"Yes, it did," I admitted. "It made me shudder."
"Exactly!" he cried. "To have elaborated the painting with figures from my own paltry brain would have spoiled the effect. The effect of horror is most gained when the sensation is most intangible. To put the horror into a visible shape, no matter how gibbous or mistily, is to lessen the effect. I paint an ordinary tumble-down farmhouse with the hint of a ghastly face at a window; but this house--this House--needs no such mummery or charlatanry. It fairly exudes an aura of abnormality--that is, to a man sensitive to such impressions."
Conrad nodded. "I received that impression from the snapshot. The trees obscure much of the building but the architecture seems very unfamiliar to me."
"I should say so. I'm not altogether unversed in the history of architecture and I was unable to classify it.
The natives say it was built by the Dutch who first settled that part of the country but the style is no more Dutch than it's Greek. There's something almost Oriental about the thing, and yet it's not that either. At any rate, it's old--that cannot be denied."
"Did you go in The House?"
"I did not. The doors and windows were locked and I had no desire to commit burglary. It hasn't been long since I was prosecuted by a crabbed old farmer in Vermont for forcing my way into an old deserted house of his in order to paint the interior."
"Will you go with me to Old Dutchtown?" asked Conrad suddenly.
Skuyler smiled. "I see your interest is aroused--yes, if you think you can get us into The House without having us dragged up in court afterwards. I have an eccentric reputation enough as it is; a few more suits like the one I mentioned and I'll be looked on as a complete lunatic. And what about you, Kirowan?"
"Of course I'll go," I answered.
"I was sure of that," said Conrad. "I don't even bother to ask him to accompany me on my weird explorations any more--I know he's eager as I."
And so we came to Old Dutchtown on a warm late summer morning.
"Drowsy and dull with age the houses blink,
On aimless streets that youthfulness forget--
But what time-grisly figures glide and slink
Down the old alleys when the moon has set?"
Thus Conrad quoted the phantasies of Justin Geoffrey as we looked down on the slumbering village of Old Dutchtown from the hill over which the road passed before descending into the crooked dusty streets.
"Do you suppose he had this town in mind when he wrote that?"
"It fits the description, doesn't it--'High gables of an earlier, ruder age'--look--there are your Dutch houses and old Colonial buildings--I can see why you were attracted by this town, Skuyler, it breathes a very musk of antiquity. Some of those houses are three hundred years old. And what an atmosphere of decadence hovers over the whole town."
We were met by the mayor of the place, a man whose up-to-the-minute clothes and manners contrasted strangely with the sleepiness of the town and the slow, easy-going ways of most of the natives. He remembered Skuyler's visit there--indeed, the coming of any stranger into this little backwash town was an event to be remembered by the inhabitants. It seemed strange to think that within a hundred or so miles there roared and throbbed the greatest metropolis of the world.
Conrad could not wait a moment, so the mayor accompanied us to The House. The first glance of it sent a shudder of repulsion through me. It stood in the midst of a sort of upland, between two fertile farms, the stone fences of which ran to within a hundred or so yards on either side. A ring of tall, gnarled oaks entirely surrounded the house, which glimmered through their branches like a bare and time-battered skull.
"Who owns this land?" the artist asked.
"Why, the title is in some dispute," answered the mayor. "Jediah Alders owns that farm there, and Squire Abner owns the other. Abner claims The House is part of the Alders farm, and Jediah is just as loud in his assertions that the Squire's grandfather bought it from the Dutch family who first owned it."
"That sounds backwards," commented Conrad. "Each one denies ownership."
"That's not so strange," said Skuyler. "Would you want a place like that to be part of your estate?"
"No," said Conrad after a moment's silent contemplation, "I would not."
"Between ourselves," broke in the mayor, "neither of the farmers want to pay the taxes on the property as the land about it is absolutely useless. The barrenness of the soil extends for some little distance in all directions and the seed planted close to those stone fences on both farms yields little. These oak trees seem to sap the very life of the soil."
"Why have the trees not been cut down?" asked Conrad. "I have never encountered any sentiment among the farmers of this state."
"Why, as the ownership has been in dispute for the past fifty years, no one has liked to take it on himself.
And then the trees are so old and of such sturdy growth it would entail a great deal of labor. And there is a foolish superstition attached to that grove--a long time ago a man was badly cut by his own axe, trying to chop down one of the trees--an accident that might occur anywhere--and the villagers attached over-much importance to the incident."
"Well," said Conrad, "if the land about The House is useless, why not rent the building itself, or sell it?"
For the first time the mayor looked embarrassed.
"Why, none of the villagers would rent or buy it, as no good land goes with it, and to tell you the truth, it has been found impossible to enter The House!"
"Impossible?"
"Well," he amended, "the doors and windows are heavily barred and bolted, and either the keys are in possession of someone who does not care to divulge the secret, or else they have been lost. I have thought that possibly someone was using The House for a bootleg den and had a reason for keeping the curious out but no light has ever been seen there, and no one is ever seen slinking about the place."
We had passed through the circling ring of sullen oaks and stood before the building.
Untitled Fragment
Beneath the glare of the sun, etched in the hot blue sky, native laborers sweated and toiled. The scene was a cameo of desolation--blue sky, amber sand stretching to the skyline in all directions, barely relieved by a fringe of palm trees that marked an oasis in the near distance. The men were like brown ants in that empty sun-washed immensity, pecking away at a queer grey dome half hidden in the sands. Their employers aided with directions and ready hands.
Allison was square-built and black bearded; Brill was tall, wiry, with a ginger-hued moustache and cold blue eyes. Both had the hard bronzed look of men who had spent most of their lives in the outlands.
Allison knocked out the ashes from his pipe on his boot heel.
"Well, how about it?"
"You mean that fool bet?" Brill looked at him in surprise. "Do you mean it?"
"I do. I'll lay you my best six-shooter against your saddle that we don't find an Egyptian in this tomb."
"What do you expect to find?" asked Brill quizzically, "a local shaykh? Or maybe a Hyksos king? I'll admit it's different from anything of the sort I've ever seen before, but we know from its appearance of age that it antedates Turkish or Semitic control of Egypt--it's bound to go back further than the Hyksos, even. And before them, who was in Egypt?"
"I reckon we'll know after we've looted this tomb," answered Allison, with a certain grimness in his manner.
Brill laughed. "You mean to tell me you think there was a race here before the Egyptians, civilized enough to build such a tomb as this? I suppose you think they built the pyramids!"
"They did," was the imperturbable reply.
Brill laughed. "Now you're trying to pull my leg."
Allison looked at him curiously. "Did you ever read the 'Unausprechlichen Kulten'?"
"What the devil's that?"
"A book called 'Nameless Cults,' by a crazy German named Von Junzt--at least they said he was crazy.