The talkers

ROBERT W. CHAMBERS

THE TALKERS
BY
ROBERT W. CHAMBERS

AUTHOR OF “THE FLAMING JEWEL,” “THE SLAYER
OF SOULS,” “THE COMMON LAW,” “IN
SECRET,” “LORRAINE,” ETC.

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NEW YORK

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

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THE TALKERS. I
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TO
MY FRIEND
ROBERT H. DAVIS

THE TALKERS

CHAPTER I

Sadoul’s only experiences in love had been gross. The cynic in him admitted nothing better.

Saturnine, without delusions, he went about his business in life, doing no particular good, and with a capacity for harm limited only by his talents.

He had been a little of everything, and always clever--art student, medical student, reporter, critic, writer--intelligent, adroit.

His was a mordant pen and brilliant; and it was for sale.

The query, “Have you read Sadoul’s article in the Wasp?” or in the View Point, or in some one of many irregular publications, was not an uncommon question in the metropolis.

Sadoul on this or that had become fairly familiar to a talkative public. He had something to say about everything and anything. His personal convictions made no difference. And he always was interesting.

The second year after the war ended he went to France again. At the University of Paris he took courses in psychology and philology: in the Ecole de Médecine he attended lectures. Clinics where hypnosis induced supplanted anesthesia in minor operations fascinated him.

But life, there, taught him nothing nobler to expect of a world already proven sordid by personal experience.

He entertained no delusions concerning mankind, its friendship, or its love; he neither expected nor desired anything of it except the saturnine amusement which he extracted from it, and which was his principal form of pleasure.

Then Chance tripped him up. Needing an English stenographer one day, the American firm on the rue Colchas sent him a girl equipped to take dictation.

It appeared that she was equipped for more than that. Sadoul silently went mad about her.

A sort of still terror also took possession of the girl--the hopeless immobility of a doomed thing, conscious of menace, apparently unable to escape.

Resistance seemed to hold only along certain lines.

Otherwise there was no defence. She had stepped from reality into a dream.

At his inquiry she told him her story. She did not wish to do so.

There was a ball in the Latin Quarter given by Julian’s that evening. Sadoul took her. She wore pale, lunar green; which went with her red hair and deep green eyes.

She had little to say to Sadoul’s friends. So reticent, so dazed she seemed that some, troubled and perplexed by her youth and beauty, suspected her of an addiction to drugs.

As for Sadoul, he had gone completely mad over her. He became her shadow everywhere. And, save only for certain lines of resistance, he seemed to have utterly mastered her.

But those occult lines held. The conflict almost crazed him--so pliant, so yielding she seemed, so obedient had he made her in all excepting certain lines. His dark face greyed at times under the strain. He abased himself and begged; he grinned and told her what to expect if she ever tricked him. The lines held.

His impression upon her had already been made; he could stamp it no deeper; the girl was not in love with him. She never would be. And he knew it.

She seemed to be a passionless little thing, her beauty a golden chrysalis containing nothing--the Psyche within aborted.

In the Latin Quarter, lack of animation is unpopular. There was about her that innocent detachment one notices in the preoccupation of a nun. Invited, at first she went everywhere with Sadoul.

After a while they were seldom invited where pleasure was noisy and untrammelled.

Early in spring a cabled offer from New York brought Sadoul’s affairs to a climax.

For three days Sadoul beat at her very soul to club it into submission. Then he crawled and wept. The lines held.

Again he battered her with his implacable will till her bruised, stupefied mind gave up. But the lines held.

She was in a daze when the civil ceremony was performed. He cabled to New York, giving up his quarters at the Fireside Club, and requesting his friend Pockman to secure for him a furnished housekeeping apartment on Riverside Drive.

He was having his way with her--or tried to believe he was having it.

And then Destiny pulled an ugly face at him. For the girl utterly refused to submit to the religious ceremony. And the old lines still held.

Early summer in Paris is paradise. But it had become a hell to Sadoul. He walked the earth like a damned soul chained to its victim.

In July he secured passage for them both.

CHAPTER II

George Derring, Julian Fairless, and Harry Stayr organized the Fireside Club in New York to gratify the instincts of the slovenly well-to-do. Limited membership and a long waiting-list told its successful story.

Derring also had financed the big new building on 57th Street, where the Fireside occupied the entire second floor.

The remainder of the building harboured members in apartments of one to three rooms. Some apartments had studios attached.

The Fireside Club was the common meeting-ground. Members could sprawl there in evening dress or bath-robe and slippers, all day and all night if they liked.

Men with an inclination to conversation and a disinclination for work seemed to compose the bulk of membership. Which gave to the Fireside that intellectual allure so impressive among the mindless millions.

The glamour of genius played about the Fireside like St. Anthony’s fire; its Thinkers and its Talkers found its exclusive luxury a paradise.

But a few common and irreverent folk characterised it as an intellectual doldrums where talent lay becalmed; or a maelstrom of talk where creative energy was sucked under and ultimately engulfed.

In midsummer a majority of the Fireside wandered far and wide in that restless quest for satisfaction characteristic of those who talk much and do little.

But always a sprinkling remained to loaf about the club. From which retreat, having dined well, the dusky tropic brilliancy of Manhattan’s streets lured them into endless wanderings through a thousand and one Metropolitan Nights.

* * * * *

Early in spring Sadoul had cabled from Paris that he was giving up his apartment there on May first. So somebody else moved in on that date.

Derring returned in June from a gastronomic tour of European Ritz’s. He mentioned meeting Julian Fairless in Paris, but had not seen Sadoul.

Before Sadoul returned, Julian Fairless brought back a budget of gossip, including news of him. Only a small percentage of Talkers are doers. Fairless was industriously both.

To a question from Stayr he replied that Paris, the Latin Quarter, and Julian’s were about the same as ever. A similar and dingy crowd infested the schools; similar masters gave similar instruction. All the unkempt ruck and reek of the atelier was there; massiers, models, blague, noise--nothing had changed except the individuals composing the mess.

Fairless, an incessant Talker, gossiped on without encouragement. Which is the instinct of the true Talker.

So-and-so was dead--killed at Verdun; so-and-so goes on crutches; old Clifford has a studio in the Court of the Dragon; Rowden died at Mons; Creed, now wealthy, lives in the Parc Monçeau and paints no more; the Beaux Arts is below par this year, and “our men” appear to be the pick; etc., etc. So Fairless chattered on and on, talking the talk of the Talkers.

He was still at breakfast, eating a soft-boiled egg out of its own shell, in the rather dirty English fashion.

“I sold several pictures to profiteers,” he continued; “Paris is lousy with nouveau riche. Derring bought two from me----”

Stayr remonstrated: “Derring isn’t nouveau riche.”

“Oh, no, but he played about with them. He wanted to see Julian’s. I took him over. He was disgusted with the models. Besides, he kept his hat on and they bawled him out.”

Fairless wallowed in a finger-bowl, dried his celebrated scarab ring:

“I saw quite a lot of Casimir Sadoul. He was doing philology at the University, but he associated mostly with Julian men.... He had a girl; went about everywhere with her. That’s a new idea for him, eh?”

“I suppose Sadoul did not wish to be conspicuous in the Quarter,” suggested Mortimer Lyken.

“This affair was conspicuous. Fancy the contrast!--that big, blackish, beetle-browed ruffian hooked up to a red-headed slip of a thing, so bashful that you got no more out of her than yes and no.”

“Did she really belong to Sadoul?” asked Stayr.

“Apparently. He behaved savagely if you looked at her. Somebody told me he got her by hypnotising her.”

“He knows how,” remarked Pockman. “He’s done it for me.”

“Bunk,” murmured Stayr, “--wasn’t it?”

“Well,” returned Pockman with his pallid smirk and hunching up his wide, bony shoulders, “I’ve performed minor operations on patients with Sadoul’s aid, inducing hypnosis instead of anesthesia.”

“The devil!” exclaimed Lyken. “That was Charcot’s graft.”

Fairless chattered on: “All the fellows concluded that Sadoul had some sort of hold on her. She seemed too pretty and refined to fall for a big, swarthy brute like Sadoul. She really was an exquisite little thing, Harry--such features, such skin, such hands and hair--and the fellows all wild to paint her--and old Sadoul foxy and sardonic.... They say the souls of the damned cast no shadows. I fancy Sadoul’s girl still has a chance: he certainly was her shadow--always at her heels, always on the job.... Somebody said he had threatened to kill her if she ever fooled him. But I think Sadoul’s more likely to beat up the man in the case.”

Fairless got up from the table.

“Now, if you fellows care to see what I brought back----”

A few of the other men rose and followed Fairless upstairs to his studio where Angelo, his factotum, had already placed the first picture upon an easel.

As usual, all the elements of popularity were apparent in the picture--a typical Julian Fairless canvas, full of that obvious charm so attractive to an obvious public, so acceptable to the professional critic.

Fairless lit a cigarette and sat down to chat with Sidney Pockman, who didn’t care for pictures.

“Where did Sadoul get that girl you mentioned?” he inquired, the smirk still stamped on his flat, colourless face.

“In Paris.”

“How did she happen to be there?”

“Oh, a story of sorts. She and mama were living in London when the Huns dropped bombs. Mama was blown into unpleasant gobs all over the house. Then it was canteen work in Paris. Then no job. Then Sadoul ran into her. That’s the story.”

“She’s English?”

“American, I believe. I couldn’t tell by her speech. She’s a dumb youngster.”

“What’s he going to do with her? Marry her?”

“Well, I don’t know, Pockman. I fancy it’s high time--if he means to do it at all.”

“Oh, that sort?”

“She doesn’t look it. She’s so dumb she seems almost drugged. Maybe it’s true he’s obtained some sort of hold on her. I don’t know.”

“I had a letter from Sadoul last week,” said Pockman. “He must be on his way back here by this time.”

Fairless nodded inattentively, motioning Angelo to take away the picture and replace it by another.

Pockman seemed to grin at the new picture--or perhaps his pallid smirk was habitual.

“What do you get for that kind of painting?” he inquired.

“Five thousand.”

“Did it take you very long?”

“Two mornings.”

Pockman laughed: “Yours is a soft graft, Julian.”

“So is yours, you pill-rolling fakir!”

“Not very soft, so far. But it ought to be when I succeed in grafting the nymphalic gland to a corpse and break fifty-fifty with the New Testament.”

“Isn’t Voronoff grafting glands and things?”

“Some glands; not the nymphalic. And that’s the whole problem, because it governs----” Pockman hesitated, shrugged: “--Well, adios, Julian! Much obliged for a view of your new pictures. Hope you sting the profiteers.”

“You bet,” nodded Fairless complacently.

* * * * *

But July is too late for an “exhibition.” Besides, the great American profiteer had been rolling in art since the war ended, and, now satiated after an orgy of antique-buying during the past winter and spring, had begun to build bungalows. October or the middle of November would see the town crawling again with newly rich. There was plenty of time to prepare pasture for absent cattle--ample time for Julian Fairless to plan his show. Besides, he desired a vacation at Greenwich, in the vicinity of Veronica Weld.

* * * * *

It was there, early in August, that Fairless again ran across Pockman entering the railroad station.

Among other items of gossip he learned that Sadoul had returned to New York, bringing with him his red-headed companion, and, furthermore, that the red-headed one had suddenly disappeared within the first week.

“Sadoul’s a bad actor if you do things to him,” added Pockman. “He’s as vindictive as hell. I’m wondering what will happen if he ever finds a man with her.... Or finds her again, even alone.”

“What’s Sadoul doing?” inquired Fairless, pleasantly entertained with the account of another man’s misfortune.

“Oh, he’s writing his free-lance stuff, as usual, and hanging around my laboratory.”

“Grouching?”

“No; he’s rather quiet. I wouldn’t care to be the Johnny in the case.... Or the girl, either.”

Fairless shrugged; then, inattentive: “Where are you bound for? Town?”

“I came up here to get a gland.”

“A what?”

“That young fellow who was killed here yesterday in the motor accident.... You heard? Well, he proved a healthy subject, and his nymphalic gland was of no further use to him. So I came up to get it.”

“What good is a dead man’s gland?” demanded Fairless.

“The gland isn’t dead.”

“What!”

“Not at all. I’ve got it in this grip packed in ice. I can keep it alive for weeks in a refrigerator.”

“What for?”

“Graft it on some senile subject and add twenty years to his life.”

“It’s rather a loathsome business, yours,” said Fairless frankly.

“Not at all. You’ll need a new gland yourself some day. When you do, give me a ring.”

Pockman smirked at the disgusted painter, picked up his satchel, and stalked off at a stiff, crazy gait characteristic of him. Stayr always said it reminded him of Holbein’s Dance of Death.

* * * * *

When Pockman reached New York he telephoned Sadoul from his laboratory:

“Come on over; I’ve got a lively nymphalic on ice. Some gland, believe me, Sadoul.”

But Sadoul seemed incurious and morose, and Pockman could not persuade him.

So the latter continued to examine and caress his rather ghastly acquisition, and Sadoul’s powerful, bony fingers drove his pen through a mordant article destined to stimulate a moribund periodical in the senile stage, kept alive only by Derring’s money.

Sadoul’s and Pockman’s remedies for inanition were, after all, similar: gall and gland to stimulate the decrepit and delay ultimate dissolution.

* * * * *

Derring, financing The Revolt to please a rather handsome woman with bobbed hair, had found himself let in for a deal of trouble.

She of the bobbed hair suggested that Sadoul “put a kick into the damn thing.” Derring, at Newport, wired assent.

Sadoul, in seething silence, gave himself to the job with a fierce persistence which made The Revolt smoke enough to attract attention.

But it was all smoke: the fire itself smouldered in Sadoul, not in the magazine. All that long summer and autumn Sadoul watched and waited and burned. His olive skin and black eyes grew more shadowy; one noticed his teeth under the crisp beard when he smiled.

He was usually at the Fireside Club in the evenings, but he lived elsewhere--in a big, handsome housekeeping apartment, according to Julian Fairless, taken, probably, on account of the red-headed one, now vanished.

Twice, already, since her disappearance, Sadoul mistook others with auburn tresses for the slender runaway for whom his smouldering gaze was always searching amid the multitudes by night and day.

The third time there was no mistake. They met face to face on Fifth Avenue, the red-headed one and Casimir Sadoul.

“Where have you been?” said Sadoul, smiling and offering his hand. But his dark skin had turned greyish.

After the first startled glance, reassured by his smile and offered hand, the girl seemed inclined to meet the issue with laughing and youthful defiance.

She told him frankly that she had been bored; that she desired to enjoy herself like a modern girl, and meant to do so.

“The modern girl,” said Sadoul, laughing, “is one who is determined to have a good time in the world, no matter at what cost.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” she conceded. “The trouble is that I don’t know how to begin.”

“Haven’t you begun in all these months?” he inquired, fixing his black eyes on her.

She laughed, made a childish face at him, mocked him in friendly fashion.

“I’m not going to let you resume your way with me,” she said.

“Will you let me lunch with you, Gilda?”

“Why, yes. It’s nearly one, now. It’s quite agreeable to see you again. I’ve sometimes wondered how it would seem....”

The Ritz was only a block away.

She was a piquant figure in her furs; and the touch of turquoise to her hat made her red hair redder and her white skin whiter as she faced the November east-wind beside Sadoul.

The raw air smelled of snow, but no flakes fell.

“So--you’re having a good time,” said Sadoul, showing his teeth in a sudden smile.

“I told you I haven’t learned how, yet.”

“Will you let me try again?”

“Not--that way,” she said, colouring.

“No; that was a mistake, Gilda.”

She laughed in surprise and relief: “So you admit it?” she cried.

“I’ve got to, haven’t I? You left me flat.”

“I had to.”

* * * * *

She was animated and friendly at luncheon--perfectly frank as always heretofore, not untruthful, not evasive, but gaily declining information concerning her recent career and her present domicile.

“It’s none of your business,” she said decisively. “I can always find you if I care to.”

This attitude seemed to amuse him. He appeared to her to be very much changed, and decidedly for the better.

He said: “George Derring is giving a dance at his studio apartment tonight. If you care to come you’ll have one of those ‘good times’ you’re always wishing for.”

“Who is George Derring?”

“An intellectual panhandler.”

“What?”

“A beggar begs food from door to door; Derring, brainless and resourceless, begs his daily modicum of amusement from friend to friend.... He’s very rich. He has to be.”

“That sounds more like you,” she said with an uneasy smile.

“Oh, no; I’m off that stuff. Gilda, you’d better come to Derring’s dance. It will be gay--a masked affair. All the men dress as kings; all the women as queens. You have that wonderful green costume you wore at the Julian ball, haven’t you?”

She nodded. Her eyes, which were emerald green, widened.

“I’d like to go,” she said.

“Very well. But where am I to call for you?”

At that she laughed outright. “I’ll take a taxi and drive to your apartment. But I shall not go in.”

He made no attempt to persuade her. They fixed the hour amicably; she told him in her frank way that if he followed her and attempted to spy on her, she’d move elsewhere.

So, when luncheon ended, he lifted his hat and turned away, leaving her to find her own taxi. Which she did, and drove to the matinée for which she had a ticket, but where, alas! nobody awaited her.

For, even after all these months alone, and free to seek pleasure where she wished, the acme, so far, of the “good time” so ardently desired by her was a matinée; and the most delirious dissipation a drive on Fifth Avenue all alone in a small limousine car hired and steered entirely by herself.

* * * * *

Sadoul’s face was ghastly when he entered Pockman’s laboratory, and the latter noticed it and commented.

“Gilda Greenway is coming to Derring’s party with me,” he said.

“Oh, is she back?”

“No. I met her on the street.”

Pockman cast a stealthy glance at Sadoul, then continued to filter the contents of one test-tube into another.

“You were--er--glad to see her?” he inquired.

“Yes.”

“Well,” said Pockman, “you have a funny way of showing it. I’d run if I met you in a dark alley.... Hand me that smeared slide, will you--and that bowl of Reakirt’s solution----”

CHAPTER III

A masked figure followed them noiselessly upstairs and slipped behind the portières to observe them.

Sutton, face to face with his first real adventure, was fascinated by the little Queen in Green--not prepared, perhaps, to encounter such youthful shyness at Derring’s. And now he attempted to discover her identity, rather roughly, but she evaded his curiosity and ardent advances, and coaxed him to show her Derring’s quarters.

The masked man watched them out of narrow eye-slits. They visited the further rooms; then, having satisfied her curiosity, the Queen in Green turned on her dainty heel.

As the two retraced their steps, she prettily avoided Sutton’s love-making. It was only after he unmasked, and they had stopped by the portières--so close that the man behind them could have stabbed them--that the girl turned impulsively to Sutton, put her arms around his neck, and took his kiss as passionately as he gave it.

It lasted but a second. She stepped back against the portières. Both seemed hotly embarrassed.

A second later the Queen in Green was readjusting her gilt crown and laughing at some light jest he had made--he could not recall what it was afterward.

Below, the orchestra had begun again. He looked at her; she nodded. They waited to catch the beat of the music. She was still laughing when she placed her smooth little hand in his. But as he encircled her waist she drew a swift, agonised breath and lurched forward against him.

He reeled under the sudden impact; her silk-clad body sagged, her masked head fell backward, and then, as he caught her, the Queen in Green collapsed in his arms.

He half dragged her to an armchair. One of her slippers dropped off.

For a moment he stood helpless, looking down at her; then, anxious, and having had no experience with people who faint, he hurried downstairs, perplexed, to find Sadoul, who had brought the girl to the party.

After-supper-dancing was beginning again in the studio, and the music seemed unusually noisy. He tried to discover Sadoul, shouted his name, but everybody was still masked and Sutton hunted for him in vain.

Finally he continued on through the studio into the supper room to get a glass of ice-water, and saw Harry Stayr still browsing there.

As Sutton left the table, carrying the water, he said to Stayr in a worried voice:

“That Queen in Green--the one Sadoul brought--has fainted in Derring’s quarters.”

“Is she soused?” inquired Stayr, busy with food.

“No.”

“Who is she?”

“I don’t know. She wears a green mask. Casimir Sadoul brought her. If you see him tell him she’s ill upstairs.”

“Put some ice down her back,” advised Stayr, reaching for the salad.

Sutton hastened on upstairs, hoping to find the lady better.

The Queen in Green lay face upward on the floor--a crumpled heap of pale green silks. Her ruddy hair was dishevelled; her gilt crown had rolled across the rug.

There was a day-bed beside the rose-shaded lamp. Sutton carried her to it, laid her there and smoothed her clothing.

Under the mask her lips and skin were livid, but through the eye-slits she seemed to be watching him.

He flushed, spoke to her, waited, then stripped off the green silk mask. It shocked him to discover that her eyes were open.

“That’s a funny way to faint,” he thought. And he lifted the glass and tipped it, spilling ice-water over the upturned face.

The water washed off some cosmetic but produced no other effect.

Scared, Sutton tried to find her pulse, and failed; tried to locate her heart and couldn’t. There was nothing to loosen. He opened a window and came back to her. Then he went out to the gallery and shouted down through the clatter and music:

“Sadoul! Sadoul! Come up here!”

A masked figure in crown and crimson robes detached itself and came forward under the gallery, looking up.

“Is that you, Sadoul?”

“Yes. What’s the trouble?”

“Your girl--the girl you brought with you--has fainted. She’s up here. Bring Pockman, too.”

“What do you mean, my girl?” inquired Sadoul.

“The Queen in Green. You brought her, didn’t you?”

“Oh! That girl? What’s the matter with her?”

“I don’t know. You’d better find Pockman and come up. I don’t know what ails her.”

Sutton went back to the day-bed and gazed nervously at the Queen in Green. Robes, stockings, slippers, jewels, all were green. Even her strangely open eyes seemed golden green as a cat’s.

Sadoul and Pockman, in gorgeous costumes but unmasked, entered together in a few moments.

“She doesn’t seem to be breathing, and I can’t find any pulse,” explained Sutton. “What on earth is the matter with her?”

Pockman bent over; Sadoul and Sutton watched him. She wore no stays--there was not much to her bodice, anyway--only a trifle more of her body visible when Pockman stripped off her waist than the waist had already revealed.

The two men watched him; the leisurely certainty of everything he was doing preoccupied Sutton.

“Why, she’s dead,” said Pockman coolly.

Sutton stared aghast.

Sadoul said: “Well, of all rotten luck!--What the devil was the matter with her?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You mean--mean to say that this girl is dead!” faltered Sutton.

“She’s been dead for more than twenty minutes.... I don’t know what killed her----”

Sadoul glanced up at Pockman, who was staring intently at him.

Sutton said miserably: “Is there anything possible to do--any other and surer test to be made?”

“This girl is dead,” repeated Pockman, still looking significantly at Sadoul. Then he shrugged his bony shoulders, went over to the telephone and called his laboratory. While waiting, he said to Sadoul: “Here’s my chance, by God! It will take about three hours,” he added, “--and half an hour more----” His connection interrupted; he asked for somebody named Stent, got him immediately, talked to him unhurriedly.

When he came back he asked Sutton to go into Derring’s bedroom and get a sheet from the bed.

Sutton brought it; Pockman covered the recumbent figure decently, concealing the face also.

He said to Sutton: “Sadoul and I realise that this is a good opportunity for me to try something I am interested in.... It can’t harm her, anyway----”

“Do you mean that there is any chance of reviving her?” asked Sutton, his voice still hoarse from shock.

“Well--she’s dead.... Figure it out for yourself, Sutton.” And to Sadoul: “This is a damned unpleasant episode for old Derring and his party----”

... “Who was that girl?” interrupted Sutton, harshly.

“Her name was Gilda Greenway,” replied Sadoul, with composure; but his long fingers were working at the gilt fringe on his robe.

“Has she any family?” inquired Pockman.

“No, I believe not----”

“Well--what the devil!--She had a home somewhere, I suppose!”

Sadoul shook his head: “Possibly. I don’t know where she lived.”

Sutton opened the telephone directory. There were only two Greenways in the book. He called them up. Neither knew anything of Gilda Greenway.

Pockman turned to Sutton: “What were you doing with her up here?” he enquired with one of his pallid smirks.

“We were dancing--or going to. She wanted to look down at the floor from the gallery when they began throwing confetti.”

“Oh, sure,” said Pockman, but his pasty, flat features bore no trace of the sneer in his voice.

“We came up to the gallery,” continued Sutton, “and watched the battle of confetti and flowers. Then she peeped into Derring’s quarters and desired to inspect them.

“It was harmless curiosity--no matter what you’re thinking, Pockman. She looked the place over; we were standing over there by the portières. She was laughing; and then the music began downstairs--and we were starting to dance up here.... And then--good God!----”

“Just like that,” nodded Pockman, softly.

There was something subtly horrible about the vernacular as he used it in the dim room where death was. But death had become an old story to Pockman, and there were for him neither thrills nor shocks in the spectacle of human dissolution--nothing to awe or subdue or arouse emotion--only a fact of routine interest to a student preoccupied by original research.

He had a pale, flat, fat face, smoothly shaven; washed-out eyes; a tall, ill-made figure with very wide, square shoulders, and scanty, untidy hair of a faded hue.

He looked almost stealthily at Sutton, now, who, quite overcome by the tragedy, sat staring at the sheeted figure of the girl he had been laughing with half an hour ago.

“If you don’t feel like dancing,” said Pockman pleasantly, “stay here until my man Stent arrives. Sadoul and I are going down.”

“You don’t mean you are going to dance?”

“Sure,” replied Pockman, adjusting his mask. “Why not?”

Sadoul said nothing. After a moment he slowly put on his mask.

“Aren’t you going to tell Derring?” demanded Sutton.

“I’m no crape-hanger,” replied Pockman. “Why spoil Derring’s party? If you insist on staying here until Stent comes, you’d better lock the door or some of those fair young things downstairs will get the shock of their variegated lives.”

He started downstairs in his crown and fluttering yellow robes. Sadoul, in flamboyant crimson, followed him. After a moment Sutton got up and locked the door behind them, stood by it, looking back over his shoulder at the form on the day-bed, then he slowly returned to his chair.

* * * * *

The decency that kept him beside a dead stranger was purely emotional.

He gazed miserably at the shrouded figure. After a long while he rose, picked up her gilded crown and the little green slipper. The silken crescent which had masked her still lay beside her bed. This also he recovered, and then reseated himself, holding her toys in his lap, his boyish eyes full of tears.

It was all very well for a graduate physician like Pockman to exhibit callousness--and for the saturnine Sadoul--he of the long, horse face and black eyes and Vandyke--he of the murderous, mocking pen--the literary vivisectionist and jester at all lovable human frailties--it was well enough for him to remain obtuse.

But a plain young man, like Sutton, continues to be emotional, whatever garments of experience still clothe him.

He was horribly, profoundly upset.

* * * * *

Several times an unseen clock in a farther room struck a treble note in the stillness.

Faintly, too, came music and tumult from the gaiety below. Even the odour of roses penetrated the locked room.

Sutton, staring at the covered form, was thinking it rotten hard luck to be dead so young. He wondered who she could have been; who were her people, her friends; what hearts were going to break for such an ending as this.

He wondered whether she had been respectable--was fiercely inclined to believe so--wondered why she had consented to come to Derring’s party with Sadoul.

When again the silvery treble of the unseen clock sounded twice, Sutton glanced at his own timepiece. It lacked a few minutes of two o’clock. Gilda Greenway had been dead three hours and a half.

He rose and lifted a corner of the sheet. Her lower jaw had dropped. Horrified, he covered the dead face and went back to his chair, trembling.

CHAPTER IV

Somebody knocked at the door; Sutton rose nervously, unlocked and opened it, dazzled by the outer lights.

Figures in brilliant silks entered--Pockman, Sadoul, a man and a young woman in street clothes, carrying valises, and George Derring wearing violet royal robes and tinsel crown, his vizard pushed up over his bald forehead, a monocle shining in his pallid face.

“What the devil is all this?” he demanded. “If the girl is actually dead she can’t remain in my place. The thing to do is to call up the proper authorities----”

“Keep your shirt on,” interrupted Pockman calmly. “Come on in, Miss Cross. You can change your dress in the next bedroom. Come over here, Stent. Unpack your things on that table----”

“Is--this girl--dead?” faltered Derring, peering at the sheeted shape through his monocle.

Pockman consulted his watch: “She’s been dead for three hours and forty minutes, George.”

“Why didn’t you t-tell me?” stammered Derring. “What are you going to do to her? This isn’t a morgue. It isn’t a place for autopsies----”

Sadoul drew the stammering man aside: “If you’ll keep your mouth shut, Pockman will see to it that this affair is kept out of the newspapers. Go downstairs, George, and when your party breaks up, come back here and we’ll fix it up for you so there’ll be no notoriety or scandal.”

Derring, white and inclined to tremble, suffered himself to be led to the door and thrust out. Sadoul turned the key with a grimace and came back to where Pockman stood aiding his assistant, Stent, to unpack the valises.

A case of surgical instruments was laid on the table. Beside this Stent placed a miniature porcelain refrigerator, several basins, packets of sterilized gauze, other objects unfamiliar to Sutton.

The young woman whom Pockman had addressed as Miss Cross came back from the further bedroom clad in the white garb of a hospital nurse. She seemed to know what was to be done with the several packages from the valises and became exceedingly busy.

Pockman and Sadoul, carrying other packets, went away together toward the bathroom, leaving Sutton standing alone by the table.

The efficient Miss Cross paid him no attention. She first unrolled a rubber sheet and then began to undress the dead girl.

Sutton pivoted in his tracks and went slowly toward the bathroom, where Pockman and Sadoul, their masquerade finery discarded, were dressing in the white robes of operating surgeons. A smell of disinfectants pervaded the place.

“What are you preparing to do?” asked Sutton.

“Stick around and see,” replied Pockman flippantly. His white robes and flat, fat face made a most unpleasant impression upon Sutton.

Sadoul, also, was ready now; they returned to the room of death.

“If you’re squeamish,” remarked Sadoul, with his odd, shadowy smile, “you’d better leave the room, Sutton.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I? Nothing. Pockman, however, is going to try something.”

“If she’s already dead, what more is there to try?” asked the other huskily.

“Stand over here and watch. We shan’t be long.”

“Is--is this sort of thing legal, Sadoul?”

“Certainly. At least there’s no law forbidding it. Pockman is a graduate physician. There are no laws forbidding a qualified physician, who has been called in to do his best, from doing his best. And this is Pockman’s one best bet.”

“But--after death--what is there a physician can do?”

“What is death?” asked Sadoul, with his dark and shadowy smile.

There ensued a silence while the washing of the unclothed body was accomplished and the corpse laid face downward. One by one Pockman took certain sterilized instruments from Miss Cross, employed each with incredible deftness. Sutton had averted his head as Pockman made a tiny, deep incision at the nape of the girl’s neck. The hemorrhage was slight; Sadoul opened the drawer of the miniature refrigerator, Miss Cross took from it something that she carefully placed in a vessel filled with liquid. Twice she tested the temperature of the liquid.

“Ready,” she said in her low, pleasant voice.

With his forceps Pockman picked out from the liquid in the vessel something that seemed to resemble a small oviform body--like a lump of animal tissue, and inserted it in the incision which he had made at the nape of the dead girl’s neck.

Deftly the wound was closed, sterilized, covered with a film of transparent liquid which instantly hardened. A few drops of blood had flowed freely.

“All right,” murmured Pockman, “turn her over.”

He cast another brief glance at the dead girl, then walked back to the bathroom to wash.

Sadoul followed him, wiping his dark, bony hands on a bit of gauze. Sutton, feeling slightly nauseated, turned away from the body which Miss Cross was now swathing in a sterilized sheet.

He stood at one of the darkened and dripping windows, staring out. It was raining, but a few large snowflakes slanted through the downpour.

The odours in the room--the taint of death--were becoming insufferable; he went to the door, drew the bolt, and stepped outside onto the balcony.

The ball was over, the music gone. The last of the maskers were leaving the studio--a loud-voiced group lingering in the supper room, another near the entrance hall.

Old Derring, in his rumpled royal robes, his crown on the back of his ruddy, bald head, stood nervously receiving the adieux and noisy gratitude of his guests. The air reeked with perfume of roses and scent of wine; the floor was littered with débris of finery and confetti.

When at length Sutton returned to the room, the daybed was empty; Stent had already repacked both valises and was putting his hat on and buttoning his overcoat. Pockman, Sadoul, and Miss Cross had gone into the farther bedroom, where a light burned. Sutton could see them through the vista of the connecting rooms, moving quietly about, dressed now in their street clothing--excepting Miss Cross, who still wore her nurse’s garb.

When he went in to the chamber where they were gathered he discovered that the dead girl had been laid in Derring’s guest-room bed.

She seemed asleep there on the pillow; her eyes were decently closed, the bed sheets drawn to her throat. Only her wax-like skin betrayed her condition.

As Sutton entered the room, Pockman turned toward him:

“Your views concerning the dignity and tragedy of death,” he said, with that ever present undertone of irony, “are the popular and accepted views. So if you don’t think it very charitable to leave this lady all alone here during the night, why not sit up with her until I return in the morning?”

Sutton flushed. “Somebody ought to remain here out of mere decency,” he said slowly.

“All right. It’s up to you. Miss Cross is to stay for another hour; and I’d really be obliged to you if you’d stand guard here tonight and keep old Derring from making a fuss. Will you?”

After a silence: “What was it you did to her?” enquired Sutton in a constrained voice, not yet under full control.

“Nothing illegal. I am within my rights. Ask Miss Cross. If nothing happens it won’t make any difference, anyway. If anything should happen, why, I don’t care how much it’s talked about. Do you, Sadoul?”

“Rather not,” said Sadoul, with that almost imperceptible smile on his dark face, that waned and waxed like a shadow.

“What could happen?” demanded Sutton. “Death is death--isn’t it?”

Pockman shrugged, gathered up his discarded carnival robes, went over and gazed at the dead girl with a sort of mockery in his washed-out eyes--yet his silent scrutiny was sufficiently intent to reveal some graver motive--something deeper seated than sardonic indifference. Presently he turned away, with a characteristic hunching of his shoulders.

Sadoul followed him; Miss Cross went to the door with them and there they remained in low-voiced consultation until interrupted by the nervous entrance of Derring, still tremulous from shock but beginning to choke with indignation.

And his anger knew no bounds when he learned what disposition had been made of the dead girl; only a threat of newspaper notoriety hinted by Pockman checked his rush to the telephone.

“If she’s dead,” he kept repeating, “what the hell do you fellows mean by keeping her here in my apartment? It isn’t done, dammit all----”

“You go to the Ritz tonight,” counselled Sadoul. “She’ll be taken away tomorrow morning without any fuss or scandal. Tell your man to pack a bag--there’s a good fellow. Be a sport, Derring. Pockman is trying something he never had a chance to try----”

“Confound him, are there no hospitals and morgues? What does he mean by using my place to try his ghastly experiments----”

“Oh, shut up,” said Sadoul, and shoved the master of the house through the door.

A fat man-servant arrived at his shrill summons, went into his master’s bedroom, packed a suitcase, and carried it out again, breathing laboriously. Sadoul and Pockman also put on their hats and went out. Presently the front grille clanged distantly. Miss Cross closed and locked the apartment door and came back to the chamber of death, where Sutton was standing, fumbling with a rose-bud which he had found in a silver vase.

“Yes,” said Miss Cross encouragingly, “lay it on her chest if you choose.”

He dried the stem with his handkerchief and laid the blossom on the white coverlet close to her snowy chin.

Miss Cross hovered over the dead girl, touched the bright hair here and there, deftly curled and brought a saucy, wandering tendril under graver discipline, more suitable to the circumstances.

“She was very pretty, wasn’t she?” remarked Miss Cross in her low, pleasant voice, “--a very lovely young thing, physically--really quite perfect, I should say.”

“What--what was it Pockman did to her in the other room?” enquired Sutton in a strained voice.

Miss Cross had taken a chair. She was a healthy, vigourous young woman, with black eyes and hair, a rosy and cheerful mouth, and a tip-tilted nose.

Replying to Sutton’s question, she said: “If I answer you, I don’t believe you’ll entirely understand.”

“Was it a precautionary test?”

“Oh, no. We all knew she was quite dead. Dr. Pockman desired to try something never before attempted----” She looked up at Sutton, hesitated. “--Why don’t you smoke?” she suggested. “You are dreadfully nervous. It’s no disrespect to her. Seat yourself, Mr. Sutton, and light a cigarette. I’m sure if she could speak she’d tell you to do so too, poor lamb.”

CHAPTER V

Sutton sat in an armchair, a cigarette between his fingers, but he could not bring himself to light it.

Miss Cross was seated rather nearer the bed. Behind them a small Chinese lamp burned, casting a topaz tinted light over the dead girl’s folded hands.

“Poor baby,” repeated Miss Cross, leaning forward and stroking the clasped fingers with a caressing touch. “Rigour has not yet set in,” she added, “nor is there any discolouration of the skin.... Aren’t you going to light your cigarette, Mr. Sutton?”

“I’d rather not, I think.”

Miss Cross bent lower and looked wistfully into the girl’s face. “You pathetic little thing,” she murmured. “I wish you could open your eyes.”

She resumed her position in her chair presently, and sat silently smoothing out her white clothing.

“Haven’t you any idea what it was that Dr. Pockman attempted to do?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“Would you care to have me explain it as well as I am able? I’m not very clear at explanations, but it will help pass away the time.”

She settled herself back for her narrative.

“First of all--I am not a graduate nurse, Mr. Sutton. I was merely a probationer at St. Stephen’s. Dr. Pockman suggested that I assist in his research work. Microscope mostly. That’s what I’ve been doing. Dr. Pockman is a most remarkable man.”

Sutton’s acquiescent nod was a very slight one. He did not care for Pockman personally.

The nurse continued.

“What Metchnikoff began, what Claude Bernard continued, what Martens, Beyer, and Voronoff did, and are doing, Sidney Pockman is continuing. But all this means very little to a layman, I suppose?” she added amiably.

“I’ve heard of Metchnikoff,” he said.

“Let us go farther back than Metchnikoff--farther back than any man, living or dead--farther back, even, than mankind itself--millions of years back,” said Miss Cross, smiling.

“I’ll tell you nothing about the origin of life--the first glimmer of life on this planet. Nobody can do more than speculate concerning the birth of life.

“But the living thing which most closely approaches that form of life which first appeared on earth is a tiny, microscopic being composed of a soft mass and a nucleus; and is in the shape of a cell.

“It is called an amœba; it divides itself--reproduces swarms of its fellows by means of perpetual division. And it never dies.”

Sutton seemed dully astonished.

“It’s true,” she said. “The amœba never dies. Voronoff himself says decisively: ‘The breath of life which for the first time gave animation to matter, held nothing but life. Nature, at that time, knew nothing of death.’”

Miss Cross leaned over toward Sutton, resting her elbows on her knees, and laid one forefinger across the palm of the other hand.

“It’s this way,” she explained; “the human body is not an individual entity; it is an ensemble composed of billions of cells of different sorts, each cell alive, each cell invested with its own special but limited functions and duties, and each cell busy night and day.

“The human body is a society, a state, a republic of living cells, ruled by the delicate cells that compose the brain.

“The primitive type of cell is the protozoan. Our body’s various and highly organized cells are all derived from the elements of the initial cell.

“The initial cell is deathless. But its highly sensitive and more complicated descendants which compose our tissues have been greatly modified, and their life depends upon the assent and good will of all of the cells of our body.... I wonder if I am making it clear to you, Mr. Sutton?”

“Perfectly.”

“Well, then, among all these billions of living and highly specialized workers called cells, which compose that beehive, or anthill community we call the human body, are many primitive cells without business or profession, and they reproduce themselves continually. These are the white blood corpuscles and the conjunctive cells; and they are always at war with the more highly developed cells.

“When they win that war, as they always do in the end, we die.”

“What use are these conjunctive cells, then?” asked Sutton, mildly interested.

“They are the regular army of the body-republic, and they fight and slay foreign microbes which invade us. When they become unruly, insurgent, and a powerful majority, they attack their own fellow citizens. Then the body-republic falls. That is death, Mr. Sutton.”

He said nothing, but the nurse saw he was more or less interested. She said:

“What controls and keeps in order these billions of citizen-cells in our body-republic are fluids from certain vital glands. If these glands are removed, the cells go crazy and murder one another, and we die.”

“What are these vital glands?” he enquired.

“The thyroid in the throat; four small para-thyroid glands no bigger than a needle’s eye near it; the two small supra-renal glands; the little pituitary gland under the brain; the pineal gland in the middle brain, which, a million years ago, was perhaps a third eye; and the gland called the metathoracic or nymphalic gland, which lies deep in the nape of the neck and which means instant death if injured or removed.... And that, Mr. Sutton, was what caused this poor child’s death.”

“What?”

“You were not watching closely, were you, when Dr. Pockman operated?”

“Not--closely, no.”

“You did not see him draw a long, gold-headed steel pin from where it was imbedded in the back of her neck?”

“Good God! I didn’t see that!”

“It had been, probably, in her hair--to hold on her crown, perhaps, and had become dislodged. If she threw back her head suddenly it might have driven the pin deep into her neck.... Well, there it was, under the soft, bright hair at the nape of her neck. Death must have been instantaneous.”

“Did Pockman tell you I was dancing with her at the time--or about to--I already had placed my arm around her. She was laughing at something I said.... I remember, now, that she threw back her head and laughed.... And crumpled up in my arms.... It is horrible--horrible beyond words!----”

Miss Cross nodded. “Yes, Dr. Pockman told me. No wonder you are upset.... I really wish you’d light your cigarette.” But he shook his head.

After a moment he looked up at the nurse in pallid inquiry.

She nodded. “Now I’ll try to explain what Dr. Pockman did,” she said in her cheerful voice. “He telephoned for Mr. Stent and me. You saw that miniature refrigerator?”

“Yes.”

“Listen, Mr. Sutton. Death stops the heart and produces functional discord of the organs. The individual is dead then. Very well. But the several tissues composing that individual’s body are not dead yet. Not at all. Hair continues to grow; the skin is alive; the bones retain vitality; the brain, the glands, almost all the organs still remain alive as long as eighteen hours.

“And if these organs are removed from the body before their own individual death, they may be kept alive for weeks if preserved in a zero temperature. Did you know that?”

“No.”

“Yes, they retain all their vital energy for weeks.”

There was a silence.

“Shall I tell you what Dr. Pockman accomplished?”

“Please.”

“Dr. Pockman’s original research is in the direction of gland grafting. Today a girl died at St. Stephen’s, of a fractured skull. Dr. Pockman is externe there. He operated but could not save her. However, finding the nymphalic gland uninjured and alive, he removed it in a jar of Ringer’s liquid maintained at a temperature of some forty degrees.

“I preserved this living gland in the refrigerator you saw. When he telephoned, Mr. Stent and I brought it here. You saw us place it in Ringer’s liquid again, didn’t you?”

“Yes--I suppose so.”

“You saw Dr. Pockman make the incision, remove the injured gland, and graft this living gland in its place.”

“Was that what he did?”

“That was what he did, Mr. Sutton.”

After a tense silence: “Why did Pockman do it?” demanded Sutton hoarsely. “Had he any hope--any idea that--that death is not finality?”

She replied frankly: “He desired to know what effect on the cells the secretions of this living gland might produce under these conditions. Nobody knows. It never has been tried before. Theoretically it ought to restrain the conjunctive cells in their onslaught against the nobler cells, and invigorate and stiffen the resistance of these latter in the increasing anarchy now running riot.”

“How long before any conclusion can be reached?”

“By morning, perhaps. If there is anything to be noticed, four to five hours will show it.... Meanwhile, I must get some sleep.” She rose. “If you think--if you feel that somebody ought to watch here tonight,” she added, “why, you may remain, of course. But really it is not necessary, I assure you.”

“I think I’ll remain until Pockman arrives.”

“That is nice of you, Mr. Sutton.”

She left the room. After a while she returned wearing hat and street costume and carrying her satchel.

For a few moments she bent silently over the bed, then, pausing to offer a firm, cool hand to Sutton, went away with a nod and a slight smile. The outer grille clanged. Sutton and the dead were alone.

CHAPTER VI

Sutton was too much wrought up to fall asleep, although reaction from shock now weighted him with physical weariness. Still dazed and depressed by the swift tragedy of his first romance, the memory of it both confused and accused him. In his anguished mind he reviewed it; their chance encounter in the throng; a dance together; other dances; the engaging shyness of the girl; her evident inexperience; something vaguely disturbing in the girlish fragrance of her. Then the lovely revelation of a youthful heart caught off its guard--and, suddenly, the swift blaze of impulse flaming to a kiss!--and the silent confusion of two disordered minds--to remember it overwhelmed him anew; even now a dull glow kindled through his veins.

He lifted his heavy head from the armchair and gazed at her folded hands, so still--so terribly still--

* * * * *

He was at that psychological period of general revolt when youth is most pitifully at the mercy of The Talkers--the period when faith becomes clouded and old beliefs grow obscure. He had heard The Talkers prove that there is no future existence. But now, gazing at the dead, he felt that there ought to be some compensation.

After a while he got up heavily, went to the bed and dropped on his knees.

Prayer, which The Talkers had proven to be a survival of gross superstition, and to which he had been, lately, unaccustomed, now proved difficult. He was ashamed to pray only in emergency. Confused, weary, he strove to think and to behave unemotionally; tried to ask in her behalf merely an equity in abstract justice.

In his boy’s heart, as in all hearts, there still remained fragments of that temple builded to “the unknown God,” which men call Hope.

His prayer was primitive enough--to the “Power responsible for the source of life”--asking decent compensation for this young death. It took long to formulate; left him on his knees with his head resting against the bed, very tired.

And, after a time, and still on his knees, he fell into a troubled doze.

Only when the clock again was striking did he become conscious. Stiff, benumbed, he stumbled to his feet. Recollection returned in horror; realisation frightened him.

He dragged himself to the curtained window. It was still dark outside, but the rain had ceased and snow covered the sill. He looked at his watch. It was nearly six o’clock in the morning.

For a little while he stood gazing into darkness, dreading to move. Then, very slowly he turned and went to the silent bedside.

And noticed that her clasped hands had fallen apart.

Lethargy still fettered mind and body; dully he noticed; dully attempted to account. Then the shock came. For her right hand clutched his rose-bud. And her fingers were stirring now--the hand almost imperceptibly creeping across the counterpane.

At that instant the girl opened her eyes.

There was no recognition in her gaze, no consciousness of environment. But consciousness was dawning. It came with a spasm of pain.

Suddenly she sat up.

“I want to get out of bed!” she said in a frightened voice, struggling to free her body of the sheets. Already she was touching the floor with one foot, when, half senseless himself, he restrained her, forcing her back to her pillow with shaking hands.

And now recognition dawned in her terrified eyes.

“Help me,” she said faintly. “Such--such a pain!--in my neck--deep inside. Could I have a drink of water?”

He brought it, trembling. She propped herself on one elbow, set her burning lips to the glass, draining it.

She asked for more; he brought it.

“Where is Casimir Sadoul?” she asked. “How long have I been here?”

“All night.” But she seemed not to comprehend him.

“My neck burns me so!” she whimpered. “Where are my clothes? I must have been very ill.”

“Yes, very ill,” he said thickly.

“I can’t see--clearly--” she murmured. “I can’t hear the music, either. Where is my green gown and my crown? Where are my clothes? I can’t stay here. I want to go!”

“Wait a little while----”

“Oh, goodness--goodness!” she whimpered, resting on one arm and gazing piteously around the room. “I must have been very, very ill. But I am well now. I want to get up----”

Her nervously moving hands encountered the rose-bud again. She looked at it stupidly, already half-blinded by a rush of tears.

“I--I want to go,” she sobbed, bowing her ruddy head and covering her face with desperate white hands.

His stupefaction was vanishing in the overwhelming surge of rising excitement. He brought her clothing to the bedside, drew her hands from her convulsed face:

“I want you to be careful,” he said. “You’ve been unconscious for six hours. There is a wound at the back of your neck. Do you understand?”

“Is that what burns me?” she asked tremulously, touching her neck with one finger.

“For God’s sake be careful!”

“It isn’t bleeding,” she said, looking at her finger.

Then she drew the sheets closer about her shoulders and bowed her head on her knees.

“Please let me dress,” she whispered.

“Are you strong enough?”

“I’ll call if I need you.”

He went out, drugged with excitement, incapable of reasoning--unable to realise--not daring to think--knowing only that the horror of that night was over, the frightful nightmare ended.

It was very dark outside; no hint of dawn above the chimneys opposite. Snow lay everywhere, dim but unsullied. Familiar sounds of the living world, however, now broke the wintry morning stillness. Once, to the westward, an elevated train roared past; two trams clanged and clattered south along Sixth Avenue; toward Broadway a taxi became audible.

When she called to him the sound of her voice almost stopped his heart. She had contrived to dress herself in her ball gown, and was twisting up her hair with her back to the mirror as he entered the room. Her features were painfully flushed; traces of tears marred her features.

“Could you find my masquerade costume for me?” she asked. “--And one of my green slippers is missing----”

He brought the golden-green robes of royalty and the missing slipper.

“Are you in much pain?” he ventured.

“I deserve it. What did they do to my neck?”

“That long, steel pin you wore wounded it. A physician cared for you.”