The Master of the Macabre

by Russell Thorndike

  My host told him that it was there now.

  “Good,” nodded Carnaby. “Now, not another word do you get out of me till I’ve finished my dinner and smoked one of your excellent cigars. Then I will tell you how the land lies in regard to the fellows in the church. Come on—we shall have a late session to-night, I think, so wake yourself up, Hogarth, by giving us a yarn. I’ll not butt into your prerogative, Kent. Choose us a relic from the case.”

  “Well, then,” I suggested, “suppose we get rid of one of the skulls.”

  I hobbled on my crutches towards the glass case, as Hogarth said, “You must learn to call them by their names. One is Yorick and the other Romeo. Two dead men from Shakespeare. Hold one up and I’ll tell you which he is.”

  I did so. “That’s Romeo,” said Hogarth in quite matter-of-fact tones. “Put him back and bring over Yorick. Romeo’s history is a long one. I can keep Yorick’s short and snappy. True, they both happened to me—both stories, I mean, but the case of Yorick does not need the concentration which the telling of Romeo’s tragedy demands.” He lit his pipe and after telling us to help ourselves to drinks, began.

  “You remember,” he said, looking at me, “the story I told you about the Sexton and the Hangman?”

  “The churchyard horse, the King Worm and the pretty girl?” I added. “Every detail of it. Why?”

  “Because the following ghost story happened to me when I lived at home in that same village—Aylesford—a few miles from here. I’m sorry, Carnaby, but you’ve probably heard it before, as it was in our schooldays together. My father, as you’ll remember, was Vicar of Aylesford. It was a grand old rambling house the vicarage—next to the church on the hill, and our garden looked straight down on to the Bier-Walk. Behind the vast stables and coach-houses, there was a large tithe barn, very useful in the old days, when the local farmers could pay their tax to the church in kind; but such days had gone, and with it the use and purpose of the barn. My father had often talked of raising a fund to restore it, so that village concerts could be held there and meetings. We children had very different ideas on the subject, and were determined to cash in on our parent’s idea. You see, and you will remember, Carnaby, I had been bitten by the acting bug already, and the old barn began to assume in my imagination, a wonderful theatre. Behind our father’s back we children went in deputation to the Squire, who was all for keeping the parish gay and happy. We were successful. He immediately offered to back the undertaking with material and workmen from his estate. A stage was built, the great beams were polished with linseed oil, and in place of the earth floor, we had wooden planking throughout. I think you saw some of our shows, Carnaby. Yes—of course you did, and acted in some during holidays. Anyway—it thrived, and made a local reputation, our company being recruited from the young people in the village. But it’s about the preparation for one production that concerns my yarn.

  “They say that no actor is satisfied till he has had a cut at Hamlet. I suppose I was the same, and we planned the production for the Christmas holidays.

  “While my sisters were busy with the costumes, I undertook the props, and in this department there cropped up the question of Yorick’s skull. I tried a lot of things—whittling away at swedes and turnips—carving a block of chalk—making an awful mess of papier mâché—and ending up each attempt with an envious look out of the window upon the tombs and graves of the churchyard. Hundreds of magnificent Yoricks were there, only waiting to be picked up.

  “I was a great friend of the sexton, partly because his wife ran the sweet-shop in the village, but chiefly because his grim calling fascinated me. I put my problem to him. He was sympathetic, but quite firm in one respect: no skull should be taken from consecrated ground with his consent. It would be more than his place would be worth. I jingled pennies in my pocket. I asked him what he would like for Christmas. I watched him at his digging. A new grave. I saw him turn up an old skull that looked quite at a loose end. I jingled my pennies with excitement. No good—he laid the skull back and reverently covered it over.

  “Then came a wonderful opportunity. The Maidstone Gas Company came to lay new pipes in the Bier-Walk. They dug a deep trench right against our garden wall, which was also the Bier-Walk wall. They made a find, which caused quite a stir for a day or so. Six skeletons were uncovered with one or two ancient pieces of pottery and arrow heads. The general opinion of the experts who viewed them was that they were belonging to the pre-christian period in Kent. That gave me a splendid argument. Even if they were Christian they were not quite lying in consecrated ground for they were on the wrong side of the churchyard wall. I told the sexton into whose charge my father had put them, with orders to cover them decently when the pipes were laid, that morally I was quite justified in borrowing one of the skulls to do useful service for the art of the village in the Barn Theatre.

  “At last he compromised. ‘Tell you what, Master Charles,’ he said. ‘I’m goin’ to my dinner. You’ll find an old empty sack in my tool-shed. I couldn’t tell you how many skulls there is in that hole. Never had a head for numbers. So if so be that you took one when my back’s turned, I’d be none the wiser. I’m comin’ back after dinner to fill in the hole. And that’s all I knows about it, see?’

  “Vowing to keep his name out of it, I selected the best for my purpose, popped it in the sack, and hid it in one of the dressing-rooms built under the barn stage.

  “When it was dark, I carried it to my bedroom, and hid it in a panelled cupboard which was next to the fire. Happened to be the best bedroom in the house, but fortunately for me it had the reputation of being the haunted room, so no other member of the family had seemed quite so keen on it.”

  “And I bet it lost nothing of its sinister reputation while you had anything to do with it,” laughed Carnaby, finishing his trifle and tackling Hoadley’s excellent cheese-straws.

  “Can you blame me?” laughed Hogarth. “I was only a kid and I’d taken the chance of meeting whatever ghostly horrors might revisit it. I had that room for ten glorious years.”

  “And I bet you never saw a ghost the whole time,” said Carnaby.

  “Aren’t I telling you a very good ghost story now about it?” he exploded.

  “All right. Keep calm and go ahead,” urged the other.

  “That night, after the household had gone to bed, I made up the fire, put on my Hamlet costume, and opened the cupboard doors where the skull rested on a shelf. I had planned to rehearse the graveyard scene with the new member of the cast ‘Alas, poor Yorick.’

  “A large open oak chest I was using for the grave itself, and I thought I had better put Yorick inside it before I started. I was crossing the room to get it when I stopped with my heart in my mouth, though refusing to believe what I thought I saw. One of the eyes had come to life in its deathly socket. I told myself that this was nonsense; that it was merely a trick of the light. I looked away from it to turn up the wick of my oil lamp, then looked again. It was there—no doubt about it—a living eye, for it moved. I carried the lamp to another position, and as I moved so did the pupil of the eye follow me. I went closer with the lamp, and that grinning death mask mocked me with a wink. Then I heard a noise. It was the noise of grinding teeth clenched tightly as in a rage. And there was that ugly eye. I could even see the veins in the white of it as the black pupil distended in its awful stare. I expected the rest of it to come to life too. The other eye—the flesh—the hair and the red lips. I couldn’t stand it any longer. I did a thing I have always felt ashamed about. I hardly like to confess it now.”

  “Oh, come on,” interrupted Carnaby. “I know—you had another drink.”

  “Don’t be silly. I was only a kid. Thirteen or fourteen. No. I took the lamp and tiptoed along to the night nursery where my kid sister slept. She was always game to follow me into any adventure. Sort of flattered her for me to say how brave she was. I woke her up without disturbing the younger ones, and whispered that I had got something wonderful to show her. She was
all agog to be in on it, and pulling on her dressing-gown tiptoed hand in hand with me carrying the light along the passage to my room.

  “ ‘I’ve made a Yorick,’ I whispered. ‘Look, there it is on the shelf. Looks rather weird, doesn’t it?’

  “ ‘You have made it well,’ she said in that gushing tone that sisters adopt towards their elder brothers. ‘But I suppose you’ve only had time to make one of its eyes work so beautifully.’

  “Then I knew that my fears were true. The eye had come to life. It wasn’t just something wrong with my imagination. This kid could see it too.

  “ ‘It’s a beastly thing,’ I said. ‘And I didn’t make it. I got it from the Bier-Walk, and it’s angry about it. I’ll have to get it back there.’

  “That kid was a trump. Damned sight braver than I was. But then, she quite enjoyed it. Told me she felt that at last she was living in a fairy story, and that the skull was a witch. I didn’t quite see it like that. I felt something dreadful was going to happen to me because I had disturbed the dead. Well—we went into conference about it, and came to the conclusion that I must make amends to the ghost of the skull by burying it in the real churchyard, where no doubt it would be better off than it was before. The best site, I thought, would be near the rubbish heap where the marks of fresh digging wouldn’t show. It was, of course, impossible to do this in the pitch dark. We must wait for dawn. But to harbour it all night in my room was unthinkable. The rest of it might return to life, and I should be confronted by a severed head looking at me with two eyes. I said that we must get it as far away from our doors as possible—but I didn’t like to touch it, especially as we kept hearing that subdued sound of grinding teeth.

  “Finally I threw my bath-towel over it and wrapped it up. Now came the question—should we throw it out of the window? We decided against this, as the noise would wake the household—questions would be asked—and in the confusion of explaining, I might betray my friend the sexton. I didn’t want to get him the sack. The thought of a new sexton while he starved was awful.

  “I decided to deposit the thing as far away from our doors as possible, and the long back passage that gave access to the servants’ bedrooms seemed the best spot.

  “We crept out on tiptoe. I carried the horrid bundle—she carried the light. We opened the baize door which led from our landing and while she kept it back and held the candle high above her head I went on. As I advanced into the gloom I got the feeling that the thing was moving in its wrapping. I expected it to bite through the towel at any second, and couldn’t bear it any longer. I bowled it, towel and all, along the floor with all my strength.

  “It travelled the whole way and came up sharp at the end with a bump against the cook’s door.

  “Thinking someone was knocking, she called out sleepily, ‘Coming—just a minute.’

  “We had retreated to the safety of the baize door where we stood shivering. The cook, an awful old tartar, lit her candle and unlocked her door—saw nobody—and then looked down at her feet. The long bath-towel had unwound itself, exposing the skull. She saw it and jumped to the natural or perhaps unnatural opinion that a skeleton had come after her through the landing window from the churchyard outside.

  “She gasped—banged the door and turned the key. We heard a whimpering, and were not quite sure whether it was the cook or the skull.

  “Then to my horror, a deep voice echoed through the house. ‘Charles? Charles?’

  “ ‘It’s calling,’ I whispered. ‘It’s calling me.’

  “ ‘No—it’s worse,’ my sister whispered back. ‘It’s father. He sounds angry. Quick—we’ll have to bunk.’

  “Again came the voice. To my utter relief I found that she was right. It was my father’s voice. And what a relief.

  “ ‘Aren’t you in bed, Charles?’

  “ ‘I was rehearsing—that’s all, Father,’ I called back.

  “ ‘Much too late. It’s midnight. Turn in at once, and put out your light. And no more noise.’

  “ ‘Yes, Father,’ I answered meekly.

  “We heard his door shut. But we didn’t turn out the light. We sat till morning on my bed, whispering and wondering what the skull would do next.

  “It did nothing. Waited for us to take the next step. With the first noises of dawn—that is, voices floating up from the bakehouse and the clinking of milk cans being fitted to the local chariot, we were in our clothes and ready for our final adventure.

  “Along the passage we went. It was still pretty dark, but a faint light shone through the window upon the corpse-like figure. I heard the cook stirring so had to make haste. I stooped down to cover the skull with the towel again and there was the eye sure enough. It was no imagination on either of our parts. A perfect eye come back to the dead socket—but only one. And as I lifted it, I saw how I had been fooled. The whole mystery had been created by my carelessness in not having cleaned the inside of the skull, and the fact that I had put it into the warm cupboard by my fire. The heat had attracted two creatures who had lived in the mould inside that skull to creep towards the opening of that eye socket A great white slug had got there first and had curled itself around the cavity, while through it, but forbidden by the slug to pass, had come the black head of a gigantic churchyard worm. This head now gaining ground now losing it—but always prevented from escape, had given a perfect impression of a distending pupil. The movement of these creatures had displaced the small fragments of mould, which dislodging, fell upon the paper on the cupboard shelf, making the noise as of grinding teeth. On realizing my stupidity, I made a solemn vow that I would never again be frightened at anything, until I had made a careful investigation to prevent if possible the cause of fear. Well—there’s nothing more to tell. I buried the skull under the rubbish heap—and that was that.”

  “Did you bury it or just hide it?” I asked.

  “Buried it some feet deep—all decently in consecrated ground with a concentrated rubbish heap for a monument.”

  “Then how is it that you still have the skull?” I asked.

  “Ah,” sighed the Master. “My artistic temperament overcame my moral scruples. Every attempt to produce a Yorick’s skull became more ludicrous. ‘The play’s the thing,’ I said to myself and obeyed Shakespeare’s order by turning resurrectionist. Yes—I confess it—I dug up the skull—everyone said it looked most life-like, which was the very worst thing to say about any skull—especially as I had seen at least one eye of it very much alive—but nothing more was said—and no questions asked, perhaps because the bookings were phenomenal, not only clearing all expenses, but making quite a bit for the Sick and Needy Fund. And since, as you see, the skull is still with me, I must have overlooked putting it back—in fact, it is the founder of the whole collection in that case—my first relic. That’s the story exactly as it happened, with no embroidery, and now, Carnaby, as I see you are embarking on your second cigar, perhaps you will tell us what I am hoping will prove the most intriguing story from that case there. By the way, I suppose there is nothing against my adding the military lining of the coat to Reliquary?”

  “I should think nothing at all eventually,” replied Carnaby, speaking slowly and in vague tones as one who is more interested in getting an expensive smoke to burn smoothly, than in what he intended to say. “But I think at present we must make a rule that it shall never be brought out of your safe unless the three of us are together.” He paused, inhaling his cigar with appreciation. Then a frown crept over his merry face. Hogarth saw that expression and asked, “There’s danger in it, then?”

  Carnaby nodded. “Yes—but I intend to be as unscrupulous as you were over Yorick’s skull. Now let’s see. Where shall I begin? You mustn’t expect a story from me, Hogarth. I never had your gift of the gab—at least, not in English—though I can argue the flea off a cat’s whisker in Pushtu. You raise a questioning eyebrow, O erudite Six-Former? Then learn wisdom my good Hogarth, from your one-time Marmalade-Wallah. Pushtu is the common tongue of Pa
than and other Moslems inhabiting the North-West Frontier, and there are some two and a half million tricky fellows up there who take a hell of a lot of convincing about anything. But one can learn a lot from them. Certainly the investigation of your coat problem has taught me one thing. Never take anything for granted because it seems obvious. It prejudices your judgment from scratch. Now, from the start, both of us fell down over two major points. First—we made the coat itself the chief item of our mystery, when we should have concentrated entirely on the lining. The bloke who originally gave it to you said, as he jumped on to that running car, ‘Wear it.’ It, of course, being the coat, foxed us from the start, and it took me many a month before I realized that:

  The coat was made for the lining

  Not the lining for the coat.

  “Associating the lining as merely an adjunct of the coat brought us down on our noses for the second time. The cut of the coat was definitely—military. Unit buttons displaced by wooden ones, thereby giving no clue as for what regiment the coat had been originally designed. Not even rank badges had been left to enable us to narrow down our search. We only knew the owner was military, and the red lining helped to fox us. Certainly from time immemorial red has been the primary colour of fighting men—the cloak of the matador—the thin red line—the trappings of the Roman Legions—the emblem of blood, danger and rage. But the armies of the world can’t claim a monopoly of the colour—and that’s where we went wrong. We might have looked to the Church—to the Law, but no—we allowed ourselves to run on a one-track mind, meekly bowing to an accustomed association of ideas. ‘As far as men are concerned red linings are only worn in Army great-coats.’ That’s what we accepted. That’s exactly what those men in Calcutta wanted us to accept. In fact—they knew we would.