Mirror of the Night Read online

  “That sounds easy,” protested Mark. “But this is a big house. Where can we start to look?”

  “The bones will be within the walls,” said Edwards decisively. “The supernatural vibrations are so strong that I know that to be a fact. The unhappy creature whom Prentice killed left a tremendous spiritual aura in the house.” Edwards closed his eyes as if he were deep in thought.

  “The paintings,” he said suddenly. “Those canvasses you can’t remember painting. They all contain the figure of a girl. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.” Mark passed his hand wearily before his eyes. “But I don’t know who she is. I don’t even remember painting those canvasses. I must have done it in a dream-state or something. Perhaps she is someone I met a long while ago and have since forgotten?”

  “No.” Edwards was strangely positive. He leaned forward, his eyes intent. “Listen. You, Mr. Thorpe, are an artist. Prentice was also an artist. You had a tremendous bond between you, a love of art, the same talent; the desire to create. You were, for a time at least, dominated by the spirit of Prentice. You were dominated so strongly that you began to resemble him in outward characteristics. You began to drink heavily, you grew a beard; you even developed asthma.” He leaned forward, his voice serious. “Isn’t it just possible that he could have dominated you to the extent of controlling your hands? That, in short, it was he who actually painted those canvasses and not you?”

  “A ghost using a paint brush?” Mark shook his head. “No. Anyway, I know my own work. Every artist does. Each painter has his own individual brush-marks, they are as personal as a signature.”

  “You misunderstand me,” said Edwards patiently. “Of course you painted them, what I meant was, couldn’t Prentice have chosen your subject?”

  “I don’t know,” admitted Mark slowly. “It’s true that I’ve never seen that girl before and yet…” He looked at the medium. “Amelia!”

  “Exactly! She was Prentice’s favourite model. He must have painted her a score of times before he killed her. Why he killed her doesn’t matter, perhaps he was jealous, but kill her he did.” Edwards rose. “But Prentice isn’t the only spirit in this house. Amelia haunts it too. Isn’t it possible that, somehow, she managed to get a message across the curtain between us? It may be some little thing, some trifle, for Prentice is stronger than she, but I believe that we can find the clue to where she was buried in those paintings.”

  It was Mark himself who found it. He studied each painting with painful care then, looking from one to the other, his eyes gleamed with a sudden discovery.

  “Look,” he said triumphantly. “There is one thing in common on each of these paintings. The pendant she is wearing, notice it?”

  “Yes.” Edwards peered at the canvasses. “Each has an oddly shaped pendant. A pendant in the form of clasped hands.” He looked at Mark. “You think that this is the clue?”

  “Yes. Look again. In each painting her expression is the same, the pendant is the same, but nothing else! The backgrounds are different, the style of her hair, even her clothes, but always she has that oddly shaped pendant around her neck.” His shoulders slumped in dejection. “Not that it tells us much. What can a pair of clasped hands mean?”

  “Prayer,” said Henry suddenly. He looked at the others. “This is an old house and in the old days they quite often used to have a family altar or some such thing built into a wall. It may have been a shelf for a bible or a statuette, or even a small chapel. If Amelia was religious she may have had one in her own room. Let’s look!”

  It took them the rest of the night but they found it. A small, hardly noticeable depression in one wall of a rear living room. Rapidly they stripped away the paper and found a tiny altar set info a niche of the wall. From the layout of the house and the position of the room it was quite possible that once it had been either a bedroom or a small lounge suitable for a children’s nurse or a resident model.

  They found the pitiful collection of bones beneath the floorboards.

  There was little doubt as to whom they belonged. Even as they gently lifted them from the rude grave a soft wind seemed to sigh all about them and a hint of perfume assailed their nostrils. Stooping over the remains Edwards; with a surprising assurance in his voice, uttered the common prayer for the dead, giving them a temporary burial before they could be taken to a church for proper internment.

  At the conclusion of the prayer the perfume grew stronger and something, some noise, it may have been a woman’s laugh or merely the sighing of the winter wind, echoed through the house as the earth-bound soul, now freed, rose and departed to the place set aside for it.

  But that was not all.

  Another sound followed the first. It echoed through the house and it contained all the hate and all the terror Mark had ever believed possible to be contained in a human soul. Fear was in that cry, fear and the shrinking horror of a man who knows that his punishment is waiting and that nothing he can do can avoid it. For a long, timeless moment it vibrated around them, freezing their souls and making the three men shake with radiated terror, then it too had gone and a great peace and gentleness descended on the house.

  “It is over,” whispered Edwards. “They have gone never to return. First the girl, innocent victim of a brutal crime, and then the man himself, torn from this place and sent screaming to the depths of hell.” He sighed. “I shall take charge of these remains. I shall have them buried with due rites for they belonged to a religious woman.” He looked at Mark. “What do you now intend?”

  “I shall stay here,” said Mark firmly. “The ghosts have gone and this is just a normal old house in which I know that I can still do my best work.”

  “I think that you’re right,” said Henry. “Those paintings upstairs should make your fortune even if you nothing else. But you will do something else. You’ll do better work now than ever before because, though it may sound silly to say it. I think that, in some way, you have been blessed. You have done the finest thing a man can do. You have freed a tormented soul and I think that you will be rewarded for it.”

  He was right.

  SNAKE VENGEANCE

  The night was cold, the slight mist of late afternoon had thickened to a coiling mass of dingy fog, which muffled the sounds of traffic and dimmed the glow of the streetlights. The air was heavy with a blend of strange odours, sulphur, burnt oil, the acrid chemicals and trapped soot which made a London pea-souper the thing it was. Old men wheezed as they groped their way along the railings and the taste of the fog seemed to pervade everything.

  It was a good night to be indoors.

  Tony Westcote thought so and, as he looked at the cheerful fire and the soft illumination of the standard lamps, he stretched his legs and grinned at the assembled company in the lounge. There were four of them, old Doctor Winters, grey, wrinkled, his face seeming to have been dried and tanned by the salt air of the sea in which he had lived so long. Retired now, he had been ship’s doctor on everything from a modern liner to a battered old tramp steamer plying the west coast of Africa.

  He tamped tobacco into the worn bowl of his pipe and sent thick plumes of smoke towards the fire. Lemain, small, dapper, coughed and waved the smoke from his face. He was an engineer, a man who had gone into the wilderness and there built the products of civilization. Next to him sat Carson, dour, taciturn, nursing his game leg and staring into the bright glow of the fire.

  The remaining man was a stranger. He was a member of the club but had arrived from abroad only that day and the others only knew him by name. Henshaw sighed as he relaxed in the big chair.

  “Foul night,” he said. “Just the sort of night to be indoors around such a fire as this.”

  The others nodded and Tony, young and eager for something to pass the time, ventured a remark to Lemain.

  “I see that they’ve managed to open the burial chamber of that new tomb they found in the Valley of Kings,” he said. “I wonder if there will be a curse on it?”

  “Why should t
here be?” Winters snorted as he puffed at his pipe. “Even if there were it would only be some stupid mumbo-jumbo designed to frighten fools. I’ve no time for that nonsense.”

  “Nonsense?” Carson grunted and rubbed his leg. Tony knew that he had once been severely mauled by a wounded lion while hunting in Africa and he sensed a story.

  “You believe in curses, don’t you, sir?” He leaned forward. “Would you care to tell us about it?”

  “About what?” Carson grunted again. “My opinions are my own, young man. If you want entertainment go to the theatre.”

  “He meant no harm,” said Lemain kindly. He looked at the young man. “Curses? There may be, but, of course, the curse could only work if the person cursed actually believed in it. Personally, I wouldn’t object to having a whole tribe of Witch Doctors put their curses on me, it couldn’t do any harm.”

  “You think not?” Henshaw turned to look at the little man. “Well, perhaps you are right. But I wouldn’t feel comfortable if I knew I had been cursed.” He hesitated. “Some curses seem to work. A man I once knew, he…” Henshaw broke off and shrugged. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter now anyway and these things are best left to the past.”

  “Please, sir.” Tony smiled at the stranger. “If you have a story I’m sure that we’d all like to hear it. I know that I would anyway. Will you tell it to us?”

  “It’s nothing,” protested Henshaw. “Coincidence you would say, or maybe you have some other explanation.” He hesitated again. “Well, just to pass the time then, I’ll tell you.”

  * * *

  “The name of my friend was Bill Church and I first met him on a river steamer plying the Ganges. He was an ex-officer who had wanderlust and he was making his way towards Burma and what he could find. He was full of the old temples to be found in the jungles. He’d read all about Ankor Vat, you know that deserted city in Indo-China, and had some idea of exploring to find other temples and shrines. He didn't say so in as many words but it was pretty plain what he was after. To put it baldly he was after loot. A lot of those temples have idols encrusted with precious stones and he was convinced that all he had to do was to walk in, help himself, and then get out before the natives caught him.”

  Henshaw shrugged. “He was probably right at that. What he didn’t know was that most of those places arc guarded night and day by natives armed with either blow-pipes or nasty looking knives. The chances of a white man even getting near to such a temple was remote and the possibility of escaping with any jewels he may find was so low as to be hopeless. I tried to tell him this but he dismissed my warnings with a smile.”

  “You’re too scared of rumour, Sam,” he said. “I know what I’m doing. I know the lingo and I can disguise myself to look just like a native. I’ll be armed and I’ll shoot down anyone who tries to stop me.” He smiled again. “I agree with you that a white man wouldn’t stand a chance but after I land I won’t be a white man. I’ll be a native. I’ll live like one, think like one, talk and act like one. I’ve given this thing a lot of thought and I’ve planned well.”

  “He had too,” said Henshaw. “He had located the temple he proposed to rob and found someone to tell him enough about the necessary rites so that he could enter the temple and go through the proper motions without arousing suspicion. I tried to talk him out of it, of course, but he wouldn’t listen. He even asked me to join him but I wouldn’t have any of it. The natives may worship strange Gods but that’s their business and to me, a temple, any temple, is worthy of respect.”

  Henshaw fell silent, staring at the fire, then, as if remembering where he was, he started and continued with his story.

  “We parted at the mouth of the Ganges, he to take a steamer for Burma and I to settle some business I had in that part of the world. We exchanged addresses, the usual thing, and he told me what his route would be. He asked me again to join him and, when I refused, said that he would wait for me at Rangoon. I told him that he was wasting his time but he insisted and we parted on the best of terms. I went on to Puri, then to Madras where I had a commission to deliver some goods to the Andaman Islands. From there the ship took me to Bassein so, as fortune had decreed it, I made the short journey to Rangoon.

  “Church had already gone, of course, my wanderings had taken several weeks, but I waited in the city for some time. I managed to find some employment acting as an agent for one of the big companies and I did a little hunting. There was really nothing to cause me to remain in Rangoon but, to speak the truth, Church had interested me and I wanted to see him again. Also, I suppose it was the desire of one white man to help another. Anyway, I managed to fill in a couple of months and then, just when I was about to leave, I received a letter from Church himself.”

  “Coincidence, wasn’t it?” Tony’s smile took the offence from his words. “I mean, Burma’s a big place, how did he know where you were?”

  “He didn’t,” said Henshaw flatly. “The letter had been posted to my bank in India, the address I had given him. They had forwarded it to me in Rangoon.”

  “I see. I’m sorry.”

  “No need to apologize.” Henshaw dismissed the incident with a wave of his hand. “But to get back to the story. Church was in trouble. He was in a small village about fifty miles from Rangoon and had been injured in some way. He had written to me as the only man he knew in the vicinity and appealed for me to help him. Naturally I did. I hired a couple of porters and took some supplies and medical gear. We set off and a week later arrived at the village. I found Bill lying in a native hut and, at first, I couldn’t recognize him. He was still disguised as a native, you understand, and, to protect both him and me, I had to continue the deception.

  “He had fever, not too badly, and a recurrence of his old malaria. I dosed him with quinine and nursed him as well as I could, then we made a stretcher and carried him back to Rangoon. He was still pretty weak when we arrived but he wouldn’t go into hospital. He insisted that we leave the country as soon as possible so I booked a couple of passages on a small cargo vessel and we left Burma the next day.”

  Henshaw paused and looked at the intent faces of the men before the fire. “I want you to understand one thing,” he said quietly. “We were the only passengers on that ship. The crew were mostly Chinese with a few Lascars, and the officers were German. The ship had docked only the day before it sailed and, owing to the pressure of work, there had been no shore leave for the crew. We were alone in the Indian Ocean and did not touch at any port after we left Rangoon until we reached Colombo.”

  “In other words you were completely isolated from anything and everyone,” said Tony, and nodded. “I understand.”

  “Good.” Henshaw stared into the fire. “It isn’t pleasant to be thought either a liar or a fool,” he said quietly. “What I am about to tell you is the unvarnished truth. To me there is only one explanation. To you there may be others, but one thing you must rule out. No one could have reached that ship and there was no one on it who could have possibly wished either of us any harm at all. We were utter strangers.”

  “We understand,” said Tony again. “What happened?”

  “It started on the third day out,” said Henshaw. “Bill had washed off his stain by then and was a white man once more. He was still weak and I’d made him rest a lot and he was in his cabin most of the time. I was eating with the officers and we had just reached the dessert when all of a sudden the most horrible scream I have ever heard echoed over the ship.

  “‘Mein Gott!’ The captain dropped his spoon and turned white beneath his tan. ‘What was that?’

  “‘One of the crew?’ I made the suggestion even while knowing it was false.

  “‘Nein. That sound came from aft, from your quarters. Could it be your friend?’

  “We had risen by that time and were already out of the wardroom when the scream was repeated. This time there could be no doubt as to where it came from. I ran towards Bil’s cabin and burst open the door. He was sitting up on his bunk and
I have never seen a man in such au extremity of terror.

  “‘Sam!’ he cried. ‘Thank God you’ve come. They’re all over me.’

  “‘What’s all over you?’ I stared round the cabin. The captain had switched on the lights and, aside from ourselves, it was quite empty.

  “‘Snakes,’ said Bill and shuddered. ‘I felt them I tell you. Hundreds of them, crawling all over me.’ He shuddered again and I heard the captain mutter something to himself and look at his mate.

  “‘Calm yourself, Bill,’ I snapped. ‘You’ve had a nightmare.’ I turned to the captain. ‘He’s still weak from fever and must have had a touch of delirium. I’ll stay with him until he quietens down.’

  “The captain nodded and promised to send down our food. On such a small ship they didn’t carry a doctor and, aside from the medical chest and the rude attentions of the officers, there was no possibility of getting medical aid. The steward, a bland Chinese, brought Bill’s dinner. The food seemed to calm him, or it may have been my presence, and, after we’d shared a bottle of brandy, he seemed to recover his cheerfulness.

  “‘It must have been a nightmare,’ he said, and helped himself to more brandy. ‘I’ve always been afraid of snakes ever since I was a boy. Horrible creatures, I wish that there was some way to kill them all.’ He drank more brandy. ‘You’ll stay with me, Sam?’