The Strange Adventures of a Private Secretary in New York
By Algernon Blackwood
The tension and suspense spiral as Shorthouse finds himself deep in a nightmarish situation. Initially, Garvey’s odd behavior seems quirky, but the unease quickly morphs into horror as his host reveals his disturbing appetite and erratic nature.
II
The tall form disappeared and the door was shut. The conversation of the past few minutes had come somewhat as a revelation to the secretary. Garvey seemed in full possession of normal instincts. There was no doubt as to the sincerity of his manner and intentions. The suspicions of the first hour began to vanish like mist before the sun. Sidebotham’s portentous warnings and the mystery with which he surrounded the whole episode had been allowed to unduly influence his mind. The loneliness of the situation and the bleak nature of the surroundings had helped to complete the illusion. He began to be ashamed of his suspicions and a change commenced gradually to be wrought in his thoughts. Anyhow a dinner and a bed were preferable to six miles in the dark, no dinner, and a cold train into the bargain.
Garvey returned presently. “We’ll do the best we can for you,” he said, dropping into the deep armchair on the other side of the fire. “Marx is a good servant if you watch him all the time. You must always stand over a Jew, though, if you want things done properly. They’re tricky and uncertain unless they’re working for their own interest. But Marx might be worse, I’ll admit. He’s been with me for nearly twenty years–cook, valet, housemaid, and butler all in one. In the old days, you know, he was a clerk in our office in Chicago.”
Garvey rattled on and Shorthouse listened with occasional remarks thrown in. The former seemed pleased to have somebody to talk to and the sound of his own voice was evidently sweet music in his ears. After a few minutes, he crossed over to the sideboard and again took up the decanter of whisky, holding it to the light. “You will join me this time,” he said pleasantly, pouring out two glasses, “it will give us an appetite for dinner,” and this time Shorthouse did not refuse. The liquor was mellow and soft and the men took two glasses apiece.
“Excellent,” remarked the secretary.
“Glad you appreciate it,” said the host, smacking his lips. “It’s very old whisky, and I rarely touch it when I’m alone. But this,” he added, “is a special occasion, isn’t it?”
Shorthouse was in the act of putting his glass down when something drew his eyes suddenly to the other’s face. A strange note in the man’s voice caught his attention and communicated alarm to his nerves. A new light shone in Garvey’s eyes and there flitted momentarily across his strong features the shadow of something that set the secretary’s nerves tingling. A mist spread before his eyes and the unaccountable belief rose strong in him that he was staring into the visage of an untamed animal. Close to his heart there was something that was wild, fierce, savage. An involuntary shiver ran over him and seemed to dispel the strange fancy as suddenly as it had come. He met the other’s eye with a smile, the counterpart of which in his heart was vivid horror.
“It is a special occasion,” he said, as naturally as possible, “and, allow me to add, very special whisky.”
Garvey appeared delighted. He was in the middle of a devious tale describing how the whisky came originally into his possession when the door opened behind them and a grating voice announced that dinner was ready. They followed the cassocked form of Marx across the dirty hall, lit only by the shaft of light that followed them from the library door, and entered a small room where a single lamp stood upon a table laid for dinner. The walls were destitute of pictures, and the windows had Venetian blinds without curtains. There was no fire in the grate, and when the men sat down facing each other Shorthouse noticed that, while his own cover was laid with its due proportion of glasses and cutlery, his companion had nothing before him but a soup plate, without fork, knife, or spoon beside it.
“I don’t know what there is to offer you,” he said; “but I’m sure Marx has done the best he can at such short notice. I only eat one course for dinner, but pray take your time and enjoy your food.”
Marx presently set a plate of soup before the guest, yet so loathsome was the immediate presence of this old Hebrew servitor, that the spoonfuls disappeared somewhat slowly. Garvey sat and watched him.
Shorthouse said the soup was delicious and bravely swallowed another mouthful. In reality his thoughts were centred upon his companion, whose manners were giving evidence of a gradual and curious change. There was a decided difference in his demeanour, a difference that the secretary felt at first, rather than saw. Garvey’s quiet self-possession was giving place to a degree of suppressed excitement that seemed so far inexplicable. His movements became quick and nervous, his eye shifting and strangely brilliant, and his voice, when he spoke, betrayed an occasional deep tremor. Something unwonted was stirring within him and evidently demanding every moment more vigorous manifestation as the meal proceeded.
Intuitively Shorthouse was afraid of this growing excitement, and while negotiating some uncommonly tough pork chops he tried to lead the conversation on to the subject of chemistry, of which in his Oxford days he had been an enthusiastic student. His companion, however, would none of it. It seemed to have lost interest for him, and he would barely condescend to respond. When Marx presently returned with a plate of steaming eggs and bacon the subject dropped of its own accord.
“An inadequate dinner dish,” Garvey said, as soon as the man was gone; “but better than nothing, I hope.”
Shorthouse remarked that he was exceedingly fond of bacon and eggs, and, looking up with the last word, saw that Garvey’s face was twitching convulsively and that he was almost wriggling in his chair. He quieted down, however, under the secretary’s gaze and observed, though evidently with an effort–
“Very good of you to say so. Wish I could join you, only I never eat such stuff. I only take one course for dinner.”
Shorthouse began to feel some curiosity as to what the nature of this one course might be, but he made no further remark and contented himself with noting mentally that his companion’s excitement seemed to be rapidly growing beyond his control. There was something uncanny about it, and he began to wish he had chosen the alternative of the walk to the station.
“I’m glad to see you never speak when Marx is in the room,” said Garvey presently. “I’m sure it’s better not. Don’t you think so?”
He appeared to wait eagerly for the answer.
“Undoubtedly,” said the puzzled secretary.
“Yes,” the other went on quickly. “He’s an excellent man, but he has one drawback–a really horrid one. You may–but, no, you could hardly have noticed it yet.”
“Not drink, I trust,” said Shorthouse, who would rather have discussed any other subject than the odious Jew.
“Worse than that a great deal,” Garvey replied, evidently expecting the other to draw him out. But Shorthouse was in no mood to hear anything horrible, and he declined to step into the trap.
“The best of servants have their faults,” he said coldly.
“I’ll tell you what it is if you like,” Garvey went on, still speaking very low and leaning forward over the table so that his face came close to the flame of the lamp, “only we must speak quietly in case he’s listening. I’ll tell you what it is–if you think you won’t be frightened.”
“Nothing frightens me,” he laughed. (Garvey must understand that at all events.) “Nothing can frighten me,” he repeated.
“I’m glad of that; for it frightens me a good deal sometimes.”
Shorthouse feigned indifference. Yet he was aware that his heart was beating a little quicker and that there was a sensation of chilliness in his back. He waited in silence for what was to come.
“He has a horrible predilection for vacuums,” Garvey went on presently in a still lower voice and thrusting his face farther forward under the lamp.
“Vacuums!” exclaimed the secretary in spite of himself. “What in the world do you mean?”
“What I say of course. He’s always tumbling into them, so that I can’t find him or get at him. He hides there for hours at a time, and for the life of me I can’t make out what he does there.”
Shorthouse stared his companion straight in the eyes. What in the name of Heaven was he talking about?
“Do you suppose he goes there for a change of air, or–or to escape?” he went on in a louder voice.
Shorthouse could have laughed outright but for the expression of the other’s face.
“I should not think there was much air of any sort in a vacuum,” he said quietly.
“That’s exactly what I feel,” continued Garvey with ever growing excitement. “That’s the horrid part of it. How the devil does he live there? You see–“
“Have you ever followed him there?” interrupted the secretary. The other leaned back in his chair and drew a deep sigh.
“Never! It’s impossible. You see I can’t follow him. There’s not room for two. A vacuum only holds one comfortably. Marx knows that. He’s out of my reach altogether once he’s fairly inside. He knows the best side of a bargain. He’s a regular Jew.”
“That is a drawback to a servant, of course–” Shorthouse spoke slowly, with his eyes on his plate.
“A drawback,” interrupted the other with an ugly chuckle, “I call it a draw-in, that’s what I call it.”
“A draw-in does seem a more accurate term,” assented Shorthouse. “But,” he went on, “I thought that nature abhorred a vacuum. She used to, when I was at school–though perhaps–it’s so long ago–“
He hesitated and looked up. Something in Garvey’s face–something he had felt before he looked up–stopped his tongue and froze the words in his throat. His lips refused to move and became suddenly dry. Again the mist rose before his eyes and the appalling shadow dropped its veil over the face before him. Garvey’s features began to burn and glow. Then they seemed to coarsen and somehow slip confusedly together. He stared for a second–it seemed only for a second–into the visage of a ferocious and abominable animal; and then, as suddenly as it had come, the filthy shadow of the beast passed off, the mist melted out, and with a mighty effort over his nerves he forced himself to finish his sentence.
“You see it’s so long since I’ve given attention to such things,” he stammered. His heart was beating rapidly, and a feeling of oppression was gathering over it.
“It’s my peculiar and special study on the other hand,” Garvey resumed. “I’ve not spent all these years in my laboratory to no purpose, I can assure you. Nature, I know for a fact,” he added with unnatural warmth, “does not abhor a vacuum. On the contrary, she’s uncommonly fond of ’em, much too fond, it seems, for the comfort of my little household. If there were fewer vacuums and more abhorrence we should get on better–a damned sight better in my opinion.”
“Your special knowledge, no doubt, enables you to speak with authority,” Shorthouse said, curiosity and alarm warring with other mixed feelings in his mind; “but how can a man tumble into a vacuum?”
“You may well ask. That’s just it. How can he? It’s preposterous and I can’t make it out at all. Marx knows, but he won’t tell me. Jews know more than we do. For my part I have reason to believe–” He stopped and listened. “Hush! here he comes,” he added, rubbing his hands together as if in glee and fidgeting in his chair.
Steps were heard coming down the passage, and as they approached the door Garvey seemed to give himself completely over to an excitement he could not control. His eyes were fixed on the door and he began clutching the tablecloth with both hands. Again his face was screened by the loathsome shadow. It grew wild, wolfish. As through a mask, that concealed, and yet was thin enough to let through a suggestion of, the beast crouching behind, there leaped into his countenance the strange look of the animal in the human–the expression of the were-wolf, the monster. The change in all its loathsomeness came rapidly over his features, which began to lose their outline. The nose flattened, dropping with broad nostrils over thick lips. The face rounded, filled, and became squat. The eyes, which, luckily for Shorthouse, no longer sought his own, glowed with the light of untamed appetite and bestial greed. The hands left the cloth and grasped the edges of the plate, and then clutched the cloth again.
“This is my course coming now,” said Garvey, in a deep guttural voice. He was shivering. His upper lip was partly lifted and showed the teeth, white and gleaming.
A moment later the door opened and Marx hurried into the room and set a dish in front of his master. Garvey half rose to meet him, stretching out his hands and grinning horribly. With his mouth he made a sound like the snarl of an animal. The dish before him was steaming, but the slight vapour rising from it betrayed by its odour that it was not born of a fire of coals. It was the natural heat of flesh warmed by the fires of life only just expelled. The moment the dish rested on the table Garvey pushed away his own plate and drew the other up close under his mouth. Then he seized the food in both hands and commenced to tear it with his teeth, grunting as he did so. Shorthouse closed his eyes, with a feeling of nausea. When he looked up again the lips and jaw of the man opposite were stained with crimson. The whole man was transformed. A feasting tiger, starved and ravenous, but without a tiger’s grace–this was what he watched for several minutes, transfixed with horror and disgust.
Marx had already taken his departure, knowing evidently what was not good for the eyes to look upon, and Shorthouse knew at last that he was sitting face to face with a madman.
The ghastly meal was finished in an incredibly short time and nothing was left but a tiny pool of red liquid rapidly hardening. Garvey leaned back heavily in his chair and sighed. His smeared face, withdrawn now from the glare of the lamp, began to resume its normal appearance. Presently he looked up at his guest and said in his natural voice–
“I hope you’ve had enough to eat. You wouldn’t care for this, you know,” with a downward glance.
Shorthouse met his eyes with an inward loathing, and it was impossible not to show some of the repugnance he felt. In the other’s face, however, he thought he saw a subdued, cowed expression. But he found nothing to say.
“Marx will be in presently,” Garvey went on. “He’s either listening, or in a vacuum.”
“Does he choose any particular time for his visits?” the secretary managed to ask.
“He generally goes after dinner; just about this time, in fact. But he’s not gone yet,” he added, shrugging his shoulders, “for I think I hear him coming.”
Shorthouse wondered whether vacuum was possibly synonymous with wine cellar, but gave no expression to his thoughts. With chills of horror still running up and down his back, he saw Marx come in with a basin and towel, while Garvey thrust up his face just as an animal puts up its muzzle to be rubbed.
“Now we’ll have coffee in the library, if you’re ready,” he said, in the tone of a gentleman addressing his guests after a dinner party.
Shorthouse picked up the bag, which had lain all this time between his feet, and walked through the door his host held open for him. Side by side they crossed the dark hall together, and, to his disgust, Garvey linked an arm in his, and with his face so close to the secretary’s ear that he felt the warm breath, said in a thick voice–
“You’re uncommonly careful with that bag, Mr. Shorthouse. It surely must contain something more than the bundle of papers.”
“Nothing but the papers,” he answered, feeling the hand burning upon his arm and wishing he were miles away from the house and its abominable occupants.
“Quite sure?” asked the other with an odious and suggestive chuckle. “Is there any meat in it, fresh meat–raw meat?”
The secretary felt, somehow, that at the least sign of fear the beast on his arm would leap upon him and tear him with his teeth.
“Nothing of the sort,” he answered vigorously. “It wouldn’t hold enough to feed a cat.”
“True,” said Garvey with a vile sigh, while the other felt the hand upon his arm twitch up and down as if feeling the flesh. “True, it’s too small to be of any real use. As you say, it wouldn’t hold enough to feed a cat.”
Shorthouse was unable to suppress a cry. The muscles of his fingers, too, relaxed in spite of himself and he let the black bag drop with a bang to the floor. Garvey instantly withdrew his arm and turned with a quick movement. But the secretary had regained his control as suddenly as he had lost it, and he met the maniac’s eyes with a steady and aggressive glare.
“There, you see, it’s quite light. It makes no appreciable noise when I drop it.” He picked it up and let it fall again, as if he had dropped it for the first time purposely. The ruse was successful.
“Yes. You’re right,” Garvey said, still standing in the doorway and staring at him. “At any rate it wouldn’t hold enough for two,” he laughed. And as he closed the door the horrid laughter echoed in the empty hall.
They sat down by a blazing fire and Shorthouse was glad to feel its warmth. Marx presently brought in coffee. A glass of the old whisky and a good cigar helped to restore equilibrium. For some minutes the men sat in silence staring into the fire. Then, without looking up, Garvey said in a quiet voice–
“I suppose it was a shock to you to see me eat raw meat like that. I must apologise if it was unpleasant to you. But it’s all I can eat and it’s the only meal I take in the twenty-four hours.”
“Best nourishment in the world, no doubt; though I should think it might be a trifle strong for some stomachs.”
He tried to lead the conversation away from so unpleasant a subject, and went on to talk rapidly of the values of different foods, of vegetarianism and vegetarians, and of men who had gone for long periods without any food at all. Garvey listened apparently without interest and had nothing to say. At the first pause he jumped in eagerly.
“When the hunger is really great on me,” he said, still gazing into the fire, “I simply cannot control myself. I must have raw meat–the first I can get–” Here he raised his shining eyes and Shorthouse felt his hair beginning to rise.
“It comes upon me so suddenly too. I never can tell when to expect it. A year ago the passion rose in me like a whirlwind and Marx was out and I couldn’t get meat. I had to get something or I should have bitten myself. Just when it was getting unbearable my dog ran out from beneath the sofa. It was a spaniel.”
Shorthouse responded with an effort. He hardly knew what he was saying and his skin crawled as if a million ants were moving over it.
There was a pause of several minutes.
“I’ve bitten Marx all over,” Garvey went on presently in his strange quiet voice, and as if he were speaking of apples; “but he’s bitter. I doubt if the hunger could ever make me do it again. Probably that’s what first drove him to take shelter in a vacuum.” He chuckled hideously as he thought of this solution of his attendant’s disappearances.
Shorthouse seized the poker and poked the fire as if his life depended on it. But when the banging and clattering was over Garvey continued his remarks with the same calmness. The next sentence, however, was never finished. The secretary had got upon his feet suddenly.
“I shall ask your permission to retire,” he said in a determined voice; “I’m tired to-night; will you be good enough to show me to my room?”
Garvey looked up at him with a curious cringing expression behind which there shone the gleam of cunning passion.
“Certainly,” he said, rising from his chair. “You’ve had a tiring journey. I ought to have thought of that before.”
He took the candle from the table and lit it, and the fingers that held the match trembled.
“We needn’t trouble Marx,” he explained. “That beast’s in his vacuum by this time.”
