Dimension Of Horror Part 3

"No, sir. I mind my own business . . " Left unspoken but strongly implied was: Why don't you mind yours?

J settled back smiling, confident he was with his own kind.

The rain continued. The countryside became wilder and more mountainous and the farms fewer and farther between. Leaving the main highway, the Rover wound its way upward over roads that were no longer in good repair, that lapsed at times into little more than mud and bare bedrock. There was no sign of human habitation now, except for the road itself, not even the herds of black-faced sheep J had glimpsed earlier, let alone the dour bearded shepherds with their barking collies.

Gray day shaded into night with no perceptible break before the lighted windows of the sanitarium finally hove into view. The Rover bounced and jounced through the wide front gateway and braked to a stop. Through the rain J could with difficulty make out the looming bulk of an ancient manor, irregular in outline and half-timbered in the Tudor style.

Again J was forced to sprint for shelter, the big chauffeur puffing along protectively by his elbow. A thick oak door swung wide to admit him, then closed behind him with a hefty thump that echoed disturbingly in the high-ceilinged vestibule. As the chauffeur went out again into the storm, a white-suited orderly obligingly closed J's umbrella and helped him out of his wet raincoat.

A tall white-haired man in a dark tweed suit came forward, hand extended in greeting. "Ah, so you're the one they call J, the chap everyone whispers about but no one is allowed to speak of. I'm delighted to see you're an ordinary human being after all."

They shook hands vigorously. J said, "Yes, my ordinariness is England's most closely guarded secret."

"My name is Dr. Hugh MacMurdo. I'm in charge here, as you no doubt know. You probably know more about me than I do myself!" He had a trace of a Scotch accent peeping out from behind his carefully correct BBC standard English. "Copra House phoned to tell me to expect you. I've had supper kept warm for you. You must be starved!"

"I could do with a bite," J agreed, sniffing the air. "Is that mutton I smell?"

"Indeed it is, old boy. If you've no taste for mutton you've a hungry time ahead of you here. We eat like regular crofters. Turnips. Oatcakes. Barley scones. And we've a most amazing pudding the Highlanders call Sowans."

Chattering of trivia, he ushered his guest down a long dim corridor and into a s.p.a.cious dining hall where a fire blazed cheerily in a huge stone fireplace. Additional lighting was supplied by candles in heavy bronze candleholders at intervals along a stout lengthy central table. Gesturing toward the candles and fire, MacMurdo explained, "We make a virtue of necessity, so far as lighting goes. The electricity here is none too reliable, particularly during a storm." He seated himself at the head of the table. "There's just you and I here. The rest of the staff dined hours ago, but I gather that's all to the good. Copra House gave me the impression you have some rather confidential questions to ask me."

J sat down at his right. "Quite so, doctor."

"If some rascal claims we are mistreating the patients, I deny it categorically."

"Nothing like that. It's Dr. Saxton Colby I'm interested in." J picked up knife and fork.

"Ah, my scandalous predecessor!"

"Yes. Were you working here when he was in charge?"

"I was his administrative a.s.sistant. In military terms, I suppose you'd call me his second-in-command."

"Then you knew him well."

MacMurdo chuckled. "I had no part in his off-duty peccadillos, if that's what you mean." He began eating.

"Still, you might be able to tell me if he was involved in any way with witchcraft."

MacMurdo looked up sharply, then sat back with a sigh, chewing his food with the air of a wistful cow. At last he said softly, "So you guessed it, eh? You're a clever bunch up at Copra House. I should have known you'd keep rutting about until you came up with the whole truth. But how did you know?"

"One of my a.s.sociates, a certain Dr. Ferguson, noticed something odd."

"Ferguson. Of course. A good mind, though one cannot call him a gentleman. Those s.h.i.+rts . . ." MacMurdo shuddered. "You see, we all know each other in the psychiatric fraternity. You've heard the term 'global village'?"

"Please, doctor," J said gently. "Don't try to change the subject."

MacMurdo ran nervous fingers through his disheveled white hair. "Was old Colby involved in witchcraft? Up to his neck, I should say." He took a hasty swallow of his dinner wine, as if to bolster his courage.

"But when we were investigating him, you said nothing about it."

"No, I didn't. No one on the staff did. We get rather clannish up here all by ourselves, cut off from the outside world. We protect each other as much as we can. It seemed to us Colby might eventually live down a reputation as a swinging single, but a warlock is another matter. It's not an image that inspires confidence."

"So you all covered up for him?"

The doctor nodded slowly. "We did. And it was worth it, I think, though now I suppose you'll can the lot of us."

"No, your jobs are safe enough. Loyalty means something to me, too. Team spirit and all that. But I must know all you can tell me about Colby and this witchcraft business. It's become beastly important all of a sudden. To begin with, how did Colby manage to conceal his interest in the subject when we were investigating him for his security clearance?"

"Well, that investigation took place before he got into it. You found nothing because there was nothing to find. It was here at the sanitarium he first started mucking about in the Black Arts. One week he was as straight a man as you or I. The next week he was studying to be a second Merlin. The human mind is my business, old boy, and I can't begin to explain such a complete transformation."

"So it happened suddenly, eh? When was that?"

"I can't recall the date without consulting my files, but it was right about the time you sent us that poor soul Mr. Dexter."

"Dexter?" J said sharply.

"I see you remember him. I'm not surprised. He was a prize, that one. Most of the time he sat around looking at the wall, but now and again, without warning, he'd explode into a screaming fit, kicking down doors and howling about some worm that had a thousand heads. He was a big strong lad, at least when he first got here, and it took four or five of us to subdue him. Once he d.a.m.n near strangled one of our orderlies to death."

"What was Dr. Colby's diagnosis?"

"Diagnosis? You know the old saying, 'When in doubt, diagnose schizophrenia.' In that sense, your Mr. Dexter was a schizo of the paranoid persuasion, but between us, sir, that was no more than a label we stuck on the case to cover up our own total bafflement. One thing we were sure of. Dexter was afraid. He was literally insane with fear. What was he afraid of? I haven't a clue."

"And what was the treatment?"

"Treatment? Why, we protected ourselves from him as best we could. That was the treatment. After the first day or two, Mr. Dexter was kept doped to the gills, and after a couple of weeks we eased off on the sedation bit by bit to see what would happen, finally cutting him off altogether. He was a regular sweetie after that. Sat on the edge of the bed staring at the wall and said, when he said anything at all, that same d.a.m.n phrase about the worm with the thousand heads. In short, the man was little better than a vegetable. Colby felt somewhat guilty about how we handled Dexter. Said it would have been better not to dope him up so. sometimes you can reach a man that's angry, but once he switches off the world, you can set fire to his clothes and he won't notice. But you've got to understand this Dexter was a giant, a regular King Kong. He was afraid of something. Who knows what? But we were afraid of him!"

J mused thoughtfully, "Dexter was a very special man, Dr. MacMurdo. There's only one other like him in the world."

MacMurdo lowered his voice. "Dexter was being trained for something, wasn't he? And there was an accident, wasn't there? Colby never told me anything, but I guessed that much. It was so long ago. Surely you can tell me now."

J shook his head. "No, I can't. It's still cla.s.sified information, and besides, if I told you I'm afraid you'd lock me in here and never let me out." He laughed raggedly.

MacMurdo recommenced eating, obviously annoyed. "Keep your little secrets," he muttered, speaking with his mouth full. "See if I care. Anyway, Dexter had nothing to do with Colby taking up witchcraft. There were plenty of other things happening around here about that time. Dexter was the least of our worries."

"What do you mean?"

"As you probably know, no old house in Scotland is complete without one or more ghosts. This sanitarium is no exception. MI6 has owned the manor since World War II, but the family ghosts don't seem to realize that. They lie low for years, then suddenly they stage a grand comeback, howling and swinging chains and throwing the furniture around just like old times. If you ask me, that's what set Colby off. The ghosts. For about two weeks this place was a madhouse in more ways than one. Cras.h.i.+ng. Banging. Funny lights. Voices muttering things in foreign languages out of thin air. Strange faces in the mirrors. Even a fire that started, so they say, by spontaneous combustion! It burned up four rooms in the east wing before we could put it out. Could have brought the whole place blazing down around our ears! I can't say who was seeing more things that weren't there, the inmates or the staff. I saw a few things myself. I swear I did."

"I don't doubt it," J said, thinking of the heavy dresser that had crashed against the wall in Blade's room. "And Colby's interest in witchcraft began during this period of haunting?"

"After the haunting," the psychiatrist corrected.

"After? I don't understand."

There was a long uncomfortable pause, then MacMurdo reluctantly began, "First I have to tell you Colby had once had a daughter, back before his divorce, when he was finis.h.i.+ng his schooling at the University of California in Berkeley."

"A daughter?" J prompted, puzzled.

MacMurdo nodded gravely. "Jane was her name. She was about ten years old when she died, there in her bedroom looking out over the San Francis...o...b..y. Colby used to tell me about her again and again, about the view the poor child had had of the Golden Gate Bridge and all. Jane took an overdose of sleeping pills and died by that window. n.o.body could say whether it was suicide or an accident. She didn't leave a note."

J broke in, "But what's that got to do with . . "

"The witchcraft business? Well, along with all those traditional Scottish spooks and ghosties and things that go b.u.mp in the night . . . along with all of them came Jane Colby. Dr. Colby saw her. He talked to her. He went for long walks with her in the hills."

"You mean he said he did all that."

"No! He did it! I swear. I saw the la.s.s myself." His Scottish accent became more p.r.o.nounced when he was excited.

"Are you sure?"

"I never saw her close up, but once, in broad daylight, I saw Dr. Colby on a far-off hillside, walking hand in hand with somebody or something, and when he came back to the manor, he told me who it was. I had to believe him. Wouldn't a man know his own daughter?"

"Are you saying you saw a ghost in the daytime?"

"These weren't ordinary ghosts. Daytime or nighttime, it was all the same to them. That's why, for two weeks, we hardly slept for two hours out of the twenty-four. There was always something happening. Toward the end, though, the haunting tapered off."

"Why was that?"

"How should I know? All I can do is pa.s.s on to you what little Jane Colby told her father."

J leaned forward expectantly. "Yes? Yes?"

"She said she could only come through from the other side for a short time. She said she was cut off from her roots, and that a flower cut off from its roots must die."

"By Jove!" J thumped his fist on the table. "So even a ghost has limitations!"

"Wait. There's more. She said it was up to Colby to open up the gate and keep it open. Then she'd return to him and stay with him forever."

"And he turned to witchcraft, thinking that witchcraft could open the gate to the other world!" J was triumphant. At last the whole unthinkable mess was beginning to form some sort of pattern, incomplete yet with an otherworldly logic of its own.

"You've guessed it," MacMurdo admitted ruefully. "Witchcraft was very much alive in those days around here. It still is, as a matter of fact. Last month, while I was in town for supplies, I saw a witch on the telly being interviewed by a reporter, as if she was a b.l.o.o.d.y film star! But poor Dr. Colby was losing faith in them before your man came nosing about here and caught him with his pants off at a ruddy Witches' Sabbath. They'd promised him a lot, but hadn't given him anything but a bad head cold."

"So that's the story?" J stroked his chin thoughtfully.

"That's the story. I know Copra House retired him into private practice after that, but I have no idea where he went. Do you?"

"No, but from what you've told me I can make a good guess."

"Wherever it is, I'm sure he has continued his quest for a gateway to the other world. He was a strongly motivated man, sir. A very strongly motivated man."

J agreed. "Yes. Guilt plus love equals compulsion."

"Well said!" MacMurdo pushed back his chair and stood up. "If you've no more questions, I must say good night. I have to be up early tomorrow, as usual. We're somewhat understaffed."

"I understand."

"The night man in the hall will show you to your room." The psychiatrist turned to leave.

"Wait." J raised his hand. "I do have one more question. I doubt if it will do any good, but could you let me see Dexter tomorrow morning?"

MacMurdo halted in the doorway, surprised. "Of course not."

"Why not?"

"I thought you knew. Dexter is dead."

It was J's turn to be surprised. "You don't say! When did he die?"

"Last Friday. After years of sitting around like a stuffed animal, he suddenly started screaming again and smas.h.i.+ng things. Caught the night staff completely off guard. Before they could do anything either for him or to him, the poor chap died of convulsions. We did an autopsy, but except for the fact that he was dead, your Mr. Dexter appeared to be in excellent health. Now if you'll excuse me . . . "

"Did you say Friday, doctor? What time Friday?"

"As I recall, the time of death was exactly one-forty A.M. Friday morning. I can check the records."

"Never mind. I'm sure you have it right."

"Good night then, and as pleasant dreams as could be expected under the circ.u.mstances."

"Good night, Dr. MacMurdo."

Dexter had died within minutes after Blade's return from Dimension X.

J stared numbly at his half-empty plate. The only sound was the steady drumming of the rain on the windowpane.

Chapter 3.

London that morning was gray under the diffuse light from the featureless overcast sky. The pavements were wet and hissed as the motorcars and lorries pa.s.sed. Colors were muted; even the normally bright red of the double-decker buses. A cold unfriendly wind sent skirts whipping and hats flying.

J stood at the second floor window of Lord Leighton's ancestral home at 391/2 Prince's Gate, Kensington, puffing morosely on one of his beloved pipes-in defiance of his doctor's orders-and staring down at the leafless trees in Prince's Gate Crescent. From where he stood he could see hardly anything that had not been there when he was young, yet he knew Kensington had changed. Little by little its quiet residential streets had been invaded by a ragtag army of tradesmen; their antique markets and garish mod "boutiques" were everywhere, particularly along the once-respectable High Street and Kensington Church Street.

The antiques, in J's opinion, were mostly trash, but it was the human trash attracted by the boutiques that depressed him. Boys who dressed like girls, girls who looked like boys, shadowy vague androgynous young people who cowered in doorways, sucking on marijuana cigarettes like babies sucking pacifiers. They'd been called different things at different times. Teddy Boys. Mods and Rockers. Even, borrowing a term from the Yanks, Hippies. Their names changed, yes, but always there were more of them, and with numbers they grew steadily bolder until now armed children in packs hunted through the streets day and night, hunted women, hunted the old, the handicapped, the helpless. The crimes of Jack the Ripper had horrified Victorian England; now they would probably pa.s.s unnoticed, too commonplace even for journals like The Sun.

On Tower Hill, across from the Tower of London, J had sometimes paused of late to listen to ranting apocalyptic evangelists call London a new Gomorrah, and in certain moods he'd slowly nodded agreement, thinking, Yes, we're ripe for destruction, the whole b.l.o.o.d.y gang of us.

At such times Armageddon had seemed, if not inevitable, at least dreadfully desirable. The only question remaining to be debated was, "What form will the avenging angels of destruction take?"

Standing at the window, J thought, Will they be the ghosts of little girls who killed themselves? Or will they be invisible giants who throw the furniture around?

Behind him, in the dim interior of the old house, Lord Leighton was on the phone to Number Ten Downing Street.

"No more experiments? But sir, don't be a d.a.m.ned idiot!" The hunchback's voice was outraged, irascible.