A Rival from the Grave

by Seabury Quinn

  Physicians at the clinic declared they could find no cause for her prolonged unconsciousness, as she was evidently neither intoxicated nor under the influence of drugs, and exhibited no symptoms of any known disease.

  Nothing found upon her offered any clue to her identity.

  “Well?” I demanded as I put the clipping down.

  “I do not think it was,” he answered. “By no means; not at all. Consider, if you please:

  “Mademoiselle Bushrod’s accident had occurred two weeks before, she had been given up by local surgeons; Augensburg, who was at the Ellis Clinic at the time, had just accepted her case.

  “This strange young woman with the pretty hands drops down upon the roadway almost coincidentally with Mademoiselle Virginia’s advent at the clinic. Do you not begin to sniff the odor of the rodent?”

  “I don’t think so,” I replied.

  “Very well, then, listen: The mysterious young woman was undoubtlessly the Fagan girl, whose disappearance occurred about this time. What was the so mysterious malady which struck her down, which had no symptoms, other than unconsciousness? It was merely that she had been once again put under the hypnotic influence, my friend. You will recall that the professor could control her almost as well when at a distance as when he stared into her eyes? Certainly. Assuredly. She had become so used to his hypnosis that his slightest word or wish was law to her; she was his slave, his thing, his chattel, to do with as he pleased. Unquestionably he commanded her to walk along that road that day, to fall unconscious near the Ellis Clinic; to lie unconscious afterward, eventually to die. Impossible? Mais non. If one can tell the human heart to beat more slowly, and make it do so, under power of hypnosis, why may one not command it to cease beating altogether, still under hypnotic influence? So far as the young Fagan person was concerned, she had no thought, no will, no power, either mentally or physically, which the professor could not take from her by a single word of command. No, certainly.

  “We were told Mademoiselle Bushrod’s accident came from a tire blow-out, n’est-ce-pas? I do not think it did. I inquired—most discreetly, I assure you—at and near the Ellis Clinic, and discovered that Monsieur the hypnotist visited that institution the very day that she was hurt, had a long conference with Doctor Augensburg in strictest privacy and—when he came he bore a small, high-powered rifle. He said he had been snake-hunting. Me, I think the serpent which he shot was the tire of Mademoiselle Bushrod’s car. That was the blow-out which caused her car to leave the road and crush her hands, my friend!

  “Now, again: This Professor of the Devil, as he called himself appropriately, visited Doctor Augensburg at several times. He was in the room where the unknown woman lay on more than one occasion. He was at the clinic on the day when Augensburg operated on Mademoiselle Bushrod’s hands—and on that day, not fifteen minutes before the operation was performed, the unknown woman died. She had been sinking slowly for some days; her death occurred while orderlies were wheeling our poor Mademoiselle Virginia to the operating-room.

  “You will recall she was unknown; that she was given shelter in an institution which maintains no beds for charity or emergency patients? But did you know that Augensburg paid her bill, and demanded in return that he be given her unclaimed body for anatomical research, that he might seek the cause of her ‘strange’ death? No, you did not know it, nor did I; but now I do, and I damn think that in that information lies the answer to our puzzle.

  “I do not have to tell you that the period between somatic death—the mere ceasing to live—and molecular, or true death, when the tissue-cells begin to die, is often as long as three or four hours. During this period the individual body-cells remain alive, the muscles react to electrical stimuli, even the pupils of the eye can be expanded with atropine. She had suffered no disease-infection, this unknown one, her body was healthy, but run down, like an unwound clock. Moreover, fifteen minutes after her death, her hands were, histologically speaking, still alive. What easier than to make the transplantation of her sound, live hands to Mademoiselle Bushrod’s wrists, then chop and maim her body in the autopsy room in such a way that none would be the wiser?

  “And what of these transplanted hands? They were part and parcel of a hypnotic subject, were they not, accustomed to obey commands of the hypnotist immediately, even to have steel knitting-needles run through them, yet feel no pain? Yes, certainly.

  “Very well. Are it not entirely possible that these hands which the professor have commanded so many times when they were attached to one body, will continue to obey his whim when they are rooted to another? I think so.

  “In his fine story, your magnificent Monsieur Poe tells of a man who really died, yet was kept alive through hypnosis. These hands of Mademoiselle Fagan never really died, they were still technically alive when they were taken off—who knows what orders this professor gave his dupe before he ordered her to die? Those hands had been a major vanity of hers, they were skilled hands, strong hands, beautiful hands—hélas, dishonest hands, as well—but they formed a large part of their owner’s personality. Might he not have ordered that they carry on that personality after transplantation to the end that they might eventually lead the poor Mademoiselle Bushrod to entire ruin? I think so. Yes.

  “Consider the evidence: Mademoiselle Bushrod is tone-deaf, yet we heard her play exquisitely. She had no skill and no experience in billiards, yet we saw her shoot a brilliant game. For why should she, whose very nature is so foreign to the act, steal merchandise from a shopkeeper?

  “Yet she tells us that she caught herself in such a crime. Whence comes this odd desire on her part to have her nails so brightly painted, a thing which she abhors? Last of all, how comes it that she, who is in nowise noted for her strength, can twist a silver table fork into a corkscrew?

  “You see,” he finished, “the case is perfect. I know it can not possibly be so; yet so it is. We can not face down facts, my friend.”

  “It’s preposterous,” I replied, but my denial lacked conviction.

  He read capitulation in my tone, and smiled with satisfaction.

  “But can’t we break this spell?” I asked. “Surely, we can make this Professor What’s-his-Name—”

  “Not by any legal process,” he cut in. “No court on earth would listen to our story, no jury give it even momentary credence. Yet”—he smiled a trifle grimly—“there is a way, my friend.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Have you by any chance a trocar in your instruments?” he asked irrelevantly.

  “A trocar? You mean one of those long, sharp-pointed hollow needles used in paracentesis operations?”

  “Précisément. Tu parles, mon vieux.”

  “Why, yes, I think there’s one somewhere.”

  “And may one borrow it tonight?”

  “Of course, but—where are you going at this hour?”

  “To Staten Island,” he replied as he placed the long, deadly, stiletto-like needle in his instrument case. “Do not wait up for me, my friend, I may be very late.”

  HORRIFIED SUSPICION, GROWING RAPIDLY to dreadful certainty, mounted in my mind as I scanned the evening paper while de Grandin and I sipped our coffee and liqueurs in the study three nights later. “Read this,” I ordered, pointing to an obscure item on the second page:

  St. George, S.I, September 30—The body of George Lothrop, known professionally on the stage as Prof. Mysterioso, hypnotist, missing from his rooming-house at Bull’s Head, S.I., since Tuesday night, was found floating in New York bay near the St. George ferry slip by harbor police this afternoon.

  Representatives of the Medical Examiners’ office said he was not drowned, as a stab wound, probably from a stiletto, had pierced his left breast and reached his heart.

  Employees at the side show at Coney Island, where Lothrop formerly gave exhibitions as a hypnotist, said he was of a sullen and quarrelsome disposition and given to annoying women. From the nature of the wound which caused his death police believe the husband or ad
mirer of some woman he accosted resented his attentions and stabbed him, afterward throwing his body into the bay.

  De Grandin read the item through with elevated brows. “A fortunate occurrence, is it not?” he asked. “Mademoiselle Bushrod is now freed from any spell he might have cast on her—or on her hands. Hypnotic suggestion can not last, once the hypnotist is dead.”

  “But—but you—that trocar—” I began.

  “I returned it to your instrument case last Tuesday night,” he answered. “Will you be good enough to pour me out a little brandy? Ah, thank you, my friend.”

  The Black Orchid

  UNDER THE COMBINED INFLUENCE of an excellent dinner and two ounces of 1845 cognac our guest became expansive. “D’ye know,” he told us as he passed the brandy snifter beneath his nose; inhaling the fruity fragrance of the ancient liqueur, “I believe I’ve run across a new disease.”

  “Ah?” murmured Jules de Grandin courteously, casting a quick wink in my direction. “You interest me, Monsieur. What are the symptoms of this hitherto unknown disorder?”

  Young Doctor Traherne beamed upon us genially. When one is barely thirty, fresh from his internship and six months’ study in Vienna, there is a spice in being told that your discoveries interest physicians who were practising when you were in the cradle. “It’s a—a bloodless hemorrhage,” he confided.

  De Grandin’s narrow brows receded nearly half an inch toward the line of his sleekly brushed blond hair. “Pardonnez-moi, Monsieur,” he begged. “I fear I do not understand the English fluently. You said—perhaps I did not hear it right?—that you had found a bloodless hemorrhage?”

  Traherne applied a match to his cigar and chuckled.

  “That’s it, sir,” he answered. “Six months ago they called me to attend old Mr. Sorensen. At first I thought he suffered from anemia, but a check-up on his blood convinced me the trouble was more quantitative than qualitative. The man showed every evidence of hemorrhage exhaustion, and as there was no sign of external blood escape, I naturally suspected carcinoma and internal bleeding, but when I tested him I found there was no trace of it. There he was, with no wound or lesion—absolutely no way by which he could have lost a teaspoonful of blood—bleeding to death progressively. I put him on a blood-producing diet, fed him wine and iron and liver enough to fill a fair-sized warehouse, but every morning he showed fresh evidences of prostration till I had to fall back on glucose injections, and finally resorted to transfusions.”

  De Grandin’s interest showed more than merely formal courtesy as Traherne finished his description.

  “And when did this one die?” he asked, a sudden cutting-edge of sharpness in his voice.

  “He didn’t,” answered Traherne with a grin. “Just by luck I hit upon the idea of a cruise—thought he might as well pass out with a ship’s doctor in attendance as to have me sign the death certificate—so I shipped him off on a Caribbean trip. He was back in ninety days, hale and hearty as ever, without a sign of the strange condition which had nearly caused his death.”

  “Eh bien, you are to be congratulated,” said the Frenchman with a smile. “Our trade is one part science and the other nine parts luck, n’est-ce-pas?”

  “But here’s the funny part,” Traherne replied. “Sorensen’s been home just six weeks, and he’s got it again. Not only that, his niece, who lives with him, has it too, and her condition’s even worse than his. Hanged if I can figure it. Whatever influence has caused this condition has undoubtedly been the same in both cases—the symptoms are so exactly similar, but there’s absolutely no normal or apparent explanation for it. Think of it, gentlemen. Here are two people, one a man near eighty, but remarkably vigorous and well preserved, without a single trace of degenerative disease of any sort, the other a young woman in her early twenties, and for no apparent reason they both begin to show positively defined symptoms of extensive hemorrhage without a sign of bleeding. They respond to conventional treatment for loss of blood, but lapse into hemorrhage prostration almost overnight. If I were a Negro or a back-county Pennsylvanian I’d say it was a case of voodoo curse or hexing, but being a physician and a man of science I can only conclude these people are victims of some strange and as yet unclassified disease. Quite probably it’s contagious, too, since the niece appears to have contracted it by contact with the uncle.”

  “H’m,” de Grandin murmured thoughtfully. “Has it occurred to you, mon collègue, that the evil which attacks these two is really old as Egypt’s mighty pyramids or Babylon’s tall temples?”

  “Oh, you mean some old disease which ravaged ancient peoples and has passed out of medical memory, like the Black Death of medieval Europe?”

  “Précisément, the blackest of black deaths, my friend.”

  “You know about it—you’ve seen such cases?” young Traherne asked, a shade of disappointment in his voice.

  “I would not say that,” de Grandin answered. “I have observed such symptoms, not once, but many times, but only fools attempt a diagnosis at long distance. I should greatly like to have the chance to see the victims of this so strange illness. Could you arrange an interview?”

  “Why, yes,” the other smiled. “I’m going to drop by Sorensen’s house tonight, just to see that everything is going smoothly. Would you care to come along?”

  OSCAR SORENSEN WAS ONE of those unusual characters found in many of the small, sub-metropolitan communities which fringe New York. Almost eighty years of age, he had served a rigorous apprenticeship as soldier of fortune, and, unlike most of that breed, he had succeeded. Late in life he retired from service to a half-score countries with military decorations enough to decorate an army corps and a fortune more than large enough to let him end the quiet close of his eventful life in luxury. He had fought in Egypt, China, the Levant, in India and the troubled Balkans, as well as over every foot of Central America. Serving with the Cubans under Garcia, he left the island as a brigadier general of insurrectos, his pockets lined with fat commissions from Americans who had seen the wisdom of buying what they wanted. As a commandant of Boer cavalry he had thriftily secured enough tough diamonds to make the unsuccessful war the Dutchmen waged a most remunerative enterprise for him; the loot of half a dozen Spanish cities near the Caribbean Sea had somehow found its way into his pocket, whether he had served the Government or revolutionary forces.

  He looked the part which Fate had cast him for. Over six feet tall and proportionately broad, his prominent cheekbones and narrow face bespoke his Viking ancestry, as did his fair skin and light eyes. His face was tanned to the shade of unstained oak by long exposure to the tropic sun, tiny wrinkles splayed out from the corners of his eyes, and a white crescent of scar-tissue outlined the path of an old knife or spear wound from right eye to temple.

  Even without having seen the man before, I realized he was little better than a wraith of his former self. Violet half-moons underneath his eyes, a waxed pallor underlying the sunburn of his face and the pinched look of distress about his nose all testified eloquently to the sudden weakness which had fallen on him.

  “I’ve heard of you, de Grandin,” he acknowledged as Doctor Traherne finished introductions, “and I think it’s time we had you in for consultation. I’ve been telling myself that what was wrong with me was nothing but a fresh recurrence of malaria, but all along I knew that it was nothing for a sawbones’ treatment. You’re a ghost-fighter, aren’t you? Good. I’ve got a ghost for you to fight, and it’ll take the best you’ve got to whip it, too!”

  The little Frenchman raised his narrow, high-arched brows a trifle. “A ghost, Monsieur?” he countered. “But Doctor Traherne informs us that—”

  “Excuse me,” cut in Sorensen, “but this is no matter for scientific speculation, I’m afraid. Of course Traherne informs you it’s some strange form of anemia we’re suffering from. You’re a doctor, too; but you’ve traveled. You’ve seen things outside the dissecting-rooms and clinics, and laboratories. Listen:

  “You’ve been in savage
countries; you know there’s something to the power that the native witches claim. Here in civilization, with gas to cook our food and electricity to light us on our way to bed, we’ve forgotten all the old-time powers of the witch, so we say there never was any such thing, and brand belief in it as superstition. Valgame Dios,” he swore in Spanish, “those who’ve traveled the remote spots of the world know what is so and what is superstition. In Polynesia I’ve seen men—whites as well as natives—shrivel and die by inches just because some native witch-doctor prayed them to death. On the African West Coast I’ve seen owls, owls large as eagles, perch in trees by villages, and next day some dweller in the settlement would die in frightful pain. I’ve seen Papuan wizards dance around their night-fires till the spirits of the dead came back—yes, by Heaven, with my own eyes I saw my mother, lying twenty years and more in her grave out there in St. Stephen’s churchyard, stand across a Dyak campfire from me while a native sorcerer danced about the flames to the rhythm of a tom-tom!”

  “Parbleu, but you have right, my friend,” de Grandin nodded in agreement. “The dwellers in the silent places, they know these things; they have not forgotten; they remember, and they know. Me—”

  “Excuse me,” Traherne cut in dryly, “I hate to interrupt these reminiscences, but would you mind telling Doctor de Grandin about the onset of your illness, Mr. Sorensen?”

  The old man looked at him much as an annoyed adult might regard the impertinent interruption of a child. “You’ve been in Madagascar?” he demanded of de Grandin.

  “But naturally,” the little Frenchman answered. “And you, Monsieur?”