by Ron Goulart
One night while we were all in the cellar—none dared to enter it alone—engaged in bestowing upon the Mayor of an adjoining town the solemn offices of Christian burial, my mother and the younger children, holding a candle each, while George Henry and I labored with a spade and pick, my sister Mary Maria uttered a shriek and covered her eyes with her hands. We were all dreadfully startled and the Mayor’s obsequies were instantly suspended, while with pale faces and in trembling tones we begged her to say what had alarmed her. The younger children were so agitated that they held their candles unsteadily, and the waving shadows of our figures danced with uncouth and grotesque movements on the walls and flung themselves into the most uncanny attitudes. The face of the dead man, now gleaming ghastly in the light, and now extinguished by some floating shadow, appeared at each emergence to have taken on a new and more forbidding expression, a maligner menace. Frightened even more than ourselves by the girl’s scream, rats raced in multitudes about the place, squeaking shrilly, or starred the black opacity of some distant corner with steadfast eyes, mere points of green light, matching the faint phosphorescence of decay that filled the half-dug grave and seemed the visible manifestation of that faint odor of mortality which tainted the unwholesome air. The children now sobbed and clung about the limbs of their elders, dropping their candles, and we were near being left in total darkness, except for that sinister light, which slowly welled upward from the disturbed earth and overflowed the edges of the grave like a fountain.
Meanwhile my sister, crouching in the earth that had been thrown out of the excavation, had removed her hands from her face and was staring with expanded eyes into an obscure space between two wine casks.
“There it is!—there it is!” she shrieked, pointing; “God in heaven! can’t you see it?”
And there indeed it was!—a human figure, dimly discernible in the gloom—a figure that wavered from side to side as if about to fall, clutching at the wine-casks for support, had stepped unsteadily forward and for one moment stood revealed in the light of our remaining candles; then it surged heavily and fell prone upon the earth. In that moment we had all recognized the figure, the face and bearing of our father—dead these ten months and buried by our own hands!—our father indubitably risen and ghastly drunk!
On the incidents of our precipitate flight from that horrible place—on the extinction of all human sentiment in that tumultuous, mad scramble up the damp and mouldy stairs—slipping, falling, pulling one another down and clambering over one another’s back—the lights extinguished, babes trampled beneath the feet of their strong brothers and hurled backward to death by a mother’s arm!—on all this I do not dare to dwell. My mother, my eldest brother and sister and I escaped; the others remained below, to perish of their wounds, or of their terror—some, perhaps, by flame. For within an hour we four, hastily gathering together what money and jewels we had and what clothing we could carry, fired the dwelling and fled by its light into the hills. We did not even pause to collect the insurance, and my dear mother said on her death-bed, years afterward in a distant land, that this was the only sin of omission that lay upon her conscience. Her confessor, a holy man, assured her that under the circumstances Heaven would pardon the neglect.
About ten years after our removal from the scenes of my childhood I, then a prosperous forger, returned in disguise to the spot with a view to obtaining, if possible, some treasure belonging to us, which had been buried in the cellar. I may say that I was unsuccessful: the discovery of many human bones in the ruins had set the authorities digging for more. They had found the treasure and had kept it for their honesty. The house had not been rebuilt; the whole suburb was, in fact, a desolation. So many unearthly sights and sounds had been reported thereabout that nobody would live there. As there was none to question nor molest, I resolved to gratify my filial piety by gazing once more upon the face of my beloved father, if indeed our eyes had deceived us and he was still in his grave. I remembered, too, that he had always worn an enormous diamond ring, and never having seen it nor heard of it since his death, I had reason to think he might have been buried in it. Procuring a spade, I soon located the grave in what had been the backyard and began digging. When I had got down about four feet the whole bottom fell out of the grave and I was precipitated into a large drain, falling through a long hole in its crumbling arch. There was no body, nor any vestige of one.
Unable to get out of the excavation, I crept through the drain, and having with some difficulty removed a mass of charred rubbish and blackened masonry that choked it, emerged into what had been that fateful cellar.
All was clear. My father, whatever had caused him to be “taken bad” at his meal (and I think my sainted mother could have thrown some light upon that matter) had indubitably been buried alive. The grave having been accidentally dug above the forgotten drain, and down almost to the crown of its arch, and no coffin having been used, his struggles on reviving had broken the rotten masonry and he had fallen through, escaping finally into the cellar. Feeling that he was not welcome in his own house, yet having no other, he had lived in subterranean seclusion, a witness to our thrift and a pensioner on our providence. It was he who had eaten our food; it was he who had drunk our wine—he was no better than a thief! In a moment of intoxication, and feeling, no doubt, that need of companionship which is the one sympathetic link between a drunken man and his race, he had left his place of concealment at a strangely inopportune time, entailing the most deplorable consequences upon those nearest and dearest to him—a blunder that had almost the dignity of crime.
DEAD WOMAN, by Dr. David H. Keller
He was found in the room with his wife, slightly confused, a trifle bewildered, but otherwise apparently normal. He made no effort to conceal his conduct any more than he did to the knife in his hand or the pieces in the trunk.
Fortunately the inspector was an officer of more than usual intelligence, and there was no effort made to give the third degree or even secure a written confession. Perhaps the Police Department felt it was too plain a case. At least it was handled intelligently and in a most scientific manner. The man was well fed, carefully bedded, and the next morning, after being bathed and shaved was taken to see a psychiatrist.
The specialist in mental diseases had the man comfortably seated. Knowing he smoked, he offered a cigar, which was accepted. Then, in a quiet, pleasant atmosphere, he made one statement and one request.
“I am sure, Mr. Thompson, that you had an excellent reason for acting as you did the other day. I wish you would tell me all about it.”
The man gazed at the psychiatrist. “Will you believe me if I tell you?”
“I will accept every part of your story with the idea that you are convinced that you are telling me the truth.”
“That is all I want,” whispered Thompson. “If everyone I talked to in the past had done that, if they had even tried to check up on my story, perhaps this would not have happened. But they always thought that I was the sick one, and there was not one who was willing to accept my statement about the worms.
“I suppose that I was happily married. At least as much so as most men are. You know that there is a good deal of conflict between the sexes, and there were a few differences of opinion between Mrs. Thompson and myself. But not enough to cause serious difficulty. Will you remember that? That we did not quarrel very much?
“About a year ago my wife’s health began to give me considerable cause for worry. She started to fail. If you are a married man, Doctor, you know there is always that anxiety about the wife’s health. You become accustomed to living with a woman, having her do things for you, go to places with you and you think about how life would be if she should sicken and die. Perhaps the fact that you are uneasy about the future makes you exaggerate the importance of her symptoms.
“At any rate she became sick, developed a nasty cough and lost weight. I spoke to her about it and even bought a bottle of beef, wine and iron at the drug store and made her take it. She did
so to please me, but she never would admit that she was sick. Said it was fashionable to be thin and that the cough was just nervousness.
“She would not go to see a doctor. When I spoke to her mother about it, the old lady just laughed at me; said that if I tried to make Lizzie a little happier she would soon get fat. In fact, none of our family or our friends seemed to feel that there was anything wrong with Mrs. Thompson, so I stopped talking about it.
“Of course it was not easy on me, the way she coughed at night, and her staying awake so much. I work hard in the daytime and it is hard to lose a lot of sleep. At last I was forced to ask her to let me sleep in the spare bedroom.
“Even that did not help much. I could hear her cough, and when she did fall asleep I would have to tiptoe into her room and see if she was all right. Her coughing bothered me so much that when she did not cough it worried me more because I thought something had happened to her.
“One night the thing I was afraid of happened. She had a hard spell of coughing and then she stopped. It was quiet in the house. I could hear the clock on the landing tick, and a mouse gnawing wood in the attic. I thought I could even hear my own heart beat, but there was not a sound of any kind from the other bedroom.
“When I went in there and turned on the light I just knew it was all over. Of course I was not sure. A bookkeeper is not supposed to be an expert in such matters, so I went and telephoned for our doctor. On the way to the phone I wondered just what I should say, for he had always insisted that my wife was in grand health. So I simply told him that Mrs. Thompson was not looking well and would he come over. Just like that I told him, and tried to keep my voice steady.
“It was about an hour before he came. He went into the bedroom but I stopped at the doorway. He spent sometime listening to her heart and feeling her pulse and then he straightened up and said to me:
“‘She is fine. Just fast asleep. I wish I could sleep as soundly as that. What did you think was wrong?’
“That surprised me so much that all I could do was to stammer something about not hearing her cough any more. He laughed.
“‘You worry too much about her, Mr. Thompson.’
“Right there my difficulty started. Here was a doctor who was supposed to know his business and he said there was nothing wrong with my wife, and there I was, just a bookkeeper, and I just knew what was the matter. What was I to do? Tell him that he was wrong? Send for another physician?
“It was growing light by that time, so I went down to the kitchen and started the coffee. I often did that. Then I shaved, and made ready to go to the office. But before I went I sat down a while by the wife’s bed. It bothered me but I had to keep telling myself that the doctor knew better than I did.
Before leaving the house I phoned to my mother-in-law. Just told her that Lizzie was not feeling well and would she come over and spend the day, and she could get me at the office any time she called. Then I left the house. It felt better out in the sunshine and after working a few hours over the books I almost laughed at myself for being so foolish.
“No telephone calls from the old lady. I arrived home at six and found the house lighted as usual. My wife and mother-in-law were waiting for me in the parlor and told me supper was ready. Naturally, I was surprised to see my wife out of bed.
“At the supper table I watched her just as carefully as I could without making the two of them suspicious of me. Mrs. Thompson ate about as she usually did, just pieced and minced at her food, but I thought when she swallowed that the food went down with a jerk, and there was a stiffness when she moved.
“But her mother did not seem to think there was anything wrong, at least she did not make any comment. Even when I went with her to the front door to say good night to her and we were alone there, she never said a word to show that she thought her daughter was peculiar.
“I started to wash the dishes after that. I often washed the dishes at night while the wife sat in the front parlor watching the people go up and down past the house. After the kitchen was tidy I lit a cigar and went into the parlor and started a little conversation, but Mrs. Thompson never talked back. In fact I do not believe she ever talked to me after that, though I am positive that she talked to the others.
“When the cigar was smoked, I just said good night and went to bed. Later I could hear her moving around in her room, and then all was quiet so she must have gone to bed. She did not cough any more. I congrat-ulated myself on that one thing because the coughing had kept me awake a good deal.
“During the night I lit a candle and, shading it with my hand, tiptoed in to see her. She had her eyes open, but they were rolled back so all you could see was the whites, and she was not breathing. At least I could not tell that she was breathing ; and when I held a mirror in front of her mouth there was no vapor on it. My mother had told me the purpose of that when I was a boy. “The next day was just the same. My mother-in-law came and spent the day. I came home at night and ate supper with them and washed the dishes. The water was hot and it was a pleasure to make them clean. Perhaps I took longer than usual at it because I did not fancy the idea of going into the front parlor where the wife was sitting looking out of the window.
“But I went in, tonight without the usual cigar. I wanted to use my nose. It seemed there was a peculiar odor in the house, like flowers that had been put in a vase of water and then forgotten, for many days. Perhaps you know the odor, Doctor, a heavy one, like lilies of the valley in a small closed room. It was specially strong in the parlor, where Mrs. Thompson was sitting, and it seemed to come from her. I had to light the cigar after a while, and by and by I said good night, and went to bed. She never spoke to me, in fact she did not seem to pay any attention to me. “About two that morning I took the candle and went in to look at her. Her eyelids were open and her eyeballs were rolled back just like they had been the night before but now her jaw was dropped and her cheeks sunk in. I just could not do anything but telephone for a doctor and this time I picked out a total stranger, just pickcd his name out of the telephone book haphazard.
“What good did it do? None at all. He came, he examined Mrs. Thompson very carefully and he simply said that he did not see anything wrong with her; and then down in the front hall he turned on me and asked me just why I had sent for him and what I thought was the matter with her? Of course I just could not tell him the truth, with his being a doctor and I being just a bookkeeper.
Mother-in-law went to the mountains next day for the summer and that left us alone. Breakfast as usual and to the office and not a word all day from the house. When I came back at night the house was lit and supper was on the table and the wife at her end as usual and the food served and on the plates. She ate, but her movements were slower, and when she swallowed you could see the food go down by jerks, and her eyes were sunken into the sockets and seemed shiny and— well, like the eyes of a fish on the stalls.
“There were flowers on the table, but the smell was something different, it was sweeter and when I took a deep breath it was just hard for me to go on eating the pork chops and potatoes. You see it was summer time and warm, and in spite of the screens there was a fly or two in the house, and when I saw one walking around on her lip and she not making any effort to brush it off, I just couldn’t keep on eating. Had to go and start washing the dishes. Perhaps you can understand how I felt, Doctor. Things looked rather odd.
“The next day I phoned to the office that I would not be there and I sent for a taxi and took Mrs. Thompson to a first class specialist. He must have been good because he charged me twenty-five dollars just for the office call. I went in first and told him just exactly what I was afraid of, and I did not mince my words, and then we had the wife in.
“He examined her, even her blood, and all the satisfaction I got was that she seemed a trifle anaemic, but that I had better take a nerve tonic and a vacation or I would be sick.
“Things looked rather twisted after that. Either I was right and everybody else wrong, or they wer
e right and I was just about as wrong mentally as a man could be. But I had to believe my senses. A man just has to believe what he sees and hears and feels, and when I thought over that office visit, and the wife smiling and the doctor sticking her finger for the blood to examine, it just seemed impossible. Anaemic! Why—that was a simple word to describe her condition.
“That night the flies were worse than usual. I went to the corner store and bought a fly spray and used it in her bedroom but they kept coming in, the big blue ones, you know. Seemed as though they just had to come in and I could not keep them off her face so at last, in desperation, I covered her head up with a towel and went to sleep. I had to work, the interest on the mortgage was due and the man wanted something on the principal, and it was a good house and all I had in the world to show for twenty years of hard work keeping books.
“The next day was just like all the days had been, except that I made more mistakes with the books and my boss spoke to me about it. And when I arrived home supper was not ready though Mrs. Thompson was in the parlor and the lights on. The heavy odor was worse than usual and there were a lot of flies. You could hear them buzz and strike against the electric lights. I got my own supper but I couldn’t eat much, thinking of her in the parlor and the flies settling on her open mouth.
