“At length Lizette died, and I was left alone, and though I knew her spirit hovered near me, I could not teach her how to find the flesh to clothe herself. When my second body died, I entered into the cadaver of a headsman, and plied my trade of blood for nearly thirty years, yet always did I seek some way to seize a body for Lizette. The learning I absorbed with Gilles de Retz I added to by going to the East and studying under masters of black magic, but though I nearly succeeded several times, there was always something missing from the charm which was to open the gates to my love-light’s spirit into human flesh.
“Ten years ago, in Northern Africa, I came upon the missing words of the incantation, and practised it successfully, but only to have my triumph ravished from me, for the body we used was so weakened by disease that it could not stand the strains we put upon it, and once again Lizette’s spirit was discarnate.
“In this city I have searched the homes of the dying in quest of a body suitable to our purposes, and found one when Vivian Sattalea gave up her fleshly garb two weeks ago.
“Aie, what pleasures we have known, once more treading the good green earth together. What sins we have committed, what joy we took in torturing the brat the cuckold husband sired and thought my Lizette still mothered! In the dead of night we have broken into churches, defiled the holy elements and—”
“Enough—parbleu, too much!” de Grandin shouted. “Pontou, condemned of man, accursed of God, rejected by that very Devil to whom of old you bowed the knee, I charge and enjoin you, by the might, power and majesty of that God whom you have so dishonored, depart hence from this earthly body you have stolen, and enter not into flesh again. And you, Lizette, wanton mistress of a villainous paramour, depart you likewise to that place where spirits such as yours abide, and trouble not the living or the dead again with your uncleanly presence. Begone! In nomine Domini, be off, and come not hither any more again!”
As he concluded there sounded a dual groan from the bodies stretched before us on the floor, and from the left breast of the man and from the woman’s left bosom there rose what looked like little jets of slowly escaping steam. The twin columns rose slowly, steadily, spreading out and thinning like vapor from a kettle-spout coming in contact with cold air, and as they swirled and twisted they merged and coalesced and clung together for an instant. Then the hovering, indistinct shape in the corner seemed suddenly to swoop downward, enveloped them in its ghostly folds as a drooping cloth might have done, and a soft, swishing noise sounded, as of a gentle wind soughing through bare tree-limbs. That was all. The candle lights winged out as if an extinguisher had pressed on them, and the warm, sultry air of August replaced the frigid cold which had chilled us to the marrow.
“It is finished—all is done, de Grandin’s matter-of-fact announcement sounded through the darkness. “Will you be good enough to examine Madame Sattalea, Friend Trowbridge?”
I knelt beside the woman as he snapped on the lights, putting my fingers to her wrist. “Why,” I exclaimed in bewilderment, “she’s dead, de Grandin!”
“Précisément,” he agreed with an almost casual nod, “and has been since that evening two weeks ago when you and I pronounced her so. It was but the spirit of the wicked Lizette which animated and defiled her poor, dead flesh. If you will be so good as to sign a certificate of death, I shall prepare for the disposal of this—” he touched the body of the man disdainfully with the polished toe of his dress shoe.
“Monsieur,” he turned to Sattalea, a look of sympathy on his face, “it were best that you said farewell to Madame, your wife, quickly. I go to call Monsieur Martin and bespeak his professional services for her.”
“Oh, Vivian, Vivian,” young Sattalea sobbed, dropping to his knees and pressing his lips to his wife’s lifeless mouth, “if only I could forget these last two weeks—if only I hadn’t let him desecrate your dead body with that—”
“Monsieur—attention—look at me!” de Grandin cried sharply.
For a moment he stared fixedly into Sattalea’s eyes, then slowly put his hands to the other’s forehead, stroked his brow gently, and:
“You will forget all that is past—you will not remember your wife’s seeming interval of life since the night Friend Trowbridge and I pronounced her dead. Your wife has died of heat-stroke, we have attempted to save her, and have failed—there has been no invasion of her flesh by foul things from beyond, you have no recollection of Pontou, or of anything he has said or done—do you understand? Sleep, now, and awaken in half an hour, not sooner.”
A dazed look in Sattalea’s eyes and a faint, almost imperceptible nod of his head was the only answer.
“Très bon!” de Grandin exclaimed. “Quick, Friend Trowbridge, help me place her on the bed. She must not be found thus when he awakens!”
Working with feverish haste, we clothed the dead man’s body in his black garments, bundled him into the tonneau of my car and drove slowly toward the river. At a darkened highway bridge we halted, and after looking about to make sure we were not observed, dropped the corpse into the dark waters. “Tomorrow or next day the police will find him,” de Grandin remarked. “Identification will not be difficult, for the young McCrea will testify of his visit to Monsieur Martin’s and his attempt to buy a corpse—the coroner’s jury will decide a harmless lunatic fell overboard while wandering through the town and came to his death by misadventure. Yes. It is much better so.”
“But see here,” I demanded as we turned homeward, “what was all that rigmarole that dead man told us? It isn’t possible such a monster as that Gilles de Retz ever lived, or—”
“It is unfortunately all too true,” de Grandin interrupted. “The judicial archives of the ancient Duchy of Brittany bear witness of the arrest, trial and execution of one of the greatest nobles of France, Gilles de Laval, Sire de Retz and marshal of the King’s armies, at a specially convoked ecclesiastical court at Nantes in 1440. Together with two servants, Pontou and Henriet, he was hanged and burned for murder of more than a hundred little children and young girls, and for indisputably proven sorcery and devil-worship. Yes.
“As for the possibility of Pontou’s spirit being earthbound, it is quite in line with what we know of evilly disposed souls. By reason of his intense wickedness and his vicious habits, he could not leave the earthly atmosphere, but must perforce hover about the sort of scenes which had pleased him in life. You remember how he was in turn a robber and a public executioner? Good.
“When we were called to attend Madame Sattalea and this so villainous Pontou first appeared on the scene, I was greatly puzzled. The magical formula he mouthed above the corpse of the poor dead lady I could not understand, for he spoke too quickly, but certain words I recognized, and knew them for the sign-words by which the necromancers of old called back the spirits of the dead. That was my first clue to how matters stood.
“When Monsieur McCrea told us of Pontou’s attempt to buy a corpse, and the good curé’s story of his effort to force entrance to a house of death coincided, I knew this evil man must have some special reason for desiring the body of a woman, and a woman only.
“When we met the little lad and went to Monsieur Sattalea’s and there beheld the love scene between his wife and the evil black-clothed one, I was certain he had called the evil spirit of some woman long dead to inhabit the body of poor Madame Vivian that he might have companionship of his own wicked kind, and when she called him by name—Pontou—I did remember at once that the evilest of the servants of that blasphemous monster, Gilles de Retz had been so named, and realized something like the story confessed to us tonight might have happened.
“Therefore, I made my plans. The air about us is filled with all sorts of invisible beings, my friend. Some are good, some are very evil indeed, and some are neither one nor the other. Wise old King Solomon was given dominion over them as one of the few mortals who could be trusted not to abuse so great a power. To marshal them to his assistance he did devise certain cabalistic words, and he who knows the ancie
nt Hebrew formulæ can call the invisible ones into visibility, but the risk is great, for the evil ones may come with those who are good, and work great injury. Nevertheless, I determined to make the experiment. By calling aloud the words of Solomon’s incantations I provided us with strong spiritual allies, which should force the rebellious spirit of Pontou to speak, whether he willed it or not. Too, when I had so bound Pontou’s spirit to answer my inquiries, I had him at a disadvantage—I could also call it forth from the body it had usurped. And once it was clear of that body the ghostly allies I had summoned made short work of it.”
“But that dreadful half-seen thing which stood in the corner,” I persisted. “What was it? I couldn’t see it clearly; indeed, the more closely I looked at it, the vaguer it seemed, but when I looked away I thought I descried a tall, terrible old man with flashing red eyes and a naked sword between his hands. Was it—”
“Pontou the wicked one, who by his necromantic sorcery more than once escaped the bounds of death, had long cheated Azra’il, the Death Angel,” he replied. “The ancient lore is full of stories of the psychopompos, or spirit-leader; who takes the severed soul from the new-dead body and conducts it through the frontiers of the spirit world. Perhaps it was none other than Death’s own angel who stood among the shadows and waited patiently for the spirits which long had cheated him, my friend. I myself do remember the whispered gossip which went the rounds of St. Petersburg some twenty years and more ago. I was studying in the Imperial Hospital at the time, and servants of the Winter Palace whispered a strange story of a little duchess who accidentally ate some oysters intended for the Tsar, and fell fainting to the floor, and how her little cousin awoke screaming in the night to say a tall, bearded figure had come into their room, then trodden silently into the poisoned child’s apartments. Next instant, while still the frightened children’s screams rang out, the poisoned little one gave up her soul. I do not know, but—”
“But that’s absurd,” I cut in. “All this talk of death angels is a lot of old wives’ balderdash, de Grandin, you know as well as I. What we call death is nothing but a physiological fact—the breaking-down of the human mechanism for one reason or another. As to the spiritual phases of it, of course, I’m not prepared to say, but—”
“Of course not,” he agreed. “We know so little of the spirit world that he who would expound it stamps himself a fool thereby.
“But this I say without fear of denial, my friend, there is one sort of spirit who is no mystery, and with him I would hold immediate communion. In the lower left-hand drawer of your office desk reposes a bottle of Three-Star cognac, distilled in la belle France long years before Monsieur Volstead’s blighting legislation was thought of. This moment it is full. Parbleu, if I do not decrease its contents by half before I am an hour older may every fiend of lowest hell fly off with me!”
The Silver Countess
My dear Trowbridge [the letter ran] If you will be good enough to bring your friend Dr. de Grandin, of whom I’ve had some favorable reports, out to Lyman’s Landing, I think I can present him with a problem worthy of his best talents. More I do not care to write at this time, but I may add that whatever fee he may think proper in the premises will be promptly paid by
Yours cordially,
WALKER SWEARINGEN.
JULES DE GRANDIN LIT a cigarette with slow deliberation, dropped a second lump of sugar in his coffee, and watched the small resultant bubbles rise in the cup as though they were a hitherto unnoted piece of physical phenomena. “The Monsieur Swearingen who writes so cautiously of the case he would present me, then concludes his note as if my performance were to be by royal command, who is he, if you please?”
“We were in college together,” I explained. “Swearingen was a shy sort of lad, and I rather took him under my wing during our freshman year. He went into some sort of brokerage concern when he graduated, and we’ve met only casually since—alumni dinners and that sort of thing. I understand he’s piled a monstrous stack of money up, and—well, I’m afraid that’s about all I can tell you. I don’t really know him very well, you see. There’s not much question he thinks the case important, though; I don’t believe he’s trying to be deliberately mysterious, more likely he thinks the matter too urgent to be set out in writing and prefers to wait for a personal interview.”
“U’m? He is wealthy, this one?”
“Very. Unless he’s lost his money in unlucky speculation he must be worth at least a million, possibly two.”
“Tiens, in that case I think we should accept his kind invitation, and unless I greatly miss my guess, he shall be less wealthy when he has paid my fee. I do not greatly fancy his letter; one would think he seeks to hire a mountebank; but there is probably no way in which his self-esteem can be reduced save by collection of a large price. Alors, I shall deflate his pocketbook. Will you advise him that we come without delay, and shall expect a handsome fee for doing so?”
LYMAN’S LANDING, WALTER SWEARINGEN’S summer place, stood on a wide, almost level promontory jutting out into the Passaic. Smooth lawns lay round the house, a tall, carefully tended hornbeam hedge separated the grounds from the highway, and a line of graceful weeping willows formed a lush green background for the red-brick homestead. Painted wicker chairs sat on the lawns, to one side of the house was a rose garden riotous with color; farther away an oblong swimming pool was partially screened by a hedge of arbor-vitae, and a quartette of youngsters played mixed doubles on a grass tennis court.
As we drove toward the house my glance fell on a young girl lounging in a gaily-striped canvas hammock. She wore the regulation “sunworshipper’s” outfit—a bright bandanna scarf bound round her bosom like a brassière, a pair of much-abbreviated linen shorts, rope-soled espadrilles, and, as far as I could discern, no more. As we drew abreast of her she kicked off one of her sandals and brushed a hand across the sole of her foot, as if to flick away a pebble that had worked into the shoe as she played.
I heard de Grandin breathe a sharp exclamation and felt the dig of his sharp elbow in my side. “Did you observe, my friend?” he asked in an urgent whisper. “Did you perceive what I did?”
“Could I help it?” I retorted. “Don’t you think that little hussy wanted us to? She could hardly have worn less in the bathtub, and she’s so elementally sex-conscious she can’t let even a pair of middle-aged men drive past without taking off part of—”
“Larmes d’un poisson!” he interrupted with a chuckle. “The man who knows anatomy as he knows the inside of his pocket frets at sight of a small naked foot! It was not that I meant, my friend, but no matter. Perhaps it is of no importance; at any rate, you would not understand.”
“What d’ye mean?” I countered, nettled as much by his bantering manner as his words. “I understand quite well. I saw five shameless pink toes—”
“Parbleu, did you, indeed? Perhaps I did not see what I saw, after all. No matter; we are arrived, and I should greatly like to confer with Monsieur Swearingen concerning this matter which he cannot put on paper, and for which he is prepared to pay so handsomely.”
THE THIRTY PLACID, PROSPEROUS years that had passed since our college days had been kind to Walter Swearingen. In addition to wealth he had acquired poise and embonpoint, a heavy, deliberate style of speech, a Vandyke beard, and an odd, irritating manner of seeming to pay half attention to what was said to him and treating the remarks of anyone not primarily interested in money with the grave mock-courtesy an affable adult shows a child’s prattle.
“Glad to welcome you to Lyman’s Landing, Dr. de Grandin,” he acknowledged my introduction. “Er, ah”—he smiled somewhat self-consciously—“there are certain phases of the case that make me think you’re better able to handle it than the ordinary type of detective—”
“Monsieur,” de Grandin began, and his little blue eyes flashed ominously, but Swearingen characteristically took no notice of the attempted interruption.
“The county police and state constabulary are qu
ite out of the question, of course. To be quite frank, I’m not prepared to say just what is behind it all; it has some aspects of a silly childish prank, some similarity to a possible case of kleptomania, and in other ways it like an old fashioned ghost story. I leave its proper labeling to you. U’m,”—he consulted a memorandum—“last Thursday night several of my guests were disturbed by someone in their rooms. None of them actually saw the intruder, but next morning it was found a number of valueless or nearly valueless articles had been stolen. Then—”
“And the missing articles were what, if you please, Monsieur?” This time our host could not ignore the query.
“H’m,” he favored the small Frenchman with an annoyed stare, “Miss Brooks—Elizabeth Brooks, my daughter Margery’s chum—lost an Episcopal prayer book; Elsie Stephens, another friend, who is a Roman Catholic, missed an inexpensive string of beads; Mr. Massey, one of the young men guests, lost a pocket Testament, and my daughter could not find a small book of devotional poems which had been on her desk. I fancy none of the young people is greatly distressed at his loss, but such things are disturbing, you understand.
“Friday night John Rodman, another guest, had a most disconcerting experience. Sometime between midnight and daybreak he woke in a state of profuse perspiration, as he thought, and feeling extraordinarily weak. It was only by the greatest effort he was able to light his bedlamp and discover that his pyjamas and bedclothes were literally drenched with blood from a small superficial wound in his left breast. We called a physician, and the boy’s no worse for his experience, but it caused considerable comment, as you may well imagine. It’s impossible he should have wounded himself, for there was no weapon in his room capable of making the incision from which he’d bled—his razors were in the adjoining bathroom, and there were no bloodstains on the floor, so the supposition he had walked in his sleep, cut himself, and then gone back to bed may be ruled out. Besides, the wound was small and almost circular in shape, as if made with an awl or some such small, sharp instrument.
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