The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants Read online

  Early in 1825, the escape of a criminal from the nearby prison on Mercy Hill led a party of searchers from Brichester to come to Clotton, antedating seekers after something much more hideous by over a century. Despite James Phipps' insistence that no refugee was hidden in his house, one of the group would not be satisfied by this reiteration. He went alone into the forbidding house while the others searched nearby, but when the man had still not joined the main party over an hour later they returned precipitously to Riverside Alley. They discovered him lying by the side of the road outside the house, unconscious and covered with water and slime.

  Upon regaining consciousness the searcher recounted a strange tale. According to Chesterton's research, his tale ran:

  'When you all left, this man Phipps waited till you were out of sight, and then he showed me in. Upstairs there's only bedrooms, and so bare that I didn't even need to go over the threshold to see that there was nobody hiding. Almost too bare — Phipps seems wealthy enough; where's all his money spent, then? Downstairs there's the usual sort of thing, except facing on the street there's some sort of laboratory. He wouldn't show me in there at first, but I insisted. The place was full of machinery and bookcases, and over in one corner there was a glass tank full of liquid, with a — well, something like a green sponge covered with bubbles — floating in it. I don't know what it was, but looking at it almost made me sick.

  'I thought I'd seen all the house, and then I heard footsteps coming up from below. A woman appeared in the kitchen — Phipps' wife — and I went in to ask her where she'd been. He gave her a sort of warning look, but she'd already blurted out that she'd been down in the cellar. Phipps didn't seem to want me to go down, but finally he opened a trapdoor in the kitchen floor and we went down some steps. The cellar's quite large and bare. Tools and panes of glass, and what looked like a row of veiled statues; nowhere you could hide.

  'I was just making for the stairs when I noticed a door in the wall to the left. There was a lot of carving on it, and a glass window in the top half, but it was too dark for me to see through the glass; anyway, it looked like a good hiding place. When Phipps saw where I was going he yelled out something about its being dangerous, and started down the steps. At first I didn't see how it opened, because there was no doorknob — then I noticed a brick in the wall just to the right of it which looked loose, and I pushed it in. There was a sort of grating noise, and another I couldn't place at the time, but now I think it was Phipps running back upstairs.

  'The rest of what happened I don't understand. The door swung open as I expected when I pushed the brick into position — and then a flood of water poured into the cellar! I don't know what was behind that door — the water threw me backwards too quickly for me to see anything — but for one minute I thought a figure was standing in the open before it floundered into the cellar with the water. I only saw it as a shadow, but it was like something out of a nightmare — towering — neckless — deformed — ugh! It couldn't have been anything like that really, of course. Probably one of those statues I was telling you about. I didn't see it again, and I can't remember anything else till you revived me outside the house. But what sort of man is it who has doors in his house leading to underground rivers?'

  No amount of pounding on the door of the-house could elicit a response, and those in the party did not particularly like to enter that building of brooding secrets. They went away intending to return later with a warrant, but somehow this intention was forgotten on their return to Brichester. Their later capture of the escaped criminal restored a kind of sanity, and the peculiar rumours of demon-haunted catacombs were almost forgotten.

  II

  The death of James Phipps came in 1898, on a day of howling wind, on which the hills in the distance muttered subterraneously in curious rhythms; the people of the country spoke of invisible primal mountain presences which chanted in nighted caverns, even though professors at the university in Brichester told them of the probability of underground rivers. The nightjars which now and then skimmed over the hills cried in peculiarly expectant tones, almost as if they expected to capture the soul of the dying man, as the legends told in that countryside hinted. For a long time through that May afternoon Phipps' voice could be heard, strangely distorted, from a shuttered upper-floor window; at times it seemed to address someone, while at others the voice would wail nonsensical fragments in unknown languages. It was not until after the rise of the miasma-distorted moon that an anguished groan came from the dying man, followed by a united rising of affrighted nightjars, from where they perched lengthwise in the trees and watched the house from across the river with glinting eyes. They flew as if escaping from some pursuing horror, which some believe these psychopomps to have attempted to capture. Close upon this came faintly-heard footsteps upon the stairs in the house, followed by the sound of creaking hinges and muffled splash rumoured to have been heard in the lower regions of that house.

  Nothing was ever heard concerning the burial of any remains of James Phipps, although the son said he preferred to dispose of the corpse himself. The Clotton people could understand this, since the corpse of a man who had apparently lived decades over a century, and practised unknown sciences and experiments in secret, might necessarily be hidden from the eyes of the curious. It is very probably fanciful superstition which leads to scattered references to late travellers glimpsing someone very like Phipps in appearance near various hills topped by rings of monolithic stones, long after his death; but these same stone-capped hills often bore a nauseating reptilian odour which is not so easily explicable when linked with ensuing events.

  Lionel Phipps and the unnamed Temphill woman were left in sole possession of the house, and evidently a rift began to open at once between them. For some days a light burned at most times behind the shutters of the laboratory, where the son was thought to be studying whatever books he now inherited. This attracted the attention of the owner of the adjoining house, Mary Allen; and as she could easily hear the conversations from next door through the thin wall when she was interested, her discoveries supplied Philip Chesterton with very useful information. Some days after Phipps' death, for instance, Mrs Allen overheard an interesting altercation. She heard only part of it, actually entering her own house just as Lionel Phipps began to shout angrily.

  I need the tables for the positions of the orbits, I tell you,' he was shouting. 'He must have copied it down somewhere, but there's nothing about it here. If he left it in the laboratory, it's certainly not in there now — are you sure you haven't..?'

  'I haven't seen them,' came the terrified answer. 'You know I wouldn't go near them. Maybe I was in the Temphill gathering, but this sort of thing terrifies me more than what I learned — down there… Why do you have to carry on this meddling? Whoever shut away that from outside must have known what they were doing, so why do you have to be so bent on setting it free?'

  'You've taken the chart, haven't you!' threatened Lionel Phipps. 'You've taken it so I can't let them back in!'

  'No, no, I haven't,' his mother protested. 'Don't jump to conclusions until you've been through the whole house, at least.'

  This temporarily satisfied Phipps, who presumably went to the laboratory, for the lamp in there was lighted again a few minutes later. The search of the house proved unavailing, however, and another furious argument took place. The mother still insisted that she neither knew of the hiding-place of the notes nor did she know the actual information which he sought.

  'Well,' Phipps conceded, 'perhaps you don't but anyway it makes no difference now. Before the time comes I'll go down to London and look up the British Museum copy of the Necronomicon; that's bound to have the chart. And don't try to persuade me not to go ahead with Father's work! Of course, you don't have to stay around — it might be better if you went back to your coven in Temphill. Satanism is so much healthier, isn't it?'

  'You know I need—' began his listener.

  'Oh, of course, I forgot,' admitted Lionel Phipps satirica
lly. 'Well, just don't interfere in my business here — I won't stand for it.'

  The expected trip to London and the British Museum came in early 1899, and Lionel Phipps found little difficulty in gaining access to that section of the library which contains the rarer books. The librarian did not like the pallid face and leanness of the visitor, but he unlocked the bookcases containing the restricted volumes readily enough. The seeker speedily realised that the monstrous work of Abdul Alhazred would be useless to him in his quest; while it did contain an astrological table, this was very incomplete and long outdated. The even older tome, the Book of Eibon, appeared to him a possible source, with its records of the knowledge of an elder civilization. The librarian discovered that Phipps was attempting to find the position of some sphere Glyu'uho in an obscure relationship with a system of orbits on a certain autumn night — Glyu'uho, translated from that terrible primal tongue, being Betelgeuse. That little-known table in the complete Book of Eibon which gives positions of suggestive far worlds was quickly found by Phipps, from which he copied down parts of the table. The keeper of the books shuddered as he peered over the visitor's shoulder and translated the names of Aldebaran and the Hyades in Phipps' notations. He disliked, too, the walk of the seeker as he left the echoing room, for it appeared that he had some slight difficulty in using his limbs. The librarian might have shivered more had he known of the forthcoming results of this visit.

  The return of Phipps, late in the evening, to the house on Riverside Alley, brought the most serious, and last, quarrel between the two remaining inhabitants of the building. Towards its end both were screaming at each other, and the listening Mrs Allen found their remarks terrifying.

  Phipps was yelling something which first brought Mrs Allen to listen closely. 'All right, you try and stop me,' he told his mother, 'and I'll forget to operate next time you need it. You have to keep in my good books, or else you won't last out. You wouldn't even be here on this earth if it wasn't for that meeting in Temphill. You'll tell them about my plans, will you? If the people in this town knew what they found in Temphill in 1805 just after the day they met, you might be disposed of quickly…'

  She shrieked back: "The people in this town won't be able to do anything if you go on with your father's work — there'll be other tenants in Clotton. Wasn't the tunnel from the gate to the cellar enough?'

  'You know I wouldn't be able to protect myself if I let them though the cellar entrance.' Phipps sounded defensive.

  'So just because you're a coward, do you have to let them through the other way?' she inquired. 'Once the sign's removed there'll be no way to keep them in check — they'll just multiply until they let the Old Ones back on the earth. Is that what you want?'

  'Why not?' suggested her son. 'We both worship the Old Ones; the river-creatures won't harm me. We'll exist side by side as Their priests, until They return to rule the world.'

  'Side by side — you're naïve,' Phipps' mother scoffed. Still, perhaps the juxtaposition of Fomalhaut and the Hyades won't be enough; even you may get tired when you have to wait more than thirty years… I'm not staying to see what happens. I'll go back to Temphill and chance what should have come years ago — perhaps it'll be the best thing.'

  At about eleven o'clock that night the front door opened, and the strange woman began to walk down the street. A vaguely terrible picture was presented to the warily watching Mary Allen, as James Phipps' widow made her way with that half-paralytic gait which seemed to be a characteristic of all the Phipps family, between the dark houses under a lich-pale moon. Nothing more was ever heard of her, though a woman was seen walking very slowly, and with some difficulty, along a road some miles away in the direction of Temphill. Daylight showed a strange horror; for a little way further on a woman's skeleton was found, as though it had fallen at the side of the road. Body-snatching seemed the most plausible explanation, and the matter was discussed little. Others to whose ears it came, however, linked it-indefinitely with references to something that 'should have come a century ago.'

  After this breach Lionel Phipps began to make an increasing number of journeys to that immemorially-constructed river bridge, and was noticed to go underneath to peer into the water frequently. At night he would step into the street at various hours and examine the sky with an excessive degree of impatience. At such times he appeared to be interested in a portion of the sky where, from directions given, Fomalhaut would have risen. Towards the end of March 1899, his impatience began to ease, and a light would be seen more often in the library. He seemed to be preparing for something extremely important, and those who heard the sounds which emanated from the shuttered laboratory disliked to consider just what he might be awaiting.

  Early that Autumn came the night concerning which the Brichester people begin to grow reticent. Fomalhaut now glared like the eye of some spatial lurker above the horizon, and many tales began to be whispered abroad about the increasingly frequent happenings around Gloucestershire and the Severn. The hill rumblings were louder and more coherent, and more than once people forced to take forest routes had sensed vast and invisible presences rushing past them. Monstrous shapes had been glimpsed scuttling through the trees or flapping above the stone circles on the hills, and once a woman had come fleeing into Brichester, shrieking a tale of something which had looked very like a tree but had suddenly changed shape. On a night at the peak of these bizarre occurrences, Phipps made his first experiment.

  He was seen leaving the house on an evening of late October, 1899, and seemed to be carrying a long metal bar of some sort. He arrived on the river-bank near the bridge at about midnight, and immediately began to chant in ritual tones. A few minutes later the hill noises redoubled in intensity, and a peculiar sound started up close at hand, near the bridge — a monstrous bass croaking which resounded across the countryside. What appeared to be a minor earthquake followed closely on the beginning of the croaking, shaking the river-bank and causing slight turbulence in the water, though nothing more. Phipps then disappeared under the bridge, and through his continued chanting rang the sound of metal scraping on stone. Upon this sound came a subterranean commotion, with a rising chorus of voiceless croaking and a sound as if of Cyclopean bodies slithering against one another in some charnel pit, with a nauseating rise of that alien reptilian odour. But nothing came into view, even though the scrape of metal against stone continued with greater ferocity. Finally Phipps appeared above the bridge's shadow again, with an expression of resignation on his face. He made his way back to the house in the alley, as that abominable commotion died out behind him, and entered, closing the door stealthily. Almost at once the light filtered out from the shuttered laboratory where, presumably, he was again studying the inherited documents.

  Seemingly, Phipps was becoming unsure whether he was using the right chant, for that was what he told the British Museum librarian, Philip Chesterton, this now being the year of 1900. Phipps preferred not to say which incantation he needed, or what he hoped to invoke by its use. He made use of the Necronomicon this time in his search, and Chesterton noted that the seeker appeared interested in those pages which dealt with the commission of beings in tampering with the elements. The reader copied down a passage and continued to another section of the volume. Chesterton, reading over the other's shoulder, noticed that he showed considerable interest in the following passage, and shuddered to think of possible reasons.

  'As in the days of the seas' covering all the earth, when Cthulhu walked in power across the world and others flew in the gulfs of space, so in certain places of the earth shall be found a great race which came from Outside and lived in cities and worshipped in dark fanes in the depths. Their cities remain under the land, but rarely do They come up from Their subterranean places. They have been sealed in certain locations by the seal of the Elder Gods, but They may be released by words not known to many. What made its home in water shall be released by water, and when Glyu'uho is rightly placed, the words shall cause a flood to rise and remove
at last the seal of those from Glyu'uho.'

  Phipps admitted to his listener that he would have a considerable wait before anything could be done towards the release of what he knew to exist, 'But,' he continued, 'it won't be too long before those in Clotton will see shapes striding down their streets in broad daylight that would drive them insane at night! In the old days the shoggoths used to avoid those places where They peered out of the depths at unwary passers-by — what do you think will be the effect on a man who sees Their great heads break the surface — and sees what they use to view him instead of eyes?'

  Then he left, possibly conjecturing that he had said too much; and Chesterton was alone, with various speculations. As time went by, he began to investigate the doings of this eldritch being on Riverside Alley; and as a horrible idea began to form concerning the woman from Temphill, he contacted an acquaintance in that town. Legends, he was told, existed of a monstrous coven in the 1800s, which convened in artificial caverns beneath the graveyards. Often vaults would be opened, and newly buried corpses might be dug forth and reanimated by certain horrendous formulae. There were even hints that these living cadavers were taken as wives or husbands by favoured members of the cult, for the children resulting from such charnel betrothals would have primal powers which properly belonged only to alien deities.