Абрахам Меррит - Burn, Witch, Burn!

caustically that he would have been quite as surprised to have seen such a thing as he would have been to

have observed a miniature mermaid swimming around in an artery. By these remarks, I realized afresh the

wisdom in my silence.

Nor did the expected changes in expression occur. The horror and loathing persisted, and were

commented upon by both Bartano and Somers as "unusual." They agreed that the condition must be

caused by a brain lesion of some kind. They did not think there was any evidence either of microbic

infection or of drugs or poison. Agreeing that it was a most interesting case, and asking me to let them

know its progress and outcome, they departed.

At the beginning of the fourth hour, there was a change of expression, but not what I had been expecting.

In Walters' eyes, on her face, was only loathing. Once I thought I saw a flicker of the devilish anticipation

flash over her face. If so, it was quickly mastered. About the middle of the fourth hour, we saw

recognition again return to her eyes. Also, there was a perceptible rally of the slowing heart. I sensed an

intense gathering of nervous force.

And then her eyelids began to rise and fall, slowly, as though by tremendous effort, in measured time and

purposefully. Four times they raised and lowered; there was a pause; then nine times they lifted and fell;

again the pause, then they closed and opened once. Twice she did this-

"She's trying to signal," whispered Braile. "But what?"

Again the long-lashed lids dropped and rose-four times…pause…nine times…pause…once…

"She's going," whispered Braile.

I knelt, stethoscope at ears…slower…slower beat the heart…and slower…and stopped.

"She's gone!" I said, and arose. We bent over her, waiting for that last hideous spasm,

convulsion-whatever it might be.

It did not come. Stamped upon her dead face was the loathing, and that only. Nothing of the devilish

glee. Nor was there sound from her dead lips. Beneath my hand I felt the flesh of her white arm begin to

stiffen.

The unknown death had destroyed Nurse Walters-there was no doubt of that. Yet in some obscure,

vague way I felt that it had not conquered her.

Her body, yes. But not her will!

I returned home with Braile, profoundly depressed. It is difficult to describe the effect the sequence of

events I am relating had upon my mind from beginning to end-and beyond the end. It was as though I

walked almost constantly under the shadow of an alien world, nerves prickling as if under surveillance of

invisible things not of our life…the subconsciousness forcing itself to the threshold of the conscious

battering at the door between and calling out to be on guard…every moment to be on guard. Strange

phrases for an orthodox man of medicine? Let them stand.

Braile was pitiably shaken. So much so that I wondered whether there had been more than professional

interest between him and the dead girl. If there had been, he did not confide in me.

It was close to four o'clock when we reached my house. I insisted that he remain with me. I called the

hospital before retiring, but they had heard nothing of Nurse Robbins. I slept a few hours, very badly.

Shortly after nine, Robbins called me on the telephone. She was half hysterical with grief. I bade her

come to my office, and when she had done so Braile and I questioned her.

"About three weeks ago," she said, "Harriet brought home to Diana a very pretty doll. The child was

enraptured. I asked Harriet where she had gotten it, and she said in a queer little store way downtown.

"'Job,' she said-my name is Jobina-'There's the queerest woman down there. I'm sort of afraid of her,

Job.'

"I didn't pay much attention. Besides, Harriet wasn't ever very communicative. I had the idea she was a

bit sorry she had said what she had.

"Now I think of it though, Harriet acted rather funny after that. She'd be gay and then she'd be-well, sort

of thoughtful. About ten days ago she came home with a bandage around her foot. The right foot? Yes.

She said she'd been having tea with the woman she'd gotten Diana's doll from. The teapot upset and the

hot tea had poured down on her foot. The woman had put some salve on it right away, and now it didn't

hurt a bit.

"'But I think I'll put something on it I know something about,' she told me. Then she slipped off her

stocking and began to strip the bandage. I'd gone into the kitchen and she called to me to come and look

at her foot.

"'It's queer,' she said. 'That was a bad scald, Job. Yet it's practically healed. And that salve hasn't been

on more than an hour.'

"I looked at her foot. There was a big red patch on the instep. But it wasn't sore, and I told her the tea

couldn't have been very hot.

"'But it was really scalded, Job,' she said. 'I mean it was blistered.'

"She sat looking at the bandage and at her foot for quite a while. The salve was bluish and had a queer

shine to it. I never saw anything like it before. No, I couldn't detect any odor to it. Harriet reached down

and took the bandage and said:

"'Job, throw it in the fire.'

"I threw the bandage in the fire. I remember that it gave a queer sort of flicker. It didn't seem to burn. It

just flickered and then it wasn't there. Harriet watched it, and turned sort of white. Then she looked at

her foot again.

"'Job,' she said. 'I never saw anything heal as quick as that. She, must be a witch.'

"'What on earth are you talking about, Harriet?' I asked her.

"'Oh, nothing,' she said. 'Only I wish I had the courage to rip that place on my foot wide open and rub in

an antidote for snake-bite!'

"Then she laughed, and I thought she was fooling. But she painted it with iodine and bandaged it with an

antiseptic besides. The next morning she woke me up and said:

"'Look at that foot now. Yesterday a whole pot of scalding tea poured over it. And now it isn't even

tender. And the skin ought to be just smeared off. Job, I wish to the Lord it was!'

"That's all, Dr. Lowell. She didn't say any more about it and neither did I. And she just seemed to forget

all about it. Yes. I did ask her where the shop was and who the woman was, but she wouldn't tell me. I

don't know why.

"And after that I never knew her so gay and carefree. Happy, careless…Oh, I don't know why she

should have died…I don't…I don't!"

Braile asked:

"Do the numbers 491 mean anything to you, Robbins? Do you associate them with any address Harriet

knew?"

She thought, then shook her head. I told her of the measured closing and opening of Walters' eyes.

"She was clearly attempting to convey some message in which those numbers figured. Think again."

Suddenly she straightened, and began counting upon her fingers. She nodded.

"Could she have been trying to spell out something? If they were letters they would read d, i and a.

They're the first three letters of Diana's name."

"Well, of course that seemed the simple explanation. She might have been trying to ask us to take care of

the child." I suggested this to Braile. He shook his head.

"She knew I'd do that," he said. "No, it was something else."

A little after Robbins had gone, Ricori called up. I told him of Walters' death. He was greatly moved.

And after that came the melancholy business of the autopsy. The results were precisely the same as in

that of Peters. There was nothing whatever to show why the girl had died.

At about four o'clock the next day Ricori again called me on the telephone.