Haggopian and Other Stories

“I don’t know what to think,” I interrupted him, “but certainly the facts seem to speak for themselves. These men I’ve mentioned, and many others like them, all tried to understand or search for things which they should have left utterly alone. Then, too late, each of them recognised…something…and it recognised them! What I think really does not matter; what matters is that these men are no more. And yet here, tonight, you would commence

just such an experiment, to seek out something you really aren’t meant to know. Well, good luck to you. I for one want no part of it. I’ll leave before you begin.”

At that Lord Marriot, solicitous now, came over and laid a hand on my arm. “Now you promised me you’d see this thing through with me.”

“I did not accept your money, David,” I reminded him.

“I respect you all the more for that,” he answered. “You were willing to be here simply as a friend. As for this change of heart… At least stay a while and see the thing under way.”

I sighed and reluctantly nodded. Our friendship was a bond sealed long ago, in childhood. “As you wish—but if and when I’ve had enough, then you must not try to prevent my leaving.”

“My word on it,” he immediately replied, briskly pumping my hand. “Now then: a bite to eat and a drink, I think, another log on the fire, and then we can begin…”

II

The late autumn evening was setting in fast by the time we gathered around a heavy, circular oak table set centrally upon the library’s parquet flooring, in preparation for Lavery’s demonstration of his esoteric talent. The other three guests were fairly cheery, perhaps a little excited—doubtless as a result of David’s plying them unstintingly with his excellent sherry—and our host himself seemed in very good spirits; but I had been little affected and the small amount of wine I had taken had, if anything, only seemed to heighten the almost tangible atmosphere of dread which pressed in upon me from all sides. Only that promise wrested from me by my friend kept me there; and by it alone I felt bound to participate, at least initially, in what was to come.

Finally Lavery declared himself ready to begin and asked us all to remain silent throughout. The lights had been turned low at the medium’s request and the sputtering logs in the great hearth threw red and orange shadows about the spacious room.

The experiment would entail none of the usual paraphernalia beloved of mystics and spiritualists; we did not sit with the tips of our little fingers touching, forming an unbroken circle; Lavery had not asked us to concentrate or to focus our minds upon anything at all. The antique clock on the wall ticked off the seconds monotonously as the medium closed his eyes and lay back his head in his high-backed chair. We all watched him closely.

Gradually his breathing deepened and the rise and fall of his chest became regular. Then, almost before we knew it and coming as something of a shock, his hands tightened on the leather arms of his chair and his mouth began a silent series of spastic jerks and twitches. My blood, already cold, seemed to freeze at the sight of this, and I had half risen to my feet before his face grew still. Then Lavery’s lips drew back from his teeth and he opened and closed his mouth several times in rapid succession, as if gnashing his teeth through a blind, idiot grin. This only lasted for a second or two, however, and soon his face once more relaxed. Suddenly conscious that I still crouched over the table, I forced myself to sit down.

As we continued to watch him, a deathly pallor came over the medium’s features and his knuckles whitened as he gripped the arms of his chair. At this point I could have sworn that the temperature of the room dropped sharply, abruptly. The others did not seem to note the fact, being far too fascinated with the motion of Lavery’s exposed Adam’s apple to be aware of anything else. That fleshy knob moved slowly up and down the full length of his throat, while the column of his windpipe thickened and contracted in a sort of slow muscular spasm. And at last Lavery spoke. He spoke—and at the sound I could almost feel the blood congealing in my veins!

For this was in no way the voice of a man that crackled, hissed and gibbered from Lavery’s mouth in a—language?—which surely never originated in this world or within our sphere of existence. No, it was the voice of…something else. Something monstrous!

Interspaced with the insane cough, whistle and stutter of harshly alien syllables and cackling cachinnations, occasionally there would break through a recognisable combination of sounds which roughly approximated our pronunciation of “Atlach-Nacha”: but this fact had no sooner made itself plain to me than, with a wild shriek, Lavery hurled himself backwards—or was thrown backwards—so violently that he overturned his chair, rolling free of it to thrash about upon the floor.