The Mystery & Suspense Novella

by Fletcher Flora

  “I saw, of course, Dr. Pierce, that I surprised you when a moment ago I assured your ward that I—as a psychologist—would be the first to believe that the chalchihuitl stone could exercise over her the mysterious influence you all have noted. But I am so confident of the fact that this stone could influence her, and I am so sure that its influence is the key to this case, that I want to ask you what you know about the chalchihuitl stone; what beliefs, superstitions, or charms, however fantastic, are popularly connected with the green turquoise. It is a Mexican stone, you said; and you, if anyone, must know about it.”

  “As an archaeologist, I have long been familiar with the chalchihuitl stone, of course,” Pierce replied, gazing at his young adviser with uneasiness and perplexity, “as the ceremonial marriage stone of the ancient Aztecs and some still existing tribes of Central America. By them it is, I know, frequently used in religious rites, bearing a particularly important part, for instance, in the wedding ceremony. Though its exact significance and association is not known, I am safe in assuring you that it is a stone with which many savage superstitions and spells are to be connected.”

  He smiled, deprecatingly; but Trant met his eyes seriously.

  “Thank you! Can you tell me, then, whether any peculiarity in your ward has been noted previous to this, which could not be accounted for?”

  “No; none—ever!” Pierce affirmed confidently, “though her experience in Central America previous to her coming under our care must certainly have been most unusual, and would account for some peculiarity—if she had any.”

  “In Central America, Dr. Pierce?” Trant repeated eagerly.

  “Yes,” Pierce hesitated, dubiously; “perhaps I ought to tell you, Mr. Trant, how Iris came to be a member of our family. On the last expedition which my father made to Central America, and on which I accompanied him as a young man of eighteen, an Indian near Copan, Honduras, told us of a wonderful white child whom he had seen living among an isolated Indian tribe in the mountains. We were interested, and went out of our way to visit the tribe. We found there, exactly as he had described, a little white girl about six years old as near as we could guess. She spoke the dialect of the Indians, but two or three English words which the sight of us brought from her, made us believe that she was of English birth. My father wanted to take her with us, but the Indians angrily refused to allow it.

  “The little girl, however, had taken a fancy to me, and when we were ready to leave she announced her intention of going along. For some reason which I was unable to fathom, the Indians regarded her with a superstitious veneration, and though plainly unwilling to let her go, they were afraid to interfere with her wishes. My father intended to adopt her, but he died before the expedition returned. I brought the child home with me, and under my mother’s care she has been educated. The name Iris Pierce was given her by my mother.”

  “You say the Indians regarded her with veneration?” Trant exclaimed, with an oddly intent glance at the sculptured effigies of the monsterlike gods which stood on the cases all about. “Dr. Pierce, were you exact in saying a moment ago that your ward, since she has been in your care, has exhibited no peculiarities? Was the nurse, Ulame, mistaken in what I overheard her saying, that Miss Pierce has on her shoulder the mark,” his voice steadied soberly, “of the devil’s claw?”

  “Has she the ‘mark of the devil’s claw’?” Pierce frowned with vexation. “You mean, has she an anaesthetic spot on her shoulder through which at times she feels no sensation? Yes, she has; but I scarcely thought you cared to hear about ‘devil’s claws.’”

  Ulame also told me,” Pierce continued, “that the existence of this spot denotes in the possessor, not only a susceptibility to ‘controls’ and ‘spells,’ but also occult powers of clairvoyance. She even suggested that my ward could, if she would, tell me who was in the room and burned my papers. Do you follow her beliefs so much farther?”

  “I follow not the negress, but modern scientific psychologists, Dr. Pierce,” Trant replied, bluntly, “in the belief, the knowledge, that the existence of the anaesthetic spot called the ‘devil’s claw’ shows in its possessor a condition which, under peculiar circumstances, may become what is popularly called clairvoyant.

  “Dr. Pierce, an instant ago you spoke—as an archaeologist—of the exploded belief in witchcraft; but please do not forget that that belief was at one time widespread, almost universal. You speak now—as an educated man—with equal contempt of clairvoyance; but a half-hour’s ride down Madison or Halsted Street, with an eye open to the signs in the second-story windows, will show you how widespread to-day is the belief in clairvoyance, since so many persons gain a living by it. If you ask me whether I believe in witchcraft and clairvoyance, I will tell you I do not believe one atom in any infernal power of one person over another; and so far as anyone’s being able to read the future or reveal in the past matters which they have had no natural means of knowing, I do not believe in clairvoyance. But if you or I believed that any widespread popular conception such as witchcraft once was and clairvoyance is today, can exist without having somewhere a basis of fact, we should be holding a belief even more ridiculous than the negro’s credulity!

  “I am certain that no explanation of what happened in this house last Wednesday and since can be formed, except by recognizing in it one of those comparatively rare authentic cases from which the popular belief in witchcraft and clairvoyance has sprung; and I would rest the solution of this case on the ability of your ward, under the proper circumstances, to tell us who was in this room last Wednesday, and what the influence is that has been so strangely exercised over her by the chalchihuitl stone!”

  The psychologist, after the last word, stood with sparkling eyes, and lips pressed together in a straight, defiant line.

  “Iris tell! Iris!” Pierce excitedly exclaimed, when the door opened behind him, and his ward entered.

  “Here is the form you asked me for, Richard,” she said, handing her guardian a paper, and without showing the least curiosity as to what was going on between the two men, she went out again.

  Pierce’s eyes followed her with strange uneasiness and perplexity; then fell to the paper she had given him.

  “It is the notice of the indefinite postponement of our wedding, Trant,” he explained. “I must send it to the Chicago papers this afternoon, unless—unless—” he halted, dubiously. “Unless the ‘spell’ on Miss Pierce can be broken by the means I have just spoken of?” Trant smiled slightly as he finished the sentence for him. “If I am not greatly mistaken, Dr. Pierce, your wedding will still take place. But as to this notice of its postponement, tell me, how long before last Wednesday, when this thing happened, was the earliest announcement of the wedding made in the papers?”

  “I should say two weeks,” Pierce replied in surprise.

  “Do you happen to know, Dr. Pierce—you are, of course, well known in Central America—whether the announcement was copied in papers circulating there?”

  “Yes; I have heard from several friends in Central America who had seen the news in Spanish papers.”

  “Excellent! Then it is most essential that the notice of this postponement be made at once. If you will allow me, I will take it with me to Chicago this afternoon; and if it meets the eye of the person I hope, then I trust soon to be able to introduce to you your last Wednesday’s visitor.”

  “Without—Iris?” Pierce asked nervously.

  “Believe me, I will do everything in my power to spare Miss Pierce the experience you seem so unwilling she should undergo. But if it proves to be the only means of solving this case, you must trust me to the extent of letting me make the attempt.” He glanced at his watch. “I can catch a train for Chicago in fifteen minutes, and it will be the quickest way to get this notice in the papers. I will let you hear from me again as soon as necessary. I can find my own way out.”

  He turned sharply to the door, and, as Pierce
made no effort to detain him, he left the study.

  * * * *

  The surprising news of the sudden “indefinite postponement” of the romantic wedding of Dr. Pierce the Central American archeologist, to the ward whom he had brought from Honduras as a child, was made in the last editions of the Chicago evening papers which reached Lake Forest that night; and it was repeated with fuller comments in both the morning and afternoon papers of the next day. But to Pierce’s increasing anxiety he heard nothing from Trant until the second morning, and then it was merely a telephone message asking him to be at home at three o’clock that afternoon and to see that Miss Pierce was at home also, but to prevent her from seeing or hearing any visitors who might call at that hour. At ten minutes to three, Pierce himself, watching nervously at the window, saw the young psychologist approaching the house in company with two strangers, and himself admitted them.

  “Dr. Pierce, let me introduce Inspector Walker of the Chicago Police,” Trant, when they had been admitted to the library, motioned to the larger of his companions, a well-proportioned giant, who wore his black serge suit with an awkwardness that showed a greater familiarity with blue broadcloth and brass buttons. “This other gentleman,” he turned to the very tall, slender, long-nosed man, with an abnormally narrow head and face, coal black hair and sallow skin, whom Trant and the officer had half held between them, “calls himself Don Canonigo Penol, though I do not know whether that is his real name. He speaks English, and I believe he knows more than anyone else about what went on in your study last Wednesday.” A momentary flash of white teeth under Penol’s mustache, which was neither a smile nor a greeting, met Pierce’s look of inquiry, and he cast uneasy glances to right and left out of his small crafty eyes. “But as Penol, from the moment of his arrest, has flatly refused to make any statement regarding the loss of your papers or the chalchihuitl stone which has so strangely influenced your ward,” Trant continued, “we have been obliged to bring him here in hope of getting at the truth through the means I mentioned to you day before yesterday.”

  “The means you mentioned day before yesterday?” echoed Pierce, as he spun round and faced Trant with keen apprehension; and it was plain to the psychologist from the gray pallor and nervous trembling of the man that his anxiety and uncertainty had not been lessened, but rather increased by their former conversation. “You refer, I presume, to your plan to gain facts from her through—through clairvoyance!”

  “I saw Mr. Trant pick the murderer in the Bronson case,” Inspector Walker intervened confidently, “in a way no police officer had ever heard of; and I’ve followed him since. And if he says he can get an explanation here by clairvoyance, I believe him!” The quiet faith of the huge officer brought Pierce to a halt.

  “For the sake of her happiness and your own, Dr. Pierce,” Trant urged.

  “Oh, I don’t know—I don’t know!” Pierce pressed his hands to his temples in indecision. “I confess this matter is outside my comprehension. I have spoken again to the persons who recommended me to you, and they, like Inspector Walker, have only repeated that I can have absolute confidence in you!”

  “It is now three o’clock,” Trant began, brusquely.

  “Five minutes after,” said the Inspector.

  “Five minutes makes no difference. But it is absolutely necessary, Dr. Pierce, that if we are to make this test we begin it at once; and I can scarcely undertake it without your consent. It requires that the general look of the rooms and the direction of the sunlight should be the same as at three o’clock last Wednesday afternoon. Dr. Pierce, will you bring your ward to me in the study?”

  He turned to his client with quiet confidence as though all were settled. “Inspector Walker and Penol will remain here—the Inspector already knows what I require of him. I noticed a clock Saturday over the desk in the study and heard it strike the hour; you have no objection to my turning it back ten or fifteen minutes, Pierce? And before you go, let me have the chalchihuitl stone!”

  For a moment Pierce, with his hands still pressed against his temples, stood looking at Trant in perplexity and doubt; then, with sudden resolution, he handed him the chalchihuitl stone and went to get his ward. A few minutes later he led her into the study where the psychologist was awaiting them alone. Pierce’s first glance was at the clock, which he saw had been turned back by Trant to mark five minutes to three.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Pierce,” Trant set a chair for her, with its back to the clock, as she acknowledged his salutation; then continued, conversationally: “You spoke the other day of the morning sunlight in these rooms, but I have been thinking, that the afternoon sunlight, as it gets near three o’clock, is even more beautiful. One can hardly imagine anything occurring here which would be distasteful or unpleasant, or shocking—”

  The girl’s eyes filled with a vague uneasiness, and turned toward Pierce, who, not knowing what to expect, leaned against the table watching her with strained anxiety; and at sight of him the half formed uneasiness of her gaze vanished. Trant rose sharply, and took Pierce by the arm.

  “You must not look at her so, Dr. Pierce,” he commanded, tensely, “or you will defeat my purpose. It will be better if she does not even see you. Sit down at your desk behind her.”

  When Pierce had seated himself at the desk, convulsively grasping the arms of his chair, Trant glanced at the clock, which now marked two minutes of three, and hastily returned to the girl. He took from his pocket the chalchihuitl stone which Pierce had given him, and at sight of it the girl drew back with sudden uneasiness and apprehension.

  “I know you have seen this stone before, Miss Pierce,” Trant said, significantly, “for you and Dr. Pierce found it. But had you never seen it before then? Think! Its color and shape are so unique that I believe one who had seen it could never forget it. It is so peculiar that it would not surprise me to know that it has a very special significance! And it has! For it is the chalchihuitl stone. It is found in Central America and Mexico; the Aztecs used it in celebrating marriage—in Central America, where there are Indians and Spaniards; tall, slender, long-nosed Spaniards, with coal black hair and sallow skins and tiny black mustaches—Central America, where all those sculptured gods and strange inscriptions are found, which the papers were about that were destroyed one afternoon here in this study!”

  As he spoke the clock struck three; and at the sound the girl uttered a gasp of uncontrollable terror, then poised herself, listening expectantly. Almost with the last stroke of the clock the door bell rang, and the girl shrunk suddenly together.

  “Tall, dark, slender Spaniards,” Trant continued; but stopped, for the girl was not heeding him. White and tense, she was listening to footsteps which were approaching the study door along the floor of the museum. The door opened suddenly, and Don Canonigo Penol, pushed from behind by the stern inspector of police, appeared on the threshold.

  The girl’s head had fallen back, her eyes had turned upward so that she seemed to be looking at the ceiling, but they were blank and sightless; she lay, rather than sat, upon the chair, her clenched hands close against her sides, her whole attitude one of stony rigidity.

  “Iris! Iris!” cried Pierce in agony.

  “It is no use to call,” the psychologist’s outstretched hand prevented Pierce from throwing himself on his knees beside the girl, “she cannot hear you. She can hear no one unless they speak of the chalchihuitl stone and Central America, and, I hope, the events which went forward in this house last Wednesday. The chalchihuitl stone! The chalchihuitl stone! She hears that, doesn’t she?”

  A full half minute passed while the psychologist, anxiously bending over the rigid body, waited for an answer. Then, as though by intense effort, the stony lips parted and the answer came, “Yes!” Pierce fell back with a cry of amazement; the inspector of police straightened, astonished; the stolid face of Don Canonigo Penol was convulsed all at once with a living terror and he slipped from the pol
iceman’s hold and fell, rather than seated himself, in a chair.

  “Who is it that is speaking?” asked Trant in the same steady tone.

  “Isabella Clarke,” the voice was clearer, but high-pitched and entirely different from Iris’s. The psychologist started with surprise.

  “How old is Isabella?” he asked after a moment.

  “She is young—a little girl—a child!” the voice was stronger still.

  “Does Isabella know of Iris Pierce?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can she see Iris last Wednesday afternoon at three o’clock?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is she doing?”

  “She is in the library. She went upstairs to take a nap, but she could not sleep and came down to get a book.”

  A long cry from some distant part of the house—a shriek which set vibrating the tense nerves of all in the little study—suddenly startled them. Trant turned sharply toward the door; the others, petrified in their places, followed the direction of his look. Through the open door of the study and the arched opening of the anteroom, the foot of the main stairs was discernible; and, painfully and excitedly descending them, was a white-haired woman leaning on a cane and on the other side supported by the trembling negress.

  “Richard, Richard!” she screamed, “that woman is in the house—in the study! I heard her voice—the voice of the woman who burned your papers!”

  “It is my mother!” Pierce, suddenly coming to himself, turned with staring eyes on Trant and darted from the study. He returned an instant later and closed the door behind him.

  “Trant,” he faltered, “my mother says that the voice that she—that we all—have just heard is the voice of the woman who was in the study Wednesday.”