The Miscellaneous Writings of Clark Ashton Smith (29 page)

“Jasper locked me up.”

“What for?”

She’d let the blanket slip a bit, and for all her trying to cover up with a jerk, I saw enough to prove Treganneth was crazy. Diane said, “This gossip, these disappearances, it was driving me mad. When I decided to go, he wouldn’t let me.”

“Huh?”

“He was afraid I’d never come back, that I’d spread wild stories about the place, perhaps have him declared insane. He said that if I stayed until things were cleared up, he’d marry me, even though he did have a title and I was a former employee.”

That made sense, but not this business of taking her clothes. When I asked about that, she said, “Just suppose someone did break in and find me, he and that woman could say that I got violent, tore my clothes to shreds. That they kept me here because he didn’t want to send me to a madhouse.”

Having an audience, even a stranger, made Diane crack. She hung herself around my neck and sobbed, “Get me out of here, get a closed car. Take me out by night. The villagers would stone me, throw me into the sea, tear me to pieces. They blame me for these deaths, they’ll storm the castle if this keeps up.”

After what I’d seen of a blonde girl being chased along the cliffs, I could understand why people might pick on Diane.

Well, Diane did persuade me to stick around and plan for her escape, though I insisted on finishing the monoceros business first. But I didn’t wait until sunrise. Having cried out her worries, she curled up and went to sleep. The way it was, if I made an immediate get-away, I’d never learn about that ghost monster; the more I saw of this, the more I was sure they did it with mirrors, and I was sore, being played for a chump.

But before I tiptoed out, I did things to the lock. They passed Diane’s grub through a wicket, so it was a ten-to-one shot no one would notice the lock was gummed up.

Early in the morning, Emily brought me a pitcher of hot water; the castle didn’t have running water, believe it or not. “Did you sleep well?”

“Lonesome, but otherwise okay. How’s the earl, sobered up?”

Treganneth was red-eyed. “Didn’t want to talk at night. Man’s too credulous at night.”

We tied into a kidney pie and some bloaters and some porridge. I listened to his yarn about the monoceros. It checked with Emily’s account. He made no mention of vaults under the castle except to say, “Blasted nonsense, reptile cult of my ancestors. But the villagers are getting nasty. I want you to explain the disappearances.”

“Suppose I inquired around the village?”

“My good man, I disclaim any liability if you get your skull cracked. After what happened yesterday, I have no intention of returning to Pengyl.”

“Let me drive your car. How about the keys?”

Treganneth said, “Emily will drive to market. Go with her.”

He rose, and headed for the study. I was thoroughly dismissed.

Going to market in Pengyl wasn’t fun. Someone heaved a cobble stone at the car and an old hag screeched, “Where’s that golden-haired witch, bring her out!”

Emily leaned out. The men who had rocks dropped them. The old woman stopped cursing and muttering. The men said, “We chucked ’em before we saw it was you. But you better not go back.”

Emily pulled up. A crowd gathered. An ugly crowd of gnarled old people. There weren’t more than half a dozen young men, and girls were even scarcer. A beak-nosed fellow said, “Ye better not go back. Lon Wellman hasn’t come home, and we know he ain’t coming back, they never come back. Before God, we’re going to tear that place stone from stone, Mis’ Polgate, and you’re one of us. We don’t want you hurt, but there’s no saying what people do when they go mad.”

That wasn’t all. There was that man chasing that blonde girl. Out of the chatter, I got it: a golden-haired witch luring young men to the monoceros. Some of these folks had a funny way of saying witch, I guess it was the Cornwall accent or something. It would be bad if they got hold of Diane.

We went to the market. On the way back, I asked Emily, “What’s this golden-haired…uh, witch business? The earl held out on me, and so did you.”

“That would have distracted you from the monoceros. These young men are mortally afraid, but each one brags about a blonde girl from London or somewhere, spending a weekend at the sea, and being impressed by him, and coming back to meet him. Women—young and attractive women—are scarce—” She sighed. “As scarce as young and attractive men—oh, what a God forsaken edge of nowhere this is!”

“So they sneak out to meet the blonde baby, making a careful sneak so none of the other boys cut in, and—one more lad fades?”

Emily nodded. “The fourth. Or fifth. A witch tempting them into the den of the monoceros. You know how such a story spreads.”

When we got back to the castle, Treganneth called me into his study. It was an old, dark room, all lined with old, leather-bound books in oak cases. He had some of them spread out on the big table; and there was a square of parchment written in jet-black ink.

His hand shook when he pointed, and so did his voice: “Dale, I’ve been finding old records. The way to get to the foundations of this place. There is a crypt. There was a monster, centuries ago, and it did live on human sacrifices the heathen Treganneths offered, long before King Arthur’s time. It’s utter rubbish, but there is something strange—there was a golden-haired witch who lured victims to the monoceros, once the Treganneths turned against the Druids and became Christians.”

“You believe that?”

“I don’t know what I believe.”

“Another man vanished, last night.”

Treganneth groaned, passed one hand before his eyes. “Again!”

I prodded him. He straightened up.

“You’re holding out. I want the straight of it, or you can chase yourself.”

He got haughty and tough. “What do you mean?”

“Emily Polgate has a hold on you.”

He wouldn’t say yes, and he wouldn’t say no; he just glared. I took another crack at him: “When we stopped on the ridge, and I took out my binoculars, I got a good look at the girl in the turret. Who is the girl, and why?”

Treganneth jumped up, sweating. “Why—you insolent puppy!”

“Take it easy. The first thing you know, the yokels are going to take this place to pieces by hand and then take Blondie to pieces and Emily, and you too. What kind of a game is this, you having a dame trapping yokels? Monster, my eye, the chumps fall over the cliff, the waves pound them to pulp.”

Treganneth was white now, and his heavy jaw twitched. “The girl in the tower—she’s there for her own good. She’s quite mad.”

“How about you and Emily Polgate?”

“I prefer not to discuss that.”

“Emily has loyally held down the fort, then hell pops, all the servants check out, men disappear. All of them young men.”

“For God’s sake, shut up! Let’s look into this crypt. Show it is empty. Throw the place open to the villagers.”

Treganneth took the chart and a flashlight. In a few minutes, we were in that dark tangle of vaults and passages. He hunted a few minutes in the blind alley, and then he saw the trap with the ring.

The smell of iodine, of sea-decay came swooping up. We went down the narrow stairs. Treganneth was a lord, all right. He led the way. That made me feel better. I didn’t want him in back of me.

At the bottom of the stairs, he saw the lantern, and pulled up sharp. “By Jove! Someone’s been here before us.” He turned around, flashed his light into my face. “You?”

“How would I know about this when you just found out?”

He swung the flash back toward the pit. I struck a match to light a smoke. He jumped like he’d been stung. His flashlight went about. Then he made a choking sound and pointed.

I looked. A pink rosette was lying at the foot of the steps. It was one of the frills from Emily’s flossy nightgown. It had torn off while we were pawing each other in panic. I cracked off, “All right, your girlfriend is running this show.”

“You—damn it—how do you know—?”

The man went wild. He swung at me with the flash, and howled, “Damn you, you’re part of a conspiracy to keep me from Diane! You and that—”

He had missed braining me, but the flash smashed on my shoulder. Then he piled in with fists, there in the stinking dark. The smell was awful now; not sea stench, but corpse odor. The dead were crying in the only way they could.

He slugged me a honey. Lucky he couldn’t see what he was doing. I popped him one, heard him grunt.

“You damn fool, I’m not in cahoots with Emily, she’s tricking them down into this den!”

But he wouldn’t listen. He was off his chump. He growled, and came back at me. I smashed against the wall. I’m not sure I could have swapped punches with him by daylight, but here it was impossible.

He was yelling like crazy now, and the echoes made it worse. Every lunge, he promised to kill me. I was sure now that Emily had tried to make him get rid of Diane; he figured that if I knew so much about the dame’s nightgown, we had teamed up against him.

Every so often he connected and slugged me dizzy. Then I ducked him, and began bicycling, but there was nowhere to go. I saw a small flash of daylight, overhead. There was an opening I’d naturally not seen when Emily took me down to the pit by night. I began to get the picture now. Some girl was leading the yokels along the cliff, and they’d stumble through and down into this stinking cave.

I yelled at him, and pointed, but he wouldn’t listen. He bored in toward the sound. There was a spattering of glass. He tripped on the lantern. Just then I got in a good wallop.

That, and the damp paving did it. There was a thump, and he stopped yelling. Then I heard the soggy splash.

I struck a match. I was shaking all over, I was ready to park my fritters. Then a woman screeched, “So you did tell him, so you did drive him mad, ohhh—”

By the light of the match I saw it was Emily. She had a pistol in one hand, and my flashlight in the other.

“Go down after him! Go down and tell him the villagers are going to finish the blonde witch—he was mine, he would have been—I belonged here, she didn’t—go—go or I’ll shoot you—”

Emily must have heard me yelling at Treganneth. She knew I had spilled the beans; that if I got loose, she was on the spot.

The light blazed full in my eyes. I backed up a step. She laughed. The back of my legs was against the coping. I couldn’t see the gun, I couldn’t see a thing. I went wild like everyone else, and made a dive to catch her around the knees.

She cut loose with the pistol, and she missed. Another shot, just as I stumbled and did get her about the knees. Before I could grab the gun, we toppled in a heap.

Behind me, a woman screamed; a woman with a lamp. The lamp shattered on the stones, and the flashlight rolled clear. There was a tangle of legs and feet, and I couldn’t get up. Two dames were mixing it.

One had bare legs. I tangled with a blanket shed in the show. The bare legs and the silk legs stumbled clear of me, and the flashlight, though I could see a white shape in the indirect glow. Diane and Emily toppled to the coping.

“Hold it!” I yelled, and kicked clear of the blanket.

I lunged, but I didn’t grab Diane in time. Emily went over the side. There wasn’t a thump this time; just a scream, the most horrible thing I’d ever heard. I pulled Diane away from the coping.

She was hysterical, and couldn’t say anything. I threw the blanket around her, and reached for the flashlight lying on the floor. The switch lock disengaged, and I was shaking too much to make it stick again. Diane was saying, “Something happened to the lock, the door opened by itself. I slipped out to steal some of her clothes, and I saw her sneaking down, with a gun. So I followed her.”

Then she hung on tight, and asked me what had happened. We were too shaky to crawl up the stairs. No sound came up from the pit.

I said we were too weak to move.

That’s what I thought until a gleaming grey haze came up out of the dark: that dragon head with the long spike in the forehead, those terrific coils. Treganneth was kicking and threshing in one loop of the monster; there were other men, in other coils. But that was pretty compared to what was on the unicorn spike.

Emily was speared clean through. The gleaming horn came out just below her breast. She was clawing, but there was no sound; just that apparition rising, with her draped over its forehead. Only the spike kept her from slipping off. But where the point touched the ceiling of the vault, the living smoke began to fade.

I said we were too sick to move. But when that thing began to thin out, I let out a yell and headed up the stairs, Diane and blanket included. Lucky she was hanging on. I wasn’t going back for anything.

I stumbled into daylight. Diane slid from my arms, and steadied herself against my shoulder. We both shook our heads. “Baby, that didn’t happen. Don’t ever tell anyone it did. Come on—”

I picked the lock of Emily’s room, and said, “Get some clothes, I’ll hunt the car keys.”

Diane grabbed my hand. “You stay right here. Even if you turned your back, I’d not be alone in this awful place.”

I turned my back all right. The joke was on Diane. She was too shaken to notice the mirror angle. But that’s not the payoff; that came after I’d bundled Diane into the old car and told the cops all about everything except the phantom monster.

The whole village was turned inside out. From that, and from searching the castle, especially Emily’s room, we got the story. Treganneth’s brother and Emily’s husband had quarreled about her, and the two had finished each other. There were letters from yokels, promising they’d kill her if she quit them to team up with the new lord. As I said, women were scarce, and she’d been a widow for seven years, and the village boys liked her.

So she started getting rid of her lovers, powdering her hair gilt, to make Diane, the witch in the tower, take the rap, when the lid blew off. With enough disappearances, something was bound to happen.

We had this all doped out when we went down into that vault. Then we looked over the edge. And that, I say, was the payoff.

There was a skeleton, a monstrous thing, in the pit. Some of the bones were joined, though most were scattered on a ledge, or sunk in the slime. When the tide was low, the dead reeked in the mud; at high tide, the water blanketed them. Now it was low tide, and awful.