19 Nocturne Boulevard - Lovecraft 5: THE FACTS CONCERNING.... - Reissue

Adapted by Julie Hoverson from the story "The Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and his Family" by H.P. Lovecraft The "Lovecraft 5" - Warren, Herbert, Charles, Edward, and Richard - gather again for another night of tall tales.  Tonight, Warren regales the group with a history of a noble house that ... went downhill. Cast List Warren - Glen Hallstrom Charles - Michael Coleman (Tales of the Extraordinary) Richard - Philemon Vanderbeck Edward - Bryan Hendricksen Herbert - Carl Cubbedge M. Verhaeren - Domien De Groot (The Witch Hunter Chronicles) Mwanu - Danar Hoverson Soames - Ayoub Khote Music by  Skidmore College Orchestra, found on MusOpen Editing and Sound:   Julie Hoverson Cover Design:  Brett Coulstock "What kind of a place is it? Why it's a private dining room at a well-known New England University, can't you tell?" ************************************************************** The Facts Concerning.... Cast: Warren Herbert Charles Edward Richard Verhaeren Mwanu Soames OLIVIA     What do you mean, what kind of a place is it?  Why, it's a private dining room in a college faculty wing, can't you tell?  MUSIC 1_dinner SOUND     DINNER ENDING SOUND    WINDOWS ARE OPEN, MUSIC IN THE DISTANCE WARREN    So nice to have you all here.  The weather has been so mild, I feared it would destroy any atmosphere I might have expected for my story.  And the orchestra would be in rehearsal.  RICHARD    At least it's rather somber.  HERBERT    A clear day can mean a darker night.  RICHARD    True. HERBERT    Depending on the phase of the moon. CHARLES    Yes.  Well, the dinner was-- EDWARD    Passable. RICHARD    Oh!  Faint praise indeed, coming from our resident starving writer. WARREN    Do you know, I believe the college's food plan is quite brililant! EDWARD    Brilliant?  Are they strapped for economy? WARREN    You see, the food is precisely enough to sustain life, but without anything so extravagant as taste, which might take one's mind off one's studies. HERBERT    I found it perfectly adequate. CHARLES    But very little in this world will take your mind off your science, Herbert. EDWARD    How about having the studies take our mind off the food then?  We came for a story. RICHARD    And I perceive a box on the table behind you which does not match the décor - or the amount of dust - in this room. WARREN    [chuckles] You artists notice everything.  Though your comment on dust surprises me - after seeing your "house". RICHARD    It "does things" for me.  Inspiration. HERBERT    At least this place, while old, is well maintained. WARREN    Not so old as all that.  The dining hall wing wasn't built until 1804.  Very recent, comparatively.  But my story. 2_the box SOUND    CARDBOARD BOX MOVED WARREN    I warn you I have a little idea as to presentation - after that night at your place, Richard, I wanted something unique-- HERBERT    Don't expect anything like that from me.  CHARLES    Don't worry.  We don't. WARREN    I have this rather long history to my tale, you see, and I know I tend to wax a bit pedantic, so I thought I would help to set certain facts in the mind by beginning with a bit of a game. EDWARD    I'm game.  Is it questions, again? WARREN    No.  I have a small description written for each of the major players in the history of the story, and thought I might give one to each of you - well, each of us, for I include myself - to portray.  It would help keep them all straight. CHARLES    Is it necessary to keep them straight? WARREN    I think it will help make the history flow.  It's a technique of acting out history used to great advantage by Mrs. Schartz-Mettaklume [reference to a comedic story by Saki], a fellow teacher here. HERBERT    [disparaging] Amateur dramatics? WARREN    Oh, you needn't do more than read from the card.  I don't expect strutting about and soliloquizing. CHARLES    [declaring] It sounds amusing. EDWARD    I'm in. RICHARD    You may be in for more than you expected, old pal. SOUND    PASSING OUT CARDS WARREN    Good, then.  Let's see - Herbert, here, then Charles, Edward, and Richard.  The cards have only the basics on each of the fellows - they're generations in a single family, you see - and the back side is a name plate, to aid in recalling who is who. HERBERT    [sour] Charming.  [after a pause]  You're staring.  Am I supposed to begin? CHARLES    I could go first.  EDWARD    [reading his card]  Oh, no!  Let me! WARREN    No, no, I will begin the tale, and then we'll go around the table.  You will be second, though, Herbert. HERBERT    At least it will be over with early. RICHARD    That must mean I am the climax of the tale! EDWARD    Oh, you got nothing on me.  Just wait. 3_Sir Wade WARREN    Ahem.  We begin with Sir Wade Jermyn.  [reading, putting on a bit of a British accent] I was one of the earliest explorers of the Congo region, and had written eruditely of its tribes, animals, and supposed antiquities. RICHARD    Are we supposed to be British?  You haven't really given us any background. WARREN    Oh, yes.  The Jermyn family was part of a well-respected house in England, though it has ...um... died out. CHARLES    So these are not only brits, but long-dead brits?  Are we doing Shakespeare? WARREN    We needn't worry about accents. HERBERT    I should say not. WARREN    I don't want to lose my place or I might have to start again.  "Indeed, my innovative conjectures on a prehistoric white Congolese civilisation were the basis for my book, "Observation on the Several Parts of Africa," published in 1765.  I, fearless adventurer that I once had been, was then placed in a madhouse." HERBERT    That sounds a bit promising.  Madness is quite fascinating. WARREN    I have a strong hope that there will be details in this story to intrigue you, Herbert.  Have you ever looked into the study of ethnology? HERBERT    Hmm...  Should I read now? CHARLES    History first.  Quick precis. WARREN    Well, this family - the Jermyns, are not German [chuckle], but British.  And there's this - the history of the family is quite interesting, but it ended recently with the death of the final generation - a son - just one - who... uh... set himself on fire when he discovered something about his heritage. EDWARD    He set himself on fire?  RICHARD    Now I'm interested. CHARLES    You've got our attention. HERBERT    It's not some simple defect like a harelip?  A club foot?  WARREN    Much more than that.  Let's begin again.  [quick recap] I am Sir Wade Jermyn, famous explorer of the Congo region.  I wrote a book, and went mad. now... 4_philip HERBERT    Me next, I suppose?  [not really trying]  This one is Sir Wade's son, Philip. WARREN    Sir Philip. HERBERT    "Philip was a highly peculiar person. His appearance and conduct were in many particulars so coarse that he was universally shunned. Though he did not inherit his father's madness, he was densely stupid--" EDWARD    [laughs!] HERBERT    "--and given to periods of uncontrollable violence."  Is this supposed to be funny? WARREN    [baffled?] Funny? HERBERT    Did you give me this one on purpose? WARREN    Well, yes, but only because it was the shortest - I felt you'd have less interest in the dramatic and more in getting it over with. HERBERT    Hmph. CHARLES    Is that the sum of your wisdom, great sir Philip? HERBERT    No, there's more-- WARREN    I forgot to mention, it's just the first part now.  We'll come back to you. EDWARD    So Herbert is violent and stupid, what are YOU Charles? CHARLES    [hamming it up a bit]  I am Robert - Sir Robert - Jermyn, son of Philip and the daughter of his gamekeeper.  [offhand] They'll let anyone in, won't they?  Oh!  I am "Tall and fairly handsome, with a sort of weird Eastern grace.  A scholar and investigator, I studied scientifically the vast collection of relics which my mad grandfather brought from Africa. HERBERT    You should have given me the scientist.  At least I would know where I stand. CHARLES    Robert is an ethnologist and explorer, not a hard scientist. HERBERT    Even so. 5_alfred EDWARD    My turn!  I am Sir Alfred Jermyn, son of Nevil - wait, are we missing someone? WARREN    No, um Nevil is the son of Robert - you're Robert's grandson. EDWARD    Where's Nevil then? WARREN    He's um - we didn't have enough people.  I felt we could skip over Nevil - I'll fill in his details, should they become necessary. EDWARD    All right. WARREN    Don't worry - You'll like Alfred.  He ran away with the circus. EDWARD    What?  You're joking, right? WARREN    No, no - he actually literally ran away with the circus.  We'll come back to that. RICHARD    So I am Sir Arthur Jermyn.  Son of Alfred, the circus performer and a Music Hall singer.  [laughs]  And they blink at who we Americans decide to marry.  Arthur is a poet and a dreamer.  Oh, Warren, you had too much fun choosing who was to play what, didn't you?  "The poetic delicacy of Arthur Jermyn was the more remarkable because of his uncouth personal appearance. His expression, his facial angle, and the length of his arms gave a thrill of repulsion to those who met him for the first time." HERBERT    Sounds a bit like Abraham Lincoln. CHARLES    You know, it does.  How odd.  So now we know who we are.  What's next? 6_wade again WARREN    We go back to the beginning.  And that's me, Sir Wade.  Oh, first, there's been mention of the physical oddities that crept into the family line - I should state that before Sir Wade's time, portraits showed that the family was very typical of English nobility.  RICHARD    Chinless and pasty? CHARLES    Now now.  Every brit I've ever met has been perfectly nice. WARREN    You have to remember Sir Wade's era was the mid-18th century.  And there is no record of any physical issues, or madness before his time.  Or at least not out of the ordinary for the time and place. HERBERT    And state of medicine. WARREN    True.  Sir Wade made several trips to Africa, returning from one of those trips with a reclusive bride and new born son. EDWARD    And that's Herbert. HERBERT    Philip. WARREN    This bride was notable, for no one ever saw her - or at least not much of her.  She was supposed to have been the daughter of a Portuguese trader who despised English ways, and wouldn't have any English servants.  Wade  humored her, and put her up in a wing of her own at the estate, where no one saw her, or the child, but Wade himself. EDWARD    A woman who doesn't want go out to gossip or shop?  Quite a mythological figure. WARREN    His wife had accompanied him back from the second and longest of his trips, and left again with him on the third and final, never to return. RICHARD    But Wade returned - he hasn't yet gone mad.  We're all waiting for that. WARREN    The only thing ever said about the wife - even her name is left unrecorded - was that she had a violent disposition.  While they made the journey back to Africa, Wade would permit no one to care for his young son save a loathsome native woman from Guinea. EDWARD    This family sure knows how to pick their women, don't they? CHARLES    I notice you don't give names for any of them.  Funny how wives tend to be forgotten in these epic histories. WARREN    There's one among them, Arthur's mother herself, who was actually quite a fascinating character, and I might look further into her antecedents - but for the most part, the family made some odd choices, indeed. HERBERT    So far, I get the feeling that this is leading to a disquisition on eugenics, rather than on ethnology.  In other words, take a so-called "noble house" and marry in, generation after generation, people of dubious merits, and see how the line flows. WARREN    Well... that's a part of it. HERBERT    I'm rather surprised.  It is fascinating.  I've heard of similar experiments with rats - much easier to observe since their generations are months, rather than decades, apart.  And of course the difficulties of convincing a human family to participate. WARREN    I'm just pleased you're so enthusiastic.  Go ahead and read the second card, then. 7_second card HERBERT    Right.  [a bit more enthusiastically than the first time]  "As Philip grew out of infancy, his father started to avoid him, muttering wild stories about his encounters in Africa, but never making anything clear.  Philip grew up small but powerful, with incredible agility.  He married, but before his son was born, he joined the navy as a common sailor.  He made his way onto a merchantman in the African trade, and gained a reputation for feats of strength and climbing." EDWARD    Wait a minute - this is not gonna just turn into a big argument against intermarrying with native tribespeople, is it?  Was Wade's wife a Zulu or something? WARREN    Oh, no.  I would say that was surprisingly far from the point of the history, though you might well suspect it, since so much of the story centers around Africa.  But no, none of the individuals involved are Africans, tribal or otherwise. CHARLES    Interesting, I had a little idea about that myself. WARREN    Put it aside and let's finish with Philip. HERBERT    Ah, one last note.  Philip disappeared one night as the ship... what ship?  Ah, the merchantman.  As the ship lay off the Congo coast. EDWARD    Maybe he went looking for his mother - you said she went back to the Congo and never returned, right? RICHARD    And Philip was never heard from again? WARREN    More or less.  CHARLES    Oh? WARREN    Rumors.  We'll be there later. CHARLES    Me then? WARREN    Another short interlude - some details about Sir Wade's madness.  He spent a great deal of time at the local pub-- EDWARD    While avoiding his son? WARREN    Actually yes.  But he had a tendancy to rave while in his cups. RICHARD    Doesn't everyone? WARREN    And it was this rather - ahem - random talk that chiefly led his friends to deem him mad. He would often speak of wild sights and scenes under a Congo moon; of the gigantic walls and pillars of a forgotten city, crumbling and vine-grown, and of damp, silent, stone steps leading interminably down into the darkness of abysmal treasure-vaults and inconceivable catacombs. RICHARD    Oh!  Yes, I can see it.  I never really considered the artistic possibilities of Africa.  Hmm. WARREN    It was particularly unwise of him to rave of the strange creatures that populated such a city.  For he boasted of what he found in the jungle and of how he dwelt among terrible ruins and the creatures that inhabited them.   CHARLES    Little wonder he was locked away. WARREN    The wonder lay in that he showed no particular regret when being shut up.  In fact, he seemed to find the confinement comforting - as if something were being locked out, rather than he being locked in. EDWARD    Hmm.  I must make a note. 7_Robert CHARLES    Feel free.  It's my turn to reveal the next bit. WARREN    Oh, I should add that Robert broke the cycle and married a perfectly acceptable woman - a daughter of the seventh Viscount Brightholme - rather than following the - um - family tendency to pick entertainers and other... women at random. HERBERT    Did it help the line at all? WARREN    Actually, no.  Of the three children they had, two were never seen - they were kept locked away.  Presumably due to some hereditary defect.  HERBERT    [interested] Interesting. CHARLES    May I? WARREN    Oh, yes - go ahead. CHARLES    Now Philip is tall and handsome-- HERBERT    No, I'm Philip. You're my son Robert. CHARLES    Of course.  Robert was quite the scholar.  He scientifically studied - as best as possible in 1815 - the vast collection of relics which his mad grandfather - that's you, Warren, brought from Africa.  WARREN    It's really quite a pity, the way early explorers looted everything in sight.  All those things are of great historical value, and should be in the hands of researchers, not adorning trophy rooms. EDWARD    I read in the paper recently about someone selling a mummy at one of the big art auction houses.  Maybe the college should buy it. HERBERT    Most of the items that have spent time in personal collections are worthless anyway - in any scientific sense.  Without any provenance, there's no way to tell the real from the fake. WARREN    Precisely.  CHARLES    Can "Robert" get a word in edgewise? WARREN    So sorry.  Go on. CHARLES    Robert spent a great deal of time on his own expeditions into the interior of Africa.  In 1849, his second son, Nevil-- EDWARD    The non-deformed one? RICHARD    Non-deformed, but invisible. EDWARD    Maybe we should pull him up a chair. CHARLES    Nevil, a singularly repellent person, ran away with a vulgar dancer-- RICHARD    Another one! CHARLES    --but was pardoned upon his return in the following year. He came back a widower with an infant son, Alfred-- EDWARD    ta-da! CHARLES    Who was one day to be the father of Arthur Jermyn.   RICHARD    And I'm the one who set himself on fire? WARREN    We're not there yet.  But before we move on to Alfred, there's another tragic instance to recount.  Robert became a bit unhinged himself. CHARLES    Do I have a card for that? WARREN    Not really, I was just going to-- EDWARD    Get on with it. WARREN    An elderly man, Robert had spent years collecting the legends of the Onga tribe - native to the area of the expeditions taken by both Robert and his mad grandfather.  He expressed a desire to validate his grandfather's claims of a strange lost city, particularly one populated by the sort of creatures Wade used to rave about. HERBERT    Do you have any solid information about these creatures you keep hinting about? 8_crossbreeding WARREN    Not much, but accounts say Sir Wade made wild claims about a white tribe that had once lived in a stone city deep in the interior - though that, apparently, wasn't recent.  Others said that he claimed that while people built the city, it had been overrun with apes, but apes who were able to mix with the humans. HERBERT    Mix?  Are you talking getting together for tea, or interbreeding? WARREN    [flustered] It was - um - no details.   Um - that was someone's vague recollection in a journal, so it's anyone's best guess what Sir Wade actually said. HERBERT    Hmph.  Despite the persuasive nature of the evolutionary theory, there is no evidence that any strain of apes is close enough to humans to crossbreed. CHARLES    Crossbreeds aren't impossible.  Not with humans, of course, but there's always mules. EDWARD    I always pitied the donkey... WARREN    [loud clearing of throat] EDWARD    It's sort of like the Ooh-ah bird... WARREN    [louder clearing of throat]  EDWARD    Right. WARREN    So, through correspondence, Wade reached a fellow explorer, Samuel Seaton, who eventually made his way back to England and brought some interesting tales with him. RICHARD    How interesting? WARREN    No one knows. EDWARD    No one?  WARREN    Yes.  We can only conjecture from the effect it had on Sir Robert. HERBERT    Which was? WARREN    He went upstairs and killed all three of his children - Nevil and the two no one ever saw - before making every feasible attempt to kill himself. EDWARD    Holy cow! RICHARD    I thought you were one of the saner ones, Charles. CHARLES    Should I be killing someone now? HERBERT    "Every feasible attempt"? WARREN    He failed to end his own life and was locked away, dying two years later. HERBERT    What did the Seaton fellow say about it all? WARREN    Oh, nothing.  He was already dead - Robert strangled him first.  The only survivor was young Alfred.  It appeared that Nevil, for all his - um - EDWARD    Absentness? WARREN    Um - basically.  For all he lacked, he died in defense of his son.  And Alfred inherited the title before he could even walk. EDWARD    And he still ran away with the circus? HERBERT    Nothing survived of the information Seaton brought? WARREN    Pieces of correspondence survived.  Mostly notes of tales from the Onga tribe, who believed in a gray city peopled by white apes and ruled by a white god. EDWARD    [avid] My turn, right? WARREN    Almost. EDWARD    [disappointed noise] WARREN    I didn't think this would catch your fancy so well. CHARLES    It's quite an amusing idea, Warren.  Rather surprised, really. WARREN    Thank you.  [realizing] Oh. CHARLES    Pray continue. WARREN    Let's just move on to Edward - Um, Alfred. 9_circus EDWRD    [clears throat dramatically]  "Sir Alfred Jermyn was a baronet before his fourth birthday, but his tastes never matched his title.  At twenty he had joined a band of music-hall performers, and at thirty-six had deserted his wife and child to travel with an itinerant American circus. CHARLES    Quite apart from their tendency to marry beneath them, the men themselves tend to abscond, which doesn't speak much for nobility. HERBERT    An argument could be made that they're tainted from past generations. RICHARD     Or that rich men are just predisposed to be bastards - in the personality sense. EDWARD    [clears throat dramatically, hams it up]  "Alfred's end was very revolting!  Among the animals in the exhibition with which he travelled was a huge bull gorilla of lighter colour than the average." HERBERT    You mentioned something about white apes, didn't you?  Oh, no - it was a supposed white race in the interior.  Hmm... WARREN    [satisfied] And the apes that took over their city. HERBERT    Hmm. EDWARD    The beast was very popular among the performers. Alfred Jermyn was fascinated with this gorilla, and on many occasions the two would eye each other for long periods through the intervening bars. CHARLES    Sounds like he was a bit of- [realizing] oh! RICHARD    A what? CHARLES    [covering smoothly] Bit of an anthropologist himself. EDWARD    Alfred obtained permission to train the animal, astonishing audiences and fellow performers alike with his success. One morning, as the gorilla and Alfred were rehearsing an exceedingly clever boxing match, the beast hit him too hard. RICHARD    I thought it was kangaroos who were notable for boxing. CHARLES    Or orangutans - recall that odd story from out friend Auguste. EDWARD    I guess gorillas can box if they want to. RICHARD    What's next?  A female president? EDWARD    Of what followed, members of "The Greatest Show On Earth" do not like to speak. CHARLES    Oh, he was with Barnum!  Funny.  You never think of these tales happening in places you might actually have been. RICHARD    P.T. Barnum could hardly be called a place. CHARLES    You know what I mean. EDWARD    I know you keep interrupting me!  "They did not expect to hear Sir Alfred Jermyn emit a shrill, inhuman scream, or see him seize the gorilla with both hands, dash it to the floor of the cage, and bite fiendishly at its hairy throat. The gorilla retaliated and before anything could be done, the body which had belonged to a baronet was past recognition."  [taking a bow]  Thank you! Thank you very much!  CHARLES     There's one born every minute. [quoting Barnum] HERBERT    One what? CHARLES    Idiot who wants to box a wild animal, I suppose.  Well, Richard, I suppose you will be ending this little tale? a1_Arthur RICHARD    Am I? WARREN    Oh, just a moment...  Right.  A few notes first.  [aside, to Edward]  I thought you might enjoy that bit. EDWARD    Cheers. WARREN     Can't find my notes just now, but if you'd like to go on, Richard, I'll interject as things come up? RICHARD    Certainly.  Arthur Jermyn was the son of Sir Alfred Jermyn and a music-hall singer of unknown origin. WARREN    If I may interject? CHARLES     That was short. RICHARD    Go ahead. WARREN    This woman - whose name was never recorded, but I don't doubt I could find it if need be, since she only died in 1911, I believe, was the one I mentioned earlier as being quite an interesting character. HERBERT     Not the titled lady? WARREN     No she appears to have been very ... stolid.  Arthur's mother, however, was determined.  When Alfred left them, or possibly after his horrid death, she apparently marched right into Jermyn house, infant son on her hip-- CHARLES    Not even a perambulator to her name? RICHARD    Makes for a prettier and more destitute picture. WARREN    Babe in arms, anyway, and took over.  She apparently stood toe to toe with any and all opposition on behalf of her son.  HERBERT    People will do most anything for money. RICHARD    Women, particularly. WARREN    That's the rub.  There was almost no money left, per se.  There was the title, and some land, and Jermyn house, and not much else.  And yet she claimed it on behalf of her son.  And apparently did a reasonably good job of running the estate during his childhood - got at least enough money out of it to send Arthur to decent schools and see to it he had some idea of family and history. CHARLES    Brave woman.  RICHARD    Very well.  So "my mother" had redeeming qualities above and beyond her social status.  May I go on? WARREN    I have a bit more.  Arthur Jermyn was not like any other Jermyn before him, for he was a poet and a dreamer. EDWARD    Ta-da! RICHARD    As an artist, I can sympathize, anyway. WARREN    Locals attributed his sensitivity to the Latin blood of his Portuguese great-great-great... great? a2_great great EDWARD    Let's see, I'm great - Charles is great great-- CHARLES    Don't forget invisible Nevil. WARREN    You know who I mean, anyway.  Besides, most people just chalked it up to his music-hall mother - who, of course, was never accepted by the gentry.  EDWARD    [silly brit voice] Oh, no, of course not! CHARLES    How horrible! WARREN    While his nature was poetic, his appearance was just the opposite.  Most of the Jermyns had possessed a subtly odd and repellent cast, but Arthur's case was very striking. RICHARD    Ape-like? WARREN    [lying poorly] Um, uh - possibly.  I suppose. RICHARD    [chuckles]  I, Arthur Jermyn, being of sound mind and ugly body... [laughs] "took highest honours at Oxford and seemed likely to redeem the intellectual fame of the family." CHARLES    Oxford?  Kudos to "your mother" indeed. RICHARD    [aside] I'll tell her when I see her.  [narrating] Arthur planned to continue the work of his forefathers in African ethnology and antiquities, utilising the truly wonderful though strange collection of Sir Wade. HERBERT    Which, though valueless in many ways, having been tossed about by a collector, would still be fascinating to see. WARREN    [eager] I daresay!  Who knows what he may have found in-- RICHARD    [loud] The prehistoric civilisation in which the mad explorer had so implicitly believed? Arthur explored tale after tale about the silent jungle city and the nameless, unsuspected race of jungle hybrids mentioned in Warren's journal.  WARREN    Wade. RICHARD    [shrugs] Right person, wrong name.  Sounds like a clear case of morbid fascination, though, for he sought out more information after his mother's death in 1911, and even made an expedition himself as soon as he could liquidate some assets to fund it. WARREN    That's not precisely what's on the card. RICHARD    I'm embellishing.  "Arranging with the Belgian authorities for a party of guides, he spent a year in the Onga and Kahn country.  Among the Kaliris was an aged chief called Mwanu, who possessed not only a highly retentive memory, but a singular degree of interest in old legends." a2_Mwanu WARREN    Mwanu even added his own account of the stone city and the white apes. MWANU    Many long years it has been since things walked in the city of grey stones.  And many years more and more since man ever trod the paths within.  WARREN    He told Jermyn of the N'bangu tribe, which had annihilated the beings within the city, and destroyed many of the structures. MWANU    Every ape lay dying.  Every ape lay dead.  The chief of the N'Bangus, him they called Iron foot, trod on the bodies of the enemy, for they were no more than dirt to him.  And lo, in their wicked shrine, in the center of the ruined city, lay the prize Iron Foot had come to possess. WARREN    What they had come for was apparently a mummy.  It was called, among the various local tribes, the "white goddess" and was supposed to be the remains of one of the ape-things' queens, preserved and revered for ... [hinting] just over a century. MWANU    The white goddess was a queen in her own right, when she lived like mortals live - down among the hairy folk.  But came a god from a distant land far to the west!  He wore the sun for a crown and strode the land on giant feet.  WARREN    Apparently this strange new "god" married the princess - later known as the white goddess - and they ruled the ape-city together. EDWARD    This is starting to sound a bit like a Burroughs fancy, though I don't think Tarzan ever stooped to "wooing" apes. RICHARD    I always say live and let live, but that's a bit outside even my tolerance. CHARLES    That is assuming the strange god was a human, and in fact was-- [cuts himself off] are we assuming? WARREN    We'll assume in a moment.  Mwanu had an interesting little end to his tale. MWANU    When the princess bore the god a son, they returned to the homeland of the god.  It was many, many moons before the god and princess returned, for the princess was lonely in the distant world and wished for the company of her own people.  They ruled but a short time, before the princess left her mortal life and rose to the top of the great world tree. EDWARD    She died? WARREN    I hope so.  You see-- MWANU    The god, stricken with grief at her passing and loathe to lose her, mummified the body, so he would always know she remained in the city, awaiting his return. RICHARD    [creeped out]  Romantic. CHARLES    I - I am at a loss for words.  Impressive. SOUND    [slight golf clap from Herbert] WARREN    Though the god never returned to reclaim his princess, the white goddess, as it was now called, became a symbol of supremacy to all the neighboring tribes - which is why the N'bangu felt the need to capture it. RICHARD    They should have stuck with a flag. MWANU    Many moons later yet, the child of the princess and the god, grown to impressive manhood, found his way to the city to claim his rightful place.  RICHARD    Really? CHARLES    And what happened to him? WARREN    Sadly, Mwanu didn't know.  [briskly] Whatever the truth behind any of the legends, they make for picturesque storytelling. a3_lost city CHARLES    Herbert?  You've been awfully quiet. HERBERT    I'm ...interested.  We still haven't made the leap from unlikely legends to Richard going up in flames.  Pray continue, Warren. WARREN    In early 1912, Arthur found the fabled lost city, or what was left of it.  It was apparently rather smaller than he had expected.  Unfortunately, the modest size of the expedition prevented operations toward clearing the one visible passageway that seemed to lead down into the system of vaults which Sir Wade had mentioned. EDWARD    You never mentioned underground vaults before! RICHARD    Oh yes he did.  WARREN    It's really just mentioned in passing. CHARLES    And it was blocked up. WARREN    They spoke with as many natives and chiefs as they could, but found no further information on the white goddess, except that the N'bangu had it. EDWARD    Probably performed unspeakable rites and rituals beneath the glassy eyes of the once-living thing. WARREN    Very likely.  Finally, Arthur was introduced to a Monsieur Verhaeren, Belgian agent at a trading post-- RICHARD    Is the congo still under Belgian control? CHARLES    If it isn't, the change must have been rather recent.  WARREN    Verhaeren claimed he could not only locate, but obtain the stuffed goddess VERHAEREN    C'est vrai.  These once mighty N'bangus are now the submissive servants of King Albert's government.  Ignorant savages.  Some beads and trinkets, perhaps some rum, and I could get them to part with their own mothers. WARREN    Jermyn sailed for England, therefore, with the exultant probability that he would, within a few months, receive a priceless ethnological relic and confirm the wildest of his great-great-great-grandfather's stories. CHARLES    Wildest?  Perhaps not.  Frankly, I wouldn't want to see proof of some of the implications. HERBERT    The miscegenation?  That's actually what I'm finding the most fascinating to consider. a4_Missagewhozits EDWARD    Missagewhozits?  CHARLES    Finish first.  Once you let Herbert start, there's no telling where it might end. WARREN    Arthur Jermyn waited.  Meanwhile, he studied the papers and reports of his great-- um-- Sir Wade.  He found it interesting that while there was much whispering about the mysterious and secluded wife, no tangible relic of her remained. EDWARD    What, you expect someone stuffed her, too? CHARLES    Ahem.  I think he means a portrait, or a lock of hair, even a journal of her own.  WARREN    And there was nothing.  Jermyn put it down to Wade's insanity, figuring that she might have angered him by contradicting some of his wild Africa tales, particularly since she had also spent time on the dark continent. CHARLES    Or perhaps they'd just had an efficient maid or two in the intervening century. [hinting] WARREN    ahem.  In June of 1913, a letter arrived from Monsieur Verhaeren, saying he had found the stuffed goddess!  He averred it was a most extraordinary object, quite beyond the power of a layman to classify. Whether it was human or simian only a scientist could determine. RICHARD    Unless, like such artifacts from Barnum and his brethren the world over, it was made piecemeal. CHARLES    Stitched out of whole cloth? RICHARD    More like a crazy quilt. WARREN    And, of course, time and the Congo climate are not kind to mummies. HERBERT    I shudder to think of the depredations of insects, and mildew.  [ugg - shudder noise] WARREN    And apparently this one was not preserved by a craftsman with any sort of skill.  And yet, it was still intact, in the whole, and recognizable, so they couldn't fault him over much. HERBERT    Mummies are primarily preserved through drying.  How could anyone ever undertake that in a damp and steamy jungle? A6_ALMOST DONE WARREN    Almost done now.  Where was I?  Ah!  Around the creature's neck was a golden chain bearing an empty locket on which were armorial designs - no doubt some hapless traveller's keepsake, taken by the N'bangus and hung upon the goddess as a charm. HERBERT    No doubt. CHARLES    Utter coincidence. WARREN    In commenting on the mummy's appearance, the Belgian expressed a humorous wonder just how it would strike his correspondent-- RICHARD    Me, in case anyone has forgotten during the intermission. WARREN    But these hints really don't give much to go on.  The boxed object was delivered to Jermyn on the afternoon of August 3, 1913, and was conveyed immediately to the large chamber which housed the collection of African specimens. RICHARD    The final card now? EDWARD    He got an extra card? WARREN    Richard has the artistic temperament.  [to Richard] Just one more moment.  [to all] What ensued can best be gathered from the tales of the servants and from things later examined.  Aged Soames, the family butler, tells the most ample and coherent tale. A6_SOAMES SOAMES    Sure and the master sent all of us away, wanting to be alone with his new treasure.  This was not unusual, and none thought twice on it.  We heard the sound of hammer and chisel when he opened the box almost right away - that excited he was to clap eyes on't.  WARREN    Shortly, there came a terrible scream. RICHARD    [screams] WARREN    [surpised noise] Gah!  That wasn't part of the-- RICHARD    Artistic license.  It comes with artistic temperament.  Ready now? WARREN    Warn me next time.  Yes. RICHARD    Immediately after, Jermyn emerged from the room, rushing frantically about as if pursued, and finally disappearing down the stairs to the cellar. The servants were utterly dumbfounded, and watched at the head of the stairs, but a smell of oil was all that came up from the regions below. WARREN    After dark, a rattling was heard at the door leading from the cellar into the courtyard; and a stable-boy saw Arthur Jermyn, glistening from head to foot with oil and redolent of that fluid, steal furtively out and vanish on the black moor surrounding the house. RICHARD    Then, in an exaltation of supreme horror, a spark appeared on the moor, a flame arose, and a pillar of human fire reached to the heavens. The house of Jermyn no longer existed! HERBERT    Did he at least leave a note? WARREN    No, but the fragments that add up to the horror he discovered were clearly found and assembled afterward, principally the thing in the box. HERBERT    His ancestress. CHARLES    Don't jump ahead. EDWARD    [snort] Funny. WARREN    The stuffed goddess was a nauseous sight, withered and eaten away, but it was clearly a mummified white ape of some unknown species, less hairy than any recorded variety, and infinitely nearer mankind - quite shockingly so. HERBERT    Was it supposed to be a secret?  I thought warren made it eminently clear. EDWARD    You're serious?  Warren? WARREN    [sigh] Yes.  [chuckles]  The arms on the golden locket about the creature's neck were the Jermyn arms, and the ... resemblance between the shrivelled face to none other than the sensitive Arthur Jermyn applied with vivid, ghastly, and unnatural horror. HERBERT    This should lead to an interesting field of study - do you think the white apes she belonged to might still exist in the congo? EDWARD    No, they were wiped out by the nubumbums. HERBERT    Is the mummy at least intact? WARREN    Oh, no.  Members of the Royal Anthropological Institute burned the thing and threw the locket into a well. HERBERT    [almost yelling] They did what? CHARLES    [sigh] Thus endeth the lesson. HERBERT    [still loud, fading out] And they call themselves scientists? CLOSING