The Devil's Rosary

by Seabury Quinn

  “It was a man’s voice, I could tell that, and I could hear the girl sobbing and pleading in terror till he took her upstairs and closed the basement door.

  “I didn’t know what to think. Till then I’d thought I was the only prisoner in the house, now I knew there was at least one more. ‘What were they doing to her—what would they do to me when my turn came?’ I kept asking myself. I’d read about the white-slave stockades of Chicago where young girls were ‘broken in’ by professional rapists, and when I heard the sound of several people running back and forth in the room right above me I went absolutely sick with terror. It seemed to me that several people were running about in tennis shoes or bare feet, and then there was a scream, then more running, and more screams. Then everything was still, so still that I could hear my heart beating as I lay there. I kept listening for them to bring her back; but they never did. At last I fell asleep.”

  De Grandin tweaked the waxed ends of his little blond mustache. “This Madame d’Afrique, what did she look like, ma pauvre?”

  “She was a big woman—tall, that is, sir, with lots of blond hair and queer-looking brown-green eyes and odd, long nails that turned down over her finger-tips, like claws. She—”

  “Name of an intoxicated pig, they are undoubtlessly one and the same! Why did I not recognize it at once?” de Grandin exclaimed. “Say on, my child. Tell all; I wait with interest.”

  The girl swallowed convulsively and gave her other hand into his keeping. “Hold me, Doctor, hold me tight,” she begged. “I’m afraid; terribly afraid, even now.

  “I knew something dreadful was going to happen when he finally came for me, but I hadn’t thought how terrible it would be. I was sound asleep when I felt someone shaking me by the shoulder and heard a voice say, ‘Get up. We’re going to let you go—if you can.’

  “I tried to ask questions, to get him to wait till I put on some clothes, but he fairly dragged me, just as I was, from the bed. When I got upstairs I found myself in a big bare room brightly lighted by a ceiling chandelier, and with only a few articles of furniture in it—one or two big chairs, several small footstools, and a big couch set diagonally across one corner. It was night. I could see the rain beating on the window and hear the wind blowing. In the sudden unaccustomed light I saw a tall old man with scant white hair and a big white mustache held me by the shoulder. He wore a sort of short bathrobe of some dark-colored cloth and his feet were bare. Then I saw the woman, Mrs. d’Afrique. She was in a sort of short nightgown that reached only to her knees, and like the man she, too, was barefooted. The man shoved me into the middle of the room, and all the time the woman stood there smiling and eyeing me hungrily.

  “‘My wife and I sometimes play a little game with our guests,’ the old man told me. ‘We turn out the lights and enjoy a little romp of tag. If the guest can get away in the darkness she is free to go; if she can not—’ He stopped and smiled at me—the cruellest smile I’ve ever seen.

  “Wh—what happens if she can not?’ I faltered.

  “He put his hand out and stroked my bare arm. ‘Very nice,’ he murmured, ‘nice and tender, eh?’ The woman nodded and licked her red lips with the tip of her red tongue, while her queer green eyes seemed positively shining as she looked at me.

  “‘If the guest can not get away,’ the man answered with a dreadful low laugh, then he looked at the woman again. ‘You have eaten well since you came here,’ he went on, apparently forgetting what he’d started to say. ‘How did you like the meat we served?’

  “I nodded. I didn’t know what to say. Then: ‘Why, it was very nice,’ I whispered, fearing to anger him if I kept silent.

  “‘Ye-es, very nice,’ he agreed with another laugh. ‘Very nice, indeed. That meat, dear, tender young lady—that meat was the guests who couldn’t get away!’

  “I closed my eyes and thought hard. This couldn’t be true, I told myself. This was just some dreadful dream. They might be going to maul and beat me—even kill me, perhaps—to satisfy their sadistic lust, but to kill and eat me—no, such things just couldn’t happen in New Jersey today!

  “It was a lucky thing for me I’d closed my eyes, for while I stood there swaying with nauseated horror I heard a faint click. Instantly I opened my eyes to find the light had been shut off and I was standing alone in the center of the great room.

  “How’d you know you were alone if the light had been shut off?” demanded Donovan. “You say the room was pitch-dark.”

  The girl never turned her head. Her terrified eyes remained steadily, pleadingly, on de Grandin’s face as she whispered:

  “By their eyes!”

  “The woman stood at one end of the room, the man had moved to the other, though I’d heard no sound, and in the darkness I could see their eyes, like the phosphorescent orbs of wild jungle-beasts at night.

  “The steady, green-gleaming eyes came slowly nearer and nearer, sometimes moving in a straight line, sometimes circling in the darkness, but never turning from me for an instant. I was being stalked like a mouse by hungry cats—the creatures could see in the dark!

  “I said a moment ago it was fortunate for me I’d closed my eyes. That’s all that saved me. if they’d been open when the lights went out I’d have been completely blinded by the sudden darkness, but as it was, when I opened them the room was just a little lighter than the absolute darkness of closed eyes. The result was I could see their bodies like moving blotches of shadow slightly heavier than that of the rest of the room, and could even make out the shapes of some of the furniture. I could distinguish the dull-grey of the rain-washed window, too.

  “As I turned in terror from one creeping shadow-thing to the other the woman let out a low, dreadful cry like the gradually-growing miaul of a hunting cat, only deeper and louder. The man answered it, and it seemed there was an undertone of terrible, half-human laughter in the horrible caterwaul.

  “It seemed to me that all the forces of hell were let loose in that great dark room. I heard myself screaming, praying, shrieking curses and obscenities I’d never realized I even knew, and answering me came the wild, inhuman screeches of the green-eyed things that hunted me.

  “Scarcely knowing what I did I snatched up a heavy footstool and hurled it at the nearer pair of eyes. They say a woman can’t throw straight, but my shot took effect. I saw the blurred outline of a body double up with an agonized howl and go crashing to the floor, where it flopped and contorted like a fish jerked from the water.

  “With a shrill, ear-splitting scream the other form dashed at me, and I dropped to my knees just in time to avoid a thrashing blow it aimed at me—I felt my nightdress rip to tatters as the long sharp nails slashed through it.

  “I rolled over and over across the floor with that she-devil leaping and springing after me. I snatched another hassock as I rolled, and flung it behind me. It tripped her, and for a moment she went to her knees, but her short dress offered no hindrance to her movement, and she was up and after me, howling and screaming like a beast, in another second.

  “I’d managed to roll near the window, and as I came in contact with another stool I grasped it and hurled it with all my might at the panes. They shattered outward with a crash, and I dived through the opening. The ground was scarcely six feet below, and the rain had softened it so it broke my fall almost like a mattress. An instant after I’d landed on the rain-soaked lawn I was on my feet and running as no woman ever ran before.”

  “Yes, and then—?” de Grandin prompted.

  The girl shook her slim, muslin-clad shoulders and shuddered in the ague of a nervous chill. “That’s all there is to tell, sir,” she stated simply. “The next thing I knew I was in this bed and Dr. Donovan was asking me about myself.”

  “That’s letter-perfect,” Donovan commented. “Exactly the way she told it twice before. What’s your verdict, gentlemen?”

  I shook my head pityingly. It was all too sadly evident the poor girl had been through some terrifying experience and that her nerves w
ere badly shaken, but her story was so preposterous—clearly this was a case of delusional insanity. “I’m afraid,” I began, and got no farther, for de Grandin’s sharp comment forestalled me.

  “The verdict, mon cher Donovan? What can it be but that she speaks the truth? But certainly, of course!”

  “You mean—” I began, and once again he shut me off.

  “By damn-it, I mean that the beauteous Madame Bera and her so detestably ugly spouse have overreached themselves. There is no doubt that they and the d’Afriques are one and the same couple. Why should they not choose that name as a nom de ruse; are they not from Tunis, and is Tunis not in Africa? But yes.”

  “Holy smoke!” gasped Donovan. “D’ye mean you actually believe this bunk?”

  “Mais certainement,” de Grandin answered. “So firmly do I believe it I am willing to stand sponsor for this young lady immediately if you will release her on parole to accompany Friend Trowbridge and me.”

  “Well, I’m a monkey’s uncle, I sure am,” declared Dr. Donovan. “Maybe I should have another room swept out for you an’ Trowbridge.” He sobered at the grim face de Grandin turned on him. “O.K. if that’s the way you want it, de Grandin. It’s your responsibility, you know. Want to go with these gentlemen, Annie?” He regarded the girl with a questioning smile.

  “Yes! I’ll go anywhere with him, he trusts me,” she returned; then, as an afterthought, “And my name’s not Annie.”

  “All right, Annie, get your clothes on,” Donovan grinned back. “We’ll be waitin’ for you in the office.”

  AS SOON AS WE had reached the office de Grandin rushed to the telephone. “I would that you give this message to Sergeant Costello immediately when he arrives,” he called when his call to police headquarters had been put through. “Request that he obtain the address given by Monsieur and Madame d’Afrique when they went to secure domestic help from Osgood’s Employment Agency, and that he ascertain, if possible, the names and addresses of all young women who entered their employ from the agency. Have him take steps to locate them at once, if he can.

  “Très bon,” he nodded as Trula Petersen made her appearance dressed in some makeshift odds and ends of clothing found for her by the nurses. “You are not chic, my little one, but in the morning we can get you other clothes, and meantime you will sleep more comfortably in an unbarred room. Yes, let us go.”

  A little after four o’clock next afternoon Costello called on us. “I got some o’ th’ dope you’re wantin’, Dr. de Grandin,” he announced. “Th’ de Africays hired four girls from Osgood’s about a week apart; but didn’t seem to find any of ’em satisfactory. Kept comin’ back for more.”

  “Ah? And these young women are now where, if you please?”

  “None of ’em’s been located as yet sir. It happens they was all strangers in town, at least, none of ’em had folks here, an’ all was livin’ in furnished rooms when they was hired. None of ’em’s reported back to her roomin’ house or applied to Osgood’s for reëmployment. We’ll look around a bit more, if you say so, but I doubt we’ll find out much. They’re mostly fly-by-nights, these girls, you know.”

  “I fear that what you say is literally true,” de Grandin answered soberly. “They have flown by night, yes flown beyond all mortal calling, if my fears are as well grounded as I have reason to believe.

  “And the address of Monsieur and Madame Ber—d’Afrique? Did you ascertain it from the agency?”

  “Sure, we did. It’s 762 Orient Boulevard.”

  “Good. I shall go there and—”

  “Needn’t be troublin’ yourself, sir. I’ve been there already.”

  “Ah bah; I fear that you have spoiled it all. I did not wish them to suspect we knew. Now, I much fear—”

  “You needn’t; 762 Orient Boulevard’s a vacant lot.”

  “Hell and ten thousand furies! Do you tell me so?”

  “I sure do. But I got something solid for us to sink our teeth into. I think I’ve uncovered a lead on th’ Cableson case.”

  “Indeed?”

  “Well, it ain’t much, but it’s more’n we knew before. He wasn’t alone when he died; least wise, he wasn’t alone a few minutes before. I ran across a pair o’ young fellers that saw him takin’ a lady into his coupé on th’ Albermarle Pike just a little way outside Mooreston late th’ night before he was found dead with his car jammed up against a tree.”

  “Chapeau d’un bouc vert, is it so? Have you a description of the lady of mystery?”

  “Kind of, yes, sir. She was big and blond, an’ wrapped in some sort o’ cloak, but didn’t wear a hat. That’s how they know she was a blonde, they saw her hair in th’ light o’ th’ car’s lamps.”

  The little Frenchman turned from the policeman to our guest. “My child,” he told her, “the good God has been most kind to you. He has delivered those who harried you like a brute beast into the hands of Jules de Grandin.”

  “What are you going to do?” I asked, wondering.

  “Do?” His waxed mustaches quivered like the whiskers of an irritable tom-cat. “Do? Parbleau, should one slap the face of Providence? Mille nons. Me, I shall serve them as they deserve, no less. May Satan fry me in a saucepan with a garnish of mushrooms if I do not so!”

  A moment later he was thumbing through the telephone directory. “Ah, Madame Heacoat,” he announced when the lady finally answered his call, “I am unhappy, I am miserable; I am altogether desolate. At your charming soirée I met the so delightful Monsieur and Madame Bera, and we discovered many friends in common. Of the goodness of their hearts they invited me to call, but hélas I have misplaced my memorandum of their address. Can you—ah, merci bien; merci bien une mille fois—a thousand thanks, Madame!

  “My friends,” he turned on us as he laid down the ’phone, “we have them in a snare. They are the clever ones, but Jules de Grandin is more clever. They dwell near Mooreston; their house abuts upon the Albermarle Pike. To find them will be a small task.

  “Trowbridge, my old and rare, I pray you have the capable Nora McGinnis, that queen among cooks, prepare us a noble dinner this night. There is much to be done, and I would do it on a well-fed stomach. Meantime I shall call that Monsieur Arif and request his presence this evening. It was he who first roused my suspicions; he deserves to be here at the finish.”

  A LITTLE BEFORE DINNER A special messenger from Ridgeway’s Hardware Store arrived with a long parcel wrapped in corrugated paper which de Grandin seized and bore to his room. For half an hour or more he was engaged in some secret business there, emerging with a grin of satisfaction on his face as the gong sounded for the evening meal.

  He took command at table, keeping up a running fire of conversation, most of it witty, all of it inconsequential. Stories of student days at the Sorbonne, droll tales of the War, anecdotes of travel in the far places of the world—anything but the slightest reference to the mystery of Monsieur and Madame Bera he rattled off like a wound-up gramophone.

  Finally, when coffee was served in the drawing room, he lighted a cigar, stretched his slender patent-leather-shod feet to the blazing logs and regarded Trula Petersen and me in turn with his quick, birdlike glance. “You trust me, ma petite?” he asked the girl.

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Très bon. We shall put that trust to the test before long.” He smiled whimsically, then:

  “You have never hunted the tiger in India, one assumes?”

  “Sir? No! I’ve never been anywhere except Norway where I was born, and this country, where I’ve lived since I was ten.”

  “Then it seems I must enlighten you. In India, when they would bring the stripèd one within gunshot, they tether a so small and helpless kid to a stake. The tiger scents a meal, approaches the small goat; the hunter, gun in hand, squeezes the trigger and—voilà, there is a tigerskin rug for some pretty lady’s boudoir. It is all most simple.”

  “I—I don’t think I understand, sir,” the girl faltered, but there was a telltale widening of her e
yes and a constriction of the muscles of her throat as she spoke.

  “Very well. It seems I must explain in detail. Anon our good friend Arif Pasha comes, and with him comes the good Sergeant Costello. When all is ready you are to assume the same costume you wore when they brought you to the hospital, and over it you will put on warm wrappings. Thereafter Friend Trowbridge drives us to the house of Monsieur Bera, and you will descend, clad as you were when you fled. You will stagger across the lawn, calling pitifully for help. Unless I am much more mistaken than I think one or both of them will sally forth to see who cries for help in the night. Then—”

  “O-o-o-oh, no!” the girl wailed in a stifled voice. “I couldn’t! I wouldn’t go there for all the money in the world—”

  “It is no question of money, my small one. It is that you do it for the sake of humanity. Consider: Did you not tell me you woke one night to hear the odious Bera leading another girl to torture and death? Did not you thereafter hear the stamping of feet which fled and feet which pursued, and the agonized scream of one who was caught?”

  The girl nodded durably.

  “Suppose I tell you four girls were hired by these beast-people from the same agency whence you went into their service. That much we know; it is a matter of police record. It is also a matter of record that none of them, save you, was ever seen again. How many other unfortunate ones went the same sad road is a matter of conjecture, but unless you are willing to do this thing for me there is a chance that those we seek may escape. They may move to some other place and play their infernal games of hide-and-seek-in-the-dark with only the good God knows how many other poor ones.

  “Attend me further, little pretty one: The night you escape by what was no less than a miracle a young man named Thomas Cableson—a youth of good family and position—young, attractive, in love; with everything to live for, drove his coupé through Mooreston along the Albermarle Pike. A short distance from Mooreston he was accosted by a woman—a big, blond woman who sought for something in the roadside woods.