The Legacy of Erich Zann and Other Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos by Brian Stableford

Author:Brian Stableford
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: horror, Cthulhu, Mythos, H.P. Lovecraft, ramsey campbell
Publisher: Wildside Press
Published: 2012-04-05T16:00:00+00:00

THE TRUTH ABOUT PICKMAN

The doorbell didn’t ring until fifteen minutes after the time we’d agreed on the telephone, but I hadn’t even begun to get impatient. Visitors to the island—even those who’ve only come over the Solent from Hampshire, let alone across the Atlantic from Boston—are always taken by surprise by the slower pace of life here. It’s not so much that the buses never run on time as the fact that you can’t judge the time of a walk by looking at the map. The map is flat, but the terrain is anything but, especially here on the south coast, where all the chines are.

“Do come in, Professor Thurber,” I said, when I opened the door. “This is quite a privilege. I don’t get many visitors.”

His face was a trifle blanched, and he had to make an effort to unclench his jaw. “I’m not surprised,” he muttered, in an accent that was distinctly American but by no means a drawl. “Who ever thought of building a house here, and how on Earth did they get the materials down that narrow track?”

I took his coat. There were scuff-marks on the right sleeve because of the way he’d hugged the wall on the way down rather than trust the hand-rail on the left. The cast-iron struts supporting it were rusted, of course, and the wood had grown a fine crop of fungus because we’d had such a wet August, but the rail was actually quite sound, so he could have used it if he’d had the nerve.

“It is a trifle inconvenient nowadays,” I admitted. “The path was wider when the house was built, and I shudder to think what the next significant landslip might do to it, but the rock face behind the house is vertical, and it’s not too difficult to rig a block-and-tackle up on top. The biggest thing I’ve had to bring down recently is a fridge, though, and I managed that on the path with the aid of one of those two-wheeled trolleys. It’s not so bad when you get used to it”

He’d pulled himself together by then and stuck out his hand. “Alastair Thurber,” he said. “I’m truly glad to meet you, Mr. Eliot. My grandfather knew your...grandfather.” The hesitation was perceptible, as he tried to guess my age and estimate whether I might conceivably be Silas Eliot’s son rather than his grandson, but it wasn’t so blatant as to seem impolite. Even so, to cover up his confusion, he added: “And they were both friends of the man I wrote to you about: Richard Upton Pickman.”

“I don’t have a proper sitting-room, I’m afraid,” I told him. “The TV room’s rather cluttered, but I expect you’d rather take tea in the library in any case.”

He assured me, quite sincerely, that he didn’t mind. As an academic, he was presumably a bibliophile as well as an art-lover and a molecular biologist: a man of many parts, who was probably still trying to fit them together neatly. He was, of course, younger than me—no more than forty-five, to judge by appearances.

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