"Lost Keep" by L. A. Lewis (first published in the collection Tales of the Grotesque: A collection of Uneasy Tales, 1934; reprinted in an expanded edition of that collection, 1994)
For many years little was known about the author. Leslie Allin Lewis (1899-1961) published just one book, a collection of ten stories in "The Creeps Library" published in London by Philip Allen in 1934; an eleventh story appeared in Christine Campbell Thomson's anthology Terror by Night that same year. Copies of Tales of the Grotesque, while being a highly collectable book, were rare and remained out of print for sixty years until editor Richard Dalby began a friendship with Lewis's widow, who on her death bequeathed the literary copyright of Lewis's work to him. Dalby finally was able to re-issue the collection, with the addition of the eleventh story, from small publisher Ghost Story Press in 1994.
Despite his friendship with Elizabeth Lewis, she remained guarded about her husband's personal details. He writes, "I quickly realized he had suffered much tragedy and mental anguish (with brief references to padded cells and suicide attempts) throughout his life." He had been a Squadron Leader in the Royal Flying Corps during World War I and came out with the belief that aeroplanes had souls. He also believed in demonic creatures and elements, evil creatures trying to break through to our world; Lewis also claimed to have personally witnessed such creatures.. He was invalided out of the RAF in the early 1940s and destroyed all of his remaining work during a fit of manic depression. Facing permanent unemployment and deteriorating physical and mental health, Lewis eventually became blind and suffered from myocardial disease. He was 62 when he eventually died from a heart attack. his eleven stories that have survived are masterpieces of the fantastic imagination.
"Lost Keep" features Peter Hunt, a seventeen-year-old orphan living in abject poverty in a shabby rooming house. His only relative, an aunt as poor as Peter, has just died and Peter could expect nothing from her estate. It turns out that she did have one thing to leave him. Shortly before her death, she asked the hospital matron to retrieve a small locked box from her safety deposit. There was note from her telling Peter to "make use what Fate wills of its contents." Inside the box were three items: a samll scale model of a stone fortress, a folded sheet of paper, and a dark lens that was almost impervious to light. The note, it turns out, was from his deceased father.. The scale model of the fortress, it seems, had been handed down for generations from parent to child over many, many years. It was not known how old it was or its exact origins, but legend had it that the model held a secret that could be rediscovered by any with "the wit or fortune to combine glass and facsimile with understanding." but (the note continued) none has been able to solve the riddle. And, by the way, there is also a supposed curse on the model for whoever does discover its secret. The lens, being completely black, opened no secrets when Peter used it to examine the model. But the little facsimile was cleverly made and may get a decent price from a dealer of curios...
As Peter looked closer at the model further using the lens, he felt a great heat , and then the lens cracked -- but only the outer portion of the lens, which, it turned out was made of several layers of glass. He removed the outer shell of dark glass, and the model began to appear larger and larger, then blackness... And he woke within the keep, which had now become greatly enlarged and sat on a high cliff overlooking an endless sea, He wandered through the castle, scaling its turrets, looking for a way to get back to his rooming house. After a while he began to get hungry and thirsty, but there was no food or water available...
We shift to the rooming house, where his landlady is talking to two policemen. Peter had gone to his room with a package some forty-two hour before. when he did not appear for breakfast and di not show up at his work, she began to get concerned. There was no answer at the door and the door was locked from the inside. She and another boarder broke in, but Peter had vanished with no means of leaving the room. The landlady and the police were baffled. then there was a groan from the bed, and Peter was suddenly there, wan and demanding food and water...
Flash forward fifteen or twenty years. Peter is now very rich. He has a large house, a country seat, three cars, a large staff of servants, and a charming (but neglected) wife, and a young son. It turned out that, when he visited the Lost Keep the very first time, he still had the magical lens in his pocket and eventually used that to return to the real world. He had the ability to visit the Lost Keep and return anytime he wanted as long as he had the lens on him. He also was able to bring others with him to the deserted fortress and cold leave them there as his prisoners until they did what he wished or starved, and what he most wanted for for them to sig over property and wealth to him; and, of course, he then let them starve. For years, there were mysterious unexplained disappearances but no provable suspicions fell on Peter.
And it was almost as if Peter forget there was a curse on the fortress and whoever solved its riddle...
A disturbingly creepy story that could have become very trite if left where his landlady and the policemen were puzzling over Peters impossible disappearance, but Lewis carries it an eerier conclusion. In the end we know that Peter is going to get his but we have no idea how fitting Fate could be.
This is the first story I've read by Lewis. I'm looking forward to read the remaining ten.
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