The Wrath of Fu Manchu and Other Stories (17 page)

“Then that’s all?”

Again he hesitated. “There’s a document,” he slowly said, and then leaped to his feet briskly. “But you’ve had enough for one sitting. You’ve got—” He counted off the elements of his account on his fingers. “You’ve got: the slithering visitant—”

“A naked man with a contorted face,” I checked.

“—the heat—”

“Seen when the thermometer is high.”

“—and the miasma,” he concluded.

I waited, studying my own thoughts. When I looked over to him I caught him observing me from under lowered eyelids.

On impulse, I said, “Why do you tell me all this?”

“Isn’t it what you came here to find out?” he retorted, quietly.

I digested the import of his words, which meant that he knew of our reasons for entering his home, that we were not the casual visitors in the neighbourhood that we professed to be—that he knew or guessed all this; and how much more?

I traded boldness for boldness, frankness for frankness.

“Yes,” I said. “I do want to get at the explanation for some curious things I’ve observed.”

“There speaks the scientist,” he cried, with undisguised irony. “And your friend, Mr Alfred—or was it Aubrey? Hume—or is it Wales? Is his interest—zoological, too?”

I stood up. “Shall we leave?” I inquired.

“With curiosity unsatisfied?” he cried. “No, certainly not.” And then he became earnest. “For some time, I’ve expected that outsiders would become interested in us down here. It was inevitable, with all the tales being spread around. I welcome investigation, Mr McAllister. I welcome having it conducted by one so competent as yourself, a fellow with ’RA’ and ‘FRGS’ after his name. And—” he gave me a courteous nod—“I like its being done by a gentleman.”

“And Aubrey Wales—” I began.

“—my wife’s former fiancé,” he put in.

“Is he a welcome guest, too?”

“Why not? Why not?” he chuckled.

He gave my shoulder a friendly pat of dismissal. “Don’t hurry your solution, Mr McAllister,” he said, a light of mocking complacency dancing in his eyes. “Let’s make it last. You can’t imagine how this visit relieves the monotony which is the
other
disadvantage of Low Fennel.”

I turned and went up the hall. My foot was on the lower stair when I heard his low call behind me, and turned around. He had his head stuck through the study door and a smile of chummy complicity was on the large face.

“And—another thing, Mr McAllister,” he whispered, loudly. “I propose a trade. Don’t you tell young Mr Wales about this and I shan’t bother Mrs Drurock with it. Have you ever noticed that young and beautiful people are entirely devoid of brains?”

He winked at me and closed his door.

* * *

I did not like the looks of things.

I was being left severely alone. Drurock either slept through the whole of the stiffing afternoon or was gone somewhere on his own business. I saw nothing of him.

I saw something of Aubrey and our hostess, and wished I hadn’t. I had no intention of so doing, but it came about that I spied on what gave every evidence of developing into a clandestine affair. Under my breath I roundly cursed Aubrey for his utter folly. So this was what his Galahadian mission had come to! Kissing another man’s wife behind doors! I decided to subscribe to Drurock’s proposal, and leave my fool in blissful ignorance.

Towards Margery I extended a more charitable feeling. I could begin to guess at her horrible adventure in this noxious place, where she was tied to a thing immeasurably loathsome and impure. The return of healthy young Aubrey into her existence must have been like a letting of sunshine into a foul dungeon. Her reaching out to him must have been pure instinct, irresistible, as urgent a gesture as breathing.

I came upon them when I probed my way into the ancient wing. I wished to view the quarters deserted by the family of John Ord, this being the only place which, in my host’s account of the resident spectre, was precisely located with reference to the phenomena described. I found my way through a servants’ yard and to a fine old kitchen suggestive of days when earlier roasting was done on a royal scale. A cook startled from sleep gave me the directions I needed, and I was soon stumbling over the rotten flooring of one level of the old tower. The dank odour of a mushroom bed below came up through the generous floorcracks.

I discovered a partition and, behind it, a little hive of rooms showing shreds of wallpaper still upon the walls. This would be the erstwhile Ord habitat. Seeking to fix the location with reference to the general plan of the rambling pile, I put my head out of a paneless window and looked around. I was instantly aware of a murmuring of low voices close at hand. I recognised Aubrey’s at once. I looked down.

The precious pair of love-sick fools were directly under my eyes. She was seated on a little hummock. Her hands lay in her lap and he was bending over to kiss them. Whatever he was saying had an imploring sound. I could guess the import—“Come, fly with me.” She drew away from him, but it was plain that simple instinct would have bent her the other way.

I turned to find a little frisking dog dancing at my heels. I made friends. Then I made a discovery. In one of the inner rooms of the deserted Ord abode there was a deep embrasure with a door. This wall was obviously the outer shell of the tower, immensely thick, and the opening in it was either an egress to the outdoors or a means of communication with another part of the structure. I tried the door. It resisted. While I tugged at it, the little dog began to whine at my back and presently darted over and seized my trouser leg in his teeth. He tugged with all his little strength. I desisted from my vain efforts at the door, and the dog was at once reassured and began to frisk again.

The dog continued to yap at my heels all the way back to the new wing, to which I returned by covering, roughly, the arc of a circle around both of the older sections of the chateau. I was doing a small problem in geometry as I walked and I reached the conclusion that I had all but closed a complete circle by the time I reached the library doors. Unless my rough calculations had misled me, this meant that the door in the deserted Ord apartment gave communication into the modern wing. I was about to take one of my longest steps forward toward solution of the problem of Low Fennel at this juncture and, in the next moment, I took it. As I crossed the sill into the library, the little dog which had pestered me suddenly dropped back with a low whine and lay shivering on the gravel path outside the room. Nor would he budge to rejoin me when I emitted a coaxing whistle and snapped my fingers.

I suddenly darted back and, seizing the dog by the collar, dragged him into the study with me. The result was extraordinarily encouraging to the hypothesis forming in my mind. The brute whimpered and whined piteously. At the door he struggled furiously and even tried to snap at my hand. I got him inside and imprisoned him by closing the french-window. Then only did I release him. What followed was immensely suggestive, in fact conclusive. The dog began circling about the room in a frenzy, seeking a way of escape. His neck-hairs stood out like a bottle-brush. He no longer barked, he roared. Finally, ending a dizzy circuit of the room, the small animal hurled himself like a projectile at the closed window and smashed his way to the open through sash and pane.

I did not need to make further inquiry into the geographical confines of the problem. It lay here, in the modern wing!

* * *

Dinner was a disastrous affair. The various causes of disunion which lay among us all were coming too close to reckless action and utterance to permit a flow of small talk. We nibbled at tasteless viands and were all ready enough for the signal to rise from the table. Each made a pretext to be alone.

I passed an inner door to the library as I started for my room, wanting nothing but a chance to lie on my back and puff on a pipe and think this thing out. Drurock intercepted me at the library door. He was in a listless, beaten mood.

“I spoke about a document I wanted you to see,” he said, but I knew that this was a pretext to draw me into the room. I saw nothing for it but to join him in a cigar. He handed me a small bound volume, which I slipped into my pocket.

“I’ll read it in bed,” I said.

I sat, but he paced before me. His first question took me right in my wind by its brutal unexpectedness.

“Am I utterly repulsive?” he cried.

It was not the sort of thing that required answer and I held my tongue. He made another restless crossing of the room and stopped before me again.

“A man has a right to protect his home—even if it’s not such a very happy one, hasn’t he?” His manner bordered on complete loss of self-control and I was on my guard against feeding his state with any badly chosen comment. I elected to make none at all.

He pounded his palm with his fist and harangued the walls.

“Even in law, he has the right, hasn’t he?”

I-made some inconsequential comment and rose for a leave-taking which was flight.

“Sleep soundly,” he recommended with an especial emphasis. “And don’t leave your room.”

* * *

The heat was intolerable. I discarded everything but a shirt and stretched out on the bed. Sleep was out of the question. I left my bed lamp burning, lit a pipe, and drew out the volume Drurock had given me. It was a piece of bound handwriting. The ink was very old and pale. There was no date anywhere to be found, but the script was Elizabethan.

“In the reign of Mary accursed,” began the reading, “a Duroque of Bas-Fenelle in Cornwall came to be martyred for his faith the manner of execution being the ministration of a lethal draught which was handed him duly in his cell in the Tower and, which drinking, he did sit down upon his pallett showing no sign, nor yet suffering any discomfort, and this for two whole days and nights, until the warden, accounting it a miracle and being afraid, did privately release the prisoner for fear of offending heaven by detaining him.

“Truly it was a miracle, even as the warden supposed but not one of heaven but rather of hell, and this has become known, to wit:

“The Duroques of Bas-Fenelle in Cornwall are immune to all lethal matters, such as the poxes and the potions and even the bite of the serpent and this not because of a virtue of their blood but because of a foulness of it which is fouler than any poison. This is the true account of how this comes to be.

“This was in the time of the first Plantagenet and the first Duroque of England built his house then close to the mouth of the rich mine of Fennel, granted him by his King. Having built, the first Duroque turned against his King and refused tribute, wherefor Plantagenet did send forces against him, but the King’s soldiers never came to attack Bas-Fenelle, having all sickened or died long ere they could come to its walls and this by reason of the waters in the country about Duroque’s house, which were fatal and accounted for all who drank.

“The first Duroque died and his son, Henry, followed him and made peace with the King. The second Duroque took a wife from the Court, but the lady sickened in the house of Bas-Fenelle and complained and said to her husband that she was wasted by the poison waters and air of the countryside where the house of Bas-Fenelle stood. And being a young and delightsome lady her plaint had weight with the second Duroque, who resolved to drain his lands and make them sweet and, seeing that the mine stood beside his house, a great hole in the ground, gave orders that his serfs should divert all the pools to this catch-pit and also drive all the foul life of the waters into this place. And the serfs were loathe to obey, knowing that to go into the foul ditches and breathe the vapours there was death, but they were forced by Duroque’s armed men.

“And Duroque’s soldiery came behind the serfs, advancing only when the ground was dried and made sweet by their labours, but keeping the circle at all times closed, so that no man could desist from the labour. And he who paused or turned away was shot down by the arquebusiers. And the master of Bas-Fenelle sat upon his wall in a great chair and drank wine and gave this order and that and witnessed the cleansing of his land.

“At the end of many days, those of his serfs which were still alive, having survived both the pestilential waters and the arrows of the arquebusiers came close to the mouth of the mine and made sluices and the last of the poisoned waters ran down into the mine and Duroque’s steward came to the master upon the wall and said: ‘Messire, are you satisfied? Shall we close the pit now and send these men home?’ And Duroque shook his head and said: ‘No. These men are all tainted. They are no better than receptacles of the foulness which is otherwise gone. Have them slain and thrown into, the pit.’ Which was done, and the men were slain and thrown into the pit to the number of more than forty score and there was no male of the people left over the age of ten. The pit was sealed then by the men-at-arms and when the earth was firm Duroque came down off the wall and stamped upon it and beat the air with his arms and cried: ‘For the first time a Duroque may walk on his own soil and breathe his own air and be in health!’ And even as he cried out in pride, he fell prone, stricken by a curse for what he had done in the slaying of forty-score souls, and he lay upon the ground a full night in torment and was carried then into his house and put upon his bed as one dead…

“Then there came a physician, who had knowledge of many things and he saw and declared that the curse upon Duroque was that what was sweet to other men was foul to him and what was foul to other men was the breath of life to him, and, even, that the mine must be opened up again to let him breathe the vapours and revive. The mine was opened as the physician did recommend and a stench issued from the hole and everyone fled from the foul place, but Duroque, upon his bed, breathed of the foulness and was awakened from his. stupor and was filled with strength, for his blood had taken on the foulness of his deed and of the fruits of it sealed in the mine, and this blood is the blood of the Duroques, generation after generation.

“And the Duroques must live in their ancestral home above the lake of poison which lingers underground, being the liquid of the pestilential waters and of toads and of forty-score dead men. They must live there and replenish the foul blood in their veins always from the vapours which rise out of the accursed ground. And other penalties put upon them are that they are friends of no men but only of crawling and swimming things and that no woman of warm blood will willingly mate with them and perpetuate the breed but must be constrained or bought, nor never give her consent nor show a Duroque amiability.”