Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 50, No. 1. Whole No. 284, July 1967

The Special Gift by Celia Fremlin

We are delighted to welcome Celia Fremlin to EQMM. Her first appearance is an unusual story, one of the five winners of Second Prizes in the EQMM-CWA (Crime Writers Association) short-story contest...

Celia Fremlin was raised in the little Kentish village of Ryarsh. She won a scholarship to Somerville College, Oxford, where she received a B.A. and a B. Litt. In 1959 her novel, THE HOURS BEFORE DAWN, won the Mystery Writers of America “Edgar” for the best mystery novel of the preceding year. Her other novels include WAIT FOR THE WEDDING, THE TROUBLE MAKERS, and THE JEALOUS ONE.

And now we give you Miss Fremlin’s unusual prize-winning story — unusual, you will see, for EQMM too. “The Special Gift” has an Alice-in-Wonderland quality of quiet terror: be prepared for a cauld grue, for a frisson d’horreur...

Eileen glanced disconsolately at the little group cowering round the fire in her big, cold sitting room. Only five of them tonight. It was the weather, of course, that was keeping most of the members away; not everyone was willing to battle through wind and sleet just for the pleasure of reading aloud to one another their amateur attempts at writing, and receiving some equally amateur criticism.

Still, thought Eileen, drawing her cardigan more tightly about her, it was a pity; these meetings weren’t nearly so much fun with only a few. A crowd might have made it seem a bit warmer, too.

“Well, do you think we ought to begin, Mr. Wilberforce?” she said, sitting down on the big horsehair ottoman next to the secretary.

Mr. Wilberforce, a plump, important-looking man in his fifties, glanced at the clock, rubbing his pink hands together.

“Only twenty past,” he said. “Better give them a few more minutes. The snow, you know — buses—”

“I think we should start,” piped up old Mrs. Peterkin, peering out like a little aggrieved mouse from the depths of the fur coat she had refused to take off. “We’ve got a lot to get through this evening. I’ve brought one of my little tales of unrequited love, if you’d care to hear it. And I’m sure Miss Williams here” — she indicated a pleasant, vacantly smiling girl on her right — “I’m sure Miss Williams has brought us another chapter of her psychological novel. And Mr. Walters” — the pale young man lowered his eyelashes self-consciously — “we hope Mr. Walters is going to read us another of his Ballads of the Seasons. It’ll be summer this time, won’t it, Mr. Walters?”

“Yes, it will be summer,” agreed Mr. Walters, speaking rapidly and staring at the carpet. “But not summer in the conventional sense, you understand. Now, my interpretation of summer—”

A sharp, imperative ring at the front door brought Eileen to her feet, and she hurried eagerly out of the room. One more makes six, she was thinking, that’s not too bad; all the same, I wish I hadn’t made all those cheese sandwiches...

A gust of wind and snow swirled into her face as she opened the front door, and the little dark man seemed almost to be blown in by it, so slight and thin in his dark coat.

“You haven’t been to these meetings before, have you?” Eileen was beginning — and then stopped, for in the dimness of the hall the stranger seemed to be staring at her with a delighted recognition.

“We... we haven’t met before, have we?” she went on awkwardly; and the little man seemed to rouse himself.

“Why... er... no,” he said hastily, shaking the snow from his boots onto the doormat. “No, indeed, I assure you! I just... well, I had a feeling—”

Again he stared at her with that odd look of recognition in his eyes; and for some reason Eileen began to feel uncomfortable; for some reason she became very eager to escape the piercing gaze of this stranger in the dimly lit hall.

“Come along and meet the others,” she said nervously, and led him briskly into the sitting room.

“Fitzroy is my name,” the dark man introduced himself. “Alan Fitzroy.”

He glanced round the company with dark, sparkling eyes, and there was a little stir of interest. Not that anybody had ever heard of him, but something in the way he spoke made them feel that perhaps they ought to have heard of him. Perhaps, each of them was thinking, perhaps this at last is the real writer I have always hoped would turn up! The real writer who not only gets his own work published, but who will be able to tell me how to get mine published; who will recognize it as the fine work it really is...

With such thoughts behind them, five pairs of eyes followed the little man as he moved toward the fire; eager hands drew up a comfortable armchair for him; eager voices plied him with questions.

But Alan Fitzroy was not very communicative. No, he didn’t know any of the members of this group. No (modestly) he didn’t write much — well, not very much. No, he hadn’t brought anything to read — well, not really — anyway, let everyone else read something first, please!

And so the meeting began. Alan Fitzroy sat motionless, his eyes closed. To everyone’s disappointment he took no part in the comments and criticisms that followed each reading, and it was only when he was asked for his contribution that he roused himself.

“Well,” he admitted, “I have brought a little thing. Actually, it’s part of a larger work. I’m writing my autobiography, you see.”

He looked round the room expectantly, and there was an almost audible sigh of disappointment. This, somehow, didn’t sound like a real writer; it sounded much more like an ordinary member of the group. However—

“I want you to understand,” the stranger continued, “that the whole object of my book is to bring the reader into real contact with my ego — to draw him, or her, into the life of my mind in a way which I believe has never been done before...”

As he spoke, he fixed his brilliant eyes on Eileen’s face, and again she felt a little flicker of uneasiness — or was it even fear? Quite irrational, anyway, she assured herself; there couldn’t possibly be a more harmless little man; and she settled herself to listen as he began to read from a thick, dog-eared manuscript.

“The self-doubt and self-awareness of any repressed, frustrated childhood...”

The voice went on and on. At intervals Eileen glanced at the clock. She hoped that Mr. Fitzroy wouldn’t be offended if she went out and made the tea before he had finished. She hoped, too, that he hadn’t noticed that Mrs. Peterkin was asleep inside her fur coat and might at any moment begin to snore.

Mr. Wilberforce, at Eileen’s side, was fiercely making notes on the back of one of his own manuscripts. No doubt he was building up a pungent criticism of the weary verbiage through which this poor little man was plowing.

“Go easy with him!” whispered Eileen softly; somehow it seemed very important to her that nothing should be said to upset the newcomer. “Remember he’s new.” But Mr. Wilberforce only nodded his head irritably and went on writing.

Wasn’t it ever coming to an end? But listen! At last! Those, surely, must be the concluding sentences:

“To point the significance of these psychodynamic disturbances to my infantile ego, I must relate a nocturnal hallucination from which I used to suffer. Or, in common parlance, a dream. I dreamed I was walking along a passage, a long stone passage, my feet clanging as I went, as if I were wearing boots of steel or armor or something like that. At the end of the passage I knew I should find my cradle — the cradle I’d had as a baby — and I should have to get into it and lie down. And I knew that as I lay there, I would see a face slowly rising over the side of the cradle, and the face would be mad. I never knew what would happen next, because I always woke up — in fact, I always woke up before I had even reached the end of the passage.”

Abruptly the little man laid down his manuscript. He looked round triumphantly, and there was a little embarrassed silence, broken by a snore from Mrs. Peterkin.

“Well,” said Eileen at last, wondering how to avoid hurting the little man’s feelings. “It’s a very profound piece of work, of course—”

“But it’s too long!” exploded Mr. Wilberforce. “And too self-centered, too self pitying! You’ve used the word ‘I’ eighty-seven times in the first six pages! I was counting!”

Alan Fitzroy turned on him indignantly.

“But I have to use the word ‘I’! The whole book is about myself — I told you! The idea is to get the reader involved with me — to bring him right into my very mind, if you understand me—”

“I understand you perfectly,” said Mr. Wilberforce heavily, ignoring Eileen’s nudges. “The idea is far from being a novel one. But if you will allow me to say so, I think you are deceiving yourself. You speak of bringing the reader right into your mind, and in fact you don’t even interest him. The whole thing is too wordy, too abstract. There’s nothing in it to grip the attention.”

The little man flushed angrily.

“Nothing to grip the attention?” he cried. “What about that dream, eh? Doesn’t that grip your attention? Doesn’t it?”

“Frankly, no,” answered Mr. Wilberforce. “It’s simply an account of a childish nightmare such as all of us have had at one time or another. I appreciate that it may have fright-need you as a child, but believe me, it won’t frighten anyone else!”

The little man was trembling with rage now.

“It will frighten people!” he almost screamed. “It will! I have a special gift for this sort of thing, I know I have! Let me tell you, a person once died of fright from hearing that dream!”

There was an awkward little silence. No one knew what to say to that absurd boast. Eileen got hastily to her feet.

“I think we all need a cup of tea!” she said, loudly and brightly, and escaped from the room. As she hurried down the passage to the kitchen, she became aware that Audrey Williams, the young psychological novelist, was following her.

“Thought I might help you, dear,” explained Audrey, and added, as she piled cups and saucers onto a tray, “Whoever is that pompous little ass, do you suppose?”

“I can’t think,” said Eileen. “I felt rather sorry for him, really. He must have worked terribly hard on all that stuff, you know. He had chapters and chapters of it written.”

“You’re telling me!” giggled Audrey. “I thought at one point that he was proposing to read the whole lot! I nearly died...” Her voice trailed away, and both women were aware of Alan Fitzroy standing silently in the doorway.

“Funny you should say that,” he said, looking straight at Audrey. “And you?” he went on, turning to Eileen. “Did you nearly die, too?”

Eileen flushed. No wonder the poor little chap was bitter! It was shameful of Mr. Wilberforce to have laced into a newcomer like that!

She said gently, “Don’t take too much notice of Mr. Wilberforce. He’s a very stern critic. He’s like that to all of us sometimes, isn’t he, Audrey?”

Audrey Williams nodded dumbly; and Alan Fitzroy spoke again, addressing himself to Eileen.

“And what did you think of my little effort? I sense a certain sympathy in you. Were you impressed by my dream?”

“Why — yes—” lied Eileen nervously, searching for words. “I thought it was quite — well, quite unusual. If you’d brought it in a bit sooner, though, instead of quite so much theory in the beginning—”

“But I do bring it in sooner!” exclaimed the little man eagerly — he seemed to have quite recovered his temper. “I bring it in all through the book — just as it has come to me at intervals all through my life. But the reader doesn’t know why I keep repeating it until the last episode! Don’t you think that’s a good idea? Keeping him in suspense, that kind of thing?”

He glanced with pathetic eagerness from one to the other of the two women; and Eileen, anxious to show the poor fellow a little encouragement, paused in fanning biscuits on a plate to say, “Do tell us: what is the last episode?”

“Oh, well, you see, it was like this. This dream used to worry me, it really did. I’m not a nervous man — that is to say, my type of nerves, as I explain in—”

Hastily Eileen brought him back to the point.

“But the dream?” she said, counting out teaspoons onto the tray, and Alan Fitzroy continued, “Yes, yes. The dream. What worried me, you see, was that each time I dreamed it I got little farther down the passage toward the cradle, where I knew I would have to lie down and see the Face. In the end I was so worried about it that I told my wife. ‘If only you could be with me, my dear,’ I said — just in fun, you understand — ‘Then I wouldn’t be so scared.’

“Well, that very night I dreamed it again, and, believe it or not, she was there! She was walking along in front of me, wearing her old dark dressing gown. She was a big woman, my wife — a big strong woman, and she quite blocked my view of the cradle — the cradle where I knew the madness would begin. So I felt quite safe. I didn’t mind the dream a bit. And when I woke up—”

The little man looked eagerly from Eileen to Audrey, like a conjuror bringing off a successful trick. “When I woke up, what do you think my wife told me?”

“Why, that she’d had the dream too, of course!” said Audrey promptly — wasn’t that the obvious climax to the tale?

But Alan Fitzroy shook his head. “No,” he said. “No, that didn’t come till later. No, she told me that as she lay there, her head near to mine, she heard what she thought was my watch ticking under my pillow. But a funny, metallic tick, she said — like a far-off clanging of armor, or of steel boots. And then she knew that it didn’t come from under the pillow but from inside my head. It was my boots clanging in my dream, you see, and she’d heard them.”

Eileen and Audrey had drawn close together. Eileen’s voice trembled a little.

“I think we ought to take the tea in—” she began; but the little man laid his hand on her arm beseechingly.

“Just one moment more!” he begged. “Just a few more words! After that, whenever I dreamed that dream, my wife would hear the clanging in my head, louder each night, until at last she had the dream, too! The clanging somehow forced her to go to sleep, she told me, though she tried hard to stay awake — and there she was, she said, right in my dream, walking down the passage in front of me, bearing my boots clanging behind her. What do you think of that?”

Eileen had recovered herself. Of course, this was just a piece of fiction on which he wanted her opinion. Mr. Wilberforce’s crushing comments on the autobiography had stung him into trying to enliven it.

“Well,” she said consideringly. “I suppose you could work that up into something quite dramatic. But however would you end it?”

“The way it did end, of course!” said the little man sharply. “It ended with my wife actually getting into the cradle. Naturally. It was my dream, wasn’t it, and I made it end that way. Though there were one or two terrible struggles first. I told you, my wife was a big strong woman.”

“And... and what happens to her in it?” asked Eileen. “Does she see the face? And does she tell you afterwards what it was like?”

“Oh, no!” said the little man, sounding surprised. “Of course not. She couldn’t tell me any more after she’d got into the cradle. Naturally. She wasn’t dead, but she was an imbecile by then. I found her in bed in the morning, all curled up as she would have to be to fit into this little cradle, and she could no longer talk. Naturally. That would be the effect of looking at the Face.”

Eileen and Audrey glanced at each other. Each noticed that the other had gone rather white; but the little man went cheerfully on, apparently unaware of their dismay.

“They took her away, of course, and put her into some sort of home. But it was all right — I knew I was safe now, because if she was in the cradle, then of course I couldn’t be, could I? Every time I had the dream there she was, filling up the whole cradle in her dark dressing gown so that I couldn’t even see it. I felt wonderfully safe for months.

“Until, one night, she wasn’t there any more. That was terrible for me. I knew then she must be dead — and sure enough the next day I had word from the Home that this was the case. But come—” he seemed suddenly to rouse himself — “I mustn’t keep you ladies from your tea — allow me!” And taking one of the two trays he hurried off to the sitting room.

Eileen and Audrey had only one thought — to get back to their companions. Hastily they loaded the other tray and a few moments later they were in the sitting room.

To their surprise Alan Fitzroy was no longer there.

“Oh, he left as soon as he’d brought the tray in,” explained Mr. Wilberforce. “Said he had to catch a train to Guildford, or somewhere. Asked me to apologize to you — why, what’s the matter with you?”

Eileen recounted briefly the story that Alan Fitzroy had told them in the kitchen, and Mr. Wilberforce looked grave.

“Fellow must be crazy!” he said. “I thought he looked funny. Wouldn’t have let him go if I’d known. Should have kept him, and rung the police.”

“Oh, I’m only too thankful he has gone!” said Eileen. “I don’t want a fuss. Besides, he must have meant it as fiction — though even so, he must be a hit abnormal to try—”

“Abnormal? Of course he was abnormal!” interrupted old Mrs. Peterkin. “I could see that the very first moment! ‘That’s an Egalomaniac!’ I said to myself—”

“Egomaniac,” corrected Audrey Williams, who was well up in the jargon needed for her novel. “Or do you mean megalomaniac—?”

The chatter went on, and the clink of tea cups, and Eileen felt more and more thankful that the strange little man had gone. Suppose he had been the last to go instead of the first? She couldn’t very well have forced him out—

Eleven o’clock now. One by one the members left, and finally Eileen was alone.

“I must get all this cleared up,” she thought, glancing wearily round the untidy room; and she began to move about collecting ashtrays and dirty cups. As she passed the ottoman she noticed that Mr. Wilberforce had left his gloves there; and so she was not surprised when a moment later the front doorbell rang urgently.

But it was not Mr. Wilberforce. The little dark figure had slipped past her into the hall before she had properly taken in what was happening.

She gave a little gasp of horror — and then recovered herself. After all, he seemed a very innocuous little man, standing there under the hall light and asking if he could look at a timetable. He had missed his last train, he said, but maybe — on the other line — perhaps a connection at Croydon — if he might just study the timetable a moment?

Eileen had no alternative but to lead him into the sitting room and hand him the ABC. He settled himself in the armchair with it and was soon thumbing through its pages with apparent concentration. Eileen went on with her tidying, trying to appear quite unperturbed. After all, she was saying to herself, what can he do? I’m twice his size, a big strong woman—

Where had she heard that phrase before? The words echoed in her head — “My wife... a big strong woman.”

It was then that she noticed how quiet everything was. The rustling of the pages of the ABC had ceased; and when she looked across at him, Eileen saw that Alan Fitzroy was asleep. His head was leaning back against the chair, his mouth was open, and his face was rather white.

“He looks queer!” she thought, stepping closer. “I think perhaps I will ring the police. Luckily the phone’s in the kitchen, not in here, so it won’t wake him—”

And then she heard the noise. At first she thought it was a clicking in his throat, the prelude to a snore. But no, it wasn’t a click; it was a tiny clanking noise — distant — metallic — inside his head.

Eileen did not stop to put down the tray she was carrying. The telephone! The telephone! That was the only idea in her mind as she hurried through the door and started for the kitchen.

But how loud the clanking sound had grown! It seemed to be following her out of the room — along the passage — clank — clank — CLANK—

And where was the kitchen? How had this passage grown so long? And why were the walls of stone, and the floor too — stone that echoed to the clanking footsteps behind her—

She could not look behind. She could only hurry on, and on and on, down the echoing passage, until in front of her she saw the end. The delicate muslin frills, stirred ever so slightly by an unseen breath. The lacy pillow, white and waiting. The coverlet, just recently turned back, in readiness, by an unseen hand.

With a strength she never knew she possessed, Eileen made herself stand still.

“It’s a dream, it’s a dream!” she told herself. “If I won’t go with it, I’ll wake up! I won’t go with it! I won’t! I won’t! I won’t!”

The clanking feet behind came nearer. Hands were pushing-pushing — fighting with her, and Eileen fought back — with that dim, strengthless fighting of dreams, which yet somehow takes all a person’s strength and more — I won’t! gasped Eileen silently. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t!

A crash seemed to split her eardrums, and she found she could open her eyes. She opened them on her own kitchen, on the tray of crockery lying smashed at her feet. Sweat was running down her face, and tears of relief came into her eyes.

A dream, of course! A sleepwalking dream brought on by that awful little man, and perhaps by over-tiredness. Why, it must have been part of the dream that he ever came back to ask for a timetable at all! Light-hearted in her relief, Eileen hurried back to the sitting room.

No. That at least hadn’t been a dream. But Alan Fitzroy was no longer sitting upright in his chair. He was sprawled on the floor as if he had been struck down in a violent fight, and blood was trickling from his head where it had struck the fireplace fender in his fall.

For one insane moment Eileen thought of that dream struggle at the edge of the cradle — one of them had had to fall — and then, collecting her wits, she rushed to telephone the doctor...

The doctor felt the little man’s pulse, his heart; then he shook his head.

“Not a hope, I’m afraid,” he said. “You’ll have to phone the police, my dear, and get them to find out where he comes from and everything. You go and phone them now, while I attend to the poor fellow.”

But why was Eileen still standing there, motionless?

“Go on — phone!” said the doctor irritably. It was bad enough to be called out to a fatal heart attack at this time of night, without a hysterical woman delaying things. “Go on, the telephone!”

As if in a trance, Eileen moved toward the door — along the passage toward the kitchen. After all, perhaps it had been the doctor’s watch chain making that tiny clanking noise. Yes, he must still be rattling his watch chain now — louder — louder — LOUDER—