A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, October 1950 — page 51: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

50 A. MERRITT’S FANTASY the fireplace. The fragrant cedar, as it burned, the shaded glow of the lamp, the warmth and comfort of this quaint room, with its big chairs and broad leather divan, all filled Dennison with well-be- ing. What place, here, for suspicious or unpleasant thoughts ? “Time enough for brooding later,” he thought, choosing another of Il Vecchio’s manilas. “Time enough for my explora- tions after the old cook and the Lombard are snoring in their attic rooms! Now for an hour or two of solid comfort.” VER THE chimney of the lamp he lighted his cigar, and, drawing the first rich whiffs, stood there, hands on hips, feet wide apart before the fire, a strong and virile figure, looking with a new interest at the door leading into the laboratory. “What a room in there!” he mused. “What a story I could make of all this, if anybody in the world would print it or believe it! I wish, now, I could get back into that same place, beyond that combin- ation-lock, for just about an hour. It would be infinitely easier that way, than by going down the cliff in the night and searching for that woolen thread. “Seems odd to think that this very morning I actually stood on the other side of that locked door, groping in the dark, for the vacuum-switch, after that infernal perigrination through those caves! Well, no matter ; since there’s no possible way to work the combination without be- traying everything to the old man, I sup- pose I must do the next best thing and go the way I came. Let’s see, now, what Pagani has for reading matter, till it’ time to start.” : Luxuriously smoking with all the old forgotten pleasure he had once found in nicotin, suffered with a glow of strength and sheer animal pleasure from the hearty meal and the generous drafts of wine which sent the new-returning strength vitally pulsing through him, he walked over to the reading-table and began idly pawing over the medical reviews which ay there. But he found nothing quite to his taste. The book-shelves looked more inviting. Slowly he inspected their contents. Treatises, monographs, scientific works in every language of Europe, crowded each other in profusion. One shelf contained a row of volumes, great and small, all bound in uniform red morocco, with the author’s name, Pagani, stamped in gold on the backs. “So then, the doctor’s written all these, has he?” queried Dennison in surprise -and admiration. “Why, I used to think I was something of a writer, with my half- dozen, brochures on neuropathy; but this—hallo! What the deuce, now ?” At the end of the shelf, looking singu- larly out of place, stood a fat, black volume with a curious label. Even in that rather dim light, reflected from the student-lamp, Dennison made out immediately that the writing on this label was a cipher such as he had found on the metal coffin-tags. This fact alone whetted his curiosity beyond bounds. Eagerly he snatched the volume from its place and quickly turned to the table with it. Stopping not even to sit down, he flung it open. His surprise was well grounded. The book, much worn by years of handling, contained no word of printed matter; but instead, voluminous records carefully kept and indexed in that peculiar and wholly incomprehensible script. Perplexed and uneasy, with a recur- rence of that strange, indefinable fear which urged him now and then to flee while there was yet time, he sat down in one of the armchairs and planted the book squarely in front of him under the rays of the lamp. Though he studied over it the better part of an hour, he could make positively nothing of it. Dates there were, clearly written in French and going back as far as September 11, 1839. Figures in plenty were scattered through the text; and among these Dennison recognized some which he felt certain were anthropome- tric data of some kind or other. But be- yond this, he gained nothing of any mo- ment from his study. Page after page in baffling monotony the writing continued, under widely different dates and with various colors of ink. The script contained many Greek letters; but even though Dennison transliterated these, and tried every language whereof he had even a smattering—some seven or eight in all— nn) (C 6)(0)©) S (C(O)