mocking voice came from the lifeless mask of the sleeping girl. “Your
suggestion was correct--Forsdyke! He is taking me to it now!” The
derisive laugh rang out, uncanny in the silent room. “Patience for a
few minutes!”
The old man made an effort of his will.
“Where are you now, Karl?” he asked.
“In a motor-car--funny story--tell you later--patience.” The voice
sounded far away and faint. “Look to the girl, Kranz--not breathing
properly--can’t speak--if--power--fails.”
Kranz went to the sleeping girl. Her head had fallen forward and she
was breathing stertorously. He rearranged the cushions, posed her head
so that she once more breathed deeply and evenly.
They waited in a tense silence. Then her lips moved again.
“Listen--now! Take it down as I read it!” Karl’s voice rang with an
unholy triumph.
“Quick, Kranz!--Write!” commanded the old man.
His subordinate leaped to the table, settled himself pen in hand.
The girl’s lips trembled in the commencement of speech, opened.
“Schedule of Sailings of American Army to Europe!” began the triumphant
voice.
There was a pause.
“Yes--yes!” cried the old man impatiently. “Go on!”
“Numbers for March”--Karl Wertheimer’s voice came with a curious
deliberation as though he were memorizing figures. “--_Ahh!_” The voice
broke in a wild, unearthly cry that froze the blood.
They waited. There was no sound. They heard their hearts beat in a
growing terror.
Suddenly the old man spoke.
“The girl!--Look, Kranz!--She does not breathe!”
Kranz sprang to her, lifted her hand, bent suddenly down to her face.
He looked up with the eyes of a baulked demon.
“She is dead!” he said hoarsely.
He turned to her again and, with a frenzied rage, tore away the clothes
from her throat and chest. Just over her heart was a small round dark
spot staining the unbroken skin.
“Look!” he cried.
The old man peered down at the mark, and then stared round the room.
“What has happened?” The wild cry quavered with the terror of the
Unseen.
No answer came from the silence.
NOTE
The belief that an injury done to the “astral” body of a spirit is
reproduced in the physical body of the medium _en rapport_ with
that spirit is found in all countries and in all times, from the
most ancient to the present. The old-time witch or wizard is, of
course, the same psychologically abnormal type as the “medium” of
to-day. The genuineness or otherwise of their powers is beside
the point. Phenomena of the same nature as that described above
are reported again and again in the witchcraft trials of the
seventeenth century and in a comparatively recent legal case in
France in 1853. Andrew Lang, analyzing this last case, says: “In
the events at Cideville, and the depositions of witnesses, we have
all the characteristics.... The phantom is wounded, a parallel
wound is found on the suspected warlock.” Reporting the evidence
in the trial, Lang continues: “Nails were driven into points on
the floor where Lemonier saw the spectral figure standing. One
nail became red-hot and the wood around it smoked: Lemonier said
that this nail had hit ‘the man in the blouse’ on the cheek. Now,
when Thorel was made to ask the boy’s pardon and was recognized
by him as the phantom, Thorel bore on his cheek the mark of the
wound!” The alleged wizard lost his case. (“A Modern Trial for
Witchcraft,” in _Cock Lane and Common-sense_, 1894, p. 278.)
In this case it was the medium’s own spectre which appeared.
But the modern spiritualist holds that there exists the same
connection between the living body of the medium and the
materialized spirit of the dead. “... The clutching of a
[materialized] form hits the medium with a force like that of an
electric shock, and many sensitives have been grievously injured
by foolish triflers in this way.” (_Spirit Intercourse_, J.
Hewat Mackenzie, 1916, p. 53.) Sir Wm. Crookes sounds the same
warning note in his description of the famous “Katie King” case
(_Researches in Spiritualism_, 1874, p. 108 _et seq._).
FOOTNOTE:
[2] The reference is to _The Survival of Man_, Sir Oliver Lodge, pp.
104-5.
THE STRANGE CASE OF MR. TODMORDEN
Mr. Todmorden rose from his seat in the railway carriage; he spoke in
the tones of a man who ends a discussion:
“Well, gentlemen, this is my station, and you haven’t convinced me that
a man ever commits a crime unless of his own free-will. I’d show no
mercy to the rascal! Good-night!”
Mr. Todmorden was far from being so stern, either in appearance or
character, as this emphatically uttered sentiment would suggest. As
his short, stout figure moved along the platform, the head thrown
back and a pair of bright little eyes, set in a chubby round face,
glancing sharply through his spectacles for an acquaintance to smile
at, he looked--what, in fact, he was--a successful city man whose
original kindness of heart had mellowed into habitual benevolence--the
type of man who moves through life beaming on people who touch their
caps; salutation and recognition alike instinctive, meeting each other
half-way.
Affable though Mr. Todmorden was, he had his prejudices and his pride;
pride centred in the practice he had built up as a family solicitor of
standing and renown: prejudices directed against those unfortunates
who, from choice or necessity, transgressed the social code. His
ideal in life was probity. He was intolerant of any infraction of it,
and conducted his own affairs with punctilious scrupulousness. If
he contemplated himself with some approbation it was justified. His
fellow-men concurred in it.
In the warm light of a late summer sunset he strolled along the
suburban streets to his home. His countenance expressed that
contentment with himself and his surroundings usual with him. His mind,
satisfied, played lightly over the headings of sundry affairs, neatly
docketed and done with, he had settled that day. Other affairs, not
so completed, were thrust into the background until the morrow. His
good-humoured round face was in readiness for a smile.
Suddenly he stopped and contemplated through his spectacles a large
house a little way back from the road. A long ladder resting against
the wall was the uncommon object that had attracted his attention.
“Dear me!” he said to himself, “Old Miss Hartley having the house
painted again!”
Miss Hartley was one of his oldest and most valued clients. In fact,
both repudiated the business term and called each other “friends.”
Their sentiments toward each other warranted it. She was an elderly
spinster, eccentric and wealthy; he a bachelor who could and did
afford himself a whim. They smiled at one another’s oddities without
any lessening of the mutual respect many years of intercourse had
induced. His attitude toward the old lady was almost fraternal. The
long practice of watching her interests had developed a habit of
affectionate protection in him. He advised her on countless petty
manners and forgot to put them in the bill. He was personally, not
merely professionally, anxious on her behalf when the occasion required
it.
The sight of the ladder against the wall recalled one of his most
common anxieties. It was a pet grievance of his that she would persist
in living alone, save for one maid, in that large house. To his mind,
she offered herself as a prey to the malefactor who should chance to
correlate the two facts of her wealth and her solitude. He expressed
that opinion frequently, and was obstinately smiled at. Now, as he
walked on, the thought of the danger she invited recurred to him. It
irritated him.
“Tut! tut!” he said. “That ladder, now, is just placed right for a
burglar! I’m sure it is! Dear me! how careless! how very careless!” He
tried to measure the ladder from his remembrance of it, and, to end his
doubts, returned and examined it again. The ladder rested close to a
freshly painted window-sill on the first floor.
“Dear me! dear me!” said Mr. Todmorden, genuinely perturbed. “That’s
the window of Miss Hartley’s room!” He stood irresolute, debating
whether he should ring the bell, and point out the dangerous position
of the ladder. A nervous fear of the old lady’s smile restrained him.
He knew she regarded him as an old “fusser.”
He walked on again, carrying his fears.
“She is really too foolish, too foolish!” he repeated. “Living alone
there--with only that stupid girl in the house! Any one might break
in. They’ve only to walk up that ladder! And she will persist in
advertising that she has valuables!” The occasion of the final clause
in Mr. Todmorden’s mental arraignment was a particularly fine diamond
brooch the old lady wore at all times, despite his protests. If there
was a sentimental reason for its continual use, she concealed it under
her quiet smile. The memory of that smile irritated Mr. Todmorden.
“Confound her! she’s so obstinate!” His thoughts focussed themselves on
that brooch, with a criminal lurking in the background. Gradually, they
drifted to the criminal. As his irritation faded under the soft warm
light of the sunset, he amused himself by picturing types of possible
burglars. Finally, forgetting his original preoccupation, he thought
of an ancestor of his own--his maternal grandfather--who had been
transported for a doubtful case of murder. In contrast to that squalid
page of family history self-esteem read over his own achievements.
Successful, respected, an alderman, a possible knighthood in front, he
had surely wiped out that black patch on his pedigree. He savoured a
very pleasant sense of personal probity as he walked up the drive to
his house.
He ate his solitary dinner, and revived the feeling of well-being with
a bottle of his favourite port. Then Miss Hartley’s brooch recurred
to his mind, and was followed by a thought of the ladder which led to
it, and of a criminal who might climb the ladder. As he sat in his big
chair in the lonely dining-room, gazing at passing thoughts rather than
thinking them, the case of his maternal grandfather cropped up in his
reverie. Moved by a sudden whim, he rose from his chair and took down
a battered volume of law reports. Fortified by another glass, he read
through the case of his ancestor. He finished it, and sat thoughtful
for a moment before replacing the book. “H’m, h’m,” he said to himself.
“Very doubtful! Very doubtful! Ah, well, we’ve travelled a long road
since then!” He smiled at his own success, and went off to bed in a
contented mood. That doubtful grandfather was a long way back.
In the morning, as he walked down to the station to catch his usual
train, he noticed a group of people standing on the pavement and gazing
up at a house. An unreasoning anxiety gripped him. He hastened his
pace. Yes--surely!--it was Miss Hartley’s house which excited this
unwonted interest. He arrived among the crowd, rather out of breath.
“What is it? What is it, my man?” he demanded of a gazing spectator.
Half a dozen voices replied.
“It’s a murder! Old Miss Hartley----!”
Mr. Todmorden did not wait to hear more.
“Good gracious!” he said, as he hurried along the garden path, and
“Good gracious!” he repeated, as he rang the bell. He could not
formulate a thought. He gazed, mentally, at the awful thing, stunned.
The door was opened by a policeman. Behind him stood the maid-servant,
white, frightened, and sobbing. She ran toward him with a cry of “Oh,
sir!” but broke down, unable to utter a word.
“All right, all right, Ellen,” said Mr. Todmorden rather brusquely,
pushing her aside. He addressed himself to the policeman. “What has
happened, constable? Surely not murder?”
“Yes, sir. I’m afraid so.” He looked doubtfully at his questioner. “Are
you one of the old lady’s relatives, sir?”
“No. I’m her solicitor, and one of her oldest friends. Dear me! dear
me! how terrible! Is there any one in authority here, constable?”
“Two inspectors upstairs, sir.”
“Can I see them?”
He was shown into the bedroom, and introduced himself to the
police-officers. They welcomed him with gravity. On the bed lay a
covered figure. Mr. Todmorden drew aside the sheet and gazed upon the
features of his old friend. They were marred by a bullet-hole through
the forehead. He turned away, trembling, his face working with emotion.
He could scarcely speak, but made the effort due to his dignity, as the
deceased’s legal adviser. “Any--any clue?” he asked.
“None, sir, at present,” was the reply.
“Dear me! how terrible! how very terrible! She was my oldest
friend----” he could not find the strength to repress his grief--“my
oldest friend! Oh, it’s awful, inspector, awful! The--the wickedness
of it! She hadn’t an enemy.” He struggled for the control of himself.
“What was it--robbery?”
“No, sir--nothing seems to be tampered with. Perhaps the murderer was
startled.”
“When was it discovered?”
“This morning, when the maid brought in the tea. She says she heard
nothing. She admits being a heavy sleeper.”
“And there is nothing missing?”
“Apparently not, sir. The drawers were locked, and the keys have not
been interfered with. Nothing was disturbed, in fact.”
“Ah!” Mr. Todmorden was gradually getting back into his legal
clearness of mind. “Has the girl looked carefully round to see if
anything has disappeared?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Call her up, if you please, officer.”
Ellen appeared, still weeping, and was bidden to look round for
anything out of place. Dabbing her eyes, she examined the room
carefully. Suddenly she gave a cry.
“The mistress’s diamond brooch! I put it here last night!” She pointed
to a tray on the dressing-table. “It’s gone!”
“Good God!” said Mr. Todmorden. “How very curious!”
The inspectors looked at him sharply.
“Does that give you any clue, sir?” asked one of them.
“No--no,” he replied, rather confused. “I--the fact is, I was thinking
of that brooch only last night, and of how unprotected Miss Hartley
was. I have often told her so--poor woman!”
“Ah!” said the inspectors in chorus. Mr. Todmorden felt there was
something suspicious in their sharply uttered exclamation. Even to
himself his explanation had sounded lame. The police-officers might
imagine he was shielding somebody. The consciousness of his inability
to explain how very startling the fulfilment of his fears had been to
him made him feel awkward.
“Of course,” he said, “the murderer must have come in by the ladder.”
“The ladder?” asked one of the inspectors. “I saw no ladder.”
“There was certainly a ladder resting against the sill of this window
at six o’clock last night,” asserted Mr. Todmorden. “The house, you
will observe, is being redecorated. I noticed the ladder, and it
occurred to me that a first-class opportunity was being offered to a
burglar. In fact, I was on the point of calling on Miss Hartley and
warning her of it. I wish I had done so!”
“H’m!” The inspector scarcely deigned to trifle with the suggestion.
It could be understood that it was his professional prerogative to
evolve theories. “Yes--perhaps. But I think we can explain the entrance
in a more likely way,” he said, mysteriously. “It is scarcely probable
that the decorator’s men would leave the ladder there all night, sir.”
“I’m sure the rascal came up the ladder!” Mr. Todmorden’s affirmation
was so vehement, came so involuntarily, that it surprised himself.
Why was he so positive? He felt uncomfortable. He put on a bustling,
important air. “Well, well, I must get up to town, as I have a very
important appointment. I will look in at the station on my way home
this evening. If you hear of anything during the day you might
communicate with me. Here is my card.”
The old gentleman took his way to the city, oppressed by grief.
Bitterly he reproached himself for not having ceded to his impulse to
point out the dangerous position of that fatal ladder.
As good as his word, he called at the police-station on his way home.
The chief inspector received him:
“A very mysterious affair, Mr. Todmorden. Very mysterious!”
“It is very terrible to me,” replied the old gentleman. “Miss Hartley
was a very old friend. I feel myself in some way responsible. The
possibility of such a tragedy actually occurred to me on my way home
last night, and I might have warned her of it. I shall never forgive
myself. Miss Hartley relied upon me. It is terrible to think that I
failed her in this supreme instance.”
“You refer to the ladder,” said the inspector. “We have made enquiries
about that. It appears it was overlooked last night and was carried
away by one of the decorator’s men at six o’clock this morning.
Undoubtedly, the murderer used it. In fact, he left the window open
after him.”
“I was certain of it,” said Mr. Todmorden. “And there is no clue to the
rascal?”
“Hardly any. The constable on the beat reports that, at two o’clock
this morning, he saw the figure of a man running along the road away
from the house. That man was wearing a very light suit--possibly a
flannel one. A curious dress for a burglar, I think you will admit. The
constable particularly noticed that there was no sound of footsteps as
the man ran. He must have been wearing rubber soles. Unfortunately, the
constable lost sight of him when he turned the corner.”
“Dear me!” said Mr. Todmorden. Only half his mind had listened to the
inspector’s words; the other half was occupied by that curious and
fairly common hallucination of a previous and identical incident. The
description was oddly familiar. He seemed to know it in advance. At
an intense moment of the hallucination, he had a glimpsed memory of
himself running, running along a road at the dead of night, running
silently. He shook off the uncomfortable and absurd feeling. “Dear me!
How very strange!”
The inspector was observing him narrowly.
“I suppose you cannot give us any hint that might help us, Mr.
Todmorden? You know no one who bore the old lady a grudge?”
“Certainly not. She was the best and kindest of women.”
“May I ask who benefits by her death?”
“She has only one relative, a nephew, who inherits everything. He is in
America. I have cabled to him, and received a reply.”
“Ah! So he’s out of it.”
“Of course, of course.”
“This business of the brooch, Mr. Todmorden--it seems strange that the
murderer should have taken that, and that only. He has made no attempt
on anything else. You know no one who had an interest in the article?”
“No one. Miss Hartley wore it always. I have often expostulated with
her for wearing so valuable a piece of jewellery in the street.
Someone might have noticed it and resolved to obtain it.”
“Yes, yes, of course. A very strange affair, Mr. Todmorden, very
strange! I confess I cannot see light in it. Er--her affairs are quite
in order, of course?”
“Quite. I keep the accounts; they are open to investigation. The name
of Todmorden and Baines is a sufficient guarantee, I think,” he added,
with a smile. “But, of course, it is natural you should wish to make
sure. You can examine the books to-morrow.”
“Unnecessary, my dear sir, I’m quite certain. Of course, I am bound to
ask these unpleasant questions.”
“Don’t apologize. I am as anxious as you are to catch the criminal. I
have, in fact, a personal interest in it. Miss Hartley was so good a
friend to me that I shall never rest until I have brought the scoundrel
to justice. A reward may help. I will personally give a hundred pounds
for his apprehension. You might have bills printed to that effect.”
“Thank you, Mr. Todmorden. I hope we shall be able to claim it, though,
at present, I see little chance of it. However, something may turn up.”
As Mr. Todmorden went home, he looked years older than the man who had
traversed the same ground twenty-four hours earlier. Grief-stricken
though he was, at the loss of his dear friend, his predominant emotion
was a fierce lust for vengeance on the murderer. His fingers worked,
gripped the air, as he brooded on him--the hated unknown--and his
step oscillated from fast to slow and slow to fast, as thoughts,
hopeful or despondent, got the upper hand. If he could only lay hands
on the scoundrel. A black and bitter wrath seethed in him. It was,
unjustifiably, the more bitter at the remembrance that Fate had placed
for a moment in his hand the power to avert the tragedy, had given
him a glimpse into the future--and yet had turned aside his will. The
wickedness of it! That dear, kind, charitable old soul! Shot like a
dog! He stamped his foot on the pavement at the thought of it; tears
welled up in his eyes.
“I’ll double that reward if he isn’t caught within a week!” he decided.
The decision comforted him.
All through his solitary dinner he brooded on the crime, and sat
afterward, for long hours, trying to think of someone who might have an
urgent reason for possessing himself of that diamond brooch. He went to
bed at last, baffled, weary, heartsick. Had he met the murderer on the
stairs he would gladly have throttled him with his own hands.
Putting on his pyjamas, he noticed something unusual--something
hard--in the pocket. Mechanically, he drew out the object and looked at
it. He stood as if petrified, his eyes staring, sweat breaking out on
his brow.
In his hand he held Miss Hartley’s diamond brooch!
He gazed at it, overwhelmed with amazement and horror. What was
happening? Was he crazed? Was his mind unhinged by the event of the
morning, was this an hallucination? All that was his familiar self
prayed, prayed hard, that this might be madness. Or--his instinct of
self-preservation caused him to clutch at the thought--was he the
victim of some atrocious trick? Impossible. Was it real? He felt the
jewel--turned it, so that it sparkled under the electric light.
“My God!” said Mr. Todmorden, sinking into a chair. The familiar
concrete surroundings crumbled about him, were dissipated. He gazed
into unfathomable mysteries.
How could the brooch have got into his pocket? Someone must have put
it there! Someone! Who? Who could have come into his bedroom and put
that damnatory brooch into the pocket of his pyjamas? The servants? He
reviewed them swiftly. Impossible! Then who? Not--surely not--he must
be going mad--not himself! It was absurd, unthinkable. He had gone
to bed and slept without a dream. Or, was there a dream--a dream of
running in the darkness, fast, barefoot? Nonsense! Nonsense! He did
not get up in the middle of the night, walk down the street, murder
his dearest friend, and come back as though nothing had happened! His
mind flashed on the portrait of Miss Hartley, and he felt the cruel
irony of the supposition, though he himself made it. Then who--who? A
wave of superstition swept over him. Devils? It was inexplicable. He
revolted at something obscure within him, something which pointed a
finger to the accusing brooch, which whispered the inexorable corollary
in his ear. No! No! It could not be! He was innocent, he was conscious,
instinctively conscious of his innocence.
But was he?
The something whispered persistently. An idea came to him--the proof.
He went quickly across to a drawer in his dressing-table and took out
his revolver. With trembling hands he examined the charges. One had
been exploded! Had devils fired his revolver also? Oh, God! He thought
he was going to faint.
How? Why? How? Why? These two questions besieged him incessantly,
battering at his crumbling mind. He clasped his head in his hands,
rocked to and fro on his chair.
Madness? Madness came in these sudden attacks, so an imp of thought
assured him. He was mad! Mad!
For hours he strode up and down the room, wrestling with demons in the
night. He had killed his dearest friend. He had no doubt of it; the
realization filled him with an agony of horror and grief. He would
gladly have died rather than have done this awful thing. And how had
he done it? How had he committed this crime without the faintest
remembrance of it? It was impossible! He had not--then he looked at the
brooch, and knew he had. It was monstrous, unthinkable--but true.
At length, physically exhausted, he threw himself on the bed and
continued the struggle--striving, striving to see light in this
appalling mystery. At last he fell asleep.