“Thank you,” Crow answered. “And now, if I may, there are one or two points…”
“By all means.”
“I came by car, and—”
“Ah! Your motorcar, yes. Turn left on the drive as you enter through the gate. There you will find a small garage. Its door is open. Better that you leave your car there during the week, or else as winter lengthens the battery is sure to suffer. Now then, is there anything else?”
“Will I need a key?” Crow asked after a moment’s thought. “A key to the house, I mean, for use when I go away at weekends?”
“No requirement,” Carstairs shook his head. “I shall be here to see you off on Fridays, and to welcome you when you return on Monday mornings.”
“Then all would appear to be very satisfactory. I do like fresh air, however, and would appreciate the occasional opportunity to walk in your gardens.”
“In my wilderness, do you mean?” and Carstairs gave a throaty chuckle. “The place is so overgrown I should fear to lose you. But have no fear—the door of the house will not be locked during the day. All I would ask is that when I am not here you are careful not to lock yourself out.”
“Then that appears to be that,” said Crow. “It only remains for me to thank you for the meal—and of course to offer to wash the dishes.”
“Not necessary.” Again Carstairs shook his head. “On this occasion I shall do it; in future we shall do our own. Now I suggest you garage your car.”
He led Crow from the kitchen through gloomy passages to the outer door, and as they went the younger man remembered a sign he had seen affixed to the ivy-grown garden wall. When he mentioned it, Carstairs once more gave his throaty chuckle. “Ah, yes—Beware of the Dog! There is no dog, Mr. Crow. The sign is merely to ensure that my privacy is not disturbed. In fact I hate dogs, and dogs hate me!”
On that note Crow left the house, parked his car in the garage provided, and finally returned to Carstairs’ library. By this time his host had gone back to the study or elsewhere and Crow was left quite alone. Entering the library he could not help but lick his lips in anticipation. If only one or two of the titles he had seen were the actual books they purported to be…then Carstairs’ library was a veritable gold mine of occult lore! He went directly to the nearest bookshelves and almost immediately spotted half a dozen titles so rare as to make them half-fabulous. Here was an amazingly pristine copy of du Nord’s Liber Ivonie, and another of Prinn’s De Vermis Mysteriis. And these marvelous finds were simply inserted willy-nilly in the shelves, between such mundane or common treatises as Miss Margaret Murray’s Witch-Cult and the much more doubtful works of such as Mme. Blavatsky and Scott-Elliot.
A second shelf supported d’Erlette’s Cultes des Goules, Gauthier de Metz’s Image du Mond, and Artephous’ The Key of Wisdom. A third was filled with an incredible set of volumes concerning the theme of oceanic mysteries and horrors, with such sinister-sounding titles as Gantley’s Hydrophinnae, the Cthaat Aquadingen, the German Unter Zee Kulten, le Fe’s Dwellers in the Depths, and Konrad von Gerner’s Fischbuch, circa 1598.
Moving along the shelved wall, Crow felt his body break out in a sort of cold sweat at the mere thought of the value of these books, let alone their contents, and such was the list of recognizably “priceless” volumes that he soon began to lose all track of the titles. Here were the Pnakotic Manuscripts, and here The Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan; until finally, on coming across the R’lyeh Text and, at the very last, an ancient, ebony-bound, gold-and-silver-arabesqued tome which purported to be none other than the Al Azif
itself!…He was obliged to sit down at one of the dusty tables and take stock of his senses.
It was only then, as he unsteadily seated himself and put a hand up to his fevered brow, that he realized all was not well with him. He felt clammy from the sweat which had broken out on him while looking at the titles of the books, and his mouth and throat had been strangely dry ever since he sampled (too liberally, perhaps?) Carstairs’ wine. But this dizziness clinched it. He did not think that he had taken overmuch wine, but then again he had not recognized the stuff and so had not realized its potency. Very well, in future he would take only a single glass. He did not give thought, not at this point, to the possibility that the wine might have been drugged.
Without more ado, still very unsteady on his feet, he got up, put on the light in the alcove where his bed lay freshly made, turned off the library lights proper, and stumblingly retired. Almost before his head hit the pillow he was fast asleep.
He dreamed.
The alcove was in darkness but dim moonlight entered the library through the barred windows in beams which moved with the stirring of trees in the garden. The curtains were open and four dark-robed, hooded strangers stood about his bed, their half-luminous eyes fixed upon him. Then one of them bent forward and Crow sensed that it was Carstairs.
“Is he sleeping, Master?” an unknown voice asked in a reedy whisper.
“Yes, like a baby,” Carstairs answered. “The open, staring eyes are a sure sign of the drug’s efficacy. What do you think of him?”
A third voice, deep and gruff, chuckled obscenely. “Oh, he’ll do well enough, Master. Another forty or fifty years for you here.”
“Be quiet!” Carstairs immediately snarled, his dark eyes bulging in anger. “You are never to mention that again, neither here nor anywhere else!”
“Master,” the man’s voice was now a gasp. “I’m sorry! I didn’t realize—”
Carstairs snorted his contempt. “None of you ever realizes,” he said.
“What of his sign, Master?” asked the fourth and final figure, in a voice as thickly glutinous as mud. “Is it auspicious?”
“Indeed it is. He is a Saggitarian, as am I. And his numbers are…most propitious.” Carstairs’ voice was now a purr. “Not only does his name have nine letters, but in the orthodox system his birth number is twenty-seven—a triple nine. Totaled individually, however, his date gives an even better result, for the sum is eighteen!”
“The triple six!” The other’s gasp was involuntary.
“Indeed,” said Carstairs.
“Well, he seems tall and strong enough, Master,” said the voice of the one already chastised. “A fitting receptacle, it would seem.”
“Damn you!” Carstairs rounded on him at once. “Fool! How many times must I repeat—” and for a moment, consumed with rage, his hissing voice broke. Then, “Out! Out! There’s work for you fools, and for the others. But hear me now: He is The One, I assure you—and he came of his own free will, which is as it must always be.”
Three of the figures melted away into darkness but Carstairs stayed. He looked down at Crow one last time, and in a low, even whisper said, “It was a dream. Anything you may remember of this was only a dream. It is not worth remembering, Mr. Crow. Not worth it at all. Only a dream…a dream…a dream…” Then he stepped back and closed the curtains, shutting out the moonbeams and leaving the alcove in darkness. But for a long time it seemed to the sleeping man in the bed that Carstairs’ eyes hung over him in the night like the smile of the Cheshire Cat in Alice.
Except that they were malign beyond mortal measure….