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loathsomeness and soul-sickening overtones. Was it for this that Ward had seemed to
listen on that day he was removed? It was the most shocking thing that Willett had ever
heard, and it continued from no determinate point as the doctor reached the bottom of the
steps and cast his torchlight around on lofty corridor walls surmounted by Cyclopean
vaulting and pierced by numberless black archways. The hall in which he stood was
perhaps fourteen feet high in the middle of the vaulting and ten or twelve feet broad. Its
pavement was of large chipped flagstone, and its walls and roof were of dressed masonry.
Its length he could not imagine, for it stretched ahead indefinitely into the blackness. Of
the archways, some had doors of the old six-panelled colonial type, whilst others had
none.
Overcoming the dread induced by the smell and the howling, Willett began to explore
these archways one by one; finding beyond them rooms with groined stone ceilings, each
of medium size and apparently of bizarre used. Most of them had fireplaces, the upper
courses of whose chimneys would have formed an interesting study in engineering.
Never before or since had he seen such instruments or suggestions of instruments as here
loomed up on every hand through the burying dust and cobwebs of a century and a half,
in many cases evidently shattered as if by the ancient raiders. For many of the chambers
seemed wholly untrodden by modern feet, and must have represented the earliest and
most obsolete phases of Joseph Curwen's experimentation. Finally there came a room of
obvious modernity, or at least of recent occupancy. There were oil heaters, bookshelves
and tables, chairs and cabinets, and a desk piled high with papers of varying antiquity and
contemporaneousness. Candlesticks and oil lamps stood about in several places; and
finding a match-safe handy, Willett lighted such as were ready for use.
In the fuller gleam it appeared that this apartment was nothing less than the latest study or
library of Charles Ward. Of the books the doctor had seen many before, and a good part
of the furniture had plainly come from the Prospect Street mansion. Here and there was a
piece well known to Willett, and the sense of familiarity became so great that he half
forgot the noisomness and the wailing, both of which were plainer here than they had
been at the foot of the steps. His first duty, as planned long ahead, was to find and seize
any papers which might seem of vital importance; especially those portentous documents
found by Charles so long ago behind the picture in Olney Court. As he search he
perceived how stupendous a task the final unravelling would be; for file on file was
stuffed with papers in curious hands and bearing curious designs, so that months or even
years might be needed for a thorough deciphering and editing. Once he found three large
packets of letters with Prague and Rakus postmarks, and in writing clearly recognisable
as Orne's and Hutchinson's; all of which he took with him as part of the bundle to be
removed in his valise.
At last, in a locked mahogany cabinet once gracing the Ward home, Willett found the
batch of old Curwen papers; recognising them from the reluctant glimpse Charles had
granted him so many years ago. The youth had evidently kept them together very much
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
as they had been when first he found them, since all the titles recalled by the workmen
were present except the papers addressed to Orne and Hutchinson, and the cipher with its
key. Willett placed the entire lot in his valise and continued his examination of the files.
Since young Ward's immediate condition was the greatest matter at stake, the closest
searching was done among the most obviously recent matter; and in this abundance of
contemporary manuscript one very baffling oddity was noted. The oddity was the slight
amount in Charles's normal writing, which indeed included nothing more recent than two
months before. On the other hand, there were literally reams of symbols and formulae,
historical notes and philosophical comment, in a crabbed penmanship absolutely identical
with the ancient script of Joseph Curwen, though of undeniably modern dating. Plainly, a
part of the latter-day programme had been a sedulous imitation of the old wizard's
writing, which Charles seemed to have carried to a marvellous state of perfection. Of any
third hand which might have been Allen's there was not a trace. If he had indeed come to
be the leader, he must have forced young Ward to act as his amanuensis.
In this new material one mystic formula, or rather pair of formulae, recurred so often that
Willett had it by heart before he had half finished his quest. It consisted of two parallel
columns, the left-hand one surmounted by the archaic symbol called "Dragon's Head"
and used in almanacs to indicate the ascending node, and the right-hand one headed by a
corresponding sign of "Dragon's Tail" or descending node. The appearance of the whole
was something like this, and almost unconsciously the doctor realised that the second half
was no more than the first written syllabically backward with the exception of the final
monosyllables and of the odd name Yog-Sothoth, which he had come to recognise under
various spellings from other things he had seen in connexion with this horrible matter.
The formulae were as follows - exactly so, as Willett is abundantly able to testify - and
the first one struck an odd note of uncomfortable latent memory in his brain, which he
recognised later when reviewing the events of that horrible Good Friday of the previous
year.
Y'AI 'NG'NGAH, OGTHROD AI'F
YOG-SOTHOTH GEB'L-EE'H
H'EE-L'GEB YOG-SOTHOTH
F'AI THRODOG 'NGAH'NG AI'Y
UAAAH ZHRO
So haunting were these formulae, and so frequently did he come upon them, that before
the doctor knew it he was repeating them under his breath. Eventually, however, he felt
he had secured all the papers he could digest to advantage for the present; hence resolved
to examine no more till he could bring the sceptical alienists en masse for an ampler and
more systematic raid. He had still to find the hidden laboratory, so leaving his valise in
the lighted room he emerged again into the black noisome corridor whose vaulting
echoed ceaseless with that dull and hideous whine.
The next few rooms he tried were all abandoned, or filled only with crumbling boxes and
ominous-looking leaden coffins; but impressed him deeply with the magnitude of Joseph
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
Curwen's original operations. He thought of the slaves and seamen who had disappeared,
of the graves which had been violated in every part of the world, and of what that final
raiding party must have seen; and then he decided it was better not to think any more.
Once a great stone staircase mounted at his right, and he deduced that this must have
reached to one of the Curwen outbuildings - perhaps the famous stone edifice with the
high slit-like windows - provided the steps he had descended had led from the steep-
roofed farmhouse. Suddenly the walls seemed to fall away ahead, and the stench and the
wailing grew stronger. Willett saw that he had come upon a vast open space, so great that
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