NaNoWriMo 2006 novel. Writing 50,000 words in 30 days. Quality may suffer.
Montague brought Lovecraft up to the library by a similar route that Shuman had used to take him around, hoping to impress on him the peculiar joys that might be had from a university life. The only observation Lovecraft made was 'I imagine your own university of Cambridge must be quite a bit grander than this.'
'Quite a bit older,' conceded Montague, 'but that is hardly the same thing.'
Lovecraft did not answer. Montague led him into the library and up to the handful of men still examining his copy of Pabodie's papers. 'Gentleman,' he said, 'this is Howard Lovecraft, he recognised the engravings on the knife from that picture.'
The assembled academics all looked up from their work and almost as a man asked Lovecraft what he knew.
'I have seen some illustrations of jewellery with similar designs in a in Providence library.'
'Where did they come from, these items of jewellery?'
'I do not recall, I was researching something else at the time and did not pay them much attention other than to note the singular designs.'
'It could be nothing,' said one man, 'just coincidence.'
'It could be,' conceded Lovecraft. He seemed pointedly uninterested in the attentions of the academics.
'Nevertheless,' said Montague, 'it is the best lead we have to go on and Howard and I are travelling up to Providence to see it tomorrow.'
'Howard,' Montague said later, once they had extricated themselves from the library and were sitting down to lunch in a university cafe, 'before we were interrupted yesterday you said a friend of yours had died?'
'I did, yes.'
'And this was the matter you wanted my assistance on?'
'It was.'
'So, tell me about it.'
'If you still choose to insist that your works are nothing more than cheap fiction then there seems little point.'
'Ah that,' said Montague, 'another dry matter of books.'
'Sorry?'
'Nothing, just thinking aloud. Howard, you can of course believe what you choose to believe, but why you believe that remains a mystery to me.'
'I do not think choice has anything to do with belief Mister James.'
'Please, call me Montague.'
'Very well then, Montague. Belief is not something a man chooses, it is something forced on him by the correlation of information, by drawing lines of inference, by seeing only one explanation that explains the facts. It is evidence that is the mother of belief, not choice.'
'And what of faith?'
'Faith is a different matter, a man may choose faith, but belief is forced upon him. There are beliefs forced on me, inferences I have drawn from the facts, deeply disturbing notions that I would choose to be rid of in a heartbeat if I could.'
'And what inferences have you drawn while studying in your room these past years?'
'You will help me?'
'I will give you every assistance I am able to offer.'
'But why? If you insist that I am wrong about you.'
'Because I am your friend,' said Montague.
The young man looked a little surprised at first, then a grateful smile slid slowly over his lips.
'But first, lunch,' continued Montague, 'if you are to face an evening with the twin whirlwinds of energy and bonhomie known as Miss Willet and Mister Ward then I suspect you will require a large one. Come on, I shall pay.'
They ate well. Over the course of the meal Lovecraft explained that though he had been largely a recluse the last few years he had been in regular correspondence with an old friend called Harley Warren. They had been engaged in the study of some matters that verged on the occult. Montague gathered that the studies were led by Warren and that Lovecraft complained of being drip fed information and denied sources so that he was always a few steps behind the other man.
'He dominated me somewhat,' said Lovecraft, 'I was a little afraid of him to tell the truth. I began to form the opinion that all he wanted was a sounding board, someone to bounce ideas off when it was helpful for him to do so. I was not an integral part of his research, in fact I am not sure now if I was really any part of it. I suspect that Warren was in fact only using me to gage his own sanity. He talked occasionally of pursuing a path that had led weak minds to madness, normally when I complained that he did not tell me enough of what he was doing. He said that I was too sensitive an individual and my frail nerves would not be able to cope with some of the things he had seen.'
'I suspect you are stronger nerved than you seem,' said Montague.
Lovecraft ignored him and went on. 'Your parchment, I have seen lettering like it in a book of Warren's.'
'You have?'
'Yes. I did not tell you before because we were never alone and there was something about that book. I only saw it the once, normally we corresponded by letter but on one of the rare occasions I went to visit him I saw this book open on his desk and was immediately intrigued because I could not guess at the script.'
'Neither can we,' said James, 'it has baffled the best minds of this university.'
'Warren slammed it shut before I was able to take a good look at it. He said something, I can't remember the words, that I should not see it, no, that he should not even possess it. He had obtained it from India, that much I know, I assumed then that it was stolen. Now, I am not so sure if that is what he meant. That was shortly before the end, that one book had given his researches a boost and he was babbling a little that night, he was obviously excited about the path that he was on but still would not tell me what it was. He talked of some corpses not decaying but remaining fat in their graves. He talked of work he had to do, fiendish work.'
Lovecraft stopped to take a drink of water and a few deep breaths, obviously trying to steady his nerves. 'He's dead now anyway,' he said, 'in some hole in the ground out in the swamps. And I must go and try to find out what happened to him, or at the very least retrieve his body, but my nerves which you think may be stronger than they seem are not up to the task alone. I do not think that even you Mister James fully understand what can be found in holes in the ground. There are worse horrors in the world than can be dug up in your English graveyards.'
