The Best Horror Stories of Arthur Conan Doyle (31 page)

“What, Otto!” he exclaimed, recognising his friend. “Art thou ill? You look pale. Come with me to my—Ah! hold, you madman, hold! Drop that axe! Drop it, I say, or by heaven I'll choke you!”

Von Schlegel had thrown himself upon him with a wild cry and uplifted weapon; but the student was stout-hearted and resolute. He rushed inside the sweep of the hatchet and caught his assailant round the waist, narrowly escaping a blow which would have cloven his head. The two staggered for a moment in a deadly wrestle, Schlegel endeavoring to shorten his weapon; but Strauss with a desperate wrench managed to bring him to the ground, and they rolled together in the snow, Strauss clinging to the other's right arm and shouting frantically for assistance. It was as well that he did so, for Schlegel would certainly have succeeded in freeing his arm had it not been for the arrival of two stalwart gendarmes, attracted by the uproar. Even then the three of them found it difficult to overcome the maniacal strength of Schlegel, and they were utterly unable to wrench the silver hatchet from his grasp. One of the gendarmes, however, had a coil of rope round his waist, with which he rapidly secured the student's arms to his sides. In this way, half pushed, half dragged, he was conveyed, in spite of furious cries and frenzied struggles, to the central police station.

Strauss assisted in coercing his former friend, and accompanied the police to the station; protesting
loudly at the same time against any unnecessary violence, and giving it as his opinion that a lunatic asylum would be a more fitting place for the prisoner. The events of the last half-hour had been so sudden and inexplicable that he felt quite dazed himself. What did it all mean? It was certain that his old friend from boyhood had attempted to murder him, and had nearly succeeded. Was Von Schlegel then the murderer of Professor von Hopstein and of the Bohemian Jew? Strauss felt that it was impossible, for the Jew was not even known to him, and the Professor had been his especial favourite. He followed mechanically to the police station, lost in grief and amazement.

Inspector Baumgarten, one of the most energetic and best known of the police officials, was on duty in the absence of the Commissary. He was a wiry, little, active man, quiet and retiring in his habits, but possessed of great sagacity and a vigilance which never relaxed. Now, though he had had a six hours' vigil, he sat as erect as ever, with his pen behind his ear, at his official desk, while his friend, Sub-Inspector Winkel, snored in a chair at the side of the stove. Even the Inspector's usually immovable features betrayed surprise, however, when the door was flung open and Von Schlegel was dragged in with pale face and disordered clothes, the silver hatchet still grasped firmly in his hand. Still more surprised was he when Strauss and the gendarmes gave their account, which was duly entered in the official register.

“Young man, young man,” said Inspector Baumgarten, laying down his pen and fixing his eyes sternly upon the prisoner, “that is pretty work for Christmas morning; why have you done this thing?”

“God knows!” cried Von Schlegel, covering his face with his hands and dropping the hatchet. A change had come over him, his fury and excitement
were gone, and he seemed utterly prostrated with grief.

“You have rendered yourself liable to a strong suspicion of having committed the other murders which have disgraced our city.”

“No, no, indeed!” said Von Schlegel, earnestly. “God forbid!”

“At least you are guilty of attempting the life of Herr Leopold Strauss.”

“The dearest friend I have in the world,” groaned the student. “Oh, how could I! How could I!”

“His being your friend makes your crime ten times more heinous,” said the Inspector, severely. “Remove him for the remainder of the night to the—But steady! Who comes here?”

The door was pushed open, and a man came into the room, so haggard and careworn that he looked more like a ghost than a human being. He tottered as he walked, and had to clutch at the backs of the chairs as he approached the Inspector's desk. It was hard to recognize in this miserable-looking object the once cheerful and rubicund sub-curator of the museum and
Privat-docent
of chemistry, Herr Wilhelm Schlessinger. The practiced eye of Baumgarten, however, was not to be baffled by any change.

“Good morning,
mein Herr,
” he said; “you are up early. No doubt the reason is that you have heard that one of your students, Von Schlegel, is arrested for attempting the life of Leopold Strauss?”

“No; I have come for myself,” said Schlessinger, speaking huskily, and putting his hand up to his throat. “I have come to ease my soul of the weight of a great sin, though, God knows, an unmeditated one. It was I who—But merciful heavens!—there it is—the horrid thing! Oh, that I had never seen it!”

He shrank back in a paroxysm of terror, glaring at the silver hatchet where it lay upon the floor,
and pointing at it with his emaciated hand.

“There it lies!” he yelled. “Look at it! It has come to condemn me. See that brown rust on it! Do you know what that is? That is the blood of my dearest, best friend, Professor von Hopstein. I saw it gush over the very handle as I drove the blade through his brain.
Mein Gott,
I see it now!”

“Sub-Inspector Winkel,” said Baumgarten, endeavouring to preserve his official austerity, “you will arrest this man, charged on his own confession with the murder of the late Professor. I also deliver into your hands Von Schlegel here, charged with murderous assault upon Herr Strauss. You will also keep this hatchet”—here he picked it from the floor—“which has apparently been used for both crimes.”

Wilhelm Schlessinger had been leaning against the table, with a face of ashy paleness. As the Inspector ceased speaking, he looked up excitedly.

“What did you say?” he cried. “Von Schlegel attacks Strauss! The two dearest friends in the college! I slay my old master! It is magic, I say; it is a charm! There is a spell upon us! It is—ah, I have it! It is that hatchet—that thrice accursed hatchet!” and he pointed convulsively at the weapon which Inspector Baumgarten still held in his hand.

The Inspector smiled contemptuously.

“Restrain yourself,
mein Herr,
” he said. “You do but make your case worse by such wild excuses for the wicked deed you confess to. Magic and charms are not known in the legal vocabulary, as my friend Winkel will assure you.”

“I know not,” remarked his sub-inspector, shrugging his broad shoulders. “There are many strange things in the world. Who knows but that—”

“What!” roared Inspector Baumgarten, furiously. “You would undertake to contradict me! You would set up your opinion! You would be the champion of these accursed murderers! Fool, miserable fool,
your hour has come!” and rushing at the astounded Winkel, he dealt a blow at him with the silver hatchet which would certainly have justified his last assertion had it not been that, in his fury, he overlooked the lowness of the rafters above his head. The blade of the hatchet struck one of these, and remained there quivering, while the handle was splintered into a thousand pieces.

“What have I done?” gasped Baumgarten, falling back into his chair. “What have I done?”

“You have proved Herr Schlessinger's words to be correct,” said Von Schlegel, stepping forward, for the astonished policemen had let go their grasp of him. “That is what you have done. Against reason, science and everything else though it be, there is a charm at work. There must be! Strauss, old boy, you know I would not, in my right senses, hurt one hair of your head. And you, Schlessinger, we both know you loved the old man who is dead. And you, Inspector Baumgarten, you would not willingly have struck your friend, the Sub-Inspector?”

“Not for the whole world,” groaned the Inspector, covering his face with his hands.

“Then is it not clear? But now, thank heaven, the accursed thing is broken, and can never do harm again. But see, what is that?”

Right in the center of the room was laying a thin brown cylinder of parchment. One glance at the fragments of the handle of the weapon showed that it had been hollow. This roll of paper had apparently been hidden away inside the metal case thus formed, having been introduced through a small hole, which had been afterwards soldered up. Von Schlegel opened the document. The writing upon it was almost illegible from age; but as far as they could make out it stood thus in mediaeval German:

“Diese Waffe benutzte Max von Erlichingen um Joanna Bodeck zu ermorden, deshalb beschuldige
Ich, Johann Bodeck, mittelst der macht welche mir als mitglied des Concils des rothen Kreuzes verliehan wurde, dieselbe mit dieser unthat Mag sie anderen denselben schmerz verursachen den sie mir verursacht hat. Magjede hand die sie ergreift mit dem blut eines freundes gerothet sein.

“‘Immer übel—niemals gut,

Geröthet mit des freundes blut.'”

Which may be roughly translated:

“This weapon was used by Max von Erlichingen for the murder of Joanna Bodeck. Therefore do I, Johann Bodeck, accurse it by the power which has been bequeathed to me as one of the Council of the Rosy Cross. May it deal to others the grief which it has dealt to me! May every hand that grasps it be reddened in the blood of a friend!

“‘Ever evil, never good,

Reddened with a loved one's blood.'”

There was a dead silence in the room when Von Schlegel had finished spelling out this strange document. As he put it down Strauss laid his hand affectionately upon his arm.

“No such proof is needed by me, old friend,” he said. ‘At the very moment that you struck at me I forgave you in my heart. I well know that if the poor Professor were in the room he would say as much to Herr Wilhelm Schlessinger.”

“Gentlemen,” remarked the Inspector, standing up and resuming his official tones, “this affair, strange as it is, must be treated according to rule and precedent. Sub-Inspector Winkel, as your superior officer, I command you to arrest me upon a charge of murderously assaulting you. You will commit me to prison for the night, together with Herr
von Schlegel and Herr Wilhelm Schlessinger. We shall take our trial at the coming sitting of the judges. In the meantime take care of that piece of evidence”—pointing to the piece of parchment—“and, while I am away, devote your time and energy to utilizing the clew you have obtained in discovering who it was who slew Herr Schiffer, the Bohemian Jew.”

The one missing link in the chain of evidence was soon supplied. On the 28th of December the wife of Reinmaul the janitor, coming into the bedroom after a short absence, found her husband hanging lifeless from a hook in the wall. He had tied a long bolster-case round his neck and stood upon a chair in order to commit the fatal deed. On the table was a note in which he confessed to the murder of Schiffer the Jew, adding that the deceased had been his oldest friend, and that he had slain him without premeditation, in obedience to some uncontrollable impulse. Remorse and grief, he said, had driven him to self-destruction; and he wound up his confession by commending his soul to the mercy of heaven.

The trial which ensued was one of the strangest which ever occurred in the whole history of jurisprudence. It was in vain that the prosecuting counsel urged the improbability of the explanation offered by the prisoners, and deprecated the introduction of such an element as magic into a nineteenth-century law-court. The chain of facts was too strong, and the prisoners were unanimously acquitted. “This silver hatchet,” remarked the judge in his summing up, “has hung untouched upon the wall in the mansion of the Graf von Schulling for nearly two hundred years. The shocking manner in which he met his death at the hands of his favorite house steward is still fresh in your recollection. It has come out in evidence that, a few days before the murder, the steward had overhauled the old weapons and
cleaned them. In doing this he must have touched the handle of this hatchet. Immediately afterward he slew his master, whom he had served faithfully for twenty years. The weapon then came, in conformity with the Count's will, to Buda-Pesth, where, at the station, Herr Wilhelm Schlessinger grasped it, and within two hours, used it against the person of the deceased Professor. The next man whom we find touching it is the janitor Reinmaul, who helped to remove the weapons from the cart to the storeroom. At the first opportunity he buried it in the body of his friend Schiffer. We then have the attempted murder of Strauss by Schlegel, and of Winkel by Inspector Baumgarten, all immediately following the taking of the hatchet into the hand. Lastly, comes the providential discovery of the extraordinary document which has been read to you by the clerk of the court. I invite your most careful consideration, gentlemen of the jury, to this chain of facts, knowing that you will find a verdict according to your consciences without fear and without favor.”

Perhaps the most interesting piece of evidence to the English reader, though it found few supporters among the Hungarian audience, was that of Dr Langemann, the eminent medico-jurist, who has written text-books upon metallurgy and toxicology. He said:

“I am not so sure, gentlemen, that there is need to fall back upon necromancy or the black art for an explanation of what has occurred. What I say is merely a hypothesis, without proof of any sort, but in a case so extraordinary every suggestion may be of value. The Rosicrucians, to whom allusion is made in this paper, were the most profound chemists of the early Middle Ages, and included the principal alchemists whose names have descended to us. Much as chemistry has advanced, there are some
points in which the ancients were ahead of us, and in none more so than in the manufacture of poisons of subtle and deadly action. This man Bodeck, as one of the elders of the Rosicrucians, possessed, no doubt, the recipe of many such mixtures, some of which, like the
aqua tofana
of the Medicis, would poison by penetrating through the pores of the skin. It is conceivable that the handle of this silver hatchet has been anointed by some preparation which is a diffusible poison, having the effect upon the human body of bringing on sudden and acute attacks of homicidal mania. In such attacks it is well known that the madman's rage is turned against those whom he loved best when sane. I have, as I remarked before, no proof to support me in my theory, and simply put it forward for what it is worth.”