“Quick, Friend Trowbridge,” de Grandin urged, seizing me by the hand and dragging me to the street, “to your car. Haste! We must follow them!”
I gazed after the fleeing motor and shook my head. “Not a chance,” I declared. “They’re doing better than thirty miles an hour now, and gathering speed all the time. We’d never be able to keep their trail with my little rattletrap.”
“My friend,” he replied, piloting me across the street and fairly shoving me into my car, “Jules de Grandin is no fool. Think you he slept away his time this afternoon? Regardez-vous!” With a dramatic gesture he pointed to the roadway before us.
I blinked my eyes in astonishment, then grinned in appreciation of his strategy. In the wake of the speeding limousine there shone a faint but unmistakable trail of luminous dots against the cement pavement. Now I understood what he had been doing at the other car’s tail during the interval between Fräulein Mueller’s entrance and Laïla’s exit. Firmly attached to the limousine’s gas tank was a small can of luminous paint, a small hole pierced in its bottom permitting its telltale contents to leak out, a drop at a time, at intervals which spattered the roadway with glowing trail-markers every thirty or forty feet.
Through the city, over country roads, up hill and down, over viaducts, across stretches of low-lying marshes, through wide, wooded areas and between long, undulating stretches of fields ripe for harvesting, the chase continued. The mileage dial on my dashboard registered forty-five, sixty, sixty-five miles before the car ahead swerved sharply from the highway, shot down a private lane, and entered the high, iron-grilled gateway of a walled estate.
“Eh bien,” remarked de Grandin, “here we are, of a surety, but where is it we are?” Parking our car behind a convenient copse of second-growth pines, we stole forward to reconnoiter the enemy’s position. Our progress was barred by the tall iron gates which had been securely locked behind our quarry. Through the grille work of the barrier we could descry tall evergreens bowing and whispering with cemetery-like somberness on each side of a wide, curving driveway, and between their ranks we caught momentary glimpses of the ivy-covered walls and white porch pillars of a large Colonial-type residence.
De Grandin gave the gate-handle a tentative shake, confirming our suspicion that it was firmly secured. “It would be wiser not to attempt scaling these bars, Friend Trowbridge,” he decided after an inspection of the iron uprights composing the grille; “the visibility would be too high, and I have no wish to stop, or even to impede, a bullet. Let us see what opportunities the walls afford.” We drew back from the entrance and walked softly along the strip of grass bordering the wall’s base, seeking a favorable location for swarming up.
“Why not here?” the Frenchman suggested, halting at a spot where the ivy grew thicker than elsewhere. “I will go first, do you keep a sharp lookout to the rear.” Pulling his jacket sleeves upward with a quick, nervous jerk, he laid hold of the clinging vines, braced his feet against the bricks and prepared to swing himself upward, then paused abruptly, casting a hasty glance over his shoulder.
“Quick, Friend Trowbridge, to cover!” he urged, suiting action to his warning and dragging me to the shelter of a nearby bush. “We are observed!”
Hand on pistol, he crouched alertly while the light, barely audible step of someone advancing through the thicket sounded nearer and nearer on the carpet of early fall leaves lying on the ground about the tree-roots.
“Dieu de Dieu!” he exclaimed with a noiseless chuckle as the stranger emerged from the thicket. “A pussy!” A big, black-and-white tomcat, returning from an evening’s hunting or love-making, strode forth from the under-growth, tail waving proudly in air, inquisitive green eyes looking now here, now there. The creature paused a moment at the wall’s base, gathered itself for a spring, then leaped upward with feline grace, catching the clustering ivy strands with gripping, claw-spiked feet, and lifted itself daintily to the wall-top, poising momentarily before making the downward jump to the yard beyond.
De Grandin stepped from his hiding-place and prepared to follow the cat’s lead, but started back with an exclamation of dismay as the brute suddenly emitted an ear-piercing yowl of fear and agony, rose like a bouncing ball, every hair on its body stiffly erect, then catapulted like a hurled missile to the earth at our feet, where it lay twitching and quivering.
“Sacré sang d’un païen!” the Frenchman murmured, creeping forward and examining the rigid feline by the light of his electric torch. It was stone-dead, yet nowhere was there sign or trace of any wound or violence. “U’m,” he commented, reaching out a tentative hand to stroke the dead animal’s fur, then: “Par la barbe d’un petit bonhomme!” The hair was still bristling from the creature’s hide, and as the Frenchman’s fingers slipped over it a sharp, crackling sound, accompanied by tiny sparkling flashes, followed them.
“Ah? I wonder? Probably it is,” he declared. Turning on his heel he hastened to the place where our car lay hidden, rummaged under the seat a moment, and dragged out the rubber storm-curtains. “Mordieu, my friend,” he informed me with one of his elfish grins as he dragged the curtains through the underbrush, “never could I work one of those tops of the one man, but I think me these curtains come in handy for this, if for nothing else.”
Once more bracing his feet against the wall, he drew himself up by the strong ivy, hung a moment by one hand while with the other he tossed the rubberized cloth across the top of the wall, then hoisted himself slowly, taking care to let his fingers come in contact with nothing not covered by the auto curtains.
“Up, Friend Trowbridge!” he extended his hand to me and drew me beside him, but: “Have a care, keep upon the curtains, for your life!” he commanded as I gained the wall’s top, then played the beam of his pocket flash along the bricks beside us. Running along the wall-top were four parallel wires, each supported at intervals of twenty feet or so by little porcelain insulators. But for the warning we received when the cat was killed, and de Grandin’s forethought in fetching the rubber curtains, we should surely have been electrocuted the moment we scaled the wall, for the wires were so spaced that contact with at least one of them could not possibly be avoided by anyone attempting to scramble across the top.
Taking advantage of the ample shelter afforded by the great trees, we stole across the wide lawn and brought up at the house without incident. Nowhere was there any trace of occupancy, for all the windows were darkened, and, save for the night wind soughing through the towering evergreens, the place lay wrapped in graveyard silence. By a side door we found the big black car which had brought Laïla and Fräulein Mueller. Working rapidly, de Grandin unfastened the twisted wires with which the can of luminous paint was attached to the gas tank and tossed the nearly empty tin into an adjacent flower bed. This done, he considered the big machine speculatively a moment, then grinned like a mischievous boy about to perpetrate a prank. “Why not, pour l’amour de Dieu?” he demanded with a chuckle as he drew a wicked-looking case knife from his pocket and made four or five incisions in each of the vehicle’s balloon tires close to the rims. As the air fled hissing from the punctured tubes he turned away with a satisfied laugh. “Nom d’un canard, but they shall blaspheme most horribly when they discover what I have done,” he assured me as we continued our circuit of the house.
The tenants evidently placed implicit faith in their electrified wall, for there seemed no attempt to bar ingress, once the intruder had managed to pass the silent sentries on the wall-top. An unlatched window at the front of the building invited us to push our explorations farther, and a moment later we had let ourselves in, and, guided by cautious flashes from de Grandin’s pocket light, were creeping down a wide central hall.
“Now, my friend,” de Grandin whispered, “I wonder much which way leads to—s-s-sh!” he paused abruptly as a quick, nervous step sounded at the hall’s farther end.
There was no time to reconnoiter the position, for the beam of our flashlight would surely betray our presence. Some
four paces back we had passed a doorway, and, shutting off his light, de Grandin wheeled in his tracks, grasped my arm and dragged me toward it with all speed.
Fortunately the lock was unfastened and the knob turned soundlessly in his hand. Grasping his revolver, he took a deep breath, motioned me to silence, swung the door back and stepped softly into the room.
5
DARKNESS, BLACK AND IMPENETRABLE as a curtain of sable velvet, closed about us as we crossed the threshold. Dared we flash our light? Was there anyone hidden behind that veil of gloom, ready to pounce on us the moment we disclosed our position? We rested a moment, silently debating our next move, when:
“Doctor—Dr. Martulus”—a weak feminine voice quavered from the room’s farther end—“I’ll sign the paper. I’ll go through the ordeal, only, for pity’s sake, let me out. Don’t let him visit me again. Oh, o-o-o-oh, I’ll go insane if he comes again. Truly, I will!”
“Eh, what is this?” de Grandin demanded sharply, taking a hasty step forward in the dark, then pressing the switch of his flashlight. “Cordieu—pardonnez-moi, Madame!” He shut the light off abruptly, but in its momentary beam we had beheld a sight which brought a gasp of astonishment to our lips. Tethered to the wall by a heavy chain and metal collar locked round her scrawny neck, nude save for a pair of broken felt house-slippers and a tattered and much soiled chemise, thin to the point of emaciation, a woman crouched sobbing and whimpering on the floor. She was no longer young, and almost certainly she had never been lovely, but her voice, for all its burden of misery and terror, was low-pitched and cultured, and her pronunciation that of a person of refinement.
“Your pardon, Madame!” de Grandin repeated, taking another step toward the wretched captive. “We did not know you were here. We—”
“Who are you?”
“Eh?”
“Aren’t—aren’t you Dr. Martulus? Oh, if you aren’t, please, please take me away from this dreadful place! They’ve chained me to the wall here like a mad dog, and—”
“Pardon me, Madame,” de Grandin interrupted, “but who are you?”
“Amelia Mytinger.”
“Teeth of the Devil! Not the Mademoiselle Mytinger who disappeared from her home a month ago, and—”
“Yes; I am she. A woman called Laïla the Seeress brought me here one night—I don’t know how long ago it was. She told me I was possessed of a devil, and Dr. Martulus could cure me—I’d been suffering terribly from rheumatism and the doctors hadn’t been able to help me much—and she said it was an evil spirit which plagued me. When they got me here they told me it was Mephistopheles himself who possessed me, and that I’d have to undergo a terrible ordeal by fire if I were ever to be rid of him. I could have hired a substitute, but she wanted ten thousand dollars, and I refused to pay it. I told them I’d undergo the ordeal myself, and they said I must sign a paper releasing them from all legal liability for possible injury I might suffer before they’d permit me to do it. When they brought the paper they wouldn’t let me read it or even see any part of it except the space reserved for my signature, so—”
“Ah, ha,” de Grandin muttered aside to me, “do you, too, not begin to sniff the odor of deceased fish in this business, Friend Trowbridge?”
“But they wouldn’t let me go,” the woman hurried on, ignoring his comment. “They said I was possessed of a devil and would bring terrible misfortune to everyone I met, so they took away my clothes and chained me here in this terrible place. I’ve never seen anyone from that night to this except Dr. Martulus, who comes once a day to feed me and ask if I’ve changed my mind about signing the paper, and—”
“‘And’,” de Grandin quoted irritably, “and what, if you please, Mademoiselle?”
“And the Devil!”
“Queue d’un sacré singe! The which?” he demanded.
“The Devil, I tell you. I never believed in a personal Devil before, but I do, now. Every night he comes to torture me. I see his horrible face shining through the dark and feel his awful claw touch me, and it burns like a white-hot iron. Oh, I’ll go mad, if I haven’t done so already!” She gasped laboringly for breath, then, as if a thought had suddenly struck her: “You mentioned my having disappeared—I didn’t tell anybody I was going to Laïla’s that night, I was ashamed to have it known I’d consulted a fortune-teller—but you said I’d been missed. Do the police know about me? Are you from headquarters, by any chance. Will you save me? Oh, please, please take me away. I’m wealthy, I’ll pay you anything you ask if only—”
“One moment, Mademoiselle,” de Grandin cut off her torrential speech. “I desire to think.”
He remained immersed in thought a moment, then murmured softly, as though meditating aloud: “Parbleu, I see it all, now! As usual, Jules de Grandin was right. This is a gigantic conspiracy—a sort of Mephistopheles and Company, Limited. Yes, pardieu, limited only by these villains’ capacity to invent devilish tricks to defraud defenseless women. Mordieu, this is infamous, this is monstrous, this must not be permitted! Me, I shall —”
His voice shut off abruptly, like a suddenly tuned-out radio, for a sharp click sounded from the doorway and something faintly luminous was shining face-high through the dark.
Nearer, nearer the fiery thing floated, and we were able to make out the lineaments of a long, thin, evil face; a face with spiked beard and pointed mustaches, with up-rearing pointed eyebrows and crooked goat’s horns growing from its forehead. That was all—no body, no neck—just the leering, demoniacal face floating forward through the blackness, its hideous, fire-outlined eyes gleaming with diabolical amusement as it neared the whimpering, cowering woman in the corner.
“O-o-o-h!” wailed the terrified spinster as she cringed against the wall and the grinning, satanic face bent above her.
“Ugh!” A short, surprised grunt answered her outcry, and the fiery face dropped downward through the dark like a burnt-out rocket falling to earth.
“Behold Satan’s assistant, mon ami,” de Grandin commanded, a note of fierce elation in his whisper as he switched the beam of his pocket flash on the prostrate form at our feet.
A tall, broad-shouldered man, his face made up in imitation of the popular conception of the Devil, lay sprawled on the floor within the circle of the flashlight’s glow. A long gash, bleeding freely, told where the blue steel barrel of de Grandin’s heavy service revolver had struck as the Frenchman lashed the weapon downward through the dark with unerring aim and devastating force.
“Eh bien, my friend, we have met again, it seems,” de Grandin remarked as he snatched away the makeup from the fellow’s face and surveyed his features in the electric light. I started with surprise as I gazed into the unconscious one’s countenance. He was the man who had demanded he be allowed to take Fräulein Mueller from us when we rescued her in the park.
As the flashlight switched off momentarily, the mock devil’s beard and mustache became alive with glowing, smoking fire. Instantly I realized de Grandin’s surmise had been correct. Phosphorus, or some kind of luminous paint, had been employed to make the faces of the men accosting the little Austrian girl glow as though aflame when they met her in the dark, and the same device had been used here to torture Miss Mytinger.
A further explanation lay at our feet, too, for beside the unconscious man’s hand we found a queer-looking instrument. A moment’s examination proved it to be something like an oversized flashlight, only, instead of a lamp, its tip was fitted with a metal plate on which the design of a devil’s face surmounted by a reversed crucifix was soldered. As de Grandin pressed the switch actuating the contrivance we saw the design suddenly glow red-hot. To all intents the thing was a branding-iron which would burn its device on the flesh of anyone with whom it came in contact. The mystery of Fräulein Mueller’s disfigurement was solved. This, too, explained what Miss Mytinger meant when she spoke of Satan’s “awful claw which burned like a white-hot iron” touching her during the diabolical visitations.
“Bête—cochon!
” de Grandin muttered, turning the man over with a none too gentle foot. “Let us see what we can find upon his so filthy carcass.” A hasty examination of the fellow’s pockets disclosed a short-bladed dirk knife, a neat, businesslike blackjack and a bunch of small keys. One of these fitted the lock of Miss Mytinger’s iron collar, and de Grandin forthwith transferred the fetter from her neck to that of her late tormentor.
“Let us go,” he admonished, as he stowed the loot from his fallen foeman’s pockets in his own. “Thus far the luck has been with us, but he who tries heaven’s patience too far ofttimes comes to grief.” Stepping carefully, we crept from the darkened room into the dimly lighted hall.
6
“HAVE THE CARE, FRIEND Trowbridge,” de Grandin warned as we started cautiously down the corridor, “a loose board may betray us, for—ha?”
Not fifteen feet ahead of us a door swung suddenly open and the menacing figure of a tall, black-bearded man stepped toward us. He was clad in a flame-colored robe on which was printed in black the figure of a prancing devil. A sort of diadem from which curving horns rose above his forehead gave his lean, cadaverous countenance a look of supernatural evil, and the wicked, sneering smile on his bony features completed the unpleasant picture.
Miss Mytinger gave a high-pitched squeal of terror. “Dr. Martulus!” she cried. “Oh, we’re lost; he’ll never let us go!”
De Grandin faced the other defiantly, his teeth bared in a grimace which was more a snarl than a grin. “We take this lady from out your damned, execrable house, Monsieur le Diable,” he announced truculently. “Have the goodness to stand aside, or—”
“Nelzyá!” the other retorted, raising a small Mauser automatic from the folds of his red robe.
“Ha! ‘It can not be done,’ do you say?” the Frenchman inquired sarcastically, and let drive with his heavy revolver, firing from the hip.
The Horror on the Links Page 52
