“I started back from him, but he edged after me, extending his hand to stroke my arm, and almost fawning on me. He made queer, inarticulate sounds in his throat, too.
“‘Go away,’ I told him. ‘I don’t know you and I don’t want to. Please leave me alone.’ By that time he’d managed to crowd me into a corner, so that my retreat into the house was cut off, and I was getting really frightened.
“‘If you don’t let me go, I’ll scream,’ I threatened, and then, before I had a chance to say another word, out shot one of his hands—ugh, they were big and thin and long, like a gorilla’s!—and grasped me by the throat.
“I tried to fight him off, and even as I did so there flashed through my mind the description Miss Müller gave of her murderer. Then I knew. I was helpless in the grasp of the killer! That’s all I remember till I regained consciousness with Dr. Trowbridge’s housekeeper drying me after my bath and you gentlemen standing outside the door, ready to help me downstairs.
“Did they catch him—the murderer?” she added with true feminine curiosity.
“But of course, Mademoiselle,” de Grandin assured her gravely. “I was on his trail. It was impossible he should escape.
“Attend me, my friends,” he ordered, slipping from his seat on the table and striding to the center of the room like a lecturer about to begin his discourse. “Last night, when we entered that accursed tomb, I had too many thoughts within my so small brain to give full attention to any one of them. In my hurry I did overlook many important matters. That root of mandrake, by example, I should have suspected its significance, but I did not. Instead, I tossed it away as an unconsidered trifle.
“Mandrake, or mandragora, my friends, was one of the most potent charm-drugs in the ancient pharmacopoeia. With it the barren might be rendered fecund; love forgotten might be reawakened; deep and lasting coma might be induced by it. Does not that Monsieur Shakespeare make Cleopatra say:
‘Give me to drink of mandragora,
That I might sleep out this great gap of time
My Antony is away’?
“Most certainly. Moreover, it had another, and less frequent use. Placed upon the grave of one guilty of manifold sins, it would serve to keep his earthbound spirit from walking. You perceive the connection.
“When we cast aside that root of mandragora, we did unseal a tomb which was much better left unopened, and did release upon the world a spirit capable of working monstrous evil. Yes. This ‘Black Master,’ I do know him, Friend Trowbridge.
“When we looked upon the poor relics of those slain women, I noticed at once the peculiarity of the bruises on their throats. ‘Parbleu,’ I say to me, ‘the skeleton which we saw last night, he had a hand so maimed as to leave a mark like this. Jules de Grandin, we must investigate.’
“‘Make it so,’ I reply to me in that mental conversation, and so, Friend Trowbridge, when I left you I did repair instantly to that cursed tomb and look about. There, in his coffin of stone, lay the skeleton of the ‘Black Master,’ but, as I have already been at pains to tell you, on his side, not as we left him lying the night before. ‘Mordieu, this are not good, this are most badly strange,’ I inform me. Then I look about and discover the bit of mandrake root, all shriveled and dried, and carelessly tossed to one side where we left it when Friend Trowbridge let fall his light. I—”
“By the way, de Grandin,” I put in. “Something hit me a paralyzing blow on the knuckles before I let my flashlight fall; have you any idea what it was?”
He favored me with a momentary frown, then: “But certainly,” he responded. “It were a bit of stone from the ceiling. I saw it detach itself and cried a warning to you, even as it fell, but the loss of our light was of such importance that I talked no more about your injury. Now to resume:
“‘Can we not now seal him in the tomb with the mandrake once more?’ I ask me as I stand beside that coffin today, but better judgment tells me not to attempt it. This old-time sea-devil, he have been able to clothe his bony frame with seeming habiliments of the flesh. He are, to all intents and purposes, once more alive, and twice as wicked as before on account of his long sleep. I shall kill his fantasmal body for good and all before I lock him once and forever in the tomb again.
“‘But how shall we slay him so that he be really-truly dead?’ I ask me.
“Then, standing beside the coffin of that old, wicked pirate, I think and think deeply. ‘How were the were-wolves and witches, the wizards and the warlocks, the bugbears and goblins of ancient times slain in the olden days?’ I ask, and the answer comes back, ‘With bullets of silver.’ Attend me, my friends.”
Snatching a red leather volume from the near-by shelf he thumbed quickly through its pages. “Hear what your Monsieur Whittier say in one of his so lovely poems. In the olden times, the garrison of a New England fort was beset by
… a spectral host, defying stroke of
steel and aim of gun;
Never yet was ball to slay them in the
mold of mortals run!
Midnight came; from out the forest moved
a dusky mass that soon
Grew to warriors, plumed and painted,
grimly marching in the moon.
“Ghosts or witches,” said the captain, “thus
I foil the Evil One!”
And he rammed a silver button from his
doublet down his gun.
“Very good. I, too, will thus foil the Evil One and his servant who once more walks the earth. I have told you how I had the bullets made to my order this day. I have recounted how I baptized them for the work they were to do this night. Yourselves saw how the counter-charm worked against that servitor of Satan, how it surprised him when it pierced his phantom breast, how it made of him a true corpse, and how the seeming-flesh he had assumed to clothe his bare bones while he worked his evil was made to melt away before the bullets of Jules de Grandin. Now, doubly dead, he lies sealed by the mandrake root within his tomb for evermore.
“Friend Balderson, you have been most courteously quiet this long time. Is there no question you would care to ask?”
“You told Dr. Trowbridge you knew the ‘Black Master,’” Eric replied. “Can you tell us something about him—”
“Ah, parbleu, but I can!” de Grandin interrupted. “This afternoon, while the excellent jeweler was turning out my bullets, I repaired to the public library and discovered much of that old villain’s life and deeds. Who he was nobody seems to know. As to what he was, there is much fairly accurate conjecture.
“A Turk he was by birth, it is generally believed, and a most unsavory follower of the false Prophet. Even in sinful Stamboul his sins were so great that he was deprived of his tongue by way of punishment. Also, he was subjected to another operation not wholly unknown in Eastern countries. This latter, instead of rendering him docile, seemed to make a veritable demon of him. Never would he permit his crews to take prisoners, even for ransom. Sexless himself, he forbade the presence of women—even drabs from Maracaibo and Panama—aboard his ships, save for one purpose. That was torture. Whenever a ship was captured, he fetched the female prisoners aboard, and after compelling them to witness the slaughter of their men folk, with his own hands he put them to death, often crushing life from their throats with his maimed right hand. Does not his history fit squarely with the things we have observed these last two nights? The accounts declare, ‘The time and place of his death are uncertain, but it is thought he died somewhere near the present city of Newark and was buried somewhere in Jersey. A vast treasure disappeared with him, and speculation concerning its hiding-place rivals that of the famous buried hoard of Captain Kidd.’
“Now, it is entirely probable that we might add something of great interest to that chronicle, but I do not think we shall, for—”
Absorbed in the Frenchman’s animated narrative, Eric Balderson had moved from his shadowed corner into the zone of light cast by the reading-lamp, and as de Grandin was about to finish, Marian Warner inte
rrupted him with a little cry of incredulous delight. “Eric,” she called. “Eric Balderson! Oh, my dear, I’ve wondered and worried so much about you!”
A moment later she had flown across the room, shedding de Grandin’s purple lizard-skin slippers as she ran, put both hands on the young man’s shoulders, and demanded, “Why did you go away, dear; didn’t you kno—”
“Marian!” Eric interrupted hoarsely. “I didn’t dare ask your father. I was so wretchedly poor, and there seemed no prospect of my ever getting anywhere—you’d been used to everything, and I thought it would be better for us both if I just faded out of the picture. But”—he laughed boyishly—“I’m rich, now, dear—one of the richest men in the country, and—”
“Rich or poor, Eric dear, I love you,” the girl interrupted as she slipped both arms about his neck and kissed him on the lips.
Jules de Grandin’s arms shot out like the blades of a pair of opening shears. With one hand he grasped Sergeant Costello’s arm; the other snatched me by the elbow. “Come away, foolish ones,” he hissed. “What have we, who left our loves in Avalon long years ago, to do with such as they? Pardieu, to them we are a curse, a pest, an abomination; we do incumber the earth!
“Await me here,” he ordered as we concluded our march to the consulting-room. “I go, but I return immediately.”
In a moment he came tripping down the stairs, a magnificent glowing ruby, nearly as large as a robin’s egg, held daintily between his thumb and forefinger. “For their betrothal ring,” he announced proudly. “See, it is the finest in my collection.”
“Howly Mither, Dr. de Grandin, sor, are ye, a jinny from th’ Arabeen Nights, to be passin’ out jools like that whenever a pair o’ young folks gits engaged?” demanded Sergeant Costello, his big blue eyes almost popping from his head in amazement.
“Ah, mon sergent,” the little Frenchman turned one of his quick, elfish smiles on the big Irishman, “you have as yet seen nothing. Before you leave this house tonight Friend Trowbridge and I shall fill every pocket of your clothes to overflowing with golden coin from old Spain; but e’er we do so, let us remember it is Christmas.”
With the certainty of one following a well-worn path, he marched to the medicine closet, extracted a bottle of peach brandy and three glasses, and filled them to the brim.
“To your very good and long-lasting health, my friend,” he pledged, raising his glass aloft. “Joyeux Noël!”
The Devil-People
1
A BLEAK NORTHEAST WIND, SWEEPING down from the coast of New England and freighted with mingled rain and sleet, howled riotously through the streets as we emerged from Symphony Hall.
“Cordieu, Friend Trowbridge,” de Grandin exclaimed between chattering teeth as he turned the fur collar of his greatcoat up about his ears and sunk his head between his shoulders, “Monsieur Washington was undoubtlessly a most admirable gentleman in every respect, but of a certainty he chose a most damnable, execrable day on which to be born! Name of a green duck, I am already famished with the cold; come, let us seek shelter, and that with quickness, or I shall expire completely and leave you nothing but the dead corpse of Jules de Grandin for company!”
Grinning at his vehemence, I bent my head to the blast as we buffeted our way against the howling gale, fighting a path over the sleet-swept sidewalks to the glass-and-iron porte cochère of La Pontoufle Dorée.
As we swept through the revolving plate-glass doors a sleek-looking gigolo with greased hair and beady eyes set too close together snatched at our hats and wraps with an avidity which betrayed his Levantine ancestry, and we marched down a narrow, mirror-lined hall lighted with red-shaded electric bulbs. From the dining-room beyond came the low, dolorous moaning of saxophones blended with the blurred monody of indiscriminate conversation and the shrill, piping overtones of women’s laughter. On the cleared dancing-floor in the center of the room a file of shapely young women in costumes consisting principally of beads and glittering rhinestones danced hectically, their bare, powdered arms, legs and torsos gleaming in the glare of the spotlight. The close, superheated air reeked with the odor of broken food and the effluvia from women’s perfumed gowns and bodies, while the savage, heathen snarl of the jazz band’s jungle music throbbed and palpitated like a fever patient’s pulses. Soft fronds of particolored silk, sweeping gracefully down from the center of the ceiling, formed a tentlike roof which billowed gracefully with each draft from the doors, and the varicolored lights of the great crystal chandelier gleamed dully through the drifting fog-whorls of tobacco smoke.
“U’m?” de Grandin surveyed the scene from the threshold. “These children of present-day America enjoy more luxury than did their country’s father on his birthday at Valley Forge a hundred and fifty-two years ago tonight, Friend Trowbridge,” he commented dryly.
“How many in the party, please?” demanded the head waiter. “Only two?” Disdain and hauteur seemed fighting for possession of his hard-shaven face as he eyed us frigidly.
“Two, most certainly,” de Grandin replied, then tapped the satin lapel of the functionary’s dress coat with an impressive forefinger, “but two with the appetites—and thirsts—of four, mon garçon.”
Something like a smile flickered across the cruel, arrogant lips of the servitor as he beckoned to a waiter-captain, who led us to a table near the wall.
“Voleurs—robbers, bandits!” the little Frenchman exclaimed as he surveyed the price list of the menu.
“However, it is nécessaire that one eats,” he added philosophically as he made his choice known to the hovering waiter.
A matronly-looking, buxom woman of uncertain age in a modestly cut evening gown circulated among the guests. Seemingly acquainted with everyone present, she stopped here and there, slapping a masculine back in frank friendship and camaraderie every once in a while, exchanging a quip or word of greeting with the women patrons.
“Hullo, boys,” she greeted cordially as she reached our table, “having a good time? Need anything more to brighten the corner where you are?”
“Madame,” de Grandin bent forward from the hips in a formal Continental bow, “if you possess the influence in this establishment, you can confer the priceless favor on us by procuring a soupçon of eau-de-vie. Consider: We are but just in from the outdoor cold and are frozen to the bone on all sides. If—”
“French!” From the delighted expression on the lady’s face it was apparent that the discovery of de Grandin’s nationality was the one thing needed to make her happiness complete. “I knew it the moment I laid eyes on you,” she assured him. “You boys from across the pond simply must have your little nip, mustn’t you? Fix it? I’ll tell the world I can. Leave it to Mamma; she’ll see you get a shot that’ll start your blood circulatin’. Back in a minute, Frenchy, and, by the way”—she paused, a genial smile on her broad, rather homely face—“how about a little playmate to liven things up? Someone to share the loneliness of a stranger in a strange land? I got just the little lady to do the trick. She’s from over the water, too.”
“Mordieu, my friend, it seems I have put my foot in it up to the elbow,” de Grandin deplored with a grimace of comic tragedy. “My request for a drink brings us not only the liquor, but a partner to help consume it, it would seem. Two hundred francs at the least, this will cost us, I fear.”
I was about to voice a protest, for supping at a night club was one thing, while consorting with the paid entertainers was something very different; but my remonstrances died half uttered, for the hostess bore down upon us, her face wreathed in smiles, a waiter with a long-necked bottle preceding her and a young woman—dark, pretty and with an air of shy timidity—following docilely in her wake. The girl—she was little more—wore a rich, black fur coat over a black evening gown and swung a small black grosgrain slipper bag from her left wrist.
“Shake hands with Ma’mselle Mutina, Frenchy,” the hostess bade. “She’s just as lonesome and thirsty as you are. You’ll get along like mocha and java, you
two.”
“Enchanté, Mademoiselle,” De Grandin assured her as he raised her slender white fingers to his lips and withdrew a chair for her. “You will have a bit of food, some champagne, perhaps, some—” he rattled on with a string of gallantries worthy of a professional boulevardier while I watched him in mingled fascination and disapproval. This was a facet of the many-sided little Frenchman I had never seen before, and I was not especially pleased with it.
Our table-mate seated herself, letting her opulent coat fall back over her chair and revealing a pair of white, rounded shoulders and arms of singular loveliness. Her eyes rested on the table in timid confusion. As de Grandin monopolized the conversation, I studied her attentively. There was no doubting her charm. Slim, youthful, vibrant she was, yet restrained with a sort of patrician calm. Her skin was not the dead white of the powder-filmed performers of the cabaret, nor yet the pink of the athletic woman’s; rather it seemed to glow with a delicate undertone of tan, like the old ivory of ancient Chinese carvings or the richest of cream. Her face was heart-shaped rather than oval, with almost straight eyebrows of jetty blackness, a small, straight nose and a low, broad forehead, blue-black hair that lapped smoothly over her tiny ears like folded raven’s wings, and delicate, sensitive lips which, I knew instinctively, would have been lusciously red even without the aid of the rouge with which they were tinted. When she raised timid, troubled eyes to de Grandin’s face I saw the irises inside the silken frames of curling black lashes were purple as pansy petals. “Humph,” I commented mentally, “she’s beautiful—entirely too good-looking to be respectable!”
The waiter brought a chicken sandwich and—to my unbounded astonishment—a bottle of ginger ale for her, and as she was about to lift a morsel of food to her lips I saw her purple eyes suddenly widen with dread and her cheeks go ash-pale with fright.
The Devil's Rosary Page 6
