Abraham Merritt - Burn, Witch, Burn!

McCann and the chauffeur had been standing close beside me. They read my verdict in my face. I saw a strange glance pass between them; and obviously each of them had a touch of panic, the chauffeur more markedly than McCann. The latter asked in a level, monotonous voice:

"Could it have been poison?"

"Yes, it could—" I stopped.

Poison! And that mysterious errand about which he had telephoned me! And the possibility of poison in the other cases! But this death— and again I felt the doubt—had not been like those others.

"McCann," I said, "when and where did you first notice anything wrong?"

He answered, still in that monotonous voice:

"About six blocks down the street. The boss was sitting close to me. All at once he says 'Jesu!' Like he's scared. He shoves his hands up to his chest. He gives a kind of groan an' stiffens out. I says to him: 'What's the matter, boss, you got a pain?' He don't answer me, an' then he sort of falls against me an' I see his eyes is wide open. He looks dead to me. So I yelps to Paul to stop the car and we both look him over. Then we beat it here like hell."

I went to a cabinet and poured them stiff drinks of brandy. They needed it. I threw a sheet over Ricori.

"Sit down," I said, "and you, McCann, tell me exactly what occurred from the time you started out with Mr. Ricori to wherever it was he went. Don't skip a single detail."

He said:

"About two o'clock the boss goes to Mollie's—that's Peters' sister—stays an hour, comes out, goes home and tells Paul to be back at four–thirty. But he's doing a lot of 'phoning so we don't start till five. He tells Paul where he wants to go, a place over in a little street down off Battery Park. He says to Paul not to go through the street, just park the car over by the Battery. And he says to me, 'McCann, I'm going in this place myself. I don't want 'em to know I ain't by myself.' He says, 'I got reasons. You hang around an' look in now an' then, but don't come in unless I call you.' I says, 'Boss, do you think it's wise?' An' he says, 'I know what I'm doing an' you do what I tell you.' So there ain't any argument to that.

"We get down to this place an' Paul does like he's told, an' the boss walks up the street an' he stops at a little joint that's got a lot of dolls in the window. I looks in the place as I go past. There ain't much light but I see a lot of other dolls inside an' a thin gal at a counter. She looks white as a fish's belly to me, an' after the boss has stood at the window a minute or two he goes in, an' I go by slow to look at the gal again because she sure looks whiter than I ever saw a gal look who's on her two feet. The boss is talkin' to the gal who's showing him some dolls. The next time I go by there's a woman in the place. She's so big, I stand at the window a minute to look at her because I never seen anybody that looks like her. She's got a brown face an' it looks sort of like a horse, an' a little mustache an' moles, an' she's as funny a looking brand as the fish– white gal. Big an' fat. But I get a peep at her eyes—Geeze, what eyes! Big an' black an' bright, an' somehow I don't like them any more than the rest of her. The next time I go by, the boss is over in a corner with the big dame. He's got a wad of bills in his hand and I see the gal watching sort of frightened like. The next time I do my beat, I don't see either the boss or the woman.

"So I stand looking through the window because I don't like the boss out of my sight in this joint. An' the next thing I see is the boss coming out of a door at the back of the shop. He's madder than hell an' carrying something an' the woman is behind him an' her eyes spitting fire. The boss is jabbering but I can't hear what he's saying, an' the dame is jabbering too an' making funny passes at him. Funny passes? Why, funny motions with her hands. But the boss heads for the door an' when he gets to it I see him stick what he's carrying inside his overcoat an' button it up round it.

"It's a doll. I see its legs dangling down before he gets it under his coat. A big one, too, for it makes quite a bulge—"

He paused, began mechanically to roll a cigarette, than glanced at the covered body and threw the cigarette away. He went on:

"I never see the boss so mad before. He's muttering to himself in Italian an' saying something over an' over that sounds like 'strayga–' I see it ain't no time to talk so I just walk along with him. Once he says to me, more as if he's talking to himself than me, if you get what I mean—he says, 'The Bible says you shall not suffer a witch to live.' Then he goes on muttering an' holding one arm fast over this doll inside his coat.

"We get to the car an' he tells Paul to beat it straight to you an' to hell with traffic—that's right, ain't it, Paul? Yes. When we get in the car he stops muttering an' just sits there quiet, not saying anything to me until I hear him say Jesu!' like I told you. And that's all, ain't it, Paul?"

The chauffeur did not answer. He sat staring at McCann with something of entreaty in his gaze. I distinctly saw McCann shake his head. The chauffeur said, in a strongly marked Italian accent, hesitatingly:

"I do not see the shop, but everything else McCann say is truth."

I got up and walked over to Ricori's body. I was about to lift the sheet when something caught my eye. A red spot about as big as a dime—a blood stain. Holding it in place with one finger, I carefully lifted the edge of the sheet. The blood spot was directly over Ricori's heart.

I took one of my strongest glasses and one of my finest probes. Under the glass, I could see on Ricori's breast a minute puncture, no larger than that made by a hypodermic needle. Carefully I inserted the probe. It slipped easily in and in until it touched the wall of the heart. I went no further.

Some needle–pointed, exceedingly fine instrument had been thrust through Ricori's breast straight into his heart!

I looked at him, doubtfully; there was no reason why such a minute puncture should cause death. Unless, of course, the weapon which had made it had been poisoned; or there had been some other violent shock which had contributed to that of the wound itself. But such shock or shocks might very well bring about in a person of Ricori's peculiar temperament some curious mental condition, producing an almost perfect counterfeit of death. I had heard of such cases.

No, despite my tests, I was not sure Ricori was dead. But I did not tell McCann that. Alive or dead, there was one sinister fact that McCann must explain. I turned to the pair, who had been watching me closely.

"You say there were only the three of you in the car?"

Again I saw a glance pass between them.

"There was the doll," McCann answered, half–defiantly. I brushed the answer aside, impatiently.

"I repeat: there were only the three of you in the car?"

"Three men, yes."

"Then," I said grimly, "you two have a lot to explain. Ricori was stabbed. I'll have to call the police."

McCann arose and walked over to the body. He picked up the glass and peered through it at the tiny puncture. He looked at the chauffeur. He said:

"I told you the doll done it, Paul!"

I said, incredulously, "McCann, you surely don't expect me to believe that?"

He did not answer, rolling another cigarette which this time he did not throw away. The chauffeur staggered over to Ricori's body; he threw himself on his knees and began mingled prayers and implorations. McCann, curiously enough, was now completely himself. It was as though the removal of uncertainty as to the cause of Ricori's death had restored all his old cold confidence. He lighted the cigarette; he said, almost cheerfully: