The Devil in Manuscript And Other Tales of Forbidden Books

by Osie Turner

  "Yes, if I can get any sitters. I've got to look around a bit first. You don't know any wealthy beauty who wants to have her face immortalized?"

  Paul rose yawning. "No," he answered. "But if I did, I don't think I'd hand her over to you until I had discovered if there weren't some legitimate, legal way of separating her from her cash."

  The next day I began writing letters to former acquaintances with the hope that they might know of someone who was anxious to have a portrait painted by a pupil of the famous Emile Verone. I soon learned that I could hope for little from this source. Most of my college friends were so busy or so absent-minded that they failed to answer my note; and the few replies which I did receive were far from encouraging. Evidently the world at large was not at all interested in furthering the future of an aspiring young genius.

  The pile of bills in my mother's desk grew higher day by day. I no longer dared to open them. My spirits were at very low ebb on the morning when I received a note from Wilbur Huntington which gave me a ray of hope. It ran as follows:

  Dear Charley: The mater wants her portrait painted. She's not much on looks, but she has a well lined pocketbook. I have boosted you to the skies. She now thinks that you are a Van Dyke, a Whistler, and a Sargent, all in one. Call on her next Monday and make good. As ever, Wilbur.

  When I finished this hope-inspiring epistle, I uttered a whoop of joy which brought Paul out on the veranda in no time. "I've struck it at last," I cried.

  "What's the matter?" he asked. "Have you found a half-dollar or something?"

  "I've found a good many half dollars," I answered gleefully. "I've been asked to do a portrait of Mrs. Huntington—you know, Wilbur Huntington's mother. It's the chance of a lifetime. If I make good, she'll recommend me to her society friends and it will be smooth sailing after that."

  "Good man!" cried Paul. "You've struck it all right. But look here. I've got another surprise for you."

  "What is it?" I asked.

  "It's a story by Martin," he answered. "They're featuring it this month in the Footstool Magazine. Just look it over while I run downtown. I want your opinion of it. It's the first piece of work he's had published."

  After Paul had gone, I opened the magazine. On the first page was an illustration by Martin himself. I recognized it instantly. It was a miniature of that first painting I had seen of his—that vivid conception of the girl lying dead in the snow. It had been improved by a few deft strokes of the brush so that now it was a veritable masterpiece of mystery. For a long moment I gazed at it while the well-remembered feeling of intense cold passed through my frame. At last, with an effort, I turned the page. "The Murder of Mary Mortimer," was the title of the story.

  "Some melodramatic nonsense, no doubt," I told myself and began to read.

  But from the first page I knew that I was wrongs— entirely wrong. I could not blind myself to the truth. If the man's illustration was gruesome and yet masterful, the man's story was diabolic and yet a classic.

  As I read it, I felt the same sensations stirring in me that the deformed idiot in Martin's story felt when the voice whispered in his ear: "You are losing her! Is it not better to have her dead?" And when he is driven by this voice to strike her down, when she falls like a red ruin in the snow, I saw that scene as though I were standing where the dark shadows of nightfall were closing in.

  "I see you like my story," said a familiar voice.

  I looked up with a start and encountered Martin's cold grey eyes. His thin lips were curling up at the corners in their wonted cat-like grimace. For a moment I experienced the unpleasant nervous shock of a somnambulist who is suddenly awakened.

  "A remarkable story!" I said at length in a rather unsteady tone. "The most startlingly vivid piece of fiction I ever read! Surely you must have imagination to write like that?"

  "On the contrary, not a grain of it. As I told you once before, there are countless themes drifting about and a man has only to get off the beaten path to find them. Without exaggeration I can say that I have done so."

  "Your story proves that," I assented. "But where did you get the idea?"

  Again his lips writhed into an unpleasant smile. "That would be revealing my little secret," he murmured, wagging his head reprovingly at me. "A wise angler never tells where he caught his last trout."

  "Your story is founded on truth?" I asked.

  "It would seem so. A man without imagination cannot lie artistically."

  "But I don't believe that even a weak-minded person could be turned into a murderer by mental suggestion. It's preposterous! That's the weak spot in your story, Martin."

  He threw back his head and burst into a laugh—if you could call a series of sounds so inhuman a laugh. It was as hoarse and guttural as the cawing of a crow. At last he broke off and regarded me solemnly.

  "Smithers," he said, "you amuse me. In fact, you are the one man in the world who can make me laugh."

  By this time I was thoroughly aroused. This man's colossal egotism was unendurable. "You may laugh as much as you please," I cried, "but that isn't answering my criticism of your story. I repeat that mental suggestion cannot form even a weak-minded person into a murderer. Your tale doesn't ring true to life."

  "Perhaps so," he murmured. "I thought that it could be managed by mental suggestion—under the right circumstances, of course. But where is Paul this morning?"

  "He went downtown," I said brusquely. "He probably won't be back for an hour or two."

  "Well, I'll not wait. Tell him I called, won't you? Goodbye, Smithers."

  For some time I sat watching his tall, lean figure receding in the distance. Finally I rose, and, moved by a sudden fit of childish irritation, picked up the magazine, entered the library, and deposited it carefully on a bed of glowing coals.

  "It's better out of the way," I told myself. I never knew until years later how truly I had spoken.

  V

  It was not long before Martin's prophecy about my career came true. Spurred on by adversity and a natural desire to please I soon became one of those flourishing society portrait painters who fatten on the vanity of women. Mrs. Huntington's picture did not suit her until I had touched it up to such an extent that her own son could not recognize any likeness. But when I had beautified her to her heart's content, she became enthusiastic and recommended me to all her wealthy friends. That was the beginning. Soon I had all I could do to fill the many orders which rained down on me. My work became the vogue—I was no longer a man but a fashion.

  Prosperity brought the fulfillment of my youthful dreams. I was now able to rent and fit out one of the most artistic studios in Washington Square. But, in spite of this, I was far from happy. I had moments of deep depression when my work galled me cruelly— moments when the only spur that kept me going was the knowledge that before long I could retire and live a life of leisure.

  Meanwhile Paul had passed his examinations to the bar and was actually practicing. No sooner had he hung out his shingle than he was besieged daily by a ragged multitude of clients whom he shrewdly suspected Martin had sent his way. A stream of villainous faces passed through his office at all hours—faces which one could imagine as being associated with every crime in the calendar. Paul had a keen mind; he soon developed into a criminal lawyer of exceptional reputation. His clients, in spite of their poverty stricken appearance, paid him well for his services and he soon became affluent.

  I saw a great deal of my brother at this time. We had become much closer friends. The four years which divided us, no longer seemed such an insurmountable barrier. Now he would often take me into his confidence.

  There was only one topic on which we could not agree. Paul was still an ardent admirer of Martin; while I, although I had to acknowledge the man's gifts, loathed the very mention of his name. I could not forgive him his prophecy concerning my career. Yes, that afternoon in Paris, lie had told me what I would soon become. And because he had seen so clearly into the hidden recesses of my character, I felt that I
would hate him till the end. It is primitive but human to resist the prying eyes of genius. The ego—that most precious possession of man—is outraged to find itself held up before the clear, steady flame of psychological insight.

  Paul had a way of referring to Martin which was extremely annoying to me. He would repeat over and over again that he owed everything to him. It used to make me very angry to hear him belittle his own success by such a quixotic statement. Surely he owed a large measure of his practice to his own acuteness and perseverance. Often we would argue about it.

  "Yes," Paul would say, glancing about his well-appointed library, "I owe all this to him. He cured me of drunkenness and sent me my clients."

  "Nonsense! Perhaps he did help to cure you and perhaps he sent you a few clients; but if you hadn't had strength of will enough to leave the liquor alone and strength of mind enough to win the majority of your cases, his help wouldn't have amounted to much."

  But Paul would shake his head obstinately and repeat: "He has done everything for me—everything."

  And then I would generally lose my temper and express my true feelings. "How about that book he is writing? He may be able to make you, but he doesn't seem to be able to make himself. He's been writing for over two years now and has had only one story in print. Won't the publishers take his work?"

  Now Paul, in his turn, would flush angrily and his blue eyes would grow darker. "How should I know? He never talks about himself. But I'll tell you this, Charley—when his work is published, the whole world will know about it!"

  Often, after one of these heated controversies, I would leave my brother's apartment in a temper and walk the streets for hours before I regained my habitual calm. It was on one of these midnight rambles that I met Martin, himself, under rather singular and sinister circumstances—circumstances which left a never-to-be-forgotten impression on my mind.

  One mild March night I left Paul's apartment with rather more than my usual irritation. I was so heated, in fact, that I determined to walk it out of my system, if possible, before retiring. As I knew by former experience, a nocturnal ramble has a quieting effect on ruffled nerves. All the poor, petty passions of man flourish best between four walls. They are soon smothered in the sable robe of outer night.

  It was a fine evening for a stroll. The aroma of budding spring was strong in the air—spring, that supple, green-limbed goddess whose presence is felt even in the cold, atrophied arteries of the city. A new moon hung lazily in the heavens, riding the small, silver clouds which swept past it like charging breakers. But the stars were not so fortunate. Often they were submerged beneath these foam-flecked billows of the infinite, bobbing up again into view like floating lanterns.

  As I walked along toward Washington Square, the irritation, which had been so real a moment before, vanished entirely. It was followed hy an almost philosophic calm. I began to take myself to task.

  Why should I interfere with Paul in his choice of friends? Surely he was old enough now to choose them for himself. Just because I happened to dislike Martin, that was no reason why I should attempt to influence my brother against him. And when it came to that, what had the fellow ever done to me that I should so hate the sound of his name? He had told me several truths hard to stomach, indeed; but no doubt they had been intended kindly as a warning. On the other hand, he had nursed me back to health when my life had hung in the balance. What had I ever done to thank him? Nothing—absolutely nothing. Well, I would turn over a new leaf; I would apologize to Paul for what I had said.

  By this time I was within a few blocks of home. Seeing an inviting alley which I had not yet explored and which might prove to be a short cut, I wandered into it and into a strange adventure as well. Winding smoothly along for several hundred yards, it was so narrow and tortuous that the old brick houses on either side seemed to be twisted out of normal shape; to be tottering toward each other like drunkards about to embrace. And then suddenly, almost violently, the alley ended in a precipitous, ivy covered wall.

  This wall brought me to an abrupt halt. I experienced a sensation of surprise, of chagrin. I had followed this alley as a man follows an odd and rather attractive philosophy, thinking that in due course it would bring me out into familiar, homely surroundings; and here was this disconcerting wall looming up like an abrupt and positive negative. I could not have been more unpleasantly surprised if a friend, while telling me a whimsical, fantastic tale, had suddenly dropped dead in the middle of a sentence. Indeed there was something brooding and brutal about this wall, like death itself.

  The little street was as dark as a subterranean passageway. I might very easily have blundered into the wall without seeing it, had it not been for an antique, iron lantern which was suspended from it and which shed its nickering beams over its rough, red surface. The light, however, was not sufficient to make objects at a short distance discernable. For instance the houses on either side, and more especially their areaways, were in tottering, unstable shadow.

  I came to an enforced halt near the wall and glanced at the house on my right. It seemed to me that the shadowy figure of a man was sitting on the stoop in the attitude of one who is patiently waiting; but I could not be sure of this as the mantle of gloom enshrouding the house was almost impenetrable. Whatever it was, it remained absolutely motionless.

  I turned and was about to retrace my steps when I suddenly heard strange shuffling sounds. Flip, flap, flip, flap, the sounds grew nearer and nearer. And for some unaccountable reason I felt a flicker of fear. Through those hurrying footsteps, that flapping of worn out leather on cobblestones, there sounded the warning of approaching danger. Flip,'flap, flip, flap—it was like the frantic beating of terror stricken wings.

  I came to a halt and attempted to pierce the shadows in front of me. At the next moment, I stepped aside with a warning cry.

  "Look out!" I shouted. "There's a wall in front of you."

  But the man who ran swiftly past me, his head thrown back, his broken shoes flapping wildly on the cobblestones, could not stop himself in time. Into the wall he went at full speed; and then, rebounding like a rubber ball, toppled over on his back.

  "Are you hurt?" I cried, running forward.

  He was on his feet again by the time I reached him —on his feet and staring about him wildly. A ribbon of blood ran down his chin, losing itself in his grey, tangled beard; one of his knees had torn its way through the patched cloth and now projected arrogantly, a globule of raw flesh; his long, green coat, many sizes too big for him, flapped idly in the March breeze.

  "Are you hurt?" I repeated, touching him on the arm.

  He started and turned a pair of bloodshot eyes on me. "Oh!" he said in a husky voice. "I thought you was one of, 'em! I can see you ain't now. No, mister, there ain't much wrong with me."

  "But that was quite a fall you took. It must have shaken you up. Look at your knee."

  "To Hell with my knee!" he cried, shaking his head like a restive horse. "I got to get out of here, mister! Ain't there a gate in this wall? For mercy's sake, get me out of here before the boss and his gang show up!"

  "Who's the boss and his gang?" I asked, intending to humor him till I ascertained whether he were drunk or mad. "I'm sure everything will be all right."

  "Don't you hear 'em?" he broke in, cocking his head on one side. "Don't you hear 'em? They're comin' for me now!"

  Indeed I did hear a confused, muffled thudding in the distance which gradually grew louder, approaching with the swiftness of hurrying feet. "Probably the police," I thought to myself. "This fellow has robbed someone and is trying to make a get-a-way."

  Suddenly I felt his hand on my arm. He was shaking me violently. "It's them!" he cried. "Give me a boost up on the wall, mister! Give me a leg up and I'll fool 'em yet!"

  But I shook his hand from my arm. My suspicions had now become a certainty. I was not the man to help a criminal escape. I respected the laws of my country too much to see them cheated by this villainous scarecrow in his flapping gr
een coat. If he had attempted to climb the wall, I believe I would have detained him till his pursuers arrived.

  "You'd better stay here quietly and face the music," I said sternly. "If you break the laws, you've got to answer for it."

  At mat he swung away from me and limped toward one of the dark houses. "Maybe I can get in here," he muttered.

  By now the thudding of a dozen pairs of feet echoed through the alley. They could not be more than a hundred yards away and they were coming fast. I saw the man stop at the bottom step of the shadowy stoop; I saw a dark figure rise slowly to its feet above him—the figure which before I had been unable to make sure of because of the gloom—and then I heard a strange conversation which I shall never be able to forget.

  "Let me in your house, mister!" cried the man in the green coat. "Quick! They're comin' up the alley now! For God's sake, open the door and let me in!"