The Final Count

It was on a warm evening towards the end of April 1927 that the first act took place, though it is safe to say that there has never been any connection in the public mind up till this day between it and what came after. I was dining at Prince’s with Robin Gaunt, a young and extremely brilliant scientist, and a very dear friend of mine. We had been at school together and at Cambridge; and though we had lost sight of one another during the war, the threads of friendship had been picked up again quite easily at the conclusion of that foolish performance. I had joined the Gunners, whilst he, somewhat naturally, had gravitated towards the Royal Engineers. For a year or two, doubtless bearing in mind his really extraordinary gifts, the powers that be ordained that he should make roads, a form of entertainment of which he knew less than nothing. And Robin smiled thoughtfully and made roads. At least he did so officially: in reality he did other things, whilst a sergeant with a penchant for rum superintended the steam roller. And then one day came a peremptory order from G.H.Q. that Lieutenant Robin Gaunt, R.E., should cease making roads, and should report himself at the seats of the mighty at once. And Robin, still smiling thoughtfully, reported himself. As I have said, he had been doing other things during that eighteen months, and the fruits of his labours, sent direct and not through the usual official channels, lay on the table in front of the man to whom he reported.

“Universal, instantaneous death.”

Rot and rubbish: it was like the wild figment of a sensational novelist’s brain. And yet⁠—I wasn’t satisfied.

“Hullo, Stockton! how goes it? Has she left you all alone?”

I glanced up to see Toby Sinclair grinning at me from the other side of the table.

“Sit down and have a spot, old man,” I said. “And it wasn’t a she, but a he.”

For a while we sat on talking, and it was only when the early supper people began to arrive that we left. We both had rooms in Clarges Street, and for some reason or other⁠—I forget why⁠—Sinclair came into mine for a few minutes before going on to his own. I mention it specially, because on that simple little point there hung tremendous issues. Had he not come in⁠—and I think it was the first time he had ever done so: had he not been with me when the telephone rang on my desk, the whole course of events during the next few months would have been changed. But he did come in, so there is no good speculating on what might have happened if he hadn’t.

He came in and he helped himself to a whisky-and-soda and he sat down to drink it. And it was just as I was following his example that the telephone went. I remember wondering as I took up the receiver who could be ringing me up at that hour, and then came the sudden paralysing shock.

“John! John! Help. My rooms. Oh! my God.”

And at that moment from the window there came a startled exclamation. The second constable had pulled the curtains, and he was standing there staring at the floor.

“Gaw lumme,” he remarked. “Look at that.”

We looked. Lying on the floor, stone dead, and twisted into a terrible attitude was Robin’s terrier. We crowded round staring at the poor little chap, and it seemed to me that the strange smell had become much stronger.

Suddenly there came a yell of pain, and one of the policemen, who had bent forward to touch the dog, started swearing vigorously and rubbing his fingers.

“The little beggar is burning hot,” he cried. “Like touching a red-hot coal.”

He looked at his finger, and then there occurred one of the most terrible things I have ever seen. Literally before our eyes the fingers with which he had touched the dog twisted themselves into knots: then the hand: then the arm. And a moment later he crashed to the ground as if he’d been poleaxed, and lay still.

I don’t know if my face was like the others, but they were all as white as a sheet. It was so utterly unexpected, so stunningly sudden. At one moment he had been standing there before us, a great, big, jovial, red-faced man: the next he was lying on the carpet staring at the ceiling with eyes that would never see again.

“Don’t touch him,” said a hoarse voice which I dimly recognised as my own. “For God’s sake, don’t touch him. The poor devil is dead anyway.”

It was a spider of sorts, but such a spider as I have never dreamed of in my wildest nightmares. Its body was the size of a hen’s egg; its six legs the size of a crab’s. And it was covered with coarse black hair. Even in death it looked the manifestation of all evil, with its great protruding eyes and short sharp jaws, and with a shudder I turned away.

“A jest I do not like,” said Drummond quietly, tipping the corpse out into the basin. “Hullo! Another note.”

He was staring at the bottom of the box, and there sure enough was an envelope. It was sodden with water, but the letter inside was legible. And for a while we stared at it uncomprehendingly.

“This is to introduce William. If you decide to keep him, his favourite diet is one of small birds and mice. He is a married man, and since I hated to part him from his wife I have sent her along too. She is addressed to the most suitable person in the house to receive a lady.”

As I say, for a moment or two we stared at the note uncomprehendingly, and then Drummond gave a sudden strangled grunt in his throat and dashed from the room.

“Phyllis,” he flung at us hoarsely, from the door.

“Good Lord! his wife,” cried Toby, and with sick fear in our hearts we followed him.

“It’s all right, darling,” came his voice from above us, but there was no answer. And when we got to the open door and looked into the room the silence was not surprising.

I caught one glimpse on Helias’s face of unholy triumph, and the next moment I saw it.

“Lift your legs, Drummond,” I yelled. “Lift them off the floor.”

The advancing wave had actually reached his chair; another second would have been too late. I have said that the passage sloped down abruptly from the opening in the cliff to the room, and pouring down it was a stream of the liquid. It came surging over the smooth floor and in an instant there ensued a scene of wild confusion. Drummond had got on the table: Toby Sinclair and I scrambled on to chairs, and Jerningham and Darrell just managed to reach a wooden bench.

“You devil,” shouted the man Dubosc, “turn off the stopcock. We’re cut off.”

Helias laughed gratingly from the passage into which he had escaped in the general scramble. And then for the first tune we noticed the three other members of the gang. They were standing against the wall⁠—completely cut off, as they said. Owing to some irregularity in the floor they were surrounded by the liquid, which still came surging into the room.

And then there occurred the most dreadful scene I have ever witnessed. They screamed and fought like wild beasts for the central position⁠—the place which the poison would reach last. It was three inches deep now under our chairs, and it was within a yard of the place where the three men struggled.

Suddenly the first of them went. He slipped and fell right into the foul stuff, and as he fell he died. Without heeding him the other two fought on.