Strange Tales, January, 1933
The Terror by Night
By Charles Willard Diffin
NE by one the twelve men and women
inscrutable, so unchanging through all the
filed in and faced the prisoner. And
long days of the trial, locked with theirs
O the man before them, still mute, stood steadily and unflinchingly.
quietly, with his fine gray head erect, while he Then the judge spoke, though only
met with expressionless eyes the gaze of each
fragments of his denunciation reached the
juror in turn.
conscious mind of the man before him.
“Guilty,” the foreman said, and the
“... This hideous crime ... most cold-
gray eyes, which had been so unyielding, blooded— most revolting murder that has ever
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... your education, your training, your wealth
seated at his right. One hand of each was held
and standing in this community ... your refusal
in each of his. Two or three others were there
to defend yourself, if intended to elicit too, all good friends. Directly across from sympathy, has failed ... the court is glad there him, hidden in the darkness, was his wife,
has been no recommendation for mercy....”
Betty Whitmore; and in the same concealing
Until at last the bare white walls darkness there was, of course, the medium echoed again the fateful words they had so
who was conducting the séance.
often heard: “The judgment of this court is
Even in the utter blackness of the great
that you shall be hanged by the neck until you
living-room where heavy drapes had been
are dead!” And only then did the steady gray
drawn across every window, Whitmore might
eyes close, and, for an instant, the man falter
have sent an unseen smile toward the blond
like a fighter struck to the heart.
head of the beautiful girl he called Betty. He
Hanged by the neck until you are was looking toward her now but he was not dead! Only hard, calloused and unfeeling smiling. Rather, his eyes, wide in the nerves can remain unmoved by those words,
darkness, were trying to focus upon something
and this man was not entirely unaffected. But
closer by.
when the stern voice had ceased he bowed
Smoke in the moonlight—in a room
slightly toward the judge, then whirled quickly
that held neither smoke nor light! Lazily
to face the spectators in the courtroom.
twisting convolutions of gray-green; almost
Somewhere in that crowded room was
invisible, almost unreal! Yet it was there, a
a pair of eyes that met his in understanding....
ghostly mist that rolled lazily in the darkness
“They’ve had all the facts. Jim,” he
where only its own dim light could be seen.
called in a clear voice, and for one fleeting
And then from the mist came
instant his lips twitched in a wry, enigmatical
something more substantial. Formless at first,
smile, “they’ve had the facts. When it’s all
it hardened, took on shape and substance, until
over, you give them the truth—the whole it became a hand, a woman’s hand ... and damnable truth! They won’t believe it, but tell
Whitmore released the living human hand of
them anyway—” Then the sound of the the woman at his right and reached out in slow judge’s gavel.
wonder to touch that other ghostly hand before
him.
FACTS sent that silent man to the gallows.
Slender, soft and warm, it clasped his
Sent him with a smile on lips that had almost
own fingers; and then, while still he held it in forgotten how to smile and with glad welcome
amazement, it was gone, melted to mist within
for the release which only death could bring.
his grasp.
He did not want to die—not by hanging—but,
“Great!” he exclaimed when the lights
God knows, he certainly didn’t want to live.
were on. “That’s great, I tell you. You all saw
“Tell them the truth,” he ordered. And,
it, but I touched it. I took right hold of it. It may God help him wherever he is now, this is
was real, material, a genuine materialization.”
the truth:
“I don’t like it,” said Betty. “I don’t
like it a bit, Jack. I’m going to be honest,”—
IN the darkened room Whitmore raised his
her voice trembled a little here—“I’m going to
head that had drooped sleepily. He could see
admit I’m afraid.”
nothing at first; but the touch of the table
“Afraid?” laughed Whitmore. “Afraid
about which they were seated was reassuring.
of a woman’s hand? Great Scott, Betty, I
On his left was Jim; and Jim’s wife, Sally, was
didn’t know you were that jealous.”
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She whirled sharply on them at Jack’s remark.
ELIZABETH WHITMORE tried to smile in
“No.” she said sharply. “C’est
response, but appeared to find it difficult. impossible! I forbid!”
“No,” she said slowly, and her lovely violet
And again Whitmore laughed, this
eyes were troubled as they rested upon her
time more to cover his annoyance than from
husband and the flush of enthusiasm that had
any appreciation of the unintentional humor of
swept his face. “No,” she repeated slowly.
this woman’s command.
“Not afraid of a woman’s hand. But Jack,
“Oh, come now—” he began; and
dear, what else is there where that came from?
again she cut him short.
How do we know it will always be a kindly
“Listen,” she exclaimed. “I tell you
hand? How do we know it will be human?”
somesing—
It was the medium who cut short Jack
“I did not do that which to-night you
Whitmore’s roaring laughter. She was a have behold. I am ze voice medium: always foreigner, short and squat. The fat folds of her do my controls speak with ze voice. In all my
face perspired easily. But her eyes buried in
life nevaire have I produced ze
those folds could still flash fire.
materialization. Someone else has made to
“Monsieur laughs too easily,” she accomplish this. It was yourself, I think, snapped. “Ze little lady, she is right. There is Monsieur, who was ze medium tonight.”
more things out there zan what you call
The door closed noisily, and Whitmore
human. Some are not human yet. In time zey
crossed to a big French plate to regard himself
will be—maybe! And some—” The eyes now
in the mirror. “J. P. Whitmore, Medium!” he
were completely lost in the folds of that fat
announced. “Rea
dings by appointment only.
face that was twisted into lines of horror I’m going to be good, Betty; wait till you see which seemed somehow absurd. She uttered a
me in my full regalia.”
series of quick exclamations.
Then, at sight of the troubled look in
“Some of zese things, zey are not the violet eyes, he threw one arm about his dead; zey have nevaire lived—not like you
wife and waltzed her gaily back into the room
and me.”
where the others waited.
Here she shrugged her ample shoulders
“Ze circle, she will form about ze
in a gesture that was meant to be reassuring.
table,” he announced in burlesque imitation of
“But nos-sing is to fear,” she told Elizabeth
the medium. “Boys and girls, you are about to
Whitmore. “I protect myself; I protect you,
see something real in the way of
always!”
materializations.” He was reaching for the
“All right,” Whitmore agreed. “You
light switch as he spoke.
your word for all that.
IT was perhaps a half hour later that Elizabeth
“Twenty, I think you said.” He was
Whitmore screamed. A heavy chair crashed in
writing a check and doubled the amount as he
splintered fragments in the far corner of the
wrote, then slipped it into the woman’s hand.
room. Then her voice cut the darkness with
“We’ll expect you next week this same time.
the keen lash of terror:
And in the meantime we may have a séance or
“Jack, it’s touching me! Its hair—all
two of our own.”
matted and shaggy!” Again she screamed,
“Jack, help me; take it away! Take it—”
THE medium had reached the outer door, both
She was still standing, a pathetic figure
Mr. and Mrs. Whitmore accompanying her.
in the middle of the room, when the lights
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flashed on. Her eyes were wide with terror,
there was no least thought of fear to distort the hands outstretched, as if warding off the thing
calm judgment of J. P. Whitmore.
those eyes had seen. And in that timeless
So, too, on the following night, though
second, while yet she stood stiffly erect, there the horror of it was still with him, and though
dropped from her hand to the rug below three
still at times he seemed to be filled again with flecks of white foam that might have clung to
that revolting odor, there still was no fear.
the jowls and slavering mouth of some Even horror had been mastered by a stronger prowling beast.
urge.
Her eyes were still round with fright as
Curiosity, and something more than
she fell unconscious to the floor. Jack curiosity—he was possessed by a wild, Whitmore leaped in the same instant and insatiable desire to know more of this. And managed to save her from the worst of the fall.
even the imploring look in the lovely eyes of
Her weight drew him down; he was half-
Elizabeth Whitmore could not deter him.
fallen, half-stooped, above her when one of
“Jack,” she said through bloodless lips,
her hands that had been tightly clasped fell
“—that thing! How can you want to know open directly below her face. And Whitmore
more—see more—of it? It “wasn’t”—she
threw himself back with a strangled oath.
paused at a loss for a suitable word—“it
“Look!” he choked. “Hair! Matted hair
wasn’t decent, Jack! I’ve tried to tell you—but and flesh!”
I can’t!”
He was staring at a dark mass in
“No,” Whitmore agreed slowly, “it
Elizabeth’s opened hand—a clump of clotted
was too utterly damnable for words; but just
black hair—and, hanging to it, a mass of what
what it was, just where it came from, I’m
might have been flesh from which every going to know.” And no arguments or vestige of blood had been drained ... and his
entreaties from his wife could change that
own eyes opened wide with horror as he saw
decision.
that hair and flesh undergoing a change.
“You’ll not be there, nor any of the
Its paleness turned purple; then was
others,” he told her. “I don’t know that I can
transformed to iridescent, brown ooze—until
get the results alone, but I’m going to try,
only a pool of horrible liquid lay in the palm
Betty.”
of Elizabeth Whitmore’s inert, unmoving
Entirely lovely was Elizabeth
hand. The black clot of hair was the last thing
Whitmore as she stood beneath the rose light
to go ... then that, too, was gone, and in the
of her boudoir, her robe of filmy lace falling
nostrils of every person in the room was that
softly about her; and her husband took her in
his arms for one moment to kiss away the
death and dissolution.
tears which were so near the surface of those
beautiful eyes. “Lord, but you’re an angel,
TO almost every man there comes at times
Betty!” he exclaimed. “And don’t you
that heart-freezing, blood-congealing
worry—not for a minute. I can take care of
sensation we know as fear. Yet Jack myself.”
Whitmore, had he been pressed for an answer,
might have admitted laughingly and with “AN angel,” he was repeating as he went entire honesty that to him fear was an down the broad staircase, “—and I think it’s unknown emotion. And on this night, something pretty damn close to the other whatever there may have been of terror in the
extreme that I’m looking for to-night!” He
minds and hearts of the others in that room,
jerked savagely at the weighted cord that drew
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the heavy drapes across the living-room stop anything that’s able to move,” he had told windows, then seated himself in the same
himself an hour before. But now he was not so
place at the table.
confident—not here in the dark where some
He did not know how to bring the
strange power had already reached out to
results he was after. He could only sit in the
paralyze his muscles; where something that
dark that was almost tangible, where it seemed
had become invisible still hovered, its
that the blackness was something that he could
presence made known to him by that strange
reach out and actually take in his two hands.
sense. No, decidedly, even the clutch of a
And at last the turmoil within his mind heavy caliber gun did not instill its customary subsided. He was thinking of Betty, and, confidence. And with that feeling of
“Lord, but I’m one lucky man,” he was telling
helplessness there came to Mr. Whitmore the
himself, when something drove these knowledge of fear.
wandering thoughts out of his mind.
He tried to raise the gun and found it
It was not fear, but a prickli
ng too heavy for his waning strength. He could sensation that almost stung him as it moved
not move; and suddenly, with a sharp
swiftly up his spine. He knew now he had felt
abruptness that sent a chill along his spine, he it the night before, and now there came, too, a
knew that he must move; he knew with a
lethargy that swept quickly through him.
knowledge that transcended all sense of sight
How he knew it was the same thing
or sound that something unthinkably beastly
that had returned, Whitmore could never have
and vile was coming toward him, closer ...
explained, but he knew it by some new and
closer....
added sense when first that ghostly
Jack Whitmore had yet to learn the full
glimmering appeared in the far corner of the
meaning of fear. The understanding of its
room. Certainly he could not have recognized
uttermost depths was to come later. But, for
it by sight for in this place of darkness his
the first time in his life, beads of cold
eyes were of little use. Only by some inner
perspiration gathered slowly across his
vision did he know that here was no clumsy
forehead and trickled into his eyes. And
body such as Elizabeth’s description had led
then—
him to expect, yet knew, too, that it was the
Those velvet shades he had drawn so
same fearful visitor as before.
savagely across the window were hung on iron
A waving cloud of gray-green light
rings; sharply now through the silence he
that spread out over the floor, that reached
heard them tinkle. He heard one slip with a