The Brain Jungle by Edward Mott Woolley Read online

bereavements, over which he was brooding,

  police station a little later. “The paranoiac

  had clearly upset his mind, although to the

  ordinarily conceives himself to be appointed

  untrained observer he showed no symptom of

  of heaven to remove objectionable characters.

  his malady. It was only when my men gained

  The murderers of our Presidents have been

  access to his home that they unearthed

  paranoiacs who believed themselves fulfilling

  positive evidence, and discovered a secret

  a high and godly duty. But here is a man who

  room in one of the turrets where he had a

  acts from the reverse motive. Sane in most

  “throne of Satan” and went through mystic

  respects, the monomania obsesses him that he

  ceremonies in which were revealed to him the

  is the ruler over Hades, and that he must fight names of his prospective victims. These

  the legions of good. This was the theory that

  names he wrote in red ink on a sheet of paper,

  forced itself upon me when first these crimes

  and crossed them off in black as he murdered

  were brought to my notice. The victims were

  them. When he got Louise Dennison’s card he

  all arrayed against the instincts of the Devil.

  took it up to the turret room and there added

  The first, you recall, was the widow—a her fictitious name to his fateful list before he philanthropist who had founded an asylum for

  went down to see her. The Chief of Police

  homeless children. Here was typified Charity.

  now has the list, taken from the person of

  The second victim was a child—standing for

  Abburton himself.”

  Innocence. The candy-poisoning was

  “Along with the gold cross of the

  perpetrated with the idea of torturing and Mother Superior,” added the Chief.

  putting to death more than one little child who

  “It was a fearful strain to keep watch

  might get the dosed buttercups. This maniac

  on the maniac,” resumed Hazard. “There was

  had secured some of these candies, poisoned

  no telling which would prove his next victim,

  them, and smuggled them back into the and to arrest him without conclusive evidence containers on the counter. A simple expedient

  might give him a chance to escape indictment

  for the cunning but cruel mind of a paranoaic.

  and thus remain a frightful hazard to

  Then followed the assassination of the Litchfield. Paranoia is a most difficult thing to clergyman, who was a godly man, you prove. So I resolved to bait him with this plea remember, representing Faith. Next came the

  from the Society for the Extension of

  murder of the young girl, who, in the lunatic’s Religion. The widow Blauvelt, I discovered,

  distorted vision, required removal as a type of had been to see him in behalf of her orphan

  Purity. Finally, the Mother Superior asylum, on the day she was killed. The represented perhaps Pity for the woes of men

  Reverend Dr. Mathewson likewise had sought

  Short Stories

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  funds of him for the church on that very

  gratitude of Litchfield.”

  Sunday he was shot down in the dark.

  “The Devil’s curses on the girl!” came

  Analogies, my friends! I try to reason from

  the wailing voice from below.

  such analogies, for the human mind, however

  “Louise Dennison fears neither man

  erratic, always comes back to certain starting

  nor Satan!” said Hazard, as he lighted another

  points. The more you study the morbid cigar. “And as for our friend of the lower histology of the brain, the more you see that

  regions, his curse, so long a deadly menace to

  these microscopic tissue structures in different Litchfield, need no longer trouble you. If only craniums simply repeat the same general he were the Devil in reality!”

  story.”

  “In which case,” observed the Chief of

  “In my opinion,” observed the Chief

  Police, “Felix Hazard would find no further

  “this girl, Louise Dennison, in allowing cause for the exercise of his weird detecting herself to be used as a murder bait, ran a

  talents.”

  terrible risk and deserves the everlasting