The Compleat Crow (11 page)

On Thursday Carstairs once again left the house, but this time he forgot to lock his study door. By now Crow felt almost entirely returned to his old self, and his nerves were steady as he entered that normally forbidden room. And seeing Carstairs’ almost antique telephone standing on an occasional table close to the desk, he decided upon a little contact with the outside world.

He quickly rang Taylor Ainsworth’s number in London. Ainsworth answered, and Crow said: “Taylor, Titus here. Any luck yet with that wine?”

“Ah!” said the other, his voice scratchy with distance. “So you couldn’t wait until the weekend, eh? Well, funny stuff, that wine, with a couple of really weird ingredients. I don’t know what they are or how they work, but they do. They work on human beings like aniseed works on dogs! Damned addictive!”

“Poisonous?”

“Eh? Dear me, no! I shouldn’t think so, not in small amounts. You wouldn’t be talking to me now if they were! Listen, Titus, I’d be willing to pay a decent price if you could—”

“Forget it!” Crow snapped. Then he softened. “Listen, Taylor, you’re damned
lucky
there’s no more of that stuff, believe me. I think it’s a recipe that goes back to the very blackest days of Man’s history—and I’m pretty sure that if you knew those secret ingredients you’d find them pretty ghastly! Thanks anyway, for what you’ve done.” And despite the other’s distant protests he put down the telephone.

Now, gazing once more about that dim and malodorous room, Crow’s eyes fell upon a desk calendar. Each day, including today, had been scored through with a thick black line. The 1st February, however, Candlemas Eve, had been ringed with a double circle.

Candlemas Eve, still eight days away…

Crow frowned. There was something he should remember about that date, something quite apart from its religious connections. Dim memories stirred sluggishly. Candlemas Eve, the date ordained.

Crow started violently. The date ordained? Ordained for what? Where had that idea come from? But the thought had fled, had sunk itself down again into his subconscious mind.

Now he tried the desk drawers. All were locked and there was no sign of a key. Suddenly, coming from nowhere, Crow had the feeling that there were eyes upon him! He whirled, heart beating faster—and came face to face with Carstairs’ picture where it hung with the others on the wall. In the dimness of that oppressive room, the eyes in the picture seemed to glare at him piercingly…

After that the day passed uneventfully and fairly quickly. Crow visited the sunken casement window again at the rear of the house and did a little more work on it, scraping away at the old, thick layers of paint, seeming to make very little impression. As for the rest of the time: he rested a good deal and spent an hour or so on Carstairs’ books—busying himself with the “task” he had been set—but no more than that.

About 4:30 P.M. Crow heard a car pull up outside and going to the half-shaded windows he saw Carstairs walking up the drive as the car pulled away. Then, giving his eyes a quick rub and settling himself at his work table, he assumed a harassed pose. Carstairs came immediately to the library, knocked and walked in.

“Ah, Mr. Crow. Hard at it as usual, I see?”

“Not really,” Crow hoarsely answered, glancing up from his notebook. “I can’t seem to find the energy for it. Or maybe I’ve gone a bit stale. It will pass.”

Carstairs seemed jovial. “Oh, I’m sure it will. Come, Mr. Crow, let’s eat. I have an appetite. Will you join me?” Seeing no way to excuse himself, Crow followed Carstairs to the dining-room. Once there, however, he remembered the maggot he had found in the kitchen and could no longer contemplate food under any circumstances.

“I’m really not very hungry,” he mumbled.

“Oh?” Carstairs raised an eyebrow. “Then I shall eat later. But I’m sure you wouldn’t refuse a glass or two of wine, eh?”

Crow was on the point of doing just that—until he remembered that he could not refuse. He was not supposed to be able to refuse! Carstairs fetched a bottle from the larder, pulled its cork and poured two liberal glasses. “Here’s to you, Mr. Crow,” he said. “No—to us!”

And seeing no way out, Crow was obliged to lift his glass and drink…

IX

Nor had Carstairs been satisfied to leave it at that. After the first glass there had been a second, and a third, until Titus Crow’s head was very quickly spinning. Only then was he able to excuse himself, and then not before Carstairs had pressed the remainder of the bottle into his hand, softly telling him to take it with him, to enjoy it before he retired for the night.

He did no such thing but poured it into the garden; and then, reeling as he went, made his way to the bathroom where he drank water in such amounts and so quickly as to make himself violently ill. Then, keeping everything as quiet as possible, he staggered back to the library and locked himself in.

He did not think that a great deal of wine remained in his stomach—precious little of anything else, either—but his personal remedy for any sort of excess had always been coffee. He made and drank an entire jug of it, black, then returned to the bathroom and bathed, afterward thoroughly dousing himself with cold water. Only then did he feel satisfied that he had done all he could to counteract the effects of Carstairs’ wine.

All of this had taken it out of him, however, so that by 8 P.M. he was once again listless and tired. He decided to make an early night of it, retiring to his alcove with
De Vermis Mysteriis
. Within twenty minutes he was nodding over the book and feeling numb and confused in his mind. The unvomited wine was working on him, however gradually, and his only hope now was that he might sleep it out of his system.

Dazedly returning the heavy book to its shelf, he stumbled back to his bed and collapsed onto it. In that same position, spread-eagled and face down, he fell asleep; and that was how he stayed for the next four hours.

Crow came awake slowly, gradually growing aware that he was being addressed, aware too of an unaccustomed feeling of cold. Then he remembered what had gone before and his mind began to work a little faster. In the darkness of the alcove he opened his eyes a fraction, peered into the gloom and made out two dim figures standing to one side of his bed. Some instinct told him that there would be more of them on the other side, and only by the greatest effort of will was he able to restrain himself from leaping to his feet.

Now the voice came again, Carstairs’ voice, not talking to him this time but to those who stood around his bed. “I was afraid that the wine’s effect was weakening—but apparently I was wrong. Well, my friends, you are here tonight to witness an example of my will over the mind and body of Titus Crow. He cannot be allowed to go away this weekend, of course, for the time is too near. I would hate anything to happen to him.”

“So would we all, Master,” came a voice Crow recognized. “For—”

“For then I would need to make a second choice, eh, Durrell? Indeed, I
know
why you wish nothing to go amiss. But you
presume
, Durrell! You are not fit habitation.”

“Master, I merely—” the other began to protest.

“Be quiet!” Carstairs hissed. “And watch.” Now his words were once more directed at Crow, and his voice grew deep and sonorous.

“Titus Crow, you are dreaming, only dreaming. There is nothing to fear, nothing at all. It is only a dream. Turn over onto your back, Titus Crow.”

Crow, wide awake now—his mind suddenly clear and realizing that Harry Townley’s counter-hypnotic device was working perfectly—forced himself to slow, languid movement. With eyes half-shuttered, he turned over, relaxed and rested his head on his pillow.

“Good!” Carstairs breathed. “That was good. Now sleep, Titus Crow, sleep and dream.”

Now Garbett’s voice said: “Apparently all is well, Master.”

“Yes, all is well. His Number is confirmed, and he comes more fully under my spell as the time approaches. Now we shall see if we can do a little more than merely command dumb movement. Let us see if we can make him talk. Mr. Crow, can you hear me?”

Crow, mind racing, opened parched lips and gurgled, “Yes, I hear you.”

“Good! Now, I want you to remember something. Tomorrow you will come to me and tell me that you have decided to stay here at The Barrows over the weekend. Is that clear?”

Crow nodded.

“You do want to stay, don’t you?”

Again he nodded.

“Tell me you wish it.”

“I want to stay here,” Crow mumbled, “over the weekend.”

“Excellent!” said Carstairs. “There’ll be plenty of wine for you here, Titus Crow, to ease your throat and draw the sting from your eyes.”

Crow lay still, forcing himself to breathe deeply.

“Now I want you to get up, turn back your covers and get into bed,” said Carstairs. “The night air is cold and we do not wish you to catch a chill, do we?”

Crow shook his head, shakily stood up, turned back his blankets and sheets and lay down again, covering himself.

“Completely under your control!” Garbett chuckled, rubbing his hands together. “Master, you are amazing!”

“I have been amazing, as you say, for almost three and a half centuries,” Carstairs replied with some pride. “Study my works well, friend Garbett, and one day you too may aspire to the Priesthood of the Worm!”

On hearing these words so abruptly spoken, Crow could not help but give a start—but so too did the man Durrell, a fraction of a second earlier, so that Crow’s movement went unnoticed. And even as the man on the bed sensed Durrell’s frantic leaping, so he heard him cry out: “
Ugh!
On the floor! I trod on one! The maggots!”

“Fool!” Carstairs hissed. “Idiot!” And to the others, “Get him out of here. Then come back and help me collect them up.”

After that there was a lot of hurried movement and some scrambling about on the floor, but finally Crow was left alone with Carstairs; and then the man administered that curious droning caution which Crow was certain he had heard before.

“It was all a dream, Mr. Crow. Only a dream. There is nothing really you should remember about it, nothing of any importance whatever. But you will come to me tomorrow, won’t you, and tell me that you plan to spend the weekend here? Of course you will!”

And with that Carstairs left, silently striding from the alcove like some animated corpse into the dark old house. But this time he left Crow wide awake, drenched in a cold sweat of terror and with little doubt in his mind but that this had been another attempt of Carstairs’ to subvert him to his will—at which he had obviously had no little success in the recent past!

Eyes staring in the darkness, Crow waited until he heard engines start up and motorcars draw away from the house—waited again until the old place settled down—and when far away a church clock struck one, only then did he get out of bed, putting on lights and slippers, trembling in a chill which had nothing at all in common with that of the house. Then he set about to check the floor of the alcove, the library, to strip and check and reassemble his bed blanket by blanket and sheet by sheet; until at last he was perfectly satisfied that there was no crawling thing in this area he had falsely come to think of as his own place, safe and secure. For the library door was still locked, which meant either that Carstairs had a second key, or—

Now, with Harry Townley’s .45 tucked in his dressing-gown pocket, he examined the library again, and this time noticed that which very nearly stood his hair on end. It had to do with a central section of heavy shelving set against an internal wall. For in merely looking at this mighty bookcase, no one would ever suspect that it had a hidden pivot—and yet such must be the case. Certain lesser books where he had left them stacked on the carpet along the frontage of the bookshelves had been moved, swept aside in an arc; and now indeed he could see that a small gap existed between the bottom of this central part and the carpeted floor proper.

Not without a good deal of effort, finally Crow found the trick of it and caused the bookcase to move, revealing a blackness and descending steps which spiralled steeply down into the bowels of the house. At last he had discovered a way into the cellar; but for now he was satisfied simply to close that secret door and make for himself a large jug of coffee, which he drank to its last drop before making another.