Shadow, the Mysterious Detective
Page 15
CHAPTER XV.
A FIEND IN HUMAN SHAPE.
Poor Helen Dilt!
Better, much better, would it be for her to die at once, if she was tobe called on to long endure the torments that were devised and executedby the ugly-faced hag who presided over that private mad-house.
The hag was literally a fiend.
And a fiend in human form at that.
We speak of the natural love that resides in the human heart, that isan indestructible part of it, that is born with it, and never departsuntil the member has ceased to pulse, and lies silent and heavy in theheart that contains it.
This fancy is a pretty one.
Few of us are there who do not try to paint humanity as more humanethan it really is.
Instead of love being the natural resident of the human heart, it issomething that is cultivated.
Left to itself, the feelings of the human heart are as savage andfierce as those that reside in the hearts of the Indians of the plains,or of the tigers in the Eastern jungles.
The old hag was one in whose heart tender feelings had never beencultivated, and she was not burdened with sensations of sympathy orpity.
On the contrary, the natural inclinations of a cruel nature had beencultivated until it had become callous to all sensations of pleasuresave at the sight of the sufferings of some living, breathing thing.
There is money in a private mad-house run by unscrupulous persons, andseveral evil men had advanced the money and set this human fiend up inbusiness.
Few people have an idea of how easy it is, when there is a splendidproperty to reward the horrible deed, for relations to get a wealthymember of the family adjudged insane.
A single eccentricity is sufficient to do the thing.
And once the person is declared insane, into a private mad-house he isinveigled, never again to see the light of day. And there he is keptuntil he is actually driven mad, or until death steps in and releaseshim.
The old hag had given herself, and delighted in, the name of Tige.
It was a corruption or contraction of tigress.
And it was into such hands that poor Helen Dilt had fallen!
Again and again did the hag stick a big pin into Helen.
And again and again did she exultantly laugh at the evidences of painwhich the poor creature could not avoid displaying.
"Will you be quiet and docile?"
A jab with the pin.
"Will you?"
Another jab.
"Will you?"
Another prod with the bright pin, whose point was reddened with Helen'sblood.
"Will you, I say?"
Still another jab.
"Yes--yes," Helen almost shrieked.
"It's a good thing for you if you will bear your promise in mind," saidTige, grimly. "I always make people regret breaking their word with me."
Helen was left for some hours stretched on the bed, her arms and feetextended and secured by ropes to the four corners of the bed.
There was agony to be endured in even this quiet position.
Place a pound weight on the palm of your hand, and endeavor to keepthat hand extended, for, say five minutes.
Can you do it?
You think you can, that is if you have never tried it.
Try it now.
You will not be able to do it.
Long before the five minutes have expired your arm will be a pathwayfor a succession of spasms of pain such as you have never felt before.
All that you can voluntarily endure, quadrupled and more, Helen wasforced to pass through because of the strained position of her arms.
It was terrible.
The pains that shot through her arms were frightful for a while, andthen the intensity diminished and her arms became numb and felt as ifdead.
She could no longer feel the cords so tightly fastened to her wrists.
Her arms were perfectly bloodless, and to all intents and purposes weredead.
They might almost have been amputated without causing her any pain.
Food was finally brought her by a male attendant, a short, thick-set,bull-headed individual, with the most brutal expressioned face of anythat Helen had ever seen.
He released her arms, and then lifted her by the shoulders to a sittingposture on the bed.
Her hands were useless.
She could not raise them, could scarcely more than barely move herfingers.
The attendant laughed gleefully.
"Don't they feel bully, eh?" he said, as he noted Helen's face twitchwith pain.
What anguish she presently suffered!
The tingling and burning as the blood began to flow back into her armswere something awful.
"Tige understands the 'biz' if any one ever did," said thebullet-headed attendant, laughing gayly. "But, I say, ain't yer hungry?'Cos if yer ain't, there's no good of my stayin' here with this grub,which yer hain't touched these last ten minutes."
But, although he badgered Helen, he did not take his departure with thefood.
He knew better than that.
Tige had ordered the food taken to Helen, and if she cared to eat it hedared not leave until she had done so.
The old hag wanted to do nothing as yet that could in any way injureHelen or disable her.
She made a point of doing with her patients exactly as was ordered byher customers, and Brown had as yet not told her what he wanted donewith Helen.
Brown was expected when night had again fallen, and the hag'sexpectations were not amiss.
Brown came.
At once he was closeted with the hag.
"Come, Brown, spit out just what you want," Tige impatiently said, someminutes later. "I positively refuse to act on hints, so you might'swell say plumply what you want."
Brown was thoughtful.
It was his usual style to make people take what he wanted for granted,as in the case of McGinnis.
This enabled him to lay back in his chair and say:
"I did not tell you to do anything of the kind. If you chose to putthat interpretation on my words I can't help it. It wasn't my faultthat you did."
He was a wily man.
But Tige was equally as wily.
Her safety lay in forcing her customers to commit themselves, andknowing that she would take no steps as regarded any patient withouthaving received point-blank orders.
Brown was Helen's uncle.
Property of hers, which he had robbed her of, he managed to holdhimself without question. But he dared not sell it or try to transferit.
If Helen were insane, then it would be policy to prove her identity,be appointed her guardian, and then when she died, the court woulddecide that he was the legal heir, and confirm him in his title to theproperty.
It was this which he was now conning over in his mind.
"Well?" from Tige.
"The girl is insane?"
"Of course," with a curl of the lip.
"I should like to carry her before some big physicians, and have themcertify to the fact."
"In other words, you want me to drive the girl to real insanity? Isthat the plain English of it--yes or no?"
"Yes."
"And if it can't be done?"
"She must be put out of the way unless you can drive her mad," Brownsaid, in a low tone. "Fix your own price for the job; I only ask thatyou do it well."
This was the horrid compact that they entered into regarding Helen.
Poor Helen! poor--poor Helen!
With fiendish zest the hag set about her horrid work without loss oftime.
That very night Helen was gagged to stifle her cries, and was securelybound to the bed, after which Tige amused herself by stripping thevictim's feet, and then pulling the nails from her toes with a pincers.
And during the terrible ordeal, the sweat-drops of awful agony rolleddown Helen's face, and she writhed and strained, but in vain, to burstthe bonds which held her.