Residents of Pawtuxet were aroused about three A.M. today by a
phenomenal baying of dogs which seemed to centre near the river
just north of Rhodes-on-the-Pawtuxet. The volume and quality of
the howling were unusually odd, according to most who heard it;
and Fred Lemdin, night watchman at Rhodes, declares it was mixed
with something very like the shrieks of a man in mortal terror
and agony. A sharp and very brief thunderstorm, which seemed to
strike somewhere near the bank of the river, put an end to the
disturbance. Strange and unpleasant odours, probably from the oil
tanks along the bay, are popularly linked with this incident; and
may have had their share in exciting the dogs.
The aspect of Charles now became very haggard and hunted, and all
agree in retrospect that he may have wished at this period to make
some statement or confession from which sheer terror withheld him. The
morbid listening of his mother in the night brought out the fact that
he made frequent sallies abroad under cover of darkness, and most of
the more academic alienists unite at present in charging him with the
revolting cases of vampirism which the press so sensationally reported
about this time, but which have not yet been definitely traced to any
known perpetrator. These cases, too recent and celebrated to need
detailed mention, involved victims of every age and type and seemed
to cluster around two distinct localities; the residential hill and
the North End, near the Ward home, and the suburban districts across
the Cranston line near Pawtuxet. Both late wayfarers and sleepers with
open windows were attacked, and those who lived to tell the tale spoke
unanimously of a lean, lithe, leaping monster with burning eyes which
fastened its teeth in the throat or upper arm and feasted ravenously.
[Illustration: "These cases of Vampirism involved victims of every age
and type."]
Dr. Willett, who refuses to date the madness of Charles Ward as far
back as even this, is cautious in attempting to explain these horrors.
He has, he declares, certain theories of his own; and limits his
positive statements to a peculiar kind of negation. "I will not,"
he says, "state who or what I believe perpetrated these attacks and
murders, but I will declare that Charles Ward was innocent of them. I
have reason to be sure he was ignorant of the taste of blood, as indeed
his continued anaemic decline and increasing pallor prove better than
any verbal argument. Ward meddled with terrible things, but he has paid
for it, and he was never a monster or a villain.
"As for now, I don't like to think. A change came, and I'm content to
believe that the old Charles Ward died with it. His soul did, anyhow,
for that mad flesh that vanished from Waite's hospital had another."
Willett speaks with authority, for he was often at the Ward home
attending Mrs. Ward, whose nerves had begun to snap under the strain.
Her nocturnal listening had bred some morbid hallucinations which
she confided to the doctor with hesitancy, and which he ridiculed in
talking to her, although they made him ponder deeply when alone. These
delusions always concerned the faint sounds which she fancied she heard
in the attic laboratory and bedroom, and emphasized the occurrence
of muffled sighs and sobbings at the most impossible times. Early in
July Willett ordered Mrs. Ward to Atlantic City for an indefinite
recuperative sojourn, and cautioned both Mr. Ward and the haggard and
elusive Charles to write her only cheering letters. It is probably
to this enforced and reluctant escape that she owes her life and
continued sanity.
* * * * *
Not long after his mother's departure Charles Ward began negotiating
for the Pawtuxet bungalow. It was a squalid little wooden edifice with
a concrete garage, perched high on the sparsely settled bank of the
river slightly above Rhodes, but for some odd reason the youth would
have nothing else. He gave the real-estate agencies no peace till one
of them secured it for him at an exorbitant price from a somewhat
reluctant owner, and as soon as it was vacant he took possession under
cover of darkness, transporting in a great closed van the entire
contents of his attic laboratory, including the books both weird and
modern which he had borrowed from his study. He had this van loaded in
the black small hours, and his father recalls only a drowsy realization
of stifled oaths and stamping feet on the night the goods were taken
away. After that Charles moved back to his own old quarters on the
third floor, and never haunted the attic again.
To the Pawtuxet bungalow Charles transferred all the secrecy with
which he had surrounded his attic realm, save that he now appeared to
have two sharers of his mysteries; a villainous-looking Portuguese
half-caste from the South Main Street Waterfront who acted as a
servant, and a thin scholarly stranger with dark glasses and a
stubbly full beard of dyed aspect whose status was evidently that of
a colleague. Neighbors vainly tried to engage these odd persons in
conversation. The mulatto, Gomes, spoke very little English, and the
bearded man who gave his name as Dr. Allen voluntarily followed his
example. Ward himself tried to be more affable, but succeeded only in
provoking curiosity with his rambling accounts of chemical research.
Before long queer tales began to circulate regarding the all-night
burning of lights; and somewhat later, after this burning had suddenly
ceased, there rose still queerer tales of disproportionate orders of
meat from the butcher's and of the muffled shouting, declamation,
rhythmic chanting, and screaming supposed to come from some very deep
cellar below the place. Most distinctly the new and strange household
was bitterly disliked by the honest bourgeoisie of the vicinity, and it
is not remarkable that dark hints were advanced connecting the hated
establishment with the current epidemic of vampiristic attacks and
murders; especially since the radius of that plague seemed now confined
wholly to Pawtuxet and the adjacent streets of Edgewood.
Ward spent most of his time at the bungalow, but slept occasionally at
home and was still reckoned a dweller beneath his father's roof. Twice
he was absent from the city on week-long trips, whose destinations have
not yet been discovered. He grew steadily paler and more emaciated even
than before, and lacked some of his former assurance when repeating
to Dr. Willett his old, old story of vital research and future
revelations. Willett often waylaid him at his father's house, for the
elder Ward was deeply worried and perplexed, and wished his son to get
as much sound oversight as could be managed in the case of so secretive
and independent an adult. The doctor still insists that the youth was
sane even as late as this, and adduces many a conversation to prove his
point.
About September the vampirism declined, but in the following January,
Ward almost became involved in serious trouble. For some time the
nocturnal arrival and departure of motor trucks at the Pawtuxet
bungalow had been commented upon, and at this juncture an unforeseen
hitch exposed the nature of at least one item of their contents. In a
lonely spot near Hope Valley had occurred one of the frequent sordid
waylayings of trucks by "hi-jackers" in quest of liquor shipments,
but this time the robbers had been destined to receive the greater
shock. For the long cases they seized proved upon opening to contain
some exceedingly gruesome things; so gruesome, in fact, that the matter
could not be kept quiet amongst the denizens of the underworld. The
thieves had hastily buried what they discovered, but when the State
Police got wind of the matter a careful search was made. A recently
arrested vagrant, under promise of immunity from prosecution on any
additional charge, at last consented to guide a party of troopers to
the spot; and there was found in that hasty cache a very hideous and
shameful thing. It would not be well for the national--or even the
international--sense of decorum if the public were ever to know what
was uncovered by that awestruck party. There was no mistaking it, even
by these far from studious officers; and telegrams to Washington ensued
with feverish rapidity.
The cases were addressed to Charles Ward at his Pawtuxet bungalow,
and State and Federal officials at once paid him a very forceful and
serious call. They found him pallid and worried with his two odd
companions, and received from him what seemed to be a valid explanation
and evidence of innocence. He had needed certain anatomical specimens
as part of a program of research whose depth and genuineness anyone
who had known him in the last decade could prove, and had ordered
the required kind and number from agencies which he had thought as
reasonably legitimate as such things can be. Of the _identity_ of the
specimens he had known absolutely nothing, and was properly shocked
when the inspectors hinted at the monstrous effect on public sentiment
and national dignity which a knowledge of the matter would produce. In
this statement he was firmly sustained by his bearded colleague Dr.
Allen, whose oddly hollow voice carried even more conviction than his
own nervous tones; so that in the end the officials took no action,
but carefully set down the New York name and address which Ward gave
them as a basis for a search which came to nothing. It is only fair
to add that the specimens were quickly and quietly restored to their
proper places, and that the general public will never know of their
blasphemous disturbance.
* * * * *
On February 9, 1928, Dr. Willett received a letter from Charles Ward
which he considers of extraordinary importance, and about which he has
frequently quarreled with Dr. Lyman. Lyman believes that this note
contains positive proof of a well-developed case of _dementia praecox_,
but Willett on the other hand regards it as the last perfectly sane
utterance of the hapless youth. He calls especial attention to the
normal character of the penmanship; which though shewing traces of
shattered nerves, is nevertheless distinctly Ward's own. The text in
full is as follows:
100 Prospect St.,
Providence, R. I.,
March 8, 1928.