Not Ong for This Worls - August Derleth Read online

  AUGUST DERLETH, that extraordinarily prolific writer (these stories are from his 55th book!) is a master of the macabre, an authority on supernatural and uncanny fiction.

  The 22 tales which compose this collection are actually a kind of cross-section of Derleth’s writing in the field up to 1948, the pick of twenty years of happy delving into the gruesome antics of creatures beyond the threshold of death.

  Here are such delicious spine-tinglers as the stories of a gibbet in the clouds, the man who returned to the scene-of the crime (except that he had been the victim), the housewife who knew exactly what to do with a vampire, and (for gardeners) the strange effects of using human bodies as organic feeding matter. As well as many others too horrifying to describe…

  So—TURN UP THE LIGHTS!

  In the genre of the weird, August Derleth has written these books:

  SOMEONE IN THE DARK • SOMETHING NEAR • THE LURKER

  AT THE THRESHOLD • NOT LONG FOR THIS WORLD

  and has edited these:

  sleep no more: 20 Masterpieces of Horror who knocks?: 20 Masterpieces of the Spectral

  the night side: Masterpieces of the Strange and Terrible

  dark of the moon: Poems of Fantasy and the Macabre

  the sleeping and the dead: Thirty Uncanny Tales

  strange ports of call: 20 Masterpieces 0f Science-Fiction

  the other side of the moon

  Apart from the macabre, August Derleth has written so many books that there is not space on this page to list all of them. Of them, the most important are:

  wind over wisconsin • evening in spring • bright journey

  the shield of the valliant • contry growth • selected

  poems • still is the summer night • restless is the river •

  village daybook: a sac prairie journal • no future for

  luana • “in re-sherlock holmes”: the adventures of

  solar pons • the edge of night • the mikwaukee road: its

  first hundred years • still small voice: the biography of

  zona gale • h.p.l.: a memoir • the wisconsin: river of a

  thousand isles • sac prairie people • wisconsin earth

  (an omnibus containing shadow of night,

  place of hawks, village year)

  Published by arrangement with Arkham House

  Copyright, 1948 By August Derleth

  The Shadow on the Sky, copyright 1931, by The Clayton Magazines, Inc., for Strange Tales, January 1932.

  Birkett’s Twelfth Corpse, copyright 1940, by Better Publications, Inc., for Strange Stories, August 1940.

  The White Moth, copyright 1933, by the Popular Fiction Publishing Company, for Weird Tales, April 1933.

  Nellie Foster, copyright 1933, by the Popular Fiction Publishing Company, for Weird Tales, June 1933.

  Wild Grapes, copyright 1934, by the Popular Fiction Publishing Company, for Weird Tales, July 1934.

  Feigman’s Beard, copyright 1934, by the Popular Fiction Publishing Company, for Weird Tales, November 1934.

  The Drifting Snow, copyright 1939, by Weird Tales for Weird Tales, February 1939.

  The Return of Sarah Purcell, copyright 1936, by the Popular Fiction Publishing Company, for Weird Tales, July 1936.

  Lagodafs Heads, The Second Print (as Lord of Evil), copyright 1939, by Better Publications, Inc., for Strange Stories, April 1939.

  Mrs, Elting Does Her Part, copyright 1939, by Better Publications, Inc., for Strange Stories, August 1939.

  Mrs. Bentley*s Daughter, copyright 1930, by the Popular Fiction Publishing Company, for Weird Tales, October 1930.

  Those Who Seek, copyright 1931, by the Popular Fiction Publishing Company, for Weird Tales, January 1932.

  Mr. Berbeck Had a Dream, copyright 1935, by the Popular Fiction Publishing Company, for Weird Tales, November 1935.

  The Lilac Bush, copyright 1930, by the Popular Fiction Publishing Company, for Weird Tales, February 1930.

  A Matter of Sight, copyright 1929, by the Popular Fiction Publishing Company, for Weird Tales, January 1930.

  Mrs. Lannisfree, copyright 1945, by Weird Tales, for Weird Tales, November 1945.

  After You, Mr. Henderson, copyright 1940, by Better Publications, Inc., for Strange Stories, June 1940.

  The Lost Day, copyright 1945, by Weird Tales, for Weird Tales, May, 1945.

  A Collector of Stones, copyright 1946, by Weird Tales, for Weird Tales, November 1946.

  The God-Box, copyright 1945, by Weird Tales, for Weird Tales, September 1945.

  Saunders Little Friend, copyright 1948, by Weird Tales, for Weird Tales, May 1948.

  printed in the united states of america

  Ballantine Books, Inc.

  101 Fifth Avenue, New York 3, N. Y.

  Contents: -

  The Shadow on the Sky

  Birkett’s Twelfth Corpse

  The White Moth

  Nellie Foster

  Wild Grapes

  Feigman’s Beard

  The Drifting Snow

  The Return of Sarah Purcell

  Logoda’s Heads

  The Second Print

  Mrs. Elting Does Her Part

  Mrs. Bentley’s Daughter

  Those Who Seek

  Mr. Berbeck Had a Dream

  The Lilac Bush

  A Matter of Sight

  Mrs. Lannisfree

  After You, Mr. Henderson

  The Lost Day

  A Collector of Stones

  The Gold-Box

  Saunder’s Little Friend

  The Shadow on the Sky

  Sir Hilary James saw the thing first at dusk, while returning from a stroll on the fens. He said, half aloud, “I am tired,” and passed his his hand over his eyes; but the thing did not vanish. Then he looked at it steadily for a moment, and decided at last that it was one of those inexplicable optical illusions, similar to a mirage, which have come to so many tired wanderers. And though he was not at all tired, this explanation gave him a certain satisfaction, and his vague uneasiness fell away from him. When he got home, he forgot about it entirely.

  Then, in the middle of the night, Sir Hilary awoke in sudden, unaccountable terror. He felt that he was stifling, and threw back the covers. Then he got up and raised the window. At that moment, he saw the thing for the second time. There it was on the slate-gray sky—a great black shadow, fixed upon the gray and white of the clouds, the shadow of a gallows-tree, and a man hanging from it.

  A gigantic thing it was, an utterly impossible thing, and he continued to watch it in fascination. It struck him suddenly that the thing rose out of the fens and up into the sky. But he knew there was nothing on the fens. Now he saw that there was a movement about the shadow, and as he watched, he saw that the man hanging was swinging gently to and fro in the sky. Then, abruptly, Sir Hilary reached up and pulled the shade across the window. A moment later, he turned up the light.

  Sir Hilary James was not a model English gentleman. The countryside was rather soured on him, and he, while not an unpleasant gentleman, cared not a whit for the opinion of his neighbors. Most of them were simple country people, but there were not a few titles among them. Sir Hilary was himself a baronet of a rather obscure family. To the unfounded irritation of his titled neighbors, he refused to attend their social functions. To add to this, he strove noticeably to cut short their friendly calls, so that in time they stopped entirely. Nor did he ever return their visits. His general attitude was not conducive to intimacy, or even to a sort of vague friendliness. It was not that he was a disagreeable person, and his neighbors seemed somehow to realize this, but that for some reason their presence disturbed him.


  He was unmarried, and lived in his house on the fringe of the fens with his four servants. The secret of his attempts at isolation was variously interpreted by his neighbors. There were some who thought of him as hiding from the law, and some who looked upon him as a man with some dark secret to cloak. It had never occurred to these simple people that there might at some time be in the house near the fens a James who had no interest in them. As a matter of fact, Sir Hilary James was writing a book, a sort of history of his family, and, with some journalistic experience behind him, he realized that interruptions of any kind might be fatal to his end. He took his recreation in lonely walks over the fens and in short runs up to London.

  James had almost completed the history of his line when the apparition came upon him. After the occurrence on the fens, he took no more strolls and after what he saw from the window, he avoided the windows at night. But he could not escape the thing as easily as that. It was very difficult to keep from looking out the windows, and the sky was very easy to see. Besides, the shadow had about it a disconcerting irregularity in its appearance. He was not long in discovering that the shadow had no stationary form, but seemed designed, rather, to catch his eye. The history of James* line was destined not to be finished soon, and Sir Hilary James realized that the shadow on the sky was the distracting influence. When the thing began to appear by day, he yielded to his better judgment and called in Sir Halstead Massingham, a nerve specialist and authority on psychic disorders arising from the nervous system.

  Sir Halstead, somewhat of an austere individual and the owner of a nature similar in many respects to that of Sir Hilary James, found his patient on the verge of a nervous collapse—not so much for fear of the shadow as from an inner conviction that he would not be able to complete the history on which he had set his heart and mind.

  Sir Halstead, with the air of the specialist who is reasonably certain of what his first analysis will disclose, made ’ a preliminary examination of his patient, together with a thorough inquiry into his daily habits. The examination disclosed scarcely anything abnormal, a discovery which so disconcerted Sir Halstead that he suggested to Sir Hilary the advisability of calling in a consultant. James readily consented. Consequently, Sir Halstead wired to London for Dr. Robin Davey, an alienist. Dr. Davey, in the midst of his rise to prestige, could not very well afford to disregard Sir Halstead’s request.’ He arrived within twelve hours after his receipt of Sir Halstead’s wire.

  Together, the two of them gave James a rather rigid and uncomfortable cross-examination. This brought them nothing more than Sir Halstead had already learned from his patient. The tale of the shadow on the sky was regarded somewhat skeptically. Sir Halstead had been unable to see the shadow the preceding night, and that night Dr. Davey was likewise disappointed.

  James assiduously avoided the windows, though in the middle of the night he called out, and, when Sir Halstead came to him, told him that the shadow had been reflected in the mirror opposite the window, and that he had seen the man hanging, and that the man was laughing silently and horribly. Could the shade be lowered?

  The immediate result of this incident was a consultation between the two specialists. Sir Hilary James was regarded as suffering from a most peculiar illusion, brought on perhaps by his isolation, added to the intense mental stress of his studies. In the end it was thought best to suggest to James that he force himself to face the shadow and watch it carefully as long as he could stand up under the strain of the thing. After some persuasion, James submitted hesitantly and the following night was fixed upon for the experiment.

  It was decided that James was to watch the fens from the window of his chamber; he was to sit and stare steadily at whatever seemed to appear, and with the specialists on either side of him, try to convince himself that the thing was an optical illusion. To this arrangement Sir Hilary agreed with less reluctance than he had shown when the plan was first proposed.

  Eight o’clock that evening found the three of them sitting at the window, James gazing earnestly out across the lowlands, and the doctors closely observing their patient. It was to be expected that nothing would occur for the first hour or two. After an early excitement, James became amazingly calm, and toward ten o’clock took to joking with the specialists.

  He had taken his eyes from the fens for a moment, and was looking at Sir Halstead when the thing came. When he turned again to look from the window, he stiffened perceptibly.

  “It’s there,” he murmured.

  Sir Halstead shot a quick glance at Dr. Davey; they nodded to each other, and began to watch their patient with redoubled vigilance.

  “You will watch it carefully, and report every movement to us,” said Sir Halstead in a low voice.

  “Do not forget,” put in Dr. Davey, “that it is in all possibility an optical illusion.”

  “But surely you can see it?” asked James in a distressed voice.

  The specialists looked at each other again.

  “It does seem—” began Dr. Davey, but Sir Halstead cut him short.

  “There is nothing there!” he snapped.

  “The man is swinging,” said James, as if he had not heard.

  Involuntarily Dr. Davey shot a quick glance out upon the lowlands, pale in the light of the full moon. There was nothing save a vast expanse of grass, and the sky was clear.

  “He is swinging…faster and faster.”

  Sir Halstead reached forward and opened the window; a refreshing breath of air entered the room.

  “It seems he is coming closer…closer. He is!” Sir Hilary James involuntarily jerked himself backward. At once he felt the strong hands of Sir Halstead pushing him forward again; and he had a short flash of the psychiatrists determined face.

  “Go on,” whispered Sir Halstead.

  “He is very close now,” said James jerkily. “I am horribly afraid of him.”

  Simultaneously both specialists reached out and touched him; Sir Hilary appeared reassured.

  “He is laughing in a silent voice—Oh! this is ghastly. I cannot stand it much longer.”

  “Go on,” repeated Sir Halstead inexorably.

  “He is just outside the window now, swinging to and fro…like…like a pendulum.” At this point James became strangely silent.

  “Watch him,” persisted Sir Halstead. “Watch him closely.”

  “He is waving his hands now…” Sir Hilary paused again, but presently he went on. “Now he is putting them up to his neck…and he is taking the rope from his neck. He is laughing. He is pointing at the looped rope in his hands…He seems to be beckoning to me.” Sir Hilary leaned forward suddenly; then he gave vent to a horrified scream: “No—no! My God, the window…the window…”

  Neither Sir Halstead nor Dr. Davey had any clear conception of exactly what happened then. Both agreed that with one accord they had risen to lower the window at James’ frantic scream; then both of them had been felled to the floor by a blow. They thought that James had got up with them, and, in flinging out his arms violently, had felled them. They were not hurt, but when they got up to look about them, James had vanished utterly. The window was still open. Together the two of them ran to the window and looked out; but James was not below the window, as they had supposed he might be. There was no movement upon the fens, save the slowly undulating whiteness of the mists that were beginning to rise.

  Then suddenly Dr. Davey looked up into the sky. He stumbled backwards and laid a trembling hand on Sir Halstead’s arm. “My God, Massingham. There is something swinging in the moon—a man, I think.”

  Sir Halstead snorted and looked from the window up at. the face of the moon. There was nothing there. “Nonsense,” he snapped. “Seems to have got you, too. I think—”

  But his sentence was never finished, for suddenly out of the night came two faint cries, one following close upon the other. They came from somewhere out over the fens, and they were unmistakably cries for help. Then there was complete and awful silence.

  For a momen
t the two men stood there; then Dr. Davey ran from the room, Sir Halstead in his wake.

  “Rouse the servants, Massingham,” shouted Dr. Davey. “Hounds, too. I’m going to search every blessed inch of that bog land out there.”

  But Sir Halstead needed no urging. He had been struck by the same preposterous thought that had come to Dr. Davey.

  Sir Halstead and the servants, most of them only half clothed, were out upon the fens before Dr. Davey appeared. There was no inclination to wait for the specialist, and Sir Halstead set out at once with the servants. Sir Halstead was soon outdistanced by the younger servants, but he could hear the dogs running aimlessly about ahead of him, whining softly, not quite certain of their quarry.

  Sir Halstead had paused for breath when Dr. Davey caught up with him.

  “Massingham,” he jerked out, “look at this.”

  He had a flashlight and he turned this on the paper that fluttered in his hand. Sir Halstead saw that the paper was quite yellow with its age, but the writing was still clear. He read silently:

  “On ye Knoll this year, 1727, hath ye Lord of Furnival, Guy James, condemned and hanged one Hamish Inness, for poaching, who, dying, pronounced this curse upon ye line of Furnival: ’Thy line shall pass in ye seventh generation, when I shall come unto him in this generation in his thirty-seventh year and hang him here upon this tree. This by ye Branches of ye Inverted Cross, by ye arm of this Gallows-tree, and by ye allknowing Trinity.’”