Clay Page 15

  The laugh was mocking.

  Wickford said, “Tell me, Gaunt, are you a doctor or a witch-hunter?”

  It was meant to be funny; somehow it fell flat. Rain cried against the windows, Trask’s hollow laughter seemed to grow nearer and haunting; uneasiness crept into the room.

  “To get back to the boy,” Gaunt said quietly. “When his great-aunt died, the executors of the Bone estate sent Jeremy to a school in Blackmoor. Reports say that the lad behaved oddly from the outset; was afraid and unwilling to go to Blackmoor; seemed to live in his own world with people of his own making. It was thought that the company of normal boys would improve him. It didn’t. There are strange stories at Blackmoor of unsettled times after the coming of Jeremy Bone. Incidents, small, but decidedly unpleasant. The beheading of a school mascot, the neurotic talk of Jeremy’s roommates about eerie things happening to the boy during the night. .

  “The school board was worried,” Wickford cut in. “Naturally. Their reputation suffered; enrollment fell off. At that point, I was called in. I committed the boy. He spoke of nothing but this strange entity, named Oliver; a ‘Thing’ that forced him to ‘do evil’; to maim—even kill. He kept repeating, ‘Oliver wants me to destroy others as I destroyed him.’”

  The ruddy head shook; the pink lips pursed.

  ‘Typical schizophrenia, of course. Split personality; the one good, the other bad—called Oliver—compelling him to commit crimes his normal self finds repulsive. I thought we might snap him out of it, but…”

  Wickford raised hands palm up. Peter Gaunt frowned. “It’s not as hopeless as that, Doctor. Bone has behaved very well since he came to my ward; seems to get on famously with that young fellow, Swan, in his dormitory. You’d think they were blood-brothers. Perhaps friendship is what Jeremy needs. With that, I may get at the root of his fear, find out exactly who Oliver is and what terrible meaning he has for the boy. Maybe, with such knowledge, I could cast out this hellish entity.”

  “Cast out,” Wickford echoed pompously. “You talk like a preacher exorcising evil spirits. Really, my dear Gaunt! We’re not alchemists handling a case of possession!”

  Peter Gaunt lifted one black eyebrow.

  He said, softly, “Aren’t we?”

  The words died. Firelight did a danse macabre in the far corners of the library. Then, abruptly, a high-pitched unhuman cry shrilled through the silence. Gaunt stiffened. Wickford paused, brandy glass halfway to his lips. My mouth felt strangely dry when I spoke to Gaunt.

  “That was from your ward.”

  Even as he nodded, it came again, the wail of a soul in torment rising from a bottomless abyss. Gaunt was on his feet. He turned to the door just as it burst open. Lowery, an attendant from Gaunt’s ward, stood on the threshold; his face had an unwonted pallor.

  “It’s the Bone kid, Doctor. He’s acting up something fierce.”

  The agonized scream sliced out anew. Lowery licked dry lips.

  “You better come.”

  Gaunt had already started. Wickford and I followed hastily. The gray corridors seemed unusually chill and lonely. Ward “A” lay around the first bend. An excitement I could not quite account for tightened my scalp as we entered Bone’s dormitory. The cry had dwindled to the whine of a terrified animal. The room was dark. A noisome stench sifted under the smell of antiseptic; an odor of decay that seemed to rise from the black corner by Jeremy Bone’s cot. I was conscious of Gaunt’s face, pale and taut. I followed his gaze to that corner. Against the wall, a phosphorescent nimbus seemed to hover like a bird of prey .As we watched its edges bled and faded; slowly the amorphous mass became one with the dark, and a last unholy wail tore from the throat of the pitiful creature that cringed in the shadow of the cot. I stared at Jeremy Bone.

  Bobbing frantically on its taut spindle of neck, the ponderous head made a grotesque contrast with the boy’s frail body. The massive cranium and frontal bones dwindled to a weak, sparsely-bearded chin. Bulging eyes held a nameless terror the like of which I had never seen before. Spittle slavered from the lax mouth, and his huge hands, strangely covered with gray suede gloves, tore wildly at the nightgown’s throat. Slowly, the cries subsided to an abject whine. He continued to stare fixedly at the spot where that octoplasmic cloud had been. His lips worked. Coherent words came.

  “Thank God! He’s gone. He won’t make me do it… not now…”

  The glazed eyes blinked and roved and focussed on Peter Gaunt.

  “Doctor Gaunt!” He stumbled to his feet; the big head wobbled, he caught Gaunt’s sleeve. “Don’t let Oliver come back! Please! He’ll make me do bad things. When you came he was talking to me, real soft in my ear, ‘kill, kill!’ He wanted me to destroy Swan …”

  Wickford exploded: “Good Lord! Swan!”

  Someone switched on the light; I turned to Wickford. Then, I saw Swan’s fat limp form sprawled across the bed in the other corner. Wickford looked pale and worried as I tested the boy’s pulse. He sighed relief when I said Swan was only sleeping. At that moment, the little eyes opened; Swan gave us his slow cretin’s smile. I patted his arm.

  “It’s all right, son. Go back to sleep.”

  Jeremy Bone giggled hysterically.

  “You see? I didn’t hurt Swan. Oliver wanted me to, but I fought him. I was strong… Fear darkened the wide eyes again. “But, if I weaken… someday he’ll make me… he’ll say ‘kill,’ and I’ll obey …”

  “Bone,” Peter Gaunt’s voice was flat, gentle. “Listen to me, Bone. Oliver can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do.”

  The head shook wildly. Bone shrilled, “You don’t know him!”

  “Listen, Bone. Only you can decide your actions.”

  “No. He can force me. You never read those papers in the chest.”

  Abruptly, his voice stopped. His eyes flicked from one of us to the other. He tore free of Gaunt’s grip, hissing, “The chest!” He scrambled on all fours under the cot, let out a cry of satisfaction, and then crouched there in the corner, clutching in his bony arms a small, exquisitely-wrought teakwood chest. He was like an animal at bay, at once cunning and shot through with mortal terror.

  I whispered to Wickford, “What’s the chest?”

  “Had it with him when he came. Went hysterical when we tried to take it away. We humored him.”

  “He said something about papers…”

  “Imagination. Thinks there are family papers in it. It’s empty. Examined it myself. All imagination. Like the fancy that he must always wear those silly gloves. Try as we may, we’ve never gotten him to take them off.”

  I stared at the abnormally large hands that clutched the teakwood casket. The frenzied eyes had shifted back to Gaunt.

  “You don’t know Oliver,” Jeremy Bone intoned hoarsely. “He has a power; it’s the secret of the chest… you don’t understand; you never heard of the Mark of Clay. Nobody knows about it, now. Except me. Great-aunt knew, and she kept me safe. She kept Oliver away from me. But now, he comes and whispers, ‘Kill, Jeremy, kill, kill!”’ The words splintered on a scream. “Keep him away! In the name of God, keep him away!”

  Peter Gaunt caught the bony shoulders; tried to still the flailing arms. It was impossible. Saliva dribbled from Jeremy Bone’s twisted mouth; his eyes bulged horribly. In the end, it took three of us to hold him down. Gaunt shook his head, breathing heavily. “We’ll have to use the needle.” We did. The spasms died away gradually. Fleshless limbs relaxed.

  Bone’s eyes glazed with stupor. Once, he whispered, “Keep him away…” That was all. He slept. His gloved hands still held viselike to the teakwood chest.

  Under Gaunt’s order, Lowery stood guard over Jeremy Bone throughout the remainder of that night. Silently, Wickford and Gaunt and I returned to the library. The room seemed cold and less friendly; perhaps the storm outside had grown more violent; the hiss of rain against the casements was a clear, lonely sound. I poured three fresh brandies. Gaunt took his glass without a word. I fancied that Wickford’s p
lump hand trembled a little. He tried to keep his tone matter-of-fact.

  “You see,” he said to me. “Schizophrenia. Delusion of persecution by this—this ‘Oliver.’ All part of a warped imagination.”

  He tossed off the drink hastily. He set down the glass and chafed his hands before the withering fire, as if they were unaccountably cold. For a time, Gaunt did not speak. Then:

  “Imagination?” he echoed softly. “I’m not so sure…”

  His dark eyes searched a distant comer of the dim chamber; he was remembering that glowing, putrid mass that had died away in the darkness by Jeremy Bone’s cot.

  “I’m not so sure,” he repeated in a slow, puzzled way. “Maybe this fear, this sense of persecution has its roots in something all too real.”

  Wickford flushed; he covered uneasiness with bluster.

  “I told you once, my dear fellow. We’re doctors—not ghost-chasers”

  Gaunt nodded. “Perhaps. But, there are things even doctors have never nailed down with their scientific words…”

  His voice was scarcely more than a murmur. “Evil things of lost aeons that linger at the edge of beyond, waiting an opportunity to return and haunt men. Unwilling—perhaps, afraid—to understand, to seek out these blasphemies and destroy them, we sidestep the issue by calling the men they haunt madmen. But, actually, are they mad?”

  Wickford’s cheeks puffed out; something like, “Bosh!” pushed through fat lips. Peter Gaunt went on as if he had not heard.

  “If I could get Bone to trust me, I might get to the roots of his mind. If I knew what he meant by ‘the Mark of Clay’ and Oliver… If I could become his friend…”

  “Friend!” Wickford rumbled. “To a schizoid bordering on homicidal mania?” He laughed shortly. “Mark my word, Doctor. If you’re wise, you’ll keep this Jeremy Bone under constant restraint. Friend, indeed! No one will ever be his friend!”

  The room was quiet. Peter Gaunt only stared silently into the glow of the hearth. But his eyes were steady, thoughtful.

  I think I knew, even then, that he would prove Wickford was wrong.

  He did.

  ***

  I saw very little of Peter Gaunt in the weeks that followed. For reasons which have nothing to do with this narrative, I was called away from Wickford House. Nor did I see Gaunt

  immediately on my return. But, I did hear a great deal about him. The story of his marvelous progress in the case of Jeremy Bone was rapidly assuming the proportions of an inspired legend among the resident doctors. Men talked endlessly over their coffee and cigars of how Jeremy Bone had grown calm, docile even—to all appearances, quite sane. After the first fortnight, injections had been abandoned as unnecessary. No longer did one hear Bone crying into the night his terror of the nemesis, Oliver. It was remarkable.

  When I did run into Peter Gaunt, I was eager to question him about his success. I wanted to know by what means he had gotten Jeremy Bone to stroll the twilit grounds in his company, as calm as a pensioner out for his evening constitutional. I wondered about the long afternoons he spent with Bone in the ancient Chapel that lay in the hollow south of Wickford House; I asked myself what charm the tolling, dissonant litanies Peter Gaunt coaxed from the organ’s throat had upon the boy. But, my questions remained unanswered.

  I confess at this point I was aware of a certain uneasiness that stirred in the back of my mind whenever I saw Peter Gaunt. He seemed, to me, thinner and oddly taciturn concerning a success of which he should have been justly proud. The hollows of his eyes had deepened and grown darker, and while he talked of Jeremy Bone to no one, it was obvious that the boy was constantly on his mind. He grew absent and more than a little short-tempered. I was worried. It was not until the afternoon we were summoned to his private study that I realized Wickford shared my concern.

  He offered us tea and scones; he was jovial, boisterous. He was, patently, a man about to broach a delicate subject. Gaunt watched him with detachment. At length, with strained casualness, Wickford said it.

  “By the way, my dear Gaunt, you’ll be pleased to know I’ve arranged for you to leave on your long-delayed sabbatical sometime next week.”

  Gaunt sat bolt upright; he looked as if he wondered if he had heard correctly. “But, I don’t want…”

  “Nonsense, old fellow!” Wickford forged ahead. “You deserve a vacation. Been working hard… ah… perhaps a bit too hard, eh? You’re not looking like your old self lately.”

  “I don’t want a vacation,” Gaunt cut in flatly. “I… I’ve cases to think of. I’m just beginning to get at the bottom of Jeremy Bone’s trouble. To stop now might mean disaster.” “Fiddlesticks!”

  “Fiddlesticks, hell!” The voice cracked with nerves. “I tell you, I daren’t leave that boy now…”

  “Doctor Gaunt!” Wickford snapped. “Must I remind you I’m running this institution?” He looked at me. “It is my considered opinion that Lambert, here, can take over the Jeremy Bone case quite capably in your absence.”

  For a moment, Peter Gaunt only stared. I waited for another outburst. It did not come. His dark eyes shadowed; the shoulders seemed suddenly stooped. Then, without another word, he turned and left.

  Perhaps I should have been insulted. But, I sensed that something much stronger than professional jealousy made Gaunt unwilling to relinquish the Bone case to me. An aura of fear of some impending doom had hung over his desperate argument with Wickford. I felt sorry for him. I wanted to reassure him. I thought perhaps I might even continue his method of treating Jeremy Bone, if I could get him to confide in me. But, when I found him alone in the library that night, he gave me nothing but detached civility.

  I tried to draw him out. “I want to do my best, Gaunt. It might be well if I carried on your treatment.”

  He stared at his book. “No. Just care for him until I get back.”

  “But…”

  The sudden black stoniness of his glance stopped me. His voice was hushed, level. “Listen to me, Lambert. You wouldn’t care to know my method of treating Jeremy Bone. It’s… well, not orthodox. When you cross the threshold, as I have, you learn things no man wants to know.”

  “But, I do want to know. If you’ve had such success, perhaps I…”

  He closed the book sharply.

  “Very well!” he snapped. “I’ll tell you. I’m believing his hellish story. I’m facing his fears and trying to root out this devil—Oliver—that haunts him, by believing in it and destroying it!”

  It was fantastic. It was some remnant of witchcraft rearing its loathsome head from the ruins of sorcery. I could only stare as Peter Gaunt rose, laid his book on the reading table, and walked out. When my hands were steady enough, I poured a stiff drink. I needed it.

  I cannot be certain what uneasy thoughts crawled through my brain in that instant. Perhaps I wondered if Peter Gaunt had, himself, crossed the fearful shadowline between sanity and madness. I daresay I had some notion of telling Wickford that Gaunt’s condition was more dangerous than we had guessed. But, slicing across my fear and doubt, there was the shrill whisper of curiosity. What if Gaunt was right? Suppose there were things beyond human ken; evil things that only people like Jeremy Bone could see and fear, and because of which they were branded lunatics?

  Curiosity won. I decided to investigate. The following morning I paid the first visit to my new patient. The corridors were dark and cold; fog brushed against tall casement windows.

  My palms felt damp; a remembered echo of Peter Gaunt’s voice slid through hollow stillness. I told myself Wickford was right. It was all nonsense. It didn’t help; my scalp still crawled, my lips were still too dry. I opened the door to Jeremy Bone’s dormitory.

  ***

  There was a sharp rustle and then the snap of a minute lock. Jeremy sat in the window-seat with the teakwood casket on his knees. He had closed the lid abruptly as I entered. His eyes were narrow with cunning. The big sheathed hands clamped possessively over the chest.

  I said quietly, “H
ello, Jeremy.”

  The huge head tilted grotesquely. “Who are you?”

  “You remember me. I’m your friend… Doctor Lambert…”

  “No…” The gloved fingers were clawed. “No one is my friend: No one believes me. Only Doctor Gaunt. He knows I’m not crazy. He’s seen Oliver. Doctor Gaunt’s my friend…” I sat down beside him; he cowered in the seat-corner. I tried for Gaunt’s reassuring tone.

  “We’re all your friends, my boy. Remember that. I want top help you. Now that Doctor Gaunt is going away…”

  “Going away!” It was a raw scream; wariness gave way to sheer terror. “But… he can’t leave me! He was helping me; he was keeping Oliver away. He understood and could fight Oliver. He mustn’t go away now!”

  “Listen, Jeremy. I’m here to help you now. You must trust me. Tell me… how I can keep Oliver away from you? You must be my friend. Like you were with Doctor Gaunt… Like brothers…”

  Jeremy Bone sprang to his feet; a frantic screech clogged his throat. He clutched the teakwood chest to him. His head shook wildly.

  “No! You shouldn’t have said that! Not ‘like brothers.’ Now Oliver will make me do it. He doesn’t want anyone to be my friend, my brother. Now he’ll force me to kill Doctor Gaunt! Don’t you see? It’s the Mark of Clay! Brother against brother… always… first Oliver… now Gaunt… No, please! Don’t let him whisper to me. I don’t want to kill Doctor Gaunt. No! Stop him!”

  I tried to calm him; my words fell on fear-deafened ears; the wild eyes worked; the mouth twisted; gray-sheathed hands were like convulsed talons. The screams ripped from his throat again and again. In the end, an attendant brought the needle. Even with that, it took Jeremy Bone a long time to sink into shallow, troubled sleep.

  I was a doctor; I had been trained in the hard doubting ways of science. A man like that finds it difficult to believe in the erratic babbling of a boy who has been committed to an asylum. I told myself the whole thing was absurd; the idea of a frail child like Jeremy Bone overpowering and killing a man the size of Gaunt was ridiculous. Still, all the rest of that day, a deep sense of failure and anxiety nagged me. I promised myself I would question Peter Gaunt in greater detail that evening; I had a feeling he knew more about this bizarre affair than he had told me. I never got to ask those questions. I was too late.