Doctor Ellerby called every evening; after each mechanical, forcedly cheerful examination of his patient, he would come down to the library for a much-needed drink. I would watch the dejected slope of his shoulders, as he stood, before the casement, gazing at the winter-mauve shadows of the ash-grove. After a time, he would shake his head slowly and his voice would be heavy and beaten.
“It’s so odd. I can’t explain it. I’ve known your father ever since he came to Inneswich; he never had a blood condition. He has none now… And yet, it’s as though… well, as though, somehow, the blood were being drained from his body…”
Sometimes his words varied; their hopeless, frustrated meaning was always the same. Ellerby’s tones echoed softly in some hidden corner of my brain, warping into the cold, venomous cadences of another voice. Once more I heard the brittle snapping of splintered Christmas decorations under Claude’s shifting feet. I listened as the pale spectre of him murmured that hideous warning again and again. “One way or the other, I mean to have what I want…”
It was on a sleet-chilled morning in mid-February that the letter arrived at Inneswich Priory. Addressed to Father, it was signed by one Jonathan Wilder, Dean of Men, Miskatonic University. The expensive bond paper rustled faintly in my trembling fingers. Apprehension rose in a gelatinous tide, clogging my lungs. It was a short letter; the sentences cryptic and strangely self-conscious. They said little and yet, they hinted strongly at some darkling fear that haunted the mind of the writer. Jonathan Wilder confessed that what he had to say was not meant to be committed to paper. He said he would be grateful if Father would visit him in his office on the campus at Miskatonic, so that they might discuss in private the strange circumstances which had brought about this unfortunate turn of events in the college career of his son, Claude.
Father never saw the letter. The next Saturday, I was aboard the late evening train bound for Arkham. I lay back wearily against the dusty green Pullman seat, and stared into the square of impenetrable light that was my window. I saw nothing of the spectral landscape through which the train rattled like some phosphorescent worm crawling endlessly in the subterranean darkness of a tomb. Before my burning, sleepless eyes, only the final sentence of Jonathan Wilder’s message writhed in a depraved, hypnotic danse macabre. “Believe me, I am indeed sorry to have to inform you that, after long deliberation, the Board of Directors can see no other course. Claude Ashur has been expelled from Miskatonic University.”
IV
JONATHAN WILDER WAS A TALL, CADAVEROUS MAN WHO TRIED to hide the sombre distaste in his eyes behind a blinking barrier of pince-nez. He made a bony steeple of his fingers, and, for a long time, gazed wordlessly at the barren expanses of the university campus beyond the window. His eyes studied the distant, gray coldness of the hills that hemmed in Arkham; they squinted against the icy glint of winter sun on the sluggish winding ribbon of the Miskatonic. Then, abruptly, decisively, Jonathan Wilder turned back to me. He cleared his throat.
“I do hope you’ll appreciate our position in this matter, Mr. Ashur. The Board has bent over backward to be lenient with your brother; they know what a brilliant mind he has. But…” He shrugged faintly, wiping the pince-nez on the sleeve of his oxford-gray coat. “The fact is, from the very beginning Claude has shown a rather… shall we say, unwholesome?… yes… a decidedly unwholesome interest in subjects that are directly opposed to the concepts of medical science. He has spent virtually all his time in the University Library…
“You… ah… You haven’t heard about the library here at Miskatonic, Mr. Ashur?… No. I see you haven’t… Well, I might begin by saying that our library is reputed to contain the most extensive collection of forbidden and esoteric lore in existence today. Under lock-and-key, we have the only extant copies of such things as the Unaussprechlichen Kulten of von Juntz, and the loathsome Book of Eibon… Yes, even the dreadful Necronomicon.” I fancied that I saw an irrepressible shudder pass through Jonathan Wilder as he said those damnable names; when he spoke again, his voice was scarcely more than a whisper.
“Your brother, Mr. Ashur, has been seen to copy whole pages of that horrible lore. Once, long after closing hours, one of our librarians—a wholly reliable girl, I assure you—found Claude Ashur crouched in a shadowy corner among the bookstacks, muttering some weird incantation. She swore his face was… not human…” The tall man drew a long shivering breath. “There are other stories, too. There have been whisperings of strange doings in your brother’s lodgings in Pickham Square. People speak of foul odors and whimpering agonized voices… Of course…” He raised one hand palm-up. “Some of this may be conjecture; possibly it’s been exaggerated. But, in any case, the tales about Claude Ashur are doing Miskatonic definite harm. Enrollment has fallen off. Students have left, midterm, without apparent reason, after a short period of friendliness with your brother. You see, the esoteric learning our library affords is all very well when assimilated by a normal mind… But, a mind like Claude Ashur’s…” He broke off, self-consciously. “Well… I’m sure you see our point…”
“Yes,” I said, slowly. “Yes… I see…”
* * *
A man opened the door of Claude’s house, his unfriendly, age-scared face stiffened at mention of the name.
“Mr. Ashur’s out,” he said flatly.
“I see… Well, I’ll wait in his rooms…” I took a step forward and the door all but slammed in my face. The jaundiced glow of a streetlamp winked in the old man’s hard, wary eyes. I got out my wallet. “It’s all right. I’m his brother…” He took the dollar bill without thanking me.
“Top floor.” He opened the door to let me pass.
“Thanks…” I paused. “By the way, Mr. Ashur will be leaving here tonight… for good…”
I couldn’t be certain, but in the dubious glare of a garish hall light, it seemed to me that the old man’s face grew suddenly soft with unspoken relief. As I moved carefully upward through the Cimmerian darkness of the stairwell, I heard him mutter, “Yes, sir!” He said it with the fervor of one who was murmuring: “Thank God!”
From the moment I entered his room, I had been vaguely aware of an indefinable odor, at once sickly sweet and stinging in the nostrils, that seemed to permeate every corner of the room. Now, I knew I had been inhaling the pungent fumes of oily pigment mixed with turpentine. For the thing beneath the skylight was an artist’s easel, and, propped on its cross-bar, hidden by a cotton veil, was what I took to be a canvas in progress. To the right of the easel stood an antique work-cabinet, its scarred top littered with paint-clogged brushes and a pallet. Mechanically, as though driven by some mystic compulsion, I went to the table. Not until I was standing directly over it did I see the open book that lay half-buried beneath the melange of brushes and paint.
A malicious gleam from one of the lamps slanted across the tissue-fine texture of the volume-pages. A stench of immeasurable age swirled upward to me as I bent to decipher the ancient hieroglyphs that crawled like obscene insects across the paper. The book before me was one of the earliest editions of Albertus Magnus; at the bottom of the right-hand page, a single passage had been underscored. Revulsion knotted my stomach as I read those accursed lines.
“…Three drops of blood I draw from thee. The first from thy heart, the other from thy liver, the third from thy vigorous life. By this I take all thy strength, and thou losest the strife…”