The Horror in the Museum - H. P. Lovecraft (best books to read now TXT) 📗

in the middle of the morning, when there was the greatest amount of sane, wholesome activity around the ancient, crumbling shops and warehouses. The museum’s sign was still there, and as he approached he saw that the place was still open. The gateman nodded in pleasant recognition as he summoned up the courage to enter, and in the vaulted chamber below an attendant touched his cap cheerfully. Perhaps everything had been a dream. Would he dare to knock at the door of the workroom and look for Rogers?

Then Orabona advanced to greet him. His dark, sleek face was a trifle sardonic, but Jones felt that he was not unfriendly. He spoke with a trace of accent.

“Good morning, Mr. Jones. It is some time since we have seen you here. Did you wish Mr. Rogers? I’m sorry, but he is away. He had word of business in America, and had to go. Yes, it was very sudden. I am in charge now—here, and at the house. I try to maintain Mr. Rogers’ high standard—till he is back.”

The foreigner smiled—perhaps from affability alone. Jones scarcely knew how to reply, but managed to mumble out a few inquiries about the day after his last visit. Orabona seemed greatly amused by the questions, and took considerable care in framing his replies.

“Oh, yes, Mr. Jones—the 28th of last month. I remember it for many reasons. In the morning—before Mr. Rogers got here, you understand—I found the workroom in quite a mess. There was a great deal of—cleaning up—to do. There had been—late work, you see. Important new specimen given its secondary baking process. I took complete charge when I came.

“It was a hard specimen to prepare—but of course Mr. Rogers had taught me a great deal. He is, as you know, a very great artist. When he came he helped me complete the specimen—helped very materially, I assure you—but he left soon without even greeting the men. As I tell you, he was called away suddenly. There were important chemical reactions involved. They made loud noises—in fact, some teamsters in the court outside fancy they heard several pistol shots—very amusing idea!

“As for the new specimen—that matter is very unforutnate. It is a great masterpiece—designed and made, you understand, by Mr. Rogers. He will see about it when he gets back.”

Again Orabona smiled.

“The police, you know. We put it on display a week ago, and there were two or three faintings. One poor fellow had an epileptic fit in front of it. You see, it a trifle—stronger—than the rest. Larger, for one thing. Of course, it was in the adult alcove. The next day a couple of men from Scotland Yard looked it over and said it was too morbid to be shown. Said we’d have to remove it. It was a tremendous shame—such a masterpiece of art—but I didn’t deel justified in appealing to the courts in Mr. Rogers’ absence. He would not like so much publicity with the police now—but when he gets back—when he gets back—.”

For some reason or other Jones felt a mounting tide of uneasiness and repulsion. But Orabona was continuing.

“You are a connoisseur, Mr. Jones. I am sure I violate no law in offering you a private view. It may be—subject of course, to Mr. Rogers’ wishes—that we shall destroy the specimen some day—but that would be a crime.”

Jones had a powerful impulse to refuse the sight and flee precipitately, but Orabona was leading him forward by the arm with an artist’s enthusiasm. The adult alcove, crowded with nameless horrors, held no visitors. In the farther corner a large niche had been curtained off, and to this the smiling assistant advanced.

“You must know, Mr. Jones, that the title of this specimen is ‘The Sacrifice to Rhan-Tegoth.’ “

Jones started violently, but Orabona appeared not to notice.

“The shapeless, colossal god is a feature in certain obscure legends which Mr. Rogers had studied. All nonsense, of course, as you’ve so often assured Mr. Rogers. It is supposed to have come from outer space, and to have lived in the Arctic three million years ago. It treated its sacrifices rather peculiarly and horribly, as you shall see. Mr. Rogers had made it fiendishly life-like—even to the face of the victim.”

Now trembling violently, Jones clund to the brass railing in front of the curtained niche. He almost reached out to stop Orabona when he saw the curtain beginning to swing aside, but some conflicting impulse held him back. The foreigner smiled triumphantly.

“Behold!”

Jones reeled in spite of his grip on the railing.

“God!—great god!”

Fully ten feet high despite a shambling, crouching attitude expressive of infinite cosmic malignancy, a monstrosity of unbelievable horror was shown starting forward from a cyclopean ivory throne covered with grotesque carvings. In the central pair of its six legs it bore a crushed, flattened, distorted, bloodless thing, riddled with a million punctures, and in places seared as with some pungent acid. Only the mangled head of the victim, lolling upside down at one side, revealed that it represented something once human.

The monster itself needed no title for one who had seen a certain hellish photograph. That damnable print had been all too faithful; yet it could not carry the full horror which lay in the gigantic actuality. The globular torso—the bubble-like suggestion of a head—the three fishy eyes—the foot-long proboscis—the bulging gills—the monstrous capillation of asp-like suckers—the six sinuous limbs with their black paws and crab-like claws—God! the familiarity of the black paw ending in a crab-like claw! …

Orabona’s smile was utterly damnable. Jones choked, and stared at the hideous exhibit with a mounting fascination which perplexed and disturbed him. What half-revealed horror was holding and forcing him to look longer and search out details? This had driven Rogers mad … Rogers, supreme artist … said they weren’t artificial… .

Then he localized the thing that held him. It was the crushed waxen victim’s lolling head, and something that it implied. This head was not entirely devoid of a face, and that face was familiar. It was like the mad face of poor Rogers. Jones peered closer, hardly knowing why he was driven to do so. Wasn’t it natural for a mad egotist to mold his own features into his masterpiece? Was there anything more that subconscious vision had seized on and suppressed in sheer terror?

The wax of the mangled face had been handled with boundless dexterity. Those punctures—how perfectly they reproduced the myriad wounds somehow inflicted on that poor dog! But there was something more. On the left cheek one could trace an irregularity which seemed outside the general scheme—as if the sculptor had sought to cover up a defect of his first modelling. The more Jones looked at it, the more mysteriously it horrified him—and then, suddenly, he remembered a circumstance which brought his horror to a head. That night of hideousness—the tussle—the bound madman—and the long, deep scratch down the left cheek of the actual living Rogers… .

Jones, releasing his desperate clutch on the railing, sank in a total faint.

Orabona continued to smile.