“Howly Mither!” cried the officer in horror as he looked upon the body. “Sure, it were a hound from th’ Divil’s own kennels done this, sor!”
“I think that you have right,” de Grandin nodded grimly, “Call the department, if you will be so good. I will stand by the body.” He took a kerchief from his pocket and opened it, preparatory to veiling the poor, mangled face which stared appealingly up at the fog-bound night, but:
“My God, it’s Suffrige!” the young man at my side exclaimed. I left him just before I blundered into you, and—oh, what could have done it?”
“The same thing which almost did as much for you, Monsieur,” the Frenchman answered in a level, toneless voice. “You had a very narrow escape from being even as your friend, I do assure you.”
“You mean that dog—” he stopped, incredulous, eyes fairly starting from his face as he stared in fascination at his friend’s remains.
“The dog, yes, let us call it that,” de Grandin answered.
“But—but—” the other stammered, then, with an incoherent exclamation which was half sigh, half groaning hiccup, slumped heavily against my shoulder and slid unconscious to the ground.
De Grandin shrugged in irritation. “Now we have two of them to watch,” he complained. “Do you recover him as quickly as you can, my friend, while I—” he turned his back to me, dropped his handkerchief upon the dead man’s face and bent to make a closer examination of the wounds in the throat.
I took the handkerchief from my overcoat pocket, ran it lightly over the trunk of a leafless tree which stood beside the curb and wrung the moisture from it on the unconscious man’s face and forehead. Slowly he recovered, gasped feebly, then, with my assistance, got upon his feet, keeping his back resolutely turned to the grisly thing upon the sidewalk. “Can—you—help—me—to—your—office?” he asked slowly, breathing heavily between the words.
I nodded, and we started toward my house, but twice we had to stop; for once he became sick, and I had to hold him while he retched with nausea, and once he nearly fainted again, leaning heavily against the iron balustrade before a house while he drew great gulps of chilly, fog-soaked air into his lungs.
At last we reached my office, and helping him up to the examination table I set to work. His wounds were more extensive than I had at first supposed. A deep cut, more like the raking of some heavy, blunt-pointed claw than a bite, ran down his face from the right temple almost to the angle of the jaw, and two deep parallel scores showed on his throat above the collar. A little deeper, a little more to one side, and they would have nicked the interior jugular. About his hands were several tears, as though they had suffered more from the beast’s teeth than had his face and throat, and as I helped him with his jacket I saw his shirt-front had been slit and a long, raking cut scored down his chest, the animal’s claws having ripped through the stiff, starched linen as easily as though it had been muslin.
The problem of treatment puzzled me. I could not cauterize the wounds with silver nitrate, and iodine would be without efficiency if the dog were rabid. Finally I compromised by dressing the chest and facial wounds with potassium permanganate solution and using an electric hot-point on the hands, applying laudanum immediately as an anodyne.
“And now, young fellow,” I announced as I completed my work, “I think you could do nicely with a tot of brandy. You were drunk enough when you ran into us, heaven knows, but you’re cold sober now, and your nerves have been badly jangled, so—”
“So you would be advised to bring another glass,” de Grandin’s hail sounded from the surgery door. “My nerves have been on edge these many minutes, and in addition I am suffering from an all-consuming thirst, my friend.”
The young man gulped the liquor down in one tremendous swallow, seeing which de Grandin gave a shudder of disgust. Drinking fifty-year-old brandy was a rite with him, and to bolt it as if it had been common bootlegged stuff was grave impropriety, almost sacrilege.
“Doctor, do you think that dog had hydrophobia?” our patient asked half diffidently. “He seemed so savage—”
“Hydrophobia is the illness human beings have when bitten by a rabid dog or other animal, Monsieur,” de Grandin broke in with a smile. “The beast has rabies, the human victim develops hydrophobia. However, if you wish, we can arrange for you to go to Mercy Hospital early in the morning to take the Pasteur treatment; it is effective and protective if you are infected, quite harmless if you are not.”
“Thanks,” replied the youth. “I think we’d better, for—”
“Monsieur,” the Frenchman cut him short again, “is your name Maxwell, by any chance? Since I first saw you I have been puzzled by your face; now I remember, I saw your picture in le Journal this morning.”
“Yes,” said our visitor, “I’m John Maxwell, and, since you saw my picture in the paper, you know that I’m to marry Sarah Leigh on Saturday; so you realize why I’m so anxious to make sure the dog didn’t have hydro—rabies, I mean. I don’t think Sallie’d want a husband she had to muzzle for fear he’d bite her on the ankle when she came to feed him.”
The little Frenchman smiled acknowledgment of the other’s pleasantry, but though his lips drew back in the mechanics of a smile, his little, round, blue eyes were fixed and studious.
“Tell me, Monsieur,” he asked abruptly, “how came this dog to set upon you in the fog tonight?”
Young Maxwell shivered at the recollection. “Hanged if I know,” he answered. “Y’see, the boys gave me a farewell bachelor dinner at the Carteret this evening, and there was the usual amount of speech-making and toast-drinking, and by the time we broke up I was pretty well paralyzed—able to find my way about, but not very steadily, as you know. I said good-night to the bunch at the hotel and started out alone, for I wanted to walk the liquor off. You see”—a flush suffused his blond, good-looking face—“Sallie said she’d wait up for me to telephone her—just like old married folks!—and I didn’t want to talk to her while I was still thick-tongued. Ray Suffrige, the chap who—the one you saw later, sir—decided he’d walk home, too, and started off in the other direction, and the rest of ’em left in taxis.
“I’d walked about four blocks, and was getting so I could navigate pretty well, when I bumped into you, then brought up against the railing of a house. While I was hanging onto it, trying to get steady on my legs again, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, came that big police-dog and jumped on me. It didn’t bark or give any warning till it leaped at me; then it began growling. I flung my hands up, and it fastened on my sleeve, but luckily the cloth was thick enough to keep its teeth from tearing my arm.
“I never saw such a beast. I’ve had a tussle or two with savage dogs before, and they always jumped away and rushed in again each time I beat ’em off, but this thing stood on its hind legs and fought me, like a man. When it shook its teeth loose from my coat-sleeve it clawed at my face and throat with its forepaws—that’s where I got most of my mauling—and kept snapping at me all the time; never backed away or even sank to all-fours once, sir.
“I was still unsteady on my legs, and the brute was heavy as a man; so it wasn’t long before it had me down. Every time it bit at me I managed to get my arms in its way; so it did more damage to my clothes than it did to me with its teeth, but it surely clawed me up to the Queen’s taste, and I was beginning to tire when you came running up. It would have done me as it did poor Suffrige in a little while, I’m sure.”
He paused a moment, then, with a shaking hand, poured out another drink of brandy and tossed it off at a gulp. “I guess I must have been drunk,” he admitted with a shamefaced grin, “for I could have sworn the thing talked to me as it growled.”
“Eh? The Devil!” Jules de Grandin sat forward suddenly, eyes wider and rounder than before, if possible, the needle-points of his tightly waxed wheat-blond mustache twitching like the whiskers of an irritated tomcat. “What is it that you say?”
“Hold on,” the other countered, quick blood mounting t
o his cheeks. “I didn’t say it; I said it seemed as if its snarls were words.”
“Précisément, exactement, quite so,” returned the Frenchman sharply. “And what was it that he seemed to snarl at you, Monsieur? Quickly, if you please.”
“Well, I was drunk, I admit, but—”
“Ten thousand small blue devils! We bandy words. I have asked you a question; have the courtesy to reply, Monsieur.”
“Well, it sounded—sort of—as if it kept repeating Sallie’s name, like this—” he gave an imitation of a throaty, growling voice: “‘Sarah Leigh, Sarah Leigh—you’ll never marry Sarah Leigh!’
“Ever hear anything so nutty? I reckon I must have had Sallie in my mind, subconsciously, while I was having what I thought was my death-struggle.”
It was very quiet for a moment. John Maxwell looked half sullenly, half defiantly from de Grandin to me. De Grandin sat as though lost in contemplation, his small eyes wide and thoughtful, his hands twisting savagely at the waxed ends of his mustache, the tip of his patent-leather evening shoe beating a devil’s tattoo on the white-tiled floor. At length, abruptly:
“Did you notice any smell, any peculiar odor, when we went to Monsieur Maxwell’s rescue this evening, Friend Trowbridge?” he demanded.
“Why—” I bent my brows and wagged my head in an effort at remembrance. “Why, no, I didn’t—” I stopped, while somewhere from the file-cases of my subconscious memory came a hint of recollection: Soldiers’ Park—a damp and drizzling day—the open air dens of the menagerie. “Wait,” I ordered, closing both eyes tightly while I bade my memory catalogue the vague, elusive scent; then: “Yes, there was an odor I’ve noticed at the zoo in Soldiers’ Park; it was the smell of the damp fur of a fox, or wolf!”
De Grandin beat his small, white hands together softly, as though applauding at a play. “Capital, perfect!” he announced. “I smelt it too, when first we did approach, but our senses play strange tricks on us at times, and I needed the corroboration of your nose’s testimony, if it could be had. Now—” he turned his fixed, unwinking stare upon me as he asked: “Have you ever seen a wolf’s eyes—or a dog’s—at night?”
“Yes, of course,” I answered wonderingly.
“Très bien. And they gleamed with a reflected greenness, something like Madame Pussy’s, only not so bright, n’est-ce-pas?”
“Yes.”
“Très bon. Did you see the eyes of what attacked Monsieur Maxwell this evening? Did you observe them?”
“I should say I did,” I answered, for never would I forget those fiery, glaring orbs. “They were red, red as fire!”
“Oh, excellent Friend Trowbridge; oh, prince of all the recollectors of the world!” de Grandin cried delightedly. “Your memory serves you perfectly, and upholds my observations to the full. Before, I guessed; I said to me, ‘Jules de Grandin, you are generally right, but once in many times you may be wrong. See what Friend Trowbridge has to say.’ And you, parbleu, you said the very thing I needed to confirm me in my diagnosis.
“Monsieur,” he turned to Maxwell with a smile, “you need not fear that you have hydrophobia. No. You were very near to death, a most unpleasant sort of death, but not to death by hydrophobia. Morbleu, that would be an added refinement which we need not take into consideration.”
“Whatever are you talking about?” I asked in sheer amazement. “You ask me if I noticed the smell that beast gave off, and if I saw its eyes, then tell Mr. Maxwell he needn’t fear he’s been inoculated. Of all the hare-brained—”
He turned his shoulder squarely on me and smiled assuringly at Maxwell. “You said that you would call your amoureuse tonight, Monsieur; have you forgotten?” he reminded, then nodded toward the phone.
The young man picked the instrument up, called a number and waited for a moment; then: “John speaking, honey,” he announced as we heard a subdued click sound from the monophone. Another pause, in which the buzzing of indistinguishable words came faintly to us through the quiet room; then Maxwell turned and motioned me to take up the extension ’phone.
“—and please come right away, dear,” I heard a woman’s voice plead as I clapped the instrument against my ear. “No, I can’t tell you over the ’phone, but I must see you right away, Johnny—I must! You’re sure you’re all right? Nothing happened to you?”
“Well,” Maxwell temporized, “I’m in pretty good shape, everything considered. I had a little tussle with a dog, but—”
“A—dog?” Stark, incredulous horror sounded in the woman’s fluttering voice. “What sort of dog?”
“Oh, just a dog, you know; not very big and not very little, sort o’ betwixt and between, and—”
“You’re sure it was a dog? Did it look like a—a police-dog, for instance?”
“Well, now you mention it, it did look something like a police-dog, or collie, or airedale, or something, but—”
“John, dear, don’t try to put me off that way. This is terribly, dreadfully important. Please hurry over—no, don’t come out at night—yes, come at once, but be sure not to come alone. Have you a sword, or some sort of steel or iron weapon you can carry for defense when you come?”
Young Maxwell’s face betrayed bewilderment. “A sword?” he echoed. “What d’ye think I am, dear, a knight of old? No, I haven’t a sword to my name, not even a jack-knife, but—I say, there’s a gentleman I met tonight who has a bully little sword; may I bring him along?”
“Oh, yes, please do, dear; and if you can get some one else, bring him too. I’m terribly afraid to have you venture out tonight, dearest, but I have to see you right away!”
“All right,” the young man answered. “I’ll pop right over, honey.”
As he replaced the instrument, he turned bewilderedly to me. “Wonder what the deuce got into Sally?’ he asked. “She seemed all broken up about something, and I thought she’d faint when I mentioned my set-to with that dog. What’s it mean?”
Jules de Grandin stepped through the doorway connecting surgery with consulting-room, where he had gone to listen to the conversation from the desk extension. His little eyes were serious, his small mouth grimly set. “Monsieur,” he announced gravely, “it means that Mademoiselle Sarah knows more than any of us what this business of the Devil is about. Come, let us go to her without delay.”
As we prepared to leave the house he paused and rummaged in the hall coat closet, emerging in a moment, balancing a pair of blackthorn walking-sticks in his hands.
“What—” I began, but he cut me short.
“These may prove useful,” he announced, handing one to me, the other to John Maxwell. “If what I damn suspect is so, he will not greatly relish a thwack from one of these upon the head. No, the thorn-bush is especially repugnant to him.”
“Humph, I should think it would be particularly repugnant to anyone,” I answered, weighing the knotty bludgeon in my hand. “By the way, who is ‘he’?”
“Mademoiselle Sarah will tell us that,” he answered enigmatically. “Are we ready? Bon, let us be upon our way.”
The mist which had obscured the night an hour or so before had thinned to a light haze, and a drizzle of rain was commencing as we set out. The Leigh house was less than half a mile from my place, and we made good time as we marched through the damp, cold darkness.
I had known Joel Leigh only through having shared committee appointments with him in the local Republican organization and at the archdeaconry. He had entered the consular service after being retired from active duty with the Marine Corps following a surgeon’s certificate of disability, and at the time of his death two years before had been rated as one of the foremost authorities on Near East commercial conditions. Sarah, his daughter, whom I had never met, was, by all accounts, a charming young woman, equally endowed with brains, beauty and money, and keeping up the family tradition in the big house in Tuscarora Avenue, where she lived with an elderly maiden aunt as duenna.
Leigh’s long residence in the East was evidenced in the furni
shings of the long, old-fashioned hall, which was like a royal antechamber in miniature. In the softly diffused light from a brass-shaded Turkish lamp we caught gleaming reflections from heavily carved blackwood furniture and the highlights of a marvelously inlaid Indian screen. A carved table flanked by dragon-chairs stood against the wall, the floor was soft as new-mown turf with rugs from China, Turkey and Kurdistan.
“Mis’ Sarah’s in the library,” announced the Negro butler who answered our summons at the door, and led us through the hall to the big, high-ceilinged room where Sarah Leigh was waiting. Books lined the chamber’s walls from floor to ceiling on three sides; the fourth wall was devoted to a bulging bay-window which overlooked the garden. Before the fire of cedar logs was drawn a deeply padded divan, while flanking it were great armchairs upholstered in red leather. The light which sifted through the meshes of a brazen lamp-shade disclosed a tabouret of Indian mahogany on which a coffee service stood. Before the fire the mistress of the house stood waiting us. She was rather less than average height, but appeared taller because of her fine carriage. Her mannishly close-cropped hair was dark and inclined toward curliness, but as she moved toward us I saw it showed bronze glints in the lamplight. Her eyes were large, expressive, deep hazel, almost brown. But for the look of cynicism, almost hardness, around her mouth, she would have been something more than merely pretty.
The Best of Jules de Grandin Page 42
