Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth

Troubling rumours from Europe. A cloudy day. The Clerk and his workmen set up equipment to raise the lid of the well and, if necessary, let me down into it. Bertie was there whenever he could to watch progress, which was painfully slow. In the first place nobody could find the keys to the padlocks which secured the wooden lid to the wall, so they had to be smashed off by main force. It was beginning to get dark before the lid was raised.

The first of our surprises when the well was finally uncovered was the smell. A faint but still unpalatable odour, as of rotten fish, wafted up to us from the bottom of the well which was so deep that my torch could not penetrate its abysses. I noticed, however, that the well was skilfully made with dressed stone forming a perfect cylinder. The walls were virtually black and covered with a thin layer of darkish slime like the tracks of a thousand snails. We had not rope enough to let me down to the bottom, but I noticed that, some thirty feet below, steps had been built into the wall. They descended in an elegant spiral into the unseen depths and looked manageable.

Bertie, like the ass he is, dropped a stone down the well. No splash was heard. Instead there was a sort of cracking sound that reverberated in an odd way. Perhaps the Gesta was right and there are caverns down there. That blighter Bertie then decided to try out the echo with his voice and sang what he assured me was an E flat above Middle C. The echo lasted a good ten seconds after he had stopped singing and was strange. Once it was over and I had started to tell Bertie off for his fat-headed behaviour, we both heard another sound come from the well which was most certainly not Bertie’s voice. It lasted only for a second or so, but it sounded distinctly as if some thing or things down there were scratching or fluttering about.

Bertie was all for investigating, but I told him not to be an idiot. It was late, it was getting dark and we had done enough for the day. I told the workmen to replace the lid over the well, and it was then that we received our last surprise of the day. On the underside of the lid I noticed that something black had been nailed to the wood. A quick examination showed it to be a crucifix of heavily tarnished silver, early twelfth century and of the finest Norman workmanship.

But what was it doing nailed to the wood, facing downwards into the blackness with nothing and no one to see it?

I decided to leave that and other questions till a later date. I am staying at the Dean’s tonight, so as to start bright and early tomorrow. As I was walking back from the Cathedral towards the Deanery, I noticed that the rooks were making more than their usual fuss. They were wheeling around their elms, cawing away, apparently quite unable to settle for the night. A few distant dogs seemed to have caught their mood and began to howl.

Dinner at the Deanery with the Grices was, as I had rather expected, not a lively occasion. Dean Grice is given to rather pontifical remarks on general subjects and sees himself as having very “up-to-date” opinions. He talked with some pride of his time as a chaplain in the trenches during the Great War and gave me his opinion that it had been “the war to end all wars” and that that sort of thing should on no account ever happen again. Then he asked me what I thought of “Mr. Hitler”. It took me a second or two to understand whom he was referring to. He sounded as if he were talking about an erring member of his congregation.

Mrs. Dean has no conversation at all. Occasionally she will break her silence by simply repeating what her husband has just said. Needless to say I have retired early. I must try to get some sleep, but there seem to be an awful lot of barking or howling dogs about.

SEPTEMBER 22ND

I passed a pretty restless night. In addition to the dogs there were the cats. Everywhere they seemed to be out and about howling and screeching. One climbed up the sloping roof outside my window and started scrabbling at the window-pane. I tried to shoo it away several times, but it was persistent and plaintive. Finally I let it in and it made straight for my bed. I tried to push it off, but it mewed pathetically and curled itself up in the crook of my arm. There it stayed all night and, apart from purring rather too loudly, caused me no further trouble.