The Weird Part 20

She and Nora had kept Mike with them all the evening and taken him to sleep in their room for a treat. He had lain at the foot of Jean's bed and they had all gone to sleep. Then Jean began her old dream of the hand moving over the books in the dining-room bookcase; but instead of taking out a book, it came across the dining-room and out on to the stairs. It came up over the banisters and to the door of their room, and turned their door handle very softly and opened it. At this point she jumped up wide awake and turned on the light, calling to Nora. The door, which had been shut when they went to sleep, was wide open, and Mike was gone.

She told Nora that she was sure something dreadful would happen to him if she did not go and bring him back, and ran down into the hall where she saw him just about to drink from his dish. She called to him and he looked up, but did not come, so she ran to him, and began to pull him along with her, when her nightdress was clutched from behind and then she felt a hand seize her arm.

She fell down, and then clambered upstairs as fast as she could, screaming all the way.

It was now clear to Mr Corbett that Mike's dish must have been upset in the scuffle. She was again crying, but this time he felt himself unable to comfort her. He retired to his room, where he walked up and down in an agitation he could not understand, for he found his thoughts perpetually arguing on a point that had never troubled him before.

'I am not a bad man,' he kept saying to himself. 'I have never done anything actually wrong. My clients are none the worse for my speculations, only the better. Nor have I spent my new wealth on gross and sensual pleasures; these now have even no attraction for me.'

Presently he added: 'It is not wrong to try and kill a dog, an ill-tempered brute. It turned against me. It might have bitten Jeannie.'

He noticed that he had thought of her as Jeannie, which he had not done for some time; it must have been because he had called her that tonight. He must forbid her ever to leave her room at night, he could not have her meddling. It would be safer for him if she were not there at all.

Again that sick and cold sensation of fear swept over him: he seized the bedpost as though he were falling, and held on to it for some minutes. 'I was thinking of a boarding-school,' he told himself, and then, 'I must go down and find out find out ' He would not think what it was he must find out.

He opened his door and listened. The house was quiet. He crept on to the landing and along to Nora's and Jean's door where again he stood, listening. There was no sound, and at that he was again overcome with unreasonable terror. He imagined Jean lying very still in her bed, too still. He hastened away from the door, shuffling in his bedroom slippers along the pa.s.sage and down the stairs.

A bright fire still burned in the dining-room grate. A glance at the clock told him it was not yet twelve. He stared at the bookcase. In the second shelf was a gap which had not been there when he had left. On the writing-bureau lay a large open book. He knew that he must cross the room and see what was written in it. Then, as before, words that he did not intend came sobbing and crying to his lips, muttering, 'No, no, not that. Never, never, never.' But he crossed the room and looked down at the book. As last time, the message was in only two words: 'Infantem occide.'

He slipped and fell forward against the bureau. His hands clutched at the book, lifted it as he recovered himself and with his finger he traced out the words that had been written. The smell of corruption crept into his nostrils. He told himself that he was not a snivelling dotard, but a man stronger and wiser than his fellows, superior to the common emotions of humanity, who held in his hands the sources of ancient and secret power.

He had known what the message would be. It was after all the only safe and logical thing to do. Jean had acquired dangerous knowledge. She was a spy, an antagonist. That she was so unconsciously, that she was eight years old, his youngest and favourite child, were sentimental appeals that could make no difference to a man of sane reasoning power such as his own. Jean had sided with Mike against him. 'All that are not with me are against me,' he repeated softly. He would kill both dog and child with the white powder that no one knew to be in his possession. It would be quite safe.

He laid down the book and went to the door. What he had to do, he would do quickly, for again that sensation of deadly cold was sweeping over him. He wished he had not to do it tonight; last night it would have been easier, but tonight she had sat on his knee and made him afraid. He imagined her lying very still in her bed, too still. But it would be she who would lie there, not he, so why should he be afraid? He was protected by ancient and secret powers. He held on to the door handle, but his fingers seemed to have grown numb, for he could not turn it. He clung to it, crouched and shivering, bending over it until he knelt on the ground, his head beneath the handle which he still clutched with upraised hands. Suddenly the hands were loosened and flung outwards with the frantic gesture of a man falling from a great height, and he stumbled to his feet. He seized the book and threw it on the fire. A violent sensation of choking overcame him, he felt he was being strangled, as in a nightmare he tried again and again to shriek aloud, but his breath would make no sound. His breath would not come at all. He fell backwards heavily, down on the floor, where he lay very still.

In the morning, the maid who came to open the dining-room windows found her master dead. The sensation caused by this was scarcely so great in the City as that given by the simultaneous collapse of all Mr Corbett's recent speculations. It was instantly a.s.sumed that he must have had previous knowledge of this and so committed suicide.

The stumbling-block to this theory was that the medical report defined the cause of Mr Corbett's death as strangulation of the windpipe by the pressure of a hand which had left the marks of its fingers on his throat.

The Mainz Psalter.

Jean Ray.

Translated into English by Lowell Blair.

Jean Ray (18871964) was a prolific Flemish writer, considered one of the pre-eminent members of what is sometimes called the Belgian School of the Weird. Ray's real name was Raymundus Joannes de Kremer and he used many other pseudonyms for his comic strips and detective stories. 'The Mainz Psalter' falls into the 'weird voyages' category; the author purportedly read William Hope Hodgson's ghost pirate stories only after writing the story. The original 1965 Jean Ray collection Ghouls in My Grave, a ma.s.s-market paperback, remains the best English-language translation of his work. The famed and hard-to-find Midnight House collection My Own Private Spectres (1999) provides the valuable service of bringing more stories into English.

A man who is about to die is not likely to be very elegant in his last words: being in a hurry to sum up his whole life, he tends to make them rigorously concise.

But it was different with Ballister as he lay dying in the forecastle of the trawler North Caper, from Grimsby.

We had tried in vain to stop the flow of blood that was draining his life away. He had no fever; his speech was steady and rapid. He did not seem to see the bandages or the b.l.o.o.d.y basin: his eyes were following remote and formidable images.

Reines, the radio man, was taking notes.

Reines spends all his spare time writing stories and essays for short-lived literary magazines. As soon as one of them is born in Paternoster Row, his name is sure to appear on the list of contributors. Do not be surprised, therefore, by the rather special style given to this final monologue of a mortally wounded sailor. The blame must fall on Reines, a literary man without glory, who transcribed it. But I can testify that the facts it contains are the same as those reported before four members of the crew of the North Caper: Benjamin Cormon, the captain; yours truly John Copeland, first mate; Ephraim Rose, engineer; and the aforementioned Archibald Reines.

Thus spoke Ballister:.

It was in the Merry Heart Tavern that I first met the schoolmaster, and it was there that we struck our bargain and he gave me his orders.

The Merry Heart is more of a meeting-place for bargemen than for sailors. Its dilapidated facade is reflected in the water of one of Liverpool's back docks, where barges from the inland waterways are moored.

I looked at the well-drawn plan of a small schooner.

'She's almost a yacht,' I said. 'In heavy weather, she must be able to sail close to the wind, and that broad stern will make it possible for us to maneuver well when there's a head wind.'

'There's an auxiliary engine, too,' he said.

I frowned, having always loved sailing.

'Built by Hallet & Hallet, Glasgow, 1909,' I said. 'She's very well rigged. With her sixty tons and a crew of six, she'll take to the sea better than a transatlantic liner.'

His face took on a look of satisfaction, and he ordered a round of expensive drinks.

'Why are you changing her name from the Hen-Parrot?' I asked. 'It's a nice name. I've always liked parrots.'

He hesitated slightly.

'It's a matter of...sentiment, or of grat.i.tude, if you prefer.'

'So the ship will be called the Mainz Psalter...It's odd, but I suppose it's original.'

Alcohol had made him a little loquacious.

'That's not the reason,' he said. 'A year ago a grand-uncle of mine died and left me a trunk full of old books.'

'So?'

'Wait! I was looking through them without enthusiasm when one of them caught my attention. It was an incunabulum...'

'A what?'

'An incunabulum,' he said with a slight air of superiority, 'is a book published shortly after the invention of the printing press. And I was amazed to recognize the almost heraldic mark of Fust and Schaeffer! Those names probably mean nothing to you. Fust and Schaeffer were partners of Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press. The book I had in my hands was nothing less than a rare and splendid copy of the famous Mainz Psalter, published toward the end of the fifteenth century.'

I gave him a look of polite attention and false understanding.

'What will impress you more, Mr. Ballister,' he said, 'is that a Mainz Psalter is worth a fortune.'

'Ah!' I said, suddenly interested.

'Yes, it's worth a fine bundle of banknotes big enough to buy the former Hen-Parrot and pay ample wages to a crew of six men for the cruise I want to make. Now do you understand why I want to give such an unmaritime name to our little ship?'

I understood it perfectly, and I congratulated him on his greatness of soul. 'And yet it would seem more logical to me,' I said, 'to name the ship after that dear uncle who left you the book.'

He burst into loud, disagreeable laughter. I was disconcerted by such coa.r.s.eness on the part of an educated man.

'You'll leave from Glasgow,' he said, 'and sail the ship through the North Minch to Cape Wrath.'

'Those are h.e.l.lish waters,' I said.

'I chose you precisely because you know them, Mr. Ballister.'

No finer praise can be given a sailor than to say that he knows the horrible corridor of water that is the Minch Channel. My heart swelled with pride.

'That's true,' I said. 'In fact, I was once nearly killed between Chicken and Tiumpan Head.'

'South of Cape Wrath,' he went on, 'there's a sheltered little bay that's known only to a few bold sailors, by a name that doesn't appear on the map: Big Toe Bay.'

I looked at him in surprised admiration.

'Do you know Big Toe?' I said. 'That's something that would make you respected by Customs, and would probably get you stabbed by certain men of the coast.'

He made a gesture of indifference.

'I'll rejoin the ship at Big Toe Bay.'

'And from there?'

He indicated a precise westerly direction.

'Hm, that's a nasty place,' I said, 'a real desert of water strewn with sharp rocks. We won't see many trails of smoke on the horizon.'

'You're quite right,' he said.

I winked at him, thinking I understood.

'As long as you pay the way you've said,' I replied, 'I don't care what you do.'

'I think you're mistaken about my plans, Mr. Ballister. They're of a rather...scientific nature, but I don't want to have a discovery stolen from me by some envious rival. In any case, it doesn't matter, because I'll pay as I said.'

We spent a few minutes drinking. Then, just as we were about to discuss the question of the crew, our conversation veered off strangely.

'I'm not a sailor,' he said brusquely, 'so don't count on me to help with handling the ship. Let me be specific: I'm a schoolmaster.'

'I respect learning,' I said, 'and I'm not entirely lacking in it myself. A schoolmaster? Good, good!'

'Yes, in Yorkshire.'

'Let's go over the crew now,' I said. 'First of all there's Turnip. It's an odd name, but he's a good man and a good sailor. There's...a prison term in his recent past. Is that a drawback?'

'Not in the least.'

'Good. You can have him for reasonable wages, especially if you take a little rum on board. It can be cheap rum: he's not particular about quality as long as the quant.i.ty is there. And then there's Steevens, a Fleming. He never talks, but he can break a mooring chain as easily as you can bite through the stem of a clay pipe.'

'And I suppose he also has a prison term in his past?'

'It's not unlikely.'

'I'll take him. What did you say his name was again?'

'Steevens.'

'Steevens...Is he expensive?'

'Not at all. He makes up for his low pay by eating vast amounts of bacon and biscuits. And currant jam, if you buy any.'

'We'll take half a ton of it on board if you like.'

'He'll be your slave...I might suggest Walker to you now, but he's very ugly.'

'Are you joking?'

'No. His face lacks half a nose, part of a chin, and a whole ear, so it's not pleasant to look at for someone who's not used to Madame Tussaud's museum of horrors, especially since the operation was sloppily performed by some Italian sailors who were in a bit of a hurry.'

'And who else?'

'Two excellent men: Jellewyn and Friar Tuck. Friar Tuck I don't know him by any other name is a cook, among other things, a seagoing Jack-of-all-trades. He and Jellewyn are always together. If you see one, you see the other, and if you hire one, you must hire the other. They're rather mysterious. It's said that Jellewyn has royal blood in his veins and that Friar Tuck is a devoted servant who has stayed with him in adversity.'

'And their price is in keeping with their mystery?' 'Precisely. The fallen prince must have driven a car in the past, so he'll be the one to take care of your auxiliary engine.'

It was then that an incident took place that has little bearing on the events of this story, but that I remember with a certain uneasiness.

A poor devil had just been blown into the bar by the gusty night wind. He was a kind of emaciated, rain-soaked clown, faded by all the miseries of the sea and the waterfront.

He ordered a gla.s.s of gin and greedily raised it to his lips. Suddenly I heard the sound of breaking gla.s.s and saw the derelict throw up his hands, stare at the schoolmaster with unspeakable terror, then hurry outside into the wind and rain, without picking up his change from the bar. I don't think the schoolmaster noticed the incident, or at least he didn't seem to; but I still dare not imagine the formidable reason that drove that poor wretch to drop his gin on the floor, abandon his money, and flee into the icy street when the bar was filled with exquisite warmth.

On one of the first days of a very mild spring, the North Minch opened before us as though for a brotherly embrace. A few angry currents were still moving craftily beneath the surface, but we could detect them by their green backs, writhing like segments of mutilated snakes.

One of those curious southeastern breezes that blow only in that region brought us the fragrance of the early Irish lilacs from two hundred miles away and helped the auxiliary engine to take us to Big Toe Bay.

There, things changed radically. Whirlpools dug holes in the water, hissing like steam engines. We avoided them only with great difficulty. The moss-green hull of a sunken ship, raised from the depths of the Atlantic, shot up almost under the bobstay of our bowsprit and was hurled against a rock wall, where it exploded in a dark burst of rotten wood.

A dozen times, the Mainz Psalter was in danger of being dismasted as though by a stroke of a giant razor. Fortunately, she was a beautiful sailer and she lay to with the elegance of a true lady of the sea. A few hours of calm enabled us to run the engine at full speed and pa.s.s through the narrow channel of Big Toe Bay just as another furious tide came thundering after us in a green spray of tormented water.

'We're in inhospitable waters,' I said to my men. 'If the coastal scavengers find us here, we'll have to give them an explanation, and since they'll try to chase us away before hearing what we have to say, we'd better have our guns ready.'

The scavengers did put in an appearance, but in so doing they met with a disaster that was as disturbing as it was incomprehensible to us.

For a week, we had been lying at anchor in that little bay, which was as calm as a duck pond. Life was pleasant. Our supplies of food and drink were worthy of a royal yacht. By swimming twelve strokes, or rowing seven times, we could reach a little red sand beach and, further on, a stream of icy fresh water.

Turnip caught halibut on a line. Steevens went inland to the deserted moors, and sometimes, if the wind was right, we could hear the boom of his shotgun. He brought back partridges, grouse, occasionally a big-pawed hare, and always some of those delicious heath rabbits with fragrant flesh.