* * *
At about 7:00 I dined in a restaurant in Oxford, and, finally coming to the conclusion that I had wasted enough time in frivolity, made the return trip, reaching home at close on 8:30. Exhausted by my ramblings, I must have dropped off almost immediately afterwards, awaking some forty-five minutes later. For the first time in the day I thought of Coler, the crystal, and Meredith’s Kurkur Fragment, and decided to give the man a call to see how far he had progressed.
Curiously, I received no reply, though I let the phone ring several times. Surely, I thought, Coler could not have retired so early; and even if he had, why did Meredith not answer? Had the two gone somewhere, as I had done, on an archaeological mission? Or had pleasure spurred their departure, Meredith wishing to catch a brief glimpse of England while he was here? The possibilities were endless, and it was useless of me to speculate haphazardly in this manner; the only way I could solve this absurdly minor enigma was to go personally to Coler’s manor.
I cannot say that I was particularly surprised when no one answered either my vehement knocking at the door or my calling out loud of Coler’s and Meredith’s names. Indeed, I was about to come to the conclusion that the two must have gone somewhere, despite the late hour, when I saw something that, though it did not actually defy this hypothesis, did put a more curious and sinister significance upon the whole affair:
Coler’s car was still in his garage.
It was certainly possible that they had gone on foot to wherever they were going, and their absence could well indicate that some accident had befallen either one or both. For a time I considered scouring the countryside in my car for them, but then I became aware of another odd circumstance that almost definitely precluded any innocuous explication of the matter:
Coler’s front door was unlocked; and the reason that it was unlocked was that the lock was broken.
This was not Coler’s work, nor Meredith’s. There also came flooding back to my memory the unsuccessful criminous attempt of the night before, an incident to which Coler had attached a considerable and as yet an unaccountable importance. Something serious was involved, I knew, and I felt also that the consequences of whatever it was were not only overwhelming, but imminent of realization.
I burst through the door and began searching for Coler’s presence. The first place I looked was of course the library, and there I found him—on the floor, unconscious, with blood oozing thickly from a head wound which seemed remarkably recent.
Although I was shocked at this abrupt discovery, I remember noticing that the room was, paradoxically, in relative order: no papers were scattered anywhere, no chairs overturned, no books disturbed save those which we had ourselves perused, and only Coler’s prostrate form signified that any physical struggle had taken place here. I saw, too, that Meredith’s Kurkur Fragment was still on Coler’s desk.
My first task was to revive Coler, and this was accomplished with no great difficulty, for though Coler’s head wound was ugly, it was not serious. Only a minute or two after I began my ministrations I heard Coler moan gruffly and shuffle about, trying to get to his feet. When he opened his eyes, he first expressed a startled horror which again reminded me of our bootless miscreant of the preceding night; then, upon recognizing me, he became tranquil, murmuring:
“Oh, it’s only you, Collins. Thank God you’ve come—”
Breaking off suddenly, his face abruptly registered a wide-eyed dread which seemed to hint of the most awesome of horrors, and which allowed Coler to mutter only the words, “Oh, my God!” and then precipitously to arise from the floor and cast frenzied glances all about the room, as if he were looking for something…
Then I noticed that the crystal was gone.
“Collins, they’ve taken it! They’ve taken it! Come quickly, man, we must go immediately! If we are too late, Collins…”
Disregarding his injury, he first went to another room and seized a rifle, then urged me to come with him as he made his way out of the house. Trying to ignore what was so affecting Coler, I asked him what in the world had happened to Meredith, and Coler gave me this amazing reply:
“He has gone back to Arkham.”
“What!” I cried. “But he arrived here only yesterday! What made him go back so suddenly?”
Flinging at me the day’s newspaper, which was lying on an armchair in the living room, Coler snapped, while exiting through the front door: “The answer is there, Collins; read it on the way.”
And read it I did. The article was almost on the last page of the issue, ironically tucked away in a corner, as if it were some sort of filler:
BIZARRE RIVER TRAGEDY
Arkham, Massachusetts, U.S.A.: 3 July 1940. The shores of Devil Reef near Innsmouth and the Miskatonic River were the sites of peculiar deaths yesterday night. A number of citizens of Arkham, including some young students of Miskatonic University, were found murdered while fishing or swimming: their bodies were torn apart as if by great claws, and a noxious fishy smell adhered to them, along with a curious green slime which was so foetid that the bodies could not be approached for several hours. Whether a human agency was involved could not be determined, but officials and various old inhabitants of Arkham and Dunwich have expressed the belief that this event is somehow tied with the hushed-up government intervention at Innsmouth in the winter of 1927–28 and to the terrible holocaust at Dunwich which took place some months afterwards. They also refer to the great floods that occurred in the hills of Vermont in late 1927, the subsequent disappearance of an old folklorist named Akeley, and the resultant madness of Miskatonic instructor of literature Albert N. Wilmarth. How those diverse incidents could have any relation to the recent tragedy was not explained, though it has been noticed that the townspeople of Innsmouth have been unduly restless in the past few days, and that there has been unprecedented activity in the depths of Devil Reef on several occasions. Some lunatics have gone so far as to mumble about the Salem witch trials, which occurred two and a half centuries ago, though it is to be noted that no one has cared to disavow any of these rumors.
Officials are still looking into the matter, while state and federal authorities have again been contacted…
This certainly explained Meredith’s return home, although it hardly seemed to have any significance to our own affairs. Still running alongside Coler, with only the moonlight to guide us, I then saw another article which was of interest:
CURIOUS SEA INCIDENT
Papeete, Tahiti: 3 July 1940. Some twenty persons—many of them English and American tourists—were killed yesterday night by so-called “sea monsters,” which were said to have come from the sea. Several of the bodies were mutilated beyond recognition, others with limbs amputated and partially eaten. A green trail of slime led from the bodies back to the sea, and the odor of dead fish also prevailed. It is believed that some ordinary sea animals came out of the sea and wreaked the havoc, the claim of “sea monsters” being passed off as the exaggerations of superstitious natives…