During the journey, which took little more than twenty-five minutes, we remained for the most part silent. Semple concentrated on the road and I cradled the shell in my lap and eagerly looked forward to reading of the thing and seeing its representation in his book. For the first half-mile the ride was bumpy and slow, but then we turned left on to the main road and the car shot forward. We passed through the village in a matter of minutes and several miles later turned left again on to a third-class road or track that led seaward, toward shrub and bramble-grown cliff-tops.
Where human habitation was concerned, this area of the coast was only very sparsely settled; one or two farms, yes, but not even a hamlet outside of Seaham, “the village”, as I have always referred to it. The next town of any size or importance was Newquay, half an hour’s drive up the coast. If privacy were a prerequisite, then this must surely be the perfect place for an exclusive club. The coast was very wild, however, and so for a place of any size to be built a large amount of money would have to be spent. Well, there were still plenty of people who could afford that sort of money.
Soon, tall shrubs and tangled undergrowth sprang up to border the track. Semple drove carefully through this shaded region for a hundred yards or more, over a rise and then down to where the horizon showed a mating of sea and sky. There, where shrubs, trees, and brambles had been cleared away to allow gravel to be laid, he turned under a large, low, open-fronted structure to park alongside a dozen or more cars of various makes. Several were of the large American variety, one of which was just pulling away.
Turning in my seat to stare after the car as it drove off, I caught a glimpse of dark, lumpish figures with pale faces in the passenger seats. Strangely round eyes peered back at me for a split second, then were gone. What it was about those faces I couldn’t say, but at the sight of them—the merest glimpse—it was as if someone walked over my grave …
We left the car and walked to the edge of the cliffs. Below us, like a bite taken out of the coastline, a small bay enclosed a crescent-shaped beach. One of the rocky bay arms had been extended to form a jetty and breakwater that curved inward and protected the calm waters of the tiny bay. A variety of boats—even a small, very expensive-looking yacht—were moored in the bay, though there appeared to be little sign of life. The patio which fronted the club itself was deserted.
Right where we stood, the cliffs had tumbled down years ago, leaving massive blocks of stone that formed an uneven and precipitous slope down to grassy banks, but the debris of the fallen cliff was grassed over now and trees and shrubs had sprung up along the length of the fault. A wide wooden stairway with a handrail fell steeply from our position, losing itself in the trees, becoming visible again at the bottom. There it merged with a path of concrete paving-slabs which in turn led to the club sprawling on the beach.
The clubhouse seemed deserted to me, and as Semple and I descended the stairway I examined the place whenever I sighted it between the trees. Grey and blue, it was of modern design and spacious. Its front was raised up on piles driven deep into the bed of a kidney-shaped depression scooped out of the beach well above the tideline; its sides and rear area were shaded by fangs of rock weathered from the cliffs, and by trees grown in the lee of those same jagged boulders. It looked for all the world like the retreat of some retired and reclusive tycoon rather than any sort of boating club I had ever seen before.
We entered the building by a side door that opened into a small lounge or reception area. Across the room was a moderately stocked bar, but no one seemed to be in attendance. A frosted glass door to our right led out on to the raised patio in front of the club. It would be pleasant, I thought, to sit out there in the summer when the tide was in. An iced drink, sunglasses, the cool breeze off the sea …
Semple’s voice brought me back down to earth:
“My room is this way—”
We passed through a swing door to our left into a long corridor. Passing us on his way to the room we had just left, a tall, bent, peculiarly vacant-looking man of indeterminate years smiled emotionlessly at Semple, enquiring in a rough, guttural, and most unappetizing voice: “Can I get you a drink, sir? And your friend?”
“Thank you, Sargent, yes. Whisky, I think?” Semple looked to me for my approval.
I nodded, “Yes, that’ll do fine.”
“A bottle, Sargent,” said Semple, “and two glasses. Oh, yes—and some crushed ice.”
“Your room, sir? Or the club room?”
“My room, Sargent. Oh, and you’d better book Mr Vollister in for lunch.” He turned to me. “It’s fish today. Very good!”
Shambling by us, the man called Sargent mumbled something about only being a moment or two, then he passed out of sight through the swing door.
“This way,” said Semple, leading me down the corridor.
I was struck by the gloominess of the place. Very little light entered from outside. While the furnishings seemed sumptuous enough, still there was an aura of mustiness about them, of an unpleasant dampness. Perhaps the club was a little too close to the sea after all, or maybe the central heating was out of order. There must, of course, have been central heating …
Doors were set at regular intervals along the inside wall of the corridor. Reaching the last of these, Semple took out a key and opened it. He ushered me into the small room beyond, saying: “Make yourself comfortable, John. I’ll be but a moment.”
He went out, turning right into the corridor and leaving the door ajar. Out of completely uncharacteristic, almost morbid curiosity, I peered out into the corridor after him in time to see him disappearing through a second swing door at the corridor’s end. As the door swung behind him, a muted babble of voices came back to me—secretive voices, I thought—from what must have been the club room. Then the door swung quietly shut, deadening all but the merest murmur of conversation. Since I could make out no single word, I moved back into Semple’s room.
A moment or two after I had seated myself in an easy chair, Sargent knocked and entered. He carried a tray with bottle, glasses, and a small silver bucket full of ice. After muttering something that I found completely incoherent, in answer to which I could merely smile and nod, he left and I was able to have a look around Semple’s room.
The atmosphere actually was gloomy, so much so that I put on the light, a tiny shaded bulb in the centre of the ceiling, the better to see by. The room was as small as I would expect a guestroom in a place such as this to be, with a single bed along one wall, a small table of Eastern design near the head of the bed, the easy chair in which I sat, a linen basket, a narrow cupboard, one small desk, and a straight-backed chair. Also, along the wall opposite the bed, was a three-tier bookshelf.
All disquieting thoughts and doubts, however dimly formulated, were immediately crowded to the back of my mind. I stood up and went to the bookshelf. There, among many titles previously unheard of, were several that Semple had mentioned when first he contacted me: such books as the Cthaat Aquadingen, Gantley’s Hydrophinnae, and Gaston le Fe’s Dweller in the Depths. But among the others new to me were volumes whose very titles seemed disturbing, conjuring up vague memories or pseudo-memories of youthful nightmares. I mean titles like the Book of Dzyan, the Dhol Chants, the Liber lvoris, and the R’lyeh Text. Volumes such as these, despite the fact that as yet I knew nothing at all about them, cast ominous shadows over my mind; and the peculiar aura that I had felt from the first in this decidedly odd building seemed to thicken, closing in upon me as I stood, wrapt in the contemplation of Semple’s ‘library’.
Finally, I took down one of the books—at which the door swung open behind me and my host’s voice said:
“Ah, yes! The Cthaat Aquadingen—of the great deeps and the dark demons that inhabit them. Yes, and the spells with which to raise these demons—among other things! You are correct, John, that’s the book with the description and drawing of your shell. Would you like to make a comparison now?”
He took the book from me, opened it, and
began to search the pages. I picked up the New England conch from where I had laid it, and Semple indicated that I should sit at the desk. He sat beside me at the head of the bed, saying:
“All of my books deal with the weird, John—at least, with subjects considered weird by the unenlightened—and that’s why I was so interested in your shell. If I’m right, well, it will have been interesting to track down an actual specimen from a book considered by most to be nothing but a pack of esoteric fables, lies, and fairy stories. Ah! Here we are. Now, then, what do you think of that?”
He placed the book on the desk before me so that I could study the faded text and drawing on the chosen page. And without a doubt it was a drawing of my shell!
Holding the conch, I turned it until its angle was that at which the artist had drawn it, and it was the very duplicate of the shell on the printed page. The inks with which the drawing had been tinted were just as faded as the text, but even so the colours came through, helping in positive identification.
In a way, I was disappointed (that the shell was not the unique thing I had thought it, not even in its sinistrality, for the drawing was left-handed, too), but at the same time I found myself fascinated by the text. “This is the section you read out to me over the telephone,” I said. And out loud I repeated: “‘Reddish in hue, the shell has not a wholesome aspect, but the snail itself is as a delicacy to the tainted palates of the Deep Ones.’”
“Tainted, indeed!” Semple cut in, his voice slurred and deeper in pitch, it seemed to me in indignation or anger. “Everything they don’t understand has to be tainted. Man eats birds and beasts, aye, and shellfish, too, but when it suits him he talks of the palates of others as being ‘tainted’!”
I was taken aback by the fervour in Semple’s voice—by that and by his completely inexplicable outburst—and I turned to him to discover what had prompted it. His eyes, large and round behind the lenses of his spectacles, stared fixedly at the open book with a look of … of outrage? But why? Then, seeing my look of astonishment, he immediately pulled himself together.
“Forgive me, John. There are things you don’t understand … yet.” Then he changed the subject completely: “But listen: there’s lots of time for you to look at this book—and the other books, too, if you wish—but let’s first have a drink, yes?” He generously poured whisky over ice. “Oh, and there’s a young lady staying at the club who tells me she knows you. She and her father are engaged upon a project here which might interest you. And then there is our little collection—”
“Collection?” I sipped at my drink, pleased with its clean, familiar taste in this unfamiliar place.
“Oh, yes, very interesting. Several of our members are divers—that is to say they explore the ocean floor in one way or another—and they allow us to enhance the club with their finds.”
“Their finds?”
“Yes, they are displayed here. Fascinating! But why waste time talking about what you may see for yourself? If you'll follow me, John?”
I finished my drink and went with him.
We turned right into the corridor and through the swing door into what I had taken to be the club room. If it was, then it doubled for a dining-room, for Sargent and two others were busy arranging chairs at a long table set for lunch. I followed Semple straight across this room to a third swing door. Passing through this and holding it open for me, he said:
“This is our display room. I’m sure you’ll find it utterly engrossing …”
And how right Semple was—and what an understatement.
Here and there about this fairly large room, which was at the landside extreme of the building, were scattered easy chairs and divans, but all around the walls and displayed upon specially constructed room-dividers similar to deep bookshelves were the very treasures of the oceans. Actual treasures: French, Spanish, and even Roman coins of gold—small bars of gold and silver, encrusted, discoloured, and welded together by action of the salts of the sea—amphorae and pottery which any museum in the world would be proud to display, alongside ancient bottles whose colours, shapes, and designs made them the very rarest of antiques.
And then there were models of ocean-going vessels of the early 19th Century, of sailing ships large and small—vessels such as the barque Sumatra Queen and the brig Hetty, of which a brass plate on the base of their display cabinet gave details and a brief history—all constructed with loving care and in painstaking detail. I glanced at the brass plate for a moment longer, for something about it had caught my eye; but then, beckoned by Semple, I moved on.
“Come, John,” he said. “I believe that's Mr. Bishop over there, Sarah’s father. Since you know her, I'm sure you’d like to meet him.”
At the far side of the room, hidden until now by ceiling-high display cabinets, seated at a large, heavy table and studying a number of fantastic models, a tiny hunched old man seemed quite oblivious to our presence. As we approached him, Semple cleared his throat.
“Ah—Mr. Bishop?” The figure at the table turned, and Semple nodded a quick, respectful greeting. “Mr. Bishop, allow me to introduce John Vollister. This is the gentleman of whom Sarah has spoken. The, er, conchologist.”
“How do you do, sir?” I held out my hand.
The shrunken figure at the table made no attempt to stand; neither did he offer his hand, nor did he answer me immediately. Instead, he looked at me, and I in turn stared at him. I stared, yes, and yet was not conscious of the rudeness of my act, for this old man was indeed something at which anyone caught unawares might reasonably be expected to stare.
He wore what appeared to be a high-collared, yellow silk dressing-gown, buttoned up under the jaw, ancient pince-nez spectacles behind which eyes as big and bigger than Semple’s stared fixedly, and a flesh-coloured skullcap which smoothly covered his scalp and ears. For a full minute the great eyes gazed into mine, then that small head turned and offered Semple the slightest of nods—a nod of approval, I thought—and finally Mr. Bishop spoke:
“I hope you are well, Mr. Vollister?” His lips, which were pale, thick, and fleshy, barely moved. His words, which came as the merest whisper, were yet harsh, as if forced from vocal chords almost atrophied by some cancerous wastage. Before I could answer him, he continued:
“Please sit. Look at the cities. Are they not beautiful?” As the old man turned back to the strange models on the table before him, so Semple drew up a chair for me. I sat down beside Mr. Bishop, noting as I did a musty odour which seemed to emanate from him in heavy waves. Or was it simply the odour of the entire club house—the smell of deep seas—and particularly this room of treasures from the ocean floor? I tried to ignore the clamour of mental alarm bells, bells of warning at the edges of my subconscious, giving my attention instead to this eccentric old man’s words.
Spread upon the table before us, three separate structures reared model towers and ziggurats from an undulating base made to resemble the seabed. They were remarkable models and intricately designed, and since patently they were meant to represent submarine realms, I hazarded a guess as to their names:
“Atlantis, perhaps? And this one could be Mu? Yes? And finally there’s this one …”
Mr. Bishop’s wide mouth turned up at the corners in what I took to be a smile. “No, no, Mr. Vollister,” he whispered hoarsely, “Atlantis and Mu were cities of men, gone down beneath the waves in vast seismic convulsions—and in geological terms gone down quite recently. R’lyeh, on the other hand, is a city as old as the moon—and it is not a city of men, though it has on occasion stood up out of the sea where it lies sunken once more. Look, this is R’lyeh.”
For a moment, as he pointed, I caught a glimpse of his shrivelled hand where it protruded from the wide sleeve of his silken gown. The man obviously suffered from some severe ichthyic disorder: his flesh was silvery-grey and scaled, his fingers webbed. Then I looked more closely at the model he had indicated.
So this was a miniature of R’lyeh, a name which—in connection with the Ne
w England conch—I already recognized from the Cthaat Aquadingen. Model though it was, nevertheless the thing was constructed to give an impression of unbelievable size, with vast green-slimed blocks of stone looming up dizzily to a monstrously carved monolith, about the base of which stood statues of loathsome krakens and squids poised in menacing attitudes.
Architecturally the city—if city it were, and not some mad builder’s nightmare—was like nothing I had ever seen before. One looked upon the thing and received impressions rather than a true overall picture. Nothing specific fixed the eye at all, only suggestions of vastness and of queer angles that formed surfaces which were at one and the same time convex and concave. The geometry was dramatically out of touch with anything mundane, was blatantly alien, and over every senses-defying surface sprawled octopoid and piscine bas-reliefs of the most disturbing and unbalanced nature, and hieroglyphs that hinted of worlds and dimensions not only lost in vacuous abysses of time but separate from the clean world of Earth by countless light years.
Complemented in its hideousness by festoons of weed and oceanic incrustations, the thing was nothing less than a crazy nightmare. “City’ the old man may have termed it, but I saw it only as a monstrous necropolis, and I shuddered at the thought of any man, genius or lunatic, deliberately sitting down to construct the thing; and I wondered morbidly at the inspiration, real or imagined, from which this menacing model had sprung.
“Awesome, isn’t it?” enquired the old man, as if reading my thoughts. “Perhaps this other model, of Y’ha-Nthlei, will be less … confusing?—to your eyes and mind.” Again he pointed, and once more I saw that withered claw he wore for a hand, and again I looked at the object of his instruction.
It was the second of the submarine cities—Y’ha-Nthlei, he had called it—and, yes, it was more acceptable, far less intrinsically alien; and indeed certain of its lines were quite pleasing, designed with a flowing symmetry. In fact, the longer I looked the more I found myself imbued with a sensation of glory, of being uplifted, as if I gazed upon some shrine or holy place. For, layered as it was in every detail with a softly luminous mother-of-pearl, the model glowed with a chill internal fire, a cold fire that seemed to burn through weed and slime alike to set spark to memories that lingered, half-awake, in the back of my mind and being.