The Trail of the Dead/Chapter 1
I.—THE HAIRY CATERPILLAR.
IT is with no intention of delighting the curious that I put my pen to paper. Only at the urgent desire of many members of my own profession have I undertaken a task necessarily disagreeable, and do now recall the details of a case which I take to be without parallel in the records of criminology. In the mental state of the afflicted being there was, indeed, little that was abnormal. Manias that are similar to his fill our asylums. But that laborious studies in the byways of science, rather than in her more frequented paths, had placed at the will of his disordered brain weapons of a deadly potency, transformed a personal misfortune into a great and urgent public danger.
I spent four years at Cambridge, where, though my degree was a high one, I found too many distractions to make such progress as I could have wished in my profession. Yet my interest in medicine grew steadily, and on leaving the University I determined, having both the means and the time at my disposal, to seek out a spot where I could throw myself into my work without the interruptions of old friends and old associations. The high reputation of Heidelberg attracted me, and hither I migrated.
Sufficient for myself. The man who was to be associated with me in my strange quest I will describe with equal brevity. My cousin, Sir Henry Graden, Kt., M.D., F.R.S., F.R.G.S., was a man of remarkable personality—a surgeon of brilliant gifts that had made for him a European reputation, yet an eccentric—or so the world held him—who lacked the steady application necessary for complete success. He would throw himself into the solution of a problem, or the prosecution of a new experiment, with the utmost zeal; yet on achieving the desired result he would shake off the atmosphere of the hospital and laboratory and start on some wild-goose chase that might include the ascent of an unclimbable peak, the capture of a rare species of wild animal, or the study of a little-known tribe of savages. In person he was of great stature, and heavily, almost clumsily, built, with a rugged, weather-beaten face, keen yet kindly grey eyes, and brown hair, somewhat grizzled about the temples. In age he was well past the forties. In dress and deportment he might pardonably have been mistaken for a prosperous Yorkshire grazier. Indeed, he was wont to complain that he acted as a magnet to all the tricksters of London; though, from the shrewd smile with which he accompanied his protests, it was easy to see that he thoroughly enjoyed the diversion of turning the tables on his discreditable opponents.
It was towards the end of my second year at Heidelberg. An autumn sun had sunk to rest in a golden haze over the wooded hills, and the night, luminous under a harvest moon, lay upon the old town. I was sitting at my table, on which a shaded lamp threw its yellow circle, arranging the notes of the lectures I had that day attended, when there came a knock at the door behind me. I cried a sulky invitation, for I feared the appearance of one of my preposterous student friends, with his jargon of the duel and the beerhouse. But the next moment an enormous hand had dragged me into the realisation of my duties as a host by standing me on my feet amid the clatter of a falling chair.
"Why, Cousin Graden!" I cried, for indeed it was he who had thus treated me. "What cyclone has blown you here?"
"Egad! I believe it's the truth I've heard," said he, throwing himself on to a sofa that cracked again under his weight—he was a famed breaker of furniture was cousin Harry Graden. "They told me that you'd shut yourself up for nigh on two years—work, work, work—as if there was no young blood in your veins, and no green world lying around you, with not a yard of it that isn't worth all the most learned dissertations ever written."
I knew his favourite doctrine. It would have been as foolish to argue with him as to attempt to uphold the necessity for the Union with an Irish Home Ruler.
"But what are you doing here?" I repeated.
"It's to Berlin that I'm bound, to read a paper before a society that is good enough to be interested in some notes I took recently on the Kaffir witch-doctors. I'd a few days in hand, so I thought I would take a peep at my dear Heidelberg and, incidentally, at my worthy cousin, Robert Harland."
He rose and stalked about the room, clucking to himself like a contented hen.
"Same beer jugs and china pipes; same wainscot, a shade darker maybe; same old oak beams, a thought more smoky; same schlägers above the mantelpiece."
He took down one of the student's duelling-swords and slipped his hand into the heavy hilt. Raising his long arm into the orthodox attitude, he swept the keen thin blade in hissing circles.
"Do you ever tramp on the sawdust, and drum with the schläger, and bleed in the tank, Cousin Robert?"
"Not I. Though I have heard of your triumphs in the past, you man of blood!"
"And who has been gossiping?"
"Professor Von Stockmar. He asked me to supper the second day I arrived, for the sole purpose, as I believe, of impressing me with the fame of a certain duelling desperado of a student, one Henry Graden, who flourished in Heidelberg twenty years ago."
"What, Von Stockmar? Little Hermann? What a good fellow he was! Did you ever hear him sing a song about—but, of course, that's not possible. So little Hermann's a professor, is he? Are you under him?"
"No; I am with Professor Marnac."
Graden walked across to the fireplace and slowly filled a huge china pipe that lay thereon. He lit it and, turning his back to the empty grate, sent forth such puffs of smoke that he spoke as from out a cloud, mistily.
"He has made himself a great name, this Marnac. How do you stand with him, Cousin Robert?"
"I don't quite know. I was a great favourite of his in my first year."
"And now? Have you quarrelled?"
"Well, not exactly; it's a foolish story."
"The foolish stories are often of greater interest than the wise ones."
"Well, Cousin Graden," said I, leaning back in my chair and lighting a fresh cigarette, "if you want to hear it, I'll tell it you, and as shortly as may be. It began by the publication some six months ago of Professor Marnac's celebrated book, 'Science and Religion.'"
"Humph! a strong effort, full of suggestions," he grunted; "but brutal, callous, and revolutionary. It had a mixed reception, I believe."
"It had; and nowhere more so than in this University. Von Stockmar followed in by a pamphlet of unsparing criticism, which split the students into two bodies—the Marnac men and the Stockmar men. It was a pretty quarrel, and gave an excuse for a score of the inevitable duels."
"Did Marnac attempt a reprisal?"
"He did, and in the unusual form of reading aloud Von Stockmar's attack upon his theories to the class, of which I am a member. He appealed to us for sympathy. His agitation was remarkable. I declare that he snarled over his opponent's name like a dog over a bone; and a most unpleasant scene ended in a fit, from which we aroused him with difficulty."
"But this does not tell me how you came to be involved," he cried sharply, striding over to the table and plumping himself into a chair facing me.
"Have patience, my impetuous cousin. From the first I had always found a friend in Von Stockmar. I liked him, and we met frequently. The second day after the scene in the lecture-room I was walking with the cheery little man when we chanced upon Marnac. He gave me an ugly look, but said nothing. That night, however, he came to these rooms and abused me roundly. He reminded me of the interest he had shown in my work, called me a traitor to his party, and in other ways behaved with a childish absurdity. Naturally, I refused to give up a valued friend."
"You did right. But surely the affair has blown over?"
"To the contrary, the antagonism—on Marnac's side, at least—has grown still more bitter. Whenever I chance to be present, he misses no opportunity of attacking 'my dear friend,' as he calls Von Stockmar, in the most cruel and vindictive fashion. My position at his lectures is, I assure you, becoming most unendurable."
"You are too sensitive. Cousin Robert. The absurdities of a vain and jealous"
Graden checked his unfinished sentence with his nose cocked in the air like a gigantic terrier. Surprise and suspicion were in his expression and attitude. Then he rose slowly, as with an effort, and leant forward across the table, his knuckles resting on its edge.
"We neglect our visitor," said he gravely, and at his words I turned sharply in my chair.
In the shadows about the door, yet outlined with sufficient clearness against the black oak of the wainscot, a face stared in upon us. Around the head, crowned with a black skull-cap, fell a thick growth of white hair that was saint-like in length and beauty; the beard was of the like venerable purity. In a man of his apparent age the cheeks were curiously rosy, while the hand that held open the door was small as a woman's and delicate as old ivory. For a moment I thought that the eyes, exaggerated by the convex pebbles of great gold glasses, turned upon me with an expression of malicious satisfaction. Yet this was but an impression, for the gloom hung heavily about him where he stood, and my sight had not been unaffected by nights of study.
"Will not the gentleman step in?" Graden continued, with a reproach at my unhospitality in his voice.
Professor Rudolf Marnac—for it was he who thus honoured us—slid his diminutive figure through the door and advanced, with a courteous inclination, into the lamplight.
"My dear young sir," said he, in the soft musical English with which it was his custom to address me, "I should not have intruded myself at this late hour but that I am the bearer of painful news which I felt it right to communicate to you. Your friend, Hermann Von Stockmar, died this evening of acute inflammation of the lungs."
"Died," I cried in bewilderment. "Why, I passed him in the street at midday looking well and hearty."
"Yes, it is even so, Mr. Harland. One moment a steady flame illuminating this University with its light; the next, a sigh from the conqueror Death and it is extinguished. The active brain is still; the pen, trenchant, incisive, destructive, is laid aside for ever."
It was an impressive homily; but from so open and vindictive a foe it seemed singularly inappropriate.
"You seem surprised," he continued. "I fear that encounters in the cause of science may have led the public to believe that poor Von Stockmar and I cherished personal animosities. If that is so, I trust you will use your influence to contradict it. My sorrow is already heavy enough—without that unwarrantable suspicion."
The Professor seemed deeply affected. Removing his spectacles, he pulled from his side pocket a large silk pocket-handkerchief. As he did so, a tinkle caught my ear. A square box of some white metal had fallen to the floor. It rolled into the lamplight, where the lid flew open. The Professor hastily clapped on his glasses; but already Graden had retrieved the box and was presenting it to him.
"There was nothing in it, sir," said he, for the Professor had stooped and was examining the carpet minutely.
"I thank you, I thank you."
"Pray do not mention it. Cousin Robert, if you and the Professor will excuse me, I will step across and take a last look at poor little Hermann. Where are his rooms?"
Before I could answer, the Professor was on his feet.
"Pray accept me as your guide," said he, moving towards the door. Graden bowed his thanks like a polite elephant. I followed the pair down the stairs.
It was growing late, and the narrow streets of the students' quarter were well-nigh deserted. A moon, like a polished shield, hung over the old castle above us, picking out each turret and parapet in silver grey against the sleeping woods that swept upward to the sky-line. Across our path the gabled house cast broad, fantastic pools of shadow. A wind had risen with the moon, and sighed and quivered in the roofs and archways. Once, from a distant beer-house, came the faint mutter of a rousing chorus, but soon it was swallowed and carried away by the midnight breezes.
We had not far to walk, and in five minutes the Professor was tapping discreetly with an ugly devil-face of a knocker on Von Stockmar's door. Presently the bolt was drawn, and Hans, the grey-bearded servant of the dead man, stood in the doorway, a lamp held high above his head. He blinked upon us moodily, with eyes dimmed by old age and recent tears, till, catching sight of Graden's huge bulk, he stepped forward with a snort of surprise, flashing the light in his face as he did so.
"By Heavens! but it is Heinrich der Grosse!" he stammered. "Ach! Herr Heinrich, but have you forgotten Hans of the Schlägers, servant of the honourable corps of the Saxo Borusen?"
"No, no," said Graden, shaking the veteran by the hand. "So our little Hermann took you for his servant, as he promised? This is a sad day for us both, old friend. Tell me, how did it happen?"
"Do not ask me, Herr Heinrich. My mind wanders—I, who served him nigh on twenty years and was as a father and mother to him."
The worthy fellow put down the lamp in the little hall into which he had led us, and mopped his eyes with a hand that trembled with emotion.
But Graden persisted in his quiet way and soon extracted: the details. It seemed that it was the custom of the dead Professor to take a nap after his midday meal. That afternoon, however, his sleep was unduly prolonged, and at four Hans, who knew he had an engagement about that hour, slipped in to wake him. His master was lying on the couch in his bedroom, where he was wont to take his siesta. But he was in a curious, huddled position and breathing stertorously. Hans failed to rouse him, became alarmed, and hurried off for a neighbouring doctor. That gentleman diagnosed the case as a sudden and severe chill which had settled on the lungs, causing violent inflammation. Everything possible was done, but by eight he was dead. Beyond the remarkable violence of the seizure, the doctor had said, there was nothing unusual in the symptoms. Overwork had doubtless undermined the constitution and rendered it vulnerable to a sudden attack.
[Illustration: "With a swift sideways turn of the head, he caught sight of our faces in the doorway."]
"And while he was asleep—had he visitors?" asked Graden.
"The street-door is never locked during the day."
"But would you not have heard the steps?"
"It was my custom to sleep, too. Herr Professor allowed it."
"So. I should like to take a last look at your poor master, friend Hans. By the way, Cousin Robert, where is our guide, the learned Marnac? I did not see him leave the house."
"Perhaps the Professor Marnac has already gone to my master's room, the second to the right on the first floor," suggested the old servant.
In two strides my cousin was on the steep and narrow stairs. For a man of his age and size he mounted them with a surprising activity. Indeed, when I gained the landing he was already standing at the door of the room. He held up his hand with a warning gesture. I stepped up to him softly and peeped over his shoulder.
By the side of an old sofa placed against the wall of a room, half bed-chamber, half study. Professor Marnac crouched on his hands and knees. A lamp stood on the floor at his elbow. He was working with feverish haste, yet with a certain method, moving the lamp onward as his examination of the section lit by its immediate rays was completed. It was an odd sight, this silver-haired figure that crept about, peeping and peering, like some species of elderly ape. So absorbed was he that it was nigh on a minute before, with a swift sideways turn of the head, he caught sight of our faces in the doorway and rose to his feet.
"I can find no trace of it," said he, smoothing back his hair with a sigh. "It is excessively annoying."
"Of what, may I ask, sir?" I queried.
"Of my signet-ring, Mr. Harland. A valued possession which I would not lose for fifty pounds."
"Pray let me assist you," said I, stepping forward and raising the lamp, which the Professor had replaced on the table.
"No, no, Mr. Harland. Enough has been done; in the presence of death we must forget such trivialities. Besides, although it was on my finger when I entered the house, it may have been dropped in the hall or on the stairs. I do not doubt that Hans will find it."
The Professor spoke in so resolute a fashion that politeness did not demand that I should press the matter. My cousin had already passed behind a great screen of stamped leather that cut off the bed from the rest of the apartment. Marnac had stepped after him, and I, though at a slower pace, followed them. To be honest, the events of the evening had disturbed me not a little. I had grown suspicious, uneasy; and this annoyed me in that I was without reasonable cause for such a frame of mind. Granted that the Professor had displayed oddities of demeanour, yet he was notoriously an eccentric. And if my cousin had become taciturn, if his politeness rang insincerely, the death of his old friend
"Stand back, Herr Professor! stand back, I say!"
It was Graden's voice, stern and decisive. I sprang to the corner of the screen and peered into the darkened alcove beyond.
Upon his death-bed pillows the calm and simple face of poor Von Stockmar gleamed like a mask carved in white marble. But neither of the two men who confronted each other across the body looked upon it. Graden, a grim and resolute figure, stood holding a common wooden match-box in his huge hands. He had opened it carelessly, for cheap sulphur matches were scattered on the sheet before him. Marnac's face I could not see, but in the pose of his back and shoulders there was something feline—something suggestive of an animal about to spring.
For a second or two the three of us stood in silence. My cousin was the first to break it.
"Pray do not let us detain you, Professor Marnac," said he. "Should we chance upon your ring, believe me, it will be safe."
The Professor straightened himself with a little gesture of submission and stepped back into the lamplight. His hand was on the latch, when he turned upon us—for we had followed him—with a face deformed with the most malignant fury.
"Au revoir my friends," he cried. "I wish you a pleasant evening."
And then a fit of laughter took him—smothered, diabolical merriment that broke out in oily chuckles like water gurgling from a bottle. The door closed upon it. We stood listening as it grew fainter, fainter, until it died away in silence on the lower stairs.
"Turn the key, Cousin Robert. But, no; after him, lad, and bolt him out of the house. He'll be burning it down, else."
Graden was inexplicable; but I ran to obey. As I readied the hall, I heard the clang of the street door and the squeaking of the bolts as Hans shot them behind the departing visitor.
When I re-entered the room, I found the screen pushed back against the wall, and my cousin, in his shirt-sleeves, leaning over the bed. He barked at me over his shoulder to sit down and keep quiet, and I humbly obeyed him. Once or twice he turned to the lamp which he had at his elbow, and I caught the glimpse of a magnifying-glass. Presently he rose, and, carrying the lamp in his hand, commenced a circuit of the room, lingering now and again to examine some object. At the dressing-table he paused for several minutes, using the magnifying-glass repeatedly. But shortly afterwards he threw himself into a chair beside me with the air of a man whose work is done.
"It's no disrespect to our little Hermann that I mean," said he, pulling out a big briar, "but smoke I must."
He sat there puffing for a minute or two, his head sunk forward, his eyes on the floor. I watched him expectantly.
[Illustration: "A round, fluffy ball rolled out and lay motionless."]
"It's a great gift, is observation," he began. "It makes just the difference between mediocrity and success in game-hunters and novel-writers, in painters of pictures and explorers of the unknown lands, where a man has never a map to help him. And this same trick of observation has given me some very remarkable results this evening; and how remarkable you will realise when I set them out in proper order. You've a logical head, Cousin Robert, and I want you to give me your fullest attention. Contradict me if I overstate the case.
"Fact the first: That a certain celebrated scientist, Rudolf Marnac, had an ill feeling—a very ill and evil feeling—towards a certain brother-professor, one Hermann Von Stockmar. Fact the second: That Von Stockmar died suddenly."
"Of a natural cause, as certified by a competent physician," I added quickly.
"Exactly. Fact the third: Marnac, who considers you a deserter to the Stockmar camp—as, indeed, I gather from your own story—appears in your rooms to inform you of the sudden death of his enemy. Now, why should he do that?"
"He is an eccentric. A sudden whim, perhaps. We were very intimate once, you must remember."
"Though hardly so now, from his manner of regarding you when he first announced himself this evening."
"He might have caught what we were saying. Listeners hear no good of themselves, but that does not tend to improve their tempers."
"Well, let that pass. It brings us to fact number four: He tells a deliberate lie."
"A lie! But when?"
"The man was worth studying. When I first saw him this evening, I ran my eye over him. I especially noticed his hands—their suppleness, their delicate colour, their long, prehensile fingers. I do not doubt that he is very proud of them. He wore no ring—it is not the custom of those who deal with germs to so adorn themselves. What was he looking for so anxiously in this room, if it were not a ring? Why did he leave us in the hall that he might conduct this search before our presence disturbed him?"
"I cannot suggest an explanation; but really, Cousin Graden, you seem to be weaving a most unnecessary tangle. I cannot imagine what result you expect to obtain."
"A conviction for murder."
I stared at him in the most profound amazement.
"Yes, murder, Cousin Robert; as deliberate and cold-blooded a doing to death of an innocent man as has ever befouled a corner of God's fair world."
He rose from his chair and ploughed heavily up and down the room. The veins started in his forehead; his huge hands knotted themselves tensely.
"Listen. This afternoon a man lay asleep on that couch in the corner. We know the manner of man—a keen investigator, an indefatigable worker, an honest fighter; but one who had never done in all his life a mean or ignoble action. There comes a creak upon the stairs, the door is opened softly, a head peers in. He—the murderer—enters the room. He knew the custom of the house in this warm September weather: the doors open, the old servant asleep, the master taking his regular siesta. How far is he a criminal, how far a lunatic? Is this act premeditated, or the sudden tempting of opportunity? Who can say? It is enough that in his diseased imagination he has come to regard the sleeper as an enemy who maliciously set himself to destroy his theories and to bring ridicule on the laborious work of years. His desire for revenge against his critics at home and abroad is concentrated on the man before him.
"How the Thing came into his possession I cannot guess, though that should be a point easily discovered. He himself may have obtained it from Africa, or it may have come into his hands by chance, as the chief of the Entomological Museum. But he has it safe enough, shut up in the tin box which fell from his pocket in your rooms. The spring of the lid was defective, you may remember; it is that same defective spring that will hang him.
"He stands over there, listening and watching. There is no sound; the sleeper will not wake. He opens the case upon the dressing-table and lifts the Thing with tweezers—for every hair of it has its poison. With scissors he cuts off some score of hairs, catching them in the crease of a folded sheet of notepaper. He replaces it in the case and closes the lid. Like an ugly shadow he flits across to the couch, kneels by its side, and one, two, three times blows the hairs from the creased paper across the intake of the sleeper's breath. He turns, snatches up the case from the table, and is gone. In five hours Professor Von Stockmar is dead of inflammation of the lungs. There is not a doctor in all Germany who would challenge that diagnosis. In nine hours Professor Rudolf Marnac is accused by me, Henry Graden, of murder."
"But this deadly Thing!" I cried, with a sinking horror at my heart. "This beast, reptile, insect—what is it? Where is it now?"
For answer he thrust his fingers into his pocket and drew out the same wooden match-box that I had seen him with by the bedside of the dead man. He slid it half open and tapped it sideways on the table under the lamp. A round, fluffy ball rolled out and lay motionless. Suddenly a little black head protruded, a score of tiny feet paddled into motion, and across the table there crept a hairy caterpillar—a loathsome, disreputable object, for across its back lay a ragged scar, where the hairs had been shorn away.
"Do you recognise the species?"
In a faint-hearted way I leaned across to grasp it, but with a sudden motion he brushed my hand aside.
"I see you do not," said he grimly. "It is common enough in South Africa."
With the end of a match he carefully pushed the insect back into the box, and replaced it in his pocket.
"The luck was against Marnac," he continued. "Not for one moment do I suggest that otherwise I should have suspected the truth. To begin with, the defective spring of the case allowed the caterpillar to escape while he was bending over poor Hermann. After he had done his devil's work he slipped it back hastily into his pocket. He never realised what had occurred until, upon accidentally pulling it out with his handkerchief in your lodgings, he found it empty. It was for that reason he accompanied us here, for that reason he searched so anxiously. What became of it did not matter so long as it was not found in this room; though, as a matter of fact, there was very small danger, even then, of it affording a clue.
"And now we come to a stroke of abominable ill-luck, of which Marnac has every right to complain. I found the caterpillar on the sheet of the bed, where it had crawled in its wanderings. But that was not the worst of it, for I happened to be the one man in all Heidelberg who knew of its peculiar properties; who knew that its hairs are slightly poisoned, sufficient indeed to raise a nasty rash on the hand; who knew that the old-time Hottentots employed it for removing their enemies by blowing the hairs into their lungs. I took out a match-box, emptied it, and collected the caterpillar. I was closing the box when I looked up and saw Marnac watching me with a shocking expression, which could scarcely have distorted the face of a perfectly sane man, however provoked. Nearly every murderer has a screw loose somewhere; but, in my opinion, Marnac is in an unusually bad way. It may turn out more of an asylum than a gallows business, after all."
"But the details of the scene you picture; how did you obtain them?"
"I am a quick thinker, and the events of the evening began to arrange themselves in a sort of sequence, crowned by the discovery of the caterpillar. The inference to be gathered from them was obvious. I examined the nostrils of the dead man, and found four of the caterpillar hairs caught therein. On the dressing-table lay an ordinary pair of nail-scissors. Two hairs were jammed where the blades met. On the creased sheet of paper, which I found behind the couch, there was no sign; but the use to which it had been put was plain. From Hans I knew the custom of the house: the sleep after the midday meal, the open doors, the opportunity. Is the matter plain to you?"
"What are you going to do?" It was all that I could say.
"Nothing to-night. To appear at a German police-station at this hour with such an extraordinary story would be—for two foreigners, at least—the height of absurdity. Besides, there is no hurry; Marnac won't budge. He'll sit it out, never fear."
One o'clock clanged out from the steeples as I bade good-night to Graden at the door of my lodgings. He had already secured a room in a neighbouring hotel.
"Have you a lock on your bedroom door?" said he.
"I believe so."
"Well, use it to-night. We've an ugly customer to deal with; and the worst of it is that, unless I am much mistaken, he knows how much we know."
I watched him as he rolled away, a gigantic figure in the moonlight, waving the thick stick he carried. Never had my stairs seemed so uncomfortably dark, never had they creaked behind me so mysteriously. It was with a sigh of relief that I gained my room and by a quick glance assured myself that I was alone.
It seemed that I had only just dropped off into dreamland—for, indeed, sleep had been hard to woo that night—when a knocking at my door brought me from my bed. I unlocked and opened it. Cousin Graden filled the foreground.
"I didn't think he'd throw up the sponge," said he. "But he has, none the less. Marnac has bolted!"
"And you?"
"I shall follow."
So commenced those strange wanderings which I shall entitle "The Trail of the Dead."
* Copyright, 1902, by R. Fletcher Robinson and J. Malcolm Fraser, in the United States of America.