Black Ceremonies (10 page)

There was no response.

“That’s odd, there’s no one there. They must have hung up.” Sheridan moved away from the window. “Do you recognise the num …? Oh.” Clifford was nowhere to be seen. “Hugh? Where the devil are you?” Sheridan took another step forward and gasped, “Hugh!” when he saw he had fallen to the floor.

Dialling 999, Jeremy Sheridan knelt by his friend desperately trying to find a pulse, but the line was dead, and so was Hugh Clifford.

At first I did not recognise the man on my doorstep, and had half a mind to pretend to be out. Yet, when he glanced briefly upwards, there was something about his face that stirred my memory. Not so much the features, but rather the man’s superior expression, that seemed somehow familiar.

He was a little under six feet in height, and had thinning, sandy-coloured hair. He was carrying a brown leather briefcase.

As I observed the caller surreptitiously from the upstairs window, I saw him look at his watch impatiently. And although I anticipated he would only turn out to be a door-to-door salesman or similar, I hurried downstairs to open the door and see what the fellow wanted.

Before I could speak, he boomed out a greeting, “Hello Durward.”

At once I recognised the distinctive, deep, Welsh voice. “My Goodness, Rhys-Morgan!” I said in amazement.

“Yes it is.” The Welshman granted me the briefest of smiles.

We shook hands. “Well, this is a surprise.” It had been many years since I had last seen, or even spoken with Gwyn Rhys-Morgan.

I stepped aside to allow him into the house.

“I hope you don’t mind me turning up like this, all unannounced.”

“Not at all,” I replied. “Come on in.”

“In here, is it?” Rhys-Morgan ignored the door to the sitting room, choosing instead to enter my library.

I followed him in. “Unerring as usual, Gwyn.”

“Could hardly miss the smell, Durward.”

“Ah, of course. Well, make yourself comfortable. Can I take your coat and briefcase?”

But Rhys-Morgan paid me no heed, instead putting his case in one of the pair of armchairs and slinging his coat over the back of the seat.  Quickly he crossed the room and began studying the books that filled my bookcases. That came as no surprise.

I was about to ask what he would have to drink, but my guest pre-empted me. “I’ll have a whisky please, Durward.”

“It must be nearly fifteen years,” I said, handing him a glass. And I still found it annoying how he would call me ‘Durward’ after the Walter Scott novel rather than use my name – Quentin.

“Yes, it must.” Rhys-Morgan paused in his examination of my shelves to take a generous sample of his drink. “This is good.” He drained the glass. “I’ll have another.”

We had been at Cambridge together. Although we weren’t exactly good friends, it was through our shared interest in rare books that we knew each other. It was evident he hadn’t changed his manner.

I poured him another whisky, and a silence ensued as Rhys-Morgan scanned the titles that lined the walls. I was about to comment on how I had obtained a particular volume, but he held up a hand to stop me.

Awkwardly, I waited until he had finished his silent perusal.

“An impressive collection,” he said at last, taking the seat that was unoccupied by his coat and case.

“Thank you.” I remained standing.

“I suppose you’re wondering what’s brought me to your door after all this time.” Once again he had pre-empted my question.

“Well, yes, I was actually.”

“I have it.”

“It?” I queried.

“It.” Rhys-Morgan nodded.

I was puzzled. “I don’t understand, Gwyn.”

What he said next astounded me.

“
The Necronomicon
,” he stated simply.

I gasped audibly. “
The Necronomicon
?”

The Necronomicon
: The book of the mad Arab, AbduI Alhazred. A legendary book of blasphemous and cosmic revelations. That utmost grail for seekers of occult knowledge, and of many bibliophiles. And Rhys-Morgan’s taste had always leaned towards the outré.

“Yes.”

“But how? Where did you find it?”

“My search was long, and often frustrating, but I always remained persistent. I began with libraries and museums, antiquarian bookshops, eventually widening my search.

“Would you believe the British Museum had the audacity to deny me access to their rare books collection? Perhaps they had some inkling of my intention to make their copy my own.” Rhys-Morgan paused, apparently brooding.

“It was the same story again and again, at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, and in Rome, and Cairo. Miskatonic University in America, as well. Have you ever been to America, Durward?”

I shook my head.

“Terrible place. You’d do well to avoid it.” Rhys-Morgan frowned. “In so many places, I was either refused permission to view the book, or my enquiries met with denials that the book even existed.”

I found what Rhys-Morgan said next to be somewhat far-fetched.

“I have travelled the world, not just in body, but in astral form. My quest has taken me to many strange places and I have witnessed even stranger things.”

“How extraordinary.” 

“You think I’m being fanciful don’t you, Durward?”

“Well, I’m not sure I follow you exactly, Gwyn.”

“It’s all right.” He waved a hand dismissively. “How could you know? You have spent your life blissfully ignorant of the true nature of the world around us.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I said nothing.

“From major cities of the world to rundown and decrepit towns in rural New England. I have infiltrated cults of diabolic purpose, and searched the tombs of necromancers that lie in ghoul-haunted graveyards.”

Fanciful
was the word all right.

“But all this was without success. Yet I did not give up. Then after hunting high and low, and far and wide, I finally tracked down a copy. Would you believe that after all my travels, I located one in an obscure part of Gloucestershire, of all places?”

“However did you afford it? You must have come into a great deal of money, or had one of those incredible pieces of luck where you found it going for a song.”

“It was in the possession of a man called James Goodman. I managed to make him part with it.”

“Congratulations, Gwyn. I must say I’m honoured that you should think to inform me after all this time.”

I refilled our glasses, and asked, “But have you read it?” At the same time eager that he had, but also afraid that he might have done so. For
The Necronomicon
has a dark reputation. It is said that its contents can drive a man insane.

“Oh yes, I have read it. My mind reeled at the cosmic revelations, the unholy and unimaginable truths it contains. Yes, I have drunk deep of its forbidden knowledge.”

Despite what Rhys-Morgan said, I wanted to see it for myself. I eyed his briefcase. “And you have it with you now.” A statement rather than a question.

He nodded.

“May I see it?”

“Of course.” He rose, took his case from the other chair and moved to my desk. I joined him, and he opened it and took out the fabled
Necronomicon
.

It was a large volume – a folio, I estimated at least a thousand pages in length, and bound in dark black leather.

“Incredible.”

With a trembling hand I caressed the cover, then carefully opened the book. “My God, Gwyn! This becomes even more incredible. I had anticipated John Dee’s translation – but this is remarkable.”

Rhys-Morgan had managed to obtain the Italian printing of 1501, printed in black letter gothic type.

“Yes,” he replied, “I too thought that there were no longer any copies of this edition extant. However, I suspect that it is not the original binding.”

I marvelled at the pages of text – the fantastic legends that were the ravings of a man thought insane.

Here and there were marginal notes written by numerous different hands. There were stains that might well have been blood. Some pages were torn and a few entirely missing – not surprising considering the book’s great age.

I puzzled over strange cosmological diagrams. Wondered at perplexing rituals of sorcery and a blasphemous religion. And shuddered at illustrations of monstrous creatures labelled:
From Life
.

“Wonderful!” I declared.  My thoughts were covetous. “How much do you want for it?”

“Oh, it’s not for sale.”

I sighed. It was the answer I’d expected.

“I doubt whether you’d be prepared to pay the price anyway,” he said, cryptically.

Then after a moment he said, “At the back of the book you will find there is a list of names, such as is sometimes found in a family bible.”

I turned towards the rear of the book and found the list.

The first name was Anotonio Carlucci with a set of dates 1501-1505. Gian Mollisimo 1505-1519 was next. Then Ricardo Del Vascao, 1519; followed by Fernando Diaz 1519-1535. After him was John Maltravers, 1535-1554.

“It’s impossible that these are dates of birth and death,” I said. “They must be dates of ownership of the book.”

Another thought occurred to me, “These names, they appear to be written all in the same hand.”

Rhys-Morgan nodded.

“For someone to have traced the ownership of the book back through its history is a remarkable act of scholarship. But you are not responsible?”

Rhys-Morgan shook his head. “No.”

I read further down the list. Raschid Ibn Malik caught my eye. His dates read 1609-1759. “But that’s impossible, a hundred and fifty years.”

Rhys-Morgan smiled at my bewildered expression.

“Imagine how I impatiently turned the pages to find the end of the list, eager to add my name and thus confirm my rightful ownership.

“Then imagine how my mind reeled when I saw beneath the name of James Goodman, already written in that same red ink, my own name.”

“What? But that’s impossible.”

“Is it?”

I turned to the end of the list. Sure enough below James Goodman 1934-1936, was Gwyn Rhys-Morgan 1936-.

“Well then perhaps Goodman, knowing he was going to sell the book to you, had already appended your name to the list”

“That’s just it. You see, Durward; Goodman wouldn’t sell. No matter how much I offered him he refused.”

“Then how?”

“I killed him.”

“You did what?” I don’t know which stunned me more: the fact that Rhys-Morgan had killed a man, or the casual way that he had admitted it.

“You do see that I had to? Don’t you, Durward? I had to have it, it was rightfully mine.”

I smiled and nodded, thinking it wise not to antagonise him.

Rhys-Morgan continued, “You said that the dates were dates of ownership rather than dates of birth and death. You were partly right. Ownership yes, but also year of death.”

I frowned. “Are you sure?”

“I did do some research of my own, and found out about some of the names on the list.”

“And?”

Rhys-Morgan began picking out names from the list. “Ricardo Del Vascao, tortured to death by the Inquisition in 1519. Agnes Lamprey was burnt at the stake in 1603. In 1759 Raschid Ibn Malik was stoned. In 1793 Louis Rocheteau was—”

I interrupted, “Let me guess, another victim of the Reign of Terror?”

“Perhaps. It’s not clear what happened exactly. Although what is certain is that he was torn to pieces, various parts of his body were found all over Paris.”

Rhys-Morgan continued his morbid recitation, “Matthew Horne was killed in the Indian Mutiny of 1857—”

“Well, lots of people were killed during the Indian Mutiny,” I pointed out.

“Yes, but Horne’s body was found covered in curious bite marks and completely drained of blood.” Rhys-Morgan smiled. “Josiah Wellsby had it after him – he committed suicide in 1859. Every one of them died in the latter year listed.”

“What about Goodman? How did he come to have the book?” I consulted the list; the name above Goodman’s was Victor Goodman.

“His father,” Rhys-Morgan said. “He inherited it from his father.”

“There you are then, he died in bed, after living to a ripe old age,” I said, with an optimism I did not really feel.

“Actually, you are almost correct, Goodman senior did die in bed. James Goodman boasted that he smothered his father with a pillow. His father got it during the war, looted it off a German he killed.” Rhys-Morgan pointed to the name above Victor Goodman’s: Pieter Mueller.

Suddenly Rhys-Morgan began to laugh wildly. “Don’t you get it yet, Durward?”

“Calm down, Gwyn,” I urged. “What ever do you mean?”

“What does the title
Necronomicon
actually mean?” he asked.

“The title’s in Greek,” I said. “It’s the name given to the book by its translator, Theodorus Philetas. “Mentally I translated the title. “It means … My God!”

“Yes, Durward, imagine how I felt reading my name in
The Book of Dead Names
.”

It was not long after his visit that the police arrested Rhys-Morgan following an anonymous tip-off.