Burn, Witch, Burn!

by Abraham Merritt

  "Then I come back to what I thought before; and the more so as last evening at sunset, whilst I was arranging the border where I am to plant your bulb, I saw a shadow gliding between the alder trees and the aspens. I did not appear to see him, but it was this man. He concealed himself and saw me digging the ground, and certainly it was me whom he followed, and me whom he was spying after. I could not move my rake, or touch one atom of soil, without his noticing it."

  "Oh, yes, yes, he is in love with you," said Cornelius. "Is he young? Is he handsome?"

  Saying this he looked anxiously at Rosa, eagerly waiting for her answer.

  "Young? handsome?" cried Rosa, bursting into a laugh. "He is hideous to look at; crooked, nearly fifty years of age, and never dares to look me in the face, or to speak, except in an undertone."

  "And his name?"

  "Jacob Gisels."

  "I don't know him."

  "Then you see that, at all events, he does not come after you."

  "At any rate, if he loves you, Rosa, which is very likely, as to see you is to love you, at least you don't love him."

  "To be sure I don't."

  "Then you wish me to keep my mind easy?"

  "I should certainly ask you to do so."

  "Well, then, now as you begin to know how to read you will read all that I write to you of the pangs of jealousy and of absence, won't you, Rosa?"

  "I shall read it, if you write with good big letters."

  Then, as the turn which the conversation took began to make Rosa uneasy, she asked, —

  "By the bye, how is your tulip going on?"

  "Oh, Rosa, only imagine my joy, this morning I looked at it in the sun, and after having moved the soil aside which covers the bulb, I saw the first sprouting of the leaves. This small germ has caused me a much greater emotion than the order of his Highness which turned aside the sword already raised at the Buytenhof."

  "You hope, then?" said Rosa, smiling.

  "Yes, yes, I hope."

  "And I, in my turn, when shall I plant my bulb?"

  "Oh, the first favourable day I will tell you; but, whatever you do, let nobody help you, and don't confide your secret to any one in the world; do you see, a connoisseur by merely looking at the bulb would be able to distinguish its value; and so, my dearest Rosa, be careful in locking up the third sucker which remains to you."

  "It is still wrapped up in the same paper in which you put it, and just as you gave it me. I have laid it at the bottom of my chest under my point lace, which keeps it dry, without pressing upon it. But good night, my poor captive gentleman."

  "How? already?"

  "It must be, it must be."

  "Coming so late and going so soon."

  "My father might grow impatient not seeing me return, and that precious lover might suspect a rival."

  Here she listened uneasily.

  "What is it?" asked Van Baerle. "I thought I heard something."

  "What, then?"

  "Something like a step, creaking on the staircase."

  "Surely," said the prisoner, "that cannot be Master Gryphus, he is always heard at a distance"

  "No, it is not my father, I am quite sure, but —— "

  "But?"

  "But it might be Mynheer Jacob."

  Rosa rushed toward the staircase, and a door was really heard rapidly to close before the young damsel had got down the first ten steps.

  Cornelius was very uneasy about it, but it was after all only a prelude to greater anxieties.

  The flowing day passed without any remarkable incident. Gryphus made his three visits, and discovered nothing. He never came at the same hours as he hoped thus to discover the secrets of the prisoner. Van Baerle, therefore, had devised a contrivance, a sort of pulley, by means of which he was able to lower or to raise his jug below the ledge of tiles and stone before his window. The strings by which this was effected he had found means to cover with that moss which generally grows on tiles, or in the crannies of the walls.

  Gryphus suspected nothing, and the device succeeded for eight days. One morning, however, when Cornelius, absorbed in the contemplation of his bulb, from which a germ of vegetation was already peeping forth, had not heard old Gryphus coming upstairs as a gale of wind was blowing which shook the whole tower, the door suddenly opened.

  Gryphus, perceiving an unknown and consequently a forbidden object in the hands of his prisoner, pounced upon it with the same rapidity as the hawk on its prey.

  As ill luck would have it, his coarse, hard hand, the same which he had broken, and which Cornelius van Baerle had set so well, grasped at once in the midst of the jug, on the spot where the bulb was lying in the soil.

  "What have you got here?" he roared. "Ah! have I caught you?" and with this he grabbed in the soil.

  "I? nothing, nothing," cried Cornelius, trembling.

  "Ah! have I caught you? a jug and earth in it There is some criminal secret at the bottom of all this."

  "Oh, my good Master Gryphus," said Van Baerle, imploringly, and anxious as the partridge robbed of her young by the reaper.

  In fact, Gryphus was beginning to dig the soil with his crooked fingers.

  "Take care, sir, take care," said Cornelius, growing quite pale.

  "Care of what? Zounds! of what?" roared the jailer.

  "Take care, I say, you will crush it, Master Gryphus."

  And with a rapid and almost frantic movement he snatched the jug from the hands of Gryphus, and hid it like a treasure under his arms.

  But Gryphus, obstinate, like an old man, and more and more convinced that he was discovering here a conspiracy against the Prince of Orange, rushed up to his prisoner, raising his stick; seeing, however, the impassible resolution of the captive to protect his flower-pot he was convinced that Cornelius trembled much less for his head than for his jug.

  He therefore tried to wrest it from him by force.

  "Halloa!" said the jailer, furious, "here, you see, you are rebelling."

  "Leave me my tulip," cried Van Baerle.

  "Ah, yes, tulip," replied the old man, "we know well the shifts of prisoners."

  "But I vow to you —— "

  "Let go," repeated Gryphus, stamping his foot, "let go, or I shall call the guard."

  "Call whoever you like, but you shall not have this flower except with my life."

  Gryphus, exasperated, plunged his finger a second time into the soil, and now he drew out the bulb, which certainly looked quite black; and whilst Van Baerle, quite happy to have saved the vessel, did not suspect that the adversary had possessed himself of its precious contents, Gryphus hurled the softened bulb with all his force on the flags, where almost immediately after it was crushed to atoms under his heavy shoe.

  Van Baerle saw the work of destruction, got a glimpse of the juicy remains of his darling bulb, and, guessing the cause of the ferocious joy of Gryphus, uttered a cry of agony, which would have melted the heart even of that ruthless jailer who some years before killed Pelisson's spider.

  The idea of striking down this spiteful bully passed like lightning through the brain of the tulip-fancier. The blood rushed to his brow, and seemed like fire in his eyes, which blinded him, and he raised in his two hands the heavy jug with all the now useless earth which remained in it. One instant more, and he would have flung it on the bald head of old Gryphus.

  But a cry stopped him; a cry of agony, uttered by poor Rosa, who, trembling and pale, with her arms raised to heaven, made her appearance behind the grated window, and thus interposed between her father and her friend.

  Gryphus then understood the danger with which he had been threatened, and he broke out in a volley of the most terrible abuse.

  "Indeed," said Cornelius to him, "you must be a very mean and spiteful fellow to rob a poor prisoner of his only consolation, a tulip bulb."

  "For shame, my father," Rosa chimed in, "it is indeed a crime you have committed here."

  "Ah, is that you, my little chatter-box?" the old man cried, boilin
g with rage and turning towards her; "don't you meddle with what don't concern you, but go down as quickly as possible."

  "Unfortunate me," continued Cornelius, overwhelmed with grief.

  "After all, it is but a tulip," Gryphus resumed, as he began to be a little ashamed of himself. "You may have as many tulips as you like: I have three hundred of them in my loft."

  "To the devil with your tulips!" cried Cornelius; "you are worthy of each other: had I a hundred thousand millions of them, I would gladly give them for the one which you have just destroyed."

  "Oh, so!" Gryphus said, in a tone of triumph; "now there we have it. It was not your tulip you cared for. There was in that false bulb some witchcraft, perhaps some means of correspondence with conspirators against his Highness who has granted you your life. I always said they were wrong in not cutting your head off."

  "Father, father!" cried Rosa.

  "Yes, yes! it is better as it is now," repeated Gryphus, growing warm; "I have destroyed it, and I'll do the same again, as often as you repeat the trick. Didn't I tell you, my fine fellow, that I would make your life a hard one?"

  "A curse on you!" Cornelius exclaimed, quite beyond himself with despair, as he gathered, with his trembling fingers, the remnants of that bulb on which he had rested so many joys and so many hopes.

  "We shall plant the other to-morrow, my dear Mynheer Cornelius," said Rosa, in a low voice, who understood the intense grief of the unfortunate tulip-fancier, and who, with the pure sacred love of her innocent heart, poured these kind words, like a drop of balm, on the bleeding wounds of Cornelius.

  Chapter 18 - Rosa's Lover

  Curiously enough, Ricori was the least affected of the three of us. My own flesh had crept. McCann, although he had never heard the doll-maker's voice, was greatly shaken. And it was Ricori who broke the silence.

  "You are sure the girl is dead?"

  "There is no possible doubt of it, Ricori."

  He nodded to McCann: "Carry her down to the car."

  I asked: "What are you going to do?"

  He answered: "Kill the witch." He quoted with satiric unctuousness: "In death they shall not be divided." He said, passionately: "As in hell they shall burn together forever!"

  He looked at me, sharply.

  "You do not approve of this, Dr. Lowell?"

  "Ricori, I don't know—I honestly do not know. Today I would have killed her with my own hands but now the rage is spent. What you have threatened is against all my instincts, all my habits of thought, all my convictions of how justice should be administered. It seems to me—murder!"

  He said: "You heard the girl. Twenty in this city alone killed by the dolls. And fourteen dolls. Fourteen who died as Peters did!"

  "But, Ricori, no court could consider allegations under hypnosis as evidence. It may be true, it may not be. The girl was abnormal. What she told might be only her imaginings—without supporting evidence, no court on earth could accept it as a basis for action."

  He said: "No—no earthly court—" He gripped my shoulders. He asked: "Do you believe it was truth?"

  I could not answer, for deep within me I felt it was truth. He said:

  "Precisely, Dr. Lowell! You have answered me. You know, as I know, that the girl did speak the truth. You know, as I know, that our law cannot punish the witch. That is why I must kill her. In doing that, I, Ricori, am no murderer. No, I am God's executioner!"

  He waited for me to speak. Again I could not answer.

  "McCann"—he pointed to the girl—"do as I told you. Then return."

  And when McCann had gone out with the frail body in his arms, Ricori said:

  "Dr. Lowell—you must go with me to witness this execution."

  I recoiled at that. I said:

  "Ricori, I can't. I am utterly weary—in body and mind. I have gone through too much today. I am broken with grief—"

  "You must go," he interrupted, "if we have to carry you, gagged as the girl was, and bound. I will tell you why. You are at war with yourself. Alone, it is possible your scientific doubts might conquer, that you would attempt to halt me before I have done what I swear by Christ, His Holy Mother, and the Saints, I shall do. You might yield to weariness and place the whole matter before the police. I will not take that risk. I have affection for you, Dr. Lowell, deep affection. But I tell you that if my own mother tried to stop me in this I would sweep her aside as ruthlessly as I shall you."

  I said: "I will go with you."

  "Then tell the nurse to bring me my clothing. Until all is over, we remain together. I am taking no more chances."

  I took up the telephone and gave the necessary order. McCann returned, and Ricori said to him:

  "When I am clothed, we go to the doll-shop. Who is in the car with Tony?"

  "Larson and Cartello."

  "Good. It may be that the witch knows we are coming. It may be that she has listened through the girl's dead ears as she spoke from her dead throat. No matter. We shall assume that she did not. Are there bars on the door?"

  McCann said: "Boss, I ain't been in the shop. I don't know. There's a glass panel. If there's bars we can work 'em. Tony'll get the tools while you put on your clothes."

  "Dr. Lowell," Ricori turned on me. "Will you give me your word that you will not change your mind about going with me? Nor attempt to interfere in what I am going to do?"

  "I give you my word, Ricori."

  "McCann, you need not come back. Wait for us in the car."

  Ricori was soon dressed. As I walked with him out of my house, a clock struck one. I remembered that this strange adventure had begun, weeks ago, at that very hour…

  I rode in the back of the car with Ricori, the dead girl between us. On the middle seats were Larson and Cartello, the former a stolid Swede, the latter a wiry little Italian. The man named Tony drove, McCann beside him. We swung down the avenue and in about half an hour were on lower Broadway. As we drew near the street of the doll-maker, we went less quickly. The sky was overcast, a cold wind blowing off the bay. I shivered, but not with cold.

  We came to the corner of the doll-maker's street.

  For several blocks we had met no one, seen no one. It was as though we were passing through a city of the dead. Equally deserted was the street of the doll-maker.

  Ricori said to Tony:

  "Draw up opposite the doll-shop. We'll get out. Then go down to the corner. Wait for us there."

  My heart was beating uncomfortably. There was a quality of blackness in the night that seemed to swallow up the glow from the street lamps. There was no light in the doll-maker's shop, and in the old-fashioned doorway, set level with the street, the shadows clustered. The wind whined, and I could hear the beating of waves on the Battery wall. I wondered whether I would be able to go through that doorway, or whether the inhibition the doll-maker had put upon me still held me.

  McCann slipped out of the car, carrying the girl's body. He propped her, sitting in the doorway's shadows. Ricori and I, Larson and Cartello, followed. The car rolled off. And again I felt the sense of nightmare unreality which had clung to me so often since I had first set my feet on this strange path to the doll-maker…

  The little Italian was smearing the glass of the door with some gummy material. In the center of it he fixed a small vacuum cup of rubber. He took a tool from his pocket and drew with it a foot-wide circle on the glass. The point of the tool cut into the glass as though it had been wax. Holding the vacuum cup in one hand, he tapped the glass lightly with a rubber-tipped hammer. The circle of glass came away in his hand. All had been done without the least sound. He reached through the hole, and fumbled about noiselessly for a few moments. There was a faint click. The door swung open.

  McCann picked up the dead girl. We went, silent as phantoms, into the doll-shop. The little Italian set the circle of glass back in its place. I could see dimly the door that opened into the corridor leading to that evil room at the rear. The little Italian tried the knob. The door was locked. He worked for a few
seconds, and the door swung open. Ricori leading, McCann behind him with the girl, we passed like shadows through the corridor and paused at the further door.

  The door swung open before the little Italian could touch it.

  We heard the voice of the doll-maker!

  "Enter, gentlemen. It was thoughtful of you to bring me back my dear niece! I would have met you at my outer door—but I am an old, old woman and timid!"

  McCann whispered: "One side, boss!"

  He shifted the body of the girl to his left arm, and holding her like a shield, pistol drawn, began to edge by Ricori. Ricori thrust him away. His own automatic leveled, he stepped over the threshold. I followed McCann, the two gunmen at my back.

  I took a swift glance around the room. The doll-maker sat at her table, sewing. She was serene, apparently untroubled. Her long white fingers danced to the rhythm of her stitches. She did not look up at us. There were coals burning in the fireplace. The room was very warm, and there was a strong aromatic odor, unfamiliar to me. I looked toward the cabinets of the dolls.

  Every cabinet was open. Dolls stood within them, row upon row, staring down at us with eyes green and blue, gray and black, lifelike as though they were midgets on exhibition in some grotesque peepshow. There must have been hundreds of them. Some were dressed as we in America dress; some as the Germans do; some as the Spanish, the French, the English; others were in costumes I did not recognize. A ballerina, and a blacksmith with his hammer raised… a French chevalier, and a German student, broadsword in hand, livid scars upon his face… an Apache with knife in hand, drug-madness on his yellow face and next to him a vicious-mouthed woman of the streets and next to her a jockey…

  The loot of the doll-maker from a dozen lands!

  The dolls seemed to be poised to leap. To flow down upon us. Overwhelm us.

  I steadied my thoughts. I forced myself to meet that battery of living dolls' eyes as though they were but lifeless dolls. There was an empty cabinet… another and another… five cabinets without dolls. The four dolls I had watched march upon me in the paralysis of the green glow were not there nor was Walters.