A Creepy Narrative of Weird Events Is
THE ROOM OF THE BLACK
VELVET DRAPES
By B. W. SLINEY
IT WAS a miserable night to be out of doors.
Overhead the heavy clouds hung low, reflecting back the myriad lights of the city with a lurid glow, imparting an air of deep oppression. No breath of air stirred; it was deathly still, yet one had the feeling that it was but the calm before the impending storm. A smoky fog blurred the street lights and made the atmosphere still more oppressive.
Now and then a lone pedestrian or cab came out of the midst, passed, and was again swallowed by the shadows. It was, indeed, a surly night, and one that honest men stepped into with misgiving.
But as chance and my occupation would have it, that evening I was obliged to wade through the murky blackness to the home of Ormond Wier, the renowned psychologist. Another cheerless prospect, for Wier was known to be rather eccentric. However, editors are dictatorial persons, and mine, though a warm personal friend, demanded his stories when they were due.
I had been requested to interview Wier for the next number of the magazine. It was only through the greatest diplomacy that I succeeded in arranging an appointment with Wier at all, so I suppose that I should have gone with eager step to fulfill the engagement. But somehow, I could not feel enthused about it. Perhaps it was the weather. Or perhaps it was a foreboding—
I chose to walk to his home, thinking that the fresh air might do me good and cheer me up a bit. Reaching Wier's mansion with a few minutes to spare, I remained on the opposite side of the street and studied it. It stood on a corner and loomed up against the reflecting clouds like an immense blot of ink, sombre, mysterious, even sinister. For some unaccountable reason it had a dome, and the whole was dominated by that huge half-round shape. All in all, it was a dismal old place, and I never had occasion to pass it, even in the daytime, without a slight chill running up and down my spine, causing me to walk a trifle faster.
From afar, the eight o'clock chimes boomed through the heavy air. It was the hour of the appointment.
I crossed the street and rang the bell, the feeling of dread more pronounced than ever. The door opened and I stepped inside, prepared to give my card to the butler.
But no butler was there; I stood alone in a long, high-ceiled, richly-furnished corridor. Slightly perturbed, I watched the door swing shut, and stood for a moment wondering what I should do.
Only a moment did I stand, for presently a door at the end of the corridor opened, and Wier, whom I had met before, stepped into the room.
"Good evening," he greeted me, with a pleasant smile. "I was expecting you. Come into my study where we can talk undisturbed."
Making some conventional reply, I followed him into a smaller hall, and from thence to a narrow, dimly-lighted passage. Many other passages exactly similar there were, branching off to the right and left, and Wier led me from one to another in a most confusing manner. They formed a veritable labyrinth, dark and damp, and increased my moroseness tenfold. At last, after a seemingly interminable period of walking, with Wier's massive head, which was strangely like the dome of his house, bobbing up and down before me, we came to a halt against a blank wall. Wier fumbled a moment and a panel slid noiselessly aside, and he stepped into a second and shorter passage, motioning for me to follow.
"My study," he said, swinging open a ponderous door at the end. "Step in."
I had never seen such a room before in all my life. The first impression was of vastness; the second, of simple magnificence. Only two pieces of furniture were in the room; a carved ebony table and an immense chair to match. On the table lay a single leather bound volume; nothing more.
And then, with a shock of surprise, I noticed that which lent to the study its air of vastness. The room was perfectly circular, and the entire surface of the walls were hung with rich black velvet draperies. Up and up they extended, past the hanging bowls of lights; past into the shadows, and one imagined that he could faintly see them end in a dome at the top.
At equal distances about the room stood ancient Egyptian sarcophagi, grim and mystical. A silence pervaded; a silence as heavy and deep as the velvet drapes around the room; a silence so dense that it could be felt; so intense that even the breathing of Wier and multiplied upon itself until it resembled the beating of a tom-tom. The slightest stir of myself sounded like the whistling wind in a chimney. Then the reverberations would die away, and once more the deathly quiet would reign.
"My study," repeated Wier, a pardonable note of pride in his voice. "Be seated while I get another chair. This room is absolutely sound proof; you will not be disturbed."
He withdrew. The door closed behind him, and the curtain he had been holding aside swished into place.
I was alone.
I WILL confess that I did not like it. The unhuman carvings on the sarcophagi grinned malignantly at me, and the silence fairly shrieked its possession of the room.
Nervously, I walked across a luxurious plush rug of deep maroon to the center of the room and sat down to await the return of Wier. He was taking needlessly long to return with that chair.
I picked up and glanced through the solitary volume. It was Wier's work, "The Human Mind"—the most amazing psychological treatise ever penned. To it Wier owed his fame, and to it I owed my presence in his mysterious house. I was familar with the book—a fantastic piece of work, not intended to allay despondency. I replaced it.
