Burn, Witch, Burn!

shadows. Ricori and I, Larson and Cartello, followed. The car rolled off. And again I felt the sense of

nightmare unreality which had clung to me so often since I had first set my feet on this strange path to the

doll-maker…

The little Italian was smearing the glass of the door with some gummy material. In the center of it he fixed

a small vacuum cup of rubber. He took a tool from his pocket and drew with it a foot-wide circle on the

glass. The point of the tool cut into the glass as though it had been wax. Holding the vacuum cup in one

hand, he tapped the glass lightly with a rubber-tipped hammer. The circle of glass came away in his hand.

All had been done without the least sound. He reached through the hole, and fumbled about noiselessly

for a few moments. There was a faint click. The door swung open.

McCann picked up the dead girl. We went, silent as phantoms, into the doll-shop. The little Italian set the

circle of glass back in its place. I could see dimly the door that opened into the corridor leading to that

evil room at the rear. The little Italian tried the knob. The door was locked. He worked for a few

seconds, and the door swung open. Ricori leading, McCann behind him with the girl, we passed like

shadows through the corridor and paused at the further door.

The door swung open before the little Italian could touch it.

We heard the voice of the doll-maker!

"Enter, gentlemen. It was thoughtful of you to bring me back my dear niece! I would have met you at my

outer door-but I am an old, old woman and timid!"

McCann whispered: "One side, boss!"

He shifted the body of the girl to his left arm, and holding her like a shield, pistol drawn, began to edge by

Ricori. Ricori thrust him away. His own automatic leveled, he stepped over the threshold. I followed

McCann, the two gunmen at my back.

I took a swift glance around the room. The doll-maker sat at her table, sewing. She was serene,

apparently untroubled. Her long white fingers danced to the rhythm of her stitches. She did not look up at

us. There were coals burning in the fireplace. The room was very warm, and there was a strong aromatic

odor, unfamiliar to me. I looked toward the cabinets of the dolls.

Every cabinet was open. Dolls stood within them, row upon row, staring down at us with eyes green and

blue, gray and black, lifelike as though they were midgets on exhibition in some grotesque peepshow.

There must have been hundreds of them. Some were dressed as we in America dress; some as the

Germans do; some as the Spanish, the French, the English; others were in costumes I did not recognize.

A ballerina, and a blacksmith with his hammer raised…a French chevalier, and a German student,

broadsword in hand, livid scars upon his face…an Apache with knife in hand, drug-madness on his

yellow face and next to him a vicious-mouthed woman of the streets and next to her a jockey…

The loot of the doll-maker from a dozen lands!

The dolls seemed to be poised to leap. To flow down upon us. Overwhelm us.

I steadied my thoughts. I forced myself to meet that battery of living dolls' eyes as though they were but

lifeless dolls. There was an empty cabinet…another and another…five cabinets without dolls. The four

dolls I had watched march upon me in the paralysis of the green glow were not there nor was Walters.

I wrenched my gaze away from the tiers of the watching dolls. I looked again at the doll-maker, still

placidly sewing…as though she were alone…as though she were unaware of us…as though Ricori's pistol

were not pointed at her heart…sewing…singing softly…

The Walters doll was on the table before her!

It lay prone on its back. Its tiny hands were fettered at the wrists with twisted cords of the ashen hair.

They were bound round and round, and the fettered hands clutched the hilt of a dagger-pin!

Long in the telling, but brief in the seeing-a few seconds in time as we measure it.

The doll-maker's absorption in her sewing, her utter indifference to us, the silence, made a screen

between us and her, an ever-thickening though invisible barrier. The pungent aromatic fragrance grew

stronger.

McCann dropped the body of the girl on the floor.

He tried to speak-once, twice; at the third attempt he succeeded. He said to Ricori hoarsely, in

strangled voice:

"Kill her…or I will-" Ricori did not move. He stood rigid, automatic pointed at the doll-maker's heart,

eyes fixed on her dancing hands. He did not seem to hear McCann, or if he heard, he did not heed. The

doll-maker's song went on…it was like the hum of bees…it was a sweet droning…it garnered sleep as the

bees garner honey…sleep…

Ricori shifted his grip upon his gun. He sprang forward. He swung the butt of the pistol down upon a

wrist of the doll-maker.

The hand dropped, the fingers of that hand writhed…hideously the long white fingers writhed and

twisted…like serpents whose backs have been broken…

Ricori raised the gun for a second blow. Before it could fall the doll-maker had leaped to her feet,