The Devil's Rosary

by Seabury Quinn

  “Well,” I cut in, “if this is so, why not go round to this old woman’s house and arrest her? She can be made to talk, I suppose.”

  “Ah bah,” he returned. “Do you think I have not considered that? You do me small courtesy, my friend. To the old one’s house I went posthaste, only to find that she and her son—a hulking brute with arms as long as those of any ape—had decamped sometime during the night and none knows where they went.”

  He paused a moment, drawing at his cigar with short quick puffs; then: “How high would you say the lowest limb of the tree which grows beside Madame Sherbourne’s house is from the ground—the tree from which an evilly disposed one might easily have hurled a dagger and slain Mademoiselle Adelaide?”

  “H’m,” I made a hasty mental calculation. “All of fifteen feet, I’d say. It’s absurd to think anyone climbed it, de Grandin; he couldn’t have reached the lowest limb without a ladder, for the trunk was literally glazed with ice, and no one could have swarmed up it. Nothing but an ape could have climbed that tree, thrown a knife and scuttled down again before the police came, at least not without leaving some trace, and—”

  “Precisely, exactly, entirely so,” he agreed, nodding vigorously. “Tu parles, mon vieux—you have said it. No one but an ape—or an ape-man. Did you examine the bloody footprint at the laundry where the ill-fated Lucas met his death?”

  “Why, no; but—”

  “Of course not; but I did. It might almost have been made by a gorilla, so great and long-toed was it. Only one accustomed to going barefoot, and much accustomed to using his toes in climbing, could have made that track. It took but a single glance to tell me that the maker of that footprint has arms of most extraordinary length. Such an one could have leaped the distance from the earth to catch that tree-limb, and climbed the icy trunk without great trouble. Such an one it was, undoubtlessly, who watched outside to see that Mademoiselle Adelaide made no betrayal, and who did the needful when he feared she was about to break beneath my questioning. Yes. Certainly.”

  “But see here,” I expostulated. “Aren’t you going pretty far in your assumptions? Because a man has an abnormally long foot is no sign he has unusually long arms like this hypothetical ape-man of yours.”

  “Do you say so?” he demanded sarcastically. “The great Alphonse Bertillon says otherwise. It was he who fathered the science of anthropometry—the science of measuring man—and it is one of his cardinal rules that the length of a man’s foot from calyx to great toe-tip is the exact distance between the inner bend of his elbow and his radius. Here, let us test it!”

  Reaching suddenly he snatched off one of my house slippers, and grasping my ankle bent my right foot upward to the inner side of my left arm. Dubiously I fitted the heel against the inner bend of my elbow, then stared in incredulous amazement. It was as he said. No rule could have measured my arm from wrist to elbow more accurately than my own foot!

  “You see?” he asked with one of his quick smiles. The Sûreté Général long since adopted the Bertillon system, and the Sûreté Général makes no mistakes.

  “Very well; to proceed with my day’s discoveries: Having unearthed the poor mademoiselle’s unhappy history, I turned my attention to the unfortunate Monsieur Lucas. Here, again, the trail of Africa’s step-daughters lay across my path. In his younger days Lucas had been an American soldier, and served with distinction against the Spaniards in ’98. Remaining in Cuba after peace was declared, he married a native woman and moved inland. There he became involved in certain of the less savory native mysteries, and served a term in prison. He moved to Haiti without the formality of divorcing his Cuban wife and found another companion for his joys and sorrows. Tiens, I greatly fear the latter far outweighed the former. His wife, an unlettered peasant woman, was but a step removed from savagery. She initiated him into the voodoo religion, and once more he worshiped in the Houmfor or voodoo mystery-house.

  “Anon he tired of life in Haiti and come to this country. But so did others. My friend, in this very city of Harrisonville, New Jersey, there is a well-organized chapter of votaries of the Snake-Goddess. What they purpose doing I do not know for sure; that it portends no good I am most abominably certain. Lucas, homesick for the days in the Caribbean, perhaps, perhaps for some other reason, sought out these voodooists, and was recognized by some of them. He attended one or more of their meetings, and was there either branded as a traitor, or refused to countenance such inimical schemes as they broached. In any event, he was considered more valuable dead than alive, nor were they slow to carry out his death sentence. Everything points that way—the multiple wounds, the torture before the coup-de-grâce, most of all the two crossed matches which we found. They are a sign well recognized wherever voodoo is dominant. On one occasion, as I well know, the sight of such a silly, inconsequential object in the Palace at Port-au-Prince so frightened the president of Haiti that he remained indoors for two whole days! It was a bit of bravado, leaving those matches beside the body of their victim, but then they could not know that anyone here would recognize them; they could not know that Jules de Grandin would enter the case. No.

  “Undoubtlessly the murder of the poor young clergyman was another link in this sinister chain. He labored lovingly among his dusky flock; they loved him. More, they trusted him. Beyond question some of them had heard the voodoo hell-broth brewing in their midst and had consulted him. He knew too much. He is dead.

  “Alors—”

  The sharp, cachinnating chatter of the telephone bell cut through his low, earnest words. “Allo?” he called irritably, snatching up the instrument. “Ah, Sergeant, yes. What? Do you say it? But certainly; right away; immediately; at once.

  “Friend Trowbridge,” he turned to me, his eyes flashing with anticipation, “it has come. That was the good Costello. He asks that we go to him at once.”

  “What did he say?” I asked.

  “‘Dr. de Grandin, sor,’” the little Frenchman’s imitation of the big Irishman’s excited brogue was a masterpiece of mimicry, “hell’s broke loose over in Paradise Street. Th’ blacks are shootin’ th’ night full o’ holes an’ two o’ me men is hit hard, a’ready. We’re nadin’ a couple good doctors in a hurry, an’ we ’specially nade a fela as can be handy wid the guns. Come a’runnin’, sor, if yo’ plaze.”

  4

  GREATLY TO MY RELIEF, there was no longer need of “a felly who could be handy wid th’ guns” when we arrived at that dingy thoroughfare ironically labeled Paradise Street by the city fathers. Reserves from half a dozen precincts and police headquarters, armed with riot paraphernalia had drawn a cordon round the affected area, and riot guns, tear-gas bombs and automatic rifles had cowed the recalcitrant blacks by the time I drew up at the outer of line of policemen and made our errand known. De Grandin was furious as a hen under a hydrant when he saw the last patrol wagon of arrested rioters drive off. With a pair of heavy French army revolvers bolstered to the cartridge belts which crossed his womanishly narrow waist, he marched and countermarched along the sidewalk, glaring into the darkness as though challenging some disturber of the peace to try conclusions with him.

  “Dam’ funny thing, this,” Costello remarked as he joined us. “I know these here boys, an’, speakin’ generally, they’re an orderly enough lot o’ fellies. ’Course, they shoot craps now an’ agin, an’ git filled up wid gin an’ go off on a rampage, ’specially of a Saturday night; but they ain’t never give us no serious trouble before.

  “Tonight, though, they just broke out like a rash. Kelley, from Number Four, wuz poundin’ his beat down the lower part o’ th’ street, when be noticed a strange smoke sort o’ scuttlin’ down th’ walk, an’ not likin’ th’ felly’s looks, started after ’im. Ye know how it is, Dr. de Grandin, for ye’ve mingled wid th’ Paris police yerself. It’s just natural for boys, dogs an’ policemen to chase anything that runs from ’em, so when this here dinge started to run, so did Kelley.

  “Th’ felly slips into a doorway, wid Kelley
right behind him, when zingo! there comes a charge o’ buckshot an’ Kelley goes down wid enough lead in ’im to sink a ship.

  “He sounds his whistle before he goes out, though, an’ a couple o’ th’ boys come a-runnin’, an’ I’m damned if th’ whole street ain’t full o’ bullets in less time than ye can rightly say, ‘Jack Robinson,’ sor. Th’ riot call goes out, an’ we wound ’em up in pretty good shape, but three o’ th’ boys is hit bad, Kelley especially. He’ll not pound a beat for many a long day, I’m thinkin’.”

  “H’m,” de Grandin took his narrow chin between his thumb and forefinger and gazed thoughtfully at the snow-covered pavement, “did Monsieur Kelley, by any happy chance, describe the man he pursued before he was so villainously assaulted?”

  “Only partly, sor. ’Twas a shortish sort o’ felly, wid extra-ordinary long arms, accordin’ to Kelley, an’—

  ”A thousand maledictions! I did know it!” de Grandin shouted. “It is the ape-man, Friend Trowbridge; the one who slew Mademoiselle Adelaide, and poor Lucas, the watchman; undoubtlessly the one who killed the clergyman, as well. Nom d’un chameau, we must find him! He and his twenty-times accursed dam are the keys of this whole so odious business or Jules de Grandin is a perjured liar!”

  “WOULD YE BE AFTER givin’ me an’ a couple o’ th’ boys a lift, Dr. Trowbridge, sor?” Costello asked as de Grandin and I prepared to depart. “Th’ doin’s here is about over; an’ I’d like to git back an’ report before I hit th’ hay.”

  With Costello behind me, and two uniformed men standing on the running board, I set out for police headquarters, choosing the wide, unfrequented roadway of Tuscarora Avenue in preference to the busier thoroughfares. Although it was not late the darkened avenue had a curiously deserted aspect as I drove slowly beneath the bare-limbed trees, and the sudden appearance of a hatless man, waving his arms excitedly, stung my startled nerves almost like the detonation of a shot in the quiet night.

  “Police!” the stranger cried. “Is that a police car?”

  “Well, sor, it is an’ it ain’t,” Costello responded, “There’s a load o’ bulls ridin’ in it; but ye couldn’t rightly call it a departmental vehicle. What’s on yer mind? I see yer hat ain’t.”

  “My daughter,” the other answered, almost sobbing, “My daughter Marrien—she’s disappeared!”

  “Ouch, has she now?” the detective soothed. “Sure, that’s too bad. How long’s she been gone—a week maybe?”

  “No—no; now, just a few minutes ago!”

  “Arrah, sor, how d’ye know she ain’t gone to th’ movies, or visitin’ a friend, or sumpin’? Don’t ye go gittin’—”

  “Be quiet!” the distraught man cut in. “I’m Josephus Thorndyke; I think you know me; by name, at least.”

  We did. Everybody knew the president of the First National Bank of Harrisonville and director of half the city’s financial enterprises. Costello’s bantering manner dropped from him like a cloak as he jumped from the car. “Tell us about it, sor,” he urged deferentially.

  “She was complaining of a headache,” Thorndyke replied, “and went to her room half an hour or so ago. I went up to ask if I could do anything, and found her door locked. She never did that—never. I knocked and got no answer. I went away, but came back in ten minutes and found her door still locked, though the light was burning. I had a pass the key, and when I couldn’t get an answer I let myself in. Before I could unlock the door, I had to push key out; her door was locked on the inside—get that.”

  “I’m listenin’,” Costello assured him. “Go on, sor.”

  “Her room was empty. She’d undressed, but hadn’t changed her clothes—the window was open, and her room was empty. I ran down the back stairs and asked the cook, who’d been in the kitchen all the time, if Miss Marrien had gone through. She hadn’t. Then I ran outside and looked on the ground, fearing she might have been seized with faintness and fallen from the window. It’s a thirty-foot drop to the ground, and if she’d fallen she’d have been killed or so badly injured that she couldn’t have moved, but there was no sign of her outside. I know she didn’t come down the front stairs, for I was reading in the hall, and I’ve searched the house from top to bottom; but she’s not there. There’s not a piece of her clothing missing; but she’s gone—vanished!”

  “U’m, an’ did ye call th’ precinct, sor?”

  “Yes, yes; they told me all the men were out on riot duty, and they’d send someone over in the morning. In the morning! Good God! Do you realize my child’s gone—faded into the night, apparently? And they talk of sending someone round tomorrow!”

  “Sure, it’s lucky ye saw us when ye did,” Costello muttered. Then: “This is right in your line, Dr. de Grandin; will ye be after goin’ in wid me an’ takin’ a look around?”

  “Assuredly, by all means, yes,” the Frenchman agreed. “Lead on, my old one; I follow close behind.”

  THE TALL, HATCHET-FACED MAN with the mane of iron-gray hair who had accosted us seemed to take a fresh grip on his self-control as he led the way toward the house. “It may seem queer that I should be so positive about my daughter’s not having changed her clothes,” he suggested as we filed up the path toward the oblong of orange light which marked the mansion’s open door, “but the fact is Marrien and I are nearer to each other than the average father and daughter. Her mother died when she was a wee baby—only three years old—and I’ve tried to be both father and mother to her since. There isn’t a dress or hat, hardly a pair of gloves or hose, in her whole wardrobe that I don’t know by sight, for she consulted me before buying anything. I’ve studied women’s magazines and fashion books and even trailed round to dressmakers salons with her in order to keep posted on such things and be able to discuss clothes intelligently with her. She’s the speaking image of her sainted mother when I married her thirty years ago, and—she’s all I’ve got to love in the world; all I have to think of or live for!

  “Now you understand,” he added simply, as he led us to the white-enameled door of a spacious bedroom on the second floor and stood courteously aside to let us enter.

  We glanced quickly about the apartment. The scent of gardenias lay heavy in the air; a crimson Spanish shawl, embroidered in brilliant silk, which trailed across the back of a carved Italian chair, was redolent with the perfume. A cheval-glass in a gilded frame reflected the ivory walls and the ormolu dressing-table set with ivory and gold toilet articles. Above the ivory-tiled fireplace where piled beech logs snapped and crackled cheerfully on polished brass firedogs, there hung a magnificent life-sized copy of Rossetti’s Beata Beatrix, the closed eyes and parted, yearning lips of the figure suggesting, somehow, the motherless girl’s vague, half-understood longings. On the bed’s white counterpane lay a long-skirted evening gown of rose tulle and satin; a pair of tiny silver-kid sandals lay beneath an ivory slipper chair, one standing on its sole, the other lying on its side, as though discarded in extremist haste. A pair of moonlight-gray gossamer silk stockings lay crumpled wrong side out beside the shoes. It was a lovely, girl-woman’s room, as expressive of its owner as a Sargent portrait; but empty now, and desolate as a body from which the soul has fled.

  Unconsciously, instinctively, de Grandin bowed quickly from the hips in his quaint foreign manner as he entered this atmosphere supercharged with femininity; then, with Gallic practicality, he began a swift appraisal of the place.

  The window was open a few inches from the bottom—a cat would have had difficulty in creeping through the opening—and, as Thorndyke had told us, there was no other exit from the room, save the door by which we entered, for the adjoining bath was without window, light and air coming from a skylight with adjustable sideslats that pierced the ceiling. “U’m; you are positive the door was locked on the inside when you made entrance, Monsieur?” de Grandin asked turning to the distraught father.

  “Of course I am. I had to push the key—”

  “Be gob, there’s a drain-pipe runnin’ down th’ house widin thr
ee feet o’ th’ windy,” Costello interrupted, drawing back from his inspection of the outside walls, “but it’s crusted wid ice a quarter-inch thick. ’Twould take a sailor to slip down it an’ a gorilla or sumpin’ to climb it, I’m thinkin’.”

  “Ha?” de Grandin paused in his stride across the room and joined the detective at the window. “Let me see—quickly. Yes, you have right, my friend; the most athletic of young women could not have negotiated that descent. Yet—” He paused in silent thought a moment, then shrugged his shoulders impatiently. “Let us proceed,” he ordered.

  We searched the house from cellar to ridgepole, questioned the servants, confirmed Thorndyke’s assertion that the back stairs could not be descended without the user being seen from the kitchen. At length, with such lame assurances as we could give the prostrated father, we prepared to leave.

  “You have, perhaps, a picture of Mademoiselle Marrien for the Sûreté’s information?” de Grandin asked as we paused by the drawing-room door.

  “Yes; here’s one,” Thorndyke replied, taking a silver-framed portrait from a console table and extending it to the Frenchman. “Be careful of it; it’s the only—”

  “A-a-ah?” the sharp, rising note of de Grandin’s exclamation cut short the caution.

  “Good heavens!” I ejaculated.

  “Mother o’ Moses; would ye look a’ that?” Costello added.

  As mirrored likeness counterfeits the beholder, or twin resembles twin, the photograph of Marrien Thorndyke simulated the fine-cup, delicate features of Adelaide Truman, whose tragic death we had witnessed not twenty-four hours earlier.