Estelle looked toward him but he was only a dark blur, and then, so unexpectedly that she cried out, the flashbulb exploded, splashing the trees with moon-colored light. After that she couldn’t see a thing, not even a shadow; she didn’t know he was anywhere near her till his hands, dry and warm, and hairy like an animal’s, touched her throat.
He Scarab Ring
by William Brittain
A crackerjack scheme is often born of desperation, but seldom just so.
Come in, gentlemen, and welcome. First, permit me to say that the regulations which prevented our having this interview several months ago were those of the medical staff of this institution and not my own. I personally am always glad to accommodate members of the fourth estate.
Perhaps those among you who are photographers would care to take pictures now, while the reporters are readying notebooks and sharpening pencils or whatever reporters do. Yes, those wooden benches are hard, aren’t they? But a mental hospital — an insane asylum, if you will — can make little provision for the creature comforts of such a large number of visitors. Please forgive it.
I must also ask the gentlemen with the TV cameras to forgive the metal screening which separates my section of the room from yours. While I can give you my personal assurance that I would not attempt to harm any of you, my doctors still classify me as homicidal. A person who has run his father-in-law through the chest with a 16th century halberd and hacked his wife of eight months to bits with a Moorish scimitar, as I did last winter, should be restrained, don’t you agree?
The reason you are here, of course, is to get the answer to a question which has plagued your readers and viewers ever since the police arrived to find me standing over the bodies of my victims — and that question is, why? Why would a rather nondescript young man who had succeeded in marrying into a world of wealth, prestige and stratospheric social position so bloodily murder the two people who had made that lifestyle possible?
To answer, I must begin at a time two years ago almost to the day. It was then, as now, late spring. I was twenty-four years old, with visions of becoming a great writer, another Melville or Hemingway. Much to my chagrin I found that while my pile of rejection slips was getting higher and higher, the precise opposite was happening to my supply of cash.
I was sitting on my bed in the dingy rooming house where I resided when my landlady slipped my mail under the door — three rejected manuscripts on the same day. I picked them up, preparing to hurl them angrily into a comer, when a letter fell from among the large brown envelopes and floated to the floor. Quickly I retrieved it, tore it open and read it.
The letter was from Professor Rolf Kassachian — yes, the same man whom, months later, I was to skewer with the halberd — and he was replying to a query of mine. In a forlorn hope that perhaps articles rather than fiction were my forte, I had written to Professor Kassachian requesting an interview for a proposed article concerning his recent archaeological discoveries in the Nile Delta. I had posted the letter with little hope that Kassachian would reply; the man was famous for his reticence where publicity was concerned.
Yet not only had Kassachian answered my query, but he was willing to grant my request! I was beside myself with joy. An interview with the great and mysterious Rolf Kassachian would be bound to find a publisher, regardless of the technique — or lack of it — of the writer.
Two days later I arrived for the interview ten minutes before the appointed time. In an agony of anticipation, I paced back and forth near the huge wall that surrounded the rambling house. I wished neither to appear too eager by arriving early, nor to antagonize the professor by being late. It was exactly two p.m. when I lifted the ponderous knocker on the front door.
The door was opened by a girl about my own age who introduced herself as Dara Kassachian, the professor’s daughter. A more unprepossessing creature would be hard to imagine. Lank brown hair hung about a vapid face marked by close-set eyes, a piggy snout of a nose, and a mouth to which lipstick had been applied with wild abandon. Her plump, almost obese figure was covered with a dress of black and white horizontal stripes, giving her the appearance of an elephant which had escaped from a penitentiary. In a thin, whining voice, she asked me into the livingroom and then left to fetch the
The Kassachian livingroom resembled a museum, filled as it was with what were clearly artifacts collected during the professor’s expeditions. Knives, jewelry and bits of pottery were hung on the walls or tastefully arranged along the room’s many shelves. That this wealth of rare items could be displayed so casually was, I found out later, due to an excellent alarm system designed both to entrap anyone entering the house illegally and to summon the police within seconds. I must confess that while none of the items was familiar to me, the overall effect I found to be striking without being ostentatious.
Then the ring, lying on the glass-topped coffee table, caught my eye. It was of a dull, silvery metal, somewhat resembling pewter. Thick and massive, its design was that of an insect resembling a huge oval beetle almost an inch long. It was sculpted in beautiful detail, including tiny legs which protruded from under the divided carapace.
Merely as a way to pass the time, I tried the ring on the middle finger of my right hand. It was too small. I shifted it to the ring finger, and it slid into place with almost no effort whatsoever.
I was about to remove the ring when suddenly I heard a deep voice behind me. “You’d be that writer chap, wouldn’t you?” Nervously thrusting my right hand behind me, I turned about to face a tall man whose thick glasses and iron-gray hair were in odd contrast to his tanned, well-muscled body.
“Professor Kassachian?” I asked, my voice cracking. Behind my back, the ring seemed to weigh a ton, dragging at my hand.
“Yes. Dara said you were here.” He indicated the girl, simpering in the doorway. “How are you?” With that, Kassachian put out his hand to shake mine.
Wanting nothing more than to disappear into a crack in the floor, I extended my own hand. Kassachian took it, pumped it once, and turned it upward. He stared at the ring for what seemed an eternity, glanced at the coffee table, and then looked me in the eye.
“That’s mine, isn’t it?” he asked, nodding at the ring.
“Yes... yes, sir. But I was just—”
“No harm done,” said Kassachian with a smile. “But take it off, will you?”
I pulled at the ring. Nothing happened. I pulled harder. Finally I wet my finger in my mouth and tried again. “It... it seems to be stuck,” I said finally.
“Nonsense. Here, let me try.” Kassachian jerked at the ring until I cried out with pain. It seemed welded to my finger, which was now raw and bleeding.
“It’s the damned legs,” said Kassachian. “They’re pointed outward and dig into the flesh when the ring’s pulled.” He turned and shouted over his shoulder. “Dara! Get me some string, there’s a good girl.”
Galloping out of the room the girl soon returned with a length of string. Taking my hand, Kassachian wrapped the string tightly about my finger just ahead of the ring. “It compresses the flesh,” he said. “This’ll work. You’ll see.”
It didn’t work. The ring remained firmly in place. “Soapsuds, that’s the ticket,” said Kassachian with a grin. “That’ll fetch it.”
I was directed to the bathroom, where I soaped my right hand liberally while the professor and Dara waited in the livingroom. Returning to them, I had to confess failure.
“Umm. We seem to be in a bit of a bind here,” rumbled Kassachian.