AllFreeNovel
Share Us
ROUND THE FIRE STORIES
THE LEATHER FUNNEL
My friend, Lionel Dacre, lived in the Avenue de Wagram, Paris. His housewas that small one, with the iron railings and grass plot in front ofit, on the left-hand side as you pass down from the Arc de Triomphe. Ifancy that it had been there long before the avenue was constructed, forthe grey tiles were stained with lichens, and the walls were mildewedand discoloured with age. It looked a small house from the street, fivewindows in front, if I remember right, but it deepened into a singlelong chamber at the back. It was here that Dacre had that singularlibrary of occult literature, and the fantastic curiosities which servedas a hobby for himself, and an amusement for his friends. A wealthy manof refined and eccentric tastes, he had spent much of his life andfortune in gathering together what was said to be a unique privatecollection of Talmudic, cabalistic, and magical works, many of them ofgreat rarity and value. His tastes leaned toward the marvellous and themonstrous, and I have heard that his experiments in the direction of theunknown have passed all the bounds of civilization and of decorum. Tohis English friends he never alluded to such matters, and took the toneof the student and _virtuoso_; but a Frenchman whose tastes were of thesame nature has assured me that the worst excesses of the black masshave been perpetrated in that large and lofty hall, which is lined withthe shelves of his books, and the cases of his museum.
Dacre’s appearance was enough to show that his deep interest in thesepsychic matters was intellectual rather than spiritual. There was notrace of asceticism upon his heavy face, but there was much mental forcein his huge dome-like skull, which curved upward from amongst histhinning locks, like a snow-peak above its fringe of fir trees. Hisknowledge was greater than his wisdom, and his powers were far superiorto his character. The small bright eyes, buried deeply in his fleshyface, twinkled with intelligence and an unabated curiosity of life, butthey were the eyes of a sensualist and an egotist. Enough of the man,for he is dead now, poor devil, dead at the very time that he had madesure that he had at last discovered the elixir of life. It is not withhis complex character that I have to deal, but with the very strange andinexplicable incident which had its rise in my visit to him in the earlyspring of the year ‘82.
I had known Dacre in England, for my researches in the Assyrian Room ofthe British Museum had been conducted at the time when he wasendeavouring to establish a mystic and esoteric meaning in theBabylonian tablets, and this community of interests had brought ustogether. Chance remarks had led to daily conversation, and that tosomething verging upon friendship. I had promised him that on my nextvisit to Paris I would call upon him. At the time when I was able tofulfil my compact I was living in a cottage at Fontainebleau, and as theevening trains were inconvenient, he asked me to spend the night in hishouse.
“I have only that one spare couch,” said he, pointing to a broad sofa inhis large salon; “I hope that you will manage to be comfortable there.”
It was a singular bedroom, with its high walls of brown volumes, butthere could be no more agreeable furniture to a bookworm like myself,and there is no scent so pleasant to my nostrils as that faint, subtlereek which comes from an ancient book. I assured him that I could desireno more charming chamber, and no more congenial surroundings.
“If the fittings are neither convenient nor conventional, they are atleast costly,” said he, looking round at his shelves. “I have expendednearly a quarter of a million of money upon these objects which surroundyou. Books, weapons, gems, carvings, tapestries, images—there is hardlya thing here which has not its history, and it is generally one worthtelling.”
He was seated as he spoke at one side of the open fireplace, and I atthe other. His reading table was on his right, and the strong lamp aboveit ringed it with a very vivid circle of golden light. A half-rolledpalimpsest lay in the centre, and around it were many quaint articles ofbric-à-brac. One of these was a large funnel, such as is used forfilling wine casks. It appeared to be made of black wood, and to berimmed with discoloured brass.
“That is a curious thing,” I remarked. “What is the history of that?”
“Ah!” said he, “it is the very question which I have had occasion to askmyself. I would give a good deal to know. Take it in your hands andexamine it.”
I did so, and found that what I had imagined to be wood was in realityleather, though age had dried it into an extreme hardness. It was alarge funnel, and might hold a quart when full. The brass rim encircledthe wide end, but the narrow was also tipped with metal.
“What do you make of it?” asked Dacre.
“I should imagine that it belonged to some vintner or maltster in themiddle ages,” said I. “I have seen in England leathern drinking flagonsof the seventeenth century—‘black jacks’ as they were called—which wereof the same colour and hardness as this filler.”
“I dare say the date would be about the same,” said Dacre, “and nodoubt, also, it was used for filling a vessel with liquid. If mysuspicions are correct, however, it was a queer vintner who used it, anda very singular cask which was filled. Do you observe nothing strange atthe spout end of the funnel.”
As I held it to the light I observed that at a spot some five inchesabove the brass tip the narrow neck of the leather funnel was allhaggled and scored, as if some one had notched it round with a bluntknife. Only at that point was there any roughening of the dead blacksurface.
“Some one has tried to cut off the neck.”
“Would you call it a cut?”
“It is torn and lacerated. It must have taken some strength to leavethese marks on such tough material, whatever the instrument may havebeen. But what do you think of it? I can tell that you know more thanyou say.”
Dacre smiled, and his little eyes twinkled with knowledge.
“Have you included the psychology of dreams among your learned studies?”he asked.
