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🟡 Great God Pan (Full Audiobook) | Arthur Machen · Occult & Supernatural Audiobooks: Forbidden Rituals, Esoteric Texts & Paranormal Tales

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: CHAPTER I. THE EXPERIMENT I am glad you came, Clark,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: very glad indeed. I was not sure you could spare
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: the time. I was able to make arrangements for a
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: few days. Things are not very lively just now. But
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: have you no misgivings, Raymond? Is it absolutely safe? The
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: two men were slowly pacing the terrace in front of Dr.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Raymond's house. The sun still hung above the western mountain line,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: but it shone with a dull red glow that cast
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: no shadows, and all the air was quiet. A sweet
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: breath came from the great wood on the hillside above,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: and with it at intervals, the soft murmuring call of
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: the wild doves. Below, in the long, lovely valley, the
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: river wound in and out between the lonely hills, and
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: as the sun hovered and vanished into the west, a
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: faint mist, pure white, began to rise from the hills. Dr.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Raymond turned sharply to his friend. Safe? Of course it is.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: In itself, the operation is a perfectly simple one. Any
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: surgeon could do it. And there is no danger at
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: any other stage?'' None. Absolutely no physical danger whatsoever, I
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: give you my word. You are always timid, Clark, always.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: But you know my history. I have devoted myself to
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: transcendental medicine for the last twenty years. I have heard
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: myself called Quack and Charlotte and an imposter, but all
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: the while I knew I was on the right path.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Five years ago I reached the goal, and since then
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: every day has been a preparation for what we shall
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: do to-night.' I should like to believe it is all true.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Clark knit his brows and looked doubtfully at Dr. Raymond.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Are you perfectly sure, Raymond, that your theory is not
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: a phantasmagoria? A splendid vision, certainly, but a mere vision,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: after all. Dr. Raymond stopped in his walk and turned sharply.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: He was a middle-aged man, gaunt and thin, of a
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: pale yellow complexion. But as he answered Clark and faced him,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: there was a flush on his cheek. Look about you, Clark.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: You see the mountains and hill following after hill, as
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: wave on wave. You see the woods and orchard, the
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: fields of ripe corn, and the meadows reaching to the
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: reed-beds by the river. You see me standing here beside
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: you and hear my voice. But I tell you that
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: all these things, yes, from that star that has just
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: shone out in the sky to the solid ground beneath
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: our feet, I say that all these are but dreams
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: and shadows, the shadows that hide the real world from
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: our eyes. There is a real world, but it is
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: beyond this glamour and this vision, beyond these chases in Arras,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: dreams in a career, beyond them all as beyond a veil.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: I do not know whether any human being has ever
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: lifted that veil, but I do know, Clark, that you
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: and I shall see it lifted this very night from
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: before another's eyes. You may think this all strange nonsense.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: It may be strange, but it is true, and the
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: ancients knew what lifting the veil means. They called it
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: seeing the god Pan. Clark shivered. The white mist gathering
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: over the river was chilly. It is wonderful indeed, he said.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: We are standing on the brink of a strange world, Raymond,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: if what you say is true. I suppose the knife
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: is absolutely necessary? Yes. A slight lesion in the grey matter,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: that is all. A trifling rearrangement of certain cells— a
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: microscopical alteration that would escape the attention of ninety-nine brain
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: specialists out of a hundred. I don't want to bother
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: you with shop, Clark. I might give you a mass
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: of technical detail that would sound very imposing, and would
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: leave you as enlightened as you are now. But I
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: suppose you have read, casually, in out-of-the-way corners of your paper,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: that immense strides have been made recently in the physiology
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: of the brain. I saw a paragraph the other day
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: about Digby's theory and Brown-Faber's discoveries. theories and discoveries. Where
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: they are standing now, I stood fifteen years ago, and
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: I need not tell you that I have not been
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: standing still for the last fifteen years. It would be
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: enough if I say that five years ago I made
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: the discovery that I alluded to, when I said that
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: ten years ago I reached the goal. After years of labor,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: after years of toiling and groping in the dark, after
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: days and nights of disappointments and sometimes of despair— in
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: which I used now and then to tremble and grow
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: cold with the thought that perhaps there were others seeking
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: for what I sought. At last, after so long, a
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: pang of sudden joy thrilled my soul, and I knew
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: the long journey was at an end. By what seemed
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: then and still seems a chance, the suggestion of a
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: moment's idle thought followed up upon familiar lines and paths
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: that I had tracked a hundred times already. The great
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: truth burst upon me, and I saw, mapped out in
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: lines of sight a whole world, a sphere unknown, continents
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: and islands, and great oceans in which no ship has sailed,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: to my belief, since a man first lifted up his
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: eyes and beheld the sun, and the stars of heaven,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: and the quiet earth beneath. You will think this all
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: high-flown language, Clark, but it is hard to be literal.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: And yet, I do not know whether what I am
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: hinting at cannot be set forth in plain and lonely terms.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: For instance, This world of ours is pretty well girded
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: now with the telegraph wires and cables. Thought, with something
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: less than the speed of thought, flashes from sunrise to sunset,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: from north to south, across the floods and the desert places.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Suppose that an electrician of today were suddenly to perceive
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: that he and his friends had merely been playing with
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: pebbles and mistaking them for the foundations of the world.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Suppose that such a man saw uttermost space lie open
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: before the current, and words of men flash forth to
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: the sun and beyond the sun, into the systems beyond.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: And the voice of articulate-speaking men echo in the waste
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: void that bounds our thought. As analogies go, that is
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: a pretty good analogy of what I have done. You
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: can understand now a little of what I felt as
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: I stood here one evening. It was a summer evening,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: and the valley looked much as it does now. I
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: stood here, and saw before me the unutterables, the unspeakable
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: gulf that yawns profound between two worlds, the world of
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: matter and the world of spirit. I saw the great
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: empty deep stretch dim before me, and in that instant
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: a bridge of light leapt from the earth to the
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: unknown shore, and the abyss was spanned. You may look
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: in Brown Faber's book, if you like, and you will
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: find that to the present day men of science are
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: unable to account for the presence or to specify the
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: functions of a certain group of nerve cells in the brain.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: That group is, as it were, land to let, a
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: mere waste place for fanciful theories. I am not in
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: the position of Brown Faber and the specialist. I am
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: perfectly instructed as to the possible functions of those nerve
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: centers in the scheme of things. With a touch I
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: can bring them into play. With a touch, I say,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: I can set free the current. With a touch I
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: can complete the communications between this world of sense and...
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: We shall be able to finish the sentence later on. Yes,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: the knife is necessary. But think what that knife will effect.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: It will level utterly the solid wall of sense, and
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: probably for the first time since man was made, a
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: spirit will gaze on a spirit world. Clark, Mary will
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: see the god Pan. But you remember what you wrote
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: to me. I thought it would be requisite that she...
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: He whispered the rest into the doctor's ear. Not at all,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: not at all. That is nonsense, I assure you. Indeed.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: It is better as it is. I'm quite certain of that.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Consider the matter well, Raymond. It's a great responsibility. Something
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: might go wrong. You would be a miserable man for
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: the rest of your days. No, I think not. Even
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: if the worst happened. As you know, I rescued Mary
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: from the gutter, and from almost certain starvation, when she
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: was a child. I think her life is mine, to
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: use as I see fit. Come. It's getting late. We
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: had better go in. Dr. Raymond led the way into
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  Speaker 1: the house, through the hall, and down a long, dark passage.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: He took a key from his pocket and opened a
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  Speaker 1: heavy door, and motioned Clark into his laboratory. It had
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: once been a billiard room, and was lighted by a
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: glass dome in the centre of the ceiling, whence there
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: still shone a sad grey light on the figure of
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  Speaker 1: the doctor as he lit a lamp with a heavy shade,
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  Speaker 1: and placed it on a table in the middle of
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  Speaker 1: the room. Clark looked about him. Scarcely a foot of
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: wall remained bare. There were shelves all around laden with
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: bottles and files of all shapes and colors, and at
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  Speaker 1: one end stood a little Chippendale bookcase. Raymond pointed to this.
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  Speaker 1: You see that parchment, Oswald Corleus? He was one of
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: the first to show me the way, though I don't
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  Speaker 1: think he ever found it himself. That is a strange
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: saying of his. In every grain of wheat there lies
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: hidden the soul of a star. There was not much
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: furniture in the laboratory. The table in the centre, a
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  Speaker 1: stone slab with a drain in one corner, the two
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: armchairs on which Raymond and Clark were sitting— that was all,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: except an odd-looking chair at the furthest end of the room.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: Clark looked at it and raised his eyebrows.' Yes, that
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: is the chair,' said Raymond.' We may as well place
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  Speaker 1: it in position.' He got up and wheeled the chair
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: to the light and began raising and lowering it, letting
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: down the seat, setting the back at various angles, and
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: adjusting the footrest. It looked comfortable enough, and Clark passed
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: his hand over the soft green velvet as the doctor
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: manipulated the levers. Now, Clark, make yourself quite comfortable. I
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: have a couple hours' work before me. I was obliged
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: to leave certain matters to the last. Raymond went to
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: the stone slab, and Clark watched him drearily as he
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: bent over a row of files and lit the flame
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: under the crucible. The doctor had a small hand lamp,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: shaded as the larger one, on a ledge above his apparatus,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: and Clark, who sat in the shadows— looked down at
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: the great shadowy room, wondering at the bizarre effects of
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: brilliant light and undefined darkness contrasting with one another. Soon
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: he became conscious of an odd odour, at first the
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: mere suggestion of an odour, in the room, and as
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: it grew more decided he felt surprised that he was
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: not reminded of the chemist's shop or the surgery. Clark
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: found himself idly endeavouring to analyse the sensation, and, half conscious,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: he began to think of a day fifteen years ago
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: that he had spent roaming through the woods and meadows
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: near his own home It was a burning day at
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: the beginning of August. The heat had dimmed the outlines
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: of all things and all distances with a faint mist,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: and people who observed the thermometer spoke of an abnormal register,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: of a temperature that was almost tropical. Strangely, that wonderful
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: hot day of the fifties rose up again in Clark's imagination.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: The sense of dazzling, all-pervading sunlight seemed to blot out
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: the shadows and the lights of the laboratory, and he
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: felt again the heated air beating in gusts about his face,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: saw the shimmer rising from the turf. and heard the
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: myriad murmur of the summer. I hope the smell doesn't
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: annoy you, Clark. There's nothing unwholesome about it. It may
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: make you a bit sleepy, that's all. Clark heard the
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: words quite distinctly, and knew that Raymond was speaking to him,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: but for the life of him he could not rouse
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: himself from his lethargy. He could only think of the
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: lonely walk he had taken fifteen years ago. It was
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: his last look at the fields and woods he had
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: known since he was a child, and now it all
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: stood out in brilliant light as a picture before him.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: Above all there came to his nostrils the scent of summer,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: the smell of flowers mingled, and the odor of the woods,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: of cool shaded places, deep in the green depths, drawn
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: forth by the sun's heat, and the scent of the
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: good earth, lying as it were with arms stretched forth,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: and smiling lips, overpowered all. His fancies made him wander,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: as he had wandered long ago, from the fields into
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: the wood, tracking a little path between the shining undergrowth
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: of beech-trees. and the trickle of water dropping from the
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: limestone rock sounded as a clear melody in the dream.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: Thoughts began to go astray and to mingle with other thoughts.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: The beach alley was transformed to a path between ilex trees,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: and here and there a vine climbed from bough to
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: bough and sent up waving tendrils and drooped with purple grapes,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: and the sparse gray-green leaves of a wild olive tree
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: stood out against the dark shadows of the ilex. Clark,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: in the deep folds of dreams, was conscious that the
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: path from his father's house had led him into an
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: undiscovered country, and he was wondering at the strangeness of
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: it all, when suddenly, in place of the hum and
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: murmur of the summer, an infinite silence seemed to fall
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: on all things, and the wood was hushed, and for
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: a moment in time he stood face to face there
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: with a presence that was neither man nor beast, neither
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: the living nor the dead, but all things mingled, the
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: form of all things but devoid of all form, and
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: in that moment the sacrament of body and soul was dissolved,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: and a voice seemed to cry, Let us go hence,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: and then the darkness of darkness beyond the stars, the
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: darkness of everlasting. When Clark woke up with a start,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: he saw Raymond pouring a few drops of some oily
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: fluid into a green phial, which he stoppered tightly. You
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: must have been dozing, he said. The journey must have
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: tired you out. It is done now. I am going
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: to fetch Mary.' I shall be back in ten minutes.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Clark lay back in his chair and wondered. It seemed
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: as if he had but passed from one dream into another.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: He half expected to see the walls of the laboratory
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: melt and disappear, and to awake in London, shuddering at
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: his own sleeping fancies. But at last the door opened,
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: and the doctor returned, and behind him came a girl
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: of about seventeen, dressed all in white. She was so
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: beautiful that Clark could not wonder at what the doctor
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: had written to him. She was blushing now, over face
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: and neck and arms, but Raymond seemed unmoved.' Mary,' he said,'
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: the time has come. You are quite free. Are you
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: willing to trust yourself to me entirely?'' Yes, dear.'' Do
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: you hear that, Clark? You are my witness. Here is
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: the chair, Mary. It is quite easy. Just sit in
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: it and lean back. Are you ready?'' Yes, dear, quite ready.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Give me a kiss before you begin.' the doctor stooped
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: and kissed her mouth kindly enough. Now shut your eyes,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: he said. The girl closed her eyelids as if she
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: were tired and longed for sleep, and Raymond placed the
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: green file to her nostrils. Her face grew white, whiter
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: than her dress. She struggled faintly, and then, with the
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: feeling of submission strong within her, crossed her arms upon
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: her breast as a little child about to say her prayers.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: The bright light of the lamp fell full upon her,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: and Clark watched changes fleeting over her face as the
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: changes of the hills when the summer clouds float across
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: the sun. And then she lay all white and still,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: and the doctor turned up one of her eyelids. She
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: was quite unconscious. Raymond pressed hard on one of the levers,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: and the chair instantly sank back. Clark saw him cutting
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: away a circle, like a tonsure from her hair, and
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: the lamp was moved nearer. Raymond took a small glittering
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: instrument from a little case, and Clark turned away shudderingly.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: When he looked again, the doctor was binding up the
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: wound he had made. She will awake in five minutes.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Raymond was still perfectly cool. There is nothing more to
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: be done. We can only wait. The minutes passed slowly.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: They could hear a slow, heavy ticking. There was an
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: old clock in the passage. Clark felt sick and faint.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: His knees shook beneath him. He could hardly stand. Suddenly,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: as they watched... They heard a long-drawn sigh, and suddenly
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: did the color that had vanished return to the girl's cheeks,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: and suddenly her eyes opened. Clark quailed before them. They
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: shone with an awful light, looking far away, and a
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: great wonder fell upon her face, and her hands stretched
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: out as if to touch what was invisible. But in
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: an instant the wonder faded, and gave place to the
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: most awful terror. The muscles of her face were hideously convulsed.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: She shook from head to foot, The soul seemed struggling
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: and shuddering within a house of flesh. It was a
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: horrible sight, and Clark rushed forward as she fell shrieking
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: to the floor. Three days later, Raymond took Clark to
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Mary's bedside. She was lying wide awake, rolling her head
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: from side to side, and grinning vacantly. Yes, said the doctor,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: still quite cool. It is a great pity. She is
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: a hopeless idiot. However, it could not be helped, and
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: after all, She has seen the great god Pan. End
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: of Chapter 1 Chapter 2 of The Great God Pan
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: by Arthur Macken This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: Chapter 2 Mr. Clark's Memoirs Mr. Clark, the gentleman chosen
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: by Dr. Raymond to witness the strange experiment of the
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: god Pan, was a person in whose character caution and
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: curiosity were oddly mingled. In his sober moments he thought
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: of the unusual and eccentric with undisguised aversion, and yet,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: deep in his heart, there was a wide-eyed inquisitiveness with
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: respect to all the more recondite and esoteric elements in
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: the nature of men. The latter tendency had prevailed when
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: he accepted Raymond's invitation, for though his considered judgment had
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: always repudiated the doctor's theories as the wildest nonsense, yet
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: he secretly hugged a belief in fantasy— and would have
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: rejoiced to see that belief confirmed. The horrors that he
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: witnessed in the dreary laboratory were to a certain extent salutary.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: He was conscious of being involved in an affair not
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: altogether reputable, and for many years afterwards he clung bravely
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: to the commonplace, and rejected all occasions of occult investigation. Indeed,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: on some homeopathic principle, he for some time attended the
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: séances of distinguished mediums, hoping that the clumsy tricks of
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: these gentlemen would make him altogether disgusted with mysticism of
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: every kind. but the remedy, though caustic, was not efficacious.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: Clark knew that he still pined for the unseen, and
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: little by little the old passion began to reassert itself,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: as the face of Mary, shuddering and convulsed with an
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: unknown terror, faded slowly from his memory. Occupied all day
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: in pursuits both serious and lucrative, the temptation to relax
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: in the evening was too great, especially in the winter months,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: when the fire cast a warm glow over his snug
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: bachelor apartment. and a bottle of some choice claret stood
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: ready by his elbow. His dinner digested. He would make
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: a brief pretense of reading the evening paper, but the
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: mere catalogue of news soon palled upon him, and Clark
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: would find himself casting glances of warm desire in the
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: direction of an old Japanese bureau. which stood at a
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: pleasant distance from the hearth. Like a boy before a
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: jam closet, for a few minutes he would hover indecisive,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: but lust always prevailed, and Clark ended by drawing up
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: his chair, lighting a candle, and sitting down before the bureau.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Its pigeonholes and drawers teemed with documents on the most
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: morbid subject— and in the well reposed a large manuscript volume,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: in which he had painfully entered the gems of his collection.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: Clark had a fine contempt for published literature. The most
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: ghostly story ceased to interest him if it happened to
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: be printed. His sole pleasure was in the reading, compiling,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: and rearranging what he called his memoirs to prove the
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: existence of the devil, and engaged in this pursuit, the
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: evening seemed to fly, and the night appeared too short.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: On one particular evening, an ugly December night, Black with
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: fog and raw with frost, Clark hurried over his dinner,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: and scarcely deigned to observe his customary ritual of taking
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: up the paper and laying it down again. He paced
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: two or three times up and down the room, and
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: opened the bureau, stood still a moment, and sat down.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: He leaned back, absorbed in one of those dreams to
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: which he was subject, and at length drew out his book,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: and opened it at the last entry. There were three
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: or four pages densely covered with Clark's round, set penmanship,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: and at the beginning he had written in a somewhat
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: larger hand. Singular narrative, told me by my friend, Dr. Phillips.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: He assures me that all the facts related therein are
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: strictly and wholly true, but refuses to give either the
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: surnames of the persons concerned or the place where these
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: extraordinary events occurred. Mr. Clark began to read over the
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: account for the tenth time, glancing now and then at
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: the pencil notes he had made when it was told
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: him by his friend. It was one of his humours
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: to pride himself on a certain literary ability. He thought
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: well of his style, and took pains in arranging the
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: circumstances in dramatic order. He read the following story. The
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: persons concerned in this statement are Helen V., who, if
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: she is still alive, must now be a woman of twenty-three,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Rachel M., since deceased, who is a year younger than
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: the above, and Trevor W., an imbecile, aged eighteen. These
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: persons were, at the period of the story, inhabitants of
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: a village on the border of Wales, a place of
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: some importance in the time of the Roman occupation, but
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: now a scattered hamlet of not more than 500 souls.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: It is situated on rising ground, about six miles from
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: the sea, and is sheltered by a large and picturesque forest.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Some eleven years ago, Helen V. came to the village
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: under rather peculiar circumstances. It is understood that she, being
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: an orphan, was adopted in her infancy by a distant
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: relative who brought her up in his own house until
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: she was twelve years old. Thinking, however, that it would
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: be better for the child to have playmates of her
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: own age, he advertised in several local papers for a
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: good home in a comfortable farmhouse for a girl of twelve,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: and this advertisement was answered by Mr. R., a well-to-do
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: farmer in the above-mentioned village. His references proving satisfactory, the
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: gentleman sent his adopted daughter to Mr. R., with a
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: letter in which he stipulated that the girl should have
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: a room to herself, and stated that her guardians need
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: be at no trouble in the matter of education, as
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: she was already sufficiently educated for the position in life
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: which she would occupy. In fact, Mr. R. was given
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: to understand that the girl be allowed to find her
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: own occupations, and to spend her time almost as she liked. Mr. R.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: duly met her at the nearest station, a town seven
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: miles away from his house, and seems to have remarked
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: nothing extraordinary about the child. except that she was reticent
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: as to her former life and her adopted father. She was, however,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: of a very different type from the inhabitants of the village.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: Her skin was a pale, clear olive, and her features
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: were strongly marked, and of a somewhat foreign character. She
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: appears to have settled down easily enough into farmhouse life,
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: and became a favorite with the children, who sometimes went
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: with her on her rambles in the forest, for this
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: was her amusement. Mr. R. states that he has known
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: her to go out by herself directly after their early breakfast,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: and not return till after dusk, and that, feeling uneasy
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: at a young girl being out alone for so many hours,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: he communicated with her adopted father, who replied in a
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: brief note that Helen must do as she chose. In
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: the winter, when the forest paths are impassable, she spent
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: most of her time in her bedroom, where she slept alone,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: according to the instructions of her relative. It was on
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: one of these expeditions to the forest that the first
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: of the singular incidents with which this girl is connected occurred,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: the date being about a year after her arrival at
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: the village. The preceding winter had been remarkably severe, the
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: snow drifting to a great depth, and the frost continuing
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: for an unexampled period, and the summer following was as
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: noteworthy for its extreme heat. On one of the very
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: hottest days in this summer, Helen V. left the farmhouse
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: for one of her long rambles in the forest, taking
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: with her as usual some bread and meat for lunch.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: She was seen by some men in the fields making
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: for the old Roman road, a green causeway which traverses
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: the highest part of the wood, and they were astonished
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: to observe that the girl had taken off her hat,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: though the heat of the sun was already tropical. As
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: it happened, a laborer, Joseph W. by name, was working
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: in the forest near the Roman road, and at twelve
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: o'clock his little son, Trevor, brought the man his dinner
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: of bread and cheese. After the meal, the boy, who
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: was about seven years old at the time, left his
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: father at work, and, as he said, went to look
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: for flowers in the wood. And the man who could
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: hear him shouting with delight at his discoveries felt no uneasiness. Suddenly, however,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: he was horrified at hearing the most dreadful screams, evidently
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: the result of great terror, proceeding from the direction in
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: which his son had gone, and he hastily threw down
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: his tools and ran to see what had happened. Tracing
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: his path by the sound, he met the little boy,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: who was running headlong, and was evidently terribly frightened. and
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: on questioning him the man elicited that after picking a
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: posy of flowers he felt tired, and lay down on
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: the grass and fell asleep. He was suddenly awakened, as
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: he stated, by a peculiar noise, a sort of singing
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: he called it, and on peeping through the branches he
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: saw Helen V. playing on the grass with a strange
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: naked man, who he seemed unable to describe more fully.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: He said he felt dreadfully frightened, and ran away crying
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: for his father. Joseph W. proceeded in the direction indicated
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: by his son, and found Helen V. sitting on the
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: grass in the middle of a glade or open space
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: left by charcoal burners. He angrily charged her with frightening
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: his little boy, but she entirely denied the accusation and
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: laughed at the child's story of a strange man, to
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: which he himself did not attach much credence. Joseph W.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: came to the conclusion that the boy had woke up
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: with a sudden fright, as children sometimes do, but Trevor
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: persisted in his story and continued in such evident distress
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: that at last his father took him home. hoping that
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: his mother would be able to soothe him. For many weeks, however,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: the boy gave his parents much anxiety. He became nervous
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: and strange in his manner, refusing to leave the cottage
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: by himself, and constantly alarming the household by waking in
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: the night with cries of, The man in the wood! Father! Father!
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: In course of time, however, the impression seemed to have
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: worn off, and about three months later he accompanied his
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: father to the home of a gentleman in the neighborhood,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: for whom Joseph W. occasionally did work. The man was
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: shown into the study, and the little boy was left
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: sitting in the hall, and a few minutes later, while
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: the gentleman was giving W. his instructions, they were both
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: horrified by a piercing shriek and the sound of a fall,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: and rushing out they found the child lying senseless on
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: the floor, his face contorted with terror. The doctor was
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: immediately summoned, and after some examination he pronounced the child
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: to be suffering from a kind of fit, apparently produced
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: by a sudden shock. The boy was taken to one
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: of the bedrooms. and after some time recovered consciousness, but
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: only to pass into a condition described by the medical
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: man as one of violent hysteria. The doctor exhibited a
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: strong sedative, and in the course of two hours pronounced
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: him fit to walk home, but in passing through the
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: hall the paroxysms of fright returned and with additional violence.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: The father perceived that the child was pointing at some object,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: and heard the old cry, The man in the wood!
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: and looking in the direction indicated, saw a stone head
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: of grotesque appearance, which had been built into the wall
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: above one of the doors. It seems the owner of
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: the house had recently made alterations in his premises, and
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: on digging the foundations for some offices, the men had
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: found a curious head, apparently of the Roman period, which
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: had been placed in the manner described. The head is
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: pronounced by the most experienced archaeologists of the district to
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: be that of a faun or satyr. Dr. Phillips tells
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: me that he has never seen the head in question,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: and assures me that he has never received such a
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: vivid presentment of intense evil. From whatever cause arising, this
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: second shock seemed too severe for the boy Trevor, and
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: at the present date he suffers from a weakness of intellect,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: which gives him but little promise of amending. The matter
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: caused a good deal of sensation at the time, and
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: the girl Helen was closely questioned by Mr. R., but
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: to no purpose, she steadfastly denying that she had frightened
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: or in any way molested Trevor. The second event, with
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: which this girl's name is connected, took place about six
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: years ago, and is of a still more extraordinary character.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: At the beginning of the summer of 1882, Helen contracted
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: a friendship of a peculiarly intimate character with Rachel M.,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: the daughter of a prosperous farmer in the neighborhood. This girl,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: who was a year younger than Helen, was considered by
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: most people to be the prettier of the two, though
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Helen's features had to a great extent softened as she
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: became older. The two girls, who were together on every
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: available opportunity, presented a singular contrast, the one with her
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: clear olive skin and almost Italian appearance. and the other
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: of the proverbial red and white of our rural districts.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: It must be stated that the payments made to Mr. R.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: for the maintenance of Helen were known in the village
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: for their excessive liberality, and the impression was general that
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: she would one day inherit a large sum of money
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: from her relative. The parents of Rachel were therefore not
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: averse from their daughter's friendship with the girls, and even
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: encouraged the intimacy, though they now bitterly regret having done so.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: Helen still retained her extraordinary fondness for the forest, and
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: on several occasions Rachel accompanied her, the two friends setting
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: out early in the morning, and remaining in the wood
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: until dusk. Once or twice after these excursions, Mrs. M.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: thought her daughter's manner rather peculiar. She seemed languid and dreamy, and,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: as it has been expressed, different from herself. But these
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: peculiarities seemed to have been thought too trifling for remark,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: One evening, however, after Rachel had come home, her mother
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: heard a noise which sounded like suppressed weeping in the
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: girl's room, and on going in found her lying half-undressed
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: upon the bed, evidently in the greatest distress. As soon
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: as she saw her mother, she exclaimed,' Ah, mother! Mother!
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: Why did you let me go to the forest with Helen?' Mrs. M.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: was astonished at so strange a question, and proceeded to
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: make inquiries. Rachel told her a wild story. She said,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: Clark closed the book with a snap and turned his
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: chair towards the fire. When his friend sat one evening
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: in that very chair and told his story, Clark had
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: interrupted him at a point a little subsequent to this,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: had cut short his words in a paroxysm of horror.'
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: My God!' he had exclaimed.' Think! Think what you are saying!
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: It is too incredible, too monstrous! Such things can never
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: be in this quiet world, where men and women live
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: and die, and struggle and conquer, or maybe fail!' and
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: fall down under sorrow and grieve and suffer strange fortunes
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: for many a year. But not this, Phillips. Not such
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: things as this. There must be some explanation, some way
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: out of the terror. Why, man, if such a case
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: were possible, our earth would be a nightmare. But Phillips
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: had told his story to the end, concluding, Her flight
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: remains a mystery to this day. She vanished in broad sunlight.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: They saw her walking in a meadow, and a few
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: moments later she was not there, Clark tried to conceive
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: the thing again, as he sat by the fire, and
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: again his mind shuddered and shrank back, appalled before the
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: sight of such awful, unspeakable elements enthroned, as it were,
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: and triumphant in human flesh. Before him stretched a long,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: dim vista of the green causeway in the forest, as
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: his friend had described it. He saw the swaying leaves
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: and the quivering shadows on the grass. He saw the
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: sunlight and the flowers. And far away, far in the
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: long distance— the two figures moved toward him. One was Rachel,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: but the other... Clark had tried his best to disbelieve
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: it all, but at the end of the account, as
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: he had written it in his book, he had placed
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: the inscription, Et Diabolus Incarnate Est. Et Homo Factus Est.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: End of Chapter 2 Chapter 3 OF THE GREAT GOD
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: PAN By Arthur Macken This LibriVox recording is in the
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: public domain. Chapter 3 The City of Resurrections Herbert! Good God!
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: Is it possible? Yes, my name's Herbert. I think I
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: know your face, too, but I don't remember your name.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: My memory is very queer. Don't you recollect Villiers of Watham?
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: So it is, so it is. I beg your pardon, Villiers,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: I didn't think I was begging of an old college friend.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: Good night. My dear fellow, this haste is unnecessary. My
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: rooms are close by, but we won't go there just yet.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: Suppose we walk up Shaftesbury Avenue a little way. But
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: how in heaven's name have you come to this pass, Herbert?
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: It's a long story, Villiers, and a strange one too,
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: but you can hear it if you like. Come on, then.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Take my arm. You don't seem very strong. The ill-assorted
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: pair moved slowly up Rupert Street, the one in dirty,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: evil-looking rags, and the other attired in the regulation uniform
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: of a man about town, trim, glossy, and eminently well-to-do.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: Villiers had emerged from his restaurant after an excellent dinner
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: of many courses, assisted by an ingratiating little flask of Chianti,
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: and in that frame of mind, which was with him
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: almost chronic, had delayed a moment by the door. peering
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: round in the dimly lighted street, in search of those
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: mysterious incidents and persons with which the streets of London
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: teem in every quarter and every hour. Villiers prided himself
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: as a practised explorer of such obscure mazes and byways
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: of London life, and in this unprofitable pursuit he displayed
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: an assiduity which was worthy of more serious employment. Thus
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: he stood by the lamppost, surveying the passers-by with undisguised curiosity,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: and with that gravity known only to the systematic diner,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: had just enunciated in his mind the formula, London has
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: been called the city of encounters. It is more than that.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: It is the city of resurrections. When these reflections were
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: suddenly interrupted by a piteous whine at his elbow, and
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: a deplorable appeal for alms, he looked around in some irritation,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: and with a sudden shock found himself confronted with the
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: embodied proof of his somewhat stilted fancies. There, close beside him,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: his face altered and disfigured by poverty and disgrace, his
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: body barely covered by greasy, ill-fitting rags, stood his old
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: friend Charles Herbert, who had matriculated on the same day
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: as himself, with whom he had been merry and wise
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: for twelve revolving terms. Different occupations and varying interests had
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: interrupted the friendship, and it was six years since Villiers
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: had seen Herbert, and now he looked upon this wreck
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: of a man with grief and dismay. mingled with a
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: certain inquisitiveness as to what dreary chain of circumstances had
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: dragged him down to such a doleful pass. Villiers felt
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: together with compassion all the relish of the amateur in mysteries,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: and congratulated himself on his leisurely speculations outside the restaurant.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: They walked on in silence for some time, and more
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: than one passer-by stared in astonishment at the unaccustomed spectacle
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: of a well-dressed man with an unmistakable beggar hanging on
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: to his arm, and observing this, Villiers led the way
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: to an obscure street in Soho. Here he repeated his question.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: How on earth has it happened, Herbert? I always understood
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: you would succeed to an excellent position in Dorsetshire. Did
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: your father disinherit you? Surely not. No, Villiers. I came
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: into all the property at my poor father's death. He
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: died the year after I left Oxford. He was a
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: very good father to me, and I mourned his death
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: sincerely enough. But you know what young men are. A
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: few months later I came up to town and went
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: a good deal into society. Of course I had excellent introductions,
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: and I managed to enjoy myself very much in a
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: harmless sort of way. I played a little, certainly, but
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: never for heavy stakes, and the few bets I made
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: on races brought me in money. Only a few pounds,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: you know, but enough to pay for cigars and such
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: petty pleasures. It was in my second season that the
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: tide turned. Of course you have heard of my marriage. No,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: I never heard anything about it. Yes, I married Villiers.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: I met a girl, a girl of the most wonderful
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: and most strange beauty, at the house of some people
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: whom I knew. I cannot tell you her age, I
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: never knew it, but so far as I can guess,
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: I should think she must have been about nineteen when
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: I made her acquaintance. My friends had come to know
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: her at Florence. She told them she was an orphan,
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: the child of an English father and an Italian mother,
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: and she charmed them as she charmed me. The first
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: time I saw her was at an evening party. I
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: was standing by the door talking to a friend when, suddenly,
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: above the hum and babble of conversation, I heard a
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: voice which seemed to thrill to my heart. She was
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: singing an Italian song. I was introduced to her that evening,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: and in three months I married Helen. Vili, that woman,
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: if I can call her woman, corrupted my soul. The
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: night of the wedding I found myself sitting in her
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: bedroom in the hotel, listening to her talk. She was
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: sitting up in bed, and I listened to her as
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: she spoke in her beautiful voice, spoke of things which
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: even now I would not dare whisper in the blackest night,
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: though I stood in the midst of a wilderness. You, Villiers,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: you may think you know life and London, and what
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: goes on day and night in this dreadful city, for
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: all I can say you may have heard the talk
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: of the vilest. but I tell you you can have
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: no conception of what I know. Not in your most fantastic,
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: hideous dreams can you have imaged forth the faintest shadow
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: of what I have heard and seen. Yes, seen. I
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: have seen the incredible, such horrors that even I myself
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: sometimes stop in the middle of the street and ask
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: whether it is possible for a man to behold such
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: things and live. In a year, Villiers, I was a
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: ruined man in body and soul, in body and soul.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: But your property, Herbert, you had land in Dorset. I
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: sold it all, the fields and woods, the dear old house, everything.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: And the money? She took it all from me. And
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: then left you? Yes. She disappeared one night. I don't
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: know where she went, but I am sure if I
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: saw her again it would kill me. The rest of
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: my story is of no interest. Sordid misery, that is all.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: You may think, Villiers, that I have exaggerated and talked
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: for effect. but I have not told you half. I
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: could tell you certain things which would convince you, but
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: you would never know a happy day again. You would
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: pass the rest of your life as I pass mine,
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: a haunted man, a man who has seen hell. Villiers
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: took the unfortunate man to his rooms and gave him
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: a meal. Herbert could eat little and scarcely touch the
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: glass of wine set before him. He sat moody and
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: silent by the fire and seemed relieved when Villiers sent
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: him away with a small present of money' By the way, Herbert,'
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: said Villiers, as they parted at the door,' what was
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: your wife's name? You said Helen, I think. Helen what?''
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: The name she passed under when I met her was
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: Helen Vaughan, but what her real name was I can't say.
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: I don't think she had a name. No, no, not
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: in that sense. Only human beings have names, Villiers. I
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: can't say any more. Goodbye. Yes, I will not fail
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: to call if I see any way in which you
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: can help me. Good night.' The man went out into
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: the bitter night, and Villiers returned to his fireside. There
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: was something about Herbert which shocked him inexpressibly, not his
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: poor rags, nor the marks which poverty had set upon
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: his face, but rather an indefinite terror which hung about
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: him like a mist. He had acknowledged that he himself
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: was not devoid of blame. The woman he had avowed
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: had corrupted him body and soul, and Villiers felt that
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: this man, once his friend, had been an actor in
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: scenes evil beyond the power of words. His story needed
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: no confirmation. He himself was the embodied proof of it.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: Willie amused curiously over the story he had heard, and
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: wondered whether he had heard both the first and the
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: last of it. No, he thought. Certainly not the last.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: Probably only the beginning. A case like this is like
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: a nest of Chinese boxes. You open one after the
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: other and find a quaint of workmanship in every box.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: Most likely poor Herbert is merely one of the outside boxes.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: There are stranger ones to follow. Villiers could not take
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: his mind away from Herbert and his story, which seemed
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: to grow wilder as the night wore on. The fire
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: seemed to burn low, and the chilly air of the
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: morning crept into the room. Villiers got up with a
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: glance over his shoulder, and, shivering slightly, went to bed.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: A few days later he saw at his club a
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: gentleman of his acquaintance, named Austin, who was famous for
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: his intimate knowledge of London life, both in its tenebrous
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: and luminous phases. Villiers, still full of his encounter in
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: Soho and its consequences— thought Austin might possibly be able
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: to shed some light on Herbert's history. And so, after
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: some casual talk, he suddenly put the question,' Do you
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: happen to know anything of a man named Herbert? Charles Herbert?'
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: Austin turned round sharply and stared at Lillier with some astonishment.'
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: Charles Herbert? Weren't you in town three years ago?'' No,
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: then you have not heard of the Paul Street case.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: It caused a good deal of sensation at the time.''
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: What was the case?' Well, a gentleman of a very
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: good position was found dead, stark dead, in the area
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: of a certain house in Paul Street, off Tottenham Court Road.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: Of course, the police did not make the discovery. If
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: you happen to be sitting up all night and have
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: a light in your window, the constable will ring the bell.
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: But if you happen to be lying dead in some
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: of these areas, you will be left alone. In this instance,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: as in many others, the alarm was raised by some
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: kind of vagabond. I don't mean a common tramp or
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: a public house loafer, but a gentleman whose business or
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: pleasure or both made him a spectator of the London
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: streets at five o'clock in the morning. This individual was,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: as he said, going home. It did not appear whence
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: or whither, and had occasion to pass through Paul Street
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: between four and five a.m. Something or other caught his
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: eye at number twenty. He said absurdly enough that the
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: house had the most unpleasant physiognomy he had ever observed. But,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: at any rate, he glanced down the area, and was
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: a good deal astonished to see a man lying on
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: the stones, his limbs all huddled together, and his face
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: turned up. Our gentleman thought his face looked peculiarly ghastly,
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: and so set off at a run in search of
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: the nearest policeman. The constable was at first inclined to
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: treat the matter lightly, suspecting common drunkenness. However, he came,
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: and after looking at the man's face, changed his tone
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: quickly enough. The early bird, who had picked up this
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: fine worm, was sent off for a doctor, and the
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: policeman rang and knocked at the door, till a slatternly
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: servant girl came down looking more than half asleep. The
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: constable pointed out the contents of the area to the maid,
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: who screamed loudly enough to wake up the street, but
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: she knew nothing of the man, had never seen him
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: at the house, and so forth. Meanwhile, the original discoverer
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: had come back with a medical man, and the next
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: thing was to get into the area. The gate was open,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: so the whole quartet stumped down the steps. The doctor
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: hardly needed a moment's examination. He said the poor fellow
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: had been dead for several hours, and it was then
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: the case began to get interesting. The dead man had
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: not been robbed, and in one of his pockets were
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: papers identifying him as Well, it's a man of good
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: family and means, a favorite in society, and nobody's enemy,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: as far as could be known. I don't give his name, Villiers,
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: because it has nothing to do with the story, and
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: because it's no good raking up these affairs about the
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: dead when there are no relations living. The next curious
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: point was that the medical men couldn't agree as to
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: how he met his death. There were some slight bruises
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: on his shoulders, but they were so slight that it
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: looked as if he had been pushed roughly out of
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: the kitchen door, and not thrown over the railings from
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: the street, or even dragged down the steps. but there
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: were positively no other marks of violence about him, certainly
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: none that would account for his death, and when they
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: came to the autopsy there wasn't a trace of poison
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: of any kind. Of course the police wanted to know
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: all about the people at No. 20, and here again,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: so I have heard from private sources, one or two
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: other very curious points came out. It appears that the
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: occupants of the house were a Mr. and Mrs. Charles Herbert,
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: He was said to be a landed proprietor, though it
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: struck most people that Paul Street was not exactly the
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: place to look for country gentry. As for Mrs. Herbert,
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: nobody seemed to know who or what she was, and
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: between ourselves I fancy the divers after her history found
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: themselves in rather strange waters. Of course they both denied
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: knowing anything about the deceased, and in default of any
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: evidence against them they were discharged. But some very odd
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: things came out about them. though it was between five
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: and six in the morning when the dead man was removed,
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: a large crowd had collected, and several of the neighbors
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: ran to see what was going on. They were pretty
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: free with their comments, by all accounts, and from these
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: it appeared that No. 20 was in very bad odor
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: in Ball Street. The detectives tried to trace down these
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: rumors to some solid foundation of fact, but could not
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: get hold of anything. People shook their heads and raised
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: their eyebrows and thought the Herberts rather queer, would rather
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: not be seen going into their house, and so on.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: but there was nothing tangible. The authorities were morally certain
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: the man met his death in some way or another
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: in the house, and was thrown out by the kitchen door,
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: but they couldn't prove it, and the absence of any
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: indications of violence or poisoning left him helpless. An odd case,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: wasn't it? But curiously enough, there's something more that I
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: haven't told you. I happen to know one of the
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: doctors who was consulted as to the cause of death,
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: and some time after the inquest I met him and
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: asked him about it.' Do you really mean to tell me,'
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: I said, that you were baffled by the case, that
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: you actually don't know what the man died of? Pardon me,
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: he replied, I know perfectly well what caused death. Blank
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: died of fright, of sheer awful terror. I never saw
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: features so hideously contorted in the entire course of my practice,
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: and I have seen the faces of a whole host
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: of dead. The doctor was usually a cool customer enough,
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: and a certain vehemence in his manner struck me, but
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: I couldn't get anything more out of him. I suppose
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: the Treasury didn't see their way to prosecuting the Herberts
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: for frightening a man to death. At any rate, nothing
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: was done, and the case dropped out of men's minds.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: Do you happen to know anything of Herbert? Well, replied Villiers,
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: he was an old college friend of mine. You don't
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: say so. Have you ever seen his wife? No, no,
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: I haven't. I have lost sight of Herbert for many years.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: It's queer, isn't it, parting with a man at the
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: college gate or at Paddington, seeing nothing of him for years,
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: and then finding him pop up his head in such
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: an odd place? But I should like to have seen Mrs. Herbert.
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: People said extraordinary things about her. What sort of things? Well,
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: I hardly know how to tell you. Everyone who saw
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: her at the police court said she was at once
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: the most beautiful woman and the most repulsive they had
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: ever set eyes on. I have spoken to a man
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: who saw her, and I assure you he positively shuddered
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: as he tried to describe the woman, but he couldn't
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: tell why. She seems to have been a sort of enigma,
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: and I expect if that one dead man could have
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: told tales, he would have told some uncommonly queer ones.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: And there you are again in another puzzle. What could
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: a respectable country gentleman like Mr. Blank— we' ll call him that,
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: if you don't mind— want in such a very queer
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: house as No. 20? It's altogether a very odd case,
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: isn't it? It is indeed, Austin. An extraordinary case. I
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: didn't think when I asked you about my old friend
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: I should strike on such strange metal. Well, I must
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: be off. Good day. Villiers went away, thinking of his
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: own conceit of the Chinese boxes. Here was quaint workmanship indeed.
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: End of Chapter 3 Chapter 4 The Discovery in Paul
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: Street A few months after Villiers' meeting with Herbert, Mr.
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: Clark was sitting, as usual, by his after-dinner heart, resolutely
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: guarding his fancies from wandering in the direction of the Bureau.
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: For more than a week he had succeeded in keeping
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: away from the memoirs, and he cherished hopes of a
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: complete self-reformation. But in spite of his endeavors, he could
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: not hush the wonder and the strange curiosity that the
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: last case he had written down had excited within him.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: He had put the case, or rather the outline of it,
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: conjecturally to a scientific friend who shook his head and
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: thought Clark getting queer, and on this particular evening Clark
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: was making an effort to rationalize the story when a
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: sudden knock at the door roused him from his meditations.' Mr.
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: Villiers to see you, sir.'' Dear me, Villiers, it is
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: very kind of you to look me up. I have
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: not seen you for many months. I should think nearly
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: a year. Come in, come in. And how are you, Villiers?
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: Want any advice about investments?'' No, thanks. I fancy everything
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: I have in that way is pretty safe. No, Clark,
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: I have really come to consult you about a rather
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: curious matter that has been brought under my notice of late.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: I am afraid you will think it all rather absurd
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: when I tell my tale. I sometimes think so myself,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: and that's just what I made up my mind to
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: come to you, as I know you are a practical man.' Mr.
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: Villiers was ignorant of the memoirs to prove the existence
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: of the devil.' Well, Villiers, I shall be happy to
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: give you my advice, to the best of my ability.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: What is the nature of the case?' Oh, it's an
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: extraordinary thing altogether. You know my ways. I always keep
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: my eyes open in the streets, and in my time
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: I have chanced upon some queer customers and queer cases, too.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: But this, I think, beats all. I was coming out
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: of a restaurant one nasty winter night about three months ago.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: I had had a capital dinner and a good bottle
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: of Chianti, and I stood for a moment on the pavement,
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: thinking what a mystery there is about London streets and
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: the companies that pass along them. A bottle of red
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: wine encourages these fancies, Clark, and I dare say I
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: should have thought a page of small type, but I
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: was cut short by a beggar who had come behind me,
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: and was making the usual appeals. Of course I looked round,
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: and this beggar turned out to be what was left
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: of an old friend of mine, a man named Herbert.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: I asked how he had come to such a wretched pass,
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: and he told me. We walked up and down one
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: of those long and dark Soho streets, and there I
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: listened to his story. He said he had married a
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: beautiful girl, some years younger than himself, and as he
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: put it, She had corrupted him body and soul. He
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: wouldn't go into details. He said he dare not. That
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: what he had seen and heard haunted him by night
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: and day, and when I looked in his face I
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: knew he was speaking the truth. There was something about
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: the man that made me shiver. I don't know why,
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: but it was there. I gave him a little money
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: and sent him away, and I assure you that when
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: he was gone I gasped for breath. His presence seemed
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: to chill one's blood. Isn't this all just a little fanciful, Villiers?
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: I suppose the poor fellow had made an imprudent marriage,
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: and in plain English, gone to the bad. Well, listen
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: to this. Villiers told Clark the story he had heard
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: from Austin. You see, he concluded, there can be but
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: little doubt that this Mr. Blank, whoever he was, died
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: of sheer terror. He saw something so awful, so terrible,
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: that it cut short his life. And what he saw,
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: he most certainly saw in that house, which... somehow or other,
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: had got a bad name in the neighborhood. I had
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: the curiosity to go and look at the place for myself.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: It's a saddening kind of street. The houses are old
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: enough to be mean and dreary, but not old enough
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: to be quaint. As far as I could see, most
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: of them are let in lodgings, furnished and unfurnished, and
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: almost every door has three bells to it. Here and
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: there the ground floors have been made into shops of
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: the commonest kind. It's a dismal street in every way.
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: I found number twenty was to let. and I went
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: to the agents and got the key. Of course I
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: should have heard nothing of the Herberts in that quarter,
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: but I asked the man, fair and square, how long
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: they had left the house and whether there had been
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: other tenants in the meanwhile. He looked at me queerly
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: for a moment and told me the Herberts had left
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: immediately after the unpleasantness, as he called it, and since
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: then the house had been empty. Mr. Villiers paused for
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: a moment. I have always been rather fond of going
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: over empty houses. There's a sort of fascination about the
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: desolate empty rooms— with the nails sticking in the walls
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: and the dust thick upon the windowsills. But I didn't
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: enjoy going over Number 20, Paul Street. I hardly put
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: my foot inside the passage when I noticed a queer,
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: heavy feeling about the air of the house. Of course,
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: all empty houses are stuffy and so forth, but this
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: was something quite different. I can't describe it to you,
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: but it seemed to stop the breath. I went into
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: the front room and the back room and the kitchens downstairs.
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: They were all dirty and dusty enough, as you would expect,
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: but there was something strange about them all. I couldn't
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: define it to you. I only know I felt queer.
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: It was one of the rooms on the first floor, though,
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: that was the worst. It was a large-ish room, and
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: once on a time, the paper must have been cheerful enough,
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: but when I saw it, paint, paper, and everything were
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: most doleful. But the room was full of horror. I
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: felt my teeth grinding as I put my hand on
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: the door, and when I went in, I thought I
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: should have fallen fainting to the floor. However, I pulled
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: myself together and stood against the end wall, wondering what
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: on earth there could be about the room to make
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: my limbs tremble and my heart beat as if I
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: were at the hour of death. In one corner there
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: was a pile of newspapers littered on the floor, and
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: I began looking at them. They were papers of three
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: or four years ago, some of them half-torn, and some
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: crumpled as if they had been used for packing. I
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: turned the whole pile over, and amongst them I found
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: a curious drawing I will show it to you presently.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: But I couldn't stay in the room. I felt it
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: was overpowering me. I was thankful to come out, safe
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: and sound, into the open air. People stared at me
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: as I walked along the street, and one man said
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: I was drunk. I was staggering about from one side
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: of the pavement to the other, and it was as
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: much as I could do to take the key back
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: to the agent and get home. I was in bed
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: for a week, suffering from what my doctor called nervous
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: shock and exhaustion. One of those days I was reading
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: the evening paper. and happened to notice a paragraph headed
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: Starved to Death. It was the usual style of thing,
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: a model lodging-house in Marylebone, a door locked for several
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: days and a dead man in his chair when they
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: broke in. The deceased, said the paragraph, was known as
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: Charles Herbert, and is believed to have been once a
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: prosperous country gentleman. His name was familiar to the public
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: three years ago in connection with the mysterious death in
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: Paul Street, Tottenham Court Road, the deceased being the tenant
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: of the house No. 20, in the area of which
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: a gentleman of good position was found dead under circumstances
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: not devoid of suspicion. A tragic ending, wasn't it? But
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: after all, if what he told me were true, which
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: I am sure it was, the man's life was all
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: a tragedy, and a tragedy of a stranger sort than
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: they put on the boards. And that is the story,
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: is it? said Clark, musingly. Yes, that is the story. Well, really, Villiers,
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: I scarcely know what to say about it. There are
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: no doubt circumstances in the case which seem peculiar, the
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: finding of the dead man in the area of Herbert's house,
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: for instance, and the extraordinary opinion of the physician as
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: to the cause of death, but after all it is
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: conceivable that the facts may be explained in a straightforward manner.
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: As to your own sensations when you went to see
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: the house, I would suggest that they were due to
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: a vivid imagination. You must have been brooding in a
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: semi-conscious way over what you had heard. I don't exactly
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: see what more can be said or done in the matter,
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: You evidently think there is a mystery of some kind,
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: but Herbert is dead. Where then do you propose to look?
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: I propose to look for the woman, the woman whom
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: he married. She is the mystery. The two men sat
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: silent by the fireside, Clark secretly congratulating himself on having
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: successfully kept up the character of advocate of commonplace, and
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: Villiers wrapped in his gloomy fancies. I think I will
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: have a cigarette, he said at last, and put his
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: hand in his pocket to feel for the cigarette case. Ah,
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: he said, starting slightly, I forgot I had something to
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: show you. You remember my saying that I had found
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: a rather curious sketch amongst the pile of old newspapers
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: at the house in Paul Street. Here it is. Villiers
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: drew out a small, thin parcel from his pocket. It
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: was covered with brown paper and secured with string, and
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: the knots were troublesome. In spite of himself, Clark felt inquisitive.
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: He bent forward on his chair as Villiers painfully undid
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: the string and unfolded the outer covering. Inside was a
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: second wrapping of tissue, and Villiers took it off and
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: handed the small piece of paper to Clark without a word.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: There was dead silence in the room for five minutes
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: or more. The two men sat so still that they
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: could hear the ticking of the tall, old-fashioned clock that
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: stood outside in the hall, and in the mind of
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: one of them the slow monotony of sound woke up
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: a far, far memory. He was looking intently at the
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: small pen-and-ink sketch of the woman's head. It had evidently
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: been drawn with great care, and by a true artist,
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: for the woman's soul looked out of the eyes, and
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: the lips were parted with a strange smile. Clark gazed
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: still at the face. It brought to his memory one
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: summer evening long ago. He saw again the long, lovely valley,
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: the river winding between the hills, the meadows and the cornfields,
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: the dull red sun, and the cold white mist rising
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: from the water. He heard a voice speaking to him
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: across the waves of many years, and saying, Clark, Mary
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: will see the god Pan. and then he was standing
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: in the grim room beside the doctor, listening to the
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: heavy ticking of the clock, waiting and watching, watching the
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: figure lying on the green chair beneath the lamplight. Mary
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: rose up, and he looked into her eyes, and his
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: heart grew cold within him. Who is this woman? he
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: said at last. His voice was dry and hoarse. That
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: is the woman who Herbert married. Clark looked again at
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: the sketch. It was not Mary, after all. There certainly
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: was Mary's face, but there was something else, something he
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: had not seen on Mary's features when the white-clad girl
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: entered the laboratory with the doctor, nor at her terrible awakening,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: nor when she lay grinning on the bed. Whatever it was,
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: the glance that came from those eyes, the smile on
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: the full lips, or the expression of the whole face,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: Clark shuddered before it at his inmost soul, and thought
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: unconsciously at Dr. Phillips's words. the most vivid presentment of
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: evil I have ever seen. He turned the paper over
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: mechanically in his hand and glanced at the back. Good God, Clark,
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: what is the matter? You are as white as death.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: Villiers had started wildly from his chair as Clark fell
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: back with a groan and let the paper drop from
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: his hands. I don't feel very well, Villiers. I am
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: subject to these attacks. Pour me out a little wine. Thanks,
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: that will do. I shall feel better in a few minutes.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: Villiers picked up the fallen sketch and turned it over
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: as Clark had done. You saw that, he said. That's
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: how I identified it as being a portrait of Herbert's wife,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: or I should say his widow. How do you feel now? Better, thanks.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: It was only a passing faintness. I don't think I
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: quite catch your meaning. What did you say enabled you
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: to identify the picture? Well, this word, Helen, was written
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: on the back. Didn't I tell you her name was Helen? Yes,
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: Helen Vaughan. Clark groaned. There could be no shadow of doubt. Now,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: don't you agree with me, said Villiers, that in the
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: story I have told you tonight, and in the part
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: this woman plays in it, there are some very strange points? Yes, Villiers,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: Clark muttered. It is a strange story indeed. A strange
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: story indeed. You must give me time to think it over.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: I may be able to help you, or I may not.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: Must you be going now? Well, good night, Villiers, good night.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: Come and see me in the course of a week.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: CHAPTER FIVE THE LETTER OF ADVICE Do you know, Austin,
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: said Villiers, as the two friends were pacing sedately along
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: Piccadilly one pleasant morning in May, do you know I
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: am convinced that what you told me about Paul Street
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: and the Herberts is a mere episode in an extraordinary history?
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: I may as well confess to you that when I
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: asked you about Herbert a few months ago, I had
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: just seen him. You had seen him? Where? He begged
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: of me in the street one night. He was in
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: the most pitiable plight, but I recognized the man, and
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: I got him to tell me his history. or at
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: least the outline of it. In brief, it amounted to this.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: He had been ruined by his wife. In what manner?
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: He would not tell me. He would only say that
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: she had destroyed him, body and soul. The man is
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: dead now. What has become of his wife? Ah, that's
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: what I should like to know, that I mean to
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: find her sooner or later. I know a man named Clark,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: a dry fellow, in fact a man of business, but
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: shrewd enough. You understand my meaning. Not shrewd in the
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: mere business sense of the word, but a man who
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: really knows something about men and life. Well, I laid
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: the case before him, and he was evidently impressed. He
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: said it needed consideration and asked me to come again
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: in the course of a week. A few days later
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: I received this extraordinary letter. Austin took the envelope, drew
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: out the letter, and read it curiously. It ran as follows.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: My dear Villiers, I have thought over the matter on
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: which you consulted me the other night, and my advice
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: to you is this. Throw the portrait into the fire,
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: blot out the story from your mind. Never give it
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: another thought, Villiers, or you will be sorry. You will
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: think no doubt that I am in possession of some
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: secret information, and to a certain extent that is the case.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: But I only know a little. I am like a
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: traveler who has peered over an abyss and has drawn
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: back in terror. What I know is strange enough and
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: horrible enough. but beyond my knowledge there are depths and
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: horrors more frightful still, more incredible than any tale told
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: of winter nights about the fire. I have resolved, and
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: nothing shall shake that resolve, to explore no whit farther,
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: and if you value your happiness you will make the
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: same determination. Come and see me by all means, but
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: we will talk on more cheerful topics than this. Austen
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: folded the letter methodically and returned it to Villiers. It
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: is certainly an extraordinary letter, he said, What does he
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: mean by the portrait? Ah, I forgot to tell you.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: I had been to Paul Street and had made a discovery.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: Villiers told his story as he had told it to Clark,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: and Austin listened in silence. He seemed puzzled. How very
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: curious that you should experience such an unpleasant sensation in
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: that room, he said at length. I hardly gather that
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: it was a mere matter of the imagination, a feeling
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: of repulsion, in short. No, it was more physical than mental.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: It was as if I were inhaling at every breath
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: some deadly fume, which seemed to penetrate to every nerve
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: and bone and sinew of my body. I felt racked
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: from head to foot. My eyes began to grow dim.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: It was like the entrance of death. Yes, yes, very strange, certainly.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: You see, your friend confesses that there is some very
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: black story connected with this woman. Did you notice any
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: particular emotion in him when you were telling your tale? Yes,
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: I did. He became very faint. but he assured me
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: that it was a mere passing attack to which he
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: was subject. Did you believe him? I did at the time,
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: but I don't now. He heard what I had to
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: say with a good deal of indifference, till I showed
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: him the portrait. It was then that he was seized
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: with the attack of which I spoke. He looked ghastly,
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: I assure you. Then he must have seen the woman before.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: But there might be another explanation. It might have been
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: the name and not the face which was familiar to him.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: What do you think? I couldn't say. To the best
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: of my belief, it was after turning the portrait in
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: his hands that he nearly dropped from the chair. The name,
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: you know, was written on the back. Quite so. After all,
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: it is impossible to come to any resolution in a
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: case like this. I hate melodrama, and nothing strikes me
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: as more commonplace and tedious than the ordinary ghost story
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: of commerce, but really, Villiers, it looks as if there
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: was something very queer at the bottom of all this.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: The two men had, without noticing it, turned up Ashley Street,
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: leading northward from Piccadilly. It was a long street, and
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: rather a gloomy one, but here and there a brighter
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: taste had illuminated the dark houses with flowers and gay
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: curtains and a cheerful paint on the doors. Dilley had
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: glanced up as Austin stopped speaking and looked at one
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: of these houses. Geraniums, red and white, drooped from every sill,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: and daffodil-colored curtains were draped back from each window. It
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: looks cheerful, doesn't it? he said. Yes, and the inside
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: is still more cheery. One of the pleasantest houses of
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: the season, so I have heard. I haven't been there myself,
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: but I've met several men who have, and they tell
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: me it's uncommonly jovial. Whose house is it? Mrs. Beaumont's.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: And who is she? I couldn't tell you. I have
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: heard she comes from South America, but after all, who
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: she is is of little consequence. She is a very
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: wealthy woman, there's no doubt of that, and some of
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: the best people have taken her up. I hear she
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: has some wonderful claret, really marvellous wine, which must have
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: cost a fabulous sum. Lord Argentine was telling me about it.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: He was there last Sunday evening. He assures me he
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: has never tasted such a wine, and Argentine, as you know,
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: is an expert. By the way, that reminds me, she
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: must be an oddish sort of woman, this Mrs. Beaumont.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: Argentine asked her how old the wine was, and what
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: do you think she said? About a thousand years, I believe.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: Lord Argentine thought she was chaffing him, you know, but
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: When he laughed, she said she was speaking quite seriously,
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: and offered to show him the jar. Of course, he
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: couldn't say anything more after that. But it seems rather
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: antiquated for a beverage, doesn't it? Why, here we are
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: at my rooms. Come in, won't you? Thanks, I think
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: I will. I haven't seen the curiosity shop for a while.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: It was a room furnished richly, yet oddly, where every
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: jar and bookcase and table, and every rug and jar
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: and ornament seemed to be a thing apart, preserving each
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: its own individuality. Anything fresh lately? said Villiers after a while. No,
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: I think not. You saw those queer jugs, didn't you?
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: I thought so. I don't think I've come across anything
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: for the last few weeks. Austin glanced around the room
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: from cupboard to cupboard, from shelf to shelf, in search
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: of some new oddity. His eyes fell at last on
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: an odd chest, pleasantly and quaintly carved, which stood in
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: a dark corner of the room. Ah, he said. I
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: was forgetting— I've got something to show you.' Austin unlocked
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: the chest, drew out a thick quarto volume, laid it
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: on the table, and resumed the cigar he had put down.'
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: Did you know Arthur Mayrick, the painter, Villiers?'' A little.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: I met him two or three times at the house
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: of a friend of mine. What has become of him?
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: I haven't heard his name mentioned for some time. He's dead.''
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: You don't say so. Quite young, wasn't he?'' Yes.' Only
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: thirty when he died. What did he die of? I
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: don't know. He was an intimate friend of mine, and
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: a thoroughly good fellow. He used to come here and
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: talk to me for hours, and he was one of
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: the best talkers I have met. He could even talk
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: about painting, and that's more than could be said of
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: most painters. About eighteen months ago he was feeling rather overworked,
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: and partly at my suggestion he went off on a
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: sort of roving expedition, with no very definite end or
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: aim about it. I believe New York was to be
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: his first port, but I never heard from him. Three
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: months ago I got this book, with a very civil
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: letter from an English doctor practicing at Buenos Aires, stating
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: that he had attended the late Mr. Merrick during his illness,
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: and that the deceased had expressed an earnest wish that
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: the enclosed package should be sent to me after his death.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: That was all. And haven't you written for further particulars?
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: I have been thinking of doing so. You would advise
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: me to write to the doctor? Certainly. And what about
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: the book? It was sealed up when I got it,
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: I don't think the doctor had seen it. Is it
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: something very rare? Mayrick was a collector, perhaps? No, I
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: think not. Hardly a collector. Now, what do you think
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: of these Ainu jugs? They are peculiar, but I like them.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: But aren't you going to show me poor Mayrick's legacy? Yes, yes,
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: to be sure. The fact is, it's rather a peculiar
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: sort of thing, and I haven't shown it to anyone.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't say anything about it if I were you.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: There it is. Villiers took the book and opened it
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: at haphazard. It isn't a printed volume, then, he said. No,
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: it is a collection of drawings in black and white
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: by my poor friend Merrick. Villiers turned to the first page.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: It was blank. The second bore a brief inscription, which
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: he read, SILET PER DIUM UNIVERSUS NEXINI HORRORI SECRETUS EST.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: On the third page was a design which made Villiers
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: start and look up at Austen. He was gazing abstractedly
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: out of the window. Villiers turned page after page, absorbed
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: in spite of himself, in the frightful while purges night
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: of evil, strange monstrous evil. that the dead artist had
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: set forth in hard black and white. The figures of
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: fauns and satyrs and aegipans danced before his eyes, the
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: darkness of the thicket, the dance on the mountaintop, the
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: scenes by lonely shores in green vineyards, by rocks and
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: desert places passed before him, a world before which the
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: human soul seemed to shrink back and shudder. Villiers whirled
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: over the remaining pages. He had seen enough, but the
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: picture on the last leaf caught his eye as he
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: almost closed the book.' Austin!'' Well, what is it?'' Do
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: you know who that is?' It was a woman's face,
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: alone on the white page.' Know who it is? No,
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: of course not.'' I do.'' Who is it?'' It is Mrs. Herbert.''
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: Are you sure?'' I am perfectly sure of it. Poor Merrick.
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: Here's one more chapter in her history.'' Well, what do
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: you think of the designs?' They are frightful. Lock the
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: book up again, Austin. If I were you, I would
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: burn it. It must be a terrible companion, even though
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: it be in a chest. Yes, they are singular drawings,
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: but I wonder what connection there could be between Merrick
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: and Mrs. Herbert, or what link between her and these designs. Ah,
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: who can say? It is possible that the matter may
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: end here, and we shall never know, but in my
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: own opinion this Helen Vaughan or Mrs. Herbert is only
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: the beginning. She will come back to London, Austin. Depend
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: on it, she will come back. And we shall hear
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: more about her then. I doubt it will be very
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: pleasant news. Lord Argentine was a great favourite in London society.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: At twenty he had been a poor man, decked with
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: the surname of an illustrious family, but forced to earn
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: a livelihood as best he could, and the most speculative
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: of moneylenders would not have entrusted him with fifty pounds
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: on the chance of his ever changing his name for
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: a title and his poverty for a great fortune. His
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: father had been near enough to the fountain of good
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: things to secure one of the family livings, but the son,
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: even if he had taken orders, would scarcely have obtained
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: so much as this. and moreover felt no vocation for
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: the ecclesiastical estate. Thus he fronted the world with no
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: better armor than the bachelor's gown, and the wits of
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: a younger son's grandson, with which equipment he contrived in
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: some way to make a very tolerable fight of it.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: At twenty-five Mr. Charles Aubinon saw himself still a man
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: of struggles and of warfare with the world, but out
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: of the seven who stood before him in the high
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: places of his family, three only remained. These three, however,
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: were good lives, but yet not proof against the Zulu-Asigais
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: and typhoid fever, and so one morning Obanon woke up
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: and found himself Lord Argentine, a man of thirty who
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: had faced the difficulties of existence and had conquered. The
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: situation amused him immensely, and he resolved that riches should
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: be as pleasant to him as poverty had always been. Argentine,
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: after some little consideration— came to the conclusion that dining,
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: regarded as a fine art, was perhaps the most amusing
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: pursuit open to fallen humanity, and thus his dinners became
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: famous in London, and an invitation to his table a
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: thing covetously desired. After ten years of lordship and dinners,
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: Argentine still declined to be jaded, still persisted in enjoying life,
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: and by a kind of infection had become recognized as
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: the cause of joy in others, in short, as the
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: best of company. His sudden and tragical death, therefore, caused
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: a wide and deep sensation. People could scarcely believe it,
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: even though the newspaper was before their eyes, and the
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: cry of mysterious death of a nobleman came ringing up
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: from the street. But there stood the brief paragraph, Lord
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: Argentine was found dead this morning by his valet under
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: distressing circumstances. It is stated that there can be no
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: doubt that his lordship committed suicide, though no motive can
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: be assigned for the act. The deceased nobleman was widely
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: known in society, and much liked for his genial manner
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: and sumptuous hospitality. He is succeeded by, etc., etc. By
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: slow degrees the details came to light, but the case
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: still remained a mystery. The chief witness at the inquest
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: was the deceased's valet, who said that the night before
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: his death Lord Argentine had dined with a lady of
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: good position, whose name was suppressed in the newspaper reports.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: At about eleven o'clock Lord Argentine had returned, and informed
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: this man that he should not require his services till
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: the next morning. A little later the valet had occasion
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: to cross the hall, and was somewhat astonished to see
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: his master quietly letting himself out at the front door.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: He had taken off his evening clothes, and was dressed
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: in an Orphic coat and knickerbockers, and wore a low
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: brown hat. The valet had no reason to suppose that
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: Lord Argentine had seen him, and though his master rarely
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: kept late hours, thought little of the occurrence till the
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: next morning, when he knocked at the bedroom door at
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: a quarter to nine as usual, He received no answer,
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: and after knocking two or three times, entered the room,
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: and saw Lord Argentine's body leaning forward at an angle
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: from the bottom of the bed. He found that his
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: master had tied a cord securely to one of the
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: short bedposts, and after making a running noose and slipping
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: it round his neck, the unfortunate man must have resolutely
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: fallen forward, to die by slow strangulation. He was dressed
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: in the light suit in which the valet had seen
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: him go out, and the doctor whose summon pronounced that
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: life had been extinct for more than four hours. All papers, letters,
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: and so forth seemed in perfect order, and nothing was
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: discovered which pointed in the most remote way to any scandal,
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: either great or small. Here the evidence ended. Nothing more
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: could be discovered. Several persons had been present at the
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: dinner-party at which Lord Augustine had assisted, and to all
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: these he seemed in his usual genial spirits. The valet, indeed,
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: said he thought his master appeared a little excited when
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: he came home, but confessed that the alteration in his
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: manner was very slight, hardly noticeable indeed. It seemed hopeless
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: to seek for any clue, and the suggestion that Lord
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: Argentine had been suddenly attacked by acute suicidal mania was
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: generally accepted. It was otherwise, however, when within three weeks,
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: three more gentlemen, one of them a nobleman, and the
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: two others men of good position and ample means, perished
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: miserably in almost precisely the same manner. Lord Swanley was
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: found one morning in his dressing-room, hanging from a peg
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: affixed to the wall, and Mr. Collier-Stewart and Mr. Harries
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: had chosen to die as Lord Argentine. There was no
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: explanation in either case, a few bald facts, a living
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: man in the evening, and a body with a black
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: swollen face in the morning. The police had been forced
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: to confess themselves powerless to arrest or to explain the
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: sordid murders of Whitechapel, but before the horrible suicides of
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: Piccadilly and Mayfair they were dumbfounded, for not even the
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: mere ferocity which did duty as an explanation of the
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: crimes of the East End could be of service in
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: the West. Each of these men who had resolved to
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: die a tortured, shameful death was rich, prosperous, and to
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: all appearances in love with the world, and not the
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: acutest research should ferret out any shadow of a lurking
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: motive in either case. There was a horror in the air,
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: and men looked at one another's faces when they met,
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: each wondering whether the other was to be the victim
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: of the fifth nameless tragedy. Journalists sought in vain for
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: their scrapbooks for materials whereof to concoct reminiscent articles— and
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: the morning paper was unfolded in many a house with
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: a feeling of awe. No man knew when or where
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: the next blow would light. A short while after the
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: last of these terrible events, Austin came to see Mr. Villiers.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: He was curious to know whether Villiers had succeeded in
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: discovering any fresh traces of Mrs. Herbert, either through Clark
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: or by other sources, and he asked the question soon
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: after he had sat down. No, said Villiers, I wrote
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: to Clark, but he remains obdurate. and I have tried
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: other channels, but without any result. I can't find out
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: what became of Helen Vaughan after she left Paul Street,
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: but I think she must have gone abroad. But to
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: tell the truth, Austin, I haven't paid much attention to
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: the matter for the last few weeks. I knew poor
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: Harry's intimately, and his terrible death has been a great
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: shock to me— a great shock.'' I can well believe it,'
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: answered Austin gravely.' You know, Argentine was a friend of mine.'
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: If I remember rightly, we were speaking of him the
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: day you came to my rooms. Yes, it was in
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: connection with that house in Ashley Street, Mrs. Beaumont's house.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: You said something about Argentine's dining there. Quite so. Of course,
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: you know it was there Argentine dined the night before— before
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: his death. No, I had not heard that. Oh, yes.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: The name was kept out of the papers to spare Mrs. Beaumont.
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: Argentine was a great favorite of hers, and it is
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: said she was in a terrible state for some time
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: after her. A curious look came over Villiers' face. He
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: seemed undecided whether to speak or not. Austen began again.
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: I never experienced such a feeling of horror as when
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: I read the account of Argentine's death. I didn't understand
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: it at the time, and I don't now. I knew
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: him well, and it completely passes my understanding for what
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: possible cause he, or any of the others for the
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: matter of that, could have resolved in cold blood to
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: die in such an awful manner. You know how men
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: babble away each other's characters in London. You may be
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: sure any buried scandal or hidden skeleton would have been
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: brought to light in such a case as this, but
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: nothing of the sort has taken place. As for the
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: theory of mania, that is very well, of course, of
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: the coroner's jury, but everybody knows that it's all nonsense.
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: Suicidal mania is not smallpox. Austen relapsed into gloomy silence.
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: Villiers sat silent also, watching his friend. The expression of
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: indecision still fleeted across his face. He seemed as if
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: weighing his thoughts in the balance, and the considerations he
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: was resolving left him still silent. Austen tried to shake
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: off the remembrance of tragedies as hopeless and perplexed as
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: the labyrinth of Daedalus, and began to talk in an
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: indifferent voice of the more pleasant incidents and adventures of
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: the season.' That Mrs. Beaumont,' he said,' of whom we
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: were speaking, is a great success.' She' s taken London almost
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: by storm.' I met her the other night at Fulham's.
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: She is really a remarkable woman. You have met Mrs. Beaumont? Yes.
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: She had quite a court around her. She would be
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: called very handsome, I suppose, and yet there is something
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: about her face which I didn't like. The features are exquisite,
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: but the expression is strange. And all the time I
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: was looking at her, and afterwards, when I was going home,
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: I had a curious feeling that very expression was in
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: some way or another familiar to me. You must have
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: seen her in the rolls.' No, I am sure I
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: have never set eyes on the woman before.' It is
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: that which makes it puzzling.' And to the best of
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: my belief, I have never seen anyone like her.' What
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: I felt was a kind of dim, far-off memory, vague
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: but persistent.' The only sensation I can compare it to
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: is that odd feeling one sometimes has in a dream,'
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: when fantastic cities and wondrous lands and phantom personages appear
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: familiar and accustomed.'' Villiers nodded and glanced aimlessly round the room.'
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: possibly in search of something on which to turn the conversation.
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: His eyes fell on an old chest, somewhat like that
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: in which the artist's strange legacy lay hid beneath a
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: Gothic scutcheon.' Have you written to the doctor about poor Merrick?'
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: he asked.' Yes. I wrote asking for full particulars as
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: to his illness and death. I don't expect to have
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: an answer for another three weeks or a month. I
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: thought I might as well inquire whether Merrick knew an
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: Englishwoman named Herbert, and if so, whether the doctor could
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: give me any information about her.' But it's very possible
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: that Mayrick fell in with her at New York, or Mexico,
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: or San Francisco. I have no ideas to the extent
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: or direction of his travels. Yes, and it's very possible
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: the woman may have more than one name. Exactly. I
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: wish I had thought of asking you to lend me
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: the portrait of her which you possess. I might have
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: enclosed it in my letter to Dr. Matthews. So you might.
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: That never occurred to me. We might send it now. Huck,
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: what are those boys calling? While the two men had
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: been talking together, a confused noise of shouting had been
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: gradually growing louder. The noise rose from the eastward and
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: swelled down Piccadilly, drawing nearer and nearer, a very torrent
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: of sound, surging up streets usually quiet, and making every
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: window a frame for a face, curious or excited. The
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: cries and voices came echoing up the silent street where
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: Villiers lived, growing more distinct as they advanced, and as
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: Villiers spoke an answer rang up from the pavement. The
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: West End horrors! Another awful suicide! Full details! Austin rushed
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: down the stairs and bought a paper and read out
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: the paragraph to Villiers. The upper on the street rose
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: and fell. The window was open and the air seemed
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: full of noise and terror. Another gentleman has fallen a
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: victim to the terrible epidemic of suicide which for the
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: last month has prevailed in the West End. Mr. Sidney
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: Creshaw of Stokehouse, Fulham, and King's Pomeroy, Devon, was found
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: after a prolonged search hanging dead from the branch of
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: a tree in his garden at one o'clock to-day. The
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: deceased gentleman dined last night at the Carton Club and
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: seemed in his usual health and spirits. He left the
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: club at about ten o'clock and was seen walking leisurely
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: up St. James's Street a little later. Subsequent to this
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: his movements cannot be traced. On the discovery of the
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: body medical aid was at once summoned, but life had
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: evidently been long extinct. So far as he is known— Mr.
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: Crayshaw had no trouble or anxiety of any kind. This
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: painful suicide, it will be remembered, is the fifth of
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: the kind in the last month. The authorities in Scotland
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: Yard are unable to suggest any explanation of these terrible occurrences.
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: Austin put down the paper in mute horror. I shall
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: leave London to-morrow, he said. It is a city of nightmares.
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: How awful this is, Villiers! Mr. Villiers was sitting by
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: the window, quietly looking out into the street. He had
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: listened to the newspaper report attentively, and the hint of
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: indecision was no longer on his face. Wait a moment, Austin,
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: he replied. I have made up my mind to mention
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: a little matter that occurred last night. It stated, I think,
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: that Crayshaw was last seen alive in St. James's Street
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: shortly after ten. Yes, I think so. I will look again. Yes,
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: you are quite right. Quite so. Well— I am in
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: a position to contradict that statement at all events. Crescian
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: was seen after that, considerably later indeed. How do you know?
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: Because I happened to see Crescian myself at about two
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: o'clock this morning. You saw Crescian? You, Villiers? Yes, I
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: saw him quite distinctly. Indeed, there were but a few
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: feet between us. Where in heaven's name did you see him?
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: Not far from here. I saw him in Ashley Street.
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: He was just leaving a house. Did you notice what
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: house it was? Yes. It was Mrs. Beaumont's. Villiers, think
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: what you are saying. There must be some mistake. How
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: could Crayshaw be in Mrs. Beaumont's house at two o'clock
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: in the morning? Surely, surely you must have been dreaming, Villiers.
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: You were always rather fanciful. No, I was wide awake enough.
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: Even if I had been dreaming, as you say, what
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: I saw would have roused me effectually. What you saw,
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: what did you see? Was there anything strange about Crescian?
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: But I can't believe it. It is impossible. Well, if
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: you like, I will tell you what I saw, or
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: if you please, what I think I saw, and you
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: can judge for yourself. Very good, Villiers. The noise and
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: clamour of the street had died away, though now and
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: then the sound of shouting still came from the distance,
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: and the dull, leaden silence seemed like the quiet after
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: an earthquake or a storm. Villiers turned from the window
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: and began speaking.' I was at a house near Regent's
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: Park last night, and when I came away the fancy
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: took me to walk home instead of taking a handsome.
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: It was a clear pleasant night enough, and after a
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: few minutes I had the streets pretty much to myself.'
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: It's a curious thing, Austin, to be alone in London
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: at night, the gas-lamps stretching away in perspective, and the
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: dead silence, and then perhaps the rush and clatter of
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: the handsome on the stones, and the fire starting up
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: under the horses' hoofs. I walked along pretty briskly, for
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: I was feeling a little tired of being out in
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: the night, and as the clocks were striking two I
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: turned down Ashley Street, which, you know, is on my way.
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: It was quieter than ever there, and the lamps were fewer,
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: Altogether it looked as dark and gloomy as a forest
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: in winter. I had done about half the length of
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: the street when I heard a door closed very softly,
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: and naturally I looked up to see who was abroad
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: like myself at such an hour. As it happens, there
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: was a street lamp close to the house in question,
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: and I saw a man standing on the step. He
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: had just shut the door, and his face was towards me,
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: and I recognized Crayshaw directly. I never knew him to
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: speak to, but I had often seen him, and I
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: am positive that I was not mistaken in my man.
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: I looked into his face for a moment, and then,
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: I will confess the truth, I set off at a
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: good run, and kept it up till I was within
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: my own door. Why? Why? Because it made my blood
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: run cold to see that man's face. I could never
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: have supposed that such an infernal medley of passions could
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: have glared out of any human eyes. I almost fainted
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: as I looked. I knew I had looked into the
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: eyes of a lost soul, Austin. The man's outward form remained,
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: but all hell was within it. furious lust and hate
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: that was like fire, and the loss of all hope
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: and horror that seemed to shriek aloud to the night,
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: though his teeth were shut, and the utter blackness of despair.
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: I am sure that he did not see me, he
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: saw nothing that you or I can see, but what
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: he saw I hope we never shall. I do not
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: know when he died, I suppose in an hour or
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: perhaps two, but when I passed down Ashley Street and
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: heard the closing door, that man no longer belonged to
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: this world. It was a devil's face I looked upon.
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: There was an interval of silence in the room when
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: Villiers ceased speaking. The light was failing, and all the
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: tumult of an hour ago was quite hushed. Austen had
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: bent his head at the close of the story, and
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: his hand covered his eyes.' What can it mean?' he
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: said at length.' Who knows, Austen? Who knows? It's a
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: black business. But I think we had better keep it
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: to ourselves.' for the present at any rate. I will
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: see if I cannot learn anything about that house through
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: private channels of information, and if I do light upon anything,
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: I will let you know. CHAPTER VII. THE ENCOUNTER IN
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: SOHO Three weeks later, Austin received a note from Villiers,
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: asking him to call either that afternoon or the next.
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: He chose the nearer date, and found Villiers sitting as
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: usual by the window, apparently lost in meditation on the
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: drowsy traffic of the street. There was a bamboo table
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: by his side, a fantastic thing, enriched with gilding and
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: queer painted scenes, and on it lay a little pile
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: of papers arranged and docketed as neatly as anything in Mr.
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: Clark's office. Well, Villiers, have you made any discoveries in
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: the last three weeks? I think so. I have here
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: one or two memoranda which struck me as singular, and
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: there is a statement to which I shall call your attention.
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: And these documents relate to Mrs. Beaumont? It was really
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: Crayshaw whom you saw that night standing on the doorstep
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: of the house in Ashley Street? As to that matter,
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: my belief remains unchanged, but neither my inquiries nor their
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: results have any special relation to Crayshaw. but my investigations
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: have had a strange issue. I have found out who Mrs.
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: Beaumont is. Who is she? In what way do you mean?
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: I mean that you and I know her better under
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: another name. What name is that? Herbert. Herbert! Austen repeated
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: the word, dazed with astonishment. Yes, Mrs. Herbert of Paul Street,
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: Helen Vaughan of earlier adventures unknown to me. You had
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: reason to recognize the expression of her face. When you
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: go home, look at the face in Merrick's book of horrors,
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: and you will know the sources of your recollection. And
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: you have proof of this? Yes, the best of proof.
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: I have seen Mrs. Beaumont, or shall we say Mrs. Herbert.
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: Where did you see her? Hardly in a place where
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: you would expect to see a lady who lives in
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: Ashley Street, Piccadilly. I saw her entering a house in
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: one of the meanest and most disreputable streets in Soho.
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: In fact, I had made an appointment, though not with her,
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: and she was precise to both time and place. All
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: this seems very wonderful, but I cannot call it incredible.
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: You must remember, Veneer, that I have seen this woman
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: in the ordinary adventure of London society, talking and laughing
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: and sipping her coffee in a commonplace drawing-room with commonplace people.
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: But you know what you are saying. I do. I
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: have not allowed myself to be led by surmises or fancies.
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: It was with no thought of finding Helen Vaughan that
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: I searched for Mrs. Beaumont in the dark waters of
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: the life of London, but such has been the issue.
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: You must have been in strange places, Villiers. Yes, I
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: have been in very strange places. It would have been useless,
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: you know, to go to Ashley Street and ask Mrs.
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: Beaumont to give me a short sketch of her previous history. No, assuming,
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: as I had to assume, that her record was not
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: of the cleanest, it would be pretty certain that at
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: some previous time She must have moved in circles not
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: quite so refined as her present ones. If you see
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: mud at the top of a stream, you may be
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: sure that it was once at the bottom. I went
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: to the bottom. I have always been fond of diving
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: into Queer Street for my amusement, and I found my
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: knowledge of that locality and its inhabitants very useful. It
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: is perhaps needless to say that my friends had never
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: heard the name of Beaumont, and as I had never
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: seen the lady, and was quite unable to describe her,
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: I had to set to work in an indirect way.
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: The people there know me. I had been able to
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: do some of them a service now and again, so
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: they made no difficulty about giving their information. They were
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: aware I had no communication direct or indirect with Scotland Yard.
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: I had to cast out a good many lines, though,
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: before I got what I wanted, and when I landed
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: the fish I did not for a moment suppose it
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: was my fish. But I listened to what I was
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: told out of a constitutional liking for useless information, and
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: I found myself in possession of a very curious story, though,
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: as I imagined, not the story I was looking for.
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: It was to this effect Some five or six years ago,
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: a woman named Raymond suddenly made her appearance in the
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: neighborhood to which I am referring. She was described to
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: me as being quite young, probably not more than seventeen
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: or eighteen, very handsome, and looking as if she came
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: from the country. I should be wrong in saying that
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: she found her level in going to this particular quarter,
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: or associating with these people, for from what I was told,
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: I should think the worst den in London far too
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: good for her. The person from whom I got my information,
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: as you may suppose, no great Puritan, shuddered and grew
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: sick in telling me of the nameless infamies which were
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: laid to her charge. After living there for a year,
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: or perhaps a little more, she disappeared as suddenly as
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: she came, and they saw nothing of her till about
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: the time of the Paul Street case. At first she
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: came to her old haunts only occasionally, then more frequently,
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: and finally took up her abode there as before, and
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: remained for six or eight months. It's of no use,
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: by going into details as to the life that woman
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: led— if you want particulars you can look at Merrick's legacy—
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: those designs were not drawn from his imagination. She again disappeared,
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: and the people of the place saw nothing of her
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: till a few months ago. My informant told me that
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: she had taken some rooms in a house which he
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: pointed out, and these rooms she was in the habit
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: of visiting two or three times a week, and always
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: at ten in the morning. I was led to expect
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: that one of these visits would be paid on a
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: certain day about a week ago, and I accordingly managed
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: to be on the lookout in company with my cicerone
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: at a quarter to ten, and the hour and the
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: lady came with equal punctuality. my friend and I were
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: standing under an archway, a little way back from the street.
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: But she saw us, and gave me a glance that
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: I shall be long in forgetting. That look was quite
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: enough for me. I knew Miss Raymond to be Mrs. Herbert.
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: As for Mrs. Beaumont, she had quite gone out of
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: my head. She went into the house, and I watched
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: it till four o'clock, when she came out, and then
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: I followed her. It was a long chase, and I
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: had to be very careful to keep a long way
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: in the background, and yet not lose sight of the woman.
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: She took me down to the strand, and then to Westminster,
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: and then up St. James's Street and along Piccadilly. I
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: felt queerish when I saw her turn up Ashley Street.
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: The thought that Mrs. Herbert was Mrs. Beaumont came into
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: my mind, but it seemed too impossible to be true.
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: I waited at the corner, keeping my eye on her
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 1: all the time, and I took particular care to note
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: the house at which she stopped. It was the house
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: with the gay curtains, the home of flowers, the house
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: out of which Crayshaw came the night he hanged himself
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: in his garden. I was just going away with my discovery,
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: when I saw an empty carriage come round and draw
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: up in front of the house, and I came to
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: the conclusion that Mrs. Herbert was going out for a drive,
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: and I was right. There, as it happened, I met
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: a man I know, and we stood talking together a
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 1: little distance from the carriageway to which I had my back.
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: We had not been there for ten minutes when my
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: friend took off his hat, and I glanced round and
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: saw the lady I had been following all day.' Who
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 1: is that?' I said. And his answer was,' Mrs. Beaumont.
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: Lives in Ashley Street.' Of course there could be no
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: doubt after that. I don't know whether she saw me,
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: but I don't think she did. I went home at once, and,
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: on consideration— I thought that I had a sufficiently good
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: case with which to go to Clark. Why to Clark?
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: Because I am sure that Clark is in possession of
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: facts about this woman, facts of which I know nothing. Well,
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: what then? Mr. Villiers leaned back in his chair and
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: looked reflectively at Austin for a moment before he answered.
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: My idea was that Clark and I should call on Mrs. Beaumont.
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: You would never go into such a house as that. No, no, Villiers,
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: you cannot do it. Besides, consider—' What result?'' I will
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: tell you soon. But I was going to say that
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: my information does not end here. It has been completed
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: in an extraordinary manner. Look at this neat little packet
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: of manuscript. It is paginated, you see, and I have
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: indulged in the civil coquetry of a ribbon of red tape.
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: It has almost a legal air, hasn't it? Run your
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: eye over it, Austen. It is an account of the
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: entertainment Mrs. Beaumont provided for her choicer guests. The man
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: who wrote this escaped with his life, but I do
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: not think he will live many years.' The doctors tell
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: him he must have sustained some severe shock to the nerves.
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: Austin took the manuscript, but never read it. Opening the
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: neat pages at haphazard, his eye was caught by a
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 1: word and a phrase that followed it. And sick at heart,
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: with white lips and a cold sweat pouring like water
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: from his temples, he flung the paper down.' Take it away, Villiers.
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: Never speak of this again. Are you made of stone, man?' Why,
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: the dread and horror of death itself, the thoughts of
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: the man who stands in the keen morning air on
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: the black platform, bound, the bell tolling in his ears,
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: and waits for the harsh rattle of the bolt, are
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: as nothing compared to this. I will not read it.
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: I should never sleep again. Very good. I can fancy
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: what you saw. Yes, it is horrible enough, but after
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: all it is an old story, an old mystery played
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: in our day, and in dim London streets instead of
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: amidst the vineyards and the olive-gardens. We know what happened
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: to those who chanced to meet the great god Pan,
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: and those who are wise know that all symbols are
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: symbols of something, not of nothing. It was indeed an
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: exquisite symbol beneath which men long ago veiled their knowledge
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: of the most awful, most secret forces which lie at
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: the heart of all things, forces before which the souls
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: of men must wither and die and blacken as their
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: bodies blacken under the electric current. Such forces cannot be named,
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: cannot be spoken, cannot be imagined except under a veil
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: and a symbol, a symbol to the most of us,
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: appearing a quaint, poetic fancy, to some a foolish tale.
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: But you and I, at all events, have known something
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: of the terror that may dwell in the secret place
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: of life, manifested under human flesh, that which is without form,
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: taking to itself a form. O Austin, how can it be?
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: How is it that the very sunlight does not turn
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: to blackness before this thing, the hard earth melt and
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: boil beneath such a burden? Villiers was pacing up and
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: down the room, and the beads of sweat stood out
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 1: on his forehead. Austen sat silent for a while, but
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 1: Villiers saw him make a sign upon his breast. I
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: say again, Villiers, you will surely never enter such a
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: house as that. You would never pass out alive. Yes, Austen,
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: I shall go out alive. I, and Clark with me.
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: What do you mean? You cannot, you would not dare.
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: Wait a moment. The air was very pleasant and fresh
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: this morning. There was a breeze blowing, even through this
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: dull street, and I thought I would take a walk.
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: Piccadilly stretched before me a clear, bright vista, and the
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: sun flashed on the carriages and on the quivering leaves
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: in the park. It was a joyous morning, and men
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: and women looked at the sky and smiled as they
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: went about their work or their pleasure, and the wind
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: blew as blithely as upon the meadows and the scented gorse.
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: But somehow or other I got out of the bustle
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: and the gaiety, and found myself walking slowly along a quiet,
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: dull street, where there seemed to be no sunshine and
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 1: no air, and where the few foot-passengers loitered as they walked.
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: and hung indecisively about corners and archways. I walked along,
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: hardly knowing where I was going or what I did there,
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: but feeling impelled, as one sometimes is, to explore still further,
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: with a vague idea of reaching some unknown goal. Thus
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: I forged up the street, noting the small traffic of
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: the milk-shop, and wondering at the incongruous medley of penny-pipes,
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: black tobacco, sweets, newspapers, and comic songs which here and
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: there jostled one another in the short compass of a
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: single window. I think it was a cold shudder that
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: suddenly passed through me, that first told me that I
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: had found what I wanted. I looked up from the
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: pavement and stopped before a dusty shop, above which the
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: lettering had faded, where the red bricks of two hundred
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 1: years ago had grimed to black, where the windows had
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: gathered to themselves the dust of winters innumerable. I saw
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: what I required, but I think it was five minutes
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: before I had steadied myself and could walk in and
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: ask for it in a cool voice and with a
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: calm face. I think there must even then have been
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: a tremor in my words. for the old man who
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: came out of the back parlor and fumbled slowly amongst
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 1: his goods looked oddly at me as he tied the parcel.
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: I paid what he asked, and stood leaning by the
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: counter with a strange reluctance to take up my goods
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: and go. I asked about the business, and learned the
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: trade was bad and the profits cut down sadly, but
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 1: then the street was not what it was before traffic
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: had been diverted, but that was done forty years ago.
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: Just before my father died, he said, I got away
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: at last and walked along sharply, It was a dismal
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: street indeed, and I was glad to return to the
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: bustle and the noise. Would you like to see my purchase?
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: Austin said nothing, but nodded his head slightly. He still
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: looked white and sick. Villiers pulled out a drawer in
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: the bamboo table, and showed Austin a long coil of cord,
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: hard and new. And at one end was a running noose.
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: It is the best hempen cord, said Villiers, just as
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: it used to be made for the old trade, the
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: man told me. not an inch of jute from end
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: to end. Austin set his teeth hard, and stared at
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: Villiers growing whiter as he looked.' You would not do it,'
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: he murmured at last.' You would not have blood on
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: your hands, by God!' he exclaimed with sudden vehemence.' You
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: cannot mean this, Villiers, that you will make yourself a hangman!'' No.
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: I shall offer a choice, and leave Helen Vaughan alone
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: with this cord in a locked room for fifteen minutes.'
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: If when we go in it is not done, I
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: shall call the nearest policeman. That is all. I must
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: go now. I cannot stay here any longer. I cannot
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 1: bear this. Good night. Good night, Austin. The door shut,
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: but in a moment it was open again, and Austin
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 1: stood white and ghastly in the entrance. I was forgetting,
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: he said, that I too have something to tell. I
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: have received a letter from Dr. Harding of Buenos Aires.
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: He says that he attended Mayrick for three weeks before
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: his death. And does he say what carried him off
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: in the prime of life? It was not fever? No,
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: it was not fever. According to the doctor, it was
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: an utter collapse of the whole system, probably caused by
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: some severe shock. But he states that the patient would
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 1: tell him nothing, and that he was consequently at some
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 1: disadvantage in treating the case. Is there anything more? Yes. Dr.
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 1: Harding ends his letter by saying, I think this is
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: all the information I can give you about your poor friend.
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: He had not been long in Buenos Aires, and knew
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 1: scarcely anyone, with the exception of a person who did
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: not bear the best of characters, and has since left.
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: A Mrs. Vaughan. CHAPTER VIII. THE FRAGMENTS Amongst the papers
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: of the well-known physician, Dr. Robert Matheson of Ashley Street, Piccadilly,
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: who died suddenly of apoplectic seizure at the beginning of 1892,
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: a leaf of manuscript paper was found, covered with pencil jottings.
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 1: These notes were in Latin, much abbreviated, and had evidently
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: been made in great haste. The M.S. was only deciphered
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 1: with difficulty. and some words have up to the present
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: time evaded all the efforts of the expert employed. The date,
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: 25 July, 1888, is written on the right-hand corner of
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 1: the MS. The following is a translation of Dr. Matheson's manuscript.
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 1: Whether science would benefit by these brief notes if they
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 1: could be published I do not know, but rather doubt.
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: But certainly I shall never take the responsibility of publishing
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: or divulging one word of what is here written. not
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: only on account of my oath given freely to those
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: two persons who were present, but also because the details
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: are too abominable. It is probably that, upon mature consideration,
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 1: and after weighting the good and evil, I shall one
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: day destroy this paper, or at least leave it under
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 1: seal to my friend D., trusting in his discretion to
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: use it or to burn it, as he may think fit.
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: As was befitting, I did all that my knowledge suggested
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 1: to make sure that I was suffering under no delusion—
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 1: At first astounded, I could hardly think, but in a
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: minute's time I was sure that my pulse was steady
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: and regular, and that I was in my real and
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 1: true senses. I then fixed my eyes quietly on what
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: was before me. Though horror and revolting nausea rose up
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: within me, and an odour of corruption choked my breath,
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: I remained firm. I was then privileged or cursed, I
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: dare not say which, to see that which was on
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 1: the bed, lying there black like ink, transformed before my eyes.
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 1: The skin and the flesh and the muscles and the
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: bones were and the firm structure of the human body
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 1: that I had thought to be unchangeable, and permanent as adamant,
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: began to melt and dissolve. I know that the body
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: may be separated into its elements by external agencies, but
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: I should have refused to believe what I saw, for
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: here there was some internal force, of which I knew nothing,
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: that caused dissolution and change. Here, too, was all the
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 1: work by which man had been made repeated before my eyes.
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 1: I saw the form waver from sex to sex, dividing
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 1: itself from itself, and then again reunited. Then I saw
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: the body descend to the beasts whence it ascended, and
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 1: that which was on the heights go down to the depths,
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 1: even to the abyss of all being. The principle of life,
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 1: which makes organism, always remained, while the outward form changed.
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 1: The light within the room had turned to blackness, not
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 1: the darkness of night in which objects are seen dimly,
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 1: for I could see clearly and without difficulty. but it
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 1: was the negation of light. Objects were presented to my eyes,
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: if I may say so, without any medium, in such
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: a manner that if there had been a prism in
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 1: the room, I should have seen no colors represented in it.
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 1: I watched, and at last I saw nothing but a
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: substance as jelly. Then the latter was ascended again. Here
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 1: the MS is illegible. For one instance I saw a form,
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 1: shaped in dimness before me, which I will not farther describe.
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: but the symbol of this form may be seen in
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: ancient sculptures and in paintings which survived beneath the lava,
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 1: too foul to be spoken of. As a horrible and
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: unspeakable shape, neither man nor beast, was changed into human form,
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 1: there came finally death. I who saw all this, not
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: without great horror and loathing of soul, here write my name,
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 1: declaring all that I have said on this paper to
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: be true. Robert Matheson, Medical Doctor Such Raymond is the
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 1: story of what I know and what I have seen.
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: The burden of it was too heavy for me to
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 1: bear alone, and yet I could tell it to none
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 1: but you. Villiers, who was with me at the last,
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 1: knows nothing of that awful secret of the wood, of
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: how what we both saw die lay upon the smooth,
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 1: sweet turf amidst the summer flowers, half in sun and
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: half in shadow, and holding the girl Rachel's hand, called
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 1: and summoned those companions, and shaped in solid form upon
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 1: the earth we tread upon, the horror which we can
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: but hint at, which we can only name under a figure.
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 1: I would not tell Villiers of this, nor of that resemblance,
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 1: which struck me as with a blow upon my heart
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 1: when I saw the portrait which filled the cup of
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 1: terror at the end. What this can mean I dare
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 1: not guess. I know that what I saw perish was
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: not Mary, and yet in the last agony Mary's eyes
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: looked into mine. Whether there can be anyone who can
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 1: show the last link in this chain of awful mystery
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 1: I do not know. But if there be anyone who
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 1: can do this, you, Raymond, are the man. And if
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: you know the secret, it rests with you to tell
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 1: it or not, as you please. I am writing this
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 1: letter to you immediately on my getting back to town.
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 1: I have been in the country for the last few days.
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: Perhaps you may be able to guess in which part.
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 1: While the horror and wonder of London was at its height,
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 1: for Mrs. Beaumont, as I have told you, was well
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 1: known in society, I wrote to my friend Dr. Phillips.
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 1: giving some brief outline, or rather hint, of what happened,
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 1: and asking him to tell me the name of the
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 1: village where the events he had related to me occurred.
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 1: He gave me the name, as he said with the
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 1: less hesitation because Rachel's father and mother were dead, and
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: the rest of the family had gone to a relative
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 1: in the state of Washington six months before. The parents,
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 1: he said, had undoubtedly died of grief and horror caused
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 1: by the terrible death of their daughter and by what
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 1: had gone before that death. On the evening of the
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 1: day which I received Philip's letter, I was at Kermain,
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 1: and standing beneath the mouldering Roman walls, white with the
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 1: winters of seventeen hundred years, I looked over the meadow
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 1: where once had stood the older temple of the god
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: of the deeps, and saw a house gleaming in the sunlight.
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 1: It was the house where Helen had lived. I stayed
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: at Kermain for several days. The people of the place,
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 1: I found, knew little and had guessed less. Those whom
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 1: I spoke to on the matter seemed surprised that an
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: antiquarian— as I profess myself to be, should trouble about
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 1: a village tragedy, of which they give a very commonplace version,
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 1: and as you may imagine, I told nothing of what
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: I knew. Most of my time was spent in the
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 1: great wood that rises just above the village and climbs
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 1: the hillside, and goes down to the river and the valley.
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 1: Such another long, lovely valley, Raymond, as that on which
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: we looked one summer night, walking to and fro before
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: your house. For many an hour I strayed through the
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 1: maze of the forest, turning now to the right and
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: now to the left, pacing slowly down long alleys of undergrowth,
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 1: shadowy and chill, even under the midday sun, and halting
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: beneath great oaks, lying on the short turf of a
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: clearing where the faint sweet scent of wild roses came
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 1: to me on the wind, and mixed with the heavy
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 1: perfume of the elder, whose mingled odor is like the
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 1: odor of the room of the dead, a vapor of
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 1: incense and corruption. I stood at the edges of the wood,
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: gazing at all the pomp and procession of the foxgloves
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 1: towering amidst the bracken and shining red in the broad sunshine,
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 1: and beyond them into deep thickets of close undergrowth where
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: springs boil up from the rock and nourish the water-weeds,
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: dank and evil. But in all my wanderings I avoided
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 1: one part of the wood. It was not till yesterday
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 1: that I climbed to the summit of the hill and
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: stood upon the ancient Roman road that threads the highest
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 1: ridge of the wood. Here they had walked, Helen and Rachel,
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 1: along this quiet causeway, upon the pavement of green turf,
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 1: shut in on either side by high banks of red earth,
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: and tall hedges of shining beach, and here I followed
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 1: in their steps, looking out now and again, through partings
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: in the boughs, and seeing on one side the sweep
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: of the wood stretching far to right and left, and
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 1: sinking into the broad level, and beyond the yellow sea,
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 1: and the land over the sea. On the other side
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 1: was the valley and the river, and hill following hill
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: as wave on wave, and wood and meadow, and cornfield,
• 1:54:46
  Speaker 1: and white houses gleaming, and a great wall of mountain,
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 1: and far blue peaks in the north. And so at
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: last I came to the place. The track went up
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 1: a gentle slope and widened out into an open space
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 1: with a wall of thick undergrowth around it, and then,
• 1:55:01
  Speaker 1: narrowing again, passed on into the distance and the faint
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: blue mist of summer heat. And into this pleasant summer
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 1: glade Rachel passed a girl and left it, who shall
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 1: say what? I did not stay long there. In a
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 1: small town near Kermane there is a museum. containing for
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 1: the most part Roman remains, which had been found in
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 1: the neighborhood at various times. On the day after my
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 1: arrival in Kermain, I walked over to the town in question,
• 1:55:28
  Speaker 1: and took the opportunity of inspecting the museum. After I
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 1: had seen most of the sculptured stones, the coffins, rings, coins,
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 1: and fragments of tessellated pavement which the place contains, I
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: was shown a small square pillar of white stone, which
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 1: had been recently discovered in the wood of which I
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 1: had been speaking, and as I found on inquiry, in
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 1: that open space where the Roman road broadens out. On
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 1: one side of the pillar was an inscription, of which
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: I took a note. Some of the letters have been defaced,
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 1: but I do not think there can be any doubt
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: as to those which I supply. The inscription is as follows.
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: To the great god Nodens, the god of the great
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 1: deep or abyss, Flavius Sinilis has erected this pillar on
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 1: account of the marriage which he saw beneath the shade.
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 1: The custodian of the museum informed me that local antiquaries
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 1: were much puzzled, not by the inscription, or by any
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 1: difficulty in translating it, but as to the circumstance or
• 1:56:32
  Speaker 1: rite to which allusion is made. And now, my dear Clark,
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 1: as to what you tell me about Helen Vaughan, whom
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 1: you say you saw die under circumstances of the utmost
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 1: and almost incredible horrors. I was interested in your account,
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 1: but a good deal, nay, all of what you told
• 1:56:49
  Speaker 1: me I knew already. I can understand the strange likeness
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 1: you remarked in both the portrait and in the actual face.
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 1: You have seen Helen's mother. You remember that still summer
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 1: night so many years ago, when I talked to you
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 1: of the world beyond the shadows, and of the god Pan.
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 1: You remember Mary. She was the mother of Helen Vaughan,
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: who was born nine months after that night. Mary never
• 1:57:15
  Speaker 1: recovered her reason. She lay as you saw her all
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 1: the while upon her bed, and a few days after
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 1: the child was born she died. I fancy that just
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 1: at the last she knew me. I was standing by
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 1: the bed, and the old look came into her eyes
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 1: for a second, and then she shuddered and groaned and died.
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 1: It was an ill work that I did the night
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 1: when you were present. I broke open the door of
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 1: the house of life, without knowing or caring what might
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: pass forth or enter in. I recollect your telling me
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 1: at the time, sharply enough, and rightly too, in one sense,
• 1:57:49
  Speaker 1: that I have ruined the reason of a human being
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 1: by a foolish experiment, based on an absurd theory. You
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 1: did well to blame me, but my theory was not
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 1: all absurdity. What I said Mary would see, she saw,
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 1: but I forgot that no human eyes can look on
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 1: such a sight with impunity. And I forgot, as I
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 1: have just said, that when the house of life is
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 1: the thrown open, there may enter in that for which
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 1: we have no name, and human flesh may become the
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 1: veil of a horror one dare not express. I played
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 1: with energies which I did not understand. You have seen
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 1: the ending of it. Helen Vaughan did well to bind
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 1: the cord around her neck and die, though the death
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 1: was horrible. the blackened face, the hideous form upon the bed,
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 1: changing and melting before your eyes from woman to man,
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 1: from man to beast, and from beast to worse than beast.
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 1: All the strange horror that you witness surprises me but little.
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 1: What you say the doctor whom you sent for saw
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 1: and shuddered at I noticed long ago. I knew what
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 1: I had done the moment the child was born, and
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 1: when it was scarcely five years old I surprised it,
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 1: not once or twice, but several times with a playmate.
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 1: You may guess of what kind. It was for me
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 1: a constant and incarnate horror, and after a few years
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 1: I felt I could bear it no more, and I
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 1: sent Helen Vaughan away. You know now what frightened the
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 1: boy in the wood. The rest of the strange story,
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 1: and all else that you tell me, as discovered by
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 1: your friend, I have contrived to learn from time to time,
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 1: almost to the last chapter. And now Helen is with
• 1:59:23
  Speaker 1: her companions. End of chapter 8 End of The Great
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 1: God Pan by Arthur Macken