The Three Impostors; or, The Transmutations Read online

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  THE THREE IMPOSTORS

  or The Transmutations

  by

  ARTHUR MACHEN

  TRANSLATOR OF 'L'HEPTAMERON' AND 'LE MOYEN DE PARVENIR';

  AUTHOR OF 'THE CHRONICLE OF CLEMENDY' AND 'THE GREAT GOD PAN'

  BOSTON: Roberts Bros, 1895

  LONDON: John Lane, Vigo st.

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE ADVENTURE OF THE GOLD TIBERIUS THE ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT NOVEL OF THE DARK VALLEY ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER NOVEL OF THE BLACK SEAL INCIDENT OF THE PRIVATE BAR THE DECORATIVE IMAGINATION NOVEL OF THE IRON MAID THE RECLUSE OF BAYSWATER NOVEL OF THE WHITE POWDER STRANGE OCCURRENCE IN CLERKENWELL HISTORY OF THE YOUNG MAN WITH SPECTACLES ADVENTURE OF THE DESERTED RESIDENCE

  THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

  PROLOGUE.

  "And Mr. Joseph Walters is going to stay the night?" said the smoothclean-shaven man to his companion, an individual not of the mostcharming appearance, who had chosen to make his ginger-colored mustachemerge into a pair of short chin-whiskers.

  The two stood at the hall door, grinning evilly at each other; andpresently a girl ran quickly down, the stairs, and joined them. She wasquite young, with a quaint and piquant rather than a beautiful face, andher eyes were of a shining hazel. She held a neat paper parcel in onehand, and laughed with her friends.

  "Leave the door open," said the smooth man to the other, as they weregoing out. "Yes, by----," he went on with an ugly oath. "We'll leave thefront door on the jar. He may like to see company, you know."

  The other man looked doubtfully about him. "Is it quite prudent do youthink, Davies?" he said, pausing with his hand on the moulderingknocker. "I don't think Lipsius would like it. What do you say, Helen?"

  "I agree with Davies. Davies is an artist, and you are commonplace,Richmond, and a bit of a coward. Let the door stand open, of course. Butwhat a pity Lipsius had to go away! He would have enjoyed himself."

  "Yes," replied the smooth Mr. Davies, "that summons to the west was veryhard on the doctor."

  The three passed out, leaving the hall door, cracked and riven withfrost and wet, half open, and they stood silent for a moment under theruinous shelter of the porch.

  "Well," said the girl, "it is done at last. I shall hurry no more on thetrack of the young man with spectacles."

  "We owe a great deal to you," said Mr. Davies politely; "the doctor saidso before he left. But have we not all three some farewells to make? I,for my part, propose to say good-by, here, before this picturesque butmouldy residence, to my friend Mr. Burton, dealer in the antique andcurious," and the man lifted his hat with an exaggerated bow.

  "And I," said Richmond, "bid adieu to Mr. Wilkins, the privatesecretary, whose company has, I confess, become a little tedious."

  "Farewell to Miss Lally, and to Miss Leicester also," said the girl,making as she spoke a delicious courtesy. "Farewell to all occultadventure; the farce is played."

  Mr. Davies and the lady seemed full of grim enjoyment, but Richmondtugged at his whiskers nervously.

  "I feel a bit shaken up," he said. "I've seen rougher things in theStates, but that crying noise he made gave me a sickish feeling. Andthen the smell--But my stomach was never very strong."

  The three friends moved away from the door, and began to walk slowly upand down what had been a gravel path, but now lay green and pulpy withdamp mosses. It was a fine autumn evening, and a faint sunlight shone onthe yellow walls of the old deserted house, and showed the patches ofgangrenous decay, and all the stains, the black drift of rain from thebroken pipes, the scabrous blots where the bare bricks were exposed, thegreen weeping of a gaunt laburnum that stood beside the porch, andragged marks near the ground where the reeking clay was gaining on theworn foundations. It was a queer rambling old place, the centre perhapstwo hundred years old, with dormer windows sloping from the tiled roof,and on each side there were Georgian wings; bow windows had been carriedup to the first floor, and two dome-like cupolas that had once beenpainted a bright green were now gray and neutral. Broken urns lay uponthe path, and a heavy mist seemed to rise from the unctuous clay; theneglected shrubberies, grown all tangled and unshapen, smelt dank andevil, and there was an atmosphere all about the deserted mansion thatproposed thoughts of an opened grave. The three friends looked dismallyat the rough grasses and the nettles that grew thick over lawn andflower-beds; and at the sad water-pool in the midst of the weeds. There,above green and oily scum instead of lilies, stood a rusting Triton onthe rocks, sounding a dirge through a shattered horn; and beyond, beyondthe sunk fence and the far meadows; the sun slid down and shone redthrough the bars of the elm trees.

  Richmond shivered and stamped his foot. "We had better be going soon,"he said; "there is nothing else to be done here."

  "No," said Davies, "it is finished at last. I thought for some time weshould never get hold of the gentleman with the spectacles. He was aclever fellow, but, Lord! he broke up badly at last. I can tell you helooked white at me when I touched him on the arm in the bar. But wherecould he have hidden the thing? We can all swear it was not on him."

  The girl laughed, and they turned away, when Richmond gave a violentstart. "Ah!" he cried, turning to the girl, "what have you got there?Look, Davies, look! it's all oozing and dripping."

  The young woman glanced down at the little parcel she was carrying, andpartially unfolded the paper.

  "Yes, look both of you," she said; "it's my own idea. Don't you think itwill do nicely for the doctor's museum? It comes from the right hand,the hand that took the gold Tiberius."

  Mr. Davies nodded with a good deal of approbation, and Richmond liftedhis ugly high-crowned bowler, and wiped his forehead with a dingyhandkerchief.

  "I'm going," he said; "you two can stay if you like."

  The three went round by the stable path, past the withered wilderness ofthe old kitchen garden, and struck off by a hedge at the back, makingfor a particular point in the road. About five minutes later twogentlemen, whom idleness had led to explore these forgotten outskirts ofLondon, came sauntering up the shadowy carriage drive. They had spiedthe deserted house from the road, and as they observed all the heavydesolation of the place they began to moralize in the great style, withconsiderable debts to Jeremy Taylor.

  "Look, Dyson," said the one as they drew nearer, "look at those upperwindows; the sun is setting, and though the panes are dusty, yet

  "The grimy sash an oriel burns."

  "Phillipps," replied the elder and (it must be said) the more pompous ofthe two, "I yield to fantasy, I cannot withstand the influence of thegrotesque. Here, where all is falling into dimness and dissolution, andwe walk in cedarn gloom, and the very air of heaven goes mouldering tothe lungs, I cannot remain commonplace. I look at that deep glow on thepanes, and the house lies all enchanted; that very room, I tell you, iswithin all blood and fire."