Fredrick Brown - Night of the Jabberwock

He smiled faintly, but it wasn't a smile of amusement.

He said, "If you really want to know, and aren't afraid, you can find out tonight. There is a meeting, near here. Will you come?"

"May I be frank?"

"Certainly."

I said, "I think it's crazy, but try to keep me away."

"In spite of the fact that there is danger?"

Sure, I was going, danger or no. But maybe I could use his insistence on warning me to pry something more out of him. So I said, "May I ask what kind of danger?"

He seemed to hesitate a moment and then he took out his wallet and from an inner compartment took a newspaper clipping, a short one of about three paragraphs. He handed it to me.

I read it, and I recognized the type and the setup; it was a clipping from the Bridgeport Argus. And I remembered now having read it, a couple of weeks ago. I'd considered clipping it as an exchange item, and then had decided not to, despite the fact that the heading had caught my interest. It read:

MAN SLAIN BY UNKNOWN BEAST

The facts were few and simple. A man named Colin Hawks, living outside Bridgeport, a recluse, had been found dead along a path through the woods. The man's throat had been torn, and police opinion was that a large and vicious dog had attacked him. But the reporter who wrote the article suggested the possibility that a wolf — or even a panther or a leopard — escaped from a circus or zoo might have caused the wounds.

I folded the clipping again and handed it back to Smith. It didn't mean anything, of course. It's easy to find stories like that if one looks for them. A man named Charles Fort found thousands of them and put them into four books he had written, books which were on my shelves.

This particular one was less mysterious than most. In fact, there wasn't any real mystery at all; undoubtedly some vicious dog had done the killing.

Just the same something prickled at the back of my neck.

It was the headline, really, not the article. It's funny what the word "unknown" and the thought back of it can do to you. If that story had been headed "Man Killed by Vicious Dog" — or by a lion or a crocodile or any other specified creature, however fierce and dangerous, there'd have been nothing frightening about it.

But an "unknown beast" — well, if you've got the same kind of imagination I have, you see what I mean. And if you haven't, I can't explain.

I looked at Yehudi Smith, just in time to see him toss down his whisky — again like a conjuring trick. I handed him back the clipping and then refilled our glasses.

I said, "Interesting story. But where's the connection?"

"Our last meeting was in Bridgeport. That's all I can tell you. About that, I mean. You asked the nature of the danger; that's why I showed you that. And it's not too late for you to say no. It won't be, for that matter, until we get there."

"Get where?"

"Only a few miles from here. I have directions to guide me to a house on a road called the Dartown Pike. I have a car."

I said, irrelevantly, "So have I, but the tires are flat. Two of them."

I thought about the Dartown Pike. I said, "You wouldn't, by any chance, be heading for the house known as the Wentworth place?"

"That's the name, yes. You know of it?"

Right then and there, if I'd been completely sober, I'd have seen that the whole thing was too good to be true. I'd have smelled fish. Or blood.

I said, "We'll have to take candles or flashlights. That house has been empty since I was a kid. We used to call it a haunted house. Would that be why you chose it?"

"Yes, of course."

"And your group is meeting there tonight?"

He nodded. "At one o-clock in the morning, to be exact. You're sure you're not afraid?"

God, yes, I was afraid. Who wouldn't be, after the build-up he'd just handed me?

So I grinned at him and said, "Sure, I'm afraid. But just try to keep me away."

Then I had an idea. If I was going to a haunted house at one o'clock in the morning to hunt Jabberwocks or try to invoke the ghost of Lewis Carroll or some equally sensible thing, it wouldn't hurt to have someone along whom I already knew. And if Al Grainger dropped in — I tried to figure out whether or not Al would be interested. He was a Carroll fan, all right, but — for the rest of it, I didn't know.

I said, "One question, Mr. Smith. A young friend of mine might drop in soon for a game of chess. How exclusive is this deal? I mean, would it be all right if he came along, if he wants to?"

"Do you think he's qualified?"

"Depends on what the qualifications are," I said, "Offhand, I'd say you have to be a Lewis Carroll fan and a little crazy. Or, come to think of it, are those one and the same qualification?"

He laughed. "They're not too far apart. But tell me something about your friend. You said young friend; how young?"

"About twenty-three. Not long out of college. Good literary taste and background, which means he knows and likes Carroll. He can quote almost as much of it as I can. Plays chess, if that's a qualification — and I'd guess it is. Dodgson not only played chess but based Through the Looking-Glass on a chess game. His name, if that matters, is Al Grainger."

"Would he want to come?"

"Frankly," I admitted, "I haven't an idea on that angle."

Smith said, "I hope he comes; if he's a Carroll enthusiast, I'd like to meet him. But, if he comes, will you do me the favor of saying nothing about — what I've told you, at least until I've had a chance to judge him a bit? Frankly, it would be almost unprecedented if I took the liberty of inviting someone to an important meeting like tonight's on my own. You're being invited because we know quite a bit about you. You were voted on — and I might say that the vote to invite you was unanimous."

I remembered his familiarity with the two obscure things about Lewis Carroll that I'd written, and I didn't doubt that he — or they, if he really represented a group — did know something about me.

He said, "But — well, if I get a chance to meet him and think he'd really fit in, I might take a chance and ask him. Can you tell me anything more about him? What does he do — for a living, I mean?"

That was harder to answer. I said, "Well, he's writing plays. But I don't think he makes a living at it; in fact, I don't know that he's ever sold any. He's a bit of a mystery to Carmel City. He's lived here all his life — except while he was away at college — and nobody knows where his money comes from. Has a swanky car and a place of his own — he lived there with his mother until she died a few years ago — and seems to have plenty of spending money, but nobody knows where it comes from." I grinned. "And it annoys the hell out of Carmel City not to know. You know how small towns are."

He nodded. "Wouldn't it be a logical assumption that he inherited the money?"

"From one point of view, yes. But it doesn't seem too likely. His mother worked all her life as a milliner, and without owning her own shop. The town, I remember, used to wonder how she managed to own her own house and send her son to college on what she earned. But she couldn't possibly have earned enough to have done both of those things and still have left him enough money to have supported him in idleness — Well, maybe, writing plays isn't idleness, but it isn't remunerative unless you sell them — for several years."

I shrugged. "But there's probably no mystery to it. She must have had an income from investments her husband had made, and Al either inherited the income or got the capital from which it came. He probably doesn't talk about his business because he enjoys being mysterious."

"Was his father wealthy?"

"His father died before he was born, and before Mrs. Grainger moved to Carmel City. So nobody here knew his father. And I guess that's all I can tell you about Al, except that he can beat me at chess most of the time, and that I hope you'll have a chance to meet him."