Creeps by Night: Chills and Thrills

He saw her recoil in terror from the window, to draw fresh courage to her tortured mind from the symbol of that shadow on the opposite wall. And he saw her still, that Roman woman, entering the room which now was his, forcing those hands, which once had used a dog-whip, to fulfill a task more dreadful but more sure. “I had always prayed that one or the other should be taken,” she had told him.

But she had done more than pray. He knew that now, though she herself was unaware of it.

“So it was a battle-dream, after all,” he said; and his voice in the silence startled him.

He heard a noise of shuffling at his elbow, and turned in time to catch Arkwright as he fell.

The King of the Gats by Stephen Vincent Benét

“But my dear,” said Mrs. Culverin, with a tiny gasp, “you can’t actually mean — a tail!”

Mrs. Dingle nodded impressively. “Exactly. I’ve seen him. Twice. Paris, of course, and then, a command appearance at Rome — we were in the Royal box. He conducted — my dear, you’ve never heard such effects from an orchestra — and, my dear,” she hesitated slightly, “he conducted with it.”

“How perfectly, fascinatingly too horrid for words!” said Mrs. Culverin in a dazed but greedy voice. “We must have him to dinner as soon as he comes over — he is coming over, isn’t he?”

“The twelfth,” said Mrs. Dingle with a gleam in her eyes. “The New Symphony people have asked him to be guest-conductor for three special concerts — I do hope you can dine with us some night while he’s here — he’ll be very busy, of course — but he’s promised to give us what time he can spare—”

“Oh, thank you, dear,” said Mrs. Culverin, abstractedly, her last raid upon Mrs. Dingle’s pet British novelist still fresh in her mind. “You’re always so delightfully hospitable — but you mustn’t wear yourself out — the rest of us must do our part — I know Harry and myself would be only too glad to—”

“That’s very sweet of you, darling.” Mrs. Dingle also remembered the larceny of the British novelist. “But we’re just going to give Monsieur Tibault — sweet name, isn’t it! They say he’s descended from the Tybalt in ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and that’s why he doesn’t like Shakespeare — we’re just going to give Monsieur Tibault the simplest sort of time — a little reception after his first concert, perhaps. He hates,” she looked around the table, “large, mixed parties. And then, of course, his... er... little idiosyncrasy—” she coughed delicately. “It makes him feel a trifle shy with strangers.”

“But I don’t understand yet, Aunt Emily,” said Tommy Brooks, Mrs. Dingle’s nephew. “Do you really mean this Tibault bozo has a tail? Like a monkey and everything?”

“Tommy dear,” said Mrs. Culverin, crushingly, “in the first place Monsieur Tibault is not a bozo — he is a very distinguished musician — the finest conductor in Europe. And in the second place—”

“He has,” Mrs. Dingle was firm. “He has a tail. He conducts with it.”

“Oh, but honestly!” said Tommy, his ears pinkening, “I mean — of course, if you say so, Aunt Emily, I’m sure he has — but still, it sounds pretty steep, if you know what I mean! How about it, Professor Tatto?”

Professor Tatto cleared his throat. “Tck,” he said, putting his fingertips together cautiously, “I shall be very anxious to see this Monsieur Tibault. For myself, I have never observed a genuine specimen of homo caudatus, so I should be inclined to doubt, and yet... In the Middle Ages, for instance, the belief in men... er... tailed or with caudal appendages of some sort, was both widespread and, as far as we can gather, well-founded. As late as the Eighteenth Century, a Dutch sea-captain with some character for veracity, recounts the discovery of a pair of such creatures in the island of Formosa. They were in a low state of civilization, I believe, but the appendages in question were quite distinct. And in 1860, Dr. Grimbrook, the English surgeon, claims to have treated no less than three African natives with short but evident tails — though his testimony rests upon his unsupported word. After all, the thing is not impossible, though doubtless unusual. Web feet — rudimentary gills — these occur with some frequency. The appendix we have with us always. The chain of our descent from the ape-like form is by no means complete. For that matter,” he beamed around the table, “what can we call the last few vertebras of the normal spine but the beginnings of a concealed and rudimentary tail? Oh, yes... yes — it’s possible — quite — that in an extraordinary case — a reversion to type — a survival — though, of course—”

“I told you so,” said Mrs. Dingle triumphantly. “Isn’t it fascinating? Isn’t it, Princess?”

The Princess Vivrakanarda’s eyes, blue as a field of larkspur, fathomless as the center of heaven, rested lightly for a moment on Mrs. Dingle’s excited countenance.