Souls in hell : a mystery of the unseen

Front matter

Class ~ P Z 3

GpigM? _So

COEXRIGHT DEPOSIT.

II

The smoking room of the ocean liner, La Republique , was not so crowded as it had been on other evenings of the voyage. The peculiar unrest of American pas¬ sengers when nearing their destination was manifest on this the evening before the liner was due to arrive at New York. Some of the male passengers were outside on the decks enjoying the magnificent moonlit night; some, of course, were in certain shady nooks, exchanging vows and other small talk with some of the opposite sex; others were lounging in the corridors, listening to the music coming from the main saloon.

At the card-tables were the usual card fiends who seemed to regard life merely as an opportunity to play poker or pinochle; they, like the poor and the taxgatherer, are always in evidence. At this particular time their enjoyment was marred by the loud talk and raucous laugh of a middle-aged, half-tipsy man sitting at one of the other tables, and who insisted on making himself the centre of attraction by amusing his im¬ mediate neighbors—who had nothing better to do—- with his coarse witticisms, and opinions on almost every topic under the sun.

The man was Karl Benton; actor, man of the world, and, formerly, a Broadway matinee idol. Of mixed parentage, he claimed tha United States as his home; ta which he was now returning after an extended tour of five years around the world.

Although his fat, blotched face with its baggy, leer¬ ing eyes bore witness to the dissipated life he had led, one could not fail to see that he must have been strik¬ ingly handsome in the days when he made his first hit, and took the metropolitan theatre-going public by storm. His brilliant, dark eyes still held the imperious seductive look that had quickened the heart-beats of his feminine worshippers, and had made him the recipient of gushing love-letters written by women of all sorts and conditions between the two coasts. His photo¬ graph as Romeo graced many an elegant boudoir, while his admirers who could not afford the luxury of a photograph, offered up the incense of their adoration to half-tone pictures cut out of the magazines and Sunday newspapers.

During the voyage, he had spent most of his time gracefully allowing himself to be lionized by the women on board; holding them enthralled—for he was a fas¬ cinating raconteur —with the accounts of his experi¬ ences with royalty, and other great ones of the world. His conversation was enhanced by the employment cf all the oratorical tricks of the actor, and the suavity of the travelled cosmopolite who had been the lion of London and Paris drawing-rooms; the hero of many love affairs with ladies of high position in both hemi¬ spheres.

This evening, however, the women folk felt senti¬ mental along other lines.

Someone had started the ball rolling by playing

Way down upon the Suwanee River from a book of Popular Home Melodies, and it had developed into what Benton sneeringly snubbed a “damned, snivel¬ ling, revival meeting!” Finding that his star had set for that evening—so far as the women were concerned, Benton had tried to find some male companion who would listen to the recital of his exploits; but without success. The men had no desire to be bored with his egotism; besides, they had heard so much of and from him, they had no wish to hear more. He turned for solace to the ship’s bar, seeking consolation for his offended amour propre in numerous highballs, and the company of the bartender; but even the dispenser of drinks who, at other times, had—as a matter of busi¬ ness courtesy—listened to his “song and dance” (as he contemptuously termed the celebrated actor’s account of himself and his doings), was so fed up that he ex¬ cused his inattention by saying he was too busy making up his accounts. Finally, he drifted into the smoking-room, hoping to find some who, like himself, found time hanging heavily on their hands. He had imbibed more alcohol than usual—which was saying a great deal, and at this particular time of his advent in the smoking-room had reached the stage where his sense of discre¬ tion was not so keen as it should have been.

His present audience was not a large one, but what it lacked in numbers, it made up in evident enjoyment of the risque stories that flowed in a steady stream from his, apparently, inexhaustible store; which devel¬ oped in coarseness as he proceeded. The card players were not at all pleased to have his raucous laugh break in on their games, and more than once they muttered curses on him and his dirty tales. They were not the only ones to feel displeased at his intrusion.

Jack Waller had welcomed the comparative quiet of the smoking-room as an opportunity to smoke a cigar in peace, without being pestered to talk about his ex¬ periences in the war. His left arm—which had been broken during one of his reconnoitering trips by the bullet of a Boche airman, and now in splints—had been giving him some sharp twinges, and now he was glad to be able to rest it on the arm of his chair while he smoked in comfort, and listened to the faint sounds of the “Home Melodies,” which fitted in perfectly with his present mood.

When Benton started telling his stories, Jack had tried to ignore his presence, hoping that either the actor or the listeners would get tired and go elsewhere; but when story followed story, each worse than the preced¬ ing one and delivered in a loud, carrying voice that could be heard all over the room, Jack began to get restless. As the actor’s accounts of his dealings with the fair sex began to be more detailed, and took on a more lurid and salacious coloring, Jack’s ears began to tingle, and his jaws came together with an ominous set. The stories were quite bad enough, but when the actor recounted some of his experiences with women who were wives of men at the front, and mothers of families, Jack felt that his limit of endurance was reached. He glanced once or twice toward the group at Benton’s table, wondering w r hat kind of cattle they were, to sit and not only listen to, but enjoy the abominable talk that flowed from Benton’s lips. One of the men, seem¬ ingly? had arrived at his limit of indecency, for he took advantage of a lull to remark that he, for one, would be glad to get on land again.

“So shall I,” agreed another of the group. “I sure will be glad to see my little woman again. I haven’t seen her for over six months, and I guess she’ll be glad to welcome her hubby.”

Benton looked at the speaker with a bleary look of contempt; then laughed in a metallic, parrot-like cackle.

“That’s a long time to be away from a dear, loving wife. Pretty risky, isn’t it? I wouldn’t trust my wife that length of time!”

The man to whom Benton spoke waved his hand deprecatingly.

“My wife isn’t that kind of woman,” he said, pulling down his vest with a self-satisfied air. “I could trust her anywhere and at any time.”

“So?” Benton sneered “Hmff! Your wife is one in ten thousand! Where did you find her? In an asylum for the deaf, dumb, and blind? Or perhaps she’s a cripple!”

A frown came over the man’s face. He didn’t quite like the trend of the conversation; it was becoming a trifle too personal for even his dull wit. Seeing an opportunity to turn the laugh on to Benton, he grunt¬ ed pointedly, “Perhaps your married life has been un¬ fortunate. What did she do; run away with another feller?”

The actor looked at him in well-feigned amazement.

“Do you mean me?” he flashed, putting his muchdiamonded fingers gracefully on his breast. “Ho, ho, ho! That’s a great joke! The best I’ve heard in a long while,” he laughed uproariously. “Gad! I was never fool enough to marry any woman. Why should I when I can borrow other men’s wives?”

His listeners glanced at each other in disapproval of such talk.

“Oh! say, say!” protested one; “that’s going too far! You must remember some of us are married.”

“More fools they,” droned Benton, with a curl of his thin lips.

Jack could stand it no longer. Striding to where Benton sat, his first impulse was to punch his jaw; but when he saw that the actor was more than half drunk, he changed his mind and looked at him contemptuously.

Benton, of course, had heard all about Jack’s hero¬ ism from the women on board; they, as Jack had kept himself aloof, had had to content themselves with wor¬ shipping him from a distance, and discussing his ex¬ ploits with the other passengers, Benton included. The actor, too, was jealous of anyone who, consciously or unconsciously, encroached on the spotlight of popular¬ ity which he considered belonged to him alone. He looked up at Jack’s grim, set face with the quick real¬ ization that he was no match in his present drunken condition for this young giant; but the sight of the wounded arm resting in its bandage assured him that there was nothing to fear on that score. He surmised that any encounter with Jack would be one merely of wits,—a talk-fest, as he inwardly said to himself,—so, with an air of composure, he looked up at Jack when the latter remarked witheringly:

“Evidently, you have never met any women worth knowing—judging from your talk. You don’t seem to have a very high, or flattering opinion of them.”

The actor, amused, drew himself up, and struck a tragic pose; as though he were declaiming a favorite line.

“My dear young fellow. I love all women, all wom¬ en worth knowing; especially the married ones.” Then with a delicate gesture of his hand to give point to his remark: “They know how to keep their mouths shut, and keep their own counsel.” He waved his jewelled hand with an air of finality.

Jack’s lips came together in a straight line, and his fist shut tightly; but sensing the fact that the bloated lump of conceit was a coward at heart, he repressed the impulse to strike him.

A couple of the men at the table shuffled out of their seats, as though ashamed to be found in such company.

“I feel sorry for you,” said Jack, staring coldly into the actor’s eyes. “A man of your age ought to have a little more decency. If you had been where I have just come from. . . .”

Benton, not being disposed to play second fiddle by being put on the defensive, cut in with: “Pardon me, I haven’t the—uh —honour or—uh—pleasure of your acquaintance, so—” adjusting his monocle carefully, he looked up at Jack as if he were a specimen of some new and curious species, . . . “where have you just come from, my young Sir Galahad?”

“I have come from a place where I have seen better men than you will ever be,” he began in a cold, even tone. “Men torn by shrapnel and bullets, parts of their splendid bodies blown away, their lungs corroding from the effects of poison-gas, going through a hell of pain and agony; in an atmosphere fetid with the smell of stale blood, and the odor of surgical dressings. Those men were attended to and nursed by well bred, nurtured women who, although at the limit of their endurance and at the point of collapse through want of proper rest and food, kept on, like the ministering angels they are, trying to lessen the agony of the wounded/’

The card-players stopped their games, as if by com¬ mon consent, to listen to Jack describing the scene he seemed to visualize before him.

“How very interesting!” Benton drawled with a cyn¬ ical smile. “God bless the dear little girls.”

Jack did not heed the interruption. His eyes took on a faraway look, as though he again saw the in¬ cidents happening.

“One scene I shall never forget! It had been pour¬ ing a deluge of rain, sleet and hail for three days, with an icy wind cutting one’s flesh to the bone. Thousands of shells bursting all around us; hell let loose! By sheer weight of numbers the enemy was forcing us back—a retreat. We were marching, stumbling, dogtired and spent—literally asleep on our feet—over a road that was shell-holes and morasses of mud. We brought the wounded in with us as best we could. A procession of tired soldiers acting as bearers are bring¬ ing in men—the wounded and dying. Awaiting them in the cold downpour, their faces raw from the effects of the bitter wind, their feet sunk in the mire, their clothes soaked and caked with mud, are two Sisters of Mercy.”

A hush full of solemnity fell upon the men as they listened. The card-players laid their cards on the table. They appreciated the fact that they were get¬ ting a report of some of the strenuous doings in the war, and by an eye-witness and participator in the events.

“Two of the bearers halt near the side of the ditch. A Sister, guessing what the action means, runs to the dying man, and kneels in the mud at the .side of the litter. The other calls to a Belgian priest attending another brave fellow, who is in the agony of death, to come quickly. The priest hastens to hear the dying man’s confession; the Sisters kneel in prayer, comfort¬ ing the poor soldier’s last moments as his life ebbs away in gasps.”

One of the card-players, evidently of the Roman Catholic faith, bowed his head, and furtively crossed himself.

Jack had hoped that by appealing to the better nature of the actor, he would evince his regret for his flippancy, and perhaps offer an apology; but the cyn¬ ical sneer on Benton’s face disillusionized Jack on that score. His wrath arose at the sight of the actor’s contemptuous expression, and his voice shook with scorn as he said:

“Those delicate women, and those Sisters belong to the same sex, the same womanhood that you, you lump of corruption, dare to foul with your dirty, rotten stories!”

“Good for you, young feller,” came from one of the card-players in the background.

Benton, shaking with amusement, gracefully flicked the ash off his cigar, and drawled in a sing-song, “In fine or wet weather, they’re always together . . . .” He leaned forward with a gesture of a teacher instructing a pupil. “Isn’t it significant, my dear boy, that where there is a nun, you will always find a big, fat priest? Did you ever wonder ‘why’?”

The blood surged up into Jack’s throat. His ears sang with the intensity of the pressure. Ripping out an oath, his fist crashed against the actor*s jaw with a sickening thud!

Coming unexpectedly, Benton had no time to ward off the blow. He fell backward, along with his heavy chair, in a heap on the floor. The passengers were no less surprised, and, for the moment, looked stunned. It was so sudden! Benton, much sobered by the blow, struggled to his feet. He had turned deathly white; all the evil in his nature on top. Seizing the heavy glass carafe from the table, he lurched forward to where Jack stood, cold as ice, awaiting the attack, promising himself he would not spare Benton the thrashing he deserved. The men near the table, however, were not disposed to look on with indifference at what promised to be an unequal combat. Some bit of manhood in their natures had awakened. They threw themselves on the enraged actor and wrested the decanter out of his grasp; while he, speechless with a white rage, strug¬ gled to get at his assailant.

“No, no! That’s too much of a good thing,” pro¬ tested one; “to go for a wounded man that way!”

“Leave him alone, and let him come,” Jack advised in a cold, even voice. “The vile, rotten cur. He ought to be thrown overboard!”

With a snarl of rage the actor broke loose from their hold; and, with his fingers curved like the talons of an unclean bird of prey, rushed at the aviator. Gauging the distance as the enraged actor came, Jack swerved aside and met the onslaught with a solid punch just below Benton’s ear, knocking him over the table, and on to the floor where he lay inert.

“Perhaps that will shut his mouth for awhile,” mut¬ tered Jack grimly, when he saw the effect of his blow. That old boxing trick had many times before served him in good stead, but he had never felt such elation over its success as he did now; all the fight was knocked out of Benton.

Hearing the commotion, two of the ship’s officers rushed in to see what all the noise was about.

“What’s the trouble?” one of them asked Jack.

“The dirty blackguard was airing his opinions of women, and as I once had a mother, I couldn’t stand it any longer ; so I gave him a bit of what is due him.”

“And a little bit of all right, all right, I should say from the look of him,” the officer chortled, rubbing his chin and tilting his head! judicially.

“Good for you,” the other officer joined in; “I’ve been longing to hand him one myself. I hope you gave it to him good and plenty ; the conceited ass needs taking down a peg or two.”

“It was a peach of a smash ,j believe me,” chimed in one of the passengers, rubbing his hands in enjoyment. “Looked like one of Kid McCoy’s corkscrews!”

“He deserved it all right,” announced another.

“He sure did,” came from one of Benton’s audience.

Jack looked fixedly at the last speaker. “Yet you men, who are old enough to know better, encouraged him in his dirty talk by listening to him. You are fine specimens of men. I wonder that you could sit listening to him slandering your own wives and mothers. The damn scamp! A bullet would be too good for the vile Bkunk!”

With a look of scorn, Jack went out on deck, leav¬ ing the others to help the officers take the slowly re¬ viving actor to his stateroom.

III

Hamilton the artist was working strenuously on a drawing; trying to make up for lost time. His model, by promises of more work in the immediate future, had been persuaded to break an engagement with her “steady company” to give him the extra evening hours. She wasO now standing on the model’s throne, posing for one of the characters in the drawing. After a couple of deep-drawn sighs (for the artist’s benefit) and! a prolonged yawn (when he was looking at her) as a preliminary warning, she asked in a weary tone, “Can I take a rest now?”

Hamilton glanced at her in surprise. “Good gracious! Are you tired already? Why you haven’t been there more than ten or fifteen minutes!”

The girl let her figure sag into an attitude of weari¬ ness; making the pose express something very different from what was desired.

“Tired already ? Huh! you’d be tired if you had to hold this pose,” she retorted. “You artists must sit up of nights scheming out difficult poses. I’ve had nothing but standing poses all the week.”

“What the dickens do you expect? Nice reclining poses on soft cushions, with somebody to fan you and give you ice-cream, I suppose.”

“Easy for you to talk!” she exclaimed, tossing her head. “Just standing at an easel, smoking cigarettes while you draw. You’ve got a cinch!”

“A 11 r i g h t,” he drawled; “Take a rest.”

He had heard that “spiel”—as he called it—so often, he knew it was sheer waste of time to argue the point. The model belied her assertion by jumping gaily olf the throne, and flopping on to a cushion alongside the tabouret on which was the planchette. Inwardly curs¬ ing his stupidity of employing the girl, and vowing that he would not engage her again after he had fin¬ ished with this batch of illustrations, Hamilton worked on the background of his drawing; every now and then stepping away from his easel to see the effect of his work.

His doorbell rang. As he turned to admit Ins visi¬ tors, the door opened and the Cogans appeared in the entrance.

“May we come in?” inquired Cogan walking into the room. “Hard at it, eh?”

“Yeh, hard at it,” repeated the artist, catching sight of Mrs. Cogan, and wondering who she was.

“I am Mrs. Tom Cogan,” she announced as she saw the look of inquiry. She held out her hand.

“Oh! pardon, Kitty,” Cogan cut in; “I thought you had met Hamilton. Allow me to introduce to you the hardest worker in the profession, Mr. George Hamilton, who is as lazy as he is long, and as full of excuses as he is of talent.”

“That’s a fine send-off, isn’t it?” laughed Mrs. Co¬ gan merrily.

“Tom’s bark is worse than his bite,” returned Hamilton, smiling. “Probably you know that without my telling you.”

“And it is a darned lucky thing for you scamps that it is,” the editor retorted jovially. “You fellows get all the barks from me, but I get all the bites from the boss!”

“That’s just as it should be,” grinned Hamilton; “seeing what a hefty brute he has to bite. Now if he tried to bite me, he’d find nothing but bones to break his teeth on.”

Laughing joyously at the passage of words, Mrs. Cogan gazed round the studio with an admiring in¬ terest.

“Judging from all the pictures and sketches you have here, you cannot be so very lazy, Mr. Hamilton. Are they all your work?”

“All but a few done by some of my fellow daubers.”

“May I be nosey, and look around while you are talking business with my poor defenceless hubby?”

“Yes, indeed you may.” He returned her smile with interest, his artist faculties aroused by her beauty. “Please make yourself at home; this is Liberty Hall.” As she nodded her smiling thanks, the lights above the model’s throne beyond streamed over her shoulders and bust, and caught the edge of her head; bringing into high relief her voluptuous figure and beautiful face crowned with a mass of dark reddish wavy hair. One of those accidental effects which delight the soul of an artist, and makes his fingers itch for brushes and colours.

“Jove! but she’d make a stunning picture!” ex¬ claimed Hamilton to himself.

“Well, how are you getting along with my stuff?” inquired Cogan examining the drawing on the easel. “Which is this, number one or number two?”

“That’s the last; thank goodness. Here are the others.” Hamilton brought from a shelf the other drawings, and stood them against the model’s throne for Cogan’s inspection.

While her husband was looking at the drawings, Mrs. Cogan made a tour of the studio, admiring the many small sketches on the walls, and wondering if she could induce her husband to buy one or two of them for their home. When she and her husband entered the studio, she noticed the model squatting on the cushion; now, approaching her, and seeing the girl so interested in the queer-shaped thing on the taboret, she wondered what it was. She stood for a while watching the er¬ ratic movements of the planchette, then, catching sight of her husband buttoning his coat, indicating that his immediate business with the artist was finished, she strolled over to where the two men were talking. Touch¬ ing the artist lightly on his arm, and giving a sidelong glance and nod toward the model, she whispered:

“Excuse my feminine curiosity, but what’s the . . .” she paused for the word.

“Oh, that? That’s a new stunt!” Hamilton smiled and turned to Cogan. “Have you seen it, Tom?”

The editor looked toward the model, and shook his head.

“No; what is it? A new game of solitaire?”

Hamilton sniggered. “Not exactly. Come over and see how it works. It may interest you.”

They followed! the artist to where the model was sit¬ ting on the cushion.

“Miss Miller, this is Mr. and Mrs. Cogan,” he said, by way of introduction. “They haven’t seen this planchette stunt. Perhaps you’ll tell them how it works.”

The model acknowledged the introduction with a curt nod, annoyed at the interruption.

“First of all it isn’t a ‘stunt;’ it is very serious,” she retorted with a fling. “I rest my fingers , on the planchette, and someone in the spirit world guides the planchette so that it writes a message.”

Mrs. Cogan glanced at the men with an amused ex¬ pression of incredulity. Her husband smiled good-na¬ turedly. This, evidently, was only another of the nu¬ merous fads and fancies of Bohemia; and freaks and fads of the studio tribe were to him an old, old tale.

His wife bent over the girl’s shoulder, and her eyes followed the movements of the planchette.

“Why, Tom, it is writing!” she exclaimed.

Cogan squatted down on his heels in front of the tabouret to watch the performance.

“Who, did you say, does the writing?” he asked the girl.

“Spirits, in the spirit world,” was her grave answer.

“Hm! I’ll bet a dollar that’s old Horace Greeley writing now. Just like his scrawl. It was so bad,” he explained to Hamilton, “that most of the time he couldn’t read it himself!”

“If the writing is any criterion,” Mrs. Cogan chimed in, “that poor spirit needs a bromo-seltzer badly. He is evidently suffering from an extreme case of ‘jazz.’ ”

“Kind of looks as if he had been out all night with the boys, doesn’t it?” Hamilton ventured with a grin.

“Prohibition hasn’t struck his town yet, that is sure,” the editor opined.

“Spirits come from the spirit world, don’t they?” Mrs. Cogan asked with an assumption of innocence.

“Gee! That guy makes me feel thirsty, the way he is wobbling.” Hamilton wiped his lips reminis¬ cently.

They all laughed when the model straightened up, looking hurt and disgusted at their levity.

“You can laugh, and crack cheap jokes all you want. I know it is true!”

“Well, come now. If it is a spirit that is doing the writing, why can’t he or she do it without having your hand on the board?” Cogan asked, conciliatingly. “Be easier to move without your hand, I should imagine.”

“Ah! that’s just what I want to know,” cut in Hamilton.

“I am sure I don’t know why,” drawled the girl with a shrug. “If you like, I’ll ask them to give you the answer.”

Cogan caught his wife’s eye; she shook her head positively.

“Some other time, perhaps. Tonight we have to catch a train.”

The model’s only response was a quick lift of her shoulders.

“Well, now, old chap,” Cogan said, rising to an up¬ right position, “will you have the drawings at the of¬ fice tomorrow? I want to get them to the engravers as soon as I can. We are behind time as it is.”

“Yep! I’ll have them down there by noon at the latest.”

“Sure now?”

“Abso-positively certain,” laughed the artist.

“All right, old man; I’ll depend on you. Good night, Miss . . .” Cogan had already forgotten her name. “Sorry not to be able to get some new dope from my old friend Greeley.”

“Good nighty” the girl replied in a detached tone. She was too much engrossed in the planchette to retort to Cogan’s quip.

Mrs. Cogan shook hands with Hamilton, and wished him good night. “I want to come again, sometime. I have fallen in love with one or two of your sketches, and perhaps my hubby will be rich enough next time we come to buy them for me.” She waved her hand to a group of water-colors on the wall.

^‘Suppose we won’t wait until hubby is rich enough,” Hamilton suggested. “Suppose you accept them as a souvenir of your visit.”

“That is very generous and lovely of you, and I appreciate it very much; but I couldn’t think of tak¬ ing advantage of your kindness. You have to live, like the rest of us; so you wait, and I’ll give you some real money for them.”

“I know, but ...” Hamilton paused, wondering if on such short acquaintance, he could risk offering her the sketches as a return for her giving him sittings for a picture.

“I’ll come again, soon,” Mrs. Cogan assured him. “Good night.”

“Yes, do. Good night.”

Cogan had gone out into the corridor to the ele¬ vator, and pushed the button; his wife joined him at the same time the elevator shot up to their floor. When the elevator gate opened, Tracy, the short-story writer —a contributor to Cogan’s magazine—stepped out.

“Hullo, Tom; what are you doing in town? And— Mrs. Cogan, by all the Gods! Why, beloved lady, I haven’t seen your beautiful self for an age! How are you? You look well.” Tracy shook hands with her, delighted to see her again.

“Of course she is looking well,” Cogan said. “Why shouldn’t she, when she has me to look after her and pamper her?”

“Look after her! You mean she looks after you; you big bluff. Ye gods! but you are a lucky beggar! They say it is better to be born lucky than beautiful; but when one is both beautiful and lucky, like you, why. . . .”

“Ye-eh!” Cogan replied ^sarcastically. “I am so overwhelmed with my own pulchritude, I dare not have a mirror in my room; and every time I go out I am in mortal fear that some grass widow or other will steal me!”