The Compleat Crow

  I got the idea. 'I see. So that sound is the branch from which he was hanged, still creaking with his weight two hundred and eighty years after the hanging?' I put as much sarcasm as possible into my reply.

  Crow was quite unperturbed. 'That's right,' he answered. 'It got on the nerves of the previous owner of the house so much that he eventually sold the place to me. The owner before him nearly went crazy trying to discover the sound's source.'

  I spotted Crow's mistake immediately. Something he had said did not ring quite true. 'Ah!' I pointed out. 'Now that's where your story falls down, Mr Crow. Surely he would've traced the sound to the oak?' I took his silence as acknowledgment of my cleverness and got to my feet, quickly crossing the room to where he stood by the drawn curtains. As I did so the creaking from the tree in he garden came again, louder.

  'It's the wind in the oak's branches, Mr Crow,' I assured him, and nothing else.'

  As the eerie sound came yet again from beyond the window I drew back the curtains and stared out into the night.

  I took a quick step backwards then, telling myself that I must be seeing things. But that was just the point; I was not seeing things. My mind suddenly whirled; but, after a moment's thought, I burst into shaky laughter. The clever devil. He had actually had me going there for a moment. I turned to him in sudden anger and saw that he was still smiling.

  'So it is the rafters after all?' I blurted, my voice cracking a little.

  Crow kept right on smiling. 'No, it's not,' he said. 'That's what nearly drove that fellow I was telling you about crazy. You see, when they built this house seventy years ago, they cut Billy's Oak down — so that its roots wouldn't interfere with the foundations . .

  DARGHUD'S DOLL

  BY THE TIME I got round to writing this next one, Titus Crow had already had dealings with ghosts, Cthulhu Mythos critters, 'Roman Remains,' and the like. Now I thought I'd try him out with sympathetic magic. So you see, it wasn't really Dawson who went to see him that day but me! And this is the story he told me:

  'So you're thinking of doing a book on basic magic, are you, Dawson?' Titus Crow broached the subject as soon as he had made me welcome with his customary offering of a glass of fine brandy I glanced enviously about the occultist's marvellously appointed study, a room I had fortunately been able to view on a few rare previous occasions, before answering him.

  'That's right, Crow, yes. In fact, with the help of a few good source-books, I've got quite a bit of it done already; but there's this one chapter that s giving me some difficulty'

  'Yes, I remember you mentioned it on the telephone imitative magic, I believe you said?'

  I nodded in agreement. 'Right. I know why it's supposed to work, and even how — but I'm damned if I can find more than two or three really well-documented -cases. I mean, the theory of the thing is all well enough — but what about the facts?'

  For a moment or two Crow thought about it, and the silence of the room was broken only by the occasional -creak of branches from the nighted garden beyond the -draped windows, and the oddly erratic ticking of a tall, four-handed, strangely hieroglyphed and coffin-shaped dock in one corner

  'Imitative or sympathetic magic,' he mused, frowning as he cocked his head on one side in contemplation. 'Well, I'm afraid you're out of luck, Dawson. I do know of a few cases, yes, and one in particular which I suppose you could say is rather well authenticated –but you must realize that in many such cases there exists more than an element of chance. The simple truth is that unless the evidence is one hundred per cent conclusive . . . then the phenomena of imitative magic are usually purely coincidental.

  'But anyway,' he quickly continued after a moment's pause, 'at a loss as I may be in that direction, I can probably supplement your list of source-books. Let me see now . . . Yes: you could try McPherson's Primitive Beliefs in N.E. Scotland, and Trachtenberg's Jewish Magic and Superstitions. Then you might find Oman's Cults, Customs, and Superstitions of India useful, or, perhaps, Dr E. Mauchamp's La Sorcellerie au Maroc. And then there's—'

  'Hold on a minute there, Titus!' I cried, rudely breaking in on him. 'You changed the subject a bit fast there, didn't you? Come on, now, what about this "well-authenticated" case you mentioned? Is it something I shouldn't know about?'

  'No, but . .. Well, you see, Dawson, I knew the people of the story personally, and . . .' He pursed his lips. 'If I did tell it, I'd have to alter the facts a bit, and the names of the characters. You see, Dawson? It would no longer be truly "authentic", now, would it? And after all, you're after facts; which in turn makes the telling of a disguised story rather pointless. Don't you agree?'

  'Well, whether I can use it or not,' I answered in desperation, 'I've simply got to hear it now. I mean, you've got me going, Crow! You usually do get me going, and you very well know it. Now come on – how about the story?'

  'As you wish,' he answered resignedly. 'But first let me fill your glass again.' He brought his chair over then, and I pulled mine a little closer to the fire; and in that strange, quiet room, with only the weird ticking of the great clock as a background to his voice, my host began the tale:

  'It was all of nine years ago that Dr Maurice Jamieson went out to South Africa to visit his ailing brother, David, also a doctor, at his tiny hospital on the south shore of Lake Ngami.

  'Now David Jamieson had had the so-called "missionary instinct" — a compassion, an urge to help underdeveloped peoples — ever since his boyhood. If his talents as a healer hadn't led him to medicine, then most probably he would have ended up in Africa anyway — wearing "The Cloth". As it was, in the fifteen years he'd been out there he had built himself a remarkable reputation with the natives of the region. He was looked upon by the various tribes almost as a god.

  'David's trouble, his brother found when his landrover reached the hospital, from Livingstone, was simply that he had been pushing himself too hard — and he'd been doing it for fifteen years. The man was quite simply run down, and Maurice Jamieson put him straight into one of his own beds in the hospital, ordering him to stay there and be looked after while he himself tended the hospital's primitive clientele.

  'Well, apparently Jamieson's diagnosis of his brother's trouble had been perfectly correct, and the rest-cure had been applied none too soon. Within two or three days the frail, suntanned doctor developed a raging enteric fever, and it was plain that had he not taken to his bed when ordered the fever might well have knocked him down for good. His condition added considerably to the strenuous work already being done by his brother and the hospital's two trained native nurses. For you see, Dawson, David Jamieson's fever had not confined itself to him. This particularly nasty disease had been busy in the marshlands of the Okavango Basin, just across the narrow neck of Lake Ngami, since a time almost a week prior to thee English doctor's arrival; and in ones- and twos canoes containing sick natives had been crossing the lake to the hospital for some ten days.

  'So things went for the first three weeks, and David Jamieson slowly recovered from his fever and began to put on weight again in his hospital bed. With most of the natives back on their feet and returned across the lake to their marshland villages, Dr Maurice Jamieson found he had a little more time to himself.

  'Now the doctor had a- hobby; he was something of an entomologist. Naturally, when first he decided to go out to his brother in Africa, he had seen the trip as a marvellous opportunity to add some tropical specimens to his collection. To this end he had taken with him certain items of entomological kit; tweezers and a butterfly-net, name-cards and a notebook -- and, most important of all, a set of variously-sized moulds and the quick-drying artificial resin with which to fill them.

  'This simple system was better by far than the old method of preservation and mounting, and the specimens thus encased could be examined minutely from all angles. Indeed, they were trapped as firmly as those prehistoric flies in- amber which you can find in most museums, and when the resin was set it was as dear and hard as glass.

 
'In the evenings, when his work was done and the remaining patients had been properly bedded down for e night, Maurice Jamieson would get out into the large, enclosed gardens of the hospital and lose himself to the doubtless delightful diversions of "bug-hunting". He collected and categorized specimen after specimen, until the time came when his brother was almost well enough to be up and about again . . Which was when the trouble started.

  'You see, some of the natives effectively treated at the hospital had been M'bulus, possibly the most unfriendlyand 'uncivil; zed" of the local tribes, and hitherto the had never bothered to take their troubles to the "white Mganga" . Their own Mganga, Darghud the witch-doctor, had always treated their ailments himself — and allegedly he was a man as well versed in native medicine as he was in Black Magic. This enteric disease, though, patently had the witch-doctor foxed. For a long time the chief of the M'bulus, Notka, who had long studied the benefits reaped by the other tribes, had been pressing for good relations with the hospital. Now Notka himself had gone down with the enteritis, against which Darghud's ministrations seemed of no earthly use. So the chief sent his eldest son and the Mganga Darghud across the lake to bring back some of the potent medicine of David Jamieson.

  'Now this was the problem: David Jamieson, before his brother's arrival, had discovered the best treatment for the virulent enteric disease to be penicillin — with the result that only two shots of the medicine remained in the hospital's dispensary. Maurice Jamieson intended lo use those shots on his brother, to finalize David's treatment, and he had one of the nurses explain the facts to the bone-rattling Mganga and to chief Notka's anxious

  'Picture it, Dawson: Darghud, the painted savage, the witch-doctor, sent like a messenger-boy by his chief, against his own wishes and heathen judgment, to beg healing juju from the white Mgangas — only to be perfunctorily refused and turned away! It was too much. Much more than that, however, it was the chance Darghud had been waiting for; the opportunity to defame the white men, the Great Mgangas, and perhaps even get rid of them!

  'There in the hospital grounds, in front of the chief's son, Darghud puffed himself up in black rage, spitting on the ground at Maurice Jamieson's feet and flinging an itchy white powder in the face of the nurse-cum interpreter. Before the astonished doctor could recover from his surprise (remember, Dawson, that to him the choice had been a simple, logical one; two shots could hardly help chief Notka across the lake, they wouldn't provide a sufficiently large dosage, but they were absolutely necessary in the completion of his brother's recovery), the Mganga passed him a great, wriggling beetle. Then Darghud stalked away, his two cringing, servile companions — the paddlers of his canoe — close on his heels.

  'The black interpreter, when he'd managed to get the white powder out of his eyes, backed hurriedly away as soon as he saw the object of Dr Jamieson's puzzled scrutiny — the squirming, chitinous creature that he held in his hand — Darghud's great beetle!

  'When Jamieson questioned the black's concern, he was told that the beetle was a "bad charm", designed to bring down evil on the person of its receiver. He advised the doctor to throw the thing far, far away — and then to pray most earnestly to God. Maurice Jamieson laughed at the suggestion, remarking that the beetle was of a sort he'd never seen before, and that he was certainly not going to throw it away; however, the nurse, by all means, could pray for him if he wished! Then he immediately went to his room and placed the beetle in a mould, pouring thick resin from a freshly opened bottle over its wriggling form. He left the whole to set and thought no more about it . . . until later.

  'That evening, as usual, when the last few patients had been attended to for the night, Jamieson went into the gardens and had a look under the bushes to see if he could find any new bugs worth adding to his collection. His usual enthusiasm was lacking, however (a bit of a headache), and besides, there was that disturbing, rhythmic drumming from over the lake ..

  'When he went back to his room his first thought was of the beetle, the fetish-creature given him by Darghud. But the solid, clear-resin block in which the thing should now have lain dead and immobile, perfectly preserved and displayed forever, was barren of any sign of the insect! The only solution, the only answer to the puzzle, seemed to Jamieson to be that the beetle had somehow struggled out of the mould before the resin was properly set; something unprecedented in his experience. On the other hand (he told himself), it could be that the new bottle of resin was inferior, perhaps affected by the heat. After all, the stuff had been produced for use in rather cooler climes. The next morning, though, Jamieson did notice-that all his other new specimens, locked in resin from the same bottle, had set as perfectly as any he ever treated in England.

  'Three days later — during which time, incidentally, that unusual headache of Jamieson's, first felt on the evening of the beetle's disappearance, had -constantly nagged him — his brother was up and about again. David Jamieson was paler than before, but chirpy and a lot more energetic, and so his bug-collecting brother decided it was time he took leave of the place. The heat seemed to be bothering him more and more likewise, day and night, the insistent throb of drums from over the lake; his original enthusiasm for his brother's practice and the obscurity of the lakeside hospital had drastically fallen off. He put it all down to too much sun, and on the fourth morning after Darghud's visit he climbed back into the passenger seat of his guides landrover to begin the long ride back to Livingstone. Five days later he was back in "Blighty"...

  'Now I've explained, Dawson, how Dr Jamieson believed his continuing headache to be due to an overdose of the African sun; but why should the thing continue so persistently — worsening, in fact — in England? And ordinary remedies seemed of no use whatsoever.'

  For a moment there was silence as Crow refilled our glasses. Then he sat back, took a. sip of brandy, and carried on:

  'Well, now that we've seen Maurice Jamieson safely returned to England, it might be as well to pick up the threads of the story back in Africa:

  'It didn't take David Jamieson long, once his brother had left the little hospital, to begin wondering what was behind the damnable devil-drums pounding unceasingly from the other side of the lake. Nubo, the black male nurse who had suffered Darghud's powder thrown in his face, was quick to supply the answer, telling the white Mganga all that had transpired at the time of the witch-doctor's visit.

  'David Jamieson had been out m Africa long enough to appreciate the fact that there are plenty of things hidden away in dark corners about which the so-called "civilized world" knows very little; not the least of these being the power of primitive Black Magic. Also, he remembered now that his brother had first started to complain of his headache shortly after the incident with Darghud. Finally, of course, there was the drumming, which he recognized as being part of the ritual to propitiate injurious Black Magic! All in all, David Jamieson's knowledge was sufficient, at his earliest opportunity, to see him seated in a bark canoe between two trusted natives, skimming across Lake Ngami in what he hoped was the direction of the M'bulus' thorn-and marsh-bush bomas. He took with him some of a fresh supply of penicillin, just in from Livingstone.'

  Crow paused again, frowning momentarily as he worked out the best way to relate the remainder of the story.

  'Sorry to keep jumping about like this, Dawson, but I'm trying to tell the thing more or less chronologically. Let's see now — yes, we'd best go back to Maurice Jamieson in England.

  'The doctor lived with his wife, Muriel, in a cottage just outside Brentwood where he had his practice; but within four days of his return it became plain that his recently contracted affliction was affecting his efficient control of that practice. The pounding headache —remarkably reminiscent in its sustained and regular throb, throb, throb of the drums across Lake Ngami — had worsened until its pain was so great it seemed to Jamieson that his head was slowly being crushed in a great vise. The next day he took to his bed, so terrible had the agony in his head become, and on the following morning he called in a
fellow doctor to examine him. And yet, that same day, as mysteriously as it had waxed, Jamieson's headache waned and quickly disappeared. Altogether the thing had lasted two weeks.

  The next eight days passed uneventfully, and Maurice Jamieson had almost forgotten about the monstrous pains he had known in his head (which, I might add, he had been sure would be the death of him), when a heavily stamped parcel arrived airmail from Salisbury The thing came with the morning mail, and Jamieson unwrapped it wonderingly to find a long, explanatory letter from his brother — and Darghud's doll.'

  'A doll?' I cried, breaking in on Crow's narrative. 'Did you say Darghud's doll?'

  'Yes, and I'll get on to that in a minute,' Crow continued, ignoring, my rude outburst, 'but first a word about the parcel.

  'Now that package was most odd; more like an entomologist's specimen-box than a parcel proper, with little ventilation holes — you know what I mean? And within the inner container, wrapped most carefully in cotton-wool and with only its head free, was the baked clay and straw doll; with slivers of blue glass for its eyes and with the top of its head painted red., I should mention here that Maurice Jamieson had red hair, and that his eyes were blue .. .

  The letter accompanying this outre object was no less extraordinary, explaining in detail all that David Jamieson had done since learning of his brother's confrontation with the witch-doctor. He had set out in his canoe three days after Maurice departure, and it had taken him another three days to find the nomadic M'bulus; in the end the drums had led him to them. There in the marshlands he had treated the sick chief, bringing him back "miraculously" to renewed health in only a day or two They're incredibly tough people, those marsh-dwellers.