violet, gripping Dick’s arm.

  Dick looked at his feet. He stood on the edge of a circular Hole, like a well. It was a dozen feet across, and uncovered.

  “There should be a cap on this,” announced Dick. “To prevent accidents.”

  “I doubt if Sellwood cares much about accidents befalling intruders.”

  “You’re probably right, Vile. The man’s a complete rotter.”

  Chains extended from the winch unto a solid iron ring in the ceiling and then down into the Hole.

  “This is an oubliette,” said Violet. “It’s from the French. You capture your prisonnier and jeté him into the Hole, then oublié them—forget them.”

  Ernest, nervously, kept well away from the edge. He had been warned about falling into wells once, which meant that ever since he was afraid of them.

  Violet tossed her rock-chunk into the pool of dark, and counted. After three counts—thirty feet—there was a thump. Stone on stone.

  “No splash,” she said.

  Up from the depths came another sound, a gurgling groan—something alive but unidentifiable. The noise lodged in Dick’s heart like a fish-hook of ice. A chill played up his spine.

  The cry had come from a throat, but hardly a human one.

  Ernest dropped his candle, which rolled to the lip of the pit and fell in, flame guttering.

  Round, green eyes shone up, fire dancing in the fish-flat pupils.

  Something grey-green, weighted with old chains, writhed at the bottom of the Hole.

  Ernest’s candle went out.

  Violet’s grip on Dick’s arm hurt now.

  “What’s that?” she gasped.

  The groan took on an imploring, almost pathetic tone, tinged with cunning and bottomless wrath.

  Dick shrugged off his shiver. He had a moment of pure joy, the click of sudden understanding that often occurs at the climax of a case, when clues fit in the mind like jigsaw pieces and the solution is plain and simple.

  “That, my dear Vile, is your French spy!”

  V

  OBDIJFBNTP GDMBQBGS

  “Someone’s coming,” said Ernest.

  Footfalls in the passageway!

  “Hide,” said Dick.

  The only place—aside from the Hole—was under the water-trough. Dick and Violet pinched out their candles and crammed in, pulling Ernest after them.

  “They’ll see the door’s not bolted,” said Ernest.

  Violet clamped her hand over her cousin’s mouth.

  In the enclosed space, their breathing seemed horribly loud.

  Dick worried. Ernest was right.

  Maybee the people in the passage weren’t coming to this room. Maybee they’d already walked past, on their way to smash fossils or get a copy of Sellwood’s book.

  The footsteps stopped outside the door.

  Maybee this person didn’t know it was usually bolted. Maybee this dungeon was so rarely visited they’d oubliéd whether it had been bolted shut after the last time.

  Maybee…

  “Fessel, Fose, Milder, Maulder,” barked a voice.

  The Reverend Mr. Daniel Sturdevant Sellwood, calling his Brethren.

  “And who’s been opening my door,” breathed Violet.

  It took Dick long seconds to recognize the storybook quotation.

  “Who was last here?” shouted Sellwood. “This is inexcusable. With the Devil, one does not take such risks.”

  “En cain’t git ouwt of thic Hole,” replied someone.

  “Brother Milder, it has the wiles of an arch-fiend. That is why only I can be trusted to put it to the question. Who last brought the slops?”

  There was some argument.

  Maybee they’d be all right. Sellwood was so concerned with stopping an escape that he hadn’t thought anyone might break in.

  One of the Brethren tentatively spoke up, and received a clout round the ear.

  Dick wondered why anyone would want to be in Sellwood’s Church Militant.

  “Stand guard,” Sellwood ordered. “Let me see what disaster is so narrowly averted.”

  The door was pushed open. Sellwood set a lantern on a perch. The children pressed further back into shrinking shadow. Dick’s ankle bent the wrong way. He bit down on the pain.

  He saw Sellwood’s shoes—with old-fashioned buckles and gaiters—walk past the trough, towards the Hole. He stopped, just by Dick’s face.

  There was a pumping, coughing sound.

  Sellwood filled a beaker.

  He poured the water into the Hole.

  Violet counted silently, again. After three, the water splashed on the French spy. It cried out, with despair and yearning.

  “Drink deep, spawn of Satan!”

  The creature howled, then gargled again. Dick realized it wasn’t making animal grunts but speaking. Unknown words that he suspected were not French.

  The thing had been here for over a hundred years!

  “Fose, Milder, in here, now. I will resume the inquisition.”

  Brethren clumped in. Dick saw heavy boots.

  The two bruisers walked around the room, keeping well away from the Hole. Dick eased out a little to get a better view. He risked a more comfortable, convenient position. Sellwood had no reason to suspect he was spied upon.

  Brother Fose and Brother Milder worked the winch.

  The chains tightened over the Hole, then wound onto the winch-drum.

  The thing in the oubliette cursed. Dick was sure “f’tagn” was a swear-word. As it was hauled upwards, the creature struggled, hissing and croaking.

  Violet held Dick’s hand, pulling, keeping him from showing himself.

  A head showed over the mouth of the Hole, three times the size of a man’s and with no neck, just a pulpy frill of puffed-up gill-slits. Saucer-sized fish-eyes held the light, pupils contracting. Dick was sure the creature, eyes at floor-level, saw past the boots of its captors straight into his face. It had a fixed maw, with enough jagged teeth to please Ernest.

  “Up,” ordered Sellwood. “Let’s see all of the demon.”

  The Brethren winched again, and the thing hung like Captain Kidd on Execution Dock. It was man-like, but with a stub of fishtail protruding beneath two rows of dorsal spines. Its hands and feet were webbed, with nastily curved yellow nail-barbs. Where water had splashed, its skin was rainbow-scaled, beautiful even. Elsewhere, its hide was grey and taut, cracked, flaking or mossy, with rusty weals where the chains chafed.

  Dick saw the thing was missing several finger-barbs. Its back and front were striped across with long-healed and new-made scars. It had been whipping boy in this house since the days when Boney was a warrior way-aye-aye.

  He imagined Jacob Orris trying to get Napoleon’s secrets out of the “spy”. Had old Orris held up charts and asked the man-fish to tap a claw on hidden harbours where the invasion fleet was gathered?

  Ernest was mumbling “sea-ghost” over and over, not frightened but awed. Violet hissed at him to hush.

  Dick was sure they’d be caught, but Sellwood was fascinated by the creature. He poked his face close to his captive’s, smiling smugly. A cheek muscle twitched around his fixed sneer. The man-fish looked as if it would like to spit in Sellwood’s face but couldn’t afford the water.

  “So, Diabolicus Maritime, is it today that you confess? I have been patient. We merely seek a statement we all know to be true, which will end this sham once
and for all.”

  The fish-eyes were glassy and flat, but moved to fix on Sellwood.

  “You are a deception, my infernal guest, a lure, a living trick, a lie made flesh, a creature of the Prince of Liars. Own that Satan is your maker, imp! Confess your evil purpose!”

  Sellwood touched fingertips to the creature’s scarred chest, scraping dry flesh. Scales fluttered away, falling like dead moths. Dick saw Sellwood’s fingers flex, the tips biting.

  “The bones weren’t enough, were they? Those so-called ‘fossils’, the buried lies that lead to blasphemy and disbelief. No, the Devil had a second deceit in reserve, to pile upon the Great Untruth of ‘Pre-History’. No mere dead dragon, but a live specimen, one of those fabled ‘missing links’ in the fairy tale of ‘evolution’. By your very existence, you bear false witness, testify that the world is older than it has been proved over and over again to be, preach against creation, tear down mankind, to drag us from the realm of the angels into the festering salt-depths of Hell. The City of the Damned lies under the Earth, but you prove to my satisfaction that it extends also under the sea!”

  The man-fish had no ears, but Dick was certain it could hear Sellwood. Moreover, it understood, followed his argument.

  “So, own up,” snapped the Reverend. “One word, and the deception is at an end. You are not part of God’s Creation, but a sea-serpent, an monstrous forgery!”

  The creature’s lipless mouth curved. It barked, through its mouth. Its gills rippled, showing scarlet inside.

  Sellwood was furious.

  Dick, strangely, was excited. The prisoner was laughing at its captor, the laughter of a patient, abiding being.

  Why was it still alive? Could it be killed? Surely, Orris or Sellwood or some keeper in between had tried to execute the monster?

  In those eyes was a promise to the parson. I will live when you are gone.

  “Drop it,” snapped Sellwood.

  Fose and Milder let go the winch, and—with a cry—the “French spy” was swallowed by its Hole.

  Sellwood and his men left the room, taking the lantern.