The Great God Pan Read online

  IV

  THE DISCOVERY IN PAUL STREET

  A few months after Villiers' meeting with Herbert, Mr. Clarke wassitting, as usual, by his after-dinner hearth, resolutely guarding hisfancies from wandering in the direction of the bureau. For more than aweek he had succeeded in keeping away from the "Memoirs," and hecherished hopes of a complete self-reformation; but, in spite of hisendeavours, he could not hush the wonder and the strange curiosity thatthe last case he had written down had excited within him. He had putthe case, or rather the outline of it, conjecturally to a scientificfriend, who shook his head, and thought Clarke getting queer, and onthis particular evening Clarke was making an effort to rationalize thestory, when a sudden knock at the door roused him from his meditations.

  "Mr. Villiers to see you sir."

  "Dear me, Villiers, it is very kind of you to look me up; I have notseen you for many months; I should think nearly a year. Come in, comein. And how are you, Villiers? Want any advice about investments?"

  "No, thanks, I fancy everything I have in that way is pretty safe. No,Clarke, I have really come to consult you about a rather curious matterthat has been brought under my notice of late. I am afraid you willthink it all rather absurd when I tell my tale. I sometimes think somyself, and that's just what I made up my mind to come to you, as Iknow you're a practical man."

  Mr. Villiers was ignorant of the "Memoirs to prove the Existence of theDevil."

  "Well, Villiers, I shall be happy to give you my advice, to the best ofmy ability. What is the nature of the case?"

  "It's an extraordinary thing altogether. You know my ways; I alwayskeep my eyes open in the streets, and in my time I have chanced uponsome queer customers, and queer cases too, but this, I think, beatsall. I was coming out of a restaurant one nasty winter night aboutthree months ago; I had had a capital dinner and a good bottle ofChianti, and I stood for a moment on the pavement, thinking what amystery there is about London streets and the companies that pass alongthem. A bottle of red wine encourages these fancies, Clarke, and Idare say I should have thought a page of small type, but I was cutshort by a beggar who had come behind me, and was making the usualappeals. Of course I looked round, and this beggar turned out to bewhat was left of an old friend of mine, a man named Herbert. I askedhim how he had come to such a wretched pass, and he told me. We walkedup and down one of those long and dark Soho streets, and there Ilistened to his story. He said he had married a beautiful girl, someyears younger than himself, and, as he put it, she had corrupted himbody and soul. He wouldn't go into details; he said he dare not, thatwhat he had seen and heard haunted him by night and day, and when Ilooked in his face I knew he was speaking the truth. There wassomething about the man that made me shiver. I don't know why, but itwas there. I gave him a little money and sent him away, and I assureyou that when he was gone I gasped for breath. His presence seemed tochill one's blood."

  "Isn't this all just a little fanciful, Villiers? I suppose the poorfellow had made an imprudent marriage, and, in plain English, gone tothe bad."

  "Well, listen to this." Villiers told Clarke the story he had heardfrom Austin.

  "You see," he concluded, "there can be but little doubt that this Mr.Blank, whoever he was, died of sheer terror; he saw something so awful,so terrible, that it cut short his life. And what he saw, he mostcertainly saw in that house, which, somehow or other, had got a badname in the neighbourhood. I had the curiosity to go and look at theplace for myself. It's a saddening kind of street; the houses are oldenough to be mean and dreary, but not old enough to be quaint. As faras I could see most of them are let in lodgings, furnished andunfurnished, and almost every door has three bells to it. Here andthere the ground floors have been made into shops of the commonestkind; it's a dismal street in every way. I found Number 20 was to let,and I went to the agent's and got the key. Of course I should haveheard nothing of the Herberts in that quarter, but I asked the man,fair and square, how long they had left the house and whether there hadbeen other tenants in the meanwhile. He looked at me queerly for aminute, and told me the Herberts had left immediately after theunpleasantness, as he called it, and since then the house had beenempty."

  Mr. Villiers paused for a moment.

  "I have always been rather fond of going over empty houses; there's asort of fascination about the desolate empty rooms, with the nailssticking in the walls, and the dust thick upon the window-sills. But Ididn't enjoy going over Number 20, Paul Street. I had hardly put myfoot inside the passage when I noticed a queer, heavy feeling about theair of the house. Of course all empty houses are stuffy, and so forth,but this was something quite different; I can't describe it to you, butit seemed to stop the breath. I went into the front room and the backroom, and the kitchens downstairs; they were all dirty and dustyenough, as you would expect, but there was something strange about themall. I couldn't define it to you, I only know I felt queer. It wasone of the rooms on the first floor, though, that was the worst. Itwas a largish room, and once on a time the paper must have beencheerful enough, but when I saw it, paint, paper, and everything weremost doleful. But the room was full of horror; I felt my teethgrinding as I put my hand on the door, and when I went in, I thought Ishould have fallen fainting to the floor. However, I pulled myselftogether, and stood against the end wall, wondering what on earth therecould be about the room to make my limbs tremble, and my heart beat asif I were at the hour of death. In one corner there was a pile ofnewspapers littered on the floor, and I began looking at them; theywere papers of three or four years ago, some of them half torn, andsome crumpled as if they had been used for packing. I turned the wholepile over, and amongst them I found a curious drawing; I will show itto you presently. But I couldn't stay in the room; I felt it wasoverpowering me. I was thankful to come out, safe and sound, into theopen air. People stared at me as I walked along the street, and oneman said I was drunk. I was staggering about from one side of thepavement to the other, and it was as much as I could do to take the keyback to the agent and get home. I was in bed for a week, sufferingfrom what my doctor called nervous shock and exhaustion. One of thosedays I was reading the evening paper, and happened to notice aparagraph headed: 'Starved to Death.' It was the usual style of thing;a model lodging-house in Marylebone, a door locked for several days,and a dead man in his chair when they broke in. 'The deceased,' saidthe paragraph, 'was known as Charles Herbert, and is believed to havebeen once a prosperous country gentleman. His name was familiar to thepublic three years ago in connection with the mysterious death in PaulStreet, Tottenham Court Road, the deceased being the tenant of thehouse Number 20, in the area of which a gentleman of good position wasfound dead under circumstances not devoid of suspicion.' A tragicending, wasn't it? But after all, if what he told me were true, whichI am sure it was, the man's life was all a tragedy, and a tragedy of astranger sort than they put on the boards."

  "And that is the story, is it?" said Clarke musingly.

  "Yes, that is the story."

  "Well, really, Villiers, I scarcely know what to say about it. Thereare, no doubt, circumstances in the case which seem peculiar, thefinding of the dead man in the area of Herbert's house, for instance,and the extraordinary opinion of the physician as to the cause ofdeath; but, after all, it is conceivable that the facts may beexplained in a straightforward manner. As to your own sensations, whenyou went to see the house, I would suggest that they were due to avivid imagination; you must have been brooding, in a semi-consciousway, over what you had heard. I don't exactly see what more can besaid or done in the matter; you evidently think there is a mystery ofsome kind, but Herbert is dead; where then do you propose to look?"

  "I propose to look for the woman; the woman whom he married. She isthe mystery."

  The two men sat silent by the fireside; Clarke secretly congratulatinghimself on having successfully kept up the character of advocate of thecommonplace, and Villiers wrapped in his gloomy fancies.

  "I think I wi
ll have a cigarette," he said at last, and put his hand inhis pocket to feel for the cigarette-case.

  "Ah!" he said, starting slightly, "I forgot I had something to showyou. You remember my saying that I had found a rather curious sketchamongst the pile of old newspapers at the house in Paul Street? Hereit is."

  Villiers drew out a small thin parcel from his pocket. It was coveredwith brown paper, and secured with string, and the knots weretroublesome. In spite of himself Clarke felt inquisitive; he bentforward on his chair as Villiers painfully undid the string, andunfolded the outer covering. Inside was a second wrapping of tissue,and Villiers took it off and handed the small piece of paper to Clarkewithout a word.

  There was dead silence in the room for five minutes or more; the twomen sat so still that they could hear the ticking of the tallold-fashioned clock that stood outside in the hall, and in the mind ofone of them the slow monotony of sound woke up a far, far memory. Hewas looking intently at the small pen-and-ink sketch of the woman'shead; it had evidently been drawn with great care, and by a trueartist, for the woman's soul looked out of the eyes, and the lips wereparted with a strange smile. Clarke gazed still at the face; itbrought to his memory one summer evening, long ago; he saw again thelong lovely valley, the river winding between the hills, the meadowsand the cornfields, the dull red sun, and the cold white mist risingfrom the water. He heard a voice speaking to him across the waves ofmany years, and saying "Clarke, Mary will see the god Pan!" and then hewas standing in the grim room beside the doctor, listening to the heavyticking of the clock, waiting and watching, watching the figure lyingon the green chair beneath the lamplight. Mary rose up, and he lookedinto her eyes, and his heart grew cold within him.

  "Who is this woman?" he said at last. His voice was dry and hoarse.

  "That is the woman who Herbert married."

  Clarke looked again at the sketch; it was not Mary after all. Therecertainly was Mary's face, but there was something else, something hehad not seen on Mary's features when the white-clad girl entered thelaboratory with the doctor, nor at her terrible awakening, nor when shelay grinning on the bed. Whatever it was, the glance that came fromthose eyes, the smile on the full lips, or the expression of the wholeface, Clarke shuddered before it at his inmost soul, and thought,unconsciously, of Dr. Phillip's words, "the most vivid presentment ofevil I have ever seen." He turned the paper over mechanically in hishand and glanced at the back.

  "Good God! Clarke, what is the matter? You are as white as death."

  Villiers had started wildly from his chair, as Clarke fell back with agroan, and let the paper drop from his hands.

  "I don't feel very well, Villiers, I am subject to these attacks. Pourme out a little wine; thanks, that will do. I shall feel better in afew minutes."

  Villiers picked up the fallen sketch and turned it over as Clarke haddone.

  "You saw that?" he said. "That's how I identified it as being aportrait of Herbert's wife, or I should say his widow. How do you feelnow?"

  "Better, thanks, it was only a passing faintness. I don't think Iquite catch your meaning. What did you say enabled you to identify thepicture?"

  "This word--'Helen'--was written on the back. Didn't I tell you hername was Helen? Yes; Helen Vaughan."

  Clarke groaned; there could be no shadow of doubt.

  "Now, don't you agree with me," said Villiers, "that in the story Ihave told you to-night, and in the part this woman plays in it, thereare some very strange points?"

  "Yes, Villiers," Clarke muttered, "it is a strange story indeed; astrange story indeed. You must give me time to think it over; I may beable to help you or I may not. Must you be going now? Well,good-night, Villiers, good-night. Come and see me in the course of aweek."