Complete weird tales of.., p.1323
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 1323
Her voice was exquisite when she spoke. She said:
“We have, today, corned beef hash, fried ham and eggs, liver and bacon—” but let that pass, too.
I took my tea very weak; by that time I learned that her name was Mildred Case; that she had been a private detective employed in a department store, and that her duties had been to nab wealthy ladies who forgot to pay for objects usually discovered in their reticules, bosoms, and sometimes in their stockings.
But the confinement of indoor work had been too much for Mildred Case, and the only outdoor job she could find was the position of lady waitress in the rustic Rolling Stone Inn.
She was very, very beautiful, or perhaps it was one of those days — but let that pass, too.
“You are the great Mr. Percy Smith, Curator of the Anthropological Department, are you not?” she asked shyly.
“Yes,” I said modestly; and, to slightly rebuke any superfluous pride in me, I paraphrased with becoming humility, pointing upward: “but remember, Mildred, there is One greater than I.”
“Mr. Carnegie?” she nodded innocently. That was true, too. I let it go at that.
We chatted: she mentioned Professor Boomly and Dr. Quint, gently deploring the rupture of their friendship. Both gentlemen, in common with the majority of the administration personnel, were daily customers at the Rolling Stone Inn. I usually took my lunch from my boarding-house to my office, being too busy to go out for mere nourishment.
That is why I had hitherto missed Mildred Case.
“Mildred,” I said, “I do not believe it can be wholesome for a man to eat sandwiches while taking minute measurements of defunct monkeys. Also, it is not a fragrant pastime. Hereafter I shall lunch here.”
“It will be a pleasure to serve you,” said that unusually — there I go again! It was an unusually beautiful day in June. Which careful, exact, and scientific statement, I think ought to cover the subject under consideration.
After luncheon I sadly selected a five-cent cigar; and, as I hesitated, lingering over the glass case, undecided still whether to give full rein to this contemplated extravagance, I looked up and found her beautiful grey eyes gazing into mine.
“What gentle thoughts are yours, Mildred?” I said softly.
“The cigar you have selected,” she murmured, “is fly-specked.”
Deeply touched that this young girl should have cared — that she should have expressed her solicitude so modestly, so sweetly, concerning the maculatory condition of my cigar, I thanked her and purchased, for the same sum, a packet of cigarettes.
That was going somewhat far for me. I had never in all my life even dreamed of smoking a cigarette. To a reserved, thoughtful, and scientific mind there is, about a packet of cigarettes, something undignified, something vaguely frolicsome.
When I paid her for them I felt as though, for the first time in my life, I had let myself go.
Oddly enough, in this uneasy feeling of gaiety and abandon, a curious sensation of exhilaration persisted.
We had quite a merry little contretemps when I tried to light my cigarette and the match went out, and then she struck another match, and we both laughed, and that match was extinguished by her breath.
Instantly I quoted: “‘Her breath was like the new-mown hay—’”
“Mr. Smith!” she said, flushing slightly.
“‘Her eyes,’ I quoted, ‘were like the stars at even!’”
“You don’t mean my eyes, do you?”
I took a puff at my unlighted cigarette. It also smelled like recently mown hay. I felt that I was slipping my cables and heading toward an unknown and tempestuous sea.
“What time are you free, Mildred?” I asked, scarcely recognising my own voice in such reckless apropos.
She shyly informed me.
I struck a match, relighted my cigarette, and took one puff. That was sufficient: I was adrift. I realised it, trembled internally, took another puff.
“If,” said I carelessly, “on your way home you should chance to stroll along the path beyond the path that leads to the path which—”
I paused, checked by her bewildered eyes. We both blushed.
“Which way do you usually go home?” I asked, my ears afire.
* * *
“‘Which way do you usually go home?’ I asked.”
* * *
She told me. It was a suitably unfrequented path.
So presently I strolled thither; and seated myself under the trees in a bosky dell.
Now, there is a quality in boskiness not inappropriate to romantic thoughts. Boskiness, cigarettes, a soft afternoon in June, the hum of bees, and the distant barking of the seals, all these were delicately blending to inspire in me a bashful sentiment.
A specimen of Papilio turnus, di-morphic form, Glaucus, alighted near me; I marked its flight with scientific indifference. Yet it is a rare species in Bronx Park.
A mock-orange bush was in snowy bloom behind me; great bunches of wistaria hung over the rock beside me.
The combination of these two exquisite perfumes seemed to make the boskiness more bosky.
There was an unaccustomed and sportive lightness to my step when I rose to meet Mildred, where she came loitering along the shadow-dappled path.
She seemed surprised to see me.
She thought it rather late to sit down, but she seated herself. I talked to her enthusiastically about anthropology. She was so interested that after a while she could scarcely keep still, moving her slim little feet restlessly, biting her pretty lower lip, shifting her position — all certain symptoms of an interest in science which even approached excitement.
Warmed to the heart by her eager and sympathetic interest in the noble science so precious, so dear to me, I took her little hand to soothe and quiet her, realizing that she might become overexcited as I described the pituitary body and why its former functions had become atrophied until the gland itself was nearly obsolete.
So intense her interest had been that she seemed a little tired. I decided to give adequate material support to her spinal process. It seemed to rest and soothe her. I don’t remember that she said anything except: “Mr. Smith!” I don’t recollect what we were saying when she mentioned me by name rather abruptly.
The afternoon was wonderfully still and calm. The month was June.
After a while — quite a while — some little time in point of accurate fact — she detected the sound of approaching footsteps.
I remember that she was seated at the opposite end of the bench, rather feverishly occupied with her hat and her hair, when young Jones came hastily along the path, caught sight of us, halted, turned violently red — being a shy young man — but instead of taking himself off, he seemed to recover from a momentary paralysis.
“Mr. Smith!” he said sharply. “Professor Boomly has disappeared; there’s a pool of blood on his desk; his coat, hat, and waistcoat are lying on the floor, the room is a wreck, and Dr. Quint is in there tearing up the carpet and behaving like a madman. We think he suddenly went insane and murdered Professor Boomly. What is to be done?”
Horrified, I had risen at his first word. And now, as I understood the full purport of his dreadful message, my hair stirred under my hat and I gazed at him, appalled.
“What is to be done?” he demanded. “Shall I telephone for the police?”
“Do you actually believe,” I faltered, “that this unfortunate man has murdered Boomly?”
“I don’t know. I looked over the transom, but I couldn’t see Professor Boomly. Dr. Quint has locked the door.”
“And he’s tearing up the carpet?”
“Like a lunatic. I didn’t want to call in the police until I’d asked you. Such a scandal in Bronx Park would be a frightful thing for us all—” He hesitated, looked around, coldly, it seemed to me, at Mildred Case. “A scandal,” he repeated, “is scarcely what might be expected among a harmonious and earnest band of seekers after scientific knowledge. Is it, Mil — Miss Case?”
Now, I don’t know why Mildred should have blushed. There was nothing that I could see in this young man’s question to embarrass her.
Preoccupied, still confused by the shock of this terrible news, I looked at Jones and at Mildred; and they were staring rather oddly at each other.
I said: “If this affair turns out to be as ghastly as it seems to promise, we’ll have to call in a detective. I’ll go back immediately—”
“Why not take me, also?” asked Mildred Case, quietly.
“What?” I asked, looking at her.
“Why not, Mr. Smith? I was once a private detective.”
Surprised at the suggestion, I hesitated.
“If you desire to keep this matter secret — if you wish to have it first investigated privately and quietly — would it not be a good idea to let me use my professional knowledge before you call in the police? Because as soon as the police are summoned all hope of avoiding publicity is at an end.”
She spoke so sensibly, so quietly, so modestly, that her offer of assistance deeply impressed me.
As for young Jones, he looked at her steadily in that odd, chilling manner, which finally annoyed me. There was no need of his being snobbish because this very lovely and intelligent young girl happened to be a waitress at the Rolling Stone Inn.
“Come,” I said unsteadily, again a prey to terrifying emotions; “let us go to the Administration Building and learn how matters stand. If this affair is as terrible as I fear it to be, science has received the deadliest blow ever dealt it since Cagliostro perished.”
As we three strode hastily along the path in the direction of the Administration Building, I took that opportunity to read these two youthful fellow beings a sermon on envy, jealousy, and coveteousness.
“See,” said I, “to what a miserable condition the desire for notoriety and fame has brought two learned and enthusiastic delvers in the vineyard of endeavor! The mad desire for the Carnegie medal completely turned the hitherto perfectly balanced brains of these devoted disciples of Science. Envy begat envy, jealousy begat jealousy, pride begat pride, hatred begat hatred—”
“It’s like that book in the Bible where everybody begat everybody else,” said Mildred seriously.
At first I thought she had made an apt and clever remark; but on thinking it over I couldn’t quite see its relevancy. I turned and looked into her sweet face. Her eyes were dancing with brilliancy and her sensitive lips quivered. I feared, she was near to tears from the reaction of the shock. Had Jones not been walking with us — but let that go, too.
We were now entering the Administration Building, almost running; and as soon as we came to the closed door of Dr. Quint’s room, I could hear a commotion inside — desk drawers being pulled out and their contents dumped, curtains being jerked from their rings, an unmistakable sound indicating the ripping up of a carpet — and through all this din the agitated scuffle of footsteps.
I rapped on the door. No notice taken. I rapped and knocked and called in a low, distinct voice.
Suddenly I recollected I had a general pass-key on my ring which unlocked any door in the building. I nodded to Jones and to Mildred to stand aside, then, gently fitting the key, I suddenly pushed out the key which remained on the inside, turned the lock, and flung open the door.
A terrible sight presented itself: Dr. Quint, hair on end, both mustaches pulled out, shirt, cuffs, and white waistcoat smeared with blood, knelt amid the general wreckage on the floor, in the act of ripping up the carpet.
“Doctor!” I cried in a trembling voice. “What have you done to Professor Boomly?”
He paused in his carpet ripping and looked around at us with a terrifying laugh.
“I’ve settled him!” he said. “If you don’t want to get all over dust you’d better keep out—”
“Quint!” I cried. “Are you crazy?”
“Pretty nearly. Let me alone—”
“Where is Boomly!” I demanded in a tragic voice. “Where is your old friend, Billy Boomly? Where is he, Quint? And what does that mean — that pool of blood on the floor? Whose is it?”
“It’s Bill’s,” said Quint, coolly ripping up another breadth of carpet and peering under it.
“What!” I exclaimed. “Do you admit that?”
“Certainly I admit it. I told him I’d terminate him if he meddled with my Silver Moon eggs.”
“You mean to say that you shed blood — the blood of your old friend — merely because he meddled with a miserable batch of butterfly’s eggs?” I asked, astounded.
“I certainly did shed his blood for just that particular thing! And listen; you’re in my way — you’re standing on a part of the carpet which I want to tear up. Do you mind moving?”
Such cold-blooded calmness infuriated me. I sprang at Quint, seized him, and shouted to Jones to tie his hands behind him with the blood-soaked handkerchief which lay on the floor.
At first, while Jones and I were engaged in the operation of securing the wretched man, Quint looked at us both as though surprised; then he grew angry and asked us what the devil we were about.
“Those who shed blood must answer for it!” I said solemnly.
“What? What’s the matter with you?” he demanded in a rage. “Shed blood? What if I did? What’s that to you? Untie this handkerchief, you unmentionable idiot!”
I looked at Jones:
“His mind totters,” I said hoarsely.
“What’s that!” cried Quint, struggling to get off the chair whither I had pushed him: but with my handkerchief we tied his ankles to the rung of the chair, heedless of his attempts to kick us, and sprang back out of range.
“Now,” I said, “what have you done with the poor victim of your fury? Where is he? Where is all that remains of Professor Boomly?”
“Boomly? I don’t know where he is. How the devil should I know?”
“Don’t lie,” I said solemnly.
“Lie! See here, Smith, when I get out of this chair I’ll settle you, too—”
“Quint! There is another and more terrible chair which awaits such criminals as you!”
“You old fluff!” he shouted. “I’ll knock your head off, too. Do you understand? I’ll attend to you as I attended to Boomly—”
“Assassin!” I retorted calmly. “Only an alienist can save you now. In this awful moment—”
A light touch on my arm interrupted me, and, a trifle irritated, as any man might be when checked in the full flow of eloquence, I turned to find Mildred at my elbow.
“Let me talk to him,” she said in a quiet voice. “Perhaps I may not irritate him as you seem to.”
“Very well,” I said. “Jones and I are here as witnesses.” And I folded my arms in an attitude not, perhaps, unpicturesque.
“Dr. Quint,” said Mildred in her soft, agreeable voice, and actually smiling slightly at the self-confessed murderer, “is it really true that you are guilty of shedding the blood of Professor Boomly?”
“It is,” said Quint, coolly.
She seemed rather taken aback at that, but presently recovered her equanimity.
“Why?” she asked gently.
“Because he attempted a most hellish crime!” yelled Quint.
“W-what crime?” she asked faintly.
“I’ll tell you. He wanted the Carnegie medal, and he knew it would be given to me if I could incubate and hatch my batch of Silver Moon butterfly eggs. He realised well enough that his Heliconian eggs were not as valuable as my Silver Moon eggs. So first he sneaked in here and put an ichneumon fly in my breeding-cage. And next he stole the Silver Moon eggs and left in their place some common Plexippus eggs, thinking that because they were very similar I would not notice the substitution.
“I did notice it! I charged him with that cataclysmic outrage. He laughed. We came into personal collision. He chased me into my room.”
Panting, breathless with rage at the memory of the morning’s defeat which I had witnessed, Quint glared at me for a moment. Then he jerked his head toward Mildred:
“As soon as he went to luncheon — Boomly, I mean — I climbed over that transom and dropped into this room. I had been hunting for ten minutes before I found my Silver Moon eggs hidden under the carpet. So I pocketed them, climbed back over the transom, and went to my room.”
He paused dramatically, staring from one to another of us:
“Boomly was there!” he said slowly.
“Where?” asked Mildred with a shudder.
“In my room. He had picked the lock. I told him to get out! He went. I shouted after him that I had recovered the Silver Moon eggs and that I should certainly be awarded the Carnegie medal.
“Then that monster in human form laughed a horrible laugh, avowing himself guilty of a crime still more hideous than the theft of the Silver Moon eggs! Do you know what he had done?”
“W-what?” faltered Mildred.
“He had stolen from cold storage and had concealed the leaves of the Bimba bush, brought from Singapore to feed the Silver Moon caterpillars! That’s what Boomly had done!
“And my Silver Moon eggs had already begun to hatch!!! And my caterpillars would starve!!!!”
His voice ended in a yell; he struggled on his chair until it nearly upset.
“You lunatic!” I shouted. “Was that a reason for spilling the blood of a human being!”
“It was reason enough for me!”
“Madman!”
“Let me loose! He’s hidden those leaves somewhere or other! I’ve torn this place to pieces looking for them. I’ve got to find them, I tell you—”
Mildred went to the infuriated entomologist and laid a firm hand on his shoulder:
“Listen,” she said: “how do you know that Professor Boomly has not concealed these Bimba leaves on his own person?”
Quint ceased his contortions and gaped at her.
“I never thought of that,” he said.
“What have you done with him?” she asked, very pale.
“I tell you, I don’t know.”
“You must know what you did with him,” she insisted.
Quint shook his head impatiently, apparently preoccupied with other thoughts. We stood watching him in silence until he looked up and became conscious of our concentrated gaze.
