The Lonely Shadows: Tales of Horror and the Cthulhu Mythos Read Online Free PDF

respectable.”
    “I think I know what you’re going to say,” went on the other quickly, “and it’s something I cannot accept. Such things just don’t happen in this modern age,”
    The other got to his feet, hands clasped behind his back. He spoke around the stem of his pipe thrust into his mouth. “As a doctor, I have to examine everything in connection with any patients I have, no matter how strange it may seem at the time. As soon as I discovered what had happened to that boy I had to attend to, I started asking a lot of questions around the village, about things which happened before I arrived here forty or fifty years ago. At first, the folk here didn’t want to talk about such things. They still look upon me as an outsider, even though I had been here for close on twenty-seven years. But gradually, they opened out and what they did tell me, made a very queer and bizarre sort of sense. Scientifically speaking, it makes no sense at all; because this deals with something which, at the moment, is quite outside of science as we know it; although there are a few men of vision in the States and elsewhere, experimenting with these metaphysical occurrences.”
    “If you’re trying to tell me that Henry Belstead is still alive, I can’t believe you; and the same goes for the others. I was there at the reading of old Henry Belstead’s will, and I can say quite confidently that he was dead then. He couldn’t possibly be—”
    The doctor shook his head slowly. “How can I make you see?” he murmured. “It never is very easy to explain these things. Sometimes, I think that because of our civilisation, we have regressed a long way from the senses which we had originally. The ancient peoples must have been a lot closer to the truth than we are. Now, we can’t see these things because of the scientific facts that have built up a wall around them. And breaking through that wall is the most difficult thing in the world today.”
    “So, all right, Henry Belstead started something and whatever it was, it still seems to be happening. What I want to know, is what’s at the bottom of it all?”
    “Black magic,” murmured the other. He emphasised the words queerly. “You might say that this is something that went out of fashion by the middle of the Eighteenth Century.” He lowered his voice almost in apology. “I suppose you could be forgiven for thinking that. Unfortunately, it doesn’t happen to be true. As soon as I realised that there was something strange going on at the Belstead place, I took the trouble to read back over everything that was known about Henry Belstead.”
    “And did you find anything? I should imagine you would find very little.”
    “I found enough,” went on the other grimly. “There was a little written about him in the local paper at that time, mostly from hearsay. But once I broke through the barrier of indifference, I managed to get quite a lot out of the people in the village. It seems they have long memories when it comes to something like this.”
    “These people talk about anything if they think they have found somebody willing to listen to them,” said Calder crisply. “I’ve been a lawyer here for more than thirty-eight years and I think I can say that I know these people extremely well.”
    Woodbridge shook his head slowly. “But it’s obvious that you didn’t know Henry Belstead. If you had, you’d have realised that he was a very strange man.” He paused to let the full import of his words sink in. “I can see that you don’t believe that what you saw at the Belstead place the other night was anything out of the ordinary. You’re confused and trying to make yourself believe that it was only someone who looked like old Peters and the bad light.”
    “Well, I—” He swallowed thickly, then went on hurriedly. “I’m not sure now what I saw. I’m certain there was someone there. Who it was, I’m not prepared to say.”
    “I can understand your attitude. This