Page:Weird Tales volume 11 number 02.pdf/64

Rh step forward in the dark, then pressing the switch of his flashlight. "Cordieu—pardonnez-moi, Madame!" He shut the light off abruptly, but in its momentary beam we had beheld a sight which brought a gasp of astonishment to our lips. Tethered to the wall by a heavy chain and metal collar locked round her scrawny neck, nude save for a pair of broken felt house-slippers and a tattered and much soiled chemise, thin to the point of emaciation, a woman crouched sobbing and whimpering on the floor. She was no longer young, and almost certainly she had never been lovely, but her voice, for all its burden of misery and terror, was low-pitched and cultured, and her pronunciation that of a person of refinement.

"Your pardon, Madame!" de Grandin repeated, taking another step toward the wretched captive. "We did not know you were here. We"

"Who are you?"

"Eh?"

"Aren't—aren't you Dr. Martulus? Oh, if you aren't, please, please take me away from this dreadful place! They’ve chained me to the wall here like a mad dog, and”

"Pardon me, Madame," de Grandin interrupted, "but who are you?"

"Amelia Mytinger."

"Teeth of the Devil! Not the Mademoiselle Mytinger who disappeared from her home a month ago, and"

"Yes; I am she. A woman called Laïla the Seeress brought me here one night—I don't know how long ago it was. She told me I was possessed of a devil, and Dr. Martulus could cure me—I'd been suffering terribly from rheumatism and the doctors hadn't been able to help me much—and she said it was an evil spirit which plagued me. When they got me here they told me it was Mephistopheles himself who possessed me, and that I'd have to undergo a terrible ordeal by fire if I were ever to be rid of him. I could have hired a substitute, but she wanted ten thousand dollars, and I refused to pay it. I told them I'd undergo the ordeal myself, and they said I must sign a paper releasing them from all legal liability for possible injury I might suffer before they'd permit me to do it. When they brought the paper they wouldn't let me read it or even see any part of it except the space reserved for my signature, so"

"Ah, ha," de Grandin muttered aside to me, "do you, too, not begin to sniff the odor of deceased fish in this business, Friend Trowbridge?"

"But they wouldn't let me go," the woman hurried on, ignoring his comment. "They said I was possessed of a devil and would bring terrible misfortune to everyone I met, so they took away my clothes and chained me here in this terrible place. I've never seen anyone from that night to this except Dr. Martulus, who comes once a day to feed me and ask if I've changed my mind about signing the paper, and"

"'And'," de Grandin quoted irritably, "and what, if you please, Mademoiselle?"

"And the Devil!"

"Queue d'un sacre singe! The which?" he demanded.

"The Devil, I tell you. I never believed in a personal Devil before, but I do, now. Every night he comes to torture me. I see his horrible face shining through the dark and feel his awful claw touch me, and it burns like a white-hot iron. Oh, I'll go mad, if I haven't done so already!" She gasped laboringly for breath, then, as if a thought had suddenly struck her: "You mentioned my having disappeared—I didn't tell anybody I was going to Laïla's that night, I was ashamed to have it known I'd consulted a fortune-teller—but you said I'd been missed. Do the police know about me? Are you