Абрахам Меррит - Burn, Witch, Burn!

not be noticed, I was sure. There was no danger of an autopsy, since my certification of the cause of

death would not be questioned. When the undertaker arrived I explained the absence of the

wife-imminent maternity and departure at my order. I set down the cause of death as thrombosis-rather

grimly as I recalled the similar diagnosis of the banker's physician, and what I had thought of it.

After the body had been taken away, and as I sat waiting for McCann to return, I tried to orient myself

to this phantasmagoria through which, it seemed to me, I had been moving for endless time. I tried to

divest my mind of all prejudice, all preconceived ideas of what could and could not be. I began by

conceding that this Madame Mandilip might possess some wisdom of which modern science is ignorant. I

refused to call it witchcraft or sorcery. The words mean nothing, since they have been applied through the

ages to entirely natural phenomena whose causes were not understood by the laity. Not so long ago, for

example, the lighting of a match was "witchcraft" to many savage tribes.

No, Madame Mandilip was no "witch," as Ricori thought her. She was mistress of some unknown

science-that was all.

And being a science, it must be governed by fixed laws-unknown though those laws might be to me. If

the doll-maker's activities defied cause and effect, as I conceived them, still they must conform to laws of

cause and effect of their own. There was nothing supernatural about them-it was only that, like the

savages, I did not know what made the match burn. Something of these laws, something of the woman's

technique-using the word as signifying the details, collectively considered, of mechanical performance in

any art-I thought I perceived. The knotted cord, "the witch's ladder," apparently was an essential in the

animation of the dolls. One had been slipped into Ricori's pocket before the first attack upon him. I had

found another beside his bed after the disturbing occurrences of the night. I had gone to sleep holding one

of the cords-and had tried to murder my patient! A third cord had accompanied the doll that had killed

John Gilmore.

Clearly, then, the cord was a part of the formula for the direction of control of the dolls.

Against this was the fact that the intoxicated stroller could not have been carrying one of the "ladders"

when attacked by the Peters doll.

It might be, however, that the cord had only to do with the initial activity of the puppets; that once

activated, their action might continue for an indefinite period.

There was evidence of a fixed formula in the making of the dolls. First, it seemed, the prospective victim's

free consent to serve as model must be obtained; second, a wound which gave the opportunity to apply

the salve which caused the unknown death; third, the doll must be a faithful replica of the victim. That the

agency of death was the same in each case was proven by the similar symptoms.

But did those deaths actually have anything to do with the motility of the dolls? Were they actually a

necessary part of the operation?

The doll-maker might believe so; indeed, undoubtedly did believe so.

I did not.

That the doll which had stabbed Ricori had been made in the semblance of Peters; that the "nurse doll"

which the guards had seen poised on my window-ledge might have been the one for which Walters had

posed; that the doll which had thrust the pin into Gilmore's brain was, perhaps, the replica of little Anita,

the eleven-year-old schoolgirl-all this I admitted.

But that anything of Peters, anything of Walters, anything of Anita had animated these dolls…that dying,

something of their vitality, their minds, their "souls" had been drawn from them, had been transmuted into

an essence of evil, and imprisoned in these wire-skeletoned puppets…against this all my reason revolted.

I could not force my mind to accept even the possibility.

My analysis was interrupted by the return of McCann.

He said, laconically: "Well, we put it over."

I asked. "McCann-you weren't by any chance telling the truth when you said you found the doll?"

"No, Doc. The doll was gone all right."

"But where did you get the little books?"

"Just where Mollie said the doll tossed 'em-on her dressing table. I snaked 'em after she'd told me her

story. She hadn't noticed 'em. I had a hunch. It was a good one, wasn't it?"

"You had me wondering," I replied. "I don't know what we could have said if she had asked for the

knotted cord."

"The cord didn't seem to make much of a dent on her-" He hesitated. "But I think it means a hell of a lot,

Doc. I think if I hadn't took her out, and John hadn't happened home, and Mollie had opened the box

instead of him-I think it's Mollie he'd have found lying dead beside him."

"You mean-"

"I mean the dolls go for whichever gets the cords," he said somberly.

Well, it was much the same thought I had in my own mind.

I asked: "But why should anybody want to kill Mollie?"

"Maybe somebody thinks she knows too much. And that brings me to what I've been wanting to tell you.

The Mandilip hag knows she's being watched!"

"Well, her watchers are better than ours." I echoed Ricori; and I told McCann then of the second attack

in the night; and why I had sought him.

"An' that," he said when I had ended, "Proves the Mandilip hag knows who's who behind the watch on

her. She tried to wipe out both the boss and Mollie. She's onto us, Doc."

"The dolls are accompanied," I said. "The musical note is a summons. They do not disappear into thin air.

They answer the note and make their way…somehow to whoever sounds the note. The dolls must be

taken from the shop. Therefore one of the two women must take them. How did they evade your

watchers?"

"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