Marsh The Collected Works of Richard Marsh (Illustrated Edition)

The Beetle, Tom Ossington's Ghost, Crime and the Criminal, The Datchet Diamonds, The Chase of the Ruby, A Duel, The Woman with One Hand, Marvels and Mysteries, Between the Dark and the Daylight...
1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-80-268-9610-4
Verlag: e-artnow
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 4575 Seiten

This meticulously edited Richard Marsh collection includes: Novels: The Beetle Tom Ossington's Ghost Crime and the Criminal The Datchet Diamonds The Chase of the Ruby The Twickenham Peerage Miss Arnott's Marriage The Great Temptation The Master of Deception A Duel The Woman with One Hand The Coward behind the Curtain A Woman Perfected Violet Forster's Lover A Hero of Romance A Second Coming Short Stories: Marvels and Mysteries The Long Arm of Coincidence The Mask An Experience Pourquoipas By Suggestion A Silent Witness To Be Used Against Him The Words of a Little Child How he Passed! Between the Dark and the Daylight My Aunt's Excursion The Irregularity of the Juryman Mitwaterstraand Exchange is Robbery The Haunted Chair Nelly La Haute Finance Mrs. Riddle's Daughter Miss Donne's Great Gamble Skittles Em A Relic of the Borgias Frivolities The Purse Which Was Found For One Night Only Returning a Verdict The Chancellor's Ward A Honeymoon Trip The Burglar's Blunder Ninepence A Battlefield up-to-Date Mr. Harland's Pupils A Burglar Alarm A Lesson in Sculling Outside Amusement Only The Lost Duchess The Strange Occurrences in Canterstone Jail Twins! A Vision of the Night The Way of a Maid with a Man Aunt Jane's Jalap Willyum His First Experiment An Old-fashioned Christmas By Deputy Mr. Whiting and Mary Ann A Substitute The Confessions of a Young Lady A Wonderful Girl Cupid's Messenger The Ogre The Handwriting The People's Stock Exchange Breaking the Ice A Girl Who Couldn't The Princess Margaretta The End of His Holiday The Girl and the Boy A Mutual Affinity Magical Music A Runaway Wife Under One Flag A Pet of the Ballet A Christmas Miracle Our Musical Comedy Staggers My Wedding Day Two of a Trade Rewarded On the River A Member of the Anti-Tobacco League That Foursome An Episcopal Scandal Mr Bloxam and the British Constitution For Debt The Thirteen Club Uncollected Stories Capturing a Convict The Disappearance of Mrs. Macrecham

Richard Marsh was the best-selling author, prolific in many genres including horror, crime, thriller, but also romance and humor. Marsh is best known now for his supernatural thriller novel The Beetle, which was published the same year as Bram Stoker's Dracula, and was initially even more popular.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Marsh, Richard

Weitere Mitwirkende

Piffard, Harold

Wood, Stanley L.

Copping, Harold

Hodgson, Edward S.

Hardy, Paul

Leseproben

CHAPTER II.
INSIDE Table of Contents I realised, and, so to speak, mentally photographed all the little details of the house in front of which I was standing with what almost amounted to a gleam of preternatural perception. An instant before, the world swam before my eyes. I saw nothing. Now I saw everything, with a clearness which, as it were, was shocking. Above all, I saw the open window. I stared at it, conscious, as I did so, of a curious catching of the breath. It was so near to me; so very near. I had but to stretch out my hand to thrust it through the aperture. Once inside, my hand would at least be dry. How it rained out there! My scanty clothing was soaked; I was wet to the skin! I was shivering. And, each second, it seemed to rain still faster. My teeth were chattering. The damp was liquefying the very marrow in my bones. And, inside that open window, it was, it must be, so warm, so dry! There was not a soul in sight. Not a human being anywhere near. I listened; there was not a sound. I alone was at the mercy of the sodden night. Of all God’s creatures the only one unsheltered from the fountains of Heaven which He had opened. There was not one to see what I might do; not one to care. I need fear no spy. Perhaps the house was empty; nay, probably. It was my plain duty to knock at the door, rouse the inmates, and call attention to their oversight,—the open window. The least they could do would be to reward me for my pains. But, suppose the place was empty, what would be the use of knocking? It would be to make a useless clatter. Possibly to disturb the neighbourhood, for nothing. And, even if the people were at home, I might go unrewarded. I had learned, in a hard school, the world’s ingratitude. To have caused the window to be closed—the inviting window, the tempting window, the convenient window!—and then to be no better for it after all, but still to be penniless, hopeless, hungry, out in the cold and the rain—better anything than that. In such a situation, too late, I should say to myself that mine had been the conduct of a fool. And I should say it justly too. To be sure. Leaning over the low wall I found that I could very easily put my hand inside the room. How warm it was in there! I could feel the difference of temperature in my fingertips. Very quietly I stepped right over the wall. There was just room to stand in comfort between the window and the wall. The ground felt to the foot as if it were cemented. Stooping down, I peered through the opening. I could see nothing. It was black as pitch inside. The blind was drawn right up; it seemed incredible that anyone could be at home, and have gone to bed, leaving the blind up, and the window open. I placed my ear to the crevice. How still it was! Beyond doubt, the place was empty. I decided to push the window up another inch or two, so as to enable me to reconnoitre. If anyone caught me in the act, then there would be an opportunity to describe the circumstances, and to explain how I was just on the point of giving the alarm. Only, I must go carefully. In such damp weather it was probable that the sash would creak. Not a bit of it. It moved as readily and as noiselessly as if it had been oiled. This silence of the sash so emboldened me that I raised it more than I intended. In fact, as far as it would go. Not by a sound did it betray me. Bending over the sill I put my head and half my body into the room. But I was no forwarder. I could see nothing. Not a thing. For all I could tell the room might be unfurnished. Indeed, the likelihood of such an explanation began to occur to me. I might have chanced upon an empty house. In the darkness there was nothing to suggest the contrary. What was I to do? Well, if the house was empty, in such a plight as mine I might be said to have a moral, if not a legal, right, to its bare shelter. Who, with a heart in his bosom, would deny it me? Hardly the most punctilious landlord. Raising myself by means of the sill I slipped my legs into the room. The moment I did so I became conscious that, at any rate, the room was not entirely unfurnished. The floor was carpeted. I have had my feet on some good carpets in my time; I know what carpets are; but never did I stand upon a softer one than that. It reminded me, somehow, even then, of the turf in Richmond Park,—it caressed my instep, and sprang beneath my tread. To my poor, travel-worn feet, it was luxury after the puddly, uneven road. Should I, now I had ascertained that—the room was, at least, partially furnished, beat a retreat? Or should I push my researches further? It would have been rapture to have thrown off my clothes, and to have sunk down, on the carpet, then and there, to sleep. But,—I was so hungry; so famine-goaded; what would I not have given to have lighted on something good to eat! I moved a step or two forward, gingerly, reaching out with my hands, lest I struck, unawares, against some unseen thing. When I had taken three or four such steps, without encountering an obstacle, or, indeed, anything at all, I began, all at once, to wish I had not seen the house; that I had passed it by; that I had not come through the window; that I were safely out of it again. I became, on a sudden, aware, that something was with me in the room. There was nothing, ostensible, to lead me to such a conviction; it may be that my faculties were unnaturally keen; but, all at once, I knew that there was something there. What was more, I had a horrible persuasion that, though unseeing, I was seen; that my every movement was being watched. What it was that was with me I could not tell; I could not even guess. It was as though something in my mental organisation had been stricken by a sudden paralysis. It may seem childish to use such language; but I was overwrought, played out; physically speaking, at my last counter; and, in an instant, without the slightest warning, I was conscious of a very curious sensation, the like of which I had never felt before, and the like of which I pray that I never may feel again,—a sensation of panic fear. I remained rooted to the spot on which I stood, not daring to move, fearing to draw my breath. I felt that the presence will me in the room was something strange, something evil. I do not know how long I stood there, spell-bound, but certainly for some considerable space of time. By degrees, as nothing moved, nothing was seen, nothing was heard, and nothing happened, I made an effort to better play the man. I knew that, at the moment, I played the cur. And endeavoured to ask myself of what it was I was afraid. I was shivering at my own imaginings. What could be in the room, to have suffered me to open the window and to enter unopposed? Whatever it was, was surely to the full as great a coward as I was, or why permit, unchecked, my burglarious entry. Since I had been allowed to enter, the probability was that I should be at liberty to retreat,—and I was sensible of a much keener desire to retreat than I had ever had to enter. I had to put the greatest amount of pressure upon myself before I could summon up sufficient courage to enable me to even turn my head upon my shoulders,—and the moment I did so I turned it back again. What constrained me, to save my soul I could not have said,—but I was constrained. My heart was palpitating in my bosom; I could hear it beat. I was trembling so that I could scarcely stand. I was overwhelmed by a fresh flood of terror. I stared in front of me with eyes in which, had it been light, would have been seen the frenzy of unreasoning fear. My ears were strained so that I listened with an acuteness of tension which was painful. Something moved. Slightly, with so slight a sound, that it would scarcely have been audible to other ears save mine. But I heard. I was looking in the direction from which the movement came, and, as I looked, I saw in front of me two specks of light. They had not been there a moment before, that I would swear. They were there now. They were eyes,—I told myself they were eyes. I had heard how cats’ eyes gleam in the dark, though I had never seen them, and I said to myself that these were cats’ eyes; that the thing in front of me was nothing but a cat. But I knew I lied. I knew that these were eyes, and I knew they were not cats’ eyes, but what eyes they were I did not know,—nor dared to think. They moved,—towards me. The creature to which the eyes belonged was coming closer. So intense was my desire to fly that I would much rather have died than stood there still; yet I could not control a limb; my limbs were as if they were not mine. The eyes came on,—noiselessly. At first they were between two and three feet from the ground; but, on a sudden, there was a squelching sound, as if some yielding body had been squashed upon the floor. The eyes vanished,—to reappear, a moment afterwards, at what I judged to be a distance of some six inches from the floor. And they again came on. So it seemed that the creature, whatever it was to which the eyes belonged, was, after all, but small. Why I did not obey the frantic longing which I had to flee from it, I cannot tell; I only know, I could not. I take it that the stress and privations which I had lately undergone, and which I was, even then, still undergoing, had much to do with my conduct at that moment, and with the part I played in all that followed. Ordinarily I believe that I have as high a spirit as the average man, and as solid a resolution; but when one has been dragged through the Valley of Humiliation, and plunged, again and again, into the Waters of Bitterness and Privation, a man can be constrained to a course of action of which, in his happier moments, he would have deemed himself incapable. I...