As I was passing his door the next day, I went in. It was about two o’clock, and I found him reading and smoking. “Well, how are you?” I said. “Very well,” he answered.
“And what about your hand?”
“My hand? You must have seen it on my bell, where I put it last night when I came in. By the way, fancy, some idiot, no doubt trying to play a trick on me, came ringing at my door about midnight. I asked who was there, but, as nobody answered, I got back to bed and fell asleep again.”
Just at that moment there was a ring. It was the landlord, a vulgar and most impertinent person. He came in without greeting us, and said to my friend: “I must ask you, Sir, to remove at once that piece of carrion which you have attached to your bell-handle. Otherwise I shall be obliged to ask you to leave.”
“Sir,” replied Pierre very gravely, “you are insulting a hand which is worthy of better treatment. I would have you know that it belonged to a most respectable man.”
The landlord turned on his heel and walked out, just as he had come in. Pierre followed him, unhooked the hand, and attached it to the bell in his bedroom. “It is better there,” he said. “Like the Trappists’ memento mori, this hand will bring me serious thoughts every night as I fall asleep.” An hour later I left him and went home.
I slept badly the following night. I was nervous and restless. Several times I awoke with a start, and once I even fancied that a man had got into my room. I got up and looked in the wardrobes and under the bed. Finally, about six o’clock in the morning, when I was beginning to doze off, a violent knock at my door made me jump out of bed. It was my friend’s servant, half undressed, pale and trembling. “Oh, Sir,” he cried with a sob, “they’ve murdered the poor master.” I dressed in haste and rushed off to Pierre’s.
The house was full of people, arguing and moving about incessantly. Everyone was holding forth, relating the event and commenting upon it from every angle. With great difficulty I reached the bedroom. The door was guarded, but I gave my name, and I was admitted. Four police officers were standing in the centre of the room, notebook in hand, and they were making an examination. From time to time they spoke to each other in whispers and made entries in their notebooks. Two doctors were chatting near the bed on which Pierre was lying unconscious. He was not dead, but he looked awful. His staring eyes, his dilated pupils, seemed to be gazing fixedly with unspeakable terror at something strange and horrible. His fingers were contracted stiffly, and his body was covered up to his chin by a sheet, which I lifted. On his throat were the marks of five fingers which had pressed deeply into his flesh, and his shirt was stained by a few drops of blood. At that moment something struck me. I glanced at the bedroom bell; the skinned hand had disappeared. Doubtless the doctors had taken it away to spare the feelings of the people who came into the patient’s room, for that hand was really dreadful. I did not ask what had become of it.
I now take a cutting from one of the next day’s papers, giving the story of the crime, with all the details the police could procure. This is what it said:
“A horrible outrage was committed yesterday, the victim being a young gentleman, Monsieur Pierre B⸺ a law student, and a member of one of the best families in Normandy. The young man returned home about ten o’clock in the evening, he dismissed his servant, a man named Bonvin, saying he was tired, and that he was going to bed. Towards midnight this man was aroused suddenly by his master’s bell, which was ringing furiously. He was frightened, lit a lamp and waited. The bell stopped for a minute, then rang again with such violence that the servant, frightened out of his wits, rushed out of his room and went to wake up the concierge. The latter ran and notified the police, and about fifteen minutes later they burst in the door.
“A terrible sight met their eyes. The furniture was all upset, and everything indicated that a fearful struggle had taken place between the victim and his aggressor. Young Pierre B⸺ was lying motionless on his back in the middle of the room, his face livid, and his eyes dilated in the most dreadful fashion. His throat bore the deep marks of five fingers. The report of Doctor Bourdeau, who was immediately summoned, states that the aggressor must have been endowed with prodigious strength, and have had an extraordinarily thin and muscular hand, for the fingers had almost met in the flesh, and left five marks like bullet holes in the throat. No motive for the crime can be discovered, nor the identity of the criminal.”
The next day the same newspaper reported:
“M. Pierre B⸺, the victim of the awful outrage which we related yesterday, recovered consciousness after two hours of devoted attention on the part of Doctor Bourdeau. His life is not in danger, but fears are entertained for his sanity. No trace of the guilty party has been found.”
It was true, my poor friend was mad. For seven months I went every day to see him at the hospital, but he did not recover the slightest glimmering of reason. In his delirium strange words escaped him, and like all insane people, he had
