"You must go now," he said. "I appreciate your interest in me, but now you must go—-you must!"
The tremor of anxiety in his voice nearly convinced me that he was right, but doggedly I clung to my set purpose to save him in spite of himself. I could not leave him alone in face of the developments which would occur sometime between then and Tuesday morning, and I told him so.
"Fool!" he exploded; "I can do nothing with you. Stay if you wish—but it's on your own head!"
The irony of that final statement, whether intentional or not, is something I shall remember to my grave. I don't think that Carse meant it literally— on my own bead —but I was unable to shake his words out of my ears, and throughout the night and the following day they hung about me like a dirge.
Carse did not sleep at all that Sunday
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night, but paced up and down in his study while a fierce, alarming expression hardened on his features. Nor could I sleep, for his continued pari'ng tore my nerves to shreds, and I spent the night alternately in my own room and at the partly open doorway of the library, where I was able to watch him in secrecy. Several times I saw him bend over a small book and study it with the intent regard of a disciple, and each time that he referred to a certain page he pounded his fist on the desk and cried to himself: "God forbid! God forbid!"
I should have realized what he meant. I should have known and been prepared, but how blind my friendship made me to the horrific implication of those repeated w r ords!
Monday came and went in a slow drizzle of rain which only added to the somber quiet of the city, and as the evening approached and wore on I felt myself caught in the irresistible tide of fearful anticipation which warned of the sixth appearance of the Head-hunter. The streets were deserted throughout the day, and with but few exceptions the only pedestrians were police officers, who now traveled in pairs or squads. The evening papers were brutally frank in predicting that before dawn a sixth headless corpse would be discovered, and this expectation was shared by all.
Carse was at home all day and refused to answer the telephone or to allow me to answer it for him. He ate sparingly, with his same preoccupation, and, contrary to my expectations, he appeared to have lapsed into a state akin to normality, like a man who contemplates a preordained and inexorable occurrence.
At six o'clock he came to me, ghastly haggard and thin, and again asked me to leave his house, but I refused this zero-hour request. He shrugged and went back to his study. I watched him for a
while and saw that he was studying that queer little book which so deeply affected him, and I again heard him utter those despairing words: "God .forbid! God forbid!"
I went to bed at a little after ten and tried to sleep, but the city-wide excitement seeped into my room and kept me tossing from the thrusts of nightmares. At midnight Carse came up and stopped just outside my door, obviously listening to determine whether I was asleep. The silence was uncanny for a moment; then I heard a sharp metallic clicking and he went on to his room. After he had closed his door, I swept my sheet aside and went to my own door. Carse had locked it from the outside!
I called to him for an explanation of this conduct, but he either didn't hear me or chose to ignore my requests, for the house remained grimly silent. Returning to bed, I managed somehow to doze off.
At two o'clock I was awakened by the sound of someone's walking in the hallway. I sat bolt-upright in bed and heard the unmistakable approach of footsteps coming down the corridor from Carse's bedroom. The tread was stealthy and determined, and as it drew closer to my room I was conscious of a cold mask of sweat clinging to my face, because the footsteps did not sound like those of Jason Carse!
The feeling hit me and hit me again until T was left stunned with the horror of it. It did not sound like Carse! But if it was not Carse, who was it?
I wanted to call out his name, yet I felt, with some indefinable sense, that the treader in the hall was unaware that I was in the house, and for that reason it could not have been Carse. I was afraid to make an outcry, and I sat stricken with dread as the footsteps went past my door descending the stairs. A moment later
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there was a noise of cutlery being moved in the kitchen, and the front door opened and closed.
As it had come, that strange prescience vanished and I tried to reason out what I had heard. Of course the man was Carse; who could it have been save him, for were we not alone in the house? I sat for hours on the bed working up a determination to shake the truth out of him when he returned, but shortly after four o'clock my strength ran out of me and I shook with fear as I heard that awful ghost-like tread ascending the stairs. My heart beat wildly when the person reached my door and twisted the knob to enter.
One thought flashed through my head: Thank God the door was locked! The terrible feeling that it was not Carse came back upon me, and I sat motionless as I listened to the sounds from outside. Foe a moment there were no sounds from the intruder, but I did hear a faint tap-tap-tap like that of a liquid falling to the wooden floor. In a minute the knob was released and the footsteps continued down the hall to Carse's room.
Any attempt to explain my thoughts as I sat smoking throughout the night would only add to the confusion of these revelations. They were not sane and rational thoughts, but rather strange suggestions and premonitions. I thought myself to be in the presence of a tremendous evil.
In the morning Carse was up early, and moved back and forth in the corridor with strange industry. He was crying, for his sobs came disturbingly to my ears, and once I heard him descend into the cellar and there was a faint digging sound as he performed some outlandish task. Then I heard him in the hallway and on the stairs. I heard the splashing of water and the sound of scrubbing.
I pounded on the door for him to let me out, but it was not until nearly noon
that he finished his chores and finally opened my door. He was stooped and fatigued, and without bothering to return my amenities, he turned away and went to his study.
I went into the hallway and noticed, as I had surmised, that the floor showed signs of recent and vigorous cleaning. I walked down to his room and looked in, not surprized to notice that here, too, was the unmistakable evidence of scrubbing. I knew there was only one more thing to do; I must go down to the cellar and unearth what he had buried there!
The horrible truth had been dawning upon me for hours, and when I came face to face with him in the kitchen at the head of the cellar stairs I looked squarely into his eyes with the full realization that Jason Carse was the Head-hunter.
I was not frightened—not for my personal safety, at any rate—but a sensation of sickening horror went through me as I looked into his tired face and understood that at last he had fallen into the cesspool which had tormented him since early years. The words of the coroner came back into my ears: "He is a madman of uncanny intelligence," and I knew that he knew I recognized him for what he was.
The awful silence of our conflicting glances was unbroken for several seconds, and then words came uncontrollably from my mouth and I managed to snap that nerve-cracking tension.
"What's in the cellar?" I cried. "What have you buried there?"
"If anything happens to you," he returned, ignoring my questions, "I am not to be blamed. 1 warned you in time to get away from this house. What do you think is in the cellar?"
"I dare to suggest there are six small graves."
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An ugly smirk went across his face and he cast a glance at the cellar door.
"You always were too smart for your own good," he said softly. "Knowledge can be dangerous."
"How did you think you could get away with it?" I screamed, only too well aware of his implication. "My God, Carse! Six human heads!"
His jaw hardened and he took a menacing step toward me. Then suddenly he stopped, a queer tragic expression coming over his face. He put his hand to his eyes as if to blot out so
me horrible memory.
"I know, I know!" he cried hysterically. "Six heads—six human heads! Do you think I planned six heads?"
A shudder went through him and he buried his face in both hands and sobbed like a child.
My personal fear gradually subsided as I watched this remorseful quiescence which had come upon him. I realized that he had passed the emotional climax of his crime, and that he was now suffering that terrible reaction which must haunt and terrify all criminals. I took this advantage to gain control of him, for there was no way of determining when his madness would flare again.
"There is only one course open for me," I told him soberly. "I must turn you over to the police. Things like this must be stopped."
He pulled his hands away from his face and stared at me, his eyes fired with dread. "No, no!" he screamed. "Don't give me away. Please, in the name of God, don't give me away! I am sick, I tell you! I am not responsible!"
A feeling of helpless pity went through me as he sank to his knees in hysterical imploration, but I steeled myself against him. The man was mad and dangerous.
He must be stamped out without mercy.
"There are asylums " I began
"You cannot!" he cried. "You know what they do in asylums. / know! Please help me. I am not responsible. It is the book— the book."
"What book?"
"Drukker—that diary! Can't you see what it has done to me? It's eaten into my brain until I am mad. It's driven me like a slave until I have no other bidding. It taught me how to do these things. It makes me do them."
I pulled him to his feet and shook him unmercifully. He was crying and retching, a pitiable and horrible sight to look upon.
"You are talking irrationally," I cried. "I am your friend and I want to help you, but my first duty is the public welfare. There are six human heads buried in your cellar. There must be no more."
"No more?" he laughed shrilly and threw up both his hands to indicate the count of ten. "No more, you say? There will be ten more before it stops. Ten more! That's what the book says!"
"You want ten?" I demanded incredulously, struck numb by his callousness. "You want ten more to add to those six? Carse, Carse! They are not cabbages you are counting; they are human heads. Do you think I am a fiend to let this continue? No; it must end—it must end on the gallows."
"He died on the gallows!"
"He? Whom are you talking about? Try to make sense, Carse. I am your friend; trust me."
"I am talking of Emil Drukker—the man who taught me how to do these things. He is responsible for them, not I. He is the one to hang for them. Dig him out of his grave and hang him again!"
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lercy.
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I pushed him gently into a chair, for his collapse seemed imminent. Spittle was running from his mouth, and his retching continued in spasms that shook him to his teeth.
"I am your friend," I told him again. "I want to help you, but you must get control of yourself. Why do you say you are not responsible? What drove you to commit these crimes?"
He looked at me searchingly and his eyes cleared. He swallowed a mass of incoherent words in an effort to master himself; then his hand pressed over mine.
"You are right; I must get control of myself," he said. "I have done some horrible things which can never be forgiven, but I swear to you that I have not done them intentionally. And I am not mad as you think. I am in the power of that book. I am the puppet of a horror that has outlived all natural deaths."
A feeling of relief passed over me as I saw him settle into a state of rational observation. I hoped it would last, for not three yards away from him, lying on top of the kitchen table, was a seven-inch butcher knife. My only hope was to preserve his state by permitting him to tell his story, and in that way to persuade him to accept the inevitable consequences of his crimes. I drew up a chair beside his own, yet kept myself alert to ward off any Junge he might make for the knife.
"What is this horror which has mastered you?" I asked in an effort to gain his confidence. "And what is this book?"
"I told you about it in my letter from Vienna six weeks ago. I told you I had discovered a rare book—an awful and compelling book. It was the diary of Emil Drukker."
"Where did you get it?"
He cast a swift glance about the room, then suddenly his eyes fell upon the butcher knife. I saw him tense, saw his
lips twitch under the lash of a horrible temptation.
"Carse, tell me about it!" I yelled, to distract him. "Where did you get the book?"
He pulled his eyes away from the knife and let them burn into my face. For a moment, undecided, he was silent; then his brows straightened and he leaned forward in his chair.
"Do you remember my Graz thesis? It was based upon the life of Emil Drukker in an effort to explain what impulse drove him to cut off human heads. It was a good thesis, one of the best on the subject, and it brought a lot of response from criminologists all over the world. About six months after it was published I received a letter from a man who was once Emil Drukker's personal servant. He was living in Cologne right close to the old Drukker castle, and he wanted to see me. He told me that he knew the Drukker crimes from the first to the last—sixteen of them.
"So I went, of course, and met this man, who was small and old, with an obsession for Emil Drukker. He talked for a long time, and then he handed me the diary and said it explained more vividly than I could ever imagine the impulse which prompted Drukker's recurrent human decapitations. He told me that Drukker had written each entry while the memory of the crime was still fresh in his mind. It was a terrible book to read, he warned, and unless I had the intellectual strength of a mental Hercules I would never forgive myself for having opened it.
"Naturally I was too excited to heed his warning, and on that same night I took the book away with me. I promised to return it to him when I had finished, but he wouldn't accept this plan. Instead he said that he would come and get the book when I was through. It was a mysterious business and should have told me
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to expect no good to come of it. I asked him how he would know when I had finished with the book, and I shall never forget that evil smile and disdainful shrug of his response.
" 'I shall know well enough when I read the newspapers,* he told me. 'This rime it will be six or seven—in about four months from now.'
"Do you understand what he meant by those words? He knew what would happen! And yet he let me carry that book away with me! In the name of God, what kind of a man is he?"
"Why didn't you destroy the book?" I demanded of him.
"I couldn't! It was too fascinating, too powerful to destroy. I read that book with the reverence of an ecclesiastic until I knew every word between the covers, and the whole ghastly parade of Drukker's sixteen murders passed before my eyes like figures on a stage. Ten weeks ago I began to have nightmares that reconstructed the crimes of Drukker, going chronologically from Number One to Number Sixteen, then beginning all over again.
'"When I returned to America seven weeks ago I still had the book with me, and the contents were so deeply engraved on my brain that I could think of nothing else. Day and night I thought about it, until at length I found myself actually imagining how I would go about emulating his crimes. Then I began to get the horrible impulse to fondle a butcher knife—Drukker used a butcher knife, you know!—and more than once I was struck with the scarcely resistible urge to cut off someone's head. It didn't matter whose head—but just a head!"
"Easy, Carse!" I cried with a wary glance at the kitchen table. "Tell me the rest, but don't excite yourself. What happened then?"
HE slid back in a sort of stupor, shook his head several times, then passed his hand across his eyes in a gesture of despair.
"You ought to know damned well what happened if you were listening at your door last night. Six weeks ago I went to bed and dreamed horribly. I had just finished reading the f
irst confession in the diary—some strange impulse made me read that confession and no other—and in my sleep I saw a human head staring at me. It was a cruel, Teutonic head, and I knew that it was Emil Drukker's head hanging in a gallows rope. Then he smiled at me; a horrible, vivid, real smile, and the head vanished. From then on, for how long I cannot say, I sat as a spectator and watched the complete action of Drukker's Number One.
"I saw Drukker leave his house and walk down a dark street with no other illumination than a few scattered electric lights. I tried to imagine how they were electric lights, for they had only gas in his day, but nevertheless they were modern lights, and the street looked like the street in front of my own house. He walked about ten blocks; then he saw a woman standing on a street corner. There wasn't another soul in sight. He crept closer to her, then drew out his butcher knife, and hid it in the folds of his coat—a coat which looked strangely like my own wind-breaker. He first tried to talk with the woman, but she was not interested; so he pulled out the knife and brought it sweeping down across her throat. The blood spurted like a fountain and overran Drukker's hand, but he only laughed and pushed the woman to the ground, then knelt over her and began a horrible sawing movement with his knife. When he had finished, he drew a towel from his pocket and wrapped the head tightly to prevent the blood from trailing him home. He came
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back the same way and entered the house, and at the foot of the stairs he unwrapped the towel and held the thing only by its hair as he climbed the steps. The last thing I saw or heard was the blood dripping on each step as he ascended to the upper hall."
"My God!" I whispered in horror.
"But that's not the worst," Carse cried as he grabbed my arm. "When I awakened the next morning it was late and the shrieks of the newsboys stabbed into my ears. They were yelling about a cruel, brutal murder which had been committed sometime during the night. I swung my feet off the bed to arise, when my eyes fell upon the diary which rested on my night-table. It was open to the confession of Number One as if I had been reading it in my sleep. There was a strange and terrifying dread in my soul as my feet struck the floor. I felt something wet and sticky touch my toes; then I looked down. It was a woman's head staring up at me.
Weird Tales volume 30 number 04 Page 10
