Abraham Merritt - Burn, Witch, Burn!

"I don't know." The lean face was worried. "The fish–white gal does it. Let me tell you what I found out, Doc. After I left you last night I go down to see what the boys have to say. I hear plenty. They say about four o'clock the gal goes in the back an' the old woman takes a chair in the store. They don't think nothing of that. But about seven who do they see walking down the street and into the doll joint but the gal. They give the boys in the back hell. But they ain't seen her go, an' they pass the buck to the boys in front.

"Then about eleven o'clock one of the relief lads comes in with worse news. He says he's down at the foot of Broadway when a coupe turns the corner an' driving it is the gal. He can't be mistaken because he's seen her in the doll joint. She goes up Broadway at a clip. He sees there ain't nobody trailing her, an' he looks around for a taxi. Course there's nothing in sight—not even a parked car he can lift. So he comes down to the gang to ask what the hell they mean by it. An' again nobody's seen the gal go."

"I take a couple of the boys an' we start out to comb the neighborhood to find out where she stables the coupe. We don't have no luck at all until about four o'clock when one of the tails—one of the lads who's been looking—meets up with me. He says that about three he sees the gal—at least he thinks it's the gal—walking along the street around the corner from the joint. She's got a coupla big suitcases but they don't seem to trouble her none. She's walking quick. But away from the doll joint. He eases over to get a better look, when all of a sudden she ain't there. He sniffs around the place he's seen her. There ain't hide nor hair of her. It's pretty dark, an' he tries the doors an' the areaways, but the doors are locked an' there ain't nobody in the areaways. So he gives it up an' hunts me.

"I look over the place. It's about a third down the block around the corner from the doll joint. The doll joint is eight numbers from the corner. They're mostly shops an' I guess storage up above. Not many people living there. The houses all old ones. Still, I don't see how the gal can get to the doll joint. I think maybe the tail's mistaken. He's seen somebody else, or just thinks he's seen somebody. But we scout close around, an' after a while we see a place that looks like it might stable a car. It don't take us long to open the doors. An' sure enough, there's a coupe with its engine still hot. It ain't been in long. Also it's the same kind of coupe the lad who's seen the gal says she was driving.

"I lock the place up again, an' go back to the boys. I watch with 'em the rest of the night. Not a light in the doll joint. But nigh eight o'clock, the gal shows up inside the shop and opens up!"

"Still," I said at this point, "you have no real evidence she had been out. The girl your man thought he saw might not have been she at all."

He looked at me pityingly.

"She got out in the afternoon without 'em seeing her, didn't she? What's to keep her from doing the same thing at night? The lad saw her driving a coupe, didn't he? An' we find a coupe like it close where the wench dropped out of sight."

I sat thinking. There was no reason to disbelieve McCann. And there was a sinister coincidence in the hours the girl had been seen. I said, half–aloud:

"The time she was out in the afternoon coincides with the time the doll was left at the Gilmores'. The time she was out at night coincides with the time of the attack upon Ricori, and the death of John Gilmore."

"You hit it plumb in the eye!" said McCann. "She goes an' leaves the doll at Mollie's, an' comes back. She goes an' sets the dolls on the boss. She waits for 'em to pop out. Then she goes an' collects the one she's left at Mollie's. Then she beats it back home. They're in the suitcases she's carrying."

I could not hold back the irritation of helpless mystification that swept me.

"And I suppose you think she got out of the house by riding a broomstick up the chimney," I said, sarcastically.

"No," he answered, seriously. "No, I don't, Doc. But them houses are old, and I think maybe there's a rat hole of a passage or something she gets through. Anyway, the hands are watching the street an' the coupe stable now, an' she can't pull that again."

He added, morosely:

"At that, I ain't saying she couldn't bridle a broomstick if she had to."

I said, abruptly: "McCann, I'm going down to talk to this Madame Mandilip. I want you to come with me."

He said: "I'll be right beside you, Doc. With my fingers on my guns."

I said: "No, I'm going to see her alone. But I want you to keep close watch outside."

He did not like that; argued; at last reluctantly assented.

I called up my office. I talked to Braile and learned that Ricori was recovering with astonishing rapidity. I asked Braile to look after things the balance of the day, inventing a consultation to account for the request. I had myself switched to Ricori's room. I had the nurse tell him that McCann was with me, that we were making an investigation along a certain line, the results of which I would inform him on my return, and that, unless Ricori objected, I wanted McCann to stay with me the balance of the afternoon.

Ricori sent back word that McCann should follow my orders as though they were his own. He wanted to speak to me, but that I did not want. Pleading urgent haste, I rang off.

I ate an excellent and hearty lunch. I felt that it would help me hold tighter to the realities—or what I thought were the realities— when I met this apparent mistress of illusions. McCann was oddly silent and preoccupied.

The clock was striking three when I set off to meet Madame Mandilip.

I stood at the window of the doll–maker's shop, mastering a stubborn revulsion against entering. I knew McCann was on guard. I knew that Ricori's men were watching from the houses opposite, that others moved among the passersby. Despite the roaring clatter of the elevated trains, the bustle of traffic along the Battery, the outwardly normal life of the street, the doll–maker's shop was a beleaguered fortress. I stood, shivering on its threshold, as though at the door of an unknown world.

There were only a few dolls displayed in the window, but they were unusual enough to catch the eyes of a child or a grown–up. Not so beautiful as that which had been given Walters, nor those two I had seen at the Gilmores', but admirable lures, nevertheless. The light inside the shop was subdued. I could see a slender girl moving at a counter. The niece of Madame Mandilip, no doubt. Certainly the size of the shop did not promise any such noble chamber behind it as Walters had painted in her diary. Still, the houses were old, and the back might extend beyond the limits of the shop itself.

Abruptly and impatiently I ceased to temporize.

I opened the door and walked in.

The girl turned as I entered. She watched me as I came toward the counter. She did not speak. I studied her, swiftly. An hysterical type, obviously; one of the most perfect I had ever seen. I took note of the prominent pale blue eyes with their vague gaze and distended pupils; the long and slender neck and slightly rounded features; the pallor and the long thin fingers. Her hands were clasped, and I could see that these were unusually flexible—thus carrying out to the last jot the Laignel–Lavastine syndrome of the hysteric. In another time and other circumstances she would have been a priestess, voicing oracles, or a saint.

Fear was her handmaiden. There could be no doubt of that. And yet I was sure it was not of me she was frightened. Rather was it some deep and alien fear which lay coiled at the roots of her being, sapping her vitality—a spiritual fear. I looked at her hair. It was a silvery ash…the color…the color of the hair that formed the knotted cords!