The Satyr's Head: Tales of Terror Read Free

Ehlers money had come from manipulation of stocks and bonds before the turn of the century, and most of his later years were spent travelling to build up the collections, which had become his only interest in life.
    Now, the rest of my story is where the plausibility gap, as they say nowadays, comes in. I’ve already told you I was a junkie in those days, so you can assume if you please that whatever I say happened from then on was simply hallucination. And I can’t claim with any assurance or proof that you’re not right.
    Against that, put the fact that my habit was a very moderate one, and I was a gingerly, cautious, unconvinced sort of dope-taker. I shot just enough of the stuff to keep cheerful, if you know what I mean: dope picked me up, made the world look implausibly bright and optimistic; but not enough to give me any visions or ecstatic trances, which I wasn’t looking for anyway. I was always a reality man, strange as that may sound coming from me. Only once in a while reality got a bit too abrasive, and the need arose to lubricate the outer surfaces in contact with my personality, by means of a little of that soothing white powder. Dope was my escape, like TV or booze or women serve with others.
    The moderation of my habit enabled me to kick it cold turkey on my own after I left the museum job. But that’s another story.
    Very well, then: before I started this night watchman job (and for that matter afterwards) I had never had any experiences with far-out fancies or waking nightmares or sensory aberrations. All during the time I worked there (it wasn’t long) I did have such experiences. Either that, or the things really happened that I thought were happening.
    You be the judge.
     
    IV
    It started my very first night on the job. I checked in at six p.m., by which time Worthington had had an hour since closing time to batten down the hatches and lock up. He was to turn the keys over to me, and I would lock the big, ornate door, as broad as a raft, behind him. From that time I was on my own until he came back at six a.m. I could make the rounds when, as and if I saw fit; or simply doze, read, or cut out paper dolls.
    I had asked old Worthington about the incidence of trouble at night, and he answered that there wasn’t much.
    I mentioned the j.d. gangs that could be expected in such a neighborhood, but he insisted there was hardly any difficulty with kids, except sometimes around Hallowe’en, when the smaller ones might dare each other to try to break in through the windows on the lower floors. That wouldn’t be for a while yet. Anyway, I was all fitted out with a .45, a nightstick, and a powerful flash, and the precinct police station was only a block or so away. Accordingly, I anticipated a boring stint, so started from the first shooting my daily ration of junk just before coming on duty, to keep my thinking positive. It crossed my mind once or twice that this was a pretty spooky place to hang out in overnight, but I was a rationalist then, with no discernible superstitions, and thus didn’t dwell on the idea.
    The first evening when I came on, feeling no pain, it was already almost dark. Worthington left me with a few casual words of admonition, and I and my monkey were alone in the shadowy museum.
    The lights in the entry hall were always kept on, plus the ones in the second floor office across the way in the keep; and of course there were night lights at set intervals, though they didn’t do much to relieve the gloom. Especially in that badly-lit gallery of Wild West art you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face, and I always had to use the flash.
    The first time I made the rounds took me more than an hour, since I stopped to look over any exhibits that attracted my attention. As I passed the cases of stuffed alligators, Etruscan jewelry, and Civil War battle flags, I found myself wondering what sort of guy Frederick Ehlers could have been to devote so much of his time and fortune to such