A. “I told him I didn’t like it. It had belonged to an ancestor of mine whose deeds I have never admired.”
Q. “You have a revulsion toward such things—daggers of that kind, I take it?”
A. “I fancy I have.”
Q. “Yet you touched it when you leaned over the body of Mr. Ballau?”
De Medici stared again at the detective. A memory focused vividly in his mind. The dead body, the dagger hilt, the moment he had reached forward to embrace the protruding thing in his fingers—the moment of fascination that had left him shuddering. Ah, this reddish-faced man was not stupid. He had surmised that.
A. “I thought of withdrawing the blade from the body but stopped as my fingers encountered it.”
“That will be all,” the coroner announced.
De Medici arose and returned to his seat beside Florence. The coroner and Lieutenant Norton were conferring in whispers again.
“The inquest is a farce,” De Medici mused. “They have determined on this clumsy ruse of throwing someone off guard as I thought that night.”
Lieutenant Norton, summoned to the witness chair, was reciting again the details of the case. De Medici listened. With logic and a remarkably convincing mass of detail, the detective was going over the circumstances surrounding the death of Victor Ballau, and bit by bit reconstructing for the jury his theory of the grotesque suicide which the dead man had committed. He added to his theory the motive that had been brought out by the witnesses, the dead man’s financial difficulties, the changing of his will, his purchase of the dagger.
“The inquest stands adjourned until tomorrow,” Coroner Holbein announced as the lieutenant concluded.
De Medici remained, without moving, beside the girl. A respite. Nothing had happened. There would be no damning headlines in the press. His eyes studied the face of the girl. She was in danger. The clumsy evasions of the officials were ominous.
“Come,” he whispered, “I would like to talk to you.”
They made their way through the crowd of friends. De Medici nodded politely in return to the greetings that followed his passage through the room. Norton was watching them, watching them go out together. There would be someone listening when they talked. De Medici leaned close to her ear.
“We must get away. Alone.”
She nodded.
“The theater,” he whispered.
It would be empty. Seated on the empty stage facing the vacant seats, they could be certain of not being overheard.
“You have avoided me,” he said as they walked in the street.
“Yes.”
They continued in silence. The morning was brisk. Inside the theater, he led the way to the stage. The curtain was up. The scenery for the first act of his play was in place—dungeon walls and a single door at the rear.
“We’ve probably been followed,” he said softly as they sat down in two chairs near the dark footlights. “But we can talk easily here.”
“What do you want?”
“I love you,” he whispered. “You have forgotten that.”
“No.”
“Yet you hide from me.”
“What do you want?” she repeated.
“To warn you,” he whispered. “They know about the telephone call. And about the time you spent in the apartment.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me....”
His voice was soft. His hand sought hers.
“Ah, Francesca mia, do you think I care? Does it matter to me? Look at me. Do my eyes hide from you? I adore you. Tell me ... and I will fall at your feet. I will kiss your hands....”
“That I killed him?” Her voice was low in a question.
“Whatever you wish. Only tell me so I can love you.”
“You are strange.”
“I am mad with desire for you. Nothing matters to me but that my heart bows before you.”
“You believe I killed him?”
“I want to save you. They know all I know. We must circumvent them.”
“What else do you know?”
“I found a purse in the chair that night,” he whispered. “With your initials on it.”
“Give it to me.” She held out her hand. He shook his head.
“First you must tell me what you know. Then I will obey you blindly.”
“There is nothing to tell.”
De Medici smiled at her.
“Someone called you on the telephone,” he said softly. “And you answered, ‘Oh, God!’ and fled. You were in the apartment for a half hour or more before you gave the alarm. And you removed your costume—the ‘Dead Flower’ costume—which you had worn out of the theater. You ... you washed your hands and face—for there was no make-up on you when I saw you in the vestibule....”
{uncaptioned}
His arm had circled her as he talked, his voice had grown warm.
“Francesca mia!” he cried suddenly. He had raised her to her feet, and drawn her passionately against him. He spoke with his lips close to her.
“It is I who am evil. Since that night you have been an enigma luring me. I loved you before. But now something else in me worships before you. Oh, my adored one, my beautiful, cruel one. Tell me ... I will love you more ... I will share it with you....”
He felt her body stiffen as his arms tightened. Under his burning eyes her face had grown white. She stared at him with sudden horror.
“Look at you!” she cried. “God in heaven! You are mad!”
“Francesca mia!” he was shouting.
“Let me go!”
Her arms wrenched themselves free. For a moment he held her writhing body. Then her hand stung against his face. His head recoiled under the blow. She stood apart from him, despair and anguish on her face.
“Oh, dear God, there is no one ... no one,” she cried.
De Medici’s eyes watched her aloofly as she sank to the floor and lay sobbing and whimpering at his feet.
“She acts,” he whispered, “she acts....”
In which an apoplectic scientist explodes—In which invisible footsteps sound in a dark corridor—In which Julien De Medici opens a letter—The woman of the hidden eyes—Floria, the lady of the dagger, appears—In which underworlds collide—The staircase to Hell and a strange passion—A voice that spoke over the telephone.
In which an apoplectic scientist explodes—In which invisible footsteps sound in a dark corridor—In which Julien De Medici opens a letter—The woman of the hidden eyes—Floria, the lady of the dagger, appears—In which underworlds collide—The staircase to Hell and a strange passion—A voice that spoke over the telephone.
Tall, wine-colored velvets fell in monotonous parallels from the ceiling to the floor. There were no windows to be seen. A somber and luxurious emptiness like the inside of a jewel box stamped the curious chamber.
Four black candlesticks ending in little pyramids of flame stood on the long table in the center. The four little flames glistened like suspended medallions. The towering drapes that enclosed the room broke the darkness into thin and motionless waves. The shadows reaching toward the burning candles seemed to beat with an invisible and inaudible rhythm.
Julien De Medici, his narrow eyes half shut, sat watching the dungeon lights that flitted over the face of Dr. Lytton. The doctor’s bald head loomed ghostlike above the table. His black eyes were peering wrathfully at his half visible host. He was talking in a voice alive with indignation.
“Bring some lights into this confounded place. This sort of thing is at the bottom of your trouble, Julien.”
He waved his short hand in the air and a great shadow lifted itself to the ceiling.
“You’re deliberately submitting yourself to a dangerous hypnosis. The wraiths of past De Medicis! Inherited phantoms. Bosh!”
The scientist snorted and brought a fist down on the table.
“Hypnosis, I tell you. A cleverly induced mania as artificial as this damned room. Wake up, man. There’s nothing wrong with you except a stupid,—yes, sir, a damnably deliberate effort to make a fool out of yourself. You’re as sound mentally as I am.”
“Thanks.”
The soft voice of De Medici came out of the shadows. His choler growing, the doctor continued:
“Why don’t you try crystal-gazing? Sitting in a room like this, candlesticks, darkness, drapes, and bombarding yourself with the fancy that you’re someone else! What do you expect? Something is bound to happen if you keep it up long enough.”
“I am satisfied.”
The soft calm of De Medici’s voice seemed to infuriate his friend.
“And you claim to be in love with Florence,” he cried. “Yet you haven’t made a move to help her. They’ll close in on her any day now. We’ve got to do something. Come now, I want to talk to you. Do you think her innocent?”
“I prefer her guilty,” De Medici whispered.
“Hm,” the scientist grunted. He sat stroking his heavy face. “Monomania,” he muttered as if to himself. He raised his voice. “What form do these idiotic delusions of yours take?”
Glaring into the shadows he waited for De Medici’s words. They came languidly out of the darkness—
“Neither delusion nor idiocy, Hugo. She unquestionably murdered her father. And I find the situation to my liking.”
Dr. Lytton was on his feet. He walked swiftly to the side of De Medici and seized his shoulder.
“I came here to talk to you chiefly about her,” he said. “Ballau was my dear friend.”
De Medici’s eyes remained intently on the shadowed curtains.
“I know, I know,” he whispered. “You’ve been working hard. And you’ve found out what I know. You’ve found it was Florence.”
“Can you drag yourself out of your delusions long enough to think sanely?” the doctor cried.
“My mind is perfectly clear,” De Medici answered. He lighted a cigarette in the half dark, his eyes watching the glow of the tobacco. “You have discovered that someone telephoned her at the theater, that she was in the apartment more than a half hour before giving the alarm. And other details.”
“Yes, other details,” Dr. Lytton repeated warily. De Medici sighed.
“You’ve interrupted a charming dream,” he said, rising from the chair. His hand passed tiredly over his forehead. The scientist regarded him closely. He saw the lean face of his host shudder and the gleaming eyes close for a moment.
“Ah,” continued De Medici in a murmur, “it comes over me like that. A dream obliterates me. I sit and watch myself from a distance.” He smiled wearily at his friend. “Are you interested in my symptoms, Hugo?”
“Go on,” the doctor answered.
“From a distance,” repeated De Medici, “my gestures seem to change. They become slower. And my jaw shifts curiously to a side. My eyes droop and I keep staring out of their corners. The fears leave me, however. There is nothing to fear in this dream. Last night I sat there staring at the curtains and waiting. But there was no fear. And finally the hallucination came. As it did once before on the night of the murder. I was in the apartment and she appeared for an instant in the doorway. The Francesca one ... her hair down and a band circling her forehead. I knew last night she would come again. And she did. I sat looking at Florence—a Florence you don’t know.... Cold, cruel with a wild gleam to her.... A long robe and a dagger in her hand. She smiles at me and I feel my heart dissolve with rapture. The dream is horrible and beautiful. An exultation comes into me.”
“And are you aware of its unreality at the moment?” Dr. Lytton asked quietly.
“Alas, yes! I watch from a distance. I repeat to myself—‘a hallucination.’ But even then there is something truthful about her. Even though I know I dream the image, it appears to me as psychologically true. The woman with the dagger is Florence....”
De Medici moved slowly down the room. As he stood against the darkened curtains, his face glowed uncertainly toward the doctor.
“We must save her,” he whispered.
Dr. Lytton grunted.
“Yes,” he agreed, “if you can keep your head clear of these obsessions of yours. Yet——” He paused and stared at De Medici. “Curious,” he resumed. “It fits in. That vision of yours. Yes, an odd psychological phenomenon. I have had a similar image in my mind for a week.”
De Medici’s voice had undergone a change when he spoke again. It was crisp and with a precision in its sound.
“Now tell me, Hugo,” he asked, “what you’ve found.”
“First,” countered the doctor, “what are you hiding? Your consciousness of her guilt is not as pathologic as you would make out. The telephone call and all the rest are good enough. But you were there that night. The first to see her. You saw something ... found something.”
De Medici nodded as the doctor’s eyes glittered at him. Moving to the table he opened a drawer and removed the purse he had picked up in the Ballau library.
“In the chair near the body,” he explained. “It has her initials in the corner. And inside a theater program for a performance of ‘Iris’ in a London theater in 1899.”
Dr. Lytton reached for the object with an exclamation. His hands seized it and, thrusting it into the light of the candles, he remained lost in an ecstatic contemplation of it.
“Good God!” he muttered abruptly. “I knew it. Yes, I was right.”
De Medici smiled slowly at the scientist’s elation.
“A brain,” he thought. “It plays with a delightful puzzle. He knows something.” There flitted through his mind the memory of Dr. Lytton’s accomplishments.... An exuberant modernist among the pathologists of the country.... “He came here to corroborate something,” he continued musing: “He suspects that I and not Florence did the murder. Yes, an obvious and romantic theory. Even Norton played with it at the inquest. I turned De Medici for a moment and killed a man.... Inherited homicidal mania ... hm.”
“An odd thing about Ballau,” Dr. Lytton was saying. He had seated himself and was copying something from the program. He talked cheerfully as he wrote. “A man like Ballau without a breath of scandal about his name. Rather strange, don’t you think? A lover of beautiful things. Unmarried, with no restrictions. And yet not the sign of a woman or of an affair in his life. I’ve talked to a dozen people who knew him as well as I did. All collaborate on a halo for the man. And thereby hangs an idea. Virtue, no less than vice, has its pathologic mainsprings, eh?”
His eyes beamed excitedly over the program.
“Twelve names in the cast,” he continued. “I’m taking them down. Names are always something. A name is a beginning. Did you tell Florence of this?”
“Yes.”
“And she grew excited,” pursued Dr. Lytton as he finished his writing. “Did you mention the Goldsmith Theater to her?”
“No.”
“She wanted the thing back, eh? Come, what did she say? How did she look?”
“As you said,” De Medici answered. “Excited. Disturbed.”
“This was before she left town?” pursued Dr. Lytton. “Of course.... You saw her after the inquest. She left that night.”
“I didn’t know,” De Medici murmured.
“Yes,” Dr. Lytton continued, “she went to a place called Rollo, in Maine. A curious out-of-the-way little village. I found this out the next day. She had had her trunks shipped there. The grief and excitement, I suppose. And a desire to get away.”
“I didn’t know,” repeated De Medici uncomfortably. So she had gone away! A bewilderment came into his thought. He recalled her rage that had ended their talk in the theater. The blow she had struck and her anguish. Remorse and tenderness overwhelmed him, and a feeling of self-revulsion. What a scoundrel! Playing with evil dreams while her heart was breaking. “No one ... no one,” she had wailed. Yes, he had abandoned her. Become a useless and fantastic actor in the hour she needed him. And she had fled....
The tragedy suddenly changed in his inner mind. The image of the evil Francesca which had confused itself with his memories of Florence seemed to evaporate from the recesses of his thought. He saw, in retrospect suddenly, the laughing-eyed, vivid young woman whom he had loved. Guilty of the murder of her father! Incredible! He had been playing viciously with a dangerous make-believe. Yes, there was something else. A mystery beckoned behind the inexplicable conduct of the girl. He had succumbed to a few obvious leads. Now, with his mind cleared of the phantoms that had seduced him, he remembered the dead man. Victor Ballau ... there had been something about him. Trembling fingers and averted eyes.... A secret pantomiming behind the fastidious exterior.
Dr. Lytton was talking. De Medici’s ears again picked up the man’s excited ramblings.
“In part the mystery lies with Ballau. A London theater program. You know he lived in London before he came here. I found out something about him. He was married in London. Have you ever talked to Florence about her mother, Julien? Never mind, we’ll come to that later. This purse fits in. I wanted only a peg to hang the thing on. Here it is....”
Dr. Lytton waved the paper on which he had copied the names.
“Names are mysteries in themselves....”
He paused and glanced quickly around the room.
“Someone’s knocking, Julien,” he exclaimed.
A muffled sound was repeated.
“It’s the door,” De Medici smiled at the doctor’s unexpected nerves. “Come in, Harding.”
Harding, his bland-faced valet, entered.
“A special-delivery letter,” he said.
“Thanks.” De Medici took the proffered envelope. The valet stepped through the curtains.
“Look out,” Dr. Lytton cried as De Medici’s fingers began to tear open the letter. “Postmarks are important.”
He watched De Medici’s eyes grow narrow and an expression of horror slowly consume his shadowed face. He had removed a sheet of paper from the envelope. The thing lay in his fingers and cast a distorted shadow across the table. There followed a moment of silence.
“Dear God!” the voice of De Medici came softly. He had become rigid. His face had grown into a somber and elongated mask. For the moment he stood motionless, his eyes staring. Terror, blank and wordless, gleamed in the look of his eyes.
Dr. Lytton sprang to his side. De Medici had wavered and stumbled against the table edge. His hand shot out, fingers spread, in a gesture of horror toward the fluttering shadows on the curtains.
“She ... she!” he cried. “From the thing with the dagger....”
The doctor stooped and picked up the paper that had dropped from his hands. Holding it quickly under the rays of the candles he read:
Prince Julien De Medici,I write to let you know that your meddlesome interest in my affairs is distasteful. You will allow the matter to drop or incur the anger of one who knows how to deal with a De Medici. I am,Your humble servant,Floria.
Prince Julien De Medici,
I write to let you know that your meddlesome interest in my affairs is distasteful. You will allow the matter to drop or incur the anger of one who knows how to deal with a De Medici. I am,
Your humble servant,Floria.
Underneath the signature was a crude drawing in ink of a dagger.
“Floria,” muttered Dr. Lytton.
De Medici’s face, gray in the candle-light, was regarding him.
“What was the postmark?” the doctor asked quietly.
“Rollo, Maine,” De Medici answered. Dr. Lytton examined the torn envelope.
“Rollo, Maine,” he repeated; “mailed yesterday morning. Come now, pull yourself together, Julien.”
“Yes.”
“The thing is complete. It fits in. Hm, what a curious handwriting. You recognize it?”
“Hers,” he answered.
“Almost,” the scientist murmured. “Come, the mystery draws to an end. I would like to make comparisons. Have you a letter of hers?”
“Yes.”
Mechanically, De Medici opened the table drawer. Dr. Lytton brought a candle close to its contents.
“Here!” he exclaimed. His eyes studied the envelope. “Written two months ago. Fine. Excellent.”
He removed a letter sheet and spread it under the light. De Medici watched him. His calm had returned.
“Floria and not Francesca,” he mused. “Floria of the dagger. Then the hallucination was not entirely unreal. He said something ... what was it? A similar image in his brain.”
His heart sickened as the realization grew. Guilty! Yet a few moments ago a conviction had overpowered him—a certainty that he was toying with chimeras, that no truth or substance lay in his evil obsessions. But now the letter ... and the postmark....
“A similarity,” Dr. Lytton finally announced. “The letter from Rollo, Maine, could have been written by the same hand that wrote this letter to you. Yet they are not identical. There are several vital differences, although a layman, on cursory examination, would call them of no consequence. Yes, the difference is a difference of tempo. Floria, the lady of the dagger, writes with a certain jerky stiffiness. The characters show high nervous tension, excitement, hysteria. An exaggeration of her natural chirography. Look, the lines are uneven. The letters jumble in spots. The thing resembles the slow, painful scrawl of a child. Yet it was written in fierce haste.... Hysteria.”
De Medici nodded. His eyes avoided the thing under the doctor’s hands.
“I perceived it from the beginning,” the scientist continued. “Everything pointed to it. A dual personality....”
“Florence and Floria,” murmured De Medici.
Dr. Lytton’s manner had become elate. A professional singsong was in his voice. He was off on a favorite topic once more. His heavy face glistened with enthusiasm. The underworlds of the soul ... the absorbing novelties of manias ... these were his scientific specialties.
“I expected one of two things out of my visit,” he announced. “I knew what sort of creature had killed Ballau.... It had left its marks in every detail. An amazing murder.... A slow, painful, and yet fiercely executed crime. Like the handwriting on this letter paper. The eerie footprints of hysteria. They were all over the deed. A soul writhing in the depths of a crazed sleep.”
“He is quoting from his paper on somnambulism,” mused De Medici. His eyes remained on the doctor’s face. Lytton had settled back in his chair. His wrathful and nervous manner had given way to a pedagogic air. Yet as he talked his eyes peered through the lowered lashes at the immobile figure of De Medici.
“The dual personality was obvious, Julien. But, ah, whose? And the obvious answer was—yours. The dagger—a relic of De Medici evil. The blood-stained hands. I learned this from Norton. Florence’s confusion. Her concealed evidence. To protect you, of course. I talked to her after you had taken her to the theater. You remember, the inquest morning?”
“What did she say?” De Medici whispered.
“Mad. You were mad. But I needed no diagnosis from her. Mad you seemed. And very clever, too clever at the inquest. A curious balance of sincerity and evasion. And the two hours between eight o’clock and ten o’clock that night he was killed. Where had you spent them? Yes, a walk in Broadway. But you never walk, my dear Julien. Do I remember correctly? The purse gave me my first definite conviction, however.”
“And now your theory is?” De Medici prompted him quietly.
“The letter has ended it,” Dr. Lytton replied. “Florence Ballau and not Julien De Medici.”
“But I may have written it myself,” De Medici murmured; “written it, sent it from Rollo, Maine ... to myself ... evidence to exonerate me.”
“I thought of that,” smiled Dr. Lytton. “Except that you couldn’t have known I would be here tonight. The letter is authentic. And the rest unravels itself.”
He beamed at the masked eyes of his host.
“Dual personality, as we know it,” he continued, “is a dramatic disease. Yes, the phenomenon of disassociation.... People are seldom born with dual personalities except in the most neurotic of cases. Ordinarily they acquire them. In pathology, dual personality cases belong to the ill-defined border-land between sanity and insanity. It is for that reason that I have been inclined to ridicule your own obsessions, Julien. Dual personalities are not inherited. Bad blood may breed disorders. But the charming Jekyll and Hyde pose you have been trying to wish on yourself is, scientifically, absurd. Are you interested, Julien?”
“Yes.”
The two men sat facing each other out of the shadows of the velvet-hung room. The candles burned motionlessly.
“I remember a case of a woman named Jenny,” Dr. Lytton mused aloud. “Do you mind sitting closer so I can see you, Julien? It’s rather difficult talking to an apparition. Thanks.... Now we’ll discuss the strange case of Florence Ballau. I’ll give you the groundwork. We’ll be able to operate in the open, then. And I shall need your help. Yes, you can help me, Julien.”
“Go on,” De Medici muttered.
“About Jenny,” Dr. Lytton resumed. “Well, she was the mother of a three-year-old boy who, while playing, slipped out of the window of their flat. As she came walking back from the grocery store, Jenny looked up. She saw her child hanging by his fingers from the window four stories above the ground. She stood powerless and transfixed while his little fingers slowly gave way. She watched him slip ... slip, and then his body shot to the ground and was smashed to a pulp before her eyes. And here we have a logical cause for dual personality.
“The shock was terrific for the mother. It split her mind. And an abnormal condition developed. Her little son fell to his death eight years ago and Jenny is now in an asylum. I’ve studied her carefully. She is the ideal dual personality case. You see, Julien, nothing inherited, no phantoms, no mysterious impulses. Merely a shock that split the mind into two compartments. She presents the following symptoms. She will be engaged, for instance, in sewing or in conversation. Suddenly she ceases her work. She stands up. Her eyes lift. And for the minutes that follow she lives over again the awful scene of her little son’s death, carrying out in every detail the tragedy of the thing. And during the minutes the hallucination endures she goes through the scene with all the power of an accomplished emotional actress.
“Yes, I’ve watched her. While this drama is in progress she is perfectly unconscious of the actual things happening around her. She hears nothing that is said and sees nothing but the imaginary scene which she is reliving. This phenomenon, which is technically called somnambulism, will end as suddenly as it begins, and Jenny will return to her former occupation, absolutely unaware of the fact that it has been interrupted. You see how different your alleged and artificial case of fancied obsession is, Julien. You remember too much. The vision of Francesca is in your mind now—the thing you fancied you saw. Therefore you are not a victim of disassociation. If you’re a man of evil at all, it is you who sit here and not a hidden, unknown you that walks in the dark places of your subconscious.”
Dr. Lytton leaned forward and placed his hand on De Medici’s knee.
“If Jenny is questioned during her apparently normal intervals,” he said, “it will be found that she has not only entirely forgotten everything that happened during her somnambulism, but that the whole tragedy of her boy’s death has completely disappeared from her conscious mind. She remembers nothing of the minutes she stood watching her son slipping from the window ledge. And if you press her she’ll discuss his death vaguely and indifferently as if it were the death of someone else’s child. She’ll say, ‘Oh, he just died, that’s all.’ And reveal no interest or emotion whatsoever. Yet concerning all other things of her past life she has a rather keen memory.
“This curious localized loss of memory or amnesia is found in some cases. In other dual personality cases we have a complete loss of memory of all events preceding the shock that produced the disassociation. So you see, science absolves you, Julien.”
De Medici nodded.
“Now we come to Florence Ballau. A high-strung, vivid temperament,” continued Dr. Lytton. “The letter signed Floria and decorated with the dagger reveals one thing. Its writer is suffering from delusions of persecution. Persecutory delusions are a common form of mental disorder. We all have them more or less. Floria is the terrified and persecuted thing that dwells in the soul of Florence Ballau. At times this terrified thing usurps the body of Miss Ballau and lives its own mysterious life. As in the case of Jenny it is not an inherited phenomenon. It was induced by shock of some sort. Florence may be dimly aware of the change after she returns to herself. More likely, however, she is merely distracted, depressed, and suffers from a sense of bewilderment.”
De Medici nodded again.
“I remember something,” he said slowly.
“I thought you would,” smiled Dr. Lytton.
“I had called at her apartment unexpectedly. It was last year. I rang the bell a half dozen times before anyone answered. Finally the door was opened by Florence. I hardly recognized her. She stood before me white-faced and eyes staring. I had a feeling for the moment that something terrible had happened, was happening. I tried to pass it over—such things always confuse me violently—by inviting myself in for a cup of tea. She stood looking at me almost as if she failed to recognize me. Then she said, ‘Father isn’t home,’ and closed the door in my face.”
“Excellent,” murmured the doctor. “The perfect corroboration. And did you ever ask her what had been wrong?”
“She called me up,” De Medici answered, “the next morning, and apologized for the incident. She said she suffered from periodic headaches the pain of which almost drove her beside herself. I had come on her during one of the spells.”
“Did she use the word ‘spells’?” Dr. Lytton asked.
“I think she did,” De Medici answered.
The two men became silent. The candles had burned down. One of them sputtered excitedly for a moment and then faded out. De Medici’s eyes watched the growing flicker of the three lights. Darkness would come.... His heart chilled. Florence, crazed and standing dagger in hand before her father.... Victor Ballau staring aghast at the horrible-eyed woman who wore the body of his daughter but in whose soul leaped the awful desires of a demoniacal stranger ... the lady of the dagger.
“Nothing is explained,” he mused as the second candle drifted away. The darkness stepped closer to the two men. “The beard ... the thing he clutched....”
“I follow your thoughts,” murmured Dr. Lytton from behind his hand. “The false Vandyke....”
“Yes,” De Medici said. The two remaining candles were dying. A terror swept him. Darkness ... it would grow black. There were candles in the table drawer. His hands crept slowly forward and stopped. An inanition held them. He sat riveted, unable to stir. Terror exploded a Roman candle in his head....
“Ah,” he breathed, a sweat covering him. Darkness! A black room. His throat framed a cry.... “Ah,” he moaned.
Hands were pressing him down, holding him against the chair. Something was at his throat. No, inside his throat, crawling into his mouth. Suddenly his arms flung themselves against the air. He plunged to his feet, beating at the blackness.
“Lights ... lights!” came in a scream from his throat. The doctor’s voice roared a command.
“Stand still!”
The figure of De Medici spun crazily in the darkness and crashed into the velvet-covered wall. It sank without sound to the floor. The doctor groped toward the table.
“Julien!” he cried. His thick fingers were fumbling with a match box. He held a quickly lighted candle aloft. The curtained room swayed and danced in the shadows.... A figure lay, face down, arms outstretched and fingers spread against the gigantic-seeming drape.
The telephone was ringing. Its bell tinkled eerily in the dark. Dr. Lytton stood listening. A voice was waiting for him. He stepped forward and lifted the receiver from its hook.
“Is this Mr. De Medici?” a voice asked.
“Yes,” the doctor answered.
“This is Lieutenant Norton on the wire, Mr. De Medici. Can you come over to my office at once?”
{uncaptioned}
“What is it?”
“I haven’t time to go into any detail over the phone,” the voice answered. “But I would like to see you as soon as possible. We’ve found the murderer of Mr. Ballau.”
In which Nemesis babbles cheerfully—In which the Dead Flower adopts new petals—Postmarks and timetables and a false beard that sneers mischievously—Also a scrawl of vengeance, enigmatic ashes and a half signature.
In which Nemesis babbles cheerfully—In which the Dead Flower adopts new petals—Postmarks and timetables and a false beard that sneers mischievously—Also a scrawl of vengeance, enigmatic ashes and a half signature.
The cab rolled through the dark streets. Dr. Lytton’s hand rested on the knee of his companion.
“All right now?” he asked.
De Medici nodded.
“Dizziness,” he answered laconically.
“A rather interesting case,” the doctor looked at him speculatively. “Fear, eh? Morbid and illogical fear. Hm. Nothing simpler. Phobias are easy to trace. You fainted. Fainting is an escape from overwhelming impulses that are repugnant to the conscious mind. You had an impulse....”
De Medici smiled.
“He prowls around like a blind weasel,” he mused as the scientist talked.
“Yes. Obvious. Why not discuss it?” Dr. Lytton was saying. “Such things must be considered impersonally. Your impulse was to murder me, Julien. Darkness, candles, long velvet curtains—these things fascinate you because they are symbols of desires that hide in you.”
De Medici shrugged his shoulders.
“Here we are,” he spoke as the cab stopped before a lighted building.
They entered the police station arm in arm. De Medici’s legs still felt weak. A man in police uniform conducted them to Lieutenant Norton’s office. The lieutenant rose to greet them. De Medici noted the look of triumph which kindled his eyes.
“Well, come right in,” cried the detective exuberantly. “Glad to see you, Mr. De Medici.”
He nodded somewhat less enthusiastically at the stocky figure of Dr. Lytton.
“How d’you do, doctor?” he added.
De Medici sat down beside the lieutenant’s desk.
“So you’ve found the murderer?” he asked quietly. “In which case you must have changed your mind about Mr. Ballau’s suicide.”
“Sit down, sit down, doctor,” Norton beamed, “and I’ll apologize for a lot of things. Have a cigar?”
The visitors declined. Dr. Lytton, regarding the red-faced detective, mused silently.
“He’s stumbled on something. An intelligent man, but clumsy and superficial,” he was thinking.
Norton seemed to expand in his chair. His face glowed with delight as he began to talk.
“Well, gentlemen,” he said, “I owe you my first apology for pretending to you I thought Victor Ballau had killed himself. I was absolutely convinced it was a murder on the night we found the body. I had the impression of suicide for a few minutes. But before ten minutes had passed investigation showed me that there were a number of things not to be explained by the suicide theory. Well, gentlemen, realizing that the murder was an intricate one and that it would take a great deal of care to unravel the mystery, I adopted the suicide theory as a ruse and instructed my force to take a similar attitude. We harped on this theory at the inquest. You see, it was my purpose to throw the criminal off the track and make the capture a bit easier.”
“Marvelous,” murmured De Medici. The lieutenant’s naïveté had suddenly amused him. “A bewildering deception. And you got him.”
Norton grinned at the man’s banter.
“Her,” he corrected. “Miss Florence Ballau.”
Dr. Lytton nodded.
“Where is she?” he inquired.
“Under lock and key,” said Norton. “We arrested her yesterday morning.”
“Where?” whispered De Medici.
“In New York,” Norton answered.
De Medici’s eyes closed happily. In New York yesterday morning ... and the letter from Rollo, Maine, had been mailed yesterday morning.... Two conflicting incidents. He laughed softly.
“And you think Miss Ballau committed the murder?” he repeated. “The theory is as bewildering, if not as charming, as your first, lieutenant.”
Norton nodded in good humor and lighted a cigar. Dr. Lytton sat regarding De Medici.
“Mailed yesterday from Rollo, Maine,” the scientist mused, “and she was arrested yesterday in New York. Then she either left the thing with a friend to mail for her, or....”
His eyes gleamed for an instant and an excited smile curved his heavy lips.
“The case turned out much simpler than we actually expected,” continued Norton. “We got our first clew within a few hours after the murder. We found out Miss Ballau had received a telephone call at the theater at 9:30 on the night of the crime. The stage manager had called her to the phone. He stood within hearing distance while she talked. He heard her say something like, ‘Yes ... yes. Oh, God!’ And he noticed she was upset when she hung up. She told him she felt sick. He tried to argue with her but she dashed out of the theater without changing her costume or taking the paint off her face.”
“A revelation,” murmured De Medici. His spirits seemed to have risen as the detective talked. Dr. Lytton sat with his lips pursed, dividing his attention between the two men.
“I knew you knew about the telephone call,” Norton went on good-naturedly, “and I don’t blame you for trying to shield the girl.”
“Gallant,” sighed De Medici. “Thanks. Go on.”
“Well,” resumed Norton, “we finally located the cabby who had driven her home. This took a few hours, but when we got him he remembered her well, owing to the fact she had her make-up and costume on and acted queer and excited. She got into his cab outside the theater and drove to the Ballau apartment, giving him a dollar tip in advance and telling him to go as fast as he could. Her contention at the inquest was that she reached the apartment about half-past ten. From the stage manager’s evidence and the cabby’s statement it is obvious that she got home about a quarter to ten the latest. If she’d stopped at all between the telephone call and entering the cab she’d have removed her make-up and taken her hat or a wrap of some kind. We know she didn’t. Our investigations in the Ballau home resulted in finding a towel in the linen basket off Miss Ballau’s room. The towel was smeared with rouge and lampblack. We found out that the basket had been emptied that afternoon by the laundryman. Therefore the towel with the rouge and lampblack on it was placed there during that day.”