The Leather Funnel
My friend, Lionel Dacre, lived in the Avenue de Wagram, Paris. Hishouse was that small one, with the iron railings and grass plot infront of it, on the left-hand side as you pass down from the Arc deTriomphe. I fancy that it had been there long before the avenue wasconstructed, for the grey tiles were stained with lichens, and thewalls were mildewed and discoloured with age. It looked a small housefrom the street, five windows in front, if I remember right, but itdeepened into a single long chamber at the back. It was here thatDacre had that singular library of occult literature, and the fantasticcuriosities which served as a hobby for himself, and an amusement forhis friends. A wealthy man of refined and eccentric tastes, he hadspent much of his life and fortune in gathering together what was saidto be a unique private collection of Talmudic, cabalistic, and magicalworks, many of them of great rarity and value. His tastes leanedtoward the marvellous and the monstrous, and I have heard that hisexperiments in the direction of the unknown have passed all the boundsof civilization and of decorum. To his English friends he neveralluded to such matters, and took the tone of the student and virtuoso;but a Frenchman whose tastes were of the same nature has assured methat the worst excesses of the black mass have been perpetrated in thatlarge and lofty hall, which is lined with the shelves of his books, andthe cases of his museum.
Dacre's appearance was enough to show that his deep interest in thesepsychic matters was intellectual rather than spiritual. There was notrace of asceticism upon his heavy face, but there was much mentalforce in his huge, dome-like skull, which curved upward from amongsthis thinning locks, like a snowpeak above its fringe of fir trees. Hisknowledge was greater than his wisdom, and his powers were far superiorto his character. The small bright eyes, buried deeply in his fleshyface, twinkled with intelligence and an unabated curiosity of life, butthey were the eyes of a sensualist and an egotist. Enough of the man,for he is dead now, poor devil, dead at the very time that he had madesure that he had at last discovered the elixir of life. It is not withhis complex character that I have to deal, but with the very strangeand inexplicable incident which had its rise in my visit to him in theearly spring of the year '82.
I had known Dacre in England, for my researches in the Assyrian Room ofthe British Museum had been conducted at the time when he wasendeavouring to establish a mystic and esoteric meaning in theBabylonian tablets, and this community of interests had brought ustogether. Chance remarks had led to daily conversation, and that tosomething verging upon friendship. I had promised him that on my nextvisit to Paris I would call upon him. At the time when I was able tofulfil my compact I was living in a cottage at Fontainebleau, and asthe evening trains were inconvenient, he asked me to spend the night inhis house.
"I have only that one spare couch," said he, pointing to a broad sofain his large salon; "I hope that you will manage to be comfortablethere."
It was a singular bedroom, with its high walls of brown volumes, butthere could be no more agreeable furniture to a bookworm like myself,and there is no scent so pleasant to my nostrils as that faint, subtlereek which comes from an ancient book. I assured him that I coulddesire no more charming chamber, and no more congenial surroundings.
"If the fittings are neither convenient nor conventional, they are atleast costly," said he, looking round at his shelves. "I have expendednearly a quarter of a million of money upon these objects whichsurround you. Books, weapons, gems, carvings, tapestries,images--there is hardly a thing here which has not its history, and itis generally one worth telling."
He was seated as he spoke at one side of the open fire-place, and I atthe other. His reading-table was on his right, and the strong lampabove it ringed it with a very vivid circle of golden light. Ahalf-rolled palimpsest lay in the centre, and around it were manyquaint articles of bric-a-brac. One of these was a large funnel, suchas is used for filling wine casks. It appeared to be made of blackwood, and to be rimmed with discoloured brass.
"That is a curious thing," I remarked. "What is the history of that?"
"Ah!" said he, "it is the very question which I have had occasion toask myself. I would give a good deal to know. Take it in your handsand examine it."
I did so, and found that what I had imagined to be wood was in realityleather, though age had dried it into an extreme hardness. It was alarge funnel, and might hold a quart when full. The brass rimencircled the wide end, but the narrow was also tipped with metal.
"What do you make of it?" asked Dacre.
"I should imagine that it belonged to some vintner or maltster in theMiddle Ages," said I. "I have seen in England leathern drinkingflagons of the seventeenth century--'black jacks' as they werecalled--which were of the same colour and hardness as this filler."
"I dare say the date would be about the same," said Dacre, "and, nodoubt, also, it was used for filling a vessel with liquid. If mysuspicions are correct, however, it was a queer vintner who used it,and a very singular cask which was filled. Do you observe nothingstrange at the spout end of the funnel."
As I held it to the light I observed that at a spot some five inchesabove the brass tip the narrow neck of the leather funnel was allhaggled and scored, as if someone had notched it round with a bluntknife. Only at that point was there any roughening of the dead blacksurface.
"Someone has tried to cut off the neck."
"Would you call it a cut?"
"It is torn and lacerated. It must have taken some strength to leavethese marks on such tough material, whatever the instrument may havebeen. But what do you think of it? I can tell that you know more thanyou say."
Dacre smiled, and his little eyes twinkled with knowledge.
"Have you included the psychology of dreams among your learnedstudies?" he asked.
"I did not even know that there was such a psychology."
"My dear sir, that shelf above the gem case is filled with volumes,from Albertus Magnus onward, which deal with no other subject. It is ascience in itself."
"A science of charlatans!"
"The charlatan is always the pioneer. From the astrologer came theastronomer, from the alchemist the chemist, from the mesmerist theexperimental psychologist. The quack of yesterday is the professor oftomorrow. Even such subtle and elusive things as dreams will in timebe reduced to system and order. When that time comes the researches ofour friends on the bookshelf yonder will no longer be the amusement ofthe mystic, but the foundations of a science."
"Supposing that is so, what has the science of dreams to do with alarge, black, brass-rimmed funnel?"
"I will tell you. You know that I have an agent who is always on thelook-out for rarities and curiosities for my collection. Some days agohe heard of a dealer upon one of the Quais who had acquired some oldrubbish found in a cupboard in an ancient house at the back of the RueMathurin, in the Quartier Latin. The dining-room of this old house isdecorated with a coat of arms, chevrons, and bars rouge upon a fieldargent, which prove, upon inquiry, to be the shield of Nicholas de laReynie, a high official of King Louis XIV. There can be no doubt thatthe other articles in the cupboard date back to the early days of thatking. The inference is, therefore, that they were all the property ofthis Nicholas de la Reynie, who was, as I understand, the gentlemanspecially concerned with the maintenance and execution of the Draconiclaws of that epoch."
"What then?"
"I would ask you now to take the funnel into your hands once more andto examine the upper brass rim. Can you make out any lettering uponit?"
There were certainly some scratches upon it, almost obliterated bytime. The general effect was of several letters, the last of whichbore some resemblance to a B.
"You make it a B?"
"Yes, I do."
"So do I. In fact, I have no doubt whatever that it is a B."
"But the nobleman you mentioned would have had R for his initial."
"Exactly! That's the beauty of it. He owned this curious object, andyet he had someone else's
initials upon it. Why did he do this?"
"I can't imagine; can you?"
"Well, I might, perhaps, guess. Do you observe something drawn alittle farther along the rim?"
"I should say it was a crown."
"It is undoubtedly a crown; but if you examine it in a good light, youwill convince yourself that it is not an ordinary crown. It is aheraldic crown--a badge of rank, and it consists of an alternation offour pearls and strawberry leaves, the proper badge of a marquis. Wemay infer, therefore, that the person whose initials end in B wasentitled to wear that coronet."
"Then this common leather filler belonged to a marquis?"
Dacre gave a peculiar smile.
"Or to some member of the family of a marquis," said he. "So much wehave clearly gathered from this engraved rim."
"But what has all this to do with dreams?" I do not know whether itwas from a look upon Dacre's face, or from some subtle suggestion inhis manner, but a feeling of repulsion, of unreasoning horror, cameupon me as I looked at the gnarled old lump of leather.
"I have more than once received important information through mydreams," said my companion in the didactic manner which he loved toaffect. "I make it a rule now when I am in doubt upon any materialpoint to place the article in question beside me as I sleep, and tohope for some enlightenment. The process does not appear to me to bevery obscure, though it has not yet received the blessing of orthodoxscience. According to my theory, any object which has been intimatelyassociated with any supreme paroxysm of human emotion, whether it bejoy or pain, will retain a certain atmosphere or association which itis capable of communicating to a sensitive mind. By a sensitive mind Ido not mean an abnormal one, but such a trained and educated mind asyou or I possess."
"You mean, for example, that if I slept beside that old sword upon thewall, I might dream of some bloody incident in which that very swordtook part?"
"An excellent example, for, as a matter of fact, that sword was used inthat fashion by me, and I saw in my sleep the death of its owner, whoperished in a brisk skirmish, which I have been unable to identify, butwhich occurred at the time of the wars of the Frondists. If you thinkof it, some of our popular observances show that the fact has alreadybeen recognized by our ancestors, although we, in our wisdom, haveclassed it among superstitions."
"For example?"
"Well, the placing of the bride's cake beneath the pillow in order thatthe sleeper may have pleasant dreams. That is one of several instanceswhich you will find set forth in a small brochure which I am myselfwriting upon the subject. But to come back to the point, I slept onenight with this funnel beside me, and I had a dream which certainlythrows a curious light upon its use and origin."
"What did you dream?"
"I dreamed----" He paused, and an intent look of interest came over hismassive face. "By Jove, that's well thought of," said he. "This reallywill be an exceedingly interesting experiment. You are yourself apsychic subject--with nerves which respond readily to any impression."
"I have never tested myself in that direction."
"Then we shall test you tonight. Might I ask you as a very greatfavour, when you occupy that couch tonight, to sleep with this oldfunnel placed by the side of your pillow?"
The request seemed to me a grotesque one; but I have myself, in mycomplex nature, a hunger after all which is bizarre and fantastic. Ihad not the faintest belief in Dacre's theory, nor any hopes forsuccess in such an experiment; yet it amused me that the experimentshould be made. Dacre, with great gravity, drew a small stand to thehead of my settee, and placed the funnel upon it. Then, after a shortconversation, he wished me good night and left me.
I sat for some little time smoking by the smouldering fire, and turningover in my mind the curious incident which had occurred, and thestrange experience which might lie before me. Sceptical as I was, therewas something impressive in the assurance of Dacre's manner, and myextraordinary surroundings, the huge room with the strange and oftensinister objects which were hung round it, struck solemnity into mysoul. Finally I undressed, and turning out the lamp, I lay down.After long tossing I fell asleep. Let me try to describe as accuratelyas I can the scene which came to me in my dreams. It stands out now inmy memory more clearly than anything which I have seen with my wakingeyes. There was a room which bore the appearance of a vault. Fourspandrels from the corners ran up to join a sharp, cup-shaped roof.The architecture was rough, but very strong. It was evidently part ofa great building.
Three men in black, with curious, top-heavy, black velvet hats, sat ina line upon a red-carpeted dais. Their faces were very solemn and sad.On the left stood two long-gowned men with port-folios in their hands,which seemed to be stuffed with papers. Upon the right, looking towardme, was a small woman with blonde hair and singular, light-blueeyes--the eyes of a child. She was past her first youth, but could notyet be called middle-aged. Her figure was inclined to stoutness and herbearing was proud and confident. Her face was pale, but serene. Itwas a curious face, comely and yet feline, with a subtle suggestion ofcruelty about the straight, strong little mouth and chubby jaw. She wasdraped in some sort of loose, white gown. Beside her stood a thin,eager priest, who whispered in her ear, and continually raised acrucifix before her eyes. She turned her head and looked fixedly pastthe crucifix at the three men in black, who were, I felt, her judges.
As I gazed the three men stood up and said something, but I coulddistinguish no words, though I was aware that it was the central onewho was speaking. They then swept out of the room, followed by the twomen with the papers. At the same instant several rough-looking fellowsin stout jerkins came bustling in and removed first the red carpet, andthen the boards which formed the dais, so as to entirely clear theroom. When this screen was removed I saw some singular articles offurniture behind it. One looked like a bed with wooden rollers at eachend, and a winch handle to regulate its length. Another was a woodenhorse. There were several other curious objects, and a number ofswinging cords which played over pulleys. It was not unlike a moderngymnasium.
When the room had been cleared there appeared a new figure upon thescene. This was a tall, thin person clad in black, with a gaunt andaustere face. The aspect of the man made me shudder. His clothes wereall shining with grease and mottled with stains. He bore himself with aslow and impressive dignity, as if he took command of all things fromthe instant of his entrance. In spite of his rude appearance andsordid dress, it was now his business, his room, his to command. Hecarried a coil of light ropes over his left forearm. The lady lookedhim up and down with a searching glance, but her expression wasunchanged. It was confident--even defiant. But it was very differentwith the priest. His face was ghastly white, and I saw the moistureglisten and run on his high, sloping forehead. He threw up his handsin prayer and he stooped continually to mutter frantic words in thelady's ear.
The man in black now advanced, and taking one of the cords from hisleft arm, he bound the woman's hands together. She held them meeklytoward him as he did so. Then he took her arm with a rough grip andled her toward the wooden horse, which was little higher than herwaist. On to this she was lifted and laid, with her back upon it, andher face to the ceiling, while the priest, quivering with horror, hadrushed out of the room. The woman's lips were moving rapidly, andthough I could hear nothing I knew that she was praying. Her feet hungdown on either side of the horse, and I saw that the rough varlets inattendance had fastened cords to her ankles and secured the other endsto iron rings in the stone floor.
My heart sank within me as I saw these ominous preparations, and yet Iwas held by the fascination of horror, and I could not take my eyesfrom the strange spectacle. A man had entered the room with a bucketof water in either hand. Another followed with a third bucket. Theywere laid beside the wooden horse. The second man had a woodendipper--a bowl with a straight handle--in his other hand. This he gaveto the man in black. At the same moment one of the varlets approachedwith a dark object in his hand, which
even in my dream filled me with avague feeling of familiarity. It was a leathern filler. With horribleenergy he thrust it--but I could stand no more. My hair stood on endwith horror. I writhed, I struggled, I broke through the bonds ofsleep, and I burst with a shriek into my own life, and found myselflying shivering with terror in the huge library, with the moonlightflooding through the window and throwing strange silver and blacktraceries upon the opposite wall. Oh, what a blessed relief to feelthat I was back in the nineteenth century--back out of that mediaevalvault into a world where men had human hearts within their bosoms. Isat up on my couch, trembling in every limb, my mind divided betweenthankfulness and horror. To think that such things were everdone--that they could be done without God striking the villains dead.Was it all a fantasy, or did it really stand for something which hadhappened in the black, cruel days of the world's history? I sank mythrobbing head upon my shaking hands. And then, suddenly, my heartseemed to stand still in my bosom, and I could not even scream, sogreat was my terror. Something was advancing toward me through thedarkness of the room.
It is a horror coming upon a horror which breaks a man's spirit. Icould not reason, I could not pray; I could only sit like a frozenimage, and glare at the dark figure which was coming down the greatroom. And then it moved out into the white lane of moonlight, and Ibreathed once more. It was Dacre, and his face showed that he was asfrightened as myself.
"Was that you? For God's sake what's the matter?" he asked in a huskyvoice.
"Oh, Dacre, I am glad to see you! I have been down into hell. It wasdreadful."
"Then it was you who screamed?"
"I dare say it was."
"It rang through the house. The servants are all terrified." He strucka match and lit the lamp. "I think we may get the fire to burn upagain," he added, throwing some logs upon the embers. "Good God, mydear chap, how white you are! You look as if you had seen a ghost."
"So I have--several ghosts."
"The leather funnel has acted, then?"
"I wouldn't sleep near the infernal thing again for all the money youcould offer me."
Dacre chuckled.
"I expected that you would have a lively night of it," said he. "Youtook it out of me in return, for that scream of yours wasn't a verypleasant sound at two in the morning. I suppose from what you say thatyou have seen the whole dreadful business."
"What dreadful business?"
"The torture of the water--the 'Extraordinary Question,' as it wascalled in the genial days of 'Le Roi Soleil.' Did you stand it out tothe end?"
"No, thank God, I awoke before it really began."
"Ah! it is just as well for you. I held out till the third bucket.Well, it is an old story, and they are all in their graves now, anyhow,so what does it matter how they got there? I suppose that you have noidea what it was that you have seen?"
"The torture of some criminal. She must have been a terriblemalefactor indeed if her crimes are in proportion to her penalty."
"Well, we have that small consolation," said Dacre, wrapping hisdressing-gown round him and crouching closer to the fire. "They WERE inproportion to her penalty. That is to say, if I am correct in thelady's identity."
"How could you possibly know her identity?"
For answer Dacre took down an old vellum-covered volume from the shelf.
"Just listen to this," said he; "it is in the French of the seventeenthcentury, but I will give a rough translation as I go. You will judgefor yourself whether I have solved the riddle or not.
"'The prisoner was brought before the Grand Chambers and Tournelles ofParliament, sitting as a court of justice, charged with the murder ofMaster Dreux d'Aubray, her father, and of her two brothers, MM.d'Aubray, one being civil lieutenant, and the other a counsellor ofParliament. In person it seemed hard to believe that she had reallydone such wicked deeds, for she was of a mild appearance, and of shortstature, with a fair skin and blue eyes. Yet the Court, having foundher guilty, condemned her to the ordinary and to the extraordinaryquestion in order that she might be forced to name her accomplices,after which she should be carried in a cart to the Place de Greve,there to have her head cut off, her body being afterwards burned andher ashes scattered to the winds.'
"The date of this entry is July 16, 1676."
"It is interesting," said I, "but not convincing. How do you prove thetwo women to be the same?"
"I am coming to that. The narrative goes on to tell of the woman'sbehaviour when questioned. 'When the executioner approached her sherecognized him by the cords which he held in his hands, and she at onceheld out her own hands to him, looking at him from head to foot withoututtering a word.' How's that?"
"Yes, it was so."
"'She gazed without wincing upon the wooden horse and rings which hadtwisted so many limbs and caused so many shrieks of agony. When hereyes fell upon the three pails of water, which were all ready for her,she said with a smile, "All that water must have been brought here forthe purpose of drowning me, Monsieur. You have no idea, I trust, ofmaking a person of my small stature swallow it all."' Shall I read thedetails of the torture?"
"No, for Heaven's sake, don't."
"Here is a sentence which must surely show you that what is hererecorded is the very scene which you have gazed upon tonight: 'The goodAbbe Pirot, unable to contemplate the agonies which were suffered byhis penitent, had hurried from the room.' Does that convince you?"
"It does entirely. There can be no question that it is indeed the sameevent. But who, then, is this lady whose appearance was so attractiveand whose end was so horrible?"
For answer Dacre came across to me, and placed the small lamp upon thetable which stood by my bed. Lifting up the ill-omened filler, heturned the brass rim so that the light fell full upon it. Seen in thisway the engraving seemed clearer than on the night before.
"We have already agreed that this is the badge of a marquis or of amarquise," said he. "We have also settled that the last letter is B."
"It is undoubtedly so."
"I now suggest to you that the other letters from left to right are, M,M, a small d, A, a small d, and then the final B."
"Yes, I am sure that you are right. I can make out the two small d'squite plainly."
"What I have read to you tonight," said Dacre, "is the official recordof the trial of Marie Madeleine d'Aubray, Marquise de Brinvilliers, oneof the most famous poisoners and murderers of all time."
I sat in silence, overwhelmed at the extraordinary nature of theincident, and at the completeness of the proof with which Dacre hadexposed its real meaning. In a vague way I remembered some details ofthe woman's career, her unbridled debauchery, the cold-blooded andprotracted torture of her sick father, the murder of her brothers formotives of petty gain. I recollected also that the bravery of her endhad done something to atone for the horror of her life, and that allParis had sympathized with her last moments, and blessed her as amartyr within a few days of the time when they had cursed her as amurderess. One objection, and one only, occurred to my mind.
"How came her initials and her badge of rank upon the filler? Surelythey did not carry their mediaeval homage to the nobility to the pointof decorating instruments of torture with their titles?"
"I was puzzled with the same point," said Dacre, "but it admits of asimple explanation. The case excited extraordinary interest at thetime, and nothing could be more natural than that La Reynie, the headof the police, should retain this filler as a grim souvenir. It wasnot often that a marchioness of France underwent the extraordinaryquestion. That he should engrave her initials upon it for theinformation of others was surely a very ordinary proceeding upon hispart."
"And this?" I asked, pointing to the marks upon the leathern neck.
"She was a cruel tigress," said Dacre, as he turned away. "I think itis evident that like other tigresses her teeth were both strong andsharp."