The Chalchihuitl Stone
Tramp—tramp—tramp—tramp—tramp! For three nights and two days the
footsteps had echoed through the great house almost ceaselessly.
The white-haired woman leaning on a cane, pausing again in the upper
hall to listen to them, started, impulsively, for the tenth time that
morning toward her son’s door; but, recognizing once more her utter
inability to counsel or to comfort, she wiped her tear-filled eyelids
and limped painfully back to her own room. The aged negress, again
passing the door, pressed convulsively together her bony hands, and
sobbed pityingly; she had been the childhood nurse of this man whose
footsteps had so echoed for hours as he paced bedroom, library, hall,
museum, study—most frequently of all the little study—in his grief and
turmoil of spirit.
Tramp—tramp—tramp—tramp!
She shuffled swiftly down the stairs to the big, luxurious morning
room on the floor below, where a dark-eyed girl crouched on the couch
listening to his footsteps beating overhead, and listening so
strangely, without a sign of the grief of the mother or even the negro
nurse, that she seemed rather studying her own absence of feeling with
perplexity and doubt.
Tramp—tramp—tramp—tramp!
“Ain’ yo’ sorry for him, Miss Iris?” the negress said.
“Why, Ulame, I—I—” the girl seemed struggling to call up an emotion
she did not feel. “I know I ought to feel sorry for him.”
“An’ the papers? Ain’ yo’ sorry, honey, dem papers is gone—buhned up;
dem papers he thought so much of—all buhned by somebody?”
“The papers?—the papers, Ulame?” the girl exclaimed in bewilderment at
herself. “Oh—oh, I know it must be terrible to him that they are gone;
but I—I can’t feel so sorry about them!”
“Yo’ can’t?” The negress stiffened with anger. “An’ he tol’ me, too,
this mo’nin, now you won’t marry him next Thursday lak’ yo’
promised—since—since yo’ foun’ dat little green stone! Why is
dat—since yo’ foun’ dat little green stone?”
The sincere bewilderment deepened in the girl’s face. “I don’t know
why, Ulame—I tell you truly,” she cried, miserably, “I don’t know any
reason why that stone—that stone should change me so! Oh, I can’t
understand it myself; but I know it is so. Ever since I’ve seen that
stone I’ve known it would be wrong to marry him. But I don’t know
why!”
“Den I do!” The old negress’s eyes blazed wildly. “It’s a’caze yo’
_is_ voodoo! Yo _is_ voodoo! An’ it’s all my faul’, Oh yas—yas it is!”
She rocked. “For yo’se had the ma’k ever since yo’se been a chile; the
ma’k of the debbil’s claw! But I nebber tole Marse Richard till too
late. But hit’s so! Hit’s so! The debbil’s ma’k is on yo’ left
shoulder, and the green stone is de cha’m dat is come to make yo’
break Marse Richard’s heart!”
“Ulame! Oh! Oh!” the girl cried.
“Ulame! Ulame!” a deeper, firm and controlled voice checked them both
as the man, whose steps had sounded overhead the moment before, stood
in the doorway.
He was a strikingly well-born, good-looking man of thirty-six,
strongly set up, muscular, with the body of an athlete surmounted by
the broad-browed head of a student. But his skin, indescribably
bronzed by the tropic sun during many expeditions to Central America,
showed now an underhue of sodden gray; and the thin, red veins which
shot his keen, blue eyes, the tenseness of his well-shaped mouth, the
pulse visibly beating in his temples, the slight trembling of the
usually firm hands, all gave plain evidence of some active grief and
long-continued strain; but at the same time bore witness to the
self-control which held his emotion in check.
The negress, quieted and rebuked by his words, shuffled out as he
entered; and the girl drew herself up quickly to a sitting posture,
rearranging her hair with deft pats.
“You must not mind Ulame!” He crossed to her and held her hand
steadyingly for an instant. “Or think that I shall ask you anything
more except—you have not altered your decision, Iris?” he asked,
gently.
The girl shook her head.
“Then I will not even ask that again, my—Iris,” he caught himself. “If
you will give me the proper form for recalling our wedding
invitations, I will send it at once to Chicago. As to the gifts that
have been already received—will you be good enough also to look up the
convention under these circumstances?” He caught his breath. “I
thought I heard the door bell a moment ago, Iris. Was there some one
for me?”
“Yes, Anna went to the door.” The girl motioned to a maid who for five
minutes had been hovering about the hall, afraid to go to him with the
card she held upon a silver tray.
“Ah! I was expecting him.” He took the card. “Where is he? In the
library?”
“Yes, Dr. Pierce.”
He crushed the card in his hand, touched tenderly with his finger tips
Iris’s pale cheek, and with the same regular step crossed the hall to
the library. A compact figure rose energetically at his coming.
“Mr. Trant?” asked Pierce, carefully closing the door behind him and
measuring with forced collectedness his visitor, who seemed slightly
surprised. “I need not apologize to you for my note asking you to come
to me here in Lake Forest this morning. I understand that with you it
is a matter of business. But I thank you for your promptness. I have
heard of you from a number of sources as a psychologist who has
applied laboratory methods to the solution of—of mysteries—of crimes;
not as a police detective, Mr. Trant, but as a—a—”
“Consultant,” the psychologist suggested.
“Yes; a consultant. And I badly need a consultant, Mr. Trant.” Pierce
dropped into the nearest chair. “You must pardon me. I am not quite
myself this morning. An event—or, rather events—occurred here last
Wednesday afternoon which, though I have endeavored to keep my feeling
under control, have affected me perhaps even more than I myself was
aware; for I noticed your surprise at sight of me, which can only have
been occasioned by some strangeness in my appearance which these
events have caused.”
“I was surprised,” the psychologist admitted, “but only because I
expected to see an older man. When I received your note last evening,
Dr. Pierce, I, of course, made some inquiries in regard to you. I
found you spoken of as one of the greatest living authorities on
Central American antiquities, especially the hieroglyphic writing on
the Maya ruins in Yucatan; and as the expeditions connected with your
name seemed to cover a period of nearly sixty years, I expected to
find you a man of at least eighty.”
“You have confused me with my father, who died in Izabal, Guatemala,
in 1895. Our names and our line of work being the same, our
reputations are often confused, especially as he never published the
results of his work, but left that for me to do. I have not proved a
worthy trustee of that bequest, Mr. Trant!” Pierce added, bitterly. He
arose in agitation, and began again his mechanical pacing to and fro.
“The events of Wednesday had to do with this trust left you by your
father?” the psychologist asked.
“They have destroyed, obliterated, blotted out that trust,” Pierce
replied. “All the fruits of my father’s life work and my own, too,
absolutely without purpose, meaning, excuse or explanation of any
sort! And more than that—and this is the reason I have asked you to
advise me, Mr. Trant, instead of putting the matter into the hands of
the police—with even less apparent reason and without her being able
to give an explanation of any sort, the events of last Wednesday have
had such an effect upon my ward, Iris, to whom I was to be married
next Thursday, that she is no longer able to think of marrying me. She
clearly loves me no longer, though previous to Wednesday no one who
knew us could have the slightest question of her affection for me; and
indeed, though previously she had been the very spirit and soul of my
work, now she seems no longer to care for its continuance in any way,
or to be even sorry for the disaster to it.”
He paused in painful agitation. “I must ask your pardon once more,” he
apologized. “Before you can comprehend any of this I must explain to
you how it happened. My father began his study of the Maya
hieroglyphics as long ago as 1851. He had had as a young man a very
dear friend named James Clarke, who in 1848 took part in an expedition
to Chiapas. On this expedition Clarke became separated from his
companions, failed to rejoin them, and was never heard from again. It
was in search of him that my father in 1850 first went to Central
America; and failing to find Clarke, who was probably dead, he
returned with a considerable collection of the Maya hieroglyphs, which
had strongly excited his interest. Between 1851 and his death my
father made no less than twelve different expeditions to Central
America in search of more hieroglyphs; but in that whole time he did
not publish more than a half dozen short articles regarding his
discoveries, reserving all for a book which he intended to be a
monument to his labors. His passion for perfection prevented him from
ever completing that book, and, on his deathbed, he intrusted its
completion and publication to me. Two years ago I began preparing it
for the stenographer, and last week I had the satisfaction of feeling
that my work was nearly finished. The material consisted of a huge
mass of papers. They contained chapters written by my father which I
am incapable of rewriting; tracings and photographs of the
inscriptions which can be duplicated only by years of labor; original
documents which are irreplaceable; notes of which I have no other
copies. They represented, as you yourself have just said, almost sixty
years of continuous labor. Last Wednesday afternoon, while I was
absent, the whole mass of these papers was taken from the cabinet
where I kept them, and burned—or if not burned, they have completely
vanished.”
He stopped short in his walk, turned on Trant a face which had grown
suddenly livid, and stretched out his hands.
“They were destroyed, Trant—destroyed! Mysteriously, inexplicably,
purposelessly!” his helpless indignation burst from his constraint.
“The destruction of papers such as these could not possibly have
benefited anyone. They were without value or interest except to
scientists; and as to envious or malicious enemies, I have not one,
man or woman—least of all a woman!”
“‘Least of all a woman?’” Trant repeated quickly. “Do you mean by that
that you have reason to believe a woman did it?”
“Yes; a woman! They all heard her! But—I will tell you everything I
can. Last Wednesday afternoon, as I said, I was in Chicago. The two
maids who look after the front part of the house were also out; they
are sisters and had gone to the funeral of a brother.”
“Leaving what others in the house?” Trant interrupted the rapid
current of his speech with a quick gesture.
“My mother, who has hip trouble and cannot go up- or downstairs
without help; my ward, Iris Pierce, who had gone to her room to take a
nap and was so sound asleep upon her bed that when they went for her
twenty minutes later she was aroused with difficulty; my old colored
nurse, Ulame, whom you must have seen pass through here a moment ago;
and the cook, who was in the back part of the house. The gardener, who
was the only other person anywhere about the place, had been busy in
the conservatory, but about a quarter to three went to sweep a light
snowfall from the walks. Fifteen minutes later my mother in her
bedroom in the north wing heard the door bell; but no one went to the
door.”
“Why was that?”
“Besides my mother, who was helpless, and Iris who was in her room,
only the cook and Ulame, as I have just said, were in the house, and
each of them, expecting the other to answer, waited for a second ring.
It is certain that neither went to the door.”
“Then the bell did not ring again?”
“No; it rang only once. Yet almost immediately after the ringing the
woman was inside the house; for my mother heard her voice distinctly
and—”
“A moment, please!” Trant stopped him. “In case the person was not
admitted at the front door, which I assume was locked, was there any
other possibility?”
“One other. The door was locked; but, the day before, the catch of one
of the French windows opening upon the porch had been bent so that it
fastened insecurely. The woman could easily have entered that way.”
“But the fact of the catch would not be evident from outside—it would
be known only to some one familiar with the premises?”
“Yes.”
“Now the voice your mother heard—it was a strange voice?”
“Yes; a very shrill, excited voice of a child or a woman—she could not
be sure which—but entirely strange to her.”
“Shrill and excited, as if arguing with some one else?”
“No; that was one remarkable part of it; she seemed rather talking to
herself. Besides there was no other voice.”
“But in spite of its excited character, your mother could be sure it
was the voice of a stranger?” Trant pressed with greater precision.
“Yes. My mother has been confined to her room so much that her ability
to tell a person’s identity by the sound of the voice or footsteps has
been immensely developed. There could be no better evidence than hers
that this was a strange voice and that it was in the south wing. She
thought at first that it was the voice of a frightened child. Two or
three loud screams were uttered by the same voice, and were repeated
at intervals during all that followed. There was noise of thumping or
pounding, which I believe to have been occasioned in opening the study
door. Then, after a brief interval, came the noise of breaking glass,
and, at the end of another short interval, a smell of burning.”
“The screams continued?”
“At intervals, as I have said. My mother, when the screams first
reached her, hobbled to the electric bell which communicates from her
room to the servants’ quarters and rang it excitedly. But it was
several minutes before her ringing brought the cook up the back
stairs.”
“But the screams were still going on?”
“Yes. Then they were joined in the upper hall by Ulame.”
“They still heard screams?”
“Yes; the three women crouched at the head of the stairs listening to
them. Then Ulame ran to the rear window and called the gardener, who
had almost finished sweeping the rear walks; and the cook, crossing
the hall to the second floor of the south wing, aroused Iris, whom, as
I said, she found so soundly asleep that she was awakened with
difficulty. My mother and I have rooms in the north wing, Iris and
Ulame in the south. Iris had heard nothing of the disturbance, and was
amazed at their account of it. They were joined by the gardener, and
the four who were able descended to the first floor together. The cook
ran immediately to the front door, which, she found, remained closed
and locked with its spring lock. The others went straight on into the
south wing, where she at once followed them. They found the museum
filled with an acrid haze of smoke, and the door of the study closed.
They could still hear through the closed door the footsteps and
movements of the woman in the study.”
“But no more screams?” asked Trant.
“No, only footsteps, which were plainly audible to all four. You can
imagine, Trant, that with three excited women and the gardener, who is
not a courageous man, several moments were wasted in listening to
these sounds and in discussion. Then the gardener pushed open the
door. The glass front of the cabinet in which my papers were kept had
been broken, and a charred mass, still smoking, in the center of the
composition floor of the study was all that we could find of the
papers which represented my father’s and my own life work, Mr. Trant.
The woman whose footsteps only the instant before had been heard in
the study by Iris and the gardener besides the others, had completely
disappeared, in spite of the fact that there was no possible place for
a woman, or even a child, to conceal herself in the study, or to leave
it except by the door which the others entered!”
“And they found no other marks or indications of the person’s presence
except those you have mentioned?”
“No, Mr. Trant, they found—at that time—absolutely none,” Pierce
replied, slowly. “But when I returned that night and myself was able
to go over the room carefully with Iris, I found—this, Mr. Trant,” he
thrust a hand into his pocket, and extended it with a solitary little
egg-shaped stone gleaming upon his palm—“this, Mr. Trant,” he
repeated, staring at the little, blazing crystal egg as though
fascinated, “the mere sight of which cast such an extraordinary
‘spell’ upon my ward, Iris, that, after these two days, trying to
puzzle it out sanely myself, I was unable to bear the strain of it a
moment longer, and wrote you as I did last night, in the hope that
you—if anyone—might be able to advise me.”
“So this is the little green stone!” Trant took it carefully from his
client’s palm and examined it. “The little green stone of which the
negress was speaking to Miss Iris when you came in! You remember the
door was open!”
“Yes; that is the little green stone!” Pierce cried. “The chalchihuitl
stone; the green turquoise of Mexico. The first sight of it struck
Iris dumb and dull-eyed before me and started this strange, this
baffling, inexplicable apathy toward me! Tell me, how can this be?”
“You would hardly have called even me in, I presume,” Trant questioned
quietly, “if you thought it possible that this stone,” he handed it
back, “told her who was in the room and that it was a woman who could
come between you and your ward?”
“Scarcely, Mr. Trant!” Pierce flushed. “You can dismiss that
absolutely. I told you a moment ago, when trying to think who could
have come to ruin my work, that I have no enemy—least of all a woman
enemy. Nor have I a single woman intimate, even a friend, whom Iris
could possibly think of in that way.”
“Will you take me, then, to the rooms where these things happened?”
Trant rose abruptly.
“This is the way the woman must have come,” Pierce indicated as he
pointed Trant into the hall and let him see the arrangement of the
house before he led him on.
The young psychologist, from his exterior view of the place, had
already gained some idea of the interior arrangement; but as he
followed Pierce from the library down the main hall, he was impressed
anew by the individuality of the rambling structure. The main body of
the house, he saw, had evidently been built some forty or fifty years
ago, before Lake Forest had become the most fashionable and wealthy
suburb to the north of Chicago; but the wings had been added later,
one apparently to keep pace with the coming of the more pretentious
country homes about it, the other more particularly to provide place
for exhibiting the owner’s immense collection of Central American
curiosities.
So the wide entrance hall, running half-way through the house, divided
at the center into the hallways of the two wings. At the entrance to
the north wing, the main stairs sprang upward in the graceful sweep of
southern Colonial architecture; while, opposite, the hall of the south
wing was blocked part way down by a heavy wall with but one
flat-topped opening.
“A fire wall, Mr. Trant, and automatic closing fire doors,” Pierce
explained, as they passed through them. “This portion of the south
wing, which we call the museum wing, is a late addition, absolutely
fireproof.”
“It was from the top of the main stairs, if I have understood you
correctly,” Trant glanced back as he passed through the doorway, “that
the women heard the screams. But this stair,” he pointed to a narrow
flight of steps which wound upward from a little anteroom beyond the
flat-topped opening, “this is certainly not what you called the back
stairs. Where does this lead?”
“To the second floor of the museum wing, Mr. Trant.”
“Ah! Where Miss Pierce, and,” he paused reflectively, “the colored
nurse have their bedrooms.”
“Exactly.”
They crossed the anteroom and entered the museum. A ceiling higher in
the museum than in any other part of the house gave space for high,
leaded, clear-glass windows. Under them, ranged on pedestals or
fastened to the wall were original carvings or plaster casts of the
grotesque gods of the Maya mythology; death’s-heads symbolic of their
cruel religion, and cabinets of stone and wooden implements and
earthen vessels, though by far the greater number of the specimens
were reproductions of hieroglyphic inscriptions, each separate glyph
forming a whimsical square cartouche.
But the quick glance of the psychologist passed all these almost
without noting, and centered itself upon an object in the middle of
the room. On a low pedestal stood one of the familiar Central American
stones of sacrifice, with grooved channels to carry away the blood,
and rounded top designed to bend backward the body of the human victim
while the priest, with one quick cut, slew him; and before it, staring
at this stone, as though no continuance of familiarity could make her
unaffected by it, stood the slender, graceful, dark-haired,
dark-skinned girl of whom the psychologist had caught just a glimpse
through the door of the morning room when he entered.
“My ward, Miss Pierce, Mr. Trant,” Pierce introduced them as she
turned. “Mr. Trant is here to make an investigation into the loss of
my papers, Iris.”
“Oh!” said the girl, without interest, “then I’ll not interrupt you. I
was only looking for Ulame. Mr. Trant,” she smiled brightly at the
psychologist, “don’t you think this room is beautiful in the morning
sunlight?”
“Come, Trant,” Pierce passed his hand across his forehead, as he gazed
at the girl’s passionless face, “the study is at the other end of the
museum.” But the psychologist, with his gray eyes narrowing with
interest, his red hair rumpled by an energetic gesture, stood an
instant observing her; and she flushed deeply.
“I know why it is you look at me in that way, Mr. Trant,” she said,
simply. “I know, of course, that a woman has burned Richard’s papers,
for I saw the ashes; besides I myself looked for the papers afterwards
and could not find them. You are thinking that I believe there is
something between Richard and the woman who took this revenge because
we were going to be married; but it is not so—I know Richard has never
cared for any other woman than myself. There is something I do not
understand. Why, loving Richard as I did, did I not care at all about
the papers? Why, since I saw that little green stone, am I indifferent
whether he loves me in that way or not? Why do I feel now that I
cannot marry him? Has the stone bewitched me—the stone, the stone, Mr.
Trant! It seems crazy to think such a thing, though I know no other
reason; and if I said so, no one—least of all you, Mr. Trant, a man of
science—would believe me!”
“On the contrary, Miss Pierce, you will find that I will be the first,
not the last, to recognize that the stone could exercise upon you
precisely the influence you have described!”
“What is that? What is that?” Pierce exclaimed in surprise.
“I would rather see the study, if you please, Dr. Pierce,” Trant bowed
kindly to the girl as he turned to his client, “before being more
explicit.”
“Very well,” Pierce pushed open the door and entered, clearly more
puzzled by Trant’s reply than before. The study was long and narrow,
running across the whole end of the south wing; and, like the museum,
had plain burlap-covered walls without curve or recess of any sort;
and like the museum, also, it was lighted by high, leaded windows
above the cases and shelves. The single door was the one through which
they had entered; and the furniture consisted only of a desk and
table, two chairs, and—along the walls—cabinets and cases of drawers
and pigeon-holes whose fronts carried labels denoting their contents.
To furnish protection from dust, the cabinets all were provided with
sliding glass doors, locking with a key. The floor of the study was of
the same fireproof composition as that of the museum, and a black
smudge near its center still showed where the papers had been burned.
The room had neither fireplace nor closet.
“There is surely no hiding place for anyone here, and we must put that
out of the question,” the young psychologist commented when his eye
had taken in these details.
Then he stepped directly to the cabinet against the end wall, whose
broken glass showed that it was the one in which the papers had been
kept, and laid his hand upon the sliding door. It slipped backward and
forward in its grooves easily.
“The door is unlocked,” he said, with slight surprise. “It certainly
was not unlocked at the time the glass was broken to get at the
papers?”
“No,” Pierce answered, “for before leaving for Chicago that Wednesday,
I carefully locked all the cabinets and put the key in the drawer of
my desk where it is always kept. But that is not the least surprising
part of this affair, Mr. Trant. For when Iris and the servants entered
the room, the cabinet had been unlocked and the key lay on the floor
in front of it. I can account for it only by the supposition that the
woman, having first broken the glass in order to get at the papers,
afterwards happened upon the key and unlocked the cabinet in order to
avoid repeatedly reaching through the jagged edges of the glass.”
“And did she also break off this brass knob which was used in sliding
the door back and forth, or had that been done previously?” inquired
the psychologist.
“It was done at the same time, in attempting to open the door before
the glass was broken, I suppose.”
Trant picked up the brass knob, which had been laid on the top of the
cabinet, and examined it attentively. It had been secured by a thin
bolt through the frame of the door, and in coming loose, the threads
of the bolt, which still remained perfectly straight, had been
stripped off, letting the nut fall inside the cabinet.
“This is most peculiar,” he commented—“and interesting.” Suddenly his
eyes flashed comprehension. “Dr. Pierce, I am afraid your explanation
does not account for the condition of the cabinet.” He swung about,
minutely inspecting the room anew, and with a sharp and comprehensive
glance measuring the height of the windows.
“You were certainly correct in saying that no child or woman could
escape from this room in any other way than by the door, Dr. Pierce,”
he exclaimed. “But could not a man—a man more tall and lithe and
active than either you or I—make his escape through one of those
windows and drop to the walk below without harm?”
“A man, Trant? Yes; of course, that is possible,” Pierce agreed,
impatiently. “But why consider the possibility of a man’s escape, when
there was no question among those who heard the cries that they came
from a woman or a child!”
“The screams came from a woman,” Trant replied. “But not necessarily
the footsteps that were heard from the other side of the door. No, Dr.
Pierce; the condition of this room indicates without any question or
doubt that not one, but two persons were present here when these
events occurred—one so familiar with these premises as to know where
the key to the cabinets was to be found in your desk; the other so
unfamiliar with them as not even to know that the doors of the
cabinets were sliding, not swinging doors, since it was in attempting
to pull the door outward like a swinging door that the knob was broken
off, as is shown by the condition of the bolt which would otherwise
have been bent. And the person whose footsteps were heard was a man,
for only a man could have escaped through the window, as that person
unquestionably must have done.”
“But I do not see how you help things by adding a man’s presence here
to the other,” Pierce protested. “It simply complicates matters, since
it furnishes us no solution as to how the woman escaped!”
But the psychologist, without heeding him, dropped into a chair beside
the table, rested his chin upon his hands, and his eyes grew filmy
with the concentration of thought.
“She may have been helped through the window by the man,” he said,
finally, “but it is not probable. We have no proof that the woman was
in the study when the footsteps were heard, for the screams had
stopped; and we have unquestionable proof that this tight-fitting door
was opened _after_ the papers had been fired, if, as you told me, when
Miss Pierce and the others reached the museum they found it filled
with smoke. Now, Dr. Pierce,” he looked up sharply, “when you first
spoke to me of the loss of these papers, you said they had been
‘burned or vanished.’ Why did you say vanished? Had you any reason for
supposing they had not been burned?”
“No real reason,” Pierce answered after a moment’s hesitation. “The
papers, which I had divided by subjects into tentative chapters, were
put together with wire clips, each chapter separately, and I found no
wire clips among the ashes. But it was likely the papers would not
burn readily without taking the clips off. After taking off the clips,
she—they,” he corrected himself—“may very well have carried them away.
It is too improbable to believe that they brought with them other
papers, with the plan of burning them and giving the appearance of
having destroyed the real ones.”
“That would certainly be too improbable a supposition,” Trant agreed,
and again became deeply thoughtful.
“A remarkable, a startlingly interesting case!” he raised his eyes to
his client’s, but hardly as though speaking to him. “It presents a
problem with which modern scientific psychology—and that alone—could
possibly be competent to deal.
“I saw, of course, Dr. Pierce, that I surprised you when a moment ago
I assured your ward that I—as a psychologist—would be the first to
believe that the chalchihuitl stone could exercise over her the
mysterious influence you all have noted. But I am so confident of the
fact that this stone could influence her, and I am so sure that its
influence is the key to this case, that I want to ask you what you
know about the chalchihuitl stone; what beliefs, superstitions, or
charms, however fantastic, are popularly connected with the green
turquoise. It is a Mexican stone, you said; and you, if anyone, must
know about it.”
“As an archæologist, I have long been familiar with the chalchihuitl
stone, of course,” Pierce replied, gazing at his young adviser with
uneasiness and perplexity, “as the ceremonial marriage stone of the
ancient Aztecs and some still existing tribes of Central America. By
them it is, I know, frequently used in religious rites, bearing a
particularly important part, for instance, in the wedding ceremony.
Though its exact significance and association is not known, I am safe
in assuring you that it is a stone with which many savage
superstitions and spells are to be connected.”
He smiled, deprecatingly; but Trant met his eyes seriously.
“Thank you! Can you tell me, then, whether any peculiarity in your
ward has been noted previous to this, which could not be accounted
for?”
“No; none—ever!” Pierce affirmed confidently, “though her experience
in Central America previous to her coming under our care must
certainly have been most unusual, and would account for some
peculiarity—if she had any.”
“In Central America, Dr. Pierce?” Trant repeated eagerly.
“Yes,” Pierce hesitated, dubiously; “perhaps I ought to tell you, Mr.
Trant, how Iris came to be a member of our family. On the last
expedition which my father made to Central America, and on which I
accompanied him as a young man of eighteen, an Indian near Copan,
Honduras, told us of a wonderful white child whom he had seen living
among an isolated Indian tribe in the mountains. We were interested,
and went out of our way to visit the tribe. We found there, exactly as
he had described, a little white girl about six years old as near as
we could guess. She spoke the dialect of the Indians, but two or three
English words which the sight of us brought from her, made us believe
that she was of English birth. My father wanted to take her with us,
but the Indians angrily refused to allow it.
“The little girl, however, had taken a fancy to me, and when we were
ready to leave she announced her intention of going along. For some
reason which I was unable to fathom, the Indians regarded her with a
superstitious veneration, and though plainly unwilling to let her go,
they were afraid to interfere with her wishes. My father intended to
adopt her, but he died before the expedition returned. I brought the
child home with me, and under my mother’s care she has been educated.
The name Iris Pierce was given her by my mother.”
“You say the Indians regarded her with veneration?” Trant exclaimed,
with an oddly intent glance at the sculptured effigies of the
monsterlike gods which stood on the cases all about. “Dr. Pierce, were
you exact in saying a moment ago that your ward, since she has been in
your care, has exhibited no peculiarities? Was the nurse, Ulame,
mistaken in what I overheard her saying, that Miss Pierce has on her
shoulder the mark,” his voice steadied soberly, “of the devil’s claw?”
“Has she the ‘mark of the devil’s claw’?” Pierce frowned with
vexation. “You mean, has she an anæsthetic spot on her shoulder
through which at times she feels no sensation? Yes, she has; but I
scarcely thought you cared to hear about ‘devil’s claws.’
“Ulame also told me,” Pierce continued, “that the existence of this
spot denotes in the possessor, not only a susceptibility to ‘controls’
and ‘spells,’ but also occult powers of clairvoyance. She even
suggested that my ward could, if she would, tell me who was in the
room and burned my papers. Do you follow her beliefs so much farther?”
“I follow not the negress, but modern scientific psychologists, Dr.
Pierce,” Trant replied, bluntly, “in the belief, the knowledge, that
the existence of the anæsthetic spot called the ‘devil’s claw’ shows
in its possessor a condition which, under peculiar circumstances, may
become what is popularly called clairvoyant.
“Dr. Pierce, an instant ago you spoke—as an archæologist—of the
exploded belief in witchcraft; but please do not forget that that
belief was at one time widespread, almost universal. You speak now—as
an educated man—with equal contempt of clairvoyance; but a half-hour’s
ride down Madison or Halsted Street, with an eye open to the signs in
the second-story windows, will show you how widespread to-day is the
belief in clairvoyance, since so many persons gain a living by it. If
you ask me whether I believe in witchcraft and clairvoyance, I will
tell you I do not believe one atom in any infernal power of one person
over another; and so far as anyone’s being able to read the future or
reveal in the past matters which they have had no natural means of
knowing, I do not believe in clairvoyance. But if you or I believed
that any widespread popular conception such as witchcraft once was and
clairvoyance is to-day, can exist without having somewhere a basis of
fact, we should be holding a belief even more ridiculous than the
negro’s credulity!
“I am certain that no explanation of what happened in this house last
Wednesday and since can be formed, except by recognizing in it one of
those comparatively rare authentic cases from which the popular belief
in witchcraft and clairvoyance has sprung; and I would rest the
solution of this case on the ability of your ward, under the proper
circumstances, to tell us who was in this room last Wednesday, and
what the influence is that has been so strangely exercised over her by
the chalchihuitl stone!”
The psychologist, after the last word, stood with sparkling eyes, and
lips pressed together in a straight, defiant line.
“Iris tell! Iris!” Pierce excitedly exclaimed, when the door opened
behind him, and his ward entered.
“Here is the form you asked me for, Richard,” she said, handing her
guardian a paper, and without showing the least curiosity as to what
was going on between the two men, she went out again.
Pierce’s eyes followed her with strange uneasiness and perplexity;
then fell to the paper she had given him.
“It is the notice of the indefinite postponement of our wedding,
Trant,” he explained. “I must send it to the Chicago papers this
afternoon, unless—unless—” he halted, dubiously.
“Unless the ‘spell’ on Miss Pierce can be broken by the means I have
just spoken of?” Trant smiled slightly as he finished the sentence for
him. “If I am not greatly mistaken, Dr. Pierce, your wedding will
still take place. But as to this notice of its postponement, tell me,
how long before last Wednesday, when this thing happened, was the
earliest announcement of the wedding made in the papers?”
“I should say two weeks,” Pierce replied in surprise.
“Do you happen to know, Dr. Pierce—you are, of course, well known in
Central America—whether the announcement was copied in papers
circulating there?”
“Yes; I have heard from several friends in Central America who had
seen the news in Spanish papers.”
“Excellent! Then it is most essential that the notice of this
postponement be made at once. If you will allow me, I will take it
with me to Chicago this afternoon; and if it meets the eye of the
person I hope, then I trust soon to be able to introduce to you your
last Wednesday’s visitor.”
“Without—Iris?” Pierce asked nervously.
“Believe me, I will do everything in my power to spare Miss Pierce the
experience you seem so unwilling she should undergo. But if it proves
to be the only means of solving this case, you must trust me to the
extent of letting me make the attempt.” He glanced at his watch. “I
can catch a train for Chicago in fifteen minutes, and it will be the
quickest way to get this notice in the papers. I will let you hear
from me again as soon as necessary. I can find my own way out.”
He turned sharply to the door, and, as Pierce made no effort to detain
him, he left the study.
The surprising news of the sudden “indefinite postponement” of the
romantic wedding of Dr. Pierce, the Central American archæologist, to
the ward whom he had brought from Honduras as a child, was made in the
last editions of the Chicago evening papers which reached Lake Forest
that night; and it was repeated with fuller comments in both the
morning and afternoon papers of the next day. But to Pierce’s
increasing anxiety he heard nothing from Trant until the second
morning, and then it was merely a telephone message asking him to be
at home at three o’clock that afternoon and to see that Miss Pierce
was at home also, but to prevent her from seeing or hearing any
visitors who might call at that hour. At ten minutes to three, Pierce
himself, watching nervously at the window, saw the young psychologist
approaching the house in company with two strangers, and himself
admitted them.
“Dr. Pierce, let me introduce Inspector Walker of the Chicago Police,”
Trant, when they had been admitted to the library, motioned to the
larger of his companions, a well-proportioned giant, who wore his
black serge suit with an awkwardness that showed a greater familiarity
with blue broadcloth and brass buttons. “This other gentleman,” he
turned to the very tall, slender, long-nosed man, with an abnormally
narrow head and face, coal black hair and sallow skin, whom Trant and
the officer had half held between them, “calls himself Don Canonigo
Penol, though I do not know whether that is his real name. He speaks
English, and I believe he knows more than anyone else about what went
on in your study last Wednesday.” A momentary flash of white teeth
under Penol’s mustache, which was neither a smile nor a greeting, met
Pierce’s look of inquiry, and he cast uneasy glances to right and left
out of his small crafty eyes. “But as Penol, from the moment of his
arrest, has flatly refused to make any statement regarding the loss of
your papers or the chalchihuitl stone which has so strangely
influenced your ward,” Trant continued, “we have been obliged to bring
him here in hope of getting at the truth through the means I mentioned
to you day before yesterday.”
“The means you mentioned day before yesterday?” echoed Pierce, as he
spun round and faced Trant with keen apprehension; and it was plain to
the psychologist from the gray pallor and nervous trembling of the man
that his anxiety and uncertainty had not been lessened, but rather
increased by their former conversation. “You refer, I presume, to your
plan to gain facts from her through—through clairvoyance!”
“I saw Mr. Trant pick the murderer in the Bronson case,” Inspector
Walker intervened confidently, “in a way no police officer had ever
heard of; and I’ve followed him since. And if he says he can get an
explanation here by clairvoyance, I believe him!” The quiet faith of
the huge officer brought Pierce to a halt.
“For the sake of her happiness and your own, Dr. Pierce,” Trant urged.
“Oh, I don’t know—I don’t know!” Pierce pressed his hands to his
temples in indecision. “I confess this matter is outside my
comprehension. I have spoken again to the persons who recommended me
to you, and they, like Inspector Walker, have only repeated that I can
have absolute confidence in you!”
“It is now three o’clock,” Trant began, brusquely.
“Five minutes after,” said the Inspector.
“Five minutes makes no difference. But it is absolutely necessary, Dr.
Pierce, that if we are to make this test we begin it at once; and I
can scarcely undertake it without your consent. It requires that the
general look of the rooms and the direction of the sunlight should be
the same as at three o’clock last Wednesday afternoon. Dr. Pierce,
will you bring your ward to me in the study?”
He turned to his client with quiet confidence as though all were
settled. “Inspector Walker and Penol will remain here—the Inspector
already knows what I require of him. I noticed a clock Saturday over
the desk in the study and heard it strike the hour; you have no
objection to my turning it back ten or fifteen minutes, Pierce? And
before you go, let me have the chalchihuitl stone!”
For a moment Pierce, with his hands still pressed against his temples,
stood looking at Trant in perplexity and doubt; then, with sudden
resolution, he handed him the chalchihuitl stone and went to get his
ward. A few minutes later he led her into the study where the
psychologist was awaiting them alone. Pierce’s first glance was at the
clock, which he saw had been turned back by Trant to mark five minutes
to three.
“Good afternoon, Miss Pierce,” Trant set a chair for her, with its
back to the clock, as she acknowledged his salutation; then continued,
conversationally: “You spoke the other day of the morning sunlight in
these rooms, but I have been thinking that the afternoon sunlight, as
it gets near three o’clock, is even more beautiful. One can hardly
imagine anything occurring here which would be distasteful or
unpleasant, or shocking—”
The girl’s eyes filled with a vague uneasiness, and turned toward
Pierce, who, not knowing what to expect, leaned against the table
watching her with strained anxiety; and at sight of him the half
formed uneasiness of her gaze vanished. Trant rose sharply, and took
Pierce by the arm.
“You must not look at her so, Dr. Pierce,” he commanded, tensely, “or
you will defeat my purpose. It will be better if she does not even see
you. Sit down at your desk behind her.”
When Pierce had seated himself at the desk, convulsively grasping the
arms of his chair, Trant glanced at the clock, which now marked two
minutes of three, and hastily returned to the girl. He took from his
pocket the chalchihuitl stone which Pierce had given him, and at sight
of it the girl drew back with sudden uneasiness and apprehension.
“I know you have seen this stone before, Miss Pierce,” Trant said,
significantly, “for you and Dr. Pierce found it. But had you never
seen it before then? Think! Its color and shape are so unique that I
believe one who had seen it could never forget it. It is so peculiar
that it would not surprise me to know that it has a very special
significance! And it has! For it is the chalchihuitl stone. It is
found in Central America and Mexico; the Aztecs used it in celebrating
marriage—in Central America, where there are Indians and Spaniards;
tall, slender, long-nosed Spaniards, with coal black hair and sallow
skins and tiny black mustaches—Central America, where all those
sculptured gods and strange inscriptions are found, which the papers
were about that were destroyed one afternoon here in this study!”
As he spoke the clock struck three; and at the sound the girl uttered
a gasp of uncontrollable terror, then poised herself, listening
expectantly. Almost with the last stroke of the clock the door bell
rang, and the girl shrunk suddenly together.
“Tall, dark, slender Spaniards,” Trant continued; but stopped, for the
girl was not heeding him. White and tense, she was listening to
footsteps which were approaching the study door along the floor of the
museum. The door opened suddenly, and Don Canonigo Penol, pushed from
behind by the stern inspector of police, appeared on the threshold.
The girl’s head had fallen back, her eyes had turned upward so that
she seemed to be looking at the ceiling, but they were blank and
sightless; she lay, rather than sat, upon the chair, her clenched
hands close against her sides, her whole attitude one of stony
rigidity.
“Iris! Iris!” cried Pierce in agony.
“It is no use to call,” the psychologist’s outstretched hand prevented
Pierce from throwing himself on his knees beside the girl, “she cannot
hear you. She can hear no one unless they speak of the chalchihuitl
stone and Central America, and, I hope, the events which went forward
in this house last Wednesday. The chalchihuitl stone! The chalchihuitl
stone! She hears that, doesn’t she?”
A full half minute passed while the psychologist, anxiously bending
over the rigid body, waited for an answer. Then, as though by intense
effort, the stony lips parted and the answer came, “Yes!” Pierce fell
back with a cry of amazement; the inspector of police straightened,
astonished; the stolid face of Don Canonigo Penol was convulsed all at
once with a living terror and he slipped from the policeman’s hold and
fell, rather than seated himself, in a chair.
“Who is it that is speaking?” asked Trant in the same steady tone.
“Isabella Clarke,” the voice was clearer, but high-pitched and
entirely different from Iris’s. The psychologist started with
surprise.
“How old is Isabella?” he asked after a moment.
“She is young—a little girl—a child!” the voice was stronger still.
“Does Isabella know of Iris Pierce?”
“Yes.”
“Can she see Iris last Wednesday afternoon at three o’clock?”
“Yes.”
“What is she doing?”
“She is in the library. She went upstairs to take a nap, but she could
not sleep and came down to get a book.”
A long cry from some distant part of the house—a shriek which set
vibrating the tense nerves of all in the little study—suddenly
startled them. Trant turned sharply toward the door; the others,
petrified in their places, followed the direction of his look. Through
the open door of the study and the arched opening of the anteroom, the
foot of the main stairs was discernible; and, painfully and excitedly
descending them, was a white-haired woman leaning on a cane and on the
other side supported by the trembling negress.
“Richard, Richard!” she screamed, “that woman is in the house—in the
study! I heard her voice—the voice of the woman who burned your
papers!”
“It is my mother!” Pierce, suddenly coming to himself, turned with
staring eyes on Trant and darted from the study. He returned an
instant later and closed the door behind him.
“Trant,” he faltered, “my mother says that the voice that she—that we
all—have just heard is the voice of the woman who was in the study
Wednesday.”
The psychologist impatiently stopped the excited man with a gesture.
“You still see Iris?”
“Yes,” the answer came, after a considerable pause.
“She has not left the library? Tell us what she is doing.”
“She turns toward the clock, which is striking three. The door bell
rings. Both the maids are out, so Iris lays down her book and goes to
the door. At the door is a tall, dark man, all alone. He is a Spaniard
from the mountains in Honduras, and his name is Canonigo Penol.”
An indrawing of his breath, sharp almost as a whistle, brought the
gaze of all upon Penol; but the eyes of the Spaniard, starting in
superstitious terror from his livid face, saw only the girl.
“Penol is not known to Iris, but he has come to see her. She is
surprised. She leads him to the library. His manner makes her uneasy,”
the voice, now uninterrupted by Trant’s questions, went on with great
rapidity. “He asks her if she remembers that she lived among Indians.
Iris remembers that. He asks if she remembers that before that she
lived with white men—an American and some Spaniards—who were near and
dear to her. Iris cannot remember. He asks if she remembers him—Penol.
His speech frightens her. He says: ‘Once an American went to Central
America with an expedition, and got lost from his companions. He
crossed rivers; he was in woods, jungles, mountains; he was near
dying. A Spaniard found him. The Spaniard was poor—poor. He had a
daughter.
“‘The American, whose name was James Clarke, loved the daughter and
married her. He did not want ever to go back to the United States; he
was mad—mad with love, and mad about the ancient carved statues of
Central America, the temples and inscriptions. He would sit all day in
front of an inscription making marks on a paper, and afterwards he
would tear the paper up. They had a daughter. Canonigo repeats many
times that they were very poor. They had only one white servant and a
hundred Indians. Sickness in the mountains killed the old Spaniard. In
another year sickness killed the wife also. Now the American was all
alone with his baby daughter and one white servant and the Indians.
Then sickness also took hold of him. He was troubled about his
daughter; he trusted no one; he would drag himself in the night in
spite of his sickness to see that no one had done harm to her.
“‘The American was dying. He proposed to the young Spaniard many
things; finally he proposed that he marry the little girl. There was
no priest, and the American was mad; mad about ancient times and dead,
vanished peoples, and more mad because he was dying; and he married
them after the old custom of the Aztecs, with the chalchihuitl stone
and a bird feather, while they sat on a woven mat with the corners of
their garments tied together—the young Spaniard and the little girl,
who was four years old. Afterwards her father died, and that night the
Spaniard all alone buried him: and when toward morning he came back he
found only a few Indians too old to travel. The others, frightened of
the mad dead man, had gone, taking the little girl with them.’”
“What does Iris do when she hears that?” asked Trant.
“It begins to revive memories in Iris,” the voice answered quickly;
“but she says bravely, ‘What is that to me? Why do you tell me about
it?’ ‘Because,’ says Canonigo Penol, ‘I have the chalchihuitl stone
which bears witness to this marriage!’ And as he holds it to her and
it flashes in the sun, just as it did when they held it before her
when her clothes were tied to his on the mat, she remembers and knows
that it is so; and that she is married to this man! By the flash of
the chalchihuitl stone in the sun she remembers and she knows that the
rest is true!”
“And then?” Trant pressed.
“She is filled with horror. She shrinks from Canonigo. She puts her
hands to her face, because she loved Dr. Pierce with her whole heart—”
“O God!” cried Pierce.
“She cries out that it is not so, though she knows it is the truth.
She dashes the stone from his hand and pushes Canonigo from her. He is
unable to find the stone; and seeing the sculptured gods and the
inscriptions about the room, he thinks it is these by which Dr. Pierce
is able to hold her against him. So now he says that he will destroy
these pictures and he will have her. Iris screams. She runs from
Canonigo to the study. She shuts the door upon him, as he follows. She
sets a chair against it. Canonigo is pushing to get in. But she gets
the key to the cabinet from the desk and opens the cabinet.
“She takes out the papers, but there is no place to hide them before
he enters. So she opens the drawer, but it is full of worthless
papers. She takes out enough of the old papers to make room for the
others, which she puts in the bottom of the drawer underneath the
rest. The old papers she puts into the cabinet above, closing the
cabinet; but she had no time to lock it. Canonigo has pushed the door
open. He has found the stone and tries to show it to her again; but
again she dashes it from his hand. He rushes straight to the cabinet,
for he has seen from the tree where the papers are kept. The cabinet
is unlocked, but he tries to pull the door to him. He pulls off the
knob. Then he smashes the glass with his foot; he begins burning the
worthless papers. So Iris has done all she can and runs from him to
her room. She is exhausted, fainting. She falls upon the bed—”
The voice stopped suddenly. Pierce had sprung to her with a cry, and
putting his arms about her for support, spoke to her again and again.
But she neither moved nor spoke to his entreaties, and seemed entirely
insensible when he touched her. He leaped up, facing Trant in hostile
demand, but still kept one arm about her.
“What is this you have done to her now?” he cried. “And what is this
you have made her say?”
But the psychologist now was not watching either the girl or his
client. His eyes were fixed upon the face of Canonigo Penol, shot with
red veins and livid spots of overpowering terror.
“So, Don Canonigo Penol,” Trant addressed him, “that was the way of
it? But, man, you could scarcely have been enough in love with a girl
four years old to take this long and expensive trip for her nineteen
years later. Was there property then, which belonged to her that you
wanted to get?”
Canonigo Penol heard the question, though he did not look at his
questioner. His eyes, starting from his head, could still see only the
stony face of the girl who, thus unconsciously, under the guidance of
the psychologist, had accused him in a manner which filled him with
superstitious terror. Palpitating, convulsed with fright, with loose
lips shaking and knees which would not bear his weight, he slipped
from his chair and crawled and groveled on the floor before her.
“Oh, speak not—speak not again!” he shrieked. “I will tell all! I
lied; the old Spaniard was not poor—he was rich! But she can have all!
I abandon all claim! Only let me go from here—let me leave her!”
[Illustration: In a large room a woman slumps in a chair, staring at
the ceiling with a blank expression. A man kneels before her, upset,
with his hands clasped before him. Three other men stand around the
seated woman protectively, closely watching the other man.]
Caption: “Oh, speak not—speak not again!” he shrieked. “I will tell
all. I lied”
“First we will see exactly what damage you have done,” Trant answered.
“Dr. Pierce,” he turned collectedly to his client, “you have just
heard the true account of last Wednesday afternoon.”
“You want me to believe that she let him in—she was here and did
that?” Pierce cried. “You think that was all real and—true!”
“Look in the drawer she indicated, and see if she was able, indeed, to
save the papers as she said.”
Mechanically and many times looking back at Trant’s compelling face,
Pierce went to the cabinet, stooped and, pulling out the drawer,
tossed aside a mass of scattering papers on the top and rose with a
bundle of manuscripts held together with wire clips. He stared at them
almost stupidly, then, coming to himself, sorted them through rapidly
and with amazement.
“They are all here!” he cried, astounded. “They are intact. But
what—what trick is this, Mr. Trant?”
“Wait!” Trant motioned him sharply to be silent. “She is about to
awake! Inspector, she must not find you here, or this other,” and
seizing Penol by one arm, while the inspector seized the other, he
pushed him from the room, and closed the study door upon them both.
Then he turned to the girl, whose more regular breathing and lessening
rigidity had warned him that she was coming to herself.
Gently, peacefully, as those of a child wakening from sleep, her eyes
opened; and with no knowledge of all that in the last half hour had so
shaken those who listened in the little study, with no realization
even that an interval of time had passed, she replied to the first
remark that Trant had made to her when she entered the room:
“Yes, indeed, Mr. Trant, the afternoon sun is beautiful; but I like
these rooms better in the morning.”
“You will not mind, Miss Pierce,” Trant answered gently, without
heeding Pierce’s gasp of surprise, and hiding him from the girl’s
sight with his body, as he saw Dr. Pierce could not restrain his
emotion, “if I ask you to leave us for a little while. I have
something to talk over with your guardian.”
She rose, and with a bright smile left them.
“Trant! Trant!” cried Pierce.
“You will understand better, Dr. Pierce,” said the psychologist, “if I
explain this to you from its beginning with the fact of the ‘devil’s
claw,’ which was where I myself began this investigation.
“You remember that I overheard Ulame, the negro nurse, speak of this
characteristic of Miss Pierce. You, like most educated people to-day,
regarded it simply as an anæsthetic spot—curious, but without
extraordinary significance. I, as a psychologist, recognized it at
once as an evidence, first pointed out by the French scientist,
Charcot, of a somewhat unusual and peculiar nervous disposition in
your ward, Miss Iris.
“The anæsthetic spot is among the most important of several physical
evidences of mental peculiarity which, in popular opinion, marked out
its possessors through all ages as ‘different’ from other people. In
some ages and countries they have been executed as witches; in others,
they have been deified as saints; they have been regarded as prophets,
pythonesses, sibyls, ‘clairvoyants.’ For in some respects their mental
life is more acute than that of the mass of mankind, in others it is
sometimes duller; and they are known to scientists as ‘hystericals.’
“Now, when you gave me your account, Dr. Pierce, of what had happened
here last Wednesday, it was evident to me at once that, if any of the
persons in the house had admitted the visitor who rang the bell—and
this seemed highly probable because the bell rang only once, and would
have been rung again if the visitor had not been admitted—the door
could only have been opened by Miss Iris. For we have evidence that
neither the cook nor Ulame answered the bell; and moreover, all of
those in the house, except Miss Iris, had stood together at the top of
the stairs and listened to the screams from below.
“Following you into the study, then, I found plain evidence, as I
pointed out to you at the time, that two persons had been there, one a
man; one perfectly familiar with the premises, the other wholly
unfamiliar with them. I had also evidence, from the smoke in the
museum, that the study door had been open after the papers were
lighted, and I saw that whoever came out of the study could have gone
up the anteroom stairs to the second floor of the south wing, but
could not have passed out through the main hall without being seen by
those listening at the top of the stairway. All these physical facts,
therefore, if uncontradicted by stronger evidence, made it an almost
inevitable conclusion that Miss Iris had been in the study.”
“Yes, yes!” Pierce agreed, impatiently, “if you arrange them in that
order!”
“In contradiction of this conclusion,” Trant went on rapidly, “I had
three important pieces of evidence. First, the statement of your
mother that the voice she heard was that of a strange woman; second,
the fact that Miss Iris had gone to her room to take a nap and had
been found asleep there on the bed by Ulame; third, that your ward
herself denied with evident honesty and perfect frankness that she had
been present, or knew anything at all of what had gone on in the
study. I admit that without the evidence of the anæsthetic spot—or
even with it, if it had not been for the chalchihuitl stone—I should
have considered this contradictory evidence far stronger than the
other.
“But the immense and obvious influence on Miss Iris of the
chalchihuitl stone, when you found it together—an influence which she
could not account for, but which nevertheless was sufficient to make
her refuse to marry you—kept me on the right track. For it made me
certain that the stone must have been connected with some intense
emotional experience undergone by your ward, the details of which she
no longer remembered.”
“No longer remembered!” exclaimed Pierce, incredulously. “When it had
happened only the day before!”
“Ah!” Trant checked him quickly. “You are doing just what I told you a
moment ago the anæsthetic spot had warned me against; you are judging
Miss Iris as though she were like everybody else! I, as a
psychologist, knew that having the mental disposition that the
anæsthetic spot indicated, any such intense emotion, any such tragedy
in her life as the one I imagined, was connected with the chalchihuitl
stone, might be at once forgotten; as you see it was, for when Ulame
aroused her only a few moments later she no longer remembered any part
of it.
“You look incredulous, Dr. Pierce! I am not telling you anything that
is not well authenticated, and a familiar fact to men of science. If
you want corroboration, I can only advise you to trace my statement
through the works on psychology in any well-furnished library, where
you will find it confirmed by hundreds of specific instances. With a
mental disposition like Miss Iris’s, an emotion so intense as that she
suffered divides itself off from the rest of her consciousness. It is
so overpowering that it cannot connect itself with her daily life;
ordinary sights and sounds cannot call it back to memory. It can be
awakened only by some extraordinary means such as those I used when,
as far as I was able, I reproduced for her benefit just now here in
your study all the sights and sounds of last Wednesday afternoon that
preceded and attended her interview with Canonigo Penol.”
“It seems impossible, Mr. Trant,” Pierce pressed his hands to his eyes
dazedly. “But I have seen it with my own eyes!”
“The sudden sleep into which she had fallen before Ulame aroused her,
and the fact that the voice your mother heard seemed to her a strange
one,” Trant continued, “added strength to my conclusion, for both were
only additional evidences of the effect of an intense emotion on a
disposition such as Miss Iris’s. Now, what was this emotional
experience so closely connected with the chalchihuitl stone that the
sight of the stone was able to recall it, with a dulling feeling of
fear and apathy to her emotions, without being in itself able to bring
recollection to her conscious mind, I could only conjecture.
“But after learning from you that while a child she had lived among
Central American Indians, and discovering that the chalchihuitl stone
was a ceremonial stone of savage religious rites—particularly the
marriage rite—I could not help but note the remarkable coincidence
that the man who brought the chalchihuitl stone appeared precisely at
the time he would have come if he had learned from newspapers in
Central America of the girl’s intended marriage. As the most probable
reason for his coming, considering the other circumstances, was to
prevent the wedding, I thought the easiest way to lay hands upon him
and establish his identity was to publish at once the notice that the
wedding had been postponed, which, if he saw it, would make him
confident he had accomplished his object and draw him here again. Draw
him it did, last night, into the arms of Walker and myself, with a
Lake Forest officer along to make the arrest legal.”
“I see! I see! Go on!” Pierce urged intently.
“But though I caught him,” Trant continued, “I could not gain the
really important facts from him by questioning, as I was totally
unaware of the particulars which concerned Miss Iris’s—or rather
Isabella Clarke’s—parentage and self-exiled father. But I knew
that, by throwing her into the true ‘trance’ which you have just
witnessed—a hysterical condition known as monoideic somnambulism to
psychologists—she would be forced to recall and tell us in detail of
the experiences which she had passed through in that condition,
precisely as the persons possessed of the ‘devil’s claw’ who were
burned and tortured as witches in the Middle Ages had the ability
sometimes to go into trances where they knew and told of things which
they were not conscious of in their ordinary state; precisely as
certain clairvoyants to-day are often able to tell correctly certain
things of which they could seem to have no natural knowledge.
“As for Miss Iris, there is now no reason for apprehension.
Ordinarily, in case conditions might arise which would remind her so
strongly of the events that took place here last Wednesday, she would
be thrown automatically into the condition she was in this afternoon
when she gave us her narrative. She would then repeat all the
particulars rapidly aloud, as you have heard her give them; or she
would act them out dramatically, going through all the motions of her
flight from Penol, and her attempt to save your papers. And each
reminder being made more easy by the one before, these ‘trances’ as
you call them, would become more and more frequent.
“But knowing now, as you do, all the particulars of what happened, you
have only to recount them to her, repeating them time after time if
necessary, until she normally remembers them and you have drawn the
two parts of her consciousness back again into one. She will then,
except to the psychologist, be the same as other people, and will show
no more peculiarity in the rest of her life than she had already shown
in that part of it she has passed in your household. My work here, I
think, is done,” the psychologist rose abruptly, and after grasping
the hand which Pierce eagerly and thankfully stretched out to him, he
preceded him through the doorway.
In the high-ceilinged museum, which blazed red with the light of the
setting sun, they came upon Iris, standing again in absorbed
contemplation of the sacrificial stone. She turned and smiled
pleasantly at them, with no sign of curiosity; but Pierce, as he
passed, bent gently and kissed her lips.