“But my experiment requires Jill to have a Jack, Joan a Darby, Gretel a Hänsel, and so I set about to find a mate for her. Eventually this young man came along, and was similarly caught. I had arranged for everything. Their sleeping-quarters open on a common sitting-room, his to one side, hers upon the other. Each morning—or each night, they can’t tell the difference—I permit them to awaken, open the automatic doors to their rooms, and let them visit with each other. When I think that they have made love long enough I—ah—turn the current off and put them back to sleep.”
“How do you mean—”
“Have not you noticed a peculiar odor here?”
“Yes, I smelled the incense when I first came in—”
“Jawohl. That is it. I have perfected an anesthetic gas which, according to the strength of its concentration, can put one in a state of perfect anesthesia in a minute, a second, or immediately. It is almost odorless, and such slight odor as it has is completely masked by the incense. Periodically I put them to sleep, then let them re-awaken. That is why they cannot guess the intervals of time between their meetings, and—what is more important—when they begin to reason out too much, I see that they become unconscious quickly. I turned the anesthetic on when he began to guess too accurately concerning my technique a moment ago. By this time both of them are sleeping soundly, and Mishkin has taken them to bed. When I see fit, I shall allow them to awake and eat and take their conversation up where they left off, but I do not think they will. They are too preoccupied with each other to give much thought to me—just now, at least.”
“How long have they been here?” I asked. “I heard her say that she came first—”
“What is time?” he laughed. “She does not know how long she’s been my guest; neither does he, nor you, Herr Doktor. It may have been a night I let you sleep, in Stravinsky’s cell, or it may have been a week, or two—”
“That’s nonsense,” I cut in. “I should have been half starved if that were so. As it is, I’m not even feeling hungry—”
“How do you know we did not feed you with a nasal tube while you were sleeping?”
I had not thought of that. It upset my calculations utterly. Certainly in normal circumstances I should have been ravenous if I’d been there but four and twenty hours. A longer period without nourishment and I should have felt weak, yet I felt no hunger….
“To return to our young lovers,” Friedrichsohn reminded me. “They are better suited to my purpose; better, even, than I’d thought. When I captured him I could not know that they had known each other for some time, and were more than merely mildly interested in each other. Since they have been my guests, propinquity has made that interest blossom into full-blown love. Tomorrow, or the next day—or the next day after that—I think I shall begin to work on them.”
“To—work—on—them?”
“Jawohl, mein lieber Kollege. You saw the fascinating beauty treatment I gave Viki Boehm? Ist gut. I shall put them quietly to sleep and subject them to precisely similar ministrations. When they awake they’ll find themselves in the dove-cote I have prepared for them. It is a charming, cozy little place where they can contemplate each other as the little lady said, where the face of each shall be the first thing that the other sees when he awakes, the last thing he beholds before he goes to sleep. It is larger than the chamber I assigned to Viki—more than twice as large—and one of them shall rest at one end of it while the other occupies the other, facing him. It has been lined with mirrors, too, so that they can see themselves and each other from both front and back. That is necessary, Herr Doktor, since they will not be able to turn around. Lacking legs, a person finds himself severely handicapped in moving, lieber Freund.”
“But why should you do this to them?” I faltered, knowing even as I asked the question that reason had no part in his wild plans.
“Can you ask that after our discussion of the merits of the face and form as stimulants of love? I am surprised and disappointed in you, mein Kollege. It is to see if love—the love they pledge so tenderly to each other—can stand the sight of hideous deformity in the loved one. Their faces will be as they are now, only their forms will be altered. If they continue to express affection for each other I shall know the face is that which energizes love, but if—as I am sure they will—they turn from each other in loathing and abhorrence, I shall have proven that the form is more important. It will be a most diverting comedy to watch, nicht wahr, Herr Doktor?”
Horror drove my pulses to a hurrying rhythm. Something sharp, something penetrating as a cold and whetted knife-blade, seemed probing at my insides. I wanted to cry out against this outrage, to pray; but I could not. Heaven seemed unreal and infinitely far away with this phosphorescent-eyed monstrosity at my elbow, his pitiless, purring voice outlining plans which outdid Hell in hellish ingenuity.
“You can’t—you can’t do this!” I gasped. “You wouldn’t dare! You’ll be found out!”
“That’s what Viki Boehm said when I told her of the future I had planned for her,” he broke in with a susurrating laugh. “But they didn’t find me out. They never will, Herr Doktor. This is a madhouse—pardon me, a sanitarium—duly licensed by the state and impervious to private inquiry. People expect to hear cries and shrieks and insane laughter from such places. Passersby and neighbors are not even curious. My grounds are posted against trespassers; your law insures my privacy, and no one, not even the police, may enter here without a warrant. I have a crematory fully equipped and ready to be used instantly. If attempts are made to search the house I can destroy incriminating evidence—inanimate and animate—in a moment and without trouble. I shall prosecute my work uninterrupted, lieber Kollege—and that reminds me, I have a proposal to make you.”
He had reached the red-walled room again, and he pushed me suddenly, forcing me into a chair.
“There are times when I feel Mishkin is inadequate,” he said, taking out a cigarette and setting it alight. “I have taught him much, but his lack of early training often makes him bungle things. I need a skilled assistant, one with surgical experience, capable of helping me in operations. I think you are admirably fitted for this work. Will you enlist with me—”
“I?” I gasped. “I’ll see you damned first.”
“Or will you fill Stravinsky’s coffin?”
“Stravinsky’s—coffin?”
“Exactly. You remember that I told you Abraham Stravinsky was a patient here and that he died the day you came? Jawohl. His family have not yet been notified of his death. His body is preserved and waiting shipment. Should you accept my offer I shall notify his relatives and send his corpse to them without delay. If you decline”—the green eyes seemed to brighten in the gloom as they peered at me—“I shall put him in the crematory, and you shall take his place in the coffin. He was a Hebrew of the orthodox persuasion, and as such will have a plain pine coffin, rather than a casket. I have several boxes like that ready, one of them for you, unless you choose to join me. You are also doubtless aware that the rules of his religion require burial of the dead within twenty-four hours of death. For that reason there is small fear that the coffin will be opened. But if it should be, his family will not know that it is you and not their kinsman whom they see. I shall say he died in an insane seizure, as a consequence of which he was quite battered in the face.
“You need not fear, mein lieber Kollege: the body will be admirably battered—past all recognition. Mishkin will attend to all the details. He has a very dexterous talent with the ax, but—”
“But he will not exercise it, I damn think!” From behind me Jules de Grandin spoke in ordinary conversational tone, but I recognized the flatness of his voice. Cyclopean fury boiled in him, I knew. Friedrichsohn might be insane, fierce and savage as a tiger; de Grandin was his match in fierceness, and his clear French brain was burdened with no trace of madness.
“Kreuzsakrament!” As de Grandin stepped before me Friedrichsohn launched himself across the table, leaping like a maddened
leopard. “You—”
“It is I, indeed, thou very naughty fellow,” de Grandin answered, and as the other clawed at him rose suddenly into the air, as if he were a bouncing ball, brought both feet up at once, and kicked his adversary underneath the chin, hurling him unconscious to the floor. “Tiens, a knowledge of la savate is very useful now and then,” he murmured, as he turned and loosed the strap that bound my arms and transferred it to his fallen foeman. “So, my most unpleasant friend, you will do quite nicely thus,” he said, then turned to me.
“Embrasse moi!” he commanded. “Oh, Trowbridge, cher ami, brave camarade, I had feared this stinking villain had done you an injury. Alors, I find you safe and sound, but”—he grinned as he inspected me—“you would look more better if you had more clothing on!”
“There’s a chest behind you,” I suggested. “Perhaps—”
He was already rummaging in the wardrobe, flinging out a miscellany of garments. “These would be those of Monsieur Southerby”—he tossed a well-cut tweed suit on the floor—“and these a little lady’s”—a woolen traveling-suit with furred collar came to join the man’s clothes. “And this—ah, here they are!” My own clothes came down from the hooks and he thrust them at me.
“Attire yourself, my friend,” he ordered. “I have work elsewhere. If he shows signs of consciousness, knock him on the silly head. I shall return for him anon.”
Hurrying footsteps clattered on the floor outside as I dragged on my clothes. A shout, the echo of a shot….
I flung the door back just in time to see de Grandin lower his pistol as Mishkin staggered toward the front door, raised both arms above his head and crashed sprawling to the floor.
“My excellent de Grandin!” Jules de Grandin told himself. “You never miss, you are incomparable. Parbleu, but I admire you—”
“Look, look!” I shouted. “The lamp—”
Clawing blindly in the agony of death, Mishkin’s hand had knocked one of the red-globed oil lamps from its place before a statuary niche. The lacquer-coated, oil-soaked walls were tinder to the flame, and already fire was running up them like a curtain.
“In there,” I cried. “Southerby and a young girl are locked up there somewhere, and—”
“Hi, Frenchy, where the devil are you?” Hiji’s hail came from the transverse corridor. “Find Trowbridge yet? We’ve got Southerby and a—” He staggered out into the central hall with the still unconscious Southerby held in his arms as if he were a sleeping babe. Behind him came Costello with the girl, who was also sunk deep in anesthesia.
“Whew, it’s gettin’ hotter than Dutch love in here!” the Englishman exclaimed. “We’d best be hookin’ it, eh, what?”
“Indubitably what, my friend,” de Grandin answered. “One moment, if you please.” He dashed into the red room, reappearing in a moment with arms filled with clothes. “These are their proper raiment,” he called, draping the garments over Hiji’s shoulder. “Take them to the garage and bid them dress themselves becomingly for public appearance. Me, I have another task to do. Assist me, if you will, Friend Trowbridge.”
Back in the red-walled room he raised the fallen madman, signing me to help him. “The place will be a furnace in a moment,” he panted, “and me, I am not even one of the so estimable young Hebrews who made mock of Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery wrath. We must hasten if we do not wish to cook!”
He had not exaggerated. The oil-soaked walls and floors were all ablaze; lashing, crackling flames swept up the stairway as if it were a chimney flue.
“Good heavens!” I cried, suddenly remembering. “Up there—he’s got two others locked in cells—”
Down from the upper story, clear and sweet and growing stronger, came a voice, the voice of Viki Boehm:
So stürben wir, um ungetrennt,
Ewig einig ohne end …
So should we die, no more to part,
Ever in one endless joy …
The mounting notes of a violin accompanied the words of Tristan and Isolde’s plea for death which should unite them in the mystic world beyond life.
“Mon Dieu! Concede misericors, Deus …” De Grandin looked up at the fire-choked stairway. “There is no chance of reaching them—”
The crash of breaking timbers drowned his words, and a gust of flame and sparks burst from the stairwell as the draft was forced down by the falling floors. The song had died; only the roar of blazing, oil-soaked wood sounded as we bent our heads against the smoke and staggered toward the door. “It is their funeral pyre—fidelium animae per misericordiam Dei, requiescat in pace!” de Grandin panted. “A-a-ah!”
“What’s the matter?” I asked. “Are you—”
“Bid Hiji or Costello come at once!” he groaned. “I—am—unable—”
“You’re hurt?” I cried solicitously.
“Vite, vite—get one of them!” he choked.
I rushed through the front door and circled around the house toward the garage. “Hiji—Costello!” I shouted. “Come quickly, de Grandin’s hurt—”
“Pardonnez-moi, mon ami, on the contrary I am in the best of health, and as pleased as I can be in all the circumstances.” At my very heels de Grandin stood and grinned at me.
“You got clear? Good!” I exclaimed. Then: “Where’s Friedrichsohn?”
There was no more expression in his small blue eyes than if they had been china eyes in a doll’s face. “He was detained,” he answered in a level voice. “He could not come.”
Suddenly I felt an overmastering weakness. It seemed to me I had not eaten for a year; the cold bit at my bones as if it were a rabid wolf. “What day is it?” I asked.
“You are unpatriotic, my friend. It is the anniversary of the Great Emancipator’s birth. Did not you know?”
“February twelfth? Why, that’s today!”
“Mon Dieu, what did you think it was, tomorrow or yesterday?”
“But—I mean—we left Harrisonville on the morning of the twelfth, and I’ve been in that place at least—”
He glanced down at his wrist watch. “A little over two hours. If we hasten we shall be in time to lunch at Keyport. They have delicious lobster there.”
“But—but—”
“Doctor Trowbridge, Doctor de Grandin, these are Miss Perinchief and Mr. Southerby,” Hiji broke in as he and Costello came from the garage shepherding a most ecstatic-looking pair of youngsters.
“I’ve seen—” I began; then: “I’m very glad to meet you both.” I acknowledged the introduction.
He made me tell him my adventures from the moment I had left him by the brook where Southerby’s car was foundered, listening with tear-filled eyes as I described the loathsome things Friedrichsohn had made of Viki Boehm and her husband, weeping unashamedly when I recounted what I’d overheard while I looked through the trap-door into the room in which young Southerby and Rita Perinchief confessed their love. “And now, in heaven’s name, what were you doing all that time?” I asked.
“When you failed to return we were puzzled. Costello wished to go to the farmhouse and inquire for you, but I would not permit it. One took at that place and I knew it had the smell of fish upon it. So I posted them out by the great tree at the turning of the driveway, where they could be in plain sight while I crept around the house and sought an opening. At the last I had to cut the lock away from the back door, and that took time. I do not doubt the Mishkin rascal watched them from some point of vantage. Bien. While he was thus engaged Jules de Grandin was at work at the back door.
“At last I forced an entrance, tiptoed to the front door and unfastened it, signaling to them that all was well. I was waiting for them when I saw that sale chameau Friedrichsohn come down the stairs with you.
“‘Can this be endured?’ I ask me. ‘Can anyone be permitted to lead my good Friend Trowbridge as if he were a dog upon a leash? Mais non, Jules de Grandin, you must see to this.’ So I crept up to the room where he had taken you and listened at the keyhole. Voilà tout. The rest you know.”
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“No, I don’t,” I denied. “How did Hiji and Costello know where to look for Southerby and Rita?”
“Tiens, they did not know at all, my friend. They came in and looked about, and they espied the Mishkin rogue on guard before their prison door. He ran, and they broke down the door and brought the prisoners out. They should have shot him first. They have no judgment in such matters. Eh bien, I was there. It is perhaps as well. I have had no target practice for a long, long time—”
“Did they find the papers Southerby was carrying?”
“But yes. Friedrichsohn set no value on them. They were in the desk of the room where you first saw him. Hiji has them safely in his pocket.”
“It seems incredible I was in there such a little while,” I mused. “I could have sworn that I was there at least a week—”
“Ah, my friend, time passes slowly in a prison. What you thought was hours’ space as you lay shivering in that cell was really only half an hour or so. Time does not pass at all, it stands entirely still while you are sleeping. They rendered you unconscious with their gas, and woke you in perhaps five minutes. Suggestion did the rest. You thought that you had slept around the clock-dial, and since you could not see the sun, you had no clue to what the hour really was. Sleep and our own imaginings play strange tricks upon us, n’est-ce-pas?”
THE BROILED LIVE LOBSTER was, as he had promised, delicious. Luncheon done, de Grandin, Hiji and Costello marched toward the bar, with me bringing up the rear. Neville Southerby and Rita Perinchief cuddled close together on a settle set before the fireplace in the lounge. As I passed the inglenook in which they snuggled side by side, I heard her: “Honey lamb, I think I know how Robinson Crusoe felt about his island when they’d rescued him. He kept remembering it all his life, and even though he’d undergone a lot of hardships there, he loved it. Somehow, I’ll always feel that way about the place that madman shut us up in. Just suppose they’d never found us … suppose we’d stayed there always, just the two of us, being with each other always, looking at each other … we might have been changed some by being cooped up, but—”
The Best of Jules de Grandin Page 77