Title: Burn, Witch, Burn!
Author: Abraham Merritt
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Language: English
Date first posted: September 2006
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Burn, Witch, Burn!
Abraham Merritt




FOREWORD

I am a medical man specializing in neurology and diseases of the
brain. My peculiar field is abnormal psychology, and in it I am
recognized as an expert. I am closely connected with two of the
foremost hospitals in New York, and have received many honors in this
country and abroad. I set this down, risking identification, not
through egotism but because I desire to show that I was competent to
observe, and competent to bring practiced scientific judgment upon,
the singular events I am about to relate.

I say that I risk identification, because Lowell is not my name.
It is a pseudonym, as are the names of all the other characters in
this narrative. The reasons for this evasion will become increasingly
apparent.

Yet I have the strongest feeling that the facts and observations
which in my case-books are grouped under the heading of "The Dolls of
Mme. Mandilip" should be clarified, set down in orderly sequence and
be made known. Obviously, I could do this in the form of a report to
one of my medical societies, but I am too well aware of the way my
colleagues would receive such a paper, and with what suspicion, pity
or even abhorrence, they would henceforth regard me so counter to
accepted notions of cause and effect do many of these facts and
observations run.

But now, orthodox man of medicine that I am, I ask myself whether
there may not be causes other than those we admit. Forces and energies
which we stubbornly disavow because we can find no explanation for
them within the narrow confines of our present knowledge. Energies
whose reality is recognized in folk-lore, the ancient traditions, of
all peoples, and which, to justify our ignorance, we label myth and
superstition.

A wisdom, a science, immeasurably old. Born before history, but
never dying nor ever wholly lost. A secret wisdom, but always with its
priests and priestesses guarding its dark flame, passing it on from
century to century. Dark flame of forbidden knowledge...burning in
Egypt before even the Pyramids were raised; and in temples crumbling
now beneath the Gobi's sands; known to the sons of Ad whom Allah, so
say the Arabs, turned to stone for their sorceries ten thousand years
before Abraham trod the streets of Ur of the Chaldees; known in
China--and known to the Tibetan lama, the Buryat shaman of the steppes
and to the warlock of the South Seas alike.

Dark flame of evil wisdom...deepening the shadows of
Stonehenge's brooding menhirs; fed later by hands of Roman
legionaries; gathering strength, none knows why, in medieval Europe
...and still burning, still alive, still strong.

Enough of preamble. I begin where the dark wisdom, if that it
were, first cast its shadow upon me.



CHAPTER I: THE UNKNOWN DEATH



I heard the clock strike one as I walked up the hospital steps.
Ordinarily I would have been in bed and asleep, but there was a case
in which I was much interested, and Braile, my assistant, had
telephoned me of certain developments which I wished to observe. It
was a night in early November. I paused for a moment at the top of the
steps to look at the brilliancy of the stars. As I did so an
automobile drew up at the entrance to the hospital.

As I stood, wondering what its arrival at that hour meant, a man
slipped out of it. He looked sharply up and down the deserted street,
then threw the door wide open. Another man emerged. The two of them
stooped and seemed to be fumbling around inside. They straightened and
then I saw that they had locked their arms around the shoulders of a
third. They moved forward, not supporting but carrying this other man.
His head hung upon his breast and his body swung limply.

A fourth man stepped from the automobile.

I recognized him. He was Julian Ricori, a notorious underworld
chieftain, one of the finished products of the Prohibition Law. He had
been pointed out to me several times. Even if he had not been, the
newspapers would have made me familiar with his features and figure.
Lean and long, with silvery white hair, always immaculately dressed, a
leisured type from outward seeming, rather than leader of such
activities as those of which he was accused.

I had been standing in the shadow, unnoticed. I stepped out of the
shadow. Instantly the burdened pair halted, swiftly as hunting hounds.
Their free hands dropped into the pockets of their coats. Menace was
in that movement.

"I am Dr. Lowell," I said, hastily. "Connected with the hospital.
Come right along."

They did not answer me. Nor did their gaze waver from me; nor did
they move. Ricori stepped in front of them. His hands were also in his
pockets. He looked me over, then nodded to the others; I felt the
tension relax.

"I know you, Doctor," he said pleasantly, in oddly precise
English. "But that was quite a chance you took. If I might advise you,
it is not well to move so quickly when those come whom you do not
know, and at night--not in this town."

"But," I said, "I do know you, Mr. Ricori."

"Then," he smiled, faintly, "your judgment was doubly at fault.
And my advice doubly pertinent."

There was an awkward moment of silence. He broke it.

"And being who I am, I shall feel much better inside your doors
than outside."

I opened the doors. The two men passed through with their burden,
and after them Ricori and I. Once within, I gave way to my
professional instincts and stepped up to the man the two were
carrying. They shot a quick glance at Ricori. He nodded. I raised the
man's head.

A little shock went through me. The man's eyes were wide open. He
was neither dead nor unconscious. But upon his face was the most
extraordinary expression of terror I had ever seen in a long
experience with sane, insane and borderland cases. It was not
undiluted fear. It was mixed with an equally disturbing horror. The
eyes, blue and with distended pupils, were like exclamation points to
the emotions printed upon that face. They stared up at me, through me
and beyond me. And still they seemed to be looking inward--as though
whatever nightmare vision they were seeing was both behind and in
front of them.

"Exactly!" Ricori had been watching me closely. "Exactly, Dr.
Lowell, what could it be that my friend has seen--or has been given--
that could make him appear so? I am most anxious to learn. I am
willing to spend much money to learn. I wish him cured, yes--but I
shall be frank with you, Dr. Lowell. I would give my last penny for
the certainty that those who did this to him could not do the same
thing to me--could not make me as he is, could not make me see what he
is seeing, could not make feel what he is feeling."

At my signal, orderlies had come up. They took the patient and
laid him on a stretcher. By this time the resident physician had
appeared. Ricori touched my elbow.

"I know a great deal about you, Dr. Lowell," he said. "I would
like you to take full charge of this case."

I hesitated.

He continued, earnestly: "Could you drop everything else? Spend
all your time upon it? Bring in any others you wish to consult--don't
think of expense--"

"A moment, Mr. Ricori," I broke in. "I have patients who cannot be
neglected. I will give all the time I can spare, and so will my
assistant, Dr. Braile. Your friend will be constantly under
observation here by people who have my complete confidence. Do you
wish me to take the case under those conditions?"

He acquiesced, though I could see he was not entirely satisfied. I
had the patient taken to an isolated private room, and went through
the necessary hospital formalities. Ricori gave the man's name as
Thomas Peters, asserted that he knew of no close relations, had
himself recorded at Peters' nearest friend, assumed all
responsibility, and taking out a roll of currency, skimmed a thousand
dollar bill from it, passing it to the desk as "preliminary costs."

I asked Ricori if he would like to be present at my examination.
He said that he would. He spoke to his two men, and they took
positions at each side of the hospital doors--on guard. Ricori and I
went to the room assigned to the patient. The orderlies had stripped
him, and he lay upon the adjustable cot, covered by a sheet. Braile,
for whom I had sent, was bending over Peters, intent upon his face,
and plainly puzzled. I saw with satisfaction that Nurse Walters, an
unusually capable and conscientious young woman, had been assigned to
the case. Braile looked up at me. He said: "Obviously some drug."

"Maybe," I answered. "But if so then a drug I have never
encountered. Look at his eyes--"

I closed Peters' lids. As soon as I had lifted my fingers they
began to rise, slowly, until they were again wide open. Several times
I tried to shut them. Always they opened: the terror, the horror in
them, undiminished.

I began my examination. The entire body was limp, muscles and
joints. It was as flaccid, the simile came to me, as a doll. It was as
though every motor nerve had gone out of business. Yet there was none
of the familiar symptoms of paralysis. Nor did the body respond to any
sensory stimulus, although I struck down into the nerve trunks. The
only reaction I could obtain was a slight contraction of the dilated
pupils under strongest light.

Hoskins, the pathologist, came in to take his samples for blood
tests. When he had drawn what he wanted, I went over the body
minutely. I could find not a single puncture, wound, bruise or
abrasion. Peters was hairy. With Ricori's permission, I had him shaved
clean--chest, shoulders, legs, even the head. I found nothing to
indicate that a drug might have been given him by hypodermic. I had
the stomach emptied and took specimens from the excretory organs,
including the skin. I examined the membranes of nose and throat: they
seemed healthy and normal; nevertheless, I had smears taken from them.
The blood pressure was low, the temperature slightly subnormal; but
that might mean nothing. I gave an injection of adrenaline. There was
absolutely no reaction from it. That might mean much.

"Poor devil," I said to myself. "I'm going to try to kill that
nightmare for you, at any rate."

I gave him a minimum hypo of morphine. It might have been water
for all the good it did. Then I gave him all I dared. His eyes
remained open, terror and horror undiminished. And pulse and
respiration unchanged.

Ricori had watched all these operations with intense interest. I
had done all I could for the time, and told him so.

"I can do no more," I said, "until I receive the reports of the
specimens. Frankly, I am all at sea. I know of no disease nor drug
which would produce these conditions."

"But Dr. Braile," he said, "mentioned a drug--"

"A suggestion only," interposed Braile hastily. "Like Dr. Lowell,
I know of no drug which would cause such symptoms."

Ricori glanced at Peters' face and shivered.

"Now," I said, "I must ask you some questions. Has this man been
ill? If so, has he been under medical care? If he has not actually
been ill, has he spoken of any discomfort? Or have you noticed
anything unusual in his manner or behavior?"

"No, to all questions," he answered. "Peters has been in closest
touch with me for the past week. He has not been ailing in the least.
Tonight we were talking in my apartments, eating a late and light
dinner. He was in high spirits. In the middle of a word, he stopped,
half-turned his head as though listening; then slipped from his chair
to the floor. When I bent over him he was as you see him now. That was
precisely half after midnight. I brought him here at once."

"Well," I said, "that at least gives us the exact time of the
seizure. There is no use of your remaining, Mr. Ricori, unless you
wish."

He studied his hands a few moments, rubbing the carefully
manicured nails.

"Dr. Lowell," he said at last, "if this man dies without your
discovering what killed him, I will pay you the customary fees and the
hospital the customary charges and no more. If he dies and you make
this discovery after his death, I will give a hundred thousand dollars
to any charity you name. But if you make the discovery before he dies,
and restore him to health--I will give you the same sum."

We stared at him, and then as the significance of this remarkable
offer sank in, I found it hard to curb my anger.

"Ricori," I said, "you and I live in different worlds, therefore I
answer you politely, although I find it difficult. I will do all in my
power to find out what is the matter with your friend and to cure him.
I would do that if he and you were paupers. I am interested in him
only as a problem which challenges me as a physician. But I am not
interested in you in the slightest. Nor in your money. Nor in your
offer. Consider it definitely rejected. Do you thoroughly understand
that?"

He betrayed no resentment.

"So much so that more than ever do I wish you to take full
charge," he said.

"Very well. Now where can I get you if I want to bring you here
quickly?"

"With your permission," he answered, "I should like to have--well,
representatives--in this room at all times. There will be two of them.
If you want me, tell them--and I will soon be here."

I smiled at that, but he did not.

"You have reminded me," he said, "that we live in different
worlds. You take your precautions to go safely in your world--and I
order my life to minimize the perils of mine. Not for a moment would I
presume to advise you how to walk among the dangers of your
laboratory, Dr. Lowell. I have the counterparts of those dangers.
Bene--I guard against them as best I can."

It was a most irregular request, of course. But I found myself
close to liking Ricori just then, and saw clearly his point of view.
He knew that and pressed the advantage.

"My men will be no bother," he said. "They will not interfere in
any way with you. If what I suspect to be true is true they will be a
protection for you and your aids as well. But they, and those who
relieve them, must stay in the room night and day. If Peters is taken
from the room, they must accompany him--no matter where it is that he
is taken."

"I can arrange it," I said. Then, at his request, I sent an
orderly down to the doors. He returned with one of the men Ricori had
left on guard. Ricori whispered to him, and he went out. In a little
while two other men came up. In the meantime I had explained the
peculiar situation to the resident and the superintendent and secured
the necessary permission for their stay.

The two men were well-dressed, polite, of a singularly tight-
lipped and cold-eyed alertness. One of them shot a glance at Peters.

"Christ!" he muttered.

The room was a corner one with two windows, one opening out on the
Drive, the other on the side street. Besides these, there were no
outer openings except the door to the hall; the private bathroom being
enclosed and having no windows. Ricori and the two inspected the room
minutely, keeping away, I noticed, from the windows. He asked me then
if the room could be darkened. Much interested, I nodded. The lights
were turned off, the three went to the windows, opened them and
carefully scrutinized the six-story sheer drop to both streets. On the
side of the Drive there is nothing but the open space above the park.
Opposite the other side is a church.

"It is at this side you must watch," I heard Ricori say; he
pointed to the church. "You can turn the lights on now, Doctor."

He started toward the door, then turned.

"I have many enemies, Dr. Lowell. Peters was my right hand. If it
was one of these enemies who struck him, he did it to weaken me. Or,
perhaps, because he had not the opportunity to strike at me. I look at
Peters, and for the first time in my life I, Ricori--am afraid. I have
no wish to be the next, I have no wish to look into hell!"

I grunted at that! He had put so aptly what I had felt and had not
formulated into words.

He started to open the door. He hesitated.

"One thing more. If there should be any telephone calls inquiring
as to Peters' condition let one of these men, or their reliefs,
answer. If any should come in person making inquiry, allow them to
come up--but if they are more than one, let only one come at a time.
If any should appear, asserting that they are relations, again let
these men meet and question them."

He gripped my hand, then opened the door of the room. Another pair
of the efficient-appearing retainers were awaiting him at the
threshold. They swung in before and behind him. As he walked away, I
saw that he was crossing himself vigorously.

I closed the door and went back into the room. I looked down on
Peters.

If I had been religious, I too would have been doing some
crossing. The expression on Peters' face had changed. The terror and
horror were gone. He still seemed to be looking both beyond me and
into himself, but it was a look of evil expectancy--so evil that
involuntarily I shot a glance over my shoulder to see what ugly thing
might be creeping upon me.

There was nothing. One of Ricori's gunmen sat in the corner of the
window, in the shadow, watching the parapet of the church roof
opposite; the other sat stolidly at the door.

Braile and Nurse Walters were at the other side of the bed. Their
eyes were fixed with horrified fascination on Peters' face. And then I
saw Braile turn his head and stare about the room as I had.

Suddenly Peters' eyes seemed to focus, to become aware of the
three of us, to become aware of the entire room. They flashed with an
unholy glee. That glee was not maniacal--it was diabolical. It was the
look of a devil long exiled from his well-beloved hell, and suddenly
summoned to return.

Or was it like the glee of some devil sent hurtling out of his
hell to work his will upon whom he might?

Very well do I know how fantastic, how utterly unscientific, are
such comparisons. Yet not otherwise can I describe that strange
change.

Then, abruptly as the closing of a camera shutter, that expression
fled and the old terror and horror came back. I gave an involuntary
gasp of relief, for it was precisely as though some evil presence had
withdrawn. The nurse was trembling; Braile asked, in a strained voice:
"How about another hypodermic?"

"No," I said. "I want you to watch the progress of this--whatever
it is--without drugs. I'm going down to the laboratory. Watch him
closely until I return."

I went down to the laboratory. Hoskins looked up at me.

"Nothing wrong, so far. Remarkable health, I'd say. Of course all
I've results on are the simpler tests."

I nodded. I had an uncomfortable feeling that the other tests also
would show nothing. And I had been more shaken than I would have cared
to confess by those alternations of hellish fear, hellish expectancy
and hellish glee in Peters' face and eyes. The whole case troubled me,
gave me a nightmarish feeling of standing outside some door which it
was vitally important to open, and to which not only did I have no key
but couldn't find the keyhole. I have found that concentration upon
microscopic work often permits me to think more freely upon problems.
So I took a few smears of Peters' blood and began to study them, not
with any expectation of finding anything, but to slip the brakes from
another part of my brain.

I was on my fourth slide when I suddenly realized that I was
looking at the incredible. As I had perfunctorily moved the slide, a
white corpuscle had slid into the field of vision. Only a simple white
corpuscle--but within it was a spark of phosphorescence, shining out
like a tiny lamp!

I thought at first that it was some effect of the light, but no
manipulation of the illumination changed that spark. I rubbed my eyes
and looked again. I called Hoskins.

"Tell me if you see something peculiar in there."

He peered into the microscope. He started, then shifted the light
as I had.

"What do you see, Hoskins?"

He said, still staring through the lens:

"A leucocyte inside of which is a globe of phosphorescence. Its
glow is neither dimmed when I turn on the full illumination, nor is it
increased when I lessen it. In all except the ingested globe the
corpuscle seems normal."

"And all of which," I said, "is quite impossible."

"Quite," he agreed, straightening. "Yet there it is!"

I transferred the slide to the micro-manipulator, hoping to
isolate the corpuscle, and touched it with the tip of the manipulating
needle. At the instant of contact the corpuscle seemed to burst. The
globe of phosphorescence appeared to flatten, and something like a
miniature flash of heat-lightning ran over the visible portion of the
slide.

And that was all--the phosphorescence was gone.

We prepared and examined slide after slide. Twice more we found a
tiny shining globe, and each time with the same result, the bursting
corpuscle, the strange flicker of faint luminosity--then nothing.

The laboratory 'phone rang. Hoskins answered.

"It's Braile. He wants you--quick."

"Keep after it, Hoskins," I said, and hastened to Peters' room.
Entering, I saw Nurse Walters, face chalk white, eyes closed, standing
with her back turned to the bed. Braile was leaning over the patient,
stethoscope to his heart. I looked at Peters; and stood stock still,
something like a touch of unreasoning panic at my own heart. Upon his
face was that look of devilish expectancy, but intensified. As I
looked, it gave way to the diabolic joy, and that, too, was
intensified. The face held it for not many seconds. Back came the
expectancy then on its heels the unholy glee. The two expressions
alternated, rapidly. They flickered over Peters' face like--like the
flickers of the tiny lights within the corpuscles of his blood. Braile
spoke to me through stiff lips:

"His heart stopped three minutes ago! He ought to be dead--yet
listen--"

The body of Peters stretched and stiffened. A sound came from his
lips--a chuckling sound; low yet singularly penetrating, inhuman, the
chattering laughter of a devil. The gunman at the window leaped to his
feet, his chair going over with a crash. The laughter choked and died
away, and the body of Peters lay limp.

I heard the door open, and Ricori's voice: "How is he, Dr. Lowell?
I could not sleep--" He saw Peters' face.

"Mother of Christ!" I heard him whisper. He dropped to his knees.

I saw him dimly for I could not take my eyes from Peters' face. It
was the face of a grinning, triumphant fiend--all humanity wiped from
it--the face of a demon straight out of some mad medieval painter's
hell. The blue eyes, now utterly malignant, glared at Ricori.

And as I looked, the dead hands moved; slowly the arms bent up
from the elbows, the fingers contracting like claws; the dead body
began to stir beneath the covers--

At that the spell of nightmare dropped from me; for the first time
in hours I was on ground that I knew. It was the rigor mortis, the
stiffening of death--but setting in more quickly and proceeding at a
rate I had never known.

I stepped forward and drew the lids down over the glaring eyes. I
covered the dreadful face.

I looked at Ricori. He was still on his knees, crossing himself
and praying. And kneeling beside him, arm around his shoulders, was
Nurse Walters, and she, too, was praying.

Somewhere a clock struck five.



CHAPTER II: THE QUESTIONNAIRE



I offered to go home with Ricori, and somewhat to my surprise he
accepted with alacrity. The man was pitiably shaken. We rode silently,
the tight-lipped gunmen alert. Peters' face kept floating before me.

I gave Ricori a strong sedative, and left him sleeping, his men on
guard. I had told him that I meant to make a complete autopsy.

Returning to the hospital in his car, I found the body of Peters
had been taken to the mortuary. Rigor mortis, Braile told me, had been
complete in less than an hour--an astonishingly short time. I made the
necessary arrangements for the autopsy, and took Braile home with me
to snatch a few hours’ sleep. It is difficult to convey by words the
peculiarly unpleasant impression the whole occurrence had made upon
me. I can only say that I was as grateful for Braile's company as he
seemed to be for mine.

When I awoke, the nightmarish oppression still lingered, though
not so strongly. It was about two when we began the autopsy. I lifted
the sheet from Peters' body with noticeable hesitation. I stared at
his face with amazement. All diabolism had been wiped away. It was
serene, unlined--the face of a man who had died peacefully, with no
agony either of body or mind. I lifted his hand, it was limp, the
whole body flaccid, the rigor gone.

It was then, I think, that I first felt full conviction I was
dealing with an entirely new, or at least unknown, agency of death,
whether microbic or otherwise. As a rule, rigor does not set in for
sixteen to twenty-four hours, depending upon the condition of the
patient before death, temperature and a dozen other things. Normally,
it does not disappear for forty-eight to seventy-two hours. Usually a
rapid setting-in of the stiffening means as rapid a disappearance, and
vice versa. Diabetics stiffen quicker than others. A sudden brain
injury, like shooting, is even swifter. In this case, the rigor had
begun instantaneously with death, and must have completed its cycle in
the astonishingly short time of less than five hours--for the
attendant told me that he had examined the body about ten o'clock and
he had thought that stiffening had not yet set in. As a matter of
fact, it had come and gone.

The results of the autopsy can be told in two sentences. There was
no ascertainable reason why Peters should not be alive. And he was
dead!

Later, when Hoskins made his reports, both of these utterly
conflicting statements continued to be true. There was no reason why
Peters should be dead. Yet dead he was. If the enigmatic lights we had
observed had anything to do with his death, they left no traces. His
organs were perfect, all else as it should have been; he was, indeed,
an extraordinarily healthy specimen. Nor had Hoskins been able to
capture any more of the light-carrying corpuscles after I had left
him.

That night I framed a short letter describing briefly the symptoms
observed in Peters' case, not dwelling upon the changes in expression
but referring cautiously to "unusual grimaces" and a "look of intense
fear." Braile and I had this manifold and mailed to every physician in
Greater New York. I personally attended to a quiet inquiry to the same
effect among the hospitals. The letters asked if the physicians had
treated any patients with similar symptoms, and if so to give
particulars, names, addresses, occupations and any characteristic
interest under seal, of course, of professional confidence. I
flattered myself that my reputation was such that none of those who
received the questionnaires would think the request actuated either by
idle curiosity or slightest unethical motive.

I received in response seven letters and a personal visit from the
writer of one of them. Each letter, except one, gave me in various
degrees of medical conservatism, the information I had asked. After
reading them, there was no question that within six months seven
persons of oddly dissimilar characteristics and stations in life had
died as had Peters.

Chronologically, the cases were as follows:

May 25: Ruth Bailey, spinster; fifty years old; moderately
wealthy; Social Registerite and best of reputation; charitable and
devoted to children. June 20: Patrick McIlraine; bricklayer; wife and
two children. August 1: Anita Green; child of eleven; parents in
moderate circumstances and well educated. August 15: Steve Standish;
acrobat; thirty; wife and three children. August 30: John J. Marshall;
banker; sixty interested in child welfare. September 10: Phineas
Dimott; thirty-five; trapeze performer; wife and small child. October
12: Hortense Darnley; about thirty; no occupation.

Their addresses, except two, were widely scattered throughout the
city.

Each of the letters noted the sudden onset of rigor mortis and its
rapid passing. Each of them gave the time of death following the
initial seizure as approximately five hours. Five of them referred to
the changing expressions which had so troubled me; in the guarded way
they did it I read the bewilderment of the writers.

"Patient's eyes remained open," recorded the physician in charge
of the spinster Bailey. "Staring, but gave no sign of recognition of
surroundings and failed to focus upon or present any evidence of
seeing objects held before them. Expression one of intense terror,
giving away toward death to others peculiarly disquieting to observer.
The latter intensified after death ensued. Rigor mortis complete and
dissipated within five hours."

The physician in charge of McIlraine, the bricklayer, had nothing
to say about the ante-mortem phenomena, but wrote at some length about
the expression of his patient's face after death.

"It had," he reported, "nothing in common with the muscular
contraction of the so-called 'Hippocratic countenance,' nor was it in
any way the staring eyes and contorted mouth familiarly known as the
death grin. There was no suggestion of agony, after the death--rather
the opposite. I would term the expression one of unusual malice."

The report of the physician who had attended Standish, the
acrobat, was perfunctory, but it mentioned that "after patient had
apparently died, singularly disagreeable sounds emanated from his
throat." I wondered whether these had been the same demonic
machinations that had come from Peters, and, if so, I could not wonder
at all at my correspondent's reticence concerning them.

I knew the physician who had attended the banker--opinionated,
pompous, a perfect doctor of the very rich.

"There can be no mystery as to the cause of death," he wrote. "It
was certainly thrombosis, a clot somewhere in the brain. I attach no
importance whatever to the facial grimaces, nor to the time element
involved in the rigor. You know, my dear Lowell," he added,
patronizingly, "it is an axiom in forensic medicine that one can prove
anything by rigor mortis."

I would have liked to have replied that when in doubt thrombosis
as a diagnosis is equally as useful in covering the ignorance of
practitioners, but it would not have punctured his complacency.

The Dimott report was a simple record with no comment whatever
upon grimaces or sounds.

But the doctor who had attended little Anita had not been so
reticent.

"The child," he wrote, "had been beautiful. She seemed to suffer
no pain, but at the onset of the illness I was shocked by the
intensity of terror in her fixed gaze. It was like a waking
nightmare--for unquestionably she was conscious until death. Morphine
in almost lethal dosage produced no change in this symptom, nor did it
seem to have any effect upon heart or respiration. Later the terror
disappeared, giving way to other emotions which I hesitate to describe
in this report, but will do so in person if you so desire. The aspect
of the child after death was peculiarly disturbing, but again I would
rather speak than write of that."

There was a hastily scrawled postscript; I could see him
hesitating, then giving way at last to the necessity of unburdening
his mind, dashing off that postscript and rushing the letter away
before he could reconsider--

"I have written that the child was conscious until death. What
haunts me is the conviction that she was conscious after physical
death! Let me talk to you."

I nodded with satisfaction. I had not dared to put that
observation down in my questionnaire. And if it has been true of the
other cases, as I now believed it must have been, all the doctors
except Standish's had shared my conservatism--or timidity. I called
little Anita's physician upon the 'phone at once. He was strongly
perturbed. In every detail his case had paralleled that of Peters. He
kept repeating over and over:

"The child was sweet and good as an angel, and she changed into a
devil!"

I promised to keep him apprised of any discoveries I might make,
and shortly after our conversation I was visited by the young
physician who had attended Hortense Darnley. Doctor Y, as I shall call
him, had nothing to add to the medical aspect other than what I
already knew, but his talk suggested the first practical line of
approach toward the problem.

His office, he said, was in the apartment house which had been
Hortense Darnley's home. He had been working late, and had been
summoned to her apartment about ten o'clock by the woman's maid, a
colored girl. He had found the patient lying upon her bed, and had at
once been struck by the expression of terror on her face and the
extraordinary limpness of her body. He described her as blonde, blue-
eyed--"the doll type."

A man was in the apartment. He had at first evaded giving his
name, saying that he was merely a friend. At first glance, Dr. Y had
thought the woman had been subjected to some violence, but examination
revealed no bruises or other injuries. The "friend" had told him they
had been eating dinner when "Miss Darnley flopped right down on the
floor as though all her bones had gone soft, and we couldn't get
anything out of her." The maid confirmed this. There was a half-eaten
dinner on the table, and both man and servant declared Hortense had
been in the best of spirits. There had been no quarrel. Reluctantly,
the "friend" had admitted that the seizure had occurred three hours
before, and that they had tried to "bring her about" themselves,
calling upon him only when the alternating expressions which I have
referred to in the case of Peters began to appear.

As the seizure progressed, the maid had become hysterical with
fright and fled. The man was of tougher timber and had remained until
the end. He had been much shaken, as had Dr. Y, by the after-death
phenomena. Upon the physician declaring that the case was one for the
coroner, he had lost his reticence, volunteering his name as James
Martin, and expressing himself as eager for a complete autopsy. He was
quite frank as to his reasons. The Darnley woman had been his
mistress, and he "had enough trouble without her death pinned to me."

There had been a thorough autopsy. No trace of disease or poison
had been found. Beyond a slight valvular trouble of the heart,
Hortense Darnley had been perfectly healthy. The verdict had been
death by heart disease. But Dr. Y was perfectly convinced the heart
had nothing to do with it.

It was, of course, quite obvious that Hortense Darnley had died
from the same cause or agency as had all the others. But to me the
outstanding fact was that her apartment had been within a stone's
throw of the address Ricori had given me as that of Peters.
Furthermore, Martin was of the same world, if Dr. Y's impressions were
correct. Here was conceivably a link between two of the cases--missing
in the others. I determined to call in Ricori, to lay all the cards
before him, and enlist his aid if possible.

My investigation had consumed about two weeks. During that time I
had become well acquainted with Ricori. For one thing he interested me
immensely as a product of present-day conditions; for another I liked
him, despite his reputation. He was remarkably well read, of a high
grade of totally unmoral intelligence, subtle and superstitious--in
olden time he would probably have been a Captain of Condottieri, his
wits and sword for hire. I wondered what were his antecedents. He had
paid me several visits since the death of Peters, and quite plainly my
liking was reciprocated. On these visits he was guarded by the tight-
lipped man who had watched by the hospital window. This man's name, I
learned, was McCann. He was Ricori's most trusted bodyguard,
apparently wholly devoted to his white-haired chief. He was an
interesting character too, and quite approved of me. He was a drawling
Southerner who had been, as he put it, "a cow-nurse down Arizona way,
and then got too popular on the Border."

"I'm for you, Doc," he told me. "You're sure good for the boss.
Sort of take his mind off business. An' when I come here I can keep my
hands outa my pockets. Any time anybody's cutting in on your cattle,
let me know. I'll ask for a day off."

Then he remarked casually that he "could ring a quarter with six
holes at a hundred-foot range."

I did not know whether this was meant humorously or seriously. At
any rate, Ricori never went anywhere without him; and it showed me how
much he had thought of Peters that he had left McCann to guard him.

I got in touch with Ricori and asked him to take dinner with
Braile and me that night at my house. At seven he arrived, telling his
chauffeur to return at ten. We sat at the table with McCann, as usual,
on watch in my hall, thrilling, I knew, my two night nurses--I have a
small private hospital adjunct--by playing the part of a gunman as
conceived by the motion pictures.

Dinner over, I dismissed the butler and came to the point. I told
Ricori of my questionnaire, remarking that by it I had unearthed seven
cases similar to that of Peters.

"You can dismiss from your mind any idea that Peters' death was
due to his connection with you, including the tiny globes of radiance
in the blood of Peters."

At that his face grew white. He crossed himself.

"La strega!" he muttered. "The Witch! The Witch-fire!"

"Nonsense, man!" I said. "Forget your damned superstitions. I want
help."

"You are scientifically ignorant! There are some things, Dr.
Lowell--" he began, hotly; then controlled himself.

"What is it you want me to do?"

"First," I said, "let's go over these eight cases, analyze them.
Braile, have you come to any conclusions?"

"Yes," Braile answered. "I think all eight were murdered!"



CHAPTER III: THE DEATH AND NURSE WALTERS



That Braile had voiced the thought lurking behind my own mind--and
without a shred of evidence so far as I could see to support it--
irritated me.

"You're a better man than I am, Sherlock Holmes," I said
sarcastically. He flushed, but repeated stubbornly:

"They were murdered."

"La strega!" whispered Ricori. I glared at him.

"Quit beating around the bush, Braile. What's your evidence?"

"You were away from Peters almost two hours; I was with him
practically from start to finish. As I studied him, I had the feeling
that the whole trouble was in the mind--that it was not his body, his
nerves, his brain, that refused to function, but his will. Not quite
that, either. Put it that his will had ceased to care about the
functions of the body--and was centered upon killing it!"

"What you're outlining now is not murder but suicide. Well, it has
been done. I've watched a few die because they had lost the will to
live--"

"I don't mean that," he interrupted. "That's passive. This was
active--"

"Good God, Braile!" I was honestly shocked. "Don't tell me you're
suggesting all eight passed from the picture by willing themselves out
of it--and one of them only an eleven-year-old child!"

"I didn't say that," he replied. "What I felt was that it was not
primarily Peters' own will doing it, but another's will, which had
gripped his, had wound itself around, threaded itself through his
will. Another's will which he could not, or did not want to resist--at
least toward the end."

"La maledetta strega!" muttered Ricori again.

I curbed my irritation and sat considering; after all, I had a
wholesome respect for Braile. He was too good a man, too sound, for
one to ride roughshod over any idea he might voice.

"Have you any idea as to how these murders, if murders they are,
were carried out?" I asked politely.

"Not the slightest," said Braile.

"Let's consider the murder theory. Ricori, you have had more
experience in this line than we, so listen carefully and forget your
witch," I said, brutally enough. "There are three essential factors to
any murder--method, opportunity, motive. Take them in order. First--
the method.

"There are three ways a person can be killed by poison or by
infection: through the nose--and this includes by gases--through the
mouth and through the skin. There are two or three other avenues.
Hamlet's father, for example, was poisoned, we read, through the ears,
although I've always had my doubts about that. I think, pursuing the
hypothesis of murder, we can bar out all approaches except mouth,
nose, skin--and, by the last, entrance to the blood can be
accomplished by absorption as well as by penetration. Was there any
evidence whatever on the skin, in the membranes of the respiratory
channels, in the throat, in the viscera, stomach, blood, nerves,
brain--of anything of the sort?"

"You know there wasn't," he answered.

"Quite so. Then except for the problematical lighted corpuscle,
there is absolutely no evidence of method. Therefore we have
absolutely nothing in essential number one upon which to base a theory
of murder. Let's take number two--opportunity.

"We have a tarnished lady, a racketeer, a respectable spinster, a
bricklayer, an eleven-year-old schoolgirl, a banker, an acrobat and a
trapeze performer. There, I submit, is about as incongruous a
congregation as is possible. So far as we can tell, none of them
except conceivably the circus men--and Peters and the Darnley woman--
had anything in common. How could anyone, who had opportunity to come
in close enough contact to Peters the racketeer to kill him, have
equal opportunity to come in similar close contact with Ruth Bailey,
the Social Registerite maiden lady? How could one who had found a way
to make contact with banker Marshall come equally close to acrobat
Standish? And so on--you perceive the difficulty? To administer
whatever it was that caused the deaths--if they were murder--could
have been no casual matter. It implies a certain degree of intimacy.
You agree?"

"Partly," he conceded.

"Had all lived in the same neighborhood, we might assume that they
might normally have come within range of the hypothetical killer. But
they did not--"

"Pardon me, Dr. Lowell," Ricori interrupted, "but suppose they had
some common interest which brought them within that range."

"What possible common interest could so divergent a group have
had?"

"One common interest is very plainly indicated in these reports
and in what McCann has told us."

"What do you mean, Ricori?"

"Babies," he answered. "Or at least--children."

Braile nodded: "I noticed that."

"Consider the reports," Ricori went on. "Miss Bailey is described
as charitable and devoted to children. Her charities, presumably, took
the form of helping them. Marshall, the banker, was interested in
child-welfare. The bricklayer, the acrobat and the trapeze performer
had children. Anita was a child. Peters and the Darnley woman were, to
use McCann's expression, 'daffy' over a baby."

"But," I objected, "if they are murders, they are the work of one
hand. It is beyond range of possibility that all of the eight were
interested in one baby, one child, or one group of children."

"Very true," said Braile. "But all could have been interested in
one especial, peculiar thing which they believed would be of benefit
to or would delight the child or children to whom each was devoted.
And that peculiar article might be obtainable in only one place. If we
could find that this is the fact, then certainly that place would bear
investigation."

"It is," I said, "undeniably worth looking into. Yet it seems to
me that the common-interest idea works two ways. The homes of those
who died might have had something of common interest to an individual.
The murderer, for example, might be a radio adjuster. Or a plumber. Or
a collector. An electrician, and so and so on."

Braile shrugged a shoulder. Ricori did not answer; he sat deep in
thought, as though he had not heard me.

"Please listen, Ricori," I said. "We've gotten this far. Method of
murder--if it is murder--unknown. Opportunity for killing--find some
person whose business, profession or what not was a matter of interest
to each of the eight, and whom they visited or who visited them; said
business being concerned, possibly, in some way with babies or older
children. Now for motive. Revenge, gain, love, hate, jealousy, self-
protection? None of these seems to fit, for again we come to that
barrier of dissimilar stations in life."

"How about the satisfaction of an appetite for death--wouldn't you
call that a motive?" asked Braile, oddly. Ricori half rose from his
chair, stared at him with a curious intentness; then sank back, but I
noticed he was now all alert.

"I was about to discuss the possibility of a homicidal maniac," I
said, somewhat testily.

"That's not exactly what I mean. You remember Longfellow's lines:

'I shot an arrow into the air.
It fell to earth I know not where.'

"I've never acquiesced in the idea that that was an inspired bit
of verse meaning the sending of an argosy to some unknown port and
getting it back with a surprise cargo of ivory and peacocks, apes and
precious stones. There are some people who can't stand at a window
high above a busy street, or on top of a skyscraper, without wanting
to throw something down. They get a thrill in wondering who or what
will be hit. The feeling of power. It's a bit like being God and
unloosing the pestilence upon the just and the unjust alike.
Longfellow must have been one of those people. In his heart, he wanted
to shoot a real arrow and then mull over in his imagination whether it
had dropped in somebody's eye, hit a heart, or just missed someone and
skewered a stray dog. Carry this on a little further. Give one of
these people power and opportunity to loose death at random, death
whose cause he is sure cannot be detected. He sits in his obscurity,
in safety, a god of death. With no special malice against anyone,
perhaps--impersonal, just shooting his arrows in the air, like
Longfellow's archer, for the fun of it."

"And you wouldn't call such a person a homicidal maniac?" I asked,
dryly.

"Not necessarily. Merely free of inhibitions against killing. He
might have no consciousness of wrongdoing whatever. Everybody comes
into this world under sentence of death--time and method of execution
unknown. Well, this killer might consider himself as natural as death
itself. No one who believes that things on earth are run by an all-
wise, all-powerful God thinks of Him as a homicidal maniac. Yet He
looses wars, pestilences, misery, disease, floods, earthquakes--on
believers and unbelievers alike. If you believe things are in the
hands of what is vaguely termed Fate--would you call Fate a homicidal
maniac?"

"Your hypothetical archer," I said, "looses a singularly
unpleasant arrow, Braile. Also, the discussion is growing far too
metaphysical for a simple scientist like me. Ricori, I can't lay this
matter before the police. They would listen politely and laugh
heartily after I had gone. If I told all that is in my mind to the
medical authorities, they would deplore the decadence of a hitherto
honored intellect. And I would rather not call in any private
detective agency to pursue inquiries."

"What do you want me to do?" he asked.

"You have unusual resources," I answered. "I want you to sift
every movement of Peters and Hortense Darnley for the past two months.
I want you to do all that is possible in the same way with the
others--"

I hesitated.

"I want you to find that one place to which, because of their love
for children, each of these unfortunates was drawn. For though my
reason tells me you and Braile have not the slightest real evidence
upon which to base your suspicions, I grudgingly admit to you that I
have a feeling you may be right."

"You progress, Dr. Lowell," Ricori said, formally. "I predict that
it will not be long before you will as grudgingly admit the
possibility of my witch."

"I am sufficiently abased," I replied, "by my present credulity
not to deny even that."

Ricori laughed, and busied himself copying the essential
information from the reports. Ten o'clock struck. McCann came up to
say that the car was waiting and we accompanied Ricori to the door.
The gunman had stepped out and was on the steps when a thought came to
me.

"Where do you begin, Ricori?"

"With Peters' sister."

"Does she know Peters is dead?"

"No," he answered, reluctantly. "She thinks him away. He is often
away for long, and for reasons which she understands he is not able to
communicate with her directly. At such times I keep her informed. And
the reason I have not told her of Peters' death is because she dearly
loved him and would be in much sorrow--and in a month, perhaps, there
is to be another baby."

"Does she know the Darnley woman is dead, I wonder?"

"I do not know. Probably. Although McCann evidently does not."

"Well," I said, "I don't see how you're going to keep Peters'
death from her now. But that's your business."

"Exactly," he answered, and followed McCann to the car.

Braile and I had hardly gotten back to my library when the
telephone rang. Braile answered it. I heard him curse, and saw that
the hand that held the transmitter was shaking. He said: "We will come
at once."

He set the transmitter down slowly, then turned to me with
twitching face.

"Nurse Walters has it!"

I felt a distinct shock. As I have written, Walters was a perfect
nurse, and besides that a thoroughly good and attractive young person.
A pure Gaelic type--blue black hair, blue eyes with astonishingly long
lashes, milk-white skin--yes, singularly attractive. After a moment or
two of silence I said:

"Well, Braile, there goes all your fine-spun reasoning. Also your
murder theory. From the Darnley woman to Peters to Walters. No doubt
now that we're dealing with some infectious disease."

"Isn't there?" he asked, grimly. "I'm not prepared to admit it. I
happen to know Walters spends most of her money on a little invalid
niece who lives with her--a child of eight. Ricori's thread of common
interest moves into her case."

"Nevertheless," I said as grimly, "I intend to see that every
precaution is taken against an infectious malady."

By the time we had put on our hats and coats, my car was waiting.
The hospital was only two blocks away, but I did not wish to waste a
moment. I ordered Nurse Walters removed to an isolated ward used for
observation of suspicious diseases. Examining her, I found the same
flaccidity as I had noted in the case of Peters. But I observed that,
unlike him, her eyes and face showed little of terror. Horror there
was, and a great loathing. Nothing of panic. She gave me the same
impression of seeing both within and without. As I studied her I
distinctly saw a flash of recognition come into her eyes, and with it
appeal. I looked at Braile--he nodded; he, too, had seen it.

I went over her body inch by inch. It was unmarked except for a
pinkish patch upon her right instep. Closer examination made me think
this had been some superficial injury, such as a chafing, or a light
burn or scald. If so, it had completely healed; the skin was healthy.

In all other ways her case paralleled that of Peters--and the
others. She had collapsed, the nurse told me, without warning while
getting dressed to go home. My inquiry was interrupted by an
exclamation from Braile. I turned to the bed and saw that Walters'
hand was slowly lifting, trembling as though its raising was by some
terrific strain of will. The index finger was half-pointing. I
followed its direction to the disclosed patch upon the foot. And then
I saw her eyes, by that same tremendous effort, focus there.

The strain was too great; the hand dropped, the eyes again were
pools of horror. Yet clearly she had tried to convey to us some
message, something that had to do with that healed wound.

I questioned the nurse as to whether Walters had said anything to
anyone about any injury to her foot. She replied that she had said
nothing to her, nor had any of the other nurses spoken of it. Nurse
Robbins, however, shared the apartment with Harriet and Diana. I asked
who Diana was, and she told me that was the name of Walters' little
niece. This was Robbins' night off, I found, and gave instructions to
have her get in touch with me the moment she returned to the
apartment.

By now Hoskins was taking his samples for the blood tests. I asked
him to concentrate upon the microscopic smears and to notify me
immediately if he discovered one of the luminous corpuscles. Bartano,
an outstanding expert upon tropical diseases, happened to be in the
hospital, as well as Somers, a brain specialist in whom I had strong
confidence. I called them in for observation, saying nothing of the
previous cases. While they were examining Walters, Hoskins called up
to say he had isolated one of the shining corpuscles. I asked the pair
to go to Hoskins and give me their opinion upon what he had to show
them. In a little while they returned, somewhat annoyed and mystified.
Hoskins, they said, had spoken of a "leucocyte containing a
phosphorescent nucleus." They had looked at the slide but had been
unable to find it. Somers very seriously advised me to insist upon
Hoskins having his eyes examined. Bartano said caustically that he
would have been quite as surprised to have seen such a thing as he
would have been to have observed a miniature mermaid swimming around
in an artery. By these remarks, I realized afresh the wisdom in my
silence.

Nor did the expected changes in expression occur. The horror and
loathing persisted, and were commented upon by both Bartano and Somers
as "unusual." They agreed that the condition must be caused by a brain
lesion of some kind. They did not think there was any evidence either
of microbic infection or of drugs or poison. Agreeing that it was a
most interesting case, and asking me to let them know its progress and
outcome, they departed.

At the beginning of the fourth hour, there was a change of
expression, but not what I had been expecting. In Walters' eyes, on
her face, was only loathing. Once I thought I saw a flicker of the
devilish anticipation flash over her face. If so, it was quickly
mastered. About the middle of the fourth hour, we saw recognition
again return to her eyes. Also, there was a perceptible rally of the
slowing heart. I sensed an intense gathering of nervous force.

And then her eyelids began to rise and fall, slowly, as though by
tremendous effort, in measured time and purposefully. Four times they
raised and lowered; there was a pause; then nine times they lifted and
fell; again the pause, then they closed and opened once. Twice she did
this--

"She's trying to signal," whispered Braile. "But what?"

Again the long-lashed lids dropped and rose--four times...pause
...nine times...pause...once...

"She's going," whispered Braile.

I knelt, stethoscope at ears...slower...slower beat the heart
...and slower...and stopped.

"She's gone!" I said, and arose. We bent over her, waiting for
that last hideous spasm, convulsion--whatever it might be.

It did not come. Stamped upon her dead face was the loathing, and
that only. Nothing of the devilish glee. Nor was there sound from her
dead lips. Beneath my hand I felt the flesh of her white arm begin to
stiffen.

The unknown death had destroyed Nurse Walters--there was no doubt
of that. Yet in some obscure, vague way I felt that it had not
conquered her.

Her body, yes. But not her will!



CHAPTER IV: THE THING IN RICORI'S CAR



I returned home with Braile, profoundly depressed. It is difficult
to describe the effect the sequence of events I am relating had upon
my mind from beginning to end--and beyond the end. It was as though I
walked almost constantly under the shadow of an alien world, nerves
prickling as if under surveillance of invisible things not of our life
...the subconsciousness forcing itself to the threshold of the
conscious battering at the door between and calling out to be on guard
...every moment to be on guard. Strange phrases for an orthodox man
of medicine? Let them stand.

Braile was pitiably shaken. So much so that I wondered whether
there had been more than professional interest between him and the
dead girl. If there had been, he did not confide in me.

It was close to four o'clock when we reached my house. I insisted
that he remain with me. I called the hospital before retiring, but
they had heard nothing of Nurse Robbins. I slept a few hours, very
badly. Shortly after nine, Robbins called me on the telephone. She was
half hysterical with grief. I bade her come to my office, and when she
had done so Braile and I questioned her.

"About three weeks ago," she said, "Harriet brought home to Diana
a very pretty doll. The child was enraptured. I asked Harriet where
she had gotten it, and she said in a queer little store way downtown.

"'Job,' she said--my name is Jobina--'There's the queerest woman
down there. I'm sort of afraid of her, Job.'

"I didn't pay much attention. Besides, Harriet wasn't ever very
communicative. I had the idea she was a bit sorry she had said what
she had.

"Now I think of it though, Harriet acted rather funny after that.
She'd be gay and then she'd be--well, sort of thoughtful. About ten
days ago she came home with a bandage around her foot. The right foot?
Yes. She said she'd been having tea with the woman she'd gotten
Diana's doll from. The teapot upset and the hot tea had poured down on
her foot. The woman had put some salve on it right away, and now it
didn't hurt a bit.

"'But I think I'll put something on it I know something about,'
she told me. Then she slipped off her stocking and began to strip the
bandage. I'd gone into the kitchen and she called to me to come and
look at her foot.

"'It's queer,' she said. 'That was a bad scald, Job. Yet it's
practically healed. And that salve hasn't been on more than an hour.'

"I looked at her foot. There was a big red patch on the instep.
But it wasn't sore, and I told her the tea couldn't have been very
hot.

"'But it was really scalded, Job,' she said. 'I mean it was
blistered.'

"She sat looking at the bandage and at her foot for quite a while.
The salve was bluish and had a queer shine to it. I never saw anything
like it before. No, I couldn't detect any odor to it. Harriet reached
down and took the bandage and said:

"'Job, throw it in the fire.'

"I threw the bandage in the fire. I remember that it gave a queer
sort of flicker. It didn't seem to burn. It just flickered and then it
wasn't there. Harriet watched it, and turned sort of white. Then she
looked at her foot again.

"'Job,' she said. 'I never saw anything heal as quick as that.
She, must be a witch.'

"'What on earth are you talking about, Harriet?' I asked her.

"'Oh, nothing,' she said. 'Only I wish I had the courage to rip
that place on my foot wide open and rub in an antidote for snake-
bite!'

"Then she laughed, and I thought she was fooling. But she painted
it with iodine and bandaged it with an antiseptic besides. The next
morning she woke me up and said:

"'Look at that foot now. Yesterday a whole pot of scalding tea
poured over it. And now it isn't even tender. And the skin ought to be
just smeared off. Job, I wish to the Lord it was!'

"That's all, Dr. Lowell. She didn't say any more about it and
neither did I. And she just seemed to forget all about it. Yes. I did
ask her where the shop was and who the woman was, but she wouldn't
tell me. I don't know why.

"And after that I never knew her so gay and carefree. Happy,
careless...Oh, I don't know why she should have died...I don't...
I don't!"

Braile asked:

"Do the numbers 491 mean anything to you, Robbins? Do you
associate them with any address Harriet knew?"

She thought, then shook her head. I told her of the measured
closing and opening of Walters' eyes.

"She was clearly attempting to convey some message in which those
numbers figured. Think again."

Suddenly she straightened, and began counting upon her fingers.
She nodded.

"Could she have been trying to spell out something? If they were
letters they would read d, i and a. They're the first three letters of
Diana's name."

"Well, of course that seemed the simple explanation. She might
have been trying to ask us to take care of the child." I suggested
this to Braile. He shook his head.

"She knew I'd do that," he said. "No, it was something else."

A little after Robbins had gone, Ricori called up. I told him of
Walters' death. He was greatly moved. And after that came the
melancholy business of the autopsy. The results were precisely the
same as in that of Peters. There was nothing whatever to show why the
girl had died.

At about four o'clock the next day Ricori again called me on the
telephone.

"Will you be at home between six and nine, Dr. Lowell?" There was
suppressed eagerness in his voice.

"Certainly, if it is important," I answered, after consulting my
appointment book. "Have you found out anything, Ricori?"

He hesitated.

"I do not know. I think perhaps--yes."

"You mean," I did not even try to hide my own eagerness. "You
mean--the hypothetical place we discussed?"

"Perhaps. I will know later. I go now, to where it may be."

"Tell me this, Ricori--what do you expect to find?"

"Dolls!" he answered.

And as though to avoid further questions he hung up before I could
speak.

Dolls!

I sat thinking. Walters had bought a doll. And in that same
unknown place where she had bought it, she had sustained the injury
which had so worried her--or rather, whose unorthodox behavior had so
worried her. Nor was there doubt in my mind, after hearing Robbins'
story, that it was to that injury she had attributed her seizure, and
had tried to tell us so. We had not been mistaken in our
interpretation of that first desperate effort of will I have
described. She might, of course, have been in error. The scald or,
rather, the salve had had nothing whatever to do with her condition.
Yet Walters had been strongly interested in a child. Children were the
common interest of all who had died as she had. And certainly the one
great common interest of children is dolls. What was it that Ricori
had discovered?

I called Braile, but could not get him. I called up Robbins and
told her to bring the doll to me immediately, which she did.

The doll was a peculiarly beautiful thing. It had been cut from
wood, then covered with gesso. It was curiously life-like. A baby
doll, with an elfin little face. Its dress was exquisitely
embroidered, a folk-dress of some country I could not place. It was, I
thought, almost a museum piece, and one whose price Nurse Walters
could hardly have afforded. It bore no mark by which either maker or
seller could be identified. After I had examined it minutely, I laid
it away in a drawer. I waited impatiently to hear from Ricori.

At seven o'clock there was a sustained, peremptory ringing of the
doorbell. Opening my study door, I heard McCann's voice in the hall,
and called to him to come up. At first glance I knew something was
very wrong. His tight-mouthed tanned face was a sallow yellow, his
eyes held a dazed look. He spoke from stiff lips:

"Come down to the car. I think the boss is dead."

"Dead!" I exclaimed, and was down the stairs and out beside the
car in a breath. The chauffeur was standing beside the door. He opened
it, and I saw Ricori huddled in a corner of the rear seat. I could
feel no pulse, and when I raised the lids of his eyes they stared at
me sightlessly. Yet he was not cold.

"Bring him in," I ordered.

McCann and the chauffeur carried him into the house and placed him
on the examination table in my office. I bared his breast and applied
the stethoscope. I could detect no sign of the heart functioning. Nor
was there, apparently, any respiration. I made a few other rapid
tests. To all appearances, Ricori was quite dead. And yet I was not
satisfied. I did the things customary in doubtful cases, but without
result.

McCann and the chauffeur had been standing close beside me. They
read my verdict in my face. I saw a strange glance pass between them;
and obviously each of them had a touch of panic, the chauffeur more
markedly than McCann. The latter asked in a level, monotonous voice:

"Could it have been poison?"

"Yes, it could--" I stopped.

Poison! And that mysterious errand about which he had telephoned
me! And the possibility of poison in the other cases! But this death--
and again I felt the doubt--had not been like those others.

"McCann," I said, "when and where did you first notice anything
wrong?"

He answered, still in that monotonous voice:

"About six blocks down the street. The boss was sitting close to
me. All at once he says 'Jesu!' Like he's scared. He shoves his hands
up to his chest. He gives a kind of groan an' stiffens out. I says to
him: 'What's the matter, boss, you got a pain?' He don't answer me,
an' then he sort of falls against me an' I see his eyes is wide open.
He looks dead to me. So I yelps to Paul to stop the car and we both
look him over. Then we beat it here like hell."

I went to a cabinet and poured them stiff drinks of brandy. They
needed it. I threw a sheet over Ricori.

"Sit down," I said, "and you, McCann, tell me exactly what
occurred from the time you started out with Mr. Ricori to wherever it
was he went. Don't skip a single detail."

He said:

"About two o'clock the boss goes to Mollie's--that's Peters'
sister--stays an hour, comes out, goes home and tells Paul to be back
at four-thirty. But he's doing a lot of 'phoning so we don't start
till five. He tells Paul where he wants to go, a place over in a
little street down off Battery Park. He says to Paul not to go through
the street, just park the car over by the Battery. And he says to me,
'McCann, I'm going in this place myself. I don't want 'em to know I
ain't by myself.' He says, 'I got reasons. You hang around an' look in
now an' then, but don't come in unless I call you.' I says, 'Boss, do
you think it's wise?' An' he says, 'I know what I'm doing an' you do
what I tell you.' So there ain't any argument to that.

"We get down to this place an' Paul does like he's told, an' the
boss walks up the street an' he stops at a little joint that's got a
lot of dolls in the window. I looks in the place as I go past. There
ain't much light but I see a lot of other dolls inside an' a thin gal
at a counter. She looks white as a fish's belly to me, an' after the
boss has stood at the window a minute or two he goes in, an' I go by
slow to look at the gal again because she sure looks whiter than I
ever saw a gal look who's on her two feet. The boss is talkin' to the
gal who's showing him some dolls. The next time I go by there's a
woman in the place. She's so big, I stand at the window a minute to
look at her because I never seen anybody that looks like her. She's
got a brown face an' it looks sort of like a horse, an' a little
mustache an' moles, an' she's as funny a looking brand as the fish-
white gal. Big an' fat. But I get a peep at her eyes--Geeze, what
eyes! Big an' black an' bright, an' somehow I don't like them any more
than the rest of her. The next time I go by, the boss is over in a
corner with the big dame. He's got a wad of bills in his hand and I
see the gal watching sort of frightened like. The next time I do my
beat, I don't see either the boss or the woman.

"So I stand looking through the window because I don't like the
boss out of my sight in this joint. An' the next thing I see is the
boss coming out of a door at the back of the shop. He's madder than
hell an' carrying something an' the woman is behind him an' her eyes
spitting fire. The boss is jabbering but I can't hear what he's
saying, an' the dame is jabbering too an' making funny passes at him.
Funny passes? Why, funny motions with her hands. But the boss heads
for the door an' when he gets to it I see him stick what he's carrying
inside his overcoat an' button it up round it.

"It's a doll. I see its legs dangling down before he gets it under
his coat. A big one, too, for it makes quite a bulge--"

He paused, began mechanically to roll a cigarette, than glanced at
the covered body and threw the cigarette away. He went on:

"I never see the boss so mad before. He's muttering to himself in
Italian an' saying something over an' over that sounds like 'strayga-'
I see it ain't no time to talk so I just walk along with him. Once he
says to me, more as if he's talking to himself than me, if you get
what I mean--he says, 'The Bible says you shall not suffer a witch to
live.' Then he goes on muttering an' holding one arm fast over this
doll inside his coat.

"We get to the car an' he tells Paul to beat it straight to you
an' to hell with traffic--that's right, ain't it, Paul? Yes. When we
get in the car he stops muttering an' just sits there quiet, not
saying anything to me until I hear him say Jesu!' like I told you. And
that's all, ain't it, Paul?"

The chauffeur did not answer. He sat staring at McCann with
something of entreaty in his gaze. I distinctly saw McCann shake his
head. The chauffeur said, in a strongly marked Italian accent,
hesitatingly:

"I do not see the shop, but everything else McCann say is truth."

I got up and walked over to Ricori's body. I was about to lift the
sheet when something caught my eye. A red spot about as big as a
dime--a blood stain. Holding it in place with one finger, I carefully
lifted the edge of the sheet. The blood spot was directly over
Ricori's heart.

I took one of my strongest glasses and one of my finest probes.
Under the glass, I could see on Ricori's breast a minute puncture, no
larger than that made by a hypodermic needle. Carefully I inserted the
probe. It slipped easily in and in until it touched the wall of the
heart. I went no further.

Some needle-pointed, exceedingly fine instrument had been thrust
through Ricori's breast straight into his heart!

I looked at him, doubtfully; there was no reason why such a minute
puncture should cause death. Unless, of course, the weapon which had
made it had been poisoned; or there had been some other violent shock
which had contributed to that of the wound itself. But such shock or
shocks might very well bring about in a person of Ricori's peculiar
temperament some curious mental condition, producing an almost perfect
counterfeit of death. I had heard of such cases.

No, despite my tests, I was not sure Ricori was dead. But I did
not tell McCann that. Alive or dead, there was one sinister fact that
McCann must explain. I turned to the pair, who had been watching me
closely.

"You say there were only the three of you in the car?"

Again I saw a glance pass between them.

"There was the doll," McCann answered, half-defiantly. I brushed
the answer aside, impatiently.

"I repeat: there were only the three of you in the car?"

"Three men, yes."

"Then," I said grimly, "you two have a lot to explain. Ricori was
stabbed. I'll have to call the police."

McCann arose and walked over to the body. He picked up the glass
and peered through it at the tiny puncture. He looked at the
chauffeur. He said:

"I told you the doll done it, Paul!"



CHAPTER V: THE THING IN RICORI'S CAR (CONTINUED)



I said, incredulously, "McCann, you surely don't expect me to
believe that?"

He did not answer, rolling another cigarette which this time he
did not throw away. The chauffeur staggered over to Ricori's body; he
threw himself on his knees and began mingled prayers and implorations.
McCann, curiously enough, was now completely himself. It was as though
the removal of uncertainty as to the cause of Ricori's death had
restored all his old cold confidence. He lighted the cigarette; he
said, almost cheerfully:

"I'm aiming to make you believe."

I walked over to the telephone. McCann jumped in front of me and
stood with his back against the instrument.

"Wait a minute, Doc. If I'm the kind of a rat that'll stick a
knife in the heart of the man who hired me to protect him--ain't it
occurred to you the spot you're on ain't so healthy? What's to keep me
an' Paul from giving you the works an' making our getaway?"

Frankly, that had not occurred to me. Now I realized in what a
truly dangerous position I was placed. I looked at the chauffeur. He
had risen from his knees and was standing, regarding McCann intently.

"I see you get it." McCann smiled, mirthlessly. He walked to the
Italian. "Pass your rods, Paul."

Without a word the chauffeur dipped into his pockets and handed
him a pair of automatics. McCann laid them on my table. He reached
under his left arm and placed another pistol beside them; reached into
his pocket and added a second.

"Sit there, Doc," he said, and indicated my chair at the table.
"That's all our artillery. Keep the guns right under your hands. If we
make any breaks, shoot. All I ask is you don't do any calling up till
you've listened."

I sat down, drawing the automatics to me, examining them to see
that they were loaded. They were.

"Doc," McCann said, "there's three things I want you to consider.
First, if I'd had anything to do with smearing the boss, would I be
giving you a break like this? Second, I was sitting at his right side.
He had on a thick overcoat. How could I reach over an' run anything as
thin as whatever killed him must have been all through his coat, an'
through the doll, through his clothes, an' through him without him
putting up some kind of a fight. Hell, Ricori was a strong man. Paul
would have seen us--"

"What difference would that have made," I interrupted, "if Paul
were an accomplice?"

"Right," he acquiesced, "that's so. Paul's as deep in the mud as I
am. Ain't that so, Paul?" He looked sharply at the chauffeur, who
nodded. "All right, we'll leave that with a question mark after it.
Take the third point--if I'd killed the boss that way, an' Paul was in
it with me, would we have took him to the one man who'd be expected to
know how he was killed? An' then when you'd found out as expected,
hand you an alibi like this? Christ, Doc, I ain't loco enough for
that!"

His face twitched.

"Why would I want to kill him? I'd a-gone through hell an' back
for him an' he knew it. So would've Paul."

I felt the force of all this. Deep within me I was conscious of a
stubborn conviction that McCann was telling the truth--or at least the
truth as he saw it. He had not stabbed Ricori. Yet to attribute the
act, to a doll was too fantastic. And there had been only the three
men in the car. McCann had been reading my thoughts with an uncanny
precision.

"It might've been one of them mechanical dolls," he said. "Geared
up to stick."

"McCann, go down and bring it up to me," I said sharply--he had
voiced a rational explanation.

"It ain't there," he said, and grinned at me again mirthlessly.
"It out!"

"Preposterous--" I began. The chauffeur broke in:

"It's true. Something out. When I open the door. I think it cat,
dog, maybe. I say, 'What the hell-' Then I see it. It run like hell.
It stoop. It duck in shadow. I see it just as flash an' then no more.
I say to McCann--'What the hell!' McCann, he's feeling around bottom
of car. He say--'It's the doll. It done for the boss!' I say: 'Doll!
What you mean doll?' He tell me. I know nothing of any doll before. I
see the boss carry something in his coat, si. But I don't know what.
But I see one goddam thing that don't look like cat, dog. It jump out
of car, through my legs, si!"

I said ironically: "Is it your idea, McCann, that this mechanical
doll was geared to run away as well as to stab?"

He flushed, but answered quietly:

"I ain't saying it was a mechanical doll. But anything else would
be--well, pretty crazy, wouldn't it?"

"McCann," I asked abruptly, "what do you want me to do?"

"Doc, when I was down Arizona way, there was a ranchero died. Died
sudden. There was a feller looked as if he had a lot to do with it.
The marshal said: 'Hombre, I don't think you done it--but I'm the lone
one on the jury. What say?' The hombre say, 'Marshal, give me two
weeks, an' if I don't bring in the feller that done it, you hang me.'
The marshal says, 'Fair enough. The temporary verdict is deceased died
by shock.' It was shock all right. Bullet shock. All right, before the
two weeks was up, along comes this feller with the murderer hog-tied
to his saddle."

"I get your point, McCann. But this isn't Arizona."

"I know it ain't. But couldn't you certify it was heart disease?
Temporarily? An' give me a week? Then if I don't come through, shoot
the works. I won't run away. It's this way, Doc. If you tell the
bulls, you might just as well pick up one of them guns an' shoot me
an' Paul dead right now. If we tell the bulls about the doll, they'll
laugh themselves sick an' fry us at Sing Sing. If we don't, we fry
anyway. If by a miracle the bulls drop us--there's them in the boss's
crowd that'll soon remedy that. I'm telling you, Doc, you'll be
killing two innocent men. An' worse, you'll never find out who did
kill the boss, because they'll never look any further than us. Why
should they?"

A cloud of suspicion gathered around my conviction of the pair's
innocence. The proposal, naive as it seemed, was subtle. If I
assented, the gunman and the chauffeur would have a whole week to get
away, if that was the plan. If McCann did not come back, and I told
the truth of the matter, I would be an accessory after the fact--in
effect, co-murderer. If I pretended that my suspicions had only just
been aroused, I stood, at the best, convicted of ignorance. If they
were captured, and recited the agreement, again I could be charged as
an accessory. It occurred to me that McCann's surrender of the pistols
was extraordinarily clever. I could not say that my assent had been
constrained by threats. Also, it might have been only a cunningly
conceived gesture to enlist my confidence, weaken my resistance to his
appeal. How did I know that the pair did not have still other weapons,
ready to use if I refused?

Striving to find a way out of the trap, I walked over to Ricori. I
took the precaution of dropping the automatics into my pockets as I
went. I bent over Ricori. His flesh was cold, but not with the
peculiar chill of death. I examined him once more, minutely. And now I
could detect the faintest of pulsation in the heart a bubble began to
form at the corner of his lips--Ricori lived!

I continued to bend over him, thinking faster than ever I had
before. Ricori lived, yes. But it did not lift my peril. Rather it
increased it. For if McCann had stabbed him, if the pair had been in
collusion, and learned that they had been unsuccessful, would they not
finish what they had thought ended? With Ricori alive, Ricori able to
speak and to accuse them--a death more certain than the processes of
law confronted them. Death at Ricori's command at the hands of his
henchmen. And in finishing Ricori they would at the same time be
compelled to kill me.

Still bending, I slipped a hand into my pocket, clenched an
automatic, and then whirled upon them with the gun leveled.

"Hands up! Both of you!" I said.

Amazement flashed over McCann's face, consternation over the
chauffeur's. But their hands went up.

I said, "There's no need of that clever little agreement, McCann.
Ricori is not dead. When he's able to talk he'll tell what happened to
him."

I was not prepared for the effect of this announcement. If McCann
was not sincere, he was an extraordinary actor. His lanky body
stiffened, I had seldom seen such glad relief as was stamped upon his
face. Tears rolled down his tanned cheeks. The chauffeur dropped to
his knees, sobbing and praying. My suspicions were swept away. I did
not believe this could be acting. In some measure I was ashamed of
myself.

"You can drop your hands, McCann," I said, and slipped the
automatic back in my pocket.

He said, hoarsely: "Will he live?"

I answered: "I think he has every chance. If there's no infection,
I'm sure of it."

"Thank God!" whispered McCann, and over and over, "Thank God!"

And just then Braile entered, and stood staring in amazement at
us.

"Ricori has been stabbed. I'll explain the whole matter later," I
told him. "Small puncture over the heart and probably penetrating it.
He's suffering mainly from shock. He's coming out of it. Get him up to
the Annex and take care of him until I come."

Briefly I reviewed what I had done and suggested the immediate
further treatment. And when Ricori had been removed, I turned to the
gunmen.

"McCann," I said, "I'm not going to explain. Not now. But here are
your pistols, and Paul's. I'm giving you your chance."

He took the automatics, looking at me with a curious gleam in his
eyes.

"I ain't saying I wouldn't like to know what touched you off,
Doc," he said. "But whatever you do is all right by me--if only you
can bring the boss around."

"Undoubtedly there are some who will have to be notified of his
condition," I replied. "I'll leave that all to you. All I know is that
he was on his way to me. He had a heart attack in the car. You brought
him to me. I am now treating him--for heart attack. If he should die,
McCann--well, that will be another matter."

"I'll do the notifying," he answered. "There's only a couple that
you'll have to see. Then I'm going down to that doll joint an' get the
truth outa that hag."

His eyes were slits, his mouth a slit, too.

"No," I said, firmly. "Not yet. Put a watch on the place. If the
woman goes out, discover where she goes. Watch the girl as closely. If
it appears as though either of them or both of them are moving away--
running off--let them. But follow them. I don't want them molested or
even alarmed until Ricori can tell what happened there."

"All right," he said, but reluctantly.

"Your doll story," I reminded him, sardonically, "would not be so
convincing to the police as to my somewhat credulous mind. Take no
chance of them being injected into the matter. As long as Ricori is
alive, there is no need of them being so injected."

I took him aside.

"Can you trust the chauffeur to do no talking?"

"Paul's all right," he said.

"Well, for both your sakes, he would better be," I warned.

They took their departure. I went up to Ricori's room. His heart
was stronger, his respiration weak but encouraging. His temperature,
although still dangerously subnormal, had improved. If, as I had told
McCann, there was no infection, and if there had been no poison nor
drug upon the weapon with which he had been stabbed, Ricori should
live.

Later that night two thoroughly polite gentlemen called upon me,
heard my explanation of Ricori's condition, asked if they might see
him, did see him, and departed. They assured me that "win or lose" I
need have no fear about my fees, nor have any hesitancy in bringing in
the most expensive consultants. In exchange, I assured them that I
believed Ricori had an excellent chance to recover. They asked me to
allow no one to see him except themselves, and McCann. They thought it
might save me trouble to have a couple of men whom they would send to
me, to sit at the door of the room--outside, of course, in the hall. I
answered that I would be delighted.

In an exceedingly short time two quietly watchful men were on
guard at Ricori's door, just as they had been over Peters'.

In my dreams that night dolls danced around me, pursued me,
threatened me. My sleep was not pleasant.



CHAPTER VI: STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF OFFICER SHEVLIN



Morning brought a marked improvement in Ricori's condition. The
deep coma was unchanged, but his temperature was nearly normal;
respiration and heart action quite satisfactory. Braile and I divided
duties so that one of us could be constantly within call of the
nurses. The guards were relieved after breakfast by two others. One of
my quiet visitors of the night before made his appearance, looked at
Ricori and received with unfeigned gratification my reassuring
reports.

After I had gone to bed the obvious idea had occurred to me that
Ricori might have made some memorandum concerning his quest; I had
felt reluctance about going through his pockets, however. Now seemed
to be the opportunity to ascertain whether he had or had not. I
suggested to my visitor that he might wish to examine any papers
Ricori had been carrying, adding that we had been interested together
in a certain matter, that he had been on his way to discuss this with
me when he had undergone his seizure; and that he might have carried
some notes of interest to me. My visitor agreed; I sent for Ricori's
overcoat and suit and we went through them. There were a few papers,
but nothing relating to our investigation.

In the breast pocket of his overcoat, however, was a curious
object--a piece of thin cord about eight inches long in which had been
tied nine knots, spaced at irregular intervals. They were curious
knots too, not quite like any I could recollect having observed. I
studied the cord with an unaccountable but distinct feeling of
uneasiness. I glanced at my visitor and saw a puzzled look in his
eyes. And then I remembered Ricori's superstition, and reflected that
the knotted cord was probably a talisman or charm of some sort. I put
it back in the pocket.

When again alone, I took it out and examined it more minutely. The
cord was of human hair, tightly braided--the hair a peculiarly pale
ash and unquestionably a woman's. Each knot, I now saw, was tied
differently. Their structure was complex. The difference between them,
and their irregular spacing, gave a vague impression of forming a word
or sentence. And, studying the knots, I had the same sensation of
standing before a blank door, vitally important for me to open, that I
had felt while watching Peters die. Obeying some obscure impulse, I
did not return the cord to the pocket but threw it into the drawer
with the doll which Nurse Robbins had brought me.

Shortly after three, McCann telephoned me. I was more than glad to
hear from him. In the broad light of day his story of the occurrence
in Ricori's car had become incredibly fantastic, all my doubts
returning.

I had even begun again to review my unenviable position if he
disappeared. Some of this must have shown in the cordiality of my
greeting, for he laughed.

"Thought I'd rode off the range, did you, Doc? You couldn't drive
me away. Wait till you see what I got."

I awaited his arrival with impatience. When he appeared he had
with him a sturdy, red-faced man who carried a large paper clothing-
bag. I recognized him as a policeman I had encountered now and then on
the Drive, although I had never before seen him out of uniform. I bade
the two be seated, and the officer sat on the edge of a chair, holding
the clothes-bag gingerly across his knees. I looked at McCann
inquiringly.

"Shevlin," he waved his hand at the officer, "said he knew you,
Doc. But I'd have brought him along, anyway."

"If I didn't know Dr. Lowell, it's not me that'd be here, McCann
me lad," said Shevlin, glumly. "But it's brains the Doc has got in his
head, an' not a cold boiled potato like that damned lootenant."

"Well," said McCann, maliciously, "the Doc'll prescribe for you
anyway, Tim."

"'Tis no prescribin' I want, I tell you," Shevlin bellowed, "I
seen it wit' me own eyes, I'm tellin' you! An' if Dr. Lowell tells me
I was drunk or crazy I'll tell him t'hell wit' him, like I told the
lootenant. An' I'm tellin' you, too, McCann."

I listened to this with growing amazement.

"Now, Tim, now, Tim," soothed McCann, "I believe you. You don't
know how much I want to believe you--or why, either."

He gave me a quick glance, and I gathered that whatever the reason
he had brought the policeman to see me, he had not spoken to him of
Ricori.

"You see, Doc, when I told you about that doll getting up an'
jumping out of the car you thought I was loco. All right, I says to
me, maybe it didn't get far. Maybe it was one of them improved
mechanical dolls, but even if it was it has to run down sometime. So I
goes hunting for somebody else that might have seen it. An' this
morning I runs into Shevlin here. An' he tells me. Go on, Tim, give
the Doc what you gave me."

Shevlin blinked, shifted the bag cautiously and began. He had the
dogged air of repeating a story that he had told over and over. And to
unsympathetic audiences; for as he went on he would look at me
defiantly, or raise his voice belligerently.

"It was one o'clock this mornin'. I am on me beat when I hear
somebody yellin' desperate like. 'Help!' he yells. 'Murder! Take it
away!' he yells. I go runnin', an' there standin' on a bench is a guy
in his soup-an'-nuts an' high hat jammed over his ears, an' a-hittin'
this way an' that wit' his cane, an' a-dancin' up an' down an' it's
him that's doin' the yellin'.

"I reach over an' tap him on the shins wit' me night-club, an' he
looks down an' then flops right in me arms. I get a whiff of his
breath an' I think I see what's the matter wit' him all right. I get
him on his feet, an' I says: 'Come on now, the pink'll soon run off
the elephants,' I says. 'It's this Prohibition hooch that makes it look
so thick,' I says. 'Tell me where you live an' I'll put you in a taxi,
or do you want t'go to a hospital?' I says.

"He stands there a-holdin' unto me an' a-shakin', an' he says:
'D'ye think I'm drunk?' An' I begins t'tell him. 'An' how-' when I
looks at him, an' he ain't drunk. He might've been drunk, but he ain't
drunk now. An' all t'once he flops down on the bench an' pulls up his
pants an' down his socks, an' I sees blood runnin' from a dozen little
holes, an' he says, 'Maybe you'll be tellin' me it's pink elephants
done that?'

"I looks at 'em an' feels 'em, an' it's blood all right, as if
somebody's been jabbin' a hat-pin in him--"

Involuntarily I stared at McCann. He did not meet my eyes.
Imperturbably he was rolling a cigarette.

"An' I says: 'What the hell done it?' An' he says 'The doll done
it!'"

A little shiver ran down my back, and I looked again at the
gunman. This time he gave me a warning glance. Shevlin glared up at
me.

"'The doll done it!' he tells me," Shevlin shouted. "He tells me
the doll done it!"

McCann chuckled and Shevlin turned his glare from me to him. I
said hastily:

"I understand, Officer. He told you it was the doll made the
wounds. An astonishing assertion, certainly."

"Y'don't believe it, y'mean?" demanded Shevlin, furiously.

"I believe he told you that, yes," I answered. "But go on."

"All right, would y'be sayin' I was drunk too, t'believe it? Fer
it's what that potato-brained lootenant did."

"No, no," I assured him hastily. Shevlin settled back, and went
on:

"I asks the drunk, 'What's her name?' 'What's whose name?' says
he. 'The doll's,' I says. 'I'll bet you she was a blonde doll,' I
says, 'an' wants her picture in the tabloids. The brunettes don't use
hatpins,' I says. 'They're all fer the knife.'

"'Officer,' he says, solemn, 'it was a doll. A little man doll.
An' when I say doll I mean a doll. I was walkin along,' he says,
'gettin' the air. I won't deny I'd had some drinks,' he says, 'but
nothin' I couldn't carry. I'm swishin' along wit' me cane, when I
drops it by that bush there,' he says, pointin'. 'I reach down to pick
it up,' he says, 'an' there I see a doll. It's a big doll an' it's all
huddled up crouchin', as if somebody dropped it that way. I reaches
over t' pick it up. As I touch it, the doll jumps as if I hit a spring.
It jumps right over me head,' he says. 'I'm surprised,' he says, 'an'
considerably startled, an' I'm crouchin' there lookin' where the doll
was when I feel a hell of a pain in the calf of me leg,' he says,
'like I been stabbed. I jump up, an' there's this doll wit' a big pin
in its hand just ready t' jab me again.'

"'Maybe,' says I to the drunk, 'maybe 'twas a midget you seen?'
'Midget hell!' says he, 'it was a doll! An' it was jabbin' me wit' a
hatpin. It was about two feet high,' he says, 'wit' blue eyes. It was
grinnin' at me in a way that made me blood run cold. An' while I stood
there paralyzed, it jabbed me again. I jumped on the bench,' he says,
'an' it danced around an' around, an' it jumped up an' jabbed me. An'
it jumped down an' up again an' jabbed me. I thought it meant to kill
me, an' I yelled like hell,' says the drunk. 'An' who wouldn't?' he
asks me. 'An' then you come,' he says, 'an' the doll ducked into the
bushes there. Fer God's sake, officer, come wit' me till I can get a
taxi an' go home,' he says, 'fer I make no bones tellin' you I'm
scared right down to me gizzard!' says he.

"So I take the drunk by the arm," went on Shevlin, "thinkin', poor
lad, what this bootleg booze'll make you see, but still puzzled about
how he got them holes in his legs. We come out to the Drive. The drunk
is still a-shakin' an' I'm a-waitin' to hail a taxi, when all of a
sudden he lets out a squeal. 'There it goes! Look, there it goes!'

"I follow his finger, an' sure enough I see somethin' scuttlin'
over the sidewalk an' out on the Drive. The light's none too good, an'
I think it's a cat or maybe a dog. Then I see there's a little coupe
drawn up opposite at the curb. The cat or dog, whatever it is, seems
to be makin' fer it. The drunk's still yellin' an' I'm tryin' to see
what it is, when down the Drive hell-fer-leather comes a big car. It
hits this thing kersmack an' never stops. He's out of sight before I
can raise me whistle. I think I see the thing wriggle an' I think,
still thinkin' it's a cat or dog, 'I'll put you out of your misery,'
an' I run over to it wit' me gun. As I do so the coupe that's been
waitin' shoots off hell-fer-leather too. I get over to what the other
car hit, an' I look at it--"

He slipped the bag off his knees, set it down beside him and
untied the top.

"An' this is what it was."

Out of the bag he drew a doll, or what remained of it. The
automobile had gone across its middle, crushing it. One leg was
missing; the other hung by a thread. Its clothing was torn and
begrimed with the dirt of the roadway. It was a doll--but uncannily
did it give the impression of a mutilated pygmy. Its neck hung limply
over its breast.

McCann stepped over and lifted the doll's head, I stared, and
stared...with a prickling of the scalp...with a slowing of the
heart beat...

For the face that looked up at me, blue eyes glaring, was the face
of Peters!

And on it, like the thinnest of veils, was the shadow of that
demonic exultance I had watched spread over the face of Peters after
death had stilled the pulse of his heart!



CHAPTER VII: THE PETERS DOLL



Shevlin watched me as I stared at the doll. He was satisfied by
its effect upon me.

"A hell of a lookin' thing, ain't it?" he asked. "The doctor sees
it, McCann. I told you he had brains!" He jounced the doll down upon
his knee, and sat there like a red-faced ventriloquist with a
peculiarly malevolent dummy--certainly it would not have surprised me
to have heard the diabolic laughter issue from its faintly grinning
mouth.

"Now, I'll tell you, Dr. Lowell," Shevlin went on. "I stands there
lookin' at this doll, an' I picks it up. 'There's more in this than
meets the eye, Tim Shevlin,' I says to myself. An' I looks to see
what's become of the drunk. He's standin' where I left him, an' I walk
over to him an' he says: 'Was it a doll like I told you? Hah! I told
you it was a doll! Hah! That's him!' he says, gettin' a peck at what
I'm carryin'. So I says to him, 'Young fellow, me lad, there's
somethin' wrong here. You're goin' to the station wit' me an' tell the
lootenant what you told me an' show him your legs an' all,' I says.
An' the drunk says, 'Fair enough, but keep that thing on the other
side of me.' So we go to the station.

"The lootenant's there an' the sergeant an' a coupla flatties. I
marches up an' sticks the doll on the top of the desk in front of the
lootenant.

"'What's this?' he says, grinnin'. 'Another kidnapin'?'

"Show him your legs," I tells the drunk. 'Not unless they're
better than the Follies,' grins this potato-brained ape. But the
drunk's rolled up his pants an' down his socks an' shows 'em.

"'What t'hell done that?' says the lootenant, standin' up.

"'The doll,' says the drunk. The lootenant looks at him, and sits
back blinkin'. An' I tells him about answerin' the drunk's yells, an'
what he tells me, an' what I see. The sergeant laughs an' the flatties
laugh but the lootenant gets red in the face an' says, 'Are you tryin'
to kid me, Shevlin?' An' I says, 'I'm tellin' you what he tells me an'
what I seen, an' there's the doll.' An' he says, 'This bootleg is
fierce but I never knew it was catchin'.' An' he crooks his finger at
me an' says, 'Come up here, I want t' smell your breath.' An' then I
knows it's all up, because t' tell the truth the drunk had a flask an'
I'd took one wit' him. Only one an' the only one I'd had. But there it
was on me breath. An' the lootenant says, 'I thought so. Get down.‘

"An' then he starts bellerin' an' hollerin' at the drunk, 'You
wit' your soup-an'-nuts an' your silk hat, you ought to be a credit to
your city an' what t' hell you think you can do, corrupt a good
officer an' kid me? You done the first but you ain't doin' the
second,' he yelps. 'Put him in the cooler,' he yelps. 'An' throw his
damned doll in wit' him t' keep him company!' An' at that the drunk
lets out a screech an' drops t' the floor. He' out good an' plenty.
An' the lootenant says, 'The poor damned fool by God he believes his
own lie! Bring him around an' let him go.' An' he says t' me, 'If you
weren't such a good man, Tim, I'd have you up for this. Take your
degen'ret doll an' go home,' he says, 'I'll send a relief t' your
beat. An' take t-morrow off an' sober up,' says he. An' I says t' him,
'All right, but I seen what I seen. An' t' hell wit' you all," I says
t' the flatties. An' everybody's laughin' fit t' split. An' I says t'
the lootenant, 'If you break me for it or not, t' hell wit' you too.'
But they keep on laughin', so I take the doll an' walk out."

He paused.

"I take the doll home," he resumed. "I tell it all t' Maggie, me
wife. An' what does she tell me? 'T' think you've been off the hard
stuff or near off so long,' she says, 'an' now look at you!' she says,
'wit' this talk of stabbin' dolls, an' insultin' the lootenant, an'
maybe gettin' sent t' Staten Island,' she says. 'An' Jenny just
gettin' in high school! Go t' bed,' she says, 'an' sleep it off, an'
throw the doll in the garbage,' she says. But by now I am gettin' good
an' mad, an' I do not throw it in the garbage but I take it with me.
An' awhile ago I meet McCann, an' somehow he knows somethin', I tell
him an' he brings me here. An' just fer what, I don't know."

"Do you want me to speak to the lieutenant?" I asked.

"What could you say?" he replied, reasonably enough. "If you tell
him the drunk was right, an' that I'm right an' I did see the doll
run, what'll he think? He'll think you're as crazy as I must be. An'
if you explain maybe I was a little off me nut just for the minute,
it's to the hospital they'll be sendin' me. No, Doctor. I'm much
obliged, but all I can do is say nothin' more an' be dignified an'
maybe hand out a shiner or two if they get too rough. It's grateful I
am fer the kindly way you've listened. It makes me feel better."

Shevlin got to his feet, sighing heavily.

"An' what do you think? I mean about what the drunk said he seen,
an' what I seen?" he asked somewhat nervously.

"I cannot speak for the inebriate," I answered cautiously. "As for
yourself--well, it might be that the doll had been lying out there in
the street, and that a cat or dog ran across just as the automobile
went by. Dog or cat escaped, but the action directed your attention to
the doll and you thought--"

He interrupted me with a wave of his hand.

"All right. All right. 'Tis enough. I'll just leave the doll wit'
you to pay for the diagnoses, sir."

With considerable dignity and perceptibly heightened color Shevlin
stalked from the room. McCann was shaking with silent laughter. I
picked up the doll and laid it on my table. I looked at the subtly
malignant little face and I did not feel much like laughing.

For some obscure reason I took the Walters doll out of the drawer
and placed it beside the other, took out the strangely knotted cord
and set it between them. McCann was standing at my side, watching. I
heard him give a low whistle.

"Where did you get that, Doc?" he pointed to the cord. I told him.
He whistled again.

"The boss never knew he had it, that's sure," he said. "Wonder who
slipped it over on him? The hag, of course. But how?"

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"Why, the witch's ladder," he pointed again to the cord. "That's
what they call it down Mexico way. It's bad medicine. The witch slips
it to you and then she has power over you." He bent over the cord...
"Yep, it's the witch's ladder--the nine knots an' woman's hair...an'
in the boss's pocket!"

He stood staring at the cord. I noticed he made no attempt to pick
it up.

"Take it up and look at it closer, McCann," I said.

"Not me!" He stepped back. "I'm telling you it's bad medicine,
Doc."

I had been steadily growing more and more irritated against the
fog of superstition gathering ever heavier around me, and now I lost
my patience.

"See here, McCann," I said, hotly, "are you, to use Shevlin's
expression, trying to kid me? Every time I see you I am brought face
to face with some fresh outrage against credibility. First it is your
doll in the car. Then Shevlin. And now your witch's ladder. What's
your idea?"

He looked at me with narrowed eyes, a faint flush reddening the
high check-bones.

"The only idea I got," he drawled more slowly than usual, "is to
see the boss on his feet. An' to get whoever got him. As for Shevlin--
you don't think he was faking, do you?"

"I do not," I answered. "But I am reminded that you were beside
Ricori in the car when he was stabbed. And I cannot help wondering how
it was that you discovered Shevlin so quickly today."

"Meaning by that?" he asked.

"Meaning," I answered, "that your drunken man has disappeared.
Meaning that it would be entirely possible for him to have been your
confederate. Meaning that the episode which so impressed the worthy
Shevlin could very well have been merely a clever bit of acting, and
the doll in the street and the opportunely speeding automobile a
carefully planned maneuver to bring about the exact result it had
accomplished. After all, I have only your word and the chauffeur's
word that the doll was not down in the car the whole time you were
here last night. Meaning that--"

I stopped, realizing that, essentially, I was only venting upon
him the bad temper aroused by my perplexity.

"I'll finish for you," he said. "Meaning that I'm the one behind
the whole thing."

His face was white, and his muscles tense.

"It's a good thing for you that I like you, Doc," he continued.
"It's a better thing for you that I know you're on the level with the
boss. Best of all, maybe that you're the only one who can help him, if
he can be helped. That's all."

"McCann," I said, "I'm sorry, deeply sorry. Not for what I said,
but for having to say it. After all, the doubt is there. And it is a
reasonable doubt. You must admit that. Better to spread it before you
than keep it hidden."

"What might be my motive?"

"Ricori has powerful enemies. He also has powerful friends. How
convenient to his enemies if he could be wiped out without suspicion,
and a physician of highest repute and unquestionable integrity be
inveigled into giving the death a clean bill of health. It is my
professional pride, not personal egotism, that I am that kind of a
physician, McCann."

He nodded. His face softened and I saw the dangerous tenseness
relax.

"I've no argument, Doc. Not on that or nothing else you've said.
But I'm thanking you for your high opinion of my brains. It'd
certainly take a pretty clever man to work all this out this-a-way.
Sort of like one of them cartoons that shows seventy-five gimcracks
set up to drop a brick on a man's head at exactly twenty minutes,
sixteen seconds after two in the afternoon. Yeah, I must be clever!"

I winced at this broad sarcasm, but did not answer. McCann took up
the Peters doll and began to examine it. I went to the 'phone to ask
Ricori's condition. I was halted by an exclamation from the gunman. He
beckoned me, and handing me the doll, pointed to the collar of its
coat. I felt about it. My fingers touched what seemed to be the round
head of a large pin. I pulled out as though from a dagger sheath a
slender piece of metal nine inches long. It was thinner than an
average hat-pin, rigid and needle-pointed.

Instantly I knew that I was looking upon the instrument that had
pierced Ricori's heart!

"Another outrage!" McCann drawled. "Maybe I put it there, Doc!"

"You could have, McCann."

He laughed. I studied the queer blade--for blade it surely was. It
appeared to be of finest steel, although I was not sure it was that
metal. Its rigidity was like none I knew. The little knob at the head
was half an inch in diameter and less like a pinhead than the haft of
a poniard. Under the magnifying glass it showed small grooves upon it
...as though to make sure the grip of a hand...a doll's hand a
doll's dagger! There were stains upon it.

I shook my head impatiently, and put the thing aside, determining
to test those stains later. They were bloodstains, I knew that, but I
must make sure. And yet, if they were, it would not be certain proof
of the incredible--that a doll's hand had used this deadly thing.

I picked up the Peters doll and began to study it minutely. I
could not determine of what it was made. It was not of wood, like the
other doll. More than anything else, the material resembled a fusion
of gum and wax. I knew of no such composition. I stripped it of the
clothing. The undamaged part of the doll was anatomically perfect. The
hair was human hair, carefully planted in the scalp. The eyes were
blue crystals of some kind. The clothing showed the same extraordinary
skill in the making as the clothes of Diana's doll.

I saw now that the dangling leg was not held by a thread. It was
held by a wire. Evidently the doll had been molded upon a wire frame-
work. I walked over to my instrument cabinet, and selected a surgical
saw and knives.

"Wait a minute, Doc." McCann had been following my movements. "You
going to cut this thing apart?"

I nodded. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a heavy hunting
knife. Before I could stop him, he had brought its blade down like an
ax across the neck of the Peters doll. It cut through it cleanly. He
took the head and twisted it. A wire snapped. He dropped the head on
the table, and tossed the body to me. The head rolled. It came to rest
against the cord he had called the witch's ladder.

The head seemed to twist and to look up at us. I thought for an
instant the eyes flared redly, the features to contort, the malignancy
intensify--as I had seen it intensify upon Peters' living face...I
caught myself up, angrily a trick of the light, of course.

I turned to McCann and swore.

"Why did you do that?"

"You're worth more to the boss than I am," he said, cryptically.

I did not answer. I cut open the decapitated body of the doll. As
I had suspected, it had been built upon a wire framework. As I cut
away the encasing material, I found this framework was a single wire,
or a single metal strand, and that as cunningly as the doll's body had
been shaped, just as cunningly had this wire been twisted into an
outline of the human skeleton!

Not, of course, with minute fidelity, but still with amazing
accuracy...there were no joints nor articulations...the substance
of which the doll was made was astonishingly pliant...the little
hands flexible...it was more like dissecting some living mannikin
than a doll...And it was rather dreadful...

I glanced toward the severed head.

McCann was bending over it, staring down into its eyes, his own
not more than a few inches away from the glinting blue crystals. His
hands clutched the table edge and I saw that they were strained and
tense as though he were making a violent effort to push himself away.
When he had tossed the head upon the table it had come to rest against
the knotted cord--but now that cord was twisted around the doll's
severed neck and around its forehead as though it were a small
serpent!

And distinctly I saw that McCann's face was moving closer...
slowly closer...to that tiny one...as though it were being drawn
to it...and that in the little face a living evil was concentrated
and that McCann's face was a mask of horror.

"McCann!" I cried, and thrust an arm under his chin, jerking back
his head. And as I did this I could have sworn the doll's eyes turned
to me, and that its lips writhed.

McCann staggered back. He stared at me for a moment, and then
leaped to the table. He picked up the doll's head, dashed it to the
floor and brought his heel down upon it again and again, like one
stamping out the life of a venomous spider. Before he ceased, the head
was a shapeless blotch, all semblance of humanity or anything else
crushed out of it--but within it the two blue crystals that had been
its eyes still glinted, and the knotted cord of the witch's ladder
still wound through it.

"God! It was...was drawing me down to it..."

McCann lighted a cigarette with shaking hand, tossed the match
away. The match fell upon what had been the doll's head.

There followed, simultaneously, a brilliant flash, a disconcerting
sobbing sound and a wave of intense heat. Where the crushed head had
been there was now only an irregularly charred spot upon the polished
wood. Within it lay the blue crystals that had been the eyes of the
doll--lusterless and blackened. The knotted cord had vanished.

And the body of the doll had disappeared. Upon the table was a
nauseous puddle of black waxy liquid out of which lifted the ribs of
the wire skeleton!

The Annex 'phone rang; mechanically I answered it.

"Yes," I said. "What is it?"

"Mr. Ricori, sir. He's out of the coma. He's awake!"

I turned to McCann.

"Ricori's come through!"

He gripped my shoulders--then drew a step away, a touch of awe on
his face.

"Yeah?" whispered McCann. "Yeah--he came through when the knots
burned! It freed him! It's you an' me that's got to watch our step
now!"



CHAPTER VIII: NURSE WALTERS' DIARY



I took McCann up with me to Ricori's bedside. Confrontation with
his chief would be the supreme test, I felt, resolving one way or
another all my doubts as to his sincerity. For I realized, almost
immediately, that bizarre as had been the occurrences I have just
narrated, each and all of them could have been a part of the elaborate
hocus-pocus with which I had tentatively charged the gunman. The
cutting off of the doll's head could have been a dramatic gesture
designed to impress my imagination. It was he who had called my
attention to the sinister reputation of the knotted cord. It was
McCann who had found the pin. His fascination by the severed head
might have been assumed. And the tossing of the match a calculated
action designed to destroy evidence. I did not feel that I could trust
my own peculiar reactions as valid.

And yet it was difficult to credit McCann with being so consummate
an actor, so subtle a plotter. Ah, but he could be following the
instructions of another mind capable of such subtleties. I wanted to
trust McCann. I hoped that he would pass the test. Very earnestly I
hoped it.

The test was ordained to failure. Ricori was fully conscious, wide
awake, his mind probably as alert and sane as ever. But the lines of
communication were still down. His mind had been freed, but not his
body. The paralysis persisted, forbidding any muscular movements
except the deep-seated unconscious reflexes essential to the
continuance of life. He could not speak. His eyes looked up at me,
bright and intelligent, but from an expressionless face...looked up
at McCann with the same unchanging stare.

McCann whispered: "Can he hear?"

"I think so, but he has no way of telling us."

The gunman knelt beside the bed and took Ricori's hands in his. He
said, clearly: "Everything's all right, boss. We're all on the job."

Not the utterance nor the behavior of a guilty man--but then I had
told him Ricori could not answer. I said to Ricori:

"You're coming through splendidly. You've had a severe shock, and
I know the cause. I'd rather you were this way for a day or so than
able to move about. I have a perfectly good medical reason for this.
Don't worry, don't fret, try not to think of anything unpleasant. Let
your mind relax. I'm going to give you a mild hypo. Don't fight it.
Let yourself sleep."

I gave him the hypodermic, and watched with satisfaction its quick
effect. It convinced me that he had heard.

I returned to my study with McCann. I was doing some hard
thinking. There was no knowing how long Ricori would remain in the
grip of the paralysis. He might awaken in an hour fully restored, or
it might hold him for days. In the meantime there were three things I
felt it necessary to ascertain. The first that a thorough watch was
being kept upon the place where Ricori had gotten the doll; second,
that everything possible be found out about the two women McCann had
described; third, what it was that had made Ricori go there. I had
determined to take the gunman's story of the happenings at the store
at their face value--for the moment at least. At the same time, I did
not want to admit him into my confidence any more than was necessary.

"McCann," I began, "have you arranged to keep the doll store under
constant surveillance, as we agreed last night?"

"You bet. A flea couldn't hop in or out without being spotted."

"Any reports?"

"The boys ringed the joint close to midnight. The front's all
dark. There's a building in the back an' a space between it an' the
rear of the joint. There's a window with a heavy shutter, but a line
of light shows under it. About two o'clock this fish-white gal comes
slipping up the street and lets in. The boys at the back hear a hell
of a squalling, an' then the light goes out. This morning the gal
opens the shop. After a while the hag shows up, too. They're covered,
all right."

"What have you found out about them?"

"The hag calls herself Madame Mandilip. The gal's her niece. Or so
she says. They rode in about eight months since. Nobody knows where
from. Pay their bills regular. Seem to have plenty of money. Niece
does all the marketing. The old woman never goes out. Keep to
themselves like a pair of clams. Have strictly nothing to do with the
neighbors. The hag has a bunch of special customers--rich-looking
people many of them. Does two kinds of trade, it looks--regular dolls,
an' what goes with 'em, an' special dolls which they say the old
woman's a wonder at. Neighbors ain't a bit fond of 'em. Some of 'em
think she's handling dope. That's all yet."

Special dolls? Rich people?

Rich people like the spinster Bailey, the banker Marshall?

Regular dolls--for people like the acrobat, the bricklayer? But
these might have been "special" too, in ways McCann could not know.

"There's the store," he continued. "Back of it two or three rooms.
Upstairs a big room like a storeroom. They rent the whole place. The
hag an' the wench, they live in the rooms behind the store."

"Good work!" I applauded, and hesitated--"McCann, did the doll
remind you of somebody?"

He studied me with narrowed eyes.

"You tell me," he said at last, dryly.

"Well--I thought it resembled Peters."

"Thought it resembled!" he exploded. "Resembled--hell! It was the
lick-an'-spit of Peters!"

"Yet you said nothing to me of that. Why?" I asked, suspiciously.

"Well I'm damned--" he began, then caught himself. "I knowed you
seen it. I thought you kept quiet account of Shevlin, an' followed
your lead. Afterwards you were so busy putting me through the jumps
there wasn't a chance."

"Whoever made that doll must have known Peters quite well." I
passed over this dig. "Peters must have sat for the doll as one sits
for an artist or a sculptor. Why did he do it? When did he do it? Why
did anyone desire to make a doll like him?"

"Let me work on the hag for an hour an' I'll tell you," he
answered, grimly.

"No," I shook my head. "Nothing of that sort until Ricori can
talk. But maybe we can get some light in another way. Ricori had a
purpose in going to that store. I know what it was. But I do not know
what directed his attention to the store. I have reason to believe it
was information he gained from Peters' sister. Do you know her well
enough to visit her and to draw from her what it was she told Ricori
yesterday? Casually--tactfully--without telling her of Ricori's
illness?"

He said, bluntly: "Not without you give me more of a lead--
Mollie's no fool."

"Very well. I am not aware whether Ricori told you, but the
Darnley woman is dead. We think there is a connection between her
death and Peters' death. We think that it has something to do with the
love of both of them for Mollie's baby. The Darnley woman died
precisely as Peters did--"

He whispered--"You mean with the same--trimmings?"

"Yes. We had reason to think that both might have picked up the--
the disease--in the same place. Ricori thought that perhaps Mollie
might know something which would identify that place. A place where
both of them might have gone, not necessarily at the same time, and
have been exposed to--the infection. Maybe even a deliberate infection
by some ill-disposed person. Quite evidently what Ricori learned from
Mollie sent him to the Mandilips. There is one awkward thing,
however--unless Ricori told her yesterday, she does not know her
brother is dead."

"That's right," he nodded. "He gave orders about that."

"If he did not tell her, you must not."

"You're holding back quite a lot, ain't you, Doc?" He drew himself
up to go.

"Yes," I said, frankly. "But I've told you enough."

"Yeah? Well, maybe." He regarded me, somberly. "Anyway, I'll soon
know if the boss broke the news to Mollie. If he did, it opens up the
talk natural. If he didn't--well, I'll call you up after I've talked
to her. Hasta luego."

With this half-mocking adieu he took his departure. I went over to
the remains of the doll upon the table. The nauseous puddle had
hardened. In hardening it had roughly assumed the aspect of a
flattened human body. It had a peculiarly unpleasant appearance, with
the miniature ribs and the snapped wire of the spine glinting above
it. I was overcoming my reluctance to collect the mess for analysis
when Braile came in. I was so full of Ricori's awakening, and of what
had occurred, that it was some time before I noticed his pallor and
gravity. I stopped short in the recital of my doubts regarding McCann
to ask him what was the matter.

"I woke up this morning thinking of Harriet," he said. "I knew the
4-9-1 code, if it was a code, could not have meant Diana. Suddenly it
struck me that it might mean Diary. The idea kept haunting me. When I
had a chance I took Robbins and went to the apartment. We searched,
and found Harriet's diary. Here it is."

He handed me a little red-bound book. He said: "I've gone through
it."

I opened the book. I set down the parts of it pertinent to the
matter under review.



Nov. 3. Had a queer sort of experience today. Dropped down to
Battery Park to look at the new fishes in the Aquarium. Had an hour or
so afterwards and went poking around some of the old streets, looking
for something to take home to Diana. Found the oddest little shop.
Quaint and old looking with some of the loveliest dolls and dolls'
clothes in the window I've ever seen. I stood looking at them and
peeping into the shop through the window. There was a girl in the
shop. Her back was turned to me. She turned suddenly and looked at me.
She gave me the queerest kind of shock. Her face was white, without
any color whatever and her eyes were wide and sort of staring and
frightened. She had a lot of hair, all ashen blonde and piled up on
her head. She was the strangest looking girl I think I've ever seen.
She stared at me for a full minute and I at her. Then she shook her
head violently and made motions with her hands for me to go away. I
was so astonished I could hardly believe my eyes. I was about to go in
and ask her what on earth was the matter with her when I looked at my
watch and found I had just time to get back to the hospital. I looked
into the shop again and saw a door at the back beginning slowly to
open. The girl made one last and it seemed almost despairing gesture.
There was something about it that suddenly made me want to run. But I
didn't. I did walk away though. I've puzzled about the thing all day.
Also, besides being curious I'm a bit angry. The dolls and clothes are
beautiful. What's wrong with me as a customer? I'm going to find out.

Nov. 5. I went back to the doll shop this afternoon. The mystery
deepens. Only I don't think it's much of a mystery. I think the poor
thing is a bit crazy. I didn't stop to look in the window but went
right in the door. The white girl was at a little counter at the back.
When she saw me her eyes looked more frightened than ever and I could
see her tremble. I went up to her and she whispered, "Oh, why did you
come back? I told you to go away!" I laughed, I couldn't help it, and
I said: "You're the queerest shopkeeper I ever met. Don't you want
people to buy your things?" She said low and very quickly: "It's too
late! You can't go now! But don't touch anything. Don't touch anything
she gives you. Don't touch anything she points out to you." And then
in the most everyday way she said quite clearly: "Is there anything I
can show you? We have everything for dolls." The transition was so
abrupt that it was startling. Then I saw that a door had opened in the
back of the shop, the same door I had seen opening before, and that a
woman was standing in it looking at me.

I gaped at her I don't know how long. She was so truly
extraordinary. She must be almost six feet and heavy, with enormous
breasts. Not fat. Powerful. She has a long face and her skin is brown.
She has a distinct mustache and a mop of iron-gray hair.

It was her eyes that held me spellbound. They are simply enormous
black and so full of life! She must have a tremendous vitality. Or
maybe it is the contrast with the white girl who seems to be drained
of life. No, I'm sure she has a most unusual vitality. I had the
queerest thrill when she was looking at me. I thought, nonsensically--
"What big eyes you have, grandma!" "The better to see you with, my
dear!" "What big teeth you have, grandma!" "The better to eat you
with, my dear!" (I'm not so sure though that it was all nonsense.) And
she really has big teeth, strong and yellow. I said, quite stupidly:
"How do you do?" She smiled and touched me with her hand and I felt
another queer thrill. Her hands are the most beautiful I ever saw. So
beautiful, they are uncanny. Long with tapering fingers and so white.
Like the hands El Greco or Botticelli put on their women. I suppose
that is what gave me the odd shock. They don't seem to belong to her
immense coarse body at all. But neither do the eyes. The hands and the
eyes go together. Yes, that's it.

She smiled and said: "You love beautiful things." Her voice
belongs to hands and eyes. A deep rich glowing contralto. I could feel
it go through me like an organ chord. I nodded. She said: "Then you
shall see them, my dear. Come." She paid no attention to the girl. She
turned to the door and I followed her. As I went through the door I
looked back at the girl. She appeared more frightened than ever and
distinctly I saw her lips form the word--"Remember."

The room she led me into was--well, I can't describe it. It was
like her eyes and hands and voice.

When I went into it I had the strange feeling that I was no longer
in New York. Nor in America. Nor anywhere on earth, for that matter. I
had the feeling that the only real place that existed was the room. It
was frightening. The room was larger than it seemed possible it could
be, judging from the size of the store. Perhaps it was the light that
made it seem so. A soft mellow, dusky light. It is exquisitely
paneled, even the ceiling. On one side there is nothing but these
beautiful old dark panelings with carvings in very low relief covering
them. There is a fireplace and a fire was burning in it. It was
unusually warm but the warmth was not oppressive. There was a faint
fragrant odor, probably from the burning wood. The furniture is old
and exquisite too, but unfamiliar. There are some tapestries, clearly
ancient. It is curious, but I find it difficult to recall clearly just
what is in that room. All that is clear is its unfamiliar beauty. I do
remember clearly an immense table, and I recall thinking of it as a
"baronial board." And I remember intensely the round mirror, and I
don't like to think of that.

I found myself telling her all about myself and about Diana, and
how she loved beautiful things. She listened, and said in that deep,
sweet voice, "She shall have one beautiful thing, my dear." She went
to a cabinet and came to me with the loveliest doll I have ever seen.
It made me gasp when I thought how Di would love it. A little baby
doll, and so life-like and exquisite. "Would she like that?" she
asked. I said: "But I could never afford such a treasure. I'm poor."
And she laughed, and said: "But I am not poor. This shall be yours
when I have finished dressing it."

It was rude, but I could not help saying: "You must be very, very
rich to have all these lovely things. I wonder why you keep a doll
store." And she laughed again and said, "Just to meet nice people like
you, my dear."

It was then I had the peculiar experience, with the mirror. It was
round and I had looked and looked at it because it was like, I
thought, the half of an immense globule of clearest water. Its frame
was brown wood elaborately carved, and now and then the reflection of
the carvings seemed to dance in the mirror like vegetation on the edge
of a woodland pool when a breeze ruffles it. I had been wanting to
look into it, and all at once the desire became irresistible. I walked
to the mirror. I could see the whole room reflected in it. Just as
though I were looking not at its image or my own image but into
another similar room with a similar me peering out. And then there was
a wavering and the reflection of the room became misty, although the
reflection of myself was perfectly clear. Then I could see only
myself, and I seemed to be getting smaller and smaller until I was