Haggopian and Other Stories

“Mr. Titus Crow,” he said, when he was sufficiently induced and when the night chill had left his bones, “I honestly don’t know why I’ve come to you for try as I might I can’t see what you can do for me. I’m doomed. Doomed by Black Magic, and though I’ve brought it on myself and though I know I haven’t led what could be called a very refined life, I certainly don’t want things to end for me the way they did for poor Symonds!” Hearing that name, I was startled, for Symonds was a name which had featured very recently in the press and which had certain unpleasant connections. His alleged heart failure or brain seizure had been as unexpected as it was unexplained but now, to some extent, Chambers was able to explain it for me.

“It was that fiend Gedney,” Chambers said. “He destroyed Symonds and now he`s after me. Symonds and I, both quite well-to-do men you could say, joined Gedney’s Devil-Cult. We did it out of boredom. We were both single and our lives had become an endless parade of night-clubs, sporting-clubs, men’s-clubs and yet more clubs. Not a very boring life, you may think, but believe me, after a while even the greatest luxuries and the most splendid pleasures lose their flavours and the palate becomes insensitive to all but the most delicious—or perverse—sensations. So it was with Symonds and I when we were introduced to Gedney at a club, and when he offered to supply those sensations, we were eager to become initiates of his cult.

“Oh, it’s laughable! D’you know he’s thought of by many as just another crank? We never guessed what would be expected of us and having gone through with the first of the initiation processes at Gedney s country house, not far out of London, processes which covered the better part of two weeks, we suddenly found ourselves face to face with the truth. Gedney is a devil—and of the very worst sort. The things that man does would make the Marquis de Sade in his prime appear an anaemic cretin. By God, if you’ve read Commodus you have a basic idea of Gedney but you must look to the works of Caracalla to really appreciate the depths of his blasphemous soul. Man, look at the missing persons columns sometime!

“Of course we tried to back out of it all and would have managed it too if Symonds, the poor fool, hadn’t gone and blabbed about it. The trouble with Symonds was drink. He took a few too many one night and openly down-graded Gedney and his whole box of tricks. He wasn’t to know it but the people we were with at the time were Gedney’s crew—and fully-fledged members at that! Possibly the fiend had put them on to us just to check us out. Anyway, that started it. Next thing we knew Gedney sent us an invitation to dinner at a club he uses, and out of curiosity we went. I don’t suppose it would have made much difference if we hadn’t gone. Things would have happened a bit sooner, that’s all. Naturally Gedney had already hit us for quite a bit of money and we thought he was probably after more. We were wrong! Over drinks, in his best ‘rest assured’ manner, he threatened us with the foulest imaginable things if we ever dared to ‘slander’ him again. Well, at that, true to his nature, Symonds got his back up and mentioned the police. If looks could kill Gedney would have had us there and then. Instead, he just upped and left but before he went he said something about a ‘visit from The Black’. I still don’t know what he meant.”

During the telling of his tale, Chambers’ voice had hysterically gathered volume and impetus but then, as I filled his glass, he seemed to take a firmer grip on himself and continued in a more normal tone.

“Three nights ago I received a telephone-call from Symonds—yes, on the very night of his death. Since then I’ve been at the end of my rope. Then I remembered hearing about you and how you know a lot about this sort of thing, so I came round. When Symonds called me that night, he said he had found a blank envelope in his letter-box and that he didn’t like the design on the card inside it. He said the thing reminded him of something indescribably evil and he was sure Gedney had sent it. He asked me to go round to his place. I had driven to within half a mile of his flat in town when my damned car broke down. Looking back, it’s probably just as well that it did. I set out on foot and I only had another block to walk when I saw Gedney. He’s an evil-looking type and once you see him you can never forget how he looks. His hair is black as night and swept back from a point low in the centre of his forehead. His eyebrows are bushy above hypnotic eyes of the type you often find in people with very strong characters. If you’ve ever seen any of those Bela Lugosi horror films you’ll know what I mean. He’s exactly like that, though thinner in the face, cadaverous in fact.