The A. Merritt Megapack

by Abraham Merritt

  Against this was the fact that the intoxicated stroller could not have been carrying one of the “ladders” when attacked by the Peters doll.

  It might be, however, that the cord had only to do with the initial activity of the puppets; that once activated, their action might continue for an indefinite period.

  There was evidence of a fixed formula in the making of the dolls. First, it seemed, the prospective victim’s free consent to serve as model must be obtained; second, a wound which gave the opportunity to apply the salve which caused the unknown death; third, the doll must be a faithful replica of the victim. That the agency of death was the same in each case was proven by the similar symptoms.

  But did those deaths actually have anything to do with the motility of the dolls? Were they actually a necessary part of the operation?

  The doll-maker might believe so; indeed, undoubtedly did believe so.

  I did not.

  That the doll which had stabbed Ricori had been made in the semblance of Peters; that the “nurse doll” which the guards had seen poised on my window-ledge might have been the one for which Walters had posed; that the doll which had thrust the pin into Gilmore’s brain was, perhaps, the replica of little Anita, the eleven-year-old schoolgirl—all this I admitted.

  But that anything of Peters, anything of Walters, anything of Anita had animated these dolls…that dying, something of their vitality, their minds, their “souls” had been drawn from them, had been transmuted into an essence of evil, and imprisoned in these wire-skeletoned puppets…against this all my reason revolted. I could not force my mind to accept even the possibility.

  My analysis was interrupted by the return of McCann.

  He said, laconically: “Well, we put it over.”

  I asked. “McCann—you weren’t by any chance telling the truth when you said you found the doll?”

  “No, Doc. The doll was gone all right.”

  “But where did you get the little books?”

  “Just where Mollie said the doll tossed ’em—on her dressing table. I snaked ’em after she’d told me her story. She hadn’t noticed ’em. I had a hunch. It was a good one, wasn’t it?”

  “You had me wondering,” I replied. “I don’t know what we could have said if she had asked for the knotted cord.”

  “The cord didn’t seem to make much of a dent on her—” He hesitated. “But I think it means a hell of a lot, Doc. I think if I hadn’t took her out, and John hadn’t happened home, and Mollie had opened the box instead of him—I think it’s Mollie he’d have found lying dead beside him.”

  “You mean—”

  “I mean the dolls go for whichever gets the cords,” he said somberly.

  Well, it was much the same thought I had in my own mind.

  I asked: “But why should anybody want to kill Mollie?”

  “Maybe somebody thinks she knows too much. And that brings me to what I’ve been wanting to tell you. The Mandilip hag knows she’s being watched!”

  “Well, her watchers are better than ours.” I echoed Ricori; and I told McCann then of the second attack in the night; and why I had sought him.

  “An’ that,” he said when I had ended, “Proves the Mandilip hag knows who’s who behind the watch on her. She tried to wipe out both the boss and Mollie. She’s on to us, Doc.”

  “The dolls are accompanied,” I said. “The musical note is a summons. They do not disappear into thin air. They answer the note and make their way…somehow to whoever sounds the note. The dolls must be taken from the shop. Therefore one of the two women must take them. How did they evade your watchers?”

  “I don’t know.” The lean face was worried. “The fish-white gal does it. Let me tell you what I found out, Doc. After I left you last night I go down to see what the boys have to say. I hear plenty. They say about four o’clock the gal goes in the back an’ the old woman takes a chair in the store. They don’t think nothing of that. But about seven who do they see walking down the street and into the doll joint but the gal. They give the boys in the back hell. But they ain’t seen her go, an’ they pass the buck to the boys in front.

  “Then about eleven o’clock one of the relief lads comes in with worse news. He says he’s down at the foot of Broadway when a coupe turns the corner an’ driving it is the gal. He can’t be mistaken because he’s seen her in the doll joint. She goes up Broadway at a clip. He sees there ain’t nobody trailing her, an’ he looks around for a taxi. Course there’s nothing in sight—not even a parked car he can lift. So he comes down to the gang to ask what the hell they mean by it. An’ again nobody’s seen the gal go.”

  “I take a couple of the boys an’ we start out to comb the neighborhood to find out where she stables the coupe. We don’t have no luck at all until about four o’clock when one of the tails—one of the lads who’s been looking—meets up with me. He says that about three he sees the gal—at least he thinks it’s the gal—walking along the street around the corner from the joint. She’s got a coupla big suitcases but they don’t seem to trouble her none. She’s walking quick. But away from the doll joint. He eases over to get a better look, when all of a sudden she ain’t there. He sniffs around the place he’s seen her. There ain’t hide nor hair of her. It’s pretty dark, an’ he tries the doors an’ the areaways, but the doors are locked an’ there ain’t nobody in the areaways. So he gives it up an’ hunts me.

  “I look over the place. It’s about a third down the block around the corner from the doll joint. The doll joint is eight numbers from the corner. They’re mostly shops an’ I guess storage up above. Not many people living there. The houses all old ones. Still, I don’t see how the gal can get to the doll joint. I think maybe the tail’s mistaken. He’s seen somebody else, or just thinks he’s seen somebody. But we scout close around, an’ after a while we see a place that looks like it might stable a car. It don’t take us long to open the doors. An’ sure enough, there’s a coupe with its engine still hot. It ain’t been in long. Also it’s the same kind of coupe the lad who’s seen the gal says she was driving.

  “I lock the place up again, an’ go back to the boys. I watch with ’em the rest of the night. Not a light in the doll joint. But nigh eight o’clock, the gal shows up inside the shop and opens up!”

  “Still,” I said at this point, “you have no real evidence she had been out. The girl your man thought he saw might not have been she at all.”

  He looked at me pityingly.

  “She got out in the afternoon without ’em seeing her, didn’t she? What’s to keep her from doing the same thing at night? The lad saw her driving a coupe, didn’t he? An’ we find a coupe like it close where the wench dropped out of sight.”

  I sat thinking. There was no reason to disbelieve McCann. And there was a sinister coincidence in the hours the girl had been seen. I said, half-aloud:

  “The time she was out in the afternoon coincides with the time the doll was left at the Gilmores’. The time she was out at night coincides with the time of the attack upon Ricori, and the death of John Gilmore.”

  “You hit it plumb in the eye!” said McCann. “She goes an’ leaves the doll at Mollie’s, an’ comes back. She goes an’ sets the dolls on the boss. She waits for ’em to pop out. Then she goes an’ collects the one she’s left at Mollie’s. Then she beats it back home. They’re in the suitcases she’s carrying.”

  I could not hold back the irritation of helpless mystification that swept me.

  “And I suppose you think she got out of the house by riding a broomstick up the chimney,” I said, sarcastically.

  “No,” he answered, seriously. “No, I don’t, Doc. But them houses are old, and I think maybe there’s a rat hole of a passage or something she gets through. Anyway, the hands are watching the street an’ the coupe stable now, an’ she can’t pull that again.”

  He added, morosely:

  “At that, I ain’t saying she couldn’t bridle a broomstick if she had to.”

  I said, abruptly: �
��McCann, I’m going down to talk to this Madame Mandilip. I want you to come with me.”

  He said: “I’ll be right beside you, Doc. With my fingers on my guns.”

  I said: “No, I’m going to see her alone. But I want you to keep close watch outside.”

  He did not like that; argued; at last reluctantly assented.

  I called up my office. I talked to Braile and learned that Ricori was recovering with astonishing rapidity. I asked Braile to look after things the balance of the day, inventing a consultation to account for the request. I had myself switched to Ricori’s room. I had the nurse tell him that McCann was with me, that we were making an investigation along a certain line, the results of which I would inform him on my return, and that, unless Ricori objected, I wanted McCann to stay with me the balance of the afternoon.

  Ricori sent back word that McCann should follow my orders as though they were his own. He wanted to speak to me, but that I did not want. Pleading urgent haste, I rang off.

  I ate an excellent and hearty lunch. I felt that it would help me hold tighter to the realities—or what I thought were the realities—when I met this apparent mistress of illusions. McCann was oddly silent and preoccupied.

  The clock was striking three when I set off to meet Madame Mandilip.

  BURN, WITCH, BURN! [Part 2]

  CHAPTER XIII

  MADAME MANDILIP

  I stood at the window of the doll-maker’s shop, mastering a stubborn revulsion against entering. I knew McCann was on guard. I knew that Ricori’s men were watching from the houses opposite, that others moved among the passersby. Despite the roaring clatter of the elevated trains, the bustle of traffic along the Battery, the outwardly normal life of the street, the doll-maker’s shop was a beleaguered fortress. I stood, shivering on its threshold, as though at the door of an unknown world.

  There were only a few dolls displayed in the window, but they were unusual enough to catch the eyes of a child or a grown-up. Not so beautiful as that which had been given Walters, nor those two I had seen at the Gilmores’, but admirable lures, nevertheless. The light inside the shop was subdued. I could see a slender girl moving at a counter. The niece of Madame Mandilip, no doubt. Certainly the size of the shop did not promise any such noble chamber behind it as Walters had painted in her diary. Still, the houses were old, and the back might extend beyond the limits of the shop itself.

  Abruptly and impatiently I ceased to temporize.

  I opened the door and walked in.

  The girl turned as I entered. She watched me as I came toward the counter. She did not speak. I studied her, swiftly. An hysterical type, obviously; one of the most perfect I had ever seen. I took note of the prominent pale blue eyes with their vague gaze and distended pupils; the long and slender neck and slightly rounded features; the pallor and the long thin fingers. Her hands were clasped, and I could see that these were unusually flexible—thus carrying out to the last jot the Laignel-Lavastine syndrome of the hysteric. In another time and other circumstances she would have been a priestess, voicing oracles, or a saint.

  Fear was her handmaiden. There could be no doubt of that. And yet I was sure it was not of me she was frightened. Rather was it some deep and alien fear which lay coiled at the roots of her being, sapping her vitality—a spiritual fear. I looked at her hair. It was a silvery ash…the color…the color of the hair that formed the knotted cords!

  As she saw me staring at her hair, the vagueness in her pale eyes diminished, was replaced by alertness. For the first time she seemed to be aware of me. I said, with the utmost casualness:

  “I was attracted by the dolls in your window. I have a little granddaughter who would like one I think.”

  “The dolls are for sale. If there is one you fancy, you may buy it. At its price.”

  Her voice was low-pitched, almost whispering, indifferent. But I thought the intentness in her eyes sharpened.

  “I suppose,” I answered, feigning something of irritation, “that is what any chance customer may do. But it happens that this child is a favorite of mine and for her I want the best. Would it be too much trouble to show me what other, and perhaps better, dolls you may have?”

  Her eyes wavered for a moment. I had the thought that she was listening to some sound I could not hear. Abruptly her manner lost its indifference, became gracious. And at that exact moment I felt other eyes upon me, studying me, searching me. So strong was the impression that, involuntarily, I turned and peered about the shop. There was no one except the girl and me. A door was at the counter’s end, but it was lightly closed. I shot a glance at the window to see whether McCann was staring in. No one was there.

  Then, like the clicking of a camera shutter, the unseen gaze was gone. I turned back to the girl. She had spread a half-dozen boxes on the counter and was opening them. She looked up at me, candidly, almost sweetly. She said:

  “Why, of course you may see all that we have. I am sorry if you thought me indifferent to your desires. My aunt, who makes the dolls, loves children. She would not willingly allow one who also loves them to go from here disappointed.”

  It was a curious little speech, oddly stilted, enunciated half as though she were reciting from dictation. Yet it was not that which aroused my interest so much as the subtle change that had taken place in the girl herself. Her voice was no longer languid. It held a vital vibrancy. Nor was she the lifeless, listless person she had been. She was animated, even a touch of vivaciousness about her; color had crept into her face and all vagueness gone from her eyes; in them was a sparkle, faintly mocking, more than faintly malicious.

  I examined the dolls.

  “They are lovely,” I said at last. “But are these the best you have? Frankly, this is rather an especial occasion—my granddaughter’s seventh birthday. The price doesn’t really matter as long, of course, as it is in reason—”

  I heard her sigh. I looked at her. The pale eyes held their olden fear-touched stare, all sparkling mockery gone. The color had fled her face. And again, abruptly, I felt the unseen gaze upon me, more powerfully than before. And again I felt it shuttered off.

  The door beside the counter opened.

  Prepared though I had been for the extraordinary by Walters’ description of the doll-maker, her appearance gave me a distinct shock. Her height, her massiveness, were amplified by the proximity of the dolls and the slender figure of the girl. It was a giantess who regarded me from the doorway—a giantess whose heavy face with its broad, high cheek bones, mustached upper lip and thick mouth produced a suggestion of masculinity grotesquely in contrast with the immense bosom.

  I looked into her eyes and forgot all grotesqueness of face and figure. The eyes were enormous, a luminous black, clear, disconcertingly alive. As though they were twin spirits of life, and independent of the body. And from them poured a flood of vitality that sent along my nerves a warm tingle in which there was nothing sinister—or was not then.

  With difficulty I forced my own eyes from hers. I looked for her hands. She was swathed all in black, and her hands were hidden in the folds of her ample dress. My gaze went back to her eyes, and within them was a sparkle of the mocking contempt I had seen in those of the girl. She spoke, and I knew that the vital vibrancy I had heard in the girl’s voice had been an echo of those sonorously sweet, deep tones.

  “What my niece has shown does not please you?”

  I gathered my wits. I said: “They are all beautiful, Madame—Madame—”

  “Mandilip,” she said, serenely. “Madame Mandilip. You do not know the name, eh?”

  “It is my ill fortune,” I answered, ambiguously. “I have a grandchild—a little girl. I want something peculiarly fine for her seventh birthday. All that I have been shown are beautiful—but I was wondering whether there was not something—”

  “Something—peculiarly—” her voice lingered on the word—“more beautiful. Well, perhaps there is. But when I favor customers peculiarly—” I now was sure she emphasized the word—“I
must know with whom I am dealing. You think me a strange shopkeeper, do you not?”

  She laughed, and I marveled at the freshness, the youthfulness, the curious tingling sweetness of that laughter.

  It was by a distinct effort that I brought myself back to reality, put myself again on guard. I drew a card from my case. I did not wish her to recognize me, as she would have had I given her my own card. Nor did I desire to direct her attention to anyone she could harm. I had, therefore, prepared myself by carrying the card of a doctor friend long dead. She glanced at it.

  “Ah,” she said. “You are a professional—a physician. Well, now that we know each other, come with me and I will show you of my best.”

  She led me through the door and into a wide, dim corridor. She touched my arm and again I felt that strange, vital tingling. She paused at another door, and faced me.

  “It is here,” she said, “that I keep my best. My—peculiarly best!”

  Once more she laughed, then flung the door open.

  I crossed the threshold and paused, looking about the room with swift disquietude. For here was no spacious chamber of enchantment such as Walters had described. True enough, it was somewhat larger than one would have expected. But where were the exquisite old panelings, the ancient tapestries, that magic mirror which was like a great “half-globe of purest water,” and all those other things that had made it seem to her a Paradise?

  The light came through the half-drawn curtains of a window opening upon a small, enclosed and barren yard. The walls and ceiling were of plain, stained wood. One end was entirely taken up by small, built-in cabinets with wooden doors. There was a mirror on the wall, and it was round—but there any similarity to Walters’ description ended.

  There was a fireplace, the kind one can find in any ordinary old New York house. On the walls were a few prints. The great table, the “baronial board,” was an entirely commonplace one, littered with dolls’ clothing in various stages of completion.