The Lock and Key Library: The most interesting stories of all nations: American
General
The Lock and Key Library: The most interesting stories of all nations: American
Detective and mystery stories; Short stories, American
The woman caught the words and leaped up as though some one had
struck her in the face. She threw back her head. Her nostrils
dilated and her eyes flashed.
“You can’t do it!” she cried. “Then you do love her! You shall do
it! Do you hear me? You shall do it! You killed him! You got
rid of him! but you shall not get rid of me. I have the evidence,
all of it. The Archbishop will have it to-morrow. They shall hang
you! Do you hear me? They shall hang you!”
The woman’s voice rose, it was loud and shrill. The man turned
slowly round without looking up, and stretched out his arms toward
the woman. She stopped and looked down at him. The fire glittered
for a moment and then died out of her eyes, her bosom heaved and
her lips began to tremble. With a cry she flung herself into his
arms, caught him around the neck, and pressed his face up close
against her cheek.
“Oh! Dick, Dick,” she sobbed, “I do love you so! I can’t live
without you! Not another hour, Dick! I do want you so much, so
much, Dick!”
The man shifted his right arm quickly, slipped a great Mexican
knife out of his sleeve, and passed his fingers slowly up the
woman’s side until he felt the heart beat under his hand, then he
raised the knife, gripped the handle tight, and drove the keen
blade into the woman’s bosom. The hot blood gushed out over his
arm, and down on his leg. The body, warm and limp, slipped down in
his arms. The man got up, pulled out the knife, and thrust it into
a sheath at his belt, unbuttoned the dress, and slipped it off of
the body. As he did this a bundle of papers dropped upon the
floor; these he glanced at hastily and put into his pocket. Then
he took the dead woman up in his arms, went out into the hall, and
started to go up the stairway. The body was relaxed and heavy, and
for that reason difficult to carry. He doubled it up into an awful
heap, with the knees against the chin, and walked slowly and
heavily up the stairs and out into the bathroom. There he laid the
corpse down on the tiled floor. Then he opened the window, closed
the shutters, and lighted the gas. The bathroom was small and
contained an ordinary steel tub, porcelain lined, standing near the
window and raised about six inches above the floor. The sailor
went over to the tub, pried up the metal rim of the outlet with his
knife, removed it, and fitted into its place a porcelain disk which
he took from his pocket; to this disk was attached a long platinum
wire, the end of which he fastened on the outside of the tub.
After he had done this he went back to the body, stripped off its
clothing, put it down in the tub and began to dismember it with the
great Mexican knife. The blade was strong and sharp as a razor.
The man worked rapidly and with the greatest care.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account