The Green Spider
Sax Rohmer
(1883-1959)
October 1904
I find from my notes that Professor Brayme-Skepley's great lecture which was to revolutionize modern medicine should have been delivered upon the fifteenth of March, and many of Europe's leading scientists were during the preceding week to be seen daily in the quaint old streets of Barminster--for the entire world of medical science was waiting agog for the revelation of the Brayme-Skepley treatment.
Many people wondered that Brayme-Skepley should deliver a lecture so vastly important in old-world Barminster rather than in London; but he was not a man to be co-erced--so the savants, perforce, came to Barminster.
At twelve, midnight, as nearly as can be ascertained, on the fourteenth of March the porter in charge of the North Gate--by which direct admission can be gained to the quadrangle--was aroused by a loud ringing of his bell.
Hurrying to the door of his little lodge, he was surprised to find at the gate the gaunt figure of Professor Brayme-Skepley, enveloped in a huge fur coat. He hastened to unlock the wicket and admit the great scientist.
"I am sorry to trouble you at so late an hour, Jamieson," said the Professor, "but there are some little preparations which I must make for tomorrow's lecture. I shall probably be engaged in the bacteriological laboratory for a couple of hours. You will not mind turning out with the key?"
He slipped a sovereign into the porter's hand as he spoke, and Jamieson only too gladly acquiesced.
The fire in the little sitting-room of the lodge was almost extinct, but the man revived it, and, putting on a shovelful of coal, lighted his pipe, and sat smoking for about an hour. At one o'clock he stepped outside, and glanced across the quadrangle.
The Professor was still working, and, finding the night air chilly, Jamieson was about to turn in again when a light suddenly appeared in the top window of one of those ancient houses in Spindle Lane. The house was the last of the row, and overlooked the bacteriological laboratory.
"That's old Kragg's house," muttered the porter; "but I didn't know anybody lived there since the old man died."
The light was a vague and flickering one, almost like that of a match; and, as he watched, it disappeared again.
There was something uncanny about this solitary light in a house which he believed to be uninhabited, so, with a slight shudder, Jamieson returned to the comforts of his fireside.
Curiously enough, I had been reading upon this particular night in Harborne's rooms; and at something like twenty minutes past two I knocked the ashes from my pipe, and was about to depart--when there came a sudden scuffling on the stairs. We both turned just as the door was flung open, and Jamieson, white-faced and wild-eyed, stumbled, breathless, into the room.
"Thank Heaven I've found somebody up!" he gasped. "Yours was the only window with a light!"
"Where's the brandy?" I said, for the man seemed inclined to faint upon the sofa.
A stiff glass of cognac pulled him together somewhat, and, with a little colour returning to his face, but still wild of eye, he burst out:
"Professor Brayme-Skepley has been murdered!"
"Murdered!" echoed Harborne.
"And no mortal hand has done the thing, sir!" continued the frightened man. "Heaven grant I never see the like again!"
"You're raving!" I said with an assumption of severity, for Jamieson's condition verged closely upon that of hysteria. "Try to talk sense. Where is the Professor?"
"In the bacteriological laboratory, sir."
"How long has he been there?"
"Since twelve o'clock!"
I glanced at Harborne in surprise.
"What was he doing there?" enquired the latter.
"He said he had some preparations to make for his lecture."
"Well, get on! Here, have another pull at the brandy. How do you know he's dead?"
"I went to ask him how much longer he was going to be."
"Well?"
"He didn't answer to my knocking, although there was a light burning. The door was locked from the inside, so I got on to the dust-box, and just managed to reach a window-ledge. I pulled myself up far enough to look inside; and then--I dropped down again!"
"But what did you see, man? What did you see?"
"I saw Professor Brayme-Skepley lying dead on the floor among broken jars by an overturned table. There were only two lamps on--those over the table--and his head came just in the circle of light. His body was in shadow."
"What else?"
"Blood! His hair all matted!"
"Come on, Harborne!" I cried, seizing my hat. "You too, Jamieson!"
"For the love of Heaven, gentlemen," gasped the man, grasping us each by an arm, "I couldn't! You haven't heard all!"
"Then get on with it!" said Harborne. "Every second is of importance."
"I ran for the window ladder, gentlemen; and when I came back with it the electric lamps were out!"
"Out?"
"I ran up the ladder, and looked in at the window; and saw--how can I tell you what I saw?"
"Don't maunder!" shouted Harborne. "What was it?"
"It was a thing, sir, like a kind of green spider--only with a body twice the size of that football!"
Harborne and I looked at one another significantly.
"You're a trifle overwrought, Jamieson," I said, laying my hand upon his shoulder. "Stay here until we come back."
The man stared at me.
"You don't believe it," he said tensely; "and you'll go into that place unprepared. But I'll swear on the Book that there was some awful thing not of this earth creeping in the corner of the laboratory!"
Harborne, with his hand on the doorknob, turned undecidedly.
"Which corner, Jamieson?" he enquired.
"The north-west, sir. I just caught one glimpse of it through the opening in the partition."
"How could you see it, since all the lights were out?" Harborne asked.
The porter looked surprised. "That never occurred to be before, sir," he said; "but I think it must have shone-- something like the bottles of phosphorus, sir!"
"Come on!" said my friend. And without further ado we ran downstairs into the Square.
A cheerful beam of light from the door of the lodge cut the black shadows of the archway as we approached, and served to show that the panic-stricken porter had left the wicket open. As we hurried through and sprinted across the quadrangle we were met by a cold, damp wind from the direction of the river. The night was intensely dark, and the bacteriological laboratory showed against the driving masses of inky cloud merely as a square patch of blackness.
"Here's the ladder," said Harborne suddenly; and we both paused, undecided how to act.
"Try the door," I suggested.
We rattled the handle of the door, but it was evidently locked, so that for a moment we were in a quandary.
Harborne mounted the ladder and peered into the impenetrable shadows of the laboratory, but reported that there was nothing to be seen.
"We must burst the door in," I said; "it hasn't a very heavy lock."
We accordingly applied our shoulders to the door, and gave a vigorous push. The lock yielded perceptibly. I then crashed my heel against the woodwork just over the keyhole, and the door flew open. We immediately detected a most peculiar odour.
"It's the broken bottles," muttered Harborne. "The switch is over against the wall by the bookcase; we must go straight for that."
Cautiously we stepped into the darkness, and at the third or fourth step there was a crackling of glass underfoot.
My boot slipped where some sticky substance lay, and I gave an involuntary shudder. A moment later I heard an exclamation of disgust.
"The wall is all wet!" said Harborne.
Then he found the electric buttons, and turned on the lights in rapid succession.