NIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE Read online

  ‘The fire fell together with a soft crash of breaking coal, and the hovering shadows, closing about the little bed, seemed to join a heavier shadow that ran to meet them from the cupboard door. . . .

  ‘Mamie Redmayes, dancing with her husband after dinner at the Embassy, felt vaguely troubled and guilty. Shallow as she was, she was an honest little soul as far as she went, and sincerely fond of her little son. Redmayes was chaffing her for her distrait attitude, a very unusual thing with her, when suddenly she spoke:

  ‘“Fred, do you mind if we go home?”

  ‘Fred Redmayes was surprised, but acquiescent.

  “‘Of course, girlie, if you’re tired—right away!”

  ‘“I’m not tired.” Mamie’s innate honesty came out. “I’m worried about Tony. I don’t know why—but I was vexed with him and snapped the poor baby’s head off, and I’m so afraid he’ll cry himself to sleep—it was only a stupid little thing, but I got cross.”

  ‘Redmayes, more intuitive than she guessed, glanced at her pretty downcast face.

  ‘“I daresay the little chap’s fretting because he doesn’t see so much of you as he did,” he said acutely. “Well—I daresay he’s right, May. I’ve pushed him on one side a bit this first year—but I admit he’s got claims, and I’m fond of the little chap. We’ll go back, though I’m sure he’s O.K.—but if you’re worrying yourself, it’s no use stopping here.”

  ‘The great purring limousine made short work of the distance between the Savoy and Curzon Street, and, greatly to Ethel’s subsequent disgust, the young couple arrived home fully two hours earlier than usual. Redmayes stopped behind to put the car away, and, flinging off her cloak in the hall, Mamie Redmayes tiptoed softly along the long corridor, at the end of which was the big nursery. She did not turn on the lights in the corridor for fear of waking the child, should the nursery door be open. Turning the door-handle very cautiously, she peered into the nursery.

  ‘At first she could see very little. The fire was almost dead, but as she stared, trying to accustom her eyes to the obscurity, a tiny flame shot up, and showed her a sight that made her draw in her breath with a sudden gasp of terror, and clutch the door-handle to steady her shaking knees. Tony sat upright against the wooden bed-head, rigid, stiff; his little face, clear in the sharp flame-light, dead-white and glaring, the soft lines of childhood clean wiped out by sheer naked terror; a frightful little mask of a face, twisted into a grimace of horror that froze the watcher’s blood, centred by two staring eyes like glass discs, blank, expressionless, fixed a little way above the foot of the bed. Her terrified eyes following his, Mamie Redmayes stared for a moment, utterly bewildered, into the deep-crowning shadows that seemed to hover and sway about the bed, changing and melting into one another like great wreathing serpents of black and grey and dusky purple. . . . Between her and the tiny, spurting, flame they twisted and drove and swirled in great eddying gusts that seemed to be formless, yet gradually gathering form . . . shadows, shadows, driving and twirling, wavered before her, thick-clustering, relentless . . . but surely, surely, crouched now over the bed-foot was a dark indefinite Shape in the midst of them, a black, awful heap, motionless, vague, yet unspeakably, appallingly menacing in Its very formlessness! And, as she glared at It, held in too deadly a terror to move or scream, It turned its dreadful eyes on her.

  * * * * *

  Lutyens knocked out his pipe. ‘That’s all,’ he said simply. Creighton broke the absorbed silence in which we had listened to the eerie tale.

  ‘What a ghastly yarn, Lutyens—but that can’t be quite all, man. If it’s true—and coming from you, we’ve no doubt it is—what’s your theory? You can’t seriously suggest Mrs Redmayes—saw anything—’

  ‘If I don’t, there’s no point in the yarn,’ said Lutyens succinctly. ‘Of course—I don’t expect all you fellows to sympathise with me, but my theory is this—’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ said Saunderson in his slow way. ‘What happened to the little chap Tony?’

  ‘Oh!’ Lutyens laughed. ‘I forgot. That’s how I heard the whole story. Redmayes dashed upstairs just as he heard Mrs Redmayes shriek, and, of course, he didn’t see a thing—flicked on all the lights, and whatever It was, of course, vanished . . . but the kid they found in a faint, with his poor silly little mother crazy over his body. She thought he was dead, and they had an awful time with her at first. He came round all right, but seemed odd and queer and rather dazed, as if he’d had some awful shock. Ordinary doctoring did no good, and at last in despair they sent for me to try and hypnotise him, and get what happened out of him. The girl, Ethel, was sent packing at once—of course, hysterically asseverating that nothing was her fault in any way whatever!

  ‘It was an easy job. The little chap was too apathetic to hold out against the ’fluence, if he’d tried, and it’s because I got all this out of him under hypnotism that I’ve been able to reconstruct the whole horrible story. I wiped out all memory of it from his mind, and he’s the happiest kid in London this day—Redmayes adores him, and they’re the greatest friends. Oh, he’s quite all right. . . .’

  ‘What about Mrs Redmayes thinking she saw something, though—that’s the oddest part of the yarn to me?’ said Creighton. ‘She didn’t know anything about this horrible bogey-tale of The Woozle—yet she saw it, as far as I can gather, eyes and all—beastly! I admit that part of the thing made my back creep properly, Lutyens. Go on with your idea. Auto-suggestion from the child’s mind?’

  ‘Scarcely,’ said Lutyens, slowly. ‘I personally believe—you’ll think me mad—but I think that this is what happened. Hellier at least will support me. I think Vesey, too . . . Of course our knowledge of the influence of mind over matter is negligible as yet, but we’re beginning to admit that—given certain circumstances, a singularly powerful mind, working ceaselessly on a definite fixed idea, may succeed in actually creating, by sheer force of concentrated thought, a simulacrum of that idea that may be seen, heard, even—or so I believe—touched. . . .

  Hellier interrupted eagerly, his strange spiritual eyes alight with interest.

  ‘Or there’s another possibility, Lutyens! By the tremendous power of thought that poor little chap must have centred on this gruesome obsession he may himself, by his perpetual thinking, brooding, dreading, have created a “shell” that formed the basis of a materialisation for Something from Outer Darkness to use and enter. . . . I believe myself that that was it, and the timely return of Mrs Redmayes broke up and deflected the thought-stream only just in time. It had already materialised, but her advent flung, as it were, a stone into the current, broke it up, and saved the child’s reason, though barely!’

  Lutyens nodded.

  ‘I daresay—either theory is possible; but which actually happened we shall never know. At least, it’s the most convincing instance I know of the terrible power of the human mind—to create out of nothingness, out of shadows and dreams and thought-forms, that actual horrible Thing that undoubtedly appeared. . . .’

  ‘What would have happened, supposing she hadn’t turned up?’ Frith put the question that was in all our minds, and Lutyens answered soberly.

  ‘I—don’t know. Frankly, I would rather not think. When the child was brought to me his mentality was completely clouded and dazed by sheer shock and terror, but he was still, thank God, human. . . . No! I’d rather not picture the other possibility. I’ve seen a case of “possession” before, and it’s pretty ghastly—and with a child . . .’

  It was that question that rang in my head as I walked back to my tiny flat that evening. If she hadn’t turned up, eh?

  April

  The Barrister’s Story

  Floris and the Soldan’s Daughter

  Floris had the rooms just beneath mine, in a dusty old house in Bloomsbury—we were both reading for the bar, in a more or less desultory way. Floris was a tall slender sort of fellow, good-looking, but far too pale and bloodless altogether—he was an odd, erratic devil, careless in his dress, w
ith long restless beautiful hands that were eternally playing and picking at odd little things, tassels, buttons and so on, in a way that used to irritate me awfully at first till I got to know him. Then I forgot it, and that other annoying mannerism he had of suddenly breaking from one subject to another in the most irrelevant way, or staring hard at you and nodding gravely when you harangued him on your pet subject, and then looking blank, or making some idiotic answer at the end that showed he’d never heard a word—been off as usual in some fantastic dream of his own all the time! I’m meticulous and tidy to a degree, and the contrast between our rooms was funny. The old landlady was a slack sort of creature, and unless I insisted would have left my bed unmade till after lunch most days—well, Floris’s was often still unmade at teatime and his things strewed the place like leaves in autumn—his clothes always wanted mending, and his curly dark hair ruffled itself up five minutes after he threw down the brush, into the bath, or waste-paper basket most likely. You never saw such a careless, untidy, out-at-elbows chap—yet women went wild over him, and I admit, after a period of profound irritation, I gave in to his charm, too.

  He was somehow so pathetic—I can’t say how, but it was so—he seemed to wander through the world rather an alien, and industriously, blunderingly, trying to fit in, barking elbows and shins against everything, and never succeeding, and his bright restless brown eyes, set in too deep sockets, forever asking why, why, why?, like a lost wild thing in a prim garden. Where does the Soldan’s Daughter come in, eh? She never came in, really—I mean, she was always there.

  She was a little ivory figure; Chinese, I believe, possibly Burmese—old enough—a lovely piece of carving, about six inches high, seated cross-legged on a pedestal-thing. I saw her first, the first time I went into Floris’s rooms, to borrow a book he had that I wanted. He wasn’t working, but lying back smoking, and the room was full of a thick blue haze, through which I could just make out his thin length—prone on the armchair, and the little ivory figure gravely sitting wreathed with smoke-whorls on the table, a dwarf bowl of violets at her side. I coughed, and he jumped up in a flash.

  ‘Otway—good Lord, how you made me jump! Glad to see you—sit down. You wanted Heriot on Divorce didn’t you—half a minute, I’ll get it. . . .’

  He was rummaging in the shelves, talking at random—I had a faint idea I’d startled him very much and that he was still rather flustered, but this impression was drowned in the curious pungent tang of the smoke.

  So this was why Floris looked so white, was it? Drifting fragments of varied travels awoke; gusts of oddly stifling scent stealing from tiny windows in darkened houses of Peking . . . the faint bite of drug-laden air that hung round a small street in Chinatown, New York . . . a corner of Limehouse I had visited in my adventurous days when first in London. . . .

  ‘Floris,’ I said, ‘you are a damned fool, aren’t you?’

  Floris went on hunting in the packed untidy shelves, answering as he routed, quite, rather to my surprise, unoffended.

  ‘What?—Oh, yes, I suppose you’re right in a sense. Naturally you are, of course. I can’t explain—it’s only sometimes I do it—but I hate drinking, it’s so beastly vulgar somehow, don’t you think? And I have to do something. . . .’

  He came triumphantly to the table with the dusty tome I needed, but I had forgotten work for the moment and stared back at him curiously. His bright brown eyes looked back at me from their shadowed settings, strangely candid and youthful in their gaze—his casual statement that he had to either drink or drug gave me a shock, but his manner even a greater one. He seemed to take it for granted that I would understand!

  ‘My dear chap! You don’t mean to say you’ve got to make a beast of yourself one way or another?’

  Floris’s face crumpled into lines of distress, like a child’s, and he turned away fretfully.

  ‘Don’t be an ass, Otway—I thought you might understand . . . but of course you couldn’t, anyway—how could you? Have a drink?’ He turned away and reached for the whisky decanter, balancing rakishly against a couple of hats that today occupied a place of honour on the sideboard. I was rather nettled at his remark re not understanding, but could not think quite what to say in retort—and after all it was none of my business, so as I sipped my whisky changed the subject to the figure on the table.

  ‘What is that—Chinese? Didn’t know you collected, Floris.’

  Floris shook his head quickly, flashing a quick glance from the figure to me, then back again. His long fingers made a little loving half-movement towards it, as if to pick it up, but he changed his mind, and merely began to play with the violets in the bowl beside it in his usual restless way.

  ‘I don’t collect. She—it—that’s not a curio. That’s the Soldan’s Daughter.’

  ‘But if she isn’t a curio I’ll eat my hat!’ I protested, moving to the table. ‘Let’s have a look at her—rather a good little bit of ivory, I should have said.’ My hand was outstretched to pick up the little figure when Floris suddenly stopped me, almost rudely.

  ‘Don’t—I hate people to handle her—it. Sorry, Otway, but it’s a kink of mine. I never let anyone touch her but me.’

  I eyed Floris with a growing astonishment—was the opium still clouding his senses?—resolving to avoid difficulties, I changed the point of attack.

  ‘Oh? All right, of course. The Soldan’s Daughter, eh? What a funny idea. What’s the lady’s Christian name, and who was her father, may I ask—you don’t mean the Soldan of far Cathay by any chance?’

  I was bantering the man deliberately, trying to shake him into wholesome laughter, but again Floris turned away with a peevish frown.

  ‘How should I know? She is the Soldan’s Daughter, that’s all . . . but you know, you shouldn’t joke about her here, Otway. It’s not right at all.’

  Now I really jumped—his tone was just the remonstrant, rather surprised kind one might adopt in reproving a friend for a real faux pas!

  I replied cautiously, seeking for a lead:

  ‘Oh—sorry again, of course. I had no idea she was such an important little person! Tell me about her, won’t you—I’m really interested?’

  It worked. The touch of real sympathy went straight to Floris’s curious shy heart, and he moved suddenly closer to me, his eyes shining, his voice hushed, like a child telling a long-hoarded secret.

  ‘Are you—really? I’m so glad, I always thought you had more brains than most of the fellows I know—and I’d like to have someone to talk to about this. Otway, old man. . . . I’ll tell you now why I can’t sleep and don’t care a damn for women . . . this is my life. The Soldan’s Daughter!’

  I stared at him blankly—was he joking?—his warm nervous hand was on mine as he hurried on, bright eyes alive with excitement.

  ‘Oh, it’s good to tell somebody—I’ve been bottling up things so long I feel like bursting—that’s why I have to smoke sometimes you see? Just sitting and thinking doesn’t do it, if I’m tired. . . . I don’t think she likes me getting drunk, so I stopped that way. She used to sit and frown at me. . . .’

  What could the man be driving at? Bewildered, I gaped like a fish. I turned to the little ivory figure, silent and dignified beside its offering of violets, and noticed that the small table was utterly free from anything else, crowded and untidy as was every other place in the room. I had it! The figure was some souvenir, perhaps of a sad love affair, and in his fantastic way old Floris was weaving up about it a shadowy dream of his old romance—poor old chap! Relieved, I patted his shoulder, picked up Heriot and turned to go.

  ‘Well, well—then I shouldn’t take too much of that stuff, old man. I’m sure she doesn’t like that either.’

  ‘Oh!—that’s different. She—she understands that you know, all right. Getting drunk after all’s more or less a Western habit, isn’t it?’

  Evidently he was talking at random again, I thought—best to leave him till the fames of the drug had worn off a little. As I went to the door,
I glanced back as I shut it, and he was still leaning with his hands on the table, staring down at the tiny figure, absorbed in thought again. Poor old Floris, I said to myself as I climbed the dark stairs to my room again—he must have had it pretty badly once. Suppose the lady in the case had given it to him, perhaps as a love-gage, perhaps to say goodbye—more likely the latter, I thought.

  Plunging into work, I forgot him and his oddness forthwith, and for about a fortnight I saw little of him at all, save in class—we went to the same coach—but a flying glimpse on the stairs in passing, when he grasped my arm in an impulsively affectionate way he had, screwing up his eyes as he smiled at me, always with that funny little youthful air of prime importance, as if we two shared some great secret between us, and so stood apart from the rest of the world.

  His work was not going well, though, I knew, and vaguely I realised when I paused to think about it that his paleness was more noticeable still, and his dress more untidy—always thin, he began to look like a wraith, and old Saunders spoke to me about it one night when he was taking me alone for some special work.

  ‘You’re in 16 Great James Street with Floris, aren’t you, Otway?’ I nodded and the old man proceeded, thoughtfully ramming the tobacco down into his pipe.

  ‘He’s going rather to pieces, don’t you think—does he drink, or drug, or what? Work’s carelessly done—not that he can’t, for the lad’s got a fine brain, if erratic—but he’s getting very hollow round the eyes and like a rail inside his clothes.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I stammered—for I could scarcely give away Floris’s occasional jolts of opium to the old man like that—besides, Floris had told me one day in passing that he had given that up (‘found something better’ was his phrase), and I had heaved a sigh of relief. ‘I think he spends too much time indoors—he’s got no people, you know.’