“Damn the Bodymaster! I hate him! His hold over me is absolute—supreme.
“Vile as I have become, degraded as he has made me, my very being revolts
at the thought of what he has forced me to do. It were better that I were
dead—a thousand times better. But I can not even die. For he, curse him,
will not let me. He owns my body and my soul.
“Yesterday I am certain that I killed another man. It was Johnston, the
broker—a man I knew well in my other days—as kind-hearted an old fellow
as ever lived. Many is the favor that he has done for me. Yet, at the
dictation of Lessman, I took the poor old fellow’s life.
“God in Heaven! What a mixup it was! Lessman planned it all. He might
have made it different—easier for those left behind to bear. But no—that
is not his way. He loves the dramatic, the theatrical. But let me tell it
just as it happened:
“Together, we went to Johnston’s house—Lessman and I. The poor old fellow
has been under the weather for several days, but he has not allowed his
illness to interfere with his philanthropic work. Lessman, in his guise
of a worker among the poor and afflicted, had no trouble in gaining
entrance. He introduced me as another laborer in the vineyard. I have
changed so much as a result of what I have been through that Johnston
failed to recognize me.
“Alone in the room with the old man, Lessman commanded me to do his
bidding. I swear that I tried to withhold my hand, but I was powerless.
It was not I, but another, who seized the scrawny neck in my muscular
fingers and pressed—pressed—pressed against the windpipe until the
haggard white face turned black and the gray eyes bulged forth under
their shaggy white brows like glass beads.
“He tried to fight back—to defend himself—but what was his puny strength
compared to mine? His efforts only incensed me the more. I shook him as
a terrier roughs a rat. And the agonized expression on his face! It was
awful. He tried to shriek for help, but so firm was my hold upon him that
he could only splutter and gurgle.
“Lessman watched it all. He chuckled with glee at the feeble old man’s
weak gasps and urged me to further efforts. Then, when I had laid the old
fellow down upon his couch, it was The Bodymaster who, with a tremendous
show of hypocrisy, shouted for help and jerked frantically at the bell
which summoned family and servants.
“Never shall I forget the look of pathetic grief upon the face of the
dead man’s aged helpmate. Liar that he is, Lessman told her a story of
the old fellow’s sudden choking and of his death before we could summon
help. The servants carried her swooning from the room.”