Part 34 (1/2)

”Mr. Errol,” he summoned, placing the second folded paper on the table with the first.

Errol rose and went forward and Karatoff placed him in the chair as he had Mrs. Gaines. There seemed to be no hesitation, at least on the part of Karatoff's followers, to being hypnotized.

Whatever it was written on the paper, the writer had evidently not trusted to chance, as I had, but had told specifically what to do.

At the mute bidding of Karatoff Errol rose. We watched breathlessly.

Deliberately he walked across the room to the table, and, to the astonishment of all save one, picked up a rubber dagger, one of those with which children play, which was lying in the miscellaneous pile on the table. I had not noticed it, but some one's keen eye had, and evidently it had suggested a melodramatic request.

Quickly Errol turned. If he had been a motion-picture actor, he could not have portrayed better the similitude of hate that was written on his face. A few strides and he had advanced toward our little audience, now keyed up to the highest pitch of excitement by the extraordinary exhibition.

”Of course,” remarked Karatoff, as at a word Errol paused, still poising the dagger, ”you know that under hypnotism in the psychological laboratory a patient has often struck at his 'enemy' with a rubber dagger, going through all the motions of real pa.s.sion. Now!”

No word was said by Karatoff to indicate to Errol what it was that he was to do. But a gasp went up from some one as he took another step and it was evident that it was Marchant whom he had singled out. For just a moment Errol poised the rubber dagger over his ”victim,” as if gloating. It was dramatic, realistic. As Errol paused, Marchant smiled at the rest of us, a sickly smile, I thought, as though he would have said that the play was being carried too far.

Never for a moment did Errol take from him the menacing look. It was only a moment in the play, yet it was so unexpected that it seemed ages. Then, swiftly, down came the dagger on Marchant's left side just over the breast, the rubber point bending pliantly as it descended.

A sharp cry escaped Marchant. I looked quickly. He had fallen forward, face down, on the floor.

Edith Gaines screamed as we rushed to Marchant and turned him over. For the moment, as Kennedy, Karatoff, and Gaines bent over him and endeavored to loosen his collar and apply a restorative, consternation reigned in the little circle. I bent over, too, and looked first at Marchant's flushed face, then at Kennedy. Marchant was dead!

There was not a mark on him, apparently. Only a moment before he had been one of us. We could look at one another only in amazement, tinged with fear. Killed by a rubber dagger? Was it possible?

”Call an ambulance--quick!” directed Kennedy to me, though I knew that he knew it was of no use except as a matter of form.

We stood about the prostrate form, stunned. In a few moments the police would be there. Instinctively we looked at Karatoff. Plainly he was nervous and overwrought now. His voice shook as he brought Errol out of the trance, and Errol, dazed, uncomprehending, struggled to take in the horribly unreal tragedy which greeted his return to consciousness.

”It--it was an accident,” muttered Karatoff, eagerly trying to justify himself, though trembling for once in his life. ”Arteriosclerosis, perhaps, hardening of the arteries, some weakness of the heart. I never--”

He cut the words short as Edith Gaines reeled and fell into her husband's arms. She seemed completely prostrated by the shock. Or was it weakness following the high mental tension of her own hypnotization?

Together we endeavored to revive her, waiting for the first flutter of her eyelids, which seemed an interminable time.

Errol in the mean time was pacing the floor like one in a dream. Events had followed one another so fast in the confusion that I had only an unrelated series of impressions. It was not until a moment later that I realized the full import of the affair, when I saw Kennedy standing near the table in the position Karatoff had a.s.sumed, a strange look of perplexity on his face. Slowly I realized what was the cause. The papers on which were written the requests for the exhibitions of Karatoff's skill were gone!

Whatever was done must be done quickly, and Kennedy looked about with a glance that missed nothing. Before I could say a word about the papers he had crossed the room to where Marchant had been standing in the little group about Edith Gaines as we entered. On a side-table stood the teacup from which he had been sipping. With his back to the rest, Kennedy drew from his breast pocket a little emergency case he carried containing a few thin miniature gla.s.s tubes. Quickly he poured the few drops of the dregs of the tea into one of the tubes, then into others tea from the other cups.

Again he looked at the face of Marchant as though trying to read in the horrified smile that had petrified on it some mysterious secret hidden underneath. Slowly the question was shaping in my mind, was it, as Karatoff would have us believe, an accident?

The clang of a bell outside threw us all into worse confusion, and a moment later, almost together, a white-coated surgeon and a blue-coated policeman burst into the room. It seemed almost no time, in the swirl of events, before the policeman was joined by a detective a.s.signed by the Central Office to that district.

”Well, doctor,” demanded the detective as he entered, ”what's the verdict?”

”Arteriosclerosis, I think,” replied the young surgeon. ”They tell me there was some kind of hypnotic seance going on. One of them named Errol struck at him with a rubber dagger, and--”

”Get out!” scoffed the Central Office man. ”Killed by a rubber dagger!

Say, what do you think we are? What did you find when you entered, sergeant?”

The policeman handed the detective the rubber dagger which he had picked up, forgotten, on the floor where Errol had dropped it when he came out from the hypnotization.

The detective took it gingerly and suspiciously, with a growl. ”I'll have the point of this a.n.a.lyzed. It may be--well--we won't say what may be. But I can tell you what is. You, Doctor Karatoff, or whatever your name is, and you, Mr. Errol, are under arrest. It's a good deal easier to take you now than it will be later. Then if you can get a judge to release you, we'll at least know where you are.”