thoughts were in a terrible turmoil when I eventually left the library and I could feel upon my spine the chill, hopping feet of some abysmal dread from the beginning of time. My previously wholesome nervous system had already started to crumble…
During the journey back across the moors in the evening bus, the drone of the engine lulled me into a kind of half-sleep in which I heard again something Sir Amery had mentioned—something he had murmured aloud while sleeping and presumably dreaming. He had said:
“They don’t like water… England’s safe… Have to go too deep…” The memory of those words shocked me back to wakefulness and filled me with a further icy chill which got into the very marrow of my bones. Nor were these feelings of horrid foreboding misleading, for awaiting me at the cottage was that which went far to completing the destruction of my entire nervous system…
As the bus came round the final wooded bend which hid the cottage from sight I saw it ! The place had collapsed. I simply could not take it in! Even knowing all I knew—with all my slowly accumulating evidence—it was too much for my tortured mind to comprehend; I left the bus and waited until it had threaded its way through the parked police cars before crossing the road. The fence to the cottage had been knocked down to allow an ambulance to park in the queerly tilted garden. Spotlights had been set up, for it was almost dark, and a team of rescuers were toiling frantically at the incredible ruins. As I stood there, aghast, I was approached by a police officer and having stumblingly identified myself was told the following story.
A passing motorist had actually seen the collapse and the tremors attendant to it had been felt in nearby Marske. The motorist had realised there was little he could do on his own and had speeded into Marske to report the thing. Allegedly the house had gone down like a pack of cards. The police and an ambulance had been on the scene within minutes and rescue operations had begun immediately. Up to now it appeared that my uncle had been out when the collapse occurred for as of yet there had been no trace of him. There had been a strange, poisonous odour about the place but this had vanished soon after the work had started. The rescuers had cleared the floors of all the rooms except the study and during the time it took the officer to bring me up to date even more debris was being frantically hauled away.
Suddenly there was a lull in the excited babble of voices. I saw that the gang of rescue workers were standing looking down at something. My heart gave a wild leap and I scrambled over the debris to see what they had found.
There, where the floor of the study had been, was that which I had feared and more than half expected. It was simply a hole. A gaping hole in the floor— but from the angles at which the floorboards lay, and the manner in which they were scattered about, it looked as though the ground, rather than sinking, had been pushed up from below.
VI
Nothing has since been seen or heard of Sir Amery Wendy-Smith and though he is listed as being missing I know in fact that he is dead. He is gone to worlds of ancient wonder and my only prayer is that his soul wanders on our side of the threshold. For in our ignorance we did Sir Amery a great injustice—I and all the others who thought he was out of his mind. All his queer ways—I understand them all now, but the understanding has come hard and will cost me dear. No, he was not mad. He did the things he did out of self-preservation and though his precautions came to nothing in the end, it was fear of a nameless evil and not madness which prompted them.
But the worst is still to come. I myself have yet to face a similar end. I know it, for no matter what I do the tremors haunt me. Or is it only in my mind? No! There is little wrong with my mind. My nerves are gone but my mind is intact. I know too much! They have visited me in dreams, as I believe
During the journey back across the moors in the evening bus, the drone of the engine lulled me into a kind of half-sleep in which I heard again something Sir Amery had mentioned—something he had murmured aloud while sleeping and presumably dreaming. He had said:
“They don’t like water… England’s safe… Have to go too deep…” The memory of those words shocked me back to wakefulness and filled me with a further icy chill which got into the very marrow of my bones. Nor were these feelings of horrid foreboding misleading, for awaiting me at the cottage was that which went far to completing the destruction of my entire nervous system…
As the bus came round the final wooded bend which hid the cottage from sight I saw it ! The place had collapsed. I simply could not take it in! Even knowing all I knew—with all my slowly accumulating evidence—it was too much for my tortured mind to comprehend; I left the bus and waited until it had threaded its way through the parked police cars before crossing the road. The fence to the cottage had been knocked down to allow an ambulance to park in the queerly tilted garden. Spotlights had been set up, for it was almost dark, and a team of rescuers were toiling frantically at the incredible ruins. As I stood there, aghast, I was approached by a police officer and having stumblingly identified myself was told the following story.
A passing motorist had actually seen the collapse and the tremors attendant to it had been felt in nearby Marske. The motorist had realised there was little he could do on his own and had speeded into Marske to report the thing. Allegedly the house had gone down like a pack of cards. The police and an ambulance had been on the scene within minutes and rescue operations had begun immediately. Up to now it appeared that my uncle had been out when the collapse occurred for as of yet there had been no trace of him. There had been a strange, poisonous odour about the place but this had vanished soon after the work had started. The rescuers had cleared the floors of all the rooms except the study and during the time it took the officer to bring me up to date even more debris was being frantically hauled away.
Suddenly there was a lull in the excited babble of voices. I saw that the gang of rescue workers were standing looking down at something. My heart gave a wild leap and I scrambled over the debris to see what they had found.
There, where the floor of the study had been, was that which I had feared and more than half expected. It was simply a hole. A gaping hole in the floor— but from the angles at which the floorboards lay, and the manner in which they were scattered about, it looked as though the ground, rather than sinking, had been pushed up from below.
VI
Nothing has since been seen or heard of Sir Amery Wendy-Smith and though he is listed as being missing I know in fact that he is dead. He is gone to worlds of ancient wonder and my only prayer is that his soul wanders on our side of the threshold. For in our ignorance we did Sir Amery a great injustice—I and all the others who thought he was out of his mind. All his queer ways—I understand them all now, but the understanding has come hard and will cost me dear. No, he was not mad. He did the things he did out of self-preservation and though his precautions came to nothing in the end, it was fear of a nameless evil and not madness which prompted them.
But the worst is still to come. I myself have yet to face a similar end. I know it, for no matter what I do the tremors haunt me. Or is it only in my mind? No! There is little wrong with my mind. My nerves are gone but my mind is intact. I know too much! They have visited me in dreams, as I believe
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