VII
THE ENCOUNTER IN SOHO
Three weeks later Austin received a note from Villiers, asking him tocall either that afternoon or the next. He chose the nearer date, andfound Villiers sitting as usual by the window, apparently lost inmeditation on the drowsy traffic of the street. There was a bambootable by his side, a fantastic thing, enriched with gilding and queerpainted scenes, and on it lay a little pile of papers arranged anddocketed as neatly as anything in Mr. Clarke's office.
"Well, Villiers, have you made any discoveries in the last three weeks?"
"I think so; I have here one or two memoranda which struck me assingular, and there is a statement to which I shall call yourattention."
"And these documents relate to Mrs. Beaumont? It was really Crashawwhom you saw that night standing on the doorstep of the house in AshleyStreet?"
"As to that matter my belief remains unchanged, but neither myinquiries nor their results have any special relation to Crashaw. Butmy investigations have had a strange issue. I have found out who Mrs.Beaumont is!"
"Who is she? In what way do you mean?"
"I mean that you and I know her better under another name."
"What name is that?"
"Herbert."
"Herbert!" Austin repeated the word, dazed with astonishment.
"Yes, Mrs. Herbert of Paul Street, Helen Vaughan of earlier adventuresunknown to me. You had reason to recognize the expression of her face;when you go home look at the face in Meyrick's book of horrors, and youwill know the sources of your recollection."
"And you have proof of this?"
"Yes, the best of proof; I have seen Mrs. Beaumont, or shall we sayMrs. Herbert?"
"Where did you see her?"
"Hardly in a place where you would expect to see a lady who lives inAshley Street, Piccadilly. I saw her entering a house in one of themeanest and most disreputable streets in Soho. In fact, I had made anappointment, though not with her, and she was precise to both time andplace."
"All this seems very wonderful, but I cannot call it incredible. Youmust remember, Villiers, that I have seen this woman, in the ordinaryadventure of London society, talking and laughing, and sipping hercoffee in a commonplace drawing-room with commonplace people. But youknow what you are saying."
"I do; I have not allowed myself to be led by surmises or fancies. Itwas with no thought of finding Helen Vaughan that I searched for Mrs.Beaumont in the dark waters of the life of London, but such has beenthe issue."
"You must have been in strange places, Villiers."
"Yes, I have been in very strange places. It would have been useless,you know, to go to Ashley Street, and ask Mrs. Beaumont to give me ashort sketch of her previous history. No; assuming, as I had toassume, that her record was not of the cleanest, it would be prettycertain that at some previous time she must have moved in circles notquite so refined as her present ones. If you see mud at the top of astream, you may be sure that it was once at the bottom. I went to thebottom. I have always been fond of diving into Queer Street for myamusement, and I found my knowledge of that locality and itsinhabitants very useful. It is, perhaps, needless to say that myfriends had never heard the name of Beaumont, and as I had never seenthe lady, and was quite unable to describe her, I had to set to work inan indirect way. The people there know me; I have been able to do someof them a service now and again, so they made no difficulty aboutgiving their information; they were aware I had no communication director indirect with Scotland Yard. I had to cast out a good many lines,though, before I got what I wanted, and when I landed the fish I didnot for a moment suppose it was my fish. But I listened to what I wastold out of a constitutional liking for useless information, and Ifound myself in possession of a very curious story, though, as Iimagined, not the story I was looking for. It was to this effect.Some five or six years ago, a woman named Raymond suddenly made herappearance in the neighbourhood to which I am referring. She wasdescribed to me as being quite young, probably not more than seventeenor eighteen, very handsome, and looking as if she came from thecountry. I should be wrong in saying that she found her level in goingto this particular quarter, or associating with these people, for fromwhat I was told, I should think the worst den in London far too goodfor her. The person from whom I got my information, as you maysuppose, no great Puritan, shuddered and grew sick in telling me of thenameless infamies which were laid to her charge. After living there fora year, or perhaps a little more, she disappeared as suddenly as shecame, and they saw nothing of her till about the time of the PaulStreet case. At first she came to her old haunts only occasionally,then more frequently, and finally took up her abode there as before,and remained for six or eight months. It's of no use my going intodetails as to the life that woman led; if you want particulars you canlook at Meyrick's legacy. Those designs were not drawn from hisimagination. She again disappeared, and the people of the place sawnothing of her till a few months ago. My informant told me that shehad taken some rooms in a house which he pointed out, and these roomsshe was in the habit of visiting two or three times a week and alwaysat ten in the morning. I was led to expect that one of these visitswould be paid on a certain day about a week ago, and I accordinglymanaged to be on the look-out in company with my cicerone at a quarterto ten, and the hour and the lady came with equal punctuality. Myfriend and I were standing under an archway, a little way back from thestreet, but she saw us, and gave me a glance that I shall be long inforgetting. That look was quite enough for me; I knew Miss Raymond tobe Mrs. Herbert; as for Mrs. Beaumont she had quite gone out of myhead. She went into the house, and I watched it till four o'clock,when she came out, and then I followed her. It was a long chase, and Ihad to be very careful to keep a long way in the background, and yetnot lose sight of the woman. She took me down to the Strand, and thento Westminster, and then up St. James's Street, and along Piccadilly.I felt queerish when I saw her turn up Ashley Street; the thought thatMrs. Herbert was Mrs. Beaumont came into my mind, but it seemed tooimpossible to be true. I waited at the corner, keeping my eye on herall the time, and I took particular care to note the house at which shestopped. It was the house with the gay curtains, the home of flowers,the house out of which Crashaw came the night he hanged himself in hisgarden. I was just going away with my discovery, when I saw an emptycarriage come round and draw up in front of the house, and I came tothe conclusion that Mrs. Herbert was going out for a drive, and I wasright. There, as it happened, I met a man I know, and we stood talkingtogether a little distance from the carriage-way, to which I had myback. We had not been there for ten minutes when my friend took offhis hat, and I glanced round and saw the lady I had been following allday. 'Who is that?' I said, and his answer was 'Mrs. Beaumont; lives inAshley Street.' Of course there could be no doubt after that. I don'tknow whether she saw me, but I don't think she did. I went home atonce, and, on consideration, I thought that I had a sufficiently goodcase with which to go to Clarke."
"Why to Clarke?"
"Because I am sure that Clarke is in possession of facts about thiswoman, facts of which I know nothing."
"Well, what then?"
Mr. Villiers leaned back in his chair and looked reflectively at Austinfor a moment before he answered:
"My idea was that Clarke and I should call on Mrs. Beaumont."
"You would never go into such a house as that? No, no, Villiers, youcannot do it. Besides, consider; what result..."
"I will tell you soon. But I was going to say that my information doesnot end here; it has been completed in an extraordinary manner.
"Look at this neat little packet of manuscript; it is paginated, yousee, and I have indulged in the civil coquetry of a ribbon of red tape.It has almost a legal air, hasn't it? Run your eye over it, Austin. Itis an account of the entertainment Mrs. Beaumont provided for herchoicer guests. The man who wrote this escaped with his life, but I donot think he will live many years. The doctors tell him he must havesustained some severe shoc
k to the nerves."
Austin took the manuscript, but never read it. Opening the neat pagesat haphazard his eye was caught by a word and a phrase that followedit; and, sick at heart, with white lips and a cold sweat pouring likewater from his temples, he flung the paper down.
"Take it away, Villiers, never speak of this again. Are you made ofstone, man? Why, the dread and horror of death itself, the thoughts ofthe man who stands in the keen morning air on the black platform,bound, the bell tolling in his ears, and waits for the harsh rattle ofthe bolt, are as nothing compared to this. I will not read it; Ishould never sleep again."
"Very good. I can fancy what you saw. Yes; it is horrible enough; butafter all, it is an old story, an old mystery played in our day, and indim London streets instead of amidst the vineyards and the olivegardens. We know what happened to those who chanced to meet the GreatGod Pan, and those who are wise know that all symbols are symbols ofsomething, not of nothing. It was, indeed, an exquisite symbol beneathwhich men long ago veiled their knowledge of the most awful, mostsecret forces which lie at the heart of all things; forces before whichthe souls of men must wither and die and blacken, as their bodiesblacken under the electric current. Such forces cannot be named, cannotbe spoken, cannot be imagined except under a veil and a symbol, asymbol to the most of us appearing a quaint, poetic fancy, to some afoolish tale. But you and I, at all events, have known something of theterror that may dwell in the secret place of life, manifested underhuman flesh; that which is without form taking to itself a form. Oh,Austin, how can it be? How is it that the very sunlight does not turnto blackness before this thing, the hard earth melt and boil beneathsuch a burden?"
Villiers was pacing up and down the room, and the beads of sweat stoodout on his forehead. Austin sat silent for a while, but Villiers sawhim make a sign upon his breast.
"I say again, Villiers, you will surely never enter such a house asthat? You would never pass out alive."
"Yes, Austin, I shall go out alive--I, and Clarke with me."
"What do you mean? You cannot, you would not dare..."
"Wait a moment. The air was very pleasant and fresh this morning;there was a breeze blowing, even through this dull street, and Ithought I would take a walk. Piccadilly stretched before me a clear,bright vista, and the sun flashed on the carriages and on the quiveringleaves in the park. It was a joyous morning, and men and women lookedat the sky and smiled as they went about their work or their pleasure,and the wind blew as blithely as upon the meadows and the scentedgorse. But somehow or other I got out of the bustle and the gaiety,and found myself walking slowly along a quiet, dull street, where thereseemed to be no sunshine and no air, and where the few foot-passengersloitered as they walked, and hung indecisively about corners andarchways. I walked along, hardly knowing where I was going or what Idid there, but feeling impelled, as one sometimes is, to explore stillfurther, with a vague idea of reaching some unknown goal. Thus Iforged up the street, noting the small traffic of the milk-shop, andwondering at the incongruous medley of penny pipes, black tobacco,sweets, newspapers, and comic songs which here and there jostled oneanother in the short compass of a single window. I think it was a coldshudder that suddenly passed through me that first told me that I hadfound what I wanted. I looked up from the pavement and stopped beforea dusty shop, above which the lettering had faded, where the red bricksof two hundred years ago had grimed to black; where the windows hadgathered to themselves the dust of winters innumerable. I saw what Irequired; but I think it was five minutes before I had steadied myselfand could walk in and ask for it in a cool voice and with a calm face.I think there must even then have been a tremor in my words, for theold man who came out of the back parlour, and fumbled slowly amongsthis goods, looked oddly at me as he tied the parcel. I paid what heasked, and stood leaning by the counter, with a strange reluctance totake up my goods and go. I asked about the business, and learnt thattrade was bad and the profits cut down sadly; but then the street wasnot what it was before traffic had been diverted, but that was doneforty years ago, 'just before my father died,' he said. I got away atlast, and walked along sharply; it was a dismal street indeed, and Iwas glad to return to the bustle and the noise. Would you like to seemy purchase?"
Austin said nothing, but nodded his head slightly; he still lookedwhite and sick. Villiers pulled out a drawer in the bamboo table, andshowed Austin a long coil of cord, hard and new; and at one end was arunning noose.
"It is the best hempen cord," said Villiers, "just as it used to bemade for the old trade, the man told me. Not an inch of jute from endto end."
Austin set his teeth hard, and stared at Villiers, growing whiter as helooked.
"You would not do it," he murmured at last. "You would not have bloodon your hands. My God!" he exclaimed, with sudden vehemence, "youcannot mean this, Villiers, that you will make yourself a hangman?"
"No. I shall offer a choice, and leave Helen Vaughan alone with thiscord in a locked room for fifteen minutes. If when we go in it is notdone, I shall call the nearest policeman. That is all."
"I must go now. I cannot stay here any longer; I cannot bear this.Good-night."
"Good-night, Austin."
The door shut, but in a moment it was open again, and Austin stood,white and ghastly, in the entrance.
"I was forgetting," he said, "that I too have something to tell. Ihave received a letter from Dr. Harding of Buenos Ayres. He says thathe attended Meyrick for three weeks before his death."
"And does he say what carried him off in the prime of life? It was notfever?"
"No, it was not fever. According to the doctor, it was an uttercollapse of the whole system, probably caused by some severe shock.But he states that the patient would tell him nothing, and that he wasconsequently at some disadvantage in treating the case."
"Is there anything more?"
"Yes. Dr. Harding ends his letter by saying: 'I think this is all theinformation I can give you about your poor friend. He had not beenlong in Buenos Ayres, and knew scarcely any one, with the exception ofa person who did not bear the best of characters, and has since left--aMrs. Vaughan.'"
VIII
THE FRAGMENTS
[Amongst the papers of the well-known physician, Dr. Robert Matheson,of Ashley Street, Piccadilly, who died suddenly, of apoplectic seizure,at the beginning of 1892, a leaf of manuscript paper was found, coveredwith pencil jottings. These notes were in Latin, much abbreviated, andhad evidently been made in great haste. The MS. was only decipheredwith difficulty, and some words have up to the present time evaded allthe efforts of the expert employed. The date, "XXV Jul. 1888," iswritten on the right-hand corner of the MS. The following is atranslation of Dr. Matheson's manuscript.]
"Whether science would benefit by these brief notes if they could bepublished, I do not know, but rather doubt. But certainly I shallnever take the responsibility of publishing or divulging one word ofwhat is here written, not only on account of my oath given freely tothose two persons who were present, but also because the details aretoo abominable. It is probably that, upon mature consideration, andafter weighting the good and evil, I shall one day destroy this paper,or at least leave it under seal to my friend D., trusting in hisdiscretion, to use it or to burn it, as he may think fit.
"As was befitting, I did all that my knowledge suggested to make surethat I was suffering under no delusion. At first astounded, I couldhardly think, but in a minute's time I was sure that my pulse wassteady and regular, and that I was in my real and true senses. I thenfixed my eyes quietly on what was before me.
"Though horror and revolting nausea rose up within me, and an odour ofcorruption choked my breath, I remained firm. I was then privileged oraccursed, I dare not say which, to see that which was on the bed, lyingthere black like ink, transformed before my eyes. The skin, and theflesh, and the muscles, and the bones, and the firm structure of thehuman body that I had thought to be unchangeable, and permanent asadamant, began to melt and d
issolve.
"I know that the body may be separated into its elements by externalagencies, but I should have refused to believe what I saw. For herethere was some internal force, of which I knew nothing, that causeddissolution and change.
"Here too was all the work by which man had been made repeated beforemy eyes. I saw the form waver from sex to sex, dividing itself fromitself, and then again reunited. Then I saw the body descend to thebeasts whence it ascended, and that which was on the heights go down tothe depths, even to the abyss of all being. The principle of life,which makes organism, always remained, while the outward form changed.
"The light within the room had turned to blackness, not the darkness ofnight, in which objects are seen dimly, for I could see clearly andwithout difficulty. But it was the negation of light; objects werepresented to my eyes, if I may say so, without any medium, in such amanner that if there had been a prism in the room I should have seen nocolours represented in it.
"I watched, and at last I saw nothing but a substance as jelly. Thenthe ladder was ascended again... [here the MS. is illegible] ...for oneinstance I saw a Form, shaped in dimness before me, which I will notfarther describe. But the symbol of this form may be seen in ancientsculptures, and in paintings which survived beneath the lava, too foulto be spoken of... as a horrible and unspeakable shape, neither man norbeast, was changed into human form, there came finally death.
"I who saw all this, not without great horror and loathing of soul,here write my name, declaring all that I have set on this paper to betrue.
"ROBERT MATHESON, Med. Dr."
* * * * *
...Such, Raymond, is the story of what I know and what I have seen.The burden of it was too heavy for me to bear alone, and yet I couldtell it to none but you. Villiers, who was with me at the last, knowsnothing of that awful secret of the wood, of how what we both saw die,lay upon the smooth, sweet turf amidst the summer flowers, half in sunand half in shadow, and holding the girl Rachel's hand, called andsummoned those companions, and shaped in solid form, upon the earth wetread upon, the horror which we can but hint at, which we can only nameunder a figure. I would not tell Villiers of this, nor of thatresemblance, which struck me as with a blow upon my heart, when I sawthe portrait, which filled the cup of terror at the end. What this canmean I dare not guess. I know that what I saw perish was not Mary, andyet in the last agony Mary's eyes looked into mine. Whether there canbe any one who can show the last link in this chain of awful mystery, Ido not know, but if there be any one who can do this, you, Raymond, arethe man. And if you know the secret, it rests with you to tell it ornot, as you please.
I am writing this letter to you immediately on my getting back to town.I have been in the country for the last few days; perhaps you may beable to guess in which part. While the horror and wonder of London wasat its height--for "Mrs. Beaumont," as I have told you, was well knownin society--I wrote to my friend Dr. Phillips, giving some briefoutline, or rather hint, of what happened, and asking him to tell methe name of the village where the events he had related to me occurred.He gave me the name, as he said with the less hesitation, becauseRachel's father and mother were dead, and the rest of the family hadgone to a relative in the State of Washington six months before. Theparents, he said, had undoubtedly died of grief and horror caused bythe terrible death of their daughter, and by what had gone before thatdeath. On the evening of the day which I received Phillips' letter Iwas at Caermaen, and standing beneath the mouldering Roman walls, whitewith the winters of seventeen hundred years, I looked over the meadowwhere once had stood the older temple of the "God of the Deeps," andsaw a house gleaming in the sunlight. It was the house where Helen hadlived. I stayed at Caermaen for several days. The people of theplace, I found, knew little and had guessed less. Those whom I spoketo on the matter seemed surprised that an antiquarian (as I professedmyself to be) should trouble about a village tragedy, of which theygave a very commonplace version, and, as you may imagine, I toldnothing of what I knew. Most of my time was spent in the great woodthat rises just above the village and climbs the hillside, and goesdown to the river in the valley; such another long lovely valley,Raymond, as that on which we looked one summer night, walking to andfro before your house. For many an hour I strayed through the maze ofthe forest, turning now to right and now to left, pacing slowly downlong alleys of undergrowth, shadowy and chill, even under the middaysun, and halting beneath great oaks; lying on the short turf of aclearing where the faint sweet scent of wild roses came to me on thewind and mixed with the heavy perfume of the elder, whose mingled odouris like the odour of the room of the dead, a vapour of incense andcorruption. I stood at the edges of the wood, gazing at all the pompand procession of the foxgloves towering amidst the bracken and shiningred in the broad sunshine, and beyond them into deep thickets of closeundergrowth where springs boil up from the rock and nourish thewater-weeds, dank and evil. But in all my wanderings I avoided onepart of the wood; it was not till yesterday that I climbed to thesummit of the hill, and stood upon the ancient Roman road that threadsthe highest ridge of the wood. Here they had walked, Helen and Rachel,along this quiet causeway, upon the pavement of green turf, shut in oneither side by high banks of red earth, and tall hedges of shiningbeech, and here I followed in their steps, looking out, now and again,through partings in the boughs, and seeing on one side the sweep of thewood stretching far to right and left, and sinking into the broadlevel, and beyond, the yellow sea, and the land over the sea. On theother side was the valley and the river and hill following hill as waveon wave, and wood and meadow, and cornfield, and white houses gleaming,and a great wall of mountain, and far blue peaks in the north. And soat last I came to the place. The track went up a gentle slope, andwidened out into an open space with a wall of thick undergrowth aroundit, and then, narrowing again, passed on into the distance and thefaint blue mist of summer heat. And into this pleasant summer gladeRachel passed a girl, and left it, who shall say what? I did not staylong there.
In a small town near Caermaen there is a museum, containing for themost part Roman remains which have been found in the neighbourhood atvarious times. On the day after my arrival in Caermaen I walked overto the town in question, and took the opportunity of inspecting themuseum. After I had seen most of the sculptured stones, the coffins,rings, coins, and fragments of tessellated pavement which the placecontains, I was shown a small square pillar of white stone, which hadbeen recently discovered in the wood of which I have been speaking,and, as I found on inquiry, in that open space where the Roman roadbroadens out. On one side of the pillar was an inscription, of which Itook a note. Some of the letters have been defaced, but I do not thinkthere can be any doubt as to those which I supply. The inscription isas follows:
DEVOMNODENT--i-- FLA--v--IVSSENILISPOSSV--it-- PROPTERNVP--tias-- --qua--SVIDITSVBVMB--ra--
"To the great god Nodens (the god of the Great Deep or Abyss) FlaviusSenilis has erected this pillar on account of the marriage which he sawbeneath the shade."
The custodian of the museum informed me that local antiquaries weremuch puzzled, not by the inscription, or by any difficulty intranslating it, but as to the circumstance or rite to which allusion ismade.
* * * * *
...And now, my dear Clarke, as to what you tell me about Helen Vaughan,whom you say you saw die under circumstances of the utmost and almostincredible horror. I was interested in your account, but a good deal,nay all, of what you told me I knew already. I can understand thestrange likeness you remarked in both the portrait and in the actualface; you have seen Helen's mother. You remember that still summernight so many years ago, when I talked to you of the world beyond theshadows, and of the god Pan. You remember Mary. She was the mother ofHelen Vaughan, who was born nine months after that night.
Mary never recovered her reason. She lay, as you saw her, all thewhile upon her bed, and a few days after the child was born
she died.I fancy that just at the last she knew me; I was standing by the bed,and the old look came into her eyes for a second, and then sheshuddered and groaned and died. It was an ill work I did that nightwhen you were present; I broke open the door of the house of life,without knowing or caring what might pass forth or enter in. Irecollect your telling me at the time, sharply enough, and rightly too,in one sense, that I had ruined the reason of a human being by afoolish experiment, based on an absurd theory. You did well to blameme, but my theory was not all absurdity. What I said Mary would seeshe saw, but I forgot that no human eyes can look on such a sight withimpunity. And I forgot, as I have just said, that when the house oflife is thus thrown open, there may enter in that for which we have noname, and human flesh may become the veil of a horror one dare notexpress. I played with energies which I did not understand, you haveseen the ending of it. Helen Vaughan did well to bind the cord abouther neck and die, though the death was horrible. The blackened face,the hideous form upon the bed, changing and melting before your eyesfrom woman to man, from man to beast, and from beast to worse thanbeast, all the strange horror that you witness, surprises me butlittle. What you say the doctor whom you sent for saw and shuddered atI noticed long ago; I knew what I had done the moment the child wasborn, and when it was scarcely five years old I surprised it, not onceor twice but several times with a playmate, you may guess of what kind.It was for me a constant, an incarnate horror, and after a few years Ifelt I could bear it no more, and I sent Helen Vaughan away. You knownow what frightened the boy in the wood. The rest of the strangestory, and all else that you tell me, as discovered by your friend, Ihave contrived to learn from time to time, almost to the last chapter.And now Helen is with her companions...
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