The Shuttered Room by August Derleth & H. P. Lovecraft

Author:August Derleth & H. P. Lovecraft [August Derleth & H. P. Lovecraft]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

IV

By the light of the lamp, Abner sat down to the kitchen table after he had a small repast, and opened Luther Whateley’s ledger. The opening pages had been torn out, but, from an examination of the fragments of sheets still attached to the threads of the sewing, Abner concluded that these pages were purely of accounts, as if his grandfather had taken up an old, not completely used account book for a purpose other than keeping accounts, and had removed such sheets as had been more prosaically utilized.

From the beginning, the entries were cryptic. They were undated, except for the day of the week.

“This Saturday Ariah answered my inquiry. S. was seen sev times with Ralsa Marsh. Obed’s great-grandson. Swam together by night.”

Such was the first entry, clearly pertaining to Aunt Sarey’s visit to Innsmouth, about which Grandfather had plainly inquired of Ariah. Something had impelled Luther to make such inquiry. From what he knew of his grandfather’s character, Abner concluded that the inquiry had been made after Sarey had returned to Dunwich.

Why?

The next entry was pasted in, and was clearly part of a typewritten letter received by Luther Whateley.

“Ralsa Marsh is probably the most repellent of all the family. He is almost degenerate in his looks. I know you have said that it was Libby of your daughters who was the fairest; even so, we cannot imagine how Sarah came to take up with someone who is so repulsive as Ralsa, in whom all those recessive characteristics which have been seen in the Marsh family after Obed’s strange marriage to that Polynesian woman—(the Marshes have denied that Obed’s wife was Polynesian, but of course, he was trading there at that time, and I don’t credit those stories about that uncharted island where he was supposed to have dallied)—seem to have come to fullest fruit.

“As far as I can now ascertain—after all, it is over two months—close to four, I think—since her return to Dunwich—they were constantly together. I am surprised that Ariah did not inform you of this. None of us here had any mandate to halt Sarah’s seeing Ralsa, and, after all, they are cousins and she was visiting at Marshes—not here.”

Abner judged that this letter had been written by a woman, also a cousin, who bore Luther some resentment for Sarah’s not having been sent to stay with her branch of the family. Luther had evidently made inquiry of her regarding Ralsa.

The third entry was once again in Luther’s hand, summarizing a letter from Ariah.

“Saturday. Ariah maintains Deep Ones a sect or quasi-religious group. Sub-human. Said to live in the sea and worship Dagon. Another God named Cthulhu. Gilled people. Resembling frogs or toads more than fish, but eyes ichthyic. Claims Obed’s late wife was one. Holds that Obed’s children all bore the marks. Marshes gilled? How else could they swim a mile and a half to Devil Reef, and back? Marshes eat sparingly, can go without food and drink a long time, diminish or expand in size rapidly.

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