Part 6

It will be asked, For what purpose do your ghosts appear? To accomplish what end that human intelligence cannot effect? I say, again turn back to your Bible, and you will have your questions answered.

There are other needs now that did not then exist. Society is not the same; the ordinary laws of justice, of health, of life itself, are not the same. There are a thousand more appliances now, than there were, by which human life can be destroyed or preserved,—gunpowder, steam, machinery, with their countless adjuncts of power, on one side, and chemistry, with ether, and other discoveries, on the other. And as science becomes the assistant to the conveniences of mankind, in the same ratio it becomes his slayer. Events transpire now that were not dreamed of in former days, because of the increased forces that act upon latent ideas. Sixty, fifty, forty years ago, though Death had his ample harvest, he had not the immense scythes of steamboats and railroads with which to do his work of destruction; and now and then we have isolated facts published, with all the details of authenticity, of dreams that warned a voyager from the water or a traveller from the cars, when afterwards it has proved that disaster befell both modes of travel. The remedy is to the need, and who can say that there have not been innumerable warnings, by visitations and dreams, of which the public never has any account, owing to the seclusion of the parties, or their natural reticence and unwillingness to have their stories made the subject of a paragraph and a sneer?

There are purposes in the Almighty wisdom which we cannot fathom, and religion herself, speaking from the misty summits of theological controversy, cries to her votaries to have faith where they cannot have comprehension; or, in other words, to believe without understanding. Do I, a ghost-seer, ask for more?

You ask, for what purpose did this ghost—if ghost it was—cross your path? I could retort, and ask why that man—if it was a man—crossed my path? But I affirm that there was a purpose, and though I did not see it then, I may see it soon. Who can tell but what this revival of that mysterious horror may not lead to renewed activity in the police department? Who knows but it may be read by the murderer, and, awakening in his breast the smouldering embers of remorse, make him do those eccentric things which lead vigilance to observe and assist in the detection of the guilty? I never would have written this narrative if that misty figure had not confronted me on that night, and perhaps it may have been his intention to excite in me the idea of writing out these transactions, and thus awakening the slumbering or pausing authorities to a more active investigation.

Why did he select me, if I was not appropriate to his purpose? And I will say now, and with all truth, that, from that time to this moment, I have been haunted with a vague urging to write this work, and give it to the public; and now that I have done so, it may so happen that I will see that thing once more coming to assure me, in some way consistent with his condition, that his intention, so far as I was concerned as an agent, is accomplished. I shall not be surprised if it should occur.

XIII.

THE DOCTOR’S STORY.

Let me relate, as briefly as I can, a very singular incident that happened some years ago in Baltimore. The narrator was a man with whom I had been brought up from youth to manhood. His father was my father’s family physician, a doctor of high standing; and the son who told and acted a part in the story was then a practising physician in Washington, where he still practises. A party of us were together at the house of his father, and the ghost subject was introduced. My friend argued against their existence, as most doctors do; but in the midst of our conversation he said that, notwithstanding his theory, he must tell us of a remarkable occurrence that happened within his own personal experience.

Two years previously he had occupied the professor’s chair of Practical Anatomy (I believe that is the phrase) in the Medical College of Baltimore, though then not more than twenty-three or four years of age. His remarkable skill, systematized by study in the famous medical schools of Paris, had justified his selection for the important post. During this period, or some time before my friend accepted the professorship, the mob had broken into the medical college, actuated by a sentiment of horror at the idea of the bodies of their dead friends being stolen from the grave and placed under the knife, and subjected the faculty and students to great personal peril. The riot being quelled, it was determined to make such arrangements as would entirely elude the suspicions of the people.

For this purpose the upper portion of the building was converted into a large dissecting-room, with the windows hermetically sealed, so that no light could be perceived from the outside, and consequently lead to a renewal of an attack. Thus at night the faculty was secure from observation, and whatever of light was needed during the day came through glass inserted in the roof. To add to the security, a private stairway was arranged, so that if the mob did break in by the only publicly known entrance, the students and professors would be enabled to escape. The egress to this private stairway from the lecture-room was by a door, the bolt of which, shooting into a socket, was within the room, and could not be moved from without. This private escape-door was at the other end of the dissecting-room. And this is my friend’s story:—

He had made arrangements with the janitor of the medical college, who was also a sexton, to have the body of a female on the dissecting-table on a certain night, as he wanted to make some specific studies for his lecture of the next day. On the evening when the body was to be ready for him, he had accepted an invitation to a small party, at the house of one of the professors, and thither he went, pre-arranging with one of the students to leave at eleven o’clock, and go together to accomplish his examination. At the appointed hour he made a sign to his companion, and they withdrew. Arriving at the college, he entered by his pass-key, found a couple of candles on the table in the lower hall, ascended the usual stairway, and, arriving at the door of the lecture-room at the top of the building, stopped for a moment to hang up their cloaks and hats. Then he applied the key to the lock, and entered with the candles lit, of course. A deep gloom pervaded the dissecting-room,—a gloom that was increased by the feeble light of the two candles, and upon the table lay, under the fearful cloth, the subject for the night’s work.

Without any other thought in their minds save the plain matter-of-fact idea of work, they advanced to the dissecting-board,—the doctor towards the head of the corpse, the student passing round to the other side. As the latter was in the act of turning, he lifted his candle and exclaimed, “Doctor, who is that?” pointing at the same time toward the centre of the room.

“I do not know,” replied the doctor, thinking the question applied to the body before him; but no sooner had he raised his eyes than he was struck by the attitude of his friend. He was holding the candle above his head and looking away from the table, and the doctor, following the direction of his gaze, discovered the figure of a man standing some twelve or fifteen feet distant. My friend said that his only impression was that they were in for a row; concluding that the mob had found out the secret stairway, and got into the hall for the purpose of breaking up the dissecting operations. With this idea he turned round the table, and, as he advanced toward the figure, exclaimed, “Who are you? What do you want here?” In his advance movement he was joined by the student, neither for an instant having the idea of a supernatural visitation in their minds. As quickly as they pushed forward, as rapidly did the figure retreat until it reached the door leading to the head of the stairway, when it disappeared. Supposing that the man had passed out as he had come in, they rushed to the door to follow, but they found the door fastened and the bolt shot within the staple. With difficulty they forced it back, for it had never been used since it was put on,—no occasion requiring it,—and then they descended the steps to the outer doorway, which they found closed, and from within.

Puzzled by these mysteries, they reascended to the room, passed through, and immediately descended to arouse the janitor, and see if he could give any clue to the adventure. The janitor inquired of them if they could describe the appearance. Yes; and they did so; for they had had a full and accurate view of his face, of his dress, and of his height. “Then,” said the janitor, “it was a ghost. That man was the husband of the woman you had upon the table. I buried them both, and knew them well, and he answers exactly to your description.”

The doctor, when questioned by us, said the figure was that of a tall man, dressed in ordinary clothes (I forget, now, whether he gave us a full description or not, but rather think he did not), with a very severe and stern face, and kept his eyes fixed upon the corpse, one hand upraised and pointing to it, conveying the impression to his mind of an order not to touch it,—a gesture of rebuke, or a motion to forbid.

The doctor and his friend went back to the vestibule of the dissecting-room, resumed their outer-garments, and retired. The janitor fulfilled the doctor’s order, which was to remove and rebury the body, and find him the body of a woman whose husband would not interfere with his professional occupations.

Now, here is a true ghost story, if there ever was one. Two persons saw the apparition, and a third party verified it. The moral is plain enough. The husband was there to prevent the disgusting mutilation of his wife’s body, and his purpose was accomplished.

The doctor said that nothing would have induced him to lay his hands upon that woman’s form when he remembered the appealing look of his extraordinary visitor. It was not personal fear or vulgar superstition, but a higher motive; for inasmuch as no Christian gentlemen would touch with unholy motive the form of a living wife in the presence of a living husband, so he could not disturb the sanctity of her spectral modesty before the face of her suppliant, dead husband. To those who accept the story of the apparition, the logic of the motive must be evident; and if so in this case, why not in all others? Or it may be as it is in life. We meet our acquaintances every day on the street; they pass us without seeing us, or without our seeing them; and yet how absurd it would be to deny their being on the street, walking straight on, absorbed beyond recognition, simply because they did not stop and explain to us the motive that brought them there! Ghosts, in like manner, may cross the clown’s staring vision or the philosopher’s calmer sight, and, because they do not pause and prattle of their object and tell them the motive of their appearance, are we to conclude, as a logical theory demonstrated, that that is a good reason to conclude they were not there at all? Must all facts be denied until the motives are discovered? Is a negative so powerful as to overwhelm an affirmative? If so, the plea of not guilty offered by a criminal should be enough to justify his discharge, despite of circumstantial evidence strong enough to hang him or half a hundred like him.

As I stood that night out there in the fatal wood, and thought over the murder and the murderer, I conceived a plan of punishment by which, alone, I thought he could appease the outraged sense of human tenderness for things so young as he had slaughtered.

XIV.

MY PLAN OF PUNISHMENT.

And this is my plan:

Chain him to the rock on which he took her life,—one chain to each wrist, one chain to each ankle, and an iron hoop locked around his waist, and this, too, fastened to the rock. Lay him on the spot where she was found. Then leave him to himself and to the scenery which he has disfigured so fearfully; but watch that no demon out of the Davenport or Eddy witchcraft or mancraft boxes help him to unloose those shackles. Lay him with his face to the avenging skies, and place food within his reach, but so arrange it that it rests only on the spots over which the red current of her life had ebbed. Let him alone with the night, and the night will give him such a tangled and convulsed spasm of horror as will make his very soul shriek aloud for two almost impossible things, yet awhile, death or the Lord’s pardon. And there he should remain until every hair of his head had become white, and every black spot of his soul livid. Perhaps the spirit that confronted me in silence and in peace might come to him and watch him,—watch him till the dawn broke and the eyes of the bright heavens took its place to look at him. And after that let the authorities handle him as they pleased.

The reader will observe that in this project of mine I follow out the classic ideas of the most elegant peoples and refined poets of the world, who insisted before all things else that the dramatic unities should be attended to. In that respect my plan would be without a flaw.

And now, if I am asked for my theory of the murders, my answer would be, that it might not be politic to give it publicity. This much, however, I will say, reserving the more probable theory for future emergencies. There is a link wanting at this time that must be found before any progress can be made to a conclusive judgment. The children left their temporary home intending to return in time for the boy to attend his afternoon school. Their objective point, as I said before, was May’s wood. This question then arises: What occurred to make the girl, the senior, change her mind and go farther away from home,—to Bussey’s wood? Going there would change her original programme, relative to the boy. Did some one meet them as if by accident,—some one whom they knew,—and did that person induce her to continue to Bussey’s wood? Were there any evidences that they stopped at all at May’s wood? But what inducement could he use to get her to Bussey’s wood? The mother might have been the inducement. They knew she was employed at Quincy, nearer to Bussey’s than to May’s wood. They might have been told that she would meet them at the former, and it would be a pleasant surprise. Another question presents itself: What could have been the motive to get her to secluded, distant Bussey? I answer, self-defence. Self-defence against two children? Yes. The girl was an intelligent, observant girl, and she may have been cognizant of some crime, the revelation of which would have brought ruin and punishment upon the perpetrator; or the perpetrator might, in his consciousness of the possibility of her having discovered him, come to the resolution to dispose forever of any chance of her being a witness against him. They were poor children, and had only money enough to go and come from May’s wood; and yet that money was found upon the girl. Consequently, she had not been at any expense in getting to Bussey’s wood by the cars. The murderer paid their fare! After reaching the thick shades around the rock, and giving her time to become confident of his integrity and friendship,—so much so as to be sufficiently at ease to commence the weaving of leaf chaplets, waiting the promised interview with her mother,—he sent the boy down to the brook for water, and where he was subsequently found. Then he turned upon the girl; for if the boy had been near by, his cries could not have failed to arouse assistance, for there were men working within three hundred yards of the place where her body was discovered. He must have brought about a separation between the children, and at that spot; for he could not have murdered them together, and there, in that broad sunlight, with the swirl of the mower’s scythes down in the near meadow evident to his ear, carried the body of the boy to the brook at the foot of the hill, and thrown it among the alders. He killed the girl as soon as the boy was out of sight, and then he followed the little fellow to the place where he had sent him, and slaughtered him in the gloom of those thick bushes.

Now, who was that man whom she would have exposed? With whose acts could she have by locality and association of daily life become acquainted? Was he from Lynn, or its vicinity,—where she had been living before she came to Boston? Or was the discovery, or the imagined discovery, of a crime made in Boston, and of some one living in Boston? The girl was simply murdered,—no duplex crime,—attacked while she was sitting with leaves and wreaths in her lap, and the first blows were delivered upon her back and sides, and after that in front and in great confusion. The boy was killed, not because he saw the murder done upon his sister, but because he could have told who it was that accompanied them from Boston, or joined them at May’s wood, where they were expected, or anywhere along the first part of that terrible journey. There was no other motive for his death. If the man had not been seen by the boy, and known personally to the boy, he would have been alive now. Consequently it was some one who was intimate with those children and who could not allow the boy to live any more than he could allow the girl to live. It was a double self-defence.

Then who was that man? I think he lives; I think that he walks these streets daily. I think that some of us at some time or other have sat beside him in the cars going to and fro the city roads. I think that now, as I sit here writing, he is sitting somewhere hereabouts with his face dropped over upon his clenched hands, looking at that dark rock out there in the woods and wondering if he will yet reach the end of his life by the common methods of disease. I think that he often passes by the police station, with a frightened look in his eyes, and turns a corner quickly when one of the big police guards stalks like a blue-coated and silver-plated Nemesis toward him. I see him, in my mind’s eye, when he meets a girl and boy upon the sidewalk,—how he stares at them with a fixed gaze, wondering how those two whom he killed out yonder, in the old woods, are looking now!—and, when this book is advertised, I can watch him wondering what it is like; and then I trace him in his stealthy and frightened step to the bookstore to buy it; and, when he turns these leaves and comes to this sentence, I hear him curse me, and know that he would like to have his hand upon my throat for recalling the memory of his deed. But I tell him that he will not escape. He may pretend to pray when others pray, to hide his wicked past in the garb of piety; he may mutter his wrath on all of us who seek him for his punishment; he may fly now the advancing steps of justice: but, as he flies, the feet of justice may become inactive, while it sends over every railroad and steamboat line of travel, by every wire that vibrates to all the remotest places of retreat, the command of his arrest. Wherever he is now, and wherever he may be then, he is doomed; and at this instant he knows it and feels it so in every fibre of his accursed carcass, even to those blood-stained hands beneath whose nails there yet remains the red record of his crime. I have given one theory, without in the least asserting it to be the correct one; but it is as good a theory as the public can get hold of outside of that mysterious room in the City Hall wherein the tall chief of police weaves his webs.

There being nothing else but murder in the girl’s death, we must seek for some motive that could have driven that man to so terrible a necessity. What other than the one I have suggested? Was it monomania for human blood? That could have been gratified among a denser population than he would be likely to find in Bussey’s wood. And monomania of that kind is not common, nor is it of sudden growth, striking and slaking but once. It seeks its victim anywhere, without plot and without care of consequences, anywhere and everywhere. It is a madness that has no fear and is destitute of prudence. But here was deliberate, deep-plotted murder. It required skill to induce the girl to go farther away from home and her pledged duty to her brother. The filial sense was invoked as paramount to the fraternal. It required skill to separate the children. It was done. Does all that look as if the man was crazed for blood, or blind by drink? I think there was neither here. I cannot give my other theory; for, if it did not detect in this case, it might suggest an excellent method of repeating just such another crime, should any such be in contemplation. The enemy of society and law studies the tactics of justice, and frequently the plan of detection, if penetrated by the culprit, becomes his surest chart of escape. There may, after all,—but I don’t think so,—have been two persons engaged in this series of murders; and in that light read the short recital that follows, and perhaps, when the mystery shall be resolved by judicial precision, you may turn back to this singular incident and compare it with the concluding scenes of the catastrophes I have been treating of. If truth be stranger than fiction, then the marvels of the veritable make larger drafts upon our credulity than the fabrications of the imaginist, and there can be no harm done if we prepare ourselves for revelations that in time may be made to us, and whose mysticism, enlightened by the practical test of law, will stand forever in the dry tomes of jurisprudence, subduing the impertinence of our dogmatical self-conceit, and establishing the fact that truth is a principle that can traverse the air, as well as walk arm in arm with us in our daily habits. This is the incident.