_A Novelette of a Thousand Thrills_
_By_ ANTHONY M. RUD
In the heart of a second-growth piney-woods jungle of southern Alabama,
a region sparsely settled save by backwoods blacks and Cajans--that
queer, half-wild people descended from Acadian exiles of the middle
eighteenth century--stands a strange, enormous ruin.
Interminable trailers of Cherokee rose, white-laden during a single
month of spring, have climbed the heights of its three remaining walls.
Palmetto fans rise knee high above the base. A dozen scattered live
oaks, now belying their nomenclature because of choking tufts of gray,
Spanish moss and two-foot circlets of mistletoe parasite which have
stripped bare of foliage the gnarled, knotted limbs, lean fantastic
beards against the crumbling brick.
Immediately beyond, where the ground becomes soggier and
lower--dropping away hopelessly into the tangle of dogwood, holly,
poison sumac and pitcher plants that is Moccasin Swamp--undergrowth of
titi and annis has formed a protecting wall impenetrable to all save
the furtive ones. Some few outcasts utilize the stinking depths of that
sinister swamp, distilling “shinny” or “pure cawn” liquor for illicit
trade.
Tradition states that this is the case, at least--a tradition which
antedates that of the premature ruin by many decades. I believe it,
for during evenings intervening between investigations of the awesome
spot I often was approached as a possible customer by wood-billies
who could not fathom how anyone dared venture near without plenteous
fortification of liquid courage.
I knew “shinny,” therefore I did not purchase it for personal
consumption. A dozen times I bought a quart or two, merely to establish
credit among the Cajans, pouring away the vile stuff immediately into
the sodden ground. It seemed then that only through filtration and
condensation of their dozens of weird tales regarding “Daid House”
could I arrive at understanding of the mystery and weight of horror
hanging about the place.
Certain it is that out of all the superstitious cautioning,
head-wagging and whispered nonsensities I obtained only two
indisputable facts. The first was that no money, and no supporting
battery of ten-gauge shotguns loaded with chilled shot, could induce
either Cajan or darky of the region to approach within five hundred
yards of that flowering wall! The second fact I shall dwell upon later.
Perhaps it would be as well, as I am only a mouthpiece in this
chronicle, to relate in brief why I came to Alabama on this mission.
I am a scribbler of general fact articles, no fiction writer as was
Lee Cranmer--though doubtless the confession is superfluous. Lee was
my roommate during college days. I knew his family well, admiring John
Corliss Cranmer even more than I admired the son and friend--and almost
as much as Peggy Breede whom Lee married. Peggy liked me, but that was
all. I cherish sanctified memory of her for just that much, as no
other woman before or since has granted this gangling dyspeptic even a
hint of joyous and sorrowful intimacy.
Work kept me to the city. Lee, on the other hand, coming of wealthy
family--and, from the first, earning from his short-stories and
novel royalties more than I wrested from editorial coffers--needed
no anchorage. He and Peggy honeymooned a four-month trip to Alaska,
visited Honolulu next winter, fished for salmon on Cain’s River, New
Brunswick, and generally enjoyed the outdoors at all seasons.
They kept an apartment in Wilmette, near Chicago, yet, during the few
spring and fall seasons they were “home,” both preferred to rent a
suite at one of the country clubs to which Lee belonged. I suppose they
spent thrice or five times the amount Lee actually earned, yet for my
part I only honored that the two should find such great happiness in
life and still accomplish artistic triumph.
They were honest, zestful young Americans, the type--and pretty
nearly the _only_ type--two million dollars cannot spoil. John
Corliss Cranmer, father of Lee, though as different from his boy as a
microscope is different from a painting by Remington, was even further
from being dollar conscious. He lived in a world bounded only by the
widening horizon of biological science--and his love for the two who
would carry on that Cranmer name.
Many a time I used to wonder how it could be that as gentle,
clean-souled and lovable a gentleman as John Corliss Cranmer could
have ventured so far into scientific research without attaining
small-caliber atheism. Few do. He believed both in God and human kind.
To accuse him of murdering his boy and the girl wife who had come to be
loved as the mother of baby Elsie--as well as blood and flesh of his
own family--was a gruesome, terrible absurdity! Yes, even when John
Corliss Cranmer was declared unmistakably insane!
Lacking a relative in the world, baby Elsie was given to me--and the
middle-aged couple who had accompanied the three as servants about half
of the known world. Elsie would be Peggy over again. I worshiped her,
knowing that if my stewardship of her interests could make of her a
woman of Peggy’s loveliness and worth I should not have lived in vain.
And at four Elsie stretched out her arms to me after a vain attempt to
jerk out the bobbed tail of Lord Dick, my tolerant old Airedale--and
called me “papa.”
I felt a deep down choking ... yes, those strangely long black lashes
some day might droop in fun or coquetry, but now baby Elsie held a
wistful, trusting seriousness in depths of ultramarine eyes--that same
seriousness which only Lee had brought to Peggy.
Responsibility in one instant became double. That she might come to
love me as more than foster parent was my dearest wish. Still, through
selfishness I could not rob her of rightful heritage; she must know
in after years. And the tale that I would tell her must not be the
horrible suspicion which had been bandied about in common talk!
I went to Alabama, leaving Elsie in the competent hands of Mrs. Daniels
and her husband, who had helped care for her since birth.
In my possession, prior to the trip, were the scant facts known
to authorities at the time of John Corliss Cranmer’s escape and
disappearance. They were incredible enough.
For conducting biological research upon forms of protozoan life, John
Corliss Cranmer had hit upon this region of Alabama. Near a great swamp
teeming with microscopic organisms, and situated in a semi-tropical
belt where freezing weather rarely intruded to harden the bogs, the
spot seemed ideal for his purpose.
Through Mobile he could secure supplies daily by truck. The isolation
suited. With only an octoroon man to act as chef, houseman and valet
for the times he entertained no visitors, he brought down scientific
apparatus, occupying temporary quarters in the village of Burdett’s
Corners while his woods house was in process of construction.
By all accounts the Lodge, as he termed it, was a substantial affair
of eight or nine rooms, built of logs and planed lumber bought at Oak
Grove. Lee and Peggy were expected to spend a portion of each year
with him; quail, wild turkey and deer abounded, which fact made such a
vacation certain to please the pair. At other times all save four rooms
was closed.
This was in 1907, the year of Lee’s marriage. Six years later when
I came down, no sign of a house remained except certain mangled and
rotting timbers projecting from viscid soil--or what seemed like soil.
And a twelve-foot wall of brick had been built to enclose the house
completely! One portion of this had fallen _inward_!
_II._
I wasted weeks of time at first, interviewing officials of the
police department at Mobile, the town marshals and county sheriffs
of Washington and Mobile counties, and officials of the psychopathic
hospital from which Cranmer made his escape.
In substance the story was one of baseless homicidal mania. Cranmer
the elder had been away until late fall, attending two scientific
conferences in the North, and then going abroad to compare certain
of his findings with those of a Dr. Gemmler of Prague University.
Unfortunately, Gemmler was assassinated by a religious fanatic shortly
afterward. The fanatic voiced virulent objection to all Mendelian
research as blasphemous. This was his only defense. He was hanged.
Search of Gemmler’s notes and effects revealed nothing save an immense
amount of laboratory data on _karyokinesis_--the process of chromosome
arrangement occurring in first growing cells of higher animal embryos.
Apparently Cranmer had hoped to develop some similarities, or point
out differences between hereditary factors occurring in lower forms of
life and those half-demonstrated in the cat and monkey. The authorities
had found nothing that helped me. Cranmer had gone crazy; was that not
sufficient explanation?
Perhaps it was for them, but not for me--and Elsie.
But to the slim basis of fact I was able to unearth:
No one wondered when a fortnight passed without appearance of any
person from the Lodge. Why should anyone worry? A provision salesman in
Mobile called up twice, but failed to complete a connection. He merely
shrugged. The Cranmers had gone away somewhere on a trip. In a week, a
month, a year they would be back. Meanwhile he lost commissions, but
what of it? He had no responsibility for these queer nuts up there in
the piney-woods. Crazy? Of course! Why should any guy with millions to
spend shut himself up among the Cajans and draw microscope-enlarged
notebook pictures of--what the salesman called--“germs?”
A stir was aroused at the end of the fortnight, but the commotion
confined itself to building circles. Twenty carloads of building
brick, fifty bricklayers, and a quarter-acre of fine-meshed wire--the
sort used for screening off pens of rodents and small marsupials in a
zoological garden--were ordered, _damn expense, hurry!_ by an unshaved,
tattered man who identified himself with difficulty as John Corliss
Cranmer.
He looked strange, even then. A certified check for the total amount,
given in advance, and another check of absurd size slung toward a labor
_entrepreneur_, silenced objection, however. These millionaires were
apt to be flighty. When they wanted something they wanted it at tap
of the bell. Well, why not drag down the big profits? A poorer man
would have been jacked up in a day. Cranmer’s fluid gold bathed him in
immunity to criticism.
The encircling wall was built, and roofed with wire netting which
drooped about the squat-pitch of the Lodge. Curious inquiries of
workmen went unanswered until the final day.
Then Cranmer, a strange, intense apparition who showed himself more
shabby than a quay derelict, assembled every man jack of the workmen.
In one hand he grasped a wad of blue slips--fifty-six of them. In the
other he held a Luger automatic.
“I offer each man a thousand dollars for _silence_!” he announced.
“As an alternative--_death_! You know little. Will all of you consent
to swear upon your honor that nothing which has occurred here will be
mentioned elsewhere? By this I mean _absolute_ silence! You will not
come back here to investigate anything. You will not tell your wives.
You will not open your mouths even upon the witness stand in case you
are called! My price is one thousand apiece.
“In case one of you betrays me _I give you my word that this man shall
die_! I am rich. I can hire men to do murder. Well, what do you say?”
The men glanced apprehensively about. The threatening Luger decided
them. To a man they accepted the blue slips--and, save for one witness
who lost all sense of fear and morality in drink, none of the fifty-six
has broken his pledge, as far as I know. That one bricklayer died later
in delirium tremens.
It might have been different had not John Corliss Cranmer escaped.
_III._
They found him the first time, mouthing meaningless phrases concerning
an amœba--one of the tiny forms of protoplasmic life he was known to
have studied. Also he leaped into a hysteria of self-accusation. He had
murdered two innocent people! The tragedy was his crime. He had drowned
them in ooze! Ah, God!
Unfortunately for all concerned, Cranmer, dazed and indubitably stark
insane, chose to perform a strange travesty on fishing four miles
to the west of his lodge--on the further border of Moccasin Swamp.
His clothing had been torn to shreds, his hat was gone, and he was
coated from head to foot with gluey mire. It was far from strange that
the good folk of Shanksville, who never had glimpsed the eccentric
millionaire, failed to associate him with Cranmer.
They took him in, searched his pockets--finding no sign save an
inordinate sum of money--and then put him under medical care. Two
precious weeks elapsed before Dr. Quirk reluctantly acknowledged that
he could do nothing more for this patient, and notified the proper
authorities.
Then much more time was wasted. Hot April and half of still hotter May
passed by before the loose ends were connected. Then it did little
good to know that this raving unfortunate was Cranmer, or that the
two persons of whom he shouted in disconnected delirium actually had
disappeared. Alienists absolved him of responsibility. He was confined
in a cell reserved for the violent.
Meanwhile, strange things occurred back at the Lodge--which now, for
good and sufficient reason, was becoming known to dwellers of the woods
as Dead House. Until one of the walls fell in, however, there had been
no chance to see--unless one possessed the temerity to climb either one
of the tall live oaks, or mount the barrier itself. No doors or opening
of any sort had been placed in that hastily-constructed wall!
By the time the western side of the wall fell, not a native for
miles around but feared the spot far more than even the bottomless,
snake-infested bogs which lay to west and north.
The single statement was all John Corliss Cranmer ever gave to the
world. It proved sufficient. An immediate search was instituted. It
showed that less than three weeks before the day of initial reckoning,
his son and Peggy had come to visit him for the second time that
winter--leaving Elsie behind in company of the Daniels pair. They had
rented a pair of Gordons for quail hunting, and had gone out. That was
the last anyone had seen of them.
The backwoods negro who glimpsed them stalking a covey behind their two
pointing dogs had known no more--even when sweated through twelve hours
of third degree. Certain suspicious circumstances (having to do only
with his regular pursuit of “shinny” transportation) had caused him to
fall under suspicious at first. He was dropped.
Two days later the scientist himself was apprehended--a gibbering idiot
who sloughed his pole--holding on to the baited hook--into a marsh
where nothing save moccasins, an errant alligator, or amphibian life
could have been snared.
His mind was three-quarters dead. Cranmer then was in the state of
the dope fiend who rouses to a sitting position to ask seriously how
many Bolshevists were killed by Julius Caesar before he was stabbed
by Brutus, or why it was that Roller canaries sang only on Wednesday
evenings. He knew that tragedy of the most sinister sort had stalked
through his life--but little more, at first.
Later the police obtained that one statement that he had murdered two
human beings, but never could means or motive be established. Official
guess as to the means was no more than wild conjecture; it mentioned
enticing the victims to the noisome depths of Moccasin Swamp, there to
let them flounder and sink.
The two were his son and daughter-in-law, Lee and Peggy!
_IV._
By feigning coma--then awakening with suddenness to assault three
attendants with incredible ferocity and strength--John Corliss Cranmer
escaped from Elizabeth Ritter Hospital.
How he hid, how he managed to traverse sixty-odd intervening miles
and still balk detection, remains a minor mystery to be explained
only by the assumption that maniacal cunning sufficed to outwit saner
intellects.
Traverse these miles he did, though until I was fortunate enough to
uncover evidence to this effect, it was supposed generally that he had
made his escape as stowaway on one of the banana boats, or had buried
himself in some portion of the nearer woods where he was unknown. The
truth ought to be welcome to householders of Shanksville, Burdett’s
Corners and vicinage--those excusably prudent ones who to this day keep
loaded shotguns handy and barricade their doors at nightfall.
The first ten days of my investigation may be touched upon in brief.
I made headquarters in Burdett’s Corners, and drove out each morning,
carrying lunch and returning for my grits and piney-woods pork or
mutton before nightfall. My first plan had been to camp out at the
edge of the swamp, for opportunity to enjoy the outdoors comes rarely
in my direction. Yet after one cursory examination of the premises I
abandoned the idea. I did not _want_ to camp alone there. And I am less
superstitious than a real estate agent.
It was, perhaps, psychic warning; more probably the queer, faint,
salty odor as of fish left to decay, which hung about the ruin, made
too unpleasant an impression upon my olfactory sense. I experienced a
distinct chill every time the lengthening shadows caught me near Dead
House.
The smell impressed me. In newspaper reports of the case one ingenious
explanation had been worked out. To the rear of the spot where Dead
House had stood--inside the wall--was a swampy hollow circular in
shape. Only a little real mud lay in the bottom of the bowllike
depression now, but one reporter on the staff of _The Mobile Register_
guessed that during the tenancy of the lodge it had been a fishpool.
Drying up of the water had killed the fish, who now permeated the
remnant of mud with this foul odor.
The possibility that Cranmer had needed to keep fresh fish at hand
for some of his experiments silenced the natural objection that in a
country where every stream holds gar pike, bass, catfish and many other
edible varieties, no one would dream of stocking a stagnant puddle.
After tramping about the enclosure, testing the queerly brittle,
desiccated top stratum of earth within and speculating concerning the
possible purpose of the wall, I cut off a long limb of chinaberry and
probed the mud. One fragment of fish spine would confirm the guess of
that imaginative reporter.
I found nothing resembling a piscal skeleton, but established several
facts. First, this mud crater had definite bottom only three or four
feet below the surface of remaining ooze. Second, the fishy stench
became stronger as I stirred. Third, at one time the mud, water, or
whatever had comprised the balance of content, had reached the rim
of the bowl. The last showed by certain marks plain enough when the
crusty, two-inch stratum of upper coating was broken away. It was
puzzling.
The nature of that thin, desiccated effluvium which seemed to cover
everything even to the lower foot or two of brick, came in for next
inspection. It was strange stuff, unlike any earth I ever had seen,
though undoubtedly some form of scum drained in from the swamp at the
time of river floods or cloudbursts (which in this section are common
enough in spring and fall). It crumbled beneath the fingers. When I
walked over it, the stuff crunched hollowly. In fainter degree it
possessed the fishy odor also.
I took some samples where it lay thickest upon the ground, and also a
few where there seemed to be no more than a depth of a sheet of paper.
Later I would have a laboratory analysis made.
Apart from any possible bearing the stuff might have upon the
disappearance of my three friends, I felt the tug of article
interest--that wonder over anything strange or seemingly inexplicable
which lends the hunt for fact a certain glamor and romance all its own.
To myself I was going to have to explain sooner or later just why this
layer covered the entire space within the walls and was not perceptible
_anywhere_ outside! The enigma could wait, however--or so I decided.
Far more interesting were the traces of violence apparent on wall and
what once had been a house. The latter seemed to have been ripped
from its foundations by a giant hand, crushed out of semblance to a
dwelling, and then cast in fragments about the base of wall--mainly
on the south side, where heaps of twisted, broken timbers lay in
profusion. On the opposite side there had been such heaps once, but
now only charred sticks, coated with that gray-black, omnipresent coat
of desiccation, remained. These piles of charcoal had been sifted and
examined most carefully by the authorities, as one theory had been
advanced that Cranmer had burned the bodies of his victims. Yet no sign
whatever of human remains was discovered.
The fire, however, pointed out one odd fact which controverted
the reconstructions made by detectives months before. The latter,
suggesting the dried scum to have drained in from the swamp, believed
that the house timbers had floated out to the sides of the wall--there
to arrange themselves in a series of piles! The absurdity of such a
theory showed even more plainly in the fact that _if_ the scum had
filtered through in such a flood, the timbers most certainly had been
dragged into piles _previously_! Some had burned--_and the scum coated
their charred surfaces_!
What had been the force which had torn the lodge to bits as if in
spiteful fury? Why had the parts of the wreckage been burned, the rest
to escape?
Right here I felt was the keynote to the mystery, yet I could imagine
no explanation. That John Corliss Cranmer himself--physically sound,
yet a man who for decades had led a sedentary life--could have
accomplished such destruction, unaided, was difficult to believe.
_V._
I turned my attention to the wall, hoping for evidence which might
suggest another theory.
That wall had been an example of the worst snide construction. Though
little more than a year old, the parts left standing showed evidence
that they had begun to decay the day the last brick was laid. The
mortar had fallen from the interstices. Here and there a brick had
cracked and dropped out. Fibrils of the climbing vines had penetrated
crevices, working for early destruction.
And one side already had fallen.
It was here that the first glimmering suspicion of the terrible truth
was forced upon me. The scattered bricks, even those which had rolled
inward toward the gaping foundation lodge, _had not been coated with
scum_! This was curious, yet it could be explained by surmise that the
flood itself undermined this weakest portion of the wall. I cleared
away a mass of brick from the spot on which the structure had stood; to
my surprise I found it exceptionally firm! Hard red clay lay beneath!
The flood conception was faulty; only some great force, exerted from
inside or outside, could have wreaked such destruction.
When careful measurement, analysis and deduction convinced me--mainly
from the fact that the lowermost layers of brick all had fallen
_outward_, while the upper portions toppled _in_--I began to link up
this mysterious and horrific force with the one which had rent the
Lodge asunder. It looked as though a typhoon or gigantic centrifuge had
needed elbow room in ripping down the wooden structure.
But I got nowhere with the theory, though in ordinary affairs I am
called a man of too great imaginative tendencies. No less than three
editors have cautioned me on this point. Perhaps it was the narrowing
influence of great personal sympathy--yes, and love. I make no excuses,
though beyond a dim understanding that some terrific, implacable force
must have made this spot his playground, I ended my ninth day of
note-taking and investigation almost as much in the dark as I had been
while a thousand miles away in Chicago.
Then I started among the darkies and Cajans. A whole day I listened
to yarns of the days which preceded Cranmer’s escape from Elizabeth
Ritter Hospital--days in which furtive men sniffed poisoned air for
miles around Dead House, finding the odor intolerable. Days in which
it seemed none possessed nerve enough to approach close. Days when the
most fanciful tales of mediaeval superstitions were spun. These tales I
shall not give; the truth is incredible enough.
At noon upon the eleventh day I chanced upon Rori Pailleron, a
Cajan--and one of the least prepossessing of all with whom I had come
in contact. “Chanced” perhaps is a bad word. I had listed every dweller
of the woods within a five mile radius. Rori was sixteenth on my list.
I went to him only after interviewing all four of the Crabiers and
two whole families of Pichons. And Rori regarded me with the utmost
suspicion until I made him a present of the two quarts of “shinny”
purchased of the Pichons.
Because long practice has perfected me in the technique of seeming
to drink another man’s awful liquor--no, I’m not an absolute
prohibitionist; fine wine or twelve-year-in-cask Bourbon whisky arouses
my definite interest--I fooled Pailleron from the start. I shall omit
preliminaries, and leap to the first admission from him that he knew
more concerning Dead House and its former inmates than any of the other
darkies or Cajans roundabout.
“...But I ain’t talkin’. _Sacre!_ If I should open my gab, what might
fly out? It is for keeping silent, y’r damn’ right!...”
I agreed. He was a wise man--educated to some extent in the queer
schools and churches maintained exclusively by Cajans in the depths of
the woods, yet naive withal.
We drank. And I never had to ask another leading question. The liquor
made him want to interest me; and the only extraordinary topic in this
whole neck of the woods was the Dead House.
Three-quarters of a pint of acrid, nauseous fluid, and he hinted
darkly. A pint, and he told me something I scarcely could believe.
Another half-pint.... But I shall give his confession in condensed form.
He had known Joe Sibley, the octoroon chef, houseman and valet who
served Cranmer. Through Joe, Rori had furnished certain indispensables
in way of food to the Cranmer household. At first, these salable
articles had been exclusively vegetable--white and yellow turnip, sweet
potatoes, corn and beans--but later, _meat_!
Yes, meat especially--whole lambs, slaughtered and quartered, the
coarsest variety of piney-woods pork and beef, all in immense quantity!
_VI._
In December of the fatal winter Lee and his wife stopped down at the
Lodge for ten days or thereabouts.
They were enroute to Cuba at the time, intending to be away five or six
weeks. Their original plan had been only to wait over a day or so in
the piney-woods, but something caused an amendment to the scheme.
The two dallied. Lee seemed to have become vastly absorbed in
something--so much absorbed that it was only when Peggy insisted upon
continuing their trip, that he could tear himself away.
It was during those ten days that he began buying meat. Meager bits
of it at first--a rabbit, a pair of squirrels, or perhaps a few quail
beyond the number he and Peggy shot. Rori furnished the game, thinking
nothing of it except that Lee paid double prices--and insisted upon
keeping the purchases secret from other members of the household.
“I’m putting it across on the Governor, Rori!” he said once with a
wink. “Going to give him the shock of his life. So you mustn’t let
on, even to Joe about what I want you to do. Maybe it won’t work out,
but if it does ...! Dad’ll have the scientific world at his feet! He
doesn’t blow his own horn anywhere near enough, you know.”
Rori didn’t know. Hadn’t a suspicion what Lee was talking about. Still,
if this rich, young idiot wanted to pay him a half dollar in good
silver coin for a quail that anyone--himself included--could knock
down with a five-cent shell, Rori was well satisfied to keep his mouth
shut. Each evening he brought some of the small game. And each day Lee
Cranmer seemed to have use for an additional quail or so....
When he was ready to leave for Cuba, Lee came forward with the
strangest of propositions. He fairly whispered his vehemence and
desire for secrecy! He would tell Rori, and would pay the Cajan five
hundred dollars--half in advance, and half at the end of five weeks
when Lee himself would return from Cuba--provided Rori agreed to adhere
absolutely to a certain secret program! The money was more than a
fortune to Rori; it was undreamt-of affluence. The Cajan acceded.
“He wuz tellin’ me then how the ol’ man had raised some kind of pet,”
Rori confided, “an’ wanted to get shet of it. So he give it to Lee,
tellin’ him to kill it, but Lee was sot on foolin’ him. W’at I ask yer
is, w’at kind of a pet is it w’at lives down in a mud sink _an’ eats a
couple hawgs every night_?”
I couldn’t imagine, so I pressed him for further details. Here at last
was something which sounded like a clue!
He really knew too little. The agreement with Lee provided that if Rori
carried out the provisions exactly, he should be paid extra and at his
exorbitant scale of all additional outlay, when Lee returned.
The young man gave him a daily schedule which Rori showed. Each evening
he was to procure, slaughter and cut up a definite--and growing--amount
of meat. Every item was checked, and I saw that they ran from five
pounds up to _forty_!
“What in heaven’s name did you do with it?” I demanded, excited now
and pouring him an additional drink for fear caution might return to
him.
“Took it through the bushes in back an’ slung it in the mud sink there!
An’ suthin’ come up an’ drug it down!”
“A ’gator?”
“_Diable!_ How should I know? It was dark. I wouldn’t go close.” He
shuddered, and the fingers which lifted his glass shook as with sudden
chill. “Mebbe you’d of done it, huh? Not _me_, though! The young fellah
tole me to sling it in, an’ I slung it.
“A couple times I come around in the light, but there wasn’t nuthin’
there you could see. Jes’ mud, an’ some water. Mebbe the thing didn’t
come out in daytimes....”
“Perhaps not,” I agreed, straining every mental resource to imagine
what Lee’s sinister pet could have been. “But you said something about
_two hogs a day_? What did you mean by that? This paper, proof enough
that you’re telling the truth so far, states that on the thirty-fifth
day you were to throw forty pounds of meat--any kind--into the sink.
Two hogs, even the piney-woods variety, weigh a lot more than forty
pounds!”
“Them was after--after he come back!”
From this point onward, Rori’s tale became more and more enmeshed in
the vagaries induced by bad liquor. His tongue thickened. I shall give
his story without attempt to reproduce further verbal barbarities,
or the occasional prodding I had to give in order to keep him from
maundering into foolish jargon.
Lee had paid munificently. His only objection to the manner in which
Rori had carried out his orders was that the orders themselves had
been deficient. The pet, he said had grown enormously. It was hungry,
ravenous. Lee himself had supplemented the fare with huge pails of
scraps from the kitchen.
From that day Lee purchased from Rori whole sheep and hogs! The Cajan
continued to bring the carcasses at nightfall, but no longer did Lee
permit him to approach the pool. The young man appeared chronically
excited now. He had a tremendous secret--one the extent of which even
his father did not guess, and one which would astonish the world! Only
a week or two more and he would spring it. First he would have to
arrange certain data.
Then came the day when everyone disappeared from Dead House. Rori came
around several times, but concluded that all of the occupants had
folded tents and departed--doubtless taking their mysterious “pet”
along. Only when he saw from a distance Joe, the octoroon servant,
returning along the road on foot toward the Lodge, did his slow mental
processes begin to ferment. That afternoon Rori visited the strange
place for the next to last time.
He did not go to the Lodge itself--and there were reasons. While still
some hundreds of yards away from the place a terrible, sustained
screaming reached his ears! It was faint, yet unmistakably the voice
of Joe! Throwing a pair of number two shells into the breech of his
shotgun, Rori hurried on, taking his usual path through the brush at
the back.
He saw--and as he told me even “shinny” drunkenness fled his chattering
tones--Joe, the octoroon. Aye, he stood in the yard, far from the pool
into which Rori had thrown the carcasses--_and Joe could not move_!
Rori failed to explain in full, but _something_, a slimy, amorphous
something, which glistened in the sunlight, already had engulfed the
man to his shoulders! Breath was cut off. Joe’s contorted face writhed
with horror and beginning suffocation. One hand--all that was free of
the rest of him!--beat feebly upon the rubbery, translucent thing that
was engulfing his body!
Then Joe sank from sight....
_VII._
Five days of liquored indulgence passed before Rori, alone in his shaky
cabin, convinced himself that he had seen a phantasy born of alcohol.
He came back the last time--to find a high wall of brick surrounding
the Lodge, and including the pool of mud into which he had thrown the
meat!
While he hesitated, circling the place without discovering an
opening--which he would not have dared to use, even had he found
it--a crashing, tearing of timbers, and persistent sound of awesome
destruction came from within. He swung himself into one of the oaks
near the wall. And he was just in time to see the last supporting
stanchions of the Lodge give way _outward_!
The whole structure came apart. The roof fell in--yet seemed to move
after it had fallen! Logs of wall deserted retaining grasp of their
spikes like layers of plywood in the grasp of the shearing machine!
That was all. Soddenly intoxicated now, Rori mumbled more phrases,
giving me the idea that on another day when he became sober once more,
he might add to his statements, but I--numbed to the soul--scarcely
cared. If that which he related was true, what nightmare of madness
must have been consummated here!
I could vision some things now which concerned Lee and Peggy, horrible
things. Only remembrance of Elsie kept me faced forward in the
search--for now it seemed almost that the handiwork of a madman must
be preferred to what Rori claimed to have seen! What had been that
sinister, translucent thing? That glistening thing which jumped upward
about a man, smothering, engulfing?
Queerly enough, though such a theory as came most easily to mind
now would have outraged reason in me if suggested concerning total
strangers, I asked myself only what details of Rori’s revelation had
been exaggerated by fright and fumes of liquor. And as I sat on the
creaking bench in his cabin, staring unseeing as he lurched down to the
floor, fumbling with a lock box of green tin which lay under his cot,
and muttering, the answer to all my questions lay within reach!
* * * * *
It was not until next day, however, that I made the discovery. Heavy of
heart I had reexamined the spot where the Lodge had stood, then made my
way to the Cajan’s cabin again, seeking sober confirmation of what he
had told me during intoxication.
In imagining that such a spree for Rori would be ended by a single
night, however, I was mistaken. He lay sprawled almost as I had left
him. Only two factors were changed. No “shinny” was left--and lying
open, with its miscellaneous contents strewed about, was the tin box.
Rori somehow had managed to open it with the tiny key still clutched in
his hand.
Concern for his safety alone was what made me notice the box. It was a
receptacle for small fishing tackle of the sort carried here and there
by any sportsman. Tangles of Dowagiac minnows, spoon hooks ranging in
size to silver-backed number eights; three reels still carrying line of
different weights, spinners, casting plugs, wobblers, floating baits,
were spilled out upon the rough plank flooring where they might snag
Rori badly if he rolled. I gathered them, intending to save him an
accident.
With the miscellaneous assortment in my hands, however, I stopped dead.
Something had caught my eye--something lying flush with the bottom of
the lock box! I stared, and then swiftly tossed the hooks and other
impedimenta upon the table. What I had glimpsed there in the box was a
loose-leaf notebook of the sort used for recording laboratory data! And
Rori scarcely could read, let alone _write_!
Feverishly, a riot of recognition, surmise, hope and fear bubbling
in my brain, I grabbed the book and threw it open. At once I knew
that this was the end. The pages were scribbled in pencil, but the
handwriting was that precise chirography I knew as belonging to John
Corliss Cranmer, the scientist!
“_ ... Could he not have obeyed my instructions! Oh, God! This...._”
These were the words at top of the first page which met my eye.
Because knowledge of the circumstances, the relation of which I pried
out of the reluctant Rori only some days later when I had him in
Mobile as a police witness for the sake of my friend’s vindication, is
necessary to understanding, I shall interpolate.
Rori had not told me everything. On his late visit to the vicinage of
Dead House he saw more. A crouching figure, seated Turk fashion on top
of the wall, appeared to be writing industriously. Rori recognized the
man as Cranmer, yet did not hail him. He had no opportunity.
Just as the Cajan came near, Cranmer rose, thrust the notebook, which
had rested across his knees, into the box. Then he turned, tossed
outside the wall both the locked box and a ribbon to which was attached
the key.
Then his arms raised toward heaven. For five seconds he seemed to
invoke the mercy of Power beyond all of man’s scientific prying. And
finally he leaped, _inside_ ...!
Rori did not climb to investigate. He knew that directly below this
portion of wall lay the mud sink into which he had thrown the chunks of
meat!
_VIII._
This is a true transcription of the statement I inscribed, telling the
sequence of actual events at Dead House. The original of the statement
now lies in the archives of the detective department.
Cranmer’s notebook, though written in a precise hand, yet betrayed the
man’s insanity by incoherence and frequent repetitions. My statement
has been accepted now, both by alienists and by detectives who had
entertained different theories in respect to the case. It quashes the
noisome hints and suspicions regarding three of the finest Americans
who ever lived--and also one queer supposition dealing with supposed
criminal tendencies in poor Joe, the octoroon.
John Corliss Cranmer _went_ insane for sufficient cause!
* * * * *
As readers of popular fiction know well, Lee Cranmer’s _forte_ was
the writing of what is called--among fellows in the craft--the
pseudo-scientific story. In plain words, this means a yarn, based
upon solid fact in the field of astronomy, chemistry, anthropology or
whatnot, which carries to logical conclusion unproved theories of men
who devote their lives to searching out further nadirs of fact.
In certain fashion these men are allies of science. Often they
visualize something which has not been imagined even by the best of men
from whom they secure data, thus opening new horizons of possibility.
In a large way Jules Verne was one of these men in his day; Lee Cranmer
bade fair to carry on the work in worthy fashion--work taken up for a
period by an Englishman named Wells, but abandoned for stories of a
different--and, in my humble opinion, less absorbing--type.
Lee wrote three novels, all published, which dealt with such
subjects--two of the three secured from his own father’s labors,
and the other speculating upon the discovery and possible uses of
interatomic energy. Upon John Corliss Cranmer’s return from Prague that
fatal winter, the father informed Lee that a greater subject than any
with which the young man had dealt, now could be tapped.
Cranmer, senior, had devised a way in which the limiting factors in
protozoic life and _growth_, could be nullified; in time, and with
cooperation of biologists who specialized upon _karyokinesis_ and
embryology of higher forms, he hoped--to put the theory in pragmatic
terms--to be able to grow swine the size of elephants, quail or
woodcock with breasts from which a hundredweight of white meat could be
cut away, and steers whose dehorned heads might butt at the third story
of a skyscraper!
Such result would revolutionize the methods of food supply, of
course. It also would hold out hope for all undersized specimens of
humanity--provided only that if factors inhibiting growth could be
deleted, some method of stopping gianthood also could be developed.
Cranmer the elder, through use of an undescribed (in the notebook)
growth medium of which one constituent was _agar-agar_, and the use
of radium emanations, had succeeded in bringing about apparently
unrestricted growth in the paramœcium protozoan, certain of the
vegetable growths (among which were bacteria), and in the amorphous
cell of protoplasm known as the amœba--the last a single cell
containing only neucleolus, neucleus, and a space known as the
contractile vacuole which somehow aided in throwing off particles
impossible to assimilate directly. This point may be remembered in
respect to the piles of lumber left near the outside walls surrounding
Dead House!
When Lee Cranmer and his wife came south to visit, John Corliss Cranmer
showed his son an amœba--normally an organism visible under low-power
microscope--which he had absolved from natural growth inhibitions. This
amœba, a rubbery, amorphous mass of protoplasm, was of the size then of
a large beef liver. It could have been held in two cupped hands, placed
side by side.
“How large could it grow?” asked Lee, wide-eyed and interested.
“So far as I know,” answered the father, “there is _no_ limit--now! It
might, if it got food enough, grow to be as big as the Masonic Temple!
“But take it out and kill it. Destroy the organism utterly--burning the
fragment--else there is no telling what might happen. The amœba, as I
have explained, reproduces by simple division. Any fragment remaining
might be dangerous.”
Lee took the rubbery, translucent giant cell--but he did not obey
orders. Instead of destroying it as his father had directed, Lee
thought out a plan. Suppose he should grow this organism to tremendous
size? Suppose, when the tale of his father’s accomplishment were
spread, an amœba of many tons weight could be shown in evidence?
Lee, of somewhat sensational cast of mind, determined instantly to
keep secret the fact that he was not destroying the organism, but
encouraging its further growth. Thought of possible peril never crossed
his mind.
He arranged to have the thing fed--allowing for normal increase of size
in an abnormal thing. It fooled him only in growing much more rapidly.
When he came back from Cuba the amœba practically filled the whole of
the mud sink hollow. He had to give it much greater supplies....
The giant cell came to absorb as much as two hogs in a single day.
During daylight, while hunger still was appeased, it never emerged,
however. That remained for the time that it could secure no more food
near at hand to satisfy its ravenous and increasing appetite.
Only instinct for the sensational kept Lee from telling Peggy, his
wife, all about the matter. Lee hoped to spring a _coup_ which would
immortalize his father, and surprise his wife terrifically. Therefore,
he kept his own counsel--and made bargains with the Cajan, Rori, who
supplied food daily for the shapeless monster of the pool.
The tragedy itself came suddenly and unexpectedly. Peggy, feeding the
two Gordon setters that Lee and she used for quail hunting, was in the
Lodge yard before sunset. She romped alone, as Lee himself was dressing.
Of a sudden her screams cut the still air! Without her knowledge,
ten-foot _pseudopods_--those flowing tentacles of protoplasm sent forth
by the sinister occupant of the pool--slid out and around her putteed
ankles.
For a moment she did not understand. Then, at first suspicion of the
horrid truth, her cries rent the air. Lee, at that time struggling to
lace a pair of high shoes, straightened, paled, and grabbed a revolver
as he dashed out.
In another room a scientist, absorbed in his note-taking, glanced up,
frowned, and then--recognizing the voice--shed his white gown and came
out. He was too late to do aught but gasp with horror.
In the yard Peggy was half engulfed in a squamous, rubbery something
which at first glance he could not analyze.
Lee, his boy, was fighting with the sticky folds, and slowly, surely,
losing his own grip upon the earth!
_IX._
John Corliss Cranmer was by no means a coward. He stared, cried aloud,
then ran indoors, seizing the first two weapons which came to hand--a
shotgun and hunting knife which lay in sheath in a cartridged belt
across a hook of the hall-tree. The knife was ten inches in length and
razor keen.
Cranmer rushed out again. He saw an indecent fluid something--which
as yet he had not had time to classify--lumping itself into a
six-foot-high center before his very eyes! It looked like one of the
micro-organisms he had studied! One grown to frightful dimensions. An
amœba!
There, some minutes suffocated in the rubbery folds--yet still apparent
beneath the glistening ooze of this monster--were two bodies.
They were dead. He knew it. Nevertheless he attacked the flowing,
senseless monster with his knife. Shot would do no good. And he found
that even the deep, terrific slashes made by his knife closed together
in a moment and healed. The monster was invulnerable to ordinary attack!
A pair of _pseudopods_ sought out his ankles, attempting to bring
him low. Both of these he severed--and escaped. Why did he try? He
did not know. The two whom he had sought to rescue were dead, buried
under folds of this horrid thing he knew to be his own discovery and
fabrication.
Then it was that revulsion and insanity came upon him.
There ended the story of John Corliss Cranmer, save for one hastily
scribbled paragraph--evidently written at the time Rori had seen him
atop the wall.
May we not supply with assurance the intervening steps?
Cranmer was known to have purchased a whole pen of hogs a day or two
following the tragedy. These animals never were seen again. During the
time the wall was being constructed is it not reasonable to assume
that he fed the giant organism within--to keep it quiet? His scientist
brain must have visualized clearly the havoc and horror which could be
wrought by the loathsome thing if it ever were driven by hunger to flow
away from the Lodge and prey upon the countryside!
With the wall once in place, he evidently figured that starvation or
some other means which he could supply would kill the thing. One of the
means had been made by setting fire to several piles of the disgorged
timbers; probably this had no effect whatever.
The amœba was to accomplish still more destruction. In the throes of
hunger it threw its gigantic, formless strength against the house walls
_from the inside_; then every edible morsel within was assimilated,
the logs, rafters and other fragments being worked out through the
contractile _vacuole_.
During some of its last struggles, undoubtedly, the side wall of brick
was weakened--not to collapse, however, until the giant amœba no longer
could take advantage of the breach.
In final death lassitude, the amœba stretched itself out in a thin
layer over the ground. There it succumbed, though there is no means of
estimating how long a time intervened.
The last paragraph in Cranmer’s notebook, scrawled so badly that it is
possible some words I have not deciphered correctly, read as follows:
“_In my work I have found the means of creating a monster. The
unnatural thing, in turn, has destroyed my work and those whom I held
dear. It is in vain that I assure myself of innocence of spirit. Mine
is the crime of presumption. Now, as expiation--worthless though that
may be--I give myself...._”
It is better not to think of that last leap, and the struggle of an
insane man in the grip of the dying monster.
[Illustration]
_Extraordinary, Unearthly Things
Will Thrill and Amaze You
In This Strange Story_
_The_ Thing
_of a_
Thousand
Shapes
_By_ OTIS ADELBERT KLINE
Uncle Jim was dead.
I could scarcely believe it, but the little yellow missive, which had
just been handed to me by the Western Union messenger boy, left no room
for doubt. It was short and convincing:
“_Come to Peoria at once. James Braddock dead of heart failure._
_Corbin & His. Attorneys._”
I should explain here that Uncle Jim, my mother’s brother, was my
only living near relative. Having lost both father and mother in the
Iroquois Theatre Fire at the age of twelve years, I should have been
forced to abandon my plans for a high school and commercial education
but for his noble generosity. In his home town he was believed to be
comfortably well off, but I had learned not long since that it had
meant a considerable sacrifice for him to furnish the fifteen hundred
dollars a year to put me through high school and business college,
and I was glad when the time came for me to find employment, and thus
become independent of his bounty.
My position as bookkeeper for a commission firm in South Water Street,
while not particularly remunerative, at least provided a comfortable
living, and I was happy in it--until the message of his death came.
I took the telegram to my employer, obtained a week’s leave-of-absence,
and was soon on the way to the Union Depot.
All the way to Peoria I thought about Uncle Jim. He was not old--only
forty-five--and when I had last seen him he had seemed particularly
hale and hearty. This sudden loss of my nearest and dearest friend was,
therefore, almost unbelievable. I carried a leaden weight in my heart,
and it seemed that the lump in my throat would choke me.
Uncle Jim had lived on a three-hundred-and-twenty acre farm near
Peoria. Being a bachelor, he had employed a housekeeper. The farm work
was looked after by a family named Severs--man, wife and two sons--who
lived in the tenant house, perhaps a thousand feet to the rear of the
owner’s residence, in convenient proximity to the barn, silos and other
farm buildings.
As I have said, my uncle’s neighbors believed him to be comfortably
well off, but I knew the place was mortgaged to the limit, so that the
income from the fertile acres was practically absorbed by overhead
expenses and interest.
Had my uncle been a business man in the true sense of the term, no
doubt he could have been wealthy. But he was a scientist and dreamer,
inclined to let the farm run itself while he devoted his time to study
and research. His hobby was psychic phenomena. His thirst for more
facts regarding the human mind was insatiable. In the pursuit of his
favorite study, he had attended seances in this country and abroad with
the leading spiritualists of the world.
He was a member of the London Society for Psychical Research, as
well as the American Society, and corresponded regularly with noted
scientists, psychologists and spiritualists. As an authority on psychic
phenomena, he had contributed articles to the leading scientific
publications from time to time, and was the author of a dozen
well-known books on the subject.
Thus, grief-filled though I was, my mind kept presenting to me memory
after memory of Uncle Jim’s scientific attainments and scholarly life,
while the rumbling car wheels left the miles behind; and the thought
that such a man had been lost to me and to the world was almost
unbearable.
I arrived in Peoria shortly before midnight, and was glad to find Joe
Severs, son of my uncle’s tenant, waiting for me with a flivver. After
a five-mile ride in inky darkness over a rough road, we came to the
farm.
I was greeted at the door by the housekeeper, Mrs. Rhodes, and one
of two men, nearby neighbors, who had kindly volunteered to “set up”
with the corpse. The woman’s eyes were red with weeping, and her tears
flowed afresh as she led me to the room where my uncle’s body lay in a
gray casket.
A dim kerosene lamp burned in one corner of the room, and after the
silent watcher had greeted me with a handclasp and a sad shake of the
head, I walked up to view the remains of my dearest friend on earth.
As I looked down on that noble, kindly face, the old lump, which
had for a time subsided, came back in my throat. I expected tears,
heartrending sobs, but they did not come. I seemed dazed--bewildered.
Suddenly, and apparently against my own reason, I heard myself saying
aloud, “He is not dead--only sleeping.”
When the watchers looked at me in amazement I repeated, “Uncle Jim is
_not dead_! He is only sleeping.”
Mrs. Rhodes looked compassionately at me, and by a meaning glance at
the others said as plainly as if she had spoken, “His mind is affected.”
She and Mr. Newberry, the neighbor whom I had first met, gently led me
from the room. I was, myself dumfounded at the words I had uttered, nor
could I find a reason for them.
My uncle was undoubtedly dead, at least as far as this physical
world was concerned. There was nothing about the appearance of the
pale, rigid corpse to indicate life, and he had, without doubt, been
pronounced dead by a physician. Why, then, had I made this unusual,
uncalled for--in fact, ridiculous--statement? I did not know. I
concluded that I must have been crazed with grief--beside myself for
the moment.
I had announced my intention to keep watch with Mr. Newberry and the
other neighbor, Mr. Glitch, but was finally prevailed upon to go to my
room, on the ground that my nerves were overwrought and I must have
rest. It was decided, therefore, that the housekeeper, who had scarcely
slept a wink the night before, and I should retire, while the two
neighbors alternately kept two-hour watches, one sitting up while the
other slept on a davenport near the fireplace.
Mrs. Rhodes conducted me to my room. I quickly undressed, blew out
the kerosene light and got into bed. It was some time before I could
compose myself for sleep, and I remember that just as I was dozing off
I seemed to hear my name pronounced as if someone were calling me from
a great distance:
“Billy!” and then, in the same far-away voice: “_Save me, Billy!_”
I had slept for perhaps fifteen minutes when I awoke with a start.
Either I was dreaming, or something about the size and shape of a
half-grown conger eel was creeping across my bed.
For the moment I was frozen with horror, as I perceived the white,
nameless thing, in the dim light from my window. With a convulsive
movement I threw the bedclothes from me, leaped to the floor, struck a
match, and quickly lit the lamp. Then, taking my heavy walking-stick in
hand, I advanced on the bed.
Moving the bedclothing cautiously with the stick and prodding here and
there, I at length discovered that the thing was gone. The door was
closed, there was no transom, and the window was screened. I therefore
concluded that it must still be in the room.
With this thought in mind, I carefully searched every inch of space,
looking under and behind the furniture, with the lamp in one hand and
stick in the other. I then removed all the bedding and opened the
dresser drawers, and found--nothing!
After completely satisfying myself that the animal I had seen, or
perhaps seemed to see, could not possibly be in the room, I decided
that I had been suffering from a nightmare, and again retired. Because
of my nervousness from the experience, I did not again blow out the
light, but instead turned it low.
After a half hour of restless turning and tossing, I succeeded in
going to sleep; this time for possibly twenty minutes, when I was once
more aroused. The same feeling of horror came over me, as I distinctly
heard a rolling, scraping sound beneath my bed. I kept perfectly still
and waited while the sound went on. Something was apparently creeping
underneath my bed, and it seemed to be moving toward the foot, slowly
and laboriously.
Stealthily I sat up, leaned forward and peered over the foot-board.
The sounds grew more distinct, and a white, round mass, which looked
like a porcupine rolled into a ball with bristles projecting, emerged
from under my bed. I uttered a choking cry of fright, and the thing
_disappeared before my eyes_!
Without waiting to search the room further, I leaped from the bed to
the spot nearest the door, wrenched it open, and started on a run
for the living-room, attired only in pajamas. As I neared the room,
however, part of my lost courage came back to me, and I slowed down
to a walk. I reasoned that a precipitate entrance into the room would
arouse the household, and that possibly, after all, I was only the
victim of a second nightmare. I resolved, therefore, to say nothing
to the watchers about my experience, but to tell them only that I was
unable to sleep and had come down for company.
Newberry met me at the door.
“Why what’s the matter?” he asked. “You look pale. Anything wrong?”
“Nothing but a slight attack of indigestion. Couldn’t sleep, so I came
down for company.”
“You should have brought a dressing-gown or something. You may take
cold.”
“Oh, I feel quite comfortable enough,” I said.
Newberry stirred the logs in the fireplace to a blaze, and we moved
our chairs close to the flickering circle of warmth. The dim light was
still burning in the corner of the room, and Glitch was snoring on the
davenport.
“Funny thing,” said Newberry, “the instructions your uncle left.”
“Instructions? What instructions?” I asked.
“Why, didn’t you know? But of course you didn’t. He left written
instructions with Mrs. Rhodes that in case of his sudden death his
body was not to be embalmed, packed in ice, or preserved in any way,
and that it was not to be buried under any consideration, until
decomposition had set in. He also ordered that no autopsy should be
held until it had been definitely decided that putrefaction had taken
place.”
“Have these instructions been carried out?” I asked.
“To the letter,” he replied.
“And how long will it take for putrefaction to set in?”
“The doctors say it will probably be noticed in twenty-four hours.”
I reflected on this strange order of my uncle’s. It seemed to me that
he must have feared being buried alive, or something of the sort, and
I recalled several instances, of which I had heard, where bodies, upon
being exhumed, were found turned over in their coffins, while others
had apparently torn their hair and clawed the lid in their efforts to
escape from a living tomb.
I was beginning to feel sleepy again and had just started to doze, when
Newberry grasped my arm.
“Look!” he exclaimed, pointing toward the body.
I looked quickly and seemed to see something white for an instant, near
the nostrils.
“Did you see it?” he asked breathlessly.
“See what?” I replied, wishing to learn if he had seen the same thing I
had.
“I saw something white, like a thick vapor or filmy veil, come out of
his nose. When I spoke to you it seemed to jerk back. Didn’t you see
it?”
“Thought I saw a white flash there when you spoke, but it must have
been imagination.”
The time had now arrived for Glitch to watch, so my companion wakened
him, and they exchanged places. Newberry was soon asleep, and Glitch,
being a stoical German, said little. I presently became drowsy, and was
asleep in my chair in a short time.
A cry from Glitch brought me to my feet. “Vake up and help catch der
cat!”
“What cat?” demanded Newberry, also awakening.
“Der big vite cat,” said Glitch, visibly excited. “Chust now he came
der door through and yumped der coffin in.”
The three of us rushed to the coffin, but there was no sign of a cat,
and everything seemed undisturbed.
“Dot’s funny,” said Glitch. “Maybe it’s hiding someveres in der room.”
We searched the room, without result.
“You’ve been seeing things,” said Newberry.
“What did the animal look like?” I asked.
“Vite, und big as a dog. It kommt der door in, so, und galloped across
der floor, so, und yumped in der casket chust like dot. _Ach!_ It vos a
fierce-looking beast.”
Glitch was very much in earnest and gesticulated rapidly as he
described the appearance and movements of the feline. Perhaps I should
have felt inclined to laugh, had it not been for my own experience that
night. I noticed, too, that Newberry’s expression was anything but
jocular.
It was now nearly four o’clock, time for Newberry to watch, but Glitch
protested that he could not sleep another wink, so the three of us drew
chairs up close to the fire. On each side of the fireplace was a large
window. The shades were completely drawn and the windows were draped
with heavy lace curtains. Happening to look up at the window to the
left, I noticed something of a mouse-gray color hanging near the top of
one of the curtains. As I looked, I fancied I saw a slight movement as
of a wing being stretched a bit and then folded, and the thing took on
the appearance of a large vampire bat, hanging upside down.
I called the attention of my companions to our singular visitor, and
both saw it as plainly as I.
“How do you suppose he got in?” asked Newberry.
“Funny ve didn’t see him before,” said Glitch.
I picked up the fire tongs and Newberry seized the poker. Creeping
softly up to the curtain, I stood on tiptoe and reached up to seize the
animal with the tongs. It was too quick for me, however, and fluttered
out of my reach. There followed a chase around the room, which lasted
several minutes. Seeing that it would be impossible for us to capture
the creature by this method, we gave up the chase, whereupon it calmed
down and suspended itself from the picture molding, upside down.
On seeing this, Glitch, who had taken a heavy book from the table,
hurled it at our unwelcome visitor. His aim was good, and the thing
uttered a _squeak_ as it was crushed against the wall.
At this moment I thought I heard a moan from the direction of the
casket, but could not be certain.
Newberry and I rushed over to where the book had fallen, intent on
dispatching the thing with poker and tongs, but only the book lay on
the floor. The creature had _completely disappeared_.
I picked up the book, and noticed, as I did so, a grayish smear on the
back cover. Taking this over to the light, we saw that it had a soapy
appearance. As we looked, the substance apparently became absorbed,
either by the atmosphere or into the cloth cover of the book. There
remained, however, a dry, white, faintly-defined splotch on the book
cover.
“What do you make of it?” I asked them.
“Strange!” said Newberry.
I turned to Glitch, and noticed for the first time that his eyes were
wide with fear. He shook his head and cast furtive glances toward the
casket.
“What do _you_ think it is?” I asked.
“A vampire, maybe. A _real_ vampire.”
“What do you mean by a real vampire?”
Glitch then described how, in the folk lore of his native land, there
were stories current of corpses which lived on in the grave. It was
believed that the spirits of these corpses assumed the form of huge
vampire bats at night, and went about sucking the blood of living
persons, with which they would return to the grave from time to time
and nourish the corpse. This proceeding was kept up indefinitely,
unless the corpse were exhumed and a stake driven through the heart.
He related, in particular, the story of a Hungarian named Arnold Paul,
whose body was dug up after it had been buried forty days. It was found
that his cheeks were flushed with blood, and that his hair, beard and
nails had grown in the grave. When the stake was driven through his
heart, he had uttered a frightful shriek and a torrent of blood gushed
from his mouth.
This vampire story seized on my imagination in a peculiar way. I
thought again of my uncle’s strange request regarding the disposition
of his body, and of the strange apparitions I had seen. For the moment
I was a convert to the vampire theory.
My better judgment, however, soon convinced me that there could not
be such a thing as a vampire, and, even if there were, a man whose
character had been so noble as that of my deceased uncle would most
certainly never resort to such hideous and revolting practices.
We sat together in silence as the first faint streaks of dawn showed in
the east. A few minutes later the welcome aroma of coffee and frying
bacon greeted our nostrils, and Mrs. Rhodes came in to announce that
breakfast was ready.
After breakfast, my newly-made friends departed for their homes, both
assuring me that they would be glad to come and watch with me again
that night.
However, I read something in the uneasy manner of Glitch which led me
to believe that I could not count on him, and I was, therefore, not
greatly surprised when he telephoned me an hour later, stating that his
wife was ill, and that he would not be able to come.
_II._
I strolled outdoors to enjoy a cigar, comforted by the rays of the
morning sun after my night’s experience.
It was pleasant, I reflected, to be once more in the realm of the
natural, to see the trees attired in the autumn foliage, to feel the
rustle of fallen leaves underfoot, to fill my lungs with the spicy,
invigorating October air.
A gray squirrel scampered across my pathway, his cheek pouches bulging
with acorns. A flock of blackbirds, migrating southward, stopped for a
few moments in the trees above my head, chattering vociferously; then
resumed their journey with a sudden _whirr_ of wings and a few hoarse
notes of farewell.
“It is but a step,” I reflected, “from the natural to the supernatural.”
This observation started a new line of thought. After all, could
anything be supernatural--above nature? Nature, according to my belief,
was only another name for God, eternal mind, omnipotent, omnipresent,
omniscient ruler of the universe. If He were omnipotent, could anything
take place contrary to His laws? Obviously not.
The word “supernatural” was, after all, only an expression invented
by man in his finite ignorance, to define those things which he did
not understand. Telegraphy, telephony, the phonograph, the moving
picture--all would have been regarded with superstition by an age less
advanced than ours. Man had only to become familiar with the laws
governing them, in order to discard the word “supernatural” as applied
to their manifestations.
What right, then, had I to term the phenomena, which I had just
witnessed, supernatural? I might call them supernormal, but to think of
them as supernatural would be to believe the impossible; namely, that
that which is all-powerful had been overpowered.
I resolved, then and there, that if further phenomena manifested
themselves that night, I would, as far as it were possible, curb my
superstition and fear, regard them with the eye of a philosopher, and
endeavor to learn their cause, which must necessarily be governed by
natural law.
A gray cloud of dust and the whirring of a motor announced the coming
of an automobile. The next minute an ancient flivver, with whose
bumps of eccentricity I had gained some acquaintance, turned into the
driveway and stopped opposite me. Joe Severs, older son of my uncle’s
tenant, stepped out and came running toward me.
“Glitch’s wife died this morning,” he panted, “and he swears Mr.
Braddock is a vampire and sucked her blood.”
“What rot!” I replied. “Nobody believes him, of course?”
“I ain’t so sure of that,” said Joe. “Some of the farmers are takin’
it mighty serious. One of the Langdon boys, first farm north of here,
was took sick this mornin’. Doctor don’t know what’s the matter of him.
Folks say it looks mighty queer.”
Mrs. Rhodes appeared on the front porch.
“A telephone call for you, sir,” she said.