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diff --git a/32638.txt b/32638.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5d56fa1 --- /dev/null +++ b/32638.txt @@ -0,0 +1,725 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of In the Dark, by Ronal Kayser + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: In the Dark + +Author: Ronal Kayser + +Release Date: June 1, 2010 [EBook #32638] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE DARK *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + Transcriber's Note: + + This etext was produced from Weird Tales August-September 1936. + Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. + copyright on this publication was renewed. + + + In the Dark + + + By RONAL KAYSER + + + _It was a tale of sheer horror that old Asa Gregg poured + into the dictaphone_ + + * * * * * + + + + +The watchman's flashlight printed a white circle on the frosted-glass, +black-lettered door: + + GREGG CHEMICAL CO., MFRS. + ASA GREGG, PRES. + PRIVATE + +The watchman's hand closed on the knob, rattled the door in its frame. +Queer, but tonight the sound had seemed to come from in there.... But +that couldn't be. He knew that Mr. Gregg and Miss Carruthers carried +the only keys to the office, so any intruder would have been forced to +smash the lock. + +Maybe the sound came from the storage room. The watchman clumped along +the rubber-matted corridor, flung his weight against that door. It +opened hard, being of ponderous metal fitted into a cork casing. The +room was an air-tight, fire-proof vault, really. His shoes gritted on +the concrete floor as he prowled among the big porcelain vats. The +flashlight bored through bluish haze to the concrete walls. Acid fumes +escaping under the vat lids made the haze and seared the man's throat. + +He hurried out, coughing and wiping his eyes. It was damn funny. Every +night lately he heard the same peculiar noise somewhere in this wing +of the building.... Like a body groaning and turning in restless +sleep, it was. It scared him. He didn't mention the mystery to anyone, +though. He was an old man, and he didn't want Mr. Gregg to think he +was getting too old for the job. + +"Asa 'd think I was crazy, if I told him about it," he mumbled. + + * * * * * + +Inside the office, Asa Gregg heard the muttered words plainly. He sat +very still in the big, leather-cushioned chair, hardly breathing until +the scrape of the watchman's feet had thinned away down the hall. +There was no light in the room to betray him; only the cherry-colored +tip of his cigar, which couldn't be visible through the frosted glass +door. Anyway, it'd be an hour before the watchman's round brought him +past the office again. Asa Gregg had that hour, if he could screw up +his nerve to use it.... + +He took the frayed end of the cigar from his mouth. His hand, which +had wasted to mere skin and bone these past few months, groped through +the darkness, slid over the polished coolness of the dictaphone hood, +and snapped the switch. Machinery faintly whirred. His fingers found +the tube, lifted it. + +"Miss Carruthers!" he snapped. Then he hesitated. Surely, he could +trust Mary Carruthers! He'd never wondered about her before. She'd +been his secretary for a dozen years--lately, since he couldn't look +after affairs himself as he used to, she had practically run the +business. She was forty, sensible, unbeautiful, and tight-lipped. +Hell, he had to trust her! + +His voice plunged into the darkness. + +"What I have to say now is intended for Mrs. Gregg's ears only. She +will take the first boat home, of course. Meet that boat and bring her +to the office. Since my wife knows nothing about a dictaphone, it will +be necessary for you to set this record running. As soon as you have +done so, leave her alone in the room. Make sure she's not interrupted +for a half-hour. That's all." + +He waited a decent interval. The invisible needle peeled its thread +into the revolving wax cylinder. + +"Jeannette," muttered Asa Gregg, and hesitated again. This wasn't +going to be easy to say. He decided to begin matter-of-factly. "As you +probably know, my will and the insurance policies are in the vault at +the First National. I believe you will find all of my papers in +excellent order. If any questions arise, consult Miss Carruthers. What +I have to say to you now is purely personal--I feel, my dear, that I +owe you an explanation--that is----" + +God, it came harder than he had expected. + +"Jeannette," he started in afresh, "you remember three years ago when +I was in the hospital. You were in Palm Beach at the time, and I wired +that there'd been an accident here at the plant. That wasn't strictly +so. The fact is, I'd gotten mixed up with a girl----" + +He paused, shivering. In the darkness a picture of Dot swam before +him. The oval face, framed by gleaming swirls of lemon-tinted hair, +had pouting scarlet lips, and eyes whose allure was intensified by +violet make-up. The full-length picture of her included a streamlined, +full-blossomed and yet delectably lithe body. A costly, enticing, +Broadway-chorus orchid! As a matter of fact, that was where he'd found +her. + +"I won't make any excuses for myself," Asa Gregg said harshly. "I +might point out that you were always in Florida or Bermuda or France, +and that I was a lonely man. But it wasn't just loneliness, and I +didn't seek companionship. I thought I was making a last bow to +Romance. I was successful, sixty, and silly, and I did all the damn +fool things--I even wrote letters to her. Popsy-wopsy letters." The +dictaphone couldn't record the grimace that jerked his lips. "She +saved them, of course, and by and by she put a price on them--ten +thousand dollars. Dot claimed that one of those filthy tabloids had +offered her that much for them--and what was a poor working-girl to +do? She lied. I knew that. + +"I told her to bring the letters to the office after business hours, +and I'd take care of her. I took care of her, all right. I shot her, +Jeannette!" + +He mopped his face with a handkerchief that was already damp. + +"Not on account of the money, you understand. It was the things she +said, after she had tucked the bills into her purse ... vile things, +about the way she had earned it ten times over by enduring my beastly +kisses. I'd really loved that girl, and I'd thought she'd cared for me +a little. It was her hate that maddened me, and I got the gun out of +my desk drawer----" + + * * * * * + +Asa Gregg reached through the darkness for the switch. He fumbled for +the bottle which stood on the desk. His hand trembled, spilling some +of the liquor onto his lap. He drank from the bottle.... + +This part of the story he'd skip. It was too horrible, even to think +about it. He didn't want to remember how the blood pooled inside Dot's +fur coat, and how he'd managed to carry the body out of the office +without leaking any of her blood onto the floor. He tried to forget +the musky sweetness of the perfume on the dead girl, mingled with that +other evil blood-smell. Especially he didn't want to remember the +frightful time he'd had stripping the gold rings from her fingers, and +the one gold tooth in her head.... + +The horror of it coiled in the blackness about him. His own teeth +rattled against the bottle when he gulped the second drink. He +snapped the switch savagely, but when he spoke his voice cringed into +the tube: + +"I carried her into the storage room. I got the lid off one of the +acid tanks. The vat contained an acid powerful enough to destroy +anything--except gold. In fact, the vat itself had to be lined with +gold-leaf. I knew that in twenty-four hours there wouldn't be a +recognizable body left, and in a week there wouldn't be anything at +all. No matter what the police suspected, they couldn't prove a murder +charge without a _corpus delicti_. I had committed the perfect +crime--except for one thing. I didn't realize that there'd be a +_splash_ when she went into the vat." + +Gregg laughed, not pleasantly. His wife might think it'd been a sob, +when she heard this record. "Now you understand why I went to the +hospital," he jerked. "Possibly you'd call that poetic justice. Oh, +God!" + +His voice broke. Again he thumbed off the switch, and mopped his face +with the damp linen. + +The rest--how could he explain the rest of it? + +He spent a long minute arranging his thoughts. + +"You haven't any idea," he resumed, "no one has any idea, of how I've +been punished for the thing I did. I don't mean the sheer physical +agony--but the fear that I'd talk coming out of the ether at the +hospital. The fear that she'd been traced to my office--I'd simply +hidden her rings away, expecting to drop them into the river--or that +she might have confided in her lover ... yes, she had one. Or, suppose +a whopping big order came through and that tank was emptied the very +next day. And I couldn't ask any questions--I didn't even know what +was in the papers. + +"However, that part of it gradually cleared up. I quizzed Miss +Carruthers, and learned that an unidentified female body had been +fished out of the East River a few days after Dot disappeared. That's +how the police 'solved' the case. I got rid of her rings. I ordered +that vat left alone. + +"The other thing began about six months ago." + +A spasm contorted his face. His fingers ached their grip into the +dictaphone tube. + +"Jeannette, you remember when I began to object to the radio, how I'd +shout at you to turn it off in the middle of a program? You thought I +was ill, and worried about business.... You were wrong. The thing that +got me was _hearing her voice_----" + +He gripped the cold cigar, chewed it. "It's very strange that you +didn't notice it. No matter what station we dialed to, always that +same voice came stealing into the room! But perhaps you did notice? +You said, once or twice, that all those blues singers sounded alike! + +"And she was a blues singer.... It was she, all right, somewhere out +in the ether, reminding me.... + +"The next thing was--well, at first when I noticed it in the office I +thought Miss Carruthers had suddenly taken up with young ideas. You +see, I kept smelling perfume." + +And he smelled it now. It was like a miasma in the dark. + +"It isn't anything that Carruthers wears," he grated. "It comes +from--yes, the storage room. I realized that about a month ago. Just +after you sailed--one night I stayed late at the office, and I went in +there.... It seemed to be strongest around the vat--_her_ vat--and I +lifted the lid. + +"The sweet, sticky musk-smell hit me like a blow in the face. + +"And that isn't all!" + + * * * * * + +Terror stalked in this room. Asa Gregg crouched in his chair, felt the +weight of Fear on him like a submarine pressure. His cigar pitched to +his knees, dropped to the floor. + +"You won't believe this, Jeannette." He hammered the words like nails +into the darkness in front of him. "You will say that it's impossible. +I know that. It _is_ impossible. It is a physiological absurdity--it +contradicts the laws of natural science. + +"_But I saw something on the bottom of that vat!_" + +He groped for the bottle. His wife would hear a long gurgle, and then +a coughing gasp.... + +"The vat was nearly full of this transparent, oily acid," he went on. +"What I saw was a lot of sediment on the golden floor. And there +shouldn't have been any sediment! The stuff utterly dissolves animal +tissue, bone, even the common ores--keeps them in suspension. + +"It didn't look like sediment, either. It looked like a heap of mold ... +grave-mold! + +"I replaced the lid. I spent a week convincing myself that it was all +impossible, that I _couldn't_ have seen anything of the sort. Then I +went to the vat again----" + +Silence hung in the darkness while he sucked wind into his lungs. And +the words burst--separate, yammering shrieks: + +"I looked, night after night! For hours at a time I've watched the +change.... Did you ever see a body decompose? Of course not! Neither +have I. But you must know in a general way what the process is. Well, +this has been the exact opposite! + +"First, I stared at the heap of grave-mold as it shaped itself into +_bones_, a skeleton. + +"I watched the coming of hair, a yellow tangle of it sprouting from +the bare round skull, until--oh, God!--the flesh began making itself +before my eyes! I couldn't bear any more. I stayed away--didn't come +to the office for five days." + +The tube slipped from his sweating, slick fingers. Panting, Asa Gregg +fumbled in the dark until he found it. + +Exhaustion, not self-control, flattened his voice to a deadly +monotone. "I tried to think of a way out. If I could fish the corpse +out of the tank! But I couldn't smuggle it out of the plant--alone. +You know that, and so do I. Besides, what would be the use? If acid +can't kill her, nothing can. + +"That's why I can't have the lid cemented on. It wouldn't do any good, +either! Until three days ago, she hadn't the least color, looked as +white as a ghost in the vat. A naked ghost, because there's been no +resurrection for her clothing.... + +"I've watched her limbs grow rosy! Her lips are scarlet! Her eyes are +bright--they opened yesterday--and her breasts were rising and +falling--oh, almost imperceptibly--but that was last night. + +"And tonight--I swear it--her lips moved! She muttered my name! She +turned--she'd been lying on her side--over onto her back!" + +The record would be badly blurred. His hand shook violently, bobbled +the tube against his lips. Gregg braced his elbow against the desk. + +"She isn't dead," he choked. "She's only asleep ... not very soundly +asleep.... She's waking up!" + +The invisible needle quivered as it traced several noises. There was +his tortured breathing, and the clawing of his fingernails rattling +over the desk. The drawer clicked as it opened. + +The loud click was the cocking of the revolver. + +"_Soon she's going to get out of that vat!_" Gregg bleated. +"Jeannette, forgive me--God, forgive me--but I will not--I cannot--I +dare not stay here to see her then!" + + * * * * * + +The sound of the shot brought the watchman stumbling along the +corridor. He crashed against the office door. It banged open in a +shower of falling frosted glass. The watchman's flashlight severed the +darkness, and printed its white circle on the face of Asa Gregg. + +He had fallen back into the chair, a blackish gout of blood running +from the hole in his temple. He stared sightlessly into the light with +his eyes that were two gnarls of shrunken brown flesh, like knots in a +pine board. + +Asa Gregg was blind ... had been, since that night three years past +when the acid splashed.... + + * * * * * + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of In the Dark, by Ronal Kayser + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE DARK *** + +***** This file should be named 32638.txt or 32638.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/6/3/32638/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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