Натаниель Готорн - The Devil in Manuscript and Other Tales of Forbidden Books

And as I looked at this pitiful broken thing which a few minutes before had been so shaken by fear, horror and remorse made me forget my aching head. Martin was right; I had held his life in my two hands and I had let it fall! Why had I not helped him to climb the wall? Why had I been so sure that the police were his pursuers? What a fool I had been! And now I could never forgive myself—never!

“Are you satisfied?” Martin asked. “Personally I should call it a rather thorough job. Look at the back of his head. Tour friends, Smithers, seem to be as workmanlike as they are impulsive.”

Shuddering, I turned my back on the corpse. “Please don’t joke about a thing like that!” I cried. “Haven’t you any mercy? I’m too sick to listen to you! I feel as though I were responsible for this!”

“You are, Smithers. Don’t let your natural modesty blind you to the truth. Fully two-thirds of the credit belongs to you. But you’ll allow me the privilege of writing it up, won’t you? I need just one more story to complete my book and this seems excellent material.”

“Did you recognize any of the murderers?” I asked.

“Only you, Smithers.”

“Don’t joke, Martin! I mean would you recognize any of them if you should see them again?”

“No doubt,” he answered carelessly. “I never forget faces. As I told you once before, my memory makes up for my lack of imagination. But I would advise you to get away before the police come. You’ll be mixed up in an unpleasant affair if you don’t.”

“How so?”

“Well, you carried a heavy cane. Now it is broken in half. This man has been beaten to death. You are found near the body with a wound on your head.”

“And you?”

“Why, I live on this street, Smithers. There is some reason why I should be here, while there is no reason under the sun why a society portrait painter should be found up a miserable, blind alley at midnight. If nothing more, it would cause considerable newspaper notoriety which I don’t think would do you any good with your wealthy patrons.”

“But I can’t sneak out of it like this,” I said weakly. “I feel that I’m too much to blame. That poor fellow might have got away if I hadn’t been such a suspicious fool.”

“Don’t take all this so much to heart, Smithers,” Martin murmured with one of his enigmatic smiles. “After all, what is one human life more or less? They are like ants, such men—only not so industrious. This fellow perished tonight in a good cause—for art’s sake, indeed, for I intend to make the description of his murder a masterpiece.”

“You’re not human, Martin,” I said, turning away. “However, I think I’ll accept your advice and be off before the police come.”

“I knew you would,” he said triumphantly. “One can always depend on you, Smithers.”

“And what are you going to do?”

“Why, I have modeled myself after the moon,” he cried, raising his cane and pointing fantastically at the heavens. “She and I will keep watch over the dead. My cold sister, I call her. She is wise, Smithers, horribly wise—so wise, indeed, that nothing can change the sad serenity of her face. Think of what she has seen, while looking down; think of the plains dotted with the slain and the purple rivers of blood that she has seen, and then wonder at the calmness of that white face in the sky! Leave the dead to Martin and the moon, Smithers—leave them to Martin and the moon!”

I did not answer him—dizziness and nausea were stealing over me. My only thought was to escape from this dark alley before the police came. Martin’s wild words seemed a fitting climax to such a ghastly business.

At the first bend m the alley I cast a hurried glance over my shoulder. Martin still stood where I had left him, his cane pointing fantastically at the moon, his eyes on the corpse which huddled close to the wall as though seeking an outlet. And the antique, iron lantern dropped its petals of pale, yellow light, like a dying sunflower, on the glistening pavement where tiny, fernlike patterns of crimson were stealing noiselessly away.

For several days following my adventure in the alley, I was confined to my bed. The blow that I received had inflicted a severe scalp wound which called for medical attention; while, added to this, the unnatural excitement had brought me to the verge of a breakdown. At night I was subjected to horrible dreams from which I awoke bathed in a copious sweat.

On the day after the murder I scanned the papers eagerly. My curiosity was finally rewarded by the following paragraph:

BEATEN TO DEATH

Early this morning the body of a man was found at the foot of the wall which terminates Tyndall Place. His death was caused by the heavy blows of some blunt instrument. As yet the body has not been identified.

I laid the paper down with a sigh. So this was all the publicity the Evening Star thought such a ghastly business to be worth! What had shaken me to the depths of my soul, the Evening Star could dismiss in a few lines. I had expected to see the affair written up on the first page with perhaps a full-length picture of the man in the green coat. And I had found it only with difficulty, hidden away among the advertisements. How different it would have been had the victim possessed social prominence or even a moderate income! Then he would have come into his own on the front page in big, glaring type; a host of detectives would by now be hot on the trail of his assassins and the wheels of justice would soon be humming merrily, grinding into chaff those impulsive gentlemen, as Martin called them, who had broken simultaneously the skull of the green coated man and the Fifth Commandment.

Martin! Evidently he had disappeared from the scene before the police arrived. Otherwise some allusion to him would have appeared in that article. No doubt he, like myself, had avoided getting himself mixed up in the affair on account of the unpleasant newspaper notoriety which was sure to follow. But why could he not have said as much to me? That was like the man—to hide his own frailties undermine; to make it appear that he was going to face the music, while in reality he was only waiting till my back was turned before he beat a hasty retreat. Well, hereafter, I would take what he said with a grain of salt. In spite of his insufferable air of egotism, he evidently had human weaknesses like the rest of us.

For the duration of that week I rested till I regained my mental and physical equilibrium. I had several callers, including Huntington, to whom I told in confidence what had befallen me in the alley. Wilbur listened with more than his customary attention, his eyes half closed and his blunt, shapeless nose twitching slightly. It was at times like these that one appreciated thoroughly the aptness of his sobriquet. Never have I seen a man who so closely resembled a guinea pig.

“Martin must be an unfeeling sort of chap,” he muttered when I had finished. “You say he didn’t seem to be at all disturbed by what had happened?”

“Not the least bit in the world,” I assured him. “Why, he began joking about it! You’d think he was used to seeing murders every night.”

“Used to seeing murders every night!” Huntington repeated thoughtfully. “What an idea!”

“That’s the impression he’d give any one. There’s something not quite human about the man.”

“You must bring us together, Charley,” Wilbur said abruptly. “I’ve taken an interest in him. Psychology is my hobby, you know. Burgess Martin seems worth studying. If I weren’t so infernally lazy, I’d look him up in that slum where he lives. Why was I born so lazy, Charley?”

“I don’t know. Possibly you’d be a menace to society if you weren’t. Your pleasing plumpness and hibernating habits are the bars of your hutch. Within, you nibble contentedly at your lettuce leaves; but, once out, you might turn carnivorous.”