"Do you understand what he meant by those words? He knew what would happen! And yet he let me carry that book away with me! In the name of G.o.d, what kind of a man is he?"

"Why didn't you destroy the book?" I demanded of him.

"I couldn't! It was too fascinating, too powerful to destroy. I read that book with the reverence of an ecclesiastic until I knew every word between the covers, and the whole ghastly parade of Drukker's sixteen murders pa.s.sed before my eyes like figures on a stage. Ten weeks ago I began to have nightmares that reconstructed the crimes of Drukker, going chronologically from Number One to Number Sixteen, then beginning all over again.

"When I returned to America seven weeks ago I still had the book with me, and the contents were so deeply engraved on my brain that I could think of nothing else. Day and night I thought about it, until at length I found myself actually imagining how I would go about emulating his crimes. Then I began to get the horrible impulse to fondle a butcher knife--Drukker used a butcher knife, you know!--and more than once I was struck with the scarcely resistible urge to cut off someone's head. It didn't matter whose head--but just a head!"

"Easy, Ca.r.s.e!" I cried with a wary glance at the kitchen table. "Tell me the rest, but don't excite yourself. What happened then?"

He slid back in a sort of stupor, shook his head several times, then pa.s.sed his hand across his eyes in a gesture of despair.

"You ought to know d.a.m.ned well what happened if you were listening at your door last night. Six weeks ago I went to bed and dreamed horribly. I had just finished reading the first confession in the diary--some strange impulse made me read _that_ confession and no other--and in my sleep I saw a human head staring at me. It was a cruel, Teutonic head, and I knew that it was Emil Drukker's head hanging in a gallows rope. Then he smiled at me; a horrible, vivid, real smile, and the head vanished. From then on, for how long I cannot say, I sat as a spectator and watched the complete action of Drukker's Number One.

"I saw Drukker leave his house and walk down a dark street with no other illumination than a few scattered electric lights. I tried to imagine how they were electric lights, for they had only gas in his day, but nevertheless they were modern lights, and the street looked like the street in front of my own house. He walked about ten blocks; then he saw a woman standing on a street corner. There wasn't another soul in sight. He crept closer to her, then drew out his butcher knife and hid it in the folds of his coat--a coat which looked strangely like my own wind-breaker. He first tried to talk with the woman, but she was not interested; so he pulled out the knife and brought it sweeping down across her throat. The blood spurted like a fountain and overran Drukker's hand, but he only laughed and pushed the woman to the ground, then knelt over her and began a horrible sawing movement with his knife. When he had finished, he drew a towel from his pocket and wrapped the head tightly to prevent the blood from trailing him home. He came back the same way and entered the house, and at the foot of the stairs he unwrapped the towel and held the thing only by its hair as he climbed the steps. The last thing I saw or heard was the blood dripping on each step as he ascended to the upper hall."

"My G.o.d!" I whispered in horror.

"But that's not the worst," Ca.r.s.e cried as he grabbed my arm. "When I awakened the next morning it was late and the shrieks of the newsboys stabbed into my ears. They were yelling about a cruel, brutal murder which had been committed sometime during the night. I swung my feet off the bed to arise, when my eyes fell upon the diary which rested on my night-table. It was open to the confession of Number One as if I had been reading it in my sleep. There was a strange and terrifying dread in my soul as my feet struck the floor. I felt something wet and sticky touch my toes; then I looked down. It was a woman's head staring up at me.

"The room was smeared with blood from one end to the other, and there was a gore-caked knife resting beside the head, and a crimson towel lay across my bedpost. But there wasn't a drop of blood on my hands!

"I couldn't even attempt to explain it. I only knew that a woman had been murdered and that her severed head was in my bedroom. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't force myself into the belief that I was the murderer, and I stood stunned with the weird horror of knowing that Emil Drukker's Number One had been re-enacted and that I had played his own role. Where could I turn? Whom could I ask for advice?

If I was mad they would commit me to an asylum; if I was not mad they would hang me.

"I carried the head to the cellar and buried it; then I cleaned up the blood and burned the towel. In my wardrobe I found a suit of clothes smeared with fresh blood. I found my shoes and hat splattered with it, and then I found my discarded gloves stained a violent crimson, with each finger stiffened as the blood had coagulated about it. No wonder there wasn't any blood on my hands!

"I went over the house from top to bottom and eradicated every stain that might be evidence against me; then I sat down with the diary in one hand and the morning newspaper in the other. I compared the two crimes. They were identical, even to the burying of the heads. Emil Drukker had done exactly the same as I had done: he carried the head in a towel, he left it in his room overnight, he buried it in his cellar, and he cleaned up the blood the following morning. But there was one ghastly difference: Emil Drukker had committed his crime with full purposeful foreknowledge, whereas I had committed my crime under hypnotic inducement!

"There is no other answer for what has happened in these last six weeks. I have racked my brain to find another solution, but there is none. I am being hypnotized by some unexplainable force, and once each week I come under the power of this evil which directs and commands my being. Last night I went to bed with the full knowledge of what would occur during the night. That is why I locked you in your room. This morning when I awakened I found the head exactly where the other five had lain; then I carried it to the bas.e.m.e.nt and buried it. I cleaned up the blood and burned the towel.

"If you are numbed with horror, try to imagine how I feel about it.

Six crimes in six weeks! And I can only thank merciful G.o.d that it will end with only one more. Perhaps it is ended now. That German servant who loaned me the diary said it would be only six or seven."

"Do you think the police will believe all of this?" I demanded. "What you have told me has no sane explanation. It--it's demonism!"

Ca.r.s.e smiled pitiably. "There are more things in heaven and earth," he began; then he heaved his shoulders as if flinging off an attempt at levity. "The human mind is a strange organ, and no man can explain its mysteries. I have seen too much of atavism to ridicule any theories.

There is nothing we can do but wait and hope that the German servant's prediction is true. Six or seven. _Six_--or _seven_?"

"Do you mean you expect me to grant you leniency?" I exclaimed. "Great heavens, Ca.r.s.e, there have been six horrible murders! Society demands a reckoning."

"I have atoned enough for ten times six!" he cried. "Have you no soul in you? The crimes will stop now. The German said they would, and everything else he predicted has come true. As my lifelong friend it is your duty to see me through."

"But those six----"

"No man can bring them back to life, but I am still a living man and you must save me. I shall divide my estate among the families of the six, and I swear to you that I shall never open a book on criminology again. You must do it--you must!"

"Do you honestly believe it is over?" I asked hoa.r.s.ely.

"I do; with all my heart and soul, I do!"

"But you would say that anyway," I cried. "Suppose there is a Number Seven? The blood will be upon my hands as well as yours. It is an awful responsibility, Ca.r.s.e. There must be no more."

"There won't be. I swear there won't be!"

He threw himself at me in an hysterical outburst of emotion. He tried to smile through the tears in his eyes, but the sight was so awful that I turned my head.

"I am still unconvinced," I said grimly. "The possibility of Number Seven is too important to overlook. Let me see Drukker's diary."

"Why?" he backed away and stared at me. "Why do you want to read the diary?"

"I want to read account Number Seven."

Ca.r.s.e came forward again and grabbed my arm. He shook it. "What good will that do?" he asked anxiously, "if there are only six of them?

Besides, it's not a book you ought to read."

"Give me the diary!" I demanded again.

He scowled at me for a moment; then, shrugging, he reached into his pocket and withdrew a small leather-bound book. It was well worn, as if by many thumbs, and in faded gold letters across the cover were the words: Personal Diary of Emil Drukker, J. U. D.

"Sit down," I commanded. "And try to keep your nerves together. I shall do everything I can for you."

He backed away and dropped into a chair, his eyes fastened upon me in a look of almost majestic joy. And yet there was an undertone in his expression which I could not define. There was defiance there ... and fear. One of his hands rested on the near-by table, less than two feet from the hilt of the butcher knife, and the fingers of that hand twitched nervously.

With an odd sense of uneasiness I flicked open the first several pages of the book and skimmed through the contents. My German was poor, yet I was able to understand the significance of what Emil Drukker had written in his large, scrawling hand. I read the first six accounts, then stared at Ca.r.s.e in amazement. His six crimes and Drukker's first six were so identical they might have been conscious reproductions. In all cases the victims were the same s.e.x, the same age, and were in the same general walk of life. I then turned to account Number Seven and after reading a few wretched lines I gasped with horror: _it was a seven-year-old girl!_

Ca.r.s.e was on his feet, his jaw grim and determined. He stared fiercely at me, waiting my response.

"Ca.r.s.e," I muttered dazedly, "it--it----"

"You can't back out," he cried as he stepped toward me. "There will be no seven, I tell you. It's ended on six. I swear it to you!"

"No," I said, "I cannot permit such a risk. Did you read account Number Seven? He not only cut off the head, but he dismembered----"

"You can't back out!" he screamed as he shook my arm. "You can't, you can't!"

"But Ca.r.s.e, this is a girl--a mere child. Don't you realize it would be unpardonable even for you? No, I can never take such a risk. I must turn you over to the police."

Ca.r.s.e slapped me viciously, then stumbled back against the table. His face was a mask of suffused blood, his eyes wild with desperation.

"d.a.m.n you!" he cried savagely. "You are no friend; you're a cheat, a betrayer!"

Suddenly his groping fingers touched the butcher knife and he drew himself taut. His fingers wound around the hilt like slowly moving worms. For a moment there was scarcely a breath between us; then he lifted his arm and brought the knife slowly out before him. I watched, horror-stricken, unable to lift my feet from the floor. A numbing paralysis of fright seemed to come over me.