The A. Merritt Megapack

by Abraham Merritt

  I winced at that—there was too much truth in it. I was racked by regret and grief and helpless rage. If I had not let my cursed pride control me, if I had told them all that I could of my encounter with the doll-maker, explained why there were details I was unable to tell, given myself over to Braile for a cleansing counter-hypnotization—no, if I had but accepted Ricori’s offer of protection, or Braile’s to watch over me while asleep—then this could not have happened.

  I looked into the study and saw there Ricori’s nurse. I could hear whispering outside the study doors—servants, and others from the Annex who had been attracted by the noise of the falling chandelier. I said to the nurse, quite calmly:

  “The chandelier fell while Dr. Braile was standing at the foot of my bed talking to me. It has killed him. But do not tell the others that. Only say that the chandelier fell, injuring Dr. Braile. Send them back to their beds—say that we are taking Dr. Braile to the hospital. Then return with Porter and clean up what you can of the blood. Leave the chandelier as it is.”

  When she had gone I turned to Ricori’s gunmen.

  “What did you see when you shot?”

  One answered: “They looked like monkeys to me.”

  The other said: “Or midgets.”

  I looked at Ricori, and read in his face what he had seen. I stripped the light blanket from the bed.

  “Ricori,” I said, “let your men lift Braile and wrap him in this. Then have them carry him into the small room next to the study and place him on the cot.”

  He nodded to them, and they lifted Braile from the debris of shattered glass and bent metal. His face and neck had been cut by the broken prisms and by some chance one of these wounds was close to the spot where the dagger-pin of the doll had been thrust. It was deep, and had probably caused a second severance of the carotid artery. I followed with Ricori into the small room. They placed the body on the cot and Ricori ordered them to go back to the bedroom and watch while the nurses were there. He closed the door of the small room behind them, then turned to me.

  “What are you going to do, Dr. Lowell?”

  What I felt like doing was weeping, but I answered: “It is a coroner’s case, of course. I must notify the police at once.”

  “What are you going to tell them?”

  “What did you see at the window, Ricori?”

  “I saw the dolls!”

  “And I. Can I tell the police what did kill Braile before the chandelier fell? You know I cannot. No, I shall tell them that we were talking when, without warning, the fixture dropped upon him. Splintered glass from the pendants pierced his throat. What else can I say? And they will believe that readily enough when they would not believe the truth—”

  I hesitated, then my reserve broke; for the first time in many years, I wept.

  “Ricori—you were right. Not McCann but I am to blame for this—the vanity of an old man—had I spoken freely, fully—he would be alive…but I did not…I did not…I am his murderer.”

  He comforted me—gently as a woman…

  “It was not your fault. You could not have done otherwise…being what you are…thinking as you have so long thought. If in your unbelief, your entirely natural unbelief, the witch found her opportunity…still, it was not your fault. But now she shall find no more opportunities. Her cup is full and overflowing…”

  He put his hands on my shoulders.

  “Do not notify the police for a time—not until we hear from McCann. It is now close to twelve and he will telephone even if he does not come. I will go to my room and dress. For when I have heard from McCann I must leave you.”

  “What do you mean to do, Ricori?”

  “Kill the witch,” he answered quietly. “Kill her and the girl. Before the day comes. I have waited too long. I will wait no longer. She shall kill no more.”

  I felt a wave of weakness. I dropped into a chair. My sight dimmed. Ricori gave me water, and I drank thirstily. Through the roaring in my ears I heard a knocking at the door and the voice of one of Ricori’s men:

  “McCann is here.”

  Ricori said: “Tell him to come in.”

  The door opened. McCann strode into the room.

  “I got her—”

  He stopped short, staring at us. His eyes fell upon the covered body upon the cot and his face grew grim:

  “What’s happened?”

  Ricori answered: “The dolls killed Dr. Braile. You captured the girl too late, McCann. Why?”

  “Killed Braile? The dolls! God!” McCann’s voice was as though a hand had gripped his throat.

  Ricori asked: “Where is the girl, McCann?”

  He answered, dully: “Down in the car, gagged and tied.”

  Ricori asked: “When did you get her? And where?”

  Looking at McCann, I suddenly felt a great pity and sympathy for him. It sprang from my own remorse and shame. I said:

  “Sit down, McCann. I am far more to blame for what has happened than you can possibly be.”

  Ricori said, coldly: “Leave me to be judge of that. McCann, did you place cars at each end of the street, as Dr. Lowell instructed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then begin your story at that point.”

  McCann said: “She comes into the street. It’s close to eleven. I’m at the east end an’ Paul at the west. I say to Tony: ‘We got the wench pocketed!’ She carries two suitcases. She looks around an’ trots where we located her car. She opens the door. When she comes out she rides west where Paul is. I’ve told Paul what the Doc tells me, not to grab her too close to the doll-shop. I see Paul tail her. I shoot down the street an’ tail Paul.

  “The coupe turn into West Broadway. There she gets the break, a Staten Island boat is just in an’ the street’s lousy with a herd of cars. A Ford shoots over to the left, trying to pass another. Paul hits the Ford and wraps himself round one of the El’s pillars. There’s a mess. I’m a minute or two getting out the jam. When I do, the coupe’s outa sight.

  “I hop down an’ telephone Rod. I tell him to get the wench when she shows up, even if they have to rope her off the steps of the doll-shop. An’ when they get her, bring her right here.

  “I come up here. I figure maybe she’s headed this way. I coast along by here an’ then take a look in the Park, I figure the doll-hag’s been getting all the breaks an’ now one’s due me. I get it. I see the coupe parked under some trees. We get the gal. She don’t put up no fight at all. But we gag her an’ put her in the car. Tony rolls the coupe away an’ searches it. There ain’t a thing in it but the two suitcases an’ they’re empty. We bring the gal here.”

  I asked: “How long between when you caught the girl and your arrival?”

  “Ten-fifteen minutes, maybe. Tony nigh took the coupe to pieces. An’ that took time.”

  I looked at Ricori. McCann must have come upon the girl just about the moment Braile had died. He nodded:

  “She was waiting for the dolls, of course.”

  McCann asked: “What do you want me to do with her?”

  He looked at Ricori, not at me. Ricori said nothing, staring at McCann with a curious intentness. But I saw him clench his left hand, then open it, fingers wide. McCann said:

  “Okay, boss.”

  He started toward the door. It did not take unusual acumen to know that he had been given orders, nor could their significance be mistaken.

  “Stop!” I intercepted him and stood with my back against the door. “Listen to me, Ricori. I have something to say about this. Dr. Braile was as close to me as Peters to you. Whatever the guilt of Madame Mandilip, this girl is helpless to do other than what she orders her. Her will is absolutely controlled by the doll-maker. I strongly suspect that a good part of the time she is under complete hypnotic control. I cannot forget that she tried to save Walters. I will not see her murdered.”

  Ricori said: “If you are right, all the more reason she should be destroyed quickly. Then the witch cannot make use of her before she herself is destroyed.
”

  “I will not have it, Ricori. And there is another reason. I want to question her. I may discover how Madame Mandilip does these things—the mystery of the dolls—the ingredients of the salve—whether there are others who share her knowledge. All this and more, the girl may know. And if she does know, I can make her tell.”

  McCann said, cynically: “Yeah?”

  Ricori asked: “How?”

  I answered grimly: “By using the same trap in which the doll-maker caught me.”

  For a full minute Ricori considered me, gravely.

  “Dr. Lowell,” he said, “for the last time I yield my judgment to yours in this matter. I think you are wrong. I know that I was wrong when I did not kill the witch that day I met her. I believe that every moment this girl is permitted to remain alive is a moment laden with danger for us all. Nevertheless, I yield—for this last time.”

  “McCann,” I said, “bring the girl into my office. Wait until I get rid of anyone who may be downstairs.”

  I went downstairs, McCann and Ricori following. No one was there. I placed on my desk a development of the Luys mirror, a device used first at the Salpetriere in Paris to induce hypnotic sleep. It consists of two parallel rows of small reflectors revolving in opposite directions. A ray of light plays upon them in such a manner as to cause their surfaces alternately to gleam and darken. A most useful device, and one to which I believed the girl, long sensitized to hypnotic suggestion, must speedily succumb. I placed a comfortable chair at the proper angle, and subdued the lights so that they could not compete with the hypnotic mirror.

  I had hardly completed these arrangements when McCann and another of Ricori’s henchmen brought in the girl. They placed her in the easy chair, and I took from her lips the cloth with which she had been silenced.

  Ricori said: “Tony, go out to the car. McCann, you stay here.”

  CHAPTER XVI

  END OF THE WITCH GIRL

  The girl made no resistance whatever. She seemed entirely withdrawn into herself, looking up at me with the same vague stare I had noted on my visit to the doll-shop. I took her hands. She let them rest passively in mine. They were very cold. I said to her, gently, reassuringly:

  “My child, no one is going to hurt you. Rest and relax. Sink back in the chair. I only want to help you. Sleep if you wish. Sleep.”

  She did not seem to hear, still regarding me with that vague gaze. I released her hands. I took my own chair, facing her, and set the little mirrors revolving. Her eyes turned to them at once, rested upon them, fascinated. I watched her body relax; she sank back in her chair. Her eyelids began to droop.

  “Sleep,” I said softly. “Here none can harm you. While you sleep none can harm you. Sleep…sleep…”

  Her eyes closed; she sighed.

  I said: “You are asleep. You will not awaken until I bid you. You cannot awaken until I bid you.”

  She repeated in a murmuring, childish voice: “I am asleep; I cannot awaken until you bid me.”

  I stopped the whirling mirrors. I said to her: “There are some questions I am going to ask you. You will listen, and you will answer me truthfully. You cannot answer them except truthfully. You know that.”

  She echoed, still in that faint childish voice: “I must answer you truthfully. I know that.”

  I could not refrain from darting a glance of triumph at Ricori and McCann. Ricori was crossing himself, staring at me with wide eyes in which were both doubt and awe. I knew he was thinking that I, too, knew witchcraft. McCann sat chewing nervously. And staring at the girl.

  I began my questions, choosing at first those least likely to disturb. I asked:

  “Are you truly Madame Mandilip’s niece?”

  “No.”

  “Who are you, then?”

  “I do not know.”

  “When did you join her, and why?”

  “Twenty years ago. I was in a creche, a foundling asylum at Vienna. She took me from it. She taught me to call her my aunt. But she is not.”

  “Where have you lived since then?”

  “In Berlin, in Paris, then London, Prague, Warsaw.”

  “Did Madame Mandilip make her dolls in each of these places?”

  She did not answer; she shuddered; her eyelids began to tremble.

  “Sleep! Remember, you cannot awaken until I bid you! Sleep! Answer me.”

  She whispered: “Yes.”

  “And they killed in each city?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sleep. Be at ease. Nothing is going to harm you—” Her disquietude had again become marked, and I veered for a moment from the subject of the dolls. “Where was Madame Mandilip born?”

  “I do not know.”

  “How old is she?”

  “I do not know. I have asked her, and she has laughed and said that time is nothing to her. I was five years old when she took me. She looked then just as she does now.”

  “Has she any accomplices—I mean are there others who make the dolls?”

  “One. She taught him. He was her lover in Prague.”

  “Her lover!” I exclaimed, incredulously—the image of the immense gross body, the great breasts, the heavy horse-like face of the doll-maker rising before my eyes. She said:

  “I know what you are thinking. But she has another body. She wears it when she pleases. It is a beautiful body. It belongs to her eyes, her hands, her voice. When she wears that body she is beautiful. She is terrifyingly beautiful. I have seen her wear it many times.”

  Another body! An illusion, of course…like the enchanted room Walters had described…and which I had glimpsed when breaking from the hypnotic web in which she had enmeshed me…a picture drawn by the doll-maker’s mind in the mind of the girl. I dismissed that, and drove to the heart of the matter.

  “She kills by two methods, does she not—by the salve and by the dolls?”

  “Yes, by the unguent and the dolls.”

  “How many has she killed by the unguent in New York?”

  She answered, indirectly: “She has made fourteen dolls since we came here.”

  So there were other cases that had not been reported to me! I asked:

  “‘And how many have the dolls killed?”

  “Twenty.”

  I heard Ricori curse, and shot him a warning look. He was leaning forward, white and tense; McCann had stopped his chewing.

  “How does she make the dolls?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Do you know how she prepares the unguent?”

  “No. She does that secretly.”

  “What is it that activates the dolls?”

  “You mean makes them—alive?”

  “Yes.”

  “Something from the dead!”

  Again I heard Ricori cursing softly. I said: “If you do not know how the dolls are made, you must know what is necessary to make them alive. What is it?”

  She did not answer.

  “You must answer me. You must obey me. Speak!”

  She said: “Your question is not clear. I have told you that something of the dead makes them alive. What else is it you would know?”

  “Begin from where one who poses for a doll first meets Madame Mandilip to the last step when the doll—as you put it—becomes alive.”

  She spoke, dreamily:

  “She has said one must come to her of his own will. He must consent of his own volition, without coercion, to let her make the doll. That he does not know to what he is consenting matters nothing. She must begin the first model immediately. Before she completes the second—the doll that is to live—she must find opportunity to apply the unguent. She has said of this unguent that it liberates one of those who dwell within the mind, and that this one must come to her and enter the doll. She has said that this one is not the sole tenant of the mind, but with the others she has no concern. Nor does she select all of those who come before her. How she knows those with whom she can deal, or what there is about them which makes her select them, I do not know. She m
akes the second doll. At the instant of its completion he who has posed for it begins to die. When he is dead—the doll lives. It obeys her—as they all obey her…”

  She paused, then said, musingly “All except one—”

  “And that one?”

  “She who was your nurse. She will not obey. My aunt torments her, punishes her…still she cannot control her. I brought the little nurse here last night with another doll to kill the man my—aunt—cursed. The nurse came, but she fought the other doll and saved the man. It is something my aunt cannot understand…it perplexes her…and it gives me…hope!”

  Her voice trailed away. Then suddenly, with energy, she said:

  “You must make haste. I should be back with the dolls. Soon she will be searching for me. I must go…or she will come for me…and then…if she finds me here…she will kill me…”

  I said: “You brought the dolls to kill me?”

  “Of course.”

  “Where are the dolls now?”

  She answered: “They were coming back to me. Your men caught me before they could reach me. They will go…home. The dolls travel quickly when they must. It is more difficult without me that is all…but they will return to her.”

  “Why do the dolls kill?”

  “To…please…her.”

  I said: “The knotted cord, what part does it play?”

  She answered: “I do not know—but she says—” Then suddenly, desperately, like a frightened child, she whispered: “She is searching for me! Her eyes are looking for me…her hands are groping—she sees me! Hide me! Oh, hide me from her quick…”

  I said: “Sleep more deeply! Go down—down deep—deeper still into sleep. Now she cannot find you! Now you are hidden from her!”

  She whispered: “I am deep in sleep. She has lost me. I am hidden. But she is hovering over me she is still searching…”

  Ricori and McCann had left their chairs and were beside me.

  Ricori asked:

  “You believe the witch is after her?”

  “No,” I answered. “But this is not an unexpected development. The girl has been under the woman’s control so long, and so completely, that the reaction is natural. It may be the result of suggestion, or it may be the reasoning of her own subconsciousness…she has been breaking commands…she has been threatened with punishment if she should—”