Burn, Witch, Burn!

by Abraham Merritt

  "The coupe turn into West Broadway. There she gets the break, a Staten Island boat is just in an' the street's lousy with a herd of cars. A Ford shoots over to the left, trying to pass another. Paul hits the Ford and wraps himself round one of the El's pillars. There's a mess. I'm a minute or two getting out the jam. When I do, the coupe's outa sight.

  "I hop down an' telephone Rod. I tell him to get the wench when she shows up, even if they have to rope her off the steps of the doll-shop. An' when they get her, bring her right here.

  "I come up here. I figure maybe she's headed this way. I coast along by here an' then take a look in the Park, I figure the doll-hag's been getting all the breaks an' now one's due me. I get it. I see the coupe parked under some trees. We get the gal. She don't put up no fight at all. But we gag her an' put her in the car. Tony rolls the coupe away an' searches it. There ain't a thing in it but the two suitcases an' they're empty. We bring the gal here."

  I asked: "How long between when you caught the girl and your arrival?"

  "Ten-fifteen minutes, maybe. Tony nigh took the coupe to pieces. An' that took time."

  I looked at Ricori. McCann must have come upon the girl just about the moment Braile had died. He nodded:

  "She was waiting for the dolls, of course."

  McCann asked: "What do you want me to do with her?"

  He looked at Ricori, not at me. Ricori said nothing, staring at McCann with a curious intentness. But I saw him clench his left hand, then open it, fingers wide. McCann said:

  "Okay, boss."

  He started toward the door. It did not take unusual acumen to know that he had been given orders, nor could their significance be mistaken.

  "Stop!" I intercepted him and stood with my back against the door. "Listen to me, Ricori. I have something to say about this. Dr. Braile was as close to me as Peters to you. Whatever the guilt of Madame Mandilip, this girl is helpless to do other than what she orders her. Her will is absolutely controlled by the doll-maker. I strongly suspect that a good part of the time she is under complete hypnotic control. I cannot forget that she tried to save Walters. I will not see her murdered."

  Ricori said: "If you are right, all the more reason she should be destroyed quickly. Then the witch cannot make use of her before she herself is destroyed."

  "I will not have it, Ricori. And there is another reason. I want to question her. I may discover how Madame Mandilip does these things—the mystery of the dolls—the ingredients of the salve—whether there are others who share her knowledge. All this and more, the girl may know. And if she does know, I can make her tell."

  McCann said, cynically: "Yeah?"

  Ricori asked: "How?"

  I answered grimly: "By using the same trap in which the doll-maker caught me."

  For a full minute Ricori considered me, gravely.

  "Dr. Lowell," he said, "for the last time I yield my judgment to yours in this matter. I think you are wrong. I know that I was wrong when I did not kill the witch that day I met her. I believe that every moment this girl is permitted to remain alive is a moment laden with danger for us all. Nevertheless, I yield—for this last time."

  "McCann," I said, "bring the girl into my office. Wait until I get rid of anyone who may be downstairs."

  I went downstairs, McCann and Ricori following. No one was there. I placed on my desk a development of the Luys mirror, a device used first at the Salpetriere in Paris to induce hypnotic sleep. It consists of two parallel rows of small reflectors revolving in opposite directions. A ray of light plays upon them in such a manner as to cause their surfaces alternately to gleam and darken. A most useful device, and one to which I believed the girl, long sensitized to hypnotic suggestion, must speedily succumb. I placed a comfortable chair at the proper angle, and subdued the lights so that they could not compete with the hypnotic mirror.

  I had hardly completed these arrangements when McCann and another of Ricori's henchmen brought in the girl. They placed her in the easy chair, and I took from her lips the cloth with which she had been silenced.

  Ricori said: "Tony, go out to the car. McCann, you stay here."

  Chapter 16 - End of the Witch Girl

  The girl made no resistance whatever. She seemed entirely withdrawn into herself, looking up at me with the same vague stare I had noted on my visit to the doll-shop. I took her hands. She let them rest passively in mine. They were very cold. I said to her, gently, reassuringly:

  "My child, no one is going to hurt you. Rest and relax. Sink back in the chair. I only want to help you. Sleep if you wish. Sleep."

  She did not seem to hear, still regarding me with that vague gaze. I released her hands. I took my own chair, facing her, and set the little mirrors revolving. Her eyes turned to them at once, rested upon them, fascinated. I watched her body relax; she sank back in her chair. Her eyelids began to droop.

  "Sleep," I said softly. "Here none can harm you. While you sleep none can harm you. Sleep… sleep… "

  Her eyes closed; she sighed.

  I said: "You are asleep. You will not awaken until I bid you. You cannot awaken until I bid you."

  She repeated in a murmuring, childish voice: "I am asleep; I cannot awaken until you bid me."

  I stopped the whirling mirrors. I said to her: "There are some questions I am going to ask you. You will listen, and you will answer me truthfully. You cannot answer them except truthfully. You know that."

  She echoed, still in that faint childish voice: "I must answer you truthfully. I know that."

  I could not refrain from darting a glance of triumph at Ricori and McCann. Ricori was crossing himself, staring at me with wide eyes in which were both doubt and awe. I knew he was thinking that I, too, knew witchcraft. McCann sat chewing nervously. And staring at the girl.

  I began my questions, choosing at first those least likely to disturb. I asked:

  "Are you truly Madame Mandilip's niece?"

  "No."

  "Who are you, then?"

  "I do not know."

  "When did you join her, and why?"

  "Twenty years ago. I was in a creche, a foundling asylum at Vienna. She took me from it. She taught me to call her my aunt. But she is not."

  "Where have you lived since then?"

  "In Berlin, in Paris, then London, Prague, Warsaw."

  "Did Madame Mandilip make her dolls in each of these places?"

  She did not answer; she shuddered; her eyelids began to tremble.

  "Sleep! Remember, you cannot awaken until I bid you! Sleep! Answer me."

  She whispered: "Yes."

  "And they killed in each city?"

  "Yes."

  "Sleep. Be at ease. Nothing is going to harm you—" Her disquietude had again become marked, and I veered for a moment from the subject of the dolls. "Where was Madame Mandilip born?"

  "I do not know."

  "How old is she?"

  "I do not know. I have asked her, and she has laughed and said that time is nothing to her. I was five years old when she took me. She looked then just as she does now."

  "Has she any accomplices—I mean are there others who make the dolls?"

  "One. She taught him. He was her lover in Prague."

  "Her lover!" I exclaimed, incredulously—the image of the immense gross body, the great breasts, the heavy horse-like face of the doll-maker rising before my eyes. She said:

  "I know what you are thinking. But she has another body. She wears it when she pleases. It is a beautiful body. It belongs to her eyes, her hands, her voice. When she wears that body she is beautiful. She is terrifyingly beautiful. I have seen her wear it many times."

  Another body! An illusion, of course… like the enchanted room Walters had described… and which I had glimpsed when breaking from the hypnotic web in which she had enmeshed me… a picture drawn by the doll-maker's mind in the mind of the girl. I dismissed that, and drove to the heart of the matter.

  "She kills by two methods, does she not—by the salve and by the dolls?" />
  "Yes, by the unguent and the dolls."

  "How many has she killed by the unguent in New York?"

  She answered, indirectly: "She has made fourteen dolls since we came here."

  So there were other cases that had not been reported to me! I asked:

  "'And how many have the dolls killed?"

  "Twenty."

  I heard Ricori curse, and shot him a warning look. He was leaning forward, white and tense; McCann had stopped his chewing.

  "How does she make the dolls?"

  "I do not know."

  "Do you know how she prepares the unguent?"

  "No. She does that secretly."

  "What is it that activates the dolls?"

  "You mean makes them—alive?"

  "Yes."

  "Something from the dead!"

  Again I heard Ricori cursing softly. I said: "If you do not know how the dolls are made, you must know what is necessary to make them alive. What is it?"

  She did not answer.

  "You must answer me. You must obey me. Speak!"

  She said: "Your question is not clear. I have told you that something of the dead makes them alive. What else is it you would know?"

  "Begin from where one who poses for a doll first meets Madame Mandilip to the last step when the doll—as you put it—becomes alive."

  She spoke, dreamily:

  "She has said one must come to her of his own will. He must consent of his own volition, without coercion, to let her make the doll. That he does not know to what he is consenting matters nothing. She must begin the first model immediately. Before she completes the second—the doll that is to live—she must find opportunity to apply the unguent. She has said of this unguent that it liberates one of those who dwell within the mind, and that this one must come to her and enter the doll. She has said that this one is not the sole tenant of the mind, but with the others she has no concern. Nor does she select all of those who come before her. How she knows those with whom she can deal, or what there is about them which makes her select them, I do not know. She makes the second doll. At the instant of its completion he who has posed for it begins to die. When he is dead—the doll lives. It obeys her—as they all obey her… "

  She paused, then said, musingly "All except one—"

  "And that one?"

  "She who was your nurse. She will not obey. My aunt torments her, punishes her… still she cannot control her. I brought the little nurse here last night with another doll to kill the man my—aunt—cursed. The nurse came, but she fought the other doll and saved the man. It is something my aunt cannot understand… it perplexes her… and it gives me… hope!"

  Her voice trailed away. Then suddenly, with energy, she said:

  "You must make haste. I should be back with the dolls. Soon she will be searching for me. I must go… or she will come for me… and then… if she finds me here… she will kill me… "

  I said: "You brought the dolls to kill me?"

  "Of course."

  "Where are the dolls now?"

  She answered: "They were coming back to me. Your men caught me before they could reach me. They will go… home. The dolls travel quickly when they must. It is more difficult without me that is all… but they will return to her."

  "Why do the dolls kill?"

  "To… please… her."

  I said: "The knotted cord, what part does it play?"

  She answered: "I do not know—but she says—" Then suddenly, desperately, like a frightened child, she whispered: "She is searching for me! Her eyes are looking for me… her hands are groping—she sees me! Hide me! Oh, hide me from her quick… "

  I said: "Sleep more deeply! Go down—down deep—deeper still into sleep. Now she cannot find you! Now you are hidden from her!"

  She whispered: "I am deep in sleep. She has lost me. I am hidden. But she is hovering over me she is still searching… "

  Ricori and McCann had left their chairs and were beside me.

  Ricori asked:

  "You believe the witch is after her?"

  "No," I answered. "But this is not an unexpected development. The girl has been under the woman's control so long, and so completely, that the reaction is natural. It may be the result of suggestion, or it may be the reasoning of her own subconsciousness… she has been breaking commands… she has been threatened with punishment if she should—"

  The girl screamed, agonized:

  "She sees me! She has found me! Her hands are reaching out to me!"

  "Sleep! Sleep deeper still! She cannot hurt you. Again she has lost you!"

  The girl did not answer, but a faint moaning was audible, deep in her throat.

  McCann swore, huskily: "Christ! Can't you help her?"

  Ricori, eyes unnaturally bright in a chalky face, said: "Let her die! It will save us trouble!"

  I said to the girl, sternly:

  "Listen to me and obey. I am going to count five. When I come to five—awaken! Awaken at once! You will come up from sleep so swiftly that she cannot catch you! Obey!"

  I counted, slowly, since to have awakened her at once would, in all likelihood, have brought her to the death which her distorted mind told her was threatened by the doll-maker.

  "One—two—three—"

  An appalling scream came from the girl. And then—

  "She's caught me! Her hands are around my heart… Uh-h-h… "

  Her body bent; a spasm ran through her. Her body relaxed and sank limply in the chair. Her eyes opened, stared blankly; her jaw dropped.

  I ripped open her bodice, set my stethoscope to her heart. It was still.

  And then from the dead throat issued a voice organ-toned, sweet, laden with menace and contempt…

  "You fools!"

  The voice of Madame Mandilip!

  Chapter 17 - Burn Witch Burn!

  On the following evening, as we have said, Rosa returned with the Bible of Cornelius de Witt.

  Then began between the master and the pupil one of those charming scenes which are the delight of the novelist who has to describe them.

  The grated window, the only opening through which the two lovers were able to communicate, was too high for conveniently reading a book, although it had been quite convenient for them to read each other's faces.

  Rosa therefore had to press the open book against the grating edgewise, holding above it in her right hand the lamp, but Cornelius hit upon the lucky idea of fixing it to the bars, so as to afford her a little rest. Rosa was then enabled to follow with her finger the letters and syllables, which she was to spell for Cornelius, who with a straw pointed out the letters to his attentive pupil through the holes of the grating.

  The light of the lamp illuminated the rich complexion of Rosa, her blue liquid eyes, and her golden hair under her head-dress of gold brocade, with her fingers held up, and showing in the blood, as it flowed downwards in the veins that pale pink hue which shines before the light owing to the living transparency of the flesh tint.

  Rosa's intellect rapidly developed itself under the animating influence of Cornelius, and when the difficulties seemed too arduous, the sympathy of two loving hearts seemed to smooth them away.

  And Rosa, after having returned to her room, repeated in her solitude the reading lessons, and at the same time recalled all the delight which she had felt whilst receiving them.

  One evening she came half an hour later than usual. This was too extraordinary an instance not to call forth at once Cornelius's inquiries after its cause.

  "Oh! do not be angry with me," she said, "it is not my fault. My father has renewed an acquaintance with an old crony who used to visit him at the Hague, and to ask him to let him see the prison. He is a good sort of fellow, fond of his bottle, tells funny stories, and moreover is very free with his money, so as always to be ready to stand a treat."

  "You don't know anything further of him?" asked Cornelius, surprised.

  "No," she answered; "it's only for about a fortnight that my father has taken
such a fancy to this friend who is so assiduous in visiting him."

  "Ah, so," said Cornelius, shaking his head uneasily as every new incident seemed to him to forebode some catastrophe; "very likely some spy, one of those who are sent into jails to watch both prisoners and their keepers."

  "I don't believe that," said Rosa, smiling; "if that worthy person is spying after any one, it is certainly not after my father."

  "After whom, then?"

  "Me, for instance."

  "You?"

  "Why not?" said Rosa, smiling.

  "Ah, that's true," Cornelius observed, with a sigh. "You will not always have suitors in vain; this man may become your husband."

  "I don't say anything to the contrary."

  "What cause have you to entertain such a happy prospect?"

  "Rather say, this fear, Mynheer Cornelius."

  "Thank you, Rosa, you are right; well, I will say then, this fear?"

  "I have only this reason —— "

  "Tell me, I am anxious to hear."

  "This man came several times before to the Buytenhof, at the Hague. I remember now, it was just about the time when you were confined there. When I left, he left too; when I came here, he came after me. At the Hague his pretext was that he wanted to see you."

  "See me?"

  "Yes, it must have undoubtedly been only a pretext for now, when he could plead the same reason, as you are my father's prisoner again, he does not care any longer for you; quite the contrary, — I heard him say to my father only yesterday that he did not know you."

  "Go on, Rosa, pray do, that I may guess who that man is, and what he wants."

  "Are you quite sure, Mynheer Cornelius, that none of your friends can interest himself for you?"

  "I have no friends, Rosa; I have only my old nurse, whom you know, and who knows you. Alas, poor Sue! she would come herself, and use no roundabout ways. She would at once say to your father, or to you, 'My good sir, or my good miss, my child is here; see how grieved I am; let me see him only for one hour, and I'll pray for you as long as I live.' No, no," continued Cornelius; "with the exception of my poor old Sue, I have no friends in this world."