Several days before the circus arrived, I noticed what I considered a peculiarly significant happening--Dr. Calgroni walking toward his abode, with Simple Will tagging, doglike, a few paces behind.
At discreet distance, I followed them. Arriving at the Thornsdale place, I was surprised to see the doctor close the gate behind him, leaving Will standing outside. The half-wit stood there until Dr. Calgroni disappeared.
The day before the show came, I saw the doctor clapping Will on the shoulder and talking to him.
That night such a terrible conclusion shaped itself in my mind as to the meaning of the singular boxes, the hostile notices, Will’s attitude toward the doctor, and the latter’s interest in him, that it kept me wide awake.
In ill humor at myself, I rose at the first appearance of the sun. Remembering the circus, I strolled over to the tracks to watch it unload.
Some villagers had gathered about the few wretched travel-scarred cars that made up the second-rate circus train, and particularly in front of the car containing the cage of Mimmie and Horace.
Doctor Calgroni was there, and, at his heels, Simple Will. The doctor was talking very earnestly to the trainer.
“You say Mr. Barber has offered to sell either of these animals,” the doctor was saying, as I drew up on the outer fringe of the curious crowd.
“Yes sir. He will sell one because they fight continually. They have to be carefully watched, or they might kill each other. You don’t know what ferocious beasts gorillas are--”
The doctor smiled.
“I would like to talk to Mr. Barber,” he interposed.
The gorilla trainer hesitated, then, pulling shut the sliding doors of the animal car:
“Sure; just follow me,” he said.
The doctor, at the man’s side, walked to a coach ahead, the combination ticket-and-executive office of the Barber Shows. For an instant, Simple Will seemed to hesitate, but he didn’t trail Dr. Calgroni--the unseen things inside of the gigantic cage nearby seemed to hold his hypnotic attention. Several big drops of rain splashed upon the cinder-strewn ground. The heavens hung black and dismal; the sun had completely vanished.
I watched Simple Will. He was ill-at-ease, hovering uneasily about the gorillas’ car. The other people nearby paid no attention to the half-wit. Presently the trainer and Dr. Calgroni returned, accompanied by another man, who was counting a roll of bills.
“You say,” the latter remarked as they passed me, “that you want ‘Horace’ delivered at once?”
“Yes,” replied the doctor concisely.
“All right. Hank, call the gang, unload the cage and put Horace in that red single cage. Dr. Calgroni has relieved us of him!”
At this, Simple Will approached the surgeon and touched his sleeve.
“You buy hairy animal-man?” he mumbled.
The doctor laid his blue-veined and thin old hand upon Will’s broad shoulder.
“Yes, Will, and I’m going to give you a job--a job as his valet!” The show men exchanged winks, and from the car rolled an empty, iron-barred cage. Will’s expressionless features twisted into what on his idiot countenance registered pleasure.
Dr. Calgroni beckoned to the man whom I had seen deliver the strange-appearing boxes that first afternoon.
“Got your team?”
The fellow nodded.
A scene of bustle had sprung up about me. An excited and larger crowd of villagers had assembled.
The big cage containing Mimmie and Horace was lowered to the track side. They were two of the finest animals of their type I have ever looked upon.
Horace was transferred to the single cage and its strong door doubly padlocked upon him. The mule team drew up with the wagon.
“Here, Will,” said the doctor to the half-wit, “climb into the wagon. We’re going before we get wet.” The doctor appeared highly elated.
Simple Will, who had stood by as if in a stupor, swung his heavy body up behind the gorilla’s cage.
No sooner had the wagon drawn out of sight than the heavens seemed to loosen in wrath. Rain fell in torrents, driving the spectators in a wild rush for shelter. As I reached the hotel, the water dripping from my drenched garments, the storm increased its fury. All that day it rained--and the next.
As I lay on my bed that night and listened to the roar of wind and rain beating upon the roof and window panes, my mind kept drifting to the inmates of Thornsdale place--the queer doctor, Simple Will and his ward, Horace, the gigantic gorilla.
_III._
It was three days later that I learned Dr. Calgroni had wired to New York, and on the next morning an exceptionally well-dressed stranger, whose goatee, bearing and satchel smacked of a medical man, stepped off the train.
Espying me, he asked:
“Will you kindly direct me to the Thornsdale place?”
I told him the best way to reach Dr. Calgroni’s without wading in mud, and he departed, with a brief “Thank You.”
The next night I saw the stranger, ashen of face and decidedly inwardly shaken, hurriedly purchase a ticket and leave on the 9:45 train for New York.
Immediately I sought the telegraph dispatcher.
“You are aware of the queer actions of Dr. Calgroni--”
“I should say! He’s a nut.”
“I can’t say as to that, but to whom did he send the message the other night?”
“You won’t let it out I tipped you off?”
I solemnly held up my right hand.
“Well,” in a whisper, “he wired a hospital for their best surgical man.”
So the assistant had gone back, frightened. And why?
Several weeks later Barber’s World-famous 3-Ring Show gave a return exhibition at Belleville. That night I wandered toward the Thornsdale place.
Again the clouds had banked for a storm, fitful rays of the moon now and then shifting through, only to be absorbed in mist.
Drawing around in front of the old homestead, looming dark behind the gloom-shadowed trees, I seated myself on the stump hitching-post. I was glad that in my coat pocket nestled a neat automatic. Why I lingered there in front of the quiet old place I do not know. Not a light glimmered in the house; not a noise issued from its muffled depths.
Then to my ears came a shriek and to my startled gaze a light flared in the house. I could dimly see that a figure appeared at its open door. It looked behind it for an instant, then madly bolted toward me.
Upon the wet gravel came the tread of rapidly-moving feet, and the gate in front of me swung abruptly back. In the hazy reflected light, I got one look at Dr. Calgroni who, hat and raincoat in his hands, the muscles of his face quivering, his face deathly pale, emerged and turned, running madly toward town.
I drew back, automatic in hand, waiting for whatever might follow the doctor. Nothing happened. Obeying an impulse, I took out after the fleeing surgeon. Over soggy soil I followed him, around corners, down Main Street to the depot. I got there in time to see him swing on the platform of the rear coach of the 9:45 train, bound for New York.
Throbbing with excitement, scarce knowing what I was doing, I made my way back toward the Thornsdale place. Several blocks away, I caught a glimpse of a broad-shouldered, thick-set disheveled figure in breech-clout, running--or, rather, prancing and hopping--toward the circus grounds. The automatic in my hand, I followed.
A block from the circus grounds, under the street lamp, I saw a figure on horseback that I recognized as Jason Murdock, evidently bound for home.
Then, snarling, the Thing I had seen hopped out from behind a tree trunk, on all fours. Gaining its hind feet, it made a flying leap at Jason, knocking him from his horse. On the ground they rolled, the powerful Jason helpless in the Thing’s clutch. Its fingers closed chokingly about the man’s throat.
I tried to shoot, only to find my gun jammed; tried to shout, and could not.
At that instant the brass band struck up “There’ll Be A Hot Time In The Old Town Tonight!” As the quick, dancing strains smote the night air, the Thing suddenly ceased in the act of strangling Jason, looking attentively up. There seemed to be a responsive, obedient look on its horrible countenance. I could see its wild-eyes and bearded face--God! _It was Simple Will!_
Bounding first on all fours, then half-upright on his feet, the crazed idiot was making for the show grounds just as the clouds broke in a downpour. To the rear of the big tent bounded Will, as the crowd scattered for home.
As if familiar with his surrounding, he made for a side-show tent in front of which sputtered a gas torch. The crowd, fleeing in the rain, had in the confusion failed to see the half-wit and myself on the mad run. But several men were following me, as Will tore aside the entrance flaps.
Inside, poorly-lighted though it was, I could plainly see the cage of Mimmie, the female-gorilla. Her trainer turned at the noise of our entrance, and hastily reached for his knife-pointed pole--but too late. Uttering a cry, piercing and antagonistic, Will flung himself at Mimmie’s cage, who, with an answering cry of battle, reached both her long hairy arms through her cage, clawing and tearing at the fiercely struggling man on the outside.
The trainer rushed in with his prong, thrusting it at Mimmie. For an instant she drew back; then several of us quickly pulled Will, bleeding profusely, back from the enraged animal, who again lurched forward as though recognizing in Will the reincarnation of her mate, Horace.