The House of Lost Souls - F. G. Cottam [78]
Fischer has charged me with a commission. He wants me to use his camera to take a portrait photograph of each member of his coven. And himself, of course. It is to be formally staged, the subject seated on the throne Fischer is supposed to occupy tomorrow evening during the horn banquet and the sacrifice to follow. I’m to take the pictures before lunch and to present him with the undeveloped film afterwards. He has a Rollei camera, which is an excellent tool for the task of taking what will amount to thirteen snapshots. A volunteer will have to take mine. After lunch I intend to slip away and see if I can find where it is they are keeping the boy. I have to find him today. I fear tomorrow will be too late. And I feel that the longer it takes, the likelier it is that my courage might fail. If there is a God, God help me now.
8 October, 1927, later
Two things, one momentous, the other merely curious. I’ve found where they have the boy hidden and imprisoned. But I’ll deal with events in the order they occurred. Doing so will help me stay calmer. Preserving my sanity, I realise now, has been one of the functions of writing all this madness down. Firstly, the portrait shoot, which passed off uneventfully. Crowley is vain and his pleasure in being photographed competed in his expression with a certain tautness around the mouth I took to be suspicion. I think he likes me, in so far as he likes anybody. His healing act this morning after the duel was one of compassion, as well as showing off. But he doesn’t trust me.
Dennis has a pale bland face betrayed by a hint of lasciviousness. He has the look about him of tainted milk.
Fischer was serene, a squatting toad on his wooden throne, basking for his picture in the spotlight.
I think the Egyptian woman is hypnotised. There is something predetermined, trancelike about her movements. And her eyes are shallow to the point of blankness. It could be drugs, I suppose. It could be some potent narcotic someone has pumped into her veins. But shuffling on to the throne where she slouched for her picture, she reminded me of a story Dennis told about the walking dead in Haiti. When I saw her through the camera’s viewfinder, the impression was strengthened to the point where I was so unnerved I could barely keep the camera still.
Fischer’s German aviator wore a corset under his coat. I’m sure of it. He looked much slighter and better proportioned a figure than he appeared at any time yesterday. He was pale from blood loss, of course, but had a certain bearing about him, a certain martial dignity I thought lost on the circumstances. They are an odd lot. The remainder were equally odd, but unworthy of individual comment here.
When I took the film roll from the camera I substituted it for one from Fischer’s camera box that was blank. I can’t explain why I did this. I just did not want to surrender the film. There was no time to light the pictures properly, the sittings were hurried, the whole assignment executed almost in the manner of a factory production line. But I think the pictures will have something. The Rollei is an excellent camera and the film stock first-rate. I have hidden the roll and hope to recover it later. It lies between the joists, under a loose board pried from the floor of the room at the top of the stairs Fischer keeps for his most exalted guests. As I said, I can’t explain why I did it. But I don’t believe I will ever be held to account. By the time the deception is discovered, I will have committed a far more serious betrayal than stealing pictures.
After lunch, while almost everyone dozed, I followed Giuseppe as he carried a covered pail of our table slops outside from the scullery. We had pheasant in oyster sauce for lunch and the trailing smell of it congealing in the cold air told me what the pail contained. The falling rain was loud, percussive on the stiff leaves, dead still on the branches of the trees, and on those already fallen and not yet softened to mulch on the forest floor. And he did not hear me as I followed