I am an advertising copywriter. Lord knows what De Valgis was. He had property and access, at least, to money. He never borrowed for longer than a few days at a time. I met him, one day, in a client’s office and it was politics on my part to be friendly. I’ve always regretted it.
De Valgis disturbed me more than he did Ethel. Maybe she got a kick out of the way he ogled her. But I didn’t like it.
I wanted to kick him, you know where, but Ethel always pooh-poohed me about him. She pointed out that De Valgis was old and needed friends and companionship.
He wasn’t so old—maybe sixty—but I reluctantly conceded her point.
“Just so you don’t get too damned companionable,” I said.
And then—just like that—Lavorine De Valgis upped and disappeared. But before he vanished, he did a peculiar thing. He deeded his house across town to me and Ethel.
* * * *
A glum-looking shyster by the name of Smithers dropped by one evening and delivered the deed, our first knowledge of the affair. Obviously, De Valgis had told the lawyer nothing of his business and Smithers was anxious to get the lowdown from me. Some people can’t help being curious that way.
Smithers got no help from us.
We were even more puzzled and flabbergasted. He went away looking disappointed, and we never saw him again.
“Poor old Mr. De Valgis,” Ethel sighed. “Where do you suppose he went, Jack? And why didn’t he tell us where he was going?”
“Maybe he got overcome by a generous impulse,” I suggested, “but I doubt it. Mark my words, with De Valgis in it, there is also a joker.”
Ethel clapped her hands. “Oh, Jack, don’t you realize what’s happened? We’ve got a house! Now we can quit renting this vile hut and—”
“We’ve got a house,” I interrupted, “but not for long, honey-bun.”
“How come—not for long?”
“Sell it, baby—sell it! We collect the moola—buy a new car. Get it?”
Ethel looked disappointed. Her round little face got long. Her mouth and eyes made three circles—two blue ones and one lusciously red—and her nose quivered. She looked real sad. You know—sad.
That was just the beginning. I guess we quarreled after that. At least, if we’d heard a couple of other people saying the things we said to each other, we would have thought they were quarreling. With Ethel and me, it was merely a minor disputation of my authority, which I cleared up pretty fast.
“At least,” she said wistfully, dabbing at her eyes, “we can go over and see the house before we sell it?”
“Sure,” I said, feeling magnanimous. I could just feel that dough in my two mitts—enough for a new convertible and some left over. I even wasted a few precious seconds of my life in fond recollection of that confounded satyr, De Valgis.
“I’ve seen the dump, honey. You wouldn’t like living there, anyway-even if we didn’t need a new car. I’ll stop by after work, tomorrow night, and see that everything’s shipshape. Then we can both run over any time later. It takes lots of time to sell a house.”
* * * *
It was one of those big, old-style places—Georgian, I think it’s called. It would have cost De Valgis a fortune to keep it up, but he hadn’t done much about it. It needed paint and new windows—a dozen other things. Ethel and I couldn’t afford to live here, if we did any fixing. But I could let the next owner worry. I was getting out from under—profitably.
With a premature song in my heart, I fitted the key Smithers had given me into the lock and went in.
In spite of many invitations from De Valgis, this was my first venture inside his house. I wouldn’t have taken Ethel in there on a bet—not while De Valgis was around. And I had made a point of not finding an excuse to call on the old coot myself. I’d seen the outside of the place, but it was not wholly in keeping with the inside.
The rooms were surprisingly light and sunny. Clean—well furnished in a rather old-fashioned style. It was late when I got there, and shadows were deepening in the upper corners of the rooms. But I took my time, until finally it got so dusky I had to turn on the lights as I went from room to room.
There was much here that indicated another, earlier life of De Valgis. Apparently, he had once been a family man. There were pictures of a pretty young woman and a couple of kids—family type stuff—but the clothing styles showed they had been taken long ago.
The library puzzled me. De Valgis had owned a lot of books and had left them all in the house. I often wondered how he made a living and, I thought, perhaps his library would give me a clue. I had never been interested enough to wonder before.
The first book I took off the shelf was something called Talents et etudes de la diablerie by a Vicomte de something-or-other. It was in French. After I’d spelled out a couple of words, my high school French broke down and I put the book back on the shelf. The next was a big, moldy old tome with fragmenting leather covers, titled Wissenschaft des Teufelkundes by Otto Braun.
That’s the way the whole library went—one foreign language after another, most of which hit me right in the middle of my ignorance. Some in Spanish, some in Italian, some in Greek, Danish, Norwegian—I don’t know what all. Finally—one in English. This one dispelled any doubt I had had of my translations of occasional previous titles. It was called, Studyes in ye Carnale Knowledge of ye Devilhood eke ye Satanik Wytchcrafte wyth ye Receipts for ye Conjuring up of ye Daemons. A long title, but it was a big book.
It had maybe a hundred thick, yellowish sheets of some kind of cured skin—and it was entirely handwritten. The writing was spidery, in faded red that could have been red ink, but I suspected it wasn’t. Each page was illuminated with washed-out drawings of witches and demons.
Since the writing was difficult to read and was phrased in jaw-breaking archaisms, I put it back on the shelf. I wish I had read it. Maybe if I had, I wouldn’t have gone into the Room Without Windows.
I had warned Ethel that there’d be a joker in the deck. But I walked right into it. I was going through the upstairs hall, exploring each room as I came to it. The Room Without Windows was at the very end of the hall, across the back stairwell from the bath. There was a note, addressed to me and Ethel, pinned to the solid oak door.
Dear Jack and Ethel:
By now you know that I have gone away. I am returning to visit relatives in Europe. I may stay there the rest of my life, so do not expect me back. However, if I do come back, the house is still yours, because I have deeded it to you as a gift—for being my most beloved friends. But please take care of the books that are in the library. If I do come back, I shall want them.
You are doubtless wondering why I am giving you this fine house. I give it to you because I know I can trust no other. This house must never be sold. Behind this door—the one to which I shall pin this note—lies a secret that must never be disturbed. I know I can trust you not to enter this room. After your lifetimes, the danger will no longer exist. I cannot explain this further. Just live in this house and be happy. But do not sell. I know that, as my friends, I can trust you to follow my wishes.
L. De V.
I thrust the note into my pocket. De Valgis didn’t know me as well as he thought he did. I’m not very curious about most things—not any more than the next fellow. I ignore things that aren’t my business.
But this was my business. It was my house now, wasn’t it?
I went down to my car and got a claw hammer from the tool kit. Then I yanked out the ten-penny nails De Valgis had driven into the beautiful oak door.
Those nails were proof to me he didn’t trust me as much as he claimed.
While I was yanking nails, believe me, I did plenty of thinking. I thought all kinds of things. Maybe this was a room filled with treasure-money, stacks of bullion, stuff like that—loot. I also thought of t
he possibility of cold corpses—female corpses, knowing De Valgis.
At any rate, I wondered what was in that room and I meant to find out.
By the time I got the door open, sweat was running down into my eyes. Maybe I didn’t see so good, I don’t know. It looked like an ordinary room to me but there weren’t any windows. And the walls were yellow. It was a funny kind of yellow that came and went, sort of. Played tricks on your vision—seemed to pull your eyeballs out like a pair of golf balls and cross them over—you get what I mean?
I stepped over the sill, and the yellow walls suddenly seemed to close in on me like clouds of swirling gas. I couldn’t see anything but that blinding, foggy yellow. I gasped and looked over my shoulder. The door was gone. I whirled around six ways at once and took a step. The yellow had vanished.
I had stepped through that door into Heaven—I thought. I was standing on a dun-colored beach and the wind blew in cool over white-capped surf. Palm trees tossed, gaunt and lovely, against the yearning blue of the sky. It was terrific!
And the girls—the babes—they littered the beach like driftwood. Live driftwood, carved into delectable form and substance. And not one of those living, breathing dolls was dressed in anything more than a copywriter’s imagination at five o’clock…
I got just one good eyeful—believe me, it was good—and there was that yellow fog again, swirling and boiling, blotting out the most luscious sight I had ever seen in my life.
I must have taken a step backward to bring it on. I lurched forward, and there was the door jamb, right in front of me, looming through the yellow fog. I went skidding out into the hall and almost plunged over the railing into the back stairwell.
What I should have done was nail the door up again. What I wanted to do was tear back through it and get acquainted with some of the dolls I had seen. But I suddenly realized it must be getting late and Ethel would be wondering about me. There was plenty of time to go through that door again.
I slammed the oak panel and beat it out of the house.
I should have told Ethel all about it. But what I had seen had given me ideas—and now I didn’t want to sell the place. I didn’t want to discuss it with her, either. But there was no way I could fend off her questions. And she had plenty.
“I want to see the house for myself,” she finally concluded, fed up with my hemming and hawing.
“Look,” I said, “you don’t want to see it. It isn’t worth seeing…”
“Can’t I even look at it once before we sell it?”
“Sell it?” I gaped.
“Do you mean to say you don’t want to sell it?”
“Yeah, sure, but—maybe it isn’t worth selling.”
“That’s wonderful, Jack! Then maybe we can move in!”
“No such!” I yelled in spite of my determination to remain cool.
Ethel looked hurt and mad, both at once.
“Then I’ll see it—and you’ll take me over—this weekend. I don’t know why you’re acting so funny, but I’ll find out. You act as if the place is full of showgirls and you don’t want me to find out about it!”
* * * *
Women have no intuition—banish the idea! They just have a sharp insight into the nature of Man, which comes from living with the brutes. I kept my mouth shut for the rest of the evening and, on Saturday, I took Ethel over to the house.
I thought maybe I could stall her off about the room, once we got there. I didn’t tell her about De Valgis’ note. I should have. Maybe that would have stopped her, but I don’t think so.
Ethel was so charmed with the place she didn’t even pause to bawl me out—though I could see she was saving it for later. But it made me feel good just to see her so tickled. I almost forgot about the room without windows and, when I did think of it, I solemnly promised myself I would not only nail the door shut, I’d build a wall over it. When Ethel’s eyes shone the way they did, I knew I didn’t give a hoot for the babes on the other side of that mysterious portal.
I kissed Ethel once in the upper hall, but she looked around my arm and spotted the oak door with fragments ripped out of it where I had yanked out De Valgis’ nails.
“What a shame! Somebody has ruined this beautiful door!”
She ran to it, before I could fasten a good hold on her, and pulled it open. Then she stepped through—and vanished.
I didn’t think of harm coming to her. It was the thought of her and those babes on the beach that made my blood run hot, then cold. I knew what Ethel would have to say to me once she got an eyeful.
I took off after her, yelping like a turpentined hound dog. I was fully prepared to meet the cloud of swirling yellow fog but, even so, I threw up my arm as I entered, as if to fight it off.
Naturally, I expected to land on De Valgis’ mysterious beach again, and see Ethel looking the babes over with that belligerent look I knew so well.
But no beach—no Ethel. It was dark and there were stars in the sky. There was a piney scent in the air. Looking up, I could see tall trees cutting ragged silhouettes against the stars.
I stood on a gravel road. Just then, a car turned off a side road about a hundred yards away. Headlights swept in an arc toward me, lighting one row after another of cars parked along the road. The flashes gave me a brief glance into each car. I knew where I was—in a lovers’ lane…
I stepped forward—into broad daylight. I was standing on the patio of a large hotel. It was built of some kind of pink stone and there were men and women strolling in pairs on white graveled paths. Palm trees rustled in the breeze.
I was still blinking when I took my next step—into a dim-lit hall filled with the blare of music. A number of couples danced in a languorous atmosphere of cologne, liquor fumes and cigarette smoke.
Another step—and I was in a hotel room. It was night and, outside the window, the hotel sign blinked on and off—on and off. I didn’t dare move for fear I would bump into something in the dark.
I heard a sound and turned my head that way. The hotel sign went plock and the room dimly lit up. I looked at the bed—and hastily took another step. I was glad it took me out of there!
It was sunny afternoon on a hilltop. There was rolling countryside all around, brushed and forested. Where was Ethel? Where was I? Each step had taken me into a different scene. Had the same thing happened to Ethel? Was she ahead of me in some scene I had not yet glimpsed? Or was she here—somewhere on this hilltop? If I could stop and look around…
The ground was littered with boulders. Bushes grew between grass—tall firs nodded restlessly in the wind.
I took a step and this time the scene stayed put. Wishing land? Wish you’d stay put and you would? I walked around cautiously. There was something fishy here—something familiar. I thought of the scenes I had passed through. They seemed like some memories I had. Or were they memories? Anyway, all these places seemed familiar.
I looked down the hill. I had expected to see a road winding around the bottom, and there it was. I saw a snappy convertible—like the one I’d had in mind to buy if we sold De Valgis’ house. It was parked at the edge of the road. A young fellow and his girl were climbing the hill. They had supplies for a picnic in their arms.
I was tempted to call out to them, but I didn’t. They went behind a large rock. The young man was shaking out a blanket. I thought I had better go some place else and look for Ethel.
I stepped into a wide, brightly lit hall that seemed to go on and on into the distance. It was lined on both sides with heavy doors.
I looked both ways before moving, and one of the doors swung open and a young man came bounding out. He stopped short at sight of me.
“What are you doing here?” he asked rudely.
His attitude made me surly. “How should I know where here is?” I retorted. “I’m lost, and I�
��m looking for my wife.”
The fellow grinned in a malicious way. “You won’t find her here—your wife, eh? You probably won’t find her in the whole Domain. From the looks of you, I’d say she’s had her Hell on Earth.”
I began to get hot under the collar. I was confused and angry. I wanted Ethel—and I wanted to get out of here. This was no place for either of us. If my mind had been working, I’d have bolted back then and there—with or without Ethel.
I said, “Enough of your comments, Mac. Just show me the way out of here.”
The young man frowned, then began to laugh. “You’ve been wandering among the sets! Must be the ones that caught you. Say, did any of the places seem familiar to you?”
I nodded, half of a mind to bust him one.
He yelped. “That’s traffic! Pulled one in through the sets! Wait till the boss hears about this! Come on, you.”
* * * *
There was a spate of yellow fog that swirled, thinned and cleared away. I stood on the carpet in a respectable-looking office.
There were comfortable chairs before a long, mahogany desk. I sat down in one, my eyes glued to the man behind the desk. He had a phone clamped to each ear and was yelling a stream of profanity into both. There was no sign of my erstwhile acquaintance.
“Get the figures!” yodeled the blubbery character around his cigar. “Blankety-blank! I said figures! Yes, blankety-blank! Sales! What? Not enough! Blankety, blank…there’s no benefit in that head!”
It all sounded weirdly reminiscent to me—like a copy chief. I looked around, trying warily to seem at ease until the fellow noticed me.
On one wall a large sign in big red letters read: Think! Beside it, equally large and gory, another sign read: Hurry! Directly behind the cursing man was a neatly framed placard: If you’ve only written it three times, it isn’t good enough.
On the wall to my right, a sign proclaimed: If the lead is right, the story has got to be right.
The 7th Golden Age of Weird Fiction MEGAPACK®: Manly Banister Page 12