I stood at the window of the doll–maker's shop, mastering a stubborn revulsion against entering. I knew McCann was on guard. I knew that Ricori's men were watching from the houses opposite, that others moved among the passersby. Despite the roaring clatter of the elevated trains, the bustle of traffic along the Battery, the outwardly normal life of the street, the doll–maker's shop was a beleaguered fortress. I stood, shivering on its threshold, as though at the door of an unknown world.
There were only a few dolls displayed in the window, but they were unusual enough to catch the eyes of a child or a grown–up. Not so beautiful as that which had been given Walters, nor those two I had seen at the Gilmores', but admirable lures, nevertheless. The light inside the shop was subdued. I could see a slender girl moving at a counter. The niece of Madame Mandilip, no doubt. Certainly the size of the shop did not promise any such noble chamber behind it as Walters had painted in her diary. Still, the houses were old, and the back might extend beyond the limits of the shop itself.
Abruptly and impatiently I ceased to temporize.
I opened the door and walked in.
The girl turned as I entered. She watched me as I came toward the counter. She did not speak. I studied her, swiftly. An hysterical type, obviously; one of the most perfect I had ever seen. I took note of the prominent pale blue eyes with their vague gaze and distended pupils; the long and slender neck and slightly rounded features; the pallor and the long thin fingers. Her hands were clasped, and I could see that these were unusually flexible—thus carrying out to the last jot the Laignel–Lavastine syndrome of the hysteric. In another time and other circumstances she would have been a priestess, voicing oracles, or a saint.
Fear was her handmaiden. There could be no doubt of that. And yet I was sure it was not of me she was frightened. Rather was it some deep and alien fear which lay coiled at the roots of her being, sapping her vitality—a spiritual fear. I looked at her hair. It was a silvery ash…the color…the color of the hair that formed the knotted cords!
As she saw me staring at her hair, the vagueness in her pale eyes diminished, was replaced by alertness. For the first time she seemed to be aware of me. I said, with the utmost casualness:
"I was attracted by the dolls in your window. I have a little granddaughter who would like one I think."
"The dolls are for sale. If there is one you fancy, you may buy it. At its price."
Her voice was low–pitched, almost whispering, indifferent. But I thought the intentness in her eyes sharpened.
"I suppose," I answered, feigning something of irritation, "that is what any chance customer may do. But it happens that this child is a favorite of mine and for her I want the best. Would it be too much trouble to show me what other, and perhaps better, dolls you may have?"
Her eyes wavered for a moment. I had the thought that she was listening to some sound I could not hear. Abruptly her manner lost its indifference, became gracious. And at that exact moment I felt other eyes upon me, studying me, searching me. So strong was the impression that, involuntarily, I turned and peered about the shop. There was no one except the girl and me. A door was at the counter's end, but it was lightly closed. I shot a glance at the window to see whether McCann was staring in. No one was there.
Then, like the clicking of a camera shutter, the unseen gaze was gone. I turned back to the girl. She had spread a half–dozen boxes on the counter and was opening them. She looked up at me, candidly, almost sweetly. She said:
"Why, of course you may see all that we have. I am sorry if you thought me indifferent to your desires. My aunt, who makes the dolls, loves children. She would not willingly allow one who also loves them to go from here disappointed."
It was a curious little speech, oddly stilted, enunciated half as though she were reciting from dictation. Yet it was not that which aroused my interest so much as the subtle change that had taken place in the girl herself. Her voice was no longer languid. It held a vital vibrancy. Nor was she the lifeless, listless person she had been. She was animated, even a touch of vivaciousness about her; color had crept into her face and all vagueness gone from her eyes; in them was a sparkle, faintly mocking, more than faintly malicious.
I examined the dolls.
"They are lovely," I said at last. "But are these the best you have? Frankly, this is rather an especial occasion—my granddaughter's seventh birthday. The price doesn't really matter as long, of course, as it is in reason—"
I heard her sigh. I looked at her. The pale eyes held their olden fear–touched stare, all sparkling mockery gone. The color had fled her face. And again, abruptly, I felt the unseen gaze upon me, more powerfully than before. And again I felt it shuttered off.
The door beside the counter opened.
Prepared though I had been for the extraordinary by Walters' description of the doll–maker, her appearance gave me a distinct shock. Her height, her massiveness, were amplified by the proximity of the dolls and the slender figure of the girl. It was a giantess who regarded me from the doorway—a giantess whose heavy face with its broad, high cheek bones, mustached upper lip and thick mouth produced a suggestion of masculinity grotesquely in contrast with the immense bosom.
I looked into her eyes and forgot all grotesqueness of face and figure. The eyes were enormous, a luminous black, clear, disconcertingly alive. As though they were twin spirits of life, and independent of the body. And from them poured a flood of vitality that sent along my nerves a warm tingle in which there was nothing sinister—or was not then.
With difficulty I forced my own eyes from hers. I looked for her hands. She was swathed all in black, and her hands were hidden in the folds of her ample dress. My gaze went back to her eyes, and within them was a sparkle of the mocking contempt I had seen in those of the girl. She spoke, and I knew that the vital vibrancy I had heard in the girl's voice had been an echo of those sonorously sweet, deep tones.
"What my niece has shown does not please you?"
I gathered my wits. I said: "They are all beautiful, Madame— Madame—"
"Mandilip," she said, serenely. "Madame Mandilip. You do not know the name, eh?"
"It is my ill fortune," I answered, ambiguously. "I have a grandchild—a little girl. I want something peculiarly fine for her seventh birthday. All that I have been shown are beautiful—but I was wondering whether there was not something—"
"Something—peculiarly—" her voice lingered on the word—"more beautiful. Well, perhaps there is. But when I favor customers peculiarly—" I now was sure she emphasized the word—"I must know with whom I am dealing. You think me a strange shopkeeper, do you not?"
She laughed, and I marveled at the freshness, the youthfulness, the curious tingling sweetness of that laughter.
It was by a distinct effort that I brought myself back to reality, put myself again on guard. I drew a card from my case. I did not wish her to recognize me, as she would have had I given her my own card. Nor did I desire to direct her attention to anyone she could harm. I had, therefore, prepared myself by carrying the card of a doctor friend long dead. She glanced at it.
"Ah," she said. "You are a professional—a physician. Well, now that we know each other, come with me and I will show you of my best."
She led me through the door and into a wide, dim corridor. She touched my arm and again I felt that strange, vital tingling. She paused at another door, and faced me.
"It is here," she said, "that I keep my best. My—peculiarly best!"
Once more she laughed, then flung the door open.
I crossed the threshold and paused, looking about the room with swift disquietude. For here was no spacious chamber of enchantment such as Walters had described. True enough, it was somewhat larger than one would have expected. But where were the exquisite old panelings, the ancient tapestries, that magic mirror which was like a great "half–globe of purest water," and all those other things that had made it seem to her a Paradise?
The light came through the half–drawn curtains of a window opening upon a small, enclosed and barren yard. The walls and ceiling were of plain, stained wood. One end was entirely taken up by small, built–in cabinets with wooden doors. There was a mirror on the wall, and it was round—but there any similarity to Walters' description ended.
There was a fireplace, the kind one can find in any ordinary old New York house. On the walls were a few prints. The great table, the "baronial board," was an entirely commonplace one, littered with dolls' clothing in various stages of completion.
My disquietude grew. If Walters had been romancing about this room, then what else in her diary was invention—or, at least, as I had surmised when I had read it, the product of a too active imagination?
Yet—she had not been romancing about the doll–maker's eyes, nor her voice; and she had not exaggerated the doll–maker's appearance nor the peculiarities of the niece. The woman spoke, recalling me to myself, breaking my thoughts.
"My room interests you?"
She spoke softly, and with, I thought, a certain secret amusement.
I said: "Any room where any true artist creates is of interest. And you are a true artist, Madame Mandilip."
"Now, how do you know that?" she mused.
It had been a slip. I said, quickly:
"I am a lover of art. I have seen a few of your dolls. It does not take a gallery of his pictures to make one realize that Raphael, for example, was a master. One picture is enough."
She smiled, in the friendliest fashion. She closed the door behind me, and pointed to a chair beside the table.
"You will not mind waiting a few minutes before I show you my dolls? There is a dress I must finish. It is promised, and soon the little one to whom I have promised it will come. It will not take me long."
"Why, no," I answered, and dropped into the chair.
She said, softly: "It is quiet here. And you seem weary. You have been working hard, eh? And you are weary."
I sank back into the chair. Suddenly I realized how weary I really was. For a moment my guard relaxed and I closed my eyes. I opened them to find that the doll–maker had taken her seat at the table.
And now I saw her hands. They were long and delicate and white and I knew that they were the most beautiful I had ever beheld. Just as her eyes seemed to have life of their own, so did those hands seem living things, having a being independent of the body to which they belonged. She rested them on the table. She spoke again, caressingly.
"It is well to come now and then to a quiet place. To a place where peace is. One grows so weary—so weary. So tired—so very tired."
She picked a little dress from the table and began to sew. Long white fingers plied the needle while the other hand turned and moved the small garment. How wonderful was the motion of those long white hands…like a rhythm…like a song…restful!
She said, in low sweet tones:
"Ah, yes—here nothing of the outer world comes. All is peace—and rest—rest—"
I drew my eyes reluctantly from the slow dance of those hands, the weaving of those long and delicate fingers which moved so rhythmically. So restfully. The doll–maker's eyes were on me, soft and gentle…full of that peace of which she had been telling.
It would do no harm to relax a little, gain strength for the struggle which must come. And I was tired. I had not realized how tired! My gaze went back to her hands. Strange hands—no more belonging to that huge body than did the eyes and voice.
Perhaps they did not! Perhaps that gross body was but a cloak, a covering, of the real body to which eyes and hands and voice belonged. I thought over that, watching the slow rhythms of the hands. What could the body be like to which they belonged? As beautiful as hands and eyes and voice?
She was humming some strange air. It was a slumberous, lulling melody. It crept along my tired nerves, into my weary mind—distilling sleep…sleep. As the hands were weaving sleep. As the eyes were pouring sleep upon me—
Sleep!
Something within me was raging, furiously. Bidding me rouse myself! Shake off this lethargy! By the tearing effort that brought me gasping to the surface of consciousness, I knew that I must have passed far along the path of that strange sleep. And for an instant, on the threshold of complete awakening, I saw the room as Walters had seen it.
Vast, filled with mellow light, the ancient tapestries, the panelings, the carved screens behind which hidden shapes lurked laughing—laughing at me. Upon the wall the mirror—and it was like a great half–globe of purest water within which the images of the carvings round its frame swayed like the reflections of verdure round a clear woodland pool!
The immense chamber seemed to waver—and it was gone.
I stood beside an overturned chair in that room to which the doll– maker had led me. And the doll–maker was beside me, close. She was regarding me with a curious puzzlement and, I thought, a shadow of chagrin. It flashed upon me that she was like one who had been unexpectedly interrupted—
Interrupted! When had she left her chair? How long had I slept? What had she done to me while I had been sleeping? What had that terrific effort of will by which I had broken from her web prevented her from completing?
I tried to speak—and could not. I stood tongue–tied, furious, humiliated. I realized that I had been trapped like the veriest tyro— I who should have been all alert, suspicious of every move. Trapped by voice and eyes and weaving hands by the reiterated suggestion that I was weary so weary…that here was peace…and sleep…sleep… What had she done to me while I slept? Why could I not move? It was as though all my energy had been dissipated in that one tremendous thrust out of her web of sleep! I stood motionless, silent, spent. Not a muscle moved at command of my will. The enfeebled hands of my will reached out to them—and fell.
The doll–maker laughed. She walked to the cabinets on the far wall. My eyes followed her, helplessly. There was no slightest loosening of the paralysis that gripped me. She pressed a spring, and the door of a cabinet slipped down.
Within the cabinet was a child–doll. A little girl, sweet–faced and smiling. I looked at it and felt a numbness at my heart. In its small, clasped hands was one of the dagger–pins, and I knew that this was the doll which had stirred in the arms of the Gilmore baby…had climbed from the baby's crib…had danced to the bed and thrust…
"This is one of my peculiarly best!" The doll–maker's eyes were on me and filled with cruel mockery. "A good doll! A bit careless at times, perhaps. Forgetting to bring back her school–books when she goes visiting. But so obedient! Would you like her for your granddaughter?"
Again she laughed—youthful, tingling, evil laughter. And suddenly I knew Ricori had been right and that this woman must be killed. I summoned all my will to leap upon her. I could not move a finger.
The long white hands groped over the next cabinet and touched its hidden spring. The numbness at my heart became the pressure of a hand of ice. Staring out at me from that cabinet was Walters! And she was crucified!
So perfect, so—alive was the doll that it was like seeing the girl herself through a diminishing glass. I could not think of it as a doll, but as the girl. She was dressed in her nurse's uniform. She had no cap, and her black hair hung disheveled about her face. Her arms were outstretched, and through each palm a small nail had been thrust, pinning the hands to the back of the cabinet. The feet were bare, resting one on the other, and through the insteps had been thrust another nail. Completing the dreadful, the blasphemous, suggestion, above her head was a small placard. I read it:
"The Burnt Martyr."
The doll–maker murmured in a voice like honey garnered from flowers in hell:
"This doll has not behaved well. She has been disobedient. I punish my dolls when they do not behave well. But I see that you are distressed. Well, she has been punished enough—for the moment."
The long white hands crept into the cabinet, drew out the nails from hands and feet. She set the doll upright, leaning against the back. She turned to me.
"You would like her for your granddaughter, perhaps? Alas! She is not for sale. She has lessons to learn before she goes again from me."
Her voice changed, lost its diabolic sweetness, became charged with menace.
"Now listen to me—Dr. Lowell! What—you did not think I knew you? I knew you from the first. You too need a lesson!" Her eyes blazed upon me. "You shall have your lesson—you fool! You who pretend to heal the mind—and know nothing, nothing I say, of what the mind is. You, who conceive the mind as but a part of a machine of flesh and blood, nerve and bone and know nothing of what it houses. You—who admit existence of nothing unless you can measure it in your test tubes or see it under your microscope. You—who define life as a chemical ferment, and consciousness as the product of cells. You fool! Yet you and this savage, Ricori, have dared to try to hamper me, to interfere with me, to hem me round with spies! Dared to threaten me— Me—possessor of the ancient wisdom beside which your science is as crackling of thorns under an empty pot! You fools! I know who are the dwellers in the mind—and the powers that manifest themselves through it—and those who dwell beyond it! They come at my call. And you think to pit your paltry knowledge against mine? You fool! Have you understood me? Speak!"
She pointed a finger at me. I felt my throat relax, knew I could speak once more.
"You hell bag!" I croaked. "You damned murderess! You'll go to the electric chair before I'm through with you!"
She came toward me, laughing.
"You would give me to the law? But who would believe you? None! The ignorance that your science has fostered is my shield. The darkness of your unbelief is my impregnable fortress. Go play with your machines, fool! Play with your machines! But meddle with me no more!"
Her voice grew quiet, deadly.
"Now this I tell you. If you would live, if you would have live those who are dear to you—take your spies away. Ricori you cannot save. He is mine. But you—think never of me again. Pry no more into my affairs. I do not fear your spies—but they offend me. Take them away. At once. If by nightfall they are still on watch—"
She caught me by the shoulder with a grip that bruised. She pushed me toward the door.
"Go!"
I fought to muster my will, to raise my arms. Could I have done so I would have struck her down as I would a ravening beast. I could not move them. Like an automaton I walked across the room to the door. The doll–maker opened it.
There was an odd rustling noise from the cabinets. Stiffly, I turned my head.
The doll of Walters had fallen forward. It lay half over the edge. Its arms swung, as though imploring me to take it away. I could see in its palms the marks of the crucifying nails. Its eyes were fixed on mine—
"Go!" said the doll–maker. "And remember!"
With the same stiff motion I walked through the corridor and into the shop. The girl watched me, with vague, fear–filled eyes. As though a hand were behind me, pressing me inexorably on, I passed through the shop and out of its door into the street.
I seemed to hear, did hear, the mocking evil–sweet laughter of the doll–maker!