The Devil in Manuscript And Other Tales of Forbidden Books

by Osie Turner

  "And what became of Burgess Martin?" he asked after a moment.

  "Why, you must know!" I said in surprise. "He was that famous writer who was murdered several years ago. Surely you remember the case?"

  "I believe I did read something about it," he answered in a low voice. "He was murdered by a literary critic, wasn't he? The murderer's name was Huntington, I believe; and he had previously had one of Martin's books condemned by the government."

  "That's never been proved," I said with some heat "Wilbur Huntington was a personal friend of mine and one of the finest fellows in the world. If he did kill Martin, it was because he was mentally deranged at the time."

  Bill Pete burst out into an unpleasant laugh. "Why do the masses believe that a murderer must be insane?" he cried. "Surely to kill is the natural instinct of man. You say that Huntington was a fine fellow. Well, what has that got to do with it? How can anyone gain the fineness and fullness of living without first feasting on the lives of others?"

  "I disagree with you," I said with a yawn; "but I'm too tired to argue. I think I'll turn in."

  "Don't let me keep you up," he muttered.

  I took a last look at the shadows which played under the trees and entered the cabin. As I moved about, getting ready for bed, I could see Bill Pete's dark figure silhouetted against the firelight. Like a carved idol of wood, he sat perfectly motionless.

  It did not take me long to fall asleep that night. Hardly had I crawled between the blankets and closed my eyes, before I was swept far out on the sea of dreams. And in these dreams, I was conscious of something which was approaching steadily and relentlessly—something which threatened my very existence. I felt that I must escape. I tried to struggle but I was held down by bands of steel. Nearer and nearer that relentless presence approached. Now I could feel its warm breath on my cheek.

  I awoke, bathed in perspiration, to a sensation of supernatural dread. The oil lamp on the table was lit. I could see every object distinctly. There, with his back toward me, stood Bill Pete. What was he doing at this hour of the night?' Why, he was shaving! He was standing before the small mirror I had hung on the wall and was shaving! He held one of my razors; I could see the blade glimmer faintly as he lowered his arm for an instant.

  Still in a mental daze of sleep, I stared at his back. Then I glanced at the shaving glass. What I saw there, will live in my memory always. I tried to rise, but I could not; I tried to cry out, but my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth.

  "Who are you?" I gasped.

  And now the tall figure was turning toward me. I saw that well-remembered face, thin, ascetic, with lips that curled upward like a cat's; I saw those cold, gray eyes which held in their depths a speculative stare; I saw the man, himself, approaching with a stealthy, noiseless tread. The mirror had not lied. It was Burgess Martin!

  XVIII

  There is no fear which man can experience so gripping, so subduing, as fear of the supernatural. When the mind cannot explain, when all the rivers of thought are frozen at their source, we become children again in the imagination, children who people the dark with living phantoms. Life is then no longer the familiar highway, brightly lighted, with the kindly signposts of convention at every crossing, but a shadowy cave of horrors through which we must grope blindly. What lies waiting for us in the gloom? We do not know, we cannot guess—and therein lies the fear. Such a sensation is indeed terrible.

  Here, in this dimly lighted cabin, far from all the reassuring realities, of life, I was looking into the face of a man whom I had every reason to believe dead and buried years ago! Was it any wonder that I could neither move nor cry out, that I stared silently at this apparition like a terror stricken child?

  Although my brain was spinning dizzily like a top, although Burgess Martin's steadfast eyes held mine like magnets, I was instinctively aware of the objects immediately surrounding me. For instance, I knew that a blanket had been fastened securely across the doorway to keep out the wind which now howled in baffled fury about the cabin; and yet I had not even glanced in that direction.

  The long-threatening storm had risen. Now the first drops of rain were pattering on the roof like tiny fingers tapping for admittance. Suddenly there came a blinding flash of lightning, followed almost immediately by a deafening peal of thunder. Again there was silence. Nature seemed to hold her breath.

  "Why do you fear me, Smithers?" said a voice which I knew only too well. "I am no ghost."

  By now Burgess Martin was standing beside my bunk, looking down on me with a gleam of derision in his eyes. Mustering all my courage, I attempted to sit up. Then, for the first time, I realized that I was tied hand and foot with strong leather straps which a giant could scarcely have broken.

  "It is useless to struggle, Smithers," Martin continued coldly; "not only useless but dangerous. My patience is worn thin. When I think of what I have suffered, when I think of what art has suffered, I can have no more tolerance for stupidity."

  "Then you weren't murdered after all?" I muttered through dry lips.

  "Most assuredly not," he answered with one of his catlike grimaces. Seating himself on the side of the bunk, he regarded me with a speculative stare. "Why is man invariably blinded by the obvious?" he continued. "A chain of circumstantial evidence can so easily be forged by a master mind that one should test it thoroughly before one believes. Why should you think that Wilbur Huntington murdered me?"

  "I never thought so," I muttered.

  "Ah, but you did, Smithers," he said lifting one of his long, thin hands in expostulation. "You did and the world did. And why? Simply because a body was found floating in the East River—a decomposing, unrecognizable body which wore my ring and clothes. And because he visited me that night, because he disliked my works, because he disappeared—you, his best friend, branded him a murderer. What a trifling thing I renounced when I sacrificed friendship on the altar!"

  He paused as another reverberating peal of thunder" shook the cabin. For an instant his sallow face was illumined by a sickly flash of lightning; I saw a tiny, pendulous drop of blood on his chin -where the razor had slipped and nicked the flesh. Strange to say, the sight of this single crimson bead of blood was reassuring; it spurred my flagging courage. If he could bleed, surely he was human.

  "And what became of Wilbur Huntington," I asked.

  "Why, it was his body which was floating down the river," Martin answered coldly. "He wore my clothes and ring, and the water had changed him somewhat— that was all."

  Once more horror overmastered me. I caught a glimpse of the truth. "Who murdered him?" I cried. "Good God, Martin, did you?"

  He bowed and I saw a smile crease his cheek like a scar. "Of course, Smithers. Wasn't it the natural outcome of his visit to me that night? This man stood in my path—in the path of art. I had to destroy him, or else my ambition was doomed. He had become an insurmountable obstacle in my path. I could go no further until I had forcibly removed him. How simple, how true! Why, even Tie had a premonition of the truth. He came to my rooms as a hero goes to battle. He was a brave man, Smithers."

  Once more Martin paused and stroked his chin. I saw the pendulous drop of blood stain his fingertips. And now this blood was no longer reassuring. It revolted me. Those vibrating crimson finger tips were a symbol—a symbol of the stealthy assassin who slays by night. Soon they might be fastened about my throat —or, perhaps, they would grasp the hilt of the hunting knife suspended from his belt. No matter how death came, those finger tips would play their part in it.

  I felt that life and I were soon to part. Like a fallen tree trunk, I was at the mercy of this forester of lives. He confided in me so readily because he judged me as one already dead. It amused him to play on my emotions before he cut the thin thread which held me to existence. He was confessing to me now as a cat might confess to the mouse between its paws.

  But I would keep a stiff upper lip! I was afraid—yes, deadly afraid—but he should never know it. He had laughed at me many times. He
had called me a weakling. He had held me up to ridicule. But I would show him that I could face death. Perhaps I did not have the courage to brave life, but I had the courage to brave death. I would show him that—I would show him that even a weakling knew how to die.

  "Why did you tie me?" I asked at length. "Are you going to murder me?"

  He started and glanced up. "Not necessarily. Perhaps you will want to go. Man lives to learn; why cannot he die to learn? Is it not strange that human curiosity cannot overcome human fear? Are you afraid of the dark, Smithers? Will you not open the door for truth? What is the exact sensation of death, Smithers? Tell me—has that question never worried you?"

  "Never," I muttered. "Why should it?"

  Martin shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps it shouldn't. But to me, it—well, you wouldn't understand. Only the moon understands. But you must listen to my story. No doubt you will think it one long, red road of wanton cruelty and mad blood lust. No doubt you will be unable to appreciate the supreme sacrifice of a strong nature—the sacrifice of human flesh, of human love, on the altar of the muse—that sacrifice to kindle the immortal flame of genius and create the indestructible. What I have done for art no man has done; what I will do for art you must bear witness to. I have chosen you as my messenger to the world."

  At that instant a shaft of lightning flashed between us like a lifted sword blade. It was immediately followed by such a deafening peal of thunder that the tiny cabin echoed it like a hollow drum. Now the rain came down in a silver deluge, tapping on the boards overhead as though a multitude of hammers were at work. Several drops trickled through a chink between the logs and fell on my upturned face. And they kept on falling relentlessly while I listened to Martin's confession.

  XIX

  "As you already know, Smithers," Martin began, "my parents both died when I was very young and my aunt took me to live with her. In that great, gloomy house the books were my only companions. And what a collection! I believe every great horror tale ever written found a permanent resting place on the shelves which circled her library. And beside these, there were scores of volumes dealing with spiritualism and necromancy—volumes, gray with the dust of centuries, between whose covers lay many a forgotten tragedy like vivid, crimson flowers. And how I loved them all! How I lingered over them, forgetting time and place, drinking in great drafts of knowledge, reading on and on till often the pallid face of morning peered in at me through my window!

  "But soon ambition began to lash me. Why could I not create horror tales which in no way would be inferior to those I now devoured with such avidity?' Perhaps I might write even better. Certainly I had the will to persevere. No one could be more painstaking, no one could be more thorough. Surely, if Carlyle were right in his definition of genius, I might aspire to any heights.

  "Thinking thus, I sat down in the library one sunny afternoon to start my career as a short-story writer, to create my first horror tale. Gradually, as the minutes passed, bright optimism flickered like the flame of a candle one breathes upon. I had thought that inspiration would envelope me like a fiery mantle, that I would be lifted out of myself and borne away to some strange kingdom of fancy where I could pick and choose from an unlimited treasure. But nothing of the kind happened. On the contrary, my mind seemed a vacuum. And then I realized the sickening truth: I was attempting to write and I had no imagination!

  "Then I suffered, Smithers, as only the very young can suffer. Ambition was already planted deep in my soul and I felt that it could never flower without imagination. Tears gushed from my eyes; I was a plaything for grief. No doubt my literary career would have ended there and then, had it not been for the strange occurrence which befell on that same, sunshiny afternoon.

  "My aunt had been very sick for over a month. Now she was dying. As I sat with weak tears running down my face, her nurse entered the library and took me to the sick room to say a last farewell. No doubt she considered that my emotion was caused by natural grief at the expectation of losing a near relative. She wiped my eyes and attempted to console me, before she led me to my aunt's bedside.

  "The old lady was almost at her last gasp. Her thin, yellow hands were fluttering over the coverlet, resembling the fallen, windswept leaves of autumn; the death rattle rasped harshly in her wizened throat with the mechanical vibration of an engine running down; her heavy, blue-veined eyelids were closed and did not open as I knelt beside her. Soon her breathing stopped. She was dead.

  "On my way back to the library, the scene which I had just witnessed was pictured in glowing colors in my brain. Nothing could wipe it out. Wherever I looked, I saw my aunt lying in her great four-poster bed like a fallen branch on a snowbank.

  "Once more I picked up my discarded paper and pencil and began idly to picture in words what I had just seen. And then a strange thing happened. I seemed to be again in the sick room which I had just quitted—alone there with the dying woman, listening to her wheezing breath and watching her dry, shriveled hands fluttering about like autumn leaves circling in the wind.

  "How long this strange mental hallucination possessed me, I do not know. When I regained normal consciousness, it was to find both sides of the paper covered with my microscopic writing. With amazement, I read aloud what I had written.

  "You cannot imagine my feelings, Smithers, when I realized that what I was reading was a masterpiece of description. As clear-cut and convincing as an ivory carving, it had a vividness of detail, a charm of style, which held the attention in an iron grip. To be sure, it was merely a sketch—a word-painting of my aunt's death—but, for all that, it was worthy of immortality.

  "And there could be no mistake—I had composed this morbid masterpiece. It was my writing without a doubt. What did it matter that I had been unconscious of the manual effort which guided the pencil? Surely true inspiration lifted the artist out of the shell in which he lived his normal days. And yet was this true inspiration? Surely not. This was no flight of the imagination. It was a realistic description of something I had seen with my own eyes and heard with my own ears. My aunt's death had been photographed on the film of my brain and I had developed it with all the art of a stylist into this perfect picture.

  "Now true realization of the truth was born in upon me. I was, indeed, a writer without imagination and therefore I must rely solely on what I saw with my own eyes and what I heard with my own ears. I had determined to devote myself to horror tales. Very well. But in order to be a master of tragedy, I must steel my heart against all weakness, all feeling; I must, perhaps, witness the perpetration of crime so as to impress my readers with its reality. It was necessary for an unimaginative artist to associate with the scum of the world in order to rise above the world. Therefore I must tear out my heart so that my head might rise above the stars. All this I realized, but I did not turn back."

  There came another crash of thunder which drowned him out. His next few words were lost, swallowed up by the rattling of the pots and pans on the wall, the tapping fingers of rain, and a gust of wind which went howling about the cabin.

  "For many months I trained myself for my future career," Martin resumed. "Fortunately, at that time, I had no friends except a few household pets on which I had centered my affections. Because I loved them, I knew that they must go. I must have no human weaknesses to hold me back—nothing which could later interfere with art by making my will subordinate to mercy.

  "So, coldly, methodically, but with unparalleled mental anguish, I tortured to death each one of my poor pets. My brain reeled, but my hand was steady; and, after each atrocious act, I felt the natural repulsion for these cruelties growing less and less. I slowly conquered myself.

  "It was about this time that I first took up drawing with the intention of illustrating my future work. As in writing, it came naturally to me when death was my model. Sitting before one of my slaughtered pets, I would first write a vivid description of its demise and then draw a striking, realistic picture of the scene. I kept a child's diary, illustrated with no
little skill, depicting the various crimes I had committed and portraying my various emotions with such clarity of vision that I am sure it would have had a disastrous effect on the minds of other children had it been published. Like 'The Confessions of Constantine,' it might have created a wave of crime."

  "Shortly after this, I entered a nearby school and almost immediately obtained the theme for my first short story. One afternoon, while walking home, I saw one of my classmates—a rather pretty girl whom I had unconsciously grown quite fond of—on the arm of an overgrown yokel whose vacant eyes and moving lips indicated a weak mentality. That evening I made inquiries in town and discovered that this yokel often carried her books home from school and that she tolerated him only out of kindness. It was plain to see that he adored her and that he was extremely jealous as are most weak minded persons.

  "On the following day, I won the affections of the poor fellow by some small kindness and ascertained that my theory was correct. His brain was like a clouded mirror, hut he loved the girl devotedly. You know the rest, Smithers. I wrote it up in 'The Murder of Mary Mortimer.'