The Beetle (The Pieter Van In Mysteries)

by Richard Marsh

The eyes came on,—noiselessly. At first they were between two and three feet from the ground; but, on a sudden, there was a squelching sound, as if some yielding body had been squashed upon the floor. The eyes vanished,—to reappear, a moment afterwards, at what I judged to be a distance of some six inches from the floor. And they again came on.

after all, I told myself that it was impossible that I could have been such a simpleton as to have been mistaken on such a question as gender—was

‘Take my advice, don’t appreciate any man too highly. In the book of every man’s life there is a page which he would wish to keep turned down.’

it is essential to a politician that he should have his firmest friends among the fools; or his climbing days will soon be over.

are you not aware that it is an attribute of small minds to attempt to belittle those which are greater? Even if you are conscious of inferiority, it’s unwise to show it.

The fellow was oriental to the finger-tips,—that much was certain; yet in spite of a pretty wide personal knowledge of oriental people I could not make up my mind as to the exact part of the east from which he came. He was hardly an Arab, he was not a fellah,—he was not, unless I erred, a Mohammedan at all. There was something about him which was distinctly not Mussulmanic. So far as looks were concerned, he was not a flattering example of his race, whatever his race might be. The portentous size of his beak-like nose would have been, in itself, sufficient to damn him in any court of beauty. His lips were thick and shapeless,—and this, joined to another peculiarity in his appearance, seemed to suggest that, in his veins there ran more than a streak of negro blood. The peculiarity alluded to was his semblance of great age.

there is more in heaven and earth than is dreamed of in our philosophy.

And, when we were in, I shut, and locked, and barred the door.

I had not,—not one single wink. When I did get between the sheets, ‘all night I lay in agony,’ I suffered from that worst form of nightmare,—the nightmare of the man who is wide awake. There was continually before my fevered eyes the strange figure of that Nameless Thing. I had often smiled at tales of haunted folk,—here was I one of them.

‘Hate them?—I thought you’d come to see an illustration.’ ‘And pray what was your notion of an illustration?’ ‘Well, another cat would have had to be killed, at least.’ ‘And do you suppose that I would have sat still while a cat was being killed for my—edification?’ ‘It needn’t necessarily have been a cat, but something would have had to be killed,—how are you going to illustrate the death-dealing propensities of a weapon of that sort without it?’ ‘Is it possible that you imagine that I came here to see something killed?’ ‘Then for what did you come?’

What it proves is simply,—that he’s a nothing and a nobody. Had he been anything or anyone, something would have been known about him, either for or against.

And on your side, Atherton, in the meantime, deal with me more gently. Judgment in my case has still to be given. You will find that I am not the guilty wretch you apparently imagine. And there are few things more disagreeable to one’s self-esteem than to learn, too late, that one has persisted in judging another man too harshly.

‘My position is not rendered easier by the circumstance that I am not of a communicative nature. I am not in sympathy with the spirit of the age which craves for personal advertisement. I hold that the private life even of a public man should be held inviolate. I resent, with peculiar bitterness, the attempts of prying eyes to peer into matters which, as it seems to me, concern myself alone.