Compleat Crow

AN ITEM OF SUPPORTING EVIDENCE

THE NEXT TWO stories were shorts written expressly for August Derleth's Arkham Collector. This slim magazine or 'house journal' didn't have room for long pieces, so Derleth liked to keep stories short and to the point.

But let's go back to a- time twenty years earlier:

My father was a coal miner in a colliery an England's northeast coast, and he was also a very well-read, fascinating man with a keen and ever-thirsting mind. Museums drew him like a nail to a magnet, and some of his love of ancient civilizations and strange antiquities — his love of knowledge in general — naturally rubbed off on me. Sunderland had a fine museum, which we used to visit fairly regularly. And not far away, there stood Hadrian's Wall. I think we met Titus Crow there once, when we were walking under the wall.

Come to think of it that might even have been the same day he stumbled across

An Item of Supporting Evidence.

It was the contents of a letter from Chandler Davies, the weird-artist, commenting upon the negative effect which my short story Yegg-ha's Realm had had on him, which determined me to invite him round to Blowne House. Not that I grieved to any great extent over Mr Davies' adverse comments - you can never please everyone - but I definitely disagreed with his expounded argument. He had had it that Mythological-Fantasy was 'out'; that the Cthulhu Mythos' fabled lands and creatures and Cimmeria's scintillating citadels and dark demons should have been allowed to die a sad but certain death along with their respective originators, and that constant culling from those tales - the brain children of my own, not to mention many another author's, literary progenitors - was weakening the impact of the original works. Nor, apparently, had my story - admittedly a Lovecraftian piece; set during the time of Rome's rule over England and involving the worship of an 'outside God' - irritated him in this respect alone. What seemed to have annoyed Mr Davies especially was the fact that I had portrayed 'so thoroughly unbelievable a God' as existing in such a well-known period of England's history that even an average student of our country's antiquities could hardly miss the obvious impossibility of my tale.

I was pleased that Mr Davies had written directly to me and not to the letters section of Grotesque, in which magazine my tale had originally appeared, for then I would have been forced to take retaliatory measures which would undoubtedly have caused great tidal-waves of unwanted activity on many a scientific beach. Obviously the artist was not aware that all my stories have at least a tenuous basis in established fact, some more definitely than others, and that I have never chronicled anything which I believe could not possibly have happened or which has not, in some way or other, directly involved myself.

Anyway, Mr. Davies accepted my invitation and braved the curious aura of foreboding which surrounds Blowne House to visit me one Sunday afternoon some weeks ago. It was the first time he had ever set foot inside my abode and I noted with satisfaction the way in which his eyes roved enviously over the contents of my amply stocked book-shelves.

Briefly fingering the spine of an original copy of Geoffrey's People of the Monolith, he remarked upon my extreme good fortune at owning so many scarce volumes and read off some of their titles as he scanned them. His, short monologue included Feery's Original Notes on the Necronomicon, the abhorrent Cthaat Aquadingen, a literally priceless Cultes des Goules and many other similarly outre works including such anthropological source books as The Golden Bough and Miss Murray's Witch Cult. I made a point of bringing to his attention the fact that "I also owned a translated copy of Lollius Urbicus' little known Frontier Garrison, circa AD 138, and took the book down from its shelf before pouring my guest a welcoming brandy.

'I take it that book contains the item of supporting evidence which you mentioned in your letter, Mr Crow?

That being the case I think it's only fair to warn you from the beginning that I can't put much stock in anything Urbicus says; though I'll admit that his description of the temple to Mithras at Barrburgh was pretty accurate.'

Appreciating the way in which my obviously erudite critic was shaping up, I countered his exploratory thrust by smiling and telling him: 'No, the book merely contains a few additional fragments of interest in connection with my actual evidence — which is of an entirely different nature.'

'I don't want you to get me wrong, Mr Crow,' he answered, taking out a cigarette and settling himself more comfortably in his chair in preparation for the more strenuous battle to come, 'as an entertainment your story was very good — excellent — and any casual reader of such tales must surely have experienced a definite shudder at some of the "shock" paragraphs which you so successfully employed; but to have set the thing in a period of which we're so historically and archaeologically "sure" — the same period, I note, in which old Urbicus scribbled his notes for that book of yours — was a mistake the story could well have done without. You see, I'm a collector — a gourmet of such tales, you could say — and while I don't wish to be offensive I must admit that blunders like yours irk me considerably . . .' He sipped at his brandy.

While Mr Davies had been speaking, I had carefully opened Frontier Garrison to a previously marked page and as soon as he was done I turned the book around and slid it over the table separating us so that he could read the selected paragraph. Smiling, he did so, though I thought his smile was just a trifle too sarcastic; and sure enough, when he was through, he closed the book with a flourish which indicated complete rejection.

'I have also read Plato on Atlantis and Borellus on, er, revivication? — No, Mr Crow, Lollius Urbicus' account of the death of Yegg-ha at the swords of a centuria of fear-frenzied Roman soldiers doesn't impress me at all. I'm sorry'

'I rather fancy your dismissal of Plato and Borellus as a bit too perfunctory Mr Davies! I can only suspect that your appraisal of their works, to say nothing of the work of Lollius Urbicus, is undertaken with the same attitude of mind with which the Inquisition viewed the work of Galileo Galilei; and, of course, if Sayce hadn't unearthed their remains all over Asia Minor and Northern Syria you'd probably still be denying that the Hittites ever existed!' I- smiled.

'Touche!' he said But now you're talking, Mr Crow! Remains, you said Now, that's it exactly! After all, remains are proof! But tell me please — what remains are there to show that that abominable invention of Urbicus' ever existed?'

'You think he created Yegg-ha himself then?' I asked. 'You believe that the featureless, ten-foot-tall monstrosity he mentioned in his notes was purely a figment of his own imagination?'

'Oh, no.^- I wouldn't be so presumptuous. Urbicus probably got the idea from local legends or fairy tales. Later, rather than write off the ignominious loss of a half centuria of soldiers to a barbarian attack, he attributed their annihilation to this giant, faceless God . .

'Hmmm — clever, I answered, 'but how about the communal grave recently unearthed at Briddock Fort — with forty-eight fantastically mutilated Roman skeletons haphazardly piled, one upon the other, some still encased in their armour, as if buried in great haste?'

That shook him a bit. 'I'd forgotten that,' he admitted.

'But for God's sake, man — there must have been thousands of small skirmishes which never got chronicled! You see, that's the whole point, Mr Crow; you talk about these things in exactly the same way in which you wrote about them in that damned story of yours — as though you believe in them conclusively! As though you actually believe that a great, murderous, lunatic thing was called up from hell by the barbarians to do battle with the Romans! As though you have definite proof — which you haven't. No, you shouldn't have done your story as an historical document at all. God only knows how many poor, deluded little lore-swallowers you'll have galloping all over Briddock and Housesteads, awesomely trembling at the thought that they're perhaps treading the same ground upon which the, Romans did fearsome battle with the hideous Yegg-ha!'

While he sat there fuming I poured more brandy into his glass and grinned at him. 'Well, I've obviously made a literary enemy! I'm sorry about that because it was my intention to ask you to illustrate my next book. But anyway, tell me — have you ever seen that horrible, ten-foot chunk of granite statuary in the Roman Antiquities section of the British Museum?'

'Yes, I have; from Limestone Bank, I believe. A stubby-winged thing much similar to the God in your story, with defaced features and . . .' He checked himself. 'Just what are you getting at?'

'Try to think, Mr Davies — didn't you find it funny that the features of that statue were so cleverly, so smoothly, er, defaced? Why! If one looks at it at all closely it almost appears as though it wasn't intended to have any features . .

He choked over his brandy. I reached for his glass and

filled it again as he sputtered and coughed, dabbing at his lips with a handkerchief, getting himself under control.

'There you go again! Of all the prepos--'

'I've been unfair, Mr Davies.' I shut him off. 'I've kept you in suspense too long and you're losing your patience. Drink your brandy . .

'I beg your pardon?'

'Drink your brandy, I repeated_ 'You'll need it.' I opened my writing cabinet and took out an object cowled unconventionally in a tea-cosy. I balanced it upon the table. Then I pointed to the book in front of my bewildered visitor and said 'Page thirty-four, second paragraph . . : As Mr Davies fumblingly, suspiciously found the page and paragraph I stroked my item of supporting evidence beneath its tea-cosy cover.

Eventually he looked up from the book It relates to a walk Urbicus took over the countryside shortly after his men allegedly disposed of your monster. Six of his best men went with him. So what?'

He was looking for a place to bury something, and needed those men to carry it,' I explained. 'He wanted it hidden so that the barbarians wouldn't be able to use whatever powers of, er - what was that word you used? - revivication they might have possessed upon it.'

Mr Davies opened his mouth to stutter a denial but I cut him off. 'You see, I've examined the whole length of. Hadrian's Wall in that area, between Housesteads and Briddock, and eventually I found the right spot. I'm quite a little archaeologist, you know, but even if I hadn't been, Urbicus' description,' - I nodded at the book which he had put down, - 'as with his description of the temple at. Barrburgh, fitted the spot exactly. Surprisingly enough, the countryside hasn't changed all that much in eighteen

centuries; all I had to do was look for the, place where I would have put the body if I'd been Urbicus. It took me five weeks but I did eventually find it.'

'What on Earth are you talking—'

I lifted the tea-cosy and passed the football-sized item it concealed over the table for Mr Davies' incredulous inspection.

I made him promise to keep it to himself; I cannot say I fancy the idea of crowds of boffins disturbing my privacy and I certainly would never part with that item of supporting evidence. Not only that but he promised to illustrate my next book.

There are many outré items in Blowne House; a weird, four-handed clock which ticks all out of rhyme, the Cthaat Aquadingen with its nameless binding, a crystal-ball which is so disturbing to look upon that I have to keep it locked away – and many others equally as strange as these. But I am particularly proud of my paperweight –though I will admit it does seem peculiar to put such an odd item to such a use. You see, it's a rather large, socketless skull...

With wire hooks screwed into them the wings make excellent coat-hangers.