Robert Chambers - Out of the Dark - Tales of Terror by Robert W. Chambers

A squirrel sat up on the gravel walk in front of me, ran a few feet, and sat up again, so close that I could see the palpitation of his sleek flanks.

Somewhere in the grass a hidden field insect was rehearsing last summer’s solos; I heard the tap! tap! tat-tat-t-t-tat! of a woodpecker among the branches overhead and the querulous note of a sleepy robin.

The twilight deepened; out of the city the music of bells floated over wood and meadow; faint mellow whistles sounded from the river craft along the north shore, and the distant thunder of a gun announced the close of a June day.

The end of my cigarette began to glimmer with a redder light; shepherd and flock were blotted out in the dusk, and I only knew they were still moving when the sheep bells tinkled faintly.

Then suddenly that strange uneasiness that all have known – that half-awakened sense of having seen it all before, of having been through it all, came over me, and I raised my head and slowly turned.

A figure was seated at my side. My mind was struggling with the instinct to remember. Something so vague and yet so familiar – something that eluded thought yet challenged it, something – God knows what! troubled me. And now, as I looked, without interest, at the dark figure beside me, an apprehension, totally involuntary, an impatience to understand , came upon me, and I sighed and turned restlessly again to the fading west.

I thought I heard my sigh re-echoed – but I scarcely heeded; and in a moment I sighed again, dropping my burned-out cigarette on the gravel beneath my feet.

‘Did you speak to me?’ said some one in a low voice, so close that I swung around rather sharply.

‘No,’ I said after a moment’s silence.

It was a woman. I could not see her face clearly, but I saw on her clasped hands, which lay listlessly in her lap, the sparkle of a great diamond. I knew her at once. It did not need a glance at the shabby dress of black, the white face, a pallid spot in the twilight, to tell me that I had her picture in my sketch-book.

‘Do – do you mind if I speak to you?’ she asked timidly. The hopeless sadness in her voice touched me, and I said, ‘Why, no, of course not. Can I do anything for you?’

‘Yes,’ she said, brightening a little, ‘if you – you only would.’

‘I will if I can,’ said I cheerfully; ‘what is it? Out of ready cash?’

‘No, not that,’ she said, shrinking back.

I begged her pardon, a little surprised, and withdrew my hand from my change pocket.

‘It is only – only that I wish you to take these,’ – she drew a thin packet from her breast – ‘these two letters.’

‘I?’ I asked astonished.

‘Yes, if you will.’

‘But what am I to do with them?’ I demanded.

‘I can’t tell you; I only know that I must give them to you. Will you take them?’

‘Oh, yes, I’ll take them,’ I laughed, ‘am I to read them?’ I added to myself, ‘It’s some clever begging trick.’

‘No,’ she answered slowly, ‘you are not to read them; you are to give them to somebody.’

‘To whom? Anybody?’

‘No, not to anybody. You will know whom to give them to when the time comes.’

‘Then I am to keep them until further instructions?’

‘Your own heart will instruct you,’ she said, in a scarcely audible voice. She held the thin packet toward me, and to humor her I took it. It was wet.

‘The letters fell into the sea,’ she said. ‘There was a photograph which should have gone with them but the salt water washed it blank. Will you care if I ask you something else?’

‘I? Oh, no.’

‘Then give me the picture that you made of me to-day.’

I laughed again, and demanded how she knew I had drawn her.

‘Is it like me?’ she said.

‘I think it is very like you,’ I answered truthfully.

‘Will you not give it to me?’

Now it was on the tip of my tongue to refuse, but I reflected that I had enough sketches for a full page without that one, so I handed it to her, nodded that she was welcome, and stood up. She rose also, the diamond flashing on her finger.

‘You are sure that you are not in want?’ I asked, with a tinge of good-natured sarcasm.

‘Hark!’ she whispered; ‘listen! – do you not hear the bells of the convent!’

I looked out into the misty night.

‘There are no bells sounding,’ I said, ‘and anyway there are no convent bells here. We are in New York, mademoiselle’ – I had noticed her French accent – ‘we are in Protestant Yankee-land, and the bells that ring are much less mellow than the bells of France.’

I turned pleasantly to say good-night. She was gone.

‘Have you ever drawn a picture of a corpse?’ inquired Jamison next morning as I walked into his private room with a sketch of the proposed full page of the Zoo.

‘No, and I don’t want to,’ I replied, sullenly.

‘Let me see your Central Park page,’ said Jamison in his gentle voice, and I displayed it. It was about worthless as an artistic production, but it pleased Jamison, as I knew it would.

‘Can you finish it by this afternoon?’ he asked, looking up at me with persuasive eyes.

‘Oh, I suppose so,’ I said, wearily; ‘anything else, Mr Jamison?’

‘The corpse,’ he replied, ‘I want a sketch by tomorrow – finished.’

‘What corpse?’ I demanded, controlling my indignation as I met Jamison’s soft eyes.

There was a mute duel of glances. Jamison passed his hand across his forehead with a slight lifting of the eyebrows.

‘I shall want it as soon as possible,’ he said in his caressing voice.

What I thought was, ‘Damned purring pussy-cat!’ What I said was, ‘Where is this corpse?’

‘In the Morgue – have you read the morning papers? No? Ah, – as you very rightly observe you are too busy to read the morning papers. Young men must learn industry first, of course, of course. What you are to do is this: the San Francisco police have sent out an alarm regarding the disappearance of a Miss Tufft – the millionaire’s daughter, you know. Today a body was brought to the Morgue here in New York, and it has been identified as the missing young lady – by a diamond ring. Now I am convinced that it isn’t, and I’ll show you why, Mr Hilton.’

He picked up a pen and made a sketch of a ring on a margin of that morning’s Tribune .

‘That is the description of her ring as sent on from San Francisco. You notice the diamond is set in the centre of the ring where the two gold serpents’ tails cross!

‘Now the ring on the finger of the woman in the Morgue is like this,’ and he rapidly sketched another ring where the diamond rested in the fangs of the two gold serpents.

‘That is the difference,’ he said in his pleasant, even voice.

‘Rings like that are not uncommon,’ said I, remembering that I had seen such a ring on the finger of the white-faced girl in the Park the evening before. Then a sudden thought took shape – perhaps that was the girl whose body lay in the Morgue!

‘Well,’ said Jamison, looking up at me, ‘what are you thinking about?’

‘Nothing,’ I answered, but the whole scene was before my eyes, the vultures brooding among the rocks, the shabby black dress, and the pallid face – and the ring, glittering on that slim white hand!

‘Nothing,’ I repeated, ‘when shall I go, Mr Jamison? Do you want a portrait – or what?’

‘Portrait – careful drawing of the ring, and, er, a centre piece of the Morgue at night. Might as well give people the horrors while we’re about it.’

‘But,’ said I, ‘the policy of this paper—’

‘Never mind, Mr Hilton,’ purred Jamison, ‘I am able to direct the policy of this paper.’