The Horror on the Links

by Seabury Quinn

  She smiled vaguely at de Grandin. “Why doesn’t Mother Martin come for Betsy?” she demanded. “She said she would come and send me to heaven in a few minutes, but I waited and waited, and she didn’t come, and the cloth over my face kept tickling my nose, and—”

  “Mother Martin has gone away on business, ma petite,” the Frenchman interrupted. “She said she could not send you to your papa and mama, but if you are a very good little girl you may go to them some day. Meantime”—he fished in his jacket pocket, finally produced a packet of chocolates—“here is the best substitute I can find for heaven at this time, chérie.”

  “WELL, OLD CHAP, I’LL certainly have to admit you went right to the heart of the matter,” I congratulated as we drove homeward through the paling dawn, “but I can’t for the life of me figure out how you did it.”

  His answering smile was a trifle wan. The horrors we had witnessed at the matron’s cottage had been almost too great a strain for even his iron nerve. “Partly it was luck,” he confessed wearily, “and partly it was thought.

  “When first we arrived at the home for orphans I had nothing to guide me, but I was convinced that the little ones had not wandered off voluntarily. The environment seemed too good to make any such hypothesis possible. Everywhere I looked I saw evidences of loving care, and faces which could be trusted. But somewhere, I felt, as an old wound feels the coming changes of the weather, there was something evil, some evil force working against the welfare of those poor ones. Where could it be, and by whom was it exerted? ‘This is for us to find out,’ I tell me as I look over the attendants who were visible in the chapel.

  “Gervaise, he is an old woman in trousers. Never would he hurt a living thing, no, not even a fly, unless it bit him first.

  “Mère Martin, she was of a saintly appearance, but when I was presented to her I learn something which sets my brain to thinking. On the softness of her white hands are stains and callouses. Why? I hold her hand longer than convention required, and all the time I ask me, ‘What have she done to put these hardnesses on her hands?’

  “To this I had no answer, so I bethought me perhaps my nose could tell what my sense of touch could not. When I raised her hand to my lips I made a most careful examination of it, and also I did smell. Trowbridge, my friend, I made sure those disfigurements were due to HCl—what you call hydrochloric acid in English.

  “‘Morbleu, but this is extraordinary,’ I tell me. ‘Why should one who has no need to handle acid have those burns on her skin?’

  “‘That are for you to answer in good time,’ I reply to me. And then I temporarily forget the lady and her hands, because I am sure that Monsieur Gervaise desires to know what we say to the young children. Eh bien, I did do him an injustice there, but the wisest of us makes mistakes, my friend, and he gave me much reason for suspicion.

  “When the little Betsy was answering my questions she tells me that she has seen a ‘white lady,’ tall and with flowing robes, like an angel, come into the dormitory where she and her companions slept on many occasions, and I have ascertained from previous questions that no one enters those sleeping quarters after the lights are out unless there is specific need for a visit. What was I to think? Had the little one dreamed it, or has she seen, this so mysterious ‘white lady’ on her midnight visits? It is hard to say where recollection stops and romance begins in children’s tales, my friend, as you well know, but the little Betsy was most sure the ‘white lady’ had come only on those nights when her little companions vanished.

  “Here we had something from which to reason, though the morsel of fact was small. However, when I talk further with the child, she informed me it was Mère Martin who had warned her against us, saying we would surely cut her tongue with a knife if she talked to us. This, again, was worthy of thought. But Monsieur Gervaise had been smelling at the door while we were interrogating the children, and he had also disapproved of our seeing them alone. My suspicion of him would not die easily, my friend; I was stubborn, and refused to let my mind take me where it would.

  “So, as you know, when we had posted the four-footed sentry inside the children’s door, I made sure we would catch a fish in our trap, and next morning I was convinced we had, for did not Gervaise wear his arm in a sling! Truly, he did.

  “But at the laundry they showed me no torn pajamas of his, while I found the gowns of both Mademoiselle Bosworth and Madame Martin torn as if the dog had bitten them. More mystery. Which way should I turn, if at all?

  “I find that Gervaise’s window really had been broken, but that meant nothing; he might have done it himself in order to construct an alibi. Of the reason for Mademoiselle Bosworth’s torn robe I could glean no trace; but behind my brain, at the very back of my head, something was whispering at me; something I could not hear, but which I knew was of importance.

  “Then, as we drove away from the home, you mentioned the acid test. My friend, those words of yours let loose the memory which cried aloud to me, but which I could not clearly understand. Of a suddenness I did recall the scene at luncheon, how Mademoiselle Bosworth declared Mère Martin ate no meat for six months, and how angry Madame Martin was at the mention of it. Parbleu, for six months the little ones had been disappearing—for six months Madame Martin had eaten no meat, yet she were plump and well-nourished. She had the look of a meat-eater!”

  “Still,” I protested, “I don’t see how that put you on the track.”

  “No?” he replied. “Remember, my friend, how we stopped to interview the druggist. Why think you we did that?”

  “Hanged if I know,” I confessed.

  “Of course not,” he agreed with a nod. “But I know. ‘Suppose,’ I say to me, ‘someone have eaten the flesh of these poor disappeared children? What would that one do with the bones?’

  “‘He would undoubtlessly bury or burn them,’ I reply.

  “‘Very good, but more likely he would burn them, since buried bones, may be dug up, and burned bones are only ashes; but what of the teeth? They would resist fire such as can be had in the ordinary stove, yet surely they might betray the murderer.’

  “‘But of course,’ I admit, ‘but why should not the murderer reduce those teeth with acid, hydrochloric acid, for instance?’

  “‘Ah-ha,’ I tell me, ‘that are the answer. Already you have one whose hands are acid-stained without adequate explanation, also one who eats no meat at table. Find out, now, who have bought acid from some neighboring drug store, and perhaps you will have the answer to your question.’

  “The Italian gentleman who keeps the pharmacy tells me that a lady of very kindly mien comes to him frequently and buys hydrochloric acid, which she calls muriatic acid, showing she are not a chemist, but knows only the commercial term for the stuff. She is a tall, large lady with white hair and kind blue eyes.

  “‘It are Mère Martin!’ I tell me. ‘She are the “white lady” of the orphanage!’

  “Then I consult my memory some more, and decide we shall investigate this night.

  “Listen, my friend: In the Paris Sûreté we have the history of many remarkable cases, not only from France, but other lands as well. In the year 1849 a miscreant named Swiatek was hauled before the Austrian courts on a charge of cannibalism, and in the same year there was another somewhat similar case where a young English lady—a girl of much refinement and careful education and nurture—was the defendant. Neither of these was naturally fierce or bloodthirsty, yet their crimes were undoubted. In the case of the beggar we have a transcription of his confession. He did say in part: When first driven by dire hunger to eat of human flesh he became, as the first horrid morsel passed his lips, as it were a ravening wolf. He did rend and tear the flesh and growl in his throat like a brute beast the while. From that time forth he could stomach no other meat, nor could he abide the sight or smell of it. Beef, pork or mutton filled him with revulsion. And had not Madame Martin exhibited much the same symptoms at table? Truly.

  “Things of a strange nature so
metimes occur, my friend. The mind of man is something of which we know but little, no matter how learnedly we prate. Why does one man love to watch a snake creep, while another goes into ecstasies of terror at sight of a reptile? Why do some people hate the sight of a cat, while others fear a tiny, harmless mouse as though he were the devil’s brother-in-law? None can say, yet these things are. So I think it is with crime.

  “This Madame Martin was not naturally cruel. Though she killed and ate her charges, you will recall how she bound the little Betsy with silk, and did it in such a way as not to injure her, or even to make her uncomfortable. That meant mercy? By no means, my friend. Myself, I have seen peasant women in my own land weep upon and fondle the rabbit they were about to kill for déjeuner. They did love and pity the poor little beast which was to die, but que voulez vous? One must eat.

  “Some thought like this, I doubt not, was in Madame Martin’s mind as she committed murder. Somewhere in her nature was a thing we can not understand; a thing which made her crave the flesh of her kind for food, and she answered the call of that craving even as the taker of drugs is helpless against his vice.

  “Tiens, I am convinced that if we searched her house we should have the explanation of the children’s disappearance, and you yourself witnessed what we saw. It was well she took the poison when she did. Death, or incarceration in a madhouse, would have been her portion had she lived, and”—he shrugged his shoulders—“the world is better off without her.”

  “U’m, I see how you worked it, out,” I replied, “but will Mr. Richards be satisfied? We’ve accounted for one of the children, because we found part of her skeleton in the fire, but can we swear the rest disappeared in the same manner? Richards will want a statistical table of facts before he parts with three thousand dollars, I imagine.”

  “Parbleu, will he, indeed?” de Grandin answered, something like his usual elfish grin spreading across his face. “What think you would be the result were we to notify the authorities of the true facts, leading up to Madame Martin’s suicide? Would not the newspapers make much of it. Cordieu, I shall say they would, and the home for orphans over which Monsieur Richards presides so pompously would receive what you call ‘the black eye.’ Morbleu, my friend, the very black eye, indeed! No, no; me, I think Monsieur Richards will gladly pay us the reward, nor haggle over terms.

  “Meanwhile, we are at home once more. Come, let us drink the cognac.”

  “Drink cognac?” I answered. “Why, in heaven’s name?”

  “Parbleu, we shall imbibe a toast to the magnificent three thousand dollars Monsieur Richards pays us tomorrow morning!”

  The Poltergeist

  “AND SO, DR. DE Grandin,” our visitor concluded, “this is really a case for your remarkable powers.”

  Jules de Grandin selected a fresh cigarette from his engine-turned silver case, tapped its end thoughtfully against his well-manicured thumb-nail and regarded the caller with one of his disconcertingly unwinking stares. “Am I to understand that all other attempts to effect a cure have failed, Monsieur?” he asked at length.

  “Utterly. We’ve tried everything in reason, and out of it,” Captain Loudon replied. “We’ve had some of the best neurologists in consultation, we’ve employed faith-healers, spiritualistic mediums, even had her given ‘absent treatment,’ all to no avail. All the physicians, all the cultists and quacks have failed us; now—”

  “Now, I do not think I care to be numbered among those quacks, Monsieur,” the Frenchman returned coldly, expelling a double column of smoke from his nostrils. “Had you called me into consultation with an accredited physician—”

  “But that’s just it,” the captain interrupted. “Every physician we’ve had has been confident he could work a cure, but they’ve all failed. Julia is a lovely girl—I don’t say it because she’s my daughter, I state it as a fact—and was to have been married this fall, and now this—this disorder has taken complete possession of her and it’s wrecking her life. Robert—Lieutenant Proudfit, her fiancé—and I are almost beside ourselves, and as for my daughter, I fear her mind will give way and she’ll destroy herself unless somebody can do something!”

  “Ah?” the little Frenchman arched the narrow black brows which were such a vivid contrast to his blond hair and moustache. “Why did not you say so before, Monsieur le Capitaine? It is not merely the curing of one nervous young lady that you would have me undertake, but the fruition of a romance I should bring about? Bien, good, very well; I accept. If you will also retain my good friend Dr. Trowbridge, so that there shall be a locally licensed and respected physician in the case, my powers which you have been kind enough to call remarkable are entirely at your disposal.”

  “Splendid!” Captain Loudon agreed, rising. “Then it’s all arranged. I can expect you to—”

  “One moment, if you please,” de Grandin interrupted, raising his slender, womanishly small hand for silence. “Suppose we make a précis of the case before we go further.” He drew a pad of note-paper and a pencil toward him as he continued:

  “Your daughter, Mademoiselle Julie, how old is she?”

  “Twenty-nine.”

  “A most charming age,” the little Frenchman commented, scribbling a note. “And she is your only child?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now, these manifestations of the outré, these so unusual happenings, they began to take place about six months ago?”

  “Just about; I can’t place the time exactly.”

  “No matter. They have assumed various mystifying forms? She has refused food, she has had visions, she shouts, she sings uncontrollably, she speaks in a voice which is strange to her—at times she goes into a deathlike trance and from her throat issue strange voices, voices of men, or other women, even of little children?”

  “Yes.”

  “And other apparently inexplicable things occur. Chairs, books, tables, even such heavy pieces of furniture as a piano, move from their accustomed places when she is near, and bits of jewelry and other small objects are hurled through the air?”

  “Yes, and worse than that, I’ve seen pins and needles fly from her work-basket and bury themselves in her cheeks and arms,” the captain interrupted, “and lately she’s been persecuted by scars—scars from some invisible source. Great weals, like the claw-marks from some beast, have appeared on her arms and face, right while I looked on, and I’ve been wakened at night by her screams, and when I rush into her room I find the marks of long, thin fingers on her throat. It’s maddening, sir; terrifying. I’d say it was a case of demoniacal possession, if I didn’t disbelieve all that sort of supernaturalism.”

  “U’m,” de Grandin looked up from the pad on which he had been industriously scribbling. “There is nothing in the world, or out of it, which is supernatural, my friend; the wisest man today can not say where the powers and possibilities of nature begin or end. We say, ‘Thus and so is beyond the bounds of our experience,’ but does that therefore put it beyond the bounds of nature? I think not. Myself, I have seen such things as no man can hear me relate without calling me a liar, and my good, unimaginative friend Trowbridge has witnessed such wonders as no writer of fiction would dare set down on paper, yet I do declare we have never yet seen that which I would call supernatural.

  “But come, let us go, let us hasten to your house, Monsieur; I would interview Mademoiselle Julie and see for myself some of these so remarkable afflictions of hers.

  “Remember,” he turned his fixed, unwinking stare on our patron as we paused for our outdoor things in the hall, “remember, if you please, Monsieur, I am not like those quacks, or even those other physicians who have failed you. I do not say I can work a cure. I can but promise to try. Good, we shall see what we shall see. Let us go.”

  ROBERT BEAUREGARD LOUDON WAS a retired navy captain, a widower with more than sufficient means to gratify his rather epicurean tastes, and possessed one of the finest houses in the fashionable new west side suburb. The furnishings spoke of something more th
an wealth as we surveyed them; they proclaimed that vague, but nevertheless tangible thing known as “background” which is only to be had from generations of ancestors to the manor born. Original pieces of mahogany by Sheraton and Chippendale and the Brothers Adam, family portraits from the brush of Benjamin West, silver in the best tradition of the early eighteenth century smiths, even the dignifiedly aloof, elderly colored butler, announced that our patient’s father was in every way an officer and a gentleman in the best sense of the term.

  “If you will give Hezekiah your things,” Captain Loudon indicated the solemn old Negro with a nod, “I’ll go up and tell my daughter you’re here. I know she will be glad to—”

  A clanking, banging noise, like a tin can bumping over the cobbles at the tail of some luckless terrier, interrupted his remarks, and we turned in amazement toward the wide, curving staircase at the further end of the long central hall. The noise grew louder, almost deafening, then ceased as abruptly as it began, and a young girl rounded the curve of the staircase, coming slowly toward us.

  She was more than middle height, slender and supple as a willow withe, and carried herself with the bearing of a young princess. A lovely though almost unfashionably long gown of white satin and chiffon draped its uneven hem almost to her ankles, and about her slender bare shoulders and over her arms hung a richly embroidered shawl of Chinese silk. One hand rested lightly on the mahogany rail of the balustrade, as though partly for support, partly for guidance, as she slowly descended the red-carpeted steps. This much we saw at first glance, but our second look remained riveted on her sweet, pale face.

  Almost unbeautifully long it was, pale with the rich, creamy pallor which is some women’s birthright and not the result of poor health, and her vivid, scarlet lips showed in contrast to her ivory cheeks like a rose fallen in the snow. Brows as delicate as those of a French doll, narrow, curving brows which needed no plucking to accentuate their patrician lines, dipped sharply together above the bridge of her small nose, and lashes which even at the distance we stood from her showed their vivid blackness veiled her eyes. At first I thought her gaze was on the steps before her, and that she made each forward movement with slow care lest she fall from weakness or nervous exhaustion, but a second’s scrutiny of her face, told me the truth. The girl walked with lowered lids. Whether in natural sleep or in some supernatural trance, she was descending the stairs with tightly closed eyes.