“Sacré nom d’un fromage vert, what is it that you tell us, Mademoiselle?” asked Jules de Grandin.
“It wasn’t I reflected in that mirror. As I looked, the moonlight seemed to break and separate into a million little points of light, so that it was more like a mist powdered with diamond dust than a solid shaft of light; it seemed to be at once opaque yet startlingly translucent, with a sheen like that of flowing water, yet absorbing all reflections. Then suddenly, where I should have seen myself reflected in the mirror, I saw another form take shape, half veiled in the sparkling mist that seemed to fill the room, yet startlingly distinct. It was a woman, a girl, perhaps, a little older than I, but not much. She was tall and exquisitely slender, with full-blown, high-set breasts and skin as pale as ivory. Her hair was black and silken-fine and rippled down across her shoulders till it almost reached her knees, and her deep-blue eyes and lovely features held a look of such intense distress that I thought involuntarily of those horribly realistic mediæval pictures of the Crucifixion. Her shoulders were braced back, for she held her hands behind her as though they had been tied, and on her breast and throat and sides were numerous little wounds as though she had been stabbed repeatedly with something sharp and slender, and from every wound the fresh blood welled and trickled out upon the pale, smooth skin.”
“She was—” began de Grandin, but the girl anticipated him.
“Yes,” she told him, “she was nude. Nothing clothed her but her glorious hair and the bright blood streaming from her wounds.
“For a minute, maybe for an hour, we looked into each other’s eyes, this lovely, naked girl and I, and it seemed to me that she tried desperately to tell me something, but though I saw the veins and muscles stand out on her throat with the effort that she made, no sound came from her tortured lips. Somehow, as we stood there, I felt a queer, uncanny feeling creeping over me. I seemed in some way to be identified with this other girl, and with that feeling of a loss of personality, a bitter, blinding rage seemed surging up in me. Gradually, it seemed to take some sort of form, to bend itself against a certain object, and with a start I realized that I was consumed with hatred; dreadful, crushing, killing hatred toward someone named Karl Pettersen. Not my Karl, especially, but toward everybody in the world who chanced to bear that name. It was a sort of all-inclusive hatred, something like the hatred of the Germans which your generation had in the World War. ‘I can’t—I won’t hate Karl!’ I heard myself exclaiming, and turned to face the other girl. But she was not there.
“There I stood alone in the darkened, empty room with nothing but the moonlight—ordinary moonlight, now-slanting down across the floor.
“I turned the lights on right away and took a dose of aromatic spirits of ammonia, for my nerves were pretty badly shot. Finally I got calmed down and went into the bathroom for my shower.
“I was just about to step into the spray, when I heard a little plaintive mew outside the window. When I crossed the room, there was the sweetest little fluffy white kitten perched on the sill outside the screen, its green eyes blinking in the light which streamed down from the ceiling-lamp and the tip of its pink tongue sticking out like the little end of thin-sliced ham you sometimes see peeping from behind the rolls in railway station sandwiches. I unhooked the screen and let the little creature in, and it snuggled up against my breast and puffed and blinked its knowing eyes at me, and then put up a tiny, pink-toed paw and began to wash its face.
“‘Would you like to take a shower with me, pussy?’ I asked it, and it stopped its washing and looked up at me as if to ask, ‘What did you say?’ then stuck its little nose against my side and began to lick me. You can’t imagine how its little rough tongue tickled.”
“And then, Mademoiselle?” de Grandin asked as Greta broke off smilingly and lay back on her pillows.
“Then? Oh, there wasn’t any then, sir. Next thing I knew I was in bed, with you and Doctor Trowbridge bending over me and looking as solemn and learned as a pair of owls. But the funny part of it all was that I wasn’t ill at all; just too tired to answer when you spoke to me.”
“And what became of this small kitten, Mademoiselle?” de Grandin asked.
“Mother didn’t see it. I’m afraid the little thing was frightened when I fell, and jumped out of the bathroom window.”
“U’m?” Jules de Grandin teased the needle-points of his mustache between a thoughtful thumb and forefinger; then: “And this so mysterious lady without clothing whom you saw reflected in your mirror, Mademoiselle? Could you, by any chance, identify her?”
“Of course,” responded Greta, matter-of-factly as though he’d asked her if she had studied algebra at school, “she was the girl whose portrait’s in the living-room downstairs, Kristina Friebergh.”
“WILL YOU LEAVE ME in the village?” asked de Grandin as we left the Friebergh house. “I would supplement the so strange story which we heard last night by searching through the records at the church and court-house, too.”
Dinner was long overdue when he returned that evening, and, intent upon his dressing, he waved my questioning aside while he shaved and took a hasty shower. Finally, when he had done justice to the salad and meringue glacé, he leant his elbows on the table, lit a cigarette and faced me with a level, serious glance.
“I have found out many things today, my friend,” he told me solemnly. “Some supplement the story which Monsieur Friebergh related; some cast new light upon it; others are, I fear, disquieting.
“By example: There is a story of the little kitten of which Monsieur Friebergh told us, the kitten which refused to grow into a cat. When poor Madame Kristina was first haled before the magistrates for trial, a most careful search was made for it, but nowhere could the searchers find it; yet during the al fresco trial several persons saw it now here, now there, keeping just outside the range of stone-throw, but at all times present. Further, when the ban of witchcraft had apparently been lifted by Madame Kristina’s inability to float and her burial within the churchyard close had been permitted, this so little kitten was seen nightly at her grave, curled up like a patch of snow against the greenery of the growing grass. Small boys shied stones at it, and more than once the village men went to the graveyard and took shots at it, but stone and bullet both were ineffective; the small animal would raise its head and look at those who sought to harm it with a sadly thoughtful glance, then go back to its napping on the grave. Only when approached too closely would it rouse itself, and when the hunter had almost succeeded in tiptoeing close enough to strike it with a club or sword it would completely vanish, only to reappear upon the grave when, tired out with waiting, its assailant had withdrawn to a safe distance.
“Eventually the townsfolk became used to it, but no horse would pass the cemetery while it lay upon its mistress’ grave without shying violently, and the most courageous of the village dogs shunned the graveyard as a place accursed. Once, indeed, a citizen took out a pair of savage mastiffs, determined to exterminate the little haunting beast, but the giant dogs, which would attack a maddened bull without a moment’s hesitation, quailed and cowered from the tiny bit of fluffy fur, nor could their master’s kicks and blows and insults force them past the graveyard gateway.”
“Well, what’s disquieting in that?” I asked. “It seems to me that if there were any sort of supernatural intervention in the case, it was more divine than diabolical. Apparently the townsfolk tried to persecute the little harmless cat to death exactly as they had its mistress. The poor thing died eventually, I suppose?”
“One wonders,” he returned as he pursed his lips and blew a geometrically perfect smoke-ring.
“Wonders what?”
“Many things, parbleu. Especially concerning its death and its harmlessness. Attend me, if you please: For several years the small cat persisted in its nightly vigils at the grave. Then it disappeared, and people thought no more about it. One evening Sarah Spotswood, a young farmer’s daughter, was passing by the graveyard, when she was accosted
by a small white cat. The little creature came out in the road near where it winds within a stone’s-throw of the grave of Kristina Friebergh. It was most friendly, and when she stooped to fondle it, it leaped into her arms.”
He paused and blew another smoke-ring.
“Yes?” I prompted as he watched the cloudy circle sail a lazy course across the table-candles.
“Quite yes,” he answered imperturbably. “Sarah Spotswood went insane within a fortnight. She died without regaining reason. Generally she was a harmless, docile imbecile, but occasionally she broke out raving in delirium. At such times she would shriek and writhe as though in torment, and bleeding wounds appeared upon her sides and breast and throat. The madhouse-keepers thought she had inflicted injury upon herself, and placed her in a straitjacket when they saw the signs of the seizure coming on. It made no difference: the wounds accompanied each spell of madness, as though they were stigmata. Also, I think it worth while mentioning, a small white kitten, unknown to anybody in the madhouse, was always observed somewhere about the place when Sarah’s periods of mania came.
“Her end came tragically, too. She escaped surveillance on a summer afternoon, fled to a little near-by stream and cast herself into it. Though the water was a scant six inches deep, she lay upon her face until she died by drowning.
“Two other similar cases are recorded. Since Sarah Spotswood died in 1750 there have been three young women similarly seized, the history of each case revealing that the maniac had taken a stray white kitten for pet shortly before the onset of incurable madness, and that in every instance the re-appearance of this kitten, or an animal just like it, had coincided with return of manic seizures. Like their predecessor, each of these unfortunate young women succeeded in drowning herself. In view of these things would you call this kitten either dead or harmless?”
“You have a theory?” I countered.
“Yes—and no,” he answered enigmatically. “From such information as we have I am inclined to think the verdict rendered in Madame Kristina’s witch trial was a false one. While not an ill-intentioned one—unknowingly, indeed, perhaps—I think the lady was what we might call a witch; one who had power, whether she chose to exercise it or not, of working good or bad to fellow humans by means of supernatural agencies. It seems this little kitten which never grew to cathood, which lay in mourning on her grave and which afflicted four unfortunate young women with insanity, was her familiar—a beast-formed demon through whose aid she might accomplish magic.”
“But that’s too utterly absurd!” I scoffed. “Kristina Friebergh died three centuries ago, while this kitten—”
“Did not necessarily die with her,” he interjected. “Indeed, my friend, there are many instances in witch-lore where the familiar has outlived its witch.”
“But why should it seek out other girls—”
“Précisément,” he answered soberly. “That, I damn think, is most significant. Witches’ imps, though they may be ambassadors from hell, are clothed in pseudo-natural bodies. Thus they have need of sustenance. This the witch supplies with her blood. It is at the insensitive spot known as the witch-mark or witch’s teat that the familiar is suckled. When Monsieur Friebergh told us of Madame Kristina’s trial, you will recall that he described the spot in which she felt no pain as an area roughly square in shape marked off by four small scars which looked like needle-wounds set about three-quarters of an inch apart? Consider, my friend—think carefully—where have you seen a cicatrix like that within the last few days?” His eyes, round and unwinking as those of a thoughtfully inclined tom-cat, never left mine as he asked the question.
“Why”—I temporized—“oh, it’s too absurd, de Grandin!”
“You do not answer, but I see you recognize the similarity,” he returned. “Those little ‘needle-wounds,’ mon vieux, were made by little kitten-teeth which pierced the white and tender skin of Mademoiselle Greta just before she swooned. She exhibited the signs of hemorrhage, that you will agree; yet we found no blood. Pourquoi? Because the little fluffy kitten which she took into her arms, the little beast which licked her with its tongue a moment before she lost consciousness, sucked it from her body. This cat-thing seems immortal, but it is not truly so. Once in so many years it must have sustenance, the only kind of sustenance which will enable it to mock at time, the blood of a young woman. Sarah Spotswood gave it nourishment, and lost her reason in the process, becoming, apparently, identified with the unfortunate Madame Kristina, even to showing the stigmata of the needle-wounds which that poor creature suffered at her trial. The manner of her death—by drowning—paralleled Kristina’s, also, as did those of the other three who followed her in madness—after having been accosted by a small white kitten.”
“Then what d’ye suggest?” I asked him somewhat irritably, but the cachinnation of the telephone cut in upon the question.
“Good Lord!” I told him as I hung up the receiver. “Now it’s young Karl Pettersen! His mother ’phoned to tell me he’s been hurt, and—”
“Right away, at once; immediately,” he broke in. “Let us hasten to him with all speed. Unless I make a sad mistake, his is no ordinary hurt, but one which casts a challenge in our faces. Yes, assuredly!”
I DO NOT THINK I ever saw a man more utterly unstrung than young Karl Pettersen. His injury was trivial, amounting to scarcely more than a briar-scratch across his throat, but the agony of grief and horror showing in his face was truly pitiful, and when we asked him how the accident occurred his only answer was a wild-eyed stare and a sob-torn sentence he reiterated endlessly: “Greta, oh, Greta, how could you?”
“I think that there is something devilish here, Friend Trowbridge,” whispered Jules de Grandin.
“So do I,” I answered grimly. “From that wound I’d say the little fool has tried to kill himself after a puppy-lovers’ quarrel. See how the cut starts underneath the condyle of the jaw, and tapers off and loses depth as it nears the median line? I’ve seen such cuts a hundred times, and—”
“But no,” he interrupted sharply. “Unless the young Monsieur is left-handed he would have made the cut across the left side of his throat; this wound describes a slant across the right side. It was made by someone else—someone seated on his right, as, by example, in a motorcar.
“Monsieur!” he seized the boy by both his shoulders and shook him roughly. “Stop this childish weeping. Your wound is but a skin-scratch. It will heal almost with one night’s sleep, but its cause is of importance. How did you get it, if you please?”
“Oh, Greta—” Karl began again, but the smacking impact of de Grandin’s hand against his cheek cut short his wail.
“Nom d’un coq, you make me to lose patience with you!” cried the Frenchman. “Here, take a dose of this!” From his jacket pocket he produced a flask of cognac, poured a liberal portion out into a cup and thrust it into Karl’s unsteady hand. “Ah, so; that is better,” he pronounced as the lad gulped down the liquor. “Now, take more, mon vieux; we need the truth, and quickly, and never have I seen a better application of the proverb that in alcohol dwells truth.”
Within five minutes he had forced the better portion of a pint of brandy down the young man’s throat, and as the potent draft began to work, his incoherent babbling gave way to a melancholy but considered gravity which in other circumstances would have appeared comic.
“Now, man to man, compagnon de débauche, inform us what took place,” the Frenchman ordered solemnly.
“Greta and I were out driving after dinner,” answered Karl. “We’ve been nuts about each other ever since we met, and today I asked her if she’d marry me. She’d been actin’ sort o’ queer and distant lately, so I thought that maybe she’d been fallin’ for another bird, and I’d better hurry up and get my brand on her. Catch on?”
De Grandin nodded somewhat doubtfully. “I think I apprehend your meaning,” he replied, “though the language which you use is slightly strange to me. And when you had completed your proposal—”
> “She didn’t say a word, but just pointed to the sky, as though she’d seen some object up there that astonished her.”
“Quite so. One understands; and then?”
“Naturally, I looked up, and before I realized what was happening she slashed a penknife across my throat and jumped out of the car screaming with laughter. I wasn’t very badly hurt, but—” He paused, and we could fairly see his alcoholic aplomb melt and a look of infantile distress spread on his features. “O-o-o!” he wailed disconsolately. “Greta, my dear, why did you—”
“The needle, if you please, Friend Trowbridge,” Jules de Grandin whispered. “There is nothing further to be learned, and the opiate will give him merciful oblivion. Half a grain of morphine should be more than ample.”
“THIS IS POSITIVELY THE craziest piece of business I ever heard of!” I exclaimed as we left the house. “Only the other night she told us that she loved the lad so much that her heart ached with it; this afternoon she interrupts his declaration by slashing at his throat. I never heard of anything so utterly fantastic—”
“Except, perhaps, the case of Sarah Spotswood and the other three unfortunates who followed her to madness and the grave?” he interrupted in a level voice. “I grant the little demoiselle has acted in a most demented manner. Ha, but is she crazier than—”
“Oh, for the love of mercy, stop it!” I commanded querulously. “Those cases were most likely mere coincidences. There’s not a grain of proof—”
“If a thing exists we must believe it, whether it is susceptible of proof or not,” he told me seriously. “As for coincidence—had only one girl graduated into death from madness after encountering a kitten such as that which figures in each of these occurrences, we might apply the term; but when three young women are so similarly stricken, parbleu, to fall back on coincidence is but to shut your eyes against the facts, mon vieux. One case, yes; two cases, perhaps; three cases—non, it is to pull the long arm of coincidence completely out of joint, by blue!”
A Rival from the Grave Page 41
