The Dark Angel Read online

  “What’s that?” Archy asked.

  “I did but confirm my diagnosis, Monsieur. It is seldom that I am mistaken. This time, it seems, I am less so than usual. Lead us to Madame your wife, if you please.”

  “WHY—” I EXCLAIMED AS we entered the pleasant, chintz-hung room where young Mrs. Hildebrand lay, then stared at the girl in fatuous, hang-jawed amazement.

  “Nom d’un parapluie rose!” de Grandin exclaimed softly. “I suspected it, now I know. Yes. Of course. Observe her, my friend.”

  I did. I couldn’t help it. I knew it could not be, yet there on the bed before me lay Moneen McDougal, or her twin sister, and stared at us with the wide, hopeless gaze of a dumb thing taken in a trap and waiting in mute terror for the hunter’s knife across its throat.

  “Madame,” de Grandin began softly, deferentially, “we have heard of your trouble and are come to aid you.”

  A tiny parenthesis of puzzled wrinkles formed between the girl’s arched black brows, but no sign of understanding showed in her pale face.

  “Madame,” he essayed again, “je suis un médecin français, et—”

  Still no sign of understanding in the wide, frightened gaze.

  He paused a moment, his little, round blue eyes narrowed in concentrated thought, then launched forth a series of queer-sounding, singsong words which reminded me of the gibberish with which Chinese laundrymen address each other.

  Instant recognition shone in her dark eyes and she answered in a torrent of droning, oddly inflected phrases.

  He motioned me forward, still conversing in the outlandish dialect, and together we approached the bed, turned down the coverlet and bent to examine her. Like most modern young women she wore as her sole undergarment above the waist a knitted-silk bandeau about her bosoms, and as she had dressed only in her lingerie when the curious illness overtook her, we had no difficulty in observing the lashmarks across her cream-satin shoulders. High, angry-looking wales they were, as though freshly laid on by a heavy whip in the hands of a brutally strong tormentor. “Cher Dieu!” de Grandin swore, then bent to question her again, but stopped abruptly as she stiffened suddenly and gave a short, terrified exclamation; the sort a patient undergoing odontotrypy might emit; and under our very eyes there rose across her shoulders another scourge mark, red, ecchymosed, swollen. It was as if the skin were inflated from beneath, for a mound like a miniature molehill rose as we watched, and the white skin turned bright, blood-sweating red.

  Again she trembled in our grasp and again a red and angry welt showed on her shoulders. From scapula to scapula her back showed a wicked criss-cross of ugly, livid wales.

  “Quick, mon ami, your hypo, and some morphine, if you please!” he cried. “This will continue intermittently until—we must give her surcease of her pain at once!”

  I prepared the mercy-bearing syringe with trembling hands and drove the needle deep into her quivering arm, then shot the plunger home, and as the opiate took hold upon her tortured nerves she relaxed from her rigid pose and sank back slowly on the bed, but as she did so another lash-track appeared on her shoulder, and now the fragile skin was broken through, and a stain of bright capillary blood spread on the linen bedclothes.

  “Good heavens, what is it, some obscure form of hemophilia?” I asked.

  “Neither obscure nor hemophilia,” de Grandin answered grimly. “It is devilment, my friend; but devilment we can do nothing to palliate until Costello finds the one we seek.”

  “Costello?” I echoed in amazement. “What has he to do with this poor child’s—”

  “Everything, pardieu!” the Frenchman interrupted. “Now, if we do prepare a bandage pack and soak it well with leadwater and laudanum, we shall have done all possible until—”

  “Until?” I prompted, as he ceased speaking and proceeded to prepare the soothing dressing for the girl’s lacerated back.

  “Until the leaden-footed Costello bestirs himself,” he returned sharply. “Have I not said it? Certainly.

  “Renew the dressing every hour, my friend,” he bade young Hildebrand as we prepared to leave. “If her attacks return with frequency, administer these codeine tablets, but never more than one in each half-hour. Au revoir, we shall return, and when we do she will have ceased to suffer.”

  “You mean she’ll be—” Archy choked, then stopped, afraid to name the dread eventuality.

  “By no means; no,” de Grandin cheered him. “She will survive, mon vieux, nor will she suffer much meantime, but though we do our work away from here you may be sure that we shall not be idle.”

  As the young man looked at him bewildered he added, “For ailments such as this some laboratory work is necessary,” then smiled as a light of understanding broke in the tortured husband’s face.

  “The plausible explanation is always best,” he murmured as we entered my car and turned toward home.

  “Have you really an idea what’s wrong with her?” I asked. “It’s the strangest case I’ve ever seen.”

  “But yes, my ideas are most certain,” he returned, “although I can not set them forth in full just now. You are perhaps familiar with stigmata?”

  “Only indirectly,” I answered. “I’ve never seen a case of stigmata, but from what I’ve read I understand it’s a physical manifestation of a condition of hysteria. Aren’t certain religious fanatics supposed to work themselves into a state of ecstasy and then show marks approximating wounds on their hands and feet, in simulation of the Savior’s crucifixion-marks?”

  “Précisément,” he agreed with a nod. “And hysteria is a condition of psychoneurosis. Normal inhibitions are broken down, the conscious mind is in abeyance. You have doubtless seen in psychological laboratories the hypnotist bid the blood leave the subject’s hand, and thereupon have observed the hand in question go corpse-pale as the vital fluid gradually receded?”

  “Of course,” I answered, “but what the deuce are you driving at, anyway?”

  “I formulate an hypothesis. Anon we shall put it to the test, I hope.”

  5. Sympathetic Magic

  DETECTIVE SERGEANT JEREMIAH COSTELLO was pacing gloomily back and forth across my study when we returned, a worried look in his blue eyes, a worried frown between his brows, his hands sunk elbow-deep in his trousers pockets.

  “What news, mon brave?” de Grandin asked eagerly as he espied the big Irishman.

  “Plenty, sor, such as it is,” the detective returned. “Misther Dougal McDougal’s been down to headquarters raisin’ partic’lar hell wid everybody from th’ Commissioner down. He’s threatenin’ to see th’ Mayor an’ petition congress an’ call out th’ Marines if we don’t find his wife’s sister before dark.”

  “Dites, and have you been successful in the search for the mysterious Oriental gentleman as yet?” de Grandin asked.

  “No, sor. ’Twas a crack-brained idea ye had there, if ye’ll excuse me sayin’ so. We’d have no more chance o’ findin’ ’em that way than we’d have o’ meetin’ up wid a needle in a haystack, as th’ felly says, sor. Now, if ’twas me—”

  “Triomphe, victoire, je suis couronné de succès!” Inspector Renouard burst into the room, his dark eyes fairly blazing with excitement, his beard and mustaches bristling electrically. “All the way from the préfecture I have run—as fast as a taximeter could carry me! Behold, we have found him! Those peerless realtors, Sullivan, Dorsch & Doerr have but recently rented a mansion to one Chinese gentleman, a fine, large, furnished house with commodious garage attached. He particularly desired a garage, as he possessed an automobile of noble size in which he drove to the house agent’s office, accompanied by a chauffeur and footman, also Orientals. Yes, of course. The gentlemen of real estate noticed this particularly, since such customers are of the rarest at their office. In lieu of references he paid them three months’ rent in cash—in golden louis—no, what is it the American gold coin is called? Bucks? Yes, in golden bucks he paid one thousand berries—the gendarme at headquarters told me.

  �
��How much in dollars is a thousand berries, my friend?” he turned bright, inquiring eyes upon Costello.

  “T’ell wid stoppin’ to translate now; let’s git busy an’ find him!” Costello roared. “Are ye wid me, Doctor de Grandin, sor?”

  “Cordieu, when was I ever otherwise in such a case, mon vieux?” the little Frenchman answered in a perfect fever of excitement. “Quick, make haste, my friend!”

  Of Renouard he asked: “And where may one find this so superbly furnished house and garage the Oriental gentleman rented, petit frère?”

  “At 68 Hamilton Avenue of the West,” the other returned, consulting his black-leather pocketbook. “Where is Friend Costello? He has not yet computed the berries into dollars for me.”

  Sergeant Costello had no time to explain the vagaries of American slang to the excited Inspector. With tight-lipped mouth pressed close to the transmitter of my office telephone he was giving directions to some one at police headquarters in a low and ominously calm voice. “Yeah,” he murmured, “tear-bombs, that’s what I said. An’ a couple o’ choppers, an’ some fire-axes, an’ riot guns, an’ every man wid his nightstick. Git me? O.K., be ’round here pronto, an’ if anny one rings th’ bell or sounds th’ siren on th’ way I’ll beat ’im soft wid me own two fists. Git that, too. Come on, now, shake a leg; I’m waitin’, but I ain’t waitin’ long. See?”

  THE EARLY DECEMBER DARK had descended, though the moon was not yet high enough to illuminate the streets as the police car set out for Hamilton Avenue. Obedient to Costello’s fiercely whispered injunction, gong and siren were silent, and we slipped through the dusk as silently as a wraith.

  The house we sought stood well back on a quarter-acre plot of land planted with blue spruce, Japanese maples and rhododendron. As far as we could see, the place was deserted, for no gleam of light showed anywhere and an atmosphere of that utterly dead silence which seems the peculiar property of tenantless buildings wrapped it like a blanket.

  “Spooky,” Costello declared as he brought the car to a halt half-way down the block and marshaled his forces. “Gilligan, you and Schultz take th’ back,” he ordered. “See no one gits out that way, an’ put th’ nippers on anny one that tries to make a break. Sullivan, you an’ Esposito git posted be th’ front—take cover behind some bushes, an’ hit th’ first head that shows itself out th’ front door. I’m leavin’ ye th’ job o’ seein’ no one gits out that way. Norton, cover th’ garage. No one’s to go in there till I give th’ word. Git it?” The men nodded assent, and:

  “All right,” he continued. “Hornsby, you an’ Potansky bring th’ choppers an’ come wid us. All ready, gentlemen?” he swept Renouard, de Grandin and me with an inquiring glance.

  “More than ready, mon brave, we are impatient,” de Grandin answered. “Lead on; we come.”

  From a shoulder-holster slung beneath his left armpit Inspector Renouard drew a French-army revolver almost as large as a field gun and spun its cylinder appraisingly. “Bien,” he murmured, “let us go.” The two patrolmen with their vicious little submachine-guns fell in on either side of us, and we advanced across the lawn at a run.

  “I’ve got th’ warrant here,” Costello whispered as we paused before the veranda. “Think I’d better knock an’—”

  “By no means,” de Grandin cut in. “Let us enter at once. If our presence is protested, the warrant will give it validity. Meantime, there is much value in surprise, for each moment of delay threatens death for two unfortunate ladies.”

  “Two women?” Costello asked in wonder. “How d’ye figure—”

  “Zut! Action now, my friend; explanations can wait.

  “Permettez-moi,” he added as Costello drew back to thrust his shoulder at the door. “This is better, I think.” He felt quickly in his pocket, producing a ring on which half a dozen keys dangled, and sinking to his knees began trying first one, then another in the door. The first three trials were failures, but the fourth key sprung the lock, and with a muttered exclamation of satisfaction he swung back the door and motioned us in.

  “Bedad, what an illigant burglar wuz spoilt when you decided to go straight!” Costello commented admiringly as we stepped across the threshold.

  Thick rugs ate up the sound of our footfalls as we entered the darkened hall, and a blackness almost tangible surrounded us while we paused to take our bearings. “Shall I give ’em a call?” the Sergeant whispered.

  “Not at all,” de Grandin denied. “If we advertise our presence we have assuredly lost what advantage we have thus far gained, and—”

  Somewhere, faint and far-away seeming, as though strained through several tight-locked doors, there came to us a faint, shrill, eery note, a piping, quavering cry like the calling of a screech-owl heard a long way off, and, answering it, subtly, like an echo, another wail.

  “Howly Mither, what’s that?” Costello asked. “Which way did it come from?”

  “From under us, I think,” de Grandin answered, “and it is devilment of the most devilish sort, my friend. Come, let us hasten; there is no time to waste!”

  We tiptoed down the hall, guided by an occasional flash from Costello’s pocket light, crept softly through the kitchen, paused a moment at the basement door to reassure ourselves we followed the right track, then swung the white enameled door back and passed quietly down the stairs.

  At the turn of the stairway we paused, fairly petrified by the scene below us.

  Draperies of heavy silk had been hung at all the basement windows, effectively cutting off all telltale gleans of light to the outside world. A heavy Chinese rug, gorgeous with tones of blue and gold and deep rust-red, was spread upon the floor, and at its four corners stood tall vases with perforated tops through which there slowly drifted writhing gray coils of heavy incense. Robed in yellow, a parody of a man squatted cross-legged in the center of the rug, and it needed no second glance to see he was terribly deformed. One arm was a mere shriveled relic of its former self, one shoulder was a full half-foot higher than the other, his spine was dreadfully contorted, and his round buffer-head thrust forward, like that of a vulture contemplating a feast of carrion. His cheeks were sunken, eye-sockets so depressed that they appeared mere hollow caverns, and the yellow skin was drawn drum-tight over his skull so that the lips were retracted from the uneven, discolored teeth studding his gums. “A very death’s-head of a face!” I thought.

  But this bizarre, uncanny figure squatting between the incense pots was but a stage property of the show.

  Nude and fainting, a young girl was lashed face-forward to a pillar in the floor. Her feet were raised a foot or more above the cement, and round the pillar and her ankles was passed turn after turn of finely knit silken cord, knotting her immovably to the beam and forcing her entire weight upon the thongs which bit so cruelly into her white and shrinking flesh. Her arms were drawn around the post, the wrists crossed and tied at the farther side, but this did little to relieve the strain upon the cords encircling her ankles.

  As we came to pause at the turning of the stairs a short and slender brown-skinned man clad in a sort of apron of yellow silk, but otherwise quite naked, stepped forward from the shadows, raised his right hand and swung a scourge of plaited leather mercilessly, dragging the lash diagonally across the girl’s defenseless back.

  She screamed and trembled and drew herself convulsively closer to the post to which she was bound, as though she sought to gain protection from her tormentor by forcing her body into the very substance of the pillar.

  And at her trembling scream the seated monstrosity laughed silently, and from her other side another yellow-aproned man stepped forth and struck her with a leather lash, and as she screamed again a third attendant who squatted on the floor lifted a reed flute to his lips and with the cunning fidelity of a phonograph mocked her agonized. cry with a trilling, quavering note.

  As such things will flash through the mind unbidden in times of stress, I could not help comparing her despairing cry and the mockery of the fl
ute to that composition called Le Roitelet in which a coloratura soprano sings a series of runs, trills and diversions while a flute accompaniment blends so perfectly with the voice that the listener could hardly say which is human note and which the note of woodwind instrument.

  But my random thought was quickly dissipated by de Grandin’s sharp whisper to Renouard: “The one at the right for you, the other one for me, my friend!”

  Their weapons spoke in unison, and once again the noises harmonized, for the deep roar of Renouard’s revolver was complemented by the spiteful, whip-like crack of de Grandin’s automatic as a tenor complements a bass, and the two whip-wielding torturers pitched forward on the gorgeous rug as though an unseen giant had pushed them from behind.

  The flutist half rose from his seat on the floor, but crumpled impotently in the grasp of one of the policemen, while Inspector Renouard fairly hurled himself upon the deformed man and bore him backward.

  “Ah-ha you pig-swine, I have you now!” he cried exultantly. “You would kill my men and mock the laws of France, and run off to the temple and think you hid successfully from me! You would follow those escaping lovers to America and put snakes and spiders where they could bite me to death, hein? You would torture this poor one here until she screamed for mercy while your so detestable musician made mockery of her suffering? Very well; you have had your laugh; now comes mine, parbleu! I think my laugh is best!”

  He rose, dragging the other with him, and we saw the gleam of steel upon the cripple’s wrists. “Sun Ah Poy,” he announced formally, “I arrest you for wilful murder, for sedition and subornation of sedition, and for stirring up rebellion against the Republic of France.

  “He is your prisoner, Sergeant,” he added to Costello. “Look well to him, and on tomorrow morning I shall begin the extradition proceedings.”

  Costello nodded curtly. “Take ’em out, Hornsby,” he ordered with a gesture toward Sun and the other prisoner. “Tell Sullivan an’ Esposito to ring for th’ van an’ run ’em down to headquarters, an’ call th’ other boys in. We’re goin’ through this joint.” He motioned to the other patrolmen to precede him up the stairs, then turned to us. “Annything I can do, gentlemen?” he asked, and I realized the innate delicacy of the man as I noticed how he conscientiously kept his glance averted from the nude, limp form which de Grandin cut down from the pillar of torture.