The Black Mask (Vol. 4, No. 3 — December 1921)

I

Madame Blavsky, the world’s greatest tragedienne, was dead.

They found her in the cold gray of the morning lying upon the floor of her drawing-room, her beautiful face twisted into a look of horror; her great brown eyes wide open, glazed, protruding; her red lips purpled, blackened, swollen — set in a sickening grin.

Her dress had been torn away from the rounded shoulders — the shoulders that had been toasted and raved over by a thousand critics. Between the breasts was a red gash where the angry knife had entered. There were dark marks of fingers on the skin of the milky neck.

The long, slender hands were torn and bruised, twisted out of shape, the flesh scratched as the rings had been brutally pulled from the fingers by the assassin in his eagerness to escape.

An open downstairs window showed how entrance had been gained. Yet there were no marks of feet in the ground beneath. It had rained during the day and the earth would have retained the footprints had any been made.

The drawing-room showed no signs of a struggle. Not a piece of furniture was disturbed, not a rug out of place. But several drawers pulled out, their contents scattered carelessly about the floor, showed that a hurried search had been made for valuables.

But aside from the rings torn from the Madame’s fingers and possibly several less valuable trinkets, nothing of value had been taken except—

The life-size painting of Madame in the role of Lady Macbeth — the painting by Rumley, which had created such a furore at the Paris exhibition five years before — had disappeared, frame and all, from its accustomed place on the wall!

The servants were questioned. None could throw any light on the affair — none save Felice, the maid. During the night she had heard the voice of her mistress raised in an agonized shriek of horror. The sound of a fall. Then her mistress had exclaimed in tones so tense, so vibrant, that they caused the chills to creep up and down her back and every nerve to tingle with fear:

“Oh, Mother of God! Help me! Help me! Can no one hear me? May my spirit never rest until it has driven you to confess!”

The voice had stopped suddenly with a choking sort of gurgle. She, Felice, had pulled the covers over her head to drown it out. Why had she not summoned help? She shrugged her pretty shoulders. Did the officers not know that Madame suffered from insomnia as a result of the nervous attack which had driven her from the stage? On such occasions she was wont to assume the roles she had played in years gone by. And — there was another shrug of the shoulders which spoke plainer than words — Madame was, like all great artists, temperamental. When buried in one of her characters she sometimes reached a high pitch of excitement. For safety’s sake it was not always best to interrupt.

The other servants, although they had not heard Madame’s cry as described by Felice, corroborated the maid’s story of the nocturnal roles. They had learned by experience to keep their distance. In the servants’ quarters it was hinted that at such times Madame’s unstrung nerves drove her almost mad.

Add to this that on the night of the murder there had been no moon and that the street lights in the vicinity had been put out of commission as a result of the storm of the day previous and you have the story in a nutshell.

II

The career of Madame Blavsky had been a spectacular one. Whence she came no one knew. Reams of speculation had been written — speculation pure and simple — for Madame was decidedly reticent in regard to her past. All the press and public knew was that she had suddenly appeared in the offices of Richard Raine, Broadway’s most successful producer — a rarely beautiful woman of almost middle age with the face and figure of a queen — and demanded a try-out in the Shakespearian revival he was planning. Something about her caused the busy man to accede to her demands. Two hours later he, the best judge of things theatrical in America, had proclaimed her the most wonderful tragedienne of modern times and had signed a contract with her at her own terms. A month later her fame had spread to the ends of the earth.

Then came ten years of stardom. A nervous breakdown was followed by permanent retirement. For two years she had lived a sequestered life, refusing to see even the friends of her former life, denying herself to all.

Possessing more than the usual artistic temperament, the house which she had purchased in which to spend her declining years was one which reflected the strange, odd character of its mistress. Erected prior to the Revolution, it was set in the midst of spacious grounds surrounded by an ancient iron picket fence and almost hidden by trees. It had once been pretentious, but decay had claimed it for many years. Two stories in height, its deep, narrow windows heavily shuttered, over its sides a tenacious ivy plant climbing almost to the tottering tower, it seemed to be slowly mouldering into nothingness.

Yet withal it possessed an air of mystery and silence which appealed to the world-weary heart of Madame Blavsky and she had bought it on sight. The exterior remained unchanged. The interior, save for the installation of modern furniture and conveniences, was as it had always been — dark and gloomy — charged with mystery and the flavor of hidden panels, of romance and tragedy.

III

The day after the funeral of Madame Blavsky, Richard Raine went into voluntary bankruptcy. On the day following, Amos Spaulding, the well-known attorney, notified the officials that the last will and testament of the murdered woman was in his possession. Important litigation in another state had taken him from the city. He had been too busy to read the papers. Upon his return he had learned of his client’s tragic death and was ready to assist in bringing the assassin to justice in any way possible.

In the presence of a dozen police officials and reporters the will was opened and read. Drawn up a scant three months before and witnessed by three attaches of Spaulding’s office, it was a brief document. Its preamble stated that the Madame was possessed of no kin of any kind. The servants were remembered with small bequests amounting to perhaps ten thousand dollars.

The remainder of the estate, which the testatrix estimated at nearly half a million dollars in money and jewels, was left to Richard Raine, her former manager.

The signature was genuine. Of that there was no doubt. And the reputation of Amos Spaulding was above reproach; he was not the sort of man to be involved in any crooked deal.

Raine was the most surprised man of all. He stated emphatically that he had not seen Madame Blavsky for six months; had he known that he was to be the recipient of her bounty he certainly would not have taken advantage of the bankruptcy laws, but would have staved off his creditors until he was able to settle with them and re-establish himself upon a firm business foundation.

Because of the bequest the police grilled Raine, which, under the circumstances, practically amounted to accusing him of the murder. He countered with a cast-iron alibi. On the night of the murder he had not left his apartments, but had remained at home, going over his accounts and preparing for the bankruptcy courts.

His statement was corroborated by Hoskins, his valet. Hoskins, however, complicated matters by stating that he had admitted a heavily veiled woman shortly after nine o’clock in the evening and that she had not yet gone when Raine dismissed him at eleven. At Raine’s orders he had placed a cold lunch on the sideboard and had then retired to his own quarters in the rear of the ten-room suite. He did not know what time the veiled woman had left.

The servants at the home of Madame Blavsky stated that they had retired to their own quarters shortly after dinner. The only exception was Felice, whose night off it had been. She had returned from visiting a friend between ten and eleven, coming in by the servants’ entrance. It was always Madame’s orders that on such occasions she should go to her own room, the Madame preferring to prepare herself for bed rather than run the risk of being disturbed should she fall asleep.

Since none of Madame Blavsky’s household had seen her from the time dinner was served until her body was found next morning, the police worked on the assumption that it had been she who visited Raine on the night in question. Just what they expected to gain by the assertion they did not state. The press, however, made a great deal of the incident. To complicate matters Raine refused to divulge the name of his fair visitor, asserting angrily that to do so would compromise the name of a good woman who had visited him purely upon a matter of business which was no affair of the police or public.

Whereupon Fannie Fox, who had been a comedienne in one of Raine’s defunct companies, came forward and tearfully admitted to being the woman in question. She was willing to run the risk of ruining her reputation, she stated, rather than see Raine suffer for a crime of which he was innocent. She had gone to Raine’s apartments disguised at his request, she stated, because he was back in his salaries with all his players. She had known the manager for years and he Wished to settle with her without the others knowing it. They had been hounding him to a degree where he was afraid to go to his offices. Consequently, when he had telephoned to her earlier in the evening asking her to visit him and talk matters over she had veiled herself as he asked.

Raine’s alibi was complete.

A week later he took the police into his confidence and asked for their help. Where was the money Madame Blavsky had willed to him? In her signed statement she had admitted to being worth nearly half a million dollars. The books of the First National Trust and Savings Bank showed that they had had nearly that amount invested to her credit up until a week before her death. At that time she had suddenly asked that her securities be converted into cash and

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crook, though, he managed to hold her love and got her to make her will in his favor.

“Finding himself going to the wall, he asked her to help him, and she drew her money from the bank for that purpose.

“Meanwhile, he had been secretly married to the Fox woman, and the affair in some way reached Blavsky’s ears. Of an extremely jealous and emotional temperament, she disguised herself with a heavy veil and went to his apartments to denounce him.

“When she told him that she was through because he had thrown her overboard for a younger woman, Raine at first begged. Then, hard pressed for money and realizing that she was his last resort, he lost control of himself and tried force. He says that he had no intention of killing her; when he came to his right senses he had choked her into insensibility and really thought that she was dead.

“The emergency caused him to think rapidly. His apartments are on the second floor and there is a garage in connection. Running down the back stairs, he got out his car, brought it to the back door and, covering Blavsky’s body with a blanket, carried it down and drove like the devil for her home.

“The absence of lights aided him, as did the darkness of Blavsky’s grounds. Arriving, he carried the body into the house, letting himself in by means of her key. Realizing that he could be no worse off whatever happened, he commenced ransacking the place for money.

“About this time she recovered consciousness. He imagined that she was about to yell for help — probably she was — and he seized her again.

He choked her. She grabbed a paper cutter from the table and tried to fight back. But in her weakened state she was no match for him and he killed her with her own weapon. It was when she was dying that she shrieked out that curse that the maid heard. He hastily threw open the window, jerked the rings from her fingers and escaped through the door to his machine and got back to his own place unobserved. That is why there were no marks on the ground beneath the window.

“When he found himself up against it he admitted his guilt to the Fox woman. She lied in order to provide him with an alibi.

“I had a hunch that I might get him to make some misstep if I took him out there tonight. There was a storm brewing and it was an ideal night for ghost stories. That’s why I ’phoned for Gassidy to hustle out there and remove all the bulbs from the sockets before we arrived. I’ll admit, though, that I pretty nearly talked myself out of ghost stories waiting for that extra flashlight battery to burn itself out. I underestimated it by half an hour. Most men have a streak of superstition in them, even if I haven’t. But, then, I never committed a murder.

“I guess that I was pretty nearly as badly frightened as he was, though, when I saw the Madame coming at him as the lightning flashed. You see she had that picture of herself as Lady Macbeth on a secret panel that had been built in the old house. Why she had it turned to the wall at the time she was killed I don’t know. But, at any rate, Raine in stumbling pressed his hand accidentally against the button. The panel turned just as the lightning flashed and it looked as if she was rushing straight at him, her hands reaching out for him.

“Sure, she had the money hidden in the secret closet behind the panel. I brought it back with me.

“No, I’m not superstitious, chief. But remember that curse she put on him? Well, the way things happened just as they did — maybe Sir Oliver Lodge may be right after all.”