A. E. Merritt - Burn, Witch, Burn!

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Title: Burn, Witch, Burn!

Author: Abraham Merritt

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Language: English

Date first posted: September 2006

Date most recently updated: September 2006

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Burn, Witch, Burn!

Abraham Merritt

FOREWORD

I am a medical man specializing in neurology and diseases of the brain. My peculiar field is abnormal

psychology, and in it I am recognized as an expert. I am closely connected with two of the foremost

hospitals in New York, and have received many honors in this country and abroad. I set this down,

risking identification, not through egotism but because I desire to show that I was competent to observe,

and competent to bring practiced scientific judgment upon, the singular events I am about to relate.

I say that I risk identification, because Lowell is not my name. It is a pseudonym, as are the names of all

the other characters in this narrative. The reasons for this evasion will become increasingly apparent.

Yet I have the strongest feeling that the facts and observations which in my case-books are grouped

under the heading of "The Dolls of Mme. Mandilip" should be clarified, set down in orderly sequence and

be made known. Obviously, I could do this in the form of a report to one of my medical societies, but I

am too well aware of the way my colleagues would receive such a paper, and with what suspicion, pity

or even abhorrence, they would henceforth regard me so counter to accepted notions of cause and effect

do many of these facts and observations run.

But now, orthodox man of medicine that I am, I ask myself whether there may not be causes other than

those we admit. Forces and energies which we stubbornly disavow because we can find no explanation

for them within the narrow confines of our present knowledge. Energies whose reality is recognized in

folk-lore, the ancient traditions, of all peoples, and which, to justify our ignorance, we label myth and

superstition.

A wisdom, a science, immeasurably old. Born before history, but never dying nor ever wholly lost. A

secret wisdom, but always with its priests and priestesses guarding its dark flame, passing it on from

century to century. Dark flame of forbidden knowledge...burning in Egypt before even the Pyramids were

raised; and in temples crumbling now beneath the Gobi's sands; known to the sons of Ad whom Allah, so

say the Arabs, turned to stone for their sorceries ten thousand years before Abraham trod the streets of

Ur of the Chaldees; known in China--and known to the Tibetan lama, the Buryat shaman of the steppes

and to the warlock of the South Seas alike.

Dark flame of evil wisdom...deepening the shadows of Stonehenge's brooding menhirs; fed later by

hands of Roman legionaries; gathering strength, none knows why, in medieval Europe...and still burning,

still alive, still strong.

Enough of preamble. I begin where the dark wisdom, if that it were, first cast its shadow upon me.

CHAPTER I: THE UNKNOWN DEATH

I heard the clock strike one as I walked up the hospital steps. Ordinarily I would have been in bed and

asleep, but there was a case in which I was much interested, and Braile, my assistant, had telephoned me

of certain developments which I wished to observe. It was a night in early November. I paused for a

moment at the top of the steps to look at the brilliancy of the stars. As I did so an automobile drew up at

the entrance to the hospital.

As I stood, wondering what its arrival at that hour meant, a man slipped out of it. He looked sharply up

and down the deserted street, then threw the door wide open. Another man emerged. The two of them

stooped and seemed to be fumbling around inside. They straightened and then I saw that they had locked

their arms around the shoulders of a third. They moved forward, not supporting but carrying this other

man. His head hung upon his breast and his body swung limply.

A fourth man stepped from the automobile.

I recognized him. He was Julian Ricori, a notorious underworld chieftain, one of the finished products of

the Prohibition Law. He had been pointed out to me several times. Even if he had not been, the

newspapers would have made me familiar with his features and figure. Lean and long, with silvery white

hair, always immaculately dressed, a leisured type from outward seeming, rather than leader of such

activities as those of which he was accused.

I had been standing in the shadow, unnoticed. I stepped out of the shadow. Instantly the burdened pair

halted, swiftly as hunting hounds. Their free hands dropped into the pockets of their coats. Menace was

in that movement.

"I am Dr. Lowell," I said, hastily. "Connected with the hospital. Come right along."

They did not answer me. Nor did their gaze waver from me; nor did they move. Ricori stepped in front

of them. His hands were also in his pockets. He looked me over, then nodded to the others; I felt the

tension relax.

"I know you, Doctor," he said pleasantly, in oddly precise English. "But that was quite a chance you

took. If I might advise you, it is not well to move so quickly when those come whom you do not know,

and at night--not in this town."

"But," I said, "I do know you, Mr. Ricori."

"Then," he smiled, faintly, "your judgment was doubly at fault. And my advice doubly pertinent."

There was an awkward moment of silence. He broke it.

"And being who I am, I shall feel much better inside your doors than outside."

I opened the doors. The two men passed through with their burden, and after them Ricori and I. Once

within, I gave way to my professional instincts and stepped up to the man the two were carrying. They

shot a quick glance at Ricori. He nodded. I raised the man's head.

A little shock went through me. The man's eyes were wide open. He was neither dead nor unconscious.

But upon his face was the most extraordinary expression of terror I had ever seen in a long experience

with sane, insane and borderland cases. It was not undiluted fear. It was mixed with an equally disturbing

horror. The eyes, blue and with distended pupils, were like exclamation points to the emotions printed

upon that face. They stared up at me, through me and beyond me. And still they seemed to be looking

inward--as though whatever nightmare vision they were seeing was both behind and in front of them.

"Exactly!" Ricori had been watching me closely. "Exactly, Dr. Lowell, what could it be that my friend has

seen--or has been given--that could make him appear so? I am most anxious to learn. I am willing to

spend much money to learn. I wish him cured, yes--but I shall be frank with you, Dr. Lowell. I would

give my last penny for the certainty that those who did this to him could not do the same thing to

me--could not make me as he is, could not make me see what he is seeing, could not make feel what he

is feeling."

At my signal, orderlies had come up. They took the patient and laid him on a stretcher. By this time the

resident physician had appeared. Ricori touched my elbow.

"I know a great deal about you, Dr. Lowell," he said. "I would like you to take full charge of this case."

I hesitated.

He continued, earnestly: "Could you drop everything else? Spend all your time upon it? Bring in any

others you wish to consult--don't think of expense--"

"A moment, Mr. Ricori," I broke in. "I have patients who cannot be neglected. I will give all the time I

can spare, and so will my assistant, Dr. Braile. Your friend will be constantly under observation here by

people who have my complete confidence. Do you wish me to take the case under those conditions?"

He acquiesced, though I could see he was not entirely satisfied. I had the patient taken to an isolated

private room, and went through the necessary hospital formalities. Ricori gave the man's name as Thomas

Peters, asserted that he knew of no close relations, had himself recorded at Peters' nearest friend,

assumed all responsibility, and taking out a roll of currency, skimmed a thousand dollar bill from it,

passing it to the desk as "preliminary costs."

I asked Ricori if he would like to be present at my examination. He said that he would. He spoke to his

two men, and they took positions at each side of the hospital doors--on guard. Ricori and I went to the

room assigned to the patient. The orderlies had stripped him, and he lay upon the adjustable cot, covered

by a sheet. Braile, for whom I had sent, was bending over Peters, intent upon his face, and plainly

puzzled. I saw with satisfaction that Nurse Walters, an unusually capable and conscientious young

woman, had been assigned to the case. Braile looked up at me. He said: "Obviously some drug."

"Maybe," I answered. "But if so then a drug I have never encountered. Look at his eyes--"

I closed Peters' lids. As soon as I had lifted my fingers they began to rise, slowly, until they were again

wide open. Several times I tried to shut them. Always they opened: the terror, the horror in them,

undiminished.

I began my examination. The entire body was limp, muscles and joints. It was as flaccid, the simile came

to me, as a doll. It was as though every motor nerve had gone out of business. Yet there was none of the

familiar symptoms of paralysis. Nor did the body respond to any sensory stimulus, although I struck

down into the nerve trunks. The only reaction I could obtain was a slight contraction of the dilated pupils

under strongest light.

Hoskins, the pathologist, came in to take his samples for blood tests. When he had drawn what he

wanted, I went over the body minutely. I could find not a single puncture, wound, bruise or abrasion.

Peters was hairy. With Ricori's permission, I had him shaved clean-chest, shoulders, legs, even the head.

I found nothing to indicate that a drug might have been given him by hypodermic. I had the stomach

emptied and took specimens from the excretory organs, including the skin. I examined the membranes of

nose and throat: they seemed healthy and normal; nevertheless, I had smears taken from them. The blood

pressure was low, the temperature slightly subnormal; but that might mean nothing. I gave an injection of

adrenaline. There was absolutely no reaction from it. That might mean much.

"Poor devil," I said to myself. "I'm going to try to kill that nightmare for you, at any rate."

I gave him a minimum hypo of morphine. It might have been water for all the good it did. Then I gave him

all I dared. His eyes remained open, terror and horror undiminished. And pulse and respiration

unchanged.

Ricori had watched all these operations with intense interest. I had done all I could for the time, and told

him so.

"I can do no more," I said, "until I receive the reports of the specimens. Frankly, I am all at sea. I know

of no disease nor drug which would produce these conditions."

"But Dr. Braile," he said, "mentioned a drug--"

"A suggestion only," interposed Braile hastily. "Like Dr. Lowell, I know of no drug which would cause

such symptoms."

Ricori glanced at Peters' face and shivered.

"Now," I said, "I must ask you some questions. Has this man been ill? If so, has he been under medical

care? If he has not actually been ill, has he spoken of any discomfort? Or have you noticed anything

unusual in his manner or behavior?"

"No, to all questions," he answered. "Peters has been in closest touch with me for the past week. He has

not been ailing in the least. Tonight we were talking in my apartments, eating a late and light dinner. He

was in high spirits. In the middle of a word, he stopped, half-turned his head as though listening; then

slipped from his chair to the floor. When I bent over him he was as you see him now. That was precisely

half after midnight. I brought him here at once."

"Well," I said, "that at least gives us the exact time of the seizure. There is no use of your remaining, Mr.

Ricori, unless you wish."

He studied his hands a few moments, rubbing the carefully manicured nails.

"Dr. Lowell," he said at last, "if this man dies without your discovering what killed him, I will pay you the

customary fees and the hospital the customary charges and no more. If he dies and you make this

discovery after his death, I will give a hundred thousand dollars to any charity you name. But if you make

the discovery before he dies, and restore him to health--I will give you the same sum."

We stared at him, and then as the significance of this remarkable offer sank in, I found it hard to curb my

anger.

"Ricori," I said, "you and I live in different worlds, therefore I answer you politely, although I find it

difficult. I will do all in my power to find out what is the matter with your friend and to cure him. I would

do that if he and you were paupers. I am interested in him only as a problem which challenges me as a

physician. But I am not interested in you in the slightest. Nor in your money. Nor in your offer. Consider

it definitely rejected. Do you thoroughly understand that?"

He betrayed no resentment.

"So much so that more than ever do I wish you to take full charge," he said.

"Very well. Now where can I get you if I want to bring you here quickly?"

"With your permission," he answered, "I should like to have--well, representatives--in this room at all

times. There will be two of them. If you want me, tell them--and I will soon be here."

I smiled at that, but he did not.

"You have reminded me," he said, "that we live in different worlds. You take your precautions to go

safely in your world--and I order my life to minimize the perils of mine. Not for a moment would I

presume to advise you how to walk among the dangers of your laboratory, Dr. Lowell. I have the

counterparts of those dangers. Bene--I guard against them as best I can."

It was a most irregular request, of course. But I found myself close to liking Ricori just then, and saw

clearly his point of view. He knew that and pressed the advantage.

"My men will be no bother," he said. "They will not interfere in any way with you. If what I suspect to be

true is true they will be a protection for you and your aids as well. But they, and those who relieve them,

must stay in the room night and day. If Peters is taken from the room, they must accompany him--no

matter where it is that he is taken."

"I can arrange it," I said. Then, at his request, I sent an orderly down to the doors. He returned with one

of the men Ricori had left on guard. Ricori whispered to him, and he went out. In a little while two other

men came up. In the meantime I had explained the peculiar situation to the resident and the

superintendent and secured the necessary permission for their stay.

The two men were well-dressed, polite, of a singularly tight-lipped and cold-eyed alertness. One of them

shot a glance at Peters.

"Christ!" he muttered.

The room was a corner one with two windows, one opening out on the Drive, the other on the side

street. Besides these, there were no outer openings except the door to the hall; the private bathroom

being enclosed and having no windows. Ricori and the two inspected the room minutely, keeping away, I

noticed, from the windows. He asked me then if the room could be darkened. Much interested, I

nodded. The lights were turned off, the three went to the windows, opened them and carefully scrutinized

the six-story sheer drop to both streets. On the side of the Drive there is nothing but the open space

above the park. Opposite the other side is a church.

"It is at this side you must watch," I heard Ricori say; he pointed to the church. "You can turn the lights on

now, Doctor."

He started toward the door, then turned.

"I have many enemies, Dr. Lowell. Peters was my right hand. If it was one of these enemies who struck

him, he did it to weaken me. Or, perhaps, because he had not the opportunity to strike at me. I look at

Peters, and for the first time in my life I, Ricori--am afraid. I have no wish to be the next, I have no wish

to look into hell!"

I grunted at that! He had put so aptly what I had felt and had not formulated into words.

He started to open the door. He hesitated.

"One thing more. If there should be any telephone calls inquiring as to Peters' condition let one of these

men, or their reliefs, answer. If any should come in person making inquiry, allow them to come up--but if

they are more than one, let only one come at a time. If any should appear, asserting that they are

relations, again let these men meet and question them."

He gripped my hand, then opened the door of the room. Another pair of the efficient-appearing retainers

were awaiting him at the threshold. They swung in before and behind him. As he walked away, I saw that

he was crossing himself vigorously.

I closed the door and went back into the room. I looked down on Peters.

If I had been religious, I too would have been doing some crossing. The expression on Peters' face had

changed. The terror and horror were gone. He still seemed to be looking both beyond me and into

himself, but it was a look of evil expectancy--so evil that involuntarily I shot a glance over my shoulder to

see what ugly thing might be creeping upon me.

There was nothing. One of Ricori's gunmen sat in the corner of the window, in the shadow, watching the

parapet of the church roof opposite; the other sat stolidly at the door.

Braile and Nurse Walters were at the other side of the bed. Their eyes were fixed with horrified

fascination on Peters' face. And then I saw Braile turn his head and stare about the room as I had.

Suddenly Peters' eyes seemed to focus, to become aware of the three of us, to become aware of the

entire room. They flashed with an unholy glee. That glee was not maniacal--it was diabolical. It was the

look of a devil long exiled from his well-beloved hell, and suddenly summoned to return.

Or was it like the glee of some devil sent hurtling out of his hell to work his will upon whom he might?

Very well do I know how fantastic, how utterly unscientific, are such comparisons. Yet not otherwise can

I describe that strange change.

Then, abruptly as the closing of a camera shutter, that expression fled and the old terror and horror came

back. I gave an involuntary gasp of relief, for it was precisely as though some evil presence had

withdrawn. The nurse was trembling; Braile asked, in a strained voice: "How about another

hypodermic?"

"No," I said. "I want you to watch the progress of this--whatever it is--without drugs. I'm going down to

the laboratory. Watch him closely until I return."

I went down to the laboratory. Hoskins looked up at me.

"Nothing wrong, so far. Remarkable health, I'd say. Of course all I've results on are the simpler tests."

I nodded. I had an uncomfortable feeling that the other tests also would show nothing. And I had been

more shaken than I would have cared to confess by those alternations of hellish fear, hellish expectancy

and hellish glee in Peters' face and eyes. The whole case troubled me, gave me a nightmarish feeling of

standing outside some door which it was vitally important to open, and to which not only did I have no

key but couldn't find the keyhole. I have found that concentration upon microscopic work often permits

me to think more freely upon problems. So I took a few smears of Peters' blood and began to study

them, not with any expectation of finding anything, but to slip the brakes from another part of my brain.

I was on my fourth slide when I suddenly realized that I was looking at the incredible. As I had

perfunctorily moved the slide, a white corpuscle had slid into the field of vision. Only a simple white

corpuscle--but within it was a spark of phosphorescence, shining out like a tiny lamp!

I thought at first that it was some effect of the light, but no manipulation of the illumination changed that

spark. I rubbed my eyes and looked again. I called Hoskins.

"Tell me if you see something peculiar in there."

He peered into the microscope. He started, then shifted the light as I had.

"What do you see, Hoskins?"

He said, still staring through the lens:

"A leucocyte inside of which is a globe of phosphorescence. Its glow is neither dimmed when I turn on

the full illumination, nor is it increased when I lessen it. In all except the ingested globe the corpuscle

seems normal."

"And all of which," I said, "is quite impossible."

"Quite," he agreed, straightening. "Yet there it is!"

I transferred the slide to the micro-manipulator, hoping to isolate the corpuscle, and touched it with the

tip of the manipulating needle. At the instant of contact the corpuscle seemed to burst. The globe of

phosphorescence appeared to flatten, and something like a miniature flash of heat-lightning ran over the

visible portion of the slide.

And that was all--the phosphorescence was gone.

We prepared and examined slide after slide. Twice more we found a tiny shining globe, and each time

with the same result, the bursting corpuscle, the strange flicker of faint luminosity--then nothing.

The laboratory 'phone rang. Hoskins answered.

"It's Braile. He wants you--quick."

"Keep after it, Hoskins," I said, and hastened to Peters' room. Entering, I saw Nurse Walters, face chalk

white, eyes closed, standing with her back turned to the bed. Braile was leaning over the patient,

stethoscope to his heart. I looked at Peters; and stood stock still, something like a touch of unreasoning

panic at my own heart. Upon his face was that look of devilish expectancy, but intensified. As I looked, it

gave way to the diabolic joy, and that, too, was intensified. The face held it for not many seconds. Back

came the expectancy then on its heels the unholy glee. The two expressions alternated, rapidly. They

flickered over Peters' face like--like the flickers of the tiny lights within the corpuscles of his blood. Braile

spoke to me through stiff lips:

"His heart stopped three minutes ago! He ought to be dead--yet listen--"

The body of Peters stretched and stiffened. A sound came from his lips--a chuckling sound; low yet

singularly penetrating, inhuman, the chattering laughter of a devil. The gunman at the window leaped to his

feet, his chair going over with a crash. The laughter choked and died away, and the body of Peters lay

limp.

I heard the door open, and Ricori's voice: "How is he, Dr. Lowell? I could not sleep--" He saw Peters'

face.

"Mother of Christ!" I heard him whisper. He dropped to his knees.

I saw him dimly for I could not take my eyes from Peters' face. It was the face of a grinning, triumphant

fiend--all humanity wiped from it--the face of a demon straight out of some mad medieval painter's hell.

The blue eyes, now utterly malignant, glared at Ricori.

And as I looked, the dead hands moved; slowly the arms bent up from the elbows, the fingers

contracting like claws; the dead body began to stir beneath the covers--

At that the spell of nightmare dropped from me; for the first time in hours I was on ground that I knew. It

was the rigor mortis, the stiffening of death--but setting in more quickly and proceeding at a rate I had

never known.

I stepped forward and drew the lids down over the glaring eyes. I covered the dreadful face.

I looked at Ricori. He was still on his knees, crossing himself and praying. And kneeling beside him, arm

around his shoulders, was Nurse Walters, and she, too, was praying.

Somewhere a clock struck five.

CHAPTER II: THE QUESTIONNAIRE

I offered to go home with Ricori, and somewhat to my surprise he accepted with alacrity. The man was

pitiably shaken. We rode silently, the tight-lipped gunmen alert. Peters' face kept floating before me.

I gave Ricori a strong sedative, and left him sleeping, his men on guard. I had told him that I meant to

make a complete autopsy.

Returning to the hospital in his car, I found the body of Peters had been taken to the mortuary. Rigor

mortis, Braile told me, had been complete in less than an hour--an astonishingly short time. I made the

necessary arrangements for the autopsy, and took Braile home with me to snatch a few hours sleep. It is

difficult to convey by words the peculiarly unpleasant impression the whole occurrence had made upon

me. I can only say that I was as grateful for Braile's company as he seemed to be for mine.

When I awoke, the nightmarish oppression still lingered, though not so strongly. It was about two when

we began the autopsy. I lifted the sheet from Peters' body with noticeable hesitation. I stared at his face

with amazement. All diabolism had been wiped away. It was serene, unlined--the face of a man who had

died peacefully, with no agony either of body or mind. I lifted his hand, it was limp, the whole body

flaccid, the rigor gone.

It was then, I think, that I first felt full conviction I was dealing with an entirely new, or at least unknown,

agency of death, whether microbic or otherwise. As a rule, rigor does not set in for sixteen to twenty-four

hours, depending upon the condition of the patient before death, temperature and a dozen other things.

Normally, it does not disappear for forty-eight to seventy-two hours. Usually a rapid setting-in of the

stiffening means as rapid a disappearance, and vice versa. Diabetics stiffen quicker than others. A sudden

brain injury, like shooting, is even swifter. In this case, the rigor had begun instantaneously with death,

and must have completed its cycle in the astonishingly short time of less than five hours--for the attendant

told me that he had examined the body about ten o'clock and he had thought that stiffening had not yet

set in. As a matter of fact, it had come and gone.

The results of the autopsy can be told in two sentences. There was no ascertainable reason why Peters

should not be alive. And he was dead!

Later, when Hoskins made his reports, both of these utterly conflicting statements continued to be true.

There was no reason why Peters should be dead. Yet dead he was. If the enigmatic lights we had

observed had anything to do with his death, they left no traces. His organs were perfect, all else as it

should have been; he was, indeed, an extraordinarily healthy specimen. Nor had Hoskins been able to

capture any more of the light-carrying corpuscles after I had left him.

That night I framed a short letter describing briefly the symptoms observed in Peters' case, not dwelling

upon the changes in expression but referring cautiously to "unusual grimaces" and a "look of intense fear."

Braile and I had this manifold and mailed to every physician in Greater New York. I personally attended

to a quiet inquiry to the same effect among the hospitals. The letters asked if the physicians had treated

any patients with similar symptoms, and if so to give particulars, names, addresses, occupations and any

characteristic interest under seal, of course, of professional confidence. I flattered myself that my

reputation was such that none of those who received the questionnaires would think the request actuated

either by idle curiosity or slightest unethical motive.

I received in response seven letters and a personal visit from the writer of one of them. Each letter,

except one, gave me in various degrees of medical conservatism, the information I had asked. After

reading them, there was no question that within six months seven persons of oddly dissimilar

characteristics and stations in life had died as had Peters.

Chronologically, the cases were as follows:

May 25: Ruth Bailey, spinster; fifty years old; moderately wealthy; Social Registerite and best of

reputation; charitable and devoted to children. June 20: Patrick McIlraine; bricklayer; wife and two

children. August 1: Anita Green; child of eleven; parents in moderate circumstances and well educated.

August 15: Steve Standish; acrobat; thirty; wife and three children. August 30: John J. Marshall; banker;

sixty interested in child welfare. September 10: Phineas Dimott; thirty-five; trapeze performer; wife and

small child. October 12: Hortense Darnley; about thirty; no occupation.

Their addresses, except two, were widely scattered throughout the city.

Each of the letters noted the sudden onset of rigor mortis and its rapid passing. Each of them gave the

time of death following the initial seizure as approximately five hours. Five of them referred to the

changing expressions which had so troubled me; in the guarded way they did it I read the bewilderment

of the writers.

"Patient's eyes remained open," recorded the physician in charge of the spinster Bailey. "Staring, but gave

no sign of recognition of surroundings and failed to focus upon or present any evidence of seeing objects

held before them. Expression one of intense terror, giving away toward death to others peculiarly

disquieting to observer. The latter intensified after death ensued. Rigor mortis complete and dissipated

within five hours."

The physician in charge of McIlraine, the bricklayer, had nothing to say about the ante-mortem

phenomena, but wrote at some length about the expression of his patient's face after death.

"It had," he reported, "nothing in common with the muscular contraction of the so-called 'Hippocratic

countenance,' nor was it in any way the staring eyes and contorted mouth familiarly known as the death

grin. There was no suggestion of agony, after the death--rather the opposite. I would term the expression

one of unusual malice."

The report of the physician who had attended Standish, the acrobat, was perfunctory, but it mentioned

that "after patient had apparently died, singularly disagreeable sounds emanated from his throat." I

wondered whether these had been the same demonic machinations that had come from Peters, and, if so,

I could not wonder at all at my correspondent's reticence concerning them.

I knew the physician who had attended the banker--opinionated, pompous, a perfect doctor of the very

rich.

"There can be no mystery as to the cause of death," he wrote. "It was certainly thrombosis, a clot

somewhere in the brain. I attach no importance whatever to the facial grimaces, nor to the time element

involved in the rigor. You know, my dear Lowell," he added, patronizingly, "it is an axiom in forensic

medicine that one can prove anything by rigor mortis."

I would have liked to have replied that when in doubt thrombosis as a diagnosis is equally as useful in

covering the ignorance of practitioners, but it would not have punctured his complacency.

The Dimott report was a simple record with no comment whatever upon grimaces or sounds.

But the doctor who had attended little Anita had not been so reticent.

"The child," he wrote, "had been beautiful. She seemed to suffer no pain, but at the onset of the illness I

was shocked by the intensity of terror in her fixed gaze. It was like a waking nightmare--for

unquestionably she was conscious until death. Morphine in almost lethal dosage produced no change in

this symptom, nor did it seem to have any effect upon heart or respiration. Later the terror disappeared,

giving way to other emotions which I hesitate to describe in this report, but will do so in person if you so

desire. The aspect of the child after death was peculiarly disturbing, but again I would rather speak than

write of that."

There was a hastily scrawled postscript; I could see him hesitating, then giving way at last to the necessity

of unburdening his mind, dashing off that postscript and rushing the letter away before he could

reconsider--

"I have written that the child was conscious until death. What haunts me is the conviction that she was

conscious after physical death! Let me talk to you."

I nodded with satisfaction. I had not dared to put that observation down in my questionnaire. And if it has

been true of the other cases, as I now believed it must have been, all the doctors except Standish's had

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GOTOProjectGutenbergofAustraliaHOMEPAGETitle:Burn,Witch,Burn!Author:AbrahamMerritt*AProjectGutenbergofAustraliaeBook*eBookNo.:0607481h.htmlLanguage:EnglishDatefirstposted:September2006Datemostrecentlyupdated:September2006ThiseBookwasproducedby:RichardScottProjectGutenbergofAustraliaeBooksarecreatedf...

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A. E. Merritt - Burn, Witch, Burn!

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