Abraham Merritt - Burn, Witch, Burn!

He gave me a quick glance, and I gathered that whatever the reason he had brought the policeman to see me, he had not spoken to him of Ricori.

"You see, Doc, when I told you about that doll getting up an' jumping out of the car you thought I was loco. All right, I says to me, maybe it didn't get far. Maybe it was one of them improved mechanical dolls, but even if it was it has to run down sometime. So I goes hunting for somebody else that might have seen it. An' this morning I runs into Shevlin here. An' he tells me. Go on, Tim, give the Doc what you gave me."

Shevlin blinked, shifted the bag cautiously and began. He had the dogged air of repeating a story that he had told over and over. And to unsympathetic audiences; for as he went on he would look at me defiantly, or raise his voice belligerently.

"It was one o'clock this mornin'. I am on me beat when I hear somebody yellin' desperate like. 'Help!' he yells. 'Murder! Take it away!' he yells. I go runnin', an' there standin' on a bench is a guy in his soup–an'–nuts an' high hat jammed over his ears, an' a–hittin' this way an' that wit' his cane, an' a–dancin' up an' down an' it's him that's doin' the yellin'.

"I reach over an' tap him on the shins wit' me night–club, an' he looks down an' then flops right in me arms. I get a whiff of his breath an' I think I see what's the matter wit' him all right. I get him on his feet, an' I says: 'Come on now, the pink'll soon run off the elephants,' I says. 'It's this Prohibition hooch that makes it look so thick,' I says. 'Tell me where you live an' I'll put you in a taxi, or do you want t'go to a hospital?' I says.

"He stands there a–holdin' unto me an' a–shakin', an' he says: 'D'ye think I'm drunk?' An' I begins t'tell him. 'An' how–' when I looks at him, an' he ain't drunk. He might've been drunk, but he ain't drunk now. An' all t'once he flops down on the bench an' pulls up his pants an' down his socks, an' I sees blood runnin' from a dozen little holes, an' he says, 'Maybe you'll be tellin' me it's pink elephants done that?'

"I looks at 'em an' feels 'em, an' it's blood all right, as if somebody's been jabbin' a hat–pin in him—"

Involuntarily I stared at McCann. He did not meet my eyes. Imperturbably he was rolling a cigarette.

"An' I says: 'What the hell done it?' An' he says 'The doll done it!'"

A little shiver ran down my back, and I looked again at the gunman. This time he gave me a warning glance. Shevlin glared up at me.

"'The doll done it!' he tells me," Shevlin shouted. "He tells me the doll done it!"

McCann chuckled and Shevlin turned his glare from me to him. I said hastily:

"I understand, Officer. He told you it was the doll made the wounds. An astonishing assertion, certainly."

"Y'don't believe it, y'mean?" demanded Shevlin, furiously.

"I believe he told you that, yes," I answered. "But go on."

"All right, would y'be sayin' I was drunk too, t'believe it? Fer it's what that potato–brained lootenant did."

"No, no," I assured him hastily. Shevlin settled back, and went on:

"I asks the drunk, 'What's her name?' 'What's whose name?' says he. 'The doll's,' I says. 'I'll bet you she was a blonde doll,' I says, 'an' wants her picture in the tabloids. The brunettes don't use hatpins,' I says. 'They're all fer the knife.'

"'Officer,' he says, solemn, 'it was a doll. A little man doll. An' when I say doll I mean a doll. I was walkin along,' he says, 'gettin' the air. I won't deny I'd had some drinks,' he says, 'but nothin' I couldn't carry. I'm swishin' along wit' me cane, when I drops it by that bush there,' he says, pointin'. 'I reach down to pick it up,' he says, 'an' there I see a doll. It's a big doll an' it's all huddled up crouchin', as if somebody dropped it that way. I reaches over t' pick it up. As I touch it, the doll jumps as if I hit a spring. It jumps right over me head,' he says. 'I'm surprised,' he says, 'an' considerably startled, an' I'm crouchin' there lookin' where the doll was when I feel a hell of a pain in the calf of me leg,' he says, 'like I been stabbed. I jump up, an' there's this doll wit' a big pin in its hand just ready t' jab me again.'

"'Maybe,' says I to the drunk, 'maybe 'twas a midget you seen?' 'Midget hell!' says he, 'it was a doll! An' it was jabbin' me wit' a hatpin. It was about two feet high,' he says, 'wit' blue eyes. It was grinnin' at me in a way that made me blood run cold. An' while I stood there paralyzed, it jabbed me again. I jumped on the bench,' he says, 'an' it danced around an' around, an' it jumped up an' jabbed me. An' it jumped down an' up again an' jabbed me. I thought it meant to kill me, an' I yelled like hell,' says the drunk. 'An' who wouldn't?' he asks me. 'An' then you come,' he says, 'an' the doll ducked into the bushes there. Fer God's sake, officer, come wit' me till I can get a taxi an' go home,' he says, 'fer I make no bones tellin' you I'm scared right down to me gizzard!' says he.

"So I take the drunk by the arm," went on Shevlin, "thinkin', poor lad, what this bootleg booze'll make you see, but still puzzled about how he got them holes in his legs. We come out to the Drive. The drunk is still a–shakin' an' I'm a–waitin' to hail a taxi, when all of a sudden he lets out a squeal. 'There it goes! Look, there it goes!'

"I follow his finger, an' sure enough I see somethin' scuttlin' over the sidewalk an' out on the Drive. The light's none too good, an' I think it's a cat or maybe a dog. Then I see there's a little coupe drawn up opposite at the curb. The cat or dog, whatever it is, seems to be makin' fer it. The drunk's still yellin' an' I'm tryin' to see what it is, when down the Drive hell–fer–leather comes a big car. It hits this thing kersmack an' never stops. He's out of sight before I can raise me whistle. I think I see the thing wriggle an' I think, still thinkin' it's a cat or dog, 'I'll put you out of your misery,' an' I run over to it wit' me gun. As I do so the coupe that's been waitin' shoots off hell–fer–leather too. I get over to what the other car hit, an' I look at it—"

He slipped the bag off his knees, set it down beside him and untied the top.

"An' this is what it was."

Out of the bag he drew a doll, or what remained of it. The automobile had gone across its middle, crushing it. One leg was missing; the other hung by a thread. Its clothing was torn and begrimed with the dirt of the roadway. It was a doll—but uncannily did it give the impression of a mutilated pygmy. Its neck hung limply over its breast.

McCann stepped over and lifted the doll's head, I stared, and stared…with a prickling of the scalp…with a slowing of the heart beat…

For the face that looked up at me, blue eyes glaring, was the face of Peters!

And on it, like the thinnest of veils, was the shadow of that demonic exultance I had watched spread over the face of Peters after death had stilled the pulse of his heart!

Shevlin watched me as I stared at the doll. He was satisfied by its effect upon me.

"A hell of a lookin' thing, ain't it?" he asked. "The doctor sees it, McCann. I told you he had brains!" He jounced the doll down upon his knee, and sat there like a red–faced ventriloquist with a peculiarly malevolent dummy—certainly it would not have surprised me to have heard the diabolic laughter issue from its faintly grinning mouth.

"Now, I'll tell you, Dr. Lowell," Shevlin went on. "I stands there lookin' at this doll, an' I picks it up. 'There's more in this than meets the eye, Tim Shevlin,' I says to myself. An' I looks to see what's become of the drunk. He's standin' where I left him, an' I walk over to him an' he says: 'Was it a doll like I told you? Hah! I told you it was a doll! Hah! That's him!' he says, gettin' a peck at what I'm carryin'. So I says to him, 'Young fellow, me lad, there's somethin' wrong here. You're goin' to the station wit' me an' tell the lootenant what you told me an' show him your legs an' all,' I says. An' the drunk says, 'Fair enough, but keep that thing on the other side of me.' So we go to the station.