The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror (60 page)

It occurred to me that Henry Lockett might have heard some chance rumor of my dear grandmama. In short, he might not have been so ignorant of me and of my reputation as he had claimed. Wishing to confound him, as he was speaking I had reached for the young lady’s wrist.

A wet gust of wind pushed into the room, disturbing the curtains by the open sash, where a braided cable of wires and rubber tubes ran down into the courtyard. Reflected there, I could see indirectly the evil, red glow of the generator. Monsieur Maubusson crossed the room as if to shut the window. But he turned back before he reached it, revealing a pistol in his hand. “Stand away, sir,” he cried. “No, you—Henry. Please, my boy, you must understand. There is no time to be lost.”

“Sir, you must be drunk or else insane,” began the outraged fiancé, a diagnosis that coincided with my own, although I saw no reason why the two possibilities had to exclude each other. In fact, I wondered if Lockett himself had been excessively fortified with liquor, as I could smell it on his breath and clothes the moment he’d approached me, where I stood by Mlle. Maubusson’s tub, testing the rigidity of her arm and elbow—her skin was very cold. Her father made a sudden gesture, and Lockett backed away from me all the way to the door, where he stood impotently, his eyes wet, his face red.

Another gesture, and he was gone. My host followed him to the open door. “I’ll see him out,” he said, putting the pistol aside. “Besides, I must restart the engine.”

I was happy they were gone. I wanted Mlle. Maubusson to myself. No sooner had her father left the room, than I went to work. Along one wall, incongruous against the painted wallpaper, there was a wheeled metal bed of a type that is used in hospitals. I brought it over, and, neglecting my clothes, I lifted Mlle. Maubusson onto the enamel surface. During my dream I had had such a strong impression of her weight in my arms, I felt I must confirm it at the expense of my waistcoat.

As my host had said, there was no time to be lost. But I had another reason to hurry. The electrodes must be divided, and at least one placed under her clothes, between her
labia minora.
I had not wanted to perform this operation under her father’s scrutiny, although without it, or the equivalent procedure on my male subjects, I had had no success in the past—so strong in the dead are these bestial urges.

And as I fumbled under the young lady’s drenched nightgown, I could not but remember the horrifying moment when I had discovered, in the underclothes of Sophie de Noailles, the pearl and sapphire ring I had given her in a past moment of happiness. Anticipating everything I did, she had secreted it there before her death, to mock me and torment me. She knew I would do everything in my power to resuscitate her, if only so that I could beg for her forgiveness.

An enamel tray hung from the bed-rail, containing an assortment of medical implements. I had pulled apart the second skein of electrodes and was attaching them to Mlle. Maubusson’s cranium, when I heard the roar of the dynamo, outside in the courtyard. I felt the electric thrill in my fingertips, as I was able to manipulate a cage of stimulation over the cerebral hemispheres. This is what Maubusson had already attempted. But at the same time I affixed the posts so as to enclose and affect the hypothalamus and the medulla oblongata, the most primitive portions of the brain. The effect was instantaneous; I felt her body shudder and convulse. Her spine curved like a bow, and her eyes snapped open as I bent over her. Because of the electricity, her lips pulled away from her teeth, and her mottled tongue protruded next to my ear. And she started in at once, in a harsh, breathy whisper—“Oh, I have waited for this moment—do not touch me. You have forfeited the right.”

“Forgive me,” I murmured next to her ear.

“I cannot. Instead, I must remember that night when you revealed yourself to me. Monsieur, perhaps it is not possible to know another person, to trust that you have seen into the bottom of his soul. But then at certain moments we reveal ourselves. That night I saw an animal, a creature whose only impulse was violence and desire. What is it that separates men from beasts, can you answer that? And how is it that a woman is expected to continue, once she has finally understood a man she trusted, or might have trusted with her soul? What shall a woman do, once she has seen the truth? For shame, monsieur. Must I remind you of that night, when you would have taken me by force in my father’s house? And I felt I could say nothing, because of your friendship with him, and the money that he owed. Can you blame me for my response, which was to discover an extract of conium—you know where I found it! Ah, how cold I was!”

Her voice had risen to a shriek. I tried to restrain her, press her down to the enamel surface, but she struggled against me. With one hand, from the enamel tray she grabbed up a pair of scissors, which I had been using to cut pieces of surgical tape. Fearing for my life, I let her go and stumbled away, as she clambered off the bed and stood brandishing the scissors, her eyes wide and staring. But she was held from attacking me by the wires in her hair, connected to the electrical cable that was stretched to its entire length across the room, and which by its weight was pulling her head back, so that the sinews stood out from her neck. Furious, she jabbed at me with the scissors, and when she realized that she couldn’t reach me, with her other hand she ripped the net of wires from her head, and immediately fell lifeless to the floor.

“Brute,” said Monsieur Maubusson, standing by the door. I had not heard him come in.

“Animal,” he repeated. “To think I welcomed him into my house. Now I see why he wanted to impede us. Why he ran from us. He was afraid we would discover—”

“No,” I murmured.

“And this apothecary,” he continued as he came into the room and collapsed over his daughter’s corpse. “I will hunt him down. I will have him arrested. He must be in a shop near here.”

“You will not find him,” I murmured.

“Besides,” I pleaded, after a moment. “You must not trust the literal accuracy of these words. You say yourself they speak in code . . . ”

“Does this sound like a code to you, monsieur? She told us straight out what has happened. Ah God, ever since her death, this has been my fear. I could have predicted this. And yet I saw no trace of poison, no discarded vial.”

“These women are devious,” I said. “You cannot trust them.
Conium maculatum
leaves no trace.”

No matter what we undertook, we could not rouse her again. Instead, after another hour, we shut down the dynamo for the last time, and then deposed Mlle. Maubusson upon the table. My host picked up the scissors from the floor. “She must have mistaken you for him,” he said. “I can only apologize on her behalf.”

“She was evidently blind,” I concurred.

I write this at dawn. Perhaps I can claim a few hours’ sleep, before my train. As I climbed the stairs, I saw my host descend to the front hall, an umbrella in his hand. I hate to think what he intends.

(From the private diary of Philippe Delorme, May 24th)

4. “ . . . a congenital defect . . . ”

Q: You understand what I am saying to you?

A: Yes, monsieur. Although I cannot speak English to my satisfaction, I can understand perfectly well.

Q: Good. How long have you worked for Mr. Maubusson?

A: Seven years.

Q: Good. Will you explain in your own words what happened on the morning of the 24th of May—that is, on Tuesday of last week?

A: What happened?

Q: I’m talking about Dr. Delorme.

A: Well, I brought him coffee in the morning. There was a break in the weather, and my master had already gone out. This was perhaps at eight o’clock. Professor Delorme was agitated, and complained of a small fever. He told me he must take a carriage to the station, and so then I must inform him that the tracks were somewhat underwater between here and Jackson. You remember that morning—there was no steamship also, because the river was so high. Beyond St. Claude Avenue, the streets were all in flood.

Q: Delorme was a white man? What did he say?

A: Well, he was agitated, as I tell you. He said he would verify this information as he could.

Q: And Mr. Maubusson?

A: He was already gone, as I have said. I had no idea, yet, of the tragedy. And I must tell you, it was unnecessary. Mlle. Maubusson, she had a heart defect, it was well known. There was no mystery—she had a congenital defect, like her mother. But my master couldn’t accept it. He was so distracted in his grief. He could not see what was before his face. He must persuade himself of something different, or else make himself to be persuaded. It was Delorme that must have accomplished this, I don’t know why. But I must blame him. Monsieur Lockett and my master, until that night they were together in all things.

Q: A heart defect. You’re a doctor, are you?

A: No, sir.

Q: No medical training?

A: No.

Q: No. Where were you born? Santo Domingo, isn’t it? Tell me what Delorme did then.

A. He left his luggage and went out. It is still upstairs. He inquired from me after a girl, whom he had seen in the street the night before. A local girl, whom I recognized from his description. But he did not understand. He thought she was a woman of the town. But this was not the place, so close to St. Roch’s church—it was not possible. I gave him the address. I told him, “Oh, so you will get your fortune read?” But he did not understand. He was a bad man, I think. He looked for another meaning, because he was desperate for this woman, even so early in the morning . . .

(From the police deposition of Prosper Charrière, May 30th)

5. “Vous cherchez quelque chose?”

Ladies and gentlemen, are you looking for something or someone who is lost and cannot be found? Are you looking for the answers to your secret questions? Is there a man or woman, whose heart you must unlock? Perhaps there is a man who languishes in prison, falsely or else rightfully accused. Madame Semiramis will help, employing all the latest scientific instruments. Follow these signs to her address . . .

(Posted in the Rue Royale, earlier that week)

6. Post-script.

. . . And one more thing, my God. An hour’s sleep without rest, buffeted by dreams. You stand before me in your same black beaded dress, bloodless and pale. When you touch me I can measure in your body’s temperature the effect of the conium, which you discovered in my laboratory. And when you kneel down to unbutton me, where I once might have joyfully supposed you had been taught by nature alone, now I can perceive the course of your instruction in a brothel of dead souls, and a malign efficiency which gives me no pleasure or relaxation, but rather the reverse. I left France to avoid these dreams, but they have followed me. Where can I go to find relief?

(From the private diary of Philippe Delorme, May 24th, eight o’clock)

7. Of possible significance: An interview with Marie Louise Glaspion, in the infirmary of the Ursuline Convent, Charters Street, August 10th, 1936.

. . . I understand why you have come. You want to ask me about Madame Semiramis, how I left her house. Isn’t that right?

Even last year I would have told you nothing. But now you see me lying here too weak to raise my head, connected by this tube to this machine.

For some weeks now I have understood that I am dying. I have treated many others through this same infection of the lung, especially this summer, because of my work here with the sisters. But that is not the only reason.

Many years I have denied this, though by now I am too tired to continue: I still have the gift, which I inherited from my mother and have tried to turn to God’s purposes. When it refers to that night, my gift is where it starts, because of those two men that I saw arguing in the Rue Dauphine, when I was late returning to my mother’s house. The older one, he stood at the abyss. The snake was out upon his temple, as we used to say, and of course in the next days his name was in the papers, because he had been shot by some American.

Always one pauses, wondering to intervene, but how could I? What intervention could be made? I was only a girl, not yet fifteen years old. Besides, it was the younger man who stared at me with such hostility, because he thought I was a prostitute selling my body in an alleyway. In those days I was full of pride, not like now.

That was the night of a big storm. In the morning the streets were flooded in the Third District, not yet where I was, but toward the Rue Claibourne. So long ago! But I was soaked when I got home, and my mother scolded me. She was with some customers around the fire, although it was almost midnight. The rain fell though the roof into some pots. She had killed the cock.

What came to disgust me finally were the images of saints around the altar, St. Roch and St. John especially, together with the devil’s images from Saint Domingue. But in those days I saw this as normal. Maman told me to dry myself beside the fire, and I hated that also, because of the eyes of the customers, even though I knew full well that this was part of why they came, part of the devil’s net, part of that nonsense with Damboolah and Bamboolah and these things, my mother knew it too. It was she who stripped the wet scarf from my throat.

Will you give me some water, please? Thank you. You see I am too weak to pour a glass. Oh, you must not spill water on your microphone. Bring it close. I will speak to it as if it were a priest—I was astonished to see that same man the next morning, the one who had watched me in the Rue Dauphine, a gentleman of color, but light-skinned. Gray eyes. The rain had stopped for a moment. A humid wind chased the clouds over the rooftops, away toward the river. He came in drunk out of the street, stinking of tafia. I was sweeping with the wet broom, my sleeves rolled up. I thought my mother was still asleep behind the curtain. But this fellow scarcely spoke a greeting. He took me by surprise. He backed me up against the wall before I could resist. He was begging for pity. I’d heard that from a man before! I screamed, and then my mother was there, and he released me. She was a tall woman with a powerful eye, dressed in her robe, and with her long hair bound up. “Forgive me,” he protested.