The Beetle by Richard Marsh (read e books online free txt) đ
Description
The Beetle was published in 1897, the same year as Draculaâand outsold it six to one that year. Like Dracula, the novel is steeped in the evil mysteries of an ancient horror: in this case, a mysterious ancient Egyptian creature bent on revenge.
The story is told through the sequential points of view of a group of middle-class Victorians who find themselves enmeshed in the creatureâs plot. The creature, in the guise of an Egyptian man, appears in London seeking revenge against a popular member of Parliament. They soon find out that it can shape shift into other things, including women; that it can control minds and use hypnosis; and that it wonât stop at anything to get the revenge it seeks. The heroes are soon caught in a whirlwind of chase scenes, underground laboratories, secret cults, and more as they race to foil the creature.
While The Beetle didnât earn the lasting popularity of Stokerâs counterpart, it remains a strange and unique morsel of Victorian sensationalist fiction.
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- Author: Richard Marsh
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I returned to Sydneyâs shoulder to tell the cabman so.
âThere is no place in which anyone could hide, and there is no one in either of the roomsâ âyou must have been mistaken, driver.â
The man waxed wroth.
âDonât tell me! How could I come to think I saw something when I didnât?â
âOneâs eyes are apt to play us tricks;â âhow could you see what wasnât there?â
âThatâs what I want to know. As I drove up, before you told me to stop, I saw him looking through the windowâ âthe one at which you are. Heâd got his nose glued to the broken pane, and was staring as hard as he could stare. When I pulled up, off he startedâ âI saw him get up off his knees, and go to the back of the room. When the gentleman took to knocking, back he cameâ âto the same old spot, and flopped down on his knees. I didnât know what caper you was up toâ âyou might be bum bailiffs for all I knew!â âand I supposed that he wasnât so anxious to let you in as you might be to get inside, and that was why he didnât take no notice of your knocking, while all the while he kept a eye on what was going on. When you goes round to the back, up he gets again, and I reckoned that he was going to meet yer, and perhaps give yer a bit of his mind, and that presently I should hear a shindy, or that something would happen. But when you pulls up the blind downstairs, to my surprise back he come once more. He shoves his old nose right through the smash in the pane, and wags his old head at me like a chattering magpie. That didnât seem to me quite the civil thing to doâ âI hadnât done no harm to him; so I gives you the office, and lets you know that he was there. But for you to say that he wasnât there, and never had beenâ âblimey! that cops the biscuit. If he wasnât there, all I can say is I ainât here, and my âorse ainât here, and my cab ainât neitherâ âdamn it!â âthe house ainât here, and nothing ainât!â
He settled himself on his perch with an air of the most extreme ill usageâ âhe had been standing up to tell his tale. That the man was serious was unmistakable. As he himself suggested, what inducement could he have had to tell a lie like that? That he believed himself to have seen what he declared he saw was plain. But, on the other hand, what could have becomeâ âin the space of fifty seconds!â âof his âold gentâ?
Atherton put a question.
âWhat did he look likeâ âthis old gent of yours?â
âWell, that I shouldnât hardly like to say. It wasnât much of his face I could see, only his face and his eyesâ âand they wasnât pretty. He kept a thing over his head all the time, as if he didnât want too much to be seen.â
âWhat sort of a thing?â
âWhyâ âone of them cloak sort of things, like them Arab blokes used to wear what used to be at Earlâs Court Exhibitionâ âyou know!â
This piece of information seemed to interest my companions more than anything he had said before.
âA burnoose do you mean?â
âHow am I to know what the thingâs called? I ainât up in foreign languagesâ ââtainât likely! All I know that them Arab blokes what was at Earlâs Court used to walk about in them all over the placeâ âsometimes they wore them over their heads, and sometimes they didnât. In fact if youâd asked me, instead of trying to make out as I sees double, or things what was only inside my own noddle, or something or other, I should have said this here old gent what Iâve been telling you about was a Arab blokeâ âwhen he gets off his knees to sneak away from the window, I could see that he had his cloak thing, what was over his head, wrapped all round him.â
Mr. Lessingham turned to me, all quivering with excitement.
âI believe that what he says is true!â
âThen where can this mysterious old gentleman have got toâ âcan you suggest an explanation? It is strange, to say the least of it, that the cabman should be the only person to see or hear anything of him.â
âSome devilâs trick has been playedâ âI know it, I feel it!â âmy instinct tells me so!â
I stared. In such a matter one hardly expects a man of Paul Lessinghamâs stamp to talk of âinstinct.â Atherton stared too. Then, on a sudden, he burst out,
âBy the Lord, I believe the Apostleâs rightâ âthe whole place reeks to me of hankey-pankeyâ âit did as soon as I put my nose inside. In matters of prestidigitation, Champnell, we Westerns are among the rudimentsâ âweâve everything to learnâ âOrientals leave us at the post. If their civilisationâs what weâre pleased to call extinct, their conjuringâ âwhen you get to know it!â âis all alive oh!â
He moved towards the door. As he went he slipped, or seemed to, all but stumbling on to his knees.
âSomething tripped me upâ âwhatâs this?â He was stamping on the floor with his foot. âHereâs a board loose. Come and lend me a hand, one of you fellows, to get it up. Who knows what mysteryâs beneath?â
I went to his aid. As he said, a board in the floor was loose. His stepping on it unawares had caused his stumble. Together we prised it out of its placeâ âLessingham standing by and watching us the while. Having removed it, we peered into the cavity it disclosed.
There was something there.
âWhy,â cried Atherton, âitâs a womanâs clothing!â
XXXVIII The Rest of the FindIt was a womanâs clothing, beyond a doubt, all thrown in anyhowâ âas if the person who had placed it there had been in a desperate hurry. An entire outfit was there, shoes, stockings, body linen, corsets, and allâ âeven to hat, gloves, and hairpins;â âthese latter were mixed up with the rest of the garments in strange confusion.
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