Page:Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories Vol.5 (1907).djvu/256

 might of death and decay than in this moment. Myriads of disgusting clammy insects poured out of every opening of the skull, and a couple of shining, wormlike centipedes—Geophiles, the scientists call them—crawled about in the eye sockets. I threw the skull back into the coffin, sprang over the heaps of bones without even taking time to pick up my lantern, and ran like a hunted thing through the dark mill, over the factory courtyards, until I reached the outer gate. Here I washed the arm at the fountain, and smoothed my disarranged clothing. I hid my booty under my overcoat, nodded to the sleepy old janitor as he opened the door to me, and a few moments later I entered my own room with an expression which I had attempted to make quite calm and careless.

"What the devil is the matter with you, Simsen?" cried Sölling as he saw me. "Have you seen a ghost? Or is the punch wearing off already? We thought you'd never come; why, it's nearly twelve o'clock!"

Without a word I drew back my overcoat and laid my booty on the table.

"By all the devils," exclaimed Sölling in anatomical enthusiasm, "where did you find that superb arm? Simsen knows what he's about all right. It's a girl's arm; isn't it beautiful? Just look at the hand—how fine and delicate it is! Must have worn a No. 6 glove. There's a pretty hand to caress and kiss!"

The arm passed from one to the other amid general admiration. Every word that was said increased my disgust for myself and for what I had done. It was a woman's arm, then—what sort of a woman might she have been? Young and beautiful possibly—her brothers' pride, her parents' joy. She had faded away in her youth, cared for by loving hands and tender thoughts. She had fallen asleep gently, and those who loved her had desired to give her in death the peace she had enjoyed throughout her lifetime. For this they had made her coffin of thick, heavy oaken boards. And this hand, loved and missed by so many—it lay there now on an anatomical table,