I was filled with such revulsion and yet such rage at the creature’s actions that I grasped my stick and leapt to my feet, trembling with anger. I approached the mirror and as I did so, and my reflection appeared, I realized that (in the minor) I was approaching the thing from behind. I moved forward until, in the reflection, I was close to it and then I raised my stick.
Suddenly the creature’s eyes appeared to blaze in its disintegrating face. It stopped its revolting feast and dropped the corpse of the parrot to the ground, at the same time whirling round to face my reflection with such speed that I was taken aback and stood there, staring at it, my stick raised. The creature did not hesitate for a second, but dived forward and fastened its lean and powerful hands round my throat in the reflection.
This sudden attack made my reflection stagger backwards and it dropped the stick. The creature and my reflection fell to the floor behind the table and I could see them both thrashing about together. Horrified I dropped my stick and, running to the mirror, beat futilely against the glass. Presently all movement ceased behind the table. I could not see what was happening but, convinced the creature was dealing with my reflection as it had done with the dog and the cat, I continued to beat upon the mirror’s surface.
Presently, from behind the table, the creature rose up unsteadily, panting. It had its back to me. It remained like that for a moment or two; then it bent down and, seizing my reflection body, dragged it slowly through the door. As it did so I could see that the body had had its throat torn out.
Presently the creature reappeared, licking its lips in an anticipatory soft of way. Then it picked up the ebony stick and once more disappeared. It was gone some ten minutes and when it came back it was — to my horror and anger — feasting upon a severed hand, as a man might eat the wing of a chicken. Forgetting all fear I beat on the mirror again. Slowly, as if trying to decide where the noise was coming from, it turned round, its eyes flashing terribly, its face covered with blood that could only be mine.
It saw me and its eyes widened with a ferocious, knowing expression that turned me cold. Slowly it started to approach the mirror, and as it did so I stopped my futile hammering on the glass and backed away, appalled by the menace in the thing’s goat-like eyes. Slowly it moved forward, its fierce eyes fixed on me as if stalking me. When it was close to the mirror it put out its hands and touched the glass, leaving bloody fingerprints and yellow and grey feathers stuck to the glass. It felt the surface of the mirror delicately as one would test the fragility of ice on a pond, and then bunched its appalling hands into knobbly fists and beat a sudden furious tattoo on the glass like a startling rattle of drums in the silent room. It unbunched its hands and felt the glass again.
The creature stood for a moment watching me, as if it were musing. It was obvious that it could see me and I could only conclude that, although I possessed no reflection on my side of the mirror, I must be visible as a reflection in the mirror that formed part of the looking-glass world that this creature inhabited. Suddenly, as if coming to a decision, it turned and limped off across the room. To my alarm, it disappeared through the door, only to reappear a moment later carrying in its hands the ebony stick that my reflection had been carrying. Terrified, I realized that if I could hear the creature beating on the glass with its hands it must be in some way solid. This meant that, if it attacked the mirror with the stick the chances were that the glass would shatter and that the creature could then, in some way, get through to me.
As it limped down the room I made up my mind. Neither I nor the animals were going to stay in the blue salon any longer. I ran to where the cat and the dog lay asleep in front of the fire and gathered them up in my arms, then ran down the room and threw them unceremoniously into the hall. As I turned and hurried towards the bird cages the creature reached the mirror, whirled the stick around its head and brought it crashing down. I saw that part of the mirror whiten and star in the way that ice on a pond does when struck with a stone.
I did not wait. I seized the two cages, fled down the room with them, threw them into the hall and followed them. As I grabbed the door and was pulling it shut there came another crash. I saw a large portion of the mirror tinkle down on to the floor and, sticking through the mirror protruding into the blue salon, was the emaciated, twisted arm of the creature brandishing the ebony cane. I did not wait to see more, but slammed the door shut, turned the key in the lock and leant against the solid wood, the sweat running down my face, my heart hammering.
I collected my wits after a moment and made my way down to the kitchen where I poured myself out a stiff brandy. My hand was trembling so much that I could hardly hold the glass. Desperately I marshalled my wits and tried to think. It seemed to me that the minor, when broken, acted as an entrance for the creature into my world. I did not know whether it was just this particular mirror or all mirrors, nor did I know whether — if I broke any mirror that might act as an entrance for the thing — I would be preventing it or aiding it.
I was shaking with fear but I knew that I would have to do something, for it was obvious that the creature would hunt me through the house. I went into the cellar, found myself a short, broad-bladed axe and then, picking up the candelabra, made my way upstairs. The door to the blue salon was securely locked. I steeled myself and went into the study next door where there was, I knew, a medium-sized mirror hanging on the wall. I approached it, the candelabra held high, my axe ready.
It was a curious sensation to stand in front of a minor and not see yourself. I stood thus for a moment and then started with fright, for there appeared in the mirror, where my reflection should have been, the ghastly face of the creature glaring at me with a mad, lustful look in its eyes. I knew that this was the moment that I would have to test my theory, but even so I hesitated for a second before I smashed the axe head against the glass, saw it splinter and heard the pieces crash to the floor.
I stepped back after I had dealt the blow and stood with my weapon raised, ready to do battle should the creature try to get at me through the mirror, but with the disappearance of the glass it was as if the creature had disappeared as well. I knew my idea was correct: if the mirror was broken from my side it ceased to be an entrance. To save myself, I had to destroy every mirror in the house and do it quickly, before the creature got to them and broke through. Picking up the candelabra, I moved swiftly to the dining-salon where there was a large mirror and reached it just as the creature did. Luckily, I dealt the glass a shivering blow before the thing could break it with the cane that it still carried.
Moving as quickly as I could without quenching the candles I made my way up to the first floor. Here I moved swiftly from bedroom to bedroom, bathroom to bathroom, wreaking havoc.
Fear must have lent my feet wings since I arrived at all these mirrors before the creature did and managed to break them without seeing a sign of my adversary. All that was left was the Long Gallery with its ten or so huge mirrors hanging between the tall bookcases. I made my way there as rapidly as I could, walking, for some stupid reason, on tip-toe. When I reached the door I was overcome with terror lest the creature should have reached there before me and broken through and was, even now, waiting for me in the darkness. I put my ear to the door but could hear nothing. Taking a deep breath I threw open the door holding the candelabra high.
Ahead of me lay the Long Gallery in soft velvety darkness as anonymous as a mole’s burrow. I stepped inside the door and the candle flames rocked and twisted on the ends of the candles, flapping the shadows like black funeral pennants on the floor and walls. I walked a little way into the room, peering at the far end of the gallery which was too far away to be illuminated by my candles, but it seemed to me that all the mirrors were intact. Hastily I placed the candelabra on a table and turned to the long row of mirrors. At that moment a sudden loud crash and tinkle sent my heart into my mouth. It was a moment or so before I realized, with sick relief, that it was not the sound of a breaking mirror I had heard but the noise of a
great icicle that had broken loose from one of the windows and fallen, with a sound like breaking glass, into the courtyard below.
I knew that I had to act swiftly before that shuffling, limping monstrosity reached the Long Gallery and broke through. Taking a grip upon the axe I hurried from mirror to mirror, creating wreckage that a gang of schoolboys would have relished. Again and again I would smash the head of the axe into the smooth surface like a man clearing ice from a lake, and the surface would star and whiten and then slip, the pieces chiming musically as they fell, to crash on the ground. The noise, in that silence, was extraordinarily loud.
I reached the last mirror but one. As my axe head splintered it the one next door cracked and broke and the ebony stick, held in the awful hand, came through. Dropping the axe in my fright I turned and fled, pausing only to snatch up the candelabra. As I slammed the door shut and locked it I caught a glimpse of something white struggling to disentangle itself from the furthest mirror in the Gallery.
I leant against the door, shaking with fright, my heart hammering, listening. Dimly, through the locked door, I could hear faint sounds of tinkling glass; then there was silence. I strained my ears but could hear nothing. Then, against my back, I felt the handle of the door being slowly turned. Cold with fear, I leapt away and, fascinated, watched the handle move round until the creature realized that the door was locked. There came such an appalling scream of frustrated rage, shrill, raw and indescribably evil and menacing that I almost dropped the candelabra in my fright.
I leant against the wall, shaking, wiping the sweat from my face but limp with relief. All the mirrors in the house were broken and the only two rooms that thing had access to were securely locked. For the first time in twenty-four hours I felt safe. Inside the Long Gallery the creature was snuffling round the door like a pig in a trough. Then it gave another blood-curdling scream of frustrated rage and there was silence. I listened for a few minutes but could hear nothing so, taking up my candelabra, started to make my way downstairs.
I paused frequently to listen. I moved slowly so that the tiny scraping noises of my sleeve against my coat would not distract my hearing. I held my breath, All I could hear was my heart, hammering against my ribs like a desperate hand, and the faint rustle and flap of the candle flames as they danced to my movement. Slowly, every sense alert, I made my way down to the lower floor of that gaunt, cold, empty house.
I paused to listen at the bend in the staircase that led down into the hall, and stood so still that even the candle flames stood upright, like a little grove of orange cypress trees. I could hear nothing. I let my breath out slowly in a sigh of relief, rounded the corner and saw the one thing I had forgotten, the tall pier-glass that hung at the foot of the stain.
In my horror I nearly dropped the candelabra. I gripped it more firmly in my sweating hands. The mirror hung there, innocently on the wall, reflecting nothing more alarming than the flight of steps I was about to descend. All was quiet. I prayed that the thing was still upstairs snuffling around in the wreckage of a dozen broken mirrors. Slowly I started to descend the stairs. Half-way down, I stopped suddenly paralysed with fear, for reflected in the top of the mirror, descending as I was towards the hall, appeared the bare, misshapen feet of the creature.
I felt panic-stricken and did not know what to do. I knew that I should break the mirror before the creature had descended to the level where it could see me, but to do this I would have to throw the candelabra at the mirror to shatter it and this would leave me in the dark. And supposing I missed? To be trapped on the stairs, in the dark, by that monstrous thing was more than I could stand. I hesitated, and hesitated too long, for with surprising speed, the limping creature descended the stairs, using the stick in one band to support it while the other ghastly hand clasped the banister rail, the opal ring glinting as it moved. Its head and decaying face came into view and it glared through the mirror at me and snarled. Still I could do nothing. I stood rooted to the spot, holding the candles high, unable to move.
It seemed to me more important that I should have light so that I could see what the thing was doing, than that I should use the candelabra to break the mirror. The creature drew back its emaciated arm, lifted the stick high and brought it down. There was a splintering crash, the mirror splinters be came opaque, and through the falling glass the creature’s arm appeared. More glass fell, until it was all on the floor and the frame was clear. The creature, snuffling and whining eagerly, like a dog that had been shown a plate of food, stepped through the minor and, its feet scrunching and squeaking, trod on the broken glass. Its blazing eyes fixed upon me, it opened its mouth and uttered a shrill, gargling cry of triumph, the saliva flowed out of the decomposing ruins of its cheeks. I could hear its teeth squeak together as it ground them.
It was such a fearful sight that I was panicked into making a move. Praying that my aim would be sure I raised the heavy candelabra and hurled it down at the creature. For a moment it seemed as though the candelabra hung in mid-air, the flames still on the candles, the creature standing in the wreckage of the mirror, glaring up at me; then the heavy ornate weapon struck it. As the candles went out I heard the soggy thud and the grunt that the creature gave, followed by the sound of the candelabra hitting the marble floor and of a body falling. Then there was darkness and complete silence.
I could not move. I was shaking with fear and at any minute expected to feel those hideous white hands fasten around my throat or round my ankles. Nothing happened. How many minutes I stood there I do not know. At length I heard a faint, gurgling sigh and then there was silence again. I waited, immobile in the darkness and still nothing happened. Taking courage I felt in my pocket for the matches. My hands were shaking so much that I could hardly strike one, but at length I succeeded. The feeble light it threw was not enough for me to discern anything except that the creature lay huddled below the mirror, a hunched heap that looked very dark in the flickering light. It was either unconscious or dead, I thought, and then cursed as the match burnt my hand and I dropped it. I lit another and made my way cautiously down the stairs. Again the match went out before I reached the bottom and I was forced to pause and light another one. I bent over the thing, holding out the match and then recoiled with sudden horror at what I saw.
Lying with his head in a pool of blood was Gideon.
* * * *
I stared down at his face in the flickering light of the match, my senses reeling. He was dressed as I had last seen him. His astrakhan hat had fallen from his head, and the blood had gushed from his temple where the candelabra had hit him. I felt for his heart-beat and his pulse, but he was dead. His eyes, now lacking the fire of his personality, gazed blankly up at me. I re-lit the candles and then sat on the stairs and tried to work it out. I am still trying to work it out today.
I will spare my readers the details of my subsequent arrest and my trial. All those who read newspapers will remember my humiliation; how they would not believe (particularly as they found the strangled and half-eaten corpses of the dog, the cat and the birds) that after the creature had appeared we had merely become the reflections in its mirror. If I was baffled to find an explanation you may imagine how the police treated the whole affair. The newspapers called me the “Monster of the Gorge”, and were shrill in calling for my blood. The police, dismissing my story of the creature, felt they had enough evidence in the fact that Gideon had left me a large sum of money in his will.
In vain I protested that it was I, at God knows what cost to myself, who had fought my way through the snow to summon help. For the police, disbelievers in witchcraft (as indeed I had been before this), the answer was simple: I had killed my friend for money and then made up this tarradiddle about the creature in the minor.
The evidence was too strongly against me and the uproar of the Press, fanning the flames of public opinion, sealed my fate. I was a monster and must be punished. So I was sentenced to death, to die beneath the blade of the guillotine. Dawn is not far away, and
it is then that I am to die. I have whiled away the time writing down this story in the hope that anyone who reads it might believe me. I have never fancied death by the guillotine: it has always seemed to me to be a most barbarous means of putting a man to death. I am watched, of course, so I cannot cheat what the French, with macabre sense of humour, call “the widow”. But I have been asked if I have a last request, and they have agreed to let me have a full-length mirror to dress myself for the occasion. I shall be interested to see what will happen.
* * * *
Here the manuscript ended. Written underneath, in a different hand was the simple statement: The prisoner was found dead in front of the mirror. Death was due to heart failure. Dr Lepître.
The thunder outside was still tumultuous and the lightning lit up the room at intervals. I am not ashamed to say I went and hung a towel over the mirror on the dressing table. Then, picking up the bulldog, I got back into bed and snuggled down with him.
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The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium Page 19