Vampire Books Online / The Silver Countess

"Countess Eleanor made high holiday with all the multitudinous company not yet made fast in hell."

MY DEAR Trowbridge [the letter ran]—If you will be good enough to bring your friend Dr. de Grandin, of whom I have received some very remarkable reports, out to Lyman's Landing, I think I can present him with a problem worthy of his best talents. More I do not care to write at this time, but I may add that whatever fee he may think proper in the premises will be promptly paid by
Yours cordially,
WALKER SWEARINGEN.

Jules de Grandin lighted a cigarette with slow deliberation, dropped a second sugar tablet into his well-creamed coffee and stirred it thoughtfully, watching the rich, tan liquid in his cup as if it were a hitherto unnoted piece of physical phenomena. At length, "Who is this Monsieur Swearingen who writes so mysteriously of the ease he would present me, then concludes his note as though my performances were to be by royal command?" he demanded.

"We were in college together," I answered. "Swearingen was a shy sort of lad, and I rather took him under my wing during our freshman year. He went into some sort of brokerage concern when he graduated, and we've only met casually since—at alumni dinners and that

sort of thing, you know. I understand he piled up a monstrous stack of money speculating in Bethlehem Steel and what not during the early days of the World War, and—well, I'm afraid that's about all I can tell you. I don't really know him well, you see. There's not much question he thinks the case important enough; I don't believe he's trying to be deliberately mysterious by withholding details. More likely he thinks the matter too urgent to be set out in writing and prefers to wait for a personal interview."

"U'm? And he is wealthy, you say?"

"Very. Unless he's lost his money in further speculation Swearingen must be worth a million dollars; possibly two."

"Eh bien, in that case I think we shall accept his kindly invitation," the little Frenchman replied with a slightly sarcastic smile. "Believe me, my friend, this Monsieur Swearingen shall be less wealthy when my fee shall have been paid. Me, I do not greatly care for the form in which he makes his request; one would think the services of a mountebank trickster from the way he writes, but there is probably no way in which his self-esteem can be reduced save by the collection of a large price; alors, I shall deflate his pocketbook. Will you be good enough to write him that we come without delay to match our powers against his mystery and collect a handsome fee for doing so?"

That afternoon I wrote Swearingen, assuring him de Grandin and I should be delighted to accept his offer and that we might be expected two days later. Accordingly, with such paraphernalia as de Grandin considered necessary for the unknown work he was to undertake (which required three trunks and as many more portmanteaus) we set out for Lyman's Landing in my car.

Some three-quarters of a mile from our destination my right steering-knuckle went bad, and we limped to a wayside service station, only to be informed that the machine could not be made roadworthy in less than four hours. I expected the Frenchman to give vent to one of his sudden furious rages, but to my astonishment he merely smiled and elevated his narrow shoulders in a little shrug. "C'est la chance," he murmured. "Perhaps it is better so. We shall walk to Monsieur Swearingen's, reconnoiter the ground afoot, and thereby possibly see what we should unknowingly pass by, had we traveled by motor. Have them deliver the car at Monsieur Swearingen's when they have completed repairs, Friend Trowbridge."

LYMAN'S LANDING, Walter Swearingen's summer place, stood on a wide, almost level promontory jutting out into the Passaic. Smooth, close-clipped lawns surrounded the house, a tall, carefully tended privet hedge separated the grounds from the highway, and a line of graceful weeping willows formed a lush green background for the weather-mellowed brick walls of the homestead. Originally a small and very select rural hotel, the place had been completely remodeled by Swearingen when he took it over, but the beauty of the ivy-hung red brick walls and the Jacobean architecture with its many gables, mullioned windows and projecting bays had not been sacrificed in the process, and the scene presented as de Grandin and I passed through the high sandstone-and-brick pillars of the gate was more typically English than American. On the smooth grass-covered grounds were set a few painted wicker chairs with cushions of brilliantly striped awning cloth; to one side of the house was a rose garden riotous with color; farther away an oblong bathing-pool, curbed and lined with cool gray-green tiles and partially screened by an encircling hedge of arbor-vitæ, was sunk in the lawn. A quartet of youngsters played mixed doubles on a grass tennis court.

As we passed across the grass-plot my eyes fell on a girl in her early twenties lounging in a gayly colored canvas hammock swung between two sycamore trees. She was in the fashionable state of semi-nudity the mode prescribed for sports attire—a washsilk sleeveless dress which made no effort to veil her stockingless knees, a pair of rubber-soled poplin pumps and, as far as I could discern, nothing else. As we drew abreast of her she kicked one of the white sports shoes off and reached downward, slapping at the palm of her little naked foot as though to brush away a pebble which had sifted into her shoe while she played tennis or walked.

I heard de Grandin breathe a muffled exclamation and felt the nudge of his sharp elbow against my ribs. "Trowbridge, my friend, did you see, did you observe?" he whispered so low I could scarcely hear.

"See?—observe?" I retorted angrily. "How could I help it? Don't you think the little hussy wanted us to? It's a disgraceful way the young people dress today! That girl would hardly have worn less if she were about to step into her bath, and the brazen way she took off part of the little clothes she was wearing just as we passed—it's atrocious! Anyone would have thought she wasn't aware of our existence, but the sex-conscious little baggage couldn't even let two middle-aged men pass her without trying to cast her net. I think——"

"Larmes d'un poisson!" he interrupted, laughing softly. "The man who knows anatomy as he knows the inside of his pocket frets not at the sight of an unclothed foot! It was not what I meant, my friend, but no matter. Perhaps it is of no importance; at any rate, you would not understand."

"What d'ye mean?" I countered.

"Parbleu, did you, indeed?" he cut in. "It is perhaps that I did not see it after all. No matter; we are arrived, and I should greatly like to confer with this Monsieur Swearingen concerning the problem which is of too great importance to be committed to paper and for the solution of which he is willing to pay so promptly."

THE score of placid, prosperous years which had passed since our college days had been kind to Walker Swearingen. In addition to wealth he had acquired poise and embonpoint, a heavy, deliberate style of speech, a Vandyke beard and that odd, irritating manner so common to financiers of seeming only to pay half attention to what was told him, and trimming the remarks of everyone not dominantly interested in money with the grave mock-courtesy an affable adult bestows on the inconsequential conversation of a child.

"Glad to welcome you to Lyman's Landing, Dr. de Grandin," he acknowledged my introduction. "I think we've an offer you as mystifying a case as you've ever encountered. Er"—he paused momentarily and smiled somewhat self-consciously in the depths of his slightly gray beard —"er, there are certain phases of the matter which make me think it's peculiarly the type of case you are fitted to handle, rather than the ordinary detective agency——"

"Monsieur——?" de Grandin began, and his little blue eyes flashed ominously, but Swearingen, characteristically, took no notice of the attempted interruption.

"The county police and state constabulary are quite out of the question, of course," he went on. "To be quite frank, I'm not prepared to say just what is behind it all; it has some

of the aspects of a silly, childish prank, some similarity to an odd case of kleptomania, and, in other ways, it's like an old-fashioned ghost story. I leave it for you to attach its proper label. U'm"—he consulted a memorandum which he drew from his pocket—"last Thursday night several of my house guests were disturbed by someone in their rooms. No one actually saw the intruder, but the next morning it was found that four rooms had been entered and several valueless, or nearly valueless articles stolen. Then——"

"And the missing articles were what, if you please, Monsieur?" de Grandin interrupted, this time so sharply that our host could not ignore him.

"H'm," Swearingen favored the diminutive Frenchman with an annoyed stare, "Miss Brooks—Elizabeth Brooks, my daughter Margery's chum—lost an Episcopal prayer book; Elsie Stephens, another friend, who is a Roman Catholic, missed an inexpensive string of beads; Mr. Massey, one of the young men guests, lost a pocket Testament; and my daughter could not find a small book of devotional poems which had been on her desk. I fancy none of the young people is greatly distressed at his losses, but the things are distinctly disturbing, you must understand.

"Friday night John Rodman, another guest, had a most disconcerting experience. Some time between midnight and daybreak he woke in a state of profuse perspiration, as he thought, feeling extraordinarily weak. It was only by the greatest effort he was able to light his bed-lamp, and discover by its light that his pajamas and the bedclothes were literally drenched with blood, which had flowed from a small, superficial wound in his left breast. We called a physician, and the boy caused considerable comment, as you may well imagine. It's impossible he should

have wounded himself, for there was no weapon in his room capable of making the incision from which he bled—his razors were in the adjoining bathroom, and there were no bloodstains on the floor; so the hypothesis that he had walked in his sleep, cut himself, then gone back to bed may be ruled out. Besides, the wound was small and almost circular in shape, as though made with an awl or some such small, sharp instrument.

"It was after this mysterious, though fortunately not serious accident that I wrote Dr. Trowbridge. Last night, however, Mr. Rodman's experience was repeated, the wound being in the left side of his throat this time. 'A fine young chap and wouldn't do anything to embarrass me—he told me about the second wounding privately this morning, and now it's for us to find who's up to all this monkey business. I realize this may seem like a tempest in a teapot to you, but I'm sufficiently interested in it to pay.'"

"Tiens, Monsieur, permit that I discuss the matter of payment when the appropriate time arrives, if you please," de Grandin put in. "Meantime, if you will tell me whether or not the beads which Mademoiselle Stephens lost were merely ornamental trinkets or a rosary, it will be of interest."

"Er, yes, I believe such beads are called by that name," Swearingen returned, evidently annoyed at such a trivial technicality. "Now, if you've any further questions to ask, or any suggestions to make——" He paused expectantly.

De Grandin took his narrow chin between his thumb and forefinger, gazing thoughtfully at the floor; then, "Is there any guest who has not complained of loss?" he asked.

"Oh, yes, we've ten house guests; only those I've mentioned have been annoyed."

"U'm. Perhaps, then, you will be good enough to show us over the

house, Monsieur; it is well to know the terrain over which one fights."

FOLLOWING our host we made a brief survey of the establishment. It was a big, rambling building with wide halls, broad staircases and large rooms, unremarkable in any way, save for the lavish manner in which it was furnished, and offering no secret nooks or crannies for nighttime lurkers.

After we had completed our inspection of the upper floors Swearingen led us to the rear section of the house and pushed open a wide oaken door. "This is the art gallery," he announced. "It's the biggest room in the place and—what the devil!" he paused at the entrance, a frown of perplexity and anger gathered between his brows. "By George, this business is ceasing to be a joke!"

We had only to follow the line of his angry glance to see its cause. Against the farther wall hung an ornate gilt frame, some four feet high by three feet wide. About the inner edges of the gilded molding a narrow border of painted canvas adhered, but the picture which the frame had enclosed had obviously been cut away with a less than razor-sharp blade, since the tattered bits of the mutilated fabric roughened the lips of the cut.

"This is an outrage; this is infamous!" Swearingen stormed, striding across the gallery and glaring at the tenantless frame. "By George, if I can lay hands on whoever did this I'll prosecute, guest or no guest!"

"And what was the picture which was ravished away, if you please?" de Grandin asked.

"It was a painting of the Virgin Mary—'The Virgin of Eckartsau,' they called it—it cost me five hundred dollars, and——"

"And now it appears to have vanished," the Frenchman supplied dryly. "Eh bien, Monsieur, it can not have gone far. Distinctive pictures of

the Blessed Virgin identify themselves; the thief can not easily dispose of it and the police will have small trouble tracing it and putting reputable dealers on their guard."

"Yes, yes, of course," Swearingen replied testily, "but this is confoundedly mystifying. My dear man, do you realize everything stolen since this business started is of a religious nature?"

The stare de Grandin returned was as expressionless as the gaze of a china doll. "I have begun to suspect as much, Monsieur," he replied. "Now this, too, would seem—ah! Cordieu, Friend Trowbridge, give attention. Do you observe it?" he pointed to the door—what justified excitement he had crossed the wide room to pause beside a piece of sculpture, regarding it with shining eyes, his thin, sensitive nostrils distended, the tips of his tightly waxed diminutive mustache twitching like the whiskers of an eager tom-cat scenting a well-fatted mouse.

It was the top portion of a medieval altar tomb beside which he halted, the effigy of a recumbent woman executed in what appeared to be Carrara marble lying on an oblong plinth about the chamfered edge of which ran an inscription in Romanesque capitals. Clothed from throat to ankle like a Benedictine nun, a leather belt and knotted hempen girdle encircling the slender waist, the hands folded demurely across the breast beneath the scapular. The head, however, instead of being coifed in a nun's bonnet and wimple was crowned with luxurious long hair, smoothly parted in the middle and braided in two long plaits which fell forward over the shoulders and extended nearly to the knees, and on the brow was set a narrow, diadem-like coronet ornamented with a curious design of carved strawberry leaves. It was a beautiful face the old-time sculptor had wrought, the features delicate, regular and classi-

cal, but with an intangible something about them which went beyond mere beauty, something which seemed, subtly, to respond to the gaze of the beholder and attract him unconsciously, whether he would or not.

But it was not on the lovely carven features de Grandin's fascinated gaze rested. His eyes traveled quickly from the slender, curving throat, the gently swelling bosom and delicately rounded knees to the sandaled feet peeping beneath the hem of the monastic gown. Like those of most pietistic figures of its period, the effigy's pedal extremities were represented uncovered save for the parchment soles and narrow crossed straps of religieuse sandals. With the fidelity characteristic of the elder craftsmen the carver had shown the feet prolapsed, as was natural when the extensor muscles had lengthened in cadavere flaccidity, but the seal of death had robbed them of none of their beauty. The heels were narrow, the insteps gracefully arched, the toes long, slender and finger-like, terminating in delicately tapering ends tipped with filbert-shaped nails.

"You see?" the Frenchman asked, reaching out to touch the nearer foot, but halting his finger before it came in contact with the stone.

"Eh?" I queried, puzzled; then, "By Jove, yes!"

Slender as patrician hands, beautifully formed as they were, the statue's feet were anomalous. Each possessed an extra toe inserted between the long, aquiline fourth digit and the little toe.

"Odd that he should have made such a slip; he was so faithful to detail in every other way," I commented.

"U'm, one wonders," de Grandin murmured. "Me, I should not be astonished if his faithfulness persisted, even here, Friend Trowbridge." He shook his head as though to clear his vision, then bent to his

knees beside the plinth on which the statue lay, deciphering the inscription cut in the white stone.

Though the effigy was perfect in every way, the letters of the epitaph had been defaced in several places, so we could not read the legend in its entirety. That part still legible presented more of a puzzle than an explanation of the lady's identity.

HIC JACET ELEANORA COMITISSA ARGENT . . .
QVAE OBIIT ANNO CHRISTI MCCX . . .
CVIVS MISEREATVE DEVS

we read.

"Humph," I murmured, "evidently this statue once decorated the tomb of a Countess Eleanor somebody who died sometime in the Thirteenth Century, but——"

"Regardez-vous, my friend!" de Grandin's excited comment broke through my reflections. "Observe this, if you please."

Inscribed at the extreme lower edge of the plinth, faint as though scratched with a stylus, was the cryptic notation:

Mal. iii I

"What make you of that, my friend?" he demanded.

"H'm; the sculptor's signature?"

"Le bon Dieu knows," the Frenchman returned with a shrug. "I do not think the sculptor would have signed his work thus; he would have used a chisel, and his letters would have been more regularly formed. However, one guess is as good as another at this time.

"What can you tell us of this, Monsieur?" he asked, turning to Swearingen, who stood before his mutilated painting, oblivious of our inspection of the marble.

"Eh?" the other returned. "Oh, that? I don't know much about it. Picked it up at a junk shop in Newark last month. Gloomy sort o' thing, and I wouldn't have bought it if the face hadn't struck me as being rather

pretty. It can't be very valuable; the dealer let me have it for fifty dollars, and I might have gotten it for twenty-five, if I'd held out, I believe. He seemed anxious to get rid of it. Confounded nuisance it is, too. The boys are forever flocking in here and looking the thing—I caught young Rodman kissing it once, and——"

"Dieu de Dieu, do you tell me so!" the Frenchman almost shouted. "Quick, Monsieur, you must give me the name of that so generous junkman who sold you this bit of vertu so cheaply—right away, immediately, at once!"

"Eh, what's the hurry?" our host demanded. "I don't think——"

"Precisely, exactly, quite so; I am well aware of it, but I do," de Grandin interrupted. "The name and address, at once, if you please, Monsieur; it was the young Rodman embraced this—this statue?"

"H'm; last Friday, I believe, but——"

"Ah! The work was swift. Come, Monsieur, I want the dealer's name."

"Adolph Yellen, Dealer in Antique Furniture, Bric-à-Brac and Objets d'Art," was the legend printed on the rather soiled billhead Swearingen produced in response to de Grandin's insistence.

BORROWING one of the cars with which the garage was well supplied, we set out for Newark and arrived at the dingy little shop in Polk Street just as the proprietor was about to fasten the gratings before his windows for the night.

"Hola, mon ami," de Grandin cried as he vaulted from the car and approached the stoop-shouldered, bearded shopman, "you are Monsieur Yellen, I make no doubt? If so, I would that you tell us what you know of a certain statue—a piece of carven marble representing a reclining lady—which you sold to Monsieur Swear-

ingen of Lyman's Landing last month."

The little antique dealer regarded his questioner through the surprisingly thick lenses of his horn-rimmed spectacles a moment, then raised his shoulders in a racial shrug. "I nodt know nuttings aboudt her," he returned. "I got her at a auction sale ven der lawys sell Meestair Pumphrey's t'ings. All I know, I'm glad to be rid from her—she vas unlucky."

"I hope you're not thinking of buying the piece, sir," interrupted a scholarly-looking young man who had been talking with Yellen when we arrived. "Mr. Yellen is quite right, it is an unlucky bit of vertu, and——"

"Ah, you know something of them?" the Frenchman cut in. "Bon, say on, Monsieur, I listen."

"N-o, I can't say I know anything definite about the statue," the other confessed with a diffident smile, "but I admit having a strong antipathy to it. I'm Jacob Silverstein, Rabbi of the Beth Israel Congregation, and it may be simply the traditional theological dislike for graven images which leads me to dislike this woman's effigy, but I must confess the thing affected me unpleasantly from the moment I saw it. I tried to dissuade Adolph from selling it, and asked him to present it to some museum, or, better still, break it up and throw the pieces into the river, but——"

"One moment, Monsieur," de Grandin cut in. "Have you any definite reason for this so strange dislike for a piece of lifeless stone? If so, I am interested. If not—parbleu, in that case, I shall listen to what you say also."

The young Hebrew regarded de Grandin speculatively a moment, as though debating his answer. At length: "Yes, I heard Mr. Yellen say he bought it, and he told me it was unlucky," he replied. "He bought it, he told you, at the auction of the late Horace Pumphrey's effects. Mr. Pumphrey was a

wealthy eccentric who collected artistic oddities, and this altar-tomb was the last thing he bought. Within a month of its acquisition he began to manifest such unmistakable symptoms of insanity that the authorities would have been obliged to put him in restraint had he not been killed by falling from a second-story window of his house. There was some gossip of suicide, but the final verdict was death by misadventure.

"The first time I saw the statue in Mr. Yellen's shop it produced a most unpleasant sensation; rather like that one experiences when looking into a case of snakes at the zoo—you may know you're in no danger, but the ancient human horror of snakes affects your subconscious fears. After that I avoided the statue as much as possible, but once or twice I was obliged to pass it and—it was doubtless a trick of the light falling on the figure's features—it seemed to me the thing smiled with a sort of malicious contempt as I went by."

The rabbi paused, a faint flush mounting in his dark, hard-shaven cheeks. "Perhaps I'm unduly prejudiced," he admitted, "but I've always attributed Sidney's trouble to some malign influence cast by that image. At the time the thing Mr. Yellen had a young man named Sidney Weitzer in his employ, a youth he'd known practically all his life, and one of the most honest and industrious boys I've ever seen. Two months after that statue was brought into his shop Mr. Yellen was obliged to discharge Sidney for stealing—caught him red-handed in a theft. A few nights later a policeman arrested him as he was attempting to burglarize the store."

"U'm," de Grandin nodded sympathetically. "Were your losses great, Monsieur Yellen?"

"Ha, dot boy, he vas a fool as vell as a t'iefer," the little dealer responded emphatically. "Vot you t'ink he stoled? Books—religious books—

old Bibles, prayer books, a missal from Italy vid halhnf der pages missing, a worthless old rosary and voodoo statue from a saint—der whole lot vasn't vorth terventy tollars, and——"

"Am I to understand he confined himself solely to the theft of worthless religious objects?" de Grandin interrupted.

Mr. Yellen elevated an expressive shoulder. "Dey vas all I had," he rejoined. "I don't buy much religious stoff—dot goes by der richer dealers, but vonce in a vile I get some vid a chob-lot of t'ings. Efferything of der kind vat vas in der shop he carted avay—Gott knows vhat he did vid dem—nobody vid sense vould haf paid him money for dem. Oh, vell," he waved his hand in a gesture of finality, "vat can you expect from a crazy man, anyhow?"

"Crazy——"

"Unfortunately, yes," the rabbi supplied. "When Sidney was brought to trial for his attempted burglary, the only explanation he made for his crime was: 'She made me do it—I had to go to her.' He could not or would not explain who 'she' was, but begged so piteously to be allowed to return to this unknown 'she' that the magistrate committed him for observation. He was later sent to an asylum."

De Grandin's small blue eyes were snapping with suppressed excitement, and on his face was the absorbed, half-puzzled look of one attempting to recall a forgotten tune or a line of verse which eludes the memory.

"This is most odd, Monsieur," he declared. "And you think——"

The rabbi smiled deprecatingly. "It's prejudice, no doubt," he admitted, "but I do connect the statue with Pumphrey's death and Sidney's otherwise inexplicable aberration. While I was traveling through Drôme some years ago I heard an odd story which might almost have applied here. Near Valence there stands

an ancient ruined château fort, and the country people tell a gruesome legend of a woman called the 'Silver Countess,' who——"

"Mort d'un chat! vie d'un coq!" de Grandin cried. "That is it! Since first I saw her lying so sweetly innocent in her six-toed sleep I have wondered and wondered what the keynote to this melody of mystery is. Now, I say to you, Monsieur, I have it. Adieu, Messieurs, you have been of greatest help to us. Friend Trowbridge, it is to hasten, to rush, to fly! Come, make speed; much must be done, and little time remains for the doing."

With a courteous bow to the Jewish gentlemen he pivoted on his heel and fairly dragged me to the waiting car.

"Past a book shop, my friend," he directed as I set the motor going. "We must at once consult a Bible, and all too well I realize we shall find none such at Lyman's Landing!" Down through the downtown section, finally located a branch circulating library and paused before it. In a moment de Grandin came out, a small, black-bound volume in his hand. "Attend me, Friend Trowbridge," he commanded, "what is the final book of the Old Testament?"

"U'm," I ransacked my memory for long-forgotten Sunday School teachings, "it's Malachi, isn't it?"

"Bravo!" he applauded. "And how would you designate the first verse of the third chapter of that book if you were to write it?" He thrust a pencil and notebook into my hand, then stood waiting expectantly.

Thinking a moment, I scribbled "Mal. iii, 1" on the pad and returned it.

"Précisément!" he exulted. "Now think, where have you seen exactly such a citation within the last five hours?"

"U'm," I knit my brows in thought. Then, "Why that's what we found scratched on the plinth of that

effigy at Lyman's Landing!" I exclaimed. "Don't you remember, we wondered if it could have been the sculptor's signature, and——"

"I remember most perfectly——" he cut in. "Regard this, if you please. The first verse of that chapter begins: 'Behold, I will send my messenger.' What does it mean?"

"Mean? It doesn't make sense," I returned. "What kind of a Scriptural allusion on that tomb, and what message was it intended to convey?"

"One wonders," he admitted with a shrug. "Of one thing I am sure, however. The lady of the six toes, who lies in Monsieur Swearingen's house at Lyman's Landing, is undoubtless—the Silver Countess, of whom the Monsieur le Rabbin told us. Consider, does not the epitaph, 'Hic jacet Eleanora comitissa,' which is to say, 'Here lies the Countess Eleanor?' And though the terminal of the next word is defaced, yet we have left to us the letters a-r-g, which undoubtlessly might be completed as argentum, signifying silver in the Latin tongue. N'est-ce-pas?"

"H'm, I dare say," I agreed, "but who the deuce was this Silver Countess, and what was it she did?"

"I do not know all her story," he admitted ruefully. "One little head, my friend, is too small to hold the great multitude of legends concerning wicked ladies of the past. However, at earliest chance I shall ask my friend Dr. Jacoby, of the Musée Métropolitain——" he gave a short chuckle—"that man, he knows every bit of scandalous gossip in the world, provided the events took place not later than the Fifteenth Century!"

THE long summer twilight had darkened into dusk by the time we reached Lyman's Landing and the wide, tree-bordered lawn was beautiful as a picture executed in mosaics of silver and onyx with the alternating high lights of moonlight and patches

of shadow. "My word," I exclaimed enthusiastically, "it's lovely, isn't it? Like a bit of fairyland."

"Ha, fairyland, yes," the Frenchman agreed with a vigorous nod. "Like fairyland where pixies seek to lure mortals to their doom and Morgaine la Fée queens it over her court of succubi."

We had barely time to change for dinner before the meal was announced, and course followed heavy course, red and white, dry and sweet wines accompanying the viands, and cognac smooth as oil, mild as springtime and potent as winter complementing coffee, which was served on the terrace.

If the events of the afternoon had given him ground for worry, de Grandin failed to show it at dinner. He ate like a teamster, drank like a sailor, and, judging from the peals of laughter which came from the group of young people surrounding him, jested like Rabelais throughout the meal.

Soon after dessert he excused himself and went to Swearingen's private office, whence he put through a number of urgent telephone calls.

Our host and I sat alone on the terrace while the youngsters danced in the main hall, and I was weary of evading his pointed questions concerning our activities in solving the case when diversion came. With whoops of laughter the young folks came charging from the house arrayed in scanty bathing-attire, and dashed pell-mell across the lawn to the sunken swimming-pool.

"Little fools," Swearingen grumbled, "some of them will get hurt, jumping into that frog-pond after dark like that. I'd have had the thing drained and filled in long ago if Margery hadn't put up such a protest. I tell you, Trowbridge——"

"Oh, Mr. Swearingen!" the excited hail came across the lawn. "Look what we found in the pool, sir!"

A young man ran toward us, his companions trailing after him. Before him, holding it high, that it might not drag on the turf, he bore an oblong of canvas, cracked from rough handling and spoiled with water, but unmistakably an oil painting, the missing Virgin of Eckartsau. "I dived right into it," he exclaimed breathlessly, holding his find aloft for our inspection. "Freddy Boerum hopped into the pool ahead of me, and kicked the thing must have come loose from the bottom where it lay and floated up, for I stuck my face right into it when I went off the springboard."

"Who the devil put it there?" Swearingen demanded angrily. "When I missed that picture this afternoon I thought perhaps we had a thief in the crowd; now I think we've been entertaining a lunatic—nobody in his right mind would cut a picture from its frame and sink it in the pool for a joke; that sort of thing's not done."

"You may have right, my friend" —Jules de Grandin stepped from the house and examined the salvaged painting critically—"but it seems to have been accomplished, nevertheless. Tell me, is it possible for one to drain your swimming-pool?"

"Yes, we can cut off the intake and open the drain, but——"

"Then I would urgently suggest we do so without delay," the Frenchman cut in. "Who knows what more lies beneath the waters?"

At Swearingen's order the gardener shut off the supply line and opened the pool's outlet. In a few minutes the last drop of water went gushing down the waste-pipe with a gurgling mutter, and the rays of half a dozen electric torches focused on the shining wet tiles with which the tank was paved. Within minutes' inspection failed to produce anything more unusual than a few waterlogged leaves in the pool, de Grandin borrowed a flashlight from one of the

boys and clambered into the shallow end of the bath. Proceeding cautiously over the slippery tiles, he walked the length of the tank, darting his light here and there. At length, when he had almost completed a circuit of the enclosure, he called, "To me, Friend Trowbridge; behold what I have found them."

Leaning over the curb of the pool, I extended my hand, grasped the Frenchman's fingers and assisted him to the lawn. Under his arm he pressed three small, water-soaked books, their bindings warped and peeling, their pages reduced to pulpy ruin, but the gilt letters still adhering to their backs still proclaiming them the Book of Common Prayer, the New Testament and "Elegant Extracts of Devotional Poetry." As he regained the ground the Frenchman thrust his hand into his jacket pocket and brought forth a small, beautifully carved rosary of coral beads.

"They were securely wedged beneath the ledge which circles the bottom of the pond," he explained. "Had we not drained the bath, there is small doubt they would have lain there until time and water had completely destroyed them. Eh bien, it is lucky the young people decided on their swimming-party tonight, and thus agitated the water before the hidden objects were rendered unidentifiable."

"But who could have done it?—who would do such a silly, senseless thing?" the guests chorused.

"If there's a practical joker here, he's guilty of mighty bad taste," Swearingen declared, looking angrily at the surrounding youngsters.

No sign of guilt was apparent in any of the puzzled young faces, and after another glare our host turned again to de Grandin. "Have you any suggestions concerning it?" he asked.

"Several," the other returned coolly, "but this is neither the time nor place for them. If there is no

better plan, I advise we return to the house."

I WAS on the point of disrobing when de Grandin's gesture stayed me. "Not yet, my friend," he denied. "There will be small sleep for us this night, I fear. Let us wait till all is still, then go to our posts."

"Our posts? What——"

"Precisely. I think we shall see a counter-assault by the enemy before long. She will not permit that we triumph thus. You, my friend, I would have take station in the art gallery, and stop anyone, whoever it be, who enters there, or having entered, attempts departure. Me, I shall patrol the corridors, for I have a feeling there will be that abroad in the house which I greatly desire to see. Come, the house is silent; let us go."

Quietly as a pair of wandering ghosts we descended the stairs to the ground floor, and I took up my position just inside the entrance to the gallery where I would be screened from sight of anyone entering the apartment, but could see all corners of the room at once, and instantly detect the slightest touch upon the door-knob from outside.

The big house was still as a mausoleum. Save for the distant, subdued hoot of a motor horn as a car flashed along the highway, and the faint, eery echo of a screech-owl's cry from the wooded land across the river, no sound disturbed the brooding quiet. The wide, low-ceilinged room was ghostly-dark, only an occasional beam of moonlight entering the tall, leaded windows as the trees outside shifted their boughs in the light summer breeze. The dim forms of the glassfronted cases filled with bric-à-brac, the shadow outlines of frames, pictures on the walls and the wraith-like gleams of the marbles through the darkness gave the place a curiously haunted appearance, and I shivered slightly in spite of myself as my vigil

lengthened from quarter-hours to halves, and from halves to hours. Somewhere in the main hall a big floor-clock struck three slow, deliberate notes, seconded by the staccato triple beat of smaller timepieces; an owl hooted closer to the house; and a freshening early-morning breeze stirred the trees outside, unveiling the windows momentarily and letting in long, oblique rays of moonlight which splashed like silver foam across the waxed, uncarpeted boards of the gallery floor. I swept the apartment with an appraising stare and settled deeper in my chair, muttering a complaint at the task de Grandin had set me. "Foolishness," I mumbled. "Who ever heard of putting a deathwatch over a piece of statuary? Silliest thing I ever——." Insensibly, my head nodded forward, and my tired eyes blinked slowly shut.

How long I napped I do not know. It might have been half an hour, though the chances are it was less. In any event, I straightened up in unbidden wakefulness, my senses alert with that sudden tenseness which is our heritage from cave-dwelling ancestors whose lives depended on instant and full awakening.

The silver light slanted more strongly through the windows, the shadows of the room stood out in stronger contrast. Somewhere, something was moving softly and slowly, creeping with subtle silence, like a panther stalking its prey. My glance swept the room, noting the ordered rows of glass-doored cases, the hanging pictures, the pallid marble of the statues—ah! I half rose from my seat, my fingers gripping the chair arms, my eyes straining through the gloom toward the corner where the funerary effigy of the Countess Eleanor lay. The pale marble image seemed to have grown, to have raised itself from its stone, to move with a slow, deliberate motion. There was a half-seen vision of a pair of carmine

lips, of large, lustrous eyes, a curving throat of tawny cream—a mist of white, fine linen.

"Who's there?" I challenged, leaping up and grasping the length of rubber-coated telephone cable de Grandin had handed me as a weapon. "Stand where you are, or——" my fingers felt along the wall, seeking the electric switch.

A gurgling, contemptuous titter, a flouncing of swirling white draperies, the creak of a window-hinge. Next moment the light flooded on, and I stared blinkingly about the empty room.

"Trowbridge, Trowbridge, mon vieux, are you within—are you awake?" de Grandin's low, anxious hail sounded from the hall, and the door swung open behind me. "What has happened—is all well—did you see anything?" he demanded, noting the blazing lights and my wondering expression.

"No—yes—I don't know!" I answered in a single breath. "I must have fallen asleep and dreamed someone was here, but when I turned on the lights the place was empty. It must have been a dream——"

"Indeed?" he replied coldly. "And did you dream yonder window open?" He indicated the swinging casement with a wave of his hand. "And—pitié de Dieu!—did you also dream this?"

With a cat-like bound he crossed the floor and bent above the supine statue of the Countess, his lips drawn back from his small, white teeth in a grimace which was half sardonic smile, half snarl. I joined him, glanced once at the marble figure, then fell back with a horrified cry. The statue's stony, carven lips were smeared with fresh, red blood!

"Good heavens!" I exclaimed. "What——"

"What, indeed?" he assented. "Attend me. There is much, and very potent, evil loose in this house, my friend. Tonight, before I took up my

watch, I did smear the floor before Monsieur Rodman's door with toilet powder, that anyone who passed in or out might surely leave his foot-tracks on the carpet of the hall. Thereafter I did make regular rounds of the house, watching now at this door, now at that, for I knew not whom to suspect, or even what to suspect him of. Returning through the hall before the young Rodman's door, I found distinct footprints on the carpet, and let myself in without ado. Parbleu, it was very well I did so! The poor lad lay weltering in his blood, for another wound had been pierced in his throat, and yet another in his breast above his heart. I bandaged him forthwith, for his case was urgent, then came to acquaint you with my discovery. Behold, I see you blinking like an owl at midday, and the casement window open, and this"—he pointed to the statue's gory mouth—"to mock at my precautions. Furthermore, my good, alert friend, but a few seconds before I came, something—something white and of about the height of Madame la Comtesse—entered this room before me. Come, let us go up."

"But——" I expostulated.

"Non," he cut me off. "Let us first see the footprints, if you please."

In the upper hall, beginning directly before young Rodman's door and growing fainter as they receded, was a perfectly defined set of footprints. They were surprising, bare-foot, waist-foot, walking barefoot, had stepped into the film of talcum powder before the sill, and traced the white dust on the red carpet. I dropped to my knees, examined them carefully, then turned puzzled, incredulous eyes on my friend's face. The tracks were short and narrow—women's footprints—and each was of a six-toed foot.

"What—who?" I began, but he silenced me with a bleak smile. "Madame la Comtesse, who lies with blood-stained mouth downstairs, had

formed digit, but one as perfectly formed as its companions, joining the instep between the bases of the fourth and little toes.

Once more the little Frenchman signaled my attention; then, bending above the sleeping girl, he flashed his light quickly over her face. Her lips were crimson with fresh blood!

"Donc, mon vieux, are you convinced?" he asked in a low voice.

I made a silencing gesture, but he shrugged his shoulders indifferently. "No need for caution," he returned. "Observe her respiration."

I listened intently a moment, then nodded understanding. Her inhalations gradually became faster and deeper, then slowly ebbed to shallowness and hesitancy—a perfect Cheyne-Stokes cycle. Unquestionably, the girl lay in a light coma.

"What—what does it mean?" I gasped as he piloted me through the door.

"Parbleu, I damn think it is the explanation of that notation on that fiendish statue below," he murmured. "'Does it not read, 'Behold, I send my messenger'? And, cordieu, have we not just rang upon the messenger in person, and no one else?"

"But——"

"Ah bah, let us not stand here like two gossiping fishwives. Come with me and I shall show you something, or Jules de Grandin is more mistaken than he thinks." He

promised. "Be good enough to place your hand on Madame la Comtesse's brow, if you please."

I bent above the statue and rested my finger tips on the smooth, carven marble features, but drew them away with a sharp exclamation. The lifeless stone was as warm as human flesh, velvet-smooth and slightly humid to the hand, as though it were the cuticle of a living woman I touched, not the marble of an insensate statue.

From the farther wall of the gallery de Grandin reached down an Eleventh Century mace, an uncouth weapon consisting of a shaft of forged iron terminating in a metal sphere almost as large as a coconut studded with angular iron teeth. The thing, designed to crush through tough plate armor and batter mailprotected skulls to splinters, was fully two stone in weight, and seemed grotesquely cumbersome in the little Frenchman's dainty hands, but he swung it to his shoulder as a woodchopper might bear his ax and marched resolutely toward me between the cases of artistic oddities which Swearingen had collected.

"What are you about to do?" I demanded as he approached.

"I shall complete the work the liberated peasants left unfinished in '93," he answered, pausing before the statue and raising his ponderous weapon. "Madame la Comtesse, your reign is at an end; no longer will you send your messengers to drain life's blood from innocents!" He swung the iron weapon in a wide arc above his head.

"Good heavens, man—don't!" I cried, seizing the iron bludgeon's shaft and deflecting the blow he was about to deliver.

He turned on me, his face almost livid. "What, you too, my friend?" he asked, a sort of wondering pity in his tone.

"It—it seems like sacrilege," I protested. "She's too beautiful—see,

anyone would think she realized what you're about, and begged for mercy!"

It was true. Though the marble lids lay placidly above the eyes, the effigy's face was somehow subtly altered, and about the sweet, full-lipped mouth was an expression of pleading, almost as though the image were about to speak and beseech the furious little man to stay his hand.

"Cordieu, you have right," he panted, "and thus do I requite her pleadings! Mercy, ha? Such mercy as she has shown to others shall be her portion this night!" The iron weapon fairly whistled as he brought it down with a devastating thud, striking the lovely upturned face full upon the blood-stained lips.

Again and yet again the mace descended, a third blow followed the second and a fourth the third. Great drops of perspiration started out upon de Grandin's white brow, and I could see his limbs were shaking with mingled emotion and fatigue, but the inexorable pounding of his hammer did not stop. Chip after chip of the marble fell away. The beautiful face was a horrid, featureless piece of former self, devoid of life-like semblance as a death-mask gone in putrefaction; the lovely, tapering hands, crossed demurely on the quiet breast, were hewn to fragments and strewn about the floor; the exquisite, six-toed feet were ruthlessly beaten from their rounded ankles and smashed to rubble, and still the small man, decimating, hewing, crushing, splintering, obliterating every likeness to humanity in the statue and leaving only a hideous waste of desolation where the lovely simulacrum had been a few minutes before.

At length he rested from his vandalism and leaned panting on the helve of his weapon. "Adieu, Madame la Comtesse," he muttered. "Adieu pour ce monde et pour l'éternité! Parbleu!" he dabbed his forehead with a lavender-bordered white silk

handkerchief, "it was no child's-play, that; that damnation statue was tougher than the devil's own conscience. Yes. One requires time to regain one's breath."

"Why did you do it?" I asked reproachfully. "It was one of the most beautiful things I ever saw, and the idea of your venting your rage on it because that little she-devil upstairs——"

"Zut!" he shut me off. "Speak not so of the innocent instrument, my friend. Would you sue the pen for libel because some assassin of poetry tries to defame it with a letter which blasts a reputation? Consider this, if you please." Stooping, he retrieved a scrap of marble from the floor, a bit of one of the shapely hands his mace had smashed so ruthlessly, and thrust it at me. "Examine it, closely, mon vieux," he commanded. "Tell me what it is you see."

I turned the pitiful relic between my fingers, holding it against the strong white light from the ceiling chandelier. "Wh—why, it can't be!" I stammered.

"Nevertheless, it is," he responded matter-of-factly. "With your own eyes you see it; can you deny it with your lips?"

Running through the texture of the broken marble as though soaked into the very grain of the stone was a ruddy stain, tinting the broken, rough-edged fragment almost the shade of living flesh, and offering a seeming most fell to my shaking, incredulous fingers.

"But how——" I began.

"How, indeed?" he interrupted. "On her lips you saw the stain of warm, new blood. On her cheeks you felt the flush of reviving pseudo-life; even in her stone veins you see the signal of that fluid. Is it not so?"

"Yes, of course; but——"

"No buts, if you please, my friend. Rather come with me and observe a further wonder; one I am sure has come to pass."

Dreading some fresh horror, I followed him to the near-by telephone and waited in a fever of apprehension while he called a number.

"Allo," he challenged when a sleepy central girl had put through his connection, "is this the State Asylum for the Criminal Insane? Bon. I am Dr. Jules de Grandin, of Paris and Harrisonville, and I inquire concerning the condition of an inmate, one Sidney Weitzer. Yes, if you will be good enough." To me he ordered: "Take up the adjoining receiver, my friend; I would have you hear the message we receive."

"Hello," a voice came faintly across the wire after we had waited a few moments, "this is Dr. Butterworth. I've had charge of Weitzer for the last four hours. He's been unusually violent, and we had to strap him up about half-past ten."

"Ah?" de Grandin breathed.

"And now!"

"Dam' queer," the other replied. "Not five minutes ago he stopped raving and came out of the delirium like a person waking from a dream. Didn't know where he was, or who we were, or what it was all about. Almost had a fit when he found out he was here—couldn't remember being arrested for burglary or anything leading up to his commitment. It's too soon to start bragging, but I'm hanged if I don't think the poor kid's regained his sanity. Damndest thing I ever saw."

"Precisely, you speak truer than you realize, my friend," de Grandin returned as he hung up. To me he observed: "You see, my friend? You realize what is heard?"

"No, I'm hanged if I do," I admitted. "I'm glad the boy's better, I can't see what connection his recovery has with your childishness in smashing that lovely statue, and——"

"No matter," he interrupted with a smile. "Let us sleep, now. To-

morrow is another day, and tomorrow I shall tell you all."

JULES DE GRANDIN lighted a fresh cigarette and regarded Walker Swearingen and me through the curling cloud of acrid, blue-gray smoke. "It is but a fitting together of seemingly unrelated incidents, of seeing that which is pertinent, and understanding what you see," he assured us with a smile. "Me, I am clever, sometimes. I am not often to be fooled; when my luck holds, I always succeed. Consider:

"Yesterday afternoon, you Friend Trowbridge and I are upon your lawn. Monsieur Swearingen, we passed Mademoiselle Hatcheot, who lay resting in a hammock after a strenuous game of tennis. As we went by she did remove her shoe, and as she wore no stockings, I was permitted a glance, though that glance was scarcely longer than the winking of an eye, it was sufficient for me to observe that she possessed six toes where there should have been but five. Yes.

"Now, Jules de Grandin has traveled much and always kept his eyes and ears wide open; and he has gathered much learning where the average man would not. He knows, by example, that among all primitive peoples, and among those not so primitive, who still retain the traditions of the elder days, the possession of an extra finger or toe is regarded as more than a mere physical freak. Certainly. Those having extra digits may be either powerful forces of good or evil, the angels may more readily commune with them; hélas, the same holds true of demons and fiends, even to the Arch-Fiend himself; Dulac, the great English painter, in recognition of this widespread belief, has depicted both Circe and Salome, who were representatives of the less good principles, with six-toed feet. Assuredly.

"What your case was, I did not

know, Monsieur Swearingen, for you had wisely failed to set on paper that which, had it reached other hands than mine, might have made you a laughing-stock; but that you had a problem of more than ordinary interest and complication I suspected from your note of invitation, and here, even as I entered the grounds, I find a young lady with six toes, one who therefore has great potentialities either for good or evil. 'Ha,' I say to me, 'I shall remember this young six-toed lady; she is mysteriously connected in some manner with that which troubles the house.'

"You then told me of the apparently trifling thefts which had annoyed you, and of the odd manner in which a young man guest have been wounded. 'This are strange,' I think. 'Who would steal sacred things of small money-value, and why?' Also, have we, perchance, a vampire—a nocturnal sucker of human blood—in our midst?' I do not know, but I think it unlikely. The vampire, he has a well-defined technique. His unnatural nature have equipped him with sharp, keen teeth; it are these he uses to obtain the blood of his victims; this young Monsieur Rodman have been wounded with steel, that are not the vampire's way. We must look further. But yes.

"Then you show us that statue of Madame la Comtesse. As I gaze on her loveliness—le bon Dieu witness what a lovely foot, too!—what do I behold? Cordieu, six toes on each of her feet; no less! This are strange, this are extraordinary, this are truly amazing. It pulls the long arm of coincidence till its joints crack beneath the strain; here we have two women, one of flesh, one of stone, and each possesses two more toes than ordinary. Yes, it is so.

"Anon you tell me that the young men of your house party are most greatly smitten with this beauteous statue, that one of them have kissed her on the lips; that he is the same

who have been twice already wounded and lost much blood. Now, the olden legends are perhaps only fairy-tales to frighten children; still, where great clouds of smoke arise, there also is some fire, and the legends of old are but the embalmed remains of ancient fact. From the early days come tales of men who wrought their own ruin by embracing images of evil association, by placing nuptial rings on graven fingers, or otherwise acting the lover toward them. This I remember as I try in vain to decipher the meaning of the inscription on the base of the monument. I ask you where you obtained the image, for its history interests me much.

"To Monsieur Yellen I go forthwith, and there I find a most excellent young man, a Hebrew gentleman who ministers to a congregation of that sublime faith and who have traveled much abroad. He tells me how he could not like your statue, for all its beauty, and how he once heard a tale in Drôme concerning a wicked woman popularly known as the Silver Countess. That is sufficient to prime my memory. I recall the legend, I too heard parts of that tale, and I remember the cryptogram of the inscription, 'Mal iii, I,' concerning which Friend Trowbridge and I have argued. It is now plain to me. To test the soundness of my theory I purchase a small Bible and have Friend Trowbridge write down the Scriptural citation which I read. He writes exactly as I have anticipated, and in the Bible I find the first verse of the third chapter of Malachi begins, 'Behold, I will send my messenger—' It is enough. I am on the right trail, though my memory of the Silver Countess' story is most hazy.

"To your home I return and reach my good friend, Professor Jacoby, by telephone. He knows everything to be known about the Middle Ages. The liaison of Lancelot and Guinevere is commonest backstair gossip to him,

and the other peccadilloes with which that period is spiced are as familiar to him as the latest scandal are to the readers of your American tabloid press.

"I begin my discourse diplomatically. 'Jacoby, my friend,' I say to him, 'I think I know the funerary monument of the famous Silver Countess. Would you that I procure it for your museum?'

"'By the great blood!' he tells me, 'I would not!' he tells me. 'If you have found that statue, be advised by me and do one of two things, possibly both. Smash her to a thousand fragments, or run as though the devil in person pursued you.'

"'Ha, do you tell me so?' I ask to know. 'Say on, my friend. I would know more of this so interesting lady.'

"'Thereupon he tells me a tale to make the flesh creep upon your back and the hair to bristle on your head.

"'In the old days when such things were, there lived the woman called the Countess Eleanor, sometimes known as the Silver One or the Silver Countess. Her beauty was so great that no man could look into her face without becoming enamored of her. Her skin was like new milk, her lips like old wine, her eyes like the summer sky at midday, her hair like moonlight shining on burnished silver—hence her sobriquet—and her heart—mordieu, the seventh subcellar of hell were bright as morning beside its blackness. The Middle Ages are sometimes foolishly called the beautiful Age of Faith by shallow theologians, my friends. Ah, were they to call them the golden age of vileness and sorcery, they would speak with equal truth. The Devil had not yet been laughed out of court; he was a most real person, and many harsh bargains did he drive with the sons and daughters of men at that time. But certainly, the Faustus legend has more than small foundation in truth, I think. So it was that when so beautiful woman sold herself, both

body and soul, to the Evil One, and right faithfully did she carry out her Master's commands. Ere yet she was fourteen years of age she wed a doughty knight and went with him to live in his strong château fort near Valence, and there she queened it over the countryside as though she had been the king's own wife.

"'Anon her lord journeyed to the wars, but returning to his home sore afflicted with wounds, he entered his wife's bower at night, only to find her in the foul embrace of an incubus—a demon lover with whom she had long time consorted by stealth.

"'Had he then deprived her of life, he would have given her but her due, but her beautiful eyes looked on him and her lovely, false lips called his name—tiens, there is no fool like a strong man in love, my friends.

"'Away he went again, once his wounds were healed, but this time he took particular pains his lady should not be false. About her he set a constant watch of women and pages and hardy men-at-arms, with strictest orders to let her out of their sight for not one little minute.

"'Nevertheless, the hangers-on at the castle was a talented youth, a sculptor and carver in wood, stone and ivory, whom the Countess annexed as her personal slave. In the living flesh he posed for him to make her funerary monument, and so faithfully did he execute his task that all who saw it vowed he must have used evil arts thus to reproduce his model so faithfully.

THE statue was placed in the castle chapel with all due ceremony, beneath a window where the moon's bright rays should fall on it. Upon the testimony of the watchers who never let her from their sight we have the tale that the Countess Eleanor would often creep into the chapel and lay herself prone upon her effigy, her warm bosom to its cold breast, her warm red lips against its carven

mouth, what time her tears coursed down her cheeks and washed the marble visage of the statue. It was not right, it was unholy, but it was her whim, and she was lady and mistress of the castle. What could they do?

"But soon her eccentric behavior was forgotten in the horror which came upon the household. One by one her guardians failed and pined away, though no man knew their malady, and when at last the vigils were relaxed for want of those to keep them, the Countess Eleanor made high holiday with imps and satyrs, incubi and devils, and all the multitudinous company not yet made fast in hell.

"'It could not last. In those days the Church frowned on such practices, and what the Church disapproved was soon crushed beneath her iron discipline. At a specially convened tribunal the Lady Eleanor was put upon her trial for witchcraft and diabolism, convicted and sentenced to be hanged and burned like any common witch.

"'Upon the night before her execution she had an interview with him who was to be her secretary. Next morning, when her sinful body had been strangled and burned to ashes, the young sculptor could not be found, but evil continued unabated at the château. One by one the holy relics vanished from the chapel, by degrees the other ornaments of the altar were defaced; at last only the image of the Countess Eleanor lay perfect and unblemished, keeping lonely vigil in the mortuary chapel.

"'Upon a night a hideous thing with blazing eyes and long and matted hair, clothed in filthy rags and howling like a beast, attacked a peasant plowman at fall of dusk hard by the castle. The peasant defended himself so lustily that his assailant, sore smitten, was fain to run away, but the plowman pursued, and roused the castle servants. And when they searched the château they found the vanished sculptor prone upon the statue of the wicked countess, his lips to hers, and on the living man's mouth and on the stone woman's lips was a smear of blood. The wretch had opened his own veins, sucked forth his blood, then with his mouth all reeking, caressed the image of the woman he adored in death.

"'Eh bien, there were ways of making those who did not wish to speak tell all they knew in those days, and under torture the fellow confessed how he had entered into a compact with his leman to steal forth the sacred objects from the chapel, and thereafter rend and slay those whom he met, and carry their blood in his mouth to her cold, sculptured lips for her refreshment.

"'In 1358, when the Jacques revolted, the castle was stormed and taken, but for some reason the Silver Countess' tomb was left inviolate. Again, in 1793, when every vestige of kingcraft was swept from France, a guard of Republican soldiers was sent to the château to wreck it further, but save to deface the epitaph upon the tomb they did no hurt to the beautiful and evil effigy.

"'For years the ruins bore an evil name. No traveler who knew the road would venture near them after nightfall, but strange wayfarers, benighted near the castle, sometimes took shelter there, and death or madness was their portion.

"'The last known instance of the tragic history was during the war of France's betrayal, in 1871. In autumn of that year a foraging party of Uhlans was benighted near the castle and took shelter in the ancient chapel, the only portion of the building still under roof.

"'Next morning a company of francs-tireurs found them—three dead, the other dying. The dying man related how at midnight he had wakened with the pain of a sword-cut

in his breast, and seen his corporal lapping flowing blood from the severed throat of a comrade, then, with his dripping mouth, kissing and caressing the lips of a statue which lay still and white in the midnight moonlight. With his pistol he had shot his officer, and the attitude of the man's body bore witness that the wounded man's tale was true; for across the marble statue lay the dead, his bloody lips fast-luring to those of the Countess Eleanor.

"'Parbleu,' I say, when Professor Jacoby has told you 'you have most greatly enlightened me, my friend. Now much is plain which made no seeming sense before. Now I understand how came it that Monsieur Pumphrey went mad directly he had bought that statue; now I understand why poor Sidney Weitzer went mad and rifled his master's shop of every holy thing, and why he sought to break and enter like a common burglar. Whom the Silver Countess enthralls she first makes mad, then criminal. He must commit abominations, then seal the secret of his iniquity with a blood-stained kiss.'

"And then I think that this sixtoed young lady have also had a part in the business of the monkey which have plagued this house. Yes.

"Last night I set a trap. When I have found Mademoiselle Hatcheot's footprints in the hall, I know young Rodman's room have been visited again, and I enter his apartment without ceremony. It were well I did so, for he is sorely wounded, and bleeding much. I repair him and rush to the gallery below, where I find fresh blood—Monsieur Rodman's blood—dotlessly upon the statue's lips. 'Behold, I will send my messenger,' was her parting gibe to humanity, carved on her tomb by that poor young sculptor whose soul she later stole away with her evil loveliness.

"'Immediately I call the hospital for the insane and ascertain that at the moment I broke the Countess' statue I also broke the madness which held the poor young Sidney in slavery. The final link has been fitted into the chain, and all is done. Your so strange case is solved, Monsieur.'"

"But what about the Hatcheot girl?" demanded Swearingen.

"What about the telephone through which you send a message?" de Grandin answered. "She is wholly innocent. By accident she wears six toes; entirely without fault she has been made servant to a creature of extreme wickedness. Her mental state while in her mistress' service was like that of one in anesthesia. She knows nothing, remembers nothing, has no personal fault at all. I pray you, say nothing to her of this business. It would break her heart."

"And you expect me to believe this?" Swearingen scoffed.

The Frenchman lifted his shoulders in an indifferent shrug. "It is a matter of no moment what you believe, Monsieur," he returned. "I have dis-

posed of the case, according to your request. Tomorrow, or the next day, perhaps the day following, I shall render you my bill. No matter, that can wait. At present I greatly desire that you will let me have a drink."