 Section 5 of Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories, Volume 1 by Julian Hawthorne Editor. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Sherry Elston. Section 5 of Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories, Volume 1. The Corpus Delectae, Part 1 by Melville Davison Post, 1869 through 1930. Melville Davison Post, Introduction to the Corpus Delectae. The high ground of the field of crime has not been explored. It has not even been entered. The bookstalls have been filled to weariness with tales based upon plans whereby the detective, or ferreting power of the state, might be baffled. But prodigious marvel, no writer has attempted to construct tales based upon plans whereby the punishing power of the state might be baffled. The distinction, if one pauses for a moment to consider it, is striking. It is possible, even easy, deliberately to plan crimes so that the criminal agent and the criminal agency cannot be detected. Is it possible to plan and execute wrongs in such a manner that they will have all the effect and all the resulting profit of desperate crimes and yet not be crimes before the law? We are prone to forget that the law is no perfect structure, that it is simply the result of human labor and human genius, and that whatever laws human ingenuity can create for the protection of men, those same laws human ingenuity can evade. The spirit of evil is no dwarf. He has developed equally with the spirit of good. All wrongs are not crimes. Indeed, only those wrongs are crimes in which certain technical elements are present. The law provides a Procrustian standard for all crimes. Thus, a wrong to become criminal must fit exactly into the measure laid down by the law, else it is no crime. If it varies never so little from the legal measure, the law must and will refuse to regard it as criminal, no matter how injurious a wrong it may be. There is no measure of morality or equity or common right that can be applied to the individual case. The gauge of the law is iron bound. The wrong measured by this gauge is either a crime or it is not. There is no middle ground. Hence is it that if one knows well the technicalities of the law, one may commit horrible wrongs that will yield all the gain and all the resulting effect of the highest crimes, and yet the wrongs perpetrated will constitute no one of the crimes described by the law. Thus the highest crimes, even murder, may be committed in such a manner that although the criminal is known and the law holds him in custody, yet it cannot punish him. So what happens that in this year of our lord of the 19th century the skillful attorney marvels at the stupidity of the rogue who committing crimes by the ordinary methods subjects himself to unnecessary peril when the result which he seeks can easily be attained by other methods equally expeditious and without danger of liability in any criminal tribunal. This is the field into which the author has ventured and he believes it to be new and full of interest. It may be objected that the writer has prepared here a textbook for the shrewd knave. To this it is answered that if he instructs the enemies he also warns the friends of law and order and that evil has never yet been stronger because the sun shone on it. The Corpus de Lectae Part 1 That man Mason, said Samuel Wilcock, is the mysterious member of this club. He is more than that. He is the mysterious man of New York. I was much surprised to see him, answered his companion Marshall Sinclair of the great law firm of Seward, Sinclair and DeMuth. I had lost track of him since he went to Paris as counsel for the American stockholders of the canal company. When did he come back to the States? He turned up suddenly in his ancient haunts about four months ago, said Walcott, as grand, gloomy and peculiar as Napoleon ever was in his palmiest days. The younger members of the club call him Sonona Redivivis. He wanders through the house, usually at night, apparently without noticing anything or anybody. His mind seems to be deeply and busily at work, leaving his bodily self to wander as it may happen. Naturally strange stories are told of him, indeed his individuality and his habit of doing some unexpected thing and doing it in such a marvelously original manner that men who are experts at it look on in wonder cannot fail to make him an object of interest. He has never been known to play at any game, whatever, and yet one night he sat down to the chess table with old Admiral Dubrae. You know the Admiral is the great champion since he beat the French and English officers in the tournament last winter. Well, you also know that the conventional openings at chess are scientifically and accurately determined. The utter disgust of Dubrae, Mason opened the game with an unheard of attack from the extremes of the board. The old Admiral stopped and, in a kindly patronizing way, pointed out the weak and absurd folly of his move and asked him to begin again with some one of the safe openings. Mason smiled and answered that if one had a head that he could trust he should use it. If not, then it was the part of wisdom to follow blindly the dead forms of some man who had a head. Dubrae was naturally angry and set himself to demolish Mason as quickly as possible. The game was rapid for a few moments, Mason lost piece after piece, his opening was broken and destroyed, and its utter folly apparent to the lookers on. The Admiral smiled and the game seemed all one-sided when suddenly to his utter horror Dubrae found that his king was in a trap. The foolish opening had been only a piece of shrewd strategy. The old Admiral fought and cursed and sacrificed his pieces, but it was of no use. He was gone. Mason checkmated him in two moves and arose wearily. Where, in Heaven's name, man, said the old Admiral Thunderstruck, did you learn that masterpiece? Just here, replied Mason, to play chess one should know his opponent. How could the dead masters lay down rules by which you could be beaten, sir? They had never seen you, and thereupon he turned and left the room. Of course, Sinclair, such a strange man would soon become an object of all kinds of mysterious rumors. Some are true, and some are not. At any rate, I know that Mason is an unusual man with a gigantic intellect. Of late, he seems to have taken a strange fancy to me. In fact, I seem to be the only member of the club that he will talk with, and I confess that he startles and fascinates me. He is an original genius, Sinclair, of an unusual order. I recall vividly, said the younger man, that before Mason went to Paris, he was considered one of the greatest lawyers of the city, and he was feared and hated by the bar at large. He came here, I believe, from Virginia, and began with a high-grade criminal practice. He soon became famous for his powerful and ingenious defenses. He found holes in the law through which his clients escaped, holes that by the profession at large were not suspected to exist, and that frequently astonished the judges. His ability caught the attention of the great corporations. They tested him and found in him learning and unlimited resources. He pointed out methods by which they could evade obnoxious statutes, by which they could comply with the apparent letter of the law, and yet violate its spirit, and advised them well in that most important of all things, just how far they could bend the law without breaking it. At the time he left for Paris, he had a vast clientage and was in the midst of a brilliant career. The day he took passage from New York, the bar lost sight of him. No matter how great a man may be, the wave soon closes over him in a city like this. In a few years, Mason was forgotten. Now only the older practitioners would recall him, and they would do so with hatred and bitterness. He was a tireless, savage, uncompromising fighter, always a recluse. Well, said Walcott, he reminds me of a great, world-weary cynic, transplanted from some ancient, mysterious empire. When I come into the man's presence, I feel instinctively in the grip of his intellect. I tell you, St. Clair, Randolph Mason is the mysterious man of New York. At this moment, a messenger boy came into the room and handed Mr. Walcott a telegram. St. Clair said that gentleman rising, the directors of the elevated are in session, and we must hurry. The two men put on their coats and left the house. Samuel, well-cut, was not a club man after the manner of the smart set, and yet he was, in fact, a club man. He was a bachelor in the latter thirties and resided in a great silent house on the avenue. On the street he was a man of substance, shrewd and progressive, backed by great wealth. He had various corporate interests of the larger syndicates, but the basis and foundation of his fortune was real estate. His houses on the avenue were the best possible property, and his elevator row in the importer's quarter was indeed a literal gold mine. It was known that many years before his grandfather had died and left him the property, which at that time was of no great value. Young Walcott had gone out into the gold fields and had been lost sight of and forgotten. Ten years afterwards he had turned up suddenly in New York and taken possession of his property, then vastly increased in value. His speculations were almost phenomenally successful, and backed by the now enormous value of his real property, he was soon on a level with the merchant princes. His judgment was considered sound, and he had the full confidence of his business associates for safety and caution. Fortune heaped up riches around him with a lavish hand. He was unmarried, and the halo of his wealth caught the keen eye of the matron with marriageable daughters. He was invited out, caught by the world of society, and tossed into its maelstrom. In a measure he reciprocated. He kept horses and a yacht. His dinners at Delmonico's and the club were above reproach. But with all he was a silent man with a shadow deep in his eyes, and seemed to court the society of his fellows, not because he loved them, but because he either hated or feared solitude. For years the strategy of the matchmaker had gone gracefully afield, but fate is relentless. If she shields the victim from the traps of men, it is not because she wishes him to escape, but because she is pleased to reserve him for her own trap. So it happened that when Virginia St. Clair assisted Mrs. Miriam Stuvesant at her midwinter reception, this same Samuel well-caught fell deeply and hopelessly and utterly in love. And it was so apparent to the beaten generals present that Mrs. Miriam Stuvesant applauded herself, so to speak, with encore after encore. It was good to see this courteous silent man literally at the feet of a young debutante. He was there of right, even the mothers of marriageable daughters admitted that. The young girl was brown-haired, brown-eyed, and tall enough, said the experts, and of the blue blood royal, with all the grace, courtesy, and inbred genius of such princely heritage. Perhaps it was objected by the censors of the smart set that Miss St. Clair's frankness and honesty were a trifle old-fashioned, and that she was a shadowy bit of a puritan. And perhaps it was of these same qualities that Samuel well-caught received his hurt. At any rate, the hurt was there and deep, and the new actor stepped up into the old-time-worn semi-tragic drama and began his role with a tireless, utter sincerity that was deadly dangerous if he lost. Perhaps a week after the conversation between St. Clair and well-caught, Randolph Mason stood in the private waiting room of the club with his hands behind his back. He was a man apparently in the middle forties, tall and reasonably broad across the shoulders, muscular without being either stout or lean. His hair was thin and of a brown color with erratic streaks of gray. His forehead was broad and high and of a faint reddish color. His eyes were restless, inky-black, and not over-large. The nose was big and muscular and bowed. The eyebrows were black and heavy, almost bushy. There were heavy furrows running from the nose downward and outward to the corners of the mouth. The mouth was straight and the jaw was heavy and square. Looking at the face of Randolph Mason from above, the expression in repose was crafty and cynical. Viewed from below upward, it was savage and vindictive, almost brutal. While from the front, if looked squarely in the face, the stranger was fascinated by the animation of the man, and it once concluded that his expression was fearless and sneering. He was evidently of southern extraction and a man of unusual power. A fire smoldered on the hearth. It was a crisp evening in the early fall and with that far-off touch of melancholy which ever heralds the coming winter, even in the midst of a city. The man's face looked tired and ugly. His long white hands were clasped tight together. His entire figure and face wore every mark of weakness and physical exhaustion, but his eyes contradicted. They were red and restless. In the private dining room, the dinner party was in the best of spirits. Samuel Walcott was happy. Across the table from him was Miss Virginia St. Clair, radiant, a tinge of color in her cheeks. On either side, Miss Miriam Stouffassante and Marshal St. Clair were brilliant and light-hearted. Walcott looked at the young girl and the measure of his worship was full. He wondered for the thousandth time how she could possibly love him and by what earthly miracle she had come to accept him and how it would be to always have her across the table from him, his own table in his own house. They were about to rise from the table when one of the waiters entered the room and handed Walcott an envelope. He thrust it quickly into his pocket. In the confusion of rising, the others did not notice him, but his face was ash-white and his hands trembled violently as he placed the wraps around the bewitching shoulders of Miss St. Clair. Marshal, he said, and despite the powerful effort his voice was hollow, you will see the ladies safely cared for. I am called to attend a grave matter. All right, Walcott answered the young man with cheery good-nature. You are too serious, old man. Trudelong, the poor deer, murmured Miss Stouffassante, after Walcott had helped them to the carriage and turned to go up the steps of the club. The poor deer is hard-hit, and men are such funny creatures when they are hard-hit. Samuel Walcott, as his fate would, went direct to the private writing room and opened the door. The lights were not turned on, and in the dark he did not see Mason motionless by the mantel shelf. He went quickly across the room to the writing table, turned on one of the lights, and taking the envelope from his pocket tore it open. Then he bent down by the light to read the contents. As his eyes ran over the paper, his jaw fell. The skin drew away from his cheekbones, and his face seemed literally to sink in. His knees gave way under him, and he would have gone down in a heap had it not been for Mason's long arms that closed around him and held him up. The human economy is ever mysterious. The moment the new danger threatened, the latent power of the man as an animal, hidden away in the centers of intelligence, asserted itself. His hand clutched the paper, and with a half-slide he turned in Mason's arms. For a moment he stared up at the ugly man whose thin arms felt like wire ropes. You are under the deadfall, eh? said Mason. The cunning of my enemy is sublime. Your enemy, gasped Walcott, when did you come into it? How in God's name did you know it? How your enemy? Mason looked down at the wide bulging eyes of the man, who should know better than I, he said. Haven't I broken through all the traps and plots that she could set? She? She trap you? The man's voice was full of horror. The old schemer, muttered Mason. The cowardly old schemer to strike in the back, but we can beat her. She did not count on my helping you. I, who know her so well, Mason's face was red and his eyes burned. In the midst of it all he had dropped his hands and went over to the fire. Samuel Walcott arose panting and stood looking at Mason with his hands behind him on the table. The naturally strong nature and the rigid school in which the man had been trained presently began to tell. His composure in part returned and he thought rapidly. What did this strange man know? Was he simply making shrewd guesses or had he some mysterious knowledge of this matter? Walcott could not know that Mason meant only fate, that he believed her to be his great enemy. Walcott had never before doubted his own ability to meet any emergency. This mighty jerk had carried him off his feet. He was unstrong and panic-stricken. At any rate, this man had promised help. He would take it. He put the paper and envelope carefully into his pocket, smoothed out his rumpled coat, and going over to Mason, touched him on the shoulder. Come, he said, if you are going to help me, we must go. The man turned and followed him without a word. In the hall Mason put on his hat and overcoat and the two went out into the street. Walcott hailed a cab and the two were driven to his house on the avenue. Walcott took out his latch-key, opened the door and led the way into the library. He turned on the light and motioned Mason to seat himself at the table. Then he went into another room and presently returned with a bundle of papers and a decanter of brandy. He poured out a glass of the liquor and offered it to Mason. The man shook his head. Walcott poured the contents of the glass down his own throat. Then he set the decanter down and drew up a chair on the side of the table opposite Mason. Sir said Walcott in a voice deliberate indeed, but as hollow as a sepulcher, I am done for. God has finally gathered up the ends of the net and it is knotted tight. Am I not here to help you? said Mason, turning savagely. I can beat fate. Give me the details of her trap. He bent forward and rested his arms on the table. His streaked gray hair was rumpled on end and his face was ugly. For a moment Walcott did not answer. He moved a little into the shadow. Then he spread the bundle of old yellow papers out before him. To begin with, he said, I am living a lie. A gilded cry made sham every bit of me. There is not an honest peace anywhere. It is all lie. I am a liar and a thief before men. The property which I possess is not mine, but stolen from a dead man. The very name which I bear is not my own, but is the bastard child of a crime. I am more than all that. I am a murderer. A murderer before the law. A murderer before God. And worse than a murderer before the pure woman whom I love more than anything that God could make. He paused for a moment and wiped the perspiration from his face. Sir, said Mason, this is all drivel, infantile drivel. What you are is of no importance. How to get out is the problem. How to get out. Samuel Wellcott leaned forward and poured out a glass of brandy and swallowed it. Well, he said, speaking slowly, my right name is Richard Warren. In the spring of 1879 I came to New York and fell in with the real Samuel Wellcott, a young man with a little money and some property which his grandfather had left him. We became friends and concluded to go to the far west together. Accordingly we scraped together what money we could lay our hands on and landed in the gold-binding regions of California. We were young and inexperienced and our money went rapidly. One April morning we drifted into a little shack camp, a way up in the Sierra Nevadas, called Hell's Elbow. Here we struggled and starved for perhaps a year. Finally, in utter desperation, Wellcott married the daughter of a Mexican gambler who ran an eating-house and a poker joint. With them we lived from hand to mouth in a wild God-forsaken way for several years. After a time the woman began to take a strange fancy to me. Wellcott finally noticed it and grew jealous. One night in a drunken brawl we quarreled and I killed him. It was late at night and beside the woman there were four of us in the poker room. The Mexican gambler, a half-breed devil called Cherubin Pete, Wellcott and myself. When Wellcott fell, the half-breed whipped out his weapon and fired at me across the table. But the woman, Nina Sancroy, struck him's arm and instead of killing me as he intended, the bullet mortally wounded her father, the Mexican gambler. I shot the half-breed through the forehead and turned round expecting the woman to attack me. On the contrary, she pointed to the window and bade me wait for her on the cross-trail below. It was fully three hours later before the woman joined me at the place indicated. She had a bag of gold dust, a few jewels that belonged to her father, and a package of papers. I asked her why she had stayed behind so long, and she replied that the men were not killed outright and that she had brought a priest to them and waited until they had died. This was the truth, but not all the truth. Moved by superstition or foresight, the woman had induced the priest to take down the sworn statements of the two dying men, seal it, and give it to her. This paper she brought with her? All this I learned afterwards. At the time I knew nothing of this damning evidence. We struck out for the Pacific Coast. The country was lawless. The privations we endured were almost past belief. At times the woman exhibited cunning and ability that were almost genius, and through it all, often in the very fingers of death, her devotion to me never wavered. It was dog-like and seemed to be her only object on earth. When we reached San Francisco, the woman put these papers into my hands. Walcott took up the yellow package and pushed it across the table to Mason. She proposed that I assume Walcott's name and that we come boldly to New York and claim the property. I examined the papers, found a copy of the will by which Walcott inherited the property, a bundle of correspondence, and sufficient documentary evidence to establish his identity beyond the shadow of a doubt. Desperate gambler as I now was, I quailed before the daring plan of Nina Sankroy. I urged that I, Richard Warren, would be known that the attempted fraud would be detected and would result in investigation, and perhaps unearth the whole terrible matter. The woman pointed out how much I resemble Walcott. What fast changes ten years of such life as we had led would naturally be expected to make in men, how utterly impossible it would be to trace back the fraud to Walcott's murder at Elzelebo in the wild passes of the Sierra Nevadas. She bade me remember that we were both outcasts, both crime-branded, both enemies of man's law and gods, and that we had nothing to lose. We were both sunk to the bottom. Then she laughed, and she said that she had not found me a coward until now, but if I had turned chicken-hearted, that was the end of it, of course. The result was we sold the gold dust and jewels in San Francisco, took on such evidences of civilization as possible, and purchased passage to New York on the best steamer we could find. I was growing to depend on the bold gambler spirit of this woman, Nina Sancroy. I felt the need of her strong, profligate nature. She was of a queer breed and a queer school. Her mother was the daughter of a Spanish engineer and had been stolen by the Mexican, her father. She herself had been raised and educated as best might be in one of the monasteries along the Rio Grande, and had there grown to womanhood before her father, fleeing into the mountains of California, carried her with him. When we landed in New York, I offered to announce her as my wife, but she refused, saying that her presence would excite comment and perhaps attract the attention of Walcott's relatives. Therefore arranged that I should go alone into the city, claim the property, and announce myself as Samuel Walcott, and that she should remain undercover until such time as we would feel the ground safe under us. Every detail of the plan was fatally successful. I established my identity without difficulty and secured the property. It had increased vastly in value, and I, as Samuel Walcott, soon found myself a rich man. I went to Nenus and Croy in hiding, and gave her a large sum of money, which she purchased a residence in a retired part of the city, far up in the northern suburb. Here she lived secluded and unknown while I remained in the city, living here as a wealthy bachelor. I did not attempt to abandon the woman, but went to her from time to time in disguise and undercover of the greatest secrecy. For a time everything ran smooth. The woman was still devoted to me above everything else, and thought always of my welfare first, and seemed content to wait so long as I thought best. My business expanded. I was sought after and consulted and drawn into the higher life of New York, and more and more felt that the woman was an albatross on my neck. I put her off with one excuse after another. Finally she began to suspect me, and demanded that I should recognize her as my wife. I attempted to point out the difficulties. She met them all by saying that we should both go to Spain. There I could marry her and we could return to America and drop into my place in society without causing more than a passing comment. I concluded to meet the matter squarely once and for all. I said that I would convert half of the property into money and give it to her, but that I would not marry her. She did not fly into a storming rage as I had expected, but went quietly out of the room and presently returned with two papers which she read. One was the certificate of her marriage to Walcott duly authenticated. The other was the dying statement of her father, the Mexican gambler, and of Samuel Walcott, charging me with murder. It was in proper form and certified by the Jesuit priest. Now she said sweetly when she had finished, which do you prefer, to recognize your wife or to turn all the property over to Samuel Walcott's widow and hang for his murder? I was dumbfounded and horrified. I saw the trap that I was in and I consented to do anything she should say if she would only destroy the papers. This she refused to do. I completed with her and implored her to destroy them. Finally she gave them to me with a great show of returning confidence and I tore them into bits and threw them into the fire. That was three months ago. We arranged to go to Spain and do as she said. She was to sail this morning and I was to follow. Of course I never intended to go. I congratulated myself on the fact that all trace of evidence against me was destroyed and that her grip was now broken. My plan was to induce her to sail believing that I would follow. When she was gone I would marry Miss Sinclair and if Nina Sancroy should return I would defy her and lock her up as a lunatic. But I was reckoning like an infernal ass to imagine for a moment that I could thus hoodwink such a woman as Nina Sancroy. Tonight I received this. Walcott took the envelope from his pocket and gave it to Mason. You saw the effect of it. Read it and you will understand why. I felt the death hand when I saw her writing on the envelope. Mason took the paper from the envelope. It was written in Spanish and ran. Greetings to Richard Warren. The great senior does his little Nina injustice to think she would go away to Spain and leave him to the beautiful American. She is not so thoughtless. Before she goes she shall be oh so very rich and the dear senior shall be oh so very safe. The Archbishop and the kind church hate murderers. Nina Sancroy. Of course, fool, the papers you destroyed were copies. N. San Si. To this was penned a line in a delicate aristocratic hand saying that the Archbishop would willingly listen to Madame Sancroy's statement if she would come to see him on Friday morning at eleven. You see, said Walcott desperately, there is no possible way out. I know the woman. When she decides to do a thing, that is the end of it. She has decided to do this. Mason turned around from the table, stretched out his long legs and thrust his hands deep into his pockets. Walcott sat with his head down, watching Mason hopelessly, almost indifferently, his face blank and sunken. The ticking of the bronze clock on the mantel shelf was loud, painfully loud. Suddenly Mason drew his knees in and bent over, put both his bony hands on the table and looked at Walcott. Sir, he said, this matter is in such shape that there is only one thing to do. This growth must be cut out at the roots and cut out quickly. This is the first fact to be determined, and a fool would know it. The second fact is that you must do it yourself. Hired killers are like the grave and the daughters of the horse-leach. They cry always. Give, give. They are only palliatives, not cures. By using them you swap perils. You simply take a stay of execution at best. The common criminal would know this. These are the facts of your problem. The master plotters of crime would see here but two difficulties to meet. A practical method for accomplishing the body of the crime. A cover for the criminal agent. They would see no farther and attempt to guard no farther. After they had provided a plan for the killing and a means by which the killer could cover his trail and escape from the theater of the homicide, they would believe all the requirements of the problems met and would stop. The greatest, the very giants among them, have stopped here and have been in great error. In every crime, especially in the great ones, there exists a third element. Preeminently vital. This third element. The master plotters have either overlooked or else have not had the genius to construct. They plan with rare cunning to baffle the victim. They plan with vast wisdom almost genius to baffle the trailer, but they fail utterly to provide any plan for baffling the punisher. There go, their plots are fatally defective and often result in ruin. Hence, the vital necessity for providing the third element. The escape, Ipso, jure. Mason arose, walked around the table and put his hand firmly on Samuel Walcott's shoulder. This must be done tomorrow night. He continued, you must arrange your business matters tomorrow and announce that you are going on a yacht cruise by order of your physician and may not return for some weeks. You must prepare your yacht for voyage. Instruct your men to touch at a certain point on Staten Island and wait until six o'clock day after tomorrow morning. If you do not come aboard by that time, they are to go to one of the South American ports and remain until further orders. By this means your absence for an indefinite period will be explained. You will go to Nina Sancroy in the disguise which you have always used and from her to the yacht and by this means step out of your real status and back into it without leaving traces. I will come here tomorrow evening and furnish you with everything that you shall need and give you full and exact instructions in every particular. These details you must execute with the greatest care as they will be vitally essential to the success of my plan. Through it all Walcott had been silent and motionless. Now he arose and in his face there must have been some premonition of protest for Mason stepped back and put out his hand. Sir, he said with brutal emphasis, not a word. Remember that you are only the hand and the hand does not think. Then he turned around abruptly and went out of the house. End of Section 5. Recorded by Sherry Elston, Minnesota, September 2009. Section 6 of Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories. Volume 1 by Julian Hawthorne, Editor. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Sherry Elston. Section 6 of Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories. Volume 1 by Melville Davison Post. 1869 through 1930. The place which Samuel Walcott had selected for the residence of Nina Sancroy was far up in the northern suburb of New York. The place was very old. The lawn was large and ill-kept. The house, a square old-fashioned brick, was set far back from the street and partly hidden by trees. Around it all was a rusty iron fence. The place had the air of genteel ruin such as one finds in the Virginias. On a Thursday of November about three o'clock in the afternoon, a little man driving a dray stopped in the alley at the rear of the house. As he opened the back gate, an old negro woman came down the steps from the kitchen and demanded to know what he wanted. The drayman asked if the lady of the house was in. The old negro answered that she was asleep at this hour and could not be seen. That is good, said the little man. Now there won't be any row. I brought up some cases of wine which she ordered from our house last week and which the boss told me to deliver at once, but I forgot it until today. Just let me put it in the cellar now, auntie, and don't say a word to the lady about it and she won't ever know that it was not brought up on time. The drayman stopped, fished a silver dollar out of his pocket and gave it to the old negro. There now, auntie," he said. My job depends upon the lady not knowing about this wine. Keep it, mom. That's all right, honey," said the old servant, beaming like a mean morning. The cellar door is open, carried it all in, and put it in the back part and nobody ain't never going to know how long it has been in there. The old negro went back into the kitchen and the little man began to unload the dray. He carried in five wine cases and stowed them away in the back part of the cellar as the old woman had directed. Then, after having satisfied himself that no one was watching, he took from the dray two heavy paper sacks, presumably filled with flour and a little bundle wrapped in an old newspaper. These he carefully hid behind the wine cases in the cellar. After a while, he closed the door, climbed on his dray, and drove off down the alley. About eight o'clock in the evening of the same day, a Mexican sailor dodged in the front gate and slipped down to the side of the house. He stopped by the window and tapped on it with his finger. In a moment, a woman opened the door. She was tall, life and splendidly proportioned, with a dark Spanish face and straight hair. The man stepped inside. The woman bolted the door and turned round. Ah! she said, smiling. Is it you, señor? How good of you? The man started. Whom else did you expect? He said quickly. Oh! laughed the woman. Perhaps the archbishop. Nina! said the man in a broken voice that expressed love, humility and reproach. His face was white under the black sunburn. For a moment, the woman wavered. The shadow flitted over her eyes, and then she stepped back. No, she said. Not yet. The man walked across to the fire, sank down in a chair and covered his face with his hands. The woman stepped up noiselessly behind him and leaned over the chair. The man was either in great agony or else he was a superb actor, for the muscles of his neck twitched violently and his shoulders trembled. Oh! he muttered, as though echoing his thoughts. I can't do it. I can't. The woman caught the words and leaped up as though someone had struck her in the face. She threw back her head. Her nostrils dilated and her eyes flashed. You can't do it, she cried. Then you do love her. You shall do it. Do you hear me? You shall do it. You killed him. You got rid of him. But you shall not get rid of me. I have the evidence. All of it. The archbishop will have it tomorrow. They shall hang you. Do you hear me? They shall hang you! The woman's voice rose. It was loud and shrill. The man turned slowly round without looking up, stretched out his arms toward the woman. She stopped and looked down at him. The fire glittered for a moment and then died out of her eyes. Her bosom heaved and her lips began to tremble. With a cry she flung herself into his arms, caught him around the neck and pressed his face up close against her cheek. Oh, Dick! Dick! she sobbed. I do love you so. I can't live without you. Not another hour, Dick. I do want you so much, so much, Dick. The man shifted his right arm quickly, slipped a great Mexican knife out of his sleeve, and passed his fingers slowly up the woman's side until he felt the heart beat under his hand. Then he raised the knife, gripped the handle tight, and drove the keen blade into the woman's bosom. The hot blood gushed out over his arm and down on his leg. The body, warm and limp, slipped down in his arms. The man got up, pulled out the knife, and thrust it into a sheath at his belt, unbuttoned the dress, and slipped it off of the body. As he did this, a bundle of papers dropped upon the floor. These he glanced at hastily and put into his pocket. Then he took the dead woman up in his arms, and out into the hall, and started to go up the stairway. The body was relaxed and heavy, and for that reason difficult to carry. He doubled it up into an awful heap with the knees against the chin, and walked slowly and heavily up the stairs, and out into the bathroom. There he laid the corpse down on the tiled floor. Then he opened the window, closed the shutters, and lighted the gas. The bathroom was small and contained an ordinary steel tub, porcelain lined, standing near the window, and raised about six inches above the floor. The sailor went over to the tub, pried up the metal rim of the outlet with his knife, removed it, and fitted into its place a porcelain disc, which he took from his pocket. To this disc was attached a long platinum wire, the end of which he fastened on the outside of the tub. After he had done this, he went back to the body, stripped off its clothing, put it down in the tub, and began to dismember it with a great Mexican knife. The blade was strong and sharp as a razor. The man worked rapidly and with the greatest care. When he had finally cut the body into as small pieces as possible, he replaced the knife in its sheath, washed his hands, and went out of the bathroom and downstairs to the lower hall. The sailor seemed perfectly familiar with the house. By a side door he passed into the cellar. He lighted the gas, opened one of the wine cases, and taking up all the bottles that he could conveniently carry, returned to the bathroom. There he poured the contents into the tub on the dismembered body and then returned to the cellar with the empty bottles, which he replaced in the wine cases. This he continued to do until all the cases but one were emptied and the bathtub was more than half full of liquid. This liquid was sulfuric acid. When the sailor returned to the cellar with the last empty wine bottles, he opened the fifth case, which really contained wine, took some out of it and poured a little into each of the empty bottles in order to remove any possible odor of the sulfuric acid. Then he turned out the gas and brought up to the bathroom with him the two paper flower sacks and the little heavy bundle. These sacks were filled with nitrate of soda. He set them down by the door, opened the little bundle, and took out two long rubber tubes, each attached to a heavy gas burner, not unlike the ordinary burners of a small gas stove. He fastened the tubes to two of the gas jets, put the burners under the tub, turned the gas on full, and lighted it. Then he threw into the tub the woman's clothing and the papers which he had found on her body, after which he took up the two heavy sacks of nitrate of soda and dropped them carefully into the sulfuric acid. When he had done this he went quickly out of the bathroom and closed the door. The deadly acids at once attacked the body and began to destroy it, as the heat increased, the acids boiled, and the destructive process was rapid and awful. From time to time the sailor opened the door of the bathroom cautiously and holding a wet towel over his mouth and nose looked in at his horrible work. At the end of a few hours there was only a swimming mass in the tub. When the man looked at four o'clock it was all a thick murky liquid. He turned off the gas quickly and stepped back out of the room for perhaps half an hour he waited in the hall. Finally when the acids had cooled so that they no longer gave off fumes he opened the door and went in, took hold of the platinum wire and pulling the porcelain disc from the stopcock allowed the awful contents of the tub to run out. Then he turned on the hot water, rinsed the tub clean, and replaced the metal outlet. Removing the rubber tubes he cut them into pieces, broke the porcelain disc, and rolling up the platinum wire washed it all down the sewer pipe. The fumes had escaped through the open window. He now closed and set himself to putting the bathroom in order and efficiently removing every trace of his night's work. The sailor moved around with the very greatest degree of care. Finally when he had arranged everything to his complete satisfaction he picked up the two burners, turned out the gas, and left the bathroom closing the door after him. From the bathroom he went directly to the attic, concealed the two rusty burners under a heap of rubbish and then walked carefully and noiselessly down the stairs and through the lower hall. As he opened the door and stepped into the room where he had killed the woman two police officers sprang out and seized him. The man screamed like a wild beast taken in a trap and sank down. Oh! Oh! he cried. It was no use! It was no use to do it! Then he recovered himself in a manner and was silent. The officers handcuffed him, summoned the patrol, and took him at once to the station house. There he said he was a Mexican sailor and that his name was Victor Ancona, but he would say nothing further. The following morning he sent for Randolph Mason and the two were long together. The obscure defendant charged with murder has little reason to complain of the law's delays. The morning following the arrest of Victor Ancona the newspapers published long sensational articles denounced him as a fiend and convicted him. The grand jury, as it happened, was in session. The preliminaries were soon arranged and the case was railroaded into trial. The indictment contained a great many counts and charged by the prisoner with the murder of Nina Sankroy by striking, stabbing, choking, poisoning, and so forth. The trial had continued for three days and had appeared so overwhelmingly one-sided that the spectators who were crowded in the courtroom had grown to be violent and bitter partisans to such an extent that the police watched them closely. The attorneys for the people were dramatic and denunciatory and forced their case with arrogant confidence. Mason, as counsel for the prisoner, was indifferent and listless. Throughout the entire trial he had sat almost motionless at the table. His gaunt form bent over, his long legs drawn up under his chair, and his weary, heavy-muscled face with its restless eyes fixed and staring out over the heads of the jury was like a tragic mask. The bar and even the judge believed that the prisoner's counsel had abandoned the case. The evidence was all in and the people rested. It had been shown that Nina Sankroy had resided for many years in the house in which the prisoner was arrested. She had lived by herself with no other companion than an old Negro servant that her past was unknown and that she received no visitors save the Mexican sailor who came to her house at long intervals. Nothing whatever was shown tending to explain who the prisoner was or whence he had come. It was shown that on Tuesday preceding the killing the Archbishop had received a communication from Nina Sankroy in which she said she desired to make a statement of his import and asking for an audience. To this the Archbishop replied that he would willingly grant her a hearing if she would come to him at eleven o'clock on Friday morning. Two policemen testified that about eight o'clock on the night of Thursday they had noticed the prisoner slip into the gate of Nina Sankroy's residence and go down to the side of the house where he was admitted, that his appearance and seeming haste had attracted their attention, that they had concluded that it was some clandestine amor and out of courtesy had both slipped down to the house and endeavored to find a position from which they could see into the room but were unable to do so and were about to go back to the street when they heard a woman's voice cry out in great anger I know that you love her and that you want to get rid of me but you shall not do it, you murdered him but you shall not murder me I have all the evidence to convict you of murdering him the Archbishop will have it tomorrow they shall hang you, do you hear me they shall hang you for this murder that there upon one of the policemen proposed that they should break into the house and see what was wrong but the other had urged that it was only the usual lover's quarrel and if they should interfere they would find nothing upon which a charge could be based and would only be laughed at by the chief they had waited and listened for a time but hearing nothing further had gone back to the street and contented themselves with keeping a strict watch on the house the people proved further that on Thursday evening Nina Sancroy had given the old Negro domestic a sum of money and dismissed her with the instruction that she was not to return until sent for the old woman testified that she had gone directly to the house of her son and later had discovered that she had forgotten some articles of clothing which she needed that there upon she had returned to the house and had gone up the back way to her room this was about eight o'clock that while there she had heard Nina Sancroy's voice in great passion and remembered that she had used the word stated by the policemen that these sudden violent cries had frightened her greatly and she had bolted the door and been afraid to leave the room after she had heard heavy footsteps ascending the stairs slowly and with great difficulty as though someone were carrying a heavy burden that therefore her fear had increased and that she had put out the light and hidden under the bed she remembered hearing the footsteps moving about upstairs for many hours how long she could not tell finally about half past four in the morning she crept out opened the door and ran downstairs and ran out into the street there she had found the policemen and requested them to search the house the two officers had gone to the house with the woman she had opened the door and they had just timed to step back into the shadow when the prisoner entered when arrested Victor and Kona had screamed with terror and cried out it was no use it was no use to do it they instituted a careful search in the room below from which the cries had come he found a dress which was identified as belonging to Nina Sankroy and which she was wearing when last seen by the domestic about six o'clock that evening this dress was covered with blood and had a slit about two inches long in the left side of the bosom into which the Mexican knife found on the prisoner fitted perfectly these articles were introduced in evidence and it was shown that the slit would be exactly over the heart of the wearer and that such a wound would certainly result in death there was much blood on one of the chairs and on the floor there was also blood on the prisoner's coat and the leg of his trousers and the heavy Mexican knife was also bloody the blood was shown by the experts to be human blood the body of the woman was not found and the most rigid and tireless search was the slightest trace of the corpse or the manner of its disposal the body of the woman had disappeared as completely as though it had vanished into the air when counsel announced that he had closed for the people the judge turned and looked gravely down at Mason sir he said the evidence for the defense may now be introduced Randolph Mason arose slowly and faced the judge if your honor please he said speaking slowly and distinctly the defendant has no evidence to offer he paused while a murmur of astonishment ran over the courtroom but if your honor please he continued I move that the jury be directed to find the prisoner not guilty the crowd stirred the counsel for the people smiled the judge looked sharply at the speaker over his glasses on what ground he said curtly on the ground replied Mason that the corpus delectae has not been proven ah said the judge for once losing his judicial gravity Mason sat down abruptly the senior counsel for the prosecution was on his feet in a moment what he said the gentleman bases his motion on a failure does he just or has he forgotten the evidence the term corpus delectae is technical and means the body of the crime or the substantial fact that a crime has been committed does anyone doubt it in this case it is true that no one actually saw the prisoner kill the decedent and that he has so successfully hidden the body that it has not been found but the powerful chain of circumstances clear and closely proving motive the criminal agency and the criminal act is overwhelming the victim in this case is on the eve of making a statement that would prove fatal to the prisoner the night before the statement is to be made he goes to her residence they quarrel her voice is heard raised high in the greatest passion denouncing him and charging that he is a murderer that she has the evidence and will reveal it that he shall be hanged he shall not be rid of her here is the motive for the crime clear as light are not the bloody knife the bloody dress the bloody clothes of the prisoner unimpeachable witness to the criminal act the criminal agency of the prisoner has not the shadow of a possibility to obscure it his motive is gigantic the blood on him and his despair when arrested cry murder murder with a thousand tongues men may lie circumstances cannot the thousand hopes and fears and passions of men may delude or bias the witness yet it is beyond the human mind to conceive that a clear complete chain of concatenated circumstances can be in error hence it is that the greatest jurists have declared that such evidence being rarely liable to delusion or fraud is safest and most powerful the machinery of human justice cannot guard against the remote and improbable doubt the inference is persistent in the affairs of men it is the only means by which the human mind reaches truth if you forbid the jury to exercise it you bid them work after first striking off their hands rule out the irresistible inference and the end of justice has come in this land and you may as well leave the spider to weave his web through the abandoned courtroom the attorney stopped him with a pompous sneer and retired to his place at the table the judge sat thoughtful and motionless the jury men leaned forward in their seats if your honor please said mason rising this is a matter of law plain clear and so well settled in the state of new york that even counsel for the people should know it the question before your honor is simple if the corpus delectae the body of the crime has been proven as required by the laws of the commonwealth then this case should go to the jury if not then it is the duty of this court to direct the jury to find the prisoner not guilty there is here no room for judicial discretion your honor has but to recall and apply the rigid rule announced by our courts prescribing distinctly how the corpus delectae in murder must be proven the prisoner here stands charged with the highest crime the law demands first that the crime as a fact be established the fact that the victim is indeed dead must first be made certain before anyone can be convicted for her killing because so long as there remains the remotest doubt as to the death there can be no certainty as to the criminal agent although the circumstantial evidence indicating the guilt of the accused may be positive, complete and utterly irresistible in murder the corpus delectae or body of the crime is composed of two elements death as a result the criminal agency of another as the means it is the fixed and immutable law of this state laid down in the leading case of rula versus the people and binding upon this court that both components of the corpus delectae shall not be established by circumstantial evidence there must be direct proof of one or the other of these two component elements of the corpus delectae if one is proven by direct evidence the other may be presumed but both shall not be presumed from circumstances no matter how powerful, how cogent or how completely overwhelming the circumstances may be in other words no man can be convicted of murder in the state of New York may the victim be found and identified or there be direct proof that the prisoner did some act adequate to produce death and did it in such a manner as to account for the disappearance of the body the face of the judge cleared and grew hard members of the bar were attentive and alert they were beginning to see the legal escape open up the audience were puzzled they did not yet understand what happened to the council for the people his ugly face was bitter with contempt for three days he said I have been tortured by this useless and expensive farce if council for the people had been other than play actors they would have known in the beginning that Victor Ancona could not be convicted for murder unless he were confronted in this courtroom with a living witness who had looked into the dead face of Nina Sancroy that a living witness who had seen him drive the dagger into her bosom I care not if the circumstantial evidence in this case were so strong and irresistible as to be overpowering if the judge on the bench if the jury if every man within the sound of my voice were convinced of the guilt of the prisoner to the degree of certainty that is absolute if the circumstantial evidence left in the mind no shadow of the remotest improbable doubt yet in the absence of the eyewitness this prisoner cannot be punished and this court must compel the jury to acquit him the audience now understood and they were dumbfounded surely this was not the law they had been taught that the law was common sense and this this was anything else Mason saw it all and grinned in its tenderness he sneered the law shields the innocent the good law of New York reaches out its hand and lifts the prisoner out of the clutches of the fierce jury that would hang him Mason sat down the room was silent the juryman looked at each other in amazement the counsel for the people arose his face was white with anger speechless your honor he said this doctrine is monstrous can it be said that in order to evade punishment the murderer has only to hide or destroy the body of the victim or sink it into the sea then if he is not seen to kill the law is powerless and the murder can snap his finger in the face of retributive justice if this is the law then the law for the highest crime is a dead letter the great commonwealth winks at murder and invites every man to kill his enemy provided he kill him in secret and hide him I repeat your honor the man's voice was now loud and angry and rang through the courtroom that this doctrine is monstrous so said best and story and many another muttered Mason and the law remained said the judge abruptly desires no further argument the counsel for the people resumed his seat his face lighted up with triumph the court was going to sustain him the judge turned and looked down at the jury he was grave and spoke with deliberate emphasis gentlemen of the jury he said the rule of lord hail obtains in the state and is binding upon me it is the law as stated by counsel for the prisoner that to warrant conviction of murder there must be direct proof either of the death as of the finding and identification of the corpse or of criminal violence adequate to produce death and exerted in such a manner as to account for the disappearance of the body it is only when there is direct proof of the one that the other can be established by circumstantial evidence this is the law and cannot now be departed from I do not presume to explain its wisdom Chief Justice Johnson has observed in the leading case that it may have its probable foundation in the idea that where direct proof is absent both the fact of the death and of the criminal violence capable of producing death no evidence can rise to the degree of moral certainty that the individual is dead by criminal intervention or even led by direct inference to this result and that where the fact of death is not certainly ascertained all in culpratory circumstantial evidence wants the key necessary for its satisfactory interpretation and cannot be depended on to furnish more than probable results it may be also that such a rule has some reference to the dangerous possibility that a general preconception of guilt or a general excitement of popular feeling may creep in to supply the place of evidence if upon other than the death of death or a cause of death a jury are permitted to pronounce a prisoner guilty in this case the body has not been found and there is no direct proof of criminal agency on the part of the prisoner although the chain of circumstantial evidence is complete and irresistible in the highest degree nevertheless it is all circumstantial evidence under the laws of New York the prisoner cannot be punished I have no right of discretion the law does not permit a conviction in this case although every one of us may be morally certain of the prisoner's guilt I am therefore gentlemen of the jury compelled to direct you to find the prisoner not guilty Judge interrupted the foreman in the box we cannot find that verdict under our oath we know that this man is guilty sir said the judge this is a matter of law in which the wishes of the jury cannot be considered the clerk will write a verdict of not guilty which you as foreman will sign the spectators broke out so in gather volume the judge wrapped on his desk and ordered the bailiffs promptly to suppress any demonstration on the part of the audience then he directed the foreman to sign the verdict prepared by the clerk when this was done he turned to Victor Ancona his face was hard and there was a cold glitter in his eyes prisoner at the bar he said the trial before this tribunal on a charge of cold blooded and atrocious murder the evidence produced against you was of such powerful and overwhelming character that it seems to have left no doubt in the minds of the jury nor indeed in the mind of any person present in this courtroom had the question of your guilt been submitted to these twelve arbiters a conviction would certainly have resulted and the death penalty would have been imposed but the law rigid passionless even eyed has thrust in between you and the wrath of your fellows and saved you from it I do not cry out against the impotency of the law it is perhaps as wise as imperfect humanity could make it I deplore rather the genius of evil men who by cunning design are unable to slip through the fingers of this law I have no word of censure or admonition for you Victor Ancona the law of New York compels me to acquit you I am only its mouthpiece with my individual wishes throttled I speak only those things which the law directs I shall speak you are now at liberty to leave this courtroom not guiltless of the crime of murder perhaps but at least rid of its punishment the eyes of men may see Cain's mark on your brow but the eyes of the law are blind to it when the audience fully realized what the judge had said they were amazed and silent they knew as well as men could know that Victor Ancona was guilty of murder and yet he was now going out of the courtroom free could it happen that the law protected only against the blundering rogue they had heard always of the boasted completeness of the law which magistrates from time immemorial had labored to perfect and now when the skillful villain sought to evade it they saw how weak a thing it was the wedding march of Lohengrin floated out from the Episcopal church of St. Mark clear and sweet and perhaps heavy with its paradox of warning the theater of this coming contract before High Heaven was a wilderness of roses worth the taxes of a county the high cast of Manhattan by the grace of the checkbook were present clothed in Parisian purple and fine linen cunningly and marvelously wrought over in her private pew a blaze with jewels and decked with fabrics from the deft hand of many a weaver sat Mrs. Miriam Steuvesant as imperious and self-complacent as a queen to her it was all a kind of triumphal procession proclaiming her ability as a general with her were a few of the genus Homo which obtains at the five o'clock tees instituted say the sages for the purpose of sprinkling the holy water of leth Zarina whispered Reggie DuPoister leaning forward I salute you the ceremony subjugum is superb Walcott is an excellent fellow answered Mrs. Steuvesant not a vice you know Reggie I Empress put in the others a purist taken in the net the clean skirted one has come to the altar Viva la virtue Samuel Walcott still sunburned from his cruise stood before the chancel with the only daughter of the blue-blooded St. Clairs his face was clear and honest and his voice firm was life and not romance the lid of the sepulcher had closed and he had slipped from under it and now and ever after the hand red with murder was clean as any the minister raised his voice proclaiming the holy union before God and this twain half pure half foul now by divine ordinance one flesh bowed down before it no blood cried from the ground the sunlight of high noon streamed down through the window panes like a benediction back in the pew of Mrs. Miriam Steuvesant Reggie Du Poister turned down his thumb a bet he said from the strange schemes of Randolph Mason by Melvin Davison Post copyright 1896 by GP Putnam's sons end of section six recorded by Sherry Elston Minnesota section seven of library of worlds best mystery and detective stories volume one this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org library of the worlds best mystery and detective stories volume one by Julian Hawthorne editor section seven an eras from Red Horse by Ambrose Bierce Coronado June 20th I find myself more and more interested in him it is not I am sure his do you know any noun corresponding to the adjective handsome one does not like to say beauty when speaking of a man this handsome enough heaven knows I should not even care to trust you with him faithful of all possible wives that you are when he looks his best as he always does nor do I think the fascination of his manner has much to do with it you recollect that the charm of art inheres in that which is undefinable and to you and me my dear Irene I fancy there is rather less of that in the branch of art under consideration than to girls in their first season I fancy I know how my fine gentleman produces many of his effects and could perhaps give him a pointer on heightening them nevertheless his manner is something truly delightful I suppose what interests me chiefly is the man's brains his conversation is the best I have ever heard and altogether unlike anyone's else he seems to know everything as indeed he ought for he has been everywhere read everything seen all there is to see sometimes I think rather more than is good for him and had acquaintance with the queerest people and then his voice Irene when I hear it I actually feel as if I ought to have paid at the door though of course it is my own door July 3rd I fear my remarks about Dr. Barrett's have been being thoughtless very silly or you would not have written of him with such levity not to say disrespect believe me dearest he has more dignity and seriousness of the kind I mean which is not inconsistent with a manner sometimes playful and always charming than any of the men that you and I ever met and young Rainer you know Rainer at Monterey tells me that the men all like him and that he is treated with something like deference everywhere there is a mystery too something about his connection with the Blavitsky people in northern India Rainer either would not or could not tell me the particulars I infer that Dr. Barrett's is thought don't you dare to laugh at me a magician could anything be finer than that an ordinary mystery is not of course as good as a scandal but when it relates to dark and dreadful practices to the exercise of unearthly powers could anything be more pecanse it explains to the singular influence the man has upon me it is the undefinable in his art black arts seriously dear I am quite tremble when he looks me full in the eyes with those unfathomable orbs of his which I have already vainly attempted to describe to you how dreadful if we have the power to make one fall in love do you know if the Blavitsky crowd have that power outside of Sepoy? July 1st the strangest thing last evening while Auntie was attending one of the hotel hops Dr. Barrett's called it was scandalously late I actually believe he had talked with Auntie in the ballroom and learned from her that I was alone I had been all the evening contriving how to worm out of him the truth about his connection with the thugs in Sepoy and all of that black business but the moment he fixed his eyes on me for I admitted him I'm ashamed to say I was helpless I trembled and blushed I oh Irene Irene I love the man beyond expression and you know how it is yourself fancy I an ugly duckling from Redhorse daughter they say of old Calamity Jim certainly his heiress with no living relation but an absurd old aunt who spoils me a thousand and fifty ways absolutely destitute of everything but a million dollars and a hope in Paris I, daring to love a God like him my dear if I had you here I could tear your hair out with mortification I am convinced that he is aware of my feeling for he stayed but a few moments said nothing but what another man might have said half as well and pretending that he had an engagement went away I learned today a little bird told me the bell bird that he went straight to bed how does that strike you as evidence of exemplary habits July 17th that little wretch Reiner called yesterday and his babble almost set me wild he never runs down that is to say when he exterminates a score of reputations more or less he does not pause between one reputation and the next by the way he inquired about you and his manifestations of interest in you had I confess a good deal of resemblance Mr. Reiner observes no game laws like death which he would inflict if slander were fatal he has all seasons for his own but I like him for we knew one another at Red Horse when we were young and true-hearted and barefooted he was known in those far fair days as giggles and I oh Irene can you ever forgive me I was called Gunny God knows why perhaps an illusion to the material of my pinafores perhaps because the name is in alliteration with giggles for Gig and I were inseparable playmates and the miners may have thought it a delicate compliment to recognize some kind of relationship between us later we took in a third another of adversities brood who, like Garrick between tragedy and comedy had a chronic inability to adjudicate the rival claims to himself of frost and famine between him and the grave there was seldom anything more than a single suspender and the hope of a meal which would at the same time support life and make it insupportable he literally picked up a precarious living for himself and an aged mother by chloriding the dumps that is to say the miners permitted him to search the heaps of waste rock for such pieces of pay or as had been overlooked and these he sacked up and sold at the syndicate mill he became a member of our firm Gunny, giggles and dumps henceforth through my favor for I could not then, nor can I now be indifferent to his courage and prowess in defending against giggles the immemorial right of his ex to insult a strange and unprotected female myself after old Jim struck it in the calamity and I began to wear shoes and go to school and in emulation giggles took to washing his face became Jack Rainer of Wells Fargo and Co and old Mrs. Bartz was herself chlorided to her fathers dumps drifted over to San Juan Smith and turned stage driver and was killed by road agents and so forth why do I tell you all this dear because it is heavy on my heart because I walk the valley of humility because I am subduing myself to permanent consciousness of my unworthiness to unloose the latchet of Dr. Baritz's shoe because oh dear oh dear there's a cousin of dumps at this hotel I haven't spoken to him I never had any acquaintance with him but do you suppose he has recognized me do please give me in your next your canted sure enough opinion about it and say you don't think so do you think he knows about me already and that is why he left me last evening when he saw that I blushed and trembled like a fool under his eyes you know I can't bribe all the newspapers and I can't go back on anybody who was good to Gunny at Red Horse not if I'm pitched out of society into the sea so the skeleton sometimes rattles behind the door I never cared much before as you know but now now it is not the same Jack Reiner I am sure of he will not tell him he seems indeed to hold him in such respect as hardly to dare speak to him at all and I'm a good deal that way myself dear dear I wish I had something besides a million dollars if Jack were three inches taller I'd marry him alive and go back to Red Horse in our sackcloth again to the end of my miserable days July 25th we had a perfectly splendid sunset last evening and I must tell you all about it I ran away from Auntie and everybody and was walking alone on the beach I expect you to believe, you infidel that I had not looked out of my window on the seaward side of the hotel and seen him walking alone on the beach you are not lost to every feeling of womanly delicacy you will accept my statement without question I soon established myself under my sunshade and had for some time been gazing out dreamily over the sea when he approached walking close to the edge of the water it was ebb tide I assure you the wet sand actually brightened about his feet as he approached me he lifted his hat saying Miss Dement, may I sit with you or will you walk with me the possibility that neither might be agreeable seems not to have occurred to him did you ever know such assurance? assurance my dear, it was gall downright gall well, I didn't find it wormwood and replied with my untutored Red Horse heart in my throat I shall be pleased to do anything could words have been more stupid? there are depths of fatuity in me, friend of my soul which are simply bottomless he extended his hand smiling and I delivered mine into it without a moment's hesitation and when his fingers closed about it to assist me to my feet the consciousness that it trembled made me plush worse than the Red West I got up however and after a while observing that he had not let go of my hand he ruffled on it a little but unsuccessfully he simply held on saying nothing but looking down into my face with some kind of a smile I didn't know how could I whether it was affectionate, derisive, or what for I did not look at him how beautiful he was with the red fires of the sunset burning in the depths of his eyes do you know, dear if the thugs and experts of the Beblatsky region have a special kind of eyes ah, you should have seen his superb attitude the godlike inclination of his head as he stood over me after I had got upon my feet it was a noble picture but I soon destroyed it for I began at once to sink again to the earth there was only one thing for him to do and he did it he supported me with an arm about my waist Miss Dement, are you ill? he said it was not an exclamation there was neither alarm nor solicitude in it if he had added I suppose that is about what I am expected to say he would hardly have expressed his sense of the situation more clearly his manner filled me with shame and indignation for I was suffering acutely I wrenched my hand out of his grasped the arm supporting me ends pushing myself free fell plump into the sand and sat helpless my hat had fallen off in the struggle and my hair tumbled about my face and shoulders in the most mortifying way go from me I cried, half choking oh, please, go away, you, you thug how dare you think that when my leg is asleep I actually said those identical words and then I broke down and sobbed I reigned, I blubbered his manner altered in an instant I could see that much through my fingers and hair he dropped on one knee beside me parted the tangle of hair and said in the tenderest way my poor girl God knows I have not intended to pain you how should I? I who love you I who have loved you for years and years he had pulled my wet hands away from my face and was covering them with kisses my cheeks were like two coals my whole face was flaming and I think, steaming what could I do? I hid it on his shoulder there was no other place and, oh, my dear friend how my leg tingled and thrilled and how I wanted to kick we sat so for a long time he had released one of my hands to pass his arm about me again and I possessed myself of my handkerchief and was drying my eyes and my nose I would not look up until that was done he tried in vain to push me a little away and gaze into my eyes presently, when it was all right and it had grown a bit dark I lifted my head looked him straight in the eyes and smiled my best my level best, dear what do you mean? I said, by years and years dearest he replied very gravely very earnestly in the absence of the sunken cheeks the hollow eyes the lank hair the slouching gait the rags, dirt and youth can you not? will you not understand? I am dumb in a moment I was upon my feet and he upon his I seized him by the lapels of his coat and peered into his handsome face in the deepening darkness I was breathless with excitement and you are not dead I asked, hardly knowing what I said only dead in love, dear I recovered from the road agent's bullet but this, I fear is fatal but about Jack, Mr. Rainer don't you know I am ashamed to say, darling that it was through that unworthy person's invitation that I came here from Vienna Irene, they have plated upon your affectionate friends Mary Jane Dement P.S. the worst of it is that there is no mystery that was an invention of Jack to arouse my curiosity and interest James is not a thug he solemnly assures me that in all his wonderings he has never set foot in suppoy End of Section 7 Recording by Katie Riley October 2009 Section 8 of Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories, Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Bill Cisna Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories, Volume 1 by Julian Hawthorne Editor Section 8 The Man and the Snake by Ambrose Beers 1 It is a veritable report and attested of so many that there be now of wise and learned none to gain say it that ye serpent his eye hath a magnetic property that whoso falleth into its invasion is drawn forth in despite of his will and perisheth miserable by ye creature his bite Stretched at ease upon a sofa in gown and slippers Brayton smiled as he read the foregoing sentence in old Morrister's Marvels of Science The only marvel in the matter he said to himself is that the wise and learned in Morrister's day should have believed such nonsense as is rejected by most of even the ignorant in ours A train of reflections followed for Brayton was a man of thought and he unconsciously lowered his book altering the direction of his eyes As soon as the volume had gone below the line of sight something in an obscure corner of the room recalled his attention to his surroundings What he saw in the shadow under his bed were two small points of light apparently about an inch apart They might have been reflections of the gas jet above him in metal nail heads He gave them but little thought and resumed his reading A moment later something some impulse which it did not occur to him to analyze impelled him to lower the book again and seek for what he saw before The points of light were still there They seemed to have become brighter than before shining with a greenish luster which he had not at first observed He thought too that they might have moved a trifle were somewhat nearer They were still too much in the shadow however to reveal their nature and origin to an indolent attention and he resumed his reading Suddenly something in the text suggested a thought which made him start and dropped the book for the third time to the side of the sofa Whence escaping from his hand it fell sprawling to the floor back upward Brighton half risen was staring intently into the obscurity beneath the bed where the points of light shown with it seemed to him and added fire His attention was now fully aroused his gaze eager and imperative It disclosed almost directly beneath the foot rail of the bed the coils of a large serpent The points of light were its eyes Its horrible head thrust flatly forth from the innermost coil and resting upon the outermost was directed straight toward him The definition of the wide brutal jaw and the idiot like forehead serving to show the direction of its malevolent gaze The eyes were no longer merely luminous points They looked into his own with a meaning a malign significance 2. A snake in a bedroom of a modern city dwelling of the better sort is happily not so common a phenomenon as to make explanation altogether needless Marker Brighton a bachelor of 35 a scholar idler and something of an athlete rich, popular and of sound health had returned to San Francisco from all manner of remote and unfamiliar countries His tastes always a trifle luxurious had taken on an added exuberance from long privation and the resources of even the castle hotel being inadequate for their perfect gratification he had gladly accepted the hospitality of his friend Dr. Drearing the distinguished scientist Dr. Drearing's house a large old fashioned one in what was now an obscure quarter of the city had an outer invisible aspect of reserve it plainly would not associate with the contiguous elements of its altered environment and appeared to have developed some of the eccentricities which come of isolation one of these was a wing conspicuously irrelevant in point of architecture and no less rebellious in the matter of purpose for it was a combination of laboratory menagerie and museum it was here that the doctor indulged in the scientific side of his nature in the study of such forms of animal life as engaged his interest and comforted his taste which it must be confessed ran rather to the lower forms for one of the higher types nimbly and sweetly to recommend itself unto his gentle senses it had at least to retain certain rudimentary characteristics allying itself to such dragons of the prime as toads and snakes his scientific sympathies were distinctly reptilian he loved nature's vulgarians and described himself as the Zola of zoology his wife and daughters not having the advantage to share his enlightened curiosity regarding the works and ways of our ill-starred fellow-creatures were with needless austerity excluded from what he called the snakery and doomed to companionship with their own kind though to soften the rigors of their lot he had permitted them out of his great wealth to outdo the reptiles in the gorgeousness of their surroundings and to shine with a superior splendor architecturally and in point of furnishing the snake had a severe simplicity befitting the humble circumstances of its occupants many of whom indeed could not have safely been entrusted with the liberty as necessary to the full enjoyment of luxury for they had the troublesome peculiarity of being alive in their own apartments however they were under as little personal restraint as was compatible with their protection from the baneful habit of swallowing one another and as Brayton had thoughtfully been apprised it was more than a tradition that some of them had at diverse times been found in parts of the premises it would have embarrassed them to explain their presence despite the snakery and its uncanny associations to which indeed he gave little attention Brayton found life at the drearing mansion very much to his mind three beyond a smart shock of surprise and a shudder of mere loathing Mr. Brayton was not greatly affected his first thought was to ring the call bell and bring a servant although the bell cord dangled within easy reach he made no movement toward it it had occurred to his mind that the act might subject him to the suspicion of fear which he certainly did not feel he was more keenly conscious of the incongruous nature of the situation than affected by its perils it was revolting but absurd the reptile was of a species with which Brayton was unfamiliar its length he could only conjecture the body at the largest visible part seemed about as thick as his forearm in what way was it dangerous if in any way was it venomous was it a constrictor his knowledge of nature's danger signals did not enable him to say he had never deciphered the code if not dangerous the creature was at least offensive it was detro matter out of place and impertinence the gem was unworthy of the setting even the barbarous taste of our time and country which had loaded the walls of the room with pictures the floor with furniture and the furniture with bric-a-brac had not quite fitted the place for this bit of the savage life of the jungle besides insupportable thought the exhalations of its breath mingled with the atmosphere which he himself was breathing these thoughts shaped themselves with greater or less definition in Brayton's mind and begot action the process is what we call consideration and decision it is thus that we are wise and unwise it is thus that the withered leaf in an autumn breeze shows greater or less intelligence than its fellows falling upon the land or upon the lake the secret of human action is an open one something contracts our muscles does it matter if we give to the preparatory molecular changes the name of Will Brayton rose to his feet and prepared to back softly away from the snake without disturbing it, if possible, and through the door people retire so from the presence of the great for greatness is power and power is a menace he knew that he could walk backward without obstruction and find the door without error should the monster follow the taste which had plastered the walls with paintings had consistently supplied a rack of murderous oriental weapons from which he could snatch one to suit the occasion in the meantime the snake's eyes burned with a more pitiless malevolence than ever Brayton lifted his right foot free of the floor to step backward that moment he felt a strong aversion to doing so I am accounted brave he murmured is bravery then no more than pride because there are none to witness the shame shall I retreat he was steadying himself with his right hand upon the back of a chair his foot suspended nonsense he said aloud I am not so great a coward as to fear to seem to myself afraid he lifted the foot a little higher by slightly bending the knee and thrust it sharply to the floor an inch in front of the other he could not think how that occurred a trial with the left foot had the same result it was again in advance of the right the hand upon the chair back was grasping it the arm was straight reaching somewhat backward one might have seen that he was reluctant to lose his hold the snake's malignant head was still thrust forth from the inner coil as before the neck level had not moved but its eyes were now electric sparks radiating an infinity of luminous needles the man had an ashy pallor again he took a step forward and another partly dragging the chair which when finally released fell upon the floor with a crash the man groaned the snake made neither sound nor motion but its eyes were two dazzling suns the reptile itself was wholly concealed by them they gave off enlarging rings of rich and vivid colors which at their greatest expansion successively vanished like soap bubbles they seemed to approach his very face and a non were an immeasurable distance away he heard somewhere the continual throbbing of a great drum with desultory bursts of far music inconceivably sweet like the tones of an aeolian harp he played it for the sunrise melody of memnon statue and thought he stood in the Nile side reeds hearing with exalted sense that immortal anthem through the silence of the centuries the music ceased rather it became by insensible degrees the distant roll of a retreating thunderstorm a landscape glittering with sun and rain stretched before him arched with a vivid rainbow framing in its giant curve a hundred visible cities in the middle distance a vast serpent wearing a crown reared its head out of its voluminous convolutions and looked at him with his dead mother's eyes suddenly this enchanting landscape seemed to rise swiftly upward like the drop seen at a theater and vanished in a blank something struck him a hard blow upon the face and breast he had fallen to the floor the blood ran from his broken nose and his bruised lips for a moment he was dazed and stunned and lay with closed eyes his face against the door in a few moments he had recovered and then realized that his fall by withdrawing his eyes had broken the spell which held him he felt that now by keeping his gaze averted he would be able to retreat but the thought of the serpent within a few feet of his head yet unseen perhaps in the very act of springing upon him and throwing its coils about his throat was too horrible he lifted his head stared again into those baleful eyes and was again in bondage the snake had not moved and appeared somewhat to have lost its power upon the imagination the gorgeous illusions of a few moments before were not repeated beneath that flat and brainless brow its black beady eyes simply glittered as at first with an expression unspeakably malignant it was as if the creature knowing its triumph assured had determined to practice no more alluring wiles now ensued a fearful scene the man prone upon the floor within a yard of his enemy raised the upper part of his body upon his elbows his head thrown back his legs extended to their full length his face was white between its gouts of blood his eyes were strained open to their uttermost expansion there was froth upon his lips it dropped off in flakes strong convulsions ran through his body making almost serpentine undulations he bent himself at the waist shifting his legs from side to side and every movement left him a little nearer to the snake he thrust his hands forward to brace himself back yet constantly advanced upon his elbows four Dr. Drearing and his wife sat in the library the scientist was in rare good humor I have just obtained by exchange with another collector, he said a splendid specimen of the Ophiophagus and what might that be the lady inquired with a somewhat languid interest why bless my soul what profound ignorance my dear, a man who ascertains after marriage that his wife does not know Greek is entitled to a divorce the Ophiophagus is a snake which eats other snakes I hope it will eat all yours she said absently shifting the lamp but how does it get the other snakes by charming them I suppose that is just like you dear said the doctor with an affectation of petulance you know how irritating to me is any illusion to that vulgar superstition about the snake's power of fascination the conversation was interrupted by a mighty cry which rang through the silent house like the voice of a demon shouting in a tomb again and yet again it sounded with terrible distinctness they sprang to their feet the man confused the lady pale and speechless with fright almost before the echoes of the last cry had died away the doctor was out of the room springing up the staircase two steps at a time in the corridor in front of Brayton's chamber he met some servants who had come from the upper floor together they rushed at the door without knocking it was unfastened and gave way Brayton lay upon his stomach on the floor dead his head and arms were partly concealed under the foot rail of the bed they pulled the body away turning it upon the back the face was dogged with blood and froth the eyes were wide open staring a dreadful sight died in a fit said the scientist bending his knee and placing his hand upon the heart while in that position he happened to glance under the bed good god he added how did this thing get in here he reached under the bed pulled out the snake and flung it still coiled to the center of the room whence with a harsh shuffling sound it slid across the polished floor till stopped by the wall where it lay without motion it was a stuffed snake the eyes were two shoe buttons End of section 8 Recording by Bill Cisna