FAMOUS
MYSTERY STORIES
EDITED BY
1. WALKER MCSPADDEN


Lit 2400.27.15
SHORT
STORY
COLLECTION

WIMBARD PRESCOTT
College Library
BEQUEST OF
RD PRESCOTT
LASS OF 1909








FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES


The “Mystery” Library
EDITED BY
J. WALKER MCSPADDEN
FAMOUS GHOST STORIES
FAMOUS PSYCHIC STORIES
FAMOUS DETECTIVE STORIES
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
A Library of quite unusual tales
culled from the most powerful writers,
chiefly American, English, and French.
Each book contains special introduction.
THOMAS Y. CROWELL Co., New YORK


FAMOUS
MYSTERY STORIES
EDITED BY
J. WALKER McSPADDEN
Editor of "Famous Ghost Stories,” “Famous
Psychic Stories," "Famous Detective
Stories,” etc.
NEW YORK
THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
__
_
______
___


hit 200. . 15
HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY
BEQUEST OF
WINWARD PRESCOTT
JANUARY 27, 1933
COPYRIGHT, 1922,
BY THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA


CONTENTS
PAGE
THE SPECTRE OF TAPPINGTON . Richard Harris Barham
..
1
THE MYSTERIOUS SKETCH. . Erckmann-Chatrian
.
.
.
34
THE DESERTED HOUSE . . . Ernest T. W. Hoffmann . .
58
THE ADELANTADO OF THE SEVEN
CITIES . . . . . . . Washington Irving
.
.
.
THE PIPE ... . . . . . Anonymous . . . . ..
THE UPPER BERTH. ... F. Marion Crawford ....
THE DIAMOND LENS. .. Fitz-James O'Brien . . .
THE HORLA ...... Guy de Maupassant ...
THE MUMMY's Foot, ... Théophile Gautier . . . .
THE THIEF ...... Anna Katharine Green . . 266





INTRODUCTION
“Famous Mystery Stories” completes a tetralogy
begun a few years ago with “Ghost Stories” and
continued with “Detective" and "Psychic Stories.”
The responsive chord that each successive volume
has struck has emboldened the editor to continue a
line of research which has revealed many fascinat-
ing channels. A mass of enticing material has been
brought to light, which would fill many books of the
present size; and the problem has been one of selec-
tion and elimination. The group of four books now
complete under the title of the “The Mystery Li-
brary," while in no sense an anthology of the subject,
will be found to contain many typical examples of
the bizarre and unusual, culled from the ablest pens
of America and Europe.
It is interesting to note the different methods of
approach to your true mystery story. Every such
tale conceals a definite problem which may or may
not be solved; and when tested in the crucible of
widely divergent minds, the result is of value from
more than one aspect.
In the present volume the reader will find repre-
sentative stories from American, English, Irish,
French and German writers. Aside from the indi-
vidual merit of each tale, they afford a striking study
in contrasts, both in style and method of approach.
By way of illustration, no two stories could be more
vii


viii
INTRODUCTION
-
-----
-
-_
...
dissimilar in treatment than the French and German
examples herewith included. “The Mysterious
Sketch" by Erckmann-Chatrian, like its successor,
“The Deserted House," by Hoffmann, is an excel-
lent type of pure mystery tale, with the mystery un-
explained; but there the resemblance ends. The
French joint authors are concerned only with a
hypothetical case. An artist draws a fanciful sketch
which proves to be the depiction of an actual tragedy.
Its effect upon the artist himself, rather than the
how and why of the drawing, is the concern of the
story. Hoffmann's tale also presents a definite prob-
lem which is only half explained. It is a fantasy
with a touch of psychology, and affords its own
raison d'être. "Hoffmann preferred to remain a
riddle to himself," wrote a friend, “a riddle which
he always dreaded to have solved.”
Three stories involving a vein of humor are “The
Spectre of Tappington,” that delightful skit from
“The Ingoldsby Legends”; Irving's tale of the
Adelantado who sought the lost cities of the Spanish
Main; and "The Pipe." Each may be commended
as an after-dinner solace, “The Pipe" providing a
pleasant "smoke" although not altogether harmless
in its effects. It is by our old friend, Anonymous,
who has given us some of the best examples of lit-
erature in every age. Irving on his part is always
like a draught of ruddy wine; and in the adventures
of the misguided Adelantado we are reminded of
our old friend Rip Van Winkle. The author him-
self is not concerned with a mystery per se, but is


INTRODUCTION
indulging in a characteristic flight of fancy tinged
with a quiet, ironical humor.
By way of contrast come a grisly tale of the sea
from the masterly pen of F. Marion Crawford. In
“The Upper Berth” he weaves a mystery of horror
and haunting fear. It is redolent of stagnant sea-
water and slimy sea-weeds. He is a hardened reader
indeed who can read a yarn such as this without a
shudder. And yet the reader is led deliberately on
to the final climax. Unlike other mysteries it does
not depend for its power upon the unexpected. The
narrator says in effect, “Gentlemen, prepare for a
shock !”—and his audience are shocked nevertheless.
“The Diamond Lens," by Fitz-James O'Brien,
is a classic of imagination raised to the nth degree.
Through the manufacture of a microscope of incal-
culable power, its possessor is enabled to discover
worlds far beyond the ken of man, and to find therein
lovely beings. The height of the fantastic is reached
when the scientist falls in love with the tiny animal-
cule-truly a hopeless passion! On re-reading this
story one is struck by the fact that even murder
itself can be held subordinate to other elements in
a piece of fiction.
De Maupassant's strange tale, “The Horla,"
carries with it more than a literary interest. It has
a certain autobiographical flavor. De Maupassant
wielded one of the most powerful and versatile pens
in France of the last half century, and yet had a
morbid, haunting fear of going mad—a fear which
was actually realized. "The Horla" is one of the


INTRODUCTION
first vivid presentiments of a sinister personality
overshadowing his own. In another story, “Lui,"
not here included, he also reveals evidences of this
overmastering terror. “I am afraid of the walls,
of the furniture, of the familiar objects which seem
to me to assume a kind of animal life. Above all
I fear the horrible confusion of my thought, of my
reason escaping, entangled and scattered by an in-
visible and mysterious anguish.”
A mystery story of more conventional type is that
one by Anna Katharine Green, one of America's
most prolific writers in this vein. In “The Thief,”
we have an example of circumstantial evidence,
which wellnigh brings its victim to social and spiritual
ruin. He is saved only by the faith of those who
believe in him despite appearances.
"The Mummy's Foot," by Gautier, is a delightful
example of Gallic humor. Nothing could be more
fanciful than the picture of the long-dead Egyptian
princess coming to reclaim her foot, which was being
used as a paper weight, and the assumption of its
owner that he was thereby entitled to claim her hand.
In the preparation of this work the editor has
been constantly indebted to publishers and writers
for the use of special material. Thanks are particu-
larly due to The Macmillan Company and the heirs
of F. Marion Crawford for permission to use his
work; and to Dodd, Mead & Company and Anna
Katharine Green, for the use of her story.
J. W. Mcs.
MONTCLAIR, N. J.
March 1, 1922


THE SPECTRE OF TAPPINGTON
By RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
"It is very odd, though; what can have become of
them?” said Charles Seaforth, as he peeped under
the valance of an old-fashioned bedstead, in an old-
fashioned apartment of a still more old-fashioned
manor-house; “'tis confoundedly odd, and I can't
make it out at all. Why, Barney, where are they?-
and where the devil are you?"
No answer was returned to this appeal; and the
lieutenant, who was, in the main, a reasonable per-
son—at least as reasonable a person as any young
gentleman of twenty-two in “the service” can fairly
be expected to be-cooled when he reflected that his
servant could scarcely reply extempore to a sum-
mons which it was impossible he should hear.
An application to the bell was the considerate re-
sult; and the footsteps of as tight a lad as ever put
pipe-clay to belt, sounded along the gallery.
"Come in!” said his master. An ineffectual at-
tempt upon the door reminded Mr. Seaforth that he
had locked himself in. "By Heaven! this is the odd-
From "The Ingoldsby Legends, by Thomas Ingoldsby Esq.”


FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
est thing of all," said he, as he turned the key and
admitted Mr. Maguire into his dormitory.
"Barney, where are my pantaloons ?”
"Is it the breeches?” asked the valet, casting an
inquiring eye round the apartment-"is it the
breeches, sir?"
“Yes; what have you done with them?"
"Sure then your honor had them on when you went
to bed, and it's hereabout they'll be, I'll be bail;"
and Barney lifted a fashionable tunic from a cane-
backed arm-chair, proceeding in his examination.
But the search was vain: there was the tunic afore-
said; there was a smart-looking kerseymere waist-
coat; but the most important article of all in a gentle-
man's wardrobe was still wanting.
“Where can they be?” asked the master, with a
strong accent on the auxiliary verb.
"Sorrow a know I knows," said the man.
"It must have been the devil, then, after all, who
has been here and carried them off !” cried Seaforth,
staring full into Barney's face.
Mr. Maguire was not devoid of the superstition
of his countrymen, still he looked as if he did not
quite subscribe to the sequitur.
His master read incredulity in his countenance.
"Why, I tell you, Barney, I put them there, on that
arm-chair, when I got into bed; and, by heaven! I
distinctly saw the ghost of the old fellow they told
me of, come in at midnight, put on my pantaloons,
and walk away with them.”
"May be so," was the cautious reply.


THE SPECTRE OF TAPPINGTON
“I thought, of course, it was a dream; but then
where the devil are the breeches ?”
The question was more easily asked than
answered. Barney renewed his search, while the
lieutenant folded his arms, and, leaning against the
toilet, sank into a reverie.
“After all, it must be some trick of my laughter-
loving cousins," said Seaforth.
"Ah! then, the ladies !" chimed in Mr. Maguire,
though the observation was not addressed to him;
“and will it be Miss Caroline or Miss Fanny, that's
stole your honor's things?”
"I hardly know what to think of it,” pursued the
bereaved lieutenant, still speaking in soliloquy, with
his eye resting dubiously on the chamber-door. . "I
locked myself in, that's certain; and—but there must
be some other entrance to the room-pooh! I re-
member—the private staircase; how could I be such
a fool?” and he crossed the chamber to where a low
oaken doorcase was dimly visible in a distant corner.
He paused before it. Nothing now interfered to
screen it from observation; but it bore tokens of hav-
ing been at some earlier period concealed by tapestry,
remains of which yet clothed the walls on either side
the portal.
“This way they must have come,” said Seaforth;
"I wish with all my heart I had caught them !"
"Och! the kittens!” sighed Mr. Barney Maguire.
But the mystery was yet as far from being solved
as before. True, there was the "other door”; but
then that, too, on examination, was even more firmly


FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
secured than the one which opened on the gallery-
two heavy bolts on the inside effectually prevented
any coup de main on the lieutenant's bivouac from
that quarter. He was more puzzled than ever; nor
did the minutest inspection of the walls and floor
throw any light upon the subject; one thing only was
clear-the breeches were gone! "It is very sing-
ular," said the lieutenant.
was
Tappington (generally called Tapton) Everard is
an antiquated but commodious manor house in the
eastern division of the county of Kent. A former
proprietor had been high-sheriff in the days of Eliz-
abeth, and many a dark and dismal tradition was
yet extant of the licentiousness of his life, and the
enormity of his offenses. The Glen, which the keep-
er's daughter was seen to enter, but never known to
quit, still frowns darkly as of yore; while an in-
eradicable bloodstain on the oaken stair yet bids de-
fiance to the united energies of soap and sand. But it
is with one particular apartment that a deed of more
especial atrocity is said to be connected. A stranger
guest-so runs the legend—arrived unexpectedly at
the mansion of the “bad Sir Giles.” They met in ap-
parent friendship; but the ill-concealed scowl on their
master's brow told the domestics that the visit was
not a welcome one; the banquet, however, was not
spared; the wine cup circulated freely--too freely,
perhaps, for sounds of discord at length reached the
ears of even the excluded serving-men, as they were
doing their best to imitate their betters in the lower
le


THE SPECTRE OF TAPPINGTON
elder brother, who had disappeared in early life, and
never inherited the estate. Rumors, too, of his hav-
ing left a son in foreign lands, were at one time rife;
but they died away, nothing occurring to support
them; the property passed unchallenged to a collat-
eral branch of the family, and the secret, if secret
there were, was buried in Denton churchyard, in the
lonely grave of the mysterious stranger. One cir-
cumstance alone occurred, after a long-intervening
period, to revive the memory of these transactions.
Some workmen employed in grubbing an old plan-
tation, for the purpose of raising on its site a modern
shrubbery, dug up, in the execution of their task,
the mildewed remnants of what seemed to have been
once a garment. On more minute inspection, enough
remained of silken slashes and a coarse embroid-
ery, to identify the relics as having once formed part
of a pair of trunk hose; while a few papers which
fell from them, altogether illegible from damp and
age, were by the unlearned rustics conveyed to the
then owner of the estate.
Whether the squire was more successful in de-
ciphering them was never known; he certainly never
alluded to their contents; and little would have been
thought of the matter but for the inconvenient mem-
ory of an old woman, who declared she heard her
grandfather say, that when the “stranger guest” was
poisoned, though all the rest of his clothes were
there, his breeches, the supposed repository of the
supposed documents, could never be found. The
master of Tapton Everard smiled when he heard


8
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
Dame Jones's hint of deeds which might impeach the
validity of his own title in favor of some unknown
descendant of some unknown heir; and the story was
rarely alluded to, save by one or two miracle-mon-
gers, who had heard that others had seen the ghost
of Old Sir Giles, in his night-cap, issue from the
postern, enter the adjoining copse, and wring his
shadowy hands in agony, as he seemed to search
vainly for something hidden among the evergreens.
The stranger's deathroom had, of course, been oc-
casionally haunted from the time of his decease; but
the periods of visitation had latterly become very
rare-even Mrs. Botherby, the housekeeper, being
forced to admit that during her long sojourn at the
manor, she had never “met with anything worse than
herself”; though, as the old lady afterwards added
upon more mature reflection, “I must say I think I
saw the devil once."
Such was the legend attached to Tapton Everard,
and such the story which the lively Caroline In-
goldsby detailed to her equally mercurial cousin,
Charles Seaforth, lieutenant in the Hon. East India
Company's second regiment of Bombay Fencibles, as
arm-in-arm they promenaded a gallery decked with
some dozen grim-looking ancestral portraits, and,
among others, with that of the redoubted Sir Giles
himself. The gallant commander had that very
morning paid his first visit to the house of his mater-
nal uncle, after an absence of several years passed
with his regiment on the arid plains of Hindoostan,
whence he was now returned on a three years' fur.


THE SPECTRE OF TAPPINGTON
9
mor
lough. He had gone out a boy-he returned a man;
but the impression made upon his youthful fancy by
his favorite cousin remained unimpaired, and to
Tapton he directed his steps, even before he sought
the home of his widowed mother-comforting him-
self in this breach of filial decorum by the reflection
that, as the manor was so little out of his way, it
would be unkind to pass, as it were, the door of
his relatives, without just looking in for a few
hours.
But he found his uncle as hospitable, and his cousin
more charming than ever; and the looks of one, and
the requests of the other, soon precluded the possibil-
ity of refusing to lengthen the "few hours" into a few
days, though the house was at the moment full of
visitors.
The Peterses were there from Ramsgate; and
Mr., Mrs., and the two Miss Simpkinsons, from
Bath, had come to pass a month with the family;
and Tom Ingoldsby had brought down his college
friend, the Honorable Augustus Sucklethumbkin,
with his groom and pointers, to take a fortnight's
shooting. And then there was Mrs. Ogleton, the
rich young widow, with her large black eyes, who,
people did say, was setting her cap at the young
squire, though Mrs. Botherby did not believe it;
and, above all, there was Mademoiselle Pauline, her
femme de chambre, who “mon Dieu’d" everything
and everybody, and cried “Quelle horreur !" at Mrs.
Botherby's cap. In short, to use the last-named and
much-respected lady's own expression, the house was


10
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
“choke-full” to the very attics—all save the "oaken
chamber," which, as the lieutenant expressed a most
magnanimous disregard of ghosts, was forthwith ap-
propriated to his particular accommodation. Mr.
Maguire meanwhile was fain to share the apartment
of Oliver Dobbs, the squire's own man; a jocular
proposal of joint occupancy having been first indig-
nantly rejected by “Mademoiselle," though pre-
ferred with the “laste taste in life” of Mr. Barney's
most insinuating brogue.
“Come, Charles, the urn is absolutely getting cold;
your breakfast will be quite spoiled; what can have
made you so idle ?” Such was the morning saluta-
tion of Miss Ingoldsby to the militaire as he entered
the breakfast-room half-an-hour after the latest of
the party.
"A pretty gentleman, truly, to make an appoint-
ment with," chimed in Miss Frances. “What is
become of our ramble to the rocks before break-
fast?"
“Oh! the young men never think of keeping a
promise now,” said Mrs. Peters, a little ferret-faced
woman with underdone eyes.
“When I was a young man,” said Mr. Peters, “I
remember I always made a point of- "
“Pray, how long ago was that?”' asked Mr. Simp-
kinson from Bath.
“Why, sir, when I married Mrs. Peters, I was
let me see I was "
“Do pray hold your tongue, P., and eat your


THE SPECTRE OF TAPPINGTON
11
breakfast!” interrupted his better half, who had a
mortal horror of chronological references; “it's very
rude to tease people with your family affairs."
The lieutenant had by this time taken his seat in
silence—a good-humored nod, and a glance, half-
smiling, half-inquisitive, being the extent of his sal-
utation. Smitten as he was, and in the immediate
presence of her who had made so large a hole in his
heart, his manner was evidently distrait, which the
fair Caroline in her secret soul attributed to his being
solely occupied by her agrémens : how would she have
bridled had she known that they only shared his
meditations with a pair of breeches!
Charles drank his coffee and spiked some half-
dozen eggs, darting occasionally a penetrating glance
at the ladies, in hope of detecting the supposed
waggery by the evidence of some furtive smile or
conscious look. But in vain; not a dimple moved
indicative of roguery, nor did the slightest elevation
of eyebrow rise confirmative of his suspicions. Hints
and insinuations passed unheeded-more particular
inquiries were out of the question the subject was
unapproachable.
In the meantime, "patent cords” were just the
thing for a morning's ride; and, breakfast ended,
away cantered the party over the downs, till, every
faculty absorbed by the beauties, animate and inani-
mate, which surrounded him, Lieutenant Seaforth
of the Bombay Fencibles bestowed no more thought
upon his breeches than if he had been born on the
top of Ben Lomond.


12
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
Another night had passed away; the sun rose bril-
liantly, forming with his level beams a splendid rain-
bow in the far-off west, whither the heavy cloud,
which for the last two hours had been pouring its
waters on the earth, was now Aying before him.
"Ah! then, and it's little good it'll be the claning
of ye," apostrophized Mr. Barney Maguire, as he
deposited, in front of his master's toilet, a pair of
"bran new” jockey boots, one of Hoby's primest fits,
which the lieutenant had purchased in his way
through town. On that very morning had they come
for the first time under the valet's depurating hand,
so little soiled, indeed, from the turfy ride of the pre-
ceding day, that a less scrupulous domestic might
perhaps have considered the application of "War.
ren's Matchless," or oxalic acid, altogether super-
fluous. Not so, Barney: with the nicest care had he
removed the slightest impurity from each polished
surface, and there they stood, rejoicing in their sable
radiance. No wonder a pang shot across Mr. Ma.
guire's breast, as he thought on the work now cut
out for them, so different from the light labors of
the day before; no wonder he murmured with a sigh,
as the scarce dried window-panes disclosed a road
now inch deep in mud. “Ah! then, it's little good
the claning of ye!"-for well had he learned in the
hall below that eight miles of a stiff clay soil lay
between the manor and Bolsover Abbey, whose pic-
turesque ruins, “Like ancient Rome, majestic in de-
cay," the party had determined to explore. The


THE SPECTRE OF TAPPINGTON
13
master had already commenced dressing, and the
man was fitting straps upon a light pair of crane-
necked spurs, when his hand was arrested by the old
question—“Barney, where are the breeches ?".
They were nowhere to be found!
Mr. Seaforth descended that morning, whip in
hand, and equipped in a handsome green riding-
frock, but no “breeches and boots to match” were
there; loose jean trousers, surmounting a pair of di-
minutive Wellingtons, embraced, somewhat incon-
gruously, his nether man, vice the "patent cords,” re-
turned, like yesterday's pantaloons, absent without
leave. The “top-boots” had a holiday.
"A fine morning after the rain," said Mr. Simp-
kinson from Bath.
“Just the thing for the 'ops," said Mr. Peters. "I
remember when I was a boy—"
“Do hold your tongue, P.,” said Mrs. Peters-ad-
vice which that exemplary matron was in the constant
habit of administering to "her P.," as she called him,
whenever he prepared to vent his reminiscences.
Her precise reason for this it would be difficult to
determine, unless indeed, the story be true which a
little bird had whispered into Mrs. Botherby's ear
-Mr. Peters, though now a wealthy man, had re-
ceived a liberal education at a charity school, and was
apt to recur to the days of his muffin-cap and leathers.
As usual, he took his wife's hint in good part, and
"paused in his reply."
"A glorious day for the ruins !” said young In-


14
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
goldsby. “But Charles, what the deuce are you
about? you don't mean to ride through our lanes
in such toggery as that?"
"Lassy me!” said Miss Julia Simpkinson, “won't
you be very wet?”
"You had better take Tom's cab," quoth the squire.
But this proposition was at once overruled; Mrs.
Ogleton had already nailed the cab, a vehicle of all
others the best adapted for a snug flirtation. ,
"Or drive Miss Julia in the phaeton ?" No; that
was the post of Mr. Peters, who, indifferent as an
equestrian, had acquired some fame as a whip while
travelling through the midland countries for the firm
of Bagshaw, Snivelby, and Grimes.
"Thank you, I shall ride with my cousins," said
Charles, with as much nonchalance as he could as-
sume—and he did so; Mr. Ingoldsby, Mrs. Peters,
Mr. Simpkinson from Bath, and his eldest daughter
with her album, following in the family coach. The
gentleman-commoner "voted the affair d-d slow,"
and declined the party altogether in favor of the
gamekeeper and a cigar. “There was ‘no fun' in
looking at old houses !” Mrs. Simpkinson preferred
a short séjour in the still-room with Mrs. Botherby,
who had promised to initiate her in that grand ar-
canum, the transmutation of gooseberry jam into
Guava jelly.
But what had become of Seaforth and his fair Car-
oline all this while? Why, it so happened that they
had been simultaneously stricken with the picturesque


THE SPECTRE OF TAPPINGTON
15
appearance of one of those high and pointed arches,
which that eminent antiquary, Mr. Horseley Curties,
has described in his "Ancient records," as "a Gothic
window of the Saxon order”; and then the ivy clus-
tered so thickly and so beautifully on the other side,
that they went round to look at that; and then their
proximity deprived it of half its effect, and so they
walked across to a little knoll, a hundred yards off,
and in crossing a small ravine, they came to what
in Ireland they call "a bad step," and Charles had to
carry his cousin over it; and then when they had to
come back, she would not give him the trouble again
for the world, so they followed a better but more
circuitous route, and there were hedges and ditches
in the way, and stiles to get over and gates to get
through, so that an hour or more had elapsed be-
fore they were able to rejoin the party.
"Lassy me!" said Miss Julia Simpkinson, “how
long you have been gone!”
And so they had. The remark was a very just as
well as a very natural one. They were gone a long
while, and a nice cosy chat they had; and what do.
you think it was about, my dear miss ?
"O, lassy me! love no doubt, and the moon, and
eyes, and nightingales, and— ”.
Stay, stay, my sweet young lady; do not let the
fervor of your feelings run away with you! I do not
pretend to say, indeed, that one or more of these
pretty subjects might not have been introduced; but
the most important and leading topic of the confer-
ence was—Lieutenant Seaforth's breeches.


18
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
a retreat at the very moment when the mistress of
the pugnacious quadruped entered to the rescue.
"Lassy me! Flo, what is the matter?” cried the .
sympathizing lady, with a scrutinizing glance levelled
at the gentleman.
It might as well have lighted on a feather bed. His
air of imperturbable unconsciousness defied examina-
tion; and as he would not, and Flora could not, ex-
pound, that injured individual was compelled to
pocket up her wrongs. Others of the household soon
dropped in, and clustered round the board dedicated
to the most sociable of meals; the urn was paraded
“hissing hot," and the cups which "cheer, but not
inebriate," steamed redolent of hyson and pekoe;
muffins and marmalade, newspapers and finnan
haddies, left little room for observation on the char-
acter of Charles's warlike “turn-out." At length a
look from Caroline, followed by a smile that nearly
ripened to a titter, caused him to turn abruptly and
address his neighbor. It was Miss Simpkinson, who,
was deeply engaged in sipping her tea and turning
over her album. The entreaties of the company
were of course urgent. Mr. Peters, "who liked
verses," was especially persevering, and Sappho, at
length compliant. After a preparatory hem, and a
glance at the mirror to ascertain that her look was
sufficiently sentimental, the poetess began :-
“ There is a calm, a holy feeling,
Vulgar minds can never know,
O’er the bosom softly stealing,–
Chasten'd grief, delicious woe!


THE SPECTRE OF TAPPINGTON
19
Oh! how sweet at eve regaining
Yon lone tower's sequester'd shade
Sadly mute and uncomplaining—-"
-“Yowl-yeough!-yeough!-yow!-yow !” yelled
a hapless sufferer from underneath the table. It was
an unlucky hour for quadrupeds; and if "every dog
will have his day,” he could not have selected a more
unpropitious one than this. Mrs. Ogleton, too, had
a pet-a favorite pug—whose squab figure, black
muzzle, and tortuosity of tail, that curled like a head
of celery in a salad-bowl, bespoke his Dutch extrac-
tion. Yow! yow! yow! continued the brute-a cho-
rus in which Flo instantly joined. Sooth to say, pug
had more reason to express his dissatisfaction than
was given him by the muse of Simpkinson; the other
only barked for company. Scarcely had the poetess
got through her first stanza, when Tom Ingoldsby, in
the enthusiasm of the moment, became so lost in the
material world, that, in his abstraction, he unwarily
laid his hand on the cock of the urn. Quivering with
emotion, he gave it such an unlucky twist, that the
full stream of its scalding contents descended on the
gingerbread hide of the unlucky Cupid. The con-
fusion was complete; the whole economy of the table
disarranged—the company broke up in the most ad-
mired disorder—and "vulgar minds will never
know" anything more of Miss Simpkinson's ode till
they peruse it in some forthcoming Annual.
Seaforth profited by the confusion to take the de-
linquent who had caused this "stramash” by the arm,
and to lead him to the lawn, where he had a word


20
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
or two for his private ear. The conference between
the young gentlemen was neither brief in its duration
nor unimportant in its results. The subject was what
the lawyers call tripartite, embracing the information
that Charles Seaforth was over head and ears in love
with Tom Ingoldsby's sister; secondly, that the lady
had referred him to “papa” for his sanction; thirdly
and lastly, his nightly visitations, and consequent
bereavement. At the two first items Tom smiled
auspiciously; at the last he burst out into an abso-
lute guffaw.
"Steal your breeches! Miss Bailey over again,
by Jove," shouted Ingoldsby. “But a gentleman, you
say—and Sir Giles too. I am not sure, Charles,
whether I ought not to call you out for aspersing
the honor of the family.”
"Laugh as you will, Tom-be as incredulous as
you please. One fact is incontestable—the breeches
are gone! Look here-I am reduced to my reg-
imentals; and if these go, to-morrow I must borrow
of you!"
Rochefoucault says, there is something in the mis-
fortunes of our very best friends that does not dis-
please us; assuredly we can, most of us, laugh at
their petty inconveniences, till called upon to supply
them. Tom composed his feature on the instant, and
replied with more gravity, as well as with an explet-
ive, which, if my Lord Mayor had been within hear-
ing, might have cost him five shillings.
"There is something very queer in this, after all.
The clothes, you say, have positively disappeared.


The specTRE OF TAPPINGTON
21
Somebody is playing you a trick; and, ten to one, your
servant has a hand in it. By the way, I heard some-
thing yesterday of his kicking up a bobbery in the
kitchen, and seeing a ghost, or something of that
kind, himself. Depend upon it, Barney is in the
plot.”
It now struck the lieutenant at once, that the
usually buoyant spirits of his attendant had of late
been materially sobered down, his loquacity obviously
circumscribed, and that he, the said lieutenant, had
actually rung his bell three several times that very
morning before he could procure his attendance,
Mr. Maguire was forthwith summoned, and under-
went a close examination. The "bobbery” was easily
explained.
Mr. Barney had seen a ghost.
“A what? you blockhead!” asked Tom Ingoldsby.
"Sure then, and it's meself will tell your honor the
rights of it," said the ghost-seer. “Meself and Miss
Pauline, sir,-or Miss Pauline and meself, for the
ladies comes first anyhow,—we got tired of the hob-
stroppylous scrimmaging among the ould servants,
that didn't know a joke when they seen one; and we
went out to look at the comet—that's the rorybory-
alehouse, they calls him in this country—and we
walked upon the lawn—and divil of any alehouse
there was there at all; and Miss Pauline said it was
bekase of the shrubbery maybe, and why wouldn't we
see it better beyonst the trees? and so we went to the
trees, but sorrow a comet did meself see there, bar-
ring a big ghost instead of it."


THE SPECTRE OF TAPPINGTON
23
believe, that if all the details to this mysterious
narrative are not in strict keeping, he will ascribe
it only to the disgraceful innovations of modern
degeneracy upon the sober and dignified habits of
our ancestors. I can introduce him, it is true, into
an old and high-roofed chamber, its walls covered
on three sides with black oak wainscoting, adorned
with carvings of fruit and flowers long anterior to
those of Grinling Gibbons; the fourth side is clothed
with a curious remnant of dingy tapestry, once eluci-
datory of some Scriptural history, but of which not
even Mrs. Botherby could determine. Mr. Simp-
kinson, who had examined it carefully, inclined to
believe the principal figure to be either Bathsheba,
or Daniel in the lion's den; while Tom Ingoldsby
decided in favor of the King of Bashan. All, how-
ever, was conjecture, tradition being silent on the
subject. A lofty arched portal led into, and a little
arched portal led out of, this apartment; they were
opposite each other, and each possessed the security
of massy bolts on its interior. The bedstead, too,
was not one of yesterday, but manifestly coeval with
days ere Seddons was, and when a good four-post
"article” was deemed worthy of being a royal be-
quest. The bed itself, with all the appurtenances of
palliasse, mattresses, etc., was of far later date, and
looked most incongruously comfortable; the case-
ments, too, with their little diamond-shaped panes
and iron binding, had given way to the modern het-
erodoxy of the sash-window. Nor was this all that
conspired to ruin the costume, and render the room


24
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
a meet haunt for such “mixed spirits” only as could
condescend to don at the same time an Elizabethan
doublet and Bond-Street inexpressibles.
With their green morocco slippers on a modern
fender, in front of a disgracefully modern grate, sat
two young gentlemen, clad in “shawl-pattern" dress.
ing-gowns and black silk stocks, much at variance
with the high cane-backed chairs which supported
them. A bunch of abomination, called a cigar,
reeked in the left-hand corner of the mouth of one,
and in the right-hand corner of the mouth of the
other-an arrangement happily adapted for the es-
cape of the noxious fumes up the chimney, without
that unmerciful "funking” each other which a less
scientific disposition of the weed would have induced.
A small pembroke table filled up the intervening
space between them, sustaining, at each extremity,
an elbow and a glass of toddy—thus in "lonely pen-
sive contemplation” were the two worthies occupied,
when the “iron tongue of midnight had tolled
twelve."
"Ghost-time's come !" said Ingoldsby, taking from
his waistcoat pocket a watch like a gold half-crown,
and consulting it as though he suspected the turret-
clock over the stables of mendacity.
"Hush !” said Charles; "did I not hear a foot-
step?”
There was a pause—there was a footstep-it
sounded distinctly—it reached the door-it hesi-
tated, stopped, and-passed on.
Tom darted across the room, threw open the door,
SIV


THE SPECTRE OF TAPPINGTON
25
and became aware of Mrs. Botherby toddling to her
chamber, at the other end of the gallery, after dos-
ing one of the housemaids with an approved julep
from the Countess of Kent's Choice Manual.
“Good-night, sir !” said Mrs. Botherby.
“Go to the devil!” said the disappointed ghost-
hunter.
An hour-two-rolled on, and still no spectral
visitation; nor did aught intervene to make night
hideous; and when the turret-clock sounded at
length the hour of three, Ingoldsby, whose patience
and grog were alike exhausted, sprang from his
chair, saying-
"This is all infernal nonsense, my good fellow.
Deuce of any ghost shall we see to-night; it's long
past the canonical hour. I'm off to bed; and as to
your breeches, I'll insure them for the next twenty-
four hours at least, at the price of the buckram.”
"Certainly.—Oh! thank'ee—to be sure !” stam-
mered Charles, rousing himself from a reverie,
which had degenerated into an absolute snooze.
"Good-night, my boy! Bolt the door behind me;
and defy the Pope, the Devil, and the Pretender!"
Seaforth followed his friend's advice, and the next
morning came down to breakfast dressed in the ha-
biliments of the preceding day. The charm was
broken, the demon defeated; the light grays with
the red stripe down the seams were yet in rerum
naturâ, and adorned the person of their lawful pro-
prietor.
Tom felicitated himself and his partner of the


26
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
watch on the result of their vigilance; but there is a
rustic adage, which warns us against self-gratulation
before we are quite "out of the wood.”—Seaforth
was yet within its verge.
A rap at Tom Ingoldsby's door the following
morning startled him as he was shaving—he cut his
chin.
“Come in and be damned to you!” said the
martyr, pressing his thumb on the sacrificed epi-
dermis. The door opened, and exhibited Mr.
Barney Maguire.
"Well, Barney, what is it?" quoth the sufferer,
adopting the vernacular of his visitant..
“The master, sir"
“Well, what does he want?"
"The loanst of a breeches, plase your honor."
“Why, you don't mean to tell me By
Heaven, this is too good!" shouted Tom, bursting
into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. "Why, Barney,
you don't mean to say the ghost has got them
again ?"
Mr. Maguire did not respond to the young
squire's risibility; the cast of his countenance was de-
cidedly serious.
"Faith, then, it's gone they are, sure enough!
Hasn't meself been looking over the bed, and under
the bed, and in the bed, for the matter of that, and
divil a ha'p'orth of breeches is there to the fore at
all :-I'm bothered entirely!”
"Hark'ee! Mr. Barney," said Tom, incautiously
removing his thumb, and letting a crimson stream


THE SPECTRE OF TAPPINGTON
27
"incarnadine the multitudinous” lather that plast-
ered his throat,-"this may be all very well with
your master, but you don't humbug me, sir :tell me
instantly what have you done with the clothes?”.
This abrupt transition from “lively to severe" cer-
tainly took Maguire by surprise, and he seemed for
an instant as much disconcerted as it is possible to
disconcert an Irish gentleman's gentleman.
“Me? is it meself, then, that's the ghost to your
honor's thinking ?” said he after a moment's pause,
and with a slight shade of indignation in his tones:
"is it I would stale the master's things—and what
would I do with them?"
“That you best know:-what your purpose is I
can't guess, for I don't think you mean to 'stale'
them, as you call it; but that you are concerned in
their disappearance, I am satisfied. Confound this
blood !—give me a towel, Barney."
Maguire acquitted himself of the commission.
“As I've a sowl, your honor," said he, solemnly,
"little is it meself knows of the matter; and after
what I seen— "
"What you've seen! Why, what have you seen?
-Barney, I don't want to inquire into your flirta-
tions; but don't suppose you can palm off your
saucer eyes and gig-lamps upon me!”
"Then, as sure as your honor's standing there, I
saw him: and why wouldn't I, when Miss Pauline
was to the fore as well as meself, and "
"Get along with your nonsense; leave the room,
sir!"


FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
“But the master?” said Barney, imploringly;
“and without a breeches ?—sure he'll be catching
cowld!- "
“Take that, rascal!” replied Ingoldsby, throwing
a pair of pantaloons at, rather than to, him: "but
don't suppose, sir, you shall carry on your tricks here
with impunity; recollect there is such a thing as a
treadmill, and that my father is a county magis-
trate."
Barney's eye flashed fire; he stood erect, and was
about to speak; but, mastering himself, not without
an effort, he took up the garment, and left the room
as perpendicular as a Quaker.
"Ingoldsby," said Charles Seaforth, after break-
fast,“this is now past a joke; to-day is the last of
my stay; for, notwithstanding the ties which detain
me, common decency obliges me to visit home after
so long an absence. I shall come to an immediate
explanation with your father on the subject nearest
my heart, and depart while I have a change of dress
left. On his answer will my return depend! In the
meantime tell me candidly,—I ask it in all serious-
ness, and as a friend,-am I not a dupe to your well-
known propensity to hoaxing? have you not a hand
in-
"No, by heaven, Seaforth; I see what you mean:
on my honor, I am as much mystified as yourself;
and if your servant- "
"Not he:-if there be a trick, he at least is not
privy to it."


30
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
would give to its occupant a view of all that might
pass in the apartment. Here did the young ghost
hunter take up a position, with a good stout sapling
under his arm, a full half-hour before Seaforth re-
tired for the night. Not even his friend did he let
into his confidence, fully determined that if his plan
did not succeed, the failure should be attributed to
himself alone.
At the usual hour of separation for the night,
Tom saw, from his concealment, the lieutenant enter
his room, and after taking a few turns in it, with an
expression so joyous as to betoken that his thoughts
were mainly occupied by his approaching happiness,
proceed slowly to disrobe himself. The coat, the
waistcoat, happiness, the black silk stock, were
gradually discarded; the green morocco slippers
were kicked off, and then-ay, and then—his counte-
nance grew grave; it seemed to occur to him all at
once that this was his last stake,—nay, that the very
breeches he had on were not his own,—that to-
morrow morning was his last, and that if he lost
them A glance showed that his mind was made
up; he replaced the single button he had just sub-
ducted, and threw himself upon the bed in a state
of transition,-half chrysalis, half grub.
Wearily did Tom Ingoldsby watch the sleeper by
the flickering light of the night-lamp, till, the clock
striking one, induced him to increase the narrow
opening which he had left for the purpose of obser-
vation. The motion, slight as it was, seemed to at-
tract Charles's attention; for he raised himself


THE SPECTRE OF TAPPINGTON
31
le dressince of a larea 8 the chairs 1.
suddenly to a sitting posture, listened for a moment,
and then stood upright upon the floor. Ingoldsby
was on the point of discovering himself, when, the
light Hashing full upon his friend's countenance, he
perceived that, though his eyes were open, "their
sense was shut,”—that he was yet under the influence
of sleep. Seaforth advanced slowly to the toilet, lit
his candle at the lamp that stood on it, then, going
back to the bed's foot, appeared to search eagerly
for something which he could not find. For a few
moments he seemed restless and uneasy, walking
round the apartment and examining the chairs, till,
coming fully in front of a large swing glass that
flanked the dressing-table, he paused as if contem-
plating his figure in it. He now returned towards
the bed; put on his slippers, and with cautious and
stealthy steps, proceeded towards the little arched
doorway that opened on the private staircase.
As he drew the bolt, Tom Ingoldsby emerged
from his hiding-place; but the sleep-walker heard
him not; he proceeded softly downstairs, followed
at a due distance by his friend; opened the door
which led out upon the gardens; and stood at once
among the thickest of the shrubs, which there clus-
tered round the base of a corner turret, and screened
the postern from common observation. At this mo-
ment Ingoldsby had nearly spoiled all by making a
false step: the sound attracted Seaforth's attention,
-he paused and turned; and, as the full moon shed
her light directly upon his pale and troubled features,


32
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
Tom marked, almost with dismay, the fixed and ray-
less appearance of his eyes.
The perfect stillness preserved by his follower
seemed to reassure him; he turned aside; and from
the midst of a thicket laurustinus drew forth a
gardener's spade, shouldering which he proceeded
with greater rapidity into the midst of the shrubbery.
Arrived at a certain point where the earth seemed
to have been recently disturbed, he set himself heart-
ily to the task of digging, till, having thrown up sev-
eral shovelfuls of mould, he stopped, flung down his
tool, and very composedly began to disencumber
himself of his pantaloons.
Up to this moment Tom had watched him with
a wary eye: he now advanced cautiously, and, as his
friend was busily engaged in disentangling himself
from his garment, made himself master of the
spade. Seaforth, meanwhile, had accomplished his
purpose: he stood for a moment with “his streamers
waving in the wind,” occupied in carefully rolling
up the small-clothes into as compact a form as pos-
sible, and all heedless of the breath of heaven, which
might certainly be supposed at such a moment, and
in such a plight, to "visit his frame too roughly.”
He was in the act of stooping low to deposit the
pantaloons in the grave which he had been digging
for them, when Tom Ingoldsby came close behind
him, and with the flat side of the spade
The shock was effectual-never again was Lieu-
tenant Seaforth known to act the part of a somnam-
bulist. One by one, his breeches,—his trousers -


THE SPECTRE OF TAPPINGTON
33
his pantaloons,-his silk-net tights,-his patent
cords,-his showy grays with the broad red stripe
of the Bombay Fencibles were brought to light,
rescued from the grave in which they had been
buried, like the strata of a Christmas pie; and after
having been well aired by Mrs. Botherby, became
once again effective.
The family, the ladies especially, laughed -
the Peterses laughed—the Simpkinsons laughed-
Barney Maguire cried “Botheration!” and Ma'm-
selle Pauline, “Mon Dieu !"
Charles Seaforth, unable to face the quizzing
which awaited him on all sides, started off two hours
earlier than he had proposed :-he soon returned,
however; and having, at his father-in-law's request,
given up the occupation of Rajah-hunting and shoot-
ing Nabobs, led his blushing bride to the altar.


THE MYSTERIOUS SKETCH
By ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN
OPPOSITE the chapel of Saint Sebalt in Nuremberg,
at the corner of Trabaus Street, there stands a little
tavern, tall and narrow, with a toothed gable and
dusty windows, whose roof is surmounted by a
plaster Virgin. It was there that I spent the un-
happiest days of my life. I had gone to Nuremberg
to study the old German masters; but in default of
ready money, I had to paint portraits—and such
portraits! Fat old women with their cats on their
laps, big-wigged aldermen, burgomasters in three-
cornered hats-all horribly bright with ochre and
vermilion. From portraits I descended to sketches,
and from sketches to silhouettes.
Nothing is more annoying than to have your land-
lord come to you every day with pinched lips, shrill
voice, and impudent manner to say: "Well, sir, how
soon are you going to pay me? Do you know how
much your bill is ? No; that doesn't worry you!
You eat, drink, and sleep calmly enough. God feeds
the sparrows. Your bill now amounts to two hun-


THE MYSTERIOUS SKETCH
35
dred florins and ten kreutzers—it is not worth talk-
ing about."
Those who have not heard any one talk in this
way can form no idea of it; love of art, imagination,
and the sacred enthusiasm for the beautiful are
blasted by the breath of such an attack. You be-
come awkward and timid; all your energy evapo-
rates, as well as your feeling of personal dignity,
and you bow respectfully at a distance to the burgo-
master Schneegans.
One night, not having a sou, as usual, and threat-
ened with imprisonment by this worthy Mister Rap,
I determined to make him a bankrupt by cutting my
throat. Seated on my narrow bed, opposite the
window, in this agreeable mood, I gave myself up to
a thousand philosophical reflections, more or less
comforting.
“What is man?" I asked myself. “An omniv.
orous animal; his jaws, provided with canines, in-
cisors, and molars, prove it. The canines are made
to tear meat; the incisors to bite fruits; and the
molars to masticate, grind, and triturate animal and
vegetable substances that are pleasant to smell and
to taste. But when he has nothing to masticate, this
being is an absurdity in Nature, a superfluity, a fifth
wheel to the coach."
Such were, my reflections. I dared not open my
razor for fear that the invincible force of my logic
would inspire me with the courage to make an end
of it all. After having argued so finely, I blew out
my candle, postponing the sequel till the morrow.
ar


36
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
That abominable Rap had completely stupefied
me. I could do nothing but silhouettes, and my sole
desire was to have some money to rid myself of his
odious presence. But on this night a singular change
came over my mind. I awoke about one o'clock-I
lit my lamp, and, enveloping myself in my grey gab-
ardine, I drew upon the paper a rapid sketch after
the Dutch school-something strange and bizarre,
which had not the slightest resemblance to my ordi-
nary conceptions.
Imagine a dreary courtyard enclosed by high dil-
apidated walls. These walls are furnished with
hooks, seven or eight feet from the ground. You
see, at a glance, that it is a butchery.
On the left, there extends a lattice structure; you
perceive through it a quartered beef suspended from
the roof by enormous pulleys. Great pools of blood
run over the flagstones and unite in a ditch full of
refuse.
The light falls above, between the chimneys where
the weathercocks stand out from a bit of the sky
the size of your hand, and the roofs of the neigh-
boring houses throw bold shadows from story to
story.
At the back of this place is a shed, beneath the
shed a pile of wood, and upon the pile of wood some
ladders, a few bundles of straw, some coils of rope,
a chicken-coop, and an old dilapidated rabbit-hutch.
How did these heterogeneous details suggest
themselves to my imagination? I don't know; I had
no reminiscences, and yet every stroke of the pencil


THE MYSTERIOUS SKETCH
seemed the result of observation, and strange be-
cause it was all so true. Nothing was lacking.
But on the right, one corner of the sketch re-
mained a blank. I did not know what to put there.
... Something suddenly seemed to writhe there, to
move. Then I saw a foot, the sole of a foot. Not-
withstanding this improbable position, I followed
my inspiration without reference to my own criticism.
This foot was joined to a leg—over this leg,
stretched out with effort, there soon floated the skirt
of a dress. In short, there appeared by degrees an
old woman, pale, dishevelled, and wasted, thrown
down at the side of a well, and struggling to free
herself from a hand that clutched her throat.
It was a murder scene that I was drawing. The
pencil fell from my hand.
This woman, in the boldest attitude, with her
thighs bent on the curb of the well, her face con-
tracted by terror, and her two hands grasping the
murderer's arm, frightened me. I could not look at
her. But the man—he, the person to whom that
arm belonged — I could not see him. It was im-
possible for me to finish the sketch.
“I am tired,” I said, my forehead dripping with
perspiration; "there is only this figure to do; I will
finish it tomorrow. It will be easy then.”
And again I went to bed, thoroughly frightened
by my vision.
The next morning, I got up very early. I was
dressing in order to resume my interrupted work,
when two little knocks were heard on my door.


38
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
"Come in!”
The door opened. An old man, tall, thin, and
dressed in black, appeared on the threshold. This
man's face, his eyes set close together and his large
nose like the beak of an eagle, surmounted by a high
bony forehead, had something severe about it. He
bowed to me gravely.
“Mister Christian Vénius, the painter ?” said he.
"That is my name, sir.”
He bowed again, adding:
"The Baron Frederick Van Spreckdal.”
The appearance of the rich amateur, Van Spreck-
dal, judge of the criminal court, in my poor lodging,
greatly disturbed me. I could not help throwing a
stealthy glance at my old worm-eaten furniture, my
damp hangings and my dusty floor. I felt humili-
ated by such dilapidation; but Van Spreckdal did
not seem to take any account of these details; and
sitting down at my little table:
"Mister Vénius,” he resumed, “I come- "But
at this instant his glance fell upon the unfinished
sketch -he did not finish his phrase.
I was sitting on the edge of my little bed; and the
sudden attention that this personage bestowed upon
one of my productions made my heart beat with an
indefinable apprehension.
At the end of a minute, Van Spreckdal lifted his
head:
"Are you the author of that sketch ?” he asked me
with an intent look.
"Yes, sir.”


THE MYSTERIOUS SKETCH
Sketch 39
"What is the price of it?”.
“I never sell my sketches. It is the plan for a
picture.”
"Ah!” said he, picking up the paper with the tips
of his long yellow fingers.
He took a lens from his waistcoat pocket and be-
gan to study the design in silence.
The sun was now shining obliquely into the garret.
Van Spreckdal never said a word; the hook of his
immense nose increased, his heavy eyebrows con-
tracted, and his long pointed chin took a turn up-
ward, making a thousand little wrinkles in his long,
thin cheeks. The silence was so profound that I
could distinctly hear the plaintive buzzing of a fly
that had been caught in a spider's web.
"And the dimensions of this picture, Mister
Vénius ?” he said without looking at me.
“Three feet by four."
“The price?"
"Fifty ducats."
Van Spreckdal laid the sketch on the table, and
drew from his pockets a large purse of green silk
shaped like a pear; he drew the rings of it-
"Fifty ducats," said he, “here they are."
I was simply dazzled.
The Baron rose and bowed to me, and I heard
his big ivory-headed cane resounding on each step
until he reached the bottom of the stairs. Then
recovering from my stupor, I suddenly remem-
bered that I had not thanked him, and I flew down
the five flights like lightning; but when I reached the


40
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
bottom, I looked to the right and left; the street was
deserted.
"Well," I said, "this is strange."
And I went upstairs again all out of breath.
II
The surprising way in which Van Spreckdal had
appeared to me threw me into deep wonderment.
"Yesterday,” I said to myself, as I contemplated the
pile of ducats glittering in the sun, “yesterday I
formed the wicked intention of cutting my throat,
all for the want of a few miserable florins, and now
today Fortune has showered them from the clouds.
Indeed it was fortunate that I did not open my
razor; and, if the same intention ever comes to me
again, I will take care to wait until the morrow."
After making these judicious reflections, I sat
down to finish the sketch; four strokes of the pencil
and it would be finished. But here an incomprehen-
sible difficulty awaited me. It was impossible for
me to take those four sweeps of the pencil; I had
lost the thread of my inspiration, and the mysterious
personage no longer stood out in my brain. I tried
in vain to evoke him, to sketch him, and to recover
him; he no more accorded with the surroundings
than with a figure by Raphael in a Teniers inn-
kitchen. I broke out into a profuse perspiration.
At this moment, Rap opened the door without
knocking, according to his praiseworthy custom. His


THE 41
MYSTERIOUS MYSTERIOUS SKETCH
SKETCH
eyes fell upon my pile of ducats and in a shrill voice
he cried:
"Eh! eh! so I catch. Will you persist in telling
me, Mr. Painter, that you have no money?”.
And his hooked fingers advanced with that ner-
vous trembling that the sight of gold always pro-
duces in a miser.
For a few seconds I was stupefied.
The memory of all the indignities that this indi-
vidual had inflicted upon me, his covetous look, and
his impudent smile exasperated me. With a single
bound, I caught hold of him, and pushed him out of
the room, slamming the door in his face.
This was done with the crack and rapidity of a
spring snuff-box.
But from outside the old usurer screamed like
an eagle:
"My money, you thief, my money!”
The lodgers came out of their rooms, asking:
"What is the matter? What has happened?"
I opened the door suddenly and quickly gave
Mister Rap a kick in the spine that sent him rolling
down more than twenty steps.
"That's what's the matter!" I cried quite beside
myself. Then I shut the door and bolted it, while
bursts of laughter from the neighbors greeted
Mister Rap in the passage.
I was satisfied with myself; I rubbed my hands
together. This adventure had put new life into me;
I resumed my work, and was about to finish the
sketch when I heard an unusual noise.


FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
Butts of muskets were grounded on the pavement.
I looked out of my window and saw three soldiers
in full uniform with grounded arms in front of my
door.
I said to myself in my terror: “ Can it be that
that scoundrel of a Rap has had any bones broken?”
And here is the strange peculiarity of the human
mind: I, who the night before had wanted to cut my
own throat, shook from head to foot, thinking that
I might well be hanged if Rap were dead.
The stairway was filled with confused noises. It
was an ascending flood of heavy footsteps, clanking
arms, and short syllables.
Suddenly somebody tried to open my door. It was
shut.
Then there was a general clamor.
"In the name of the law open!"
I arose trembling, and weak in the knees.
“Open!" the same voice repeated.
I thought to escape over the roofs; but I had
hardly put my head out of the little snuff-box win-
dow, when I drew back, seized with vertigo. I saw
in a flash all the windows below with their shining
panes, their flowerpots, their bird-cages, and their
gratings. Lower, the balcony; still lower, the street-
lamp; still lower again, the sign of the “Red Cask"
framed in iron-work; and, finally three glittering
bayonets, only awaiting my fall to run me through
the body from the sole of my foot to the crown of
my head. On the roof of the opposite house a tor-
toise-shell cat was crouching behind a chimney,


THE MYSTERIOUS SKETCH 43
watching a band of sparrows fighting and scolding in
the gutter.
One cannot imagine to what clearness, intensity,
and rapidity the human eye acquires when stimulated
by fear.
At the third summons I heard:
"Open, or we shall force it !"
Seeing that flight was impossible, I staggered to
the door and drew the bolt.
Two hands immediately fell upon my collar. A
dumpy little man, smelling of wine, said:
"I arrest you!"
He wore a bottle-green redingote, buttoned to the
chin, and a stovepipe hat. He had large brown
whiskers, rings on every finger, and was named
Passauf.
He was the chief of police.
Five bull-dogs with flat caps, noses like pistols, and
lower jaws turning upward, observed me from out-
side.
“What do you want?" I asked Passauf.
"Come downstairs," he cried roughly, as he gave
a sign to one of his men to seize me.
This man took hold of me, more dead than alive,
while several other men turned my room upside
down.
I went downstairs supported by the arms like a
person in the last stages of consumption—with hair
dishevelled and stumbling at every step.
They thrust me into a cab between two strong
fellows, who charitably let me see the ends of their


44
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
clubs, held to their wrists by a leather string—and
then the carriage started off.
I heard behind us the feet of all the urchins of
the town.
"What have I done?” I asked one of my keepers.
He looked at the other with a strange smile and
said:
"Hans—he asks what he has done!".
That smile froze from my blood.
Soon a deep shadow enveloped the carriage; the
horses' hoofs resounded under an archway. We
were entering the Raspelhaus. Of this place one
might say:
"Dans cet antre,
Je vois fort bien comme l'on entre,
Et ne vois point comme on en sort.”
Al is not rose-colored in this world; from the
daws of Rap I fell into a dungeon, from which very
few poor devils have a chance to escape.
Large dark courtyards and rows of windows like
a bespiral, and furnished with gratings; not a sprig
of verdure, not a festoon of ivy, not even a weather-
cock in perspective such was my new lodging. It
was enough to make one tear his hair out by the
The police oficers, accompanied by the jailer,
to rent te sporarily to a lock-up.
The war, if I remember righely, was named
Kasper Salud; with his grey woellen cap, his pipe
between this tech, and his bunch or keys at his belt,


THE MYSTERIOUS SKETCH
45
he reminded me of the Owl-God of the Caribs. He
had the same golden yellow eyes, that see in the
dark, a nose like a comma, and a neck that was sunk
between the shoulders.
Schlüssel shut me up as calmly as one locks up
his socks in a cupboard, while thinking of something
else. As for me, I stood for more than ten minutes
with my hands behind my back and my head bowed.
At the end of that time I made the following reflec-
tion: “When falling, Rap cried out, 'I am assassi-
nated,' but he did not say by whom. I will say it
was my neighbor, the old merchant with the spec-
tacles: he will be hanged in my place."
This idea comforted my heart, and I drew a long
breath. Then I looked about my prison. It seemed
to have been newly whitewashed, and the walls were
bare of designs, except in one corner, where a gal-
lows had been crudely sketched by my predecessor.
The light was admitted through a bull's-eye about
nine or ten feet from the floor; the furniture con-
sisted of a bundle of straw and a tub.
I sat down upon the straw with my hands around
my knees in deep despondency. It was with great
difficulty that I could think clearly; but suddenly im-
agining that Rap, before dying, had denounced me,
my legs began to tingle, and I jumped up coughing,
as if the hempen cord were already tightening
around my neck.
At the same moment, I heard Schlüssel walking
down the corridor; he opened the lock-up, and told


46
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
me to follow him. He was still accompanied by the
two officers, so I fell into step resolutely.
We walked down long galleries, lighted at inter-
vals by small windows from within. Behind a grat-
ing I saw the famous Jic-Jack, who was going to be
executed on the morrow. He had on a strait-jacket
and sang out in a raucous voice:
"Je suis le roi de ces montagnes.”
Seeing me, he called out:
"Eh! comrade! I'll keep a place for you at my
right."
The two police officers and the Owl-God looked at
each other and smiled, while I felt the goose-flesh
creep down the whole length of my back.
III
Schlüssel shoved me into a large and very dreary
hall, with benches arranged in a semicircle. The ap-
pearance of this deserted hall, with its two high
grated windows, and its Christ carved in old brown
oak with His arms extended and His head sorrow-
fully inclined upon His shoulder, inspired me with
I do not know what kind of religious fear that ac-
corded with my actual situation.
All my ideas of false accusation disappeared, and
my lips trembling murmured a prayer.
I had not prayed for a long time; but misfortune
always brings us to thoughts of submission. Man is
so little in himself!


THE MYSTERIOUS SKETCH
47
Opposite me, on an elevated seat, two men were
sitting with their backs to the light, and consequently
their faces were in shadow. However, I recognized
Van Spreckdal by his aquiline profile, illuminated by
an oblique reflection from the window. The other
person was fat, he had round, chubby cheeks and
short hands, and he wore a robe, like Van Spreckdal.
Below was the clerk of the court, Conrad; he was
writing at a low table and was tickling the tip of his
ear with the feather-end of his pen. When I en-
tered, he stopped to look at me curiously.
They made me sit down, and Van Spreckdal, rais-
ing his voice, said to me:
“Christian Vénius, where did you get this sketch ?”
He showed me the nocturnal sketch which was
then in his possession. It was handed to me. After
having examined it, I replied:
“I am the author of it.”
A long silence followed; the clerk of the court,
Conrad, wrote down my reply. I heard his pen
scratch over the paper, and I thought: "Why did
they ask me that question? That has nothing to do
with the kick I gave Rap in the back.”
“You are the author of it?" asked Van Spreckdal.
"What is the subject ?”
"It is a subject of pure fancy."
"You have not copied the details from some
spot?”
"No, sir; I imagined it all.”
“Accused Christian," said the judge in a severe
tone, “I ask you to reflect. Do not lie."


FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
“I have spoken the truth."
“Write that down, clerk," said Van Spreckdal.
The pen scratched again.
"And this woman," continued the judge—“this
woman who is being murdered at the side of the
well—did you imagine her also ?".
"Certainly."
“You have never seen her?"
"Never.”
Van Spreckdal rose indignantly; then, sitting down
again, he seemed to consult his companion in a low
voice.
These two dark profiles silhouetted against the
brightness of the window, and the three men stand-
ing behind me, the silence in the hall-everything
made me shiver.
"What do you want with me? What have I
done?" I murmured.
Suddenly Van Spreckdal said to my guardians:
“You can take the prisoner back to the carriage;
we will go to Metzerstrasse."
Then, addressing me:
“Christian Vénius,” he cried, "you are in a deplor-
able situation. Collect your thoughts and remember
that if the law of man is inflexible, there still remains
for you the mercy of God. This you can merit by
confessing your crime."
These words stunned me like a blow from a ham-
mer. I fell back with extended arms, crying:
“Ah! what a terrible dream!"
And I fainted.
Then, ado Metzerserisoner back to guardians :


THE MYSTERIOUS SKETCH
When I regained consciousness, the carriage was
rolling slowly down the street; another one preceded
us. The two officers were always with me. One of
them on the way offered a pinch of snuff to his com-
panion; mechanically I reached out my hand toward
the snuff-box, but he withdrew it quickly.
My cheeks reddened with shame, and I turned
away my head to conceal my emotion.
"If you look outside," said the man with the snuff-
box, "we shall be obliged to put handcuffs on you."
“May the devil strangle you, you infernal scoun-
drell" I said to myself. And as the carriage now
stopped, one of them got out, while the other held
me by the collar; then, seeing that his comrade was
ready to receive me, he pushed me rudely to him.
These infinite precautions to hold possession of
my person boded no good; but I was far from pre-
dicting the seriousness of the accusation that hung
over my head until an alarming circumstance opened
my eyes and threw me into despair.
They pushed me along a low alley, the pavement
of which was unequal and broken; along the wall
there ran a yellowish ooze, exhaling a fetid odor.
I walked down this dark place with the two men be-
hind me. A little further there appeared the chiaro-
scuro of an interior courtyard.
I grew more and more terror-stricken as I ad-
vanced. It was no natural feeling: it was a poignant
anxiety, outside of nature-like a nightmare. I re-
coiled instinctively at each step.


50
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
"Go on!” cried one of the policemen, laying
his hand on my shoulder; "go on!”.
But what was my astonishment when, at the end.
of the passage, I saw the courtyard that I had drawn
the night before, with its walls furnished with hooks,
its rubbish-heap of old iron, its chicken-coops, and
its rabbit-hutch. Not a dormer window, high or
low, not a broken pane, not the slightest detail had
been omitted.
I was thunderstruck by this strange revelation.
Near the well were the two judges, Van Spreckdal
and Richter. At their feet lay the old woman ex-
tended on her back, her long, thin, gray hair, her
blue face, her eyes wide open, and her tongue be-
tween her teeth.
It was a horrible spectacle!
"Well,” said Van Spreckdal, with solemn accents,
"what have you to say?"
I did not reply.
“Do you remember having thrown this woman,
Theresa Becker, into this well, after having
strangled her to rob her of her money?”
"No," I cried, “no! I do not know this woman;
I never saw her before. May God help me!"
"That will do,” he replied in a dry voice. And
without saying another word he went out with his
companion.
The officers now believed that they had best put
handcuffs on me. They took me back to the Raspel-
haus, in a state of profound stupidity. I did not
know what to think; my conscience itself troubled


THE MYSTERIOUS SKETCH
51
me; I even asked myself if I really had murdered
the old woman!
In the eyes of the officers I was condemned.
I will not tell you of my emotions that night in
the Raspelhaus, when, seated on my straw bed with
the window opposite me and the gallows in per-
spective, I heard the watchmen cry in the silence of
the night: “Sleep, people of Nuremberg; the Lord
watches over you. One o'clock! Two o'clock!
Three o'clock !”
Every one may form his own idea of such a night.
There is a fine saying that it is better to be hanged
innocent than guilty. For the soul, yes; but for the
body, it makes no difference; on the contrary, it
kicks, it curses its lot, it tries to escape, knowing well
enough that its rôle ends with the rope. Add to
this, that it repents not having sufficiently enjoyed
life and at having listened to the soul when it
preached abstinence.
"Ah! if I had only known!” it cried, "you would
not have led me around by a string with your big
words, your beautiful phrases, and your magnificent
sentences! You would not have allured me with
your fine promises. I should have had many happy
moments that are now lost forever. Everything is
over! You said to me: 'Control your passions.'
Very well! I did control them. Here I am now.
They are going to hang me, and you—later they
will speak of you as a sublime soul, a stoical soul,
a martyr to the errors of Justice. They will never
think about me!"


FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
Such were the sad reflections of my poor body.
Day broke; at first, dull and undecided, it threw
an uncertain light on my bull's-eye window with its
crossbars; then it blazed against the wall at the back.
Outside the street became lively. This was a
market-day; it was Friday. I heard the vegetable
wagons pass and also the country people with their
baskets. Some chickens cackled in their coops in
passing and some butter sellers chattered together.
The market opposite opened, and they began to ar-
range the stalls.
Finally it was broad daylight and the vast mur-
mur of the increasing crowd, housekeepers who as-
sembled with baskets on their arms, coming and go-
ing, discussing and marketing, told me that it was
eight o'clock.
With the light, my heart gained a little courage.
Some of my black thoughts disappeared. I desired
to see what was going on outside.
Other prisoners before me had managed to climb
up to the bull's-eye; they had dug some holes in the
wall to mount more easily. I climbed in my turn,
and, when seated in the oval edge of the window,
with my legs bent and my head bowed, I could see
the crowd, and all the life and movement. Tears
ran freely down my cheeks. I thought no longer of
suicide-I experienced a need to live and breathe,
which was really extraordinary.
“Ah!” I said, “to live what happiness! Let them
harness me to a wheelbarrow-let them put a ball
ana


THE MYSTERIOUS SKETCH
and chain around my leg—nothing matters if I may
only live !"
The old market, with its roof shaped like an ex-
tinguisher, supported on heavy pillars, made a superb
picture: old women seated before their panniers of
vegetables, their cages of poultry and their baskets
of eggs; behind them the Jews, dealers in old clothes,
their faces the color of old boxwood; butchers with
bare arms, cutting up meat on their stalls; country-
men, with large hats on the backs of their heads,
calm and grave with their hands behind their backs
and resting on their sticks of hollywood, and tran-
quilly smoking their pipes. Then the tumult and
noise of the crowd—those screaming, shrill, grave,
high, and short words—those expressive gestures-
those sudden attitudes that show from a distance
the progress of a discussion and depict so well the
character of the individual-in short, all this cap-
tivated my mind, and notwithstanding my sad con-
dition, I felt happy to be still of the world.
. Now, while I looked about in this manner, a man
-a butcher-passed, inclining forward and carrying
an enormous quarter of beef on his shoulders; his
arms were bare, his elbows were raised upward and
his head was bent under them. His long hair, like
that of Salvator's Sicambrian, hid his face from me;
and yet, at the first glance, I trembled.
“It is he!" I said.
All the blood in my body rushed to my heart. I
got down from the window trembling to the ends of
my fingers, feeling my cheeks quiver, and the pallor


54
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
,
spread over my face, stammering in a choked voice:
"It is he! he is there—there—and I, I have to die
to expiate his crime. Oh, God! what shall I do?
What shall I do?".
A sudden idea, an inspiration from Heaven,
flashed across my mind. I put my hand in the pocket
of my coat-my box of crayons was there!
Then rushing to the wall, I began to trace the
scene of the murder with superhuman energy. No
uncertainty, no hesitation! I knew the man! I had
seen him! He was there before me!
At ten o'clock the jailer came to my cell. His owl-
like impassibility gave place to admiration.
"Is it possible?" he cried, standing at the thres-
hold.
“Go, bring me my judges,” I said to him, pursu-
ing my work with an increasing exultation.
Schlüssel answered:
"They are waiting for you in the trial-room.”
“I wish to make a revelation," I cried, as I put
the finishing touches to the mysterious personage.
He lived; he was frightful to see. His full-faced
figure, foreshortened upon the wall, stood out from
the white background with an astonishing vitality.
The jailer went away.
A few minutes afterward the two judges appeared.
They were stupefied. I, trembling, with extended
hand, said to them:
“There is the murderer!"
After a few minutes of silence, Van Spreckdal
asked me:
rsu-


THE MYSTERIOUS SKETCH
55
*
“What is his name?”
"I don't know; but he is at this moment in the
market; he is cutting up meat in the third stall to
the left as you enter from Trabaus Street."
"What do you think?" said he, leaning toward
his colleague.
"Send for the man," he replied in a grave tone.
Several officers retained in the corridor obeyed this
order. The judges stood, examining the sketch. As
for me, I had dropped on my bed of straw, my head
between my knees, perfectly exhausted.
Soon steps were heard echoing under the archway.
Those who have never awaited the hour of deliver-
ance and counted the minutes, which seem like cen-
turies—those who have never experienced the sharp
emotions of outrage, terror, hope, and doubt-can
have no conception of the inward chills that I ex-
perienced at that moment. I should have distin-
guished the step of the murderer, walking between
the guards, among a thousand others. They ap-
proached. The judges themselves seemed moved.
I raised up my head, my heart feeling as if an iron
hand had clutched it, and I fixed my eyes upon the
closed door. It opened. The man entered. His
cheeks were red and swollen, the muscles in his large
contracted jaws twitched as far as his ears, and his
little restless eyes, yellow like a wolf's, gleamed be-
neath his heavy yellowish red eyebrows."
Van Spreckdal showed him the sketch in silence.
Then that murderous man, with the large shoul-
ders, having looked, grew pale—then, giving a roar


56
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
which thrilled us all with terror, he waved his enor-
mous arms, and jumped backward to overthrow the
guards. There was a terrible struggle in the cor-
ridor; you could hear nothing but the panting breath
of the butcher, his muttered imprecations, and the
short words and the shuffling feet of the guard, upon
the flagstones.
This lasted only about a minute.
Finally the assassin re-entered, with his head hang-
ing down, his eyes bloodshot, and his hands fastened
behind his back. He looked again at the picture of
the murderer; he seemed to reflect, and then, in a low
voice, as if talking to himself:
"Who could have seen me,” he said, “at mid-
night?"
I was saved!
Many years have passed since that terrible adven-
ture. Thank Heaven! I make silhouettes no longer,
nor portraits of burgomasters. Through hard work
and perseverance, I have conquered my place in the
world, and I earn my living honorably by painting
works of art--the sole end, in my opinion, to which
a true artist should aspire. But the memory of that
nocturnal sketch has always remained in my mind.
Sometimes, in the midst of work, the thought of it
recurs. Then I lay down my palette and dream for
hours.
How could a crime committed by a man that I did
not know-at a place that I had never seen have



THE MYSTERIOUS SKETCH
52
been reproduced by my pencil, in all its smallest de-
tails?
Was it chance? No! And moreover, what is
chance but the effect of a cause of which we are
ignorant?
Was Schiller right when he said: “The immortal
soul does not participate in the weaknesses of mat-
ter; during the sleep of the body, it spreads its radi-
ant wings and travels, God knows where! What it
then does, no one can say, but inspiration sometimes
betrays the secret of its nocturnal wanderings."
Who knows? Nature is more audacious in her
realities than man in his most fantastic imagining.



THE DESERTED HOUSE
By Ernest T. W. HOFFMANN
You know already that I spent the greater part of
last summer in X- , began Theodore. The many
old friends and acquaintances I found there, the free,
jovial life, the manifold artistic and intellectual in-
terests all these combined to keep me in that city.
I was happy as never before, and found rich nourish-
ment for my old fondness for wandering alone
through the streets, stopping to enjoy every picture
in the shop windows, every placard on the walls,
or watching the passers-by and choosing some one
or the other of them to cast his horoscope secretly
to myself.
There is one broad avenue leading to the
Gate and lined with handsome buildings of all de-
scriptions, which is the meeting place of the rich and
fashionable world. The shops which occupy the
ground floor of the tall palaces are devoted to the
trade in articles of luxury, and the apartments above
are the dwellings of people of wealth and position.
The aristocratic hotels are to be found in this avenue,
the palaces of the foreign ambassadors are there,
and you can easily imagine that such a street would
be the centre of the city's life and gaiety.
58



THE DESERTED HOUSE
I had wandered through the avenue several times,
when one day my attention was caught by a house
which contrasted strangely with the others surround-
ing it. Picture to yourselves a low building but four
windows broad, crowded in between two tall, hand-
some structures. Its one upper, story was a little
higher than the tops of the ground floor windows of
its neighbors, its roof was dilapidated, its windows
patched with paper, its discolored walls spoke of
years of neglect. You can imagine how strange such
a house must have looked in this street of wealth and
fashion. Looking at it more attentively I perceived
that the windows of the upper story were tightly
closed and curtained, and that a wall had been built
to hide the windows of the ground floor. The en-
trance gate, a little to one side, served also as a door-
way for the building, but I could find no sign of
latch, lock, or even a bell on this gate. I was con-
vinced that the house must be anoccupied, for at
whatever hour of the day I happened to be passing
I had never seen the faintest signs of life about it.
You all, the good comrades of my youth, know
that I have been prone to consider myself a sort of
clairvoyant, claiming to have glimpses of a strange
world of wonders, a world which you, with your
hard common sense, would attempt to deny or laugh
away. I confess that I have often fost myself in
mysteries which, after all turned out to be no mys-
teries at all. And it looked at first as if this was
to happen to me in the matter of the deserted house,
that strange house which drew my steps and my



60
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
thoughts to itself with a power that surprised me.
But the point of my story will prove to you that I
am right in asserting that I know more than you do.
Listen now to what I am about to tell you.
One day, at the hour in which the fashionable
world is accustomed to promenade up and down the
avenue, I stood as usual before the deserted house,
lost in thought. Suddenly I felt, without looking up,
that some one had stopped beside me, fixing his eyes
on me. It was Count P- who told me that the
old house contained nothing more mysterious than
à eake bakery belonging to the pastry cook whose
handsome shop adjoined the old structure. The
windows of the ground floor were walled up to give
protection to the ovens, and the heavy curtains of
the upper story were to keep the sunlight from the
wares laid out there. When the Count informed me
of this I felt as if a bucket of cold water had been
suddenly thrown over me. But I could not believe
in this story of the cake and candy factory. Through
some strange freak of the imagination I felt as a
child feels when some fairy tale has been told it to
conceal the truth it suspects. I scolded myself for
a silly fool; the house remained unaltered in its ap-
pearance, and the visions faded in my brain, until
one day a chance incident woke them to life again.
I was wandering through the avenue as usual, and
as I passed the deserted house I could not resist a
hasty glance at its close-curtained upper windows.
But as I looked at it, the curtain on the last window
near the pastry shop began to move. A hand, an



THE DESERTED HOUSE
61
arm, came out from between its folds. I took my
opera glass from my pocket and saw a beautifully
formed woman's hand, on the little finger of which
a large diamond sparkled in unusual brilliancy; a rich
bracelet glittered on the white, rounded arm. The
hand set a tall, oddly-formed crystal bottle on the
window ledge and disappeared again behind the cur-
tain.
I stopped as if frozen to stone; a weirdly pleasur-
able sensation, mingled with awe, streamed through
my being with the warmth of an electric current. I
stared up at the mysterious window and a sigh of
longing arose from the very depths of my heart.
When I came to myself again, I was angered to find
that I was surrounded by a crowd which stood gaz-
ing up at the window with curious faces. I stole
away inconspicuously, and the demon of all things
prosaic whispered to me that what I had just seen
was the rich pastry cook's wife, in her Sunday adorn-
ment, placing an empty bottle, used for rose-water or !
the like, on the window sill. Nothing very weird
about this.
Suddenly a most sensible thought came to me. I
turned and entered the shining, mirror-walled shop
of the pastry cook. Blowing the steaming foam
from my cup of chocolate, I remarked: “You have
a very useful addition to your establishment next
door.” The man leaned over his counter and looked
at me with a questioning smile, as if he did not under-
stand me. I repeated that in my opinion he had
been very clever to set his bakery in the neighbori


FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
GO
ing house, although the deserted appearance of the
building was a strange sight in its contrasting sur-
roundings. “Why, sir," began the pastry cook,
"who told you that the house next door belongs to
us? Unfortunately every attempt on our part to
acquire it has been in vain, and I fancy it is all the
better so, for there is something queer about the
place.”
You can imagine, dear friends, how interested I
became upon hearing the Is, and that I begged
the man to tell me more : he house.
"I do not know anything very definite, sir," he
said. “All that we know for a certainty is that the
house belongs to the Countess S , who lives on
her estates and has not been to the city for years.
This house, so they tell me, stood in its present shape
before any of the handsome buildings were raised
which are now the pride of our avenue, and in all
these years there has been nothing done to it except
to keep it from actual decay. Two living creatures
alone dwell there, an aged misanthrope of a steward
and his melancholy dog, which occasionally howls at -
the moon from the back courtyard. According to
the general story the deserted house is haunted. In
very truth my brother, who is the owner of this
shop, and myself have often, when our business kept
us awake during the silence of the night, heard
strange sounds from the other side of the walls.
There was a rumbling and a scraping that frightened
us both. And not very long ago we heard one night
a strange singing which I could not describe to you.
US


THE DESERTED HOUSE
63
It was evidently the voice of an old woman, but the
tones were so sharp and clear, and ran up to the
top of the scale in cadences and long trills, the like
of which I have never heard before, although I have
heard many singers in many lands. It seemed to be
a French song, but I am not quite sure of that, for
I could not listen long to the mad, ghostly singing,
it made the hair stand erect on my head. And at
times, after the street noises are quiet, we can hear
deep sighs, and sometimes a mad laugh, which seem
to come out of the earth. But if you lay your ear
to the wall in our back room, you can hear that the
noises come from the house next door.” He led me
into the back room and pointed through the window.
"And do you see that iron chimney coming out of
the wall there? It smokes so heavily sometimes,
even in summer when there are no fires used, that
my brother has often quarrelled with the old stew-
ard about it; fearing danger. But the old man ex-
cuses himself by saying that he was cooking his food.
Heaven knows what the queer creature may eat,
for often, when the pipe is smoking heavily, a strange
and queer smell can be smelled all over the house."
The glass doors of the shop creaked in opening.
The pastry cook hurried into the front room, and
when he had nodded to the figure now entering he
threw a meaning glance at me. I understood him
perfectly. Who else could this strange guest be, but
the steward who had charge of the mysterious
house! Imagine a thin little man with a face the
.. color of a mummy, with a sharp nose, tight-set lips,


64
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
green cat's eyes, and a crazy smile; his hair dressed
in the old-fashioned style with a high toupet and a
bag at the back, and heavily powdered. He wore
a faded old brown coat which was carefully brushed,
gray stockings, and broad, flat-toed shoes with
buckles. And imagine further, that in spite of his
meagreness this little person is robustly built, with
huge fists and long, strong fingers, and that he walks
to the shop counter with a strong, firm step, smiling
his imbecile smile, and whining out: "A couple of
candied orangesma couple of macaroons—a couple
of sugared chestnuts— "
The pastry cook smiled at me and then spoke to
the old man. “You do not seem to be quite well.
Yes, yes, old age, old age! It takes the strength
from our limbs.” The old man's expression did not
change, but his voice went up: “Old age?-Old age ?
-Lose strength ?-Grow weak?-Oho!” And with
this he clapped his hands together until the joints
cracked, and sprang high up into the air until the
entire shop trembled and the glass vessels on the
walls and counters rattled and shook. But in the
same moment a hideous screaming was heard; the
old man had stepped on his black dog, which, creep-
ing in behind him, had laid itself at his feet on the
floor. “Devilish beast-dog of hell !" groaned the
old man in his former miserable tone, opening his
bag and giving the dog a large macaroon. The dog,
which had burst out into a cry of distress that was
truly human, was quiet at once, sat down on its
haunches, and gnawed at the macaroon like a squir-


THE DESERTED HOUSE
65
rel. When it had finished its tidbit, the old man
had also finished the packing up and putting away,
of his purchases. “Good night, honored neighbor,"
he spoke, taking the hand of the pastry cook and
pressing it until the latter cried aloud in pain. “The
weak old man wishes you a good night, most hon-
orable Sir Neighbor," he repeated, and then walked
from the shop, followed closely by his black dog.
The old man did not seem to have noticed me at
all. I was quite dumbfounded in my astonishment.
“There, you see," began the pastry cook. “This
is the way he acts when he comes in here, two or
three times a month, it is. But I can get nothing
out of him except the fact that he was a former valet
of Count
S t hat he is now in charge of this
house here, and that every day—for many years
now-he expects the arrival of his master's family."
The hour was now come when fashion demanded
that the elegant world of the city should assemble
in this attractive shop. The doors opened inces-
santly, the place was thronged, and I could ask no
further questions.
This much I knew, that Count P 's informa-
tion about the ownership and the use of the house
were not correct; also, that the old steward, in spite
of his denial, was not living alone there, and that
some mystery was hidden behind its discolored walls.
How could I combine the story of the strange and
gruesome singing with the appearance of the beauti-
ful arm at the window? That arm could not be part
of the wrinkled body of an old woman; the singing,


66
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
according to the pastry cook's story, could not come
from the throat of a blooming and youthful maiden.
I decided in favor of the arm, as it was easy to ex-
plain to myself that some trick of acoustics had
made the voice sound sharp and old, or that it had
appeared so only in the pastry cook's fear-distorted
imagination. Then I thought of the smoke, the
strange odors, the oddly-formed crystal bottle that
I had seen, and soon the vision of a beautiful crea-
ture held enthralled by fatal magic stood as if alive
before my mental vision. The old man became a
wizard who, perhaps quite independently of the
family he served, had set up his devil's kitchen in
the deserted house. My imagination had begun to
work, and in my dreams that night I saw clearly the
hand with the sparkling diamond on its finger, the
arm with the shining bracelet. From out thin, gray
mists there appeared a sweet face with sadly implor-
ing blue eyes, then the entire exquisite figure of a
beautiful girl. And I saw that what I had thought
was mist was the fine steam flowing out in circles
from a crystal bottle held in the hands of the vision.
"Oh, fairest creature of my dreams," I cried in
rapture, “reveal to me where thou art, what it is that
enthralls thee. Ah, I know it! It is black magic that
holds thee captive-thou art the unhappy slave of
that malicious devil who wanders about brown-clad
and bewigged in pastry shops, scattering their wares
with his unholy springing and feeding his demon dog
on macaroons, after they have howled out a Satanic
measure in five-eighth time. Oh, I know it all, thou


THE DESERTED HOUSE
67
fair and charming vision. The diamond is the re-
flection of the fire of thy heart. But that bracelet
about thine arm is a link of the chain which the
brown-clad one says is a magnetic chain. Do not
believe it, O glorious one! See how it shines in the
blue fire from the retort. One moment more and
thou art free. And now, O maiden, open thy rose-
bud mouth and tell me- " In this moment
a gnarled fist leaped over my shoulder and clutched
at the crystal bottle, which sprang into a thousand
pieces in the air. With a faint, sad moan, the charm-
ing vision faded into the blackness of the night.
When morning came to put an end to my dream-
ing I hurried through the avenue, seeking the de-
serted house as usual and I saw something glistening
in the last window of the upper story. Coming
nearer I noticed that the outer blind had been quite
drawn up and the inner curtain slightly opened. The
sparkle of a diamond met my eye. O kind Heaven!
The face of my dream looked at me, gently implor-
ing, from above the rounded arm on which her head
was resting. But how was it possible to stand still
in the moving crowd without attracting attention?
Suddenly I caught sight of the benches placed in the
gravel walk in the centre of the avenue, and I saw
that one of them was directly opposite the house.
I sprang over to it, and leaning over its back, I could
stare up at the mysterious window undisturbed. Yes,
it was she, the charming maiden of my dream! But
her eye did not seem to seek me as I had at first
thought; her glance was cold and unfocused, and had


68
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
it not been for an occasional motion of the hand
and arm, I might have thought that I was looking
at a cleverly painted picture.
I was so lost in my adoration of the mysterious
being in the window, so aroused and excited through-
out all my nerve centres, that I did not hear the
shrill voice of an Italian street hawker, who had
been offering me his wares for some time. Finally
he touched me on the arm; I turned hastily and com
manded him to let me alone. But he did not cease
his entreaties, asserting that he had earned nothing
today, and begging me to buy some small trifle from
him. Full of impatience to get rid of him I put my
hand in my pocket. With the words: “I have more
beautiful things here," he opened the under drawer
of his box and held out to me a little, round pocket
mirror. In it, as he held it up before my face, I
could see the deserted house behind me, the window,
and the sweet face of my vision there.
I bought the little mirror at once, for I saw that
it would make it possible for me to sit comfortably
and inconspicuously, and yet watch the window. The
longer I looked at the reflection in the glass, the
more I fell captive to a weird and quite indescribable
sensation, which I might almost call a waking dream.
It was as if a lethargy had lamed my eyes, holding
them fastened on the glass beyond my power to
loosen them. And now at last the beautiful eyes of
the fair vision looked at me, her glance sought mine
and shone deep down into my heart.
"You have a pretty little mirror there," said a


THE DESERTED HOUSE
69
voice beside me. I awoke from my dream, and was
not a little confused when I saw smiling faces look-
ing at me from either side. Several persons had
sat down upon the bench, and it was quite certain
that my staring into the window, and my probably
strange expression, had afforded them great cause
for amusement.
"You have a pretty little mirror there," repeated
the man, as I did not answer him. His glance said
more, and asked without words the reason of my
staring so oddly into the little glass. He was an
elderly man, neatly dressed, and his voice and eyes
were so full of good nature that I could not refuse
him my confidence. I told him that I had been look-
ing in the mirror at the picture of a beautiful maiden
who was sitting at a window of the deserted house.
I went even farther; I asked the old man if he had
not seen the fair face himself. “Over there? In
the old house-in the last window?” He repeated
my questions in a tone of surprise.
“Yes, yes," I exclaimed.
The old man smiled and answered: “Well, well,
that was a strange delusion. My old eyes—thank
Heaven for my old eyes! Yes, yes, sir. I saw
a pretty face in the window there, with my own eyes;.
but it seemed to me to be an excellently well-painted
oil portrait."
I turned quickly and looked toward the window;
there was no one there, and the blind had been pulled
down. “Yes," continued the old man, "yes, sir.
Now it is too late to make sure of the matter, for


70
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
just now the servant, who, as I know, lives there
alone in the house of the Countess
S t ook the
picture away from the window after he had dusted it,
and let down the blinds."
“Was it, then, surely a picture?" I asked again,
in bewilderment.
“You can trust my eyes," replied the old man.
"The optical delusion was strengthened by your see-
ing only the reflection in the mirror. And when I
was in your years it was easy enough for my fancy
to call up the picture of a beautiful maiden."
"But the hand and arm moved," I exclaimed.
“Oh, yes, they moved, indeed they moved," said the
old man smiling, as he patted me on the shoulder.
Then he arose to go, and bowing politely, closed his
remarks with the words, “Beware of mirrors which
can lie so vividly: Your obedient servant, sir."
You can imagine how I felt when I saw that he
looked upon me as a foolish fantast. I hurried home
full of anger and disgust, and promised myself that
I would not think of the mysterious house. But I
placed the mirror on my dressing-table that I might
bind my cravat before it, and thus it happened one
day, when I was about to utilize it for this important
business, that its glass seemed dull, and that I took
it up and breathed on it to rub it bright again. My
heart seemed to stand still, every fiber in me trem-
bled in delightful awe. Yes, that is all the name I
can find for the feeling that came over me, when,
as my breath clouded the little mirror, I saw the
beautiful face of my dreams arise and smile at me


THE DESERTED HOUSE
through blue mists. You laugh at me? You look
upon me as an incorrigible dreamer? Think what
you will about it—the fair face looked at me from
out of the mirror! But as soon as the clouding
vanished, and face vanished in the brightened glass.
I will not weary you with a detailed recital of my
sensations the next few days. I will only say that I
repeated again the experiments with the mirror
sometimes with success, sometimes without. When
I had not been able to call up the vision, I would run
to the deserted house and stare up at the windows;
but I saw no human being anywhere about the build-
ing. I lived only in thoughts of my vision; every-
thing else seemed indifferent to me. I neglected my
friends and my studies. The tortures in my soul
passed over into, or rather mingled with, physical
sensations which frightened me, and which at last
made me fear for my reason. One day, after an
unusually severe attack, I put my little mirror in
my pocket and hurried to the home of Dr. K-
who was noted for his treatment of those diseases
of the mind out of which physical diseases so often
grow. I told him my story; I did not conceal the
slightest incident from him, and I implored him to
save me from the terrible fate which seemed to
threaten me. He listened to me quietly, but I read
astonishment in his glance. Then he said: “The
danger is not as near as you believe, and I think that
I may say that it can be easily prevented. You are
undergoing an unusual psychical disturbance, beyond
a doubt. But the fact that you understand that some
of the monoted for him to the hon


72
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
evil principle seems to be trying to influence you,
gives you a weapon by which you can combat it.
Leave your little mirror here with me, and force
yourself to take up with some work which will afford
scope for all your mental energy. Do not go to the
avenue; work all day, from early to late, then take
a long walk, and spend your evenings in the company
of your friends. Eat heartily, and drink heavy,
nourishing wines. You see I am endeavoring to com-
bat your fixed idea of the face in the window of the
deserted house and in the mirror, by diverting your
mind to other things, and by strengthening your
body. You yourself must help me in this.”
I was very reluctant to part with my mirror. The
physician, who had already taken it, seemed to notice
my hesitation. He breathed upon the glass and hold-
ing it up to me, he asked: “Do you see anything?"
"Nothing at all,” I answered, for so it was.
“Now breathe on the glass yourself," said the
physician, laying the mirror in my hands.
I did as he requested. There was the vision even
more clearly than ever before.
“There she is !" I cried aloud.
The physician looked into the glass, and then said:
"I cannot see anything. But I will confess to you
that when I looked into this glass, a queer shiver
overcame me, passing away almost at once. Now do
it once more.”
I breathed upon the glass again and the physician
laid his hand upon the back of my neck. The face
appeared again, and the physician, looking into the


THE DESERTED HOUSE
73
mirror over my shoulder, turned pale. Then he
took the little glass from my hands, looked at it
attentively, and locked it into his desk, returning to
me after a few moments' silent thought.
"Follow my instructions strictly," he said. “I
must confess to you that I do not yet understand
those moments of your vision. But I hope to be able
to tell you more about it very soon.”
Difficult as it was to me, I forced myself to live
absolutely according to the doctor's orders. I soon
felt the benefit of the steady work and the nourishing
diet, and yet I was not free from those terrible at-
tacks, which would come either at noon, or, 'more
intensely still, at midnight. Even in the midst of a
merry company, in the enjoyment of wine and song,
glowing daggers seemed to pierce my heart, and all
the strength of my intellect was powerless to resist
their might over me. I was obliged to retire, and
could not return to my friends until I had recovered
from my condition of lethargy. It was in one of
these attacks, an unusually strong one, that such an
irresistible, mad longing for the picture of my dreams
came over me, that I hurried out into the street and
ran toward the mysterious house. While still at a
distance from it, I seemed to see lights shining out
through the fast-closed blinds, but when I came
nearer I saw that all was dark. Crazy with my
desire I rushed to the door; it fell back before the
pressure of my hand. I stood in the dimly lighted
vestibule, enveloped in a heavy, close atmosphere.
My heart beat in strange fear and impatience. Then


74
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
suddenly a long, sharp tone, as from a woman's
throat, shrilled through the house. I know not how
it happened that I found myself suddenly in a great
hall brilliantly lighted and furnished in old-fashioned
magnificence of golden chairs and strange Japanese
ornaments. Strongly perfumed incense arose in blue
clouds about me. “Welcome-welcome, sweet bride-
groom! the hour has come, our bridal hour!” I
heard these words in a woman's voice, and as little
as I can tell, how I came into the room, just so little
do I know how it happened that suddenly a tall,
youthful figure, richly dressed, seemed to arise from
the blue mists. With the repeated shrill cry: “Wel.
come, sweet bridegroom !" she came toward me with
outstretched arms—and a yellow face, distorted with
age and madness, stared into mine! I fell back in
terror, but the fiery, piercing glance of her eyes, like
the eyes of a snake, seemed to hold me spellbound.
I did not seem able to turn my eyes from this terrible
old woman, I could not move another step. She
came still nearer, and it seemed to me suddenly as if
her hideous face were only a thin mask, beneath
which I saw the features of the beautiful maiden of
my vision. Already I felt the touch of her hands,
when suddenly she fell at my feet with a loud scream,
and a voice behind me cried:
“Oho, is the devil playing his tricks with your
grace again? To bed, to bed, your grace. Else
there will be blows, mighty blows !"
I turned quickly and saw the old steward in his
night clothes, swinging a whip above his head. He.


THE DESERTED HOUSE
75
was about to strike the screaming figure at my feet
when I caught at his arm. But he shook me from
him, exclaiming: “The devil, sir! That old Satan
would have murdered you if I had not come to your
aid. Get away from here at once!"
I rushed from the hall, and sought in vain in the
darkness for the door of the house. Behind me I
heard the hissing blows of the whip and the old
woman's screams. I drew breath to call aloud for
help, when suddenly the ground gave way under my
feet; I fell down a short flight of stairs, bringing up
with such force against a door at the bottom that it
sprang open, and I measured my length on the floor
of a small room. From the hastily vacated bed, and
from the familiar brown coat hanging over a chair,
I saw that I was in the bedchamber of the old
steward. There was a trampling on the stair, and
the old man himself entered hastily, throwing him-
self at my feet. “By all the saints, sir," he entreated
with folded hands, "whoever you may be, and how-
ever her grace, that old Satan of a witch has man-
aged to entice you to this house, do not speak to
anyone of what has happened here. It will cost me
my position. Her crazy excellency has been pun-
ished, and is bound fast in her bed. Sleep well, good
sir, sleep softly and sweetly. It is a warm and beau-
tiful July night. There is no moon, but the stars
shine brightly. A quiet good night to you." While
talking, the old man had taken up a lamp, had led
me out of the basement, pushed me out of the house
door, and locked it behind me. I hurried home quite


76
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
bewildered, and you can imagine that I was too much
confused by the gruesome secret to be able to form
any explanation of it in my own mind for the first few
days. Only this much was certain, that I was now
free from the evil spell that had held me captive so
long. All my longing for the magic vision in the
mirror had disappeared, and the memory of the
scene in the deserted house was like the recollection
of an unexpected visit to a madhouse. It was evident
beyond a doubt that the steward was the tyrannical
guardian of a crazy woman of noble birth, whose
condition was to be hidden from the world. But the
mirror ? and all the other magic ? Listen, and I will
tell you more about it.
Some few days later I came upon Count
P at
an evening entertainment. He drew me to one side
and said, with a smile, “Do you know that the secrets
of our deserted house are beginning to be revealed ?''
I listened with interest; but before the Count could
say more the doors of the dining-room were thrown
open, and the company proceeded to the table. Quite
lost in thought at the words I had just heard, I had
given a young lady my arm, and had taken my place
mechanically in the ceremonious procession. I led by
companion to the seats arranged for us, and then
turned to look at her for the first time. The vision
of my mirror stood before me, feature for feature,
there was no deception possible! I trembled to my
innermost heart, as you can imagine; but I discovered
that there was not the slightest echo even, in my
heart, of the mad desire which had ruled me so


THE DESERTED HOUSE
77
entirely when my breath drew out the magic picture
from the glass. My astonishment, or rather my
terror, must have been apparent in my eyes. The
girl looked at me in such surprise that I endeavored
to control myself sufficiently to remark that I must
have met her somewhere before. Her short answer,
to the effect that this could hardly be possible, as she
had come to the city only yesterday for the first time
in her life, bewildered me still more and threw me
into an awkward silence. The sweet glance from
her gentle eyes brought back my courage, and I
began a tentative exploring of this new companion's
mind. I found that I had before me a sweet and
delicate being, suffering from some psychic trouble.
At a particularly merry turn of the conversation,
when I would throw in a daring word like a dash of
pepper, she would smile, but her smile was pained,
as if a wound had been touched. “You are not very
merry to-night, Countess. Was it the visit this morn-
ing?" An officer sitting near us had spoken these
words to my companion, but before he could finish
his remarks his neighbor had grasped him by the
arm and whispered something in his ear, while a
lady at the other side of the table, with glowing
cheeks and angry eyes, began to talk loudly of the
opera she had heard last evening. Tears came to the
eyes of the girl sitting beside me. “Am I not fool-
ish?” She turned to me. A few moments before
she had complained of headache. “Merely the usual
evidences of a nervous headache,” I answered in an
easy tone, "and there is nothing better for it than


FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
the merry spirit which bubbles in the foam of this
poet's nectar.” With these words I filled her cham-
pagne glass, and she sipped at it as she threw me a
look of gratitude. Her mood brightened, and all
would have been well had I not touched a glass
before me with unexpected strength, arousing from
it a shrill, high tone. My companion grew deadly
pale, and I myself felt a sudden shiver, for the sound
had exactly the tone of the mad woman's voice in the
deserted house.
While we were drinking coffee I made an oppor-
tunity to get to the side of Count P- He under-
stood the reason for my movement. “Do you know
that your neighbor is Countess Edwina S ? And
do you know also that it is her mother's sister who
lives in the deserted house, incurably mad for many
years? This morning both mother and daughter
went to see the unfortunate woman. The old
steward, the only person who is able to control the
Countess in her outbreaks, is seriously ill, and they
say that the sister has finally revealed the secret to
Dr. K- "
Dr. K- was the physician to whom I had
turned in my own anxiety, and you can well imagine
that I hurried to him as soon as I was free, and told
him all that had happened to me in the last days. I
asked him to tell me as much as he could about the
mad woman, for my own peace of mind; and this is
what I learned from him under promise of secrecy.
“Angelica, Countess Z- ' thus the doctor be-
gan, “had already passed her thirtieth year, but was


80
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
on a long chain, while the women and children were
packed on a cart. Noticeable among the last was
a tall, haggard old woman of terrifying aspect,
wrapped from head to foot in a red shawl. She
stood upright in the cart, and in an imperious tone
demanded that she should be allowed to descend.
The guards were so awed by her manner and appear-
ance that they obeyed her at once.
“Count 2 came down to the courtyard and
commanded that the gang should be placed in the
prisons under the castle. Suddenly Countess An-
gelica rushed out of the door, her hair all loose, fear
and anxiety in her pale face. Throwing herself on
her knees, she cried in a piercing voice, 'Let these
people go! Let these people go! They are inno-
cent! Father, let these people go! If you shed one
drop of their blood I will pierce my heart with this
knife! The Countess swung a shining knife in the
air and then sank swooning to the ground. “Yes, my
beautiful darling—my golden child—I knew you
would not let them hurt us,' shrilled the old woman
in red. She cowered beside the Countess and pressed
disgusting kisses to her face and breast, murmuring
crazy words. She took from out the recesses of her
shawl a little vial in which a tiny goldfish seemed to
swim in some silver-clear liquid. She held the vial
to the Countess's heart. The latter regained con-
sciousness immediately. When her eyes fell on the
gypsy woman, she sprang up, clasped the old creature
ardently in her arms, and hurried with her into the
castle.


THE DESERTED HOUSE
81
“Count Z , Gabrielle, and her lover, who had
come out during this scene, watched it in astonished
awe. The gypsies appeared quite indifferent. They
were loosed from their chains and taken separately
to the prisons. Next morning Count 2- called
the villagers together. The gypsies were led before
them and the Count announced that he had found
them to be innocent of the crimes of which they were
accused, and that he would grant them free passage
through his domains. To the astonishment of all
present, their fetters were struck off and they were
set at liberty. The red-shawled woman was not
among them. It was whispered that the gypsy cap-
tain, recognizable from the golden chain about his
neck and the red feather in his high Spanish hat,
had paid a secret visit to the Count's room the night
before. But it was discovered a short time after the
release of the gypsies, that they were indeed guiltless
of the robberies and murders that had disturbed the
district.
“The date set for Gabrielle's wedding approached.
One day, to her great astonishment, she saw several
large wagons in the courtyard being packed high
with furniture, clothing, linen, with everything neces-
sary for a complete household outfit. The wagons
were driven away, and the following day Count
2- explained that, for many reasons, he had
thought it best to grant Angelica's odd request that
she be allowed to set up her own establishment in his
house in XL He had given the house to her,
and had promised her that no member of the family,


82
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
not even he himself, should enter it without her ex-
press permission. He added also, that, at her urgent
request, he had permitted his own valet to accompany
her, to take charge of her household.
“When the wedding festivities were over, Count
S and his bride departed for their home, where
they spent a year in cloudless happiness. Then the
Count's health failed mysteriously. It was as if
some secret sorrow gnawed at his vitals, robbing him
of joy and strength. All efforts of his young wife to
discover the source of his trouble were fruitless. At
last, when the constantly recurring fainting spells
threatened to endanger his very life, he yielded to
the entreaties of his physicians and left his home,
ostensibly for Pisa. His young wife was prevented
from accompanying him by the delicate condition of
her own health.
“And now," said the doctor, “the information
given me by Countess became, from this point
on, so rhapsodical that a keen observer only could
guess at the true coherence of the story. Her baby,
a daughter, born during her husband's absence, was
spirited away from the house, and all search for it
was fruitless. Her grief at this loss deepened to
despair, when she received a message from her
father stating that her husband, whom all believed
to be in Pisa, had been found dying of heart trouble
in Angelica's home in X- , and that Angelica her-
self had become a dangerous maniac. The old Count
added that all this horror had so shaken his own
nerves that he feared he would not long survive it.


THE DESERTED HOUSE
83
“As soon as Gabrielle was able to leave her bed,
she hurried to her father's castle. One night, pre-
vented from sleeping by visions of the loved ones she
had lost, she seemed to hear a faint crying, like that
of an infant, before the door of her chamber. Light-
ing her candle she opened the door. Great Heaven!
there cowered the old gypsy woman, wrapped in her
· red shawl, staring up at her with eyes that seemed
already glazing in death. In her arms she held a
little child, whose crying had aroused the Countess.
Gabrielle's heart beat high with joy-it was her
child-her lost daughter! She snatched the infant
from the gypsy's arms, just as the woman fell at her
feet lifeless. The Countess' screams awoke the house,
but the gypsy was quite dead and no effort to revive
her met with success.
"The old Count hurried to X to endeavor
to discover something that would throw light upon
the mysterious disappearance and reappearance of
the child. Angelica's madness had frightened away
all her female servants; the valet alone remained
with her. She appeared at first to have become quite
calm and sensible. But when the Count told her the
story of Gabrielle's child she clapped her hands and
laughed aloud, crying: 'Did the little darling arrive?
You buried her, you say? How the feathers of the
gold pheasant shine in the sun! Have you seen the
green lion with the fiery blue eyes?' Horrified the
Count perceived that Angelica's mind was gone be-
yond a doubt, and he resolved to take her back with
him to his estates, in spite of the warnings of his


THE DESERTED HOUSE
85
ended his story,“ to say anything more to you about
the deeper inward relationship of all these strange
things. It is clear to my mind that it was you who
brought about the catastrophe, a catastrophe which
will mean recovery or speedy death for the sick
woman. And now I will confess to you that I was
not a little alarmed, horrified, even, to discover that
—when I had set myself in magnetic communication
with you by placing my hand on your neck—I could
see the picture in the mirror with my own eyes. We
both know now that the reflection in the glass was
the face of Countess Edwina."
I repeat Dr. K— 's words in saying that, to my
mind also, there is no further comment that can be
made on all these facts. I consider it equally unneces-
sary to discuss at any further length with you now
the mysterious relationship between Angelica, Ed-
wina, the old valet, and myself—a relationship which
seemed the work of a malicious demon who was
playing his tricks with us. I will add only that I
left the city soon after all these events, driven from
the place by an oppression I could not shake off.
The uncanny sensation left me suddenly a month or
so later, giving way to a feeling of intense relief that
flowed through all my veins with the warmth of an
electric current. I am convinced that this change
within me came about in the moment when the mad
woman died.


THE ADELANTADO OF THE SEVEN
CITIES
A LEGEND OF ST. BRANDAN, THE PHANTOM ISLE
By WASHINGTON IRVING
SHINGTON
ING
In the early part of the fifteenth century, when
Prince Henry of Portugal was pushing the career of
discovery along the western coast of Africa, and the
world was resounding with reports of golden regions
on the mainland, and new-found islands in the ocean,
there arrived at Lisbon an old bewildered pilot of
the seas, who had been driven by tempests, he knew
not whither, and raved about an island far in the
deep, upon which he had landed, and which he had
found peopled with Christians and adorned with
noble cities.
The inhabitants, he said, having never before been
visited by a ship, gathered round, and regarded him
with surprise. They told him they were descend-
ants of a band of Christians, who fled from Spain
when that country was conquered by the Moslems.
They were curious about the state of their father-
land, and grieved to hear that the Moslems still held
From “Wolfert's Roost.”
86


THE ADELANTADO OF THE SEVEN CITIES
87
cross wae's in the eightha
erected in
possession of the kingdom of Granada. They would
have taken the old navigator to church, to convince
him of their orthodoxy; but, either through lack of
devotion, or lack of faith in their words, he declined
their invitation, and preferred to return on board
of his ship. He was properly punished. A furious
storm arose, drove him from his anchorage, hurried
him out to sea, and he saw no more of the unknown
island.
This strange story caused great marvel in Lisbon
and elsewhere. Those versed in history remem-
bered to have read, in an ancient chronicle, that, at
the time of the conquest of Spain, in the eighth cen-
tury, when the blessed cross was cast down and the
crescent erected in its place, and when Christian
churches were turned into Moslem mosques, seven
bishops, at the head of seven bands of pious exiles,
had fled from the peninsula, and embarked in quest
of some ocean island, or distant land, where they
might found seven Christian cities, and enjoy their
faith unmolested.
The fate of these saints errant had hitherto re-
mained a mystery, and their story had faded from
memory; the report of the old tempest-tossed pilot,
however, revived this long-forgotten theme; and it
was determined by the pious and enthusiastic that the
island thus accidentally discovered was the identical
place of refuge whither the wandering bishops had
been guided by a protecting Providence, and where
they had folded their flocks.
This most excitable of worlds has always some
C
.


88
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
darling object of chimerical enterprise; the "Island
of the Seven Cities” now awakened as much interest
and longing among zealous Christians as has the
renowned city of Timbuctoo among adventurous
travelers, or the Northeast passage among hardy
navigators; and it was a frequent prayer of the
devout, that these scattered and lost portions of the
Christian family might be discovered and reunited
to the great body of Christendom.
No one, however, entered into the matter with
half the zeal of Don Fernando de Ulmo, a young
cavalier of high standing in the Portuguese court,
and of most sanguine and romantic temperament.
He had recently come to his estate, and had run the
round of all kinds of pleasures and excitements when
this new theme of popular talk and wonder presented
itself. The Island of the Seven Cities became now
the constant subject of his thoughts by day and his
dreams by night; it even rivaled his passion for a
beautiful girl, one of the greatest belles of Lisbon,
to whom he was betrothed. At length his imagina-
tion became so inflamed on the subject, that he de-
termined to fit out an expedition, at his own expense,
and set sail in quest of this sainted island. It could
not be a cruise of any great extent; for, according
to the calculations of the tempest-tossed pilot, it must
be somewhere in the latitude of the Canaries; which
at that time, when the new world was as yet undis-
covered, formed the frontier of ocean enterprise.
Don Fernando applied to the crown for countenance
and protection. As he was a favorite at court, the


THE ADELANTADO OF THE SEVEN CITIES
89
usual patronage was readily extended to him; that
is to say, he received a commission from the king,
Don Ioam II., constituting him Adelantado, or mil-
itary governor, of any country he might discover,
with the single proviso, that he should bear all the
expenses of the discovery, and pay a tenth of the
profits to the crown.
Don Fernando now set to work in the true spirit
of a projector. He sold acre after acre of solid
land, and invested the proceeds in ships, guns, am-
munition, and sea-stores. Even his old family
mansion in Lisbon was mortgaged without scruple,
for he looked forward to a palace in one of the
Seven Cities, of which he was to be Adelantado.
This was the age of nautical romance, when the
thoughts of all speculative dreamers were turned to
the ocean. The scheme of Don Fernando, there-
fore, drew adventurers of every kind,
One person alone regarded the whole project with
sovereign contempt and growing hostility. This was
Don Ramiro Alvarez, the father of the beautiful
Serafina, to whom Don Fernando was betrothed. He
was one of those perverse, matter-of-fact old men,
who are prone to oppose everything speculative and
romantic. He had no faith in the Island of the Seven
Cities; regarded the projected cruise as a crack-
brained freak; looked with angry eye and internal
heart-burning on the conduct of his intended son-in-
law, chaffering away solid lands for lands in the
moon; and scoffingly dubbed him Adelantado of
Cloud Land. In fact, he had never really relished


90
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
the intended match, to which his consent had been
slowly extorted by the tears and entreaties of his
daughter. It is true he could have no reasonable
objections to the youth, for Don Fernando was the
very flower of Portuguese chivalry. No one could
excel him at the tilting match, or the riding at the
ring; none was more bold and dexterous in the bull
fight; none composed more gallant madrigals in
praise of his lady's charms, or sang them with
sweeter tones to the accompaniment of her guitar;
nor could any one handle the castanets and dance the
bolero with more captivating grace. All these ad-
mirable qualities and endowments, however, though
they had been sufficient to win the heart of Serafina,
were nothing in the eyes of her unreasonable father.
The engagement to Serafina had threatened at first
to throw an obstacle in the way of the expedition of
Don Fernando, and for a time perplexed him in the
extreme. He was passionately attached to the young
lady; but he was also passionately bent on this ro-
mantic enterprise. How should he reconcile the two
passionate inclinations ? A simple and obvious ar-
rangement at length presented itself,-marry Sera-
fina, enjoy a portion of the honeymoon at once, and
defer the rest until his return from the discovery of
the Seven Cities!
He hastened to make known this most excellent
arrangement to Don Ramiro, when the long smoth-
ered wrath of the old cavalier burst forth. He
reproached him with being the dupe of wandering
vagabonds and wild schemers, and with squandering


THE ADELANTADO OF THE SEVEN CITIES
91
all his real possession, in pursuit of empty bubbles.
Don Fernando was too sanguine a projector, and too
young a man, to listen tamely to such language. A
high quarrel ensued; Don Ramiro pronounced him
a madman, and forbade all farther intercourse with
his daughter until he should give proof of returning
sanity by abandoning this madcap enterprise; while
Don Fernando flung out of the house, more bent
than ever on the expedition, from the idea of tri-
umphing over the incredulity of the graybeard, when
he should return successful. Don Ramiro's heart
misgave him. Who knows, thought he, but this
crack-brained visionary may persuade my daughter
to elope with him, and share his throne in this un-
known paradise of fools? If I could only keep her
safe until his ships are fairly out at seal
He repaired to her apartment, represented to her
the sanguine, unsteady character of her lover and
the chimerical value of his schemes, and urged the
propriety of suspending all intercourse with him until
he should recover from his present hallucination.
She bowed her head as if in filial acquiescence, where-
upon he folded her to his bosom with parental fond-
ness and kissed away a tear that was stealing over
her cheek, but as he left the chamber quietly turned
the key in the lock; for though he was a fond father
and had a high opinion of the submissive temper of
his child, he had a still higher opinion of the con-
servative virtues of lock and key, and determined
to trust to them until the caravels should sail.
Whether the damsel had been in anywise shaken in


92
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
her faith as to the schemes of her father's eloquence,
tradition does not say; but certain it is, that, the
moment she heard the key turn in the lock, she bec:
came a firm believer in the Island of the Seven Cities.
The door was locked; but her will was unconfined.
A window of the chamber opened into one of those
stone balconies, secured by iron bars, which project
like huge cages from Portuguese and Spanish houses.
Within this balcony the beautiful Serafina had her
birds and flowers, and here she was accustomed to
sit on moonlight nights as in a bower, and touch her
guitar and sing like a wakeful nightingale. From
this balcony an intercourse was now maintained be-
tween the lovers, against which the lock and key of
Don Ramiro were of no avail. All day would
Fernando be occupied hurrying the equipments of his
ships, but evening found him in sweet discourse be-
neath his lady's window.
At length the preparations were completed. Two
gallant caravels lay at anchor in the Tagus ready to
sail at sunrise. Late at night by the pale light of
a waning moon the lover had his last interview.
The beautiful Serafina was sad at heart and full of
dark forebodings; her lover full of hope and con-
fidence. “A few short months,” said he, "and I shall
return in triumph. Thy father will then blush at
his incredulity, and hasten to welcome to his house
the Adelantado of the Seven Cities."
The gentle lady shook her head. It was not on
this point she felt distrust. She was a thorough be-
liever in the Island of the Seven Cities, and so sure


THE ADELANTADO OF THE SEVEN CITIES
93
of the success of the enterprise that she might have
been tempted to join it had not the balcony been
high and the grating strong. Other considerations
induced that dubious shaking of the head. She had
heard of the inconstancy of the seas, and the incon-
stancy of those who roam them. Might not Fer-
nando meet with other loves in foreign ports ?
Might not some peerless beauty in one or other of
those Seven Cities efface the image of Serafina from
his mind?
She ventured to express her doubt, but he spurned
at the very idea. “What! be false to Serafina! He
bow at the shrine of another beauty? Never!
Never!" Repeatedly did he bend his knee, and
smite his breast, and call upon the silver moon to
witness his sincerity and truth.
He retorted the doubt, “Might not Serafina her-
self forget her plighted faith? Might not some
wealthier rival present himself while he was tossing
on the sea; and, backed by her father's wishes, win
the treasure of her hand!”
The beautiful Serafina raised her white arms be-
tween the iron bars of the balcony, and, like her
lover, invoked the moon to testify her vows. Alas!
how little did Fernando know her heart. The more
her father should oppose, the more would she be
fixed in faith. Though years should intervene, Fer-
nando on his return would find her true. Even
should the salt sea swallow him up, never would
she be the wife of another! Never, never, NEVER!
She drew from her finger a ring gemmed with a ruby


94
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
heart, and dropped it from the balcony, a parting
pledge of constancy.
With the morning dawn the caravels dropped
down the Tagus, and put to sea. They steered for
the Canaries, in those days the regions of nautical
discovery and romance, and the outposts of the
known world, for as yet Columbus had not steered
his daring barks across the ocean. Scarce had they
reached those latitudes when they were separated by
a violent tempest. For many days was the caravel
of Don Fernando driven about at the mercy of the
elements; all seamanship was baffled, destruction
seemed inevitable and the crew were in despair. All
at once the storm subsided; the ocean sank into a
calm; the clouds which had veiled the face of heaven
were suddenly withdrawn, and the tempest-tossed
mariners beheld a fair and mountainous island,
emerging as if by enchantment from the murky
gloom. They rubbed their eyes and gazed for a
time almost incredulously, yet there lay the island
spread out in lovely landscapes, with the late stormy
sea laving its shores with peaceful billows.
The pilot of the caravel consulted his maps and
charts; no island like the one before him was laid
down as existing in those parts; it is true he had lost
his reckoning in the late storm, but, according to his
calculations, he could not be far from the Canaries;
and this was not one of that group of islands. The
caravel now lay perfectly becalmed off the mouth
of a river, on the banks of which, about a league


THE ADELANTADO OF THE SEVEN CITIES
95
TS W as
from the sea, was descried a noble city, with lofty
walls and towers, and a protecting castle.
After a time, a stately barge with sixteen oars was
seeni emerging from the river, and approaching the
caravel. It was quaintly carved and gilt; the oars-
men were clad in antique garb, their oars painted of
a bright crimson, and they came slowly and solemnly,
keeping time as they rowed to the cadence of an old
Spanish ditty. Under a silken canopy in the stern,
sat a cavalier richly clad, and over his head was a
banner bearing the sacred emblem of the cross.
When the barge reached the caravel, the cavalier
stepped on board. He was tall and gaunt; with a
long Spanish visage, moustaches that curled up to
his eyes, and a forked beard. He wore gauntlets
reaching to his elbows, a Toledo blade strutting out
behind, with a basket hilt, in which he carried his
handkerchief. His air was lofty and precise, and
bespoke indisputably the hidalgo. Thrusting out a
long spindle leg, he took off a huge sombrero, and
swaying it until the feather swept the ground, ac-
costed Don Fernando in the old Castilian language,
and with the old Castilian courtesy, welcoming him
to the Island of the Seven Cities.
Don Fernando was overwhelmed with astonish-
ment. Could this be true ? Had he really been
tempest-driven to the very land of which he was in
quest?
It was even so. That very day the inhabitants
were holding high festival in commemoration of the
escape of their ancestors from the Moors. The


96
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
arrival of the caravel at such a juncture was consid-
ered a good omen, the accomplishment of an ancient
prophecy through which the island was to be restored
to the great community of Christendom. The cav-
alier before him was grand chamberlain, sent by the
alcayde to invite him to the festivities of the capital.
Don Fernando could scarce believe that this was
not all a dream. He had known his name and the
object of his voyage. The grand chamberlain de-
clared that all was in perfect accordance with the
ancient prophecy, and that the moment his creden-
tials were presented, he would be acknowledged as
the Adelantado of the Seven Cities. In the mean-
time the day was waning; the barge was ready to
convey him to the land, and would as assuredly bring
him back.
Don Fernando's pilot, a veteran of the seas, drew
him aside and expostulated against his venturing, on
the mere word of a stranger, to land in a strange
barge on an unknown shore. “Who knows, Señor,
what land this is, or what people inhabit it?"
Don Fernando was not to be dissuaded. Had he
not believed in this island when all the world
doubted? Had he not sought it in defiance of storm
and tempest, and was he now to shrink from its
shores when they lay before him in calm weather?
In a word, was not faith the very corner-stone of his
enterprise ?
Having arrayed himself, therefore, in gala dress
befitting the occasion, he took his seat in the barge.
The grand chamberlain seated himself opposite.


THE ADELANTADO OF THE SEVEN CITIES
97
The rowers plied their oars, and renewed the mourn-
ful old ditty, and the gorgeous but unwieldly barge
moved slowly through the water.
The night closed in before they entered the river,
and swept along past rock and promontory, each
guarded by its tower. At every post they were chal-
lenged by the sentinel.
"Who goes there?”
“The Adelantado of the Seven Cities.”
"Welcome, Señor Adelantado. Pass on."
Entering the harbor they rowed close by an armed
galley of ancient form. Soldiers with crossbows
patroled the deck.
“Who goes there?”
“The Adelantado of the Seven Cities."
“Welcome, Señor Adelantado. Pass on."
They landed at a broad Alight of stone steps, lead-
ing up between two massive towers, and knocked at
the water-gate. A sentinel, in ancient steel casque,
looked from the barbican.
“Who is there?"
“The Adelantado of the Seven Cities.”
“Welcome, Señor Adelantado."
The gate swung open, grating upon rusty hinges.
They entered between two rows of warriors in
Gothic armor, with crossbows, maces, battle-axes,
and faces old-fashioned as their armor. There
were processions through the streets, in commemo-
ration of the landing of the seven bishops and their
followers, and bonfires at which effigies of Moors
expiated their invasion of Christendom by a kind


98
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
of auto-da-fé. The groups round the fires, uncouth
in their attire, looked like the fantastic figures that
roam the streets in carnival time. Even the dames
who gazed down from Gothic balconies hung with
antique tapestry, resembled effigies dressed up in
Christmas mummeries. Everything, in short, bore.
the stamp of former ages, as if the world had sud-
denly rolled back for several centuries. Nor was
this to be wondered at. Had not the Island of the
Seven Cities,been cut off from the rest of the world
for several hundred years; and were not these the
modes and customs of Gothic Spain before it was
conquered by the Moors ?
Arrived at the palace of the alcayde, the grand
chamberlain knocked at the portal. The porter
looked through a wicket, and demanded who was
there.
“The Adelantado of the Seven Cities."
The portal was thrown wide open. The grand
chamberlain led the way up a vast, heavily molded,
marble staircase, and into a hall of ceremony, where
was the alcayde with several of the principal digni-
taries of the city, who had a marvelous resemblance,
in form and feature, to the quaint figures in old il-
luminated manuscripts.
The grand chamberlain stepped forward and an-
nounced the name and title of the stranger guest,
and the extraordinary nature of his mission. The
announcement appeared to create no extraordinary
emotion or surprise, but to be received as the antici-
pated fulfilment of a prophecy.


THE ADELANTADO OF THE SEVEN CITIES
99
The reception of Don Fernando, however, was
profoundly gracious, though in the same style of
stately courtesy which everywhere prevailed. He
would have produced his credentials, but this was
courteously declined. The evening was devoted to
high festivity; the following day, when he should
enter the port with his caravel, would be devoted
to business, when the credentials would be received
in due form, and he inducted into office as Adelan-
tado of the Seven Cities.
Don Fernando was now conducted through one
of those interminable suites of apartments, the pride
of Spanish palaces, all furnished in a style of obso-
lete magnificence. In a vast saloon, blazing with
tapers, was assembled all the aristocracy and fashion
of the city,stately dames and cavaliers, the very
counterpart of the figures in the tapestry which deco-
rated the walls. Fernando gazed in silent marvel.
It was a reflex of the proud aristocracy of Spain in
the time of Roderick the Goth.
The festivities of the evening were all in the style
of solemn and antiquated ceremonial. There was
a dance, but it was as if the old tapestry were put
in motion, and all the figures moving in stately meas-
ure about the floor. There was one exception, and
one that told powerfully upon the susceptible Ada-
lantado. The alcayde's daughter-such a ripe, melt-
ing beauty! Her dress, it is true, like the dresses of
her neighbors, might have been worn before the
flood, but she had the black Andalusian eye, a glance
of which, through its long dark lashes, is irresistible.
Pial


100
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
Her voice, too, her manner, her undulating move-
ments, all smacked of Andalusia, and showed how
female charms may be transmitted from age to age,
and clime to clime, without ever going out of fashion.
Don Fernando sat beside her at the banquet! such
an old-world feast! such obsolete dainties! At the
head of the table the peacock, that bird of state and
ceremony, was served up in full plumage on a golden
dish. As Don Fernando cast his eyes down the glit-
tering board, what a vista presented itself of odd.
heads and head-dresses; of formal bearded digni-
taries, and stately dames, with castellated locks and
towering plumes! Is it to be wondered at that he
should turn with delight from these antiquated fig-
ures to the alcayde's daughter, all smiles and
dimples, and melting looks and melting accents ?
Besides, he was in a particularly excitable mood from
the novelty of the scene before him, from this real-
ization of all his hopes and fancies, and from fre-
quent draughts of the wine-cup, presented to him at
every moment by officious pages during the banquet
In a word—there is no concealing the matter-
before the evening was over, Don Fernando was
making love outright to the alcayde's daughter.
They had wandered together to a moon-lit balcony
of the palace, and he was charming her ear with one
of those love-ditties with which, in a like balcony,
he had serenaded the beautiful Serafina.
The damsel hung her head coyly. “Ah! Señor,
these are flattering words; but you cavaliers, who
roam the seas, are unsteady as its waves. To-mor-
IN


102
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
monotonous chant had a lulling effect. A drowsy
influence crept over Don Fernando. Objects swam
before his eyes. The oarsmen assumed odd shapes
as in a dream. The grand chamberlain grew larger
and larger, and taller and taller. He took off his
huge sombrero, and held it over the head of Don
Fernando, like an extinguisher over a candle. The
latter cowered beneath it; he felt himself sinking
in the socket.
“Good night! Señor Adelantado of the Seven
Cities !" said the grand chamberlain.
The sombrero slowly descended-Don Fernando
was extinguished!
How long he remained extinct no mortal man can
tell. When he returned to consciousness, he found
himself in a strange cabin, surrounded by strangers.
He rubbed his eyes, and looked round him wildly.
Where was he?-On board a Portuguese ship,
bound to Lisbon. How came he there?— He had
been taken senseless from a wreck drifting about the
ocean.
Don Fernando was more and more confounded
and perplexed. He recalled, one by one, everything
that had happened to him in the Island of the Seven
Cities, until he had been extinguished by the som-
brero of the grand chamberlain. But what had
happened to him since? What had become of his
caravel? Was it the wreck of her on which he had
been found floating ?
The people about him could give no information
on the subject. He entreated them to take him to


THE ADELANTADO OF THE SEVEN CITIES
103
the Island of the Seven Cities, which could not be
far off; told them all that had befallen him there;
that he had but to land to be received as Adelantado;
when he would reward them magnificently for their
services.
They regarded his words as the ravings of delir-
ium, and in their honest solicitude for the restoration
of his reason, administered such rough remedies that
he was fain to drop the subject and observe a cau-
tious taciturnity.
At length they arrived in the Tagus, and anchored
before the famous city of Lisbon. Don Fernando
sprang joyfully on shore, and hastened to his an-
cestral mansion. A strange porter opened the door,
who knew nothing of him or his family; no people
of the name had inhabited the house for many a year.
He sought the mansion of Don Ramiro. He ap-
proached the balcony beneath which he had bidden
farewell to Serafina. Did his eyes deceive him?
No! There was Serafina herself among the flowers
in the balcony. He raised his arms toward her with
an exclamation of rapture. She cast upon him a
look of indignation, and hastily retiring, closed the
casement with a slam that testified her displeasure.
Could she have heard of his flirtation with the
alcayde's daughter? But that was mere transient
gallantry. A moment's interview would dispel every
doubt of his constancy.
He rang at the door; as it was opened by the
porter he rushed up-stairs; sought the well-known
chamber, and threw himself at the feet of Serafina.


104
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
She started back with affright, and took refuge in
the arms of a youthful cavalier.
“What mean you, Señor,” cried the latter, “by
this intrusion ?”
"What right have you to ask the question ?" de-
manded Don Fernando fiercely.
“The right of an affianced suitor!".
Don Fernando started and turned pale. “Oh,
Serafina! Serafina !” cried he, in a tone of agony;
"is this thy plighted constancy?”.
"Serafina ? What mean you by Serafina, Señor?
If this be the lady you intend, her name is Maria."
“May I not believe my senses? May I not believe
my heart?” cried Don Fernando. "Is not this Sera-
fina Alvarez, the original of yon portrait, which,
less fickle than herself, still smiles on me from the
wall?”
"Holy Virgin !" cried the young lady, casting her
eyes upon the portrait. “He is talking of my great-
grand-mother!”
An explanation ensued, if that could be called an
explanation which plunged the unfortunate Fernando
into tenfold perplexity. If he might believe his eyes,
he saw before him his beloved Serafina; if he might
believe his ears, it was merely her hereditary form
and features, perpetuated in the person of her great-
granddaughter.
His brain began to spin. He sought the office of
the Minister of Marine, and made a report of his
expedition, and of the Island of the Seven Cities,
which he had so fortunately discovered. Nobody


THE ADELANTADO OF THE seven CITIES
105
knew anything of such an expedition, or such an
island. He declared that he had undertaken the
enterprise under a formal contract with the crown,
and had received a regular commission, constituting
him Adelantado. This must be matter of record,
and he insisted loudly that the books of the depart.
ment should be consulted. The wordy strife at
length attracted the attention of an old gray-headed
clerk, who sat perched on a high stool, at a high
desk, with iron-rimmed spectacles on the top of a
thin, pinched nose, copying records into an enormous
folio. He had wintered and summered in the de-
partment for a great part of a century, until he had
almost grown to be a piece of the desk at which he
sat; his memory was a mere index of official facts
and documents, and his brain was little better than
red tape and parchment. After peering down for
a time from his lofty perch, and ascertaining the
matter in controversy, he put his pen behind his ear,
and descended. He remembered to have heard
something from his predecessor about an expedition
of the kind in question, but then it had sailed dur-
ing the reign of Don Ioam II., and he had been dead
at least a hundred years. To put the matter beyond
dispute, however, the archives of the Tore do
Tombo, that sepulchre of old Portuguese documents,
were diligently searched, and a record was found of
a contract between the crown and one Fernando de
Ulmo, for the discovery of the Island of the Seven
Cities, and of a commission secured to him as Ade-
lantado of the country he might discover.


106
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
“There!" cried Don Fernando, triumphantly,
“there you have proof, before your own eyes, of
what I have said. I am the Fernando de Ulmo
specified in that record. I have discovered the Island
of the Seven Cities, and am entitled to be Adelan-
tado, according to contract.”
The story of Don Fernando had certainly, what
is pronounced the best of historical foundation, docu-
mentary evidence; but when a man, in the bloom of
youth, talked of events that had taken place above
a century previously, as having happened to himself,
it is no wonder that he was set down for a madman.
The old clerk looked at him from above and be-
low his spectacles, shrugged his shoulders, stroked
his chin, reascended his lofty stool, took the pen
from behind his ears, and resumed his daily and
eternal task, copying records into the fiftieth volume
of a series of gigantic folios. The other clerks
winked at each other shrewdly, and dispersed to
their several places, and poor Don Fernando, thus
left to himself, flung out of the office, almost driven
wild by these repeated perplexities.
In the confusion of his mind, he instinctively re-
paired to the mansion of Alvarez, but it was barred
against him. To break the delusion under which
the youth apparently labored, and to convince him
that the Serafina about whom he raved was really
dead, he was conducted to her tomb. There she
lay, a stately matron, cut out in alabaster; and there
lay her husband beside her, a portly cavalier, in
armor; and there knelt on each side, the effigies of


THE ADELANTADO OF THE SEVEN CITIES
107
a numerous progeny. Even the very monument gave
evidence of the lapse of time; the hands of her hus-
band, folded as if in prayer, had lost their fingers,
and the face of the once lovely Serafina was without
a nose.
Don Fernando felt a transient glow of indignation
at beholding this monumental proof of the incon-
stancy of his mistress; but who could expect a mis-
tress to remain constant during a whole century of
absence? And what right had he to rail about con-
stancy, after what had passed between himself and
the alcayde's daughter? The unfortunate cavalier
performed one pious act of tender devotion; he had
the alabaster nose of Serafina restored by a skillful
statuary, and then tore himself from the tomb.
He could now no longer doubt the fact that, some-
how or other, he had skipped over a whole century,
during the night he had spent at the Island of the
Seven Cities; and he was now as complete a stranger
in his native city, as if he had never been there. A
thousand times did he wish himself back to that
wonderful island, with its antiquated banquet halls,
where he had been so courteously received; and now
that the once young and beautiful Serafina was noth-
ing but a great-grandmother in marble, with genera-
tions of descendants, a thousand times would he re-
call the melting black eyes of the alcayde's daughter,
who doubtless, like himself, was still flourishing in
fresh juvenility, and breathe a secret wish that he
was seated by her side.
He would at once have set on foot another expe-


108
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
dition, at his own expense, to cruise in search of the
sainted island, but his means were exhausted. He
endeavored to rouse others to the enterprise, setting
forth the certainty of profitable results, of which his
own experience furnished such unquestionable proof.
Alas! no one would give faith to his tale; but looked
upon it as the feverish dream of a shipwrecked man.
He persisted in his efforts; holding forth in all places
and all companies, until he became an object of jest
and jeer to the light-minded, who mistook his earnest
enthusiasm for a proof of insanity; and the very
children in the streets bantered him with the title of
“The Adelantado of the Seven Cities.”
Finding all efforts in vain, in his native city of
Lisbon, he took shipping for the Canaries, as being
nearer the latitude of his former cruise, and in-
habited by people given to nautical adventure. Here
he found ready listeners to his story; for the old
pilots and mariners of those parts were notorious
island-hunters, and devout believers in all the won-
ders of the seas. Indeed, one and all treated his ad-
venture as a common occurrence, and turning to each
other, with a sagacious nod of the head, observed,
"He has been at the island of St. Brandan.”
They then went on to inform him of that great
marvel and enigma of the ocean; of its repeated ap-
pearance to the inhabitants of their islands; and of
the many but ineffectual expeditions that had been
made in search of it. They took him to a promon-
tory of the island of Palma, whence the shadowy St.
Brandan had oftenest been descried, and they


THE ADELANTADO OF THE SEVEN CITIES
109
pointed out the very tract in the west where its moun-
tains had been seen.
Don Fernando listened with rapt attention. He
had no longer a doubt that this mysterious and fu-
gacious island must be the same with that of the
Seven Çities; and that some supernatural influence
connected with it had operated upon himself, and
made the events of a night occupy the space of a
century.
He endeavored, but in vain, to rouse the islanders
to another attempt at discovery; they had given up
the phantom island as indeed inaccessible. Fer-
nando, however, was not to be discouraged. The
idea wore itself deeper and deeper in his mind, until
it became the engrossing subject of his thoughts and
object of his being. Every morning he would repair
to the promontory of Palma, and sit there through-
out the livelong day, in hopes of seeing the fairy
mountains of St. Brandan peering above the hori.
zon; every evening he returned to his home, a dis-
appointed man, but ready to resume his post on the
following morning.
His assiduity was all in vain. He grew gray in his
ineffectual attempt; and was at length found dead
at his post. His grave is still shown in the island of
Palma, and a cross is erected on the spot where he
used to sit and look out upon the sea, in hopes of
the reappearance of the phantom island.


THE PIPE
ANONYMOUS
“RANDOLPH CRESCENT, N. W.
“MY DEAR PUGH-I hope you will like the pipe
which I send with this. It is rather a curious ex-
ample of a certain school of Indian carving. And is
a present from
. “Yours truly, Joseph Tress.”
It was really very handsome of Tress—very
handsome! The more especially as I was aware
that to give presents was not exactly in Tress's line.
The truth is that when I saw what manner of pipe
it was, I was amazed It was contained in a sandal-
wood box, which was itself illustrated with some
remarkable specimens of carving. I use the word
"remarkable" advisedly, because, although the work-
manship 'was undoubtedly, in its way, artistic, the
result could not be described as beautiful. The
carver had thought proper to ornament the box with
some of the ugliest figures I remember to have seen.
They appeared to me to be devils. Or perhaps
they were intended to represent deities appertaining
to some mythological system with which, thank good-
Π Ι0


THE PIPE
111
ness, I am unacquainted. The pipe itself was worthy
of the case in which it was contained. It was of
meerschaum, with an amber mouthpiece. It was
rather too large for ordinary smoking. But then,
of course, one doesn't smoke a pipe like that. There
are pipes in my collection which I should as soon
think of smoking as I should of eating. Ask a china
maniac to let you have afternoon tea out of his Old
Chelsea, and you will learn some home truths as to
the durability of human friendships. The glory of
the pipe, as Tress had suggested, lay in its carving.
Not that I claim that it was beautiful, any more than
I make such a claim for the carving on the box, but,
as Tress said in his note, it was curious.
The stem and the bowl were quite plain, but on
the edge of the bowl was perched some kind of
lizard. I told myself it was an octopus when I first
saw it, but I have since had reason to believe that
it was some almost unique member of the lizard
tribe. The creature was represented as climbing
over the edge of the bowl down toward the stem,
and its legs, or feelers, or tentacula, or whatever
the things are called, were, if I may use a vulgarism,
sprawling about "all over the place.” For instance,
two or three of them were twined about the bowl,
two or three of them were twisted round the stem,
and one, a particularly horrible one, was uplifted in
the air, so that if you put the pipe in your mouth
the thing was pointing straight at your nose.
Not the least agreeable feature about the creature
was that it was hideously lifelike. It appeared to


THE PIPE
113
human intelligence. The pipe fascinated me to such
an extent that I actually resolved to—smoke it!
I filled it with Perique. Ordinarily I use Birds-
eye, but on those very rare occasions on which I use
a specimen I smoke Perique. I lit up with quite a
small sensation of excitement. As I did so I kept
my eyes perforce fixed upon the beast. The beast
pointed its upraised tentacle directly at me. As I
inhaled the pungent tobacco that tentacle impressed
me with a feeling of actual uncanniness. It was
broad daylight, and I was smoking in front of the
window, yet to such an extent was I affected that it
seemed to me that the tentacle was not only vibrat-
ing, which, owing to the peculiarity of its position,
was quite within the range of probability, but actu-
ally moving, elongating-stretching forward, that
is, farther toward me, and toward the tip of my
nose. So impressed was I by this idea that I took
the pipe out of my mouth and minutely examined
the beast. Really, the delusion was excusable. So
cunningly had the artist wrought that he succeeded
in producing a creature which, such was its uncan-
niness, I could only hope had no original in nature.
Replacing the pipe between my lips I took several
whiffs. Never had smoking had such an effect on
me before. Either the pipe, or the creature on it,
exercised some singular fascination. I seemed,
without an instant's warning, to be passing into some
land of dreams. I saw the beast, which was perched
upon the bowl, writhe and twist. I saw it lift itself
bodily from the meerschaum.


THE PIPE.
115
on stroking his chin. "The truth is that when I sent
you the pipe I made a slight omission."
“An omission ?”
"I omitted to advise you not to smoke it."
"And why?"
“Because-well, I've reason to believe the thing
is drugged.”
“Drugged!”
“Or poisoned."
“Poisoned!” I was wide awake enough then. I
jumped off the couch with a celerity which proved
it.
“It is this way. I became its owner in rather a
singular manner." He paused, as if for me to
make a remark; but I was silent. “It is not often
that I smoke a specimen, but, for some reason, I
did smoke this. I commenced to smoke it, that is.
How long I continued to smoke it is more than I
can say. It had on me the same peculiar effect
which it appears to have had on you. When I re-
covered consciousness I was lying on the floor.”
“On the floor?”
“On the floor. In about as uncomfortable a po-
sition as you can easily conceive. I was lying face
downward, with my legs bent under me. I was
never so surprised in my life as I was when I found
myself where I was. At first I supposed that I had
had a stroke. But by degrees it dawned upon me
that I didn't feel as though I had had a stroke."
Tress, by the way, has been an army surgeon. "I
was conscious of distinct nausea. Looking about, I


116
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
saw the pipe. With me it had fallen on to the floor.
I took it for granted, considering the delicacy of
the carving, that the fall had broken it. But when
I picked it up I found it quite uninjured. While I
was examining it a thought flashed to my brain.
Might it not be answerable for what had happened
to me? Suppose, for instance, it was drugged? I
had heard of such things. Besides, in my case were
present all the symptoms of drug poisoning, though
what drug had been used I couldn't in the least con-
ceive. I resolved that I would give the pipe an-
other trial.”
"On yourself? or on another party, meaning me?"
"On myself, my dear Pugh—on myself! At that
point of my investigations I had not begun to think
of you. I lit up and had another smoke."
“With what result?”
"Well, that depends on the standpoint from
which you regard the thing. From one point of
view the result was wholly satisfactory—I proved
that the thing was drugged, and more."
“Did you have another fall ?”
“I did. And something else besides."
“On that account, I presume, you resolved to pass
the treasure on to me?".
"Partly on that account, and partly on another."
"On my word, I appreciate your generosity. You
might have labeled the thing as poison."
"Exactly. But then you must remember how
often you have told me that you never smoke your
specimens."


THE PIPE
117
“That was no reason why you shouldn't have
given me a hint that the thing was more dangerous
than dynamite."
“That did occur to me afterwards. Therefore I
called to supply the slight omission.”
"Slight omission, you call it! I wonder what you
would have called it if you had found me dead."
"If I had known that you intended smoking it I
should not have been at all surprised if I had.”
"Really, Tress, I appreciate your kindness more
and more! And where is this example of your splen-
did benevolence? Have you pocketed it, regretting
your lapse into the unaccustomed paths of generos-
ity ? Or is it smashed to atoms?”
"Neither the one nor the other. You will find
the pipe upon the table. I neither desire its restora-
tion nor is it in any way injured. It is merely an
expression of personal opinion when I say that I
don't believe that it could be injured. Of course,
having discovered its deleterious properties, you will
not want to smoke it again. You will therefore be
able to enjoy the consciousness of being the possessor
of what I honestly believe to be the most remarkable
pipe in existence. Good day, Pugh.”
He was gone before I could say a word. I im-
mediately concluded, from the precipitancy of his
flight, that the pipe was injured. But when I sub-
jected it to close examination I could discover no
signs of damage. While I was still eyeing it with
jealous scrutiny the door reopened, and Tress came
in again.


118
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
"By the way, Pugh, there is one thing I might
mention, especially as I know it won't make any dif-
ference to you."
"That depends on what it is. If you have changed
your mind, and want the pipe back again, I tell you
frankly that it won't. In my opinion, a thing once
given is given for good.”
"Quite so; I don't want it back again. You may
make your mind easy on that point. I merely
wanted to tell you why I gave it you."
"You have told me that already."
“Only partly, my dear Pugh-only partly. You
don't suppose I should have given you such a pipe
as that merely because it happened to be drugged ?
Scarcely! I gave it you because I discovered from
indisputable evidence, and to my cost, that it was
haunted.”
“Haunted ?"
“Yes, haunted. Good day.”
He was gone again. I ran out of the room, and
shouted after him down the stairs. He was already
at the bottom of the flight.
“Tress! Come back! What do you mean by
talking such nonsense?"
"Of course it's only nonsense. We know that
that sort of thing always is nonsense. But if you
should have reason to suppose that there is some-
thing in it besides nonsense, you may think it worth
your while to make inquiries of me. But I won't
have that pipe back again in my possession on any
terms-mind that!" -


THE PIPE
119
The bang of the front door told me that he had
gone out into the street. I let him go. I laughed
to myself as I reëntered the room. Haunted! That
was not a bad idea of his. I saw the whole posi-
tion at a glance. The truth of the matter was that
he did regret his generosity, and he was ready to
go any lengths if he could only succeed in cajoling
me into restoring his gift. He was aware that I
have views upon certain matters which are not
wholly in accordance with those which are popularly
supposed to be the views of the day, and particularly
that on the question of what are commonly called
supernatural visitations I have a standpoint of my
own. Therefore, it was not a bad move on his part
to try to make me believe that about the pipe on
which he knew I had set my heart there was some-
thing which could not be accounted for by ordinary
laws. Yet, as his own sense would have told him
it would do, if he had only allowed himself to reflect
for a moment, the move failed. Because I am not
yet so far gone as to suppose that a pipe, a thing
of meerschaum and of amber, in the sense in which
I understand the word, could be haunted-a pipe,
a mere pipe.
"Hollo! I thought the creature's legs were
twined right round the bowl!”
I was holding the pipe in my hand, regarding it
with the affectionate eyes with which a connoisseur
does regard a curio, when I was induced to make
this exclamation. I was certainly under the impres-
sion that, when I first took the pipe out of the box,


120
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
ds
two, if not three of the feelers had been twined about
the bowl-twined tightly, so that you could not see
daylight between them and it. Now they were al-
most entirely detached, only the tips touching the
meerschaum, and those particular feelers were gath-
ered up as though the creature were in the act of tak-
ing a spring. Of course I was under a misappre-
hension: the feelers couldn't have been twined; a
moment before I should have been ready to bet a
thousand to one that they were. Still, one does
make mistakes, and very egregious mistakes, at
times. At the same time, I confess that when I saw
that dreadful-looking animal poised on the extreme
edge of the bowl, for all the world as though it were
just going to spring at me, I was a little startled
I remembered that when I was smoking the pipe
I did think I saw the uplifted tentacle moving, as
though it were reaching out to me. And I had a
clear recollection that just as I had been sinking
into that strange state of unconsciousness, I had been
under the impression that the creature was writhing
and twisting, as though it had suddenly become in-
stinct with life. Under the circumstances, these re-
flections were not pleasant. I wished Tress had not
talked that nonsense about the thing being haunted.
It was surely sufficient to know that it was drugged
and poisonous, without anything else.
I replaced it in the sandalwood box. I locked the
box in a cabinet. Quite apart from the question as
to whether that pipe was or was not haunted, I
know it haunted me. It was with me in a figurative


THE PIPE
121
-which was worse than actual-sense all the day.
Still worse, it was with me all the night. It was
with me in my dreams. Such dreams! Possibly I
had not yet wholly recovered from the effects of
that insidious drug, but, whether or no, it was very
wrong of Tress to set my thoughts into such a
channel. He knows that I am of a highly imagina-
tive temperament, and that it is easier to get mor-
bid thoughts into my mind than to get them out
again. Before that night was through I wished
very heartily that I had never seen the pipe! I
woke from one nightmare to fall into another. One
dreadful dream was with me all the time-of a
hideous, green reptile which advanced toward me
out of some awful darkness, slowly, inch by inch,
until it clutched me round the neck, and, gluing its
lips to mine, sucked the life's blood out of my veins
as it embraced me with a slimy kiss. Such dreams
are not restful. I woke anything but refreshed when
the morning came. And when I got up and dressed
I felt that, on the whole, it would perhaps have been
better if I never had gone to bed. My nerves were
unstrung, and I had that generally tremulous feeling
which is, I believe, an inseparable companion of the
more advanced stages of dipsomania. I ate no
breakfast. I am no breakfast eater as a rule, but
that morning I ate absolutely nothing.
"If this sort of thing is to continue, I will let
Tress have his pipe again. He may have the laugh
of me, but anything is better than this.".
It was with almost funereal forebodings that I


122
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
went to the cabinet in which I had placed the sandal-
wood box. But when I opened it my feelings of
gloom partially vanished. Of what phantasies had
I been guilty! It must have been an entire delusion
on my part to have supposed that those tentacula
had ever been twined about the bowl.' The creature
was in exactly the same position in which I had left
it the day before—as, of course, I knew it would be
--poised, as if about to spring. I was telling my-
self how foolish I had been to allow myself to dwell
for a moment on Tress's words, when Martin
Brasher was shown in.
Brasher is an old friend of mine. We have a com-
mon ground-ghosts. Only we approach them
from different points of view. He takes the scien-
tific-psychological-inquiry side. He is always
anxious to hear of a ghost, so that he may have an
opportunity of “showing it up.”
"I've something in your line here," I observed,
as he came in.
“In my line? How so? I'm not pipe mad."
"No; but you're ghost mad. And this is a
haunted pipe.”
“A haunted pipel I think you're rather more
mad about ghosts, my dear Pugh, than I am.".
Then I told him all about it. He was deeply in-
terested, especially when I told him that the pipe was
drugged. But when I repeated Tress's words about
its being haunted, and mentioned my own delusion
about the creature moving, he took a more serious
view of the case than I had expected he would do.


THE PIPE
123
"I propose that we act on Tress's suggestion, and
go and make inquiries of him.”
“But you don't really think that there is anything
in it?"
"On these subjects I never allow myself to think
at all. There are Tress's words, and there is your
story. It is agreed on all hands that the pipe has
peculiar properties. It seems to me that there is a
sufficient case here to merit inquiry."
He persuaded me. I went with him. The pipe,
in the sandalwood box, went too. Tress received
us with a grin—a grin which was accentuated when
I placed the sandalwood box on the table.
"You understand," he said, "that a gift is a gift.
On no terms will I consent to receive that pipe back
in my possession.”
I was rather nettled by his tone.
"You need be under no alarm. I have no inten-
tion of suggesting anything of the kind.”
"Our business here," began Brasher-I must own
that his manner is a little ponderous—"is of a scien-
tific, I may say also, and at the same time, of a judi-
cial nature. Our object is the Pursuit of Truth and
the Advancement of Inquiry."
"Have you been trying another smoke?” inquired
Tress, nodding his head toward me.
Before I had time to answer, Brasher went dron-
ing on:
“Our friend here tells me that you say this pipe
is haunted."
"I say it is haunted because it is haunted.”


124
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
I looked at Tress. I half suspected that he was
poking fun at us. But he appeared to be serious
enough.
"In these matters,” remarked Brasher, as though
he were giving utterance to a new and important
truth, “there is a scientific and nonscientific method
of inquiry. The scientific method is to begin at the
beginning. May I ask how this pipe came into your
possession ?”
Tress paused before he answered.
"You may ask.” He paused again. "Oh, you
certainly may ask. But it doesn't follow that I shall
tell you."
"Surely your object, like ours, can be but the
Spreading About of the Truth ?”
“I don't see it at all. It is possible to imagine a
case in which the spreading about of the truth might
make me look a little awkward."
"Indeed!” Brasher pursed up his lips. “Your
words would almost lead one to suppose that there
was something about your method of acquiring the
pipe which you have good and weighty reasons for
concealing.”
"I don't know why I should conceal the thing
from you. I don't suppose either of you is any
better than I am. I don't mind telling you how I
got the pipe. I stole it."
"Stole it!"
Brasher seemed both amazed and shocked. But
I, who had previous experience of Tress's methods
of adding to his collection, was not at all surprised.


THE PIPE
125
Some of the pipes which he calls his, if only the
whole truth about them were publicly known, would
send him to jail.
“That's nothing !” he continued. "All collectors
steal! The eighth commandment was not intended to
apply to them. Why, Pugh there has 'conveyed'
three-fourths of the pipes which he flatters himself
are his."
I was so dumbfounded by the charge that it took
my breath away. I sat in astounded silence. Tress
went raving on:
"I was so shy of this particular pipe when I had
obtained it, that I put it away for quite three months.
When I took it out to have a look at it something
about the thing so tickled me that I resolved to smoke
it. Owing to peculiar circumstances attending the
manner in which the thing came into my possession,
and on which I need not dwell—you don't like to
dwell on those sort of things, do you, Pugh ?-I
knew really nothing about the pipe. As was the
case with Pugh, one peculiarity I learned from actual
experience. It was also from actual experience that
I learned that the thing was—well, I said haunted,
but you may use any other word you like.”
“Tell us, as briefly as possible, what it was you
really did discover.”
“Take the pipe out of the box!” Brasher took
the pipe out of the box and held it in his hand.
"You see that creature on it. Well, when I first had
it, it was underneath the pipe.”


126
FAMOUS MYS.
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
TORIES
"How do you mean that it was underneath the
pipe ?"
"It was bunched together underneath the stem,
just at the end of the mouthpiece, in the same way
in which a fly might be suspended from the ceiling.
When I began to smoke the pipe I saw the creature
move."
“But I thought that unconsciousness immediately
followed.”
“It did follow, but not before I saw that the thing
was moving. It was because I thought that I had
been, in a way, a victim of delirium that I tried
the second smoke. Suspecting that the thing was
drugged I swallowed what I believed would prove
a powerful antidote. It enabled me to resist the
influence of the narcotic much longer than before,
and while I still retained my senses I saw the crea-
ture crawl along under the stem and over the bowl.
It was that sight, I believe, as much as anything else,
which sent me silly. When I came to, I then and
there decided to present the pipe to Pugh. There is
one more thing I would remark. When the pipe
left me the creature's legs were twined about the
bowl. Now they are withdrawn. Possibly you,
Pugh, are able to cap my story with a little one which
is all your own."
"I certainly did imagine that I saw the creature
move. But I supposed that while I was under the
influence of the drug imagination had played me a
trick."
“Not a bit of it! Depend upon it, the beast is


THE PIPE
127
bewitched. Even to my eye it looks as though it
were, and to a trained eye like yours, Pugh! You've
been looking for the devil a long time, and you've
got him at last."
"I-I wish you wouldn't make those remarks,
Tress. They jar on me.”
"I confess," interpolated Brasher-I noticed that
he had put the pipe down on the table as though he
were tired of holding it-'that, to my thinking, such
remarks are not appropriate. At the same time
what you have told us is, I am bound to allow, a
little curious. But of course what I require is ocular
demonstration. I haven't seen the movement my-
self.”
"No, but you very soon will do so, if you care to
have a pull at the pipe on your own account. Do,
Brasher, to oblige me! There's a dear!"
"It appears, then, that the movement is only ob-
servable when the pipe is smoked. We have at
east arrived at step No. 1."
"Here's a match, Brasher! Light up, and we
shall have arrived at step No. 2."
Tress lit a match and held it out to Brasher.
Brasher retreated from its neighborhood.
"Thank you, Mr. Tress, I am no smoker, as you
are aware. And I have no desire to acquire the art
of smoking by means of a poisoned pipe.”
Tress laughed. He blew out the match and threw
it into the grate.
“Then I tell you what I'll do—I'll have up Bob."
"Bob-why Bob?"


128
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
"Bob"-whose real name was Robert Haines,
though I should think he must have forgotten the
fact, so seldom was he addressed by it—was Tress's
servant. He had been an old soldier, and had ac-
companied his master when he left the service. He
was as depraved a character as Tress himself. I am
not sure even that he was not worse than his master.
I shall never forget how he once behaved toward
myself. He actually had the assurance to accuse me
of attempting to steal the Wardour Street relic
which Tress fondly deludes himself was once the
property of Sir Walter Raleigh. The truth is that
I had slipped it with my handkerchief into my pocket
in a fit of absence of mind. A man who could accuse
me of such a thing would be guilty of anything. I
was therefore quite at one with Brasher when he
asked what Bob could possibly be wanted for. Tress
explained.
"I'll get him to smoke the pipe," he said.
Brasher and I exchanged glances, but we refrained
from speech.
"It won't do him any harm," said Tress.
“What—not a poisoned pipe?" asked Brasher.
“It's not poisoned-it's only drugged."
"Only drugged!”
"Nothing hurts Bob. He is like an ostrich. He
has digestive organs which are peculiarly his own.
It will only serve him as it served memand Pugh-
it will knock him over. It is all done in the Pursuit
of Truth and for the Advancement of Inquiry."
I could see that Brasher did not altogether like


THE PIPE
129
the tone in which Tress repeated his words. As for
me, it was not to be supposed that I should put my-
self out in a matter which in no way concerned me.
If Tress chose to poison the man, it was his affair,
not mine. He went to the door and shouted:
“Bob! Come here, you scoundrel!"
That is the way in which he speaks to him. No
really decent servant would stand it. I shouldn't
care to address Nalder, my servant, in such a way.
He would give me notice on the spot. Bob came in.
He is a great hulking fellow who is always on the
grin. Tress had a decanter of brandy in his hand.
He filled a tumbler with the neat spirit.
“Bob, what would you say to a glassful of brandy
-the real thing—my boy?"
“Thank you, sir.”
“And what would you say to a pull at a pipe when
the brandy is drunk !"
“A pipe?" The fellow is sharp enough when he
likes. I saw him look at the pipe upon the table, and
then at us, and then a gleam of intelligence came
into his eyes. “I'd do it for a dollar, sir."
"A dollar, you thief?”
“I meant ten shillings, sir."
“Ten shillings, you brazen vagabond ?”
"I should have said a pound.”
“A pound! Was, ever the like of that! Do I
understand you to ask a pound for taking a pull at
your master's pipe ?”
"I'm thinking that I'll have to make it two."


130
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
“The deuce you are! Here, Pugh, lend me a
pound.”
"I'm afraid I've left my purse behind."
“Then lend me ten shillings—Ananias!"
"I doubt if I have more than five."
"Then give me the five. And, Brasher, lend me
the other fifteen.”
Brasher lent him the fifteen. I doubt if we shall
either of us ever see our money again. He handed
the pound to Bob.
"Here's the brandy-drink it up!” Bob drank it
without a word, draining the glass of every drop.
"And here's the pipe."
"Is it poisoned, sir?"
"Poisoned, you villain! What do you mean?”.
“It isn't the first time I've seen your tricks, sir-
is it now? And you're not the one to give a pound
for nothing at all. If it kills me you'll send my
body to my mother-she'd like to know that I was
dead.”
"Send your body to your grandmother! You
idiot, sit down and smoke!”
Bob sat down. Tress had filled the pipe, and
handed it, with a lighted match, to Bob. The fellow
declined the match. He handled the pipe very gin-
gerly, turning it over and over, eying it with all his
eyes.
"Thank you, sir-I'll light up myself if it's the
same to you. I carry matches of my own. It's a
beautiful pipe, entirely. I never see the like of it
for ugliness. And what's the slimy-looking varmint


THE PIPE
131
that looks as though it would like to have my life?
Is it living, or is it dead?”
“Come, we don't want to sit here all day, my
man!"
"Well, sir, the look of this here pipe has quite
upset my stomach. I'd like another drop of liquor,
if it's the same to you."
“Another drop! Why, you've had a tumblerful
already! Here's another tumblerful to put on top
of that. You won't want the pipe to kill you—you'll
be killed before you get to it.”
“And isn't it better to die a natural death ?"
Bob emptied the second tumbler of brandy as
though it were water. I believe he would empty
a hogshead without turning a hair! Then he gave
another look at the pipe. Then, taking a match
from his waistcoat pocket, he drew a long breath,
as though he were resigning himself to fate. Strik-
ing the match on the seat of his trousers, while,
shaded by his hand, the flame was gathering
strength, he looked at each of us in turn. When he
looked at Tress I distinctly saw him wink his eye.
What my feelings would have been if a servant of
mine had winked his eye at me I am unable to im-
agine! The match was applied to the tobacco, a
puff of smoke came through his lips—the pipe was
alight!
During this process of lighting the pipe we had
sat—I do not wish to use exaggerated language, but
we had sat and watched that alcoholic scamp's pro-
ceedings as though we were witnessing an action


THE PIPE
133
I know there's something up, but I ain't going to
throw my life away for twenty shillings--not quite
I ain't.”
Tress, whose temper is not at any ..me one of
the best, was seized with quite a spasm of rage.
"As I live, my lad, if you try to cheat me by tak-
ing that pipe from between your lips until I tell you,
you leave this room that instant, never again to be
a servant of mine."
I presume the fellow knew from long experience
when his master meant what he said, and when he
didn't. Without an attempt at remonstrance he re-
placed the pipe. He continued stolidly to puff away.
Tress caught me by the arm.
“What did I tell you? There—there! That
tentacle is moving."
The uplifted tentacle was moving. It was doing
what I had seen it do, as I supposed, in my distorted
imagination—it was reaching forward. Undoubt.
edly Bob saw what it was doing; but, whether in
obedience to his master's commands, or whether be-
cause the drug was already beginning to take effect,
he made no movement to withdraw the pipe. He
watched the slowly advancing tentacle, coming closer
and closer toward his nose, with an expression of
such intense horror on his countenance that it be-
came quite shocking. Farther and farther the crea-
ture reached forward, until on a sudden, with a sort
of jerk, the movement assumed a downward direc-
tion, and the tentacle was slowly lowered until the
tip rested on the stem of the pipe. For a moment


134
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
the creature remained motionless. I was quieting
my nerves with the reflection that this thing was but
some trick of the carver's art, and that what we had
seen we had seen in a sort of nightmare, when the
whole hideous reptile was seized with what seemed
to be a fit of convulsive shuddering. It seemed to
be in agony. It trembled so violently that I expected
to see it loosen its hold of the stem and fall to the
ground. I was sufficiently master of myself to steal
a glance at Bob. We had had an inkling of what
might happen. He was wholly unprepared. As he
saw that dreadful, human-looking creature, coming
to life, as it seemed, within an inch or two of his
nose, his eyes dilated to twice their usual size. I
hoped, for his sake, that unconsciousness would su-
pervene, through the action of the drug, before
through sheer fright his senses left him. Perhaps
mechanically he puffed steadily on.
The creature's shuddering became more violent.
It appeared to swell before our eyes. Then, just
as suddenly as it began, the shuddering ceased.
There was another instant of quiescence. Then the
creature began to crawl along the stem of the pipe!
It moved with marvelous caution, the merest frac-
tion of an inch at a time. But still it moved! Our
eyes were riveted on it with a fascination which was
absolutely nauseous. I am unpleasantly affected
even as I think of it now. My dreams of the night
before had been nothing to this.
Slowly, slowly, it went, nearer and nearer to the
smoker's nose. Its mode of progression was in the


THE PIPE
135
highest degree unsightly. It glided, never, so far
as I could see, removing its tentacles from the stem
of the pipe. It slipped its hind-most feelers onward
until they came up to those which were in advance.
Then, in their turn, it advanced those which were in
front. It seemed, too, to move with the utmost
labor, shuddering as though it were in pain.
We were all, for our parts, speechless. I was
momentarily hoping that the drug would take effect
on Bob. Either his constitution enabled him to offer
a strong resistance to narcotics, or else the large
quantity of neat spirit which he had drunk acted-
as Tress had malevolently intended that it should-
as an antidote. It seemed to me that he would never
succumb. On went the creature-on, and on, in its
infinitesimal progression. I was spellbound. I
would have given the world to scream, to have been
able to utter a sound. I could do nothing else but
watch.
The creature had reached the end of the stem. It
had gained the amber mouthpiece. It was within
an inch of the smoker's nose. Still on it went. It
seemed to move with greater freedom on the amber.
It increased its rate of progress. It was actually
touching the foremost feature on the smoker's coun-
tenance. I expected to see it grip the wretched
Bob, when it began to oscillate from side to side.
Its oscillations increased in violence. It fell to the
floor. That same instant the narcotic prevailed.
Bob slipped sideways from the chair, the pipe still
held tightly between his rigid jaws.


136
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
We were silent. There lay Bob. Close beside him
lay the creature. A few more inches to the left, and
he would have fallen on and squashed it flat. It had
fallen on its back. Its feelers were extended upward.
They were writhing and twisting and turning in the
air.
Tress was the first to speak.
"I think a little brandy won't be amiss.” Empty-
ing the remainder of the brandy into the glass, he
swallowed it at a draught. "Now for a closer ex-
amination of our friend." Taking a pair of tongs
from the grate he nipped the creature between them.
He deposited it upon the table. "I rather fancy that
this is a case for dissection.”
He took a penknife from his waistcoat pocket.
Opening the large blade, he thrust its point into the
object on the table. Little or no resistance seemed
to be offered to the passage of the blade, but as it
was inserted the tentacula simultaneously began to
writhe and twist. Tress withdrew the knife.
“I thought so!” He held the blade out for our in-
spection. The point was covered with some viscid-
looking matter. “That's blood! The thing's
alive!"
"Alive!” •
“Alive! That's the secret of the whole perform-
ance !"
“But- "
“But me no buts, my Pugh! The mystery's ex-
ploded! One more ghost is lost to the world! The
person from whom I obtained that pipe was an In-


THE PIPE
137
dian juggler-up to many tricks of the trade. He,
or some one for him, got hold of this sweet thing in
reptiles—and a sweeter thing would, I imagine,
be hard to find—and covered it with some prepara-
tion of, possible, gum arabic. He allowed this to
harden. Then he stuck the thing—still living, for
that sort of gentry are hard to kill—to the pipe.
The consequence was that when anyone lit up, the
warmth was communicated to the adhesive agent-
again some preparation of gum, no doubt-it moist-
ened it, and the creature, with infinite difficulty, was
able to move. But I am open to lay odds with any
gentleman of sporting taste that this time the crea-
ture's traveling days are done. It has given me
rather a larger taste of the horrors than is good for
my digestion.”
With the aid of the tongs he removed the creature
from the table. He placed it on the hearth. Before
Brasher or I had a notion of what it was he intended
to do, he covered it with a heavy marble paper
weight. Then he stood upon the weight, and be-
tween the marble and heart he ground the creature
flat.
While the execution was still proceeding, Bob sat
up upon the floor.
"Hollo!” he asked, “what's happened?".
“We've emptied the bottle, Bob," said Tress.
“But there's another where that came from. Per-
haps you could drink another tumblerful, my boy?”
Bob drank it!


138
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
FOOTNOTE
“Those gentry are hard to kill.” Here is fact, not fantasy.
Lizard yarns no less sensational than this Mystery Story can be
found between the covers of solemn, zoological textbooks
Reptiles, indeed, are far from finicky in the matters of air,
space, and especially warmth. Frogs and other such sluggish-
blooded creatures have lived after being frozen fast in ice.
Their blood is little warmer than air or water, enjoying no
extra casing of fur or feathers.
Air and food seem held in light esteem by lizards. Their
blood need not be highly oxygenated; it nourishes just as well
when impure. In temperate climes lizards lie torpid and buried
all winter; some species of the tropic deserts sleep peacefully
all summer. Their anatomy includes no means for the con-
tinous introduction and expulsion of air; reptilian lungs are.
little more than closed sacs, without cell structure.
If any further zoological fact were needed to verify the
dénouement of “The Pipe,” it might be the general statement
that lizards are abnormal brutes anyhow. Consider the
chameleons of unsettled hue. And what is one to think of an
animal which, when captured by the tail, is able to make its
escape by willfully shuffling off that appendage?-EDITOR.


140
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
ported live stock without starving them to death be-
fore the day of actual delivery, but also, had for
years succeeded in deceiving those passengers who
bought its tickets into the fallacious belief that the
corporation aforesaid was really able to transport
human life without destroying it. Signor Tombola
had endeavored to persuade us, by arguments which
we took no trouble to oppose, that the unity of his
country in no way resembled the average modern
torpedo, carefully planned, constructed with all the
skill of the greatest European arsenals, but, when
constructed, destined to be directed by feeble hands
into a region where it must undoubtedly explode,
unseen, unfeared, and unheard, into the illimitable
wastes of political chaos.
It is unnecessary to go into further details. The
conversation had assumed proportions which would
have bored Prometheus on his rock, which would
have driven Tantalus to distraction, and which would
have impelled Ixion to seek relaxation in the simple
but instructive dialogues of Herr Ollendorf, rather
than submit to the greater evil of listening to our
talk. We had sat at a table for hours; we were
bored, we were tired, and nobody showed signs of
moving.
Somebody called for cigars. We all instinctively
looked toward the speaker. Brisbane was a man of
five-and-thirty-years of age, and remarkable for
those gifts which chiefly attract the attention of men.
He was a strong man. The external proportions
of his figure presented nothing extraordinary to the


THE UPPER BERTH
141
common eye, though his size was above the average.
He was a little over six feet in height, and moder-
ately broad in the shoulder; he did not appear to be
stout, but, on the other hand he was certainly not
thin; his small head was supported by a strong and
sinewy neck; his broad, muscular hands seemed to
possess a peculiar skill in breaking walnuts without
the assistance of the ordinary cracker, and, seeing
him in profile, one could not help remarking the ex-
traordinary breadth of his sleeves and the unusual
thickness of his chest. He was one of those men who
are commonly spoken of among men as deceptive;
that is to say, that though he looked exceedingly
strong, he was in reality very much stronger than he
looked. Of his features I need say little. His head
is small, his hair is thin, his eyes are blue, his nose
is large, he has a small mustache and a square jaw..
Everybody knows Brisbane, and when he asked for
a cigar everybody looked at him.
"It is a very singular thing," said Brisbane.
Everbody stopped talking. Brisbane's voice was
not loud, but possessed a peculiar quality of pene-
trating general conversation and cutting it like a
knife. Everybody listened. Brisbane perceiving that
he had attracted their general attention, lighted his
cigar with equal equanimity.
“It is very singular," he continued, "that thing
about ghosts. People are always asking whether
anybody has seen a ghost. I have." '
“Bosh! What, you? You don't mean to say so,
Brisbane? Well, for a man of his intelligence!"


142
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
A chorus of exclamations greeted Brisbane's re-
markable statemeni. Everybody called for cigars,
and Stubbs, the butler, suddenly appeared from the
depths of nowhere with a fresh bottle of dry cham-
pagne. The situation was saved; Brisbane was going
to tell a story.
"I am an old sailor," said Brisbane, “and as I
have to cross the Atlantic pretty often, I have my
favorites. Most men have their favorites. I have
seen a man wait in a Broadway bar for three-
quarters of an hour for a particular car which he
liked. I believe the barkeeper made at least one-
third of his living by that man's preference. I have
a habit of waiting for certain ships when I am
obliged to cross that duckpond. It may be a preju-
dice, but I was never cheated out of a good passage
but once in my life. I remember it very well; it was
a warm morning in June, and the custom house offi-
cials, who were hanging about waiting for a steamer
already on her way up from quarantine, presented
a peculiarly hazy and thoughtful appearance. I had
not much luggage—I never have. I mingled with
the crowd of passengers, porters, and officious indi-
viduals in blue coats and brass buttons, who seemed
to spring up like mushrooms from the deck of a
moored steamer to obtrude their unnecessary services
upon the independent passengers. I have often no-
ticed with a certain interest the spontaneous evolu-
tion of these fellows. They are not there when you
arrive; five minutes after the pilot has called 'Go
ahead!' they, or at least their blue coats and brass


THE UPPER BERTH
143
buttons, have disappeared from deck and gangway
as completely as though they had been consigned
to that locker which tradition unanimously ascribes
to Davy Jones. But, at the moment of starting, they
are there, clean-shaved, blue-coated, and ravenous
for fees. I hastened on board. The ‘Kamtschatka'
was one of my favorite ships. I say was, because
she emphatically no longer is. I cannot conceive of
any inducement which could entice me to make an-
other voyage in her. Yes, I know what you are
going to say. She is uncommonly clean in the run
aft, she has enough bluffing off in the bows to keep
her dry, and the lower berths are the most of them
double. She has a lot of advantages, but I won't
cross in her again. Excuse the digression. I got on
board. I hailed the steward, whose red nose and
redder whiskers are equally familiar to me.
“ 'One hundred and five, lower berth,' said I, in
the business-like tone peculiar to men who think no
more of crossing the Atlantic than taking a whiskey
cocktail at downtown Delmonico's.
“The steward took my portmanteau, great coat,
and rug. I shall never forget the expression on his
face. Not that he turned pale. It is maintained by
the most eminent divines that even miracles cannot
change the course of nature. I have no hesitation in
saying that he did not turn pale; but, from his ex-
pression, I judged that he was either about to shed
tears, to sneeze, or to drop my portmanteau. As
the latter contained two bottles of particularly fine
old sherry, presented to me for my voyage by my


144
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
old friend Snigginson van Pickyns, I felt extremely
nervous. But the steward did none of these things.
“ 'Well, I'll be damned,' said he in a low voice,
and led the way.
"I supposed my Hermes, as he led me to the
lower regions, had had a little grog, but I said noth-
ing, and followed him. One hundred and five was
on the port side, well aft. There was nothing re-
markable about the stateroom. The lower berth,
like most of those upon the ‘Kamtschatka,' was
double. There was plenty of room; there was the
usual washing apparatus, calculated to convey an
idea of luxury to the mind of a North American
Indian; there were the usual inefficient racks of
brown wood, in which it is more easy to hang a
large-sized umbrella than the common toothbrush
of commerce. Upon the uninviting mattresses were
carefully folded together those blankets which a
great modern humorist has aptly compared to cold
buckwheat cakes. The question of towels was left
entirely to the imagination. The glass decanters
were filled with a transparent liquid faintly tinged
with brown, but from which an odor less faint, but
not more pleasing, ascended to the nostrils, like a
far-off seasick reminiscence of oily machinery. Sad-
colored curtains half closed the upper berth. The
hazy June daylight shed a faint illumination upon
the desolate little scene. Ugh! How I hate that
stateroom!
“The steward deposited my traps and looked at
me as though he wanted to get away—probably in


THE UPPER BERTH
145
search of more passengers and more fees. It is al-
ways a good plan to start in favor with those func-
tionaries, and I accordingly gave him certain coins
there and then.
"I'll try and make yer comfortable all I can,' he
remarked, as he put the coins in his pocket. Never-
theless, there was a doubtful intonation in his voice
which surprised me. Possibly his scale of fees had
gone up, and he was not satisfied; but on the whole
I was inclined to think that, as he himself would
have expressed it, he was 'the better for a glass.' I
was wrong, however, and did the man injustice.
II
"Nothing especially noteworthy of mention oc-
curred during the day. We left the pier punctually,
and it was very pleasant to be fairly under way, for
the weather was warm and sultry, and the motion
of the steamer produced a refreshing breeze.
"Everybody knows what the first day at sea is
like. People pace the decks and stare at each other,
and occasionally meet acquaintances whom they did
not know to be on board. There is the usual un-
certainty as to whether the food will be good, bad,
or indifferent, until the first two meals have put the
matter byond a doubt, there is the usual uncertainty
about the weather, until the ship is fairly off Fire
Island. The tables are crowded at first, and then
suddenly thinned. Pale-faced people spring from
their seats and precipitate themselves toward the


146
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
door, and each old sailor breathes more freely as
his seasick neighbor rushes from his side, leaving
him plenty of elbow room and an unlimited com-
mand over the mustard.
“One passage across the Atlantic is very much like
another, and we who cross very often do not make
the voyage for the sake of novelty. Whales and
icebergs are indeed always objects of interest, but,
after all, one whale is very much like another whale,
and one rarely sees an iceberg at close quarters. To
the majority of us, the most delightful moment of
the day on board an ocean steamer is when we have
taken our last turn on deck, have smoked our last
cigar, and having succeeded in tiring ourselves, feel
at liberty to turn in with a clear conscience. On
that first night of the voyage I felt particularly lazy,
and went to bed in one hundred and five rather
earlier than I usually do. As I turned in, I was
amazed to see that I was to have a companion. A
portmanteau, very like my own, lay in the opposite
corner, and in the upper berth had been deposited
a neatly folded rug with a stick and umbrella. I
had hoped to be alone, and I was disappointed; but
I wondered who my roommate was to be, and I
determined to have a look at him.
"Before I had been long in bed he entered. He
was, as far as I could see, a very tall man, very thin,
very pale, with sandy hair and whiskers, and color-
less gray eyes. He had about him, I thought, an
air of rather dubious fashion; the sort of man you
might see in Wall Street, without being able pre-


THE UPPER BERTH
149
excellent opportunity for avoiding him, so I dressed
at once and went on deck. The day was warm and
cloudy, with an oily smell on the water. It was seven
o'clock as I came out-much later than I had im-
agined. I came across the doctor, who was taking
his first sniff of the morning air. He was a young
man from the West of Ireland—a tremendous fel-
low, with black hair and blue eyes, already inclined
to be stout; he had a happy-go-lucky, healthy look
about him which was rather attractive.
“ 'Fine mornin',' I remarked by way of introduc-
tion.
“ 'Well,' said he, eyeing me with an air of ready
interest, “it's a fine morning and it's not a fine morn-
ing. I don't think it's much of a morning.'
"'Well, nomit is not so very fine,' said I.
“ 'It's just what I call fuggly weather,' replied the
doctor.
" 'It was very cold last night, I thought,' I re-
marked. However, when I looked about, I found
that the porthole was wide open. I had not noticed
it when I went to bed. And the stateroom was
damp, too.
“ 'Damp!' said he. “Whereabouts are you?'
" 'One hundred and five-
“To my surprise the doctor started visibly, and
stared at me.
“ 'What is the matter?' I asked.
“ 'Oh-nothing,' he answered; 'only everybody
has complained of that stateroom for the last three
trips.'


150
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
nswe
"'I shall complain, too,' I said. “It has certainly
not been properly aired. It is a shame!
"'I don't believe it can be helped,' answered the
doctor. 'I believe there is something—well, it is not
my business to frighten passengers.'
" 'You need not be afraid of frightening me,' I
replied. 'I can stand any amount of damp. If I
should get a bad cold I will come to you.'
"I offered the doctor a cigar, which he took and
examined very critically.
“ 'It is not so much the damp,' he remarked.
'However, I dare say you will get on very well.
Have you a roommate?'
“'Yes; a deuce of a fellow, who bolts out in the
middle of the night and leaves the door open.'
"Again the doctor glanced curiously at me. Then
he lighted the cigar and looked grave.
“ 'Did he come back?' he asked presently.
“'Yes. I was asleep, but I waked up and heard
him moving. Then I felt cold and went to sleep
again. This morning I found the porthole open.'
“ 'Look here,' said the doctor, quietly, 'I don't
care much for this ship. I don't care a rap for her
reputation. I tell you what I will do. I have a
good-sized place up here. I will share it with you,
though I don't know you from Adam.'
"I was very much surprised at the proposition. I
could not imagine why he should take such a sud-
den interest in my welfare. However, his manner
as he spoke of the ship was peculiar.
“'You are very good, Doctor,' I said. “But really,


THE UPPER BERTH
151
I believe even now the cabin could be aired, or
cleaned out, or something. Why do you not care
for the ship?
"'We are not superstitious in our profession, sir,'
replied the doctor. "But the sea makes people so.
I don't want to prejudice you, and I don't want to
frighten you, but if you will take my advice you will
move in here. I would as soon see you overboard,'
he added, “as know that you or any other man was
to sleep in one hundred and five.'
“ 'Good gracious! Why?' I asked.
“ 'Just because on the last three trips the people
who have slept there actually have gone overboard,'
he answered gravely.
“The intelligence was startling and exceedingly
unpleasant, I confess. I looked hard at the doctor
to see whether he was making game of me, but he
looked perfectly serious. I thanked him warmly for
his offer, but told him I intended to be the exception
to the rule by which everyone who slept in that par.
ticular stateroom went overboard. He did not say
much, but looked as grave as ever, and hinted that
before we got across, I should probably reconsider
his proposal. In the course of time we went to
breakfast, at which only an inconsiderable number
of passengers assembled. I noticed that one or two
of the officers who breakfasted with us looked
grave. After breakfast I went into my stateroom in
order to get a book. The curtains of the upper
berth were still closely drawn. Not a word was to
be heard. My roommate was probably still asleep.


THE UPPER BERTH
153
go overboard by the watch, we stopped, and lowered
boats, but they were not found. Nobody, however,
saw or heard the man who was lost last night—if
he is really lost. The steward, who is a superstitious
fellow, perhaps, and expected something to go
wrong, went to look for him this morning, and found
his berth empty, but his clothes lying about, just as
he had left them. The steward was the only man
on board who knew him by sight, and he has been
searching everywhere for him. He has disap-
peared! Now, sir, I want to beg you not to men-
tion the circumstance to any of the passengers; I
don't want the ship to get a bad name, and nothing
hangs about an ocean-goer like stories of suicides.
You shall have your choice of any one of the officers'
cabins you like, including my own, for the rest of
the passage. Is that a fair bargain ?
"Very,' I said; ‘and I am much obliged to you.
But since I am alone, and have the stateroom to
myself, I would rather not move. If the steward
will take out that unfortunate man's things, I would
as lief stay where I am. I will not say anything
about the matter, and I think I can promise you that
I will not follow my roommate.'
"The captain tried to dissuade me from my inten-
tion, but I preferred having a stateroom alone to
being the chum of any officer on board. I do not
know whether I acted foolishly, but if I had taken
his advice I should have had nothing more to tell.
There would have remained the disagreeable coin-
cidence of several suicides occurring among men


154
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
who had slept in the same cabin, but that would
have been all.
"That was not the end of the matter, however,
by any means. I obstinately made up my mind that
I would not be disturbed by such tales, and I even
went so far as to argue the question with the captain.
There was something wrong about the stateroom,
I said. It was rather damp. The porthole had
been left open last night. My roommate might have
been ill when he came on board, and he might have
become delirious after he went to bed. He might
even now be hiding somewhere on board, and might
be found later. The place ought to be aired and
the fastening of the port looked to. If the captain
would give me leave, I would see that what I thought
necessary was done immediately.
" 'Of course you have a right to stay where you
are if you please,' he replied, rather petulantly; 'but
I wish you would turn out and let me lock the place
up, and be done with it.'
"I did not see it in the same light, and left the
captain, after promising to be silent concerning the
disappearance of my companion. The latter had
had no acquaintances on board, and was not missed
in the course of the day. Toward evening I met the
doctor again, and he asked me whether I had
changed my mind. I told him I had not.
“'Then you will before long,' he said, very
gravely.


THE UPPER BERTH
155
III
“We played whist in the evening, and I went to
bed late. I will confess now that I felt a disagree-
able sensation when I entered my stateroom. I
could not help thinking of the tall man I had seen
on the previous night, who was now dead, drowned,
tossing about in the long swell, two or three hundred
miles astern. His face rose very distinctly before
me as I undressed, and I even went so far as to
draw back the curtains of the upper berth, as though
to persuade myself that he was actually gone. I also
bolted the door of the stateroom. Suddenly I be-
came aware that the porthole was open and fastened
back. This was more than I could stand. I hastily
threw on my dressing-gown, and went in search of
Robert, the steward of my passage. I was very
angry, I remember, and when I found him I dragged
him roughly to the door of one hundred and five,
and pushed him toward the open porthole.
"What the deuce do you mean, you scoundrel,
by leaving that port open every night? Don't you
know it is against the regulations? Don't you know
that if the ship heeled and the water began to come
in, ten men could not shut it? I will report you to
the captain, you blackguard, for endangering the
ship!
"I was exceedingly wroth. The man trembled
and turned pale, and then began to shut the round
glass plate with the heavy brass fittings.
" 'Why don't you answer me?' I said roughly.


156
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
"'If you please, sir,' faltered Robert, 'there's no-
body on board as can keep this 'ere port shut at
night. You can try it yourself, sir. I ain't a-going
to stop hany longer on board o' this vessel, sir; I
ain't, indeed. But if I was you, sir, I'd just clear
out and go and sleep with the surgeon, or some-
thing, I would. Look 'ere, sir, is that fastened what
you may call securely, or not, sir? Try it, sir, see
if it will move a hinch.
“I tried the port, and found it perfectly tight.
"Well, sir,' continued Robert, triumphantly, 'I
wager my reputation as an A i steward, that in arf
an hour it will be open again; fastened back, too,
sir, that's the horful thing—fastened back!
"I examined the great screw and the looped nut
that ran on it.
“ 'If I find it open in the night, Robert, I will give
you a sovereign. It is not possible. You may go.'
"Soverin, did you say, sir? Very good, sir.
Thank ye, sir. Good-night, sir. Pleasant reepose,
sir, and all manner of hinchantin' dreams, sir.'
“Robert scuttled away, delighted at being re-
leased. Of course, I thought he was trying to account
for his negligence by a silly story, intended to
frighten me, and I disbelieved him. The conse-
quence was that he got his sovereign, and I spent
a very peculiarly unpleasant night.
“I went to bed, and five minutes after I had rolled
myself up in my blankets the inexorable Robert ex-
tinguished the light that burned steadily behind the
ground-glass pane near the door. I lay quite still


THE UPPER BERTH
157
in the dark trying to go to sleep, but I soon found
that impossible. It had been some satisfaction to
be angry with the steward, and the diversion had:
vanished that unpleasant sensation I had at first ex-
perienced when I thought of the drowned man who
had been my chum; but I was no longer sleepy, and
I lay awake for some time, occasionally glancing at
the porthole, which I could just see from where I
lay, and which, in the darkness, looked like a faintly
luminous soup-plate suspended in blackness. I be-
lieve I must have lain there for an hour, and, as I
remember, I was just dozing into sleep, when I was
roused by a draught of cold air, and by distinctly
feeling the spray of the sea blown upon my face. I
started to my feet, and not having allowed in the
dark for the motion of the ship, I was instantly
thrown violently across the stateroom upon the couch
which was placed beneath the porthole. I recov-
ered myself immediately, however, and climbed upon
my knees. The porthole was again wide open and
fastened back!
"Now these things are facts. I was wide awake
when I got up, and I should certainly have been
waked by the fall had I been dozing. Moreover, I
bruised my elbows and knees badly, and the bruises
were there on the following morning to testify to
the fact, if I myself had doubted it. The porthole
was wide open and fastened back-a thing so un-
accountable, that I remember very well feeling as-
tonishment rather than fear when I discovered it.
I at once closed the plate again, and screwed down


158
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
the loop nut with all my strength. It was very dark
in the stateroom. I reflected that the port had cer-
tainly been opened within an hour after Robert had
at first shut it in my presence, and I determined to
watch it and see whether it would open again.
Those brass fittings are very heavy and by no means
easy to move; I could not believe that the clamp had
been turned by the shaking of the screw. I stood
peering out through the thick glass at the alternate
white and gray streaks of the sea that foamed be-
neath the ship's side. I must have remained there
a quarter of an hour.
"Suddenly, as I stood, I distinctly heard some-
thing moving behind me in one of the berths, and
a moment afterward, just as I turned instinctively
to look—though I could, of course, see nothing in
the darkness—I heard a very faint groan. I sprang
across the stateroom, and tore the curtains of the
upper berth aside, thrusting in my hands to discover
if there were any one there. There was some one.
“I remember that the sensation as I put my hands
forward was as though I were plunging them into
the air of a damp cellar, and from behind the cur-
tain came a gust of wind that smelled horribly of
stagnant seawater. I laid hold of something that
had the shape of a man's arm, but was smooth, and
wet, and icy cold. But suddenly, as I pulled, the
creature sprang violently forward against me, a
clammy, oozy mass, as it seemed to me, heavy and
wet, yet endowed with a sort of supernatural
strength. I reeled across the stateroom, and in an


THE UPPER BERTH
159
instant the door opened and the thing rushed out.
I had not had time to be frightened, and quickly
recovering myself, I sprang through the door and
gave chase at the top of my speed, but I was too
late. Ten yards before me I could see-I am sure
I saw it-a dark shadow moving in the dimly lighted
passage, quickly as the shadow of a fast horse
thrown before a dog-cart by the lamp on a dark
night. But in a moment it had disappeared, and I
found myself holding on to the polished rail that
ran along the bulkhead where the passage turned
toward the companion. My hair stood on end, and
the cold perspiration rolled down my face. I am
not ashamed of it in the least: I was very badly
frightened.
"Still I doubted my senses, and pulled myself to-
gether. It was absurd, I thought. The Welsh rare-
bit I had eaten had disagreed with me. I had been
in a nightmare. I made my way back to my state-
room, and entered it with an effort. The whole
place smelled of stagnant seawater, as it had when
I had waked on the previous evening. It required
my utmost strength to go in and grope among my
things for a box of wax lights. As I lighted a rail-
way reading-lantern which I always carry in case I
want to read after the lamps are out, I perceived
that the porthole was again open, and a sort of
creeping horror began to take possession of me
which I never felt before, nor wish to feel again.
But I got a light and proceeded to examine the upper
berth, expecting to find it drenched with seawater.


160 FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
But I was disappointed. The bed had been slept
in, and the smell of the sea was strong, but the bed-
ding was as dry as a bone. I fancied that Robert
had not had the courage to make the bed after the
accident of the previous night—it had all been a
hideous dream. I drew the curtains back as far as
I could, and examined the place very carefully. It
was perfectly dry. But the porthole was open again.
With a sort of dull bewilderment of horror, I closed
it and screwed it down, and thrusting my heavy stick
through the brass loop, wrenched it with all my
might, till the thick metal began to bend with the
pressure. Then I hooked my reading-lantern into
the red velvet at the head of the couch, and sat down
to recover my senses if I could. I sat there all night,
unable to think of rest-hardly able to think at all.
But the porthole remained closed, and I did not be-
lieve it would now open again without the applica-
tion of a considerable force.
"The morning dawned at last, and I dressed my-
self slowly, thinking over all that had happened in
the night. It was a beautiful day and I went on
deck, glad to get out in the early pure sunshine, and
to smell the breeze from the blue water, so different
from the noisome, stagnant odor from my state-
room. Instinctively I turned aft, toward the sur-'
geon's cabin. There he stood with a pipe in his
mouth, taking his morning airing precisely as on the
preceding day.
“Good-morning,' said he quietly, but looking at
me with evident curiosity.
.


THE UPPER BERTH
161
“ 'Doctor, you were quite right,' said I. 'There
is something wrong about that place.
"'I thought you would change your mind," he
answered, rather triumphantly. You have had a
bad night, eh? Shall I make you a pick-me-up? I
have a capital recipe.'
“ 'No, thanks,' I cried. “But I would like to tell
you what happened.'
"I then tried to explain as clearly as possible pre-
cisely what had occurred, not omitting to state that
I had been scared as I had never been scared in my
whole life before. I dwelt particularly on the phe-
nomenon of the porthole, which was a fact to which
I could testify, even if the rest had been an illusion.
I had closed it twice in the night, and the second
time I had actually bent the brass in wrenching it
with my stick. I believe I insisted a good deal on
this point.
"You seem to think I am likely to doubt the
story,' said the doctor, smiling at the detailed ac-
count of the state of the porthole. 'I do not doubt
it in the least. I renew my invitation to you. Bring
your traps here, and take half my cabin.'
“ 'Come and take mine for half of one night, I
said. "Help me to get at the bottom of this thing.'
“'You will get at the bottom of something else
if you try,' answered the doctor.
“'What?' I asked.
“ 'The bottom of the sea. I am going to leave
the ship. It is not canny.'
" "Then you will not help me to find out-


162
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
“ 'Not I,' said the doctor quickly. 'It is my busi-
ness to keep my wits about me—not to go fiddling
about with ghosts and things.
“ 'Do you really believe it is a ghost ?' I inquired,
rather contemptuously. But as I spoke, I remem-
bered very well the horrible sensation of the super-
natural which had got possession of me during the
night. The doctor turned sharply on me:
“ 'Have you any reasonable explanation of these
things to offer?' he asked. 'No, you have not. Well,
you say you will find an explanation. I say that you
won't, sir, simply because there is not any.'
" 'But, my dear sir,' I retorted, 'do you, a man of
science, mean to tell me that such things can not be
explained ?
"'I do,' he anwered, stoutly. 'And if they could,
I would not be concerned in the explanation.'
“I did not care to spend another night alone in
the stateroom, and yet I was obstinately determined
to get at the root of the disturbances. I do not be-
lieve there are many men who would have slept
there alone, after passing two such nights. But I
made up my mind to try it, if I could not get any
one to share a watch with me. The doctor was evi-
dently not inclined for such an experiment. He said
he was a surgeon, and that in case any accident oc-
curred on board, he must alway be in readiness. He
could not afford to have his nerve unsettled. Per-
haps he was quite right, but I am inclined to think
that this precaution was prompted by his inclination.
On inquiry, he informed me that there was no one


THE UPPER BERTH
163
on board who would be likely to join me in my in-
vestigations, and after a little more conversation I
left him. A little later I met the captain, and told
him my story. I said that if no one would spend the
night with me, I would ask leave to have the light
burning all night, and would try it alone.
“ 'Look here,' said he, 'I will tell you what I will
do. I will share your watch myself, and we will see
what happens. It is my belief that we can find out
between us. There may be some fellow skulking
on board who steals a passage by frightening the
passengers. It is just possible that there may be
something queer in the carpentering of that berth.'
“I suggested taking the ship's carpenter below
and examining the place; but I was overjoyed at the
captain's offer to spend the night with me. He ac-
cordingly sent for the workman and ordered him to
do anything I required. We went below at once.
I had all the bedding cleared out of the upper berth,
and we examined the place thoroughly to see if there
was a board loose anywhere, or a panel which could
be opened or pushed aside. We tried the planks
everywhere, tapped the flooring, unscrewed the fit-
tings of the lower berth and took it to pieces-in
short, there was not a square inch of the stateroom
which was not searched and tested. Everything was
in perfect order, and we put everything back in its
place. As we were finishing our work, Robert came
to the door, and looked in.
"'Well, sir-find anything, sir?' he asked with a
ghastly grin.


164
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
“'You were right about the porthole, Robert,'
I said, and I gave him the promised sovereign. The
carpenter did his work silently and skilfully, follow-
ing my directions. When he had done he spoke.
“ 'I'm a plain man, sir,' he said. “But it's my belief
you had better just turn out your things and let me
run half a dozen four-inch screws through the door
of this cabin. There's no good never came o' this
cabin yet, sir, and that's all about it. There's been
four lives lost out o' here to my own remembrance,
and that in four trips. Better give it up, sir-better
give it up!
“ 'I will try it for one night more,' I said.
“ 'Better give it up, sir_better give it up! It's
a precious bad job,' repeated the workman, putting
his tools in his bag and leaving the cabin.
“But my spirits had risen considerably at the pros-
pect of having the captain's company, and I made
up my mind not to be prevented from going to the
end of the strange business. I abstained from Welsh
rarebits and grog that evening, and did not even
join in the customary game of whist. I wanted to
be quite sure of my nerves, and my vanity made me
anxious to make a good figure in the captain's eyes.
CO
S-
IV
"The captain was one of those splendidly tough
and cheerful specimens of seafaring humanity, whose
combined courage, hardihood, and calmness in diffi-
culty leads them naturally into high positions of


THE UPPER BERTH
165
trust. He was not the man to be led away by an
idle tale, and the mere fact that he was willing to
join me in the investigation was proof that he
thought there was something seriously wrong, which
could not be accounted for on ordinary theories, nor
laughed down as a common superstition. To some
extent, too, his reputation was at stake, as well as
the reputation of the ship. It is no light thing to
lose passengers overboard, and he knew it.
“About ten o'clock that evening, as I was smoking
a last cigar, he came up to me and drew me aside
from the beat of the other passengers who were
patrolling the deck in the warm darkness.
“ 'This is a serious matter, Mr. Brisbane,' he said.
“We must make up our minds either way—to be dis-
appointed or to have a pretty rough time of it. You
see, I cannot afford to laugh at the affair, and I will
ask you to sign your name to a statement of what-
ever occurs. If nothing happens to-night, we will
try it again to-morrow and next day. Are you
ready?'
“So we went below and entered the stateroom.
As we went in I could see Robert, the steward, who
stood a little further down the passage, watching
us, with his usual grin, as though certain that some-
thing dreadful was about to happen. The captain
closed the door behind us and bolted it.
“ 'Suppose we put your portmanteau before the
door,' he suggested. 'One of us can sit on it. Noth-
ing can get out then. Is the port screwed down ?'
"I found it as I had left it in the morning. In-


166
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
deed, without using a lever, as I had done, no one
could have opened it. I drew back the curtains of
the upper berth so that I could see well into it. By
the captain's advice, I lighted my reading-lantern,
and placed it so that it shone upon the white sheets
above. He insisted upon sitting on the portmanteau,
declaring that he wished to be able to swear that
he had sat before the door.
"Then he requested me to search the stateroom
thoroughly, an operation very soon accomplished,
as it consisted merely in looking beneath the lower
berth and under the couch below the porthole. The
spaces were quite empty.
“ 'It is impossible for any human being to get in,'
I said, 'or for any human being to open the port.'
"Very good,' said the captain, calmly. 'If we
see anything now, it must be either imagination or
something supernatural.'
"I sat down on the edge of the lower berth.
" 'The first time it happened,' said the captain,
crossing his legs and leaning back against the door,
'was in March. The passenger who slept here, in
the upper berth, turned out to have been a lunatic-
at all events, he was known to have been a little
touched, and he had taken his passage without the
knowledge of his friends. He rushed out in the
middle of the night, and threw himself overboard,
before the officer who had the watch could stop him.
We stopped and lowered a boat, it was a quiet night,
just before that heavy weather came on; but we
could not find him. Of course his suicide was after-


THE UPPER BERTH
167
ward accounted for on the ground of his insanity.'
"'I suppose that often happens?' I remarked,
rather absently.
" 'Not often-no,' said the captain; 'never before
in my experience, though I have heard of it happen-
ing on board of other ships. Well, as I was saying,
that occurred in March. On the very next trip-
What are you looking at?' he asked, stopping sud-
denly in his narration.
“I believe I gave no answer. My eyes were
riveted upon the porthole. It seemed to me that
the brass loop-nut was beginning to turn very slowly
upon the screw—so slowly, however, that I was not
sure it moved at all. I watched it intently, fixing
its position in my mind, and trying to ascertain
whether it changed. Seeing where I was looking,
the captain looked too.
" 'It moves!' he exclaimed, in a tone of conviction.
'No, it does not,' he added, after a minute.
“'If it were the jarring of the screw,' said I, 'it
would have opened during the day; but I found it
this evening jammed tight as I left it this morning.'
“I rose and tried the nut. It was certainly loos-
ened, for by an effort I could move it with my
hands.
“'The queer thing,' said the captain, 'is that the
second man who was lost is supposed to have got
through that very port. We had a terrible time
over it. It was in the middle of the night, and the
weather was very heavy; there was an alarm that
one of the ports was open and the sea running in.


168
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
I came below and found everything flooded, the
water pouring in every time she rolled, and the
whole port swinging from the top bolts-not the
porthole in the middle. Well, we managed to shut
it, but the water did some damage. Ever since that
the place smells of seawater from time to time. We
supposed the passenger had thrown himself out,
though the Lord only knows how he did it. The
steward kept telling me that he could not keep any-
thing shut here. Upon my word—I can smell it
now, cannot you?' he inquired, sniffing the air sus-
piciously.
"'Yes—distinctly,' I said, and I shuddered as
that same odor of stagnant seawater grew stronger
in the cabin. “Now, to smell like this, the place must
be damp,' I continued, 'and yet when I examined it
with the carpenter this morning, everything was per-
fectly dry. It is most extraordinary-hallo!'
"My reading-lantern, which had been placed in
the upper berth, was suddenly extinguished. There
was still a good deal of light from the pane of
ground-glass near the door, behind which loomed
the regulation lamp. The ship rolled heavily, and
the curtain of the upper berth swung far out into
the stateroom and back again. I rose quickly from
my seat on the edge of the bed, and the captain at
the same moment started to his feet with a loud cry
of surprise. I had turned with the intention of tak-
ing down the lantern to examine it, when I heard
his exclamation, and immediately afterward his call
for help. I sprang toward him. He was wrestling


THE UPPER BERTH
169
with all his might with the brass loop of the port.
It seemed to turn against his hands in spite of all
his efforts. I caught up my cane, a heavy oak stick
I always used to carry, and thrust it through the
ring and bore on it with all my strength. But the
strong wood snapped suddenly, and I fell upon the
couch. When I rose again the port was wide open,
and the captain was standing with his back against
the door pale to the lips.
“ 'There is something in that berth!' he cried, in
a strange voice, his eyes almost starting from his
head. 'Hold the door, while I look-it shall not
escape us, whatever it is!
"But instead of taking his place, I sprang upon
the lower bed and seized something which lay in the
upper berth.
"It was something ghostly, horrible beyond words,
and it moved in my grip. It was like the body of a
man long drowned, and yet it moved and had the
strength of ten men living; but I gripped it with all
my might—the slippery, oozy, horrible thing. The
dead white eyes seemed to stare at me out of the
dusk; the putrid odor of rank seawater was about it,
and its shiny hair hung in foul wet curls over its dead
face. I wrestled with the dead thing; it thrust itself
upon me and forced me back and nearly broke my
arms; it wound its corpse's arms about my neck, the
living death, and overpowered me, so that I, at last,
cried aloud and fell and left my hold.
"As I fell, the thing sprang across me and seemed
to throw itself upon the captain. When I last saw


170
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
him on his feet, his face was white and his lips set.
It seemed to me that he struck a violent blow at the
dead being, and then he, too, fell forward upon his
face, with an inarticulate cry of horror.
"The thing paused an instant, seeming to hover
over his prostrate body, and I could have screamed
again for very fright, but I had no voice left. The
thing vanished suddenly, and it seemed to my dis-
turbed senses that it made its exit through the open
port, though how that was possible, considering the
smallness of the aperture, is more than any one can
tell. I lay a long time upon the floor, and the captain
lay beside me. At last I partially recovered my
senses and moved, and I instantly knew that my
arm was broken—the small bone of the left forearm
near the wrist.
"I got upon my feet somehow, and with my re-
maining hand I tried to raise the captain. He
groaned and moved, and at last came to himself.
He was not hurt, but he seemed badly stunned.
"Well, do you want to hear any more? There
is nothing more. That is the end of my story. The
carpenter carried out his scheme of running half a
dozen four-inch screws through the door of one
hundred and five, and if ever you take a passage in
the ‘Kamtschatka,' you may ask for a berth in that
stateroom. You will be told that it is engaged-yes
-it is engaged by that dead thing.
"I finished the trip in the surgeon's cabin. He
doctored my broken arm, and advised me not to
'fiddle about with ghosts and things' any more. The


THE UPPER BERTH
171
captain was very silent, and never sailed again in
that ship, though it is still running. And I will not
sail in her either. It was a very disagreeable experi-
ence, and I was very badly frightened, which is a
thing I do not like. That is all. That is how I saw
a ghost-if it was a ghost. It was dead, anyhow."


THE DIAMOND LENS
175
The rod of my life was bent at this moment. I
destined myself to be a microscopist
Of course, like every novice, I fancied myself a
discoverer. I was ignorant at the time of the
thousands of acute intellects engaged in the same
pursuit as myself, and with the advantage of instru-
ments a thousand times more powerful than mine.
The names of Leeuwenhoek, Williamson, Spencer,
Ehrenberg, Schultz, Dujardin, Schact, and Schleiden
were then entirely unknown to me, or if known, I
was ignorant of their patient and wonderful re-
searches. In every fresh specimen of cryptogamia
which I placed beneath my instrument I believed that
I discovered wonders of which the world was as yet
ignorant. I remember well the thrill of delight and
admiration that shot through me the first time that
I discovered the common wheel animalcule (Roti-
fera vulgaris) expanding and contracting its flexible
spokes, and seemingly rotating through the water.
Alas! as I grew older, and obtained some works
treating of my favorite study, I found that I was
only on the threshold of a science to the investiga-
tion of which some of the greatest men of the age
were devoting their lives and intellects.
As I grew up, my parents, who saw but little like-
lihood of anything practical resulting from the ex-
amination of bits of moss and drops of water
through a brass tube and a piece of glass, were
anxious that I should choose a profession. It was
their desire that I should enter the counting-house
of my uncle, Ethan Blake, a prosperous merchant,


176
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
who carried on business in New York. This sug.
gestion I decisively combated. I had no taste for
trade; I should only make a failure; in short, I
refused to become a merchant.
But it was necessary for me to select some pursuit.
My parents were staid New England people, who
insisted on the necessity of labor; and therefore,
although, thanks to the bequest of my poor Aunt
Agatha, I should, on coming of age, inherit a small
fortune sufficient to place me above want, it was
decided that, instead of waiting for this, I should act
the nobler part, and employ the intervening years
in rendering myself independent.
After much cogitation I complied with the wishes
of my family, and selected a profession. I deter-
mined to study medicine at the New York Academy.
This disposition of my future suited me. A removal
from my relatives would enable me to dispose of my
time as I pleased without fear of detection. As
long as I paid my Academy fees, I might shirk at-
tending the lectures if I chose; and, as I never had
the remotest intention of standing an examination,
there was no danger of my being "plucked.” Be-
sides, a metropolis was the place for me. There I
could obtain excellent instruments, the newest pub-
lications, intimacy with men of pursuits kindred with
my own,-in short, all things necessary to insure a
profitable devotion of my life to my beloved science.
I had an abundance of money, few desires that were
not bounded by my illuminating mirror on one side
and my object-glass on the other; what, therefore,


THE DIAMOND LENS
177
was to prevent my becoming an illustrious investiga-
tor of the veiled worlds? It was with the most
buoyant hope that I left my New England home
and established myself in New York.
II
THE LONGING OF A MAN OF SCIENCE
My first step, of course, was to find suitable
apartments. These I obtained, after a couple of
days' search, in Fourth Avenue; a very pretty
second-floor unfurnished, containing sitting-room,
bedroom, and a smaller apartment which I intended
to fit up as a laboratory. I furnished my lodgings
simply, but rather elegantly, and then devoted all
my energies to the adornment of the temple of my
worship. I visited Pike, the celebrated optician,
and passed in review his splendid collection of
microscopes,-Field's Compound, Hingham's, Spen-
cer's, Nachet's Binocular (that founded on the
principles of the stereoscope), and at length fixed
upon that form known as Spencer's Trunnion
Microscope, as combining the greatest number of
improvements with an almost perfect freedom from
tremor. Along with this I purchased every possi-
ble accessory,—draw-tubes, micrometers, a camera-
lucida, lever-stage, achromatic condensers, white
cloud illuminators, prisms, parabolic condensers,
polarizing apparatus, forceps, aquatic boxes, fishing-
tubes, with a host of other articles, all of which


178
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
would have been useful in the hands of an experi-
enced microscopist, but, as I afterwards discovered,
were not of the slightest present value to me. It
takes years of practice to know how to use a com-
plicated microscope. The optician looked suspi-
ciously at me as I made these wholesale purchases.
He evidently was uncertain whether to set me down
as some scientific celebrity or a madman. I think
he inclined to the latter belief. I suppose I was
mad. Every great genius is mad upon the subject
in which he is greatest. The unsuccessful madman
is disgraced and called a lunatic.
Mad or not, I set myself to work with a zeal
which few scientific students have ever equalled. I
had everything to learn relative to the delicate study
upon which I had embarked,-a study involving the
most earnest patience, the most rigid analytic
powers, the steadiest hand, the most untiring eyes,
the most refined and subtile manipulation.
For a long time half my apparatus lay inactively
on the shelves of my laboratory, which was now
most amply furnished with every possible con-
trivance for facilitating my investigations. The fact
was that I did not know how to use some of my
scientific implements,-never having been taught
microscopics,—and those whose use I understood
theoretically were of little avail, until by practice
I could attain the necessary delicacy of handling.
Still, such was the fury of my ambition, such the un-
tiring perseverance of my experiments, that, difficult
of credit as it may be, in the course of one year I


THE DIAMOND LENS
179
became theoretically and practically an accomplished
microscopist.
During this period of my labors, in which I sub-
mitted specimens of every substance that came under
my observation to the action of my lenses, I became
a discover-in a small way, it is true, for I was very
young, but still a discover. It was I who destroyed
Ehrenberg's theory that the Volvox globator was an
animal, and proved that his "nomads” with stomachs
and eyes were merely phases of the formation of a
vegetable cell, and were, when they reached their
mature state, incapable of the act of conjugation, or
any true generative act, without which no organism
rising to any stage of life higher than vegetable can
be said to be complete. It was I who resolved the
singular problem of rotation in the cells and hairs
of plants into ciliary attraction, in spite of the as-
sertions of Mr. Wenham and others, that my ex-
planation was the result of an optical illusion.
But notwithstanding these discoveries, laboriously
and painfully made as they were, I felt horribly
dissatisfied. At every step I found myself stopped
by the imperfections of my instruments. Like all
active microscopists, I gave my imagination full
play. Indeed, it is a common complaint against
many such, that they supply the defects of their in-
struments with the creations of their brains. I
imagined depths beyond depths in nature which the
limited power of my lenses prohibited me from
exploring. I lay awake at night constructing im-
aginary microscopes of immeasurable power, with


180
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
which I seemed to pierce through the envelopes of
matter down to its original atom. How I cursed
those imperfect mediums which necessity through
ignorance compelled me to use! How I longed to
discover the secret of some perfect lens, whose
magnifying power should be limited only by the -
resolvability of the object, and which at the same
time should be free from spherical and chromatic
aberrations, in short from all the obstacles over
which the poor microscopist finds himself continu-
ally stumbling! I felt convinced that the simple
microscope, composed of a single lens of such vast
yet perfect power was possible of construction. To
attempt to bring the compound microscope up to
such a pitch would have been commencing at the
wrong end; this latter being simply a partially
successful endeavor to remedy those very defects of
the simple instrument which, if conquered, would
leave nothing to be desired.
It was in this mood of mind that I became a con-
structive microscopist. After another year passed
in this new pursuit, experimenting on every imagin-
able substance,-glass, gems, flints, crystals, artificial
crystals formed of the alloy of various vitreous
materials,-in short, having constructed as many
varieties of lenses as Argus had eyes, I found myself
precisely where I started, with nothing gained save
an extensive knowledge of glass-making. I was
almost dead with despair. My parents were sur-
prised at my apparent want of progress in my
medical studies (I had not attended one lecture since


THE DIAMOND LENS
181
my arrival in the city), and the expenses of my mad
pursuit had been so great as to embarrass me very
seriously.
I was in this frame of mind one day, experiment-
ing in my laboratory on a small diamond,—that
stone, from its great refracting power, having always
occupied my attention more than any other,—when
a young Frenchman, who lived on the floor above
me, and who was in the habit of occasionally visiting
me, entered the room.
I think that Jules Simon was a Jew. He had many
traits of the Hebrew character: a love of jewelry,
of dress, and of good living. There was something
mysterious about him. He always had something to
sell, and yet went into excellent society. When I say
sell, I should perhaps have said peddle; for his op-
erations were generally confined to the disposal of
single articles,—a picture, for instance, or a rare
carving in ivory, or a pair of duelling-pistols, or the
dress of a Mexican caballero. When I was first
furnishing my rooms, he paid me a visit, which
ended in my purchasing an antique silver lamp,
which he assured me was a Cellini,—it was hand-
some enough even for that,—and some other knick-
knacks for my sitting-room. Why Simon should
pursue this petty trade I never could imagine. He
apparently had plenty of money, and had the entrée
of the best houses in the city,—taking care, however,
I suppose, to drive no bargains within the enchanted
circle of the Upper Ten. I came at length to the
conclusion that this peddling was but a mask to


182
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
cover some greater object, and even went so far as
to believe my young acqaintance to be implicated
in the slave-trade. That, however, was none of my
affair.
On the present occasion, Simon entered my room
in a state of considerable excitement.
“Ah! mon ami!” he cried, before I could even
offer him the ordinary salutation, “it has occurred
to me to be the witness of the most astonishing
things in the world. I promenade myself to the
house of Madame-how does the little animal-le
renard—name himself in the Latin ?"
“Vulpes," I answered.
"Ah! yes,—Vulpes. I promenade myself to the
house of Madame Vulpes."
"The spirit medium ?"
"Yes, the great medium. Great heavens! what a
woman! I write on a slip of paper many of ques-
tions concerning affairs the most secret,-affairs that
conceal themselves in the abysses of my heart the
most profound; and behold! by example! what oc-
curs? This devil of a woman makes me replies the
most truthful to all of them. She talks to me of
things that I do not love to talk of to myself. What
am I to think? I am fixed to the earth!”
“Am I to understand you, M. Simon, that this
Mrs. Vulpes replied to questions secretly written by
you, which questions related to events known only
to yourself?”
“Ah! more than that, more than that,” he an-
swered, with an air of some alarm. “She related to


THE DIAMOND LENS
183
me things— But," he added, after a pause, and
suddenly changing his manner, "why occupy our-
selves with these follies? It was all the biology,
without doubt. It goes without saying that it has
not my credence- But why are we here, mon ami?
It has occurred to me to discover the most beautiful
thing as you can imagine, –a vase with green lizards
on it, composed by the great Bernard Palissy. It is
in my apartment; let us mount. I go to show it to
you."
I followed Simon mechanically; but my thoughts
were far from Palissy and his enamelled ware,
although I, like him, was seeking in the dark a great
discovery. This casual mention of the spiritualist,
Madame Vulpes, set me on a new track. What if
this spiritualism should be really a great fact?
What if, through communication with more subtile
organisms than my own, I could reach at a single
bound the goal, which perhaps a life of agonizing
mental toil would never enable me to attain?
While purchasing the Palissy vase from my friend
Simon, I was mentally arranging a visit to Madame
Vulpes.
III
THE SPIRIT OF LEEUWENHOEK
Two evenings after this, thanks to an arrange-
ment by letter and the promise of an ample fee, I.
found Madame Vulpes awaiting me at her residence


184
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
alone. She was a coarse-featured woman, with keen
and rather cruel dark eyes, and an exceedingly sen-
sual expression about her mouth and under jaw.
She received me in perfect silence, in an apartment
on the ground floor, very sparely furnished. In the
centre of the room, close to where Mrs. Vulpes sat,
there was a common round mahogany table. If I
had come for the purpose of sweeping her chimney,
the woman could not have looked more indifferent
to my appearance. There was no attempt to inspire
the visitor with awe. Everything bore a simple and
practical aspect. This intercourse with the spiritual
world was evidently as familiar an occupation with
Mrs. Vulpes as eating her dinner or riding in an
omnibus.
"You come for a communication, Mr. Linley?"
said the medium, in a dry, business-like tone of voice.
“By appointment,—yes."
“What sort of communication do you want-a
written one?”
“Yes I wish for a written one."
“From any particular spirit?".
“Yes."
"Have you ever known this spirit on this earth ?”
“Never. He died long before I was born. I wish
merely to obtain from him some information which
he ought to be able to give better than any other."
“Will you seat yourself at the table, Mr. Linley,"
said the medium, “and place your hands upon it?"
I obeyed,—Mrs. Vulpes being seated opposite to
me, with her hands also on the table. We remained


THE DIAMOND LENS
185
thus for about a minute and a half, when a violent
succession of raps came on the table, on the back of
my chair, on the floor immediately under my feet,
and even on the window-panes. Mrs. Vulpes smiled
composedly.
"They are very strong to-night,” she remarked.
"You are fortunate." She then continued, “Will the
spirits communicate with this gentleman ?"
Vigorous affirmative.
"Will the particular spirit he desires to speak with
communicate ?"
A very confused rapping followed this question.
"I know what they mean," said Mrs. Vulpes, ad-
dressing herself to me; "they wish you to write down
the name of the particular spirit that you desire to
converse with. Is that so?" she added, speaking
to her invisible guests.
That it was so was evident from the numerous
affirmatory responses. While this was going on, I
tore a slip from my pocket-book, and scribbled a
name, under the table.
“Will this spirit communicate in writing with this
gentleman ?” asked the medium once more.
After a moment's pause, her hand seemed to be
seized with a violent tremor, shaking so forcibly
that the table vibrated. She said that a spirit had
seized her hand and would write. I handed her
some sheets of paper that were on the table, and a
pencil. The latter she held loosely in her hand,
which presently began to move over the paper with
a singular and seemingly involuntary motion. After


186
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
a few moments had elapsed, she handed me the
paper, on which I found written, in a large, uncul.
tivated hand, the words, "He is not here, but has
been sent for.” A pause of a minute or so now en-
· sued, during which Mrs. Vulpes remained perfectly
silent, but the raps continued at regular intervals.
When the short period I mention had elapsed, the
hand of the medium was again seized with its con-
vulsive tremor, and she wrote, under this strange
influence, a few words on the paper, which she
handed to me. They were as follows:
"I am here. Question me. Leeuwenhoek."
I was astounded. The name was identical with
that I had written beneath the table, and carefully
kept concealed. Neither was it at all probable that
an uncultivated woman like Mrs. Vulpes should
know even the name of the great father of micro-
scopics. It may have been biology; but this theory
was soon doomed to be destroyed. I wrote on my
slip-still concealing it from Mrs. Vulpes—a series
of questions, which, to avoid tediousness, I shall
place with the responses, in the order in which they
occurred:
I.-Can the microscope be brought to perfection?
Spirit.—Yes.
1.—Am I destined to accomplish this great task?
Spirit.—You are.
1.—I wish to know how to proceed to attain this
end. For the love which you bear to science, help
me!
Spirit.-A diamond of one hundred and forty


188
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
panied me to the door, hoping that I was satisfied.
The raps followed us as we went through the hall,
sounding on the balusters, the flooring, and even the
lintels of the door. I hastily expressed my satisfac-
tion, and escaped hurriedly into the cool night air.
I walked home with but one thought possessing me,
-how to obtain a diamond of the immense size re-
quired. My entire means multiplied a hundred
times over would have been inadequate to its pur-
chase. Besides, such stones are rare, and become
historical. I could find such only in the regalia of
Eastern or European monarchs.
IV
THE EYE OF MORNING
There was a light in Simon's room as I entered
my house. A vague impulse urged me to visit him.
As I opened the door of his sitting-room unan-
nounced, he was bending, with his back toward me,
over a carcel lamp, apparently engaged in minutely
examining some object which he held in his hands.
As I entered, he started suddenly thrust his hand
into his breast pocket, and turned to me with a face
crimson with confusion.
“What!” I cried, “poring over the miniature of
some fair lady? Well, don't blush so much; I
won't ask to see it."
Simon laughed awkwardly enough, but made


190
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
secret, whatever it was. It was necessary to reassure
him.
“My dear Simon,” I said, “I am entirely at a loss
to know what you mean. I went to Madame Vulpes
to consult with her on a scientific problem, to the
solution of which I discovered that a diamond of the
size I just mentioned was necessary. You were
never alluded to during the evening, nor, so far as
I was concerned, even thought of. What can be the
meaning of this outburst? If you happen to have
a set of valuable diamonds in your possession, you
need fear nothing from me. The diamond which I
require you could not possess; or, if you did possess
it, you would not be living here."
Something in my tone must have completely re-
assured him; for his expression immediately changed
to a sort of constrained merriment, combined, how-
ever, with a certain suspicious attention to my
movements. He laughed, and said that I must
bear with him; that he was at certain moments sub-
ject to a species of vertigo, which betrayed itself
in incoherent speeches, and that the attacks passed
off as rapidly as they came. He put his weapon
aside while making this explanation, and endeav-
ored, with some success, to assume a more cheerful
air.
All this did not impose on me in the least. I was
too much accustomed to analytical labors to be
baffled by so flimsy a veil. I determined to probe
the mystery to the bottom.
"Simon,” I said, gayly, "let us forget all this


THE DIAMOND LENS
191
over a bottle of Burgundy. I have a case of Laus-
seure's Clos Vougeot downstairs, fragrant with the
odors and ruddy with the sunlight of the Côte d'Or.
Let us have up a couple of bottles. What say you ?”
“With all my heart," answered Simon, smilingly.
I produced the wine and we seated ourselves to
drink. It was of a famous vintage, that of 1848, a
year when war and wine throve together,—and its
pure but powerful juice seemed to impart renewed
vitality to the system. By the time we had half
finished the second bottle, Simon's head, which I
knew was a weak one, had begun to yield, while I
remained calm as ever, only that every draught
seemed to send a flush of vigor through my limbs.
Simon's utterance became more and more indis-
tinct. He took to singing French chansons of a not
very moral tendency. I rose suddenly from the
table just at the conclusion of one of those incoherent
verses, and fixing my eyes on him with a quiet
smile, said: “Simon, I have deceived you. I
learned your secret this evening. You may as well
be frank with me. Mrs. Vulpes, or rather one of
her spirits, told me all.”
He started with horror. His intoxication seemed
for the moment to fade away, and he made a move-
ment towards the weapon that he had a short time
before laid down. I stopped him with my hand.
"Monster!" he cried, passionately, “I am ruined!
What shall I do? You shall never have it! I
swear by my mother!"


192
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
"I don't want it," I said; "rest secure, but be
frank with me. Tell me all about it.”
The drunkenness began to return. He protested
with maudlin earnestness that I was entirely mis-
taken,—that I was intoxicated; then asked me to
swear eternal secrecy, and promised to disclose the
mystery to me. I pledged myself, of course, to all.
With an uneasy look in his eyes, and hands unsteady
with drink and nervousness, he drew a small case
from his breast and opened it. Heavens! How
the mild lamplight was shivered into a thousand
prismatic arrows, as it fell upon a vast rose-diamond
that glittered in the case! I was no judge of dia-
monds, but I saw at a glance that this was a gem
of rare size and purity. I looked at Simon with
wonder, and must I confess it ?—with envy. How
could he have obtained this treasure? In reply to
my questions, I could just gather from his drunken
statements (of which, I fancy, half the incoherence
was affected) that he had been superintending a
gang of slaves engaged in diamond-washing in
Brazil; that he had seen one of them secrete a dia-
mond, but, instead of informing his employers, had
quietly watched the negro until he saw him bury his
treasure; that he had dug it up and fled with it, but
that as yet he was afraid to attempt to dispose of it
publicly,—so valuable a gem being almost certain to
attract too much attention to its owner's antecedents,
—and he had not been able to discover any of those
obscure channels by which such matters are con-
veyed away safely. He added, that, in accordance


THE DIAMOND LENS
193
with oriental practice, he had named his diamond
with the fanciful title of “The Eye of Morning."
While Simon was relating this to me, I regarded
the great diamond attentively. Never had I beheld
anything so beautiful. All the glories of light, ever
imagined or described, seemed to pulsate in its
crystalline chambers. Its weight, as I learned from
Simon, was exactly one hundred and forty carats.
Here was an amazing coincidence. The hand of
destiny seemed in it. On the very evening when the
spirit of Leeuwenhoek communicates to me the
great secret of the microscope, the priceless means
which he directs me to employ start up within my
easy reachl. I determined, with the most perfect
deliberation, to possess myself of Simon's diamond.
I sat opposite to him while he nodded over his
glass, and calmly revolved the whole affair. I did
not for an instant contemplate so foolish an act as a
common theft, which would of course be discovered
or at least necessitate flight and concealment, all of
which must interfere with my scientific plans.
There was but one step to be taken,—to kill Simon.
After all, what was the life of a little peddling Jew,
in comparison with the interests of science? Human
beings are taken every day from the condemned
prisons to be experimented on by surgeons. This
man, Simon, was by his own confession a criminal,
a robber, and I believed on my soul a murderer. He
deserved death quite as much as any felon con-
demned by the laws: why should I not, like govern-


194
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
lea
ment, contrive that his punishment should contrib-
ute to the progress of human knowledge ?
The means for accomplishing everything I desired
lay within my reach. There stood upon the mantel.
piece a bottle half full of French laudanum. Simon
was so occupied with his diamond, which I had just
restored to him, that it was an affair of no difficulty
to drug his glass. In a quarter of an hour he was in
a profound sleep.
I now opened his waistcoat, took the diamond
from the inner pocket in which he had placed it, and
removed him to the bed, on which I laid him so that
his feet hung down over the edge. I had possessed
myself of the Malay creese, which I held in my
right hand, while with the other I discovered as
accurately as I could by pulsation the exact locality
of the heart. It was essential that all the aspects
of his death should lead to the surmise of self-
murder. I calculated the exact angle at which it
was probable that the weapon, if levelled by Simon's
own hand, would enter his breast; then with one
powerful blow I thrust it up to the hilt in the very
spot which I desired to penetrate. A convulsive
thrill ran through Simon's limbs. I heard a smoth-
ered sound issue from his throat, precisely like the
bursting of a larger air-bubble, sent up by a diver,
when it reaches the surface of the water; he turned
half round on his side, and, as if to assist my plans
more effectually, his right hand, moved by some
mere spasmodic impulse, clasped the handle of the
creese, which it remained holding with extraordinary


THE DIAMOND LENS
195
muscular tenacity. Beyond this there was no ap-
parent struggle. The laudanum, I presume, par-
alyzed the usual nervous action. He must have
died instantly.
There was yet something to be done. To make
it certain that all suspicion of the act should be di-
verted from any inhabitant of the house to Simon
himself, it was necessary that the door should be
found in the morning locked on the inside. How to
do this, and afterwards escape myself? Not by
the window; that was a physical impossibility.
Besides, I was determined that the windows also
should be found bolted. The solution was simple
enough. I descended softly to my own room for a
peculiar instrument which I had used for holding
small slippery substances, such as minute spheres of
glass, etc. This instrument was nothing more than
a long slender hand-vise, with a very powerful
grip, and a considerable leverage, which last was
accidentally owing to the shape of the handle.
Nothing was simpler than, when the key was in the
lock, to seize the end of its stem in this vise, through
the keyhole, from the outside, and lock the door.
Previously, however, to doing this, I burned a
number of papers on Simon's hearth. Suicides
almost always burn papers before they destroy
themselves. I also emptied some more laudanum
into Simon's glass,--having first removed from it
all traces of wine, cleaned the other wine-glass,
and brought the bottles away with me. If traces
of two persons drinking had been found in the room,


196
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
the question naturally would have arisen, Who was
the second ? Besides, the wine-bottles might have
been identified as belonging to me. The laudanum
I poured out to account for its presence in his
stomach, in case of a post-mortem examination.
The theory naturally would be, that he first intended
to poison himself, but, after swallowing a little of
the drug, was either disgusted with its taste, or
changed his mind from other motives, and chose the
dagger. These arrangements made, I walked out,
leaving the gas burning, locked the door with my
vise, and went to bed.
Simon's death was not discovered until nearly
three in the afternoon. The servant, astonished at
seeing the gas burning,—the light streaming on the
dark landing from under the door,—peeped through
the keyhole and saw Simon on the bed. She gave
the alarm. The door was burst open, and the
neighborhood was in a fever of excitement.
Everyone in the house was arrested, myself in-
cluded. There was an inquest; but no clew to his
death beyond that of suicide could be obtained.
Curiously enough, he had made several speeches to
his friends the preceding week, that seemed to point
to self-destruction. One gentleman swore that
Simon had said in his presence that "he was tired of
life." His landlord affirmed that Simon, when pay-
ing him his last month's rent, remarked that “he
should not pay him rent much longer.” All the
other evidence corresporded,—the door locked in-
side, the position of the corpse, the burnt papers.


THE DIAMOND LENS
197
As I anticipated, no one knew of the possession of
the diamond by Simon, so that no motive was sug-
gested for his murder. The jury, after a prolonged
examination, brought in the usual verdict, and the
neighorhood once more settled down into its accus-
tomed quiet.
e more
CCUS-
ANIMULA
The three months succeeding Simon's catastrophe
I devoted night and day to my diamond lens. I
had constructed a vast galvanic battery, composed
of nearly two thousand pairs of plates,-a higher
power I dared not use, lest the diamond should be
calcined. By means of this enormous engine I was
enabled to send a powerful current of electricity
continually through my great diamond, which it
seemed to me gained in lustre every day. At the
expiration of a month I commenced the grinding and
polishing of the lens, a work of intense toil and
exquisite delicacy. The great density of the stone,
and the care required to be taken with the curvatures
of the surfaces of the lens, rendered the labor the
severest and most harassing that I had yet under
gone.
. At last the eventful moment came; the lens was
completed. I stood trembling on the threshold of
new worlds. I had the realization of Alexander's
famous wish before me. The lens lay on the table,


198
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
ready to be placed upon its platform. My hand
fairly shook as I enveloped a drop of water with a
thin coating of oil of turpentine, preparatory to its
examination,--a process necessary in order to pre-
vent the rapid evaporation of the water. I now
placed the drop on a thin slip of glass under the
lens, and throwing upon it, by the combined aid of a
prism and a mirror, a powerful stream of light, I
approached my eye to the minute hole drilled
through the axis of the lens. For an instant I saw
nothing save what semed to be an illuminated chaos,
a vast luminous abyss. A pure white light, cloudless
and serene, and seemingly as limitless as space itself,
was my first impression. Gently, and with the
greatest care, I depressed the lens a few hair's-
breadths. The wondrous illumination still .con-
tinued, but as the lens approached the object a scene
of indescribable beauty was unfolded to my view.
I seemed to gaze upon a vast space, the limits of
which extended far beyond my vision. An atmos-
phere of magical luminousness permeated the entire
field of view. I was amazed to see no trace of
animalculous life. Not a living thing, apparently,
inhabited that dazzling expanse. I comprehended
instantly that, by the wondrous power of my lens, I
had penetrated beyond the grosser particles of
aqueous matter, beyond the realms of infusoria and
protozoa, down to the original gaseous globule, into
whose luminous interior I was gazing, as into an
almost boundless dome filled with a supernatural
radiance.


THE DIAMOND LENS
199
It was, however, no brilliant void into which I
looked. On every side I beheld beautiful inorganic
forms, of unknown texture, and colored with the
most enchanting hues. These forms presented the
appearance of what might be called, for want of a
more specific definition, foliated clouds of the high-
est rarity; that is, they undulated and broke into
vegetable formations, and were tinged with splen-
dors compared with which the gilding of our autumn
woodlands is as dross compared with gold. Far
away into the illimitable distance stretched long
avenues of these gaseous forests, dimly transparent,
and painted with prismatic hues of unimaginable
brilliancy. The pendent branches waved along the
fluid glades until every vista seemed to break through
half-lucent ranks of many-colored drooping silken
pennons. What seemed to be either fruits or flow-
ers, pied with a thousand hues lustrous and ever
varying, bubbled from the crowns of this fairy
foliage. No hills, no lakes, no rivers, no forms ani-
mate or inanimate, were to be seen, save those vast
auroral copses that floated serenely in the luminous
stillness, with leaves and fruits and flowers gleaming
with unknown fires, unrealizable by mere imagina-
tion.
How strange, I thought, that this sphere should
be thus condemned to solitude! I had hoped, at
least, to discover some new form of animal life-
perhaps of a lower class than any with which we are
at present acquainted, but still, some living organism.
re


THE DIAMOND LENS
201
bees of Hybla nestled upon my lips, they would still
sing but hoarsely the wondrous harmonies of outline
that enclosed her form.
She swept out from between the rainbow-curtains
of the cloud-trees into the broad sea of light that
lay beyond. Her motions were those of some grace-
ful naiad, cleaving, by a mere effort of her will, the
clear, unruffled waters that fill the chambers of the
sea. She floated forth with the serene grace of a
frail bubble ascending through the still atmosphere
of a June day. The perfect roundness of her limbs
formed suave and enchanting curves. It was like
listening to the most spiritual symphony of Bee-
thoven the divine, to watch the harmonious flow of
lines. This, indeed, was a pleasure cheaply pur-
chased at any price. What cared I if I had waded
to the portal of this wonder through another's
blood? I would have given my own to enjoy one
such moment of intoxication and delight.
Breathless with gazing on this lovely wonder, and
forgetful for an instant of everything save her pres-
ence, I withdrew my eye from the microscope
eagerly,—alas! As my gaze fell on the thin slide
that lay beneath my instrument, the bright light
from mirror and from prism sparkled on a colorless
drop of water! There, in that tiny bead of dew,
this beautiful being was forever imprisoned. The
planet Neptune was not more distant from me than
she. I hastened once more to apply my eye to the
microscope.
Animula (let me now call her by that dear name


202
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
which I subsequently bestowed on her) had changed
her position. She had again approached the won-
drous forest, and was gazing earnestly upwards.
Presently one of the trees—as I must call them-
unfolded a long ciliary process, with which it seized
one of the gleaming fruits that glittered on its sum-
mit, and, sweeping slowly down, held it within reach
of Animula. The sylph took it in her delicate hand
and began to eat. My attention was so entirely
absorbed by her, that I could not apply myself to
the task of determining whether this singular plant
was or was not instinct with volition.
I watched her, as she made her repast, with the
most profound attention. The suppleness of her
motions sent a thrill of delight through my frame;
my heart beat madly as she turned her beautiful eyes
in the direction of the spot in which I stood. What
would I not have given to have had the power to
precipitate myself into that luminous ocean, and
float with her through those groves of purple and
gold! While I was thus breathlessly following her
every movement, she suddenly started, seemed to
listen for a moment, and then cleaving the brilliant
ether in which she was floating, like a flash of light,
pierced through the opaline forest, and disappeared.
Instantly a series of the most singular sensations
attacked me. It seemed as if I had suddenly gone
blind. The luminous sphere was still before me,
but my daylight had vanished. What caused this
sudden disappearance? Had she a lover or a
husband? Yes, that was the solution! Some


THE DIAMOND LENS
203
signal from a happy fellow-being had vibrated
through the avenues of the forest, and she had
obeyed the summons.
The agony of my sensations, as I arrived at this
conclusion, startled me. I tried to reject the con-
viction that my reason forced upon me. I battled
against the fatal conclusion,--but in vain. It was
so. I had no escape from it. I loved an animalcule!
It is true that, thanks to the marvellous power of
my microscope, she appeared of human proportions.
Instead of presenting the revolting aspect of the
coarser creatures, that live and struggle and die, in
the more easily resolvable portions of the water-
drop, she was fair and delicate and of surpassing
beauty. But of what account was all that? Every
time that my eyes was withdrawn from the instru-
ment, it fell on a miserable drop of water, within
which, I must be content to know, dwelt all that
could make my life lovely.
Could she but see me once! Could I for one
moment pierce the mystical walls that so inexorably
rose to separate us, and whisper all that filled my
soul, I might consent to be satisfied for the rest of
my life with the knowledge of her remote sympathy.
It would be something to have established even the
faintest personal link to bind us together,-to know
that at times, when roaming through those en-
chanted glades, she might think of the wonderful
stranger, who had broken the monotony of her life
with his presence, and left a gentle memory in her
heart!


204
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
But it could not be. No invention of which
human intellect was capable could break down the
barriers that nature had erected. I might feast my
soul upon the wondrous beauty, yet she must always
remain ignorant of the adoring eyes that day and
night gazed upon her, and, even when closed, beheld
her in dreams. With a bitter cry of anguish I filed
from the room, and, flinging myself on my bed,
sobbed myself to sleep like a child.
VI
THE SPILLING OF THE CUP
I arose the next morning almost at daybreak, and
rushed to my microscope. I trembled as I sought
the luminous world in miniature that contained my
all. Animula was there. I had left the gas-lamp,
surrounded by its moderators, burning when I went
to bed the night before. I found the sylph bathing,
as it were, with an expression of pleasure animating
her features, in the brilliant light which surrounded
her. She tossed her lustrous golden hair over her
shoulders with innocent coquetry. She lay at full
length in the transparent medium, in which she sup-
ported herself with ease, and gambolled with the
enchanting grace that the nymph Salmacis might
have exhibited when she sought to conquer the
modest Hermaphroditus. I tried an experiment to
satisfy myself if her powers of reflection were de-
veloped. I lessened the lamplight considerably. By


THE DIAMOND LENS
205
the dim light that remained, I could see an expres-
sion of pain flit across her face. She looked upward
suddenly, and her brows contracted. I flooded the
stage of the microscope again with a full stream of
light, and her whole expression changed. She
sprang forward like some substance deprived of all
weight. Her eyes sparkled and her lips moved.
Ah! if science had only the means of conducting and
reduplicating sounds, as it does the rays of light,
what carols of happiness would then have entranced
my ears! what jubilant hymns to Adonais would
have thrilled the illumined air!
I now comprehend how it was that the Count de
Gabalis peopled his mystic world with sylphs,-
beautiful beings whose breath of life was lambent
fire, and who sported forever in regions of purest
ether and purest light. The Rosicrucian had antici-
pated the wonder that I had practically realized.
How long this worship of my strange divinity
went on thus I scarcely know. I lost all note of
time. All day from early dawn, and far into the
night, I was to be found peering through that won-
derful lens. I saw no one, went nowhere, and scarce
allowed myself sufficient time for my meals. My
whole life was absorbed in contemplation as rapt
as that of any of the Romish saints. Every hour
that I gazed upon the divine form strengthened my
passion,-a passion that was always overshadowed
by the maddening conviction that, although I could
gaze on her at will, she never, never could behold
me!


206
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
At length I grew so pale and emaciated from want
of rest and continual brooding over my insane love
and its cruel conditions, that I determined to make
some effort to wean myself from it. “Come," I
said, "this is at best but a fantasy. Your imagination
has bestowed on Animula charms which in reality
she does not possess. Seclusion from female society
has produced this morbid condition of mind. Com-
pare her with the beautiful women of your own
world, and this false enchantment will vanish.”
I looked over the newspapers by chance. There
I beheld the advertisement of a celebrated danseuse
who appeared nightly at Niblo's. The Signorina
Caradolce had the reputation of being the most
beautiful as well as the most graceful woman in the
world. I instantly dressed and went to the theatre.
The curtain drew up. The usual semicircle of
fairies in white muslin were standing on the right
toe around the enamelled flower-bank, of green
canvas, on which the belated prince was sleeping.
Suddenly a flute is heard. The fairies start. The
trees open, the fairies all stand on the left toe, and
the queen enters. It was the Signorina. She
bounded forward amid thunders of applause, and,
lighting on one foot, remained poised in air.
Heavens! was this the great enchantress that had
drawn monarchs at her chariot-wheels? Those
heavy muscular limbs, those thick ankles, those
cavernous eyes, that stereotyped smile, those crudely
painted cheeks! Where were the vermeil blooms,


THE DIAMOND LENS
207
the liquid expressive eyes, the harmonious limbs of
Animula?
The Signorina danced. What gross, discordant
movements. The play of her limbs was all false
and artificial. Her bounds were painful athletic
efforts; her poses were angular and distressed the
eye. I could bear it no longer; with an exclamation
of disgust that drew every eye upon me, I rose from
my seat in the very middle of the Signorina's pas-de-
fascination, and abruptly quitted the house.
I hastened home to feast my eyes once more on
the lovely form of my sylph. I felt that henceforth
to combat this passion would be impossible. I
applied my eye to the lens. Animula was there,
but what could have happened? Some terrible
change seemed to have taken place during my
absence. Some secret grief seemed to cloud the
lovely features of her I gazed upon. Her face had
grown thin and haggard; her limbs trailed heavily;
the wondrous lustre of her golden hair had faded.
She was ill l-ill, and I could not assist her! I be-
lieve at that moment I would have gladly forfeited
all claims to my human birthright, if I could only
have been dwarfed to the size of an animalcule, and
permitted to console her from whom fate had for-
ever divided me.
I racked my brain for the solution of this mystery.
What was it that afflicted the sylph? She seemed
to suffer intense pain. Her features contracted,
and she even writhed, as if with some internal
agony. The wondrous forests appeared also to


208
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
have lost half their beauty. Their hues were dim
and in some places faded away altogether. I
watched Animula for hours with a breaking heart,
and she seemed absolutely to wither away under
my very eye. Suddenly I remembered that I had not
looked at the water-drop for several days. In fact,
I hated to see it; for it reminded me of the natural
barrier between Animula and myself. I hurriedly
looked down on the stage of the microscope. The
slide was still there,—but, great heavens! the water-
drop had vanished! The awful truth burst upon
me; it had evaporated; until it had become so
minute as to be invisible to the naked eye; I had
been gazing on its last atom, the one that contained
Animula,—and she was dying!
I rushed again to the front of the lens, and looked
through. Alas! the last agony had seized her.
The rainbow-hued forests had all melted away, and
Animula lay struggling feebly in what seemed to be
a spot of dim light. Ah! the sight was horrible; the
limbs once so round and lovely shrivelling up into
nothings; the eyes,—those eyes that shone like
heaven-being quenched into black dust; the lustrous
golden hair now lank and discolored. The last throe
came. I beheld that final struggle of the blackening
form-and I fainted.
When I awoke out of a trance of many hours, I
found myself lying amid the wreck of my instru-
ment, myself as shattered in mind and body as it.
I crawled feebly to my bed, from which I did not
rise for months.


THE HORLA
211
bells which sound through the blue air on fine morn-
ings, sending their sweet and distant iron clang to
me; their metallic sound which the breeze wafts in
my direction, now stronger and now weaker, accord-
ing as the wind is stronger or lighter.
What a delicious morning it was!
About eleven o'clock, a long line of boats drawn
by a steam tug, as big as a fly, and which scarcely
puffed while emitting its thick smoke, passed my
gate.
After two English schooners, whose red flag
fluttered toward the sky, there came a magnificent
Brazilian three-master; it was perfectly white and
wonderfully clean and shining. I saluted it, I
hardly know why, except that the sight of the vessel
gave me great pleasure.
May 12th. I have had a slight feverish attack
for the last few days, and I feel ill, or rather I feel
low-spirited.
Whence do these mysterious influences come,
which change our happiness into discouragement,
and our self-confidence into diffidence? One might
almost say that the air, the invisible air, is full of
unknowable Forces, whose mysterious presence we
have to endure. I wake up in the best spirits, with
an inclination to sing in my throat. Why? I go
down by the side of the water, and suddenly, after
walking a short distance, I return home wretched,
as if some misfortune were awaiting me there.
Why? Is it a cold shiver which, passing over my
skin, has upset my nerves and given me low spirits ?


212
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
Is it the form of the clouds, or the color of the sky,
or the color of the surrounding objects which is so
changeable, which have troubled my thoughts as
they passed before my eyes? Who can tell ?
Everything that surrounds us, everything that we
see without looking at it, everything that we touch
without knowing it, everything that we handle with-
out feeling it, all that we meet without clearly distin-
guishing it, has a rapid, surprising and inexplicable
effect upon us and upon our organs, and through
them on our ideas and on our heart itself.
How profound that mystery of the Invisible is!
We cannot fathom it with our miserable senses, with
our eyes which are unable to perceive what is either
too small or too great, too near to, or too far from
us; neither the inhabitants of a star nor of a drop
of water. .. with our ears that deceive us, for
they transmit to us the vibrations of the air in
sonorous notes. They are fairies who work the
miracle of changing that movement into noise, and
by that metamorphosis give birth to music, which
makes the mute agitation of nature musical ...
with our sense of smell which is smaller than that
of a dog ... with our sense of taste which can
scarcely distinguish the age of a wine!
Oh! If we only had other organs which would
work other miracles in our favor, what a number of
fresh things we might discover around us !
May 16th. I am ill, decidedly! I was so well last
month! I am feverish, horribly feverish, or rather
I am in a state of feverish enervation, which makes


214
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
and delicate functions of our living machinery, can
turn the most lighthearted of men into a melancholy
one, and make a coward of the bravest. Then, I go
to bed, and I wait for sleep as a man might wait for
the executioner. I wait for its coming with dread,
and my heart beats and my legs tremble, while my
whole body shivers beneath the warmth of the bed-
clothes, until the moment when I suddenly fall
asleep, as one would throw oneself into a pool of
stagnant water in order to drown oneself. I do
not feel coming over me, as I used to do formerly,
this perfidious sleep which is close to me and watch-
ing me, which is going to seize me by the head, to
close my eyes and annihilate me.
I sleep-a long time-two or three hours perhaps
—then a dream-no—a nightmare lays hold on me.
I feel that I am in bed and asleep—I feel it and I
know it—and I feel also that somebody is coming
close to me, is looking at me, touching me, is getting
on to my bed, is kneeling on my chest, is taking my
neck between his hands and squeezing it-squeezing
it with all his might in order to strangle me.
I struggle, bound by that terrible powerlessness
which paralyzes us in our dreams; I try to cry out
—but I cannot; I want to move I cannot; I try,
with the most violent efforts and out of breath, to
turn over and throw off this being which is crushing
and suffocating me, I cannot !
And then, suddenly, I wake up, shaken and
bathed in perspiration; I light a candle and find that
I am alone, and after that crisis, which occurs every


216
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
I nearly fell down, and opened my eyes; the trees
were dancing round me and the earth heaved; I was
obliged to sit down. Then, ah! I no longer remem-
bered how I had come! What a strange idea!
What a strange, strange idea! I did not the least
know. I started off to the right, and got back into
the avenue which had led me into the middle of
the forest.
June 3d. I have had a terrible night. I shall go
away for a few weeks, for no doubt a journey will
set me up again.
July 2d. I have come back, quite cured, and
have had a most delightful trip into the bargain.
I have been to Mont Saint-Michel, which I had not
seen before.
What a sight, when one arrives as I did, at Ay.
ranches toward the end of the day! The town
stands on a hill, and I was taken into the public
garden at the extremity of the town. I uttered a
cry of astonishment. An extraordinary large bay
lay extended before me, as far as my eyes could
reach, between two hills which were lost to sight in
the mist; and in the midddle of this immense yellow
bay, under a clear, golden sky, a peculiar hill rose
up, sombre and pointed in the midst of the sand.
The sun had just disappeared, and under the still
flaming sky the outline of that fantastic rock stood
out, which bears on its summit a fantastic monu-
ment.
At daybreak I went to it. The tide was low as it
had been the night before, and I saw that wonderful


218
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
10
people declare that it is nothing but the cry of the
sea birds, which occasionally resembles bleatings,
and occasionally human lamentations; but belated
fishermen swear that they have met an old shepherd,
whose head, which is covered by his cloak, they can
never see, wandering on the downs, between two
tides, round the little town placed so far out of the
world, and who is guiding and walking before them,
a he-goat with a man's face, and a she-goat with a
woman's face, and both of them with white hair;
and talking incessantly, quarrelling in a strange
language, and then suddenly ceasing to talk in order
to bleat with all their might.
“Do you believe it?" I asked the monk. “I
scarcely know," he replied, and I continued: “If
there are other beings besides ourselves on this
earth, how comes it that we have not known it for
so long a time, or why have you not seen them?
How is it that I have not seen them?” He replied:
"Do we see the hundred thousandth part of what
exists? Look here; there is the wind, which is the
strongest force in nature, which knocks down men,
and blows down buildings, uproots trees, raises the
sea into mountains of water; destroys cliffs and casts
great ships onto the breakers; the wind which kills,
which whistles, which sighs, which roars have you
ever seen it, and can you see it? It exists for all
that, however."
I was silent before this simple reasoning. The
man was a philosopher, or perhaps a fool; I could


THE HORLA
221
who looks in horror at the remains of a little water
that has disappeared while he was asleep, through
the glass of a water bottle ? And I remained there
until it was daylight, without venturing to go to bed
again.
July 6th. I am going mad. Again all the con-
tents of my water bottle have been drunk during
the night—or rather, I have drunk it!
But is it I? Is it I? Who could it be? Who?
Oh! God! Am I going mad? Who will save me?
July roth. I have just been through some sur-
prising ordeals. Decidedly I am mad! And yet!-
On July 6th, before going to bed, I put some
wine, milk, water, bread and strawberries on my
table. Somebody drank—I drank—all the water
and a little of the milk, but neither the wine, bread
nor the strawberries were touched.
On the seventh of July I renewed the same experi-
ment, with the same results, and on July 8th, I left
out the water and the milk and nothing was touched.
Lastly, on July 9th I put only water and milk on
my table, taking care to wrap up the bottles in
white muslin and to tie down the stoppers. Then
I rubbed my lips, my beard and my hands with
pencil lead, and went to bed.
Irresistible sleep seized me, which was soon fol-
lowed by a terrible awakening. I had not moved,
and my sheets were not marked. I rushed to the
table. The muslin round the bottles remained
intact; I undid the string, trembling with fear.


THE HORLA
223
Instead of concluding with these simple words:
"I do not understand because the cause escapes me,”
we immediately imagine terrible mysteries and
supernatural powers.
July 14th. Fête of the Republic. I walked
through the streets, and the crackers and flags
amused me like a child. Still it is very foolish to
be merry on a fixed date, by a Government decree.
The populace is an imbecile flock of sheep, now
steadily patient, and now in ferocious revolt. Say
to it: "Amuse yourself,” and it amuses itself,
Say to it: “Go and fight with your neighbor,"
and it goes and fights. Say to it: “Vote for the
· Emperor," and it votes for the Emperor, and then
say to it: "Vote for the Republic," and it votes for
the Republic.
Those who direct it are also stupid; but instead of
obeying men they obey principles, which can only
be stupid, sterile, and false, for the very reason that
they are principles, that is to say, ideas which are
considered as certain and unchangeable, in this
world where one is certain of nothing, since light is
an illusion and noise is an illusion.
July 16th. I saw some things yesterday that
troubled me very much.
I was dining at my cousin's Madame Sablé, whose
husband is colonel of the 76th Chasseurs at Limoges.
There were two young women there, one of whom
had married a medical man, Dr. Parent, who de-
votes himself a great deal to nervous diseases and
the extraordinary manifestations to which at this


224
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
moment experiments in hypnotism and suggestion
give rise.
He related to us at some length, the enormous
results obtained by English scientists and the
doctors of the medical school at Nancy, and the facts
which he adduced appeared to me so strange, that
I declared that I was altogether incredulous.
“We are,” he declared, “on the point of dis-
covering one of the most important secrets of nature,
I mean to say, one of its most important secrets on
this earth, for there are certainly some which are of
a different kind of importance up in the stars, yonder.
Ever since man has thought, since he has been able
to express and write down his thoughts, he has felt
himself close to a mystery which is impenetrable
to his coarse and imperfect senses, and he endeavors
to supplement the want of power of his organs by
the efforts of his intellect. As long as that intellect
still remained in its elementary stage, this inter-
course with invisible spirits assumed forms which
were commonplace though terrifying. Thence
sprang the popular belief in the supernatural, the
legends of wandering spirits, of fairies, of gnomes,
ghosts, I might even say the legend of God, for our
conceptions of the workman-creator, from whatever
religion they may have come down to us, are cer-
tainly the most mediocre, the stupidest and the most
unacceptable inventions that ever sprang from the
frightened brain of any human creatures. Nothing
is truer than what Voltaire says: 'God made man


THE HORLA
225
lan
in His own image, but man has certainly paid Him
back again.'
“But for rather more than a century, men seem to
have had a presentiment of something new. Mes-
mer and some others have put us on an unexpected
track, and especially within the last two or three
years, we have arrived at really surprising results.”
My cousin, who is also very incredulous, smiled,
and Dr. 'Parent said to her: "Would you like me
to try and send you to sleep, Madame?" "Yes,
certainly."
She sat down in an easy-chair, and he began to
look at her fixedly, so as to fascinate her. I sud-
denly felt myself somewhat uncomfortable, with a
beating heart and a choking feeling in my throat.
I saw that Madame Sablé's eyes were growing
heavy, her mouth twitched and her bosom heaved,
and at the end of ten minutes she was asleep.
"Stand behind her," the doctor said to me, and so
I took a seat behind her. He put a visiting card
into her hands, and said to her: "This is a looking-
glass; what do you see in it?” And she replied:
"I see my cousin." "What is he doing?" "He is
twisting his moustache.”. “And now?" "He is
taking a photograph out of his pocket.” “Whose
photograph is it?" "His own."
That was true, and that photograph had been
given me that same evening at the hotel.
"What is his attitude in this portrait?" "He is
standing up with his hat in his hand.”


226
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
So she saw on that card, on that piece of white
pasteboard, as if she had seen it in a looking-glass.
The young women were frightened, and ex-
claimed: “That is quite enough! Quite, quite
enough!”
But the doctor said to her authoritatively: “You
will get up at eight o'clock to-morrow morning; then
you will go and call on your cousin at his hotel and
ask him to lend you five thousand francs which
your husband demands of you, and which he will
ask for when he sets out on his coming journey."
Then he woke her up.
On returning to my hotel, I thought over this
curious séance and I was assailed by doubts, not as
to my cousin's absolute and undoubted good faith,
for I had known her as well as if she had been my
own sister ever since she was a child, but as to a
possible trick on the doctor's part. Had not he,
perhaps, kept a glass hidden in his hand, which he
showed to the young woman in her sleep, at the
same time as he did the card? Professional con-
jurers do things which are just as singular.
So I went home and to bed, and this morning, at
about half past eight, I was awakened by my foot-
man, who said to me: “Madame Sablé has asked to
see you immediately, Monsieur," so I dressed
hastily and went to her.
She sat down in some agitation, with her eyes on
the floor, and without raising her veil she said to
me: “My dear cousin, I am going to ask a great
favor of you.” “What is it, cousin ?" "I do not


THE HORLA
227
like to tell you, and yet I must. I am in absolute
want of five thousand francs.” “What, you ?”
“Yes, I, or rather my husband, who has asked me to
procure them for him.”
I was so stupefied that I stammered out my an-
swers. I asked myself whether she had not really
been making fun of me with Doctor Parent, if it
were not merely a very well-acted farce which had
been got up beforehand. On looking at her atten-
tively, however, my doubts disappeared. She was
trembling with grief, so painful was this step to her,
and I was sure that her throat was full of sobs.
I knew that she was very rich and so I continued :
“What! Has not your husband five thousand
francs at his disposal! Come, think. Are you sure
that he commissioned you to ask me for them?”'
She hesitated for a few seconds, as if she were
making a great effort to search her memory, and
then she replied: "Yes . . . yes, I am quite sure
of it." "He has written to you?”
She hesitated again and reflected, and I guessed
the torture of her thoughts. She did not know. She
only knew that she was to borrow five thousand
francs of me for her husband. So she told a lie.
“Yes, he has written to me." "When, pray? You
did not mention it to me yesterday.” “I received
his letter this morning.” “Can you show it me?"
“No; no ... no ... it contained private mat-
ters . . . things too personal to ourselves. ...I
· burnt it.” “So your husband runs into debt?”
She hesitated again, and then murmured: "I do


228
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
mo.
not know." Thereupon I said bluntly: "I have
not five, thousand francs at my disposal at this mo-
ment, my dear cousin."
She uttered a kind of cry as if she were in pain
and said: "Oh! oh! I beseech you, I beseech you
to get them for me ..."
She got excited and clasped her hands as if she
were praying to me! I heard her voice change its
tone; she wept and stammered, harassed and domi-
nated by the irresistible order that she had received.
"Oh! oh! I beg you to ... if you knew what I
am suffering. ... I want them to-day.”
I had pity on her: "You shall have them by and
by, I swear to you.” “Oh! thank you! thank you!
How kind you are!"
I continued: “Do you remember what took place
at your house last night?" "Yes." "Do you re-
member that Doctor Parent sent you to sleep?"
“Yes.” “Oh! Very well then; he ordered you to
come to me this morning to borrow five thousand
francs, and at this moment you are obeying that
suggestion.”
She considered for a few moments, and then
replied: “But as it is my husband who wants
them ..."
For a whole hour I tried to convince her, but
could not succeed, and when she had gone I went to
the doctor. He was just going out, and he listened
to me with a smile, and said: “Do you believe


THE HORLA
229
now?" "Yes, I cannot help it." "Let us go to your
cousin's."
She was already dozing on a couch, overcome with
fatigue. The doctor felt her pulse, looked at her for
some time with one hand raised toward her eyes
which she closed by degrees under the irresistible
power of this influence, and when she was asleep, he
said:
"Your husband does not require the five thousand
francs any longer! You must, therefore, forget that
you asked your cousin to lend them to you, and, if
he speaks to you about it, you will not understand
him.”
Then he woke her up, and I took out a pocketbook
and said: "Here is what you asked me for this
morning, my dear cousin." But she was so sur-
prised that I did not venture to persist; nevertheless,
I tried to recall the circumstance to her, but she
denied it vigorously, thought that I was making fun
of her, and in the end very nearly lost her temper.
There! I have just come back, and I have not
been able to eat my lunch, for this experiment has
altogether upset me.
July 19th. Many people to whom I have told the
adventure have laughed at me. I no longer know
what to think. The wise man says: Perhaps ?
July 21st. I dined at Bougival, and then I spent
the evening at a boatmen's ball. Decidedly every-
thing depends on place and surroundings. It would


230
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
SE
be the height of folly to believe in the supernatural
on the ile de la Grenouillière? ... but on the top
of Mont Saint-Michel ? ... and in India? We are
terribly under the influence of our surroundings. I
shall return home next week.
July 30th. I came back to my own house yester-
day. Everything is going on well.
August 2d. Nothing fresh; it is splendid weather,
and I spend my days in watching the Seine flow past.
August 4th. Quarrels among my servants. They
declare that the glasses are broken in the cupboards
at night. The footman accuses the cook, who ac-
cuses the needlewoman, who accuses the other two.
Who is the culprit? A clever person, to be able to
tell.
August 6th. This time I am not mad. I have
seen ... I have seen ... I have seen!... I can
doubt no longer ... I have seen it! ...
I was walking at two o'clock among my rose trees,
in the full sunlight ... in the walk bordered by
autumn roses which are beginning to fall. As I
stopped to look at a Géant de Bataille, which had
three splendid blooms, I distinctly saw the stalks of
one of the roses bend, close to me, as if an invisible
hand had bent it, and then break, as if that hand had
picked it! Then the flower raised itself, following
the curve a hand would have described in carry-
ing it toward the mouth, and it remained suspended
in the transparent air, all alone and motionless, a
1Frog Island.


THE HORLA
231
terrible red spot, three yards from my eyes. In des-
peration I rushed at it to take it! I found nothing;
it had disappeared. Then I was seized with furious
rage against myself, for it is not allowable for a
reasonable and serious man to have such hallucina-
tions.
But what is an hallucination? I turned round to
look for the stalk, and I found it immediately under
the bush, freshly broken, between two other roses
which remained on the branch, and I returned home
then, with a much disturbed mind; for I am certain
now, as certain as I am of the alternation of day
and night, that there exists close to me an invisible
being that lives on milk and on water, which can
touch objects, take them and change their places;
which is, consequently, endowed with a material na-
ture, although it is impossible to our senses, and
which lives as I do, under my roof. ...
August 7th. I slept tranquilly. He drank the
water out of my decanter, but did not disturb my
sleep.
I ask myself whether I am mad. As I was walk-
ing just now in the sun by the riverside, doubts as
to my own sanity arose in me; not vague doubts such
as I have had hitherto, but precise and absolute
doubts. I have seen mad people, and I have known
some who have been quite intelligent, lucid, even
clear-sighted in every concern of life, except on one
point. They spoke clearly, readily, profoundly, on
everything, when suddenly their thoughts struck upon
the breakers of their madness and broke to pieces


232
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
there, and were dispersed and foundered in that furi-
ous and terrible sea, full of bounding waves, fogs and
squalls, which is called madness.
I certainly should think that I was mad, absolutely
mad, if I were not conscious, did not perfectly know
my state, if I did fathom it by analyzing it with the
most complete lucidity. I should, in fact, be a reas-
onable man who was laboring under an hallucination.
Some unknown disturbance must have been excited in
my brain, one of those disturbances which physiolo-
gists of the present day try to note and fix precisely,
and that disturbance must have caused a profound
gulf in my mind and in the order and logic of my
ideas. Similar phenomena occur in the dreams
which lead us through the most unlikely phantas-
magoria, without causing us any surprise, because
our verifying apparatus and our sense of control
have gone to sleep, while our imaginative faculty
wakes and works. Is it not possible that one of the
imperceptible keys of the cerebral finger-board has
been paralyzed in me? Some men lose the recollec-
tion of proper names, or of verbs, or of numbers, or
merely of dates, in consequence of the accident. The
localization of all the particles of thought have been
proved nowadays; what then would there be surpris-
ing in the fact that my faculty controlling the un-
certain reality of my hallucinations should be de-
stroyed for the time being!
I thought of all this as I walked by the side of
the water. The sun was shining brightly on the river
and made earth delightful, while it filled my looks


ELCCS WYSTERY TIRES
ere, and pers äspersei me suverai niat uri-
aus und zodie , ful je jcunäng wives, ugs and
suals, which is les nuiiness.
I reziniy shcuid ink tar I vis nad susciutely
mac. II vers 1ct sccus, it ict Jertec DOW
my sunca. * i ccm I i una vzing I i tre
most compizzucöict. I sacuic. in 10t, je rens
anajie man vic visaocrng Inder in a lucration.
Some inkIcwi üscriance must have a acted i
my brzin, ane ut scse üscrancss whici pivsoid-
gsts of se present at T :) Ict ud is grecsey,
and flat scirais nust jaye chuset i riund
muis in ny nind und in de order and cgc ai my
ideas. Simila: piencmena acair in se freuns
which eat is discugh e most unikely piantas
magcra, widicut causing is un surprise, jecause
our versing acaricis unc cur sense of conci
have gone to sleep, while our imaginacre wit
Wikes and works. Ist it possible that one of the
impercepccie zevs of the cerebral inger-gari tas
been parziyzed in ne. Scme nen lose the recoiles
ton ct proçer names, or of verbs, or of numbers, or
merely of facas, in consequence of the accident. The
localizacon of all the partides of thought have been
proved icwadays; what then would there be surpris
ing in the fact that my faculty controlling the one
certain reality of my hallucinations should be the
stroved for the time being
I thought of all this
the water. The sun
and made earth de



THE HORLA
with love for life, for the swallows, whose agility
is always delightful in my eyes, for the plants by the
riverside, whose rustling is a pleasure to my ears
By degrees, however, an inexplicable feeling of
discomfort seized me. It seemed to me as if some
unknown force were numbing and stopping me, were
preventing me from going farther and were calling
me back. I felt that painful wish to return which op-
presses you when you have left a beloved invalid at
home, and when you are seized by a presentiment
that he is worse.
I, therefore, returned in spite of myself, feeling
certain that I should find some bad news awaiting
me, a letter or a telegram, There was nothing, how-
ever, and I was more surprised and uneasy than if
I had had another fantastic vision.
August 8th, I spent a terrible evening yesterday.
He does not show himself any more, but I feel that
he is near me, watching me, looking at me, penetrat-
ing me, dominating me, and more redoubtable when
he hides himself thus than if he were to manifest his
constant and invisible presence by supernatural phe-
nomena. However, I slept.
Nothing: but I am afraid.
Nothing: what will happen tomor-
row?
Still no
nnot stop at home
nanging
ind these thoughts
shall
h. T
night. All day long
y, and have not been
August
Augv
tryir


232
FAMOUS MYSTERY STOT
there, and were dispersed and four
ous and terrible sea, full of boundin
squalls, which is called madness.
I certainly should think that I w:
mad, if I were not conscious, did n
my state, if I did fathom it by ani:
most complete lucidity. I should,
onable man who was laboring unde:
Some unknown disturbance must ha
my brain, one of those disturbance
gists of the present day try to note
and that disturbance must have c:
gulf in my mind and in the order
ideas. Similar phenomena occu i
which lead us through the most
magoria, without causing us any
our verifying apparatus and our
have gone to sleep, while our im
wakes and works. Is it not possibl
imperceptible keys of the cerebral
been paralyzed in me? Some men
tion of proper names, or of verbs,
merely of dates, in consequence of
localization of all the particles
proved nowadays; what the
ing in the fact that m
certain reality
stroyed fo
I thou
the wa
and



-
hat
e of
riverside, whose
-
unknown forte
preventing me
-
-
ever, and I was
37
THE EORIE
with love for 5 Mercy! Sase me! O
is always dreture! what borror!
1. Certainly this is the
pear
emen
By degrees i was possessed and see
discomfort w five thousand frames
ce na-
power of a strategi a
like another soul. I
ant, so
me back. It soul. Is the words
1 which
presses you te
he, this invisible de
home, and ple being, this more
night air,
that he is worse
ters of an
I, therefore ngs exist, then! For
awakened
certain that I ning of the a
g e sensation.
ning of the world
me, a letter or a
mselves in such a
Ly it appeared
me? I have to
had remained
I had had anots what goes on s
its own accord.
August 8th.
Teave it, if I
my window, and
out four minutes,
own eyes another
I managed on the others, as
soner who find
My armchair was
y open. I I knew that he was
vas far
Slace, and that he was
ound, the bound of an
Oh!
ishes to disembowel its
to seize him, to strangle
at before I could reach it,
f somebody had run away
e rocked, my lamp fell and
ow closed as if some thief had
undbar
[ þaged
sugpur
He does not sh
he is near me
ing me, domin
he hides him
constant and
nomena. I
August
Augu:
row?
wit


234
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
able. I wished to accomplish this simple and easy act
of liberty—go out-get into my carriage in order
to go to Rouen—and I have not been able to do it.
What is the reason ?
August 13th. When one is attacked by certain
maladies, all the springs of our physical being appear
to be broken, all our energies destroyed, all our
muscles relaxed, our bones to have become as soft
as our flesh, and our blood as liquid as water. I am
experiencing that in my moral being in a strange and
distressing manner. I have no longer any strength,
any courage, any self-control, nor even any power to
set my own will in motion. I have no power left to
will anything, but someone does it for me and I obey.
August 14th. I am lost! Somebody possesses my
soul and governs it! Somebody orders all my acts,
all my movements, all my thoughts. I am no longer
anything in myself, nothing except an enslaved and
terrified spectator of all the things which I do. I
wish to go out; I cannot. He does not wish to, and
so I remain, trembling and distracted, in the arm-
chair in which he keeps me sitting. I merely wish
to get up and to rouse myself, so as to think that I
am still master of myself: I cannot! I am riveted
to my chair, and my chair adheres to the ground in
such a manner that no force could move us.
Then suddenly, I must, I must go to the ho
my garden to pick some strawberries
and I go there. I pick the
them! Oh! my God! my
there be one, deliver


224
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
moment experiments in hypnotism and suggestion
give rise.
He related to us at some length, the enormous
results obtained by English scientists and the
doctors of the medical school at Nancy, and the facts
which he adduced appeared to me so strange, that
I declared that I was altogether incredulous.
“We are,” he declared, "on the point of dis-
covering one of the most important secrets of nature,
I mean to say, one of its most important secrets on
this earth, for there are certainly some which are of
a different kind of importance up in the stars, yonder.
Ever since man has thought, since he has been able
to express and write down his thoughts, he has felt
himself close to a mystery which is impenetrable
to his coarse and imperfect senses, and he endeavors
to supplement the want of power of his organs by
the efforts of his intellect. As long as that intellect
still remained in its elementary stage, this inter-
course with invisible spirits assumed forms which
were commonplace though terrifying. Thence
sprang the popular belief in the supernatural, the
legends of wandering spirits, of fairies, of gnomes,
ghosts, I might even say the legend of God, for our
conceptions of the workman-creator, from whatever
religion they may have come down to us, are cer-
tainly the most mediocre, the stupidest and the most
unacceptable inventions that ever sprang from the
frightened brain of any human creatures. Nothing
is truer than what Voltaire says: 'God made man


226
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
So she saw on that card, on that piece of white
pasteboard, as if she had seen it in a looking-glass.
The young women were frightened, and ex-
claimed: “That is quite enough! Quite, quite
enough!”
But the doctor said to her authoritatively: “You
will get up at eight o'clock to-morrow morning; then
you will go and call on your cousin at his hotel and
ask him to lend you five thousand francs which
your husband demands of you, and which he will
ask for when he sets out on his coming journey."
Then he woke her up.
On returning to my hotel, I thought over this
curious séance and I was assailed by doubts, not as
to my cousin's absolute and undoubted good faith,
for I had known her as well as if she had been my
own sister ever since she was a child, but as to a
possible trick on the doctor's part. Had not he,
perhaps, kept a glass hidden in his hand, which he
showed to the young woman in her sleep, at the
same time as he did the card? Professional con-
jurers do things which are just as singular.
So I went home and to bed, and this morning, at
about half past eight, I was awakened by my foot-
man, who said to me: “Madame Sablé has asked to
see you immediately, Monsieur," so I dressed
hastily and went to her.
She sat down in some agitation, with her eyes on
the floor, and without raising her veil she said to
me: “My dear cousin, I am going to ask a great
favor of you." "What is it, cousin ?" "I do not


THE HORLA
227
like to tell you, and yet I must. I am in absolute
want of five thousand francs.” “What, you?”
“Yes, I, or rather my husband, who has asked me to
procure them for him.”
I was so stupefied that I stammered out my an-
swers. I asked myself whether she had not really
been making fun of me with Doctor Parent, if it
were not merely a very well-acted farce which had
been got up beforehand. On looking at her atten-
tively, however, my doubts disappeared. She was
trembling with grief, so painful was this step to her,
and I was sure that her throat was full of sobs.
I knew that she was very rich and so I continued:
“What! Has not your husband five thousand
francs at his disposal! Come, think. Are you sure
that he commissioned you to ask me for them?”.
She hesitated for a few seconds, as if she were
making a great effort to search her memory, and
then she replied: "Yes . . . yes, I am quite sure
of it." "He has written to you ?”
She hesitated again and reflected, and I guessed
the torture of her thoughts. She did not know. She
only knew that she was to borrow five thousand
francs of me for her husband. So she told a lie.
“Yes, he has written to me." "When, pray? You
did not mention it to me yesterday." "I received
his letter this morning." "Can you show it me?"
“No; no ... no ... it contained private mat-
ters . . . things too personal to ourselves. ... I
burnt it.” “So your husband runs into debt?"
She hesitated again, and then murmured: “I do
murmu


228
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
not know.” Thereupon I said bluntly: "I have
not five thousand francs at my disposal at this mo-
ment, my dear cousin."
She uttered a kind of cry as if she were in pain
and said: “Oh! oh! I beseech you, I beseech you
to get them for me ..."
She got excited and clasped her hands as if she
were praying to me! I heard her voice change its
tone; she wept and stammered, harassed and domi-
nated by the irresistible order that she had received.
“Oh! oh! I beg you to ... if you knew what I
am suffering. ... I want them to-day.”
I had pity on her: “You shall have them by and
by, I swear to you.” “Oh! thank you! thank you!
How kind you are!"
I continued: “Do you remember what took place
at your house last night?" "Yes." "Do you re-
member that Doctor Parent sent you to sleep?"
“Yes.” “Oh! Very well then; he ordered you to
come to me this morning to borrow five thousand
francs, and at this moment you are obeying that
suggestion."
She considered for a few moments, and then
replied: “But as it is my husband who wants
"But as for a fer
them.
For a whole hour I tried to convince her, but
could not succeed, and when she had gone I went to
the doctor. He was just going out, and he listened
to me with a smile, and said: "Do you believe


230
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
be the height of folly to believe in the supernatural
on the île de la Grenouillière1 ... but on the top
of Mont Saint-Michel ? ... and in India ? We are
terribly under the influence of our surroundings. I
shall return home next week.
July 30th. I came back to my own house yester-
day. Everything is going on well.
August 2d. Nothing fresh; it is splendid weather,
and I spend my days in watching the Seine flow past.
August 4th. Quarrels among my servants. They
declare that the glasses are broken in the cupboards
at night. The footman accuses the cook, who ac-
cuses the needlewoman, who accuses the other two.
Who is the culprit? A clever person, to be able to
tell.
August 6th. This time I am not mad. I have
seen ... I have seen ... I have seen!. . . I can
doubt no longer ... I have seen it! ...
I was walking at two o'clock among my rose trees,
in the full sunlight ... in the walk bordered by
autumn roses which are beginning to fall. As I
stopped to look at a Géant de Bataille, which had
three splendid blooms, I distinctly saw the stalks of
one of the roses bend, close to me, as if an invisible
hand had bent it, and then break, as if that hand had
picked it! Then the flower raised itself, following
the curve a hand would have described in carry-
ing it toward the mouth, and it remained suspended
in the transparent air, all alone and motionless, a
1 Frog Island.


THE HORLA
231
terrible red spot, three yards from my eyes. In des-
peration I rushed at it to take it! I found nothing;
it had disappeared. Then I was seized with furious
rage against myself, for it is not allowable for a
reasonable and serious man to have such hallucina-
tions.
But what is an hallucination? I turned round to
look for the stalk, and I found it immediately under
the bush, freshly broken, between two other roses
which remained on the branch, and I returned home
then, with a much disturbed mind; for I am certain
now, as certain as I am of the alternation of day
and night, that there exists close to me an invisible
being that lives on milk and on water, which can
touch objects, take them and change their places;
which is, consequently, endowed with a material na-
ture, although it is impossible to our senses, and
which lives as I do, under my roof. ... .
August 7th. I slept tranquilly. He drank the
water out of my decanter, but did not disturb my
sleep.
I ask myself whether I am mad. As I was walk-
ing just now in the sun by the riverside, doubts as
to my own sanity arose in me; not vague doubts such
as I have had hitherto, but precise and absolute
doubts. I have seen mad people, and I have known
some who have been quite intelligent, lucid, even
clear-sighted in every concern of life, except on one
point. They spoke clearly, readily, profoundly, on
everything, when suddenly their thoughts struck upon
the breakers of their madness and broke to pieces


234
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
able. I wished to accomplish this simple and easy act
of liberty-go out-get into my carriage in order
to go to Rouen—and I have not been able to do it.
What is the reason?
August 13th. When one is attacked by certain
maladies, all the springs of our physical being appear
to be broken, all our energies destroyed, all our
muscles relaxed, our bones to have become as soft
as our flesh, and our blood as liquid as water. I am
experiencing that in my moral being in a strange and
distressing manner. I have no longer any strength,
any, courage, any self-control, nor even any power to
set my own will in motion. I have no power left to
will anything, but someone does it for me and I obey.
August 14th. I am lost! Somebody possesses my
soul and governs it! Somebody orders all my acts,
all my movements, all my thoughts. I am no longer
anything in myself, nothing except an enslaved and
terrified spectator of all the things which I do. I
wish to go out; I cannot. He does not wish to, and
so I remain, trembling and distracted, in the arm-
chair in which he keeps me sitting. I merely wish
to get up and to rouse myself, so as to think that I
am still master of myself: I cannot! I am riveted
to my chair, and my chair adheres to the ground in
such a manner that no force could move us.
Then suddenly, I must, I must go to the bottom of
my garden to pick some strawberries and eat them,
and I go there. I pick the strawberries and I eat
them! Oh! my God! my God! Is there a God? If
there be one, deliver me! save me! succor me! Par-


THE HORLA
235
don! Pity! Mercy! Save me! Oh! what suffer-
ings! what torture! what horror!
August 15th. Certainly this is the way in which
my poor cousin was possessed and swayed, when she
came to borrow five thousand francs of me. She
was under the power of a strange will which had en-
tered into her, like another soul, like another para-
sitic and ruling soul. Is the world coming to an end?
But who is he, this invisible being that rules me?
This unknowable being, this rover of a supernatural
race?
Invisible beings exist, then! How is it then that
since the beginning of the world they have never
manifested themselves in such a manner precisely
as they do to me? I have never read anything
which resembles what goes on in my house. Oh!
If I could only leave it, if I could only go away and
flee, so as never to return, I should be saved; but I
cannot.
August 16th. I managed to escape to-day for two
hours, like a prisoner who finds the door of his dun-
geon accidentally open. I suddenly felt that I was
free and that he was far away, and so I gave orders
to put the horses in as quickly as possible, and I
drove to Rouen. Oh! How delightful to be able to
say to a man who obeyed you: "Go to Rouen!”
I made him pull up before the library, and I
begged them to lend me Dr. Herrmann Herestauss's
treatise on the unknown inhabitants of the ancient
and modern world.
Then, as I was getting into my carriage, I in-


238
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
been surprised and had fled out into the night, shut-
ting it behind him.
So he had run away: he had been afraid; he,
afraid of me!
So ... so... to-morrow ... or later...
some day or other ... I should be able to hold
him in my clutches and crush him against the ground!
Do not dogs occasionally bite and strangle their
masters?
August 18th. I have been thinking the whole day
long. Oh! yes, I will obey him, follow his impulses,
fulfill all his wishes, show myself humble, submis-
sive, a coward. He is the stronger; but an hour
will come ...
August 19th. I know, ... I know ... I know
all! I have just read the following in the Revue de
Monde Scientifique: "A curious piece of news comes
to us from Rio de Janeiro. Madness, an epidemic
of madness, which may be compared to that con-
tagious madness which attacked the people of
Europe in the Middle Ages, is at this moment rag-
ing in the Province of San-Paulo. The frightened
inhabitants are leaving their houses, deserting their
villages, abandoning their land, saying that they are
pursued, possessed, governed like human cattle by
invisible, though tangible beings, a species of vam-
pire, which feed on their life while they are asleep,
and who, besides, drink water and milk without ap-
pearing to touch any other nourishment.
“Professor Dom Pedro Henriques, accompanied
by several medical savants, has gone to the Province


THE HORLA
241
seen it, and can you see it? It exists for all that,
however!”
And I went on thinking: my eyes are so weak, so
imperfect, that they do not even distinguish hard
bodies, if they are as transparent as glass! ... If a
glass without tinfoil behind it were to bar my way,
I should run into it, just as a bird which has flown
into a room breaks its head against the window
panes. A thousand things, moreover, deceive him
and lead him astray. How should it then be sur-
prising that he cannot perceive a fresh body which is
traversed by the light? .
A new being! Why not? It was assuredly bound
to come! Why should we be the last? We do not
distinguish it, like all the others created before us.
The reason is, that its nature is more perfect, its
body finer and more finished than ours, that ours is
so weak, so awkwardly conceived, encumbered with
organs that are always tired, always on the strain
like locks that are too complicated, which lives like
a plant and like a beast, nourishing itself with dif-
ficulty on air, herbs and flesh, an animal machine
which is a prey to maladies, to malformations, to
decay; broken-winded, badly regulated, simple and
eccentric, ingeniously and badly made, a coarse and
a delicate work, the outline of a being which might
become intelligent and grand.
We are only a few, so few in this world, from the
oyster up to man. Why should there not be one
more, when once that period is accomplished which


242
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
separates the successive apparitions from all the
different species?
Why not one more? Why not, also, other trees
with immense, splendid flowers, perfuming whole
regions? Why not other elements besides fire, air,
earth and water? There are four, only four, those
nursing fathers of various beings! What a pity!
Why are they not forty, four hundred, four thou-
sand! How poor everything is, how mean and
wretched! grudgingly given, dryly invented, clum-
sily made! Ah! the elephant and the hippopotamus,
what grace! And the camel, what elegance!
But, the butterfly you will say, a flying flower! I
dream of one that should be as large as a hundred
worlds, with wings whose shape, beauty, colors, and
motion I cannot even express. But I see it . .. it
flutters from star to star, refreshing them and per-
fuming them with the light and harmonious breath
of its flight! ... And the people up there look at
it as it passes in an ecstasy of delight! ...
What is the matter with me? It is he, the Horla
who haunts me, and who makes me think of these
foolish things! He is within me, he is becoming my
soul; I shall kill him!
August 19th. I shall kill him. I have seen
him! Yesterday I sat down at my table and
pretended to write very assiduously. I knew quite
well that he would come prowling round me, quite
close to me, so close that I might perhaps be able to
touch him, to seize him. And then! ... then I
should have the strength of desperation; I should


THE HORLA
243
have my hands, my knees, my chest, my forehead,
my teeth to strangle him, to crush him, to bite him,
to tear him to pieces. And I watched for him with
all my over-excited organs.
I had lighted my two lamps and the eight wax
candles on my mantelpiece, as if by this light I could
have discovered him.
My bed, my old oak bed with its columns, was
opposite to me; on my right was the fireplace; on
my left the door which was carefully closed, after
I had left it open for some time, in order to attract
him; behind me was a very high wardrobe with a
looking-glass in it, which served me to make my
toilet every day, and in which I was in the habit of
looking at myself from head to foot every time I
passed it.
So I pretended to be writing in order to deceive
him, for he also was watching me, and suddenly I
felt, I was certain that he was reading over my
shoulder, that he was there, almost touching my ear.
I got up so quickly, with my hands extended,
that I almost fell. Eh! well? . . . It was as bright
as at midday, but I did not see myself in the glass !
... It was empty, clear, profound, full of light!
But my figure was not reflected in it ... and I, I
was opposite to it! I saw the large, clear glass from
top to bottom, and I looked at it with unsteady
eyes; and I did not dare to advance; I did not ven-
ture to make a movement, nevertheless, feeling
perfectly that he was there, but that he would escape


244
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
me again, he whose imperceptible body had absorbed
my reflection.
How frightened I was! And then suddenly I
began to see myself through a mist in the depths of
the looking-glass, in a mist as it were through a sheet
of water; and it seemed to me as if this water were
flowing slowly from left to right, and making my
figure clearer every moment. It was like the end of
an eclipse. Whatever it was that hid me, did not
appear to possess any clearly defined outlines, but a
sort of opaque transparency, which gradually grew
clearer.
At last I was able to distinguish myself com-
pletely, as I do every day when I looked at myself.
I had seen it! And the horror of it remained with
me and makes me shudder even now.
August 20th. How could I kill it, as I could not
get hold of it? Poison? But it would see me mix
it with the water; and then, would our poisons have
any effect on its impalpable body? No ... no
... no doubt about the matter. ... Then? ...
then? ...
August 21st. I sent for a blacksmith from
Rouen, and ordered iron shutters of him for my
room, such as some private hotels in Paris have on
the ground floor, for fear of thieves, and he is going
to make me a similar door as well. I have made
myself out as a coward, but I do not care about
that! ....
September roth. Rouen, Hotel Continental. It


THE HORLA
245
is done; . . . it is done . . . but is he dead? My
mind is thoroughly upset by what I have seen.
Well, then, yesterday the locksmith having put
on the iron shutters and door, I left everything open
until midnight, although it was getting cold.
Suddenly I felt that he was there, and joy, mad
joy, took possession of me. I got up softly, and I
walked to the right and left for some time, so that
he might not guess anything; then I took off my
boots and put on my slippers carelessly; then I
fastened the iron shutters and going back 'to the
door quickly I double-locked it with a padlock,
putting the key into my pocket.
Suddenly I noticed that he was moving restlessly
round me, that in his turn he was frightened and
was ordering me to let him out. I nearly yielded,
though I did not yet, but putting my back to the
door I half opened it, just enough to allow me to go
out backward, and as I am very tall, my head
touched the lintel. I was sure that he had not
been able to escape, and I shut him up quite alone,
quite alone. What happiness! I had him fast.
Then I ran downstairs; in the drawing-room, which
was under my bedroom, I took the two lamps and
I poured all the oil onto the carpet, the furniture,
everywhere; then I set fire to it and made my escape,
after having carefully double-locked the door.
I went and hid myself at the bottom of the garden
in a clump of laurel bushes. How long it was!
how long it was! Everything was dark, silent,
motionless, not a breath of air and not a star, but


THE HORLA
247
Suddenly the whole roof fell in between the walls,
and a volcano of flames darted up to the sky.
Through all the windows which opened onto that
furnace I saw the flames darting, and I thought
that he was there, in that kiln, dead.
Dead? perhaps? ... His body? Was not his
body, which was transparent, indestructible by such
means as would kill ours ?
If he was not dead? ... Perhaps time alone has
power over that Invisible and Redoubtable Being.
Why this transparent, unrecognizable body, this
body belonging to a spirit, if it also had to fear ills,
infirmities and premature destruction ?
Premature destruction? All human terror springs
from that! After man the Horla. After him who
can die every day, at any hour, at any moment, by
any accident, he came who was only to die at his
own proper hour and minute, because he had touched
the limits of his existence!
No ... no ... without any doubt ... he is
not dead. Then .... then ... I suppose I must
kill myself!
[Editor's Note. Students of this great genius among
short story writers contend that there is an autobiographical
touch to “The Horla." De Maupassant had a haunting pre-
sentiment of going mad.]


THE MUMMY'S FOOT
By THÉOPHILE GAUTIER
I HAD entered, in an idle mood, the shop of one of
those curiosity venders who are called marchands de
bric-à-brac in that Parisian argot which is so per-
fectly unintelligble elsewhere in France.
You have doubtless glanced occasionally through
the windows of some of these shops, which have be-
come so numerous now that it is fashionable to buy
antiquated furniture, and that every petty stock
broker thinks he must have his chambre au moyen
âge.
There is one thing there which clings alike to the
shop of the dealer in old iron, the ware-room of the
tapestry maker, the laboratory of the chemist, and
the studio of the painter: in all those gloomy dens
where a furtive daylight filters in through the win-
dow-shutters the most manifestly ancient thing is
dust. The cobwebs are more authentic than the
guimp laces, and the old pear-tree furniture on ex-
hibition is actually younger than the mahogany
which arrived but yesterday from America.
The warehouse of my bric-à-brac dealer was a
veritable Capharnaum. All ages and all nations
seemed to have made their rendezvous there. An
248


252
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
I was surprised at its lightness. It was not a foot
of metal, but in sooth a foot of flesh, an embalmed
foot, a mummy's foot. On examining it still more
closely the very grain of the skin, and the almost im-
perceptible lines impressed upon it by the texture of
the bandages, became perceptible. The toes were
slender and delicate, and terminated by perfectly
formed nails, pure and transparent as agates. The
great toe, slightly separated from the rest, afforded
a happy contrast, in the antique style, to the position
of the other toes, and lent it an aërial lightness—the
grace of a bird's foot. The sole, scarcely streaked
by a few almost imperceptible cross lines, afforded
evidence that it had never touched the bare ground,
and had only come in contact with the finest mat-
ting of Nile rushes and the softest carpets of panther
skin.
"Ha, ha, you want the foot of the Princess Her-
monthis!" exclaimed the merchant, with a strange
giggle, fixing his owlish eyes upon me. "Ha, ha, hal
For a paper-weight! An original idea !—an artistic
idea! Old Pharaoh would certainly have been sur-
prised had some one told him that the foot of his
adored daughter would be used for a paper-weight
after he had had a mountain of granite hollowed
out as a receptacle for the triple coffin, painted and
gilded, covered with hieroglyphics and beautiful
paintings of the Judgment of Souls," continued the
queer little merchant, half audibly, as though talking
to himself.


THE MUMMY'S FOOT
253
"How much will you charge me for this mummy
fragment?”
"Ah, the highest price I can get, for it is a superb
piece. If I had the match of it you could not have it
for less than five hundred francs. The daughter of
a Pharaoh! Nothing is more rare."
"Assuredly that is not a common article, but still,
how much do you want? In the first place let me
warn you that all my wealth consists of just five louis.
I can buy anything that costs five louis, but nothing
dearer. You might search my vest pockets and most
secret drawers without even finding one poor five-
franc piece more."
"Five louis for the foot of the Princess Hermon-
this! That is very little, very little indeed. 'Tis
an authentic foot," muttered the merchant, shaking
his head, and imparting a peculiar rotary motion to
his eyes. “Well, take it, and I will give you the ban-
dages into the bargain,” he added, wrapping the
foot in an ancient damask rag. “Very fine! Real
damask—Indian damask which has never been re-
dyed. It is strong, and yet it is soft,” he mumbled,
stroking the frayed tissue with his fingers, through
the trade-acquired habit which moved him to praise
even an object of such little value that he himself
deemed it only worth the giving away.
He poured the gold coins into a sort of medieval
alms-purse hanging at his belt, repeating:
“The foot of the Princess Hermonthis to be used
for a paper-weight!".
Then turning his phosphorescent eyes upon me,


254
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
he exclaimed in a voice strident as the crying of a
cat which has swallowed a fish-bone:
"Old Pharaoh will not be well pleased. He loved
his daughter, the dear man!”
"You speak as if you were a contemporary of his.
You are old enough, goodness knows! but you do not
date back to the Pyramids of Egypt," I answered,
laughingly, from the threshold.
I went home, delighted with my acquisition.
With the idea of putting it to profitable use as
soon as possible, I placed the foot of the divine
Princess Hermonthis upon a heap of papers scribbled
over with verses, in themselves an undecipherable
mosaic work of erasures; articles freshly begun; let-
ters forgotten, and posted in the table drawer in
stead of the letter-box, an error to which absent-
minded people are peculiarly liable. The effect was
charming, bizarre, and romantic.
Well satisfied with this embellishment, I went out
with the gravity and pride becoming one who feels
that he has the ineffable advantage over all the pass-
ers-by whom he elbows, of possessing a piece of the
Princess Hermonthis, daughter of Pharaoh.
I looked upon all who did not possess, like myself,
a paper-weight so authentically Egyptian as very
ridiculous people, and it seemed to me that the
proper occupation of every sensible man should con-
sist in the mere fact of having a mummy's foot upon
his desk.
Happily I met some friends, whose presence dis-
tracted me in my infatuation with this new acquisi-


THE MUMMY'S FOOT
259
of the land of Ser. Luckily I understood Coptic
perfectly well that night.
The Princess Hermonthis cried, in a voice sweet
and vibrant as the tones of a crystal bell:
"Well, my dear little foot, you always flee from
me, yet I always took good care of you. I bathed
you with perfumed water in a bowl of alabaster; I
smoothed your heel with pumice-stone mixed with
palm oil; your nails were cut with golden scissors
and polished with a hippopotamus tooth; I was care-
ful to select tatbebs for you, painted and embroid-
ered and turned up at the toes, which were the envy
of all the young girls in Egypt. You wore on your
great toe rings bearing the device of the sacred Sca-
rabæus, and you supported one of the lightest bodies
that a lazy foot could sustain."
The foot replied in a pouting and chagrined tone:
“You know well that I do not belong to myself
any longer. I have been bought and paid for. The
old merchant knew what he was about. He bore you
a grudge for having refused to espouse him. This is
an ill turn which he has done you. The Arab who
violated your royal coffin in the subterranean pits
of the necropolis of Thebes was sent thither by him.
He desired to prevent you from being present at the
reunion of the shadowy nations in the cities below.
Have you five pieces of gold for my ransom?”
“Alas, no! My jewels, my rings, my purses of
gold and silver were all stolen from me," answered
the Princess Hermonthis, with a sob.
"Princess," I then exclaimed, “I never retained


THE MUMMY'S FOOT
261
the little idol of green paste, and laid it on the
scattered sheets of paper which covered the table.
"It is only fair,” she observed, smilingly, "that I
should replace your paper-weight."
She gave me her hand, which felt soft and cold,
like the skin of a serpent, and we departed.
We passed for some time with the velocity of an
arrow through a fluid and grayish expanse, in which
half-formed silhouettes flitted swiftly by us, to right
and left.
For an instant we saw only sky and sea.
A few moments later obelisks commenced to
tower in the distance; pylons and vast flights of steps
guarded by sphinxes became clearly outlined against
the horizon.
We had reached our destination.
The princess conducted me to a mountain of rose-
colored granite, in the face of which appeared an
opening so narrow and low that it would have been
difficult to distinguish it from the fissures in the
rock, had not its location been marked by two stela
wrought with sculptures.
Hermonthis kindled a torch and led the way be-
fore me.
We traversed corridors hewn through the living
rock. These walls covered with hieroglyphics and
paintings of allegorical processions, might well have
occupied thousands of arms for thousands of years
in their formation. These corridors of interminable
length opened into square chambers, in the midst of
which pits had been contrived, through which we de-


262
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
scended by cramp-irons or spiral stairways. These
pits again conducted us into other chambers, open-
ing into other corridors, likewise decorated with
painted sparrow-hawks, serpents coiled in circles,
the symbols of the tau and pedum-prodigious works
of art which no living eye can ever examine-inter-
minable legends of granite which only the dead have
time to read through all eternity.
At last we found ourselves in a hall so vast, so
enormous, so immeasurable, that the eye could not
reach its limits. Files of monstrous columns
stretched far out of sight on every side, between
which twinkled livid stars of yellowish flame; points
of light which revealed further depths incalculable
in the darkness beyond.
The Princess Hermonthis still held my hand, and
graciously saluted the mummies of her acquaint-
ance.
My eyes became accustomed to the dim twilight,
and objects became discernible.
I beheld the kings of the subterranean races seated
upon thrones-grand old men, though dry, withered,
wrinkled like parchment, and blackened with
naphtha and bitumen—all wearing pshents of gold,
and breast-plates and gorgets glittering with precious
stones, their eyes immovably fixed like the eyes of
sphinxes, and their long beards whitened by the snow
of centuries. Behind them stood their peoples, in
the stiff and constrained posture enjoined by Egyp-
tian art, all eternally preserving the attitude pre-
scribed by the hieratic code. Behind these nations,


THE MUMMY'S FOOT
263
was
the cats, ibixes, and crocodiles, contemporary with
them-rendered monstrous of aspect by their swath-
ing bands—mewed, flapped their wings, or extended
their jaws in a saurian giggle.
All the Pharaohs were there—Cheops, Cheph-
renes, Psammetichus, Sesostris, Amenotaph-all the
dark rulers of the pyramids and sphinxes. On yet
higher thrones sat Chronos and Xixouthros, who
was contemporary with the deluge, and Tubal Cain,
who reigned before it.
The beard of King Xixouthros had grown seven
times around the granite table, upon which he leaned,
lost in deep reverie, and buried in dreams.
Farther back, through a dusty cloud, I beheld
dimly the seventy-two pre-adamite kings, with their
seventy-two peoples, forever passed away
After permitting me to gaze upon this bewildering
spectacle a few moments, the Princess Hermonthis
presented me to her father Pharaoh, who favored
me with a most gracious nod.
"I have found my foot again! I have found my
foot !" cried the princess, clapping her little hands
together with every sign of frantic joy. “It was this
gentleman who restored it to me."
The races of Kemi, the races of Nahasi—all the
black, bronzed, and copper-colored nations repeated
in chorus:
"The Princess Hermonthis has found her foot
again!"
Even Xixouthros himself was visibly affected.
He raised his heavy eyelids, stroked his moustache


264
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
with his fingers, and turned upon me a glance weighty
with centuries.
"By Oms, the dog of Hell, and Tmei, daughter of
the Sun and of Truth, this is a brave and worthy
lad!” exclaimed Pharaoh, pointing to me with his
sceptre, which was terminated with a lotus-flower.
“What recompense do you desire ?"
Filled with that daring inspired by dreams in
which nothing seems impossible, I asked him for the
hand of the Princess Hermonthis. The hand seemed
to me a very proper antithetic recompense for the
foot.
Pharaoh opened wide his great eyes of glass in
astonishment at my witty request.
"What country do you come from, what is your
age ?"
"I am a Frenchman, and I am twenty-seven years
old, venerable Pharaoh.”
“Twenty-seven years old, and he wishes to espouse
the Princess Hermonthis who is thirty centuries
old !" cried out at once all the Thrones and all the
Circles of Nations.
Only Hermonthis herself did not seem to think
my request unreasonable.
“If you were even two thousand years old,”
replied the ancient king, "I would willingly give you
the princess, but the disproportion is too great; and,
besides, we must give our daughters husbands who
will last well. You do not know how to preserve
yourselves any longer. Even those who died only
fifteen centuries ago are already no more than a


THE THIEF
267
napkins and shaking out the gloves which lay under
them, in an effort to relieve their own embarrassment
and that of the gentlemen who had not even so
simple a resource as this at their command.
“It can't be lost," protested Mr. Sedgwick, with
an air of perfect confidence. "I saw it but a minute
ago in somebody's hand. Darrow, you had it; what
did you do with it?”
“Passed it along,"
"Well, well, it must be under somebody's plate or
doily." And he began to move about his own and
such dishes as were within reach of his hand.
Each guest imitated him, lifting glasses and turn-
ing over spoons till Mr. Sedgwick himself bade them
desist. "It's slipped to the floor," he nonchalantly
concluded. “A toast to the ladies, and we will give
Robert the chance of looking for it.”
As they drank this toast, his apparently careless,
but quietly astute, glance took in each countenance
about him. The coin was very valuable and its loss
would be keenly felt by him. Had it slipped from
the table some one's eye would have perceived it,
some hand would have followed it. Only a minute
or two before, the attention of the whole party had
been concentrated upon it. Darrow had held it up
for all to see, while he discoursed upon its history.
He would take Darrow aside at the first opportunity
and ask him- But-ah! how could he do that?
These were his intimate friends. He knew them
well, more than well, with one exception, and he-
Well, he was the handsomest of the lot and the most


268 FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
debonair and agreeable. A little more gay than
usual to-night, possibly a trifle too gay, considering
that a man of Mr. Blake's social weight and busi-
ness standing sat at the board; but not to be sus-
pected, no, not to be suspected, even if he was the
next man after Darrow and had betrayed something
like confusion when the eyes of the whole table
turned his way at the former's simple statement of
"I passed it on.” Robert would find the coin; he
was a fool to doubt it; and if Robert did not, why,
he would simply have to pocket his chagrin, and not
let a triviality like this throw a shadow over his
hospitality.
All this, while he genially lifted his glass and pro-
posed the health of the ladies. The constraint of
the preceding moment was removed by his manner,
and a dozen jests caused as many merry laughs.
Then he pushed back his chair.
“And now, some music!” he cheerfully cried, as
with lingering glances and some further pokings
about of the table furniture, the various guests left
their places and followed him into the adjoining
room.
But the ladies were too nervous and the gentle-
men not sufficiently sure of their voices to undertake
the entertainment of the rest at a moment of such
acknowledged suspense; and notwithstanding the
exertions of their host and his quiet but much dis-
comfited wife, it soon became apparent that but one
thought engrossed them all, and that any attempt at
conversation must prove futile so long as the curtains


THE THIEF
269
between the two rooms remained open and they
could see Robert on his hands and knees searching
the floor and shoving aside the rugs.
Darrow, who was Mr. Sedgwick's brother-in-law
and almost as much at home in the house as Sedg-
wick himself, made a move to draw these curtains,
but something in his relative's face stopped him and
he desisted with some 'laughing remark which did
not attract enough attention, even, to elicit any re-
sponse.
“I hope his eyesight is good,” murmured one of
the young girls, edging a trifle forward. “Mayn't
I help him look ? They say at home that I am the
only one in the house who can find anything."
Mr. Sedgwick smiled indulgently at the speaker
(a round-faced, round-eyed, merry-hearted girl
whom in days gone by he had dandled on his knees)
but answered quite quickly for him:
"Robert will find it if it is there.” Then, dis-
tressed at this involuntary disclosure of his thought,
added in his wholehearted way: “It's such a little
thing, and the room is so big, and a round object
rolls unexpectedly far, you know. Well, have you
got it?” he eagerly demanded, as the butler finally
showed himself in the door.
"No, sir; and it's not in the dining-room. I have
cleared the table and thoroughly searched the floor."
Mr. Sedgwick knew that he had. He had no
doubts about Robert. Robert had been in his em-
ploy for years and had often handled his coins and,
at his order, sometimes shown them.


270
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
“Very well,” said he, "we'll not bother about it
any more to-night; you may draw the curtains.”
But here the clear, almost strident voice of the
youngest man of the party interposed.
"Wait a minute,” said he. “This especial coin
is the great treasure of Mr. Sedgwick's valuable col-
lection. It is unique in this country, and not only
worth a great deal of money, but cannot be dupli-
cated at any cost. There are only three of its stamp
in the world. Shall we let the matter pass, then,
as though it were of small importance? I feel that
we cannot; that we are, in a measure, responsible for
its disappearance. Mr. Sedgwick handed it to us to
look at, and while it was going through our hands it
vanished. What must he think? What has he every
right to think? I need not put it into words; you
know what you would think, what you could not
help but think, if the object were yours and it was
lost in this way. Gentlemen-I leave the ladies
entirely out of this—I do not propose that he shall
have further opportunity to associate me with this
very natural doubt. I demand the privilege of
emptying my pockets here and now, before any of
us have left his presence. I am a connoisseur in
coins myself and consequently find it imperative to
take the initiative in this matter. As I propose to
spare the ladies, let us step back into the dining-
room. Mr. Sedgwick, pray don't deny me; I'm
thoroughly in earnest, I assure you."
The astonishment created by this audacious propo-
sition was so great, and the feeling it occasioned so


272
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
Darrow's niece, a Rochester girl, who could not be
finding this, her first party in Boston, very amusing.
"I hope you will appreciate the dilemma in which
I have been placed by these gentlemen," he began,
"and will pardon—".
But here he noticed that she was not in the least
attending; her eyes were on the handsome figure of
Hugh Clifford, her uncle's neighbor at table, who in
company with Mr. Hammersley was still hesitating
in the doorway. As Mr. Sedgwick stopped his use-
less talk, the two passed in and the sound of her
fluttering breath as she finally turned a listening ear
his way, caused him to falter as he repeated his as-
surances and begged her indulgence.
She answered with some conventional phrase
which he forgot while crossing the room. But the
remembrance of her slight satin-robed figure, drawn
up in an attitude whose carelessness was totally be-
lied by the anxiety of her half-averted glance,
followed him into the presence of the four men
awaiting him. Four? I should say five, for Robert
was still there, though in a corner by himself, ready,
no doubt, to share any attempt which the others
might make to prove their innocence.
“The ladies will await us in the music-room," an-
nounced the host on entering; and then paused, dis-
concerted by the picture suddenly disclosed to his
eye. On one side stood the two who had entered
first, with their eyes fixed in open sternness on young
Clifford, who, quite alone on the rug, faced them
with a countenance of such pronounced pallor that
W


274
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
still absorbed by the action and attitude of the man
who had just undergone what to him doubtless ap-
peared a degrading ordeal. Pale before, he was.
absolutely livid now, though otherwise unchanged.
To break the force of what appeared to be an open,
if involuntary, self-betrayal, another guest stepped
forward; but no sooner had he raised his hand to
his vest-pocket than Clifford moved, and in a high,
strident voice totally unlike his usual tones remarked:
“This is all-all-very interesting and commend-
able, no doubt. But for such a procedure to be of
any real value it should be entered into by all.
Gentlemen”—his rigidity was all gone now and so
was his pallor—"I am unwilling to submit myself
to what, in my eyes, is an act of unnecessary humilia-
tion. Our word should be enough. I have not the
coin ” Stopped by the absolute silence, he cast a
distressed look into the faces about him, till it
reached that of Mr. Sedgwick, where it lingered, in
an appeal to which that gentleman, out of his great
heart, instantly responded.
“One should take the word of the gentleman he
invites to his house. We will excuse you, and excuse
all the others from the unnecessary ceremony which
Mr. Blake has been good enough to initiate."
But this show of favor was not to the mind of
the last-mentioned gentleman, and met with instant
reproof.
"Not so fast, Sedgwick. I am the oldest man here
and I did not feel it was enough simply to state that
this coin was not on my person. As to the question


THE THIEF
275
of humiliation, it strikes me that humiliation would
lie, in this instance, in a refusal for which no better
excuse can be given than the purely egotistical one
of personal pride."
At this attack, the fine head of Clifford rose, and
Darrow, remembering the girl within, felt instinct-
ively grateful that she was not here to note the ef-
fect it gave to his person.
"I regret to differ,” said he. "To me no humilia-
tion could equal that of demonstrating in this open
manner the fact of one's not being a thief."
Mr. Blake gravely surveyed him. For some rea-
son the issue seemed no longer to lie between Clif-
ford and the actual loser of the coin, but between him
and his fellow guest, this uncompromising banker.
"A thief !” repeated the young man, in an inde-
scribable tone full of bitterness and scorn.
Mr. Blake remained unmoved; he was a just man
but strict, hard to himself, hard to others. But he
was not entirely without heart. Suddenly his expres-
sion lightened. A certain possible explanation of the
other's attitude had entered his mind.
"Young men sometimes have reasons for their
susceptibilities which the old forget. If you have
such-if you carry a photograph, believe that we
have no interest in pictures of any sort to-night and
certainly would fail to recognize them.”
A smile of disdain flickered across the young
man's lip. Evidently it was no discovery of this kind
that he feared.
"I carry no photographs,” said he; and, bowing
su
e


278
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
had finished and rested searchingly on the other
gentlemen. Evidently she missed a face she had ex-
pected to find there, for her color changed and she
drew back behind the other ladies with the light,
unmusical laugh women sometimes use to hide a
secret emotion.
It brought Mr. Darrow forward.
"Some were not willing to subject themselves to
what they considered an unnecessary humiliation,"
he curtly remarked. "Mr. Clifford—”
“There! let us drop it," put in his brother-in-law.
"I've lost my coin and that's the end of it. I don't
intend to have the evening spoiled for a thing like
that. Music! ladies, music and a jolly air! No
more dumps." And with as hearty a laugh as he
could command in face of the somber looks he en-
countered on every side, he led the way back into
the music-room.
Once there the women seemed to recover their
spirits; that is, such as remained. One had disap-
peared. A door opened from this room into the
main hall and through this a certain young lady had
vanished before the others had had time to group
themselves about the piano. We know who this lady
was; possibly, we know, too, why her hostess did not
follow her.
Meanwhile, Mr. Clifford had gone upstairs for
his coat, and was lingering there, the prey of some
very bitter reflections. Though he had encountered
nobody on the stairs, and neither heard nor saw any
one in the halls, he felt confident that he was not


THE THIEF
279
re
unwatched. He remembered the look on the butler's
face as he tore himself away from Hammersley's
restraining hand, and he knew what that fellow
thought and also was quite able to guess what that
fellow would do, if his suspicions were farther awak-
ened. This conviction brought an odd and not very
open smile to his face, as he finally turned to descend
the one flight which separated him from the front
door he was so ardently desirous of closing behind
him for ever.
A moment and he would be down; but the steps
were many and seemed to multiply indefinitely as he
sped below. Should his departure be noted, and
some one advance to detain him! He fancied he
heard a rustle in the open space under the stairs.
Were any one to step forth, Robert or With a
start, he paused and clutched the banister. Some
one had stepped forth; a woman! The swish of her
skirts was unmistakable. He felt the chill of a new
dread. Never in his short but triumphant career
had he met coldness or disapproval in the eye of a
woman. Was he to encounter it now? If so, it
would go hard with him. He trembled as he turned
his head to see which of the four it was. If it should
prove to be his hostess— But it was not she; it was
Darrow's young friend, the pretty inconsequent girl
he had chatted with at the dinner-table, and after-
wards completely forgotten in the events which had
centered all his thoughts upon himself. And she
was standing there, waiting for him! He would
have to pass her,-notice her,--speak.


THE THIEF
281
millionaire approached Mr. Sedgwick and confiden-
tially remarked:
“There goes your precious coin. I'm sure of it.
I even think I can tell the exact place in which it
is hidden. His hand went to his left coat-pocket once
too often.”
“That's right. I noticed the action also," chimed
in Mr. Darrow, who had stepped up, unobserved.
“And I noticed something else. His whole appear-
ance altered from the moment this coin came on the
scene. An indefinable half-eager, half-furtive look
crept into his eye as he saw it passed from hand to
hand. I remember it now, though it didn't make
much impression upon me at the time.”
“And I remember another thing," supplemented
Hammersley in his anxiety to set himself straight
with these men of whose entire approval he was not
quite sure. “He raised his napkin to his mouth very
frequently during the meal and held it there longer
than is usual, too. Once he caught me looking at
him, and for a moment he flushed scarlet, then he
broke out with one of his witty remarks and I had
to laugh like everybody else. If I am not mistaken,
his napkin was up and his right hand working be-
hind it, about the time Mr. Sedgwick requested the
return of his coin.”
“The idiot! Hadn't he sense enough to know that
such a loss wouldn't pass unquestioned? The gein
of the collection; known all over the country, and
he's not even a connoisseur." .
DI


THE THIEF
283
tumbled and fell to the floor as Luke and I were
taking them out."
Silence which could be felt for a moment. Then
each man turned and surveyed his neighbor, while
the women's voices rose in little cries that were al-
most hysterical.
"I knew that it would be found, and found here,"
came from the hallway in rich, resonant tones.
"Uncle, do not hurry; I am feeling better," followed
in unconscious naïveté, as the young girl stepped in,
showing a countenance in which were small signs
of indisposition or even of depressed spirits.
Mr. Darrow, with a smile of sympathetic under-
standing, joined the others now crowding about the
butler.
“I noticed the crack between these two leaves
when I pushed about the plates and dishes,” he was
saying. “But I never thought of looking in it for
the missing coin. I'm sure I'm very sorry that I
didn't.”
Mr. Darrow, to whom these words had recalled
a circumstance he had otherwise completely forgot-
ten, anxiously remarked: “That must have hap-
pened shortly after it left my hand. I recall now
that the lady sitting between me and Clifford gave
it a twirl which sent it spinning over the bare table-
top. I don't think she realized the action. She was
listening—we all were—to a flow of bright repartee
going on below us, and failed to follow the move-
ments of the coin. Otherwise, she would have


284
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
spoken. But what a marvel that it should have
reached that crack in just the position to fall in!"
"It wouldn't happen again, not if we spun it there
for a month of Sundays.”
“But Mr. Clifford !" put in an agitated voice.
“Yes, it has been rather hard on him. But he
shouldn't have such keen sensibilities. If he had
emptied out his pockets cheerfully and at the first
intimation, none of this unpleasantness would have
happened. Mr. Sedgwick, I congratulate you upon
the recovery of this valuable coin, and am quite
ready to offer my services if you wish to make Mr.
Clifford immediately acquainted with Robert's dis-
covery."
"Thank you, but I will perform that duty myself,”
was Mr. Sedgwick's quiet rejoinder, as he unlocked
the door of his cabinet and carefully restored the
coin to its proper place.
When he faced back, he found his guests on the
point of leaving. Only one gave signs of any in-
tention of lingering. This was the elderly financier
who had shown such stern resolve in his treatment
of Mr. Clifford's so-called sensibilities. He had
confided his wife to the care of Mr. Darrow, and
now met Mr. Sedgwick with this remark:
"I'm going to ask a favor of you. If, as you have
intimated, it is your intention to visit Mr. Clifford
to-night, I should like to go with you. I don't under-
stand this young man and his unaccountable attitude
in this matter, and it is very important that I should.
Have you any objection to my company? My motor


288
FAMOUS MYSTERY STORIES
conversation? I am on the point of retiring and
and—”
Even the hardihood of a very visible despair gave
way for an instant as he met Mr. Sedgwick's eye.
In the break which followed, the older man spoke.
"Pardon us, but we have come thus far with a
double purpose. First, to tender our apologies,
which you have been good enough to accept; sec-
ondly, to ask, in no spirit of curiosity, I assure you,
a question that I seem to see answered, but which
I should be glad to hear confirmed by your lips.
May we not come in ?”
The question was put with a rare smile such as
sometimes was seen on this hard-grained handler
of millions, and the young man, seeing it, faltered
back, leaving the way open for them to enter. The
next minute he seemed to regret the impulse, for
backing against a miserable table they saw there, he
drew himself up with an air as nearly hostile as one
of his nature could assume.
"I know of no question," said he, “which I feel
at this very late hour inclined to answer. A man
who has been tracked as I must have been for you
to find me here, is hardly in a mood to explain his
poverty or the mad desire for former luxuries which
took him to the house of one friendly enough, he
thought, to accept his presence without inquiry as
to the place he lived in or the nature or number
of the reverses which had brought him to such a
place as this."
"I do not believe me" faltered Mr. Sedgwick,


THE THIEF
291
it,” he smiled with the dawning of his old-time grace
on his handsome face, “but I find that one can see
his resources go, dollar by dollar, and finally, cent
by cent, in the search for employment no one con-
siders necessary to a man like me. Perhaps if I had
had less pride, had been willing to take you or any
one else into my confidence, I might not have sunk
to these depths of humiliation; but I had not the
confidence in men which this last half hour has given
me, and I went blundering on, hiding my needs and
hoping against hope for some sort of result to my
efforts. This pistol is not mine. I did borrow this,
but I did not mean to use it, unless nature reached
the point where it could stand no more. I thought
the time had come to-night when I left your house,
Mr. Sedgwick, suspected of theft. It seemed the last
straw; but-but-a woman's look has held me back.
I hesitated and—now you know the whole,” said he;
" that is, if you can understand why it was more pos-
sible for me to brave the contumely of such a sus-
picion than to open my pockets and disclose the
crusts I had hidden there."
“I can understand," said Mr. Sedgwick; "but the
opportunity you have given us for doing so must
not be shared by others. We will undertake your
justification, but it must be made in our own way and
after the most careful consideration; eh, Mr.
Blake?" :
"Most assuredly; and if Mr. Clifford will present
himself at my office early in the morning, we will
first breakfast and then talk business."