The face that stared back at Blaisdell by Edward Carty Rannick. These are the
facts in Blaisdell's Queer case, taken from a communication addressed to his best friend,
doctor Maynard Hamilton. Doctor Hamilton vouchsafes no explanation, nor do I Indeed,
there are phenomenon in this world that cannot be explained. As Hamlet pointed
out to Horatio in the much quoted speech, the statements given here were contained
in a carefully written paper in Blaisdell's handwriting that was found in Blaisdell's desk by
doctor Hamilton several days after the man's death. From this paper he has pieced
together the extraordinary narrative that follows one Blaisdell thinks it must have been shortly after
midnight when he fell asleep. Horrible nightmares racked him as he tossed upon his
bed, and one of them was so frightful that he woke up with a
scream, or thought he did. At any rate, He suddenly found himself
in the center of his bedchamber, dressing with feverish haste. And here is
the queer part of the narrative, for he affirms that while he was dressing,
another man lay in his bed, an exact counterpart of himself. This
other ego lay quietly asleep, his head on his arm. Blaisdell studied him
carefully and said he felt as a locust must field when he looks at his
outworn shell. All the time he was dressing, Blaisdell said he seemed to
be impelled to haste by queer promptings that were as insistent as if some person
were at his elbow, saying hurry, hurry. He finished his dressing in
mad excitement, and then hurried out of the room, casting a backward glance
over his shoulder at his sleeping counterpart. Once outside his apartment house in Gramercy
Park, Blaisdell hurried along his persistent mentor, seeming to walk at his elbow.
A puzzling feature of this nocturnal prowl was that he felt a sense of
familiarity, a feeling that he was on his way to keep an appointment that
could not be postponed. The streets were deserted except for an occasional prowler or
a patrolman, who made the night echo with sharp blows from his club as
he struck a metal post, occasionally to remind the unlawful that the law was
abroad. On on hurried Blaisdell. By this time he had lost all sense
of location, but he was aware that he was in a downtown section of
New York, a section he had never visited during his waking moments. But
although he knew that he had never been in this neighborhood during his conscious moments,
he felt that he was on familiar territory. Finally, he paused in
front of an old, three story brownstone front residence in Washington Square, Paused
with the air of one who has reached his destination. He walked up the
steps and let himself into the house with a pass key. Nor did it
seem strange to him that he had a pass key for a house that he
had never visited during his waking moments. It all seemed ordinary and commonplace.
Blaisdell quietly mounted the stairs until he reached the second floor, and there he
paused before a closed door. Overcome by a suffocating sense of fear and repugnance,
he half turned away and then retraced his steps, as if fascinated.
Something seemed to warn him away from the ominous door. Behind which lay a
mystery that the everyday Blaisdell, millionaire and bomballant, did not care to penetrate,
but which this nocturnal prowling Blaisdell seemed to insist upon. Then, without
any conscious volition on his part, Blaisdell placed his hand on the knob,
and the door opened noiselessly. He found himself in a large square living room,
tastefully furnished and lined with built in bookcases full of handsomely bound volumes.
Everywhere he looked he saw bizarre weapons of defense, and men in Chinese and
Japanese armor looked threateningly at him from dim corners of the room. It was
either the apartment of an art connoisseur or a globe trotter with a propensity for
the unusual. From this room, he stepped into a bed chamber and then
started back with a little gasp. It was a luxuriously furnished room that appeared
to have been transplanted by Aladdin's wonderful lamp straight from the perfume scented orient.
Blaisdell advanced further into the room, and his feet sank into a wonderful mosslike
carpet. To one side of the room was an old fashioned four poster bed
topped by a crimson canopy. In the exact center of this bed lay a
man asleep with his mouth open. There was something familiar about the sleeper,
and Blaisdell drew closer and gazed at him steadily. He was an Oldish man
with a sallow complexion and a wisp of a beard that was slightly tinged with
gray. The ghost of a smile lingered upon his lips, a cruel smile
that sleep could not make gentle or mirthful. And as he gazed upon the
stranger, rage grew in Blaisdell's heart, a rage so furious that it almost
suffocated him. Without a moment's hesitation, he seized the sleeper by the throat
and began throttling him. The man struggled furiously, his eyes popped open,
and gazed up at Blaisdell's with a look of freezing despair. A slight froth
gathered upon his purpled lips, and he squirmed and writhed like a snake in
Blaisdell's unrelenting grasp. God how he struggled, Blaisdell's fingers sank into the throat
as if it were satin, and then suddenly there were no more struggles.
The body fell back inertly as the steel like fingers relaxed. Blaisdell pulled the
bedclothes over the mask of horror and stole quietly from the room. He felt
that his errand had been accomplished. As he went back over the root that
he had just pursued, he felt again that weird sense of unfamiliarity that had
at first possessed him, and this feeling of strangeness increased as he neared his
own apartment house. He walked in and hurried past the sleeping hallboy without waking
him. Once inside his apartment, he rushed into the bedroom, but his
counter was gone. Blaisdelle undressed with fumbling fingers, but his head had scarcely
touched the pillow before he was sound asleep. Two a shaft of sunlight fell
across Blaisdell's face, and he woke with a shudder. Ugh, what a
horrible nightmare, he said aloud. I feel as if I actually did kill
that man. Then he gawned and rang for his valet. After a casual
breakfast, he was glancing through the newspaper when he received the shock that changed
him from a careless clubman to a nervous wreck. Queer murder in Washington Square.
That was the headline he read, and then followed the account of the
crime. A private policeman, while doing his rounds, had found the front
door of an old brownstone residence open and had investigated. On the second floor.
He had found another door ajar, and going in, had found a
man lying in a queer bed that was overhung by a red canopy. He
was about to steal quietly out when something in the huddled attitude of the sleeper
attracted his attention, and he then discovered that the man had been strangled.
The marks of fingers were plainly visible upon his throat. The police investigation had
established the fact that the man's name was Stephen R. Rollins, a famous
traveler and authority on spiritualism. He had lived for years in the Orient,
and a monograph of his on a cult phenomenon had attracted much attention in scientific
circles. My God, said Blaisdell, as the paper fell from his trembling
hands. My God, did I go to that man's apartment while I was
in the grip of a nightmare and murdered him. Did I? These questions
nearly drove him frantic. What should he do? What course of action was
there for him to pursue? If he went to the police and told him
that he Herman Blaisdell, descended of a fine old New York family, had
gone forth into the night and killed a man he had never seen before in
his sleep. What would they think of him? They would probably shrug their
shoulders and advise him to consult an alienist. And yet this man, this
Stephen R. Rollins, was dead, and his description and that of his
apartment coincided in every detail with the place that Blaisdell had visited in his dream.
But was it a dream? And who was the other man that lay
in his bed? As he went out? These questions revolved in his mind
like a vicious circle, almost driving him insane. Blaisdell aged after that,
he looked ten years older, and his friend were alarmed about him. Doctor
Hamilton advised a change of environment and rigorous physical exercise, otherwise he would not
be responsible for the consequences. The man jumped at every sound and had a
mortal terror of the night. He would put off going to bed until the
latest possible moment, and then always slept with a light in his room.
Sometimes his valet would come quavering to his bedside in the night, frightened out
of his wits by the frightful screams from Blaisdell. I didn't do it.
I didn't do it. I couldn't have done it, he would scream,
his eyes staring. The thing is impossible, the thing is impossible. When
these spells were upon him, he would shake, and it would finally be
necessary for his valet to give him a sleeping powder. These things became noised
abroad, and he resigned from his clubs and went no more, and declined
all invitations. He was a broken man, a hopeless hypochondriac, just a
morbid victim of nerves or drink, said his friends, and dropped him.
Things went on like this for months, and then one day Blaisdell read another
item in the newspaper that dumbfounded him. It detailed the arrest of a man
named Franklin Sears, who was charged with the murder of Stephen R. Rullins.
But he couldn't have murdered him. I murdered him, murdered him.
In my sleep, mumbled Blaisdell. That afternoon, one of the sensational newspapers
published a picture of Franklin Sears, and Blaisdell cried aloud in new fright.
His valet found him with a newspaper in his hands, mouthing and trembling,
his nerves, vibrating like a taunt piano wire. For the face that stared
back at Blaisdell from the front page was his own face, yet Franklin Sear's
name was under it. Three later, Sears confessed to the murder. He
told the police that he and Rollins had been chums and college mates. Rollins
had fallen madly in love with Sear's beautiful sister and had persuaded her to go
away with him under promise of marriage. They had gone to South America,
where Rollins had a massed of fortune, and had then visited the Orient.
She begged Rollins to make her his wife, but he refused and finally deserted
her. A serious illness followed, and she sent for her brother, who
promised her that he would not rest until her betrayer had been brought to book.
She died, assured that he would avenge her, and he had kept
his word, although he had to trail Rollins all over the world before he
finally ran him down in Washington Square. Blaisdell followed the developments in the Sears
case with absorbed attention. He read the newspaper feverishly and finally decided that he
could stand the suspense no longer. He determined to go to the tombs,
confront his counterpart and tell him the story of the nightmare. Surely there was
an explanation of it all. There must be an explanation. He had decided
to visit Sears the next day when the last queer thing happened in the tragic
series of happenings. On the morning of Blaisdell's intended visit, Doctor Hamilton read
in his morning newspaper that Franklin Sears, the murderer of Stephen R. Rollins,
had committed suicide in the tombs by hanging himself to one of the bars
by his suspenders. The paper commented upon the somewhat unusual fact that the prisoner's
watch was found on his body, and that it had stopped at three o'clock.
It was just a few minutes past three when the body was discovered,
still warm, Doctor Hamilton had scarcely finished reading this account when his telephone bell
rang. The excited voice of Blaisdell's valet asked him to come at once to
his master's apartment, as something terrible had happened. He responded at once,
and when he was ushered into Blaisdell's bedroom by the white faced valet, he
saw at once that he could do nothing further for his friend. Blaisdell was
dead, and it was very evident from the stiffness of his body that he
had been dead for many hours. It ain't his being dead that's so terrible,
said the trembling valet. It's it's well. Look there, he pointed
to the throat of the dead man. There was the distinct mark of a
rope upon it, and this mark extended clear around his head. He he
couldn't have hung himself, quavered the valet, because I was the first person
who saw him, and there ain't any rope. Some unaccountable impulse made doctor
Hamilton pick up Blaisdell's watch from the dresser. It had stopped running, the
hands recording the hour of three o'clock. The end of the face that stared
back at Blaisdell by Edwin Cardi Renk