The Best of Robert Bloch

  Nobody laughed.

  Perhaps it struck them all the way it did me. I glanced at my neighbors and began to wonder.

  LaVerne Gonnister. Hymie Kralik. Harmless. Dick Pool. Nadia Vilinoff. Johnny Odcutt and his wife. Barclay Melton. Lydia Dare. All harmless.

  But what a forced smile on Dick Pool's face! And that sly, self-conscious smirk that Barclay Melton wore!

  Oh, it was absurd, I grant you. But for the first time I saw these people in a new light. I wondered about their lives—their secret lives beyond the scenes of parties.

  How many of them were playing a part, concealing something?

  Who here would worship Hecate and grant that horrid goddess the dark boon of blood?

  Even Lester Baston might be masquerading.

  The mood was upon us all, for a moment. I saw questions flicker in the circle of eyes around the room.

  Sir Guy stood there, and I could swear he was fully conscious of the situation he'd created, and enjoyed it.

  I wondered idly just what was really wrong with him. Why he had this odd fixation concerning Jack the Ripper. Maybe he was hiding secrets, too. . . .

  Baston, as usual, broke the mood. He burlesqued it.

  "The Walrus isn't kidding, friends," he said. He slapped Sir Guy on the back and put his arm around him as he orated. "Our English cousin is really on the trail of the fabulous Jack the Ripper. You all remember Jack the Ripper, I presume? Quite a cut-up in the old days, as I recall. Really had some ripping good times when he went out on a tear.

  "The Walrus has some idea that the Ripper is still alive, probably prowling around Chicago with a Boy Scout knife. In fact—" Baston paused impressively and shot it out in a rasping stage whisper—"in fact, he has reason to believe that Jack the Ripper might even be right here in our midst tonight."

  There was the expected reaction of giggles and grins. Baston eyed Lydia Dare reprovingly. "You girls needn't laugh," he smirked. "Jack the Ripper might be a woman, too, you know. Sort of a Jill the Ripper."

  "You mean you actually suspect one of us?" shrieked LaVerne Gonnister, simpering up to Sir Guy. "But that Jack the Ripper person disappeared ages ago, didn't he? In 1888?"

  "Aha!" interrupted Baston. "How do you know so much about it, young lady? Sounds suspicious! Watch her, Sir Guy—she may not be as young as she appears. These lady poets have dark pasts."

  The tension was gone, the mood was shattered, and the whole thing was beginning to degenerate into a trivial party joke. The man who had played the March was eyeing the piano with a scherzo gleam in his eye that augured ill for Prokofieff. Lydia Dare was glancing at the kitchen, waiting to make a break for another drink.

  Then Baston caught it.

  "Guess what?" he yelled. "The Walrus has a gun."

  His embracing arm had slipped and encountered the hard outline of the gun in Sir Guy's pocket. He snatched it out before Hollis had the opportunity to protest.

  I stared hard at Sir Guy, wondering if this thing had carried far enough. But he flicked a wink my way and I remembered he had told me not to be alarmed.

  So I waited as Baston broached a drunken inspiration.

  "Let's play fair with our friend the Walrus," he cried. "He came all the way from England to our party on this mission. If none of you is willing to confess, I suggest we give him a chance to find out—the hard way."

  "What's up?" asked Johnny Odcutt.

  "I'll turn out the lights for one minute. Sir Guy can stand here with his gun. If anyone in this room is the Ripper he can either run for it or take the opportunity to—well, eradicate his pursuer. Fair enough?"

  It was even sillier than it sounds, but it caught the popular fancy. Sir Guy's protests went unheard in the ensuing babble. And before I could stride over and put in my two cents' worth, Lester Baston had reached the light switch.

  "Don't anybody move," he announced, with fake solemnity. "For one minute we will remain in darkness—perhaps at the mercy of a killer. At the end of that time, I'll turn up the lights again and look for bodies. Choose your partners, ladies and gentlemen."

  The lights went out.

  Somebody giggled.

  I heard footsteps in the darkness. Mutterings.

  A hand brushed my face.

  The watch on my wrist ticked violently. But even louder, rising above it, I heard another thumping. The beating of my heart.

  Absurd. Standing in the dark with a group of tipsy fools. And yet there was real terror lurking here, rustling through the velvet blackness.

  Jack the Ripper prowled in darkness like this. And Jack the Ripper had a knife. Jack the Ripper had a madman's brain and a madman's purpose.

  But Jack the Ripper was dead, dead and dust these many years—by every human law.

  Only there are no human laws when you feel yourself in the darkness, when the darkness hides and protects and the outer mask slips off your face and you feel something welling up within you, a brooding shapeless purpose that is brother to the blackness.

  Sir Guy Hollis shrieked.

  There was a grisly thud.

  Baston put the lights on.

  Everybody screamed.

  Sir Guy Hollis lay sprawled on the floor in the center of the room. The gun was still clutched in his hand.

  I glanced at the faces, marveling at the variety of expressions human beings can assume when confronting horror.

  All the faces were present in the circle. Nobody had fled. And yet Sir Guy Hollis lay there.

  LaVerne Gonnister was wailing and hiding her face.

  "All right."

  Sir Guy rolled over and jumped to his feet. He was smiling.

  "Just an experiment, eh? If Jack the Ripper were among those present, and thought I had been murdered, he would have betrayed himself in some way when the lights went on and he saw me lying there.

  "I am convinced of your individual and collective innocence. Just a gentle spoof, my friends."

  Hollis stared at the goggling Baston and the rest of them crowding in behind him.

  "Shall we leave, John?" he called to me. "It's getting late, I think."

  Turning, he headed for the closet. I followed him. Nobody said a word.

  It was a pretty dull party after that.

  3

  I met Sir Guy the following evening as we agreed, on the corner of 29th and South Halsted.

  After what had happened the night before, I was prepared for almost anything. But Sir Guy seemed matter-of-fact enough as he stood huddled against a grimy doorway and waited for me to appear.

  "Boo!" I said, jumping out suddenly. He smiled. Only the betraying gesture of his left hand indicated that he'd instinctively reached for his gun when I startled him.

  "All ready for our wild-goose chase?" I asked.

  "Yes." He nodded. "I'm glad that you agreed to meet me without asking questions," he told me. "It shows you trust my judgment." He took my arm and edged me along the street slowly.

  "It's foggy tonight, John," said Sir Guy Hollis. "Like London."

  I nodded.

  "Cold, too, for November."

  I nodded again and half-shivered my agreement.

  "Curious," mused Sir Guy. "London fog and November. The place and the time of the Ripper murders."

  I grinned through darkness. "Let me remind you, Sir Guy, that this isn't London, but Chicago. And it isn't November, 1888. It's over fifty years later."

  Sir Guy returned my grin, but without mirth. "I'm not so sure, at that," he murmured. "Look about you. Those tangled alleys and twisted streets. They're like the East End. Mitre Square. And surely they are as ancient as fifty years, at least."

  "You're in the black neighborhood of South Clark Street," I said shortly. "And why you dragged me down here I still don't know."

  "It's a hunch," Sir Guy admitted. "Just a hunch on my part, John. I want to wander around down here. There's the same geographical conformation in these streets as in those courts where the Ripper roamed and slew. That's where we'll find him, John. Not
in the bright lights, but down here in the darkness. The darkness where he waits and crouches."

  "Isn't that why you brought a gun?" I asked. I was unable to keep a trace of sarcastic nervousness from my voice. All this talk, this incessant obsession with Jack the Ripper, got on my nerves more than I cared to admit.

  "We may need a gun," said Sir Guy, gravely. "After all, tonight is the appointed night."

  I sighed. We wandered on through the foggy, deserted streets. Here and there a dim light burned above a gin-mill doorway. Otherwise, all was darkness and shadow. Deep, gaping alleyways loomed as we proceeded down a slanting side-street.

  We crawled through that fog, alone and silent, like two tiny maggots floundering within a shroud.

  "Can't you see there's not a soul around these streets?" I said.

  "He's bound to come," said Sir Guy. "He'll be drawn here. This is what I've been looking for. A genius loci. An evil spot that attracts evil. Always, when he slays, it's in the slums.

  "You see, that must be one of his weaknesses. He has a fascination for squalor. Besides, the women he needs for sacrifice are more easily found in the dives and stewpots of a great city."

  "Well, let's go into one of the dives or stewpots," I suggested. "I'm cold. Need a drink. This damned fog gets into your bones. You Britishers can stand it, but I like warmth and dry heat."

  We emerged from our side street and stood upon the threshold of an alley.

  Through the white clouds of mist ahead, I discerned a dim blue light, a naked bulb dangling from a beer sign above an alley tavern.

  "Let's take a chance," I said. "I'm beginning to shiver."

  "Lead the way," said Sir Guy. I led him down the alley passage. We halted before the door of the dive.

  "What are you waiting for?" he asked.

  "Just looking in," I told him. "This is a rough neighborhood, Sir Guy. Never know what you're liable to run into. And I'd prefer we didn't get into the wrong company. Some of these places resent white customers."

  "Good idea, John."

  I finished my inspection through the doorway. "Looks deserted," I murmured. "Let's try it."

  We entered a dingy bar. A feeble light flickered above the counter and railing, but failed to penetrate the further gloom of the back booths.

  A gigantic black lolled across the bar. He scarcely stirred as we came in, but his eyes flicked open quite suddenly and I knew he noted our presence and was judging us.

  "Evening," I said.

  He took his time before replying. Still sizing us up. Then, he grinned.

  "Evening, gents. What's your pleasure?"

  "Gin," I said. "Two gins. It's a cold night."

  "That's right, gents."

  He poured, I paid, and took the glasses over to one of the booths. We wasted no time in emptying them.

  I went over to the bar and got the bottle. Sir Guy and I poured ourselves another drink. The big man went back into his doze, with one wary eye half-open against any sudden activity.

  The clock over the bar ticked on. The wind was rising outside, tearing the shroud of fog to ragged shreds. Sir Guy and I sat in the warm booth and drank our gin.

  He began to talk, and the shadows crept up about us to listen.

  He rambled a great deal. He went over everything he'd said in the office when I met him, just as though I hadn't heard it before. The poor devils with obsessions are like that.

  I listened very patiently. I poured Sir Guy another drink. And another.

  But the liquor only made him more talkative. How he did run on! About ritual killings and prolonging the life unnaturally—the whole fantastic tale came out again. And of course, he maintained his unyielding conviction that the Ripper was abroad tonight.

  I suppose I was guilty of goading him.

  "Very well," I said, unable to keep the impatience from my voice. "Let us say that your theory is correct—even though we must overlook every natural law and swallow a lot of superstition to give it any credence.

  "But let us say, for the sake of argument, that you are right. Jack the Ripper was a man who discovered how to prolong his own life through making human sacrifices. He did travel around the world as you believe. He is in Chicago now and he is planning to kill. In other words, let us suppose that everything you claim is gospel truth. So what?"

  "What do you mean, 'so what'?" said Sir Guy.

  "I mean—so what?" I answered. "If all this is true, it still doesn't prove that by sitting down in a dingy gin-mill on the South Side, Jack the Ripper is going to walk in here and let you kill him, or turn him over to the police. And come to think of it, I don't even know now just what you intend to do with him if you ever did find him."

  Sir Guy gulped his gin. "I'd capture the bloody swine," he said. "Capture him and turn him over to the government, together with all the papers and documentary evidence I've collected against him over a period of many years. I've spent a fortune investigating this affair, I tell you, a fortune! His capture will mean the solution of hundreds of unsolved crimes, of that I am convinced."

  In vino veritas. Or was all this babbling the result of too much gin? It didn't matter. Sir Guy Hollis had another. I sat there and wondered what to do with him. The man was rapidly working up to a climax of hysterical drunkenness.

  "That's enough," I said, putting out my hand as Sir Guy reached for the half-emptied bottle again. "Let's call a cab and get out of here. It's getting late and it doesn't look as though your elusive friend is going to put in his appearance. Tomorrow, if I were you, I'd plan to turn all those papers and documents over to the F.B.I. If you're so convinced of the truth of your theory, they are competent to make a very thorough investigation, and find your man."

  "No." Sir Guy was drunkenly obstinate. "No cab."

  "But let's get out of here anyway," I said, glancing at my watch. "It's past midnight."

  He sighed, shrugged, and rose unsteadily. As he started for the door, he tugged the gun free from his pocket.

  "Here, give me that!" I whispered. "You can't walk around the street brandishing that thing."

  I took the gun and slipped it inside my coat. Then I got hold of his right arm and steered him out of the door. The black man didn't look up as we departed.

  We stood shivering in the alleyway. The fog had increased. I couldn't see either end of the alley from where we stood. It was cold. Damp. Dark. Fog or no fog, a little wind was whispering secrets to the shadows at our backs.

  Sir Guy, despite his incapacity, still stared apprehensively at the alley, as though he expected to see a figure approaching.

  Disgust got the better of me.

  "Childish foolishness," I snorted. "Jack the Ripper, indeed! I call this carrying a hobby too far."

  "Hobby?" He faced me. Through the fog I could see his distorted face. "You call this a hobby?"

  "Well, what is it?" I grumbled. "Just why else are you so interested in tracking down this mythical killer?"

  My arm held his. But his stare held me.

  "In London," he whispered. "In 1888 . . . one of those nameless drabs the Ripper slew . . . was my mother."

  "What?"

  "Later I was recognized by my father, and legitimatized. We swore to give our lives to find the Ripper. My father was the first to search. He died in Hollywood in 1926—on the trail of the Ripper. They said he was stabbed by an unknown assailant in a brawl. But I knew who that assailant was.

  "So I've taken up his work, do you see, John? I've carried on. And I, will carry on until I do find him and kill him with my own hands."

  I believed him then. He wouldn't give up. He wasn't just a drunken babbler anymore. He was as fanatical, as determined, as relentless as the Ripper himself.

  Tomorrow he'd be sober. He'd continue the search. Perhaps he'd turn those papers over to the F.B.I. Sooner or later, with such persistence—and with his motive—he'd be successful. I'd always known he had a motive.

  "Let's go," I said, steering him down the alley.

  "Wait a minu
te," said Sir Guy. "Give me back my gun." He lurched a little. "I'd feel better with the gun on me."

  He pressed me into the dark shadows of a little recess.

  I tried to shrug him off, but he was insistent.

  "Let me carry the gun, now, John," he mumbled.

  "All right," I said.

  I reached into my coat, brought my hand out.

  "But that's not a gun," he protested. "That's a knife."

  "I know."

  I bore down on him swiftly.

  "John!" he screamed.

  "Never mind the 'John,'" I whispered, raising the knife. "Just call me . . . Jack."

  Enoch

  IT ALWAYS STARTS the same way.

  First, there's the feeling.

  Have you ever felt the tread of little feet walking across the top of your skull? Footsteps on your skull, back and forth, back and forth?

  It starts like that.

  You can't see who does the walking. After all, it's on top of your head. If you're clever, you wait for a chance and suddenly brush a hand through your hair. But you can't catch the walker that way. He knows. Even if you clamp both hands flat to your head, he manages to wriggle through, somehow. Or maybe he jumps.

  He is terribly swift. And you can't ignore him. If you don't pay any attention to the footsteps, he tries the next step. He wriggles down the back of your neck and whispers in your ear.

  You can feel his body, so tiny and cold, pressed tightly against the base of your brain. There must be something numbing in his claws, because they don't hurt—although later, you'll find little scratches on your neck that bleed and bleed. But at the time, all you know is that something tiny and cold is pressing there. Pressing, and whispering.

  That's when you try to fight him. You try not to hear what he says. Because when you listen, you're lost. You have to obey him then.

  Oh, he's wicked and wise!

  He knows how to frighten and threaten if you dare to resist. But I seldom try, anymore. It's better for me if I do listen and then obey.

  As long as I'm willing to listen, things don't seem so bad. Because he can be soothing and persuasive, too. Tempting. The things he has promised me, in that little silken whisper!