September 3, 2025 • 26 mins
What is it about that old house down the road that unnerves Pierre and his wife, Annette? The owners, Eric and Julia, appear to be a lovely couple, yet an unsettling aura of malevolence surrounds them. While Eric seems to radiate a supernatural darkness wherever he goes, Julia bears mysterious injuries that hint at a deeper horror. Are Erics sinister vibes the true source of her suffering, or is there something even more terrifying lurking within the walls of their home? (Summary by Ben Tucker)
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter nine of Sinister House by Leland Hall. This LibriVox
recording was in the public domain. Read by Ben Tucker.
Chapter nine. It was with mixed feelings of fear and
love that I started out with Giles early the next
afternoon to walk over to Eric's. I had slept until
nearly noon and felt, if not refreshed, at least calm.
(00:23):
I realized instinctively that I had need to be calm.
I felt that we were walking on to the conclusion
of the drama. Annette had telephoned to doctor Gresham, Eric's
line being still out of order. I guess the poor
fellow hadn't thought to do anything about it, and had
learned that Julia was suffering only from a heavy cold.
The doctor wouldn't say much, but he hinted that Julia's
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nerves were highly wrought up that she ought to have
a change. The sky was overcast, it was cold, and
the wind was rising. Giles and I swung along the
road against it, silent for a good quarter of an hour,
during which, thanks to the healthy exercise and the buffeting wind,
I straightened out my mind and arrived at a rational
decision as to my stand and conduct in this affair.
(01:06):
Believe me, there was one stark fact I could not
but face. I had turned Eric away from my house
as I would have turned a carrier of pestilence. I
felt for Eric as keenly as I had ever felt,
but with the difference much as I knew he was suffering.
I tried to harden my mind to believe that it
was his own fault. Yet it really wasn't. I mean,
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he was not entirely blameworthy. He was acting almost as
an animal would act, because something in his life had
beaten him down to just that. He was determined to
shun what had wickedly maltreated him. But by Gemini, a
man hasn't a right to his own life, not even
to his own past. If he wishes to live wholly alone,
that's different. But there's hardly a man who can do that.
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Life does not let him. You know that my sympathies
are easily aroused. They had been greatly excited by the suffering,
visible acutely only to me of my two friends. Recent events, however,
had shown me that sympathy, all in the guise of understanding,
may be absurdly and dangerously blind. I was beginning to
understand that afternoon. What more thoughtful natures than mine understand
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an early manhood, What certain temperaments are aware of instinctively
from the first. The conventions of society and the activities
of business all point to the fact that a man
is only a piece in a machine, really not self important,
but important only in his relations to others. Oh, I
thought many things that are probably old and stale to
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the world, no matter how new, to what Net calls
my simple nature. It isn't worth while recounting them. But
I wasn't wholly converted. I could not turn Eric away
from my house when he was in trouble. I had
to turn him away or my own flesh and blood,
my son would suffer cruelly. Just the same, I resented
Giles prodding into Eric's past life, as if Giles and
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I had been thinking along the same line. He turned
to me after we had gone a mile or so
and said, I'm sorry, Pierre, you didn't hear the story
of the Snarts as I told it last night. Greer
has been mixed up with them in the past. It's
a remarkable Don't for Heaven's sake tell it to me.
I cried, it's an evil sounding name, and I'm sure
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it was an evil family it was, said Giles laconically.
Then it's rotten luck that Julia and Eric, who are
the salt of the earth, should have come to a
house they had anything to do with luck. Oh no,
not luck. There's a queer streak in human natures. Men
come back to places for secret reasons, for feelings they
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cannot resist more than men come back. I said, look here, Pierre,
Giles began sharply. You know that, simple minded as you are,
you indulge yourself too much in the luxury of the dramatic,
of the melodramatic. Indeed, you'll pass for a gentle soul,
not too fiery, content with what the French call the
menus pleasure. You're honest and kind and trustworthy. But upon
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my soul, sometimes I think you're a good deal of
a damned fool. I cannot keep from smiling, partly because
it was so like Giles, so true to type, as
he would say, to pitch in to me with interpretations
of myself. Partly because to be called a damned fool
on that afternoon was strangely comforting. But I didn't say anything.
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I think that perhaps it's because I held my mouth
shut so much during these horrid days that I ever
wrote the story at all. I used to feel ashamed,
then now I don't well. Giles went on in regard
to this affair between mister and missus Greer, They're nervous, sensitive,
and highly strung, not the sort of people you have
seen much of or can be expected to understand. Therefore,
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they take on in your mind and heroic shape, and
trail you along into a world of myths and goblins.
The house they live in, which I grant is not
up to date, gives you the creeps, the figures of
speech they use aszoom in your imagination, a grotesque reality.
On such things, your simple mind loves to dwell, and
you think them over and over until your too easily
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stimulated imagination jumps out of your control and you are
no longer responsible for what you claim to see and hear.
You must control your mind and use it. You must
take facts for what they are. He would have gone
on and on, but I said, Giles, you are a
wiser man than I, and for these few remarks on myself,
many thinks I suppose experience teaches us to know ourselves,
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and I am learning in this which will always remain
one of the most horrible in my life. I know
that Annette thinks my mind is diseased. You think that
it is unexercised, uncontrolled. Strangely enough, I think that my
wits are about me. Now let me talk a little more.
There are what you call facts well and good. You
can say that in French for me if you want to.
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I will grant that my keen sympathy for Julia and
for Eric too may have made me a little blind,
but they like me. There's one fact in Neither an
unexercized mine nor a too keen sympathy can do away
with the fact that Julia and I too have You know,
I could not say it. The great fact, Giles broke in,
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is that Eric Greer has kept to himself something that,
by praying on him, has begun to pray on his
wife and on his friends. True crime or misadventure. And
I am inclined to think there are both, the one
perhaps palliated by the other, something in his past life
which demands an accounting or a confession. There's my explanation,
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what's yours? Remember, I can substantiate what I claim. I
preferred to keep silent, and we walked on without a word,
tramp tramp against the wind along the flat highway until
the hemlocks by Eric's house hove in view. Then Giles
turned suddenly to me and said, when there's a rotten
thing in a man, the surgeon must cut it out.
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Watch Eric, whatever happens this afternoon, I am glad Julia
will not be present. That took the wind out of me.
I could not imagine what Giles had arranged for my
dear little Flivver was standing in the driveway by the door,
and just as we came up, Eric stepped from the house,
evidently about to drive it back to me. When he
saw us, however, he stood waiting, a finger on his lips.
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How I whispered, is Julia, she is asleep? Just now?
He whispered back. The doctor judges that her cold is
not serious. But I think we will go away for
a change in a day or two. He looked pale
and haggard, and his hand, as I took it, felt cold.
Giles had little to say. I cannot fancy that Eric
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and Giles could ever have had much to say to
each other. The one visionary and reserved the other rather
cynical and very outspoken. There was a pause of a
minute or so, embarrassing to all of us. But though
Eric was preoccupied, I think he did not want us
to jump into the ford and go back at once.
After a while, he collected himself enough to invite us
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to be seated on the little veranda to the left
of the front door. There happened to be three old
chairs there. Giles looked at his watch. It's about four.
He said to me. I say, career, could you give
us a drop of tea? I've told you that such
bluntness was what I envied in Giles Pharaoh. Eric responded,
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I'm sorry. I think the household is a little disorganized,
and since Julia's asleep now, perhaps we'd better stay out
of doors and will have to indulge me. Anyhow, I've
got a hundred things to do about shutting up the house.
My mind's disturbed too, But we can sit here a
little while if you like, though, we'd better talk quietly.
Julia's right up there, and he pointed to the corner room.
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Have a cigar, then, Eric I offered, forgetting that he
did not smoke, He declined it and tipped his chair
back against the wall. Giles and I were both facing
him from the way. He pulled his cap down over
his eyes and rested his head against the wall. I
thought he must be tired, and his face, what I
could see of it, was hollow and lined. So you're
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going to leave us, I began, Where are you going?
Julia will go to stay with her cousin in a
little town up state. You are not going with her. No,
Eric replied in a very low voice. I I it
sounded as if he had made up his mind to
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say he had to go elsewhere for reasons of business,
but he broke off. I wondered if Julia and he
had come to an understanding. I saw Giles look at
his watch again, and it struck me as queer, because
not five minutes could have passed since he had looked
at it before. Alongside the veranda, the dead leaves on
the bushes were rattling in the cold wind, which tore
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round the corner of the house. I fancied I heard
a sort of banging in the distance, as of a
loosened shudder. Everything was restless, gray and chill, and we
three men alone on the bleak Veranda must have looked forlorn,
Eric pulling his cap yet lower over his face so
that all I could see of it was his mouth,
and Chin said to me, I suppose, Pierre, you don't
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know of anyone who would hire this house furnished. Why?
Perhaps that depends the thought of Eric's leaving the neighborhood.
Together with the cold, dreariness of the day, the knowledge
that the sprightly Julia who used to enliven us so
was lying sick in one of the gloomy rooms above us,
and the premonition that something disagreeable was going to happen,
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made an ordinary business conversation strange. Indeed, Now I thought
the chances very unfavorable tenants for that sort of house
would be rare in these days, anyhow, and at this
time of the year, et cetera, et cetera, if I
felt like selling Pierre, Eric went on, in a dreary voice,
how much would the place spring? How much land you own?
(10:50):
What you see here within the trees, and perhaps out
to the road. Well, it wouldn't bring very much, I'm afraid, Eric,
perhaps twenty five hundred, possibly three thousand. So little I
saw a bitter smile, twist his lips so little, he repeated,
and the cold wind swept his words away. It was
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hardly worth it. I turned round to size up the land,
to do anything, rather than submit to the spirit of
desolation that was moaning about us. There it was, the
short empty driveway curving from under the hemlocks as from
a tunnel, the half moon of land within it, the
little bit of lawn on either side, where the grass
was already dead and brownish. Fraid not more, Eric, I sighed,
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and turned back to face him. I'm afraid not more.
Though I could not see his eyes, I knew that
he had suddenly fixed them upon something behind me, something
that must have come into the driveway in the last second.
So sure was I of this that out of curiosity
I should have turned round again, but for the amazing
transformation which came over him, and which held me fixed
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in my chair and powerless to move. His jaw dropped
so that his mouth hung open. He put up a
trembling hand to cover his eyes, pushing back the cap
from his brow as he did so. Then, very slowly,
as if at the cost of great effort, over himself,
he brought that hand back to the arm of his chair.
I saw his eyes dilated, horrified, starting out of their sockets,
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still with a slowness that to me was excruciating. He
lowered one foot from the wrong of the chair, feeling
for the floor of the verandah, finding it, and then
he let the chair, which had been tilted back against
the wall of the house, come forward on its four legs. Slowly,
terribly slowly. He regained control of himself, closed his mouth,
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set his jaw behind me. I heard the crunching of
steps on the gravel. Someone was approaching, more or less hesitatingly,
but steadily, someone whose appearance must have been to Eric
as unspeakably what shall I say, a blasting, as the
apparition of the female specter of malice had been to me.
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Even Giles groaned, overcome by the look on Eric's face,
that ever fine handsome features, so often a glow with
ardor and love, could become such a mask of hateful tragedy.
He was getting to his feet, his loose raincoat fastened
by only one button, flapping and almost tearing in the wind. Instinctively,
I put out a hand towards him. He did not
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see it, He saw nothing but what was approaching him?
With steps that were beginning to falter under his breath,
he said, come on, I am not afraid of you,
you rotting white devil. It was not more than a whisper,
but it was terrible. Suddenly he stiffened to his full height.
He snatched his cap from his head and flung it
on the floor. Nostrils dilated and quivering, eyes blazing, he
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stamped on the floor. His hair blew like a wild
man's in the strong cold wind. He cried out, with
all the power of his full voice, come on, I say,
what do you want? There was about him at that moment,
and nobleness of rage, a majesty of defiance, something greatly heroic.
I was fascinated by him. I could not take my
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eyes from him, and I only heard what went on
A rather lisping voice. A woman's answered, I want to
see mister Greer. Mister Greer replied Eric, still in that
extraordinarily resonant, trumpet like voice, is not at home. He
has gone away, Oh, said the woman. Then I will
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come again. I heard her footsteps as she retreated, and
when they had grown faint, in my mind told me
that the woman had descended into the tunnel, through the hemlocks,
and gone out of sight. Then I saw Eric lay
a hand on the veranda rail, vault over it and
light on the brown grass just beyond the bushes. He
stumbled but did not fall. I turned to watch him,
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crouching like a tiger. He darted across the lawn to
the right, paused a second on a spot. Whence he
could see that woman, now out of my sight, pursuing
her way through the gloomily shadowed tunnel. Darted a little farther,
always to keep her in view, across the lawn, down
the driveway, into the tunnel. Maybe he stalked her. Thus
as far as the road, I saw no more of
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him till he returned to us. Heaven save us. I groaned,
what have you done? Giles? But all Giles would say,
and he said it again and again was she must
have been dreadful. She must have been dreadful. We waited
without saying anything more, chilled by the comfortless, harsh wind,
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vague to each other in the failing gray light. And
then Eric came back to us. Think of it. He
was dazed, and he mounted the veranda steps wearily. The
force of the wind had torn the button from his coat,
so that the body of it flapped behind him. From
his manner, it was evident that he was quite unconscious
of the staggering effect his dramatic lie had had upon us.
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And indeed our amazement might well, from his point of view,
have been quite negligible. Our moral sensibilities had been stunned, perhaps,
but he well. He stopped and caught up his cap
as the wind was blowing it away. Then he half
sat on the rickety railing of the verandah, looking down
at his cap, which he still held in his hands,
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and slowly fingered. His face was relaxed, I thought, he said,
at last, it was a woman who I know is dead.
He dropped his cap and took hold of the railing.
Hold a snart, Giles asked, in a low, cold tone.
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I was shocked. But the effect of that name on
Eric was like that of the touch of red hot
iron on a maddened animal. He sprang to his feet,
wrenching the rail with such force as to tear it
from its standards. It was rotten anyhow, but his wildness
lasted only a few seconds. With what must have been
a more than normally human effort, he calmed himself. What
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makes you think that pharaoh? He returned, speaking quite evenly.
Because this woman who has given you such a start
is her cousin, and is said to look astonishingly like her.
There could never have been more than two such as
they calm yourself, Greer, I am calm, said Eric. I
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took a long breath, tentatively to make sure my lungs
could function. Giles's temerity had knocked me breathless. It was
a sanctimonious family, Giles remarked, apparently incongruously. Was it, yes,
singularly colorless before the world, like that blanched fungus which
grows in damp cellars. There was a sort of secret
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evil name in the neighborhood, though that was colorless too.
They were cold blooded, all abnormally blonde. I was going
to tell you last night when you interrupted me that
Morgan Snart built this house. I'm surprised you are not
more curious about it. Who me, yes, especially you. You
bought the house, you know, I suppose through Grimmer and Strode.
(18:20):
Eric's reply was spoken quietly. But if the gale had
burst into a hurricane, I could not have been more startled,
or our mask of tranquility more wildly swept away. None
of your business. That's what he said. For the first
and only time I saw Giles flabbergasted. He paled with anger.
He stood up and began speaking rapidly, the words almost
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tumbling over each other. I happen to know that Grimmer
and Strode were Morgan Snart's executors. Through them, I know
that this house was never for sale. I know that
on the death of Morgan Snart, this house passed to
his daughter, and on the death of a few hours
later of his daughter, it passed to the name. If
ever it was spoken, was drowned. And Eric's loud, insane laughter.
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He threw back his head and laughed at the sky
peal after peal. It made me almost sick to hear him.
I had not known laughter could be such a voice
of anguish. All the time, the wind was flapping his
raincoat behind him, flattening his trousers against his thin legs.
His long black hair mixed with gray, tossed about his
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head and face. He laughed until I thought I must
stuff my fingers in my ears. He lifted his hands
high before him, and the section of the rotten railing
he still held, fell from them with a dull noise
to the floor. Then he went slowly into the house,
crying through his laughter. Oh my wife, Julia, Oh, my wife, Julia.
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His terrible laughter still came to us from within. I
was speechless, Giles said, damned, madman. Listen, Pierre, shut up.
I cried not a word. You've driven him mad. Keep
your facts to yourself. Present, and not more than a minute,
Eric came out again. His laughter had been in our ears,
but at the sight of us, whose presence he may
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have forgotten, he ceased laughing. Suddenly. The sudden silence was
in itself unnerving. No, he said, eyeing us mournfully. I
may not go to my wife Julia. I am forbidden.
He looked curiously at Giles and pointed a finger at
him in the silence before he spoke again. I heard
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the distant banging of the loosened shudder. I think you
are a ghoul in a dead man's grave, he said,
in his habitual melancholy voice. But you have not learned all.
Even you do not know who died first. Before Giles
could make any reply to this crazy statement, Eric stepped
from the porch and walked out of our sight into
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the blackness of the hemlocks. He did not leave us
to silence. There was always the wind and the banging
of that shutter. And then I heard a weak voice
above my head, calling Eric, Eric. Oh, but it sounded
miles away over a wind torn sea, Herrick, Herik. I
knew Eric was out of his head. I ran into
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the house. Darkness was falling outside. Within was already deepest gloom.
I rushed upstairs like a wanderer in a nightmare. I
knew not where or which door for me to find.
But I paused and listened and tried, and at last
I opened the door and walked into a chamber, where,
almost invisible in the dusk, little Julia lay in a
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great bed. Julia, I said, going softly to the bedside.
Eric is away. I am, Pierre, stay with me. A moment.
I am frightened. I dreamed I heard Eric laughing like
a man gone mad. What a horrid dream, Julia, Where
is Eric? I will find him, Yes, find me Eric.
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He must not be alone with his black thoughts. I
will find him, Julia. But is it best to bring
him back to you? You are not strong the night
is here. Though the whole house was trembling in the
force of the wind, cheerless, dark, and full of drafts,
yet for the time being it was empty of evil.
Never did those sinister spirits lurk in its corners or
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lope along its shadowy walls. While the Master was away.
Only the memory of dread now haunted it. For the present,
all was actually well, though dreary and under the spell
of a foreboding. I should have been glad to prevail
upon Julia, not to call back Eric from wandering abroad
with his black thoughts, with his malevolent familiars. If only
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he could have slipped them a mile or so away
upon the road, and left them bobbing and fluttering against
the wind, powerless to follow him. But that he could
not do. They would come into the house with him.
They were strong after sundown. Julia was weak this night.
The odds would be with them. Julia, I will find Eric,
but let me take him away with me. I am
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afraid to be a I will fetch a Nette. She
will stay with you tonight. Giles is downstairs too, Pierre,
she said, calmly, thinking for my boy. You cannot take
Eric to your house. You know, Yes, I know, I repeated, shuddering.
If I am to die tonight, I want Eric with me.
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You will not die tonight, Julia. Not of your cold. No,
not of my cold, she whispered hoarsely. It was so
dark I could hardly make out her form in the bed,
but I knew she had relapsed into a state of exhaustion.
So I went downstairs to the ford. Giles was sitting
where I had left him. He was still angry, but
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puzzled more to know what Eric's last cryptic words had meant.
I requested him to stay at the house at least
until I returned with the net. Then I started off,
but I did not go at once to my own home.
I drove a mile up the highway in the other direction,
looking for Eric. The twilight had deepened into night. If
Eric had left the road, I could not hope to
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see him. But until I turned back towards my house,
I thought my lights might pick him out ahead of me.
Even after I turned, I rather thought I had guessed
wrong on the direction he had taken, and that I
should discover him on the road the other way. But
I didn't, though my eyes were strained for the sight
of him. Where was he on this wild night? I
will say that I had never imagined him gone to
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the high cliffs over the river to make an end
of himself. I apprehended nothing worse than roaming half the
night in search of him, and passing the other half
beside him, still tramping, perhaps, but perhaps before a fire
at the Carraway club, that could be arranged. As I
drew near my home, having missed him so far on
the way, I put on all speed. There was a
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chance that he had set out for my house. I
meant that he should not enter it. He wasn't there.
The children were in the kitchen with a net, having
their supper. I kissed them good night there and called
Annette into the living room. A fire was blazing on
the hearth, and the room was warm and cheerful. It
was hard to tell my wife we must leave it.
But I can't leave the children alone to night, she cried,
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I can't do it. You know. The telephone is out
of order too. Yet I persuaded her to come with me.
She saw that I dreaded what was ahead of me.
That night. We hoped. I don't know what we hoped,
but I had a premonition that the matter was going
to be settled one way or the other. It might
be settled early, it might be settled late. I remember
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one poignant detail of our departure. That was the sound
of the bolts shot too behind us. It seemed like
a defiance to Eric. Why Annette put the children to
bed herself in our room. She made Felicia promise to
sleep on a couch in the same room and to
lock the room door. She insisted upon Felicia's closing the
front door behind us, almost before we had crossed the threshold,
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and she would not leave the porch until she had
heard the click of the bolt shot home, and sighed
against Eric, who was wandering half crazed with some terrible
secret grief through a cold, wild and friendless night. I
see a Nette now making her way down the granelithic
walk in the light of the forward lamps, holding her
hat on her head against the wind, her wide mouthed
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knitting bag inflated and pulling at her arm, her skirts
slashing like the canvas flap of a tent. She went first,
and I followed her. So we had often gone to the theater,
and now the curtain was about to rise on the
last act of the strangest drama and the most terrible
I have ever witnessed. End of Chapter nine
Chapter nine of Sinister House by Leland Hall. This LibriVox
recording was in the public domain. Read by Ben Tucker.
Chapter nine. It was with mixed feelings of fear and
love that I started out with Giles early the next
afternoon to walk over to Eric's. I had slept until
nearly noon and felt, if not refreshed, at least calm.
(00:23):
I realized instinctively that I had need to be calm.
I felt that we were walking on to the conclusion
of the drama. Annette had telephoned to doctor Gresham, Eric's
line being still out of order. I guess the poor
fellow hadn't thought to do anything about it, and had
learned that Julia was suffering only from a heavy cold.
The doctor wouldn't say much, but he hinted that Julia's
(00:44):
nerves were highly wrought up that she ought to have
a change. The sky was overcast, it was cold, and
the wind was rising. Giles and I swung along the
road against it, silent for a good quarter of an hour,
during which, thanks to the healthy exercise and the buffeting wind,
I straightened out my mind and arrived at a rational
decision as to my stand and conduct in this affair.
(01:06):
Believe me, there was one stark fact I could not
but face. I had turned Eric away from my house
as I would have turned a carrier of pestilence. I
felt for Eric as keenly as I had ever felt,
but with the difference much as I knew he was suffering.
I tried to harden my mind to believe that it
was his own fault. Yet it really wasn't. I mean,
(01:27):
he was not entirely blameworthy. He was acting almost as
an animal would act, because something in his life had
beaten him down to just that. He was determined to
shun what had wickedly maltreated him. But by Gemini, a
man hasn't a right to his own life, not even
to his own past. If he wishes to live wholly alone,
that's different. But there's hardly a man who can do that.
(01:49):
Life does not let him. You know that my sympathies
are easily aroused. They had been greatly excited by the suffering,
visible acutely only to me of my two friends. Recent events, however,
had shown me that sympathy, all in the guise of understanding,
may be absurdly and dangerously blind. I was beginning to
understand that afternoon. What more thoughtful natures than mine understand
(02:12):
an early manhood, What certain temperaments are aware of instinctively
from the first. The conventions of society and the activities
of business all point to the fact that a man
is only a piece in a machine, really not self important,
but important only in his relations to others. Oh, I
thought many things that are probably old and stale to
(02:34):
the world, no matter how new, to what Net calls
my simple nature. It isn't worth while recounting them. But
I wasn't wholly converted. I could not turn Eric away
from my house when he was in trouble. I had
to turn him away or my own flesh and blood,
my son would suffer cruelly. Just the same, I resented
Giles prodding into Eric's past life, as if Giles and
(02:57):
I had been thinking along the same line. He turned
to me after we had gone a mile or so
and said, I'm sorry, Pierre, you didn't hear the story
of the Snarts as I told it last night. Greer
has been mixed up with them in the past. It's
a remarkable Don't for Heaven's sake tell it to me.
I cried, it's an evil sounding name, and I'm sure
(03:18):
it was an evil family it was, said Giles laconically.
Then it's rotten luck that Julia and Eric, who are
the salt of the earth, should have come to a
house they had anything to do with luck. Oh no,
not luck. There's a queer streak in human natures. Men
come back to places for secret reasons, for feelings they
(03:39):
cannot resist more than men come back. I said, look here, Pierre,
Giles began sharply. You know that, simple minded as you are,
you indulge yourself too much in the luxury of the dramatic,
of the melodramatic. Indeed, you'll pass for a gentle soul,
not too fiery, content with what the French call the
menus pleasure. You're honest and kind and trustworthy. But upon
(04:03):
my soul, sometimes I think you're a good deal of
a damned fool. I cannot keep from smiling, partly because
it was so like Giles, so true to type, as
he would say, to pitch in to me with interpretations
of myself. Partly because to be called a damned fool
on that afternoon was strangely comforting. But I didn't say anything.
(04:23):
I think that perhaps it's because I held my mouth
shut so much during these horrid days that I ever
wrote the story at all. I used to feel ashamed,
then now I don't well. Giles went on in regard
to this affair between mister and missus Greer, They're nervous, sensitive,
and highly strung, not the sort of people you have
seen much of or can be expected to understand. Therefore,
(04:45):
they take on in your mind and heroic shape, and
trail you along into a world of myths and goblins.
The house they live in, which I grant is not
up to date, gives you the creeps, the figures of
speech they use aszoom in your imagination, a grotesque reality.
On such things, your simple mind loves to dwell, and
you think them over and over until your too easily
(05:06):
stimulated imagination jumps out of your control and you are
no longer responsible for what you claim to see and hear.
You must control your mind and use it. You must
take facts for what they are. He would have gone
on and on, but I said, Giles, you are a
wiser man than I, and for these few remarks on myself,
many thinks I suppose experience teaches us to know ourselves,
(05:28):
and I am learning in this which will always remain
one of the most horrible in my life. I know
that Annette thinks my mind is diseased. You think that
it is unexercised, uncontrolled. Strangely enough, I think that my
wits are about me. Now let me talk a little more.
There are what you call facts well and good. You
can say that in French for me if you want to.
(05:50):
I will grant that my keen sympathy for Julia and
for Eric too may have made me a little blind,
but they like me. There's one fact in Neither an
unexercized mine nor a too keen sympathy can do away
with the fact that Julia and I too have You know,
I could not say it. The great fact, Giles broke in,
(06:11):
is that Eric Greer has kept to himself something that,
by praying on him, has begun to pray on his
wife and on his friends. True crime or misadventure. And
I am inclined to think there are both, the one
perhaps palliated by the other, something in his past life
which demands an accounting or a confession. There's my explanation,
(06:33):
what's yours? Remember, I can substantiate what I claim. I
preferred to keep silent, and we walked on without a word,
tramp tramp against the wind along the flat highway until
the hemlocks by Eric's house hove in view. Then Giles
turned suddenly to me and said, when there's a rotten
thing in a man, the surgeon must cut it out.
(06:53):
Watch Eric, whatever happens this afternoon, I am glad Julia
will not be present. That took the wind out of me.
I could not imagine what Giles had arranged for my
dear little Flivver was standing in the driveway by the door,
and just as we came up, Eric stepped from the house,
evidently about to drive it back to me. When he
saw us, however, he stood waiting, a finger on his lips.
(07:15):
How I whispered, is Julia, she is asleep? Just now?
He whispered back. The doctor judges that her cold is
not serious. But I think we will go away for
a change in a day or two. He looked pale
and haggard, and his hand, as I took it, felt cold.
Giles had little to say. I cannot fancy that Eric
(07:37):
and Giles could ever have had much to say to
each other. The one visionary and reserved the other rather
cynical and very outspoken. There was a pause of a
minute or so, embarrassing to all of us. But though
Eric was preoccupied, I think he did not want us
to jump into the ford and go back at once.
After a while, he collected himself enough to invite us
(07:57):
to be seated on the little veranda to the left
of the front door. There happened to be three old
chairs there. Giles looked at his watch. It's about four.
He said to me. I say, career, could you give
us a drop of tea? I've told you that such
bluntness was what I envied in Giles Pharaoh. Eric responded,
(08:17):
I'm sorry. I think the household is a little disorganized,
and since Julia's asleep now, perhaps we'd better stay out
of doors and will have to indulge me. Anyhow, I've
got a hundred things to do about shutting up the house.
My mind's disturbed too, But we can sit here a
little while if you like, though, we'd better talk quietly.
Julia's right up there, and he pointed to the corner room.
(08:39):
Have a cigar, then, Eric I offered, forgetting that he
did not smoke, He declined it and tipped his chair
back against the wall. Giles and I were both facing
him from the way. He pulled his cap down over
his eyes and rested his head against the wall. I
thought he must be tired, and his face, what I
could see of it, was hollow and lined. So you're
(08:59):
going to leave us, I began, Where are you going?
Julia will go to stay with her cousin in a
little town up state. You are not going with her. No,
Eric replied in a very low voice. I I it
sounded as if he had made up his mind to
(09:19):
say he had to go elsewhere for reasons of business,
but he broke off. I wondered if Julia and he
had come to an understanding. I saw Giles look at
his watch again, and it struck me as queer, because
not five minutes could have passed since he had looked
at it before. Alongside the veranda, the dead leaves on
the bushes were rattling in the cold wind, which tore
(09:40):
round the corner of the house. I fancied I heard
a sort of banging in the distance, as of a
loosened shudder. Everything was restless, gray and chill, and we
three men alone on the bleak Veranda must have looked forlorn,
Eric pulling his cap yet lower over his face so
that all I could see of it was his mouth,
and Chin said to me, I suppose, Pierre, you don't
(10:04):
know of anyone who would hire this house furnished. Why?
Perhaps that depends the thought of Eric's leaving the neighborhood.
Together with the cold, dreariness of the day, the knowledge
that the sprightly Julia who used to enliven us so
was lying sick in one of the gloomy rooms above us,
and the premonition that something disagreeable was going to happen,
(10:26):
made an ordinary business conversation strange. Indeed, Now I thought
the chances very unfavorable tenants for that sort of house
would be rare in these days, anyhow, and at this
time of the year, et cetera, et cetera, if I
felt like selling Pierre, Eric went on, in a dreary voice,
how much would the place spring? How much land you own?
(10:50):
What you see here within the trees, and perhaps out
to the road. Well, it wouldn't bring very much, I'm afraid, Eric,
perhaps twenty five hundred, possibly three thousand. So little I
saw a bitter smile, twist his lips so little, he repeated,
and the cold wind swept his words away. It was
(11:13):
hardly worth it. I turned round to size up the land,
to do anything, rather than submit to the spirit of
desolation that was moaning about us. There it was, the
short empty driveway curving from under the hemlocks as from
a tunnel, the half moon of land within it, the
little bit of lawn on either side, where the grass
was already dead and brownish. Fraid not more, Eric, I sighed,
(11:38):
and turned back to face him. I'm afraid not more.
Though I could not see his eyes, I knew that
he had suddenly fixed them upon something behind me, something
that must have come into the driveway in the last second.
So sure was I of this that out of curiosity
I should have turned round again, but for the amazing
transformation which came over him, and which held me fixed
(11:58):
in my chair and powerless to move. His jaw dropped
so that his mouth hung open. He put up a
trembling hand to cover his eyes, pushing back the cap
from his brow as he did so. Then, very slowly,
as if at the cost of great effort, over himself,
he brought that hand back to the arm of his chair.
I saw his eyes dilated, horrified, starting out of their sockets,
(12:24):
still with a slowness that to me was excruciating. He
lowered one foot from the wrong of the chair, feeling
for the floor of the verandah, finding it, and then
he let the chair, which had been tilted back against
the wall of the house, come forward on its four legs. Slowly,
terribly slowly. He regained control of himself, closed his mouth,
(12:45):
set his jaw behind me. I heard the crunching of
steps on the gravel. Someone was approaching, more or less hesitatingly,
but steadily, someone whose appearance must have been to Eric
as unspeakably what shall I say, a blasting, as the
apparition of the female specter of malice had been to me.
(13:06):
Even Giles groaned, overcome by the look on Eric's face,
that ever fine handsome features, so often a glow with
ardor and love, could become such a mask of hateful tragedy.
He was getting to his feet, his loose raincoat fastened
by only one button, flapping and almost tearing in the wind. Instinctively,
I put out a hand towards him. He did not
(13:28):
see it, He saw nothing but what was approaching him?
With steps that were beginning to falter under his breath,
he said, come on, I am not afraid of you,
you rotting white devil. It was not more than a whisper,
but it was terrible. Suddenly he stiffened to his full height.
He snatched his cap from his head and flung it
on the floor. Nostrils dilated and quivering, eyes blazing, he
(13:52):
stamped on the floor. His hair blew like a wild
man's in the strong cold wind. He cried out, with
all the power of his full voice, come on, I say,
what do you want? There was about him at that moment,
and nobleness of rage, a majesty of defiance, something greatly heroic.
I was fascinated by him. I could not take my
(14:12):
eyes from him, and I only heard what went on
A rather lisping voice. A woman's answered, I want to
see mister Greer. Mister Greer replied Eric, still in that
extraordinarily resonant, trumpet like voice, is not at home. He
has gone away, Oh, said the woman. Then I will
(14:37):
come again. I heard her footsteps as she retreated, and
when they had grown faint, in my mind told me
that the woman had descended into the tunnel, through the hemlocks,
and gone out of sight. Then I saw Eric lay
a hand on the veranda rail, vault over it and
light on the brown grass just beyond the bushes. He
stumbled but did not fall. I turned to watch him,
(15:02):
crouching like a tiger. He darted across the lawn to
the right, paused a second on a spot. Whence he
could see that woman, now out of my sight, pursuing
her way through the gloomily shadowed tunnel. Darted a little farther,
always to keep her in view, across the lawn, down
the driveway, into the tunnel. Maybe he stalked her. Thus
as far as the road, I saw no more of
(15:22):
him till he returned to us. Heaven save us. I groaned,
what have you done? Giles? But all Giles would say,
and he said it again and again was she must
have been dreadful. She must have been dreadful. We waited
without saying anything more, chilled by the comfortless, harsh wind,
(15:46):
vague to each other in the failing gray light. And
then Eric came back to us. Think of it. He
was dazed, and he mounted the veranda steps wearily. The
force of the wind had torn the button from his coat,
so that the body of it flapped behind him. From
his manner, it was evident that he was quite unconscious
of the staggering effect his dramatic lie had had upon us.
(16:08):
And indeed our amazement might well, from his point of view,
have been quite negligible. Our moral sensibilities had been stunned, perhaps,
but he well. He stopped and caught up his cap
as the wind was blowing it away. Then he half
sat on the rickety railing of the verandah, looking down
at his cap, which he still held in his hands,
(16:28):
and slowly fingered. His face was relaxed, I thought, he said,
at last, it was a woman who I know is dead.
He dropped his cap and took hold of the railing.
Hold a snart, Giles asked, in a low, cold tone.
(16:49):
I was shocked. But the effect of that name on
Eric was like that of the touch of red hot
iron on a maddened animal. He sprang to his feet,
wrenching the rail with such force as to tear it
from its standards. It was rotten anyhow, but his wildness
lasted only a few seconds. With what must have been
a more than normally human effort, he calmed himself. What
(17:12):
makes you think that pharaoh? He returned, speaking quite evenly.
Because this woman who has given you such a start
is her cousin, and is said to look astonishingly like her.
There could never have been more than two such as
they calm yourself, Greer, I am calm, said Eric. I
(17:34):
took a long breath, tentatively to make sure my lungs
could function. Giles's temerity had knocked me breathless. It was
a sanctimonious family, Giles remarked, apparently incongruously. Was it, yes,
singularly colorless before the world, like that blanched fungus which
grows in damp cellars. There was a sort of secret
(17:55):
evil name in the neighborhood, though that was colorless too.
They were cold blooded, all abnormally blonde. I was going
to tell you last night when you interrupted me that
Morgan Snart built this house. I'm surprised you are not
more curious about it. Who me, yes, especially you. You
bought the house, you know, I suppose through Grimmer and Strode.
(18:20):
Eric's reply was spoken quietly. But if the gale had
burst into a hurricane, I could not have been more startled,
or our mask of tranquility more wildly swept away. None
of your business. That's what he said. For the first
and only time I saw Giles flabbergasted. He paled with anger.
He stood up and began speaking rapidly, the words almost
(18:43):
tumbling over each other. I happen to know that Grimmer
and Strode were Morgan Snart's executors. Through them, I know
that this house was never for sale. I know that
on the death of Morgan Snart, this house passed to
his daughter, and on the death of a few hours
later of his daughter, it passed to the name. If
ever it was spoken, was drowned. And Eric's loud, insane laughter.
(19:03):
He threw back his head and laughed at the sky
peal after peal. It made me almost sick to hear him.
I had not known laughter could be such a voice
of anguish. All the time, the wind was flapping his
raincoat behind him, flattening his trousers against his thin legs.
His long black hair mixed with gray, tossed about his
(19:24):
head and face. He laughed until I thought I must
stuff my fingers in my ears. He lifted his hands
high before him, and the section of the rotten railing
he still held, fell from them with a dull noise
to the floor. Then he went slowly into the house,
crying through his laughter. Oh my wife, Julia, Oh, my wife, Julia.
(19:45):
His terrible laughter still came to us from within. I
was speechless, Giles said, damned, madman. Listen, Pierre, shut up.
I cried not a word. You've driven him mad. Keep
your facts to yourself. Present, and not more than a minute,
Eric came out again. His laughter had been in our ears,
but at the sight of us, whose presence he may
(20:07):
have forgotten, he ceased laughing. Suddenly. The sudden silence was
in itself unnerving. No, he said, eyeing us mournfully. I
may not go to my wife Julia. I am forbidden.
He looked curiously at Giles and pointed a finger at
him in the silence before he spoke again. I heard
(20:29):
the distant banging of the loosened shudder. I think you
are a ghoul in a dead man's grave, he said,
in his habitual melancholy voice. But you have not learned all.
Even you do not know who died first. Before Giles
could make any reply to this crazy statement, Eric stepped
from the porch and walked out of our sight into
(20:51):
the blackness of the hemlocks. He did not leave us
to silence. There was always the wind and the banging
of that shutter. And then I heard a weak voice
above my head, calling Eric, Eric. Oh, but it sounded
miles away over a wind torn sea, Herrick, Herik. I
knew Eric was out of his head. I ran into
(21:12):
the house. Darkness was falling outside. Within was already deepest gloom.
I rushed upstairs like a wanderer in a nightmare. I
knew not where or which door for me to find.
But I paused and listened and tried, and at last
I opened the door and walked into a chamber, where,
almost invisible in the dusk, little Julia lay in a
(21:33):
great bed. Julia, I said, going softly to the bedside.
Eric is away. I am, Pierre, stay with me. A moment.
I am frightened. I dreamed I heard Eric laughing like
a man gone mad. What a horrid dream, Julia, Where
is Eric? I will find him, Yes, find me Eric.
(21:53):
He must not be alone with his black thoughts. I
will find him, Julia. But is it best to bring
him back to you? You are not strong the night
is here. Though the whole house was trembling in the
force of the wind, cheerless, dark, and full of drafts,
yet for the time being it was empty of evil.
Never did those sinister spirits lurk in its corners or
(22:14):
lope along its shadowy walls. While the Master was away.
Only the memory of dread now haunted it. For the present,
all was actually well, though dreary and under the spell
of a foreboding. I should have been glad to prevail
upon Julia, not to call back Eric from wandering abroad
with his black thoughts, with his malevolent familiars. If only
(22:35):
he could have slipped them a mile or so away
upon the road, and left them bobbing and fluttering against
the wind, powerless to follow him. But that he could
not do. They would come into the house with him.
They were strong after sundown. Julia was weak this night.
The odds would be with them. Julia, I will find Eric,
but let me take him away with me. I am
(22:59):
afraid to be a I will fetch a Nette. She
will stay with you tonight. Giles is downstairs too, Pierre,
she said, calmly, thinking for my boy. You cannot take
Eric to your house. You know, Yes, I know, I repeated, shuddering.
If I am to die tonight, I want Eric with me.
(23:20):
You will not die tonight, Julia. Not of your cold. No,
not of my cold, she whispered hoarsely. It was so
dark I could hardly make out her form in the bed,
but I knew she had relapsed into a state of exhaustion.
So I went downstairs to the ford. Giles was sitting
where I had left him. He was still angry, but
(23:41):
puzzled more to know what Eric's last cryptic words had meant.
I requested him to stay at the house at least
until I returned with the net. Then I started off,
but I did not go at once to my own home.
I drove a mile up the highway in the other direction,
looking for Eric. The twilight had deepened into night. If
Eric had left the road, I could not hope to
(24:02):
see him. But until I turned back towards my house,
I thought my lights might pick him out ahead of me.
Even after I turned, I rather thought I had guessed
wrong on the direction he had taken, and that I
should discover him on the road the other way. But
I didn't, though my eyes were strained for the sight
of him. Where was he on this wild night? I
will say that I had never imagined him gone to
(24:24):
the high cliffs over the river to make an end
of himself. I apprehended nothing worse than roaming half the
night in search of him, and passing the other half
beside him, still tramping, perhaps, but perhaps before a fire
at the Carraway club, that could be arranged. As I
drew near my home, having missed him so far on
the way, I put on all speed. There was a
(24:45):
chance that he had set out for my house. I
meant that he should not enter it. He wasn't there.
The children were in the kitchen with a net, having
their supper. I kissed them good night there and called
Annette into the living room. A fire was blazing on
the hearth, and the room was warm and cheerful. It
was hard to tell my wife we must leave it.
But I can't leave the children alone to night, she cried,
(25:08):
I can't do it. You know. The telephone is out
of order too. Yet I persuaded her to come with me.
She saw that I dreaded what was ahead of me.
That night. We hoped. I don't know what we hoped,
but I had a premonition that the matter was going
to be settled one way or the other. It might
be settled early, it might be settled late. I remember
(25:31):
one poignant detail of our departure. That was the sound
of the bolts shot too behind us. It seemed like
a defiance to Eric. Why Annette put the children to
bed herself in our room. She made Felicia promise to
sleep on a couch in the same room and to
lock the room door. She insisted upon Felicia's closing the
front door behind us, almost before we had crossed the threshold,
(25:54):
and she would not leave the porch until she had
heard the click of the bolt shot home, and sighed
against Eric, who was wandering half crazed with some terrible
secret grief through a cold, wild and friendless night. I
see a Nette now making her way down the granelithic
walk in the light of the forward lamps, holding her
hat on her head against the wind, her wide mouthed
(26:16):
knitting bag inflated and pulling at her arm, her skirts
slashing like the canvas flap of a tent. She went first,
and I followed her. So we had often gone to the theater,
and now the curtain was about to rise on the
last act of the strangest drama and the most terrible
I have ever witnessed. End of Chapter nine
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