We crossed the room and stared in wonder at the tiny object which he held between the thumb and finger of his gloved right hand. It was a tiny, ball-like thing, scarcely larger than a dried bean, a little, hairy spider with a black body striped about the abdomen with lines of vivid vermilion. “You observe him?” he asked simply. “Was I not wise to order our retreat last night?”
“What is the thing?” I demanded. “It’s harmless-looking enough, but—”
“Eh bien, there is a very great but there, my friend,” he retorted with a mirthless smile. “You saw what had been Monsieur Larson; you looked upon the poor, new-dead young Ellis? This—this little, seemingly so harmless thing it was which killed them. It is a katipo, or latrodectus Nasselti, the deadliest spider in the world. Even the cobra’s bite is but a sweetheart’s kiss beside the sting of this so small, deadly thing. Those bit by him are seized immediately with convulsions—they beat the air, they stumble and they whirl, at length they give vent to a dreadful scream which simulates a laugh. And then they fall and die.
“Does not that make it clear? The wholly irrational antics performed by Professor Larson ere he died could be explained in no sane manner. They puzzled me. I was not willing to accept Professor Ellis’ theory that the mummy was ‘unlucky,’ although, as the good God knows, it proved so for him. However, that Professor Larson was entirely dead could not be doubted, nor could one readily assign a reason for his death. Tiens, in such a case the coroner must be called, and so we telephoned for Monsieur Martin.
“Meantime, as we sat waiting in this room, a poor, half-starving devil of a man decided he would break into the house and steal whatever he could find. He mounted the bay-window’s roof, and, guided by his evil star, set foot inside the chamber where the mummy and Professor Larson lay. We heard him trample on the floor; we heard him give that dreadful, laughing scream; we searched for him, and found him dead upon the lawn.
“Very good. In due time Monsieur Martin comes; we lead him to the place where Monsieur Larson is, and as we go into the room I chance to look into the spices strewn about the bottom of that mummy-case. Ha—what is it that I see? Parbleu, I see a movement! Spices do not move, my friend, except they be blown on by the wind, and there is no wind in that room. Moreover, spices are not jettyblack with bands of red about their bellies. Non, pardieu, but certain spiders are. I see him and I know him. In the Eastern Islands, in Java, in Australia, I have seen him, and I have also seen his deadly work. He is the latrodectus Nasselti, called katipo by the natives, and his bite is almost instant and most painful death. More, those bitten by him dance about insanely in a sort of frantic seizure; they laugh—but not with happiness!—they scream with mirthless laughter; then they die. I did not wish to dance and laugh and die, my friends; I did not wish that you should do so, either. There was no time for talk or explanation; our only safety lay in flight, for they are tropic things, those spiders, and once we were outside the cold would kill them. I was about to call a warning to Monsieur Ellis, too; but I was, hélas, too late.
“Beyond a doubt one of the spiders had fastened on his clothing while he bent over to inspect that mummy-case. The insect clung to him when he left the room, and while he waited downstairs for us it crawled until it came in contact with his naked skin; then, angered, it may be, by some movement which he made, it bit him and he died.
“When I saw him lying here upon the floor I took incontinently to flight. Jules de Grandin is no coward, but who could say how many of those cursed spiders had crawled from the mummy-case and found hiding-places in the shadows—even in our clothing, as in the case of Monsieur Ellis? To stay here was to court a quick and highly disagreeable death; accordingly I rushed you out into the storm and asked Monsieur Martin to provide fumigation for the house forthwith. Now, since the cyanogen gas has killed every living thing inside this house, it is safe for us to enter.
“The bodies may safely be taken away by your assistants at any time, Monsieur,” he finished with a bow to Mr. Martin.
“Eh bien, were he but here, we could set poor Monsieur Ellis’ mind at rest concerning many things,” de Grandin murmured as we drove toward my house. “He could not understand how Professor Larson’s servants died by spider-bite, since the Egyptian tomb-spider is known to be innocuous, or nearly so. The answer now is obvious. In some way which we do not understand, a number of those poisonous black spiders found their way into that mummy-case. They are terrestrial in their habits, living in the earth and going forth by night. Light irritates them, and when the workmen brought their torches into the tomb they showed their annoyance by biting them. Death, accompanied by convulsions, followed, and because the small black spiders were invisible in the shadows, the harmless tomb-spiders received the blame. Some few of the black spiders came overseas with Professor Larson; when he pried the lid from that mummy-case—perhaps when he thrust his hand into the scattered spices to lift the mummy out—they fastened on him, bit him; killed him. You apprehend?”
“H’m, it sounds logical enough,” I answered thoughtfully, “but have you any idea how those spices came in that coffin? Poor Ellis seemed to think we’d hit on something extraordinary when he saw them; but he’s gone now and—great Scott, de Grandin, d’ye suppose those old Egyptian priests could have planted spider eggs among the spices, hoping they would hatch eventually, so that whoever molested the body in years to come would stand a chance of being bitten and killed?”
For a moment he drummed soundlessly with gloved fingers on the silver head of his stick. At length: “My friend, you interest me,” he declared solemnly. “I do not know that what you say is probable, but the manner of that mummy’s preparation is unusual. I think we owe it as a debt to poor, dead Ellis to look into the matter thoroughly.”
“Look into it? How—”
“Tomorrow we shall unwrap the body,” he responded as casually as though unshrouding centuries-old dead Egyptians were an everyday activity with us. “If we can find some explanation hidden in the mummy-clothes, well and good. If we do not—eh bien, the dead have spoken before; why not again?”
“The—dead—have—spoken?” I echoed slowly, incredulously. “What in the world—”
“Not in this world, precisely,” he interrupted with the shadow of a smile, “but there are those who look behind the veil which separates us from the ones we call the dead, my friend. We shall try other methods first. Those failing—” he recommenced his drumming on the handle of his cane, humming softly:
Sacré de nom,
Ron, ron et ron;
La vie est brêve,
La nuit est longue—
Next evening we unwrapped the mummy.
It was an oddly assorted group which gathered in the basement of Harrisonville Museum to denude the ancient dead of its cerements. Hodgson, the assistant curator of the department of archeology, a slender little man in gold-bowed, rimless spectacles, bald to the ears and much addicted to the habit of buttoning and unbuttoning his primly untidy double-breasted jacket, stood by in a state of twittering nervousness as de Grandin set to work.
“Who sups with the devil needs a long spoon,” the little Frenchman quoted with a smile as he drew a pair of heavy rubber gloves on his hands before taking up his scissors and snipping one of the criss-crossed linen bands with which the body was tightly wrapped. “I do not greatly fear that any of those small black imps of hell survived Monsieur Martin’s gas,” he added, laying back a fold of yellowed linen, “but it is well to be prepared. The cemeteries are full to overflowing with those who have thought otherwise.”
Yard after endless yard of linen he reeled off, coming at length to a strong, seamless shroud drawn sackwise over the body and tied at the feet with a stout cord. The cloth of which the sack was made seemed stronger and heavier than the bandages, and was thickly coated with wax or some ceraceous substance, the whole being, apparently, airtight and watertight.
“Why, bless my soul, I never saw anything like this before,” stammered Doctor Hodgson,
leaning forward across de Grandin’s shoulder to stare curiously at the inner shroud.
“So much we gathered from Monsieur Ellis before—when he first viewed this body,” de Grandin answered dryly, and Professor Hodgson retreated with an odd little squeaking exclamation, for all the world like that of an intimidated mouse.
“Sale lâche!” the Frenchman whispered softly, his contempt of Hodgson’s cowardice written plainly on his face. Then, as he cut the binding string away and began twitching the waxed shroud upward from the mummy’s shoulders:
“Ah ha? Ah-ha-ha—que diable?”
The body brought to view beneath the blue-white glare of the electric bulbs was not technically a mummy; though the aromatic spices and the sterile, arid atmosphere of Egypt had combined to keep it in a state of most unusual preservation. The feet, first parts to be exposed, were small and beautifully formed, with long, straight toes and narrow heels, the digits and soles, as well as the whole plantar region, stained brilliant red. There was surprizingly little desiccation, and though the terminal tendons of the brevis digitorum showed prominently through the skin, the effect was by no means revolting; I had seen equal prominence of flexor muscles in living feet where the patient had suffered considerable emaciation.
The ankles were sharp and shapely, the legs straight and well turned, with the leanness of youth, rather than the wasted look of death; the hips were narrow, the waist slender and the gentle swelling bosoms high and sharp. Making allowance for the early age at which women of the Orient mature, I should have said the girl died somewhere in her middle teens; certainly well under twenty.
“Ah?” de Grandin murmured as the waxed sack slid over the body’s shoulders. “I think that here we have the explanation of those stains, Friend Trowbridge, n’est-ce-pas?”
I looked and gulped back an exclamation of horrified amazement. The slim, tapering arms had been folded on the breast, in accordance with the Egyptian custom, but the humerus of the left arm had been cruelly crushed, a compound comminutive fracture having resulted, so that a quarter-inch or more of splintered bone thrust through the skin above and below the deltoid attachment. Not only this: the same blow which had crushed the arm had smashed the bony structure of the chest, the third and fourth left ribs being snapped in two, and through the smooth skin underneath the breast a prong of jagged bone protruded. A hemorrhage of considerable extent had followed, and the long-dried blood lay upon the body from left breast to hip in a dull, brown-red veneer. Waxed though the mummy-sack had been, the welling blood had found its way through some break in the coating, had soaked the tightly knotted outer bandages, and borne mute testimony of an ancient tragedy.
The finely cut features were those of a woman in her early youth. Semitic in their cast, they had a delicacy of line and contour which bespoke patrician breeding. The nose was small, slightly aquiline, high-bridged, with narrow nostrils. The lips were thin and sensitive, and where they had retracted in the process of partial desiccation, showed small, sharp teeth of startling whiteness. The hair was black and lustrous, cut short off at the ears, like the modern Dutch bob affected by young women, parted in the middle and bound about the brows with a circlet of hammered gold set with small studs of lapis lazuli. For the rest, a triple-stranded necklace of gold and blue enamel, armlets of the same design and a narrow golden girdle fashioned like a snake composed the dead girl’s costume. Originally a full, plaited skirt of sheer white linen had been appended to the girdle, but the fragile fabric had not withstood the years of waiting in the grave, and only one or two thin wisps of it remained.
“La pauvre!” exclaimed the Frenchman, gazing sadly at the broken little body. “I think, my friends, that we see here a demonstration of that ancient saying that the blood of innocents can not be concealed. Unless I am more wrong than I admit, this is a case of murder, and—”
“But it might as well have been an accident,” I cut in. “I’ve seen such injuries in motor-wrecks, and this poor child might have been the victim of a chariot smashup.”
“I do not think so,” he returned. “This case has all the marks of ritual murder, my friend. Observe the—”
“I think we’d better wrap the body up again,” Hodgson broke in hastily. “We’ve gone as far as we can tonight, and—well, I’m rather tired, gentlemen, and if you don’t mind, we’ll call the session off.” He coughed apologetically, but there was the mild determination of weak men who have authority to make their wishes law in his manner as he spoke.
“You mean that you’re afraid of something that might happen?” de Grandin countered bluntly. “You fear the ancient gods may take offense at our remaining here to speculate on the manner of this poor one’s death?”
“Well,” Hodgson took his glasses off and wiped them nervously, “of course, I don’t believe those stories that they tell of these ‘unlucky’ mummies, but—you’re bound to admit there have been some unexplained fatalities connected with this case. Besides—well, frankly, gentlemen, this body’s less a mummy than a corpse, and I’ve a terrible aversion to being around the dead, unless they’ve been mummified.”
De Grandin smiled sarcastically. “The old-time fears die hard,” he assented. “Nevertheless, Monsieur, we shall respect your sensibilities. You have been most kind, and we would not try your nerves still further. Tomorrow, if you do not mind, we shall pursue our researches. It may be possible that we shall discover something hitherto unknown about the rites and ceremonies of those old ones who ruled the world when Rome had scarce been thought of.”
“Yes, yes; of course,” Hodgson coughed as he edged near the door. “I’m sure I shall be happy to give you a pass to the Museum tomorrow—only”—he added as an afterthought—“I must ask that you refrain from mutilating the body in any way. It belongs to the Museum, you know, and I simply can not give permission for an autopsy.”
“Morbleu, but you are the shrewd guesser, Monsieur,” de Grandin answered with a laugh. “I think you must have read intention in my eyes. Very well; we consent. There shall be no post-mortem of the body made. Bon soir, Monsieur.”
“I’m sorry, Doctor de Grandin,” Hodgson greeted us the next morning, “but I’m afraid you’ll not be able to pursue any further investigations with the mummy—the body, I mean—we unwrapped last night.”
The little Frenchman stiffened in both body and manner. “You mean that you have altered your decision, Monsieur?” he asked with cold politeness.
“Not at all. I mean the body’s disintegrated with exposure to the air, and only a few wisps of hair, the skull and some unarticulated bones remain. While they weren’t quite airtight, the bandages and the wax-coated shroud seem to have been able to keep the flesh intact, but exposure to our damp atmosphere has reduced them to a heap of bone and dust.”
“U’m,” the Frenchman answered. “That is unfortunate, but not irreparable. I think our chance of finding out the cause and manner of the poor young lady’s death is not yet gone. Would you be good enough to lend us the ornaments, some of the mummy-cloth and several of the bones, Monsieur? We guarantee their safe return.”
“Well,” Hodgson hesitated momentarily, “it’s not quite regular, but if you’re sure you will return them—”
“Monsieur,” de Grandin’s voice broke sharply through the curator’s apologetic half-refusal, “I am Jules de Grandin; I am not accustomed to having my good faith assailed. No matter, the experiment which I have in mind will not take long, and you are welcome to accompany us. Thus you need never have the relics out of sight at any time. Will that assure you of their safe return?”
Hodgson undid the buttons of his jacket, then did them up again. “Oh, don’t think I was doubting your bona fides,” he returned, “but this body cost the Museum a considerable sum, and was the indirect cause of our losing two valuable members of the staff. I’m personally responsible for it, and—”
“No matter,” de Grandin interrupted, “if you will come with us I can assure you that the articles will be within your sight at
all times, and you may have them back again this morning.”
Accordingly, Hodgson superintending fussily, we selected the gold and lapis lazuli diadem, the broken humerus, one of the fractured ribs and several lengths of mummy-cloth which bore the dull-red blood stains, and thrust them into a traveling-bag. De Grandin paused to call a number on the ’phone, talked for a moment in a muted tone, then directed me to an address in Scotland Road.
Half an hour’s drive through the brisk winter air brought us to a substantial brownstone-fronted residence in the decaying but still eminently respectable neighborhood. Lace curtains hung at the tall windows of the first floor and the windows of the basement dining-room were neatly draped with scrim. Beside the carefully polished bell-pull a brass plate with the legend, Creighton, Clairvoyant, was set. A neat maid in black and white uniform responded to de Grandin’s ring and led us to a drawing-room rather overfurnished with heavy pieces of the style popular in the middle nineties. “Mrs. Creighton will be down immediately, sir; she’s expecting you,” she told him as she left the room.
My experience with those who claim ability to “look beyond the veil” was limited, but I had always imagined that they set their stages more effectively than this. The carpet, patterned with impossible roses large as cabbages, the heavy and not especially comfortable golden oak chairs upholstered in green plush, the stereotyped oil paintings of the Grand Canal, of Capri by moonlight and Vesuvius in action, were pragmatic as a plate of prunes, and might have been duplicated, item by item, in the “parlor” of half a hundred non-fashionable but respectable boarding-houses. Even the faint aroma of cooking food which wafted up to us from the downstairs kitchen had a reassuring and worldly tang which seemed entirely out of harmony with the ghostly calling of our hostess.
Madame Creighton fitted her surroundings perfectly. She was short, stout and matronly, and her high-necked white linen blouse and plain blue skirts were far more typical of the busy middle-class housewife than of the self-admitted medium. Her eyes, brown and bright, shone pleasantly behind the lenses of neat, rimless spectacles; her hair, already shot with gray, was drawn tightly back from her forehead and twisted in a commonplace knot above her occiput. Even her hands were plump, short-fingered, slightly workworn and wholly commonplace. Nowhere was there any indication of the “psychic” in her dress, face, form or manner.
The Best of Jules de Grandin Page 40
