Shady Sinners of the Styx.
I was in the region of Outer Darkness to which the dead are banished to
await the judgment. All about me was a misty blackness so oppressive
that one felt as if wedged between mountains. My feet sank in the soft
earth, composed of those good intentions with which I had helped to
pave the road to Hell. Voices of other days seemed to sound in my ears;
out of the shadowy mist forms of ghostly men and women emerged and
then were lost to sight, swallowed up in the darkness. Perceiving a
glimmering light in the distance I hastened toward it. A phantom house
barred my path, but I flitted through it as though it were not. A pale
twilight now made objects discernible and I breathed more freely, for
I no longer stumbled over the good resolutions, which, being broken,
blocked the pavement.
A troop of spectres surrounded me and tried to stop my progress. Shades
though they were, their attentions were annoying and I tried to brush
them aside. My hands passed through shadows and the phantoms laughed in
derision.
“What’s the news?” they cried again and again.
I hadn’t come to Hades to be interviewed, and knowing from the inside
some of its perils, I declined to relate what the upper world was
doing. This enraged the shades, who gathered about me threateningly.
Just then one of my companions on the Styx yachting trip came to my
aid. His appearance seemed to inspire the spectres with terror, for
they all fled. The newcomer was talkative.
“Did you recognize in the leader of that band our old friend,
Diogenes?” he asked.
“No, I never met the gentleman. Up on earth when any one is looking
for an honest man, he doesn’t come to a newspaper office: he goes to a
detective agency.”
My companion gave a scarcely perceptible start.
“Diogenes is no longer looking for an honest man. Poor fellow, he knows
it’s no use. He thought he had an honest man a few years ago in ‘Boss’
Tweed, but the politician fell from the high pedestal of the ‘man
higher up’ when he consented to pose for a caricature of himself by
Nast. Our friend of the tub and lantern has begun to wonder if when he
finds an honest man it will prove to be a bachelor girl! Not long ago
President Harper sent a professor from the University of Chicago to
tell Diogenes that he could have an honest man as soon as he had bled
him for another hundred million. So the philosopher is waiting for—”
“John D. Rockefeller!”
“Your deduction, my dear journalist, does you credit.”
Somewhat piqued that I did not reply, the stranger said:
“Why don’t you express wonder that I knew you were a journalist? Watson
always does.”
“There is only one Watson,” I protested. “Besides, it has always
seemed to me that he was singularly obtuse. Unless you lent him
your spectacles, Watson couldn’t hold down a job in the city room
of a New York daily for twenty-four hours. I’m not a journalist,
but I acknowledge that ‘newspaper man’ is written all over me, from
the pencil in my pocket to my ‘nose for news,’ which is abnormally
developed. It’s the easiest thing in the world to tell a newspaper man
by his nose, an actor by his clothes and a detective by his cocaine
syringe. For instance, you are—”
“The shade of Sherlock Holmes, just returned from a trip to earth. But
I really died when I fell over the cliff. That fall made Conan Doyle
a Sir. He thought that if he could bring me back to life I would make
him an Earl. He tried to breathe in me the breath of life, but while
the dear public wept at my death, they viewed my resurrection with
indifference. Ghost stories have been exorcised for all time, so I’m
back here for good.”
“Did Satan send for you?”
“Yes, to assist him in ultimately securing the three persons on earth
whom he is most eagerly awaiting—David Belasco, John Kendrick Bangs,
and Marie Corelli.
“The author of the ‘Darling of the Gods,’ in order to lend realism to
the final scene, made a compact with Satan to reproduce Hades on the
New York stage; in return he is to give his soul—or his salary—as soon
as the play has run its course. That’s the reason Belasco prolonged the
run of ‘The Darling of the Gods,’ even after it ceased to pay expenses.
A theatrical advance agent, who is to transfer the entire production
to Hades, was here several weeks ago and said that the thousandth
performance had been reached. Yo San, who is serving her thousand years
of penance—a year for each day of the play’s run—says she never would
have thought of being wicked if Belasco had not prompted her from the
wings. The man who could write ‘To lie a little is better than to be
unhappy much’ deserves a place alongside of George Washington.”
“What! Is the father of his country here, too?”
“Oh, yes! they’re all here. Washington is more of a father than ever.
He had no family in life, but he has one here larger than he likes—the
children of the only woman he never loved. It’s strange how many women
go out of their way to remind George how he met defeat at their hands
long before he fought the British.”
“Evidently women of those days didn’t appreciate veracity.”
“Don’t throw that cherry tree at his head when you see him or he’ll
think you have an axe to grind. He has never been able to find out who
wrote that fable, Æsop being dead and George Ade unborn. When he does,
Hades will be too hot to hold both of them, although of course there’s
no change of weather to speak of, as the mercury never seeks the bulb.
It is always trying to knock the roof off its glass house; that’s the
reason there is no throwing of stones in the under world.”
“But what has Satan against John Kendrick Bangs?”
“His Majesty likes to be taken seriously. Most practical jokers, you
know, resent a joke at their own expense. While he delights in playing
with men, to make fun of him is an offense which Satan cannot condone.
Then you know Bangs sent me in ‘Pursuit of the House-boat’ and I
frustrated a great many plans of His Majesty.
“Lucifer describes woman—to disabuse your mind of the impression that
I have held converse with his Satanic Highness, I will state that I
am quoting Marie Corelli, his press agent—Lucifer describes woman as
a frivolous doll of pink and white with long hair frequently not her
own. He hates women, for they have made him what he is and keep him so,
according to Marie. ‘Women,’ he says, ‘are much less sensitive than men
and infinitely more heartless. They are mothers of the human race and
the faults of the race are chiefly due to them.’ Considering that the
eternal feminine is so fond of him, I am surprised that the Evil One
does not reciprocate, but then Lucifer was once an angel and we all
know that however angelic she of infinite variety may appear, she is
not an angel. I have heard men of moods and appetite talk of women in
the same strain as Lucifer and so have ceased to wonder that each woman
knows one particular man—usually her husband—whom she describes as a
devil.
“Lucifer had found out the truth of the Latin proverb which says ‘Trust
not a woman, even when dead,’ and as he didn’t want any divided skirt
rule, he had planned to have Capt. Kidd take them to Paris or to Italy,
which Robert Burton says is a hell for women. Satan thought he was well
rid of them until after the day of judgment, so you can imagine his
burning rage when, following Bangs’ orders, I brought them safely back
to Hades. When the humorist leaves the earth it will be jumping out of
the frying pan of a vivid imagination into a very hot fire of reality.”
“And Marie Corelli? I thought her ‘Sorrows of Satan’—”
“That’s just it. Through all the centuries Lucifer lacked a champion
until Marie Corelli sat in judgment on the world and gave it fits after
reading ‘Paradise Lost’ and losing her heart as well as her head—as
many another girl has done—to the angel who ‘fell, never to rise
again.’ Lucifer would have had no attraction for most women if he had
not fallen. Milton made him a hero, many persons have embraced him, but
no one ever fully understood him except Marie, and great shall be her
reward.”
“How can there be rewards in Hades?”
“Oh, we have our society here just as in the upper region, only the
world asks who a man is; here the Smart Set asks who he was. Caste is
as strong here as in your Four Million and in our upper Ten Thousand.”
“But even yet I do not understand how the champion of His Satanic
Majesty is to be rewarded.”
“Lucifer has long wanted a wife. Marie Corelli alone pleases his fancy,
besides possessing the necessary qualifications for the position. Here
she will be supreme; she will rule even the arch fiend himself. To her
kings will bow and princes kneel. Won’t she make it hot for some of the
reviewers who ‘roasted’ her on earth! There is only one place where
reviews live—in Hell. There is a torridness of climate here which
agrees with them. After all, Hades is no more than a caricature of your
world and the doings of men.
“Your society is but vanity; what, then, shall be said of the
festivities of Hades? We dine, and our Barmecide feast leaves a
nauseating feeling of emptiness. Here amusement is the lash of
correction. All is illusion; nothing is real. The fashions of all
the centuries flourish here at one time, for every fashion which has
had its day straightway goes to Hell. I sometimes think that is the
principal reason why women are dissatisfied here; they had to follow
the fashion in vogue while they were on the earth and when a late comer
appears in a new style hat or dress the other women suffer torments
worse than any Satan could devise, especially on Easter Sunday.
“The twilight of Hades forms a sort of X-ray which passes through the
clothes and flesh and enables us to see into the heart and mind of one
another. The other day Paul Jones met George Washington, walking arm in
arm with King George the Fourth. He stopped to say:
“Admiral, I’m glad my children are giving you the honors which are
justly yours.” Yet as his mind was as an open book, Jones read his
thoughts thus:
“‘Why couldn’t that meddlesome Porter let well enough alone, instead of
bringing a mummy from France to oust me from my place as first in the
hearts of my countrymen?’”
Sherlock Holmes puffed reflectively on the shade of a cigar for a few
moments; then knocking off an imaginary ash, he continued:
“Whether matches are made in Heaven is a question, but they certainly
are not made in Hell, despite the abundance of brimstone and the
presence of Lucifer. Courtship is impossible where the heart betrays
and fine words are belied by revealed thoughts, where the naked truth
cannot be clothed in ‘fig’ language. When all reality has vanished,
there can be no delusion, so that men who seldom spoke in the other
world save to utter a falsehood have come to speak the truth here.
There is only one exception—George Washington.”
“You are rather hard on—”
“Remember that Hades is the only land which holds the mirror up to
nature. In the flash of the earth’s footlights, we act our part in the
play of life to dazzle other men and blind them to our faults. Life is
a series of poses, each like the film of a moving picture which by the
juggling of the operator suggests continuous action, though composed
of many lifeless photographs. Our life is an optical illusion. We are
judged by what men see us do and yet they perhaps never see us when the
mask is off and we have forgotten to pose. We strike our attitude and
the world applauds or jeers. Only when life’s candle is snuffed out
do we forget to pose, for then a great awe is upon us. What a haunting
thought it is that ‘the evil that men do lives after them’! In life we
hugged our sins to ourselves, guarding them zealously; so in death, why
cannot they, like the good we do, be decently interred with our bones?
When we are laid low, why must our sins go on a rampage of their own,
both in the upper and the under worlds? In Hades the mask has been torn
away and we see man as he is, not as he would have us see him.”
“That must be diverting.”
“Hades is the best place in the universe for the study of history.
Socrates is here but his philosophy, as well as his wife, has deserted
him; he is now a chronic kicker. Moses strikes his rod on the rocks in
vain, for molten lava flows instead of water; the result of his rage
is seen at Vesuvius, the devil’s chimney. Pontius Pilate is forever
washing his hands, but the red blood flows afresh. Shakespeare tells
him that the damned spot will not out. Eve is setting the fashion in
fig leaves and serpentine dresses, but like her earthly descendants, is
discontented, although she takes a certain spiteful satisfaction in the
fact that the number of women in Hades is on the increase. Methuselah
is hunting for the fountain of perpetual youth. He wants to be a boy
again and his favorite poem is ‘Backward, turn backward, O Time, in
thy flight.’ He suffers a periodic attack of second childishness every
thousand years.”
“And John Paul Jones?”
“Poor Paul! he never will forgive me for disturbing his bones.”
“I thought Ambassador Porter—”
“Do you mean to say that Watson hasn’t told the world about my last
and greatest case? Why, that was the very reason I returned to earth!
Ambassador Porter came over to England and besought Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle to find the dead sea dog. Only one man could do it—myself.
Lucifer refused to give me up, but Dr. Doyle matched his cunning with
that of His Satanic Majesty, gave him a dose of cocaine, and won.
Watson says each case is more difficult than the last, but I do pride
myself that this exploit would have baffled every one save the great
Sherlock Holmes. By a series of deductions I came to the conclusion
that the bones of John Paul Jones would be found wrapped in tinfoil,
encased in a leaden coffin, swimming in alcohol under a stable. With
this information it was easy for Porter to do the rest. As Watson says:
‘It was all so absurdly simple!’”
“Tell me your story.”
At sight of my note book the detective shook his head.
“I commissioned Watson to do that, but Conan Doyle, who owns the
copyright, may wish to give the Ambassador the credit until he comes
to join us on the banks of the Styx. I never did seek notoriety, but
Dr. Doyle, while waiting for patients who never came, reversed the
usual practice of physicians; he brought a dead man to life, and of
course I was so grateful that I took cocaine to drug my modesty and—the
literary market.”
“The latest news we had of you on earth was that you had retired to
study bee-farming on Sussex Downs.”
“Bee-farming? That is the most unkind sting of all! Then Sussex must
reach down to Hades, for here I am, Oslerized and ostracized. James
Payne calls books the chloroform of the mind and so I have been
embalmed between covers, and ‘finis’ written for my epitaph. Never
mind, it is a matter of indifference to me now that I have had my
revenge on that pirate.”
“Pirate!” I gasped.
Holmes laughed at my horrified tone.
“You forget that I’m English,” he said. “When I pointed out to Porter
that the way to fame lay in a dead man’s shoes I paid off a score of
more than a century’s standing. Maybe you are not aware that when a
body is disturbed after being once buried, its soul must inhabit the
Outer Darkness a thousand years longer than the original decree. Let us
see how the admiral bears up under the shock. In Wishland that is an
easy matter. Paul Jones, I desire your presence.”
A moment’s pause, then out of the twilight flitted the spectre of a
man in naval dress. A husky voice came to us as from the throat of a
phonograph:
“A thousand years more! No quarter! No quarter! ‘I had only just begun
to fight!’”
The detective laughed mirthlessly.
“What a merry place is Hades! Imagine a thing and you have it. Think,
and at once the thought takes visible form. Truly, this is a land of
magic that needs no Aladdin’s lamp. Behold the jugglery of fulfilled
desire—that is John Paul Jones!”
JOHN BROWN’S BODY AND THE
BONES OF JOHN PAUL JONES.