Weird and Witty Tales of Mystery (6 page)

That it was so was evident from the numerous affirmatory responses.
While this was going on, I tore a slip from my pocket-book, and
scribbled a name, under the table.

"Will this spirit communicate in writing with this gentleman?" asked
the medium once more.

After a moment's pause, her hand seemed to be seized with a violent
tremour, shaking so forcibly that the table vibrated. She said that a
spirit had seized her hand and would write. I handed her some sheets of
paper that were on the table, and a pencil. The latter she held loosely
in her hand, which presently began to move over the paper with a
singular and seemingly involuntary motion. After a few moments had
elapsed, she handed me the paper, on which I found written, in a large,
uncultivated hand, the words, "He is not here, but has been sent for."
A pause of a minute or so now ensued, during which Mrs. Vulpes remained
perfectly silent, but the raps continued at regular intervals. When the
short period I mention had elapsed, the hand of the medium was again
seized with its convulsive tremour, and she wrote, under this strange
influence, a few words on the paper, which she handed to me. They were
as follows:—

"I am here. Question me. Leeuwenhoek."

I was astounded. The name was identical with that I had written beneath
the table, and carefully kept concealed. Neither was it at all probable
that an uncultivated woman like Mrs. Vulpes should know even the name
of the great father of microscopics. It may have been biology; but this
theory was soon doomed to be destroyed. I wrote on my slip—still
concealing it from Mrs. Vulpes—a series of questions, which, to avoid
tediousness, I shall place with the responses, in the order in which
they occurred:—

I.—Can the microscope be brought to perfection?

Spirit.—Yes.

I.—Am I destined to accomplish this great task?

Spirit.—You are.

I.—I wish to know how to proceed to attain this end. For the love
which you bear to science, help me!

Spirit.—A diamond of one hundred and forty carats, submitted to
electro-magnetic currents for a long period, will experience a
rearrangement of its atoms
inter se
, and from that stone you will
form the universal lens.

I.—Will great discoveries result from the use of such a lens?

Spirit.—So great that all that has gone before is as nothing.

I.—But the refractive power of the diamond is so immense, that the
image will be formed within the lens. How is that difficulty to be
surmounted?

Spirit.—Pierce the lens through its axis, and the difficulty is
obviated. The image will be formed in the pierced space, which will
itself serve as a tube to look through. Now I am called. Good-night.

I cannot at all describe the effect that these extraordinary
communications had upon me. I felt completely bewildered. No biological
theory could account for the
discovery
of the lens. The medium might,
by means of biological
rapport
with my mind, have gone so far as to
read my questions, and reply to them coherently. But biology could not
enable her to discover that magnetic currents would so alter the
crystals of the diamond as to remedy its previous defects, and admit of
its being polished into a perfect lens. Some such theory may have
passed through my head, it is true; but if so, I had forgotten it. In
my excited condition of mind there was no course left but to become a
convert, and it was in a state of the most painful nervous exaltation
that I left the medium's house that evening. She accompanied me to the
door, hoping that I was satisfied. The raps followed us as we went
through the hall, sounding on the balusters, the flooring, and even the
lintels of the door. I hastily expressed my satisfaction, and escaped
hurriedly into the cool night air. I walked home with but one thought
possessing me,—how to obtain a diamond of the immense size required.
My entire means multiplied a hundred times over would have been
inadequate to its purchase. Besides, such stones are rare, and become
historical. I could find such only in the regalia of Eastern or
European monarchs.

There was a light in Simon's room as I entered my house. A vague
impulse urged me to visit him. As I opened the door of his sitting-room
unannounced, he was bending, with his back toward me, over a carcel
lamp, apparently engaged in minutely examining some object which he
held in his hands. As I entered, he started suddenly, thrust his hand
into his breast pocket, and turned to me with a face crimson with
confusion.

"What!" I cried, "poring over the miniature of some fair lady? Well,
don't blush so much; I won't ask to see it."

Simon laughed awkwardly enough, but made none of the negative
protestations usual on such occasions. He asked me to take a seat.

"Simon," said I, "I have just come from Madame Vulpes."

This time Simon turned as white as a sheet, and seemed stupefied, as if
a sudden electric shock had smitten him. He babbled some incoherent
words, and went hastily to a small closet where he usually kept his
liquors. Although astonished at his emotion, I was too preoccupied with
my own idea to pay much attention to anything else.

"You say truly when you call Madame Vulpes a devil of a woman," I
continued. "Simon, she told me wonderful things to-night, or rather was
the means of telling me wonderful things. Ah! if I could only get a
diamond that weighed one hundred and forty carats!"

Scarcely had the sigh with which I uttered this desire died upon my
lips, when Simon, with the aspect of a wild beast, glared at me
savagely, and, rushing to the mantelpiece, where some foreign weapons
hung on the wall, caught up a Malay creese, and brandished it furiously
before him.

"No!" he cried in French, into which he always broke when excited. "No!
you shall not have it! You are perfidious! You have consulted with that
demon, and desire my treasure! But I will die first! Me! I am brave!
You cannot make me fear!"

All this, uttered in a loud voice trembling with excitement, astounded
me. I saw at a glance that I had accidentally trodden upon the edges of
Simon's secret, whatever it was. It was necessary to reassure him.

"My dear Simon," I said, "I am entirely at a loss to know what you
mean. I went to Madame Vulpes to consult with her on a scientific
problem, to the solution of which I discovered that a diamond of the
size I just mentioned was necessary. You were never alluded to during
the evening, nor, so far as I was concerned, even thought of. What can
be the meaning of this outburst? If you happen to have a set of
valuable diamonds in your possession, you need fear nothing from me.
The diamond which I require you could not possess; or, if you did
possess it, you would not be living here."

Something in my tone must have completely reassured him; for his
expression immediately changed to a sort of constrained merriment,
combined, however, with a certain suspicious attention to my movements.
He laughed, and said that I must bear with him; that he was at certain
moments subject to a species of vertigo, which betrayed itself in
incoherent speeches, and that the attacks passed off as rapidly as they
came. He put his weapon aside while making this explanation, and
endeavoured, with some success, to assume a more cheerful air.

All this did not impose on me in the least. I was too much accustomed
to analytical labours to be baffled by so flimsy a veil. I determined
to probe the mystery to the bottom.

"Simon," I said, gayly, "let us forget all this over a bottle of
Burgundy. I have a case of Lausseure's
Clos Vougeot
downstairs,
fragrant with the odours and ruddy with the sunlight of the Côte d'Or.
Let us have up a couple of bottles. What say you?"

"With all my heart," answered Simon, smilingly.

I produced the wine and we seated ourselves to drink. It was of a
famous vintage, that of 1848, a year when war and wine throve
together,—and its pure but powerful juice seemed to impart renewed
vitality to the system. By the time we had half finished the second
bottle, Simon's head, which I knew was a weak one, had begun to yield,
while I remained calm as ever, only that every draught seemed to send a
flush of vigour through my limbs. Simon's utterance became more and
more indistinct. He took to singing French
chansons
of a not very
moral tendency. I rose suddenly from the table just at the conclusion
of one of those incoherent verses, and, fixing my eyes on him with a
quiet smile, said: "Simon, I have deceived you. I learned your secret
this evening. You may as well be frank with me. Mrs. Vulpes, or rather
one of her spirits, told me all."

He started with horror. His intoxication seemed for the moment to fade
away, and he made a movement towards the weapon that he had a short
time before laid down. I stopped him with my hand.

"Monster!" he cried, passionately, "I am ruined! What shall I do? You
shall never have it! I swear by my mother!"

"I don't want it," I said; "rest secure, but be frank with me. Tell me
all about it."

The drunkenness began to return. He protested with maudlin earnestness
that I was entirely mistaken,—that I was intoxicated; then asked me to
swear eternal secrecy, and promised to disclose the mystery to me. I
pledged myself, of course, to all. With an uneasy look in his eyes, and
hands unsteady with drink and nervousness, he drew a small case from
his breast and opened it. Heavens! How the mild lamplight was shivered
into a thousand prismatic arrows, as it fell upon a vast rose-diamond
that glittered in the case! I was no judge of diamonds, but I saw at a
glance that this was a gem of rare size and purity. I looked at Simon
with wonder, and—must I confess it?—with envy. How could he have
obtained this treasure? In reply to my questions, I could just gather
from his drunken statements (of which, I fancy, half the incoherence
was affected) that he had been superintending a gang of slaves engaged
in diamond-washing in Brazil; that he had seen one of them secrete a
diamond, but, instead of informing his employers, had quietly watched
the negro until he saw him bury his treasure; that he had dug it up and
fled with it, but that as yet he was afraid to attempt to dispose of it
publicly,—so valuable a gem being almost certain to attract too much
attention to its owner's antecedents,—and he had not been able to
discover any of those obscure channels by which such matters are
conveyed away safely. He added, that, in accordance with oriental
practice, he had named his diamond with the fanciful title of "The Eye
of Morning."

While Simon was relating this to me, I regarded the great diamond
attentively. Never had I beheld anything so beautiful. All the glories
of light, ever imagined or described, seemed to pulsate in its
crystalline chambers. Its weight, as I learned from Simon, was exactly
one hundred and forty carats. Here was an amazing coincidence. The hand
of destiny seemed in it. On the very evening when the spirit of
Leeuwenhoek communicates to me the great secret of the microscope, the
priceless means which he directs me to employ start up within my easy
reach! I determined, with the most perfect deliberation, to possess
myself of Simon's diamond.

I sat opposite to him while he nodded over his glass, and calmly
revolved the whole affair. I did not for an instant contemplate so
foolish an act as a common theft, which would of course be discovered
or at least necessitate flight and concealment, all of which must
interfere with my scientific plans. There was but one step to be
taken,—to kill Simon. After all, what was the life of a little
peddling Jew, in comparison with the interests of science? Human beings
are taken every day from the condemned prisons to be experimented on by
surgeons. This man, Simon, was by his own confession a criminal, a
robber, and I believed on my soul a murderer. He deserved death quite
as much as any felon condemned by the laws: why should I not, like
government, contrive that his punishment should contribute to the
progress of human knowledge?

The means for accomplishing everything I desired lay within my reach.
There stood upon the mantelpiece a bottle half full of French laudanum.
Simon was so occupied with his diamond, which I had just restored to
him, that it was an affair of no difficulty to drug his glass. In a
quarter of an hour he was in a profound sleep.

I now opened his waistcoat, took the diamond from the inner pocket in
which he had placed it, and removed him to the bed, on which I laid him
so that his feet hung down over the edge. I had possessed myself of the
Malay creese, which I held in my right hand, while with the other I
discovered as accurately as I could by pulsation the exact locality of
the heart. It was essential that all the aspects of his death should
lead to the surmise of self-murder. I calculated the exact angle at
which it was probable that the weapon, if levelled by Simon's own hand,
would enter his breast; then with one powerful blow I thrust it up to
the hilt in the very spot which I desired to penetrate. A convulsive
thrill ran through Simon's limbs. I heard a smothered sound issue from
his throat, precisely like the bursting of a large air-bubble, sent up
by a diver, when it reaches the surface of the water; he turned half
round on his side, and, as if to assist my plans more effectually, his
right hand, moved by some mere spasmodic impulse, clasped the handle of
the creese, which it remained holding with extraordinary muscular
tenacity. Beyond this there was no apparent struggle. The laudanum, I
presume, paralyzed the usual nervous action. He must have died
instantly.

There was yet something to be done. To make it certain that all
suspicion of the act should be diverted from any inhabitant of the
house to Simon himself, it was necessary that the door should be in the
morning
locked on the inside
. How to do this, and afterwards escape
myself? Not by the window; that was a physical impossibility. Besides,
I was determined that the windows
also
should be found bolted. The
solution was simple enough. I descended softly to my own room for a
peculiar instrument which I had used for holding small slippery
substances, such as minute spheres of glass, etc. This instrument was
nothing more than a long slender hand-vise, with a very powerful grip,
and a considerable leverage, which last was accidentally owing to the
shape of the handle. Nothing was simpler than, when the key was in the
lock, to seize the end of its stem in this vise, through the keyhole,
from the outside, and lock the door. Previously, however, to doing
this, I burned a number of papers on Simon's hearth. Suicides almost
always burn papers before they destroy themselves. I also emptied some
more laudanum into Simon's glass,—having first removed from it all
traces of wine,—cleaned the other wine-glass, and brought the bottles
away with me. If traces of two persons drinking had been found in the
room, the question naturally would have arisen, Who was the second?
Besides, the wine-bottles might have been identified as belonging to
me. The laudanum I poured out to account for its presence in his
stomach, in case of a
post-mortem
examination. The theory naturally
would be, that he first intended to poison himself, but, after
swallowing a little of the drug, was either disgusted with its taste,
or changed his mind from other motives, and chose the dagger. These
arrangements made, I walked out, leaving the gas burning, locked the
door with my vise, and went to bed.