The-Crawling-Death-Chapter-01

THE JUNE breeze blowing softly through the open window dis-
turbed the papers on my desk, and also my peace of mind. My office was hot and stuffy, and the cooling zephyr whispered of better things out of doors. With a sigh, I pushed back my chair and ruefully contemplated the un-
answered correspondence on my desk.

Across the way my gaze encountered the terra cotta facade and glaring plate glass of a hideous office building. Be-
yond it, although invisible to the physical eye, were lush meadows and cool wood-
lands and a beautiful hard dirt road. And my new six cylinder was standing at the curb.

I glanced at my watch. Three o’clock. With my hand at my desk, I hesitated as my correspondence stared back at me ac-
cusingly. And then:

“Mr. Hayden, I will take that dicta-
tion now,” a brisk, peremptory voice de-
clared.

“Don’t let me catch you at it,” I growled as I banged down the top of my desk. And, snatching up my cap, I dashed past a startled young lady and al-
most over a diminutive messenger boy who loomed suddenly in the door-way. He held out a telegram.

“This is where my joy ride is knocked in the head,” I exclaimed savagely. Tearing open the envelope, I read the following:

“Will arrive tomorrow ten A. M. to inspect Hedgewood. Meet us. F. S. Avery.”

“‘Us,'” I muttered, “how many is ‘us’?” With the message in my hand, I rushed into my partner’s room, happy for the excuse the telegram offered.

“Jim,” I said hurriedly, “get your hat and come quick. We’re going to take a spin into the country.”

Jim glanced up out of lazy eyes, his big form sprawling all over his large, easy swivel chair.

“Sorry, old man,” he drawled, “but we can’t both neglect the business. You run along and take your pleasure trip, and I will stay here and perform my daily toil.”

“All right,” I said, darting to the door. “I’ll wait two minutes in the ma-
chine.”

I had started the motor and was sitting at the wheel when Jim sauntered lei-
surely out of the building lobby.

“Jimmie,” I said, as I threw in the clutch and threaded carefully through the downtown traffic, “do you believe in spirits?”

“Only in the wet, Dickie. You’re not going to get extravagant and buy me a drink, are you?”

“No, Jimmie, I’m not, but I am going to take you out to the ‘haunted house.'” Jim’s eyes lit up.

“Have you heard from the Averys? Are they going to take the place?”

“I believe so,” I said, handing him the telegram. “Their correspondence would indicate it, and they certainly wouldn’t come way out here if they didn’t mean business.”

“Good,” said Jim. “I am glad, how-
ever, we will have a chance to inspect the old house before it is taken over. What shape is it in?”

“The object of this trip, my boy, is to find out. Mr. Ormond said he would leave it in first-class condition, and as he has been gone only a week I don’t imag-
ine it will need anything but an airing and dusting.”

Jim bent over to light a cigar as I increased the speed.

“Dick,” he said, “why not take ad-
vantage of this opportunity to try to unravel the mystery that surrounds Hedgewood? What do you say to staying there all night?”

“You don’t mean to say,” I exclaimed, “that you take any stock in the absurd stories that are floating around about Ormond and his house?”

Jim smoked in silence for a full min-
ute.

“Yes, Dick, I do,” he replied finally. I glanced at my companion in surprise. His face was serious. Light-hearted, frivolous Jim Akins, society man and all round good fellow, a believer in ghosts! And old-fashioned, conventional ghosts, too. I let this thought sink in as we ran along smoothly and quietly, the soft purring of the engine the only sound breaking the silence of the deserted coun-
try road we were now following.

“What is your version of the story?” I asked at length. “I have heard so many I can’t keep track of them.”

“Mine? Oh, mine is the orthodox one. The Ormonds always had a bad reputa-
tion. They are said to be a family of THE CRAWLING DEATH stranglers; that is, once in every second or third generation one of them has been born with this mania. The first one to develop it choked his wife to death, and was effectually cured of the habit by his father, who cut off both his hands. The natives here say that it is his spirit which now haunts the place, seeking its lost hands.”

“Bosh, Jim,” I said. “Mere idle su-
perstition.”

“Maybe; at the same time I—”

“I also believe, as you know,” I in-
terrupted, “in psychic phenomena, and curiously enough it was my article in last month’s Observer on the subject that caused Ormond, who is an investigator, to place the business in my hands.” “Did Ormond come to you in per-
son?” Jim asked quickly.

“Yes.”

“The present Ormond is said to have inherited the curse, and to have the ‘Or-
mond hand.'”

“The ‘Ormond hand?'”

“Yes; immense, hairy, spidery things—”

My involuntary start swerved the ma-
chine toward the ditch.

“What’s the matter?” “Nothing,” I replied, and lapsed into silence.

As a matter of fact, Jim’s last words had given me a disagreeable sensation. For ten days, ever since John Ormond’s visit, I had been struggling with an un-
canny feeling which threatened to be-
come an obsession, and which was in-
duced wholly by the singular malforma-
tion Jim spoke of.

I had found in Ormond a refined, highly cultured gentleman, well past middle age, charming in manner and appearance. At the time I had noticed nothing peculiar about him except that during the whole of our interview, which lasted, perhaps, thirty minutes, he per-
sistently kept his hands hidden beneath his slouch hat which he held in his lap. When he rose to leave his hat dropped to the floor, exposing his hands. At the sight I had instinctively recoiled. Never before had I seen such hands. Large they were, singularly large and bony, and possessing monstrous power. It was not, however, their size that had im-
pressed me so disagreeably, but the fact that they were in constant motion. The fingers writhed and twisted about each other like snakes or, as Jim expressed it, like huge, hairy spiders.

I recalled how he stood, regarding me curiously, coldly, but making no further effort to conceal his deformity. And then, without a word, he had extended his right hand, and, without volition on my 19 part, indeed against my will, my own hand had been drawn to arm’s length and dropped inert and lifeless into that huge, hairy clasp. I shuddered then, and I shuddered again at the recollection. Imagine such a hand at one’s throat. Ugh!

It was this, and a certain promise that he had exacted from me, and which at the time seemed absurd, that gave rise to a vague uneasiness and mistrust. Not that I apprehended any difficulty or danger, but the thought persisted that I was dealing with a madman, one who, under certain circumstances, might prove a dangerous customer.

But little was known about John Or-
mond, and nothing of an evil character except that which always attaches to any man who presumes to live entirely to himself. He had always occupied the old house to which we were going, as had his ancestors before him, and, with an old servant who was now with him in Eu-
rope, lived in the utmost seclusion.

This fact, and the vague rumors Jim had spoken of, were sufficient to keep the townspeople aloof, a result he evidently much desired.