The Darrow Enigma, Melvin L. Severy [free biff chip and kipper ebooks TXT] 📗

was found dead in his cell, No. 26, at

Charles Street Jail. The manner of his death might still be a

mystery had he not left a written confession of his crime and the

summary manner of his taking off. This was written yesterday

afternoon and evening, M. Godin being permitted to have a light on

the ground that he had important legal documents to prepare for use

on the morrow. We give below the confession in full.

 

“I am beaten at a game in which I did my own shuffling. I never

believe in trying to bluff a full hand. Had I had but ordinary

detectives with whom to deal, I make bold to say I should have come

off rich and triumphant. ‘I had no means of knowing that I was to

play with a chemist who would use against me the latest scientific

implements of criminal warfare. It is, therefore, to the

extraordinary means used for my detection that I impute my defeat,

rather than to any bungling of my own. This is a grim consolation,

but it is still a consolation, for I have always prided myself upon

being an artist in my line. As I propose to put myself beyond the

reach of further cross-examination, I take this opportunity to make

a last statement of such things as I care to have known. After this

is finished I shall sup on acetate of lead and bid good-night to the

expectant public.

 

“Lest some may marvel how I came by this poison, and even lay

suspicions upon my jailers, let me explain that there is a small

piece of lead water-pipe crossing the west angle of my room. This

being Sunday, I was permitted to have beans and brown bread for

breakfast. I asked for a little vinegar for my beans, and a small

cruet was brought to me. I had no difficulty in secreting a

considerable quantity of the vinegar in order that I might, when

occasion served, apply it to the lead pipe. This I have done, and

have now by me enough acetate of lead to kill a dozen men. This

form of death will not be particularly pleasant, I am aware, but I

prefer it to its only alternative. So much for that.

 

“I was horn in Marseilles, and my right name is Jean Fouchet. My

father intended me for the priesthood, and gave me a good college

education in Paris. His hopes, however, were destined to

disappointment. In college I formed the habit of gambling, and a

year after my graduation found me at Monte Carlo. While there I

quarrelled with a gambling accomplice and ended by killing him.

This made my stay in France dangerous for me, and I took the first

opportunity which presented itself to embark for America.

 

“Familiarity with criminals had made me familiar with crime, and I

added the occupation of detective to my profession of gambling.

These two avocations had now become my sole means of support, and I

plied my trades in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia for several

years, during which time I became a naturalised citizen of the

United States.

 

“When the Cuban rebellion broke out I could not restrain my longing

for adventure, and joined a filibustering expedition sailing from

New York. I did this from no love I bore the Cuban cause, but merely

for the excitement it promised. While handling a heavy shot during

my first engagement I accidentally dropped it upon my left foot,

crushing that member so badly that it has never regained its shape.

This deformity has rendered it impossible for me to conceal my

identity. Three months after this accident I was taken prisoner by

the Spanish and shipped to Spain as a political malefactor. A farce

of a trial was granted to me, not to see whether or not I was guilty,

but simply to determine between the dungeon and the garrote. It

would have been far better for me had I been sentenced to the latter

instead of the former.

 

“As a political offender I was doomed to imprisonment at Ceuta, an

old Moorish seaport town in Morocco, opposite Gibraltar and upon

the side of the ancient mountain Abyla. This mountain forms one

of the ‘Pillars of Hercules,’ the Rock of Gibraltar being the other.

It is almost impregnable, and is used by Spain as Siberia is used

by Russia, only it is far, far more horrible. The town was built

by the Moors in 945, and nowhere else on earth are there to be found

an equal number of devices for the torture of human beings. If

anyone thinks the horrors of the Inquisition are no longer

perpetrated let him get sent to Ceuta: I have good cause to believe

that the Inquisition itself is far from dead in Spain. Alas for the

person who is sent to Ceuta! The town is small, and, to guard

against possible attack, the Moors constructed a chain of fortresses

around it. It is in the black cellars of these disintegrating

fortresses that the dungeons are located. They are in tiers to the

depth of fifty or sixty feet, and are hewn out of the solid rock.

They are reached through narrow openings in the stone floors of the

fortresses, and when one of these horrible holes is opened the foul

odor of filth and decomposition is utterly overpowering. Some of

these dungeons contain as many as thirty or forty men. I was placed

in a cell reserved for solitary confinement. I have never been a

man who regarded life seriously, or feared to risk it upon sufficient

occasion, but my heart froze within me when the horror of my

situation was revealed to me. A stone box perhaps eight feet square

- as I lay upon the floor I could touch its opposite sides with my

hands and feet - had been prepared for my entrance by cutting a slit

in one of its walls just large enough for the passage of my body.

Through this narrow opening I was dropped into the total darkness

within. A blacksmith followed and welded my fetters, for locks and

keys are never used. A chain having a heavy weight pendant from it

was riveted to my ankle, and an iron band was similarly fastened to

my waist. This band was fastened by a chain to an iron ring deeply

sunk in the solid rock. When these horrible preparations were

completed the blacksmith left me and a mason bricked up the slit

through which I had entered, leaving only a hand-breadth of space

for air and the thrusting through of such scraps of food as were to

be allowed me. Language is powerless to describe the feelings of a

man in such a position. He realises that his only hope is in disease

- disease bred of the darkness, the dampness, the starvation, and

the horrible filth. He says to himself: ‘How long, 0 God! how

long?’ - For hours I remained prone and inert - how long I do not

know; night and day are all one in the dungeons of Ceuta. Then I

began to think. Could I escape? I felt that all power of thought,

all cleverness would soon desert me, and I said to myself: ‘If

anything is to be done, it must be done at once.’ I knew not then

what long-drawn horrors a mortal could endure. Whenever I attempted

to walk the iron mass fastened to my leg would ‘bring me up short,’

often, in my early forgetfulness of it, throwing me prone upon my

face. After a little I learned to move with a halting gait,

striding out with the free limb and pausing to pull my burden after

me with the other. This habit, learned in the squalor and darkness

of the dungeon hells of Ceuta, I have never been able to unlearn.

 

“It was many days before I could see how anything short of a miracle

could enable me to escape. I tried to calmly reason it all out, and

every time came to the same horrible conclusion, viz.: I must rot

there unless help came to me from without. This seemed impossible,

and all the horrors of a lingering death stared me in the face.

Every two or three days one of the jailers would come to the slit

in the masonry and leave there a dish of water and a few crusts of

bread. I tried on one occasion to speak with him, but he only

laughed in my face and turned away. Finally I hit upon a plan which

seemed to offer the only possible means of escape. In my college

days I was well acquainted with M. Charcot, and even assisted in

some of his earlier hypnotic experiments. The subject interested

me, and I followed it closely till I became something of an adept

myself. There were in those days but few people I could not

mesmerise, provided sufficient opportunity were allowed me for

hypnotic suggestion. I determined to see if any of this old power

still remained with me, and, if so, to strive to render my jailer

subservient to my will. But how should I keep him within ear-shot

long enough to work upon him? Clearly all appeals to pity were

useless. I must excite his greed, nothing else would reach him.

This was not an easy thing to do without a sou in my possession,

yet I did it. When I heard his step I crawled to the opening in

the wall and mumbled in a crazy sort of a way about a hidden

treasure. At the word ‘treasure’ I saw him pause and listen, but

I pretended not to be aware of his presence and rambled on, in a

loose, disjointed fashion, about piracies committed by me and the

great amount of booty I had secreted. My plan worked perfectly.

The jailer came to the aperture in the wall and called me to him.

Muttering incoherently, I obeyed. He asked me what offence brought

me there, and I, with a good deal of intentional misunderstanding,

told him I was a pirate and a smuggler. He asked me where the

treasure I had been talking about was hidden. My reply, - I

remember the exact words in which I couched it, - made him mine

completely. I said: ‘We buried it near Fez - Treasure? I don’t

know anything about any treasure.’

 

“To all the many questions he then asked me I returned only

incoherent replies, but I was careful to be again raving about

buried riches upon the next visit. In this way I kept him by me

long enough to influence him, and in less than a month he was

completely subject to my will. I tested my power over him in divers

ways. Any delicacy I wished I compelled him to bring me. In this

way I was enabled to regain a portion of my lost strength. When I

concluded the time had come for me to make good my escape, I caused

him to come to my cell at midnight and remove the bricks from the

slit while I put on the disguise he had brought me. Once out of my

stone tomb we carefully walled it up again and then departed to find

my imaginary hidden treasure. We made our way without trouble to

Algiers, for my companion had money, and sailed thence via Gibraltar

for England. During the trip my companion jumped overboard and was

drowned in the Bay of Biscay. Thus I was completely freed from Ceuta

and its terrible pest-hole.

 

“From England I sailed to New York, reaching America penniless and

in ill health. Things not going to my liking in New York, I came

to Boston and took up my old callings of gambler and detective. It

was at this time that I saw John