Australian Hauntings: A Second Anthology of Australian Colonial Supernatural Fiction (22 page)

* * * *

When the morning broke through the grey mists of the marshes, Dr. Wycherley and Jeanne Dorthez were leading by the hand over the marsh-path a blind man who murmured continuously the prayers he had learnt in his youth.

Behind them smoke curled up from the hut of the sorcerer that was. Dr. Wycherley had set fire to it so that the ghastly tokens and records it contained might never fall into the hands of any human being.

THE QUEER CASE OF CHRISTINE MADRIGAL, by A. E. Martin

The Shudder Show
(194?)

Archibald Edward Martin (1885-1955) was born in South Australia and travelled widely in Australia. He managed circus artists from prizefighters to freaks before taking up writing full time. He is best known for his crime stories, but the chapbook in which the two stories published here originally appeared,
The Shudder Show
(NSW Bookstall Company, 194?), has the distinction of being the first Australian single author horror collection. The thirteen stories in it were clearly influenced by the American horror pulps, such as
Weird Tales
.

Christine Madrigal has relapsed into blessed unconsciousness. I do not think she will ever awaken. As her physician and her father’s best friend, I hope not, for I would sooner know her dead than beset by those constant terrors which will surround her for the rest of her life.

This lovely girl has seen things which, praise God, are hidden from most mortals. I am setting them down while they are fresh in my memory, attesting that I believe every word.…

In a little second-hand shop Christine Madrigal’s hands moved lightly along the backs of a row of books, her roving eyes seeking interesting titles. She found the pastime pleasurable, sometimes profitable. She was young, easy to look at, in love and loved, healthy in body and alert in mind.

It was a beautiful, sunny day—too beautiful, Christine knew, to be spent indoors, but she had no more than half-an-hour to put in. The half-hour was almost up. In a few minutes she would have to leave to meet her fiancé, she thought, with a glance at the wall clock. Her hand was stretched forward, her fingers idly drumming on the backs of books as she glimpsed the titles, when, all at once, the shop perceptibly darkened.

Christine, with a little feeling of disappointment, glanced down the aisle to the shop entrance.

“What a pity if it rains,” she was thinking, and was surprised to see bright sunlight making shadow patterns on the roadway. She glanced upward, surmising some skylight illumination suddenly withdrawn, but there was no skylight, no window. A queer, cold draught touched her cheek, and involuntarily she shivered, and, preparing to pull her coat closer about her, fell to trembling, for, although she saw nothing, upon her wrist she felt the touch of cold, hard fingers.

She attempted to withdraw her arm, but the pressure increased, and she felt her hand drawn along the row of books, not haphazardly, but slowly and deliberately. The experience was to say the least, disturbing; but Christine was not the woman to be easily frightened. She choked back the exclamation which rose to her lips. The thing was too absurd. Again she attempted to withdraw her hand, and again the pressure of the unseen fingers increased, and, with more insistence than at first, continued to draw her hand along the row of books upon the table.

At length the pulling movement ceased. Christine felt her hand hovering, then the pressure was exerted downward ’til her fingers rested on a small volume in old-fashioned binding. Fearful, but curious, she lifted the book. As if their task had been completed the unseen fingers immediately released their hold, and, at the same instant, the light in the shop brightened.

With the book in her hand Christine glanced at the clock. The whole ridiculous incident had taken no more than a few moments. Without a glance at the title she took the volume to the bookseller, who peered at it disinterestedly over his spectacles, blew the dust from it, noted the price, and prepared to wrap it.

“Don’t worry,” Christine said, “I’m in rather a hurry. I’ll take it as it is.”

Outside the sun was so bright she had to shut her eyes against the sudden glare.

Within five minutes she was having tea with Rick Lamond. His eyes fell on the book at her side.

“Another opus,” he smiled, picking it tip. “Gosh,” he went on, as he skimmed the mildewed pages, “What are you going to do with this? Read it?”

Carelessly he threw the book on the table.

“Tell you what, Chris,” he said. “When you and me’s man and wife I’m going to burn down all the libraries within ten miles. Yes, sir. No rivals for me.”

For a moment she considered telling him of her experience in the second-hand shop, but a glance at his rugged honest-to-goodness face beaming at her across the table negatived the idea. What was the use? He wouldn’t believe. She didn’t want him to think he might be marrying a crank. In any case, she hardly believed herself.

Nevertheless, she determined to forget the book in the bustle of leaving, but he caught sight of it, and tucked it under her arm.

“Just to prove I’m great-hearted Harry,” he said. “Go ahead, honey! Read all you want. You won’t find anyone in books as beautiful as yourself.”

He grinned at her without opening his mouth, and squeezed her elbow.

Returning to her apartment late that afternoon, Christine threw the little book upon the table at her bedside, and made a quick change to a dinner-frock. Leaving her flat, she was annoyed to discover that the lift was not operating. Vexatiously she began the descent of the wide stone steps. It was the first time she had used them during her sojourn at this newly-built apartment house, and she noted that on the ground floor they faced the back of the building, looking out on to a courtyard she had never noticed before.

Curious, she stood on the last step and surveyed the scene, surprised to see not the spick-and-span newness that characterised the rest of the building, but a squared space, floored with rough cobblestones, and surrounded with old stone buildings, picturesque enough in their way, but frightfully dirty. At one corner, sandwiched between what looked like unused and dilapidated stables, a flight of stone steps ended at what she took to be the entrance to a store cellar.

Wondering a little, Christine turned and stepped into the carpeted lobby. Through the front doors she could see her waiting taxi, and was hurrying toward it when a slight sound at her rear made her glance over her shoulder.

The courtyard had been hidden from her view by a massive door. Christine’s brow clouded. She had heard no one. And yet the big door was not only shut, but secured by a heavy iron bar and padlock. There was no one in sight except the porter in his little office ahead of her near the front door. She shook her head impatiently. There must be some plausible explanation, she thought. Nevertheless, the impatient honking of her taxi-driver was a comforting sound.

It was nearly midnight when she returned. Rick Lamond gave her his arm as she alighted from the cab, and they stood for a moment in the bright moonlight. He dismissed the taxi.

“It’s too lovely to ride. I’ll walk home,” he announced, taking both her hands as the taxi drove off, and she faced the great white front of the apartment house.

“Let the old moon see your face as I kiss you goodnight,” he suggested, and turned her round so that her features were illumined almost as in day, and he in turn faced the building. He was bending to caress her when he stopped suddenly and glanced over his shoulder.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Queer,” he said, and pointed behind her. “The shadow…where does it come from?”

She turned her head and saw, on the white front of the building, a gigantic shadow shaped like the bent head and shoulders of a huge man. The shadow flickered as they looked, then began to diminish until it seemed it had squeezed itself through the open doors and into the entrance hall.

“Funny!” Rick glanced about curiously; then, feeling the tremble of Christine’s hand on his, threw his arm about her. “What the devil was it?”

From across the road an old man shambled toward them.

“I guess you seen it, too,” he quavered. He was very, very old, and, as they gazed at him in astonishment, he went on: “The shadow—where do it come from? Who’s be it?
Why
do it come?”

Christine made an impatient gesture. Rick said: “It was an aeroplane, perhaps.”

The old man shook his head.

“I’d a-heared a airyplane, alright.”

“A glider, then?”

“Maybe, mister; but there be not many gliders, I’m thinkin’—and why should they come over this house every moonlight night, and me nor nobody not see ’em? Aye, mister, every moonlight night I sees that shadow come up and squeeze itself into yon pretty building—aye, ever since they pulled the old homes down to make way for their palaces.”

Rick made a move. “It’s a good yarn,” he said lightly, “but I’m no mystery writer, gran’pa. Here’s something for your trouble, anyway.”

He thrust a shilling into the old man’s hand, and steered Christine toward the entrance. She did not speak, and he looked down at her anxiously.

“Not scared, are you?” he grinned. “Don’t let it get you down! Some cloud effect, maybe.” He glanced at the cloudless, moonlit sky. “Perhaps I had better come up with you.”

She shook her head.

“I’ll be all right. It was a bit disconcerting. The old man.…”

“Him? My dear, I bet he knows the answer, and it’s paying him dividends. I think I’ll give him a good swift kick in the pants after I’ve seen you to your flat.”

“Just put me in the lift.”

Together they entered the hall. Christine, as she passed the porter’s little office, cast a quick glance toward the entrance to the courtyard. The big door was closed and secured as when she last saw it. Rick kissed her good-night.

“Sure you’re all right?” She nodded, and he closed the lift door. “You’ve got my number—X3210. Ring if you feel you want me, and I’ll come round and hold your hand,” he called, as the lift ascended.

She kissed her hand to him, and pressed the button. “I’ll be asleep and dreaming of you in half an hour, my dear,” she thought, as the lift carried her upward.

But she wasn’t. Even the familiar things in her rooms failed to rid her mind of its disturbing thoughts. Annoyed with herself, she disrobed quickly, bathed, and, jumping into bed, switched off the reading lamp.

The moonlight threw the pattern of the Venetian blind upon the carpet, and, with hands clasped behind her head, she watched it idly. Suddenly she caught her breath, and stared! Between two shadow lines cast by the blind the shape of a black hand intruded, its long, knotted fingers forcing the slats apart. Terrified, she turned to the window, but there was no movement, and the blind was motionless; the curtains still. From the table by her side she could hear the faint ticking of her watch, and then another sound—dull, closer. It was a moment before she recognised it as the beating of her heart.

With an effort, she forced herself to leave her bed and, her heart in her mouth, pulled up the blind. There was nothing. The window was open, as she had left it. Christine gazed down on the moonlit street, a sheer four floors below. Opposite, sitting in the gutter, was the figure of a man. She could not be sure, but she thought it was the old man who had spoken about the shadow.

She closed the window and locked it, let the blind fall and pulled the cord that closed the slats. She made sure the door was locked, and felt her way back to bed. The room was now quite dark, and she lay still, listening. Did she hear something? She was not sure. But there was something…something different. But it was not sound. All at once she knew. It was lack of sound. The ticking of her watch had stopped. And yet she had wound it before retiring.

For some reason Christine found this incident distressing. She tried to tell herself that perhaps, after all, she had only imagined winding the watch, but the thought persisted that the stopping of the watch, the touch of the fingers in the bookshop, the shadow on the wall, the closing of the courtyard door, and the hand at the blind were related…all part of some sinister purpose.

The dark room was deathly still now that the watch had stopped. Christine tried to think of Rick, tried to imagine him swinging along the moonlit road, but it was useless. Her nerves were shot to pieces. She felt her fingers stiff at her sides, the nails digging into her flesh; her palms were damp with sweat.

With a tremendous effort she moved them from under the bedclothes, determined to ring Rick and hear the comforting sound of his voice. She reached above her head, but for a moment could not find the light. At length she touched the switch. She sat up, looking fearfully about the room.

Her eyes moved to the table by her side, where her watch lay alongside the little volume she had purchased that afternoon. She put out her hand to take the telephone, and, at the same instant, felt on her bare wrist the pressure of unseen fingers. In startled horror, she looked down to see and feel her hand lifted and guided toward the book on the table. Her fingers were forced down and, unwillingly, she lifted the book and drew it toward her, holding it before her, wondering.

The book suddenly opened in her hand as if some unseen medium had acted impatiently, and, as she gazed at thick, black, old-fashioned type, the shadow of a finger followed the text down the mildewed borders and paused at words underlined in faded ink:

There be devils and devils, but this is the master of all devils who liveth only by blood and calleth at his will. And it is written that he shall endure for life everlasting, for none can gainsay him, and he hath but to command and the young men and maidens rise at his beckoning and walk to his altar, which is in the earth, an unhallowed place. When he openeth, the doors of their chambers, though they be filled with a fearful fear and tremble in every limb, yet must they do his bidding and die at his say, for locks and double-locks and treble-locks cannot stay them, for he openeth them all and entereth into secret places as a shadow through a keyhole.

The shadow of the finger wavered, the book fell from Christine’s fingers, and, with a half-smothered cry, she was out of bed groping for her dress, drawing it over her head, intent on one thing only—to be out and away from this horrid room. But even as the dress fell about her she was aware of the gigantic shadow on the wall before her—great stooping shoulders and bent head—and, as she gasped with terror, there came upon her shoulders the soft touch of urging hands. The door swung slowly open, while on the lighted wall the great shadow gradually diminished until it melted into the cavernous blackness of the passage into which the unseen hands were propelling her.

Slowly, her eyes staring, Christine Madrigal stepped from her room and, like a sleep-walker, moved toward and down the stairs. There was no light, no directing word, yet she knew with full certainty her dreadful destination. About her feet she sensed the scurry of horrid, accompanying Things that made faint, excited murmurings, and now and then uttered little cries of pain; and there were other noises beyond belief, as of unseen creatures jostling, which increased as she descended, until at length she felt in her face the foetid breath of larger horrors that
touched her with pulpy paws, and gibbered and mouthed sounds that were not words at all, but indescribably loathsome.