Chapter II: Part 2

He then asked: “How does it happen that the kidnappers have a house like this?”

“This house belongs to a wealthy family named Carriello. They are traveling in Europe, and have left the house in charge of an Italian and his wife.”

“The woman Teresa?”

“Yes. The two are black-handers, and their gang figured that the police would never suspect that I might be hidden in such a place.”

Suddenly the lights flashed out. The fuse was repaired at last. The kidnappers would be at the door in a few moments!

Carlson gripped Tony’s automatic a little harder, and his left hand fell almost involuntarily on the girl’s shoulder. They waited thus, tensely, hardly breathing, and with quickened heart-beats, until they heard footsteps hurrying up the stairs. Then Carlson drew a deep breath, and whispered:

“They are coming now—but don’t be afraid.”

She said nothing, but raised both her hands and clasped them over his for a moment.

He stepped softly into the darkened bedroom, just as a key turned in the lock. The knob was turned, the door tried—then shaken. There was a short silence. Then, from the “boss:”

“Open the door, you fool!”

Carlson was silent.

“Tony!”

Silence.

“Tony! What the hell’s the matter with you?”

Silence.

A whispered consultation outside the door. Then:

“Tony! Doctor! Open that door or, by God! I’ll——”

More whispering, then a short silence.

“Doctor!”

Silence.

Whispering again; then footsteps running down the stairs; then another and longer silence. Carlson put his ear as near as he could to the door. Soon he heard the footsteps returning, but they stopped at the second floor. A voice called faintly from below:

“I can’t find anything but a hatchet.”

Smothered cursing told that the “boss” was still on the other side of the door. Then he also seemed to run down stairs. Presently Carlson heard hammering or pounding, far below, and at last a crushing and crumbling sound, as if something heavy had given way. _What_ were the scoundrels doing?

Then footsteps again, coming up the stairs, but more slowly this time. And as they came, there was an occasional bumping sound, as if they were carrying some bulky object which now and then struck the walls or stairs.

When they were opposite the door, something heavy hit the floor. Then, once more, the sullen voice of the “boss.”

“Listen, Doc! I don’t know what you’ve done to Tony, and what’s more I don’t give a damn, if you open the door now.”

Silence. Carlson thought he could hear their heavy breathing. As a psychologist he knew that his own silence, and that of Tony, had a horror about it that was telling severely, even on their hardened nerves.

“This is your last chance, Doc! If you open the door now, you can go, and take your fee, and be damned. But if you won’t open, I’m going to break down the door, and then—you’ll leave here in a coupla suit cases. Do you get me?”

Silence! After about a quarter of a minute, the “boss” said:

“Now then! All together!”

Carlson braced himself. But suddenly the woman screamed, “Stop!”

“Shut up! You—”

“I won’t. Listen!” And though she spoke lower, Carlson could hear her say something about the doctor and Tony’s pistol!

“I know that,” muttered the man, “but we’ve got to risk it!”

Another voice, Carlson thought that of the man who sat beside him in the auto, half whispered:

“Wait, Boss! I don’t like this! What did the doc do to big Tony? I wouldn’t go into that room again if you killed me! I’ve lost my nerve, let’s chuck this job and make a getaway!”

“No, I won’t! and none of you won’t by God! We’ve gone too far to go back. We’ll win together, or go to the Chair together! I’ll shoot the first—”

“But—”

“Take that, will you, and shut up!” a blow, a fall, and a groan, as if from the level of the floor.

A few seconds of dead silence, then the voice of the “boss”:

“Now, get together and smash that door!”

More shuffling of feet and the dragging of something heavy, then the muffled voice of the woman:

“Maybe he found the phone—”

“Quick! Bust in that door!”

Carlson held his breath.

_CRASH!_

A terrific blow, as of from a battering ram, shook and shivered the strong oak door. But door and bolt still held. Carlson knew from the impact of the blow that some ponderous solid object had been driven against the door. And he know also that a few more such blows would shatter it, leaving only the bed and an overturned chiffonier and Tony’s body as a barricade.

So he quickly began dragging more chairs, tables and what not into the small dressing-room.

_CRASH!_ The door fell inward against the head of the massive bed.

Carlson dragged a davenport into the little room, and then closed its door, locking and bolting it.

_CRASH!_

The devastating sound that followed told that the heavy overhanging canopy of the bed had fallen inward. Carlson kept steadily working away barricading the second door.

“Thank God _this_ door opens outward!” he said to Ina. She was still at her post at the telephone.

“Hello!” she said calmly. “They have just smashed in the outer door and are climbing in over the ruins of the bed and furniture. We have retreated into a smaller room, and the doctor is piling furniture against it—” She looked at Carlson.

“The police want to know how long we can hold out!”

“Perhaps another five minutes.”

“Five minutes more—what?... O, I hope so!”

_CRASH!_ This time on the inner door. It held perfectly!

“They are attacking our inner door, Inspector—you heard it?”

_CRASH!_ A panel cracked, all the way down.

_CRASH!_ The panel flew in splinters. One splinter struck the girl in the face, making a small wound on the forehead, and blood trickled down into her eyes, but she did nothing more than to wipe it off with the back of her right hand.

Carlson readjusted the shifting barricade, and glanced at Ina.

“You are hurt!”

“It’s nothing.”

“Into the bathroom, quickly!”

_CRASH!_ Another panel cracked!

She got up calmly, and wiped the blood out of her eyes again with the handkerchief Carlson pressed against her face; then, his arm around her, she walked into the bathroom.

Carlson forced Ina into a chair and knelt beside her, indifferent to everything now but the bleeding cut on her face.

“Let me look at it!”

“It’s nothing at all, I tell you! Go back and attend to the door. We must barricade ourselves in here in another minute.”

_CRASH!_ The center of the door fell inward against the barricade. As Carlson ran to pick up a heavy chair for the bathroom defense, a hand and pistol came through the breach in the door and a shot rang out. He felt a stinging pain in his side, but kept on with his work. Before he realized it, Ina was in the room again, dragging another chair into the bathroom.

The barricade crumbled still more, and another shot was aimed at Carlson, but did not hit him. Ina deliberately crossed the little room to the telephone and turned off the light.

“They won’t shoot _me_—not yet, anyway,” she said.

The barricade fell to pieces. There was not a moment to lose. Carlson and Ina rushed into the bathroom and locked and bolted the door and began stacking the chairs and tables and one small chiffonier against the door.

Carlson felt blood soaking his clothing. He and Ina crouched together in one corner. He held Tony’s pistol in his right hand, and both of Ina’s hands in his left.

“Listen, Ina! When they force this door, I will try to pick them off one by one. If I fall, be ready to snatch the pistol and shoot carefully. Don’t waste a shot! The police should be here any moment.”

_CRASH!_ The lock and bolt snapped, and the door itself was pressed inward several inches, but rebounded by the pressure of the barricade.

_CRASH!_ This time the door yielded more than a foot, and in the opening Carlson could see a man’s form. He fired, and a shriek followed. Four or five shots were aimed at Carlson, but did not reach him in his protected corner angle. Suddenly a voice yelled from the outer room:

“The Cops! They’re around the house!”

“Damnation! Get the Girl, at all costs!”

When the next rush brought a man into view Carlson fired, and he knew by the scream that he had hit once more. The pistol dropped from his hand, and his body swayed. But the girl realized everything in an instant. Quick as thought she snatched up the pistol with her right hand as she knelt beside him, and her other arm went around him.

At that instant a perfect fusillade of shooting sounded from the outer room, followed by screams, yelling and groaning. Then a masked man with a pistol in his hand bounded wildly into the half-opened door of the bathroom. But Ina fired from their darkened corner before he saw them, and he fell backward among the debris.

Carlson felt everything growing dark.

“Ina?”

“Yes, dear; we’ve won the fight!”

His head sank against her breast, just as two policemen appeared in the doorway.

She dropped the pistol and put both arms about him.

_VI_

“Miss Holden?” asked one of the officers, turning his bull’s-eye lantern on them.

She did not answer, but looked long and tensely at Carlson’s white unconscious face. Then she pressed a kiss on his forehead.

“He saved me!” she said, looking up at the officers. “I owe everything to him. Please send for a surgeon and have him taken to my home immediately.”

“The police surgeon will be here in a moment, Miss Holden. Let us take him into another room.”

As they took him from her arms they saw that her garment was soaked with his blood.

“Who is he?” asked the lieutenant.

“I don’t know. He was brought here by the kidnappers when I seemed to be very sick. We had no time for anything but defense.”

The lieutenant took off his overcoat and placed it over Ina’s shoulders, and then they both followed the two officers who carried the unconscious Carlson out through the wreck of the dressing-room and larger bedroom.

And what a scene of ruin and blood! They had to pick their way through masses of broken furniture. One masked dead man lay just outside the bathroom—the man Ina had shot. Another man, his mask torn off, sat propped up against an overturned chiffonier on the floor of the large bedroom. He was groaning and trying to wring his manacled hands, as two officers knelt beside him and searched his pockets.

The mammoth carcass of Tony lay where Carlson and Ina had first dragged it, but it was now half covered by the mattress and debris of the bed. At least a dozen policemen in the rooms. The woman Teresa stood sniveling in a corner, unmasked and handcuffed.

But there was a sudden silence as Ina Holden appeared, her face bloody, her feet bare, and her form covered by the officer’s overcoat. All eyes were fixed on the girl, whose name and picture had been in every newspaper from Maine to California for the last five days.

They carried Carlson through the devastated rooms, into another room and laid him on a bed. The police surgeon arrived at almost the same moment. After a glance at the unconscious man on the bed, the surgeon said:

“But where is the _girl_?”

“I am Ina Holden,” she said quickly, “but never mind _me_. Look at _him_!”

“Who is he?”

“The man who saved me. They shot him just before the police came.”

The surgeon quickly tore open the blood-soaked shirt and found the bullet wound in the right side. He listened a moment to his heart; then looked up gravely.

“Very serious! There seems to be severe hemorrhage into the pleura. He must be rushed to the nearest hospital for immediate operation.”

“Doctor,” asked Ina, with shaking voice. “Is he—will he recover?”

“I am sorry to say, Miss Holden, the chances are against him. Quick, boys! The stretcher. One of you telephone Mercy Hospital to have the operating-room ready.”

And then another man burst like a whirlwind into the room—a large, bearded man of about fifty—a man of commanding presence, before whom everyone made way.

“Ina!—my Girl!—”

Slowly Ina turned her eyes from Carlson and looked at her father. Then she stood up and held out her arms, and was gathered into his embrace.

“Father, dear!” she panted, as soon as his joyful greetings would allow; “Listen! I am all right. But that man lying there saved my life. If he had not come—”

“Yes, my girl! Go on!”

“He was shot defending me before the police could get here. And now—he may be—_dying_!—” Her voice broke.

Two men entered with a stretcher, just as the surgeon gave Carlson a hypodermic of some powerful heart stimulant. Deftly they moved him from bed to stretcher. Mr. Holden drew the surgeon aside and they exchanged a few earnest words.

“We’ll do our best, sir, that’s all I can say. Good night, sir! Good night, Miss Holden!” He hurried down stairs after the stretcher.

“Where’s the telephone?” said Holden.

Ina took him to it, and then he called the hospital and several famous surgeons, telling them that the man who had saved his daughter must be saved! _Must be saved!_

“What is it, Lieutenant?”

“I have found his name, sir. It’s on his surgical bag. He is Dr. Herbert Carlson of New York.”

“Thank you very much! Please find his ’phone number and I will call his wife and tell her what we are doing for him.”

As her father was calling Carlson’s telephone number, Ina listened with strained attention. His _wife_! Somehow, it had never occurred to her that he might be married!

“Hello! Is this Dr. Carlson’s residence?... Yes, yes, I know he’s not there now. May I speak with his wife?... What’s that?... _Not_ married?... O, I beg your pardon! His sister?—yourself? Thank you! Now listen to me, please!...”

Ina did not try to analyze her feelings when her father’s words at the telephone seemed to prove that Carlson was unmarried. But then she suddenly remembered, as with a stab at her heart, what the police surgeon had said! Yes: As her father had ordered, He _must_ be saved! Nothing else mattered!

At 2:53 A. M. the telephone at the Holden residence rang for at least the hundredth time that fateful night. The butler had instructions not to call Mr. Holden except for communications from the police or the hospital. Ina and her mother, in Ina’s bedroom, heard the muffled buzzer in the study below, and looked at each other anxiously. Ina snatched up the extension receiver at her bedside and listened.

“Hospital speaking. I have a message for Mr. Holden.”

It was the second message from the hospital. The first had told the hopeful news that Dr. Carlson had been successfully operated on, that hemorrhage had been checked, and that his heart had responded to stimulants. Mr. Holden, at his desk, lifted the receiver.

“Mr. Holden speaking. Quick! What’s your message?”

“Dr. Carlson slept until five minutes ago. Then he woke up suddenly and asked: ‘Is Ina all right?’ We told him that Miss Holden was safe at home, and he said: ‘Thank God!’ and went to sleep again.”

Thrillers Make Audiences Warm

It has been discovered that thrilling mystery or “spook” plays, of which there have been an unusual number lately, have a tendency to increase the temperature of those who witness them. Prof. Edward F. Miller of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology conducted a number of tests among various audiences and found this to be true. His assertions were substantiated by Chicago theatre managers, one of whom said:

“The excitement created by mystery plays starts the blood to circulating so quickly that heightened temperature is the result. I notice that the theatre warms up at the end of the first act, when the play is an exciting one. We have to watch the temperature of our theatres more closely when a play, that is exciting or has a great emotional appeal is being given.”

The owner of a motion picture theatre disagreed with this, but said that a comedy film always means a rising temperature.

“Five minutes of laughing,” he said, “will send the thermometer up, unless provision is made to keep the temperature the same. The reactions of each audience are identical, and we know when an audience is going to laugh more than usual, and so I push the button on the thermostat that throws in more cool, washed air, and the audience does not feel the effect of the heat-producing laughter. Normally, there is a complete change of air every three minutes, but when the piece is particularly funny it is changed oftener. There is real activity when the theatre patron laughs, but when other emotions are aroused he sits quietly, and no excess energy is created.”

_Creeping Horror Lurked_

Beyond the Door

An Unusual Story

By PAUL SUTER

“You haven’t told me yet how it happened,” I said to Mrs. Malkin.

She set her lips and eyed me, sharply.

“Didn’t you talk with the coroner, sir?”

“Yes, of course,” I admitted; “but as I understand you found my uncle, I thought——”

“Well, I wouldn’t care to say anything about it,” she interrupted, with decision.

This housekeeper of my uncle’s was somewhat taller than I, and much heavier—two physical preponderances which afford any woman possessing them an advantage over the inferior male. She appeared a subject for diplomacy rather than argument.

Noting her ample jaw, her breadth of cheek, the unsentimental glint of her eye, I decided on conciliation. I placed a chair for her, there in my Uncle Godfrey’s study, and dropped into another, myself.

“At least, before we go over the other parts of the house, suppose we rest a little,” I suggested, in my most unctuous manner. “The place rather gets on one’s nerves—don’t you think so?”

It was sheer luck—I claim no credit for it. My chance reflection found the weak spot in her fortifications. She replied to it with an undoubted smack of satisfaction:

“It’s more than seven years that I’ve been doing for Mr. Sarston, sir: Bringing him his meals regular as clockwork, keeping the house clean—as clean as he’d let me—and sleeping at my own home, o’ nights; and in all that time I’ve said, over and over, there ain’t a house in New York the equal of this for queerness.”

“Nor anywhere else,” I encouraged her, with a laugh; and her confidences opened another notch:

“You’re likely right in that, too, sir. As I’ve said to poor Mr. Sarston, many a time, ‘It’s all well enough,’ says I, ‘to have bugs for a hobby. You can afford it; and being a bachelor and by yourself, you don’t have to consider other people’s likes and dislikes. And it’s all well enough if you want to,’ says I, ‘to keep thousands and thousands o’ them in cabinets, all over the place, the way you do. But when it comes to pinnin’ them on the walls in regular armies,’ I says, ‘and on the ceiling of your own study; and even on different parts of the furniture, so that a body don’t know what awful thing she’s agoin’ to find under her hand of a sudden when she does the dusting; why, then,’ I says to him, ‘it’s drivin’ a decent woman too far.’”

“And did he never try to reform his ways when you told him that?” I asked, smiling.

“To be frank with you, Mr. Robinson, when I talked like that to him, he generally raised my pay. And what was a body to do then?”

“I can’t see how Lucy Lawton stood the place as long as she did,” I observed, watching Mrs. Malkin’s red face very closely.

She swallowed the bait, and leaned forward, hands on knees.

“Poor girl, it got on her nerves. But she was the quiet kind. You never saw her, sir?”

I shook my head.

“One of them slim, faded girls, with light hair, and hardly a word to say for herself. I don’t believe she got to know the next-door neighbor in the whole year she lived with your uncle. She was an orphan, wasn’t she, sir?”

“Yes,” I said. “Godfrey Sarston and I were her only living relatives. That was why she came from Australia to stay with him, after her father’s death.”

Mrs. Malkin nodded. I was hoping that, by putting a check on my eagerness, I could lead her on to a number of things I greatly desired to know. Up to the time I had induced the housekeeper to show me through this strange house of my Uncle Godfrey’s, the whole affair had been a mystery of lips which closed and faces which were averted at my approach. Even the coroner seemed unwilling to tell me just how my uncle had died.

* * * * *

“Did you understand she was going to live with him, sir?” asked Mrs. Malkin, looking hard at me.

I confined myself to a nod.

“Well, so did I. Yet, after a year, back she went.”

“She went suddenly?” I suggested.

“So suddenly that I never knew a thing about it till after she was gone. I came to do my chores one day, and she was here. I came the next, and she had started back to Australia. That’s how sudden she went.”

“They must have had a falling-out,” I conjectured. “I suppose it was because of the house.”

“Maybe it was and maybe it wasn’t.”

“You know of other reasons?”

“I have eyes in my head,” she said. “But I’m not going to talk about it. Shall we be getting on now, sir?”

I tried another lead:

“I hadn’t seen my uncle in five years, you know. He seemed terribly changed. He was not an old man, by any means, yet when I saw him at the funeral—” I paused, expectantly.

To my relief, she responded readily:

“He looked that way for the last few months, especially the last week. I spoke to him about it, two days before—before it happened, sir—and told him he’d do well to see the doctor again. But he cut me off short. My sister took sick the same day, and I was called out of town. The next time I saw him, he was—”

She paused, and then went on, sobbing:

“To think of him lyin’ there in that awful place, and callin’ and callin’ for me, as I know he must, and me not around to hear him!”

As she stopped again, suddenly, and threw a suspicious glance at me, I hastened to insert a matter-of-fact question:

“Did he appear ill on that last day?”

“Not so much ill, as——”

“Yes?” I prompted.

She was silent a long time, while I waited, afraid that some word of mine had brought back her former attitude of hostility. Then she seemed to make up her mind.

“I oughtn’t to say another word. I’ve said too much, already. But you’ve been liberal with me, sir, and I know somethin’ you’ve a right to be told, which I’m thinkin’ no one else is agoin’ to tell you. Look at the bottom of his study door a minute, sir.”

I followed her direction. What I saw led me to drop to my hands and knees, the better to examine it.

“Why should he put a rubber strip on the bottom of his door?” I asked, getting up.

She replied with another enigmatical suggestion:

“Look at these, if you will, sir. You’ll remember that he slept in this study. That was his bed, over there in the alcove.”

“Bolts!” I exclaimed. And I reinforced sight with touch by shooting one of them back and forth a few times. “Double bolts on the inside of his bedroom door! An upstairs room, at that. What was the idea?”

Mrs. Malkin portentously shook her head and sighed, as one unburdening her mind.

“Only this can I say, sir: He was afraid of something—_terribly_ afraid, sir. Something that came in the night.”

“What was it?” I demanded.

“I don’t know, sir.”

“It was in the night that—it happened?” I asked.

She nodded; then, as if the prologue were over, as if she had prepared my mind sufficiently, she produced something from under her apron. She must have been holding it there all the time.

“It’s his diary, sir. It was lying here on the floor. I saved it for you, before the police could get their hands on it.”

I opened the little book. One of the sheets near the back was crumpled, and I glanced at it, idly. What I read there impelled me to slap the covers shut again.

“Did you read this?” I demanded.

She met my gaze, frankly.

“I looked into it, sir, just as you did—only just _looked_ into it. Not for worlds would I do even that again!”

“I noticed some reference here to a slab in the cellar. What slab is that?”

“It covers an old, dried-up well, sir.”

“Will you show it to me?”

“You can find it for yourself, sir, if you wish. I’m not goin’ down there,” she said, decidedly.

“Ah, well, I’ve seen enough for today,” I told her. “I’ll take the diary back to my hotel and read it.”

* * * * *

I did not return to my hotel, however. In my one brief glance into the little book, I had seen something which had bitten into my soul; only a few words, but they had brought me very near to that queer, solitary man who had been my uncle.

I dismissed Mrs. Malkin, and remained in the study. There was the fitting place to read the diary he had left behind him.

His personality lingered like a vapor in that study. I settled into his deep morris chair, and turned it to catch the light from the single, narrow window—the light, doubtless, by which he had written much of his work on entomology.

That same struggling illumination played shadowy tricks with hosts of wall-crucified insects, which seemed engaged in a united effort to crawl upward in sinuous lines. Some of their number, impaled to the ceiling itself, peered quiveringly down on the aspiring multitude. The whole house, with its crisp dead, rustling in any vagrant breeze, brought back to my mind the hand that had pinned them, one by one, on wall and ceiling and furniture. A kindly hand, I reflected, though eccentric; one not to be turned aside from its single hobby.

When quiet, peering Uncle Godfrey went, there passed out another of those scientific enthusiasts, whose passion for exact truth in some one direction has extended the bounds of human knowledge. Could not his unquestioned merits have been balanced against his sin? Was it necessary to even-handed justice that he die face-to-face with Horror, struggling with the thing he most feared? I ponder the question still, though his body—strangely bruised—has been long at rest.

The entries in the little book began with the fifteenth of June. Everything before that date had been torn out. There, in the room where it had been written, I read my Uncle Godfrey’s diary.

“It is done. I am trembling so that the words will hardly form
under my pen, but my mind is collected. My course was for the
best. Suppose I had married her? She would have been unwilling
to live in this house. At the outset, her wishes would have
come between me and my work, and that would have been only the
beginning.

“As a married man, I could not have concentrated properly,
I could not have surrounded myself with the atmosphere
indispensable to the writing of my book. My scientific message
would never have been delivered. As it is, though my heart is
sore, I shall stifle these memories in work.

“I wish I had been more gentle with her, especially when she
sank to her knees before me, tonight. She kissed my hand. I
should not have repulsed her so roughly. In particular, my
words could have been better chosen. I said to her, bitterly:
‘Get up, and don’t nuzzle my hand like a dog.’ She rose,
without a word, and left me. How was I to know that, within an
hour——

“I am largely to blame. Yet, had I taken any other course
afterward than the one I did, the authorities would have
misunderstood.”

Again, there followed a space from which the sheets had been torn; but from the sixteenth of July, all the pages were intact. Something had come over the writing, too. It was still precise and clear—my Uncle Godfrey’s characteristic hand—but the letters were less firm. As the entries approached the end, this difference became still more marked.

Here follows, then, the whole of his story; or as much of it as will ever be known. I shall let his words speak for him, without further interruption:

“My nerves are becoming more seriously affected. If certain
annoyances do not shortly cease, I shall be obliged to procure
medical advice. To be more specific, I find myself, at times,
obsessed by an almost uncontrollable desire to descend to the
cellar and lift the slab over the old well.

“I never have yielded to the impulse, but it has persisted
for minutes together with such intensity that I have had to
put work aside, and literally hold myself down in my chair.
This insane desire comes only in the dead of night, when its
disquieting effect is heightened by the various noises peculiar
to house.

“For instance, there often is a draft of air along the
hallways, which causes a rustling among the specimens impaled
on the walls. Lately, too, there have been other nocturnal
sounds, strongly suggestive of the busy clamor of rats and
mice. This calls for investigation. I have been at considerable
expense to make the house proof against rodents, which might
destroy some of my best specimens. If some structural defect
has opened a way for them, the situation must be corrected at
once.”

“July 17th. The foundations and cellar were examined today by a
workman. He states positively that there is no place of ingress
for rodents. He contented himself with looking at the slab over
the old well, without lifting it.”

“July 19th. While I was sitting in this chair, late last night,
writing, the impulse to descend to the cellar suddenly came
upon me with tremendous insistence. I yielded—which, perhaps,
was as well. For at least I satisfied myself that the disquiet
which possesses me has no external cause.

“The long journey through the hallways was difficult. Several
times, I was keenly aware of the same sounds (perhaps I should
say, the same IMPRESSIONS of sounds) that I had erroneously
laid to rats. I am convinced now that they are mere symptoms
of my nervous condition. Further indications of this came in
the fact that, as I opened the cellar door, the small noises
abruptly ceased. There was no final scamper of tiny footfalls
to suggest rats disturbed at their occupations.

“Indeed, I was conscious of a certain impression of expectant
silence—as if the thing behind the noises, whatever it was, had
paused to watch me enter its domain. Throughout my time in
the cellar, I seemed surrounded by this same atmosphere. Sheer
‘nerves,’ of course.

“In the main, I held myself well under control. As I was about
to leave the cellar, however, I unguardedly glanced back over
my shoulder at the stone slab covering the old well. At that, a
violent tremor came over me, and, losing all command, I rushed
back up the cellar stairs, thence to this study. My nerves are
playing me sorry tricks.”

“July 30th. For more than a week, all has been well. The tone
of my nerves seems distinctly better. Mrs. Malkin, who has
remarked several times lately upon my paleness, expressed the
conviction this afternoon that I am nearly my old self again.
This is encouraging. I was beginning to fear that the severe
strain of the past few months had left an indelible mark upon
me. With continued health, I shall be able to finish my book by
spring.”

“July 31st. Mrs. Malkin remained rather late tonight in
connection with some item of housework, and it was quite dark
when I returned to my study from bolting the street door after
her. The blackness of the upper hall, which the former owner
of the house inexplicably failed to wire for electricity, was
profound. As I came to the top of the second flight of stairs,
something clutched at my foot, and, for an instant, almost
pulled me back. I freed myself and ran to the study.”

“August 3rd. Again the awful insistence. I sit here, with this
diary upon my knee, and it seems that fingers of iron are
tearing at me. I WILL NOT go! My nerves may be utterly unstrung
again (I fear they are), but I am still their master.”

“August 4th. I did not yield, last night. After a bitter
struggle, which must have lasted nearly an hour, the desire to
go to the cellar suddenly departed. I must not give in at any
time.”

“August 5th. Tonight, the rat noises (I shall call them that
for want of a more appropriate term) are very noticeable. I
went to the length of unbolting my door and stepping into the
hallway to listen. After a few minutes, I seemed to be aware of
something large and gray watching me from the darkness at the
end of the passage. This is a bizarre statement, of course, but
it exactly describes my impression. I withdrew hastily into the
study, and bolted the door.

“Now that my nervous condition is so palpably affecting the
optic nerve, I must not much longer delay seeing a specialist.
But—how much shall I tell him?”

“August 8th. Several times, tonight, while sitting here at my
work, I have seemed to hear soft footsteps in the passage.
‘Nerves’ again, of course, or else some new trick of the wind
among the specimens on the walls.”

“August 9th. By my watch it is four o’clock in the morning. My
mind is made up to record the experience I have passed through.
Calmness may come that way.

“Feeling rather fatigued last night, from the strain of a
weary day of research, I retired early. My sleep was more
refreshing than usual, as it is likely to be when one is
genuinely tired. I awakened, however (it must have been about
an hour ago), with a start of tremendous violence.

“There was moonlight in the room. My nerves were ‘on edge’,
but, for a moment, I saw nothing unusual. Then, glancing toward
the door, I perceived what appeared to be thin, white fingers,
thrust under it—exactly as if some one outside the door were
trying to attract my attention in that manner. I rose and
turned on the light, but the fingers were gone.

“Needless to say, I did not open the door. I write the
occurrence down, just as it took place, or as it seemed; but I
can not trust myself to comment upon it.”

“August 10th. Have fastened heavy rubber strips on the bottom
of my bedroom door.”

“August 15th. All quiet, for several nights. I am hoping that
the rubber strips, being something definite and tangible, have
had a salutary effect upon my nerves. Perhaps I shall not need
to see a doctor.”

“August 17th. Once more, I have been aroused from sleep. The
interruptions seem to come always at the same hour—about three
o’clock in the morning. I had been dreaming of the well in the
cellar—the same dream, over and over—everything black except
the slab, and a figure with bowed head and averted face sitting
there. Also, I had vague dreams about a dog. Can it be that my
last words to her have impressed that on my mind? I must pull
myself together. In particular, I must not, under any pressure,
yield, and visit the cellar after nightfall.”

“August 18th. Am feeling much more hopeful. Mrs. Malkin
remarked on it, while serving dinner. This improvement is due
largely to a consultation I have had with Dr. Sartwell, the
distinguished specialist in nervous diseases. I went into full
details with him, excepting certain reservations. He scouted
the idea that my experiences could be other than purely mental.

“When he recommended a change of scene (which I had been
expecting), I told him positively that it was out of the
question. He said then that, with the aid of a tonic and an
occasional sleeping draft, I am likely to progress well enough
at home. This is distinctly encouraging. I erred in not going
to him at the start. Without doubt, most, if not all, of my
hallucinations could have been averted.

“I have been suffering a needless penalty from my nerves for
an action I took solely in the interests of science. I have no
disposition to tolerate it further. From today, I shall report
regularly to Dr. Sartwell.”

“August 19th. Used the sleeping draft last night, with
gratifying results. The doctor says I must repeat the dose for
several nights, until my nerves are well under control again.”

“August 21st. All well. It seems that I have found the way
out—a very simple and prosaic way. I might have avoided much
needless annoyance by seeking expert advice at the beginning.
Before retiring, last night, I unbolted my study door and took
a turn up and down the passage. I felt no trepidation. The
place was as it used to be, before these fancies assailed me.
A visit to the cellar after nightfall will be the test for
my complete recovery, but I am not yet quite ready for that.
Patience!”

“August 22nd. I have just read yesterday’s entry, thinking to
steady myself. It is cheerful—almost gay; and there are other
entries like it in preceding pages. I am a mouse, in the grip
of a cat. Let me have freedom for ever so short a time, and I
begin to rejoice at my escape. Then the paw descends again.

“It is four in the morning—the usual hour. I retired rather
late, last night, after administering the draft. Instead of the
dreamless sleep, which heretofore has followed the use of the
drug, the slumber into which I fell was punctuated by recurrent
visions of the slab, with the bowed figure upon it. Also, I had
one poignant dream in which the dog was involved.

“At length, I awakened, and reached mechanically for the light
switch beside my bed. When my hand encountered nothing, I
suddenly realized the truth. I was standing in my study, with
my other hand upon the doorknob. It required only a moment, of
course, to find the light and switch it on. I saw then that the
bolt had been drawn back.

“The door was quite unlocked. My awakening must have
interrupted me in the very act of opening it. I could hear
something moving restlessly in the passage outside the door.”

“August 23rd. I must beware of sleeping at night. Without
confiding the fact to Dr. Sartwell, I have begun to take the
drug in the daytime. At first, Mrs. Malkin’s views on the
subject were pronounced, but my explanation of ‘doctor’s
orders’ has silenced her. I am awake for breakfast and supper,
and sleep in the hours between. She is leaving me, each
evening, a cold lunch to be eaten at midnight.”

“August 26th. Several times, I have caught myself nodding in my
chair. The last time, I am sure that, on arousing, I perceived
the rubber strip under the door bend inward, as if something
were pushing it from the other side. I must not, under any
circumstances, permit myself to fall asleep.”

“September 2nd. Mrs. Malkin is to be away, because of her
sister’s illness. I can not help dreading her absence. Though
she is here only in the daytime, even that companionship is
very welcome.”

“September 3rd. Let me put this into writing. The mere labor of
composition has a soothing influence upon me. God knows, I need
such an influence now, as never before!

“In spite of all my watchfulness, I feel asleep, tonight—across
my bed. I must have been utterly exhausted. The dream I had was
the one about the dog. I was patting the creature’s head, over
and over.

“I awoke, at least, to find myself in darkness, and in a
standing position. There was a suggestion of chill and
earthiness in the air. While I was drowsily trying to get my
bearings, I became aware that something was nuzzling my hand,
as a dog might do.

“Still saturated with my dream, I was not greatly astonished. I
extended my hand, to pat the dog’s head. That brought me to my
senses. I was standing in the cellar.

“THE THING BEFORE ME WAS NOT A DOG!

“I can not tell how I fled back up the cellar stairs. I know,
however, that, as I turned, the slab was visible, in spite of
the darkness, with something sitting upon it. All the way up
the stairs, hands snatched at my feet.”

This entry seemed to finish the diary, for blank pages followed it; but I remembered the crumpled sheet, near the back of the book. It was partly torn out, as if a hand had clutched it, convulsively. The writing on it, too, was markedly in contrast to the precise, albeit nervous penmanship of even the last entry I had perused. I was forced to hold the scrawl up to the light to decipher it. This is what I read:

“My hand keeps on writing, in spite of myself. What is this? I
do not wish to write, but it compels me. Yes, yes, I will tell
the truth, I will tell the truth.”

A heavy blot followed, partly covering the writing. With difficulty, I made it out:

“The guilt is mine—mine, only. I loved her too well, yet I was
unwilling to marry, though she entreated me on her knees—though
she kissed my hand. I told her my scientific work came first.
She did it, herself. I was not expecting that—I swear I was
not expecting it. But I was afraid the authorities would
misunderstand. So I took what seemed the best course. She had
no friends here who would inquire.

“It is waiting outside me door. I FEEL it. It compels me,
through my thoughts. My hand keeps on writing. I must not fall
asleep. I must think only of what I am writing. I must——”

Then came the words I had seen when Mrs. Malkin had handed me the book. They were written very large. In places, the pen had dug through the paper. Though they were scrawled, I read them at a glance:

“Not the slab in the cellar! Not that! Oh, my God, anything but
that! Anything——”

By what strange compulsion was the hand forced to write down what was in the brain; even to the ultimate thoughts; even to those final words?

* * * * *

The gray light from outside, slanting down through two dull little windows, sank into the sodden hole near the inner wall. The coroner and I stood in the cellar, but not too near the hole.

A small, demonstrative, dark man—the chief of detectives—stood a little apart from us, his eyes intent, his natural animation suppressed. We were watching the stooped shoulders of a police constable, who was angling in the well.

“See anything, Walters?” inquired the detective, raspingly.

The policeman shook his head.

The little man turned his questioning to me.

“You’re quite sure?” he demanded.

“Ask the coroner. He saw the diary,” I told him.

“I’m afraid there can be no doubt,” the coroner confirmed, in his heavy, tired voice.

He was an old man, with lack-lustre eyes. It had seemed best to me, on the whole, that he should read my uncle’s diary. His position entitled him to all the available facts. What we were seeking in the well might especially concern him.

He looked at me opaquely now, while the policeman bent double again. Then he spoke—like one who reluctantly and at last does his duty. He nodded toward the slab of gray stone, which lay in the shadow to the left of the well.

“It doesn’t seem very heavy, does it?” he suggested, in an undertone.

I shook my head. “Still, it’s stone,” I demurred. “A man would have to be rather strong to lift it.”

“To lift it—yes.” He glanced about the cellar. “Ah, I forgot,” he said, abruptly. “It is in my office, as part of the evidence.” He went on, half to himself: “A man—even though not very strong—could take a stick—for instance, the stick that is now in my office—and prop up the slab. If he wished to look into the well,” he whispered.

The policeman interrupted, straightening again with a groan, and laying his electric torch beside the well.

“It’s breaking my back,” he complained. “There’s dirt down there. It seems loose, but I can’t get through it. Somebody’ll have to go down.”

The detective cut in:

“I’m lighter than you, Walters.”

“I’m not afraid, sir.”

“I didn’t say you were,” the little man snapped. “There’s nothing down there, anyway—though we’ll have to prove that, I suppose.” He glanced truculently at me, but went on talking to the constable: “Rig the rope around me, and don’t bungle the knot. I’ve no intention of falling into the place.”

“There _is_ something there,” whispered the coroner, slowly, to me. His eyes left the little detective and the policeman, carefully tying and testing knots, and turned again to the square slab of stone.

“Suppose—while a man was looking into that hole—with the stone propped up—he should accidentally knock the prop away?” He was still whispering.

“A stone so light that he could prop it up wouldn’t be heavy enough to kill him,” I objected.

“No.” He laid a hand on my shoulder. “Not to _kill_ him—to _paralyze_ him—if it struck the spine in a certain way. To render him helpless, but not unconscious. The _post mortem_ would disclose that, through the bruises on the body.”

The policeman and the detective had adjusted the knots to their satisfaction. They were bickering now as to the details of the descent.

“Would that cause death?” I whispered.

“You must remember that the housekeeper was absent for two days. In two days, even that pressure——” He stared at me hard, to make sure that I understood——“with the head down——”

Again the policeman interrupted:

“I’ll stand at the well, if you gentlemen will grab the rope behind me. It won’t be much of a pull. I’ll take the brunt of it.”

We let the little man down, with the electric torch strapped to his waist, and some sort of implement—a trowel or a small spade—in his hand. It seemed a long time before his voice, curiously hollow, directed us to stop. The hole must have been deep.

We braced ourselves. I was second, the coroner, last. The policeman relieved his strain somewhat by snagging the rope against the edge of the well, but I marveled, nevertheless, at the ease with which he held the weight. Very little of it came to me.

A noise like muffled scratching reached us from below. Occasionally, the rope shook and shifted slightly at the edge of the hole. At last, the detective’s hollow voice spoke.

“What does he say?” the coroner demanded.

The policeman turned his square, dogged face toward us.

“I think he’s found something,” he explained.

The rope jerked and shifted again. Some sort of struggle seemed to be going on below. The weight suddenly increased, and as suddenly lessened, as if something had been grasped, then had managed to elude the grasp and slip away. I could catch the detective’s rapid breathing now; also the sound of inarticulate speech in his hollow voice.

The next words I caught came more clearly. They were a command to pull up. At the same moment, the weight on the rope grew heavier, and remained so.

The policeman’s big shoulders began straining, rhythmically.

“All together,” he directed. “Take it easy. Pull when I do.”

Slowly, the rope passed through our hands. With each fresh grip that we took, a small section of it dropped to the floor behind us. I began to feel the strain. I could tell from the coroner’s labored breathing that he felt it more, being an old man. The policeman, however, seemed untiring.

The rope tightened, suddenly, and there was an ejaculation from below—just below. Still holding fast, the policeman contrived to stoop over and look. He translated the ejaculation for us.

“Let down a little. He’s stuck with it against the side.”

We slackened the rope, until the detective’s voice gave us the word again.

The rhythmic tugging continued. Something dark appeared, quite abruptly, at the top of the hole. My nerves leapt in spite of me, but it was merely the top of the detective’s head—his dark hair. Something white came next—his pale face, with staring eyes. Then his shoulders, bowed forward, the better to support what was in his arms. Then——

I looked away; but, as he laid his burden down at the side of the well, the detective whispered to us:

“He had her covered up with dirt—covered up....”

He began to laugh—a little, high cackle, like a child’s—until the coroner took him by the shoulders and deliberately shook him. Then the policeman led him out of the cellar.

* * * * *

It was not then, but afterward, that I put my question to the coroner.

“Tell me,” I demanded. “People pass there at all hours. Why didn’t my uncle call for help?”

“I have thought of that,” he replied. “I believe he did call. I think, probably, he screamed. But his head was down, and he couldn’t raise it. His screams must have been swallowed up in the well.”

“You are sure he didn’t murder her?” He had given me that assurance before, but I wished it again.

“Almost sure,” he declared. “Though it was on his account, undoubtedly, that she killed herself. Few of us are punished as accurately for our sins as he was.”

* * * * *

One should be thankful, even for crumbs of comfort. I am thankful.

But there are times when my uncle’s face rises before me. After all, we were the same blood; our sympathies had much in common; under any given circumstances, our thoughts and feelings must have been largely the same. I seem to see him in that final death march along the unlighted passageway—obeying an imperative summons—going on, step by step—down the stairway to the first floor, down the cellar stairs—at last, lifting the slab.

I try not to think of the final expiation. Yet _was_ it final? I wonder. Did the last Door of all, when it opened, find him willing to pass through? Or was Something waiting beyond that Door?

Murderous Sheik Flees to Forest

After attempting to kill a woman who scorned his attentions, Mohammed Ben Asmen, a Moroccan sheik, fled to the Argenteuil Forest near Paris and there defied the efforts of the police to capture him. When the sheik first saw the beautiful Mme. Sophie Bolle he was smitten, and he followed her to her home and demanded that she leave her husband and flee with him. She ordered him away, whereon he attempted to kill her. He was frightened away, but returned and again tried to slay her. Then the police were called, but he eluded them in the forest.

_The Tortoise Shell Comb_

The Fantasy of a Mad Brain

By ROYLSTON MARKHAM

“Well, the ghosts of the men hung at Is-Sur-Tille have company. For myself, I wouldn’t even want a photograph of the place. No, sir, not me. I can remember it without that. That’s why they’ve put me in this hospital with all these crazy people. Yet a tortoise shell comb is as good an alibi as any....

“What? Ghosts? No sir, of course not; I don’t believe in ’em, not on _this_ side of the Atlantic ... who ever told you _I_ believed in ghosts.

“The hospital intern?... If they’d kept me ’round that chateau in the woods at Is-Sur-Tille, it might ’a’ been different. It had a queer story about it, that chateau. That’s what set _me_ off; that and the fact that I never did like Captain Bott.

“He was hardboiled, that guy was. No, sir; he didn’t own that French chateau, although at one time he acted as though he thought he did.... I’m coming to that.

“Over there the frogs said the original owner of the place, in his youth, had fallen madly in love with a young girl and married her. He must ’a’ been crazy about her all right because, according to their story, he often was seen combing her hair—yes, sir, the French folks are like that; that’s romance—combing her long red hair as it hung over the back of her chair, touching the floor.