Thrilling Tales, page 6
The priest quietly stepped through the circle of us children, walked up to uncle, and silently blessed him. Uncle raised his head, clasped the frail Father by his hand, kissed it fervently in front of us all and whispered, 'Thank you.' Then he turned to Justin and ordered him to bring Ferapont to him. Ferapont appeared and stood in front of uncle, white-faced, and with a bandaged hand.
'Stand over here!' uncle commanded, pointing to the Persian rug, directly in front of his feet. Ferapont obeyed and fell to his knees. 'Rise! ... On your feet!' uncle said. 'I forgive you.'
Ferapont once again fell to his knees, but uncle spoke to him in a strange, passionate voice, 'You gave a beast deeper love than many of us are capable of giving another human being. Your loyal affection has moved me to generosity. To show my admiration, I am giving you your freedom and one hundred roubles for your journey. Go to wherever you wish.'
'Thank you, but I shall not go away!' Ferapont said.
'What is it that you want?' his master asked.
'Because you have shown me kindness, I wish to remain with you; I will serve you more faithfully now I am a free man, than when I was a serf under your rule of terror.'
Uncle dabbed his eyes with his white handkerchief, then, leaning forward, embraced Ferapont; all of us present also stood up and there was not a dry eye amongst us. We could not help but feel that the Lord's name had been praised in this very room and that a reign of happiness and peace had taken over from the former reign of terror.
The good news spread into the village with the barrels of mead, which were sent as a token of goodwill. Soon the sky was lit with the glow of fires, as merriment and happiness entered every heart. People said to one another, 'This Christmas even the beast has celebrated the birth of our Christ.'
They did not search for Sganarel in the forest. Ferapont, as he was promised, was given his freedom, and before long took over Justin's duties to become not just a faithful servant, but also a trusted friend. When uncle died, it was Ferapont who closed his eyes for the last time and who buried his remains in the Vagankov cemetery in Moscow. A memorial in his honour stands there to this very day, and there, by uncle's feet, lies Ferapont.
No one places flowers upon their resting-place now, but in some far corners of Moscow there are still some people left who remember the erect, white-haired man, who had the gift of recognising true sorrow and who was always ready to help. Sometimes he sent his good, faithful servant to help the needy; but neither of them ever came empty-handed. These two good people, about whose deeds so much more could be told, were my uncle and his loyal servant Ferapont, whom the old master jokingly called: 'the beast tamer'.
NIGHTMARE IN NEW YORK
Algernon Blackwood
lake had been in very low water for months—almost under water part of the time—due to circumstances he was fond of saying were no fault of his own; and as he sat writing in his room on 'third floor back' of a New York boarding-house in the winter of 1900, part of his mind was busily occupied in wondering when his luck was going to turn again.
It was his room only in the sense that he paid the rent. Two friends, one a little Frenchman and the other a big Dane, shared it with him, both hoping eventually to contribute something towards expenses, but so far not having accomplished this result. They had two beds only, the third being a mattress they slept upon in turns, each taking a week at a time.
A good deal of their irregular 'feeding' consisted of oatmeal, potatoes, and sometimes eggs, all of which they cooked on a strange utensil they had contrived to fit into the gas jet. Occasionally, when dinner failed them altogether, they swallowed a little raw rice and drank hot water from the bathroom on the top of it, and then made a wild race for bed so as to get to sleep while the sensation of false repledon was still there. For sleep and hunger are slight acquaintances as they well knew. Fortunately all New York houses were then supplied with hot air, and they only had to open a grating in the wall to get a plentiful amount of heat.
On this particular evening, as Blake sat scribbling by the only window that was not cracked, the Dane and the Frenchman, his companions in adversity, were in wonderful luck. They had both been asked out to a restaurant to dine with a friend who also held out to one of them a chance of work and remuneration. They would not be back till late, and when they did come they were pretty sure to bring in supplies of one kind or another, and Blake looked forward to a supper more or less substantial before pulling his mattress out of the cupboard and turning in upon the floor for the night.
Meanwhile he could enjoy a quiet and lonely evening with the room all to himself
In the daytime he was a reporter on an evening newspaper of sensational and lying habits. His work was chiefly in the police courts; and in his spare hours at night, when not too tired or too empty, he wrote sketches and stories for the magazines that very rarely saw the light of day. On this particular occasion he was deep in a most involved tale of a psychological character, and had just worked his way into a sentence, or set of sentences, that completely baffled and muddled him. He put his head in his hands and began to think hard.
There came a gentle knock at the door, and Blake started. The knock was repeated louder. Who in the world could it be at this late hour of the night? On the floor above, he remembered, there lived another Englishman, a foolish, second-rate creature, who sometimes came in and made himself objectionable with endless and silly chatter. But he was an Englishman for all that, and Ellake always tried to treat him with politeness, realizing that he was lonely in a strange land. But tonight, of all people in the world, he did not want to be bored with Perry's cackle, as he called it, and the 'Come in' he gave in answer to the second knock had no very cordial sound of welcome in it.
However, the door opened in response, and the man came in. Blake did not turn round at once, and the other advanced to the centre of the room, but without speaking. Then Blake knew it was not his enemy, Perry, and turned round.
He saw a man of about forty standing in the middle of the carpet, but standing sideways so that he did not present a full face. He wore an overcoat buttoned up to the neck, and on the felt hat which he held in front of him fresh rain-drops glistened. In his other hand he carried a small black bag. Blake gave him a good look, and came to the conclusion that he might be a secretary, or a chief clerk, or a confidential man of sorts. He was a shabby-respectable-looking person. This was the sum-total of the first impression; the second impression was less pleasant, and reported at once that something was wrong.
Though otherwise young and inexperienced, Blake— thanks to the police court training—knew more about common criminal blackguardism than most men of fifty, and he recognized that there was somewhere a suggestion of this undesirable world about the man. But there was more than this. There was something singular about him, something far out of the common, though for the life of him Blake could not say wherein it lay. The fellow was out of the ordinary, and in some very undesirable manner.
All this, that takes so long to describe, Blake saw with the first and second glance. The man at once began to speak in a quiet and respectful voice.
Are you Mr Blake?' he asked.
'I am.'
'Mr Arthur Blake?'
'Yes.'
'Mr Arthur Herbert Blake?' persisted the other.
'That is my full name,' Blake answered simply, adding, as he remembered his manners; 'but won't you sit down, first, please?'
The man advanced with a curious sideways motion like a crab and took a seat on the edge of the sofa. He carefully put his hat on the floor at his feet, but still kept the bag in his hand.
'I come to you from a well-wisher,' he went on in oily tones, without lifting his eyes. Blake, in his mind, ran quickly over all the people he knew in New York who might possibly have sent such a man, while waiting for him to supply the name. But the man had come to a full stop and was waiting too.
'A well-wisher of mine?' repeated Blake, not knowing quite what else to say.
'Just so,' replied the other. 'A well-wisher of yours.'
'A man or—' he felt himself blushing, 'or a woman?'
'That,' said the man shortly, 'I cannot tell you.'
'You can't tell me!' exclaimed the other, wondering what was coming next.
'I cannot tell you the name,' replied the man firmly. 'Those are my instructions. But I bring you something from this person, and I am to give it to you, to take a receipt for it, and then to go away without answering any questions.'
Blake stared very hard. The man, however, never raised his eyes above the level of the second china knob on the chest of drawers opposite. The giving of a receipt sounded like money. Could it be that some of his influential friends had heard of his plight? There were possibilities that made his heart beat. At length, however, he found his tongue, for this strange creature was determined apparently to say nothing more until he had heard from him.
'Then, what have you got for me, please?' he asked bluntly.
By way of answer the man proceeded to open the bag. He took out a parcel wrapped loosely in brown paper, and about the size of a large book. It was tied with string, and the man seemed unnecessarily long untying the knot. When at last the string was off and the paper unfolded, there appeared a series of smaller packages inside. The man took them out very carefully, almost as if they had been alive, Blake thought, and set them in a row upon his knees. They were dollar bills. Blake, all in a flutter, craned his neck forward a little to try and make out their denomination. He read plainly the figure 100.
'There are ten thousand dollars here,' said the man quietly.
The other could not suppress a little cry.
'And they are for you.'
Blake simply gasped. 'Ten thousand dollars!' he repeated, a queer feeling growing up in his throat. 'Ten thousand. Are you sure? I mean—you mean they are for me?' he stammered. He felt quite silly with excitement, and grew more so with every minute, as the man maintained a perfect silence. Was it not a dream? Wouldn't the man put them back in the bag presently and say it was a mistake, and they were meant for somebody else? He could not believe his eyes or his ears. Yet, in a sense, it was possible. He had read of such things in books and even come across them in his experience of the courts— the erratic and generous philanthropist who is determined to do his good deed and to get no thanks or acknowledgment for it. Still, it seemed almost incredible.
The man, meanwhile, began quietly to count over the packages aloud from one to ten, and then to count the bills in each separate packet, also from one to ten. Yes, there were ten little heaps, each containing ten bills of a hundred-dollar denomination. That made ten thousand dollars. Blake had never seen so much money in a single lump in his life before; and for many months of privation and discomfort he had not known the 'feel' of a twenty-dollar note, much less of a hundred-dollar one. He heard them crackle under the man's fingers, and it was like crisp laughter in his ears. The bills were evidently new and unused.
But, side by side with the excitement caused by the shock of such an event, Blake's caution, acquired by a year of vivid New York experience, was meanwhile beginning to assert itself It all seemed just a little too much out of the likely order of things to be quite right. Blake resolved to be very cautious.
The man meanwhile, though he never appeared to raise his eyes from the carpet, had been watching him closely all the time.
'If you will give me a receipt I'll leave the money at once,' he said, with just a vestige of impatience in his tone, as if he were anxious to bring the matter to a conclusion as soon as possible.
'But you say it is quite impossible for you to tell me the name of my well-wisher, or why she sends me such a large sum of money in this extraordinary way?'
'The money is sent to you because you are in need of it.' returned the other; 'and it is a present without conditions of any sort attached. You have to give me a receipt only to satisfy the sender that it has reached your hands. The money will never be asked of you again.'
Blake noticed two things from this answer: first, that the man was not to be caught into betraying the sex of the well-wisher; and secondly, that he was in some hurry to complete the transaction. For he was now giving reasons, attractive reasons, why he should accept the money and make out the receipt.
Suddenly it flashed across his mind that if he took the money and gave the receipt before a witness, nothing very disastrous could come of the affair. It would protect him against blackmail, if this was, after all, a plot of some sort with blackmail in it; whereas, if the man were a madman, or a criminal who was getting rid of a portion of his ill-gotten gains to divert suspicion, or if any other improbable explanation turned out to be the true one, there was no great harm done, and he could hold the money till it was claimed, or advertised for in the newspapers. His mind rapidly ran over these possibilities, though, of course, under the stress of excitement, he was unable to weigh any of them properly; then he turned to his strange visitor again and said quietly—
'I will take the money, although I must say it seems to me a very unusual transaction, and I will give you for it such a receipt as I think proper under the circumstances.'
'A proper receipt is all I want,' was the answer. 'I mean by that a receipt before a proper witness—'
'Perfectly satisfactory,' interrupted the man, his eyes still on the carpet. 'Only, it must be dated, and headed with your address here in the correct way.'
Blake could see no possible objection to this, and he at once proceeded to obtain his witness. The person he had in mind was a Mr Barclay, who occupied the room above his own; an old gentleman who had retired from business and who, the landlady always said, was a miser, and kept large sums secreted in his room. He was, at any rate, a perfectly respectable man and would make an admirable witness to a transaction of this sort. Blake made an apology and rose to fetch him, crossing the room in front of the sofa where the man sat, in order to reach the door. As he did so, he saw for the first time the other side of his visitor's face, the side that had been always so carefully turned away from him.
There was a broad smear of blood down the skin from the ear to the neck. It glistened in the gaslight. Blake never knew how he managed to smother the cry that sprang to his lips, but smother it he did. In a second he was at the door, his knees trembling, his mind in a sudden and dreadful turmoil.
His main object, so far as he could recollect afterwards, was to escape from the room as if he had noticed nothing, so as not to arouse the other's suspicions. The man's eyes were always on the carpet, and probably, Blake hoped, he had not noticed the consternation that must have been written plainly on his face. At any rate he had uttered no cry.
In another second he would have been in the passage, when suddenly he met a pair of wicked, staring eyes fixed intently and with a cunning smile upon his own. It was the other's face in the mirror calmly watching his every movement.
Instantly, all his powers of reflection flew to the winds, and he thought only upon the desirability of getting help at once. He tore upstairs, his heart in his mouth. Barclay must come to his aid. This matter was serious—perhaps horribly serious. Taking the money, or giving a receipt, or having anything at all to do with it became an impossibility. Here was crime. He felt certain of it.
In three bounds he reached the next landing and began to hammer at the old miser's door as if his very life depended on it. For a long time he could get no answer. His fists seemed to make no noise. He might have been knocking on cottonwool, and the thought dashed through his brain that it was all just like the terror of a nightmare.
Barclay, evidently, was still out, or else sound asleep. But the other simply could not wait a minute longer in suspense. He turned the handle and walked into the room. At first he saw nothing for the darkness, and felt sure the owner of the room was out; but the moment the light from the passage began a little to disperse the gloom, he saw the old man, to his immense relief, lying asleep on the bed.
Blake opened the door to its widest to get more light and then walked quickly up to the bed. He now saw the figure more plainly, and noted that it was dressed and lay only upon the outside of the bed. It struck him, too, that he was sleeping in a very odd, almost an unnatural, position.
Something clutched at his heart as he looked closer. He stumbled over a chair and found the matches. Calling upon Barclay the whole time to wake up and come downstairs with him, he blundered across the floor, a dreadful thought in his mind, and lit the gas over the table. It seemed strange that there was no movement or reply to his shouting. But it no longer seemed strange when at length he turned, in the full glare of the gas, and saw the old man laying huddled up into a ghastly heap on the bed, his throat cut across from ear to ear.
And all over the carpet lay new dollar bills, crisp and clean like those he had left downstairs, and strewn about in little heaps.
For a moment Blake stood stock-still, bereft of all power of movement. The next, his courage returned, and he fled from the room and dashed downstairs, taking five steps at a time. He reached the bottom and tore along the passage to his room, determined at any rate to seize the man and prevent his escape till help came.
But when he got to the end of the little landing he found that his door had been closed. He seized the handle, fumbling with it in his violence. It felt slippery and kept turning under his fingers without opening the door, and fully half a minute passed before it yielded and let him in headlong.
At the first glance he saw the room was empty, and the man gone!
Scattered upon the carpet lay a number of the bills, and beside them, half hidden under the sofa where the man had sat, he saw a pair of gloves—thick, leathern gloves—and a butcher's knife. Even from the distance where he stood the bloodstains on both were easily visible.
