The janitor of the Morgue, remembering Gerald Burton's five-franc piece,
and perchance looking forward to another rond, was wreathed in smiles.
Eagerly he welcomed the two strangers into the passage, and carefully he
closed the great doors behind them.
"A little minute," he said, smiling happily. "Only one little minute! The
trifling formality of showing your permit to the gentleman in the office
must be gone through, and then I myself will show monsieur and madame
everything there is to be seen."
"We do not wish to see everything," said Gerald Burton sharply. "We simply
wish to see--" he hesitated--"body Number 4--" he lowered his voice, but
Nancy understood enough French to know what it was that he said.
With a blind, instinctive gesture she put out her hand, and Gerald Burton
grasped it firmly, and for the first time a look of pity and of sympathy
came across the janitor's face.
Tiens! tiens! Then it was true after all? These young people (he now took
them for a brother and sister) were here on business, not, as he had
supposed, on pleasure.
"Come in and wait here," he said gravely. "This is the doctors' room, but
madame can sit here for a moment while the formalities are gone through."
He flung open a door, and showed them into a curious, old-fashioned looking
sitting-room, strangely unlike the waiting-room which would have been found
attached, say, to an American or British mortuary.
An ornate writing-table filled up one corner of the room, and, opposite the
two windows, covering the whole of the blank wall, was a narrow glass case
running from floor to ceiling.
From this case young Burton quickly averted his eyes, for it was filled
with wax models of heads which might have been modelled from the denizens
of Dante's Inferno.
"I'm afraid I must now leave you for a moment," he said gently; "sit over
here, Mrs. Dampier, and look out on the river."
And Nancy obeyed with dull submission. She gazed on the bright, moving
panorama before her, aware, in a misty, indifferent way, that the view was
beautiful, that Jack would have thought it so.
This bend of the Seine is always laden with queer, picturesque craft, and
just below the window by which she sat was moored a flat-bottomed barge
which evidently served as dwelling place for a very happy little family.
One end of the barge had been turned into a kind of garden, there was even
a vine-covered arbour, under which two tiny children were now playing some
absorbing game.
And this glimpse of ordinary normal life gradually brought a feeling of
peace, almost of comfort, to Nancy's sore heart. She wondered if she would
ever be happy again--happy as those little children playing outside were
happy, without a thought of care in the world: that had been the kind of
simple, unquestioning happiness she too had thoughtlessly enjoyed till the
last three days.
When Gerald Burton came back he was glad rather than grieved to see that
tears were running down her face.
But a moment later, as they followed their guide down a humid, dark passage
her tears stopped, and a look of pinched terror came into her eyes.
Suddenly there fell on their ears loud, whirring, jarring sounds.
"What's that?" cried Nancy in a loud voice. Her nerves were taut with
suspense, quivering with fear of what she was about to see.
And the janitor, as if he understood her question, turned round
reassuringly. "Only our refrigerating machines, madame. We think them
wonderfully quiet, considering. They whirr on night and day, they are never
stilled. As for me--" he added jovially--"I would miss the noise very much.
But as I lie in bed listening to the sound I know that all is well. It
would be a very serious thing indeed for us if the machines stopped, even
for ten minutes--" he shook his head mysteriously.
Nancy breathed a little more easily. She had not understood what it was
exactly that he had said, but his voice had sounded cheerful and kind: and
she remained for a while ignorant of the meaning and object of the machines
by which they passed quickly in a great room filled with moving wheels,
and, even on this hot June day, full of icy breaths.
As they came to the end of the engine-room their guide turned round and
gave the young American a quick, warning look. "C'est ici," he said, under
his breath. And Gerald stepped quickly in front of Mrs. Dampier.
"Is what we are going to see very horrible?" he whispered hurriedly. "I
wish this lady to be spared as far as may be from seeing anything
especially painful."
"As to horrible--well, it depends, monsieur, on what is thought horrible! A
good many of my pensioners have been dangerous customers in their time--but
now? Fortunately, monsieur, the dead cannot bite!" and he smiled at his own
grim joke.
Gerald Burton shuddered involuntarily, but as he and Nancy followed the man
from the engine-room he gave a sigh of relief, for they had emerged into a
wide, airy shed.
The place looked like a workshop of sorts, for it was lined, on one side,
with what looked like gigantic chests of drawers, painted black; while
standing about on the stone pavement were long white deal packing cases.
Over in a corner was a black box, of which the lid was loose.
"You said Number 4, monsieur?" said the man in a business-like tone. "Well,
I will get you out Number 4. Kindly stand just over there--not in the
sunlight, that might prevent your seeing clearly." He added, speaking far
more gently and kindly than he had yet done, "Madame must not be
frightened. It will be all over in a moment."
Gerald looked down at his companion. Her face seemed to have become quite
small, like that of a child, but the pupils of her eyes had dilated: as she
stared up at him fearfully he likened them, in his heart, to deep
unfathomable pools.
She came close up to him, and then, without stopping to think, simply
following a natural instinct, he put his arm round her shoulder; so would
he have done to his sister in a moment of similar distress.
"Don't be too frightened," he whispered, "it will all be over very, very
soon, Mrs. Dampier. Somehow I don't think you have anything to fear."
"Please stand over in that corner," said the janitor, pointing towards the
black box Gerald Burton had noticed when they had first come into the yard.
"We have a poor lady in that box who was only brought in an hour ago! She
was run over, killed by an omnibus--such a pity, for she is such a nice
fresh-looking lady: not more than about thirty years of age. We expect her
family any moment; they will know her by her wedding ring, and by a little
locket with a child's hair in it."
Even as he was speaking the man was opening a small, inconspicuous door,
situated close to that which gave into the refrigerating-engine room.
Gerald's arm slipped down from Nancy's shoulder. She had put out her hand
gropingly, as a blind child might have done, and he was now holding the
poor little hand tightly clasped in his firm grasp.
There came a harsh rumbling sound, and then there was wheeled out into the
open yard an inclined plane hitched up on huge iron wheels. To the inclined
plane was bound a swathed, rigid figure.
"Here is Number 4," said the man in a subdued tone. "I will uncover his
face so that madame and monsieur may see if it is the gentleman for whom
they are seeking."
A strange tremor shot through Gerald Burton. He was shaken with a variety
of sensations of which the predominant feeling was that of repulsion. Was
he at last about to gaze at the dead face of the man who, with the one
paramount exception of that same man's wife, had filled his mind and
thoughts to the exclusion of all else since he had first heard the name of
John Dampier? Was he now to make acquaintance with the stranger who had yet
in so curious and sinister a way become his familiar?
Nancy gently withdrew her hand from his: leaning slightly forward, she
gazed at the swathed stark form which might possibly--so much she had told
herself at once--be that of John Dampier.
Very slowly the man drew off that portion of the sheet which covered the
upper part of the body, and, as he did so, Gerald Burton heard the woman
standing by his side utter a long, fluttering sigh of relief.
Thank God it was not Jack--not her Jack!
The fine, well-cut face was that of a man about Gerald Burton's own age.
The features were stilled in the awful immobility of death: but for that
immobility, the dead man lying there before them might have been asleep.
"An Englishman," said the janitor thoughtfully, "or perchance an American?
A finely built fellow, monsieur. A true athlete. Not a wound, not a touch!
Just dropped dead yesterday afternoon in a public gymnasium."
"How extraordinary it is," observed Gerald Burton in a low voice, "that he
has not yet been claimed by his friends--"
"Oh no, monsieur, not extraordinary at all! We in this country write to our
children every day when we are separated from them--that is if we can
afford the stamps. Not so English or American people. They think their
children are sure to be all right. In about a fortnight we shall have
enquiries for Number 4, hardly before then."
"And by that time," said Gerald slowly, "I suppose the poor fellow will
have been buried."
"Oh no, monsieur--" the man laughed, as if the other's remark struck him as
being really very funny. "Why, we keep some of them as long as fifteen
months! Those drawers are full of them--" he pointed to the long black
chests which lined one side of the shed. "Would monsieur like to see some
of my pensioners? I have men, women, ay, and children too, cosily tucked
away in there."
A low exclamation of horror escaped from Nancy Dampier's lips. She turned
ashily pale. At last she understood what it was the janitor was saying....
The man looked at her with kindly concern. "Tiens!" he said, "isn't that
strange? It happens again and again! People like madame come here--quite
quiet, quite brave; and then, though overjoyed at not finding the person
they came to seek--they suddenly shudder and turn pale; sometimes I have
known them faint!"
"Kindly let us out by the shortest and quickest way," said Gerald quickly.
"Pardon, monsieur, the law exacts that Number 4 must remain in your
presence for a quarter of an hour." The man shrugged his shoulders. "You
see some people, especially ladies, are apt to think afterwards that they
may have made a mistake: that their sight was at fault, and so on. That is
why this tiresome regulation is now in force. I should like to oblige
monsieur, but to do so would get me into trouble."
He stopped speaking, and stood waiting, at attention.
And then, as they stood there in silence, Gerald, looking beyond the still,
swathed figure stretched out before him, allowed his eyes to rest on these
black boxes, each containing one poor tenantless shell of humanity, from
which the unquenchable spirit of man had been suddenly, violently expelled:
and as he looked, he missed something that should have been there--the
sign, the symbol, of the cross.
A flood of memories came surging through his mind--memories of childish
prayers learnt at his mother's knee, of certain revisions which time had
brought to his first innocent, unquestioning faith. And with those memories
came anger and a sense of humiliation. For there was nothing, absolutely
nothing, to show that these boxes before him held what had once been the
dwelling-place of that daily miracle, the sentient soul of man. These
defenceless dead had been subjected to a last, continuous, intolerable
insult; in their flesh he felt that his own humanity was degraded. Here was
nothing to separate the human dead from the beasts of the field; these
boxes would have looked the same had they held merely the bodies of animals
prepared for the inquisitive, probing research of science.
His young imagination, strung to the highest pitch, penetrated those
shuttered receptacles and showed him on the face of each occupant that
strange ironic smile with which the dead husk of man seems often to betray
the full knowledge now possessed by the spirit which has fled. That riddle
of existence, of which through the ages philosophers and kings had sought
the key, was now an open book to all those who lay here in the still
majesty of death. Yes, they could well afford to smile--to smile at the
littleness which denied to their tenements of flesh the smallest symbol of
belief that death was not the end of all.
His companion had also marked the absence of any sign of the Christian's
hope in this house of death, and through her mind there ran the confused
recollection of holy words:--
"It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in
dishonour; it is raised in glory.
"Behold, I shew you a mystery; we shall not all sleep....
"O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"
Comfortable words! They seemed, merely by their flight through the tense
ganglia of her brain, to break into the awful loneliness of these recent
tabernacles of the spirit, and bestow on them the benison denied them in
its pride by the human family from whose bosom they had been torn.
Then swiftly her mind turned to the thought of those who were still
watching and waiting, in that misery of suspense of which she now knew each
pang. Every one--surely every one--of these dead who now surrounded
her,--silent, solitary, had been loved--for love comes in some guise to all
poor human creatures. Those mouths, cheeks, eyes, those rippling waves of
woman's hair, had been kissed--ah, how often. The perishing flesh had been
clasped heart to heart....
There came over her soul a great rush of pity for those others, the vast
and scattered company, mourning, mourning, and yet reaching out in wild
hope and desire for their loved ones, whose bodies were all the while here.
They did not know, yet hither came winging unerringly, like flights of
homing doves, their myriad prayers, their passionate loving thoughts and
wistful thirsty longing for one word, one kiss, one touch of the hand....
Surely such thoughts and prayers sanctified this charnel-house.
She herself was of that company--that company who were not sure. Some,
doubtless, obstinate, refused to believe that death in any form had
overtaken the missing; others feared to come here and look. She had not
feared....
The janitor spoke to her, and she started violently.
"You are quite convinced, madame, that Number 4 is not he whom you seek?"
These words, that question, evidently embodied a formula the man was bound
to use.
Mrs. Dampier bent her head.
"You, monsieur, also have no doubt?"
"None at all," said Gerald briefly.
With a sudden movement the man put the sinister carriage in motion, but
when he had got it close to the door of the mortuary, he stopped a
moment:--"We have many compliments on our brancard," he said cheerfully.
"It is very ingenious, is it not? You see the wheels are so large that a
mere touch pushes it backwards and forwards. It is quite easy to wheel back
into place again."
Gerald Burton took out a five-franc piece. He left Nancy Dampier standing,
an infinitely pathetic, forlorn little figure, in the sunlit portion of the
yard, and approached the man.
"We must go now," he said hurriedly. "I suppose it is quite easy to leave
by the way we came in--through the engine-room?"
"One moment, monsieur, one moment! Before showing you out I must put Number
4 back with his other companions. There is no fear of his being lonely,
poor man! We had five brought in this morning."
They had not long to wait before the concierge joined them again.
"Won't monsieur and madame stay and just see everything else there is to be
seen?" he asked eagerly. "We have the most interesting relics of great
criminals, notably of Troppman. Troppman was before my time, monsieur, but
the day that his seven victims were publicly exposed there--" he pointed
with his thumb to the inconspicuous door through which he had just wheeled
Number 4--"ah, that was a red-letter day for the Morgue! Eighteen thousand
people came to gaze on those seven bodies. And it was lucky, monsieur, that
in those days we were open to the public, for it was the landlord of their
hotel who recognised the poor creatures."
He was now preceding his two visitors through the operating theatre where
are held the post-mortems. From thence he led them into the hall where they
had first gained admission. "Well, monsieur, if you really do not care to
see our relics--?" He opened the great door through which so few living men
and women ever pass.
Gerald Burton and Nancy Dampier walked out into the sunlight, and the last
thing they saw of the Morgue was the smiling face of the concierge--it was
not often that he received ten francs for doing his simple duty.
"Au plaisir de vous revoir, monsieur, madame: au plaisir de vous revoir!"
he said gaily. And as the courteous old French mode of adieu fell upon
their ears, Gerald Burton felt an awful sensation of horror, of oppression,
yes and of dread, steal over him.
Nancy Dampier, looking up at her companion, suddenly forgot herself. "Mr.
Burton," she exclaimed, her voice full of concern, "I'm afraid this has
made you feel ill? I oughtn't to have let you come here!" And it was she
who in her clear, low voice told the cabman the address of the Hôtel
Saint Ange.
Gerald Burton muttered a word of half-angry excuse. He was keenly ashamed
of what he took to be his lack of manliness.
But during the weeks, aye and the months that followed he found himself
constantly haunted by the gentle, ironic words of farewell uttered by the
concierge of the Morgue: "Au plaisir de vous revoir, monsieur, madame: au
plaisir de vous revoir!"