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Section one of Weird Crimes. This
is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings

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are in the public domain. For
more information or to volunteer, please visit

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LibriVox dot org. Weird Crimes by
Seaberry Quinn, Number one. Bluebeard,

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compiled from transcripts of the judicial records
of the ancient Duchy of Brittany. Not

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long ago, the world was startled
by the revelations of the trial of Henrie

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Lanjrue, accused of murdering ten women
and an eighteen year old boy, Bluebeard.

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The newspapers dubbed him, comparing him
to the most grisly character in all

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the fairy tales. How few of
those who echoed the news writer's epithet realized

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that Lanjeroux, who later expiated his
crimes upon the guillotine at Versailles, and

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even the Bluebeard, whose story still
frightens fretful children to still were but amateurs

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in crime compared to the man who
first bore the name, the man whose

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trial and conviction rocked medieval France to
its foundations, and whose criminal exploits surpassed

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the wildest flights of imaginative fiction.
Never in the stories of Poe of Gautier

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of de Montpaissan. Not even Bramstoker's
Count Dracula has a character more depraved,

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more terrible, more fascinating been portrayed
than Gilles de la Valle, sirre Deretes,

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Marshal of France, chamberlain to the
French King and cousin to the mighty

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Duke of Brittany. The most monstrously
depraved imagination, says a French criminologist,

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never could have conceived what this trial
reveals. This memorable trial presents horrors unsurpassed

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in the entire volume of the world's
history. During the year fourteen forty,

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terrible rumors spread through Brittany, especially
through the ancient Pays de Retes, which

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extends along the Lois from Nante to
Pemboeuff In hundreds of peasant cottages. Mothers

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wept for children they would see no
more, and that the village ends were

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The laborers repaired from their fields to
drink an evening cup of wine. Whispered

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curses mingled with sighs, and exclamations
of grief were heard, And always when

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the peasants muttered their sullen complaints to
each other, the name of the Sire

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Derets was whispered in that day.
The great feudal lords owned the common people

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almost as absolutely as they owned the
land itself, and the Sire Derets.

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Chateau was strong. His men at
arms were many. What could a handful

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of wooden shod peasants armed only with
scythes and flails avail against the king's favorite?

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But one last hope remained to the
peasantry. Though the chivalry of France

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was a mighty institution, the Church
of Rome was mightier. No noble be

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his sword ever so long where his
arrogance so great dared lay a hand upon

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the humblest village priest and to their
spiritual advisors, the peasants betook themselves when

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they're pleased to the civil authorities fell
on deaf ears. Word was born to

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Jean Chateau, Giron, Bishop of
Nantes, that oppression lay heavy upon his

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people in Brittany, and like the
energetic prince of the church he was,

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the bishop despatched his agents to investigate
their reports. Gilles de Lavald, the

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investigators found, had suddenly quit a
most promising career at court to immure himself

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in his country seat at Mashcoul,
a gloomy chateau composed of huge towers and

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surrounded by deep moats. Also,
since his residence in the country, he

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had deeded vast tracts of land to
John V, Duke of Brittany, in

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order, it was whispered, to
prevent that nobleman's too close scrutiny of his

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actions. While the Marshal kept closely
to his house most of the time,

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he was wont to make occasional trips
to nearby towns, always accompanied by a

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princely retinue. He spent money with
a lavish hand, enriching innkeepers tradesmen beyond

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their wildest dreams, and distributing vast
sums of gold to the poor. It

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might have been supposed that the townspeople
would have welcomed his coming as a visitation

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from the good Saint Nicholas himself.
Yet the bishop's agents found whenever the Marshal

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left a town, the cries of
the poor, which had been restrained while

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the clink of his men at arms
sounded in the streets, broke forth.

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Tears flowed, curses were uttered,
A long continued wail went up to heaven.

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Mothers had lost their children. Babes
had been snatched from the cradle,

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infants had been spirited almost from their
mother's breasts, and it was known by

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sad experience that the vanished little ones
would never be seen again. Derretz's castle

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at Mashchul was always in condition to
resist siege. The drawbridge was raised,

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the portcullis down, the gate's clothes, the retainers constantly under arms. No

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one except the marshal's own servants.
The investigators heard, had even been known

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to go through the chateau's mysterious gates
and come forth alive. In the surrounding

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country, strange tales of horror and
deviltry circulated in hushed whispers. Yet it

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was observed that the chapel of the
castle was gorgeously decked with silk and cloth

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of gold, and the sacred vessels
were encrusted with gems. The excessive devotion

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of the marshal was also noted.
He was said to be passionately fond of

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ecclesiastical music, and to hear Mass
three times daily. But when dusk settled

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over the forest, and one by
one the castle windows became illuminated, peasants

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would point to one casement high up
in an isolated tower, from which a

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clear light streamed through the gloom.
They told of a fierce red glare which

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came from that window at times,
and of agonized cries, children's cries ringing

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from it, cries which had no
answer but the howl of the wolf as

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he rose to quest and kill his
prey. By night, once or twice

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a week, the drawbridge was lowered, and the servants of de Retz stood

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at the gateway, distributing close money
and food to beggars who crowded round.

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It often happened that children were among
those beggars. The servants would offer them

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rare dainties if they would go to
the kitchen for them. Those little tats

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who accepted the offers were never seen
again. Charges had been laid before the

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Duke of Brittany accusing the Marshal as
a wholesale murderer of children. The Duke

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had treated the accusations and the accusers
alike with scorn. When this report was

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laid before the Bishop, he summoned
Pierre de Lospitol, Grand Seneschal of Brittany,

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for a conference. Together, they
demanded that the Duke ordered the arrest

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of the Marshal on a charge of
murder, threatening action by the Church if

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he refused. Reluctantly, the Duke
had Pierre de Lospitol proceed with the prosecution.

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Action followed immediately. A sergeant arms
was given a warrant authorizing him to

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take the very mighty, very powerful
Sire Torets and his accomplices into custody.

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Jean Labat, the sergeant was a
man worth of the master. He served,

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though warned that resistance would likely be
encountered at the chateau. He selected

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a posse of twenty chosen men and
marched to the castle gate, calling lustily

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upon the Sire, directs to surrender. Who calls? Demanded the Marshal from

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behind the Portcullis Wabbe, replied the
sergeant, drawing his sword. The Marshal

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turned pale, crossed himself, and
ordered the drawbridge lowered, saying it is

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impossible to resist fight. Years before, an astrologer had warned him he would

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one day fall into the hands of
an abbe. Until the moment the sergeant

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demanded his surrender, the marshal had
supposed the prophecy meant he would one day

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become a monk, accompanied by two
of his retainers, who had been inseparable

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companions, Allrie m Pontou by name, the marshal crossed the drawbridge and handed

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his sword to Jean Libbey. Closely
guarded by the sergeant's posse, the accused

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men made their way to Nantes,
where Pierre de Lospitaux waited to dispense stern

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and even handed justice. It was
well for the sire Direts that Labbey had

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brought his score of dauntless peace officers
with him. When word passed among the

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villagers that redoubted Gilles de la Val
was riding towards Nante, surrounded by a

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bodyguard of Ajan's arms. Peasants left
their fields, women their kitchens, and

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laborers dropped their tools to throng the
streets way. Cried John Lebbe, give

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way to the servants of my lord
Bishop. A sullen murmur from the crowd

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answered him. Suddenly a woman shrills, scream rent the noonday, calm my

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child. She screaked a cast of
God, restore my child. Then a

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wild, wrathful howl broke from the
crowd, rang along the Nante's road,

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and died away. Only when the
Great gates of the Chateau de Bouffet claimed

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shut behind the prisoner. The whole
population of Nante was in a turmoil.

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It was whispered the investigation would be
a farce. The Duke would surely screen

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his kinsmen. The Sire Directs would
be forced to surrender some more of his

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land. Perhaps after that he would
be released. Justice weighed heavily only on

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the poor. Sure Enough, an
attempt was made to shield the accused.

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Jean de Toucherons, whose office it
was to collect evidence against the prisoners,

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was approached by the Duke and told
that it would be pleasing to the great

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nobleman if the evidence was so colored
as to render the charge on which derets

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would be tried less than capital.
But the Duke reckoned without. The Bishop

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of Nantes and Pierre de Lospital,
Grand Seneschal of Brittany, these fearless exponents

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of justice, summoned de Toucherons.
Before them, Monsieur said de la Hospital,

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fixing his penetrating black eyes on the
lawyer, Jotti lies plain before you,

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situ be well performed. The bishop
fingered the jeweled cross suspended from his

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neck. Bites golden chain, you
have taken an oath to do equal justice

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to origin. Poor monsieur, he
reminded de toucherons x communication. Maybe the

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penaltiful oath breaking criminal procedure then in
vogue in France differed from that of England,

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and that the accused was not permitted
to confront his accusus face to face.

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At the trial. Evidence for the
prosecution was taken before a commissioner especially

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nominated for that purpose, then reduced
to writing. The transcript of this testimony

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was then transmitted to the trial justice, who summoned the accuse before him,

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read a brief summary of the offense
of which he was charged, and proceeded

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to examine him. No opportunity was
afforded the prisoner for cross examination of the

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prosecution's witnesses, nor was he informed
of the nature of their testimony. It

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remained for the judge to piece together
the stories of the prosecution and defense,

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deciding for himself whether the prisoner had
adequately refuted the testimony of his accusers.

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Such a thing as trial by jury
was undreamed of anywhere outside of England.

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Manifestly unfair as this procedure was in
many respects, it had one advantage lacked

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by the common law system. The
accused was unable to invent false testimony with

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which to meet unexpected statements made by
the prosecution's witnesses. The investigation opened on

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the morning of September eighteenth, fourteen
forty. The witnesses were introduced into the

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Hall of Justice singly, or in
groups if they were relations. On entering

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the room, each witness knelt before
the commissioner, kissed the crucifix and swore

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with his hand on the Gospels that
he would speak the truth and nothing but

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the truth. After this he related
all the facts in his knowledge pertaining to

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the case, without being either interrogated
or interrupted. The first to present herself

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was Bowing Lusoud, living at Laroche
Bernard. Tears streaming down her face,

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she related how two years before,
in the month of September, the Sire

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de Retz with all his retinue,
passed through Laroche Barnard. She lived opposite

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the house where the nobleman stopped her
child, a lad of ten, the

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finest in the village, had attracted
the attention of Directs as he stood a

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window, leaning on his squire's shoulder. Pontu Direct's servants spoke to the boy,

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asking him what he intended to be
when he grew up. I soldia,

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the lad replied very well. Pontou
answered, come with me and I

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will give you a sword. The
child entered the house with Pontu for the

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coveted weapon and was never seen again. Deposition followed deposition, always to the

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same effect. Parents had left their
houses, sometimes only for a few moments,

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when they returned that their children were
gone. An old beggar woman,

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once subsisting on the peasants alms,
had been observed going toward the castle at

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evening, many times accompanied by children. She invariably returned alone. In a

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few months, from some unknown source, she had amassed a competence, moved

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from the neighborhood, and was seen
no more. Thirty children had disappeared from

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a single village within a year,
and the victims were always boy. No

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girl child had been molested. So
frequently had the kidnappings become that parents dared

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not send children to tend sheeper goats
or carry food to their fathers or brothers

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working in the fields. When Jean
Labat went to the chateau to Arrestaurets Paren

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Lussard, half crazed with grief at
the loss of her child, had accompanied

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him. Entering a stable while the
sergeant's guard was there to protect her.

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She had found a heap of ashes
and powder, which gave off a sickly

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and peculiar smell. At the bottom
of a trough, she found a child's

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shirt, half burned, the remaining
portion caked with dried blood. After several

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days spent in taking similar testimony,
the prosecution announced its case complete and court

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was open to hear what defense Gille
de la Valle, Sire Derets and Marshal

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of France, had to offer to
the dastardly crimes charged against him. The

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Marshal entered the courtroom dressed in dublet
and hose of white satin, thickly sown

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with seed pearls. About his neck
hung several golden collars emblems of his orders

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of knighthood. On his breast a
half score military decorations blazed for the Sire

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Direts had been a mighty warrior of
France before he took up his abode in

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the country and became the object of
terrible suspicions. On a dozen hotly contested

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fields, he had led the French
forces to victory, and had engaged in

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the Siege of Orleans, with Jean
Dark, entering the castle's moat with her

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and being severely wounded by an English
pikeman. Upon his head was a cap

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of ermine, the royal fur,
which none but the King and a few

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of his most valuable nobles were privileged
to wear. No one at first glance

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would have thought the Sire Direts capable
of such horrid crimes as those of which

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he stood accused. His face was
somewhat pale and war and repose, an

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expression of gentle melancholy. But his
beard was his outstanding characteristic. In sharp

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contrast to his hair and mustache,
which were light, almost blonde, it

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was jet black, yet in certain
lights it assumed a blue hue. It

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was this peculiarity which earned for the
Sire Direts the surname of blue Beard,

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a name that has attached to him
in popular romance since the Middle Ages,

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though his story has undergone a strange
change, remaining in general memory only as

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the ghastly fairy tale which frightened children
today. Mild and gentle as Direts's face

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appeared at first glance, However,
a closer inspection revealed an innate cruelty in

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his eyes. There always smoldered a
lurking, sinister expression, which now and

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again glowed like charcoal embers when blown
upon by the fire bellows. At such

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times he ground his teeth like a
wild beast about to leap upon its prey,

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and his lips became so contracted they
showed pale and bloodless against his beard.

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Then it was his beard appeared to
bristol and show its blue shade more

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than ever, and his face paled
to a corpse gray. After a few

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moments, his features became serene again, a sweet smile on the lips,

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which had a moment before been set
in a diabolical snarl, and his expression

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relapsed into a vague and tender,
melancholy Messieurs, said the Marshal, lifting

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his furred cap and saluting his judges
with formal politeness, Pray expedite my matter

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as quickly as possible. I would
that my unfortunate case be soon disposed of,

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for I am peculiarly anxious to consecrate
myself to God's service. He has

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pardoned my sins, and I would
even enter a monastery and become a monk.

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I fear not. I shall richly
endow several of the churches of Nante's,

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and shall distribute the greater portion of
my goods among the poor the betters,

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to secure the salvation of my soul. Had this been Spain, where

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religious fervor swayed even the actions of
courts of justice, the Sire directs as

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Plea might easily have operated to discontinue
the prosecution. But the Frenchman is as

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practical in things spiritual as in things
temporal. Monseigneur gravely replied Pierre de lospitour.

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It is ever well to think of
the salvation of one's soul, but

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you will please remember that we are
now concerned with the salvation of your body.

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A look of impatience flitted across the
face of gild de Ritz. I

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have confessed to the Father superior of
the Carmelites. He answered, through is

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absolution, I have been able to
communicate. I am therefore guiltless and purified.

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Pierre de Lospital drummed noiselessly on the
polished table before him with his finger

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tips. True servant of the church, though he was the talk of confession

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and purification pleased him not at all. To day he was sitting in this

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secular capacity of judge, the body
of a man accused of killing the bodies

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of helpless children was on trial before
him. Let the superior of the Carmelites

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supervise the welfare of the prisoner's soul. He Pierre Lospitol would perform the earthly

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office. Men's justice is not in
common with that of God, he said

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finally, Nor though you were forty
times confessed and shriven, can I tell

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you what your sentence will be until
they have heard the evidence in your case.

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Be ready then to make your defense. And listened calfully to the charges

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brought against you. He nodded to
the courts clerk, who rose an unrolled

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apartment. He ye, Gille de
la Vor, sired the rats conseiller.

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To Majesty the King and Marshal of
France, read the priest, forasmuch as

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it has come to our ears that
you have seized and caused to be seized

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the bodies of several little children of
the Diocese of Nantes, not only ten

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or twenty, but thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, one hundred,

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two hundred and more and have murdered
them with inhuman tortures, afterwards burning their

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bodies to ashes. We do charge, and a joy your true answer to

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make to these charges, and say
whether ye be guilty or not guilty of

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these abominable doings. The grave eyes
appeared. De Lospitalal never left the prisoner's

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face while the indictment was being read. What justification can you make? He

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asked, dickon oath and the holy
Gospels to declare the truth, not I,

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exclaimed the marshal haughtily. The witnesses
are bound to declare that testimony on

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oath, But I, the accused, need take no oath. I will

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make no answer. Pierre de lospital
rose from his chair, gathering his scarlet

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robes of office about him. He
was a small man, wiry and quick

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as a terrier, and with something
of the terrier's nervous activity in his movements.

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His great head, with its high
white brow, seemed to weigh down

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his diminutive body. His eyes,
large and black, have been likened to

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the pools of new ink, and
truly, like the ink, they recorded

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everything. These eyes, he fixed
on Derets in an unwinking stare. Do

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you refuse to plead, he asked, in a voice of ominous calm.

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I do, thundered the marshal,
the deathlike pallor, which told of his

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ungovernable temper beginning to spread over his
face. I'm Marshal of France. I'm

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Pierre de lospital stretched out a scarlet
clad arm and pointed to a baize curtain

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hanging near the judge's bench. The
portiere swung back, revealing an alcove recessed

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from the main chamber. In it
was a long, low bench of dark

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wood, worn smooth and polished by
much use. At either end were curious

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rope and ring attachments, and above
it was a windlass over which the ropes

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wound. Standing beside the instrument were
two men in close fitting tights of brown

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stuff uncouth headgear, Masking their faces
through the eye holes in their masks,

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they watched Pierre de Lospitol expectantly.
Gilderettes glanced once through the uncurtained doorway and

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cast a look of murderers hated his
judge, But a pallor more sallow than

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that of rage overspread his face.
For the low wooden bench in the alcove

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was the rack, and the masks. Men beside it were the official torturers

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of the court, gilderettes, who
delighted in the sight of suffering children,

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enjoyed in the sound of their death
moans, had no stomach for the rac

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I will answer, he said,
attempting to compose his features. Torture me

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not good, Monsieur de lospitale.
I implore you as to the charges,

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I say nothing. They are simply
false and Columnus, indeed, answered his

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judge. And am I too believed
that all the people who complain of having

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lost their children light under oath?
Undoubtedly, replied the Marshal, his equanimity

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restored now that the curtain had been
again drawn before the rack, What am

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I to know of their brats?
Am I their keeper? Gain me the

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same answer, remarked Pierre de Lospital. However, as you solemnly deny these

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charges, we must question Marier and
Pontheu. Orier Pontu, cried the Marshal,

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trembling, surely thy accuse me of
nothing not as yet they have not

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been questioned, but they are about
to be brought into court, and I

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do not think they will lie in
the face of justice. I demand that

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my servants be brought not forward as
witnesses against their master. Stormed the Marshal,

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his brow wrinkling and his beard bristling
blue upon his chin. A master

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is above the gossiping tales of his
servants. Do you think, monsieur,

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your servants will accuse you. I
demand that I, a marshal of France,

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a baron of the duchy, should
be sheltered from the slanders of small

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folk who might disown as my servants
if they are untrue to me. Justice

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knows no smiled folk and no great
We shall see what Torrier and Ponteu have

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to say. Pierre de l'opeito nodded
meaningly toward the curtain concealing the rack.

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There are means of gleaning this ruth
had a sign from the judge. Guards

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led the sire to red back to
his prison in the corridor outside the courtroom,

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the Marshal passed to Arier and Ponteu, escorted by a jan darn Henrier

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averted his eyes, but Pontu burst
into tears at the sight of his master.

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Deretz held out his hand, which
Pontu kissed affectionately. Remember I'll have

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done for you, my children,
said the Marshal and be good and faithful

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servants. Again, Ponteu covered his
hands with kisses, but Oria shank from

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him with a shudder in silence.
The two culprits were conducted to the bar

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of the court. Pierre de Laspital
looked sharply from one to the other,

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then signed to the clerk to read
the indictment, which charged them as accomplices

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of the Sire de Retz. Never
for an instant did the eyes of the

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00:23:45.400 --> 00:23:49.799
President of the Court leave the face
of Oria, while the clerk droned out

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the charge. Henrier was a sharp
contrast to Pontu. Ponteu's bullet head,

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short, thick neck, and undershot
jawed nature, innately cruel and bestial.

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Nothing but torture carried past the limit
of human endurance would wring the truth from

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him. Henrier, on the other
hand, was as fragile and as prettily

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made as a girl. Slender and
tall, with tapering white fingers and blonde

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hair falling in loose curls about his
ears, he looked anything but the criminal

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he was accused of being. His
blue eyes, though set too close together,

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were mild and timid in expression,
and the slope of his beardless chin,

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bespoken nature rather weak than wicked.
What say ye or atch ad men,

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00:24:33.880 --> 00:24:38.599
guilty or not guilty? Asked Pierre
de las Patol, still gazing fixedly

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00:24:38.640 --> 00:24:48.240
at Henrie halas, Monsieur exclaimed,
Henrie, I am even as you say.

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I shall tell all, for I
have another master besides my poor master

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of rats, and I shall soon
be with the heavenly one. He would

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00:24:57.200 --> 00:25:03.200
have continued had not a shout from
too interrupted him. Monsieur le juge,

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00:25:03.799 --> 00:25:07.079
he cried, My poor friend is
tossing the head. He's mad. All

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he says is but the raving of
a lunatic. Ah pontou out of their

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non mouth. Hast thou convicted thyself, returned Pierre de Lospatal, For hadst

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thou not been concerned and devil trated, thou wouldst not have feared their friends

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or ravings proceed. He nodded to
Arie, and see to it that thou

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speakest but the tithe. But Henriette
seemed to have lost the power of speech.

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Only incoherent murmurings came from his nervously
working lips. At last, he

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00:25:42.319 --> 00:25:48.839
managed to gasp, Monsieur le George, I cannot speak to the abominable words

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I have to utter while that is
in my sight. He pointed a trembling

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00:25:52.640 --> 00:25:57.480
finger to the great crucifix suspended about
the judge's bench. Led by Pierre de

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00:25:57.640 --> 00:26:03.000
Lospital, the court and stood with
bared heads while amid a deathlike silence,

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00:26:03.039 --> 00:26:10.240
the image of the Lord was veiled
in black bunting condensed. Henrier's testimony was

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00:26:10.279 --> 00:26:15.880
as follows. On graduating from the
University of Angus, he had taken the

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00:26:15.920 --> 00:26:19.960
situation of reader in the household of
Sire Direts from the first The Marshal had

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00:26:19.960 --> 00:26:25.960
taken a liking to him and soon
made him chamberlain and confidante. When he

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00:26:26.000 --> 00:26:29.640
had been in the household about six
months, the Marshal decided to deed the

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00:26:29.680 --> 00:26:36.079
castle Chantons to the Duke of Brittany. The night preceding the morning the Duke

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00:26:36.119 --> 00:26:40.960
took possession, the marshals summoned Henria, Pontou, and one petite robin to

324
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his bed chamber. When all were
assembled, Direts compelled Henrie to kneel on

325
00:26:45.920 --> 00:26:49.319
the bare floor and take a solemn
and horrible oath, never to reveal what

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00:26:49.400 --> 00:26:55.039
was about to be told him.
The oath taken the Sire. Direts told

327
00:26:55.079 --> 00:26:57.799
them he was expecting the Duke's officers
to take over the chateau of the following

328
00:26:57.880 --> 00:27:03.680
day, and before that happened,
there were certain matters which had to be

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00:27:03.720 --> 00:27:08.039
disposed of. Ponto and Robin grinned
knowingly at this, but Henrie was in

330
00:27:08.039 --> 00:27:11.920
the dark until the other two servants
procured ropes and poles tipped with hooks.

331
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They then led the way to an
old, disused well, giving Henria a

332
00:27:18.119 --> 00:27:21.400
torch in one of the grappling hooks. They lowered him into the well with

333
00:27:21.480 --> 00:27:26.119
instructions to pass up all he found
there. What was his horror to find

334
00:27:26.160 --> 00:27:33.400
the whole filled with bodies of children, long dead. Almost fainting from fright

335
00:27:33.519 --> 00:27:38.960
and horror, he had nevertheless proceeded
with the task assigned him, and before

336
00:27:40.039 --> 00:27:42.920
daybreak the well was emptied and the
little bodies, all of them terribly mutilated,

337
00:27:44.599 --> 00:27:48.319
burned to ashes in a great bonfire
the other two servitors built. He

338
00:27:48.359 --> 00:27:52.960
had counted thirty six heads in the
well, but more bodies than heads.

339
00:27:55.680 --> 00:28:00.960
Following this horrifying experience, life went
on as usual within the Marshall's household for

340
00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:06.599
several months. Direts was deeply religious, and attended daily masses in his private

341
00:28:06.640 --> 00:28:11.240
chapel, accompanied by his entire suite. But one day, just at dusk,

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00:28:11.279 --> 00:28:15.680
the Marshal summoned Herrier to a room
in a remote tower where a great

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00:28:15.720 --> 00:28:22.759
fire was blazing on the hearth.
Fetch me a child, his master ordered,

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00:28:22.759 --> 00:28:26.920
curtly, not daring to ask an
explanation, Henrier went outside the castle,

345
00:28:27.039 --> 00:28:30.640
seized a little boy he found in
a nearby road, and carried him

346
00:28:30.680 --> 00:28:40.440
to his lord Kellett. The sire
direts bade him Hillett. The young secretary

347
00:28:40.440 --> 00:28:45.240
stammered, how dolt direct stemped his
foot impatiently, at the same time drawing

348
00:28:45.240 --> 00:28:52.720
back his lips like a snarling beast
slit its throat. Henria carried out the

349
00:28:52.720 --> 00:28:56.759
fiendish order, while the Marshal stood
by and gloated at the side of the

350
00:28:56.799 --> 00:29:02.559
little one's death. Agonies and began
a life of crime unspeakable for Arier.

351
00:29:03.640 --> 00:29:07.480
Child after child he bore to his
master, always with the same fatal result.

352
00:29:07.559 --> 00:29:12.759
Sometimes Derretz himself inflicted the death stroke. More often he stood by watching

353
00:29:12.759 --> 00:29:18.440
his servants performing the deed. Lucky
was the child whose life ended with one

354
00:29:18.519 --> 00:29:23.599
quick blow from knifer axe torture,
slow and horrible was the lot of the

355
00:29:23.640 --> 00:29:29.640
great majority of the little victims.
When one of these massacres was finished,

356
00:29:29.640 --> 00:29:33.400
and the port infant finally dead,
the Marshal was invariably filled with remorse for

357
00:29:33.480 --> 00:29:40.240
the deed. He would toss weeping
and preying on the bed, or recite

358
00:29:40.319 --> 00:29:45.240
fervent litanies on his knees while his
servants washed up the floor and incinerated the

359
00:29:45.240 --> 00:29:49.839
little victims in the great fireplace.
An insupportable odor filled the room where these

360
00:29:49.839 --> 00:29:57.920
slaughters invariably took place, but the
Marshal inhaled it with keenest delight Enrie acknowledged

361
00:29:59.000 --> 00:30:02.559
he had seen no less than forty
children done to death in this manner,

362
00:30:03.640 --> 00:30:07.000
and so good a description was he
able to give of several that it was

363
00:30:07.079 --> 00:30:12.839
possible to identify them as children whose
parents had testified to their loss. Relating

364
00:30:12.839 --> 00:30:18.640
the case of two lads named Hamelin
Babes, of three and four years respectively,

365
00:30:18.279 --> 00:30:22.519
he told how the older boy waited
his turn, weeping and praying,

366
00:30:22.559 --> 00:30:27.359
while his little brother was slowly tortured
to death. But this is incredible,

367
00:30:29.160 --> 00:30:33.839
exclaimed Pierre del Hospital, whose eyes
dilated at the horrors of Henrier's revelations.

368
00:30:36.440 --> 00:30:40.960
Only some of the caesars of Rome
have been charged with such detestable crimes.

369
00:30:41.839 --> 00:30:48.839
Monsieur le Jeuge Henria replied. It
was the acts of these caesar's my master

370
00:30:48.960 --> 00:30:53.519
desired to emulate. I used to
rid him the chronicles of Serroneus and Tacitus.

371
00:30:53.519 --> 00:30:56.720
He never tired hearing them, but
ever urged me. Toriid more and

372
00:30:56.799 --> 00:31:03.119
more? How many children do you
estimate? As Sire Dorets and his servants

373
00:31:03.200 --> 00:31:08.119
killed daraken in his long eye from
my own wretched part, confessed to killing

374
00:31:08.480 --> 00:31:14.759
twelve with my own hand at my
master's orders, and I have brought him

375
00:31:14.839 --> 00:31:19.519
more temtary score. I know this
devil's business has long gone on before I

376
00:31:19.680 --> 00:31:26.319
entered his service. Have you more
to declare? Asked the president of the

377
00:31:26.359 --> 00:31:30.480
court, signing himself with the cross. Nay Mongers said to ask Ponteux,

378
00:31:30.559 --> 00:31:37.440
my friend, to corroborate what I
have said. Pontius, said Pierre Delaspita,

379
00:31:37.680 --> 00:31:41.319
turning his burning eyes on the other
culprit I commands you, in the

380
00:31:41.440 --> 00:31:45.640
name of God and of Justice,
to declare, order to know the deep

381
00:31:45.680 --> 00:31:49.960
grave lines about the older servant's mouth
LinkedIn as his facial muscles tightened, but

382
00:31:51.039 --> 00:31:56.160
he kept silence for those who will
not speak dereris to raq, the judge

383
00:31:56.200 --> 00:32:01.960
reminded him, signing to the torturers
to make ready. But Pontu, heartless

384
00:32:02.039 --> 00:32:06.559
murderer though he was, had still
the virtue of loyalty to the hand that

385
00:32:06.599 --> 00:32:10.319
fed him. Not until the executioners
had forced him on the rack and the

386
00:32:10.359 --> 00:32:14.839
cold iron of the jives bit into
his wrists and ankles, did he commence

387
00:32:14.880 --> 00:32:20.640
his confession. Then, as the
head torturer laid his hand the windlass,

388
00:32:20.680 --> 00:32:25.240
which would tighten the ropes, dislocating
the prisoner's knee and elbow joints, Pontu's

389
00:32:25.279 --> 00:32:30.440
confession began. If he had maintained
a stubborn silence in the face of torture,

390
00:32:30.960 --> 00:32:36.359
his volubility was great enough now all
that Henrie had told him more.

391
00:32:36.480 --> 00:32:40.720
He related heaping description of crime after
revolting crime before the court, till Pierre

392
00:32:40.799 --> 00:32:46.160
de Lspital would hear no more enough, exclaimed the judge, cutting short the

393
00:32:46.200 --> 00:32:52.759
prisoner's abhorrent tale, where a thousand
men on trial before us, thou hast

394
00:32:52.759 --> 00:32:58.599
told enough to convict them all.
Next day, Gille de la Valle stood

395
00:32:58.599 --> 00:33:01.680
once more before his judges, What
then, Serb mike you to the charges,

396
00:33:02.200 --> 00:33:07.279
asked Pierre de laspitalt I am Chamberlayne
and marshal to his Veneratan mojesty.

397
00:33:07.319 --> 00:33:14.039
The King France began the prisoner arrogantly. This is no affair of the King

398
00:33:14.039 --> 00:33:19.079
of France, thundered the judge,
and sinsed at the criminal's effrontery. Confess

399
00:33:19.200 --> 00:33:23.039
or by a Lydian Saint Denis,
you go to the race. Cowed his

400
00:33:23.079 --> 00:33:27.559
iron nerve broke by the thread of
torture, Gil de la Vald told such

401
00:33:27.559 --> 00:33:32.119
a story as no court before or
since ever listened to. Shortly before his

402
00:33:32.240 --> 00:33:37.599
voluntary retirement from the royal court,
he had chanced upon a Latin book detailing

403
00:33:37.599 --> 00:33:43.200
the lives of the Caesars. Tales
of revolting cruelty which would have sickened an

404
00:33:43.279 --> 00:33:47.680
ordinary man, thrilled him with the
greatest pleasure. He resolved to imitate or

405
00:33:47.720 --> 00:33:54.799
surpass these monsters of antiquity. That
very night he carried his resolve into execution

406
00:33:54.880 --> 00:33:59.119
by running his sword through a luckless
wife he came upon in the streets of

407
00:33:59.119 --> 00:34:04.039
Paris. But Paris was a great
city under the ever watchful eye of the

408
00:34:04.119 --> 00:34:08.400
King's officers. His plans could not
be carried out there in safety, so

409
00:34:08.440 --> 00:34:13.519
as soon as he could wind up
his affairs, he renounced his promising career

410
00:34:13.559 --> 00:34:19.039
as a courtier and submerged himself at
his principal country seat. From the day

411
00:34:19.039 --> 00:34:22.519
he settled at Marsh School, his
depredations on the childhood of the diocese of

412
00:34:22.599 --> 00:34:29.119
Nantes began. In less than seven
years, he had committed personally or by

413
00:34:29.159 --> 00:34:34.920
agent, more than eight hundred child
murders. The confession finished, Gilles de

414
00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:38.800
la Valle looked expectantly at his judges. He was a very great, a

415
00:34:39.000 --> 00:34:44.880
very powerful nobleman. Yet the President
of the Court had shown himself fearless and

416
00:34:44.920 --> 00:34:51.159
impartial throughout the trial. Would they
order his lands confiscated? Would they dare

417
00:34:51.239 --> 00:34:58.000
imprison him, Grand signor and favorite
of the king though he was. Pierre

418
00:34:58.039 --> 00:35:01.039
de Lospital, president of the Court, glanced from left to right where his

419
00:35:01.039 --> 00:35:06.880
associate justices sat. Each way,
he looked his colleagues, met his eyes

420
00:35:06.920 --> 00:35:12.639
steadily, and nodded briefly significantly.
Pierre de L'spatalle looked down upon the prisoner,

421
00:35:13.159 --> 00:35:17.559
as though some loathsome reptile were coiled
upon the pavement before him, A

422
00:35:17.800 --> 00:35:22.199
mort, he said shortly, and
at the words a bell high up in

423
00:35:22.239 --> 00:35:28.079
the tower of the Hall of Justices
began to toll. Gille de la Val

424
00:35:28.159 --> 00:35:31.639
fell back apace, his jaw relaxing
as he looked upon the stern faced man

425
00:35:31.639 --> 00:35:38.360
who had pronounced the sentence a mort
to death. Gille de la Val,

426
00:35:38.960 --> 00:35:45.039
Sire de Retz, Chamberlain and councilor
to the King, cousin of John V,

427
00:35:45.119 --> 00:35:50.679
Duke of Brittany and Marshal of France. I'd been sentenced to die like

428
00:35:50.760 --> 00:35:57.280
a common felon amourt, he muttered, wonderingly, stunned by the two word

429
00:35:57.360 --> 00:36:06.119
sentence, to hang in shame between
two criminals. I Lord so died.

430
00:36:06.199 --> 00:36:09.480
Dear mast, whispered Henrie, who
pale and tearful, had stood to receive

431
00:36:09.519 --> 00:36:15.360
his sentence. The Sire Derets turned
on him with an animals snarl. His

432
00:36:15.519 --> 00:36:20.159
lips went back from his teeth,
and his beard showed blue in the half

433
00:36:20.440 --> 00:36:25.079
light streaming through the court room windows. You, he began, raising his

434
00:36:25.119 --> 00:36:32.320
clenched fists over his trembling servant.
You try, are you to A gent

435
00:36:32.440 --> 00:36:37.880
dame laid hands on him and led
him from the Justice hall. Every effort

436
00:36:37.920 --> 00:36:43.840
was made to stay execution. John
V, Duke of Brittany, was not

437
00:36:44.039 --> 00:36:49.880
pleased that his cousin should die upon
the gallows gold lands. All the mighty

438
00:36:49.920 --> 00:36:52.639
fortune of the mighty Sire Derets were
offered the Bishop of Nantes. If only

439
00:36:52.639 --> 00:36:58.480
he would consent to have the sentence
commuted, churches would be endowed, Countless

440
00:36:58.519 --> 00:37:02.119
masses should be said for the souls
of the worthy poor, Splendid abbeys should

441
00:37:02.119 --> 00:37:07.920
be built. Next morning, a
procession of priests, monks and civil guards

442
00:37:07.960 --> 00:37:12.440
wound its way through the Nantes to
the meadow of Biess, on the further

443
00:37:12.599 --> 00:37:16.480
side of the River Loire. Three
men, hands bound to sides, iron

444
00:37:16.559 --> 00:37:22.880
clanking at their ankles, marched near
its head. The procession halted near a

445
00:37:22.880 --> 00:37:25.800
line of poplar trees, where three
gibbets, the center, one somewhat higher

446
00:37:25.840 --> 00:37:31.679
than its neighbors, had been erected
out of the depths. Have I cried

447
00:37:31.760 --> 00:37:36.400
unto thee O, Lord, Lord, hear my voice. Let thine ears

448
00:37:36.440 --> 00:37:42.159
be attentive to the voice of my
supplication, chanted the choir. The tallest

449
00:37:42.159 --> 00:37:46.159
of the three prisoners, elegantly dressed
in white satin, mounted the rickety step

450
00:37:46.199 --> 00:37:52.519
ladder standing beneath the center gallows,
A masked executioner adjusted the noose about his

451
00:37:52.599 --> 00:37:57.880
neck, being careful not to disturb
his pointed blue black beard on the creamy

452
00:37:57.960 --> 00:38:02.239
lace ruffles at his throat. The
other two condemned knelt in their chains beneath

453
00:38:02.239 --> 00:38:08.719
their respective gibbets. They a brave
soldier of our Lord d'a masta. They

454
00:38:08.719 --> 00:38:15.159
called a ruffle of drums, a
swelling anew of the de profundus from the

455
00:38:15.239 --> 00:38:21.679
choir of monks. The tall stool
was struck from under him, and the

456
00:38:21.719 --> 00:38:24.280
body of Gille de la Valle swayed
grotesquely in mid air above the fire of

457
00:38:24.320 --> 00:38:30.400
brushwood and pitch. The executioner lighted
under it. From the crowd came six

458
00:38:30.559 --> 00:38:37.079
veiled women and six barefooted carmelite friars, carrying an ornate coffin. The body

459
00:38:37.119 --> 00:38:42.119
of Gilderettes was cut down, scarcely
scorched, and carried toward the carmelite church

460
00:38:42.119 --> 00:38:46.679
of our Lady. Two more high
stools crashed to earth, Two more bodies

461
00:38:46.760 --> 00:38:52.159
dangled at Rope's ends. Two more
fires roared beneath the gallows, but no

462
00:38:52.320 --> 00:38:58.840
coffin was brought forward for Enrie and
Pontou, their bodies crisped to ashes,

463
00:38:59.239 --> 00:39:02.199
borne away by the autumn breezes among
the poplars of the Loire and the meadow

464
00:39:02.239 --> 00:39:07.639
of b S, while in the
carmelite church of Our Lady, a mighty

465
00:39:07.719 --> 00:39:13.320
choir of monks chanted the responses of
a solemn high mass of requiem above the

466
00:39:13.360 --> 00:39:19.880
remains of Gille de Laval Cioretz,
Chamberlain and courtier to the King Marshal of

467
00:39:19.920 --> 00:39:28.400
France, and Bluebeard, the greatest
criminal ever tried before a court of justice.

468
00:39:30.079 --> 00:39:34.800
Note from the peculiarities of his case, as related by his servants and

469
00:39:34.960 --> 00:39:37.440
himself, there can be no doubt
that Gille de Laval, like the famous

470
00:39:37.519 --> 00:39:42.400
check the Ripper of London, was
a victim of that form of insanity known

471
00:39:42.440 --> 00:39:51.320
to modern psychiatrists as algolognia see a
Abril psychoanalysis, Wharton and still medical jurisprudence,

472
00:39:51.559 --> 00:39:55.639
Church and Peterson, nervous diseases and
insanity. But his insanity was not

473
00:39:55.760 --> 00:40:00.199
such as would entitle him to escape
legal execution, either under the common or

474
00:40:00.280 --> 00:40:05.239
civil law, since by his own
confession, he knew the unlawfulness of his

475
00:40:05.320 --> 00:40:08.880
acts and was clearly able to distinguish
between right and wrong, as his fits

476
00:40:08.920 --> 00:40:14.679
of remorse showed. See Clark,
or any standard text book on criminal law

477
00:40:14.960 --> 00:40:22.119
see berry Quinn. This is the
first of a series of articles written for

478
00:40:22.159 --> 00:40:24.840
Weird Tales by Sea Berry Quinn.
The second will appear in the November issue.

479
00:40:28.800 --> 00:40:37.800
End of section one, Section two
of Weird Crimes by Sea Berry Quinn.

480
00:40:38.400 --> 00:40:43.519
This LibriVox recording is in the public
domain, read by Ben Tucker.

481
00:40:44.880 --> 00:40:50.760
Number two, The Grave Robbers,
the thief who would steal the pennies off

482
00:40:50.760 --> 00:40:55.079
a dead man's eyes is proverbially the
meanest crook in the world, judged by

483
00:40:55.119 --> 00:40:59.760
present day standards. He is also
a piker. For the post war inflation

484
00:41:00.079 --> 00:41:05.840
everything else mortuary thievery has increased its
anti. Robbing the dead, or more

485
00:41:05.880 --> 00:41:09.280
accurately, stealing from the bereaved,
is so mean a form of crime that

486
00:41:09.400 --> 00:41:15.119
it is fortunately seldom met with.
Yet a few crooks have specialized in this

487
00:41:15.239 --> 00:41:22.119
despicable thievery and found it while it
lasted exceedingly remunerative. Late in nineteen twenty

488
00:41:22.119 --> 00:41:25.480
one and early in nineteen twenty two, the police of Chicago began to receive

489
00:41:25.599 --> 00:41:31.239
complaints from recently bereaved residents of the
city's West side. The articles stolen varied

490
00:41:31.280 --> 00:41:37.000
in kind and value, but the
circumstances surrounding the crimes were invariably the same.

491
00:41:37.440 --> 00:41:42.159
A family which had lost a member
would attend the internment, and when

492
00:41:42.159 --> 00:41:46.199
they returned they found their home had
been burglarized and rifled of every valuable of

493
00:41:46.199 --> 00:41:52.960
an easily portable nature. For three
months, this funeral burglar carried his flashlight

494
00:41:52.000 --> 00:41:55.840
in jimmy in the wake of death
in Chicago's West Side. More than fifteen

495
00:41:55.880 --> 00:42:01.280
complaints were lodged with the authorities,
and the burglaries went merrily on. At

496
00:42:01.320 --> 00:42:06.599
last, the police department decided to
set a trap for the thief. Special

497
00:42:06.599 --> 00:42:09.159
officers were detailed to the case,
and when a prominent resident died, they

498
00:42:09.199 --> 00:42:15.079
asked permission to attend the funeral services. When the friends and mourners had entered

499
00:42:15.119 --> 00:42:19.679
the waiting limousines and driven off to
the cemetery, the officers remained behind.

500
00:42:20.199 --> 00:42:23.639
Scarcely had the last motor in the
funeral procession disappeared. When the telephone began

501
00:42:23.679 --> 00:42:29.920
to ring imperatively, the officers glanced
significantly at each other and let the bell

502
00:42:29.960 --> 00:42:35.440
continue to jangle. Five minutes passed
again, the phone rang, and again

503
00:42:35.480 --> 00:42:38.639
the officers ignored it another five minutes, and the telephone rang again, longer,

504
00:42:38.679 --> 00:42:43.960
this time as if the party on
the line were urging Central to make

505
00:42:44.000 --> 00:42:49.800
an effort to get the family again. The detectives remained mute. Hardly enough

506
00:42:49.840 --> 00:42:52.119
time to allow a rapid walker to
travel from the corner drug store to the

507
00:42:52.159 --> 00:42:57.599
residence elapsed before the police heard the
sharp click of a rear window being forced,

508
00:42:58.119 --> 00:43:01.000
and a neatly dressed young man stepped
briskly from the butler's pantry to the

509
00:43:01.039 --> 00:43:07.360
dining room, making with unerring instinct
for the sideboard where the family silver was

510
00:43:07.400 --> 00:43:15.920
stored. At the station house,
he gave his name as Benjamin Schumurky,

511
00:43:15.599 --> 00:43:21.440
aged twenty one, and admitted being
the perpetrator of the series of burglaries which

512
00:43:21.480 --> 00:43:25.559
had cost bereaved chicagoans thousands of dollars. His system, he told the police,

513
00:43:25.599 --> 00:43:30.199
was a simple one. Each morning, he searched the obituary columns in

514
00:43:30.239 --> 00:43:34.119
the daily papers. When the names
of people living in prosperous sections of the

515
00:43:34.119 --> 00:43:37.719
city appeared, he made careful note
of the day and hour of the funeral,

516
00:43:37.400 --> 00:43:44.760
noting whether services be from the home
church or undertaking establishment. After allowing

517
00:43:44.800 --> 00:43:47.800
a reasonable time for the obsequies.
He would ring up the family residence.

518
00:43:49.119 --> 00:43:52.039
If anyone answered, he would announce
himself as a friend of the deceased and

519
00:43:52.119 --> 00:43:55.960
offer condolences. Then, after another
interval, he would call again. If

520
00:43:55.960 --> 00:44:00.039
he received another answer, he would
repeat the farce of tendering simple and bide

521
00:44:00.079 --> 00:44:05.960
his time. When his telephone call
was finally unanswered, or if his first

522
00:44:06.079 --> 00:44:08.480
ring brought no response, he would
go to the house, force a window,

523
00:44:08.480 --> 00:44:13.199
and make off with silverware, jewelry, and anything else easily carried.

524
00:44:13.880 --> 00:44:17.840
His gentile appearance averted suspicion even if
he were seen leaving a prosperous neighborhood with

525
00:44:17.880 --> 00:44:23.000
a bundle. A speedy trial followed
in residence of Chicago's West Side will have

526
00:44:23.119 --> 00:44:29.559
to defer the doubtful pleasure of entertaining
mister Shimerky until he has exhausted the hospitality

527
00:44:29.880 --> 00:44:35.920
of Joliet Penitentiary. An attempt to
practice the same specialty was nipped almost in

528
00:44:35.960 --> 00:44:39.000
the bud in New York early in
nineteen twenty two. Samuel Deutsch, a

529
00:44:39.079 --> 00:44:44.400
four times offender against the New York
burglary Statute, was caught red handed by

530
00:44:44.400 --> 00:44:47.239
a young woman who happened to remain
in the house to straighten up the rooms

531
00:44:47.519 --> 00:44:52.400
while the family was attending the burial
of a deceased relative at Woodlawn Cemetery.

532
00:44:52.719 --> 00:44:57.519
When discovered, Deutsch told that the
young lady. It's all right, I'm

533
00:44:57.519 --> 00:45:01.480
the undertaker. You're a thie,
replied the courageous girl and grabbed him,

534
00:45:01.480 --> 00:45:05.320
calling loudly for help. At the
same time. He shook her off,

535
00:45:05.320 --> 00:45:08.599
but was captured before he left the
block. You've got me right, he

536
00:45:08.639 --> 00:45:13.079
admitted the policeman. I used to
look up deal bits, and when I've

537
00:45:13.119 --> 00:45:15.960
seen a bunch of them in the
same neighborhood, I'd grab me at Jimmy

538
00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:20.840
and knew me stuff had to it. Choose her Murky's precaution of telephoning.

539
00:45:20.840 --> 00:45:23.440
The chances are he would still be
at liberty. As it is, he

540
00:45:23.480 --> 00:45:27.519
had been made very comfortable in his
old cell at Sing Sing, where he

541
00:45:27.599 --> 00:45:31.920
will continue for twenty years less time
off for good behavior. No less ingenious

542
00:45:31.960 --> 00:45:37.800
and decidedly safer for its perpetrator was
the scheme conceived by Samuel f Ware,

543
00:45:37.320 --> 00:45:43.480
a Negro undertaker of Atlanta, Georgia, for mulleting relatives of persons he had

544
00:45:43.480 --> 00:45:47.039
buried. Where's plan had for its
basis the principle of the Indian gift.

545
00:45:47.360 --> 00:45:52.599
He would sell a casket, then
steal it back again. Doctors and undertaker's

546
00:45:52.599 --> 00:45:55.400
mistakes, and often their profits,
are usually permanently screened from public view by

547
00:45:55.440 --> 00:46:00.440
several cubic feet of earth, and
Where's dereliction might have gone unsuspected indefinitely had

548
00:46:00.440 --> 00:46:05.000
it not been for his desire to
secure the last split scent of profit from

549
00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:09.360
his perfidy. An expensive casket might
be sold, stolen back, and resold

550
00:46:09.400 --> 00:46:14.000
two or three times, but after
its fourth or fifth in tournament it began

551
00:46:14.039 --> 00:46:17.119
to look shop worn. A little
time and expense spent in refinishing it would

552
00:46:17.119 --> 00:46:22.800
have made it a readily immergentable commodity
once more. But Where was averse even

553
00:46:22.880 --> 00:46:28.639
to the small overhead chargeable against his
profits. Accordingly, he employed an emissary

554
00:46:28.719 --> 00:46:35.320
to canvass the smaller funeral supply houses
offering high grade caskets at prices attractively below

555
00:46:35.320 --> 00:46:40.719
the usual wholesale. One of these
traveling salesmen approached the Southern Undertaking Supply and

556
00:46:40.760 --> 00:46:45.679
Sales Company of Jacksonville and told them
a certain Atlanta undertaker was preparing to furnish

557
00:46:45.719 --> 00:46:50.480
them a limited number of fine caskets
had a price far below that of the

558
00:46:50.519 --> 00:46:55.280
manufacturers. Solo. Indeed were the
prices quoted that the company's secretary became suspicious

559
00:46:55.840 --> 00:47:01.639
and communicated his suspicions to police Chief
Beavers of Atlanta. Chief Beavers also suspected

560
00:47:01.639 --> 00:47:06.159
that all was not as it should
be, in detailed two plainclothesmen to investigate

561
00:47:06.199 --> 00:47:09.880
these bargain counter caskets. South View
Cemetery is the principal Negro berrying ground of

562
00:47:09.920 --> 00:47:15.840
Atlanta, and it was here the
detectives began their quest. Nothing untoward was

563
00:47:15.880 --> 00:47:20.719
apparent. The place presented the usual
hodgepodge of expensive monuments and neglected graves common

564
00:47:20.719 --> 00:47:24.719
to all Negro cemeteries in the South. The wind sawed dolefully through the Lombardy

565
00:47:24.760 --> 00:47:30.440
poplars, birds twittered and quarreled in
the branches. A pair of Negro grave

566
00:47:30.480 --> 00:47:36.159
diggers applied their mournful trade and the
unyielding yellow clay. While just stuck around

567
00:47:36.159 --> 00:47:39.159
tonight and see what happens, one
of the detectives said. The other agreed,

568
00:47:39.480 --> 00:47:43.880
and after a cursory inspection of the
graveyard and a few formal questions to

569
00:47:43.880 --> 00:47:47.719
the grave diggers, the sluice left
that night. They posted themselves behind the

570
00:47:47.760 --> 00:47:52.079
fence where they could get a full
view of several new and flower decked graves.

571
00:47:52.199 --> 00:47:55.719
Toward morning, and undertaker's motor casket
wagon drove to the cemetery gate,

572
00:47:55.960 --> 00:48:00.000
was admitted, and chugged its way
to the new section of the graveyard.

573
00:48:00.239 --> 00:48:06.159
Three men armed with mattox and spades
alighted, carefully removed the floral pieces from

574
00:48:06.159 --> 00:48:09.440
a grave, and commenced to dig
tins. With excitement, the detectives saw

575
00:48:09.440 --> 00:48:15.119
the trio unearthed and expensive casket tumble
the body back into the grave, replaced

576
00:48:15.119 --> 00:48:17.719
the earthen flowers, then drive off
with the burial case, for which several

577
00:48:17.800 --> 00:48:22.960
hundred dollars had recently been paid.
Drawing their revolvers, the detective barred the

578
00:48:22.960 --> 00:48:27.719
wagon's passage. The occupants attempted to
run them down, but the side of

579
00:48:27.719 --> 00:48:30.679
the officers guns and shields, coupled
with the fact that they were white men,

580
00:48:30.119 --> 00:48:36.800
dampened their ardor for the exploit.
They surrendered. When the officers inspected

581
00:48:36.800 --> 00:48:39.079
their catch, they found they had
taken Samuel f Ware, president of a

582
00:48:39.119 --> 00:48:45.320
prosperous Negro undertaking company, and Thurman
Jones and Claude Mattox grave diggers and the

583
00:48:45.360 --> 00:48:50.440
cemetery's employee. A few days after
War's duplicity became known in Atlanta, the

584
00:48:50.480 --> 00:48:53.800
traditional belief that colored people in the
South always give cemeteries a wide berth exploded

585
00:48:53.840 --> 00:48:59.480
with an impressive baying. Scores of
enraged colored residence of the city whose dead

586
00:48:59.519 --> 00:49:02.199
had been in the Southview Cemetery,
armed with picks, shovels, hose,

587
00:49:02.320 --> 00:49:07.519
rakes, any sort of delving instrument
they could find, descended upon the Peaceful

588
00:49:07.519 --> 00:49:12.440
God's acre and began a personal investigation
of their relatives graves. The first grave

589
00:49:12.480 --> 00:49:15.119
opened was that of Nancy Joy,
one time Belle of Auburn Avenue. Her

590
00:49:15.159 --> 00:49:19.800
casket was gone. It was found
in the next grave to be explored,

591
00:49:20.239 --> 00:49:24.599
that of a Negro man, where
had stolen it after burying Nancy and resold

592
00:49:24.599 --> 00:49:28.920
it to the man's family. For
some reason, perhaps because he had not

593
00:49:29.000 --> 00:49:31.960
yet gotten around to it, he
had not stolen that particular casket a second

594
00:49:31.960 --> 00:49:38.280
time. As each grave was opened, new whalings and moanings arose, until

595
00:49:38.320 --> 00:49:44.239
it seemed the cemetery was witnessing a
gigantic, multiple funeral, each part of

596
00:49:44.239 --> 00:49:47.800
which was equipped with a large and
demonstrative core of mourners. For a time

597
00:49:47.800 --> 00:49:52.559
it appeared that the cemetery would be
bereft of its dead. But after striving

598
00:49:52.599 --> 00:49:55.679
futilely to calm the excited negroes,
the cemetery authorities sent for the police,

599
00:49:55.920 --> 00:50:00.960
who put an abrupt stop to the
impromptu investigation, where Jones and Maddox were

600
00:50:01.000 --> 00:50:06.800
indicted by the Fulton County Grand Jury
shortly afterwards, the indictment charging violation of

601
00:50:06.800 --> 00:50:09.840
section four oh eight of the State
Penal Code, which prescribes a maximum penalty

602
00:50:09.960 --> 00:50:15.000
of ten years imprisonment for the one
hung removal of a body from its grave.

603
00:50:15.559 --> 00:50:20.000
A novel defense was outlined, the
contention being that the caskets alleged to

604
00:50:20.000 --> 00:50:23.079
be stolen were really rented. The
suggestion of this remarkable defense, involving the

605
00:50:23.119 --> 00:50:28.119
psychology of the fine funeral, was
made by one of the grave diggers arrested

606
00:50:28.159 --> 00:50:34.480
with where where I told us?
He said that he wasn't stealing those caskets.

607
00:50:34.519 --> 00:50:36.960
He said he had just rented them
to the families so they could make

608
00:50:37.000 --> 00:50:39.719
a big show of having a fond
funeral. He said his customers had agreed

609
00:50:39.719 --> 00:50:43.599
to let him put the bodies in
playing boxes. Afterward and take back the

610
00:50:43.599 --> 00:50:47.039
expensive caskets, though he could rent
them to other people. The caskets were

611
00:50:47.079 --> 00:50:51.039
removed under cover of darkness, it
was explained, so that nobody would know

612
00:50:51.039 --> 00:50:54.960
of Where's arrangement with his patrons.
There was no indication of such an understanding,

613
00:50:54.960 --> 00:51:00.199
however, among the Negroes who had
thronged Southview Cemetery when Where's operations were

614
00:51:00.199 --> 00:51:04.800
being unofficially investigated, neither was there
any evidence of rental agreements. When his

615
00:51:04.880 --> 00:51:08.679
case came on for trial before the
petit jury, a verdict of guilty was

616
00:51:08.760 --> 00:51:14.159
quickly arrived at, and the miscreant
who had betrayed his patron's trust received a

617
00:51:14.199 --> 00:51:19.119
sentence of the extreme penalty provided by
the statute, ten years imprisonment at hard

618
00:51:19.199 --> 00:51:23.440
labor. The third article in this
absorbing series, while appear in an early

619
00:51:23.519 --> 00:51:37.760
issue of Weird Tales, end of
section two Section three of Weird Crimes by

620
00:51:37.800 --> 00:51:43.840
Sea Barry Quinn, this LibriVox recording
is in the public domain, read by

621
00:51:43.880 --> 00:51:57.559
Ben Tucker. Number three, The
Magic Mirror Murders we gets Barbara the blacksmith

622
00:51:57.559 --> 00:52:01.000
of the little Bavarian hamlet of Laisher
three to the daughter of Peter Reisinger,

623
00:52:01.920 --> 00:52:07.480
we gets landsman. If he gets
landsman, pretty, Barbara replied from her

624
00:52:07.480 --> 00:52:15.039
doorstep, think your young cloud a
boat's ill weather. This morning, the

625
00:52:15.079 --> 00:52:20.159
blacksmith studied a fleck of cotton wool
vapor riding languidly across the blue German sky.

626
00:52:20.280 --> 00:52:24.800
Then turned his smile on Barbara again. Nine he opined, tis but

627
00:52:24.960 --> 00:52:30.119
a wind cloud? But why so
anxious about to wither? Is it to

628
00:52:30.199 --> 00:52:36.639
a picnic party? You go?
I'll decked in your pretties. Barbara brushed

629
00:52:36.679 --> 00:52:39.440
the tip of her nose with a
tiny cluster of corn flowers plucked her father's

630
00:52:39.440 --> 00:52:44.320
dooryard. Indeed, as the blacksmith
had said, she was dressed in her

631
00:52:44.320 --> 00:52:47.599
finest A cloth skirt, a neat
little jacket of the same material, a

632
00:52:47.599 --> 00:52:53.920
blouse, of course, linen spotlessly
laundered, pinchback ear rings, even stockings

633
00:52:53.920 --> 00:53:00.079
of white cotton and leather shoes were
among her morning finery. And by this

634
00:53:00.199 --> 00:53:04.599
last it might be known she was
wearing the very best her wardrobe afforded for

635
00:53:04.679 --> 00:53:07.639
poverty rode heavily on the shoulders of
the Bavarian peasantry in eighteen oh seven,

636
00:53:08.519 --> 00:53:13.559
and both men and women went barefoot
or shod with wood, except upon gala

637
00:53:13.559 --> 00:53:17.719
occasions. Stockings and leather shoes were
worn only to mass in celebration of the

638
00:53:17.800 --> 00:53:23.159
King's birthday. Were other extraordinary fits. The girl smiled coquettishly at her neighbor.

639
00:53:24.320 --> 00:53:28.719
Perhaps I go to look for work, perhaps to seek a husband,

640
00:53:28.719 --> 00:53:32.800
who knows, she answered. But
the blacksmith began, then broke off with

641
00:53:32.840 --> 00:53:37.360
a puzzled shake of his head.
The ways of young folks were beyond him.

642
00:53:37.360 --> 00:53:40.079
He resumed his way towards his forage, while Barbara set out in the

643
00:53:40.119 --> 00:53:45.320
opposite direction along the Hamlets single street. When the day's work was done,

644
00:53:45.320 --> 00:53:47.719
the blacksmith returned to his home in
his evening meal of black bread and pea

645
00:53:47.760 --> 00:53:52.679
soup, But Barbara did not return
that night. Barbara did not return at

646
00:53:52.679 --> 00:53:55.920
all. It was as if she
had walked over the rim of the earth

647
00:53:55.960 --> 00:54:02.000
at the horizon. Her parents frantic
inquiries for her. Weeks and months went

648
00:54:02.039 --> 00:54:06.760
by, but no one could tell
them of her whereabouts. Village heads were

649
00:54:06.760 --> 00:54:10.320
shaken, Dire surmises of her fate
were uttered by local wiseacres, and her

650
00:54:10.360 --> 00:54:16.039
disappearance had taken its place in neighborhood
tradition. Almost when gossip was suddenly revived

651
00:54:16.039 --> 00:54:21.559
by the disappearance of Katherine Seytel,
a belle of the neighboring community of Regendorff.

652
00:54:22.400 --> 00:54:24.800
Early in January eighteen o eight.
Katherine had set out from her father's

653
00:54:24.800 --> 00:54:30.000
house, also dressed in the best
clothes she had possessed. Like Barbara,

654
00:54:30.079 --> 00:54:35.159
she answered questions concerning her destination evasively, and like Barbara, she seemed to

655
00:54:35.239 --> 00:54:38.320
vanish, like a smoke wreath from
her grandsire's pipe. She was gone,

656
00:54:38.719 --> 00:54:45.280
and no one could or would give
any news of her. Matters might have

657
00:54:45.280 --> 00:54:47.840
simmered down in her case, as
in that of Barbara Reasoner, had it

658
00:54:47.880 --> 00:54:52.880
not been that Katherine's elder sister,
while Burgha Sydel, was a spinster of

659
00:54:52.960 --> 00:54:59.920
more than ordinary firmness of purpose.
While others shrugged their shoulders over Katherine's disappearance,

660
00:55:00.320 --> 00:55:02.239
some even hinting the path she had
taken led to the sort of ease

661
00:55:02.320 --> 00:55:07.000
purchased with shame, while Burga insisted
her little sister was the victim of foul

662
00:55:07.039 --> 00:55:12.800
play. So vehemently did she assert
this belief to all she talked with that

663
00:55:12.920 --> 00:55:16.199
the neighbors began to look upon her
with a sort of tolerant pity. One

664
00:55:16.280 --> 00:55:20.360
day early in the spring of eighteen
o eight, while Burgo was passing through

665
00:55:20.400 --> 00:55:23.119
the public market of Regendorff, when
she espied with amazement a bit of cloth

666
00:55:23.239 --> 00:55:29.199
she recognized as coming from the skirt
Catherine had warned the morning she left home.

667
00:55:30.360 --> 00:55:34.519
Entering the shop, she excitedly demanded
whence the cloth came. After a

668
00:55:34.519 --> 00:55:37.079
moment's hesitation, the Hebrew proprietor of
the place informed her he had bought the

669
00:55:37.079 --> 00:55:44.320
goods from a certain Fraul Beechell,
wife of Andrew Beechell, a day laborer

670
00:55:44.320 --> 00:55:47.599
who lived nearby. He volunteered the
further information that Frau Beechell was one of

671
00:55:47.599 --> 00:55:53.079
his regular customers, trading cloth and
trinkets for goods, and often selling him

672
00:55:53.119 --> 00:55:59.119
garments or cloth remnants for cash.
Though this offered no real evidence to support

673
00:55:59.199 --> 00:56:02.519
her suspicions, Wilburgo felt more convinced
than ever that her sister had been murdered

674
00:56:02.559 --> 00:56:07.760
or spirited away, and determined to
find what part Beachell had played in the

675
00:56:07.840 --> 00:56:10.760
mystery. With greater cunning than might
have been expected from one of her station

676
00:56:10.840 --> 00:56:15.519
in life, she went not directly
to Beachell's house, but to the neighborhood

677
00:56:15.559 --> 00:56:19.039
in which he lived. Pretending to
be in search of work, she interviewed

678
00:56:19.079 --> 00:56:22.119
every household in the vicinity of the
Beechell home, bringing in the Beechell family

679
00:56:22.159 --> 00:56:28.679
incidentally in her conversation, and adding
together such scraps of information as different neighbors

680
00:56:28.760 --> 00:56:31.559
let drop. That night, she
reviewed the result of her work and found

681
00:56:31.559 --> 00:56:37.800
herself in possession of the following facts
and rumors. Andrew Beechell, a day

682
00:56:37.840 --> 00:56:39.840
laborer and the son of a day
laborer, was about forty eight years old.

683
00:56:40.360 --> 00:56:44.440
Because of his indolence, he was
usually out of employment, and the

684
00:56:44.480 --> 00:56:49.039
small vegetable garden before his house was
more productive of weeds than any other crop.

685
00:56:50.199 --> 00:56:52.320
About a year before, however,
his fortunes had suddenly taken a turn

686
00:56:52.360 --> 00:56:55.679
for the better. He had in
some way secured a couple of pigs,

687
00:56:55.800 --> 00:57:00.280
a goat, and several geese,
and had been heard to both of a

688
00:57:00.320 --> 00:57:04.519
contemplated purchase of a cow. None
of the neighbors could account for this sudden

689
00:57:04.559 --> 00:57:07.400
prosperity, since Beachell had been,
if possible, lazier. Since his fortunes

690
00:57:07.440 --> 00:57:14.400
began to mend them before, his
clothing and that of his wife was noticeably

691
00:57:14.440 --> 00:57:17.480
better than formerly, and disregarding the
usual custom of having all his garments made

692
00:57:17.519 --> 00:57:22.519
at home, he had fallen to
patronizing and nearby Taylor, he supplying the

693
00:57:22.559 --> 00:57:27.840
materials while the tailor fashioned the garments. Beachell was noted for his good nature,

694
00:57:28.400 --> 00:57:32.199
or rather for his lack of aggressiveness
in former days, having permitted himself

695
00:57:32.199 --> 00:57:37.280
to be bested in every encounter,
whether physical or verbal, rather than defend

696
00:57:37.360 --> 00:57:42.760
himself. He was known for a
coward both physical and moral, always seeking

697
00:57:42.800 --> 00:57:46.320
to ingratiate himself with those he met
and resorting to the most servile flattery in

698
00:57:46.400 --> 00:57:52.519
order to secure the barest toleration from
his acquaintances. Of late, he had

699
00:57:52.519 --> 00:57:55.400
achieved a greater esteem among a certain
element of the locality, since he had

700
00:57:55.400 --> 00:57:59.519
shown a willingness to buy beer for
whoever would consent to drink with him.

701
00:57:59.519 --> 00:58:04.159
At the end, it must be
remembered that fiscal conditions in the Germany of

702
00:58:04.159 --> 00:58:07.639
that day were as stringent as those
of the post war period, only the

703
00:58:07.639 --> 00:58:15.000
pressure was from exactly the opposite direction. In the disorganization following the World War,

704
00:58:15.079 --> 00:58:20.119
the republic suffered from an inflated currency, literally from too much money.

705
00:58:20.760 --> 00:58:22.679
In eighteen o eight, poverty was
due to lack of money of any sort,

706
00:58:22.719 --> 00:58:27.559
and a few pence secured by the
sale of articles of little intrinsic worth,

707
00:58:28.000 --> 00:58:30.320
might easily raise a peasant to a
position far above that of his struggling

708
00:58:30.320 --> 00:58:37.280
neighbors, whose whole time was occupied
in securing the barest necessities of life.

709
00:58:38.239 --> 00:58:42.800
Bearing this in mind, we can
realize how articles of practically no value,

710
00:58:42.840 --> 00:58:46.360
provided they could be obtained without cost, might enable a poverty crushed German to

711
00:58:46.440 --> 00:58:52.480
outdistance his fellows. A floating logs
valueless to the man on shore. To

712
00:58:52.559 --> 00:58:57.039
the spent swimmer, it may mean
salvation. While burghas Sidel was aware of

713
00:58:57.079 --> 00:59:00.719
all this, a lifetime of poverty
had impressed her with a very definite appreciation

714
00:59:00.760 --> 00:59:05.880
of values, even the value of
a piece of secondhand clothing, and her

715
00:59:05.920 --> 00:59:10.000
sister had worn an entire outfit of
new clothing besides several articles of cheap jewelry

716
00:59:10.280 --> 00:59:15.280
on the day she disappeared, while
Burgo pondered the information she had gleaned for

717
00:59:15.320 --> 00:59:20.719
several days before she again sought the
neighborhood where Bitchell lived. A few guarded

718
00:59:20.760 --> 00:59:24.679
inquiries disclosed the name of the tailor
Bitchell patronized. She located a shop and

719
00:59:24.800 --> 00:59:29.920
predending faintness from the heat. It
was early May, went in and begged

720
00:59:29.920 --> 00:59:32.760
a drink of water, while the
tradesman fetched her a cup. She inspected

721
00:59:32.760 --> 00:59:37.239
his shop and suddenly started forward in
her seat upon a hook ready for delivery.

722
00:59:37.599 --> 00:59:40.440
Hung a waistcoat, and it was
made of cloths such as her vanished

723
00:59:40.480 --> 00:59:46.159
sister had worn for a cloak when
last seen. Doncashun she told the tailor,

724
00:59:46.599 --> 00:59:50.800
draining the dipper he handed her.
Then, as she rose to leave,

725
00:59:50.880 --> 00:59:55.119
she turned, surveying his wares carelessly. That waistcoat, she said,

726
00:59:55.239 --> 01:00:00.880
pointing to the garment which had set
her pulses racing. It is a pretty

727
01:00:00.960 --> 01:00:06.559
thing. You make it for some
gruff some great gentleman. No Nine,

728
01:00:06.960 --> 01:00:09.880
laughed the tailor, shaking his head. No great gentleman comes to this shop.

729
01:00:09.920 --> 01:00:15.159
I make it for a neighbor one
hair beechel. Yes it is pretties,

730
01:00:15.239 --> 01:00:17.559
it not, he added, stroking
the soft cloth. Almost. I

731
01:00:17.599 --> 01:00:22.440
think too pretty for a man's wear. Twould be better in a lady's coat.

732
01:00:22.639 --> 01:00:29.079
Not jaw Chah, ejaculated Walburgo chokingly, as she stumbled from the astonished

733
01:00:29.079 --> 01:00:31.639
tailor's place. Yes, yes,
for a lady's cloak. To be sure,

734
01:00:32.639 --> 01:00:38.400
and she burst into peals of hysterical
laughter. Oh sister, dear little

735
01:00:38.480 --> 01:00:43.920
sister, She sobbed as she half
walked, half ran along the dusty road

736
01:00:43.960 --> 01:00:47.320
toward Beechell's house. Some one has
done you an injury, But Walburgo will

737
01:00:47.360 --> 01:00:51.679
find out. Walburgo will never rest
till she has found you. And she

738
01:00:51.760 --> 01:00:54.280
clenched her work worn hands and frenzy. And if they have dared to harm

739
01:00:54.320 --> 01:00:59.679
you, I've got twould be better
for them had they never seen the sun.

740
01:01:00.880 --> 01:01:05.679
A few minutes hurried walk brought her
to Beechell's door, upon which she

741
01:01:05.760 --> 01:01:13.599
hammered unceremoniously. Beachell himself answered her
summons, smiling pleasantly. You wish to

742
01:01:13.719 --> 01:01:19.480
see me, he inquired, politely, Wretch, Walburger cried, my sister,

743
01:01:19.639 --> 01:01:23.079
My little sister, Katherine, What
have you done with her? Beachell's

744
01:01:23.119 --> 01:01:28.559
pale features remained politely, inquiring,
not the trimmer of a muscle betrayed her

745
01:01:28.559 --> 01:01:34.119
words had touched an uneasy conscience.
Catherine, he repeated, as though puzzled,

746
01:01:34.480 --> 01:01:37.639
What Katherine, I know many young
ladies by that name, joking with

747
01:01:37.679 --> 01:01:42.960
emotion, while Burger declared herself the
sister of the vanished Katherine's Sidle and again

748
01:01:43.000 --> 01:01:46.599
demanded an account of her sister.
Beachell heard her through, then repeated his

749
01:01:46.679 --> 01:01:52.519
declaration of innocence. He knew no
Katherine's Sidle, he insisted, never remembered

750
01:01:52.559 --> 01:01:55.280
having known a girl by that name. The Fraeuleine was mistaken, she was

751
01:01:55.320 --> 01:02:00.639
excited the heat. Perhaps would not
the Fraeuleine enter and take of a cup

752
01:02:00.639 --> 01:02:04.400
of goat's milk. It had a
very soothing effect on those affected by the

753
01:02:04.480 --> 01:02:08.920
unseasonable spring heat. So sincere he
seemed, and so genuinely anxious to help

754
01:02:08.920 --> 01:02:14.559
her that while Burger's suspicions were almost
disarmed, but there was the evidence of

755
01:02:14.599 --> 01:02:19.159
the piece of cloth in the market
stall and the new waistcoat at the tailor's.

756
01:02:20.400 --> 01:02:25.079
While Burgo left the Beechell home and
sought the unter Suchung's Richter or provincial

757
01:02:25.119 --> 01:02:31.559
magistrate. The police system of Bavaria
at that time was decidedly defective. Indeed,

758
01:02:31.559 --> 01:02:36.320
as we understand the term today,
there was practically none. Each village

759
01:02:36.320 --> 01:02:39.280
had its constable or police officer,
whose duties were more of a supervisory than

760
01:02:39.320 --> 01:02:44.239
a police nature. He seldom,
if ever, patrolled the streets, nor

761
01:02:44.320 --> 01:02:49.840
did his authority extend beyond the impounding
of misdemeanants. In addition to these purely

762
01:02:49.840 --> 01:02:54.400
local and inefficient officers, there was
the gendarmerie or military police, whose duties

763
01:02:54.440 --> 01:03:00.199
were twofold the protection of the government
from political offenders and the enforcement of the

764
01:03:00.199 --> 01:03:04.400
magistrates mandates. In this latter duty, which was wholly subordinate to that of

765
01:03:04.519 --> 01:03:07.960
arresting political enemies of the crown,
they acted almost as our modern bailiffs or

766
01:03:08.039 --> 01:03:13.559
United States marshals, not attempting action
on their own initiative, but waiting till

767
01:03:13.559 --> 01:03:17.880
the direction of the magistrate. A
certificate of suspicion from the examining judge was

768
01:03:17.960 --> 01:03:22.800
necessary to set the police machinery in
motion, as a warrant from a US

769
01:03:22.840 --> 01:03:25.840
commissioner or a judge is required before
lawful search and seizure may be made in

770
01:03:25.840 --> 01:03:30.639
this country. But slow moving and
inadequate as the Bavarian engendarmerie of a century

771
01:03:30.679 --> 01:03:37.280
ago was, it possessed the German
characteristic of thoroughness, and once a magistrate's

772
01:03:37.360 --> 01:03:39.920
order was hinted them, the officer
kept their task till they had some definite

773
01:03:39.960 --> 01:03:45.679
report to make. With painstaking care
of the gendarmes interrogated every resident within a

774
01:03:45.719 --> 01:03:52.239
mile of Mutual's home, making voluminous
notes of the answers they received. Their

775
01:03:52.280 --> 01:03:57.519
investigation began on May nineteenth, eighteen
o eight. By nightfall, they had

776
01:03:57.559 --> 01:04:00.960
taken testimony from every man, woman, and child Beechell's neighborhood, and had

777
01:04:00.960 --> 01:04:05.320
gleaned one fact of prime importance.
Several young girls had gone to Beechell's house

778
01:04:05.400 --> 01:04:10.599
to see their fortunes in a glass, and though several neighbors had testified to

779
01:04:10.679 --> 01:04:13.840
this, not one could be found
who could say he had seen one of

780
01:04:13.880 --> 01:04:17.519
the girls. Since in the forenoon
of May twentieth, two sergeants of police

781
01:04:17.559 --> 01:04:21.239
went to Beechell's house. He was
gone to a nearby fair, where goods

782
01:04:21.239 --> 01:04:26.679
of all descriptions, including second hand
clothing, were bought and sold. The

783
01:04:26.760 --> 01:04:30.599
officers walked round the house, inspecting
the outbuildings, glanced at the garden,

784
01:04:30.679 --> 01:04:34.280
and returned to the doorstep. Lighting
their porcelain pipes, they seated themselves in

785
01:04:34.320 --> 01:04:40.760
the shade. Beechell must return some
time. Everyone came home, sooner or

786
01:04:40.840 --> 01:04:45.320
later. Life was relatively long,
and a day of waiting mattered little Besides

787
01:04:45.360 --> 01:04:49.199
sitting in the shade was vastly preferable
to marching over miles of dusty road to

788
01:04:49.239 --> 01:04:56.159
the fair. A nervously energetic Latin
or efficient Anglo Saxon policeman would have exhibited

789
01:04:56.159 --> 01:05:00.599
symptoms of hydrophobia at sight of such
tactics, but the Germans under stood German

790
01:05:00.639 --> 01:05:04.519
psychology. At nightfall, Beachell returned
his pockets clinking with copper and silver.

791
01:05:04.960 --> 01:05:10.280
The proceeds of his day's trading,
and the sergeant's matter of factuty placed him

792
01:05:10.320 --> 01:05:15.440
under arrest. There was no haste
in the proceedings. Beachell was permitted thirty

793
01:05:15.480 --> 01:05:18.719
six hours in solitary confinement to allow
his conscience to begin its work, then

794
01:05:18.800 --> 01:05:24.679
summoned before the examining judge. This
official kept the prisoner waiting beside his table

795
01:05:24.760 --> 01:05:29.639
for several minutes while he pretended to
be busily examining some papers. At length,

796
01:05:29.639 --> 01:05:32.000
he looked up, staring at Beachell
as though he had been some novel

797
01:05:32.119 --> 01:05:36.880
sort of animal. Do you know
the reason for your arrest, Andrew Beachell,

798
01:05:38.280 --> 01:05:42.079
he asked at length. Nine Mine
here, replied the prisoner, with

799
01:05:42.119 --> 01:05:48.039
a servile bow. So the magistrate
raised his eyebrows. You do not very

800
01:05:48.079 --> 01:05:53.400
well, he motioned to a gendarme, and Beachell was conducted back to his

801
01:05:53.480 --> 01:06:00.639
solitary cell. Another day and night
elapsed, and Beachell was and led into

802
01:06:00.639 --> 01:06:05.480
the magistrate's presence. Andrew Beachell said, the judge, tell me why you

803
01:06:05.519 --> 01:06:11.960
are arrested. Mynheer, replied Beachell, upon the Holy Cross, I cannot

804
01:06:12.000 --> 01:06:15.920
imagine. Then you must have a
few days of rest and quiet to stimulate

805
01:06:15.960 --> 01:06:20.519
your imagination. The magistrate answered there
were no such things as writs of habeas

806
01:06:20.519 --> 01:06:26.519
corpus in Bavaria. When a prisoner
refused to talk, he was lodged in

807
01:06:26.559 --> 01:06:30.559
solitary confinement until his tongue loosened.
Andrew Beachell spent a week more in a

808
01:06:30.599 --> 01:06:35.079
cell during which he heard no voice
and saw no human face, even his

809
01:06:35.199 --> 01:06:39.480
food being passed to him through a
small opening in the dungeon door, which

810
01:06:39.480 --> 01:06:45.400
permitted him no sight of his jailers. Seven days meditation eroded Beachell's resolution.

811
01:06:45.239 --> 01:06:49.039
The next time he faced the judge, he was ready to talk as before.

812
01:06:49.079 --> 01:06:55.960
The magistrate asked Andrew Beachell, do
you know why you're arrested? Yes,

813
01:06:56.320 --> 01:07:00.920
mynheer, answered the prisoner. It
is in connection with the disappearance of

814
01:07:00.000 --> 01:07:08.840
Catherine's sidel and Barbara Risinger, but
of her supplemented the judge. Yes,

815
01:07:09.039 --> 01:07:15.440
you're a worship faltered Beachel and Barbara
Rissinger too. Where are they? What

816
01:07:15.519 --> 01:07:19.559
did you do with them? The
magistrate demanded, Oh mine'er, the trembling

817
01:07:19.559 --> 01:07:25.679
wretch protested, I did nothing with
them on the holy tree by the beard

818
01:07:25.679 --> 01:07:29.920
of Saint Andrew, my patron.
I did them no injury. They came

819
01:07:29.960 --> 01:07:32.239
to me. They pestered me to
get them their fortunes. Told I knew

820
01:07:32.239 --> 01:07:34.719
a man, No, your Excellence, I do not know his name,

821
01:07:35.039 --> 01:07:40.320
nor whence he comes. I knew
a certain man who can divine the future.

822
01:07:40.599 --> 01:07:43.400
This man, he has but one
eye, Your Exaltedness, and is

823
01:07:43.440 --> 01:07:45.960
also plagued with the goiter. This
man came to my poor house and showed

824
01:07:45.960 --> 01:07:51.079
these misguided girls their few husbands in
the peep show. A peep show,

825
01:07:51.400 --> 01:07:57.639
echoed the judge. What kind of
peep show? A crystal ball? Your

826
01:07:57.719 --> 01:08:00.880
nobleness, a crystal ball? Did
you not say it was a peep show,

827
01:08:01.400 --> 01:08:05.800
Yes, your honorableness, But time
into crystal balls such as Eastern fakiershus

828
01:08:08.039 --> 01:08:12.599
What you know of Eastern Fakier's Andrew
Bachel your worship, I have read,

829
01:08:13.360 --> 01:08:18.119
Andrew Bichel interrupted the magistrate. I
can read that you are an unconscionable liar.

830
01:08:18.199 --> 01:08:21.039
Back to your cell rogue. You
will be questioned anon when you are

831
01:08:21.119 --> 01:08:26.199
ready to tell the truth. Meantime, the gendarmes had not been idle.

832
01:08:26.560 --> 01:08:30.279
Accompanied by a squad of men,
a sergeant had searched the Beechell homestead from

833
01:08:30.319 --> 01:08:32.880
roof tree to cellar. In an
upper room concealed beneath a heap of trash,

834
01:08:32.920 --> 01:08:38.119
two roomy chests have been discovered.
When the padlocks on their lids were

835
01:08:38.159 --> 01:08:43.159
forced. They were found literally crammed
with articles of feminine apparel linens, skirts,

836
01:08:43.319 --> 01:08:46.199
jackets, cloaks, leather shoes,
stockings, bits of cheap jewelry like

837
01:08:46.279 --> 01:08:51.520
that worn by peasant bells, combs, undergarments. Enough clothing to have outfitted

838
01:08:51.520 --> 01:08:57.880
a small village of middle class peasant
girls was recovered from these trunks. Most

839
01:08:57.960 --> 01:09:03.079
important to the prosecution, articles definitely
identified as having been worn by Barbarressinger and

840
01:09:03.239 --> 01:09:09.279
Cathasidal were found among the chess contents. The judge ordered a careful inventory made

841
01:09:09.279 --> 01:09:14.359
of these things, and commanded the
searchers to continue their work scarcely believing more

842
01:09:14.359 --> 01:09:17.760
evidence would be unearthed. The police
proceeded to make a cursory investigation of the

843
01:09:17.840 --> 01:09:23.079
land and outbuildings without bringing anything more
to light. But one of them was

844
01:09:23.119 --> 01:09:27.760
suddenly struck with the idea of utilizing
a four footed assistant. A hunting dog

845
01:09:27.840 --> 01:09:30.239
was secured and turned loose in the
grounds. The animals seemed at fault for

846
01:09:30.279 --> 01:09:33.079
some time, but when one of
the officers led him into the dark shed

847
01:09:33.079 --> 01:09:38.560
at the rear of the lot,
he betrayed increased interest. Against the shed's

848
01:09:38.560 --> 01:09:42.680
rear wall was stacked a pile of
manure, the pungent ammonia gas that gave

849
01:09:42.720 --> 01:09:46.600
off obscuring all other odors which reached
the men's noses. But the dog was

850
01:09:46.640 --> 01:09:50.600
not to be thus fooled. He
attacked the base of the pile with his

851
01:09:50.680 --> 01:09:56.039
fore paws, dug tentatively a moment, then abruptly seated himself, pointed his

852
01:09:56.079 --> 01:10:00.760
muzzle skyward, and emitted a dismal, long drawn out howl country bread.

853
01:10:00.800 --> 01:10:04.479
The policeman recognized the sound only too
often they had heard dogs give vent to

854
01:10:04.520 --> 01:10:10.640
the death cry when members of their
master's family had died. Her gott cried

855
01:10:10.640 --> 01:10:15.279
one of the men, while another
crossed himself piously. A digging fork was

856
01:10:15.359 --> 01:10:18.560
brought and the police attacked the dung
heap. Beneath a litter of straw.

857
01:10:18.680 --> 01:10:21.680
Quite near the surface, the lower
half of a woman's body was found.

858
01:10:23.680 --> 01:10:27.399
The clayey soil, and combination with
the straw and the manure, which shut

859
01:10:27.399 --> 01:10:30.960
away the air, had completely foiled
the murderer's purpose. Instead of decomposing,

860
01:10:30.960 --> 01:10:36.000
the flesh was almost perfectly preserved,
though suppontification had taken place to some extent.

861
01:10:36.960 --> 01:10:41.880
Feverishly, now the police dug a
torso the arms. Finally, a

862
01:10:41.920 --> 01:10:47.039
severed head were brought to light.
Catherine's sidle was found. For several days,

863
01:10:47.079 --> 01:10:53.760
the officers prosecuted their search, each
succeeding excavation revealing a fresh vility,

864
01:10:55.159 --> 01:10:59.800
poor, vain little barbera risinger,
was taken from the unconsecrated grave where she

865
01:11:00.079 --> 01:11:02.600
laying nearly a year, and the
bodies of other girls not reported to the

866
01:11:02.640 --> 01:11:08.039
authorities were brought forth to keep her
company. But the most ghastly phase of

867
01:11:08.039 --> 01:11:11.960
this terrible case appeared when surgeons summoned
to view the bodies hinded in their reports.

868
01:11:12.560 --> 01:11:15.319
In every case, the women's throats
bore evidence of wounds, but in

869
01:11:15.399 --> 01:11:20.159
no instance were these wounds sufficient to
have caused immediate death. The opinion of

870
01:11:20.159 --> 01:11:26.680
the doctors was that the women had
been dismembered while still alive. The preliminary

871
01:11:26.680 --> 01:11:30.760
evidence secured The examination of Andrew Beech
will begin. Under the criminal code then

872
01:11:30.840 --> 01:11:35.119
enforced in Bavaria, there were no
rules of evidence as common law lawyers know

873
01:11:35.239 --> 01:11:39.880
them. Every fact germained to the
case in hand was to be elicited.

874
01:11:40.479 --> 01:11:44.439
The accused was not permitted to face
his accusers, nor was he permitted to

875
01:11:44.479 --> 01:11:50.600
refuse to testify against himself. The
Untersuchung's Richter, or examining judge, combined

876
01:11:50.720 --> 01:11:55.960
the duties of prosecuting attorney and police
judge, being charged with the double office

877
01:11:55.960 --> 01:12:00.560
of examining into the crime and committing
the prisoner. If the evidence weren't at

878
01:12:00.439 --> 01:12:02.760
it to jail to await trial by
the central criminal court of the district.

879
01:12:03.800 --> 01:12:08.840
Prisoners might not be tortured into confession, the rack having been formally abolished by

880
01:12:08.920 --> 01:12:12.920
law in eighteen oh six, but
they were held in close confinement during the

881
01:12:13.039 --> 01:12:17.039
entire period of their examination, which
sometimes lasted for months. The science of

882
01:12:17.079 --> 01:12:21.760
psychoanalysis had not been dreamed of in
those days. Yet something closely akin to

883
01:12:21.840 --> 01:12:28.359
it obtained in the Bavarian courts.
The examining magistrate would ask the prisoner innumerable

884
01:12:28.439 --> 01:12:31.079
questions, many of them having only
the most remote bearing on the case.

885
01:12:32.039 --> 01:12:38.880
Yet at intervals there would be sandwiched
in questions of the utmost importance, questions

886
01:12:38.880 --> 01:12:43.359
which, coming amid irrelevant queries,
might easily startle the accused into a damaging

887
01:12:43.399 --> 01:12:47.159
admission. All questions and answers were
reduced to writing by a notary, and

888
01:12:47.319 --> 01:12:51.000
any unusual length of time taken by
the accused in answering a given question,

889
01:12:51.640 --> 01:12:58.000
His demeanor at the propounding of questions
calculated to illicit damaging replies, and similar

890
01:12:58.000 --> 01:13:01.600
facts were also noted in the minutes
of the examination. Footnote. It is

891
01:13:01.640 --> 01:13:05.560
to this faithful noting of the most
minute details in the transcripts of these criminal

892
01:13:05.600 --> 01:13:12.479
examinations that we owe our ability to
record practically all the important incidents in trials

893
01:13:12.520 --> 01:13:17.399
held more than a century ago.
Editor end footnote. Despite his declared intention

894
01:13:17.439 --> 01:13:23.199
of telling all, Beachell fenced skillfully
with the judge for several days, contradicting

895
01:13:23.279 --> 01:13:27.359
himself a dozen times at each session, but inevitably being led to an admission

896
01:13:27.399 --> 01:13:31.079
of his guilt. At length,
the magistrate asked him, did you not

897
01:13:31.199 --> 01:13:35.439
pretend to have a magic mirror in
your possession? A mirror in which young

898
01:13:35.479 --> 01:13:41.479
women might see their future husbands.
Beachell was observed to change color at this,

899
01:13:41.560 --> 01:13:46.000
but stoutly denied it. The judge, unhurried, confident his questions would

900
01:13:46.039 --> 01:13:50.000
bring out the truth, continued at
intervals to ask, tell us of your

901
01:13:50.039 --> 01:13:55.319
magic mirror, Andrew beachel Or,
why did you pretend to have a magic

902
01:13:55.359 --> 01:14:00.039
mirror? Persistence at last prevailed worn
out, with constant questioning his solitary confinement

903
01:14:00.079 --> 01:14:04.520
between court sessions making him a prey
to his accusing conscience. Beachell at length

904
01:14:04.560 --> 01:14:10.000
broke down and confessed he had let
it be noised about among the peasant girls.

905
01:14:10.119 --> 01:14:14.039
He said that he possessed a magic
mirror in which any girl looking would

906
01:14:14.039 --> 01:14:17.560
see her future bridegroom, And to
sweeten the bait for the silly fies he

907
01:14:17.640 --> 01:14:21.840
purported catching in his web, he
also said he would accept no fee for

908
01:14:21.920 --> 01:14:27.239
a look at this marvelous glass,
but she who would see its secrets must

909
01:14:27.239 --> 01:14:30.960
come secretly, otherwise the charm would
be broken, and she must come dressed

910
01:14:30.960 --> 01:14:35.600
in her best as she would wish
to appear when first beholding her future husband.

911
01:14:38.520 --> 01:14:42.600
His plans succeeded with shameless ease.
So fast the girls applied that he

912
01:14:42.640 --> 01:14:46.520
had to turn some away for fear
of conflicting engagements. The procedure was the

913
01:14:46.560 --> 01:14:50.239
same in each case. The victim
was shown a piece of board about which

914
01:14:50.239 --> 01:14:55.640
a towel had been wrapped. This
was the magic mirror. When the wrappings

915
01:14:55.680 --> 01:15:00.840
were removed, Beachell assured his dupe
the future eyegroom would stand revealed. But

916
01:15:00.960 --> 01:15:05.840
first he must pronounce an incantation,
and the girl must help him with her

917
01:15:05.880 --> 01:15:11.800
own pocket handkerchief. He bandaged her
eyes, binding her hands behind her back

918
01:15:12.079 --> 01:15:15.680
with a piece of packing thread.
Then, standing before the smiling girl,

919
01:15:15.760 --> 01:15:20.279
he pronounced these words, maiden,
behold like bridegroom. His name is death,

920
01:15:21.479 --> 01:15:25.199
So saying, he struck her in
the throat with a butcher knife he

921
01:15:25.239 --> 01:15:30.279
had concealed in his sleeve. A
basin was ready. He eased the terrified

922
01:15:30.279 --> 01:15:32.399
girl to the floor, placing the
vessel where it would catch the blood from

923
01:15:32.399 --> 01:15:38.239
her wound, lest her clothes be
stained and so rendered unassailable. For it

924
01:15:38.279 --> 01:15:42.000
was for their clothing and a few
tawdry trinkets that he had murdered all these

925
01:15:42.039 --> 01:15:45.520
innocent, credulous girls. When the
victim was exhausted, he undressed her,

926
01:15:45.800 --> 01:15:50.319
folded her clothes up neatly, ready
to be packed in his treasure chests upstairs,

927
01:15:50.920 --> 01:15:57.760
and proceeded leisurely to dismember and bury
her body. The astounded judge asked,

928
01:15:58.600 --> 01:16:01.800
but why did you anatomid them before
they were dead? To this,

929
01:16:01.880 --> 01:16:11.680
Speechel made the astonishing reply, Your
excellence discumt it was delightful when the tedious

930
01:16:11.760 --> 01:16:15.359
process of collecting all available evidence at
length came to an end. The written

931
01:16:15.359 --> 01:16:21.119
report of Beechell's case, comprising several
volumes of closely written German script, was

932
01:16:21.159 --> 01:16:27.560
certified to the Central Criminal Court by
the examining judge. Wary lawyers with endless

933
01:16:27.600 --> 01:16:30.960
tongues had no opportunity to address the
court. Under the Bavarian Criminal Code,

934
01:16:31.479 --> 01:16:35.960
the defendant's legal adviser was allowed to
read the transcript of testimony taken before the

935
01:16:36.000 --> 01:16:42.560
examining judge, then to prepare written
defense of his client. In this brief.

936
01:16:42.600 --> 01:16:45.520
He might base his defense on either
the law or the facts, or

937
01:16:45.600 --> 01:16:50.119
both, and might use as much
space as he deemed necessary. But he

938
01:16:50.199 --> 01:16:55.079
might not appear in person before the
court. Thus it was that many an

939
01:16:55.079 --> 01:16:59.680
advocate won fame as a criminal practitioner, yet had never seen the judges whose

940
01:16:59.680 --> 01:17:03.159
decision his pleas s wait. Beachell's
counsel did the best he could with the

941
01:17:03.159 --> 01:17:08.720
handicap under which he labored, and
the Central Criminal Court doubtless read his learned

942
01:17:08.720 --> 01:17:15.359
defense attentively, but the result of
the case was foregone. On February fourth,

943
01:17:15.359 --> 01:17:18.439
eighteen o nine, nearly a year
after his arrest, Andrew Beechell was

944
01:17:18.520 --> 01:17:21.960
led into court to hear his sentence. It was an impressive scene. The

945
01:17:23.039 --> 01:17:27.079
judges, in their robes of office
trimmed with ermine, the royal fur and

946
01:17:27.119 --> 01:17:30.279
token of their right to dispense the
King's Justice, sat before a long table

947
01:17:30.359 --> 01:17:35.800
of age darkened oak, raised three
steps above the courtroom floor. Behind them,

948
01:17:36.199 --> 01:17:41.680
and before the doors and windows of
the hall, stood halberdiers and coats

949
01:17:41.680 --> 01:17:45.319
of green and gold, the sunlight
glinting on the polished heads of their weapons.

950
01:17:46.680 --> 01:17:50.760
The official justicer, the Headsman,
stood beside the steps leading to the

951
01:17:50.800 --> 01:17:56.640
judge's table. A crowd had gathered
to hear sentence pronounced, and broke into

952
01:17:56.720 --> 01:18:00.039
murmurs of suppressed rage. As two
stalwart jailers led the prison before the judges.

953
01:18:00.760 --> 01:18:04.960
The clamor of halbert Butts on the
floor brought instant silence, for the

954
01:18:05.039 --> 01:18:09.880
halberdiers were not slow to rap for
order on the heads of the rabble if

955
01:18:09.880 --> 01:18:15.359
their first admonition to silence went unheeded. Beachell halted before the judge's table,

956
01:18:15.600 --> 01:18:18.039
and the President of the court rose
facing him. In one hand, he

957
01:18:18.039 --> 01:18:21.640
held a parchment scroll. Before him. On the table lay a light wand

958
01:18:21.680 --> 01:18:26.880
of dried willow. The prisoner's pale
face went a shade whiter as he beheld

959
01:18:26.920 --> 01:18:32.680
this, for well he knew what
the wand portended. A pause, the

960
01:18:32.760 --> 01:18:42.079
judge unrolled his parchment and read the
sentence that Andrew Beachell of Regendorff be dragged

961
01:18:42.119 --> 01:18:46.520
to the place of execution and be
not carried or allowed to walk. That

962
01:18:46.720 --> 01:18:51.720
he there be broken on the wheel
from the feet upwards without the previous mercy

963
01:18:51.800 --> 01:18:57.079
stroke, and that his body be
afterwards exposed on the wheel as awarding to

964
01:18:57.199 --> 01:19:02.199
evildoers. As he finished, the
President picked up the willow wand snapped it

965
01:19:02.239 --> 01:19:08.640
into and cast the pieces at Beachell's
feet. This was to signify that as

966
01:19:08.680 --> 01:19:13.079
the wood was separated in two parts, so should the condemned man's soul and

967
01:19:13.199 --> 01:19:18.159
body be severed in the furtherance of
the King's justice. Almost insane with terror,

968
01:19:18.920 --> 01:19:25.000
Beashel was dragged from the courtroom,
his vain pleas for mercy ringing fainter

969
01:19:25.119 --> 01:19:30.199
and fainter till the closing of his
dungeon door shut them off completely. Well

970
01:19:30.239 --> 01:19:34.039
he knew the fate awaiting him.
He would be tied against the great cart

971
01:19:34.079 --> 01:19:38.079
wheel, so that he hung like
a fly caught in the web of a

972
01:19:38.119 --> 01:19:44.239
giant spider. Then, with a
heavy sledgehammer, the brawny executioner would rain

973
01:19:44.359 --> 01:19:48.079
blow after blow upon him, breaking
the bones of his legs and arms,

974
01:19:48.680 --> 01:19:56.600
his ribs, finally crushing his skull. In ordinary cases, the headsman would

975
01:19:56.600 --> 01:19:59.880
have given him the blow on the
head first, so that the others would

976
01:20:00.119 --> 01:20:04.560
been but savage mutilation of his dead
body. But his sentence had expressly provided

977
01:20:04.560 --> 01:20:09.359
that he should be broken on the
wheel from the feet upwards. Without the

978
01:20:09.399 --> 01:20:15.840
customary mercy stroke, he would die
slowly, horribly. The thought drove him

979
01:20:15.840 --> 01:20:20.520
shrieking against the unyielding door of his
cell, striking it with his fists,

980
01:20:20.560 --> 01:20:25.640
Crying aloud for mercy. He who
had shown no pity to the girls whose

981
01:20:25.720 --> 01:20:30.159
finery he coveted. Next morning,
when they led him out to die,

982
01:20:30.640 --> 01:20:35.199
he gave a great shout of joy
as he beheld his executioner, For that

983
01:20:35.279 --> 01:20:39.640
grim official leaned upon the handle of
a great sword, not on the hell

984
01:20:39.720 --> 01:20:44.880
of his terrible hammer. The court
had reconsidered its decision during the night and

985
01:20:45.000 --> 01:20:49.560
commuted his sentence to death by beheading, saying it is below the dignity of

986
01:20:49.600 --> 01:20:55.720
the state to vie with a criminal
and cruelty. This is the third of

987
01:20:55.720 --> 01:20:59.840
a series of unusual articles that Sea
Barry Quinn is writing for the Weird Tales.

988
01:21:00.199 --> 01:21:05.399
The fourth will be published in an
early issue. End of Section three,

989
01:21:12.479 --> 01:21:16.279
Section four of Weird Crimes by Sea
Berry Quinn. This LibriVox recording is

990
01:21:16.279 --> 01:21:24.840
in the public domain, read by
Ben Tucker. Number four Schwiantek the Beggar,

991
01:21:27.039 --> 01:21:30.760
the landlord of the Silver Axe,
was on the verge of nervous prostration.

992
01:21:30.359 --> 01:21:34.359
Half an hour before a messenger had
brought tidings of a great English milord

993
01:21:34.439 --> 01:21:41.520
whose coach had broken down a scant
ten miles from the hamlet of Palomija.

994
01:21:41.680 --> 01:21:46.079
Even now, the wealthy foreigner were
not all the English fabulously rich and his

995
01:21:46.159 --> 01:21:49.760
servants were making their way as best
they could along the forest road, and

996
01:21:49.840 --> 01:21:54.000
the Silver Axe was the first end
they would pass on their journey to the

997
01:21:54.000 --> 01:21:58.800
town of Dabko. The winter of
eighteen forty eight had been cruel to the

998
01:21:58.840 --> 01:22:03.399
inhabitants of the lord Ship of Harcost
in Austrian Galicia. The peasants, who

999
01:22:03.439 --> 01:22:08.479
got their meager living by hewing down
the tall fir trees and floating them down

1000
01:22:08.520 --> 01:22:13.560
the vistula to market, had been
sorely plagued by deep snows and frozen streams.

1001
01:22:14.199 --> 01:22:16.800
Disease and lack of fodder had depleted
their small supply of livestock, and

1002
01:22:16.880 --> 01:22:21.119
the taxes of the landed proprietors of
whom they held their hovels and little garden

1003
01:22:21.159 --> 01:22:26.840
patches had been heavier than usual.
In these circumstances, there had been few

1004
01:22:26.880 --> 01:22:30.560
coppers to buy beer and fewer silver
pieces to buy wine at the tap room

1005
01:22:30.600 --> 01:22:35.079
of the Silver Axe, and the
landlord's purse had suffered in consequence. Now,

1006
01:22:35.600 --> 01:22:40.359
when May had come to drive away
the lingering frosts of winter, and

1007
01:22:40.439 --> 01:22:44.840
the menfolk had gone to their summer
work of resin collecting, came word of

1008
01:22:44.880 --> 01:22:48.840
the wealthy Englander dropped into the Landlord's
inn, like the purses of the good

1009
01:22:48.840 --> 01:22:54.720
Saint Nicholas, into the lapse of
the dowerless maidens. And there was nought

1010
01:22:54.800 --> 01:23:00.159
with which to prepare a feast for
the unexpected guests. Chickens had perished on

1011
01:23:00.199 --> 01:23:03.079
their roosts and the biting winter frosts. One of the pigs had died of

1012
01:23:03.079 --> 01:23:06.920
the cholera, and the other had
been taken by the Imperial tax collector in

1013
01:23:06.960 --> 01:23:13.439
lieu of unforthcoming coin. Only the
ducks remained. The ducks. That was

1014
01:23:13.479 --> 01:23:17.560
the solution of the problem. The
landlord would regal the Englishman with roast duck.

1015
01:23:18.880 --> 01:23:24.640
Come come, he called to his
bustling hoss Frau, make haste kill.

1016
01:23:24.680 --> 01:23:27.159
We are three ducks. We must
have them roasted to a turn,

1017
01:23:27.600 --> 01:23:30.640
with pickled fish and watercress, and
the best of our wine for the rich

1018
01:23:30.640 --> 01:23:33.000
Englander. It will be a meal
fit for the table of a duke.

1019
01:23:33.960 --> 01:23:39.800
Doubtless our guest will reward us with
a gold piece. Mayhap two followed such

1020
01:23:39.800 --> 01:23:45.079
an agonized squawking as never before was
heard in all Ductum, as the landlady,

1021
01:23:45.119 --> 01:23:47.760
in her assistance ran a dignified and
much scandalized drake to his doom.

1022
01:23:49.000 --> 01:23:54.319
But of the slaughtered drake's harem,
no sign was to be found. Search

1023
01:23:54.399 --> 01:23:59.760
high, search low, No frightened
quack gave testimony of a cowering duck hiding

1024
01:24:00.119 --> 01:24:04.279
the axe. Time pressed, the
Englishman drew nearer with every passing minute,

1025
01:24:04.800 --> 01:24:09.479
and only one duck lay waiting to
grace the table for the famished foreigner and

1026
01:24:09.600 --> 01:24:14.239
his hungry servants. A trembling stable
boy ran to tell the landlord. The

1027
01:24:14.319 --> 01:24:17.680
landlord tore it his hair and beard, calling freely and impartially on all the

1028
01:24:17.760 --> 01:24:24.039
red and black letter saints in the
calendar to witness his misfortune. He also

1029
01:24:24.079 --> 01:24:28.359
cursed the stable boy who brought him
the evil tidings. But most of all,

1030
01:24:28.760 --> 01:24:32.880
most horribly, most blasphemously, he
cursed the unknown miscreant who had robbed

1031
01:24:32.960 --> 01:24:36.439
him of his ducks, and of
the prophet he would have made from the

1032
01:24:36.479 --> 01:24:43.760
Englishman. What misbegotten descendant of an
unvirtuous wild pig would do this thing to

1033
01:24:43.880 --> 01:24:47.399
me? The landlord questioned, of
the unanswering forest wind, who would still

1034
01:24:47.479 --> 01:24:51.640
for me? Do I not attend
regularly at Holy Mass and give liberally to

1035
01:24:51.680 --> 01:24:58.960
the poor? Do I ever turn
beggars from my fire, the landlords ceased

1036
01:24:58.960 --> 01:25:02.439
his curses and put on his hat. The rehearsal of his charities had turned

1037
01:25:02.439 --> 01:25:06.560
his thoughts upon beggars in general,
and from mendicants in general. His thoughts

1038
01:25:06.560 --> 01:25:12.560
had turned upon the neighborhood beggar in
particular. Scarcely a stone's throw from the

1039
01:25:12.600 --> 01:25:16.359
silver axe stood the hut of Schwiantek, the beggar of Polumnia. Summer in

1040
01:25:16.399 --> 01:25:19.680
winter, this old man was to
be seen squatting at the church door,

1041
01:25:19.800 --> 01:25:25.399
his long white beard falling to his
knees, as he held forth his wooden

1042
01:25:25.439 --> 01:25:30.119
basin and wind and arms and arms
for the love of Christ. Kind friends,

1043
01:25:30.479 --> 01:25:34.039
give to the needy, and the
Lord will reward you arms, arms,

1044
01:25:34.039 --> 01:25:39.199
for the love of God. The
Landlord cherished no love for Swiantek.

1045
01:25:40.359 --> 01:25:43.560
On more than one occasion he had
caught him in the act of pilfering from

1046
01:25:43.560 --> 01:25:47.800
the silver axes none too plentifully stocked
pantry, And on more occasions than one

1047
01:25:47.920 --> 01:25:53.119
he had proof he had suspected him
of thievery. To be sure, who

1048
01:25:53.119 --> 01:25:56.439
would have been more likely to make
away with the so precious ducks than this

1049
01:25:56.600 --> 01:26:00.399
whining mendicant, who, though strong
and hardy as any man his age and

1050
01:26:00.399 --> 01:26:03.560
the forest banded circle of Tornau,
preferred to eke out an existence on what

1051
01:26:03.640 --> 01:26:10.079
he could beguile from the pockets of
honest laboring men. The landlord picked up

1052
01:26:10.119 --> 01:26:14.239
the stout cudgel and set off for
Sciontech's hut. As the rogue stolen my

1053
01:26:14.359 --> 01:26:17.359
ducks, he muttered, I'll write
the Eighth Commandment on his thievish hide.

1054
01:26:17.359 --> 01:26:21.680
With this, he brandished his club
menacingly as he neared the beggar's door.

1055
01:26:23.479 --> 01:26:27.960
The strong and savory odor of roasting
flesh greeted his nostrils as he crept nearer

1056
01:26:28.399 --> 01:26:31.119
Sciontech. The beggar, the man
who lived without work, was preparing a

1057
01:26:31.199 --> 01:26:35.279
meal of meat, while the great
English mellow word must go hungry and the

1058
01:26:35.319 --> 01:26:42.159
worthy landlord of the silver axe unrewarded
villain. The landlord shouted, bursting through

1059
01:26:42.199 --> 01:26:45.520
the door, I have caught thee
red handed. I will teach thee to

1060
01:26:45.560 --> 01:26:49.359
steal ducks from honest men while their
guests cool their heels and hunger. Schveontek

1061
01:26:49.520 --> 01:26:55.399
stepped back quickly from the fireplace over
which he had been bending. At the

1062
01:26:55.439 --> 01:26:58.319
same time, stuffing some object about
the size of a duck out of sight

1063
01:26:58.399 --> 01:27:03.680
beneath his peasant's blouse. In a
trice, the furious landlord had him by

1064
01:27:03.720 --> 01:27:10.119
his venerable white beard, shaking him
as a terrier does a rat. Back

1065
01:27:10.199 --> 01:27:13.680
and forth. The innkeeper shook the
beggar, berating him as only a man

1066
01:27:13.800 --> 01:27:17.760
whose good fortune has been suddenly snatched
awake hand. The half roasted piece of

1067
01:27:17.760 --> 01:27:21.600
meat which Siantek had all this time
clutched to his bosom beneath his loose blouse,

1068
01:27:23.119 --> 01:27:26.560
slipped from his grasp and fell,
rolling and bumping to the floor.

1069
01:27:28.119 --> 01:27:33.399
It was the severed head of a
fourteen year old girl. Horror paralyzed,

1070
01:27:33.920 --> 01:27:40.479
the innkeeper stared at the grizzly thing, catching his breath in short panting sobs.

1071
01:27:40.640 --> 01:27:45.479
Siontek slunk into a corner of the
hut. Next instant with an inarticulate

1072
01:27:45.479 --> 01:27:49.760
cry of mingled rage and fear.
He made it the landlord a butcher knife

1073
01:27:49.800 --> 01:27:56.079
brandished in his skinny hand. The
knife flashed forward for a stroke, but

1074
01:27:56.159 --> 01:28:00.039
the swish of the innkeeper's oaken cudgel
was followed by a heavy thud. Spiontek

1075
01:28:00.520 --> 01:28:05.560
the beggar sank to the hut's earth
and floor without a cry. As fast

1076
01:28:05.600 --> 01:28:12.319
as terror spurred messengers could summon them. Gendarmes from Dabikao came to Polumjia and

1077
01:28:12.479 --> 01:28:16.119
hustled their prisoner to jail. All
along the route. Spihontek cried out like

1078
01:28:16.159 --> 01:28:20.920
a trapped forest wolf, flinging himself
repeatedly to the earth and attempting suicide by

1079
01:28:20.920 --> 01:28:27.399
trying to swallow clods of road,
clay and stones. His captors choked these

1080
01:28:27.439 --> 01:28:30.960
from his throat with no very gentle
hands. Austrian gendarmes were never noted for

1081
01:28:31.000 --> 01:28:34.960
tenderness toward their prisoners, and the
already proven crime of this felon was not

1082
01:28:35.079 --> 01:28:40.479
the sort to inspire them with an
extra amount of courtesy. The prisoner was

1083
01:28:40.520 --> 01:28:46.359
taken at once before the protocol committing
magistrate's court and remanded to prison pending an

1084
01:28:46.359 --> 01:28:50.960
investigation. Gendarmes were sent to search
his dwelling, while others scoured the forest

1085
01:28:51.000 --> 01:28:57.239
country for witnesses. In Austria,
as in Germany, courts and prosecutors were

1086
01:28:57.279 --> 01:29:01.199
not hampered by refinements of evidence as
those in vogue and common law countries.

1087
01:29:01.960 --> 01:29:05.960
Everything which had a bearing on the
case in hand was eagerly sought and brought

1088
01:29:05.960 --> 01:29:11.920
out at trial, regardless of whether
it was hearsay or not. Even rumor

1089
01:29:12.039 --> 01:29:15.079
was listened to on the odd chance
it would throw light on the case,

1090
01:29:15.279 --> 01:29:21.159
the judges deciding what should receive consideration
and influencing their decision. For this reason,

1091
01:29:21.239 --> 01:29:26.680
the agents of justice brought into court
a considerable number of witnesses whose stories,

1092
01:29:26.680 --> 01:29:30.479
while inadmissible under British or American law, were nevertheless of great interest.

1093
01:29:31.880 --> 01:29:36.479
The residence of the lordship of Parkhost
in the vicinity of Polomja were for the

1094
01:29:36.520 --> 01:29:41.960
most part wretchedly poor. They were
woodcutters who tilled small garden patches in the

1095
01:29:42.000 --> 01:29:45.520
intervals between their logging work. Each
held his house in farmlet by a sort

1096
01:29:45.520 --> 01:29:49.279
of valet tenure, that is,
he paid no money rental, but was

1097
01:29:49.319 --> 01:29:54.560
bound to work a fixed number of
days each year for his landlord. The

1098
01:29:54.640 --> 01:29:58.039
scheme of payment by labor, while
it might at first glance seem the fairest

1099
01:29:58.079 --> 01:30:01.239
treatment of people whose stock a cash
was always scanty, was really one of

1100
01:30:01.279 --> 01:30:08.159
the contributing causes of the peasant's poverty, since the landlords invariably exacted labor from

1101
01:30:08.279 --> 01:30:12.520
their tenants at times when the tenant's
own crops were ripe for harvesting, or

1102
01:30:12.560 --> 01:30:16.399
when the cutting of timber would prove
most remunerative. Nevertheless, in spite of

1103
01:30:16.479 --> 01:30:20.520
their poverty, the villagers had always
a ready hand for those who besought their

1104
01:30:20.600 --> 01:30:27.760
charity, and witnesses who had transacted
business with Siantec, always to the latter's

1105
01:30:27.800 --> 01:30:31.359
advantage, were numerous. One of
the first to testify at the hearing was

1106
01:30:31.399 --> 01:30:35.439
a peasant woman who some two years
before had taken compassion on the old beggar

1107
01:30:35.760 --> 01:30:40.239
as he crouched at the church door, and bidden him come to her cottage

1108
01:30:40.279 --> 01:30:44.359
for food. He had at first
appeared reluctant, asking her if she could

1109
01:30:44.359 --> 01:30:47.439
not give him a copper instead,
but when she charitably insisted on his sharing

1110
01:30:47.479 --> 01:30:53.359
the Sunday meal with her and her
good men, he assented. They pressed

1111
01:30:53.439 --> 01:30:57.319
such food as they had upon him, but he seemed strangely lacking an appetite.

1112
01:30:58.279 --> 01:31:00.920
While he ate a little bread,
he turned from the meat pie they

1113
01:31:00.920 --> 01:31:04.239
offered with what seemed to her like
repugnance. After dinner, when the master

1114
01:31:04.319 --> 01:31:08.840
of the house presented the beggar with
a pipe of tobacco, he became more

1115
01:31:08.880 --> 01:31:13.640
genial, recounting stories of his adventures
upon the road and amusing the children with

1116
01:31:13.680 --> 01:31:17.199
a few tricks of simple leger Man. One child, a chubby little girl

1117
01:31:17.239 --> 01:31:23.039
of nine or ten, attracted the
old man's attention. Particularly Cheyantek felt in

1118
01:31:23.119 --> 01:31:26.720
his pocket and produced a ring consisting
of a piece of colored glass set in

1119
01:31:26.840 --> 01:31:30.600
lead foil. This he presented to
the child, who ran off, delighted

1120
01:31:30.640 --> 01:31:34.760
to show her companions. Is that
little maid or daughter? He asked the

1121
01:31:34.800 --> 01:31:40.279
housewife, No, she answered,
she is an orphan. There was a

1122
01:31:40.279 --> 01:31:43.920
widow in this place who died,
leaving the child, and I have taken

1123
01:31:43.920 --> 01:31:47.479
her into my family. One month
more will not matter much, and the

1124
01:31:47.520 --> 01:31:53.359
good God will bless us for a
charity. Aye aye, agreed Sriethtec.

1125
01:31:53.960 --> 01:31:59.000
The orphans and fatherless are ever under
his particular care. She's a good little

1126
01:31:59.000 --> 01:32:01.560
thing and gives us no rubble.
The woman resumed, you go back to

1127
01:32:01.640 --> 01:32:08.119
Palomija, tonight I do. The
beggar answered then, as the little orphan

1128
01:32:08.199 --> 01:32:11.199
ran up to him, Ah,
you like the ring, little one.

1129
01:32:12.000 --> 01:32:14.840
It is a beautiful thing, is
it not. I found it under a

1130
01:32:14.840 --> 01:32:16.920
big tree to the left of the
churchyard. Who knows there may be dozens

1131
01:32:16.960 --> 01:32:20.920
more in the same spot. You
must go there after dark has fallen,

1132
01:32:21.239 --> 01:32:25.760
and turn around three times, then, says a boy, look among the

1133
01:32:25.800 --> 01:32:30.720
tree roots, and you will surely
find more rings. Come, screamed the

1134
01:32:30.760 --> 01:32:34.359
delighted child to her playmates, Let
us go up for rings. Nay,

1135
01:32:34.479 --> 01:32:40.199
nay, Shfintech cautioned, you must
seek singly, one at a time,

1136
01:32:40.319 --> 01:32:44.520
or the charm will not work.
The children scampered off to the wood and

1137
01:32:44.640 --> 01:32:48.760
Spiontech flung his coat about his stooping
shoulders. You may thank me for ridding

1138
01:32:48.800 --> 01:32:51.760
you of the children's noise for a
time, at least, he laughed,

1139
01:32:51.760 --> 01:32:57.640
as he opened the door to leave. He left the cottage, walking rapidly,

1140
01:32:57.800 --> 01:33:00.600
not going down the road, but
among the somber ever greens, which

1141
01:33:00.600 --> 01:33:03.520
reached nearly to the front door.
An hour later, the woodcutter's children returned,

1142
01:33:03.520 --> 01:33:06.720
out of breath with running. The
little orphan girl was not with them.

1143
01:33:08.680 --> 01:33:13.640
Vaguely incoherently, as terrified children will, they told how she, braver

1144
01:33:13.800 --> 01:33:16.039
than the rest, had gone alone
beneath the shadow of the fir tree where

1145
01:33:16.119 --> 01:33:19.600
rings were to be found. How
she called out the words a boy lustily.

1146
01:33:20.239 --> 01:33:24.920
Then, how a startled scream had
suddenly checked like the ceasing of a

1147
01:33:25.039 --> 01:33:30.319
night bird's cry when the bullet strikes
its mark. They told two of a

1148
01:33:30.359 --> 01:33:33.640
monstrous form like that of a cloaked
and bearded man, half distinguished through the

1149
01:33:33.680 --> 01:33:39.359
gloom, and of hurrying footsteps,
sounding fainter and still more faintly through the

1150
01:33:39.399 --> 01:33:45.359
underbrush. It was a wolf,
the woman said, crossing herself piously.

1151
01:33:45.479 --> 01:33:49.159
The talk of the cloaked and bearded
man she set down to childish imagination.

1152
01:33:50.279 --> 01:33:54.640
Several schoolboys told how one of their
companions, a boy named Peter, had

1153
01:33:54.680 --> 01:33:59.079
loitered behind his fellows one day after
school. They saw him leave the path.

1154
01:33:59.560 --> 01:34:01.800
They thought they saw him talking with
a man wearing a long cloak and

1155
01:34:01.920 --> 01:34:05.960
having a white beard. Though they
could not be certain of this, one

1156
01:34:06.000 --> 01:34:11.720
thing was sure. Peter was never
seen again. A wealthy Russian jew told

1157
01:34:11.760 --> 01:34:15.680
of the loss of his servant maid, a girl of thirteen. One night,

1158
01:34:15.680 --> 01:34:18.399
she left his house on an errand
when she failed to return, he

1159
01:34:18.439 --> 01:34:23.640
became uneasy and set out to look
for her with a lantern. Her footprints

1160
01:34:23.640 --> 01:34:27.479
were plainly marked in the light snow. It could be seen where she left

1161
01:34:27.479 --> 01:34:31.079
the road, wandering into a copse
of fir trees. Here, other footprints,

1162
01:34:31.239 --> 01:34:35.319
much larger and heavier joined hers.
For a time. The two trails

1163
01:34:35.359 --> 01:34:39.880
went on together than at a spot
where the trees were so thick no snow

1164
01:34:39.920 --> 01:34:44.079
had drifted down upon the brown carpet
of pine needles, all trace of the

1165
01:34:44.079 --> 01:34:47.520
girl and her companion was lost.
At any rate, the girl was never

1166
01:34:47.520 --> 01:34:54.920
seen again. The gendarmes sent to
search swam Tech's cottage returned with staring eyes

1167
01:34:55.000 --> 01:34:59.600
and bated breath in a chest neatly
trussed up like a fowl ready for the

1168
01:34:59.600 --> 01:35:02.399
spit. They had found the legs
and thighs of a half grown girl,

1169
01:35:02.760 --> 01:35:06.760
the child whose head s Fhiontek had
attempted to hide when discovered by the landlord

1170
01:35:06.800 --> 01:35:12.319
of the Silver Axe. Beneath the
earthen floor of the hut, they had

1171
01:35:12.359 --> 01:35:15.199
found caps in parts of clothing sufficient
to account for thirteen children and a young

1172
01:35:15.279 --> 01:35:21.760
woman. The witnesses disposed of.
Schviontek was summoned before the magistrate for a

1173
01:35:21.800 --> 01:35:26.720
time. He stood dumb before the
court, not touched with remorse for his

1174
01:35:26.760 --> 01:35:30.199
hideous crimes, but paralyzed with fear
for himself. With the notes of the

1175
01:35:30.239 --> 01:35:36.119
testimony before him, the magistrate commenced
interrogating the prisoner, but wordless moans were

1176
01:35:36.159 --> 01:35:41.359
the only replies his questions. Evoked. At last, by accident, the

1177
01:35:41.359 --> 01:35:45.239
beggar's lips were opened. You must
have been insane to commit these acts,

1178
01:35:45.600 --> 01:35:50.399
the judge remarked. A crafty look, A gleam of hope came into the

1179
01:35:50.399 --> 01:35:55.880
prisoner's little eyes. For innerant though
he was, he knew the law forbore

1180
01:35:56.000 --> 01:36:00.359
to punish those whose misdeeds were committed
while insane. Your excellency has said no

1181
01:36:00.479 --> 01:36:04.760
more than the truth, he replied. I was indeed a lunatic when I

1182
01:36:04.760 --> 01:36:10.199
transgress so terribly. But now,
your Excellency, I am restored. I

1183
01:36:10.319 --> 01:36:13.359
pray you let me depart. Hence
my reason is returned, and I will

1184
01:36:13.399 --> 01:36:16.600
send no more. Tell us first, how you came to do such savage

1185
01:36:16.600 --> 01:36:23.079
and unchristian acts, prompted the judge. It is necessary that our records be

1186
01:36:23.159 --> 01:36:28.560
complete before we dispose of the case. Disposing of a case was a phrase

1187
01:36:28.640 --> 01:36:32.760
capable of more than one interpretation,
but dread of punishment and overwhelming hope of

1188
01:36:32.800 --> 01:36:39.800
freedom led Siontech to place the most
favorable construction on the words. Smiling amiably

1189
01:36:39.960 --> 01:36:45.239
at the magistrate, stroking his patriarchal
beard as he talked, he related one

1190
01:36:45.279 --> 01:36:48.760
of the most amazing criminal histories ever
heard in a court of law. Three

1191
01:36:48.840 --> 01:36:53.119
years before, during the better winter
of eighteen forty six, he had been

1192
01:36:53.119 --> 01:36:56.840
hastening through the forest to his cottage
and Palomija, just as the sun was

1193
01:36:56.880 --> 01:37:01.359
setting. The frosts, which set
in early in autumn, had held steady,

1194
01:37:01.399 --> 01:37:05.840
and the countryside had suffered greatly.
Responses to his wine for alms had

1195
01:37:05.880 --> 01:37:10.520
been few and small, and he
was near to perishing with cold and hunger.

1196
01:37:11.359 --> 01:37:14.119
As he neared the village, he
came upon the still glowing embers of

1197
01:37:14.119 --> 01:37:16.600
a small Jewish tavern which had burned
down that morning, and paused to warm

1198
01:37:16.680 --> 01:37:21.960
himself beside the smoldering ruins. Creeping
nearer for extra warmth, he noticed the

1199
01:37:23.039 --> 01:37:27.239
charred remains of the taverns keeper,
who had perished in the flames. The

1200
01:37:27.359 --> 01:37:30.479
scent inside of the roasted flesh so
worked upon his hunger that he was unable

1201
01:37:30.520 --> 01:37:34.760
to resist tearing off a bit of
flesh and tasting it. As the horrid

1202
01:37:34.840 --> 01:37:40.399
morsel passed his lips, he became
to quote his own words as it were

1203
01:37:40.600 --> 01:37:45.520
a ravening wolf, rending, tearing, even growling in his throat like a

1204
01:37:45.560 --> 01:37:50.680
brute beast. He satisfied his hunger, then stuffed his beggar's pouch with material

1205
01:37:50.760 --> 01:37:56.600
for another horrible repast. Suddenly,
the enormity of his act struck him,

1206
01:37:57.319 --> 01:38:00.199
flinging the pouch with its grizzly load
from him. He ran pell mell down

1207
01:38:00.199 --> 01:38:04.960
the road until exhaustion compelled him to
stop. As he sat upon a wayside

1208
01:38:05.000 --> 01:38:10.479
stone regaining his breath, the desire
for another meal like the revolting one he

1209
01:38:10.479 --> 01:38:14.399
had just completed, began to steal
over him like a drunkard's craving for drink.

1210
01:38:15.880 --> 01:38:19.039
Battling with his conscience, yet yielding, he retraced his steps, recovered

1211
01:38:19.039 --> 01:38:24.600
his pouch, and hastened home.
From that night, he had never eaten

1212
01:38:24.680 --> 01:38:30.399
any other meat, bread, and
vegetables. He had accepted from kindly disposed

1213
01:38:30.439 --> 01:38:33.960
peasants who pitied him, but their
offers of meat filled him with an almost

1214
01:38:34.039 --> 01:38:40.960
uncontrollable revulsion. The little orphan girl, whose disappearance had been testified to by

1215
01:38:41.000 --> 01:38:45.279
her foster parents, was his first
victim. He had killed and eaten her

1216
01:38:45.359 --> 01:38:51.079
as unconcernedly as another peasant would have
butchered a calf or pig, freely as

1217
01:38:51.079 --> 01:38:57.279
the magistrate questioned him. He admitted
murder after cold blooded murder, and case

1218
01:38:57.640 --> 01:39:02.279
after case of cannibalism, with a
complacency which brought a shudder of horror to

1219
01:39:02.319 --> 01:39:08.000
all who watched. He rolled back
his sleeves and loosened to the collar of

1220
01:39:08.039 --> 01:39:12.279
his blouse that the court might see
how sleek and fat he had grown upon

1221
01:39:12.279 --> 01:39:16.960
his frightful meals. And now,
he concluded, looking expectantly at the magistrate,

1222
01:39:17.760 --> 01:39:21.640
I have told you all, your
excellency, surely you will let me

1223
01:39:21.760 --> 01:39:29.680
go. Inhuman monster, the judge
replied, out of your own mouth,

1224
01:39:29.760 --> 01:39:33.880
you have condemned yourself. No madman
could have told his tale so reasonably.

1225
01:39:34.920 --> 01:39:40.199
If there be any justice in the
Empire of Austria, you shall die upon

1226
01:39:40.239 --> 01:39:44.680
the scaffold, and the public executioner
will hang his head in shame that his

1227
01:39:44.760 --> 01:39:49.760
duties force him to lay hands on
so vile a wretch as you. Screaming

1228
01:39:49.760 --> 01:39:56.119
with terror, Spiantek was dragged back
to his cell for his terror. Powsied

1229
01:39:56.159 --> 01:40:00.760
legs refused to bear his weight.
Next morning, when the turnkey of the

1230
01:40:00.840 --> 01:40:04.359
jail made his tour of inspection,
he found that justice had been cheated.

1231
01:40:05.239 --> 01:40:10.479
Spiontech, the beggar had hanged himself
to the bars of his prison window.

1232
01:40:11.800 --> 01:40:15.279
This is the fourth article of a
series that Sea Birry Quinn's writing for Weird

1233
01:40:15.319 --> 01:40:27.760
Tales The Faith will appear in an
early issue end of section four Section five

1234
01:40:27.840 --> 01:40:31.520
of Weird Crimes by Sea Berry Quinn. This LibriVox recordings in the public Domain

1235
01:40:32.119 --> 01:40:41.239
read by Ben Tucker. Number five
Mary Blandy. Two dirty, unkempt urchins

1236
01:40:41.279 --> 01:40:45.920
fought and struggled in the gutterway of
Henley. The Elder, a ragamuffin lad

1237
01:40:45.960 --> 01:40:49.359
of thirteen or so, bore his
antagonists to the kidney stone pavement, pressed

1238
01:40:49.359 --> 01:40:54.239
his knee upon the other's chest,
and leaned forward, intent upon gouging the

1239
01:40:54.279 --> 01:40:57.960
little fellow's eyes with thumb and forefinger. It was a trick he had learned

1240
01:40:58.000 --> 01:41:00.800
from the bullies of the waterfront,
a trick no decent English lad would stoop

1241
01:41:00.840 --> 01:41:05.560
to. But this little alley rat
was not a decent English lad. Help

1242
01:41:06.279 --> 01:41:11.119
screamed this smaller boy, fighting desperately
to keep the sharp, unclean nails of

1243
01:41:11.119 --> 01:41:15.960
his enemy from his eyes. There
was a clatter of flying iron, ringed

1244
01:41:15.960 --> 01:41:19.319
hoofs against the paving flints. A
shout of command to the older boy and

1245
01:41:19.439 --> 01:41:23.840
a tall, auburn haired girl,
slim and straight as a youth, flung

1246
01:41:23.840 --> 01:41:28.680
herself from her pony, laying her
riding crop mercilessly across the unfair fighters shoulders.

1247
01:41:30.279 --> 01:41:32.039
Surprised by the sudden rear attack,
the boy loosed his grip on his

1248
01:41:32.039 --> 01:41:38.119
opponent's face and turned furiously to defend
himself. He might as well have attempted

1249
01:41:38.119 --> 01:41:40.960
to beat back the north wind,
right, cut left, cut, back

1250
01:41:40.960 --> 01:41:44.319
and forth. The girl swung her
whip with the speed and skill that marked

1251
01:41:44.359 --> 01:41:48.720
the practiced fencer, and the strength
that tells of healthy young muscles grown strong

1252
01:41:48.760 --> 01:41:55.880
and supple through systematic exercise. Thou
chill, thou mean base, violet,

1253
01:41:55.920 --> 01:42:00.720
thou Frenchman, She cried, still
applying her whip, dost with teeth and

1254
01:42:00.840 --> 01:42:03.760
nails like a yowling GiB cat dart, not fit to breathe the air of

1255
01:42:03.800 --> 01:42:10.920
England. She cut him again,
across his writhing shoulders. Hopelessly worsted in

1256
01:42:10.960 --> 01:42:14.159
the combat, the boy drew off
a safe distance and made the oldest gestures

1257
01:42:14.199 --> 01:42:17.520
of insult. The world knows that
of the thumbed nose, y'all go on

1258
01:42:17.720 --> 01:42:21.000
tomboy. He mocked from his zone
of safety, beyond the cut of her

1259
01:42:21.000 --> 01:42:26.479
whip. Tomboy tomboy. Live like
a man and die like a man.

1260
01:42:28.119 --> 01:42:31.680
Fighting girls and crowing hens. Always
come to some badins. You'll die on

1261
01:42:31.760 --> 01:42:34.920
the gallows, Mary Blandie, and
all your father's money can't save you from

1262
01:42:34.960 --> 01:42:41.680
it. Tomboy Tomboy, gallows bird
Tomboy. The girl made a threatening gesture,

1263
01:42:41.680 --> 01:42:45.119
and he took refuge in flight,
but his raucous taunt of tomboy tomboy,

1264
01:42:45.119 --> 01:42:49.600
gallowsbird tomboy could be heard long after
the pattern of his broken soul brokens

1265
01:42:49.600 --> 01:42:55.199
no longer sounded in her ears.
She tossed a copper for comfort to the

1266
01:42:55.239 --> 01:42:59.399
lad she had rescued, remounted her
pony, and rode slowly toward her father's

1267
01:42:59.399 --> 01:43:03.880
house. Mary Blandy was the only
child of Francis Blandy, a prominent solicitor

1268
01:43:03.920 --> 01:43:08.479
of the town of Henley on the
Thames, and because her father had wished

1269
01:43:08.479 --> 01:43:11.600
a son and been disappointed with a
daughter, he had done the next best

1270
01:43:11.600 --> 01:43:14.920
thing and had Mary educated more like
a young squire than a young noblewoman.

1271
01:43:15.920 --> 01:43:18.560
At fourteen, she could ride fence
and shoot as well as most boys several

1272
01:43:18.640 --> 01:43:23.520
years her senior and better than some, and her proficiency in the classics was

1273
01:43:23.560 --> 01:43:28.159
a source of wonderment and no little
shame among parents with sons in the neighborhood.

1274
01:43:29.119 --> 01:43:32.279
Many of these, piqued by the
girl's extraordinary ability, contented themselves with

1275
01:43:32.399 --> 01:43:40.119
saying such training and efficiency were unladylike, unfeminine, and entirely disgusting. So

1276
01:43:40.199 --> 01:43:44.279
at an early age, Mary Blandy
suffered unpopularity among the parents of her boy

1277
01:43:44.319 --> 01:43:48.680
acquaintances. In a few years,
unpopularity was increased a hundred percent for Mary

1278
01:43:48.960 --> 01:43:54.960
the young woman proved herself as apt
at all feminine accomplishments as Mary the Girl

1279
01:43:55.119 --> 01:43:59.840
had excelled in boyish pastimes. Her
father's house became a rendezvous for the elig

1280
01:44:00.279 --> 01:44:04.319
young men of the vicinity, and
many a womanly woman sat beside her lonesome

1281
01:44:04.319 --> 01:44:10.800
fireside, while young professional men and
officers from the nearby garrison made the rafters

1282
01:44:10.800 --> 01:44:15.039
of the Blandy withdrawing room ring with
their song and laughter. Of all the

1283
01:44:15.079 --> 01:44:17.840
gay young redcoats who came to court
Lawyer Blandy's daughter, the most favored was

1284
01:44:17.920 --> 01:44:24.039
Captain William Henry Cranston, an infantry
officer brother to Lord Mark, care of

1285
01:44:24.079 --> 01:44:28.920
Scotland and possessor of a yearly income
of fifteen hundred pounds, a very respectable

1286
01:44:28.960 --> 01:44:33.239
fortune in those days. Other suitors
gradually drifted away, and in the course

1287
01:44:33.239 --> 01:44:36.800
of time the Captain's proposal of marriage
was duly made, discussed by the Blandy

1288
01:44:36.880 --> 01:44:42.680
family and accepted. Happy in the
possession of her gold laced lover, Mary

1289
01:44:42.760 --> 01:44:46.840
Blandy went about her preparations for marriage, choosing silks and taffeta's for gowns with

1290
01:44:46.920 --> 01:44:51.760
the nice discrimination that marked all her
dealings, embroidering silk stockings for wear at

1291
01:44:51.760 --> 01:44:57.560
the Grandcourt levies she would attend when
her precious sweetheart should at last be promoted

1292
01:44:57.920 --> 01:45:01.079
and ordered for duty at London Town. And between whilest dreaming the long,

1293
01:45:01.159 --> 01:45:06.239
long, open eyed dreams every girl
dreams during her engagement. Then one day

1294
01:45:06.279 --> 01:45:11.840
came a letter for lawyer Blandy from
the North Scotland. It was signed by

1295
01:45:11.880 --> 01:45:15.079
a young woman claiming to be Captain
Cranston's wife, and what was more,

1296
01:45:15.479 --> 01:45:20.039
the mother of his son. Mister
Blandy called his daughter to him, showed

1297
01:45:20.039 --> 01:45:24.039
her the letter and told her she
must have nothing more to do with the

1298
01:45:24.079 --> 01:45:27.760
captain. Shocked as she was,
Mary still held faith in her lover,

1299
01:45:28.279 --> 01:45:30.279
believing the best of him, as
all good women do of the men they

1300
01:45:30.319 --> 01:45:33.640
love, declaring there was either some
mistake or that the Captain would be able

1301
01:45:33.680 --> 01:45:39.760
to make a satisfactory explanation this.
He was given an opportunity to do that

1302
01:45:39.880 --> 01:45:43.920
very night, and, when confronted
with the documentary evidence of his perfidy,

1303
01:45:44.439 --> 01:45:50.000
coolly denied any attachment with the letters
center. When lawyer Blandy, worldly wise

1304
01:45:50.079 --> 01:45:55.239
from forty years practice of a profession
which has its tap roots and human frailties,

1305
01:45:55.560 --> 01:46:00.359
declared he needed something more than the
young officer's bare denial, the captain

1306
01:46:00.399 --> 01:46:03.319
asked a few days grace in which
to marshal his defense, declaring he too

1307
01:46:03.359 --> 01:46:09.680
would produce documentary evidence. Blandy was
a just man and acceded to the Captain's

1308
01:46:09.680 --> 01:46:13.520
request, but put him on his
honor not to see or communicate with Mary

1309
01:46:13.600 --> 01:46:17.159
until he showed the promised papers.
A few days later, Captain Cranston appeared

1310
01:46:17.159 --> 01:46:21.279
at the Blandy residence with a letter
bearing a signature identical with the one mister

1311
01:46:21.279 --> 01:46:26.800
Blandy had received. This letter,
addressed to the Captain, admitted its sender

1312
01:46:26.920 --> 01:46:30.520
was neither his wife nor his son's
mother, and had no claim whatever upon

1313
01:46:30.600 --> 01:46:34.920
Captain William Henry Cranston of His Majesty's
Army. The canceled engagement was renewed,

1314
01:46:35.079 --> 01:46:40.119
and preparations for the wedding were all
most complete when a second letter came for

1315
01:46:40.199 --> 01:46:45.199
mister Blandy, imploring him not to
let his daughter marry a scoundrel, the

1316
01:46:45.279 --> 01:46:47.760
writer of Airred. She had been
led into making a denial of her wifehood

1317
01:46:47.760 --> 01:46:53.680
by an urgent appeal from Captain Cranston, telling her he had no intention of

1318
01:46:53.720 --> 01:46:58.760
marrying Miss Blandy, having become engaged
to her merely as a diversion. He

1319
01:46:58.800 --> 01:47:00.840
had urged his wife to stulton by
herself, because he had no chance of

1320
01:47:00.880 --> 01:47:05.439
preferment in the service if it were
known he was married, whereas if he

1321
01:47:05.439 --> 01:47:09.439
could pass a single a few months
longer, he would surely be promoted,

1322
01:47:09.800 --> 01:47:12.760
and would then acknowledge her as his
wife and bring her to live with him.

1323
01:47:13.960 --> 01:47:16.079
With womanly unselfishness, she had agreed
to write the letter he sought,

1324
01:47:16.079 --> 01:47:20.640
but far from feeling proper gratitude of
her sacrifice, the unprincipled rogue had sent

1325
01:47:20.680 --> 01:47:26.680
copies of her renunciation to her family, who thereupon turned her out of doors.

1326
01:47:26.680 --> 01:47:30.159
She was reduced to starvation, and
prayed mister Blandy to release her husband

1327
01:47:30.279 --> 01:47:33.760
from his engagement and restore him to
her. To prove the truth of her

1328
01:47:33.800 --> 01:47:38.880
claims, she enclosed the letter Crenston
had written, asking her to sully her

1329
01:47:38.880 --> 01:47:43.560
reputation for his sake, and declaring
his engagement to marry a mere frivolous pastime.

1330
01:47:44.680 --> 01:47:47.840
Such evidence could not be ignored.
In spite of fervent protestations of innocence.

1331
01:47:48.319 --> 01:47:53.399
Mister Blande sent the Coxcomb Captain about
his business and forbade his daughter,

1332
01:47:53.399 --> 01:47:56.279
on pain of disinheritance, ever to
see him or write to him again.

1333
01:47:57.279 --> 01:48:00.479
But the love that laughs at locke
Smith's pays even less attention to parental commands,

1334
01:48:00.960 --> 01:48:05.279
And though Mary dutifully forbore seeing the
Captain, she carried on a continual

1335
01:48:05.319 --> 01:48:12.960
clandestine correspondence with him. His earnest
disavowals of all wrongdoing, his passionate declarations

1336
01:48:13.000 --> 01:48:15.439
that he was the victim of a
designing woman who sought to stand between him

1337
01:48:15.479 --> 01:48:21.239
and happiness overbore Mary's customary keen judgment. In a short time, she ceased

1338
01:48:21.239 --> 01:48:25.159
to think of him as a deceiver, and regarded him as a greatly wronged

1339
01:48:25.159 --> 01:48:30.199
man. Once or twice she undertook
to plead her lover's cause with her father,

1340
01:48:30.600 --> 01:48:33.840
but her advances called forth such outbursts
of temper from the indignant old gentleman

1341
01:48:33.880 --> 01:48:39.520
that she ceased the attempts. Mary
had not inherited her father's auburn hair and

1342
01:48:39.640 --> 01:48:43.920
gray eyes without a fair share of
his choleric disposition, and in the course

1343
01:48:43.960 --> 01:48:48.159
of their arguments she repaid most of
his irascible remarks with compound interest, forgetting

1344
01:48:48.159 --> 01:48:51.720
that keyholes are as fairly adapted to
servants, ears and eyes as to keys.

1345
01:48:53.520 --> 01:48:57.640
Her father's adamant attitude and her lack
of intimate acquaintances among the neighborhood young

1346
01:48:57.680 --> 01:49:02.079
women forbade her telling her troubles to
interested listener, and with this safety event

1347
01:49:02.239 --> 01:49:06.600
denied her, she poured forth her
woes to her companion in Misery, Captain

1348
01:49:06.680 --> 01:49:13.199
Cranston. That gentleman was absent on
leave from his regiment, visiting relatives in

1349
01:49:13.199 --> 01:49:16.399
Scotland, and it may well be
supposed his replies were far from urging her

1350
01:49:16.439 --> 01:49:21.159
to meet obedience or patient waiting.
Yet never did he counsel her to defy

1351
01:49:21.199 --> 01:49:27.479
her parent openly nor did he suggest
a romantic elopement. Mister Blandey possessed a

1352
01:49:27.520 --> 01:49:32.000
considerable fortune and an unrelenting temper.
If Mary contracted an unsanctioned marriage, she

1353
01:49:32.000 --> 01:49:36.199
would certainly come dowerless to her husband, and that eventuality was far from being

1354
01:49:36.239 --> 01:49:44.680
included in Cranston's program. In these
circumstances, he had recourse to a stratagem

1355
01:49:45.319 --> 01:49:47.920
pretending great elation. He wrote his
forlorn sweetheart that he had met a witch

1356
01:49:47.920 --> 01:49:51.520
in the highlands of Scotland, a
woman able to brew all sorts of potent

1357
01:49:51.600 --> 01:49:57.199
drafts. She could concoct potions which
begot instant an undying love in the breasts

1358
01:49:57.199 --> 01:50:00.359
of those who took them. She
could charm birds from their and snakes from

1359
01:50:00.399 --> 01:50:04.279
their holes. Best of all,
she could prepare a medicine, quite harmless

1360
01:50:04.279 --> 01:50:08.800
to the taker, which could mister
Blandie but be induced to swallow. It

1361
01:50:09.159 --> 01:50:13.960
would instantly turn his aversion to Captain
Cranston's marriage with his daughter into a beaming

1362
01:50:14.000 --> 01:50:18.800
consent. Mary knew the power of
Scottish wishes, were they not beings condemned

1363
01:50:18.800 --> 01:50:24.399
for sorcery at every court term,
And this particular which Cranston wrote was more

1364
01:50:24.399 --> 01:50:28.439
powerful in her magic, both black
and white, than any yet condemned to

1365
01:50:28.479 --> 01:50:33.159
Haines. Trusting implicitly in her lover's
promises, Mary joyfully awaited the coming of

1366
01:50:33.199 --> 01:50:36.439
the packet, which should bring her
a happy issue out of all her afflictions.

1367
01:50:38.520 --> 01:50:42.880
In due time, the drug arrived, marked as had been agreed powders

1368
01:50:42.920 --> 01:50:46.800
for polishing Scottish pebbles. It was
fine, white, and when applied to

1369
01:50:46.840 --> 01:50:49.960
the tongue with a moistened finger,
had the faint, tart, sweet taste

1370
01:50:50.000 --> 01:50:55.680
of apples. At her first opportunity, Mary mixed a generous portion of the

1371
01:50:55.760 --> 01:51:00.239
medicine with her father's mourning rule.
Then waited expectantly for an abatement and of

1372
01:51:00.279 --> 01:51:04.199
his hatred of Captain Cranston. But
instead of becoming complaisant, mister Blande grew

1373
01:51:04.239 --> 01:51:09.760
more testy than ever. Fearing the
charm had lost some of its potency in

1374
01:51:09.760 --> 01:51:14.479
the long trip from Scotland, Mary
administered a still stronger dose the following morning.

1375
01:51:15.680 --> 01:51:18.359
Shortly afterward, her father took to
his bed with violent stomach pains.

1376
01:51:19.720 --> 01:51:23.239
For a few days, Mary gave
him no more of the powders, and

1377
01:51:23.319 --> 01:51:26.880
his health began to mend gradually,
but his temper remained as hot as formerly.

1378
01:51:28.119 --> 01:51:30.760
Letters from the captain urged her to
continue the treatment, and, feeling

1379
01:51:30.800 --> 01:51:34.399
sure her lack of success was due
to insufficient dosage of the magic powder,

1380
01:51:34.800 --> 01:51:39.319
she prepared a larger portion than ever, pouring it into the broth prescribed by

1381
01:51:39.319 --> 01:51:44.560
the physician. Almost immediately, mister
Blandey became desperately ill. The doctor was

1382
01:51:44.600 --> 01:51:48.720
summoned post haste, but declared his
skill unavailing. The patient was dying then,

1383
01:51:48.840 --> 01:51:53.880
and not till then was Mary's consciousness
awakened to the enormity of her actions.

1384
01:51:54.600 --> 01:51:58.079
At last, she realized the mysterious
powders and her father's illness were cause

1385
01:51:58.119 --> 01:52:01.239
and effect. Overcome with horror at
the part she had unwittingly played, she

1386
01:52:01.399 --> 01:52:04.840
rushed into her father's bedchamber, and, falling to her knees, sobbed.

1387
01:52:05.039 --> 01:52:09.520
Oh father, dear dear father,
do what you will with me, meet

1388
01:52:09.560 --> 01:52:12.640
out any punishment you say fit,
but forgive you a foolish love, blind

1389
01:52:12.720 --> 01:52:16.520
child. Oh my father, my
father, forgive me, forgive me in

1390
01:52:16.560 --> 01:52:20.159
spite of the violent pain he suffered. Mister Blandy lay calmly while she told

1391
01:52:20.159 --> 01:52:24.560
her story, tears streaming down her
cheeks, her words split with sobbing.

1392
01:52:25.880 --> 01:52:29.039
At last he put forth his hand, laying it gently on his daughter's bowed

1393
01:52:29.079 --> 01:52:34.920
head. My dear, he gasped, I forgive thee freely. Nay more,

1394
01:52:35.000 --> 01:52:40.720
I bless thee, and pray God
will bless thee. Now go and

1395
01:52:40.800 --> 01:52:44.600
say no more of this business,
lest thou shouldst let drop some word to

1396
01:52:44.680 --> 01:52:48.039
thine own prejudice. Farewell, my
child had made God pity, and watch

1397
01:52:48.079 --> 01:52:53.840
over thee. As the weeping girl
groped her way blindly from the room,

1398
01:52:54.399 --> 01:52:58.239
Lawyer Blandie muttered, Oh, the
villain, the graceless villain, to come

1399
01:52:58.279 --> 01:53:00.680
to my house. He did my
table, and in return take away my

1400
01:53:00.760 --> 01:53:06.039
life and ruin my daughter. Beside
herself with grief and remorse, Mary ran

1401
01:53:06.119 --> 01:53:10.319
from the house, seeking solitude in
which to weep away some of the anguish

1402
01:53:10.319 --> 01:53:14.159
in her heart. At last,
feeling she must see her father to employ

1403
01:53:14.239 --> 01:53:16.840
his forgiveness once more before he died, she re entered the house and sought

1404
01:53:16.840 --> 01:53:21.279
the death chamber. A strange man, roughly dressed and armed with a heavy

1405
01:53:21.279 --> 01:53:26.800
bludgeon, stood at the door.
As she approached. He smiled malignantly or

1406
01:53:28.159 --> 01:53:33.520
tomboy, He announced, zout not
into here. Thy devil's work is already

1407
01:53:33.600 --> 01:53:40.199
done with a start. Mary recognized
the bailiff. The age had altered him.

1408
01:53:40.359 --> 01:53:43.880
He still bore a strong resemblance to
the gutter urchin she had thrashed years

1409
01:53:43.880 --> 01:53:47.079
before for fighting with his nails like
a yowling GiB cat. And at his

1410
01:53:47.199 --> 01:53:53.479
repetition of the epithet tomboy, she
remembered his shouted prophecy in the streets of

1411
01:53:53.560 --> 01:53:58.640
Henley, He'll die on the gallows, Mary Blandie. Now he was a

1412
01:53:58.720 --> 01:54:03.520
hanger on at the jail, a
thief taker servant to the constable Tomboy.

1413
01:54:03.560 --> 01:54:09.319
His taunt of years ago came back
to her. Gallowsbird Tomboy. She had

1414
01:54:09.359 --> 01:54:12.199
been a girl of fourteen when the
dirty street Arab had called her that.

1415
01:54:12.439 --> 01:54:17.279
Now she leaned weakly against the wall
for support, closing her eyes in hopeless

1416
01:54:17.319 --> 01:54:25.199
misery. Tomboy, Tomboy, gallowsbird
Tomboy. The words seemed beating a rhythm

1417
01:54:25.199 --> 01:54:29.880
in her pulses. A hand fell
on her shoulder, Mary Blandy, in

1418
01:54:29.960 --> 01:54:35.600
the name of our Lord, the
King. She was under arrest. Her

1419
01:54:35.600 --> 01:54:40.720
trial for parricide was held at Oxford
on March third, eighteen fifty two.

1420
01:54:41.199 --> 01:54:45.000
Among the witnesses for the Crown were
her servants, all of whom testified at

1421
01:54:45.000 --> 01:54:48.520
the heated debate she had with her
father over Captain Cranston. Not one,

1422
01:54:48.600 --> 01:54:51.600
however, could be made to say
she had shown any evidence of harboring a

1423
01:54:51.640 --> 01:54:56.960
grudge. On the contrary, all
the testimony showed that her anger evaporated almost

1424
01:54:56.960 --> 01:55:01.079
as soon as it boiled. While
and today enjoys what it is perhaps the

1425
01:55:01.119 --> 01:55:05.800
best system of criminal procedure in the
world, a system under which speedy results

1426
01:55:05.800 --> 01:55:11.000
are achieved and few, if any
innocent persons suffering justice, she was just

1427
01:55:11.119 --> 01:55:15.720
emerging from the dark ages in which
to be accused of crime was almost tantamount

1428
01:55:15.720 --> 01:55:19.960
to being convicted. When Mary Blandy
was called to the bar. Persons accused

1429
01:55:19.960 --> 01:55:24.920
of felony or permitted counsel. That
is true, but only to a limited

1430
01:55:24.960 --> 01:55:29.239
extent. Their lawyers might advise them
on matters of law. But though the

1431
01:55:29.279 --> 01:55:33.359
Crown was numerously and ably represented by
trial lawyers, counsel for the accused might

1432
01:55:33.399 --> 01:55:39.239
neither examine witnesses for the defense,
cross examined witnesses of the prosecution, nor

1433
01:55:39.279 --> 01:55:44.680
advise their clients respecting examination of witnesses
or any other matter of fact. This

1434
01:55:44.840 --> 01:55:47.159
might not seem so great a hardship
at first glance, but when it is

1435
01:55:47.199 --> 01:55:51.920
remembered that a trial consists merely of
measuring facts developed in evidence by the yardstick

1436
01:55:51.920 --> 01:55:56.520
of the law, it will be
seen that for one untrained in the law,

1437
01:55:56.560 --> 01:56:00.520
to develop a proper legal defense from
the testimony of his witnesses, or

1438
01:56:00.600 --> 01:56:04.159
to break down the prosecution's case in
law by astute cross examination, was almost

1439
01:56:04.199 --> 01:56:10.279
an impossibility. Add to this the
fact that while the crown's lawyers might address

1440
01:56:10.319 --> 01:56:13.720
the court in jury at length,
the defendant's counsel might not be heard in

1441
01:56:13.840 --> 01:56:18.600
argument, and the hopelessness of the
accused plight may be realized to offset the

1442
01:56:18.640 --> 01:56:24.039
inability of the defendant to be heard
through counsel, The theory that the judge

1443
01:56:24.119 --> 01:56:28.159
himself was charged with the protection of
the defendant's rites was laid down, but

1444
01:56:28.239 --> 01:56:30.079
only too often. In those days, this theory was no more than a

1445
01:56:30.159 --> 01:56:35.720
legal fiction, a grim jest at
the prisoner's expense. The indictment for murder

1446
01:56:35.760 --> 01:56:41.720
covered several parchment sheets and charged that
Mary Blandy Spinster, her not having the

1447
01:56:41.760 --> 01:56:45.359
fear of God before her eyes,
did wickedly, wilfully maliciously, and of

1448
01:56:45.399 --> 01:56:51.920
her deliberate and premeditated malice feloniously kill
and murder her father. The said Francis

1449
01:56:51.920 --> 01:56:58.000
Blandy of the town of Hinley aforsaid
against the form of the statute in such

1450
01:56:58.079 --> 01:57:00.720
case made and provided, and against
the dignity of our Lord the King.

1451
01:57:02.000 --> 01:57:05.560
How are you be tried? Mary
Blandie, asked the courts clerk, when

1452
01:57:05.600 --> 01:57:12.439
he had finished reading the interminable hodgepodge
of legal verbiage accusing her of murder by

1453
01:57:12.520 --> 01:57:15.760
God and by my country. The
girl replied, using the proscribed formula,

1454
01:57:16.079 --> 01:57:21.920
which signified she desired trial by jury. Twelve residents of the Vicinity were sworn

1455
01:57:23.000 --> 01:57:27.439
well and truly to try, and
a true deliverance made between our Lord and

1456
01:57:27.560 --> 01:57:32.800
King and Mary Blandie Spinster, and
the trial commenced. It lasted eleven consecutive

1457
01:57:32.840 --> 01:57:38.840
hours, when all the Crown's witnesses
had been examined, no testimony was offered

1458
01:57:38.840 --> 01:57:43.119
by the defense, and the Attorney
General had harangued the jury, charging Mary

1459
01:57:43.119 --> 01:57:45.840
Blandie with the foulest of crimes next
to treason known to the law. The

1460
01:57:45.920 --> 01:57:50.479
judge nodded to the girl her time
to speak had come. Bewildered by the

1461
01:57:50.600 --> 01:57:56.359
unfamiliar surroundings, denounced by the very
servants of her father's house, and with

1462
01:57:56.439 --> 01:58:00.239
not one friendly eye upon her in
all that crowded courtroom, experienced girl rose

1463
01:58:00.279 --> 01:58:04.960
to plead for her life. An
eyewitness of the trial describes her as being

1464
01:58:05.000 --> 01:58:10.479
above medium height, erect and proud
and bearing, and with calm eyes and

1465
01:58:10.640 --> 01:58:15.319
unruffled brow. She was plainly but
decently dressed in a gown of dark woolen

1466
01:58:15.399 --> 01:58:19.159
stuff with white linen collar and wristbands. Her voice, though low, was

1467
01:58:19.199 --> 01:58:24.880
distinct, firm and unhurried, and
her wide gray eyes never left the judge's

1468
01:58:24.880 --> 01:58:30.119
face as she spoke. Among all
the addresses delivered in court since Man first

1469
01:58:30.119 --> 01:58:34.039
sat in judgment on Man, Mary
Blandy's surely deserves high rank for strength and

1470
01:58:34.159 --> 01:58:40.239
simple eloquence. The speech attributed to
Robert Emmett had long been held a masterpiece

1471
01:58:40.239 --> 01:58:45.800
of forensic oratory, but Emmett was
a practiced orator and fired with patriotism.

1472
01:58:45.600 --> 01:58:49.319
Mary Blandy had never addressed a public
gathering in her life, and was on

1473
01:58:49.359 --> 01:58:55.000
the point of exhaustion at the end
of eleven hours of denunciation, an ordeal

1474
01:58:55.039 --> 01:59:00.760
sufficient to break the spirit of a
strong man. My Lord began dropping a

1475
01:59:00.800 --> 01:59:04.239
courtesy to the court. It is
mortally impossible for me to detail to you

1476
01:59:04.680 --> 01:59:09.119
all the hardships I have endured.
But worst of all, I have been

1477
01:59:09.439 --> 01:59:14.000
aspersed in my character. In the
first place, it has been said I

1478
01:59:14.039 --> 01:59:18.880
spoke ill of my father that accursed
him. That is entirely false. Sometimes

1479
01:59:18.920 --> 01:59:23.560
little family affairs have happened, and
we did not speak as kindly to each

1480
01:59:23.560 --> 01:59:27.520
other as I could have wished.
I own I am passionate, my Lord,

1481
01:59:28.000 --> 01:59:30.560
and in my passion I may have
dropped some hard words. But your

1482
01:59:30.560 --> 01:59:35.039
lordship must have noticed what great care
has been taken to recollect every word I

1483
01:59:35.079 --> 01:59:40.239
have said which could be applied to
my disadvantage. These are hardships, my

1484
01:59:40.319 --> 01:59:44.600
Lord, such as you yourself must
allow to be so. It has been

1485
01:59:44.640 --> 01:59:47.920
said too that I endeavored to make
my escape. Your Lordship will judge the

1486
01:59:47.920 --> 01:59:53.600
difficulties I labored under. I lost
my father. I was accused of being

1487
01:59:53.640 --> 01:59:58.439
his murderess. I was not allowed
to go near him. I was forsaken

1488
01:59:58.479 --> 02:00:02.039
by my friends, affronted by them, mob insulted by my servants. Although

1489
02:00:02.079 --> 02:00:04.920
I begged to have the liberty to
listen at the door when he died,

1490
02:00:05.239 --> 02:00:10.239
I was not allowed it. My
keys were taken from me, my shoe

1491
02:00:10.239 --> 02:00:14.479
buckles and garters too, to prevent
my making away with myself, as though

1492
02:00:14.520 --> 02:00:16.720
I were a most abandoned creature.
What could I do? My Lord?

1493
02:00:17.239 --> 02:00:21.079
Was this a condition in which to
attempt an escape? When I was arrested

1494
02:00:21.119 --> 02:00:25.279
in my home, I was locked
up for fifteen hours without a maid to

1495
02:00:25.319 --> 02:00:30.000
attend the decencies of my sex.
I was sent to jail, and the

1496
02:00:30.079 --> 02:00:32.560
high sheriff told me he must put
an iron on me. A little later

1497
02:00:32.600 --> 02:00:35.680
he came in and said he must
put a still heavier iron on my ankles.

1498
02:00:36.079 --> 02:00:41.119
Until my day in court arrived,
I was chained like a savage beast.

1499
02:00:41.199 --> 02:00:45.000
My Lord, newspapers and ballad mongers
have made the free with my reputation.

1500
02:00:45.680 --> 02:00:49.800
I have been represented as the most
abandoned of my sex and prejudiced in

1501
02:00:49.840 --> 02:00:55.159
the eyes of the world. I
submit myself to your lordship and to the

1502
02:00:55.159 --> 02:00:58.520
worthy jury. I do assure you, as I am answered at the Great

1503
02:00:58.560 --> 02:01:01.680
Tribunal, where I am some day
to appear, I am entirely innocent of

1504
02:01:01.760 --> 02:01:06.039
my father's death. I really thought
the powder was an innocent, inoffensive thing.

1505
02:01:06.560 --> 02:01:11.439
And I gave it to him to
procure his love. It has been

1506
02:01:11.479 --> 02:01:15.479
mentioned I should say that I have
been ruined, my lord, in the

1507
02:01:15.520 --> 02:01:18.399
sense the witness is mean. I
have not. I am virtuous. But

1508
02:01:18.479 --> 02:01:24.000
when a young girl loses her character, is not that her ruin? Is

1509
02:01:24.000 --> 02:01:27.560
it not ruining my character to have
this vile charge of murder laid upon me?

1510
02:01:28.760 --> 02:01:30.920
Whatever may be the events of this
trial, my lord, I'm already

1511
02:01:31.000 --> 02:01:38.159
ruined, most effectually and beyond the
hope of redemption. Carefully and painstakingly,

1512
02:01:38.520 --> 02:01:42.399
the judge instructed the jury in the
legal definitions of murder in the first degree,

1513
02:01:42.840 --> 02:01:46.640
murder in the second degree, manslaughter, and innocence. He seems to

1514
02:01:46.680 --> 02:01:50.359
have been a just man who took
his duty to conserve the prisoner's legal rights

1515
02:01:50.399 --> 02:01:57.680
seriously. The instructions done, the
court rose waiting the jury's retirement, but

1516
02:01:57.800 --> 02:02:01.439
no movement came from the jury box. The clerk frowned an annoyance. A

1517
02:02:01.479 --> 02:02:04.560
bailiff motion to the jury's foreman to
retire, but he was answered by a

1518
02:02:04.560 --> 02:02:10.479
stubborn shake of the head. Gentleman
of the jury exclaimed the clerk, have

1519
02:02:10.600 --> 02:02:15.279
you agreed upon a verdict? He
is prepared to suggest sarcastically that they retire

1520
02:02:15.319 --> 02:02:20.079
and deliberate. When the foreman answered
in the negative, he was not given

1521
02:02:20.119 --> 02:02:29.159
the opportunity, we have replied the
foreman. Prisoner, look on the jury.

1522
02:02:29.279 --> 02:02:32.720
Jury. Behold the prisoner, cried
the clerk mechanically. Then as Mary

1523
02:02:32.760 --> 02:02:35.840
Blande rose and regarded the men who
held her faith, the clerk continued,

1524
02:02:36.199 --> 02:02:40.560
gentlemen of the jury, how do
you find the prisoner at the bar guilty

1525
02:02:40.640 --> 02:02:45.479
or not guilty? Guilty? The
foreman spoke the words of doom. Gruffly.

1526
02:02:47.279 --> 02:02:54.079
Mary Blandy's unpopularity in the neighborhood had
paid its final dividend. Your verdict

1527
02:02:54.119 --> 02:02:56.800
is that you find the prisoner at
the bar guilty of murder in the first

1528
02:02:56.840 --> 02:03:00.680
degree, So say all of you, the clerk, in tone, following

1529
02:03:00.720 --> 02:03:06.000
the ritual of all criminal trials.
Again, the jurors nodded solemnly, bring

1530
02:03:06.000 --> 02:03:11.119
me my cap, the judge ordered. An attendant fetched a small black silk

1531
02:03:11.159 --> 02:03:16.560
cap, which the judge fitted over
his full bottomed judicial wig. No sentence

1532
02:03:16.600 --> 02:03:20.560
of death could be pronounced in an
English court unless the judge wore this symbol

1533
02:03:20.600 --> 02:03:26.239
of mourning. The symbolism of the
black cap in English courts was equivalent to

1534
02:03:26.239 --> 02:03:31.600
the broken Wand and German tribunals when
the death sentence was given. Footnote see

1535
02:03:31.720 --> 02:03:38.840
article three of this series, The
Magic Mirror Murders end footnote. Briefly,

1536
02:03:38.880 --> 02:03:43.319
the court congratulated Mary Blandion having had
a fair and impartial trial by a jury

1537
02:03:43.319 --> 02:03:45.720
of her peers, and ordered that
she be hanged by the neck until death

1538
02:03:45.760 --> 02:03:50.319
on the sixth of the following month. As legal form prescribed. He ended

1539
02:03:50.439 --> 02:03:55.720
the sentence with the prayer that God
would have mercy on her soul. The

1540
02:03:55.800 --> 02:03:59.560
girl received her sentence calmly, nor
did she waste breath in vain. Please

1541
02:03:59.600 --> 02:04:02.479
for mercy. She was not a
lawyer's daughter. For nothing. None knew

1542
02:04:02.479 --> 02:04:08.680
better than she the inexorable course of
British justice. During the thirty three days

1543
02:04:08.680 --> 02:04:13.279
of her imprisonment, Mary's conduct was
marked by the utmost gentleness. Not once

1544
02:04:13.359 --> 02:04:15.640
was she heard to protest against her
fate, or to reproach the servants and

1545
02:04:15.680 --> 02:04:19.800
former friends on whose testimony she had
been condemned. Poor girl, why should

1546
02:04:19.800 --> 02:04:24.800
she cling to life? Her father
was dead and she condemned in the world's

1547
02:04:24.840 --> 02:04:29.439
opinion as his murderess. Her lover
had forsaken her in all the world,

1548
02:04:29.520 --> 02:04:32.279
she had not a single friend or
well wish her. April sixth, the

1549
02:04:32.359 --> 02:04:38.039
dawned bright and warm. Mary Blandy
arrayed herself in a modish gown of black

1550
02:04:38.079 --> 02:04:43.119
bombazine, with a white kerchief about
her throat. When the sheriff's men came

1551
02:04:43.159 --> 02:04:47.079
to lead her to execution, she
wished them a cheerful good morning. Executions

1552
02:04:47.079 --> 02:04:51.239
in England in those days were publicly
conducted, and the gallows on which criminals

1553
02:04:51.239 --> 02:04:55.920
were hanged was not erected in the
jail yard for each execution. It was

1554
02:04:56.000 --> 02:04:59.960
kept standing in an open field,
where its grim shadow was a constant reminder

1555
02:05:00.119 --> 02:05:02.840
to evildoers. And this field was
nearly a mile from the jail where Mary

1556
02:05:02.880 --> 02:05:09.279
Blandy was confined. A carriage was
offered her, but she declined, saying

1557
02:05:09.279 --> 02:05:14.000
she would enjoy the April sunshine as
long as possible. So, accompanied by

1558
02:05:14.039 --> 02:05:16.680
the officers and a clergyman, she
set out upon her last journey afoot.

1559
02:05:17.920 --> 02:05:23.000
Previous to leaving the jail, her
wrists had been crossed and bound before her

1560
02:05:23.039 --> 02:05:27.439
with black ribbons, a concession to
her sex and gentility, and this mode

1561
02:05:27.439 --> 02:05:30.520
of tying her hands permitted her to
hold a prayer book before her. This

1562
02:05:30.720 --> 02:05:34.720
was another courtesy for condemned criminals.
Hands were customarily lashed behind their backs with

1563
02:05:34.760 --> 02:05:40.800
a rope. The attending clergyman read
the office appointed for executions in the Book

1564
02:05:40.840 --> 02:05:45.840
of Common Prayer. But Mary Blandy
opened her book to the psalter appointed for

1565
02:05:45.840 --> 02:05:49.359
the sixth day of the month,
and read from Psalm thirty two. Blessed

1566
02:05:49.479 --> 02:05:54.640
is he whose unrighteousness is forgiven,
and whose sin is covered, I said,

1567
02:05:54.680 --> 02:05:58.199
I will confess my sins unto the
Lord, and so thust forgave us

1568
02:05:58.279 --> 02:06:01.399
the wickedness of my sin. Beneath
the gibbet, a step ladder draped in

1569
02:06:01.439 --> 02:06:05.359
black bunting had been set up,
and on this she mounted two rungs,

1570
02:06:05.399 --> 02:06:11.319
saying, gentlemen, I beseech you
hang me no high of a decency's sake.

1571
02:06:12.520 --> 02:06:15.359
But the knotted noose swinging from the
gallows crossbar would not reach her where

1572
02:06:15.399 --> 02:06:18.840
she stood, so she climbed to
the ladder's top. A puff of wind

1573
02:06:18.880 --> 02:06:23.199
caused the ladder to sway slightly,
and the poor girl cried out in terror,

1574
02:06:23.279 --> 02:06:28.439
falling, raising her helpless bound hands
to steady herself. Fear Ye not

1575
02:06:28.640 --> 02:06:32.399
tomboy, called a hoarse voice from
the group about the gallows. Ye'll fall

1576
02:06:32.439 --> 02:06:38.119
clean to hell in a minute.
The chief Constable turned and struck her tormentor

1577
02:06:38.199 --> 02:06:42.159
such a heavy blow in the mouth
that his lips bled. So her old

1578
02:06:42.239 --> 02:06:45.840
enemy's last meeting with Mary Blandy was
like his first, the occasion of a

1579
02:06:45.880 --> 02:06:49.159
beating. When the rope had been
adjusted, Mary raised her hands, drew

1580
02:06:49.159 --> 02:06:54.720
her kerchief over her face, and
stood a moment in silent prayer. Then

1581
02:06:54.800 --> 02:06:59.279
she held her prayer book forward.
This was the signal agreed upon between her

1582
02:06:59.319 --> 02:07:02.640
and the sheriff. Two husky jell
attendants heaved the ladder from beneath her,

1583
02:07:02.760 --> 02:07:08.720
and Mary Blandy's slender body swung between
earth and heaven. It was half an

1584
02:07:08.720 --> 02:07:11.520
hour before they cut her down,
for her weight was not great enough to

1585
02:07:11.560 --> 02:07:15.319
break her neck, and she strangled
slowly, while the great crowd of mean

1586
02:07:15.439 --> 02:07:19.199
folk gathered to watch the execution stood
in hanging jawed amazement to see a woman

1587
02:07:19.279 --> 02:07:24.960
fight so long for life. At
one o'clock the following morning, she was

1588
02:07:25.039 --> 02:07:28.520
carried by torchlight to the family vault
at Hinley, and, with the rope

1589
02:07:28.520 --> 02:07:31.800
that strangled her still about her slim
white throat, buried beside the father for

1590
02:07:31.840 --> 02:07:38.039
whose murder, rightly or wrongly,
she was hanged. Diligent search was made

1591
02:07:38.039 --> 02:07:42.199
for Captain Cranston, but the scoundrel
had heard of Mary's arrest, and,

1592
02:07:42.359 --> 02:07:45.039
deserting the army, fled to France. For five years, he lived a

1593
02:07:45.079 --> 02:07:49.600
fugitive from justice, but the government
took legal proceedings to attach the source of

1594
02:07:49.600 --> 02:07:55.239
his income. At last, reduced
to abject poverty, he died in a

1595
02:07:55.279 --> 02:07:59.479
home for the indigent kept by the
Church at Boulogne, and was buried in

1596
02:07:59.479 --> 02:08:03.560
a nameless grave in foreign soil.
This is the fifth article of a series

1597
02:08:03.560 --> 02:08:07.399
that Sea Berry Quinn is riding for
Weird Tales. The six will appear in

1598
02:08:07.520 --> 02:08:13.359
our next issue. It is entitled
The Werewolf of Saint Bunol. I describe

1599
02:08:13.439 --> 02:08:16.199
some startling things that happened in France
under the reign of Charles the Ninth.

1600
02:08:16.560 --> 02:08:24.199
Be sure to read this gripping article
and the may weird Tales. End of

1601
02:08:24.239 --> 02:08:33.680
section five Section six of Weird Crimes
by Sea Berry Quinn. This LibriVox recordings

1602
02:08:33.720 --> 02:08:41.720
in the public domain, read by
Bin Tucker. Number six, The Werewolf

1603
02:08:41.800 --> 02:08:48.359
of Saint Bernul. The long European
twilight was dying, and darkness crept stealthily

1604
02:08:48.359 --> 02:08:52.640
across the fields and pasture lands as
three horsemen trotted slowly along the forest road

1605
02:08:52.680 --> 02:08:56.760
of Saint Bernol. Two of the
riders carried loots slung across their shoulders,

1606
02:08:56.800 --> 02:09:03.640
which marked them as trouvaurs ballad singers, while the third rode slightly to the

1607
02:09:03.720 --> 02:09:07.880
rear, balancing a portmanteau and his
saddle bow, by which token he was

1608
02:09:07.960 --> 02:09:11.840
labeled attendant of the other two.
All three jangled long swords from their hips,

1609
02:09:13.039 --> 02:09:16.520
for France was under the reign of
the weak and vacillating Charles the ninth,

1610
02:09:18.199 --> 02:09:20.479
and who who would bring his life
and property safely to his journey's end

1611
02:09:20.560 --> 02:09:26.079
must need travel prepared to defend them. Swoons, swore one of the minstrels,

1612
02:09:26.119 --> 02:09:31.800
drawing his scarlet cloak more tightly about
his shoulders. But this abominable wood

1613
02:09:31.880 --> 02:09:35.039
is colder than the tomb of the
blessed Louis. With winter good two moons

1614
02:09:35.039 --> 02:09:39.159
away. Methinks this chill in the
air hath more o'er the devil's flavor than

1615
02:09:39.239 --> 02:09:45.520
of God's good weather. His companion
grunted a reply and sunk his chin deeper

1616
02:09:45.560 --> 02:09:48.760
in his tippet. The speaker looked
right and left at the pale new moonlight

1617
02:09:48.840 --> 02:09:54.000
sifting eerily between the tree trunks,
and continued, A flagon of the Count's

1618
02:09:54.039 --> 02:09:58.439
wine would like me well enough the
now? What would a twenty mile ride

1619
02:09:58.439 --> 02:10:01.920
and no pro vendeur for the man
who based along the way? I'd sing

1620
02:10:03.000 --> 02:10:05.920
of Alexander the Greek and the author
of the Briton from now till sun up

1621
02:10:05.960 --> 02:10:11.680
for a single stoop of wine and
a morsel of bread and cheese. Again,

1622
02:10:11.880 --> 02:10:18.479
in articulate reply from his mate s
death, the conversationally inclined singer went

1623
02:10:18.520 --> 02:10:22.359
on, didst Eva see such a
lonesome, uncanny place as this accursed bois?

1624
02:10:24.239 --> 02:10:28.760
He thinks Monsieur Loupgarou himself would like
no better place. For his question.

1625
02:10:30.039 --> 02:10:33.600
He flung back his bearded chin with
a ringing laugh and began the opening

1626
02:10:33.640 --> 02:10:39.479
lines of Bisclavaret in a deep baritone. The poem, one of France's oldest,

1627
02:10:39.520 --> 02:10:43.880
dealt with the multitudinous herd not yet
made fast and hell, the people

1628
02:10:43.920 --> 02:10:48.920
of the Loup Garou or werewolf,
who had sold their souls to the devil

1629
02:10:48.960 --> 02:10:52.720
in return for the power of transforming
themselves in the wolves to kill and devour

1630
02:10:52.760 --> 02:10:56.239
their enemies. All Europe trembled at
the very name of these men monsters,

1631
02:10:56.239 --> 02:11:01.199
but no country was more plagued by
them than France. Hush, hush Auri.

1632
02:11:01.560 --> 02:11:05.640
The taciturn minstrel suddenly broke his silence
as the singer expanded the theme of

1633
02:11:05.680 --> 02:11:11.119
his terrible song. Pou Lamoire de
la bon Dieux ceased that singing, suppose

1634
02:11:11.119 --> 02:11:16.600
a were wolf were in this twenty
times damned wood. He glanced fearfully among

1635
02:11:16.600 --> 02:11:20.640
the shadows. We should all be
torn to bits. Bah. The other

1636
02:11:20.680 --> 02:11:24.479
replied, de luke Garu would be
lucky if I did not eat him.

1637
02:11:24.560 --> 02:11:31.800
Famished as I am, oh la
monsieur were a wolf, he cried mockingly,

1638
02:11:31.800 --> 02:11:35.920
Come out of the fullest, come
out and be eaten by the hungriest

1639
02:11:35.920 --> 02:11:39.039
song singer who ever kissed a tavern
winch, or drank a gallant of Burgundier

1640
02:11:39.119 --> 02:11:43.760
to draft. It was as if
his challenge had been waited for. From

1641
02:11:43.760 --> 02:11:48.920
a low, clumping bracken beside the
road rose such a merrow freezing howl as

1642
02:11:48.960 --> 02:11:52.920
no man had heard before, and
a huge, gray, shaggy form,

1643
02:11:52.039 --> 02:11:56.720
larger than any wolf that ever fought
a pack of hounds, launched itself straight

1644
02:11:56.760 --> 02:12:03.560
at the astonished Trevor's throat. The
horses reared in sudden terror, plunging futilely

1645
02:12:03.640 --> 02:12:09.840
to beat off his assailant. Amoi
louis amois, froi sois quick for the

1646
02:12:09.920 --> 02:12:13.600
love of God, or I perish. But the other singer and the servant

1647
02:12:13.640 --> 02:12:18.760
could give no aid. Encumbered by
their cloaks and trappings, their horses plunging

1648
02:12:18.760 --> 02:12:22.159
and rearing in panic fear, they
could but fight desperately to retain their saddles,

1649
02:12:22.159 --> 02:12:26.920
and cry supplications to the Virgin help
helpe. The attacked man called again,

1650
02:12:28.079 --> 02:12:31.720
then with a shout of desperation,
he fell from his saddle, The

1651
02:12:31.760 --> 02:12:35.000
great gray thing's teeth fastened in his
shoulder near the base of his neck.

1652
02:12:35.199 --> 02:12:39.760
For a moment, he thrashed among
the underbrush, unable to draw his long

1653
02:12:39.800 --> 02:12:43.560
sword and powerless to thrust back the
creature with his bare hands, and the

1654
02:12:43.640 --> 02:12:48.399
struggle his hand brushed against the hanger
and his girdle. He dragged the short

1655
02:12:48.439 --> 02:12:54.000
cut and thrust blade from its scabbard
with frantic haste, and struck once twice

1656
02:12:54.079 --> 02:12:56.399
three times at the foul creature,
Snarling at his throat, a cry of

1657
02:12:56.520 --> 02:13:01.399
rage and pain sounded amid the monster's
rowling, and with a deep, angry

1658
02:13:01.439 --> 02:13:07.239
bay, it rushed off into the
forest depths. Mon Dieu gasped the minstrel

1659
02:13:07.279 --> 02:13:11.640
as he regained his saddle. Would
the died heeded thy warning, Louis,

1660
02:13:13.039 --> 02:13:16.319
never again will I challenge one of
those tall as hounds from the devil's kennel

1661
02:13:18.000 --> 02:13:20.119
Tomorrow morning, if it please our
lady, we see the light of another

1662
02:13:20.199 --> 02:13:26.560
day. This matter goes before my
Lord Duke, Holy Church and the secular

1663
02:13:26.600 --> 02:13:31.920
government must combine to rid the province
of these changeling wolves. The three writers

1664
02:13:31.920 --> 02:13:35.159
set spurs to their mounts, nor
did they slacken rein till safe within the

1665
02:13:35.199 --> 02:13:39.279
fortifications of the city of Dol.
Next morning, the two singers and their

1666
02:13:39.359 --> 02:13:43.800
lackey appeared before the provincial officials and
made formal complaint that they had been set

1667
02:13:43.880 --> 02:13:48.680
upon and one of them all but
killed by a loup garoux or a werewolf

1668
02:13:48.920 --> 02:13:54.119
in the forest of Saint Bonol.
The officials looked grave when they had heard

1669
02:13:54.159 --> 02:13:58.119
the complainants through This was not the
first account of werewolf depredations to come before

1670
02:13:58.159 --> 02:14:03.920
them. Farmers living in the territory
contiguous to the city had brought in accounts

1671
02:14:03.920 --> 02:14:07.920
of sheep stolen from the fold at
dead of night, of dogs killed as

1672
02:14:07.960 --> 02:14:11.439
they watched the flocks, even of
little children found dead and horribly mingled along

1673
02:14:11.479 --> 02:14:16.399
the roadside and beneath the hedges.
Now came these three wayfarers, all of

1674
02:14:16.439 --> 02:14:20.720
them veterans of the wars, and
two of them men of learning and respect,

1675
02:14:20.119 --> 02:14:24.439
to tell of being boldly attacked on
the royal road as they journeyed through

1676
02:14:24.439 --> 02:14:28.199
the wood. This thing must not
be The power of the country must be

1677
02:14:28.319 --> 02:14:33.079
raised, and the werewolf for ware
wolves responsible for the outrages, sent forthwith

1678
02:14:33.159 --> 02:14:37.680
to the fiery Hill, where their
master, the Devil, waited the coming

1679
02:14:39.319 --> 02:14:43.359
of their forfeited souls. France of
fifteen seventy three was in no condition to

1680
02:14:43.399 --> 02:14:48.520
police her country districts. The long
and devastating wars between Huguenots and Catholics had

1681
02:14:48.520 --> 02:14:52.520
made a sort of no man's land
of large districts. Charles the Knights,

1682
02:14:52.520 --> 02:14:56.119
the king was a man of wax, molded now by this favorite, now

1683
02:14:56.239 --> 02:15:01.960
that, and giving no thought to
the welfare of his people. Every available

1684
02:15:01.000 --> 02:15:05.640
saw that taxation could ring from rich
or poor, was spent to gratify or

1685
02:15:05.640 --> 02:15:09.399
further the ambitions of the most corrupt
and consciousness politician whoever debased a government,

1686
02:15:09.680 --> 02:15:15.920
the Queen Mother Catherine de Medici.
In these circumstances, the Court Parliament at

1687
02:15:16.000 --> 02:15:20.279
Dole might pass as many enactments as
it chose, but lacking force with which

1688
02:15:20.279 --> 02:15:24.800
to make its mandates effective, its
acts were but mere scraps of unavailing paper.

1689
02:15:24.880 --> 02:15:28.359
One power still remained to the court. This was a levy on moss,

1690
02:15:30.119 --> 02:15:33.920
a general calling to arms of the
countryside. Tradesmen and residents of the

1691
02:15:33.920 --> 02:15:39.720
towns of those days stood bareheaded when
titled swaggerers rode forth, and the agricultural

1692
02:15:39.840 --> 02:15:43.920
classes were a little more important to
the nobility than the earth they tilled.

1693
02:15:46.479 --> 02:15:50.399
For one not holding a patent of
nobility to engage in the gentlemanly sport of

1694
02:15:50.479 --> 02:15:54.319
hunting was to court immediate and merciless
punishment. Game must be preserved for the

1695
02:15:54.359 --> 02:15:58.239
nobles to hunt. Though the peasant's
stomach went empty and his flocks and herds

1696
02:15:58.239 --> 02:16:03.680
were depleted by wolves till poverty crushed
him to the ground. Now as a

1697
02:16:03.760 --> 02:16:07.680
chance to declare an open season.
Give the peasants the thrill of engaging in

1698
02:16:07.680 --> 02:16:11.359
the noble pastime of the chase.
Read the country of the dreaded werewolves,

1699
02:16:11.399 --> 02:16:15.920
and save the sorely needed public funds
all at once. Accordingly, the following

1700
02:16:15.920 --> 02:16:20.159
proclamation was issued by the Court of
Parliament at Dole. According to the advertisement

1701
02:16:20.199 --> 02:16:24.119
made to the Sovereign Court of Parliament
at Dole, that in the territories of

1702
02:16:24.159 --> 02:16:30.920
Apagnier, Salvain or Chapon and the
neighboring villages has often been seen and met

1703
02:16:31.479 --> 02:16:35.399
for some time past a werewolf,
who it is said, has already seized

1704
02:16:35.440 --> 02:16:37.959
and carried off several little children,
so that they have not been seen since.

1705
02:16:39.319 --> 02:16:43.520
And since he has attacked and done
injury to divers horsemen in the country,

1706
02:16:43.719 --> 02:16:46.399
who kept him off only with great
difficulty, in danger to their persons

1707
02:16:46.440 --> 02:16:50.280
and lives. The said Court,
desiring to prevent any greater danger, has

1708
02:16:50.319 --> 02:16:56.079
permitted, and by these presents,
does hereby permit all those who are now

1709
02:16:56.120 --> 02:17:01.799
abiding and dwelling in said places and
others, notwithstanding all and any edicts concerning

1710
02:17:01.840 --> 02:17:07.159
the chase, to assembol with pikes, halberts, arquebuses and other weapons,

1711
02:17:07.360 --> 02:17:11.040
to chase and to pursue the said
werewolf in every place where they may find

1712
02:17:11.120 --> 02:17:15.840
him, to seize him, to
tie him, or if necessary to kill

1713
02:17:15.920 --> 02:17:20.440
him without incurring any pains or penalties
of any sort, kind or nature whatsoever

1714
02:17:22.239 --> 02:17:26.840
given at the convocation of the said
Court on the thirteenth day of the month

1715
02:17:26.879 --> 02:17:33.200
of September fifteen seventy three mounted heralds
were despatched throughout the territory adjacent to Dole,

1716
02:17:33.680 --> 02:17:37.079
and within a few days the court's
proclamation was known to every dweller in

1717
02:17:37.079 --> 02:17:41.079
the vicinity. Sint Point. Processions
were seen issuing from all the villages in

1718
02:17:41.079 --> 02:17:46.639
the neighborhood, headed by their parish
priests, with sacred statues born before them.

1719
02:17:46.159 --> 02:17:50.719
The people sallied forth to hunt down
the dreaded Loup Garoux. Solemn high

1720
02:17:50.799 --> 02:17:54.600
mass had been sung, the weapons
of the huntsmen had been formally laid in

1721
02:17:54.639 --> 02:18:00.200
the chancels of their churches and blessed
by the cures, and now all the

1722
02:18:00.280 --> 02:18:05.600
hunt commenced. Separating into parties of
two, the peasants ranged to fields and

1723
02:18:05.760 --> 02:18:09.200
woods, seeking everywhere for their accursed
prey. It must be admitted that many

1724
02:18:09.200 --> 02:18:13.719
of them had no stomach for their
task, and would have dropped their weapons

1725
02:18:13.719 --> 02:18:18.000
and fled incontinently at the first sight
of anything resembling a werewolf. In the

1726
02:18:18.040 --> 02:18:22.440
most remote way. Others so far
forgot the sacred and official duty with which

1727
02:18:22.479 --> 02:18:26.840
they were charged as to devote themselves
to the hunting of edible game, and

1728
02:18:26.959 --> 02:18:31.239
many a luckless money found its way
into the pouches and later to the kettles

1729
02:18:31.280 --> 02:18:35.600
of the werewolf hunters. Still others
routed forest wolves from their lairs and killed

1730
02:18:35.639 --> 02:18:39.879
them. So not a few wolves
scalps were brought before the provincial authorities.

1731
02:18:41.000 --> 02:18:45.879
But these were all natural wolves,
as incapable of assuming human shape as the

1732
02:18:45.879 --> 02:18:50.799
peasants were of becoming wolves, And
though their deaths doubtless added greatly to the

1733
02:18:50.840 --> 02:18:54.639
safety of the neighborhood sheepfolds, they
brought the werewolf menace no nearer a termination

1734
02:18:56.159 --> 02:19:00.879
than when the Court of Parliament first
issued its proclamation. Interest in the hunt

1735
02:19:00.920 --> 02:19:03.959
began to slacken. The peasants had
their farmlets to attend, and the great

1736
02:19:05.040 --> 02:19:09.559
landed proprietors were heartily sick of having
their game preservers raided by those supposedly bent

1737
02:19:09.639 --> 02:19:13.079
on public service. Except among those
who had lost children or sheep, the

1738
02:19:13.159 --> 02:19:20.719
loup Garoux became little more than a
hazy recollection, and then suddenly, unexpectedly,

1739
02:19:20.239 --> 02:19:24.719
he was found on the eighth of
November fifteen seventy three, when the

1740
02:19:24.719 --> 02:19:30.239
fields were all but bare of vegetation
and the last leaves were a reluctantly parting

1741
02:19:30.239 --> 02:19:35.120
company with the trees, three laborers, hurrying from their work to their homes

1742
02:19:35.239 --> 02:19:39.239
at Chastenoy by a woodland shortcut,
heard the screams of a little girl issuing

1743
02:19:39.879 --> 02:19:43.920
from a dense tangle of vines and
undergrowth, And with the child screams mingled

1744
02:19:43.959 --> 02:19:48.799
the baying of a wolf swinging their
stout bill hooks, cutting a path for

1745
02:19:48.879 --> 02:19:54.719
themselves through the tangled wild wood.
The laborers hastened toward the sounds, and

1746
02:19:54.840 --> 02:19:58.200
a little clearing they beheld a terrifying
sight, backed against a tree, defending

1747
02:19:58.200 --> 02:20:01.319
herself with the shep Ritch crook was
a ten year old girl bleeding from a

1748
02:20:01.360 --> 02:20:05.719
half dozen wounds, while before her
was a monstrous creature which never ceased its

1749
02:20:05.719 --> 02:20:11.879
infernal baying and howling as it attacked
her tooth and nail. As the peasants

1750
02:20:11.959 --> 02:20:16.079
ran forward to the child's rescue,
the thing fled off into the forest on

1751
02:20:16.120 --> 02:20:20.600
all fours, disappearing almost instantly in
the darkness. The men would have followed,

1752
02:20:20.600 --> 02:20:24.120
but the child demanded all their attention, for Weakened by loss of blood

1753
02:20:24.120 --> 02:20:28.440
and exhausted with terror, she fell
fainting before they could reach her. The

1754
02:20:28.559 --> 02:20:31.959
child was carried home and the workmen
reported their adventure to the authorities. Their

1755
02:20:33.000 --> 02:20:37.520
astonishment had been too great and the
night too dark for them to make accurate

1756
02:20:37.559 --> 02:20:41.520
observations, so there was a conflict
in their testimony. To affirmed the thing

1757
02:20:41.559 --> 02:20:46.559
possessed the body of a wolf,
the third swore positively it was a man,

1758
02:20:46.159 --> 02:20:50.520
and what was more, to the
point, he recognized him. The

1759
02:20:50.559 --> 02:20:54.079
clerical authorities cast their vote with the
peasants asserting the child's assailant a wolf,

1760
02:20:54.600 --> 02:21:00.200
and there the matter rested for a
time. On the fourteenth of the month,

1761
02:21:00.520 --> 02:21:03.159
the disappearance of a little boy about
eight years old was reported. The

1762
02:21:03.280 --> 02:21:07.559
child had last been seen within an
arrow's flight of the gates of Dole,

1763
02:21:07.280 --> 02:21:11.719
yet he had vanished as completely as
though swallowed by the earth. Now the

1764
02:21:11.760 --> 02:21:18.399
civil authorities decided on action. They
were not inclined to discount the werewolf theory

1765
02:21:18.600 --> 02:21:22.319
entirely, for to deny the existence
of such monsters in those days was treading

1766
02:21:22.399 --> 02:21:28.760
dangerously close to the skirts of heresy. But neither were they minded to overlook

1767
02:21:28.799 --> 02:21:33.440
any clue which pointed a natural explanation
to the mystery. The Frenchman is curiously

1768
02:21:33.479 --> 02:21:39.479
logical and direct, even in matters
of superstition. Two days after the little

1769
02:21:39.520 --> 02:21:45.159
boy's disappearance was reported, as Sargent
de Ville set out from Dole, armed

1770
02:21:45.159 --> 02:21:50.040
with a writ of attachment and a
very businesslike sword, and accompanied by six

1771
02:21:50.079 --> 02:21:54.239
stalwart arquebusiers. Guided by the peasant
who claimed to have recognized the little girl's

1772
02:21:54.280 --> 02:21:58.600
assailant, the party hastened through the
forest of Saint Penult to the home of

1773
02:21:58.600 --> 02:22:01.840
one Gille Garnier, which stood beside
the banks of a woodland tarn, not

1774
02:22:01.959 --> 02:22:07.360
far from the village of arnannge Gieur
Gargnier. The man they sought was a

1775
02:22:07.399 --> 02:22:13.719
somber, ill favored fellow surly in
Taciturn. He walked with a pronounced stoop

1776
02:22:13.719 --> 02:22:16.079
and a shuffling gait, looking neither
to the right nor left, and usually

1777
02:22:16.159 --> 02:22:20.319
muttering half crazily to himself. His
pale face, repulsive features, and livid

1778
02:22:20.399 --> 02:22:26.040
complexion repelled all advances from those who
met him, and little was known of

1779
02:22:26.079 --> 02:22:28.840
his personal habits. But because of
his long, unkempt beard, his filthy

1780
02:22:28.879 --> 02:22:35.360
and ragged clothing uncleanliness was next to
godliness in those days, and his solitary

1781
02:22:35.360 --> 02:22:39.639
life, he was popularly known as
the Hermit of Saint Bernul. This title,

1782
02:22:39.719 --> 02:22:43.559
however, carried with it no implication
of sanctity. Quite the reverse.

1783
02:22:43.680 --> 02:22:48.000
Persons with property to lose were wont
to lock it up securely when the hermit

1784
02:22:48.040 --> 02:22:50.239
was known to be in the vicinity, and many a hen roost owed its

1785
02:22:50.239 --> 02:22:56.680
depreciated population to his evening visits.
The hermit's hut was as dilapidated as its

1786
02:22:56.680 --> 02:23:01.879
tenant. Its crude roof was made
of squares of saw laid across rickety rafters,

1787
02:23:01.719 --> 02:23:07.479
and its walls of uncemented stones,
irregularly piled one upon another, were

1788
02:23:07.559 --> 02:23:11.040
encrusted with lichen. The floor was
of trodden clay in the rough timber door

1789
02:23:11.159 --> 02:23:16.319
hung crazily on hinges of rawhide.
The windows were unglazed and stopped against the

1790
02:23:16.360 --> 02:23:22.639
weather with aprons of untanned skins.
The sergeant deployed four of his half dozen

1791
02:23:22.680 --> 02:23:26.159
followers in an enveloping movement about the
hut, while accompanied by the remaining two

1792
02:23:26.840 --> 02:23:31.159
and his guide, he approached the
hut and knocked thunderously on its sagging door

1793
02:23:31.200 --> 02:23:39.319
with the hilt of his sword.
Hail calls Joe Garnier appeared evilly from window.

1794
02:23:39.079 --> 02:23:43.719
I do, the sergeant answered,
opening the name of the law.

1795
02:23:45.120 --> 02:23:50.479
What sake ye? Here? The
hermit parlayed, I seek thee accursed of

1796
02:23:50.559 --> 02:23:54.760
God? Where wolf, slave of
little children. The officer replied, come

1797
02:23:54.840 --> 02:24:01.319
forth and yield ye, or by
lady, I'll come in four thee gille

1798
02:24:01.319 --> 02:24:05.440
Garnier bared his long yellow teeth in
an ugly snarl, and hunched his rounded

1799
02:24:05.479 --> 02:24:09.319
shoulders as if to spring upon the
messenger of justice. But a second look

1800
02:24:09.360 --> 02:24:15.639
at the arquebusier's showed him the futility
of resistance. The arquebuse was grandfather to

1801
02:24:15.680 --> 02:24:20.360
the flint lock musket of revolutionary days
and great great grandfather to the modern rifle.

1802
02:24:20.959 --> 02:24:24.440
It was nearly as tall as a
man, had a bore larger than

1803
02:24:24.479 --> 02:24:26.760
the modern twelve gage shotgun, and
was fired by its bearer, thrusting the

1804
02:24:26.799 --> 02:24:31.959
glowing fuse or gun match into a
touch hole at its breach. Even with

1805
02:24:31.079 --> 02:24:35.680
the inferior gunpowder of those days,
it had arranged twice that of the strongest

1806
02:24:35.680 --> 02:24:37.600
crossbow, and though it was anything
but accurate a name, it carried a

1807
02:24:37.680 --> 02:24:43.239
charge of leaden slugs and broken nails, which scattered almost over a half acre

1808
02:24:43.319 --> 02:24:46.280
lot. If one of the soldiers
had opened fire at point blank rains,

1809
02:24:48.040 --> 02:24:54.600
gille le Garnier would have been mingled
almost beyond human recognition. Gille Garnier thought

1810
02:24:54.600 --> 02:24:58.760
it prudent to come out and surrender
his arms and legs firmly manacled an iron

1811
02:25:00.000 --> 02:25:03.280
paine about his neck, binding him
fast to the sergeant's stirrup. The werewolf

1812
02:25:03.360 --> 02:25:09.280
of Saint Bonol was brought to Doel. For a time, there was a

1813
02:25:09.280 --> 02:25:15.000
controversy whether state or ecclesiastical courts should
take jurisdiction. The clerics maintained that the

1814
02:25:15.040 --> 02:25:18.520
prisoner had committed his crimes in the
form of a wolf, and since he

1815
02:25:18.559 --> 02:25:20.680
had sold his soul to the devil
in order to become a werewolf, it

1816
02:25:20.799 --> 02:25:26.000
was a matter cognizable only in the
court's spiritual The civil authorities declared it had

1817
02:25:26.040 --> 02:25:31.319
not yet proven that the accused had
committed any crime, and so if he

1818
02:25:31.319 --> 02:25:33.600
had committed any whether a man or
beast, it followed he must be tried

1819
02:25:33.639 --> 02:25:37.959
before the temporal courts. The civil
lawyers won, and the trial commenced.

1820
02:25:39.000 --> 02:25:43.479
Witnesses were summoned to prove the deaths
of children and the condition in which their

1821
02:25:43.479 --> 02:25:46.639
bodies were found. Shepherds appeared to
tell of their missing sheep. The two

1822
02:25:46.680 --> 02:25:50.559
minstrels and their servant told of the
attack made on them the previous September.

1823
02:25:52.319 --> 02:25:54.959
The little maid, rescued by the
peasants, identified the prisoner positively as her

1824
02:25:56.000 --> 02:25:58.600
assailant, and showed the court the
scars left by his teeth and nails.

1825
02:26:00.920 --> 02:26:05.120
Then came the examination of the prisoner, in anticipation of his claims to innocence.

1826
02:26:05.120 --> 02:26:07.840
A choice collection of racks, thumb
screws, leg crushers, and branding

1827
02:26:07.840 --> 02:26:13.479
irons was made ready, and the
official torturers looked forward to a busy morning.

1828
02:26:15.280 --> 02:26:18.000
But the prisoner not only confessed all
the crimes charged against him, but

1829
02:26:18.120 --> 02:26:22.920
volunteered information concerning a number of others
unknown to the court. On the last

1830
02:26:24.000 --> 02:26:28.639
day of Michael Muss September twenty ninth, near the wood of Lasserre, while

1831
02:26:28.639 --> 02:26:31.600
in the form of wolf, he
had attacked and slain with his teeth and

1832
02:26:31.639 --> 02:26:35.200
claws, a little girl of ten
or twelve years, drawn her into a

1833
02:26:35.200 --> 02:26:39.040
thicket and gnawed the flesh from her
arms and legs. On the fourteenth day,

1834
02:26:39.159 --> 02:26:43.879
after all Saints November fourteenth, also
in the form of a wolf,

1835
02:26:43.280 --> 02:26:46.360
he had seized a little boy,
strangled him, and partially eaten him.

1836
02:26:48.520 --> 02:26:52.079
Asked how he could have strangled the
child if he were in wolf's form at

1837
02:26:52.079 --> 02:26:56.120
the time. He was at first
vague in his replies, but finally recollected

1838
02:26:56.559 --> 02:26:58.719
that his hands had not been changed, so he still had the use of

1839
02:26:58.719 --> 02:27:03.200
his fingers. On the Friday before
Saint Bartholomew's Day, he had seized a

1840
02:27:03.200 --> 02:27:07.319
boy of twelve or thirteen near the
village of Peruse and killed him, but

1841
02:27:07.479 --> 02:27:11.360
was prevented from eating him by the
approach of some peasants. These men were

1842
02:27:11.360 --> 02:27:16.600
found and corroborated the prisoner's statement.
Although the little girl whose rescue was the

1843
02:27:16.680 --> 02:27:20.840
cause of his arrest declared the prisoner
had been in human form when he attacked

1844
02:27:20.840 --> 02:27:26.280
her, gille Garnier stoutly maintained he
had been in wolf's shape at the time,

1845
02:27:26.159 --> 02:27:28.879
and to prove his power to change
into a wolf at will, he

1846
02:27:28.959 --> 02:27:33.120
suddenly sank to his all fours on
the courtroom floor, began capering about in

1847
02:27:33.200 --> 02:27:37.280
grotesque imitation of a wolf, and
emitted a series of howls, yelps,

1848
02:27:37.360 --> 02:27:43.520
and growls. Which perfectly simulated those
of a feracious beast of prey. The

1849
02:27:43.559 --> 02:27:46.959
court deliberated over his case decided he
had imitated wolf calls only to terrify his

1850
02:27:48.040 --> 02:27:54.000
victims, but had never actually assumed
wolf's form, and consequently voted him guilty

1851
02:27:54.040 --> 02:27:58.840
of simple murder, unaccompanied by sorcery. As a murderer, he was punishable

1852
02:27:58.879 --> 02:28:03.680
only by the civil authority. Sentence
followed hard upon the verdict. On the

1853
02:28:03.719 --> 02:28:07.840
tenth day following his arrest, Jille
Garnier, the self confessed werewolf of Saint

1854
02:28:07.840 --> 02:28:11.479
Bernol, was dragged by ropes attached
to his ankles over a rough road for

1855
02:28:11.520 --> 02:28:15.120
a distance of nearly a mile,
bound to a stake, and burned to

1856
02:28:15.200 --> 02:28:20.680
death. Note the reader must be
aware that Jills Garnier was the victim of

1857
02:28:20.760 --> 02:28:24.040
that form of insanity known as zoomania, where the patient believes himself an animal.

1858
02:28:24.319 --> 02:28:28.559
Zoomania, or that branch of it
known as a loopomania where the lunatic

1859
02:28:28.600 --> 02:28:33.239
imagines himself a wolf, is fortunately
relatively uncommon today, yet frequent enough to

1860
02:28:33.280 --> 02:28:39.159
be recognized by medico legal authorities.
If it be remembered that Jille Garnier was

1861
02:28:39.200 --> 02:28:43.000
obviously a man of feeble intellect,
and that all France, indeed all Europe

1862
02:28:43.040 --> 02:28:48.920
of that day reeked with terror tales
concerning the Loup Garou, which tales Guarnier

1863
02:28:48.000 --> 02:28:54.840
had heard and implicitly believed since earliest
infancy. It can readily be seen how

1864
02:28:54.159 --> 02:28:58.840
when his poor wits finally broke down, he came to imagine himself a werewolf.

1865
02:29:00.040 --> 02:29:03.360
The fact that he was lucid enough
on every subject save this one delusion

1866
02:29:03.399 --> 02:29:09.200
stamps his ailment as paranoia or monomania, one of the commonest forms of insanity

1867
02:29:09.239 --> 02:29:13.000
among the young and middle aged.
The man must have been quite powerless to

1868
02:29:13.079 --> 02:29:16.200
restrain himself when seized with one of
his attacks, and in any modern court

1869
02:29:16.239 --> 02:29:20.920
he would have been committed to an
institution without even being brought to trial.

1870
02:29:22.040 --> 02:29:24.040
It does not appear that he ate
the flesh of his victims because of hunger.

1871
02:29:24.280 --> 02:29:28.319
On the contrary, the shocking act
must be regarded purely as a symptom

1872
02:29:28.399 --> 02:29:33.360
of his derangement. When under the
spell of his disease, the lunatic frequently

1873
02:29:33.440 --> 02:29:39.239
resorts to the most unlikely diet.
The author was once present at an autopsy

1874
02:29:39.319 --> 02:29:43.200
performed on a paranoiax body when no
less than half a dozen tenpenny nails were

1875
02:29:43.239 --> 02:29:50.000
extracted from the unfortunate man's stomach,
several of them almost entirely eroded by the

1876
02:29:50.120 --> 02:29:58.079
natural hydrochloric acid of that organ.
See berry Quinn, end of section six,

1877
02:30:03.159 --> 02:30:07.280
Section seven of Weird Crimes by Sea
berry Quinn. This LibriVox recordings in

1878
02:30:07.280 --> 02:30:16.760
the public domain, read by Ben
Tucker. Number seven the human Hyaena Miltonnau.

1879
02:30:16.200 --> 02:30:22.399
Again the Prefect of Police beat the
polished top of his bureau with a

1880
02:30:22.440 --> 02:30:26.520
furious fist and bent a stare of
angry incredulity on the Sergeant de Sairatre,

1881
02:30:28.280 --> 02:30:31.559
who stood at attention before him.
It has happened again to yo, say,

1882
02:30:33.000 --> 02:30:37.000
nom de nomme is a policeman,
never to sleep again in this accursid

1883
02:30:37.040 --> 02:30:43.559
city. Even so, Monsieur le
prefet, replied the sergeant imperturbably. Another

1884
02:30:43.600 --> 02:30:48.440
of the poor ones has been direct
from her blessed rest and dismembered. Ha.

1885
02:30:48.760 --> 02:30:56.520
The Prefect fairly thundered, Yes,
Monsieur dismembered even thus the others nondin

1886
02:30:56.799 --> 02:31:01.280
pitit bon home, exclaimed the Prefect, then, feeling that the name of

1887
02:31:01.319 --> 02:31:03.719
a good little man was scarcely a
strong enough oath for the occasion, he

1888
02:31:03.760 --> 02:31:09.559
added enorm dedieux. He drummed a
moment on the polished surface of his desk

1889
02:31:09.639 --> 02:31:16.360
with nervous fingers, Regarding his companion
thoughtfully, Hebbia, he said, at

1890
02:31:16.399 --> 02:31:18.959
last a way must be found to
lay the sly one by the heels.

1891
02:31:20.079 --> 02:31:24.559
No perfectly, Monsieur agreed. The
sergeant has a garb been placed in all

1892
02:31:24.600 --> 02:31:31.879
dycimities, not all, monsieur.
The city is so unsettled the gendarmes are

1893
02:31:31.920 --> 02:31:35.719
solely needed for patrol duty. Yes, yes, I understand, the prefector

1894
02:31:35.760 --> 02:31:39.559
interrupted. We must decide upon some
other way. Leave me. I will

1895
02:31:39.600 --> 02:31:45.399
think this over. Something must be
done at once, Pardieu just getting so

1896
02:31:45.559 --> 02:31:50.600
no man can sleep peacefully even in
his grave. The sergeant saluted, placed

1897
02:31:50.600 --> 02:31:54.280
his right foot exactly six inches behind
his left, swung round in a perfect

1898
02:31:54.319 --> 02:31:58.200
about face, and left the room, closing the door noiselessly behind him Alone.

1899
02:31:58.239 --> 02:32:03.319
The Prefect of the Paris Police lighted
a long, thin cigar and stared

1900
02:32:03.360 --> 02:32:07.760
fixedly at his office wall, blowing
clouds of rancid tobacco smoke from his nose.

1901
02:32:07.639 --> 02:32:11.159
The Prefect's hands were very full.
It was the autumn of eighteen forty

1902
02:32:11.159 --> 02:32:15.200
eight, and France was in such
turmoil as she had not known since the

1903
02:32:15.280 --> 02:32:20.079
days of the Directory. That summer, the people had risen. Louis Philippe,

1904
02:32:20.559 --> 02:32:24.040
the last of the Bourbons, had
fled to England under the assumed name

1905
02:32:24.079 --> 02:32:28.520
of mister Smith, and a second
republic had been declared, with La Martine,

1906
02:32:28.680 --> 02:32:33.079
the poet historian, as its provisional
head. But reactionary plots were thicker

1907
02:32:33.079 --> 02:32:39.799
in Paris than maggots and cheese and
the gendalmerie, who were kept busy guarding

1908
02:32:39.799 --> 02:32:45.280
the life of the infant republic.
Taking advantage of the policeman's political preoccupation,

1909
02:32:45.840 --> 02:32:50.239
criminals of all sorts and degrees were
plying their nefarious trades, often in broad

1910
02:32:50.319 --> 02:32:54.959
daylight, and no man's life or
property were safe. Now added to this

1911
02:32:54.079 --> 02:32:58.239
ordinary run of the mill crime,
a new scandal had broken out in the

1912
02:32:58.280 --> 02:33:03.239
city and environs of Paris. Several
cemeteries within or near the city limits had

1913
02:33:03.239 --> 02:33:07.040
been broken into during darkness, and
many graves had been rifled. At first,

1914
02:33:07.040 --> 02:33:11.719
the depredations had been ascribed to medical
students seeking cadavers for anatomical study,

1915
02:33:13.680 --> 02:33:18.200
but brief investigations by the police proved
this theory unsound. Had body snatchers been

1916
02:33:18.239 --> 02:33:22.000
responsible, the bodies would have been
carried away. As it was, the

1917
02:33:22.040 --> 02:33:28.760
corpses were found lying about the opened
graves and broken's tombs in fragments. A

1918
02:33:28.879 --> 02:33:33.760
wild beast, I hain't escaped from
a circus, people said. But here

1919
02:33:33.760 --> 02:33:41.479
again the clue proved groundless. With
characteristic thoroughness such as ever distinguishes French police

1920
02:33:41.520 --> 02:33:46.559
methods, the officers had visited every
circus and zoological collection within twenty miles of

1921
02:33:46.600 --> 02:33:50.399
Paris, inquiring if any of them
had suffered a loss from their cages.

1922
02:33:52.600 --> 02:33:56.879
Once a clue seemed within grasp for
a circus owner admitted having lost an animal,

1923
02:33:56.920 --> 02:34:01.360
But the missing beast was a panther. Had muss Sieur le proprietor ever

1924
02:34:01.399 --> 02:34:09.319
possessed one of those interesting beasts ayena
alas monsieur le Propieta was desolated to inform

1925
02:34:09.399 --> 02:34:13.360
the gentleman of the police it had
never been his good fortune to include such

1926
02:34:13.440 --> 02:34:18.639
interesting exhibit of Asia's fauna among his
collection. Lions certainly, diegars, but

1927
02:34:18.760 --> 02:34:26.040
of course leopards, most assuredly panthers, jaguars, pumas may we but a

1928
02:34:26.159 --> 02:34:31.639
hyaena ah no may no. Monsieur
the proprietor was grieved and shamed to admit

1929
02:34:31.719 --> 02:34:35.399
it. But no such splendid animal
as a hyaena had he ever possessed.

1930
02:34:35.040 --> 02:34:41.799
The gendarmes shrugged their shoulders and proceeded
with their quest. One morning came an

1931
02:34:41.879 --> 02:34:46.559
urgent message from the intendant of pere
Lachet Cemetery. A most flagrant outrage had

1932
02:34:46.559 --> 02:34:50.200
been committed the night before the body
of a young matron buried in a five

1933
02:34:50.280 --> 02:34:54.680
year concession, had been taken from
its coffin and literally hacked to pieces with

1934
02:34:54.719 --> 02:35:01.520
the grave diggers spade. The gendarmes
went to the cemetery and inured to shocking

1935
02:35:01.559 --> 02:35:05.040
sights. Though their profession had made
them, their weather beaten faces went gray

1936
02:35:05.079 --> 02:35:11.000
as the spectacle of that poor violated
woman's body. Blows of brutal strength had

1937
02:35:11.040 --> 02:35:16.959
sheared limbs from torso the face was
mashed to an unrecognizable mass with the spade's

1938
02:35:16.959 --> 02:35:20.760
long handle. The top of the
head had been beaten to a bloody softness

1939
02:35:20.760 --> 02:35:24.440
with a board wrenched from the coffin's
headboard. And beside the grave in the

1940
02:35:24.520 --> 02:35:30.399
mud of last night's rain were footprints, long slender footprints, the sort of

1941
02:35:30.399 --> 02:35:35.399
tracks a well shot gentleman's boots might
leave a clue at last, a clue,

1942
02:35:35.840 --> 02:35:39.920
the detectives exclaimed, But like all
previous ones, this clue led nowhere.

1943
02:35:39.360 --> 02:35:43.120
The soft moist earth held the prints
up to the cemetery's very gate,

1944
02:35:43.840 --> 02:35:48.399
but the paving flints of the street
outside had no testimony to offer. Even

1945
02:35:48.440 --> 02:35:52.840
if the miscreant had left tracks of
his muddy boots on the stones, the

1946
02:35:52.959 --> 02:35:56.360
very rain that had made the footprints
visible in the cemetery would have washed away

1947
02:35:56.360 --> 02:36:01.200
all traces long before the officers arrived
hard Press, though they were by other

1948
02:36:01.280 --> 02:36:05.719
duties. The police assigned guards to
Pere le Chaise, and the depredation ceased

1949
02:36:05.440 --> 02:36:11.559
at Pere Lachaise, But another cemetery
less than a mile away was entered,

1950
02:36:11.959 --> 02:36:13.639
and the body of a little girl, a child but two years passed her

1951
02:36:13.639 --> 02:36:20.000
first communion, was dragged from a
three year concession and shamefully maltreated. Journalism

1952
02:36:20.040 --> 02:36:24.399
then as now, was avidly on
the trail of scandal, and the Paris

1953
02:36:24.440 --> 02:36:30.520
press began resting from its political tirades
to abuse the police. Republican and Royalist

1954
02:36:30.600 --> 02:36:33.079
papers were in harmony on this theme. One and all. They called for

1955
02:36:33.120 --> 02:36:37.000
the immediate apprehension of the monster who
disturbed the repose of the blessed dead,

1956
02:36:37.799 --> 02:36:43.159
or the resignation of an impotent Prefect
of police. Yet all efforts were unavailing.

1957
02:36:43.959 --> 02:36:48.239
When all cemeteries were under double guard, the human hyena never put in

1958
02:36:48.280 --> 02:36:52.760
an appearance. Let the guard be
relieved for but a single night, and

1959
02:36:52.879 --> 02:37:00.239
some poor woman's body lay unearthed and
horribly mingled under next morning's sun. These

1960
02:37:00.280 --> 02:37:03.799
things the Prefect of Police thought of
as he smoked his accurate cigar in his

1961
02:37:03.879 --> 02:37:09.440
cabinet and drummed up on the polished
surface of his desk mo blieux. He

1962
02:37:09.520 --> 02:37:13.239
muttered, we must seize this,
monsieur, this assassin of the sleep of

1963
02:37:13.319 --> 02:37:18.200
the dead. We must, we
must, we must. But how the

1964
02:37:18.239 --> 02:37:24.399
fellow's knowledge of preparations for his apprehension
was uncanny. Almost it seemed some unfaithful

1965
02:37:24.440 --> 02:37:30.559
member of the police establishment was giving
him information. How else explained his absence

1966
02:37:30.559 --> 02:37:35.280
from guarded cemeteries, his inevitable raids
upon those not protected with gun and bayonet?

1967
02:37:35.159 --> 02:37:39.639
Aha have it? The Prefect sat
suddenly forward in his chair and rang

1968
02:37:39.760 --> 02:37:45.520
for his orderly send for the amorer. He ordered. When his call was

1969
02:37:45.600 --> 02:37:50.239
answered, this assassin shall apprehend himself. We will set the top for him,

1970
02:37:50.639 --> 02:37:54.239
the planets formed. Now let us
work, nom de nom. Why

1971
02:37:54.280 --> 02:37:58.079
did I never thought of this before? Rapidly the Prefect sketched his plan for

1972
02:37:58.120 --> 02:38:05.159
the criminals apprehend the gunsmith he had
summoned, nodding understandably at intervals, Can

1973
02:38:05.200 --> 02:38:09.079
you do it? The Prefect ask
at linked yes, monsieur, the armorer

1974
02:38:09.120 --> 02:38:15.159
answered, I'm quite certain it can
be a writings. Hurried preparations took place

1975
02:38:15.159 --> 02:38:20.000
in the material department of police headquarters
all next day. Before twilight faded into

1976
02:38:20.079 --> 02:38:24.440
night. The walls of every cemetery
throughout Paris bristled with spring guns so cleverly

1977
02:38:24.520 --> 02:38:30.479
arranged that any one attempting to enter
the graveyards except through their gates must necessarily

1978
02:38:30.479 --> 02:38:35.120
come in contact with concealed wires,
which touched never so lightly would discharge the

1979
02:38:35.200 --> 02:38:39.639
cocked and doubly loaded muskets. With
these automatic sentries on duty before the city's

1980
02:38:39.639 --> 02:38:43.120
graves, the Prefect was able to
reduce his human guards to one or two

1981
02:38:43.120 --> 02:38:48.399
men for each burying ground, leaving
some score more gendons for you for patrolling

1982
02:38:48.399 --> 02:38:54.200
the troubled city streets. Autumn ripened
into winter, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew

1983
02:38:54.239 --> 02:38:58.319
of Napoleon the Great, was chosen
president of the new Republic by an overwhelming

1984
02:38:58.399 --> 02:39:05.120
vote and was triumphantly inaugurated on the
twentieth of December, with a relative of

1985
02:39:05.120 --> 02:39:09.440
the Little Corporal at its head.
The young Republic felt assured of continued existence,

1986
02:39:11.159 --> 02:39:15.000
and the Paris police were able to
turn their attention from sedition hunting to

1987
02:39:15.120 --> 02:39:20.079
thief catching. The palmy days of
crime were ended, and the press ceased

1988
02:39:20.120 --> 02:39:24.159
its abuse of the police, but
the human hyena was still at large.

1989
02:39:24.680 --> 02:39:28.159
Almost with the establishment of the spring
guns and the cemeteries, his nocturnal raids

1990
02:39:28.200 --> 02:39:33.040
ceased, and the Prefect was about
to relieve the graveyard guards and dismount the

1991
02:39:33.040 --> 02:39:39.239
guns, when on a rainy,
dismal night in March eighteen forty nine,

1992
02:39:39.520 --> 02:39:43.879
the gendarmes stationed at Saint Parnass Cemetery
huddled for shelter beneath the pentus of the

1993
02:39:43.959 --> 02:39:50.639
chapel. The rain wind, driven
between the leafless branches of the poplar trees,

1994
02:39:50.200 --> 02:39:54.600
beat dismally down upon the aged,
stained marble tombs and the rough,

1995
02:39:54.760 --> 02:40:01.879
unsodden mounds of the ten year concessions. By the further wall of the cemetery.

1996
02:40:01.360 --> 02:40:07.680
Beneath their ghastly white wooden signboards,
the five and three year concessions seemed

1997
02:40:07.760 --> 02:40:11.959
to cower from the storm. These
were the graves of the poorer dead.

1998
02:40:11.920 --> 02:40:16.200
For in France there were four classes
of burials beside those of the potter's field.

1999
02:40:18.079 --> 02:40:22.559
First were those rich enough to own
their tombs or grave lots in perpetuity.

2000
02:40:22.639 --> 02:40:28.319
They slept the long, long sleep
of death undisturbed. Next came the

2001
02:40:28.360 --> 02:40:31.200
ten year concessionnaires, whose relatives had
bought them the right to lie in moderately

2002
02:40:31.239 --> 02:40:35.239
deep graves for a decade, after
which they would be exhumed and deposited in

2003
02:40:35.280 --> 02:40:41.440
a common charnel house, all trace
of their identity lost. The five year

2004
02:40:41.479 --> 02:40:46.399
concessions graves were scarcely deeper than the
height of the coffins they enclosed, and

2005
02:40:46.520 --> 02:40:50.760
their repose was limited to half a
decade, while the three year concessions placed

2006
02:40:50.799 --> 02:40:54.319
nearest the cemetery walls, where merely
mounds of earth heaped over coffins resting on

2007
02:40:54.360 --> 02:41:00.000
the surface of the ground, destined
to be broken down emptied thirty six months

2008
02:41:00.200 --> 02:41:05.879
after their tenants burial. Pardieu,
one of the gendarmes, swore sinking lower

2009
02:41:05.959 --> 02:41:11.799
under his waterproof cape. What a
night, and what the place better a

2010
02:41:11.799 --> 02:41:15.680
thousand times the battlefield than such a
put all the shout of conflict, the

2011
02:41:15.719 --> 02:41:20.879
crash of musketrie bang, the report
of a discharged rifle cut through his words,

2012
02:41:20.920 --> 02:41:24.440
and a streak of yellow red fire
tore the rain drenched darkness above the

2013
02:41:24.440 --> 02:41:30.680
wall, beyond the three year concessions. Nom de Cooc exclaimed, the startled

2014
02:41:30.760 --> 02:41:35.959
chindarm, leaping to his feet and
grasping his sable hilt, It does he

2015
02:41:35.559 --> 02:41:41.120
the canal has come together. The
officers raced across the boggy graves, their

2016
02:41:41.159 --> 02:41:45.680
drawn swords glistening dully in the rain. Impeded in their progress by the mud

2017
02:41:45.680 --> 02:41:48.920
and darkness, they were in time
to see a dark figure in a military

2018
02:41:48.920 --> 02:41:54.040
mantle leap the wall and disappear in
the gloom. Marks of blood, however,

2019
02:41:54.120 --> 02:41:58.799
gave evidence the spring guns bullet had
struck its mark, and a scrap

2020
02:41:58.799 --> 02:42:01.280
of blue cloth clinging to one of
the iron spikes with which the wall was

2021
02:42:01.319 --> 02:42:07.079
topped afford it an added clue to
the ravisher of the graves, and soda.

2022
02:42:07.360 --> 02:42:13.360
The elder of the gendarmes pronounced at
last, that is a follower of

2023
02:42:13.360 --> 02:42:18.079
that noble profession should sink to such
a crime. Next morning, the search

2024
02:42:18.159 --> 02:42:22.239
was on in earnest. From barracks
to barracks, the gendarmes went inquiring if

2025
02:42:22.239 --> 02:42:28.520
any of the military personnel had reported
himself suffering from gunshot wounds. Almost immediately

2026
02:42:28.559 --> 02:42:33.840
they found their man, and the
person of Lieutenant Bertrand, a junior officer

2027
02:42:33.879 --> 02:42:37.280
of an infantry regiment stationed in the
capital. Not only did this young man

2028
02:42:37.399 --> 02:42:41.280
show such a wound as would match
the spring guns ball, but his cloak

2029
02:42:41.319 --> 02:42:46.799
was ripped by some sharp instrument,
and the fragment of cloth in the gendarmes

2030
02:42:46.920 --> 02:42:54.120
possession matched the rent. Their circumstantial
case was complete. The wounded man was

2031
02:42:54.159 --> 02:42:58.360
confined under guard at Val de Gras's
hospital till his wound was healed, then

2032
02:42:58.399 --> 02:43:03.920
placed on. In England or America, his hearing would have been before the

2033
02:43:03.959 --> 02:43:07.440
civil tribunal, for during time of
peace in these countries, the civil power

2034
02:43:07.520 --> 02:43:13.280
is separate from and superior to the
military. But France, though a republic,

2035
02:43:13.639 --> 02:43:18.959
was still imbued with continental European ideas
of jurisprudence, maintaining one general law

2036
02:43:18.000 --> 02:43:24.040
for the citizenry and another or administrative
system for the military and official classes.

2037
02:43:24.760 --> 02:43:28.079
Consequently, it was not a civil
criminal court, but a court martial which

2038
02:43:28.120 --> 02:43:31.920
heard Bertrand's case. The judge advocate
was relieved of the necessity of proving his

2039
02:43:33.000 --> 02:43:37.120
case, for the young lieutenant made
a free confession, revealing one of the

2040
02:43:37.120 --> 02:43:43.280
most amazing stories ever detailed before a
judicial inquiry. He was twenty three years

2041
02:43:43.280 --> 02:43:46.639
of age, excellently educated, having
been a student at the Theological Cemetery at

2042
02:43:46.719 --> 02:43:52.040
Long from early youth until at the
age of twenty he had entered the army

2043
02:43:52.040 --> 02:43:56.159
with a junior lieutenant's commission. He
was a young man of retiring habits,

2044
02:43:56.360 --> 02:44:00.680
frank and cheerful to his comrades in
arms, and beloved by remember of his

2045
02:44:00.719 --> 02:44:05.159
regiment, from the colonel to the
newest conscript. Private numbers of his brother

2046
02:44:05.200 --> 02:44:09.719
officers testified to his almost feminine delicacy
of refinement, and to the fact that

2047
02:44:09.760 --> 02:44:15.639
he was at times seized with inexplicable
fits of depression and melancholy, none of

2048
02:44:15.680 --> 02:44:18.479
which, however, led to sullenness
with his superiors or equals, or charliness

2049
02:44:18.520 --> 02:44:24.639
with his inferiors. According to his
own statement made under oath in February eighteen

2050
02:44:24.719 --> 02:44:28.200
forty seven, as he was walking
with a friend in the country. He

2051
02:44:28.280 --> 02:44:31.440
came to a churchyard, the gate
of which stood open. The day before

2052
02:44:31.440 --> 02:44:35.000
a woman had been buried, but
the sexton had not completed his melancholy task

2053
02:44:35.040 --> 02:44:39.360
of filling the grave, having been
interrupted by a sudden storm of rain.

2054
02:44:39.559 --> 02:44:45.000
Bertrand had noticed the spade and pick
lying beside the partially filled grave, and

2055
02:44:45.079 --> 02:44:46.719
getting rid of his friend by a
ruse, he caught up the spade and

2056
02:44:46.760 --> 02:44:52.040
began hurriedly to unearth the coffin.
To quote his statement, soon had dragged

2057
02:44:52.079 --> 02:44:56.399
the corpse out of the grave and
began to hash it with the spade,

2058
02:44:56.399 --> 02:45:01.079
without well knowing what I was about. A lebora saw and I laid myself

2059
02:45:01.079 --> 02:45:05.920
flat to the ground vantra ater till
he was out of sight. Then I

2060
02:45:05.959 --> 02:45:09.600
cast the body back into the gaive. I then went away, bathed in

2061
02:45:09.639 --> 02:45:13.280
a cold sweat, into a little
crove, where I reposed for several hours,

2062
02:45:13.319 --> 02:45:16.600
notwithstanding the cold rain which fell.
I was in a state of complete

2063
02:45:16.600 --> 02:45:20.440
exhaustion. When I arose. My
limbs were as broken and my head was

2064
02:45:20.520 --> 02:45:26.559
weak. The same prostration and sensation
followed each attack. The prisoner had suffered

2065
02:45:26.559 --> 02:45:31.440
no further attack during the subsequent four
or five months, and had begun to

2066
02:45:31.479 --> 02:45:35.159
regard his rural experience as a fit
of temporary madness. Indeed, he had

2067
02:45:35.200 --> 02:45:39.840
sometimes wondered whether it had not been
simply a sort of waking nightmare, and

2068
02:45:39.920 --> 02:45:43.000
had actually never occurred at all.
In the summer of eighteen forty eight,

2069
02:45:43.040 --> 02:45:46.600
his regiment was ordered for duty to
Paris, and among the sights he visited

2070
02:45:46.680 --> 02:45:50.760
was the cemetery of Pere Lachaise.
While walking through the shadowy alleys of this

2071
02:45:50.879 --> 02:45:56.959
great metropolis, the irresistible craving to
mutilate a corpse swept over him like a

2072
02:45:56.000 --> 02:46:01.760
flood. That night, he scaled
the cemetery wall, disinterred a body,

2073
02:46:01.079 --> 02:46:05.280
and cut it to pieces. Thus
was the beginning of the mysterious cases of

2074
02:46:05.319 --> 02:46:11.479
ghoulism which had so baffled and puzzled
the police of the French capital. At

2075
02:46:11.520 --> 02:46:16.319
first, Bertrand stated the morbid fits
followed an over indulgence in wine. His

2076
02:46:16.440 --> 02:46:20.040
life at the seminary had been most
abstemious. But later they came upon him

2077
02:46:20.040 --> 02:46:24.799
without exciting cause. The police records
failed to disclose so great a number.

2078
02:46:26.040 --> 02:46:30.520
Lieutenant Bertrand stated he had unearthed twenty
five bodies. Several of them being men.

2079
02:46:31.399 --> 02:46:35.760
These last he had gloated over,
but never dismembered, this fiendishness being

2080
02:46:35.840 --> 02:46:41.520
exercised only upon female corpses. Army
physicians, and several eminent civilian practitioners subjected

2081
02:46:41.520 --> 02:46:46.920
the young man to such tests as
science of that day afforded, and pronounced

2082
02:46:46.959 --> 02:46:50.639
him sane. The finding of the
court was therefore that he'd be shorn of

2083
02:46:50.680 --> 02:46:54.280
his buttons and insignia of rank,
and his sword broken in the presence of

2084
02:46:54.319 --> 02:47:00.280
his regiment, after which he'd be
confined in a disciplinary barracks for the period

2085
02:47:00.280 --> 02:47:05.079
of one year, and be dishonorably
discharged from the army. The sentence was

2086
02:47:05.120 --> 02:47:09.280
carried out. The case of this
unfortunate young man presents many interesting questions for

2087
02:47:09.360 --> 02:47:15.239
the medical jurist. Taking his early
life in training into account and remembering how

2088
02:47:15.239 --> 02:47:20.239
he must have lived almost entirely in
unworldly surroundings apart from wholesome feminine society,

2089
02:47:20.159 --> 02:47:24.959
it is not very difficult to imagine
the basis of his original perversion. To

2090
02:47:26.079 --> 02:47:28.360
use a good, though much overworked
and loosely employed term, he was the

2091
02:47:28.440 --> 02:47:35.280
victim of a complex, that is, a series of emotionally accentuated ideas in

2092
02:47:35.319 --> 02:47:39.479
a repress state, like Gilles de
Laval, the Sire de Retz, whose

2093
02:47:39.520 --> 02:47:46.280
case has already been discussed. Footnote
see article one of this series Bluebeard,

2094
02:47:46.399 --> 02:47:50.559
October twenty three, Weird Tales.
This magazine was the first to have the

2095
02:47:50.559 --> 02:47:56.520
courage to make public the shocking revelations
of the original Bluebeard's trial end footnote.

2096
02:47:58.639 --> 02:48:03.120
The celebrated Jack the Ripper, whose
crimes mystified the London police a generation ago,

2097
02:48:03.719 --> 02:48:07.760
and the infamous Marquis de Sad Lieutenant
Bertrand unquestionably suffered from that form of

2098
02:48:07.799 --> 02:48:13.959
mental derangement known to modern psychiatrists as
algolagnia, coupled perhaps with what is called

2099
02:48:15.079 --> 02:48:20.920
coprophilia or a pathological liking for filth, this last being shown by his desire

2100
02:48:20.000 --> 02:48:26.200
to associate with interred corpses, his
periods of great excitement while indulging his disgusting

2101
02:48:26.239 --> 02:48:31.600
mania for the mutilation of dead bodies, and the following periods of profound lassitude

2102
02:48:31.600 --> 02:48:37.600
all point plainly to this in the
light of modern psychiatry, though these same

2103
02:48:37.680 --> 02:48:41.879
symptoms were the cause of some odd
speculations by several observers of the case.

2104
02:48:43.200 --> 02:48:48.479
The late doctor Saban Baring Gould,
a profound student of folklore and anthropology naively

2105
02:48:48.559 --> 02:48:54.520
suggested Bertrand to be the victim of
demoniacal possession, while Eliot O'Donnell believes or

2106
02:48:54.520 --> 02:49:00.559
affects to believe him a werewolf.
To substantiate this surprising theory of a young

2107
02:49:00.600 --> 02:49:05.799
frenchwoman, one Constance Armande, who
was suddenly seized with an uncontrollable desire to

2108
02:49:05.920 --> 02:49:09.200
enter a house of mourning, seize
the body lying in its open coffin,

2109
02:49:09.799 --> 02:49:13.639
and eat portions of it. Two
cases of lunacies cited to prove one absurd

2110
02:49:13.680 --> 02:49:18.319
superstition. Whatever the facts of Bertrand's
case, it is not to be denied

2111
02:49:18.360 --> 02:49:24.399
he suffered a great injustice through the
sentence of the court martial, since the

2112
02:49:24.440 --> 02:49:28.760
crimes he committed were obviously of a
pathological origin, and, by his own

2113
02:49:28.799 --> 02:49:33.079
statement, committed under the urge of
an irresistible impulse. His moral sense told

2114
02:49:33.120 --> 02:49:37.680
him he was doing a wrong,
but able though he was to distinguish the

2115
02:49:37.719 --> 02:49:41.479
criminal nature of his acts, he
was unable to resist the dictates of his

2116
02:49:41.600 --> 02:49:48.399
mania. Footnote. In these circumstances, a perfect defense of insanity might have

2117
02:49:48.479 --> 02:49:54.399
been legally raised. See Clark or
any standard work on criminal law. See

2118
02:49:54.440 --> 02:50:03.600
very Quinn end footnote. Seaberry Quinn, author of this series of Weird Crimes,

2119
02:50:03.600 --> 02:50:09.200
has prepared for you a startling series
of noted witchcraft cases. Watch for

2120
02:50:09.239 --> 02:50:18.319
them in Weird Tales. End of
Section seven. End of Weird Crimes by

2121
02:50:18.440 --> 02:50:18.440
Seaberry Quinn,