Compleat Crow

VII

To Carstairs, waiting in the shadow of his doorway, it seemed that Crow took an inordinately long time to park his car in the garage, and when he came into view there were several things about him which in other circumstances might cause concern. A semi-dishevelled look to his clothes; a general tiredness in his bearing; an unaccustomed hang to his leonine head and a gritty redness of eye. Carstairs, however, was not at all concerned; on the contrary, he had expected no less.

As for Crow: despite his outward appearance, he was all awareness! The inflammation of his eyes had been induced by a hard rubbing with a mildly irritating but harmless ointment; the tardy condition of his dress and apparent lack of will were deliberately affected. In short, he was acting, and he was a good actor.

'Mr Crow,' said Carstairs as Crow entered the house. 'Delighted to have you back.' And the other sensed a genuine relief in the occultist's greeting. Yes, he was gladto have him back. 'Have you breakfasted?'

'Thank you, yes — on my way here.' Crow's voice was strained, hoarse, but this too was affected.

Carstairs smiled, leading the way to the library. At the door he said, 'Ah, these long weekends! How they take it out of one, eh? Well, no doubt you enjoyed the break.'

As Crow passed into the library Carstairs remained in the corridor. 'I shall look in later,' he said, 'when perhaps you'll tell me something of the system you've devised for your work — and something of the progress you are making. Until then ...' And he quietly closed the door on Crow.

Now the younger man straightened up. He went directly to his work table and smiled sardonically at the bottle of wine, its cork half-pulled, which stood there waiting for him. He pulled the cork, poured a glass, took the bottle to the barred windows and opened one a crack — then stuck the neck of the bottle through the bars and poured the filthy stuff away into the garden. The empty bottle he placed in his alcove bedroom, out of sight.

Then, seating himself and beginning to work, he forced himself to concentrate on the task in hand — the cataloguing of Carstairs' books, as if that were the real reason he was here — and so without a break worked steadily through the morning. About midday, when he was sure that he had done enough to satisfy his employer's supposed curiosity, should that really be necessary, he made himself coffee. Later he would eat, but not for an hour or so yet.

The morning had not been easy. His eyes had kept straying to the library shelf where he knew an edition of Prinn's book stood waiting for his eager attention. But he dared not open the thing while there was a chance that Carstairs might find him with it. He must be careful not to arouse the occultist's suspicions. Also, there was the glass of red wine close to hand, and Crow had found himself tempted. But in removing the symptoms of his supposed 'addiction', Harry Townley had also gone a good deal of the way toward curbing the need itself; so that Crow half-suspected it was his own perverse nature that tempted Mm once more to taste the stuff, as if in contempt of Carstairs' attempted seduction of his senses.

And the glass was still there, untouched, when halfan-hour later Carstairs quietly knocked and strode into the room. His first act on entering was to go directly to the windows and draw the shades, before moving to the table and picking up Crow's notes. Saying nothing, he studied them for a moment, and Crow could see that he was mildly surprised. He had not expected Crow to get on quite so well, that much was obvious. Very well, in future he would do less. It made little difference, really, for by now he was certain that the 'work' was very much secondary to Carstairs' real purpose in having him here. If only he could discover what that purpose really was ...

'I am very pleased, Mr Crow,' said Carstairs presently 'Extremely so. Even in adverse conditions you appear to function remarkably well.'

'Adverse conditions?'

'Come now! It is dim here — drab, lonely and less than comfortable. Surely these are adverse conditions?'

'I work better when left alone,' Crow answered. 'And my eyes seem to have grown accustomed to meagre light.'

Carstairs had meanwhile spotted the glass of wine, and turning his head to scan the room he casually searched for the bottle. He did not seem displeased by Crow's apparent capacity for the stuff.

'Ah ...' Crow mumbled. 'Your wine. I'm afraid I—'

'Now no apologies, young man,' Carstairs held up a hand. 'I have more than plenty of wine. Indeed, it gives me pleasure that you seem to enjoy it so. And perhaps it makes up for the otherwise inhospitable conditions, which I am sure are not in accordance with your usual mode of existence. Very well, I leave you to it. I shall be here for the rest of today — I have work in my study — but tomorrow I expect to be away I shall perhaps see you on Wednesday morning?' And with that he left the library.

Satisfied that he was not going to be disturbed any further, without bothering to open the window shades, Crow took down De Fermis Mysteriis from its shelf and was at once dismayed to discover the dark, cracked leather bindings of the German black-letter, almost the duplicate of the book he had looked into in the British Museum. His dismay turned to delight, however, on turning back the heavy cover and finding, pasted into the old, outer shell, a comparatively recent work whose title page declared it to be:

THE MYSTERIES OF THE WORM

being

THE COMPLETE BOOK

in sixteen chapters

With many dozens wood engravings;

representing

THE ORIGINAL WORK

of

LUDWIG PRINN,

after translation

By Charles Leggett,

and including his notes;

this being Number Seven of

a very Limited Edition,

LONDON

1821

Crow immediately took the book through into his alcove room and placed it under his pillow. It would keep until tonight. Then he unpacked a few things, hiding Townley's gun under his mattress near the foot of the bed. Finally, surprised to find he had developed something of an appetite, he decided upon lunch.

But then, as he drew the curtains on the alcove and crossed the room toward the library door, something caught his eye. It was an obscene, pink wriggling shape on the faded carpet where Carstairs had stood. He took it to the window but there, even as he made to toss it into the garden, discovered a second worm crawling on the wainscotting. Now he was filled with revulsion. These were two worms too many!

He disposed of the things, poured the still untouched glass of wine after them and went straight to Carstairs' study. Knocking, he heard dull movements within, and finally the occultist's voice:

'Come in, Mr Crow.'

This surprised him, for until now the room had supposedly been forbidden to him. Nevertheless he opened the door and went in. The gloom inside made shadows of everything, particularly the dark figure seated at the great desk. A thick curtain had been drawn across the single window and only the dim light of a desk-lamp, making a pool of feeble yellow atop the desk, gave any illumination at all. And now, here in these close quarters, the musty smell of the old house had taken to itself an almost charnel taint which was so heavy as to be overpowering.

'I was resting my eyes, Mr Crow,' came Carstairs' sepulchral rumble. 'Resting this weary old body of mine. Ah, what it must be to be young! Is there something?'

'Yes,' said Crow firmly. 'A peculiar and very morbid thing. I just thought I should report it.'

'A peculiar thing? Morbid? To what do you refer?' Carstairs sat up straighter behind his desk.

Crow could not see the man's face, which was in shadow, but he saw him start as he answered, 'Worms! A good many of them. I've been finding them all over the house.'

The figure in the chair trembled, half-stood, sat down again. 'Worms?' There was a badly-feigned tone of surprise in his voice, followed by a short silence in which Crow guessed the other sought for an answer to this riddle. He decided to prompt him:

'I really think you should have it seen to. They must be eating out the very heart of the house.'

Now Carstairs sat back and appeared to relax. His chuckle was throaty when he answered. 'Ah, no, Mr Crow — for they are not of the house-eating species. I rather fancy they prefer richer fare. Yes, I too have seen them. They are maggots!'

'Maggots?' Crow could not keep the disgusted note out of his voice, even though he had half-suspected it. 'But ... is there something dead here?'

'There was,' Carstairs answered. 'Shortly after you arrived here I found a decomposing rabbit in the cellar. The poor creature had been injured on the road or in a trap and had found a way into my cellar to die. Its remains were full of maggots. I got rid of the carcass and put down chemicals to destroy the maggots. That is why you were forbidden to go into the cellar; the fumes are harmful.'

'I see ...'

'As for those few maggots you have seen: doubtless some escaped and have found their way through the cracks and crevices of this old house. There is nothing for them here, however, and so they will soon cease to be a problem.'

Crow nodded.

'So do not concern yourself.'

'No, indeed.' And that was that.

Crow did not eat after all. Instead, feeling queasy, hewent out into the garden for fresh air. But even out therethe atmosphere now seemed tainted. It was as if a pall of gloom hovered over the house and grounds, and that with every passing minute the shadows deepened and the air grew heavy with sinister presences.

Some sixth, psychic sense informed Crow that he walked the strands of an incredibly evil web, and that a great bloated spider waited, half-hidden from view, until the time was just right — or until he took just one wrong step. Now a longing sprang up in him to be out of here and gone from the place, but there was that obstinate streak in his nature which would not permit flight. It was a strange hand that Fate had dealt, where at the moment Carstairs seemed to hold more than his fair share of the aces and Titus Crow held only one trump card.

Even now he did not realize how much depended upon that card, but he felt sure that he would very soon find out.