II

by Robert W. Chambers

I climbed the three worn flights of stairs that I had ascended countless times before and knocked on the small door at the end of the corridor. Mr. Wilde opened it, and I stepped inside.

After he double-locked the door and pushed a heavy chest against it, he settled beside me, studying my face with his pale, small eyes. His nose and cheeks were marked with fresh scratches, and the silver wires holding his artificial ears had shifted. I had never found him so grotesquely captivating. He had no real ears; the artificial ones, now jutting out awkwardly from the thin wire, were his one vulnerability. They were made of wax and painted a soft pink, while the rest of his face had a sickly yellow hue. He might have benefited from some artificial fingers for his left hand, which was completely devoid of them, but he seemed unfazed and content with his wax ears. He was quite small, barely taller than a ten-year-old, yet his arms were impressively muscular, and his thighs were as thick as those of any athlete. Still, the most striking thing about Mr. Wilde was the contrast between his remarkable intelligence and the shape of his head. It was flat and pointed, reminiscent of the heads of those unfortunate souls people often confine in asylums for the mentally ill. Many labeled him insane, but I knew him to be as sane as I was.

I won’t deny he was eccentric. His obsession with keeping that cat and provoking her until she lunged at his face like a wild creature was certainly odd. I never understood why he kept the animal or what joy he found in isolating himself with this surly, vicious beast. I remember one evening, glancing up from the manuscript I was studying under the dim light of some tallow dips, I saw Mr. Wilde perched motionless on his high chair, his eyes alight with excitement as the cat, having risen from her spot by the stove, crept across the floor toward him. Before I could react, she flattened herself against the ground, crouched, trembled, and then sprang at his face. They tumbled over each other on the floor, howling and scratching until the cat screeched and darted under the cabinet, leaving Mr. Wilde sprawled on his back, his limbs curling up like a dying spider. He was indeed eccentric.

Mr. Wilde had climbed back into his high chair and, after studying my face for a moment, picked up a dog-eared ledger and opened it.

“Henry B. Matthews,” he read aloud, “bookkeeper at Whysot Whysot and Company, dealers in church ornaments. Called April 3rd. Reputation damaged on the racetrack. Known as a welcher. Reputation to be repaired by August 1st. Retainer: Five dollars.” He turned the page and ran his fingerless knuckles down the densely written columns.

“P. Greene Dusenberry, Minister of the Gospel, Fairbeach, New Jersey. Reputation damaged in the Bowery. To be repaired as soon as possible. Retainer: $100.”

He coughed and added, “Called April 6th.”

“Then you’re not in need of money, Mr. Wilde,” I said.

“Listen,” he coughed again.

“Mrs. C. Hamilton Chester, of Chester Park, New York City. Called April 7th. Reputation damaged at Dieppe, France. To be repaired by October 1st. Retainer: $500.

“Note: C. Hamilton Chester, Captain U.S.S. ‘Avalanche,’ ordered home from South Sea Squadron October 1st.”

“Well,” I remarked, “the profession of a Repairer of Reputations seems quite profitable.”

His colorless eyes met mine. “I only wanted to prove you wrong. You said it was impossible to succeed as a Repairer of Reputations; that even if I did succeed in some cases, it would cost me more than I would gain. Today, I have five hundred men working for me, poorly paid, but they pursue the work with a zeal that might stem from fear. These men come from every walk of life; some are pillars of the most exclusive social circles, others are the pride of the financial world, and still others hold sway among the ‘Fancy and the Talent.’ I choose them at my leisure from those who respond to my advertisements. It’s easy; they’re all cowards. I could triple their number in twenty days if I wanted. So you see, those who hold the reputations of their fellow citizens, I have in my pay.”

“They might turn against you,” I suggested.

He rubbed his thumb over his cropped ears and adjusted the wax substitutes. “I don’t think so,” he murmured thoughtfully. “I rarely have to apply pressure, and then only once. Besides, they like their wages.”

“How do you apply pressure?” I pressed.

For a moment, his face was terrifying to behold. His eyes narrowed to two green sparks.

“I invite them to come and have a little chat with me,” he said softly.

A knock at the door interrupted him, and his expression returned to its usual amiable state.

“Who is it?” he asked.

“Mr. Steylette,” came the reply.

“Come back tomorrow,” Mr. Wilde answered.

"That's impossible," the other man started to say, but Mr. Wilde interrupted him with a sharp bark.

"Come back tomorrow," he insisted.

We heard someone move away from the door and turn the corner by the stairs.

"Who was that?" I asked.

"Arnold Steylette, the owner and editor-in-chief of a major New York daily," he replied.

He drummed his fingerless hand on the ledger and added, "I pay him poorly, but he thinks it's a good deal."

"Arnold Steylette!" I echoed, astonished.

"Yes," Mr. Wilde said, coughing with satisfaction.

Just then, a cat entered the room. It hesitated, looked up at him, and snarled. He climbed down from his chair, squatted on the floor, and pulled the creature into his arms, stroking her gently. The cat stopped snarling and soon began to purr loudly, the sound deepening as he continued to pet her.

"Where are the notes?" I asked. He pointed to the table, and for what felt like the hundredth time, I picked up the bundle of manuscripts titled—

"THE IMPERIAL DYNASTY OF AMERICA."

I examined the well-worn pages, worn only by my own handling. Even though I knew every word by heart—from the opening lines, "When from Carcosa, the Hyades, Hastur, and Aldebaran," to "Castaigne, Louis de Calvados, born December 19th, 1877"—I read it with eager, rapt attention. I paused to recite parts aloud, especially lingering on "Hildred de Calvados, only son of Hildred Castaigne and Edythe Landes Castaigne, first in succession," and so on.

When I finished, Mr. Wilde nodded and coughed.

"Speaking of your ambitions," he said, "how are Constance and Louis getting along?"

"She loves him," I replied simply.

The cat on his knee suddenly turned and swiped at his face. He tossed her off and climbed onto the chair across from me.

"And Dr. Archer! But that's something you can handle whenever you want," he added.

"Yes," I said, "Dr. Archer can wait, but I need to see my cousin Louis."

"It is time," he echoed. Then he grabbed another ledger from the table and flipped through the pages quickly. "We're in contact with ten thousand men," he muttered. "We can count on one hundred thousand within the first twenty-eight hours, and in forty-eight hours, the state will rise en masse. The country will follow the state, and the parts that won't—California and the Northwest—might as well never have been settled. I won't send them the Yellow Sign."

A rush of blood surged to my head, but I only replied, "A new broom sweeps clean."

"The ambition of Caesar and Napoleon pales in comparison to that which could not rest until it had seized the minds of men and even controlled their unborn thoughts," Mr. Wilde declared.

"You’re talking about the King in Yellow," I groaned, shuddering.

"He is a king whom emperors have served."

"I am willing to serve him," I replied.

Mr. Wilde sat rubbing his ears with his crippled hand. "Perhaps Constance doesn’t love him," he suggested.

I was about to respond when a sudden burst of military music from the street below drowned out my voice. The twentieth dragoon regiment, formerly stationed at Mount St. Vincent, was returning from maneuvers in Westchester County to their new barracks on East Washington Square. It was my cousin's regiment. They looked sharp in their pale blue, form-fitting jackets, jaunty busbies, and white riding breeches with double yellow stripes, their limbs seemingly molded into the fabric. Every other squadron was armed with lances, from which fluttered yellow and white pennons. The band passed, playing the regimental march, followed by the colonel and staff, their horses crowding and trampling as their heads bobbed in unison, pennons fluttering from their lance points. The troopers, riding with a beautiful English seat, looked tanned and fit from their time in the fields of Westchester, and the sound of their sabers clinking against their stirrups, along with the jingle of spurs and carbines, was music to my ears. I spotted Louis riding with his squadron; he was one of the handsomest officers I had ever seen. Mr. Wilde, who had climbed onto a chair by the window, saw him too but said nothing. Louis turned and looked directly at Hawberk’s shop as he passed, and I could see the flush on his brown cheeks. I imagined Constance must have been at the window.

When the last of the troopers clattered by and the final pennons disappeared down South Fifth Avenue, Mr. Wilde clambered down from his chair and moved the chest away from the door.

"Yes," he said, "it’s time you saw your cousin Louis."

He unlocked the door, and I grabbed my hat and cane, stepping into the corridor. The stairs were dark. As I groped my way down, I stepped on something soft that snarled and spat. I swung my cane at the cat in a fit of rage, but it shattered against the balustrade, and the creature darted back into Mr. Wilde’s room.

As I passed Hawberk’s door again, I noticed him still working on the armor, but I didn’t stop. Stepping out onto Bleecker Street, I followed it to Wooster, skirted the grounds of the Lethal Chamber, and crossed Washington Park, heading straight to my rooms in the Benedick.

Once inside, I enjoyed a leisurely lunch while reading the *Herald* and the *Meteor*. Afterward, I made my way to the steel safe in my bedroom and set the time combination. The three and three-quarter minutes I had to wait while the time lock opened felt like pure gold. From the moment I entered the combination to when I finally grasped the knobs and swung back the heavy steel doors, I existed in a state of ecstatic anticipation. Those moments must be akin to paradise. I knew exactly what awaited me inside, what the massive safe held securely for me alone, and the exquisite pleasure of that wait only intensified as the days went by.

Finally, when the safe opened, I lifted from its velvet crown a diadem of pure gold, blazing with diamonds. I performed this ritual every day, and yet the joy of waiting and finally touching the diadem only seemed to grow deeper with time. It was a crown fit for a king among kings, an emperor among emperors. The King in Yellow might scorn it, but it would be worn by his loyal servant.

I held the diadem in my arms until the alarm in the safe rang harshly. Then, with a mix of tenderness and pride, I replaced it and shut the steel doors. I walked slowly back into my study, which overlooked Washington Square, and leaned against the window sill. The afternoon sun poured in, and a gentle breeze stirred the branches of the elms and maples in the park, now adorned with buds and tender leaves.

A flock of pigeons circled the tower of the Memorial Church, occasionally landing on the purple-tiled roof or wheeling down to the lotus fountain in front of the marble arch. The gardeners were busy tending the flower beds around the fountain, and the freshly turned earth smelled sweet and spicy. A lawn mower, pulled by a plump white horse, clinked across the green grass, while watering carts sprayed refreshing showers over the asphalt paths.

Children played in the spring sunshine around the statue of Peter Stuyvesant, which had replaced the unsightly figure of Garibaldi in 1897. Nursemaids pushed elaborate baby carriages with a carefree attitude toward the pasty-faced occupants, likely distracted by the presence of half a dozen neatly dressed dragoon troopers lounging on the benches. Through the trees, the Washington Memorial Arch glimmered like silver in the sunlight, and beyond it, the grey stone barracks of the dragoons and the white granite artillery stables buzzed with color and activity.

I glanced at the Lethal Chamber across the square. A few curious onlookers lingered by the gilded iron railing, but the paths inside the grounds were deserted. I watched the fountains ripple and sparkle; sparrows had already discovered this new bathing spot, and the basins were covered with the dusty little birds. A couple of white peacocks wandered across the lawns, and a drab-colored pigeon sat so still on the arm of one of the “Fates” that it seemed part of the sculpted stone.

As I turned away, a slight commotion among the curious crowd caught my attention. A young man had entered and was walking nervously along the gravel path leading to the bronze doors of the Lethal Chamber. He paused for a moment before the “Fates,” and as he raised his gaze to those three mysterious faces, the pigeon took flight, circling for a moment before heading east. The young man pressed his hand to his face and, with an undefined gesture, sprang up the marble steps. The bronze doors closed behind him, and half an hour later, the onlookers drifted away, leaving the frightened pigeon to return to its perch in the arms of Fate.

I put on my hat and stepped out into the park for a short walk before dinner. As I crossed the central driveway, a group of officers passed by, and one of them called out, “Hello, Hildred,” before coming back to shake my hand. It was my cousin Louis, smiling and tapping his spurred heels with his riding whip.

“Just back from Westchester,” he said. “Been enjoying the countryside—milk and curds, you know, dairy maids in sunbonnets who say ‘howdy’ and ‘I don’t think’ when you tell them they’re pretty. I’m starving for a square meal at Delmonico’s. What’s the news?”

“There’s nothing much,” I replied casually. “I saw your regiment coming in this morning.”

“Did you? I didn’t see you. Where were you?”

“In Mr. Wilde’s window.”

“Oh, hell!” he exclaimed impatiently. “That man is completely mad! I don’t understand why you—”

He noticed my annoyance at his outburst and quickly apologized.

“Honestly, my friend,” he said, “I don’t mean to put down someone you admire, but I just can’t understand what you see in Mr. Wilde. To be generous, he’s not exactly well-bred; he’s quite hideously deformed, and his head looks like it belongs to someone who’s criminally insane. You know he’s been in an asylum—”

“So have I,” I interrupted calmly.

Louis looked taken aback for a moment, but then he recovered and slapped me heartily on the shoulder. “You were completely cured,” he started, but I cut him off again.

“I suppose you mean I was simply declared never to have been insane.”

“Of course, that’s what I meant,” he laughed.

I didn’t like his laugh because I could tell it was forced, but I nodded cheerfully and asked him where he was headed. Louis glanced after his fellow officers, who were now almost at Broadway.

“We were planning to try a Brunswick cocktail, but honestly, I was looking for an excuse to go see Hawberk instead. Come on, I’ll use you as my excuse.”

We found old Hawberk, neatly dressed in a fresh spring suit, standing at the door of his shop and taking in the air.

“I was just about to take Constance for a little walk before dinner,” he replied to Louis’s eager questions. “We thought we’d stroll along the park terrace by the North River.”

Just then, Constance appeared, her face shifting from pale to rosy as Louis leaned over her small gloved fingers. I tried to excuse myself, claiming I had an engagement uptown, but Louis and Constance wouldn’t hear of it. I realized I was expected to stay and keep old Hawberk company. After all, it might be wise to keep an eye on Louis, so when they hailed a Spring Street horse-car, I climbed in after them and took a seat beside the armorer.

The beautiful parks and granite terraces overlooking the wharves along the North River, built in 1910 and completed in the autumn of 1917, had become one of the city’s most popular promenades. They stretched from the Battery to 190th Street, offering stunning views of the river and the Jersey shore, as well as the Highlands across the way. Cafés and restaurants dotted the landscape among the trees, and twice a week, military bands from the garrison played in the kiosks on the parapets.

We settled in the sunshine on a bench at the foot of the equestrian statue of General Sheridan. Constance tilted her sunshade to shield her eyes, and she and Louis began a soft conversation that I couldn’t quite catch. Old Hawberk, leaning on his ivory-headed cane, lit an excellent cigar, which I politely declined, and smiled into the distance. The sun hung low above the Staten Island woods, casting golden hues across the bay, reflecting off the sun-warmed sails of the ships in the harbor.

Brigs, schooners, yachts, clumsy ferry boats teeming with people, freight trains of brown, blue, and white cars, elegant steamers, shabby tramp steamers, coasters, dredgers, scows, and everywhere, the bustling little tugs puffing and whistling busily—these were the vessels churning the sunlit waters as far as the eye could see. In stark contrast to the flurry of sailing vessels and steamers, a silent fleet of white warships lay motionless in midstream.

Constance’s cheerful laugh pulled me from my thoughts.

“What are you staring at?” she asked.

“Nothing—the fleet,” I smiled.

Then Louis began to identify the vessels, pointing them out in relation to the old Red Fort on Governor’s Island.

“That little cigar-shaped thing is a torpedo boat,” he explained. “There are four more close together. They’re the Tarpon, the Falcon, the Sea Fox, and the Octopus. The gunboats just above are the Princeton, the Champlain, the Still Water, and the Erie. Next to them are the cruisers Farragut and Los Angeles, and above them are the battleships California, Dakota, and the Washington, which is the flagship. Those two squatty metal chunks anchored off Castle William are the double-turreted monitors Terrible and Magnificent; behind them lies the ram, Osceola.”

Constance looked at him with admiration in her beautiful eyes. “You know so much for a soldier,” she said, and we all laughed together.

After a moment, Louis stood, nodding to us as he offered his arm to Constance, and they strolled away along the river wall. Hawberk watched them for a moment before turning to me.

“Mr. Wilde was right,” he said. “I’ve found the missing tassets and the left cuissard of the ‘Prince’s Emblazoned’ in a dreadful old junk attic on Pell Street.”

“998?” I asked with a smile.

“Yes.”

“Mr. Wilde is a very intelligent man,” I remarked.

“I want to give him credit for this important discovery,” Hawberk continued. “And I intend for it to be known that he deserves the recognition for it.”

“He won’t appreciate that,” I replied sharply. “Please, let’s not discuss it.”

“Do you have any idea what it’s worth?” Hawberk asked.

“No, maybe fifty dollars,” I said.

“It’s valued at five hundred, but the owner of the ‘Prince’s Emblazoned’ will pay two thousand to whoever completes his suit. That reward also goes to Mr. Wilde.”

“He doesn’t want it! He’s turned it down!” I shot back, my anger rising. “What do you know about Mr. Wilde? He doesn’t need the money. He’s wealthy—or will be—richer than anyone alive except for me. What will we care about money then—what will it matter to us, he and I, when—when—”

“When what?” Hawberk asked, clearly taken aback.

“You’ll see,” I replied, putting my guard back up.

He scrutinized me closely, much like Doctor Archer used to, and I could tell he thought I was losing my mind. Perhaps it was fortunate for him that he didn’t use the word lunatic at that moment.

“No,” I said, anticipating his unspoken thought, “I’m not mentally unstable; my mind is as sharp as Mr. Wilde’s. I don’t want to explain just yet what I’m working on, but it’s an investment that will yield more than just gold, silver, and precious stones. It will ensure the happiness and prosperity of a continent—yes, a whole hemisphere!”

“Oh,” Hawberk said, surprised.

“And eventually,” I continued more quietly, “it will secure the happiness of the entire world.”

“And in the process, your own happiness and prosperity, as well as Mr. Wilde’s?”

“Exactly,” I smiled, though I could have throttled him for his tone.

He studied me in silence for a moment before saying gently, “Why don’t you take a break from your books and studies, Mr. Castaigne? Go for a hike in the mountains or something. You used to enjoy fishing. Why not cast a line or two for trout in the Rangelys?”

“I’m not interested in fishing anymore,” I replied, my voice calm.

“You used to enjoy everything,” he continued. “Athletics, yachting, shooting, riding—”

“I haven’t wanted to ride since my fall,” I said quietly.

“Ah, yes, your fall,” he echoed, looking away.

I decided we’d strayed far enough from the topic, so I tried to steer the conversation back to Mr. Wilde, but he was studying my face again, and it irritated me.

“Mr. Wilde,” he said, “do you know what he did this afternoon? He came downstairs and nailed a sign over the hall door next to mine. It read:

‘MR. WILDE, REPAIRER OF REPUTATIONS. Third Bell.’”

“Do you know what a Repairer of Reputations is?”

“I do,” I replied, struggling to contain my anger.

“Oh,” he said again.

Just then, Louis and Constance strolled by and stopped to invite us to join them. Hawberk glanced at his watch. At that moment, a puff of smoke erupted from the casemates of Castle William, and the boom of the sunset gun echoed across the water, reverberating from the Highlands on the opposite shore. The flag came down from the flagpole, bugles sounded on the white decks of the warships, and the first electric light flickered to life on the Jersey shore.

As I walked into the city with Hawberk, I heard Constance murmur something to Louis that I couldn’t catch, but Louis responded with a soft, “My darling.” Ahead of us, I caught snippets of “sweetheart” and “my own Constance,” and I realized that the time was almost here for me to discuss important matters with my cousin Louis.