Абрахам Меррит - Burn, Witch, Burn!

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:

"I'm aiming to make you believe."

I walked over to the telephone. McCann jumped in front of me and stood with his back against the

instrument.

"Wait a minute, Doc. If I'm the kind of a rat that'll stick a knife in the heart of the man who hired me to

protect him-ain't it occurred to you the spot you're on ain't so healthy? What's to keep me an' Paul from

giving you the works an' making our getaway?"

Frankly, that had not occurred to me. Now I realized in what a truly dangerous position I was placed. I

looked at the chauffeur. He had risen from his knees and was standing, regarding McCann intently.

"I see you get it." McCann smiled, mirthlessly. He walked to the Italian. "Pass your rods, Paul."

Without a word the chauffeur dipped into his pockets and handed him a pair of automatics. McCann laid

them on my table. He reached under his left arm and placed another pistol beside them; reached into his

pocket and added a second.

"Sit there, Doc," he said, and indicated my chair at the table. "That's all our artillery. Keep the guns right

under your hands. If we make any breaks, shoot. All I ask is you don't do any calling up till you've

listened."

I sat down, drawing the automatics to me, examining them to see that they were loaded. They were.

"Doc," McCann said, "there's three things I want you to consider. First, if I'd had anything to do with

smearing the boss, would I be giving you a break like this? Second, I was sitting at his right side. He had

on a thick overcoat. How could I reach over an' run anything as thin as whatever killed him must have

been all through his coat, an' through the doll, through his clothes, an' through him without him putting up

some kind of a fight. Hell, Ricori was a strong man. Paul would have seen us-"

"What difference would that have made," I interrupted, "if Paul were an accomplice?"

"Right," he acquiesced, "that's so. Paul's as deep in the mud as I am. Ain't that so, Paul?" He looked

sharply at the chauffeur, who nodded. "All right, we'll leave that with a question mark after it. Take the

third point-if I'd killed the boss that way, an' Paul was in it with me, would we have took him to the one

man who'd be expected to know how he was killed? An' then when you'd found out as expected, hand

you an alibi like this? Christ, Doc, I ain't loco enough for that!"

His face twitched.

"Why would I want to kill him? I'd a-gone through hell an' back for him an' he knew it. So would've

Paul."

I felt the force of all this. Deep within me I was conscious of a stubborn conviction that McCann was

telling the truth-or at least the truth as he saw it. He had not stabbed Ricori. Yet to attribute the act, to a

doll was too fantastic. And there had been only the three men in the car. McCann had been reading my

thoughts with an uncanny precision.

"It might've been one of them mechanical dolls," he said. "Geared up to stick."

"McCann, go down and bring it up to me," I said sharply-he had voiced a rational explanation.

"It ain't there," he said, and grinned at me again mirthlessly. "It out!"

"Preposterous-" I began. The chauffeur broke in:

"It's true. Something out. When I open the door. I think it cat, dog, maybe. I say, 'What the hell-' Then I

see it. It run like hell. It stoop. It duck in shadow. I see it just as flash an' then no more. I say to

McCann-'What the hell!' McCann, he's feeling around bottom of car. He say-'It's the doll. It done for

the boss!' I say: 'Doll! What you mean doll?' He tell me. I know nothing of any doll before. I see the boss

carry something in his coat, si. But I don't know what. But I see one goddam thing that don't look like

cat, dog. It jump out of car, through my legs, si!"

I said ironically: "Is it your idea, McCann, that this mechanical doll was geared to run away as well as to

stab?"

He flushed, but answered quietly:

"I ain't saying it was a mechanical doll. But anything else would be-well, pretty crazy, wouldn't it?"

"McCann," I asked abruptly, "what do you want me to do?"

"Doc, when I was down Arizona way, there was a ranchero died. Died sudden. There was a feller