The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard (52 page)

Sir Thomas Cameron lay writhing in a growing pool of gore, but it was not the dagger sunk deep into his breast which held us in our tracks like men struck dead, but the hideous and evident insanity stamped on his face. His eyes flared redly, fixed on nothing, and they were the eyes of a man who is staring into Purgatory. A ceaseless gibbering burst from his lips, and then into his yammering was woven human words: “–Noseless–the noseless one–” Then a rush of blood burst from his lips, and he dropped on his face.

We bent over him and eyed each other in horror.

“Stone dead,” muttered Gordon. “But what killed him?”

“Ganra Singh–” I began; then both of us whirled. Ganra Singh stood silently in the doorway, his expressionless features giving no hint of his thoughts. Gordon rose, his hand sliding easily to his hip pocket.

“Ganra Singh, where have you been?”

“I was in the lower corridor, locking the house for the night. I heard my master call me, and I came.”

“Sir Thomas is dead. Do you have any idea as to who did the murder?”

“No, sahib. I am new to this English land; I do not know if my master had any enemies.”

“Help me lift him on this couch.” This was done. “Ganra Singh, you realize that we must hold you responsible for the time being.”

“While you hold me, the real killer may escape.”

Gordon did not reply to this. “Let me have the keys to the house.”

The Sikh obeyed without a word.

Gordon then led him across the outer corridor to a small room in which he locked him, first assuring himself that the window, as all the other windows in the house, was heavily barred. Ganra Singh made no resistance; his face showed nothing of his emotions. As we shut the door we saw him standing impassively in the center of the room, arms folded, eyes following us inscrutably.

We returned to the study with its shattered chairs and tables, its red stain on the floor, and the silent form on the couch.

“There’s nothing we can do until morning,” said Gordon. “We can’t communicate with anyone, and if we started out to walk to the village we should probably lose our way in the darkness and fog. It seems a pretty fair case against the Sikh.”

“Sir Thomas practically accused him in his last words.”

“As to that, I don’t know. Cameron shouted his name when I yelled, but he might have been calling the fellow–I doubt if Sir Thomas heard me. Of course, that remark about the ‘noseless one’ could seem to mean no one else, but it isn’t conclusive. Sir Thomas was insane when he died.”

I shuddered. “That, Gordon, is the most terrible phase of the matter. What was it that blasted Cameron’s reason and made of him a screaming maniac in the last few minutes he had to live?”

Gordon shook his head. “I can’t understand it. The mere fact of looking death in the eyes never shook Sir Thomas’ nerve before. I tell you, Slade, I believe there’s something deeper here than meets the eye.

This smacks of the supernatural, in spite of the fact that I was never a superstitious man. But let’s look at it in a logical light.

“This study comprises the whole of the upper left wing, being separated from the back rooms by a corridor which runs the whole length of the house. The only door of the study opens into that corridor.

We crossed the court, entered a lower room of the left wing, went into the hall into which we were first admitted, and came up the stairs into the upper corridor. The study door was shut, but not locked. And through that door came whatever it was that shattered Sir Thomas Cameron’s brain before it murdered him. And the man–or thing–left the same way, for it is evident that nothing is concealed in the study, and the bars on the windows prohibit escape in that manner. Had we been a few moments quicker we might have seen the slayer leaving. The victim was still grappling with the fiend when I shouted, but between that instant and the moment we came into the upper corridor, there was time for the slayer, moving swiftly, to accomplish his design and leave the room. Doubtless he concealed himself in one of the rooms across the hall and either slipped out while we were bending over Sir Thomas and made his escape–or, if it were Ganra Singh, came boldly into the study.”

“Ganra Singh came after us, according to his story. He should have seen anyone trying to escape from the rooms.”

“The killer might have heard him coming and waited until he was in the study before emerging. Oh, understand, I believe the Sikh is the murderer, but we wish to be fair and look at the matter from every angle. Let’s see that dagger.”

It was a thin-bladed, wicked-looking Egyptian weapon, which I remembered having seen lying on Sir Thomas’ table.

“It seems as if Ganra Singh’s clothes would have been in disarray and his hands bloody,” I suggested.

“He scarcely had time to cleanse himself and arrange his garments.”

“At any rate,” Gordon answered, “the fingerprints of the killer should be upon this dagger hilt. I have been careful not to obliterate any such traces, and I will lay the weapon on the couch here for the examination of a Bertillon expert. I am not adept in such matters myself. And in the meanwhile I think I’ll go over the room, after the accepted manner of detectives, to look for any possible clues.”

“And I’ll take a turn through the house. Ganra Singh may really be innocent, and the murderer lurking somewhere in the building.”

“Better be careful. If there is such a being, remember that it is a desperate man, quite ready and willing to do murder.”

I took up a heavy blackthorn and went out into the corridor. I forgot to say that all these corridors were dimly lighted, and the curtains drawn so closely that the whole house appeared to be dark from the outside. As I shut the door behind me, I felt more strongly than ever the oppressive silence of the house.

Heavy velvet hangings masked unseen doorways and, as a stray whisper of wind whipped them about, I started, and the lines from Poe flitted through my brain:

“And the silken, sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me, filled with fantastic terrors never felt before.”

I strode to the landing of the stair, and, after another glance at the silent corridors and the blank doors, I descended. I had decided that if any man had hidden in the upper story, he would have descended to the lower floor by this time, if indeed he had not already left the house. I struck a light in the lower reception hall, and went into the next room. The whole of the main building between the wings, I found, was composed of Sir Thomas’ private museum, a really gigantic room, filled with idols, mummy cases, stone and clay pillars, papyrus scrolls, and like objects. I wasted little time here, however, for as I entered my eyes fell upon something I knew to be out of place in some manner. It was a mummy case, very different from the other cases, and it was open! I knew instinctively that it had contained the mummy of which Sir Thomas had boasted that evening, but now it was empty. The mummy was gone.

Thinking of his words regarding the jealousy of his rivals, I turned hastily and made for the hall and the stair. As I did so, I thought I heard somewhere in the house a faint crashing. I had no desire, however, to further explore the building alone and armed only with a club. I wished to return and tell Gordon that we were probably opposed to a gang of international thieves. I had started back toward the hall when I perceived a staircase leading directly from the museum room, and it I mounted, coming into the upper corridor near the right wing.

Again the long dim corridor ran away in front of me, with its blank mysterious doors and dark hangings. I must traverse the greater part of it in order to reach the study at the other end, and a foolish shiver shook me as I visualized hideous creatures lurking behind those closed doors. Then I shook myself. Whatever had driven Sir Thomas Cameron insane, it was human, and I gripped my blackthorn more firmly and strode down the corridor.

Then after a few strides I halted suddenly, the short hairs prickling at the back of my neck, and my flesh crawling unaccountably. I sensed an unseen presence, and my eyes turned as drawn by a magnet to some heavy tapestries which masked a doorway. There was no wind in the rooms, but
the hangings
moved slightly!
I started, straining my eyes on the heavy dark fabric until it seemed the intensity of my gaze would burn through it, and I was aware, instinctively, that other eyes glared back. Then my eyes strayed to the wall beside the hidden doorway. Some freak of the vague light threw a dark formless shadow there, and, as I looked, it slowly assumed shape–a hideous distorted goblin image, grotesquely man-like,
and noseless!

My nerve broke suddenly. That distorted figure might be merely the twisted shadow of a man who stood behind the hangings, but it was burned into my brain that, man, beast, or demon, those dark tapestries hid a shape of terrible and soul-shattering threat. A brooding horror lurked in the shadows and there in that silent darkened corridor with its vague flickering lights and that stark shadow hovering within my gaze, I came as near to insanity as I have ever come–it was not so much what met my eyes and senses, but the phantoms conjured up in my brain, the terrible dim images that rose at the back of my skull and gibbered at me. For I knew that for the moment the commonplace human world was far away, and that I was face to face with some horror from another sphere.

I turned and hurried down the corridor, my futile black thorn shaking in my grasp, and the cold sweat forming in great beads upon my brow. I reached the study and entered, closing the door behind me. My eyes turned instinctively to the couch with its grim burden. Gordon leaned over some papers on a table, and he turned as I entered, his eyes alight with some suppressed excitement.

“Slade, I’ve found a map here drawn by Cameron, and, according to it, he found that mummy on the borders of the land where Von Honmann was murdered–”

“The mummy’s gone,” I said.

“Gone? By Jupiter! Maybe that explains it! A gang of scientific thieves! Likely Ganra Singh is in with them–let’s go talk to him.”

Gordon strode across the corridor, I following. My nerve was still shaken, and I had no use to discuss my recent experience. I must get back some of my courage before I could bring myself to put the fear I had felt into words. Gordon knocked at the door. Silence reigned. He turned the key in the lock, swung the door open, and swore. The room was empty! A door opening into another room parallel to the corridor showed how he had escaped. The lock had been fairly torn off.

“That was that noise I heard!” Gordon exclaimed. “Fool that I was, I was so engrossed in Sir Thomas’

notes that I paid no attention, thinking it was but the noise of your opening or closing a door! I’m a failure as a detective. If I had been on my guard I might have arrived on the scene before the prisoner made his getaway.”

“Lucky for you, you didn’t,” I answered shakily. “Gordon, let’s get out of here! Ganra Singh was lurking behind the hangings as I came up the corridor–I saw the shadow of his noseless face–and I tell you, the man’s not human. He’s an evil spirit! An inhuman goblin! Do you think a man could unhinge Sir Thomas’

reason–a human being? No, no, no! He’s a demon in human form–and I’m not so sure that the form’s human!”

Gordon’s face was shadowed. “Nonsense! A hideous and unexplained crime has been perpetrated here tonight, but I will not believe that it cannot be explained in natural terms–listen!”

Somewhere down the corridor a door had opened and closed. Gordon leaped to the door, sprang through the passageway. Down the corridor I followed, cursing his recklessness, but fired by his example to a kind of foolhardy bravery. I had no doubt but that the end of that wild chase would be a death grapple with the inhuman Indian, and the shattered door lock was ample proof of his prowess, even without the gory form which lay in the silent study. But when a man like Gordon leads, what can one do but follow?

Down the corridor we sped, through the door where we had seen the thing vanish, through the dark room beyond, and into the next. The sounds of flight in front of us told us that we were pressing close upon our prey. The memory of that chase through darkened rooms is a vague and hazy dream–a wild and chaotic nightmare. I do not remember the rooms and passages which we traversed. I only know that I followed Gordon blindly and halted only when he stopped in front of a tapestry-hung doorway beyond which a red glow was apparent. I was mazed, breathless. My sense of direction was completely gone. I had no idea as to what part of the house we were in, or why that crimson glow pulsed beyond the hangings.

“This is Ganra Singh’s room,” said Gordon. “Sir Thomas mentioned it in his conversation. It is the extreme upper room of the right wing. Further he cannot go, for this is the only door to the room and the windows are barred. Within that room stands at bay the man–or whatever–killed Sir Thomas Cameron!”

“Then in God’s name let us rush in upon him before we have time to reconsider and our nerve breaks!” I urged, and, shouldering past Gordon, I hurled the curtains aside…

The red glow at least was explained. A great fire leaped and flickered in the huge fireplace, lending a red radiance to the room. And there at bay stood a nightmarish and hellish form–
the missing mummy!

My dazed eyes took in at one glance the wrinkled leathery skin, the sunken cheeks, the flaring and withered nostrils from which the nose had decayed away; the hideous eyes were open now, and they burned with a ghastly and demoniac life. A single glimpse was all I had, for in an instant the long lean thing came lurching headlong at me, a heavy ornament of some sort clutched in its lank and taloned hand. I struck once with the blackthorn and felt the skull give way, but it never halted–for who can slay the dead?–and the next instant I was down, writhing and dazed, with a shattered shoulder bone, lying where the sweep of that dried arm had dropped me.

I saw Gordon at short range fire four shots pointblank into the frightful form, and then it had grappled with him, and as I struggled futilely to regain my feet and re-enter the battle, my athletic friend, held helpless in those inhuman arms, was bent back across a table until it seemed his spine would give way.