The Mammoth Book of Nightmare Stories by Stephen Jones

Author:Stephen Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781510736467
Publisher: Skyhorse
Published: 2019-01-16T05:00:00+00:00

IV

HE FIRST WENT back to the thread of his original remarks, which had been so lengthily interrupted by our companion. Arthur Jordan smiled even more broadly as he recollected this, and Grisson stirred uneasily in his chair as if to comment obliquely that he hadn’t meant to take so long.

Jordan had completed his arrangements with the Duke to exhibit “The Gossips” in London, and all had apparently gone very well until the time came to move the statues.

Jordan was, of course, extremely anxious that no damage should come to the group while it was in his care, and he had gone to considerable trouble in getting up one of the best firms in Naples to undertake the job. I did not understand the technicalities as Jordan explained them, but I gathered that the whole group of statuary and the plinth on which they stood had first to be jacked up most carefully, and then edged on to a sort of lift which had been constructed of strong steel scaffolding up the face of the cliff.

When they had been lowered to the valley below, they were to be crated and transported by stages in a large, wheeled cradle to Palermo for shipment to England. This was the plan which Jordan explained to me, but unfortunately, things didn’t work out like that. The first stages of the dismantling of the statues went smoothly and without incident. Workmen from the Italian mainland had been brought in—specialists to a man—and they had laughed at the local tales and legends.

Nothing odd occurred regarding the statues: there were no voices, and nothing untoward about their appearance. In fact, Jordan regarded the whole thing as a straightforward civil engineering operation and, apart from perfunctory supervision, his mind was on other affairs: the shipment from Palermo, general details of the exhibition, his researches in the Duke’s library, and so on.

It seemed that the statues could be removed separately, and that the granite plinth on which they rested was also a separate entity. This would mean that the figures could be removed one by one for crating, and a larger crate would contain the plinth. As a start, the three figures were lifted and removed to one side. They were left for the time being, until the lifting gear would be ready to lower them down the face of the cliff.

Then the experts examined the plinth, and professed themselves satisfied with what they found.

The plinth could be lifted in one section with the equipment available, and would not crack. This work occupied all of the first day and part of the following morning, and it was then that the troubles had begun.

Perhaps Jordan had been trapped into a position of false security by the tranquil atmosphere and the deepening interest of his task. Whatever the reason, the disaster which afterward befell came with stunning suddenness.

During the latter part of the morning, the plinth had first been lowered to the ground. This operation was not without its hazards. The plinth

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