The Thing on the Doorstep | Page 8

though, was
phenomenal; and I knew that he must now be in that queerly energized
state - so unlike his usual self - which so many people had noticed. It
seemed odd and incredible that listless Edward Derby - he who could
never assert himself, and who had never learned to drive - should be
ordering me about and taking the wheel of my own car, yet that was
precisely what had happened. He did not speak for some time, and in
my inexplicable horror I was glad he did not.
In the lights of Biddeford and Saco I saw his firmly set mouth, and
shivered at the blaze of his eyes. The people were right - he did look
damnably like his wife and like old Ephraim when in these moods. I
did not wonder that the moods were disliked - there was certainly
something unnatural in them, and I felt the sinister element all the more
because of the wild ravings I had been hearing. This man, for all my
lifelong knowledge of Edward Pickman Derby, was a stranger - an
intrusion of some sort from the black abyss.
He did not speak until we were on a dark stretch of road, and when he
did his voice seemed utterly unfamiliar. It was deeper, firmer, and more
decisive than I had ever known it to be; while its accent and
pronunciation were altogether changed - though vaguely, remotely, and
rather disturbingly recalling something I could not quite place. There
was, I thought, a trace of very profound and very genuine irony in the
timbre - not the flashy, meaninglessly jaunty pseudo-irony of the
callow "sophisticate," which Derby had habitually affected, but

something grim, basic, pervasive, and potentially evil. I marvelled at
the self-possession so soon following the spell of panic-struck
muttering.
"I hope you'll forget my attack back there, Upton," he was saying. "You
know what my nerves are, and I guess you can excuse such things. I'm
enormously grateful, of course, for this lift home.
"And you must forget, too, any crazy things I may have been saying
about my wife - and about things in general. That's what comes from
overstudy in a field like mine. My philosophy is full of bizarre concepts,
and when the mind gets worn out it cooks up all sorts of imaginary
concrete applications. I shall take a rest from now on - you probably
won't see me for some time, and you needn't blame Asenath for it.
"This trip was a bit queer, but it's really very simple. There are certain
Indian relics in the north wood - standing stones, and all that - which
mean a good deal in folklore, and Asenath and I are following that stuff
up. It was a hard search, so I seem to have gone off my head. I must
send somebody for the car when I get home. A month's relaxation will
put me on my feet."
I do not recall just what my own part of the conversation was, for the
baffling alienage of my seatmate filled all my consciousness. With
every moment my feeling of elusive cosmic horror increased, till at
length I was in a virtual delirium of longing for the end of the drive.
Derby did not offer to relinquish the wheel, and I was glad of the speed
with which Portsmouth and Newburyport flashed by.
At the junction where the main highway runs inland and avoids
Innsmouth, I was half-afraid my driver would take the bleak shore road
that goes through that damnable place. He did not, however, but darted
rapidly past Rowley and Ipswich toward our destination. We reached
Arkham before midnight, and found the lights still on at the old
Crowninshield house. Derby left the car with a hasty repetition of his
thanks, and I drove home alone with a curious feeling of relief. It had
been a terrible drive - all the more terrible because I could not quite tell
why - and I did not regret Derby's forecast of a long absence from my

company.
The next two months were full of rumours. People spoke of seeing
Derby more and more in his new energized state, and Asenath was
scarcely ever in to her callers. I had only one visit from Edward, when
he called briefly in Asenath's car - duly reclaimed from wherever he
had left it in Maine - to get some books he had lent me. He was in his
new state, and paused only long enough for some evasively polite
remarks. It was plain that he had nothing to discuss with me when in
this condition - and I noticed that he did not even trouble to give the old
three-and-two signal when ringing the doorbell. As on that evening in
the