Compleat Crow

BILLY'S OAK

THIS IS ANOTHER tale of an unconventional ghost. More I can't say . . .

Having enjoyed a surprising measure of success with my latest book, Here Be Witches!; and, in the process of researching for that 'documentary' volume, having stumbled across various mentions of a certain 'black' book — the Cthaat Aquadingen, an almost legendary collection of spells and incantations purported to relate, among other things, to the raising of certain water-elementals — I was considerably put out to discover that the British Museum did not have a copy; or, if there was a copy at the museum, then for some reason the controllers of that vast establishment were reluctant to permit its perusal! Yet I especially desired to see a copy, in connection with a companion volume to Here Be Witches!, to be entitled Forbidden Books!, which my publisher was pressing me to start work upon.

It was this reluctance on the part of the Curator of the Rare Books Department to answer my inquiries with anything other than the most perfunctory replies which prompted me to get in touch with. Titus Crow; a London-dwelling collector of obscure and eldritch volumes who, 1 had heard it rumoured, held a copy of the very book I wished to consult in his private library.

In prompt reply to a hastily scribbled letter Mr Crow invited me round to Blowne House — his residence onthe outskirts of the city — assuring me that he did indeed own a copy of the Cthaat Aquadingen and that with one provision and on one condition I might be allowed to check through its contents. The provision was that any projected visit to Blowne House would have to be paid during the later hours of the evening; for, as he was currently engaged upon some studying himself, and because he was better able to concentrate at night, he was retiring very late and was rarely out of bed before noon. This, plus the fact that his afternoons were taken up by more mundane but nevertheless essential labours, left him only the evenings in which to work or entertain visitors. Not, as he was quick to explain, that he was given to entertaining visitors very often. In fact, had he not already acquainted himself with my earlier work he would have been obliged to pointblank refuse my proposal. Too many 'cranks' had already attempted the penetration of his retreat.

As the fates would have it, I chose a filthy night to call at Blowne House. The rain was coming down in sheets and great grey clouds hung heavy over the city in the lowering sky. I parked my car on the long driveway in front of Mr Crow's sprawling bungalow home, ran up the short path with my collar turned up against the downpour, and banged on the heavy door. During the space of the half-minute or so in which it took my host to answer my knock I got thoroughly soaked. As soon as I had introduced myself as being Gerald Dawson I found myself ushered inside, relieved of my dripping coat and soggy hat, and bustled through to Mr Crow's study where he bade me sit before a roaring fire to 'dry out'.

He was not what I had expected. He was tall and broad-shouldered and it was plain to see that in his younger days he had been a handsome man. Now, though, his hair had greyed and his eyes, though they were still bright and observant, bore the imprint of many a- year spent exploring-and often, I guessed, discovering — along rarely trodden paths of mysterious and obscure learning. He was attired in a flame-red dressing-gown, and I noticed that a small, casual table beside his desk sported a bottle of the best brandy.

It was that which rested upon the desk itself, however, which mainly attracted my attention; for it was obviously the object of Mr Crow's studies; a tall, four-handed, hieroglyphed, coffin-shaped monstrosity of a: clock, lying horizontally, face upwards, along the full length of the huge desk. I had noticed when he answered my knock that my host carried a book; and, as he placed this volume on the arm of my chair while he poured me a welcome drink, I was able to see that it was a well-thumbed copy of Walmsley's Notes on Deciphering Codes, Cryptograms, and Ancient Inscriptions. Apparently Mr Crow was attempting a translation of the fantastic hieroglyphics on the weird clock's face. Even as I got up and crossed the room to have a closer look at that device it was obvious to me that the intervals between its loud ticks were quite irregular; nor, I noticed, did the four hands move in consonance with any time-system with which I was at all familiar. I could not help but wonder just what chronological purpose so curious a timepiece served.

Crow saw the bewilderment on my face and laughed.'It puzzles me to the same extent, Mr Dawson, but Ishouldn't let it bother you. I doubt if anyone will evertruly understand the thing; every now and then I get the:urge to have another bash at it, that's all, and then I'm atfor weeks at a time, getting nowhere! Still, you didn'tcome round here tonight to get yourself involved withMarigny's clock! You're here to have a look at a book.'

I agreed with him and commenced to outline my plan for including a mention or two of the Cthaat Aquadingen in Forbidden Books! As I spoke he moved the occasional table from its position near his desk to a place nearer to where I had been seated beside the fire. This done he slid back a panel, hidden in the wall to one side of the fireplace, and took down from a dim shelf the very volume in which my interest was seated. Then an expression of extreme loathing crossed his face and he quickly put the book down on the table and wiped his hands on his dressing-gown.

'The, er, binding . . .' he muttered. 'It's forever sweating which is rather surprising, you'll agree, considering its donor has been dead for at least four hundred years!'

'Its donor!' I exclaimed, glancing in morbid fascination at the book. 'You don't mean to say that it's bound in . . .

'I'm afraid so! At least, that copy is.'

'My God! . . . Are there many copies then?' I asked. 'Only three that I know of — and one of the other two is here in London. I take it they wouldn't let you see it?' 'You're very shrewd, Mr Crow, and perfectly correct.

No, I wasn't allowed to see the copy at the British Museum.'

'You'd have received the same answer if you'd asked for the Necronomicon,' he answered. I was taken completely aback.

'I beg your pardon? Don't tell me you believe there really is such a book? Why, I've been assured half-adozen times that this Necronomicon thing is purely a fiction; a clever literary prop to support a fictional mythology'

`If you say so,' he blandly replied. 'But anyway, it's that book you're interested in.' He indicated the evilly-bound volume on the occasional table.

'Yes, of course, I answered, 'but didn't you say something about a, well, a condition?'

'Ah! Well, I've taken care of that myself,' he said. 'I've had the two centre chapters — the more instructive ones -- taken out and bound separately, just in case. I'm afraid you can't see them.'

'Instructive ones? In case?' I echoed him. 'I don't quite see what you mean?'

'Why, in case the thing should ever fall into the wrong hands, of course!' He looked surprised. 'Surely you must have wondered why those people at the museum keep their copies of such books under lock and key?'

'Yes; I imagine they're locked away because they're very rare, worth a lot of money!' I answered. 'And I suppose some of them must contain one or two rather nasty items; erotic-supernaturaI-sadistic stuff, I mean; sort of medieval Marquis de Sade?'

'Then you suppose wrongly, Mr Dawson. The Cthaat Aquadingen contains complete sets of working spells and invocations; it contains the Nyhargo Dirge and a paragraph on making the Elder Sign; it contains one of the Sathlatta, and four pages on Tsathogguan Rituals. It contains far too much — and if certain authorities had had their way even the three remaining copies would have been destroyed long ago.'

'But surely you can't believe in such things?' I protested. `I mean, I intend to write of such books as though -there's something damnably mysterious and monstrous about them — I'll have to, or I'd never make a sale — but I can't believe such things myself.'

Crow laughed at me, in a rather mirthless way. 'Can't you? If you'd seen the things I've seen, or been through some of the things I've been through, believe me you wouldn't feel so shocked, Mr Dawson. Oh, yes, I believe in such things. I believe in ghosts and fairies, in ghouls and genies, in a certain mythological "prop", and in the existence of Atlantis, R'lyeh, and G'harne.'

'But surely there's not one scrap of genuine evidence in favour of any of the things or places you've mentioned?' I argued. 'Where, for instance, can one be sure of meeting a — well — a ghost?'

Crow thought it over a moment and I felt sure I had scored a major victory. I just could not take it in that this so obviously intelligent man genuinely believed so deeply in the supernatural. But then, in defiance of what I had considered the unanswerable question, he said: 'You put me in the position of the ecclesiastical gentleman who once informed a small child of the existence of AnAlmighty-God-Who-Is-Everywhere — and was then asked to produce him. No, I can't show you a ghost — at least, not without going to a lot of trouble — but I can show you a manifestation of one.'

'Oh, now come, Mr Crow, you ..

'No, seriously,' he cut me off. 'Listen!' He put a finger to his lips, signifying silence, and adopted a listening attitude.

The rain outside had stopped and there was only the sporadic patter of droplets draining from the tiles to disturb the silence of the room; that and the ticking of Crow's great clock. Then there came to my ears a quite audible, long drawn out, creaking sound — like straining timbers.

'You heard it?' Crow smiled.

'I heard it,' I answered. 'I've heard it half-a-dozen times while we've been talking. You've got unseasoned timber in your attic.'

'This house has very unusual rafters,' he observed. 'Teak — and seasoned well before the house was built.

And teak doesn't creak!' He grinned, obviously liking the sound of that last.

I shrugged. 'Then it's a tree straining in the wind.'

'Right, it is a tree, but it's not straining in the wind. If there was a wind up we'd hear it. No, that was a branch of "Billy's Oak", protesting at his weight.' He crossed to the window with its drawn curtains and inclined his head in the direction of the garden beyond. 'You missed our Billy when you wrote Here Be Witches!' he said. 'William "Billy" Fovargue — accused of wizardry — was hanged on that tree in 1675 by a crowd of fear-crazed peasants. He was on his way to trial at the time, but after the "lynching" the crowd testified they'd jumped the gun on Billy because he'd started a horrible incantation and weird shapes had begun to form in the sky — so they'd simply strung him up to prevent things from going any further . . .'

I got the idea. 'I see. So that sound is the branch from which he was hanged, still creaking with his weight two hundred and eighty years after the hanging?' I put as much sarcasm as possible into my reply.

Crow was quite unperturbed. 'That's right,' he answered. 'It got on the nerves of the previous owner of the house so much that he eventually sold the place to me. The owner before him nearly went crazy trying to discover the sound's source.'

I spotted Crow's mistake immediately. Something he had said did not ring quite true. 'Ah!' I pointed out. 'Now that's where your story falls down, Mr Crow. Surely he would've traced the sound to the oak?' I took his silence as acknowledgment of my cleverness and got to my feet, quickly crossing the room to where he stood by the drawn curtains. As I did so the creaking from the tree in he garden came again, louder.

'It's the wind in the oak's branches, Mr Crow,' I assured him, and nothing else.'

As the eerie sound came yet again from beyond the window I drew back the curtains and stared out into the night.

I took a quick step backwards then, telling myself that I must be seeing things. But that was just the point; I was not seeing things. My mind suddenly whirled; but, after a moment's thought, I burst into shaky laughter. The clever devil. He had actually had me going there for a moment. I turned to him in sudden anger and saw that he was still smiling.

'So it is the rafters after all?' I blurted, my voice cracking a little.

Crow kept right on smiling. 'No, it's not,' he said. 'That's what nearly drove that fellow I was telling you about crazy. You see, when they built this house seventy years ago, they cut Billy's Oak down — so that its roots wouldn't interfere with the foundations . .