His small eyes hardened as he saw the sick look on our faces. “Ah bah, you have the sympathy for him?” he asked almost accusingly. “For why? Were they not more merciful to him than he was to those helpless little boys he killed, those little boys whose throats he slit—or that poor woman whom he crucified? I damn think yes!”
20. The Wolf-Master
“TIENS, MY FRIENDS, I damn think there is devilment afoot!” de Grandin told us as we were indulging in a final cup of coffee in the breakfast room some mornings later.
“But no!” Renouard expostulated
“But yes!” his confrere insisted.
“Read it, my friend,” he commanded, passing a folded copy of The Journal across the table to me. To Ingraham and Renouard he ordered: “Listen; listen and become astonished!”
MAGNATE’S MENAGERIE ON RAMPAGE
Beasts on Karmany Estate Break Cages and Pursue
Intruder—Animals’ Disappearance a Mystery.
I read aloud at his request.
Early this morning keepers at the private zoo maintained by Winthrop Karmany, well known retired Wall Street operator, at his palatial estate near Raritan, were aroused by a disturbance among the animals. Karmany is said to have the finest, as well as what is probably the largest, collection of Siberian white wolves in captivity, and it was among these beasts the disturbance occurred.
John Noles, 45, and Edgar Black, 30, caretakers on the Karmany estate, hastily left their quarters to ascertain the cause of the noise which they heard coming from the wolves’ dens about 3:30 A.M. Running through the dark to the dens, they were in time to see what they took to be a man enveloped in a long, dark cloak, running at great speed toward the brick wall surrounding the animals’ enclosure. They also noticed several wolves in hot pursuit of the intruder. Both declare that though the wolves had been howling and baying noisily a few minutes before, they ran without so much as a growl as they pursued the mysterious visitor.
Arriving at the den the men were amazed to find the cage doors swinging open, their heavy locks evidently forced with a crowbar, and all but three of the savage animals at large.
The strange intruder, with the wolves in close pursuit, was seen by Noles and Black to vault the surrounding wall, but all had disappeared in the darkness when the keepers reached the barrier. Citizens in the vicinity of the Karmany estate are warned to be on the lookout for the beasts, for though they had been in confinement several years and consequently have lost much of their native savagery, it is feared that unless they are speedily recaptured or voluntarily find their way back to their dens, they may revert to their original ferocity when they become hungry. Livestock may suffer from their depredations, and if they keep together and hunt in a pack even human beings are in danger, for all the beasts are unusually large and would make dangerous antagonists.
This morning at daylight a posse of farmers, headed by members of the state constabulary, was combing the woods and fields in search of the missing animals, but though every spot where wolves might be likely to congregate was visited, no trace of them was found. No one can be found who admits seeing any sign of the runaway wolves, nor have any losses of domestic animals been reported to the authorities.
The manner in which the wolf pack seems to have vanished completely, as well as the identity of the man in black seen by the two keepers, and the reason which may have actuated him in visiting the Karmany menagerie are puzzling both the keepers and authorities. It has been intimated that the breaking of the cages may have been the vagary of a disordered mind. Certain insane persons have an almost uncontrollable aversion to the sight of caged animals, and it is suggested an escaped lunatic may have blundered into the Karmany zoo as he fled from confinement. If this is so it is quite possible that, seeing the confined beasts, he was suddenly seized with an insane desire to liberate them, and consequently forced the locks of their cages. The released animals seem to have been ungrateful, however, for both Noles and Black declare the mysterious man was obviously running for his life while the wolves pursued him in silent and ferocious determination. However, since no trace of the body has been found, nor any report of a man badly mauled by wolves made in the locality, it is supposed the unidentified man managed to escape. Meanwhile, the whereabouts of the wolf pack is causing much concern about the countryside.
Karmany is at present occupying his southern place at Winter Haven, Fla., and all attempts to reach him have been unsuccessful at the time this issue goes to press.
“H’m, it’s possible,” I murmured as I put the paper down.
“Absolutely,” Ingraham agreed.
“Of course; certainly,” de Grandin nodded, then, abruptly: “What is?”
“Why—er—a lunatic might have done it,” I returned. “Cases of zoophilia—”
“And of zoöfiddlesticks!” the little Frenchman interrupted. “This was no insanatic’s vagary, my friends; this business was well planned beforehand, though why it should be so we can not say. Still—”
‘I don’t care if he is at breakfast, I’ve got to see him!’ a hysterically shrill voice came stridently from the hallway, and John Davisson strode into the breakfast room, pushing the protesting Nora McGinnis from his path. “Doctor de Grandin—Doctor Trowbridge—she’s gone!” he sobbed as he half fell across the threshold.
“Mon Dieu, so soon?” de Grandin cried. “How was it, mon pauvre?”
Davisson stared glassy-eyed from one of us to the other, his face working spasmodically, his hands clenched till it seemed the bones must surely crush.
“He stole her—he and his damned wolves!”
“Wolves? I say!” barked Ingraham.
“Grand Dieu—wolves!” Renouard exclaimed.
“A-a-ah—wolves? I begin to see the outlines of the scheme,” de Grandin answered calmly. “I might have feared as much.
“Begin at the beginning, if you please, Monsieur, and tell us everything that happened. Do not leave out an incident, however trivial it may seem; in cases such as this there are no trifles. Begin, commence; we listen.”
Young Davisson exhaled a deep, half-sobbing breath and turned his pale face from de Grandin to Renouard, then back again.
“We—Alice and I—went riding this morning as we always do,” he answered. “The horses were brought round at half-past six, and we rode out the Albemarle Pike toward Boonesburg. We must have gone about ten miles when we turned off the highway into a dirt road. It’s easier on the horses, and the riders, too, you know.
“We’d ridden on a mile or so, through quite a grove of pines, when it began to snow and the wind rose so sharply it cut through our jackets as if they had been summerweight. I’d just turned round to lead the way to town when I heard Alice scream. She’d ridden fifty feet or so ahead of me, so she was that much behind when we turned.
“I wheeled my horse around, and there, converging on her from both sides of the road, were half a dozen great white wolves!
“I couldn’t believe my eyes at first. The brutes were larger than any I’d ever seen, and though they didn’t growl or make the slightest sound I could see their awful purpose in their gleaming eyes and flashing fangs. They hemmed my poor girl in on every side, and as I turned to ride to her, they gathered closer, crouching till their bellies almost touched the ground, and seemed to stop waiting for some signal from the leader of the pack.
“I drove the spurs into my mare and laid the whip on her with all my might, but she balked and shied and reared, and all my urging couldn’t force her on a foot.
“Then, apparently from nowhere, two more white beasts came charging through the woods and leaped at my mount’s head. The poor brute gave a screaming whinny and bolted.
“I tugged at the bridle and sawed at her mouth, but I might have been a baby for all effect my efforts had. Twice I tried to roll out of the saddle, but she was fairly flying, and try as I would I didn’t seem able to disengage myself. We’d reached the Pike and, traveled half a mile or so toward town before I finally brou
ght her to a halt.
“Then I turned back, but at the entrance to the lane she balked again, and nothing I could do would make her leave the highway. I dismounted and hurried down the lane on foot, but it was snowing pretty hard by then, and I couldn’t even be sure when I’d reached the place where Alice was attacked. At any rate, I couldn’t find a trace of her or of her horse.”
He paused a moment breathlessly, and de Grandin prompted softly: “And this ‘he’ to whom you referred when you first came in, Monsieur?”
“Grigor Bazarov!” the young man answered, and his features quivered in a nervous tic. “I recognized him instantly!
“As I rushed down that lane at break-neck speed on my ungovernable horse I saw—distinctly, gentlemen—a human figure standing back among the pines. It was Grigor Bazarov, and he stood between the trees, waving his hands like a conductor leading an orchestra. Without a spoken syllable he was directing that pack of wolves. He set them after Alice and ordered them to stop when they’d surrounded her. He set them on me, and made them leap at my horse’s head without actually fleshing their teeth in her and without attempting to drag me from the saddle—which they could easily have done. Then, when he’d worked his plan and made my mare bolt, he called them back into the woods. It was Alice he was after, and he took her as easily as a shepherd cuts a wether from the flock with trained sheep-dogs!”
“How is this?” de Grandin questioned sharply. “You say it was Grigor Bazarov. How could you tell? You never saw him.”
“No, but I’ve heard you tell of him, and Alice had described him, too. I recognized those great, sad eyes of his, and his mummy-wrinkled face. I tell you—”
“But Bazarov is dead,” I interrupted. “We saw him die last week—all of us. They electrocuted him in the penitentiary at Trenton, and—”
“And while he was all safely lodged in jail he broke into this house and all but made away with Mademoiselle Alice,” de Grandin cut in sharply. “You saw him with your own two eyes, my Trowbridge. So did Renouard and Monsieur Hiji. Again, while still in jail he murdered the poor Hornsby, and all but killed the good Costello. The evidence is undisputed, and—”
“I know, but he’s dead, now!” I insisted.
“There is a way to tell,” de Grandin answered. “Come, let us go.”
“Go? Where?”
“To the cemetery, of course. I would look in the grave of this one who can be in jail and in your house at the same time, and kill a gendarme in the street while safely under lock and key. Come, we waste our time, my friends.”
We drove to the county court house, and de Grandin was closeted with the Recorder Glassford in his chambers a few minutes. “Très bon,” he told us as he reappeared. “I have the order for the exhumation. Let us make haste.”
THE EARLY MORNING SNOW had stopped, but a thin veneer of leaden clouds obscured the sky, and the winter sun shone through them with a pale, half-hearted glow as we wheeled along the highway toward the graveyard. Only people of the poorer class buried their dead in Willow Hills; only funeral directors of the less exclusive sort sold lots or grave-space there. Bazarov’s unmarked grave was in the least expensive section of the poverty-stricken burying-ground, one short step higher than the Potter’s Field.
The superintendent and two overalled workmen waited at the graveside, for de Grandin had telephoned the cemetery office as soon as he obtained the order for the exhumation. Glancing perfunctorily at the little Frenchman’s papers, the superintendent nodded to the Polish laborers. “Git goin’,” he commanded tersely, “an’ make it snappy.”
It was dismal work watching them heave lumps of frosty clay from the grave. The earth was frozen almost stony-hard, and the picks struck on it with a hard, metallic sound. At length, however, the dull, reverberant thud of steel on wood warned us that the task was drawing to a close. A pair of strong web straps were lowered, made fast to the rough box enclosing the casket, and at a word from the superintendent the men strained at the thongs, dragging their weird burden to the surface. A pair of pick-handles were laid across the open grave and the rough box rested on them. Callously, as one who does such duties every day, the superintendent wrenched the box-lid off, and the laborers laid it by the grave. Inside lay the casket, a cheap affair of chestnut covered with shoddy broadcloth, the tinny, imitation-silver nameplate on its lid already showing a dull, brown-blue discoloration.
Snap! The fastenings which secured the casket lid were thrown back; the superintendent lifted the panel and tossed it to the frozen ground.
Head resting on the sateen rayon pillow, hands folded on his breast, Grigor Bazarov lay before us and gave us stare for stare. The mortuarian who attended him had lacked the skill or inclination to do a thorough job, and despite the intense cold of the weather putrefaction had made progress. The dead man’s mouth was slightly open, a quarter-inch or so of purple, blood-gorged tongue protruding from his lips as though in low derision; the lids were partly raised from his great eyes, and though these had the sightless glaze of death, it seemed to me some subtle mockery lay in them.
I shuddered at the sight despite myself, but I could not forbear the gibe: “Well, is he dead?” I asked de Grandin.
“Comme un mouton,”—he answered, in nowise disconcerted.
“Restore him to his bed, if you will be so good, Monsieur,” he added to the superintendent, “and should you care to smoke—” A flash of green showed momentarily as a treasury note changed hands, and the cemetery overseer grinned.
“Thanks,” he acknowledged. “Next time you want to look at one of ’em, don’t forget we’re always willing to oblige.”
“Yes, he is dead,” the Frenchman murmured thoughtfully as we walked slowly toward the cemetery gate, “dead like a herring, yet—”
“Dead or not,” John Davisson broke in, and his words were syncopated by the chattering of his teeth, “dead or not, sir, the man we just saw in that coffin was the man I saw beside the lane this morning. No one could fail to recognize that face!”
21. White Horror
“HERE’S A SPECIAL DELIVERY letter for Misther Davisson, come whilst yez wuz out, sor,” Nora McGinnis announced as we entered the house. “Will ye be afther havin’ the’ tur-key or th’ roast fer dinner tonight, an’ shall I make th’ salad wid tomatoes or asparagus?”
“Turkey, by all means, he is a noble bird,” de Grandin answered for me, and tomatoes with the salad, if you please, ma petite.”
The big Irishwoman favored him with an affectionate smile as she retired kitchenward, and young Davisson slit the envelope of the missive she had handed him.
For a moment he perused it with wide-set, unbelieving eyes, then handed it to me, his features quivering once again with nervous tic.
John Darling:
When you get this I shall be on my way to fulfil the destiny prepared for me from the beginning of the world. Do not seek to follow me, nor think of me, save as you might think kindly of one who died, for I am dead to you. I have forever given up all thought of marriage to you or any man, and I release you from your engagement. Your ring will be delivered to you, and that you may some day put it on the finger of a girl who can return the love you give is the hope of
ALICE.
“I can’t—I won’t believe she means it!” the young man cried. “Why, Alice and I have known each other since we were little kids; we’ve been in love since she first put her hair up, and—”
“Tiens, my friend,” de Grandin interrupted as he gazed at the message, “have you by chance spent some time out in the country?”
“Eh?” answered Davisson, amazed at the irrelevant question.
“Your hearing is quite excellent, I think. Will you not answer me?”
“Why—er—yes, of course, I’ve been in the country—pent practically all my summers on a farm when I was a lad, but—”
“Très bon,” the little Frenchman laughed. “Consider: Did not you see the wicked Bazarov urge on his wolves to take possession of your sweetheart?
But certainly. And did he not forbear to harm you, being satisfied to drive you from the scene while he kidnapped Mademoiselle Alice? Of course. And could he not easily have had his wolf-pack drag you from your horse and slay you? You have said as much yourself. Very well, then; recall your rural recollections, if you will:
“You have observed the farmer as he takes his cattle to the butcher. Does he take the trouble to place his cow in leading strings? By no means. He puts the little, so weak calf, all destined to be veal upon the table in a little while, into a wagon, and drives away to market. And she, the poor, distracted mother-beast, she trots along behind, asking nothing but to keep her little baby-calf in sight. Lead her? Parbleu, ropes of iron could not drag her from behind the tumbril in which her offspring rides to execution! Is it not likely so in this case also? I damn think yes.
“This never-to-be-sufficiently-anathematized stealer of women holds poor Mademoiselle Alice in his clutch. He spares her fiancé. Perhaps he spares him only as the cruel, playful pussy-cat forbears to kill the mouse outright; at any rate, he spares him. For why? Pardieu, because by leaving Monsieur Jean free he still allows poor Mademoiselle Alice one little, tiny ray of hope; with such vile subtlety as only his base wickedness can plan, he holds her back from black despair and suicide that he may force her to his will by threats against the man she loves. Sacré nom d’un artichaut, I shall say yes! Certainly, of course.”
“You mean—he’ll make her go with him—leave me—by threats against my life?” young Davisson faltered.
“Précisément, mon vieux. He has no need to drug her now with scopolamine apomophia; he holds her in a stronger thrall. Yes, it is entirely likely.”
He folded the girl’s note between his slim, white hands, regarding it idly for a moment; then, excitedly: “Tell me, Monsieur Jean, did Mademoiselle Alice, by any chance, know something of telegraphy?”
“Eh? Why, yes. When we were kids we had a craze for it—had wires strung between our houses with senders and receivers at each end, and used to rouse each other at all sorts of hours to tap a message—”
The Dark Angel Page 34