The Authentic Eclectic
The Strange Room
Major Dunstan Investigates
Roderick Dunstan was a tall man, six-and-a-half feet, with broad shoulders. His form was gaunt, but not weak, as if some inner fire had burned away any extraneous flesh, leaving only the essential bone and sinew. His hair was black. He had a thin face, with a broad brow, firm jaw and mouth and a predatory blade of a nose. Under thick black brows, the deep-set black eyes seemed at once intense and oddly unfocused. Despite the summer day, he wore a black three-piece suit — a gold watch-chain was hung across the waistcoat, from which depended a seal in the shape of a pentacle. He carried, but did not lean on, a silver-handled ebony cane.
Three other people were gathered there. An elderly woman, sitting firmly upright in an armchair, dressed in the elaborate style of the pre-War era. A slender, blonde girl in her twenties, elegantly fashionable, meeting his eyes frankly, but nonetheless puffing nervously at a cigarette, sat on the couch. Standing by the fireplace was a man, perhaps a little older than the girl, in a light grey suit.
“Doctor Dunstan?” The girl asked. “Or do you prefer Major?”
“Major.” Roderick told her.
“I’m Violet Tredegar.” She told him. “The house is mine. This is my mother, Mary Tredegar.”
The older woman inclined her head. “You’re not what I’d expected, Major.” She said. “I was expecting a scholar, but I see a soldier.”
“A scholar by choice, a soldier by necessity.” Roderick replied.
The young man came forward, offering his hand, which Roderick took, his firm grip being returned in kind. “I’m George Tredegar — Lieutenant Tredegar if we’re being formal.” Brown hair cut short, steady blue eyes in a square, rugged face. Less than six feet, but broad and stocky. His hands were large, and if his grip was any indication, immensely strong.
“Now, Miss Tredegar, perhaps you could tell me what I can do for you?” Roderick asked. “What kind of phenomena are you experiencing?”
“Well,” Violet said, “it starts around midnight with a kind of, I don’t know, pulsing in the air. Not quite a sound, not quite a feeling, but a bit of both.” She leaned forward and tapped out a simple, five-beat rhythm on the low table in front of her. “Like that. That goes on for an hour or so, getting more and more intense, then the wind starts. Well, it sounds like wind, but you don’t feel anything and the trees outside don’t move. It’s as if the ‘wind’ was inside the house, blowing up in the attic. Then there’s a sound like something soft and heavy being slowly dragged about up there. Then, a few minutes later, there’s an awful racket, as if people were running about or fighting up there. That goes on for maybe five minutes, then everything stops, all at once.”
“And you say it all centres in the attic?” Roderick enquired.
“The strange room in the attic.” Violet confirmed. “I think my Uncle must have done a lot of his studying up there because there are lots of strange old books and chemical equipment as well as the strange room.”
“I went up there once, in the middle of everything.” George volunteered. “I could see lights under the door of the strange room — green and blue — but I couldn’t open the door. Odd, because it’s never locked, there isn’t even a bolt on it, either side.”
“What do you know of your uncle?” Roderick enquired of the younger woman.
“Almost nothing.” Violet replied. “George has a head for figures, so I asked him to look over the accounts to make sure nothing was owing. My uncle lived very modestly and settled his bills. His only extravagances were occasional purchases of rare books and, in his last year of life, some chemical materials and laboratory equipment.
“There was only one servant. A jack of all trades named Patterson, who was with him for many years, but has now disappeared. He left a letter of resignation and the keys to the house with the solicitors shortly before we arrived. No forwarding address. I asked the neighbours, but it seems that both men were very private. Courteous when spoken to, but not forthcoming or sociable.”
“I see.” Roderick finished the cigarillo, and rose to his feet. “I will return this evening. It would be best if you made arrangements to spend the night at an hotel.”
*****
The attic had once been servants’ quarters, but the flimsy partitions had been removed and a large skylight added at one end. That end was fitted out as a study and laboratory. The other end housed a lath and plaster construct which was the ‘strange room’.
Inside the strange room, the floor was bare wood and the walls unpainted rough plaster. But the walls had been carefully constructed to create a specific shape, or rather to form a certain set of angles, which drew the focus of the room to a tall structure at one end. This was some seven feet high and each side was about two feet wide, approximately the size of a standard coffin.
The only decoration was a carpet or rug on the floor, five feet square, of a bizarre, asymmetrical, geometric pattern.
Roderick had brought a suitcase with him and now made his preparations. He unfolded the thin metal circle, inlaid with protective symbols, and placed it on the floor in a corner, then took his place inside it.
Shortly after that, the rhythm started, thud-thud, thud, thud-thud, pause, thud-thud, thud, thud-thud, and so on. As the beat grew in volume, so the golden threads in the patterned carpet began to pulse with light. Then the black background on which they were set shifted, becoming not fabric, but a hole into absolute darkness. From this hole came the wind, an icy, howling blast that circled around the room.
Then something emerged from the hole. A small, regular polyhedron, perhaps eight inches along its longest axis, and apparently made of blue light. The shape darted to a corner of the carpet and settled there. The carpet began to move, tiny, jerking movements as if the polyhedron were trying to adjust its position, but lacked the strength to do so quickly or easily.
Then, quite suddenly, from inside the box-like structure, came a loud banging and shuffling. Something inside, it seemed, was desperate to get out, but lacked either the strength or some other more subtle, quality. At the same time, another shape rose from the void within the carpet. A small, green flame, perhaps the size of a mans’ hand. It did not move, but the light it shed began to expand steadily outwards.
The blue polyhedron seemed to redouble its efforts to move the carpet, while the noises from within the box became louder and more frantic. Then the green light reached the edge of the carpet, and the blue shape, like flotsam caught in a tide, was pulled back and vanished into the void along with the green flame. All sounds ceased, and the carpet became a carpet again.
After a few moments, Roderick lit the small but powerful electric lantern he had with him. After folding the protective circle away, he approached the carpet, knelt down and began to roll it up, as tightly as he could. This was no easy task as, despite its relatively small size, the carpet was thick and woven of heavy fabrics. But Roderick was a powerful man, and he managed. Once the carpet was rolled, he tied it with a ribbon of purple silk, further securing the knot with wax from a white candle, which he imprinted with the seal from his watch chain. Then he left.
The following morning, Violet Tredegar received a telegram at the hotel.
SAFE TO RETURN HOME STOP EXPECT NO PHENOMENA TONIGHT STOP DO NOT ENTER ATTIC STOP WILL RETURN TOMORROW STOP
DUNSTAN
*****
Roderick came back to the house the next day, accompanied by a grizzled colossus in a chauffeurs’ uniform he introduced as “Colour-Sergeant Bradshaw, my right hand and general factotum.” Along with George Tredegar, they went up to the attic.
“All quiet last night.” George confirmed. “But I take it there’s more to be done?”
“You can never be too careful with these things.” Roderick averred. “Better to do too much than too little.”
By this time they had entered the strange room.
“Ah!” George said. “It was the carpet then! I thought there was something odd about the thing. The pattern is definitely geometric, but a geometry that didn’t follow any law of Euclid or Pythagoras!”
“The carpet was a major part, certainly.” Roderick agreed. “It should be disposed of, preferably burned, it’s a dangerous thing. But there’s more here.”
The box was sturdily-built, but the ‘front’ of it was hinged and locked, and the three of them were able to force it. Inside they found the body of a man, in a remarkable state of preservation. The dried and darkened features were identifiable as those of Henry Cliveby, the uncle who had left the house to Violet. The catch on the door was designed to be opened from the inside only.
*****
“Man’s quest for immortality is as old as his realisation of his mortality.” Roderick explained over lunch. “A Neanderthal skeleton discovered in 1908 showed signs of having been carefully interred, perhaps indicating that even our ancient cousins shared the belief in, or hope of, an afterlife.
“But for some, physical immortality has been the quest of lifetimes. The search for the Philosophers’ Stone or the Elixir of Life has consumed the lives of countless brilliant men. Henry Cliveby seems to have been one such man. Perhaps not as brilliant as some, but certainly dedicated.
“His researches led him to link certain aspects of Esoteric Geometry with Ancient Egyptian beliefs and practices.”
“Just a minute!” George broke in. “I was in the Engineers during the War, a Sapper. I’ve a degree in Mathematics as well, and I’ve never heard of Esoteric Geometry!”
“Of course not.” Roderick said. “Very few have. As I understand the matter — and my own knowledge is limited — Esoteric Geometry is conducted in four dimensions, rather than two or three. The basic idea is that by combining the proper angles, at the right time, one can see into, or even travel to, place or regions beyond normal consciousness. The strange room, and that unusual carpet, were designed to create a pathway by which the spirit of Henry Cliveby could re-enter the material world.
“Cliveby seems to have taken steps to preserve and strengthen his body for re-occupation. The mummification process used is unfamiliar to me, but seems to have made the tissues extraordinarily tough and resilient.”
“So what happened?” Violet asked. “What caused all the disturbance?”
Roderick considered for a moment, then said. “I believe the initial error was on the part of Patterson, the servant.
“Patterson was, I think, in his masters’ confidence. It was he who saw to the burial of a weighted coffin, he who completed the process of preservation and placed the mummy in that box in the strange room. He must also have placed the carpet, and I suspect that, knowingly or unknowingly, he misaligned it with the geometry of the room.
“I believe that, when the proper time was reached each night, the four-dimensional geometry of room and carpet served to open a portal to the Beyond. Properly- aligned, it would have been a passage by which Clivebys’ spirit could have passed directly back into his body. However, the misalignment meant that the spirit could only emerge into the room. That was the blue shape I saw, with its’ desperate attempts to correct the alignment of the carpet.”
“What about all the other noises, the ones you say came from the box? And the green flame?” Violet wanted to know.
Roderick lit a cigarillo before replying. “The Ancient Egyptians held that a man was made up of several elements. The Khet or physical body is the vessel for the others and the tool by which they negotiate life on Earth. The Ka, or double, is what modern mystics call the ‘astral body’; an immaterial version of the Khet which serves as a body in dreams or trances. The Ka is also what moderns call a ‘ghost’, as it can become trapped in the material plane if the conditions at the time of death are right. The Ba, or spirit, is the personality, character and intellect of the person. The Khu or soul is that small portion of the Infinite we all carry within us.
“In this case, it was the Ba of Cliveby that was trying to return to his body. Because of the undecayed state of the body, the Ka was still strongly connected to it, and thus would be aware of Clivebys’ attempts to rejoin it. The Ka retains the most recent memories of the person, which is why so many ghosts constantly re-enact the moments preceding their death. So the Ka would ‘know’ what was going on and become agitated, causing the body to thrash as a dreamers’ sometimes will during a nightmare. The green flame was, I believe, Clivebys’ Khu. Upon his death, as upon the death of any person, the Khu was recalled to where it came from, either to rejoin the Infinite or prepare for another incarnation. But Clivebys’ actions, his attempts to bring himself back to life, were preventing it from doing so. It was being forced, every night, to pull the Ba back into the Beyond before it could rejoin the body.”
“But why did my uncle leave the house to me?” Violet asked.
Roderick shrugged. “Because he thought you were unlikely to come here, I should think. The time which it took for the will to be probated, and for you to sell the house via agents in London should have been more than sufficient for him to complete whatever plans he had.
“But the misalignment of the carpet meant that his plan essentially failed. I don’t know whether his spirit would have been able to eventually realign the carpet, but it would have taken a long time to do so. I suspect that he had set up a new identity for himself elsewhere, such things are not difficult. I also suspect that Mr Patterson, having carefully misaligned the carpet, is now enjoying the benefits of that identity. We are unlikely to be able to find him, and even if we could, it would be difficult to convict him of any criminal activity, if he can prove he was acting on the instructions of his employer.
“For the rest, the carpet should be burned, if I have your permission to see it done. I would also advise that the mummy be cremated — I can arrange this if you wish. I would also recommend that the strange room be dismantled, as a precaution.
“You can never be too careful!”
