“You will come with me now, won’t you, lieber Kollege?” he asked as he released the pressure momentarily, then bore down on my spine again until it seemed to me my heart had quite stopped beating, then started up again with a cold, nauseating lurch. I could see his eyes blaze at me through the dark, feel his fingers fumbling at my skull-base.
“Don’t—don’t!” I panted, sick with pain. “I’ll—”
“Ist gut. Of course you will. I knew that you would not be stubborn. As I was saying, this next experiment I propose making is more ambitious than any I have tried before. It involves the psyche quite as much as the body. Tell me, Doctor, is it your opinion that the physical attraction we call love springs more from contemplation of the loved one’s face or figure?”
He tapped me on the shoulder with a rigid forefinger, and I shrank from the contact as from a heated iron. Sick revulsion flooded through me. What atrocity was hatching in the diseased mind of this completely irresponsible mad genius?
“Why—I—what do you mean?” I stammered stupidly. My head and neck still pained me so that I could hardly think.
“Precisely what I say, mein lieber Kollege,” he snapped back acidly. “Every day we see cases which make us wonder. Men love and marry women with faces which might put Medusa to shame, but with bodies which might make a Venus jealous. Or, by contrast, they fall in love with pretty faces set on bodies which lack every element of beauty, or which may even be deformed. Women marry men with similar attributes. Can you explain these vagaries?”
“Of course not,” I returned. “Human beings aren’t mere animals. Physical attraction plays its part, naturally, but intellectual affinity, the soul—”
“The psyche, if you please, mein Kollege. Let us not be mediæval in our terminology.”
“All right, the psyche, then. We see beneath the surface, find spiritual qualities that attract us, and base our love on them. A love with nothing but the outward-seeming of the body for foundation is unworthy of the name. It couldn’t last—”
“Fool!” he half laughed and half snarled. “You believe in idealistic love—in the love that casteth out fear and endureth all things?”
“Absolutely”
“So do those two down there—”
He had halted at a turning of the hallway; as he spoke he pressed a lever, sliding back a silent panel in the floor. Immediately beneath us was a small room, comfortably furnished and well lighted. On a couch before the open fire a boy and girl were seated, hand in hand, fear written on their faces.
He was a lad of twenty-two or so, slightly made, with sleek, fair hair and a ruddy, fresh complexion. I did not need to hear him speak to know that he was English, or that I had the answer to the disappearance of the British consul’s messenger.
The girl was younger by a year or so, and dark as her companion was blond.
Their costumes and positions were reminiscent of domestic bliss as portrayed in the more elaborate motion pictures; he wore a suit of violet pajamas beneath a lounging-robe of purple silk brocade, and a pair of purple kid house-boots. She was clothed in an elaborate hostess coat of Persian pattern, all-enveloping from throat to insteps, but so tight from neck to hips that it hid her lissome form no more than the apple’s skin conceals the fruit’s contours. From hips to hem it flared out like a ballerina’s skirt. Laced to her feet with narrow strips of braided scarlet leather were brightly gilded sandals with cork soles at least four inches thick, and the nails of her exquisitely formed hands and feet were lacquered brilliant red to match the sandal straps.
“No,” she was saying as Friedrichsohn slid back the panel, “it isn’t hopeless, dear. They’re sure to find us sometime—why, you were a king’s messenger; the consulate will turn the country inside out—”
His bitter laugh broke in. “No chance! I’ve stultified myself, blasted my name past all redemption. They’ll let me rot, and never turn a hand—”
“Neville! What do you mean?”
He put his elbows on his knees and hid his face in his cupped hands. “I should have let ’em kill me first,” he sobbed, “but—oh, my dear, you can’t imagine how they hurt me! First they beat me with a strap, and when that didn’t break my spirit the little man with the black glasses did something to my neck—I don’t know what—that made me feel as if I had a dentist’s drill in every tooth at once. I couldn’t stand the dreadful pain, and—and so I signed it, Lord, forgive me!”
“Signed what, dearest?”
“A letter to the consul tellin’ him I’d sold the papers that he’d trusted with me to the Germans, and that I’d hooked it with the money. I shouldn’t have found it hard to die, dear, but the pain—the awful pain—”
“Of course, my dear, my poor, sweet dear”—she took his head against her bosom and rocked it back and forth as if he were a fretful child and she his mother—“I understand. Rita understands, dear, and so will they when we get out of here. No one’s responsible for things he’s done when he’s been tortured. Think of the people who denied their faith when they were on the rack—”
“And of the ones who had the stuff to stick it!” he sobbed miserably.
“Honey, listen. I don’t love you ’cause you’re strong and masterful and heroic; I love you ’cause you’re you.” She stopped his wild self-accusation with a kiss. Then back again to her first theme:
“They’re sure to find us, dear. This is Twentieth Century America. Two people can’t just disappear and stay that way. The police, the G-men—”
“How long have we been here?” he interrupted.
“I—I don’t quite know. Not being able to look out and see the sun, I can’t form estimates of time. We don’t know even when it’s night and when it’s day, do we? All I remember is that I was late in leaving Philadelphia and I was hurrying to avoid the evening traffic from New York when, just outside of Cranberry, something flew against my face and stung me. I thought at first that it was a mosquito, but that was silly. Even Jersey skeeters don’t come around in February. The next thing I knew I was awfully dizzy and the car was rocking crazily from one side of the road to the other; then—here I was. I found myself in a soft bed, and my clothes were gone, but these sandals and this house-coat were laid out for me. There was a bathroom letting off my chamber, and when I’d finished showering I found breakfast—or maybe it was luncheon or dinner—waiting for me on a tray beside the bed. They don’t intend to starve us, sugar, that’s a sure thing. Haven’t you been well fed, too?”
“Yes, I have. My experience was about the same as yours, except that I’ve seen them, the tall, thin man who looks like a walkin’ corpse, and the little pipsqueak with black glasses. But I didn’t see ’em till today—or was it yesterday? I can’t seem to remember.”
The girl knit her smooth brows. “Neither can I. I’ve tried to keep count of the meals they’ve served, allowing three meals to a day, so I could form some estimate of the time I’ve been here, and I’ve tried so hard to lie in wait and catch the one who serves ’em; but somehow I always seem to fall asleep, no matter how I strive to keep awake, and—it’s funny about sleeping, isn’t it? When you wake up you can’t say if you’ve just dozed for five minutes or slept around the clock—”
The boy sat forward suddenly, gripping both her hands in his. “That’s it! I’m sure of it! No wonder time seems to stand still in this place! They drug us—dope us some way, so that we go to sleep whenever they desire it. We don’t know how long these drugged sleeps last. We may have been here weeks, months—”
“No, dear,” she shook her head. “It isn’t summer, yet. We haven’t been here months.”
“We may have been.” Wild panic had him in its grip, his voice was rising, growing thin, hysterical. “How can you tell?”
“Silly!” She bent and kissed him. “Call it woman’s intuition if you like, but I am sure we haven’t been cooped up here for a month.”
They sat in silence a few minutes, hand interlaced in hand; then:
“Rita?”
>
“Yes, dear?”
“When we get out—if we get out, and if I square myself with the Chief—will you marry me?”
“Try to keep me from it, Mister Southerby, and you’ll find yourself right in the middle of the tidiest breach-of-promise suit you ever saw! D’ye think that you can compromise me like this, sit here with me, dressed as we are, and without a chaperon, then ride off gayly? You’ll make an honest woman of me, young feller me lad, or—” Her mask of badinage fell away, leaving her young face as ravaged as a garden after a hail storm. “Oh, Neville, you do think they’ll find us, don’t you?”
It was his turn to comfort her. “Of course, of course, my darling!” he whispered. “They’ll find us. They can’t help but find us. Then—”
“Yes, honey, then”—She snuggled sleepily into his arms—“then we’ll always be together, dear, close—so close that your dear face will be the first thing that I see when I awake, the last I see before I go to sleep. Oh, it will be heaven . . . heaven.”
“I shall be interested to find out if it will. Time will tell, and I think time will side with me.” Friedrichsohn pressed the spring that slipped the silent panel back in place, and rose, helping me up from my knees. “It will be an interesting experiment to observe, nicht wahr, mein Kollege?”
“Wha—what d’ye mean?” I stammered, my voice almost beyond control. What dreadful plan had taken form behind that high, white brow? Would he subject this boy and girl to dreadful transformation? I had seen the remnant of the lovely Viki Boehm. Did he dare . . .
His soft, suave voice broke through my terrified imaginings. “Why, simply this, mein lieber Kollege: They are ideal subjects for my test; better, even, than I had dared hope. I caught the girl by the simple device of waiting by the roadside with an airgun loaded with impregnated darts. The slightest puncture of the epidermis with one of my medicated missiles paralyzes the sensory-motor nerves instantly, and as she told the young man, when she woke up she was in bed in one of my guest rooms.
“But my experiment requires Jill to have a Jack, Joan a Darby, Gretel a Hänsel, and so I set about to find a mate for her. Eventually this young man came along, and was similarly caught. I had arranged for everything. Their sleeping-quarters open on a common sitting-room, his to one side, hers upon the other. Each morning—or each night, they can’t tell the difference—I permit them to awaken, open the automatic doors to their rooms, and let them visit with each other. When I think that they have made love long enough I—ah—turn the current off and put them back to sleep.”
“How do you mean—”
“Have not you noticed a peculiar odor here?”
“Yes, I smelled the incense when I first came in—”
“Jawohl. That is it. I have perfected an anesthetic gas which, according to the strength of its concentration, can put one in a state of perfect anesthesia in a minute, a second, or immediately. It is almost odorless, and such slight odor as it has is completely masked by the incense. Periodically I put them to sleep, then let them re-awaken. That is why they cannot guess the intervals of time between their meetings, and—what is more important—when they begin to reason out too much, I see that they become unconscious quickly. I turned the anesthetic on when he began to guess too accurately concerning my technique a moment ago. By this time both of them are sleeping soundly, and Mishkin has taken them to bed. When I see fit, I shall allow them to awake and eat and take their conversation up where they left off, but I do not think they will. They are too preoccupied with each other to give much thought to me—just now, at least.”
“How long have they been here?” I asked. “I heard her say that she came first—”
“What is time?” he laughed. “She does not know how long she’s been my guest; neither does he, nor you, Herr Doktor. It may have been a night I let you sleep, in Stravinsky’s cell, or it may have been a week, or two—”
“That’s nonsense,” I cut in. “I should have been half starved if that were so. As it is, I’m not even feeling hungry—”
“How do you know we did not feed you with a nasal tube while you were sleeping?”
I had not thought of that. It upset my calculations utterly. Certainly in normal circumstances I should have been ravenous if I’d been there but four and twenty hours. A longer period without nourishment and I should have felt weak, yet I felt no hunger. . . .
“To return to our young lovers,” Friedrichsohn reminded me. “They are better suited to my purpose; better, even, than I’d thought. When I captured him I could not know that they had known each other for some time, and were more than merely mildly interested in each other. Since they have been my guests, propinquity has made that interest blossom into full-blown love. Tomorrow, or the next day—or the next day after that—I think I shall begin to work on them.”
“To—work—on—them?”
“Jawohl, mein lieber Kollege. You saw the fascinating beauty treatment I gave Viki Boehm? Ist gut. I shall put them quietly to sleep and subject them to precisely similar ministrations. When they awake they’ll find themselves in the dove-cote I have prepared for them. It is a charming, cozy little place where they can contemplate each other as the little lady said, where the face of each shall be the first thing that the other sees when he awakes, the last thing he beholds before he goes to sleep. It is larger than the chamber I assigned to Viki—more than twice as large—and one of them shall rest at one end of it while the other occupies the other, facing him. It has been lined with mirrors, too, so that they can see themselves and each other from both front and back. That is necessary, Herr Doktor, since they will not be able to turn around. Lacking legs, a person finds himself severely handicapped in moving, lieber Freund.”
“But why should you do this to them?” I faltered, knowing even as I asked the question that reason had no part in his wild plans.
“Can you ask that after our discussion of the merits of the face and form as stimulants of love? I am surprised and disappointed in you, mein Kollege. It is to see if love—the love they pledge so tenderly to each other—can stand the sight of hideous deformity in the loved one. Their faces will be as they are now, only their forms will be altered. If they continue to express affection for each other I shall know the face is that which energizes love, but if—as I am sure they will—they turn from each other in loathing and abhorrence, I shall have proven that the form is more important. It will be a most diverting comedy to watch, nicht wahr, Herr Doktor?”
Horror drove my pulses to a hurrying rhythm. Something sharp, something penetrating as a cold and whetted knife-blade, seemed probing at my insides. I wanted to cry out against this outrage, to pray; but I could not. Heaven seemed unreal and infinitely far away with this phosphorescent-eyed monstrosity at my elbow, his pitiless, purring voice outlining plans which outdid Hell in hellish ingenuity.
“You can’t—you can’t do this!” I gasped. “You wouldn’t dare! You’ll be found out!”
“That’s what Viki Boehm said when I told her of the future I had planned for her,” he broke in with a susurrating laugh. “But they didn’t find me out. They never will, Herr Doktor. This is a madhouse—pardon me, a sanitarium—duly licensed by the state and impervious to private inquiry. People expect to hear cries and shrieks and insane laughter from such places. Passersby and neighbors are not even curious. My grounds are posted against trespassers; your law insures my privacy, and no one, not even the police, may enter here without a warrant. I have a crematory fully equipped and ready to be used instantly. If attempts are made to search the house I can destroy incriminating evidence—inanimate and animate—in a moment and without trouble. I shall prosecute my work uninterrupted, lieber Kollege—and that reminds me, I have a proposal to make you.”
He had reached the red-walled room again, and he pushed me suddenly, forcing me into a chair.
“There are times when I feel Mishkin is inadequate,” he said, taking out a cigarette and setting it alight. “I have taught him much, but his lac
k of early training often makes him bungle things. I need a skilled assistant, one with surgical experience, capable of helping me in operations. I think you are admirably fitted for this work. Will you enlist with me—”
“I?” I gasped. “I’ll see you damned first.”
“Or will you fill Stravinsky’s coffin?”
“Stravinsky’s—coffin?”
“Exactly. You remember that I told you Abraham Stravinsky was a patient here and that he died the day you came? Jawohl. His family have not yet been notified of his death. His body is preserved and waiting shipment. Should you accept my offer I shall notify his relatives and send his corpse to them without delay. If you decline”—the green eyes seemed to brighten in the gloom as they peered at me—“I shall put him in the crematory, and you shall take his place in the coffin. He was a Hebrew of the orthodox persuasion, and as such will have a plain pine coffin, rather than a casket. I have several boxes like that ready, one of them for you, unless you choose to join me. You are also doubtless aware that the rules of his religion require burial of the dead within twenty-four hours of death. For that reason there is small fear that the coffin will be opened. But if it should be, his family will not know that it is you and not their kinsman whom they see. I shall say he died in an insane seizure, as a consequence of which he was quite battered in the face.
“You need not fear, mein lieber Kollege: the body will be admirably battered—past all recognition. Mishkin will attend to all the details. He has a very dexterous talent with the ax, but—”
“But he will not exercise it, I damn think!” From behind me Jules de Grandin spoke in ordinary conversational tone, but I recognized the flatness of his voice. Cyclopean fury boiled in him, I knew. Friedrichsohn might be insane, fierce and savage as a tiger; de Grandin was his match in fierceness, and his clear French brain was burdened with no trace of madness.
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