Brood of the Witch-Queen by Sax Rohmer (the top 100 crime novels of all time .TXT) 📕

to envelop me like a filthy miasma. You know, sir, it’s hard to explain just the way I felt about it⁠—but it all amounts to this: I was glad to get outside!”

Dr. Cairn stood up and began to pace about the room, his hands locked behind him.

“Tonight,” he rapped suddenly, “what occurred tonight?”

“Tonight,” continued his son, “I got in at about half-past nine. I had had such a rush, in one way and another, that the incident had quite lost its hold on my imagination; I hadn’t forgotten it, of course, but I was not thinking of it when I unlocked the door. In fact I didn’t begin to think of it again until, in slippers and dressing-gown, I had settled down for a comfortable read. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, to influence my imagination⁠—in that way. The book was an old favourite, Mark Twain’s Up the Mississippi, and I sat in the armchair with a large bottle of lager beer at my elbow and my pipe going strong.”

Becoming restless in turn, the speaker stood up and walking to the fireplace flicked off the long cone of grey ash from his cigar. He leant one elbow upon the mantelpiece, resuming his story:

“St. Paul’s had just chimed the half-hour⁠—half-past ten⁠—when my pipe went out. Before I had time to re-light it, came the damnable smell again. At the moment nothing was farther from my mind, and I jumped up with an exclamation of disgust. It seemed to be growing stronger and stronger. I got my pipe alight quickly. Still I could smell it; the aroma of the tobacco did not lessen its beastly pungency in the smallest degree.

“I tilted the shade of my reading-lamp and looked all about. There was nothing unusual to be seen. Both windows were open and I went to one and thrust my head out, in order to learn if the odour came from outside. It did not. The air outside the window was fresh and clean. Then I remembered that when I had left my chambers in the afternoon, the smell had been stronger near the door than anywhere. I ran out to the door. In the passage I could smell nothing; but⁠—”

He paused, glancing at his father.

“Before I had stood there thirty seconds it was rising all about me like the fumes from a crater. By God, sir! I realised then that it was something⁠ ⁠… following me!”

Dr. Cairn stood watching him, from the shadows beyond the big table, as he came forward and finished his whisky at a gulp.

“That seemed to work a change in me,” he continued rapidly; “I recognised there was something behind this disgusting manifestation, something directing it; and I recognised, too, that the next move was up to me. I went back to my room. The odour was not so pronounced, but as I stood by the table, waiting, it increased, and increased, until it almost choked me. My nerves were playing tricks, but I kept a fast hold on myself. I set to work, very methodically, and fumigated the place. Within myself I knew that it could do no good, but I felt that I had to put up some kind of opposition. You understand, sir?”

“Quite,” replied Dr. Cairn quietly. “It was an organised attempt to expel the invader, and though of itself it was useless, the mental attitude dictating it was good. Go on.”

“The clocks had chimed eleven when I gave up, and I felt physically sick. The air by this time was poisonous, literally poisonous. I dropped into the easy-chair and began to wonder what the end of it would be. Then, in the shadowy parts of the room, outside the circle of light cast by the lamp, I detected⁠—darker patches. For awhile I tried to believe that they were imaginary, but when I saw one move along the bookcase, glide down its side, and come across the carpet, towards me, I knew that they were not. Before heaven, sir”⁠—his voice shook⁠—“either I am mad, or tonight my room was filled with things that crawled! They were everywhere; on the floor, on the walls, even on the ceiling above me! Where the light was I couldn’t detect them, but the shadows were alive, alive with things⁠—the size of my two hands; and in the growing stillness⁠—”

His voice had become husky. Dr. Cairn stood still, as a man of stone, watching him.

“In the stillness, very faintly, they rustled!”

Silence fell. A car passed outside in Half-Moon Street; its throb died away. A clock was chiming the half-hour after midnight. Dr. Cairn spoke:

“Anything else?”

“One other thing, sir. I was gripping the chair arms; I felt that I had to grip something to prevent myself from slipping into madness. My left hand⁠—” he glanced at it with a sort of repugnance⁠—“something hairy⁠—and indescribably loathsome⁠—touched it; just brushed against it. But it was too much. I’m ashamed to tell you, sir; I screamed, screamed like any hysterical girl, and for the second time, ran! I ran from my own rooms, grabbed a hat and coat; and left my dressing gown on the floor!”

He turned, leaning both elbows on the mantelpiece, and buried his face in his hands.

“Have another drink,” said Dr. Cairn. “You called on Antony Ferrara today, didn’t you? How did he receive you?”

“That brings me to something else I wanted to tell you,” continued Robert, squirting soda-water into his glass. “Myra⁠—goes there.”

“Where⁠—to his chambers?”

“Yes.”

Dr. Cairn began to pace the room again.

“I am not surprised,” he admitted; “she has always been taught to regard him in the light of a brother. But nevertheless we must put a stop to it. How did you learn this?”

Robert Cairn gave him an account of the morning’s incidents, describing Ferrara’s chambers with a minute exactness which revealed how deep, how indelible an impression their strangeness had made upon his mind.

“There is one thing,” he concluded, “against which I am always coming up, I puzzled over it at Oxford, and others did, too; I came against it today. Who is Antony Ferrara? Where did