THE MYSTERIOUS CARD THE MYSTERIOUS CARD BY CLEVELAND MOFFETT BOSTON SMALL, MAYNARD AND COMPANY PUBLISHERS A, 2472.5.25 HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY GIFT OF - WilliS A, ECUGHTON APR 23 1926 CoPYRIGHT, 1895, 1896 BY the Shortstory PUBLISHING ComPANY THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. CONTENTS PAGE THE MYSTERIous CARD . . . . I I THE MYSTERIOUs CARD UNvEILED 47 THE MYSTERIOUS CARD THE MYSTERIOUS CARD His friend was highly indignant when he heard the story — a fact that gave Burwell no little comfort, knowing, as he did, that the man was accustomed to for- eign ways from long residence abroad. “It is some silly mistake, my dear fellow; I would n’t pay any attention to it. Just have your luggage taken down and stay here. It is a nice, homelike place, and it will be very jolly, all being together. But, first, let me prepare a little “nerve settler' for you.” After the two had lingered a moment over their Manhattan cock- tails, Burwell’s friend excused him- I8 THE MYSTERIOUS CARD she has a frightful headache. You will have to excuse us from the lunch.” Instantly realizing that this was only a flimsy pretense, and deeply hurt by his friend's behavior, the mystified man arose at once and left without another word. He was now determined to solve this mys- tery at any cost. What could be the meaning of the words on that infer- nal piece of pasteboard? Profiting by his humiliating ex- periences, he took good care not to show the card to any one at the hotel where he now es- tablished himself, - a comfortable little place near the Grand Opera House. 2O THE MYSTERIOUS CARD a hot coal. He dreaded the thought of meeting any one that he knew, while this horrible cloud hung over him. He bought a French-English dictionary and tried to pick out the meaning word by word, but failed. It was all Greek to him. For the first time in his life, Burwell re- gretted that he had not studied French at college. After various vain attempts to either solve or forget the torturing riddle, he saw no other course than to lay the problem before a detec- tive agency. He accordingly put his case in the hands of an agent de la sūreté who was recommended as a competent and trustworthy man. They had a talk together in a pri- 22 THE MYSTERIOUS CARD vate room, and, of course, Burwell showed the card. To his relief, his adviser at least showed no sign of taking offense. Only he did not and would not explain what the words meant. “It is better,” he said, “that monsieur should not know the na- ture of this document for the pres- ent. I will do myself the honor to call upon monsieur to-morrow at his hotel, and then monsieur shall know everything.” “Then it is really serious?” asked the unfortunate man. y “Very serious,” was the answer. The next twenty-four hours Bur- well passed in a fever of anxiety. As his mind conjured up one fear- 23 THE MYSTERIOUS CARD him Burwell had no means of know- ing; but before the day was over he succeeded in having a message sent to the American Legation, where he demanded immediate pro- tection as a citizen of the United States. It was not until evening, however, that the Secretary of Lega- tion, a consequential person, called at the prison. There followed a stormy interview, in which the pris- oner used some strong language, the French officers gesticulated violently and talked very fast, and the Secre- tary calmly listened to both sides, said little, and smoked a good cigar. “I will lay your case before the American minister,” he said as he 26 THE MYSTERIOUS CARD rose to go, “and let you know the result to-morrow.” “But this is an outrage. Do you mean to say—” Before he could finish, however, the Secretary, with a strangely suspicious glance, turned and left the room. That night Burwell slept in a cell. The next morning he received another visit from the non-com- mittal Secretary, who informed him that matters had been arranged, and that he would be set at liberty forthwith. “I must tell you, though,” he said, “that I have had great diffi- culty in accomplishing this, and your liberty is granted only on condition that you leave the country within 27 THE MYSTERIOUS CARD and for a long time debated with himself whether he should at once tell her the sickening truth. In the end he decided that it was better to keep silent. No sooner, however, had she seen him than her woman’s instinct told her that he was laboring under some mental strain. And he saw in a moment that to withhold from her his burning secret was im- possible, especially when she began to talk of the trip they had planned through France. Of course no triv- ial reason would satisfy her for his refusal to make this trip, since they had been looking forward to it for years; and yet it was impossible now for him to set foot on French soil. 29 THE MYSTERIOUS CARD So he finally told her the whole story, she laughing and weeping in turn. To her, as to him, it seemed incredible that such overwhelming disasters could have grown out of so small a cause, and, being a flu- ent French scholar, she demanded a sight of the fatal piece of pasteboard. In vain her husband tried to divert her by proposing a trip through Italy. She would consent to nothing until she had seen the mysterious card which Burwell was now con- vinced he ought long ago to have destroyed. After refusing for awhile to let her see it, he finally yielded. But, although he had learned to dread the consequences of showing that cursed card, he was little pre- 3O THE MYSTERIOUS CARD in the world. In the face of even the most damning circumstances, he felt that Evelyth's rugged common sense would evolve some way of escape from this hideous nightmare. Upon landing at New York he hardly waited for the gang-plank to be lowered before he rushed on shore and grasped the hand of his partner, who was waiting on the wharf. “Jack,” was his first word, “I am in dreadful trouble, and you are the only man in the world who can help me.” An hour later Burwell sat at his friend's dinner table, talking over the situation. Evelyth was all kindness, and sev- 33 THE MYSTERIOUS CARD “No, I can’t do it; there are some things a man must not do.” Then he was silent again, his brows knitted. Finally he said solemnly: — “No, I can’t see any other way out of it. We have been true to each other all our lives; we have worked together and looked for- ward to never separating. I would rather fail and die than see this happen. But we have got to sepa- rate, old friend; we have got to separate.” They sat there talking until late into the night. But nothing that Burwell could do or say availed against his friend's decision. There was nothing for it but that Evelyth 36 THE MYSTERIOUS CARD should buy his partner's share of the business or that Burwell buy out the other. The man was more than fair in the financial proposition he made; he was generous, as he always had been, but his determination was inflexible; the two must separate. And they did. With his old partner's desertion, it seemed to Burwell that the world was leagued against him. It was only three weeks from the day on which he had received the mysteri- ous card; yet in that time he had lost all that he valued in the world, — wife, friends, and business. What next to do with the fatal card was the sickening problem that now possessed him. 37 THE MYSTERIOUS CARD He dared not show it; yet he dared not destroy it. He loathed it; yet he could not let it go from his possession. Upon returning to his house he locked the accursed thing away in his safe as if it had been a package of dynamite or a bottle of deadly poison. Yet not a day passed that he did not open the drawer where the thing was kept and scan with loathing the mysterious purple scrawl. In desperation he finally made up his mind to take up the study of the language in which the hateful thing was written. And still he dreaded the approach of the day when he should decipher its awful meaning. 38 THE MYSTERIOUS CARD “Yes,” she murmured, after a moment's study of his face; and he noted with relief that she spoke English. “Then, for God’s sake, tell me, what does it all mean?” he gasped, quivering with excitement. “I gave you the card because I wanted you to — to —” Here a terrible spasm of coughing shook her whole body, and she fell back exhausted. An agonizing despair tugged at Burwell's heart. Frantically snatch- ing the card from its envelope, he held it close to the woman's face. “Tell me ! Tell me!” With a supreme effort, the pale figure slowly raised itself on the 4I THE MYSTERIOUS CARD UNVEILED (Sequel to the MystERIous CARD) O physician was ever more scrupulous than I have been, during my thirty years of practice, in observing the code of professional secrecy; and it is only for grave reasons, partly in the interests of medical science, largely as a warning to intelligent people, that I place upon record the following statements. One morning a gentleman called at my offices to consult me about 47 THE CARD UNVEILED some nervous trouble. From the moment I saw him, the man made a deep impression on me, not so much by the pallor and worn look of his face as by a certain intense sadness in his eyes, as if all hope had gone out of his life. I wrote a pre- scription for him, and advised him to try the benefits of an ocean voy- age. He seemed to shiver at the idea, and said that he had been abroad too much, already. As he handed me my fee, my eye fell upon the palm of his hand, and I saw there, plainly marked on the Mount of Saturn, a cross surrounded by two circles. I should explain that for the greater part of my life I have been a constant and enthusiastic 48 THE CARD UNVEILED anything remarkable about my hand P” “Yes,” I said, “there is. Tell me, did not something very un- usual, something very horrible, hap- pen to you about ten or eleven years ago?’ I saw by the way the man started that I had struck near the mark, and, studying the stream of fine lines that crossed his lifeline from the Mount of Venus, I added: “Were you not in some foreign country at that time?” The man's face blanched, but he only looked at me steadily out of those mournful eyes. Now I took his other hand, and compared the two, line by line, mount by mount, 5.I THE CARD UNVEILED noting the short square fingers, the heavy thumb, with amazing will- power in its upper joint, and gazing again and again at that ominous sign on Saturn. “Your life has been strangely unhappy, your years have been clouded by some evil influence.” “My God,” he said weakly, sink- ing into a chair, “how can you know these things?” “It is easy to know what one sees,” I said, and tried to draw him out about his past, but the words seemed to stick in his throat. “I will come back and talk to you again,” he said, and he went away without giving me his name or any revelation of his life. 52 THE CARD UNVEILED Several times he called during sub- sequent weeks, and gradually seemed to take on a measure of confidence in my presence. He would talk freely of his physical condition, which seemed to cause him much anxiety. He even insisted upon my making the most careful examina- tion of all his organs, especially of his eyes, which, he said, had troubled him at various times. Upon making the usual tests, I found that he was suffering from a most uncommon form of color blindness, that seemed to vary in its manifestations, and to be connected with certain halluci- nations or abnormal mental states which recurred periodically, and about which I had great difficulty 53 THE CARD UNVEILED Suspecting at once that here was the mysterious assassin so long vainly sought for many similar crimes, they dashed after the fleeing man, who darted right and left through the maze of dark streets, giving out little cries like a squirrel as he ran. Seeing that they were losing ground, one of the printers fired at the flee- ing shadow, his shot being followed by a scream of pain, and hurrying up they found a man writhing on the ground. The man was Richard Burwell. The news that my sad-faced friend had been implicated in such a revolt- ing occurrence shocked me inexpres- sibly, and I was greatly relieved the next day to learn from the papers 58 THE CARD UNVEILED that a most unfortunate mistake had been made. The evidence given be- fore the coroner's jury was such as to abundantly exonerate Burwell from all shadow of guilt. The man's own testimony, taken at his bedside, was in itself almost conclusive in his favor. When asked to explain his presence so late at night in such a part of the city, Burwell stated that he had spent the evening at the Flor- ence Mission, where he had made an address to some unfortunates gath- ered there, and that later he had gone with a young missionary worker to visit a woman living on Frankfort Street, who was dying of consump- tion. This statement was borne out by the missionary worker himself, 59 THE CARD UNVEILED see him, but, in an undertone, in- structed the servant to say that the man might call at my office the next morning. Then, turning to Bur- well, I begged him to compose himself and save his strength for the ordeal awaiting him. “No, no,” he said, “I need my strength now to tell you what you must know to find the truth. You are the only man who has under- stood that there has been some ter- rible influence at work in my life. You are the only man competent to study out what that influence is, and I have made provision in my will that you shall do so after I am gone. I know that you will heed my wishes?” 64 THE CARD UNVEILED done one night when there was ab- solutely no one in the house but my wife and myself. There was no doubt about the crime, for there on the tiny neck were the finger marks where some cruel hand had closed until life went. “Then a few years later, when my partner and I were on the eve of fortune, our advance was set back by the robbery of our safe. Some one opened it in the night, some one who knew the combination, for it was the work of no burglar, and yet there were only two persons in the world who knew that combination, my partner and myself. I tried to be brave when these things hap- pened, but as my life went on it 68 THE CARD UNVEILED seemed more and more as if some CUTSC WCTC On InC. “Eleven years ago I went abroad with my wife and daughter. Busi- ness took me to Paris, and I left the ladies in London, expecting to have them join me in a few days. But they never did join me, for the curse was on me still, and before I had been forty-eight hours in the French capital something happened that completed the wreck of my life. It does n’t seem possible, does it, that a simple white card with some words scrawled on it in purple ink could effect a man's undoing? And yet that was my fate. The card was given me by a beautiful woman with eyes like stars. She is dead 69 THE CARD UNVEILED with an effort forced himself to continue: — “When I went back to London, sure of comfort in the love of my wife, she too, on seeing the card, drove me from her with cruel words. And when finally, in deepest despair, I returned to New York, dear old Jack, the friend of a lifetime, broke with me when I showed him what was written. What the words were I do not know, and suppose no one will ever know, for the ink has faded these many years. You will find the card in my safe with other papers. But I want you, when I am gone, to find out the mystery of my life; and—and—about my fortune, that must be held until you 71 THE CARD UNVEILED me, and the sick man sank back calmer. A little later, the nurse and at- tendants came for the operation. As they were about to administer the ether, Burwell pushed them from him, and insisted on having brought to his bedside an iron box from the safe. “The card is here,” he said, lay- ing his trembling hand upon the box, “you will remember your promise !” Those were his last words, for he did not survive the operation. Early the next morning I received this message: “The stranger of yes- > terday begs to see you; ” and pres– ently a gentleman of fine presence 73 THE CARD UNVEILED and strength of face, a tall, dark- complexioned man wearing glasses, was shown into the room. “Mr. Burwell is dead, is he not?” were his first words. “Who told you ?” “No one told me, but I know it, and I thank God for it.” There was something in the stranger's intense earnestness that convinced me of his right to speak thus, and I listened attentively. “That you may have confidence in the statement I am about to make, I will first tell you who I am; ” and he handed me a card that caused me to lift my eyes in wonder, for it bore a very great name, that of one of Europe's most famous savants. 74 THE CARD UNVEILED as Paris looks on a perfect summer's night. Suddenly my sister gave a cry of pain and put her hand to her heart. Then, changing from French to the language of our country, she explained to me quickly that some- thing frightful was taking place there, where she pointed her finger across the river, that we must go to the place at once—the driver must lash his horses—every second was precious. “So affected was I by her intense conviction, and such confidence had I in my sister's wisdom, that I did not oppose her, but told the man to drive as she directed. The carriage fairly flew across the bridge, down the Boulevard St. Germain, then to 78 THE CARD UNVEILED the left, threading its way through the narrow streets that lie along the Seine. This way and that, straight ahead here, a turn there, she direct- ing our course, never hesitating, as if drawn by some unseen power, and always urging the driver on to greater speed. Finally, we came to a black-mouthed, evil-look- ing alley, so narrow and roughly paved that the carriage could scarcely advance. “Come on l’ my sister cried, springing to the ground; “we will go on foot, we are nearly there. Thank God, we may yet be in time.” “No one was in sight as we hurried along the dark alley, and 79 THE CARD UNVEILED burn into him. What power she exercised I do not know, nor whether some words she spoke, un- intelligible to me, had to do with what followed, but instantly there came over this man, this pleasant- looking, respectable American citi- zen, such a change as is not made by death worms gnawing in a grave. Now there was a fiend groveling at her feet, a foul, sin- stained fiend. “‘Now you see the demon- soul,” said my sister. “Watch. It writhe and struggle; it has served me well, brother, sayest thou not so, the lore I gained from our wise men º' “The horror of what followed 85 THE CARD UNVEILED not there, — but I could see it in my mind. And the look on its face was a blackest glimpse of hell. “‘And now stand as thou didst in robbing the friend, stand, stand; ' and again came the unknown words, and again the fiend obeyed. “‘These we will take for future use,” said my sister. And bidding me watch the creature carefully until she should return, she left the room, and, after none too short an absence, returned bearing a black box that was an apparatus for photography, and something more besides, – some newer, stranger kind of photography that she had learned. Then, on a strangely fashioned card, a transpar- 88 THE CARD UNVEILED once more the honest-looking, fine- appearing gentleman, Richard Bur- well, of New York. “‘Excuse me, madame,” he said, awkwardly, but with deference; ‘I must have dosed a little. I am not myself to-night.” “‘No,' said my sister, “you have not been yourself to-night.” “A little later I accompanied the man to the Continental Hotel, where he was stopping, and, returning to my sister, I talked with her until late into the night. I was alarmed to see that she was wrought to a ner- vous tension that augured ill for her health. I urged her to sleep, but she would not. “‘No,' she said, ‘think of the 92 THE CARD UNVEILED the card she had prepared. A mo- ment later, with a look of pity on her beautiful face, she rejoined me and we went away. It was plain he did not know us.” To so much of the savant's strange recital I had listened with absorbed interest, though without a word, but now I burst in with questions. “What was your sister's idea in giving Burwell the card?” I asked. “It was in the hope that she might make the man understand his terrible condition, that is, teach the pure soul to know its loathsome companion.” “And did her effort succeed P’’ “Alas! it did not; my sister's purpose was defeated by the man's 95 THE CARD UNVEILED power of producing in the brain material pictures that may be pro- jected externally by the thought rays and made to impress themselves upon the photographic plate, pre- cisely as ordinary pictures do.” “You mean,” I exclaimed, “that you can photograph the two prin- ciples of good and evil that exist in us?” “Exactly that. The great truth of a dual soul existence, that was dimly apprehended by one of your Western novelists, has been demon- strated by me in the laboratory with my camera. It is my purpose, at the proper time, to entrust this precious knowledge to a chosen few who will perpetuate it and use it worthily.” 98 THE CARD UNVEILED “And the writing on the card, have you any memory of it, for Burwell told me that the words have faded ?” “I have something better than that; I have a photograph of both card and writing, which my sister was careful to take. I had a notion that the ink in my pocket pen would fade, for it was a poor affair. This photograph I will bring you to- morrow.” “Bring it to Burwell's house,” I said. The next morning the stranger called as agreed upon. “Here is the photograph of the card,” he said. IOO THE CARD UNVEILED piece of pasteboard the wife had seen a crime which the mother could never forgive, the partner had seen a crime which the friend could never forgive. Think of a loved face suddenly melting before your eyes into a grinning skull, then into a mass of putrefaction, then into the ugliest fiend of hell, leering at you, distorted with all the marks of vice and shame. That is what I saw, that is what they had seen! “Let us lay these two cards in the coffin,” said my companion impressively, “we have done what we could.” Eager to be rid of the hateful piece of pasteboard (for who could say that the curse was not still cling- IO2 _