



Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org




THE THREE IMPOSTORS

or The Transmutations

by

ARTHUR MACHEN



TRANSLATOR OF 'L'HEPTAMERON' AND 'LE MOYEN DE PARVENIR';

AUTHOR OF 'THE CHRONICLE OF CLEMENDY' AND 'THE GREAT GOD PAN'



BOSTON: Roberts Bros, 1895

LONDON: John Lane, Vigo st.




CONTENTS

    PROLOGUE
    ADVENTURE OF THE GOLD TIBERIUS
    THE ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT
       NOVEL OF THE DARK VALLEY
    ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER
       NOVEL OF THE BLACK SEAL
    INCIDENT OF THE PRIVATE BAR
    THE DECORATIVE IMAGINATION
       NOVEL OF THE IRON MAID
    THE RECLUSE OF BAYSWATER
       NOVEL OF THE WHITE POWDER
    STRANGE OCCURRENCE IN CLERKENWELL
       HISTORY OF THE YOUNG MAN WITH SPECTACLES
    ADVENTURE OF THE DESERTED RESIDENCE




THE THREE IMPOSTORS.




PROLOGUE.


"And Mr. Joseph Walters is going to stay the night?" said the smooth
clean-shaven man to his companion, an individual not of the most
charming appearance, who had chosen to make his ginger- mustache
merge into a pair of short chin-whiskers.

The two stood at the hall door, grinning evilly at each other; and
presently a girl ran quickly down, the stairs, and joined them. She was
quite young, with a quaint and piquant rather than a beautiful face, and
her eyes were of a shining hazel. She held a neat paper parcel in one
hand, and laughed with her friends.

"Leave the door open," said the smooth man to the other, as they were
going out. "Yes, by----," he went on with an ugly oath. "We'll leave the
front door on the jar. He may like to see company, you know."

The other man looked doubtfully about him. "Is it quite prudent do you
think, Davies?" he said, pausing with his hand on the mouldering
knocker. "I don't think Lipsius would like it. What do you say, Helen?"

"I agree with Davies. Davies is an artist, and you are commonplace,
Richmond, and a bit of a coward. Let the door stand open, of course. But
what a pity Lipsius had to go away! He would have enjoyed himself."

"Yes," replied the smooth Mr. Davies, "that summons to the west was very
hard on the doctor."

The three passed out, leaving the hall door, cracked and riven with
frost and wet, half open, and they stood silent for a moment under the
ruinous shelter of the porch.

"Well," said the girl, "it is done at last. I shall hurry no more on the
track of the young man with spectacles."

"We owe a great deal to you," said Mr. Davies politely; "the doctor said
so before he left. But have we not all three some farewells to make? I,
for my part, propose to say good-by, here, before this picturesque but
mouldy residence, to my friend Mr. Burton, dealer in the antique and
curious," and the man lifted his hat with an exaggerated bow.

"And I," said Richmond, "bid adieu to Mr. Wilkins, the private
secretary, whose company has, I confess, become a little tedious."

"Farewell to Miss Lally, and to Miss Leicester also," said the girl,
making as she spoke a delicious courtesy. "Farewell to all occult
adventure; the farce is played."

Mr. Davies and the lady seemed full of grim enjoyment, but Richmond
tugged at his whiskers nervously.

"I feel a bit shaken up," he said. "I've seen rougher things in the
States, but that crying noise he made gave me a sickish feeling. And
then the smell--But my stomach was never very strong."

The three friends moved away from the door, and began to walk slowly up
and down what had been a gravel path, but now lay green and pulpy with
damp mosses. It was a fine autumn evening, and a faint sunlight shone on
the yellow walls of the old deserted house, and showed the patches of
gangrenous decay, and all the stains, the black drift of rain from the
broken pipes, the scabrous blots where the bare bricks were exposed, the
green weeping of a gaunt laburnum that stood beside the porch, and
ragged marks near the ground where the reeking clay was gaining on the
worn foundations. It was a queer rambling old place, the centre perhaps
two hundred years old, with dormer windows sloping from the tiled roof,
and on each side there were Georgian wings; bow windows had been carried
up to the first floor, and two dome-like cupolas