Speaker 1Good evening. Welcome to the Just Sleep Podcast. I'm Tayshia, your host. Every week, I will read you an old story to help you relax of the stressful day behind you and drift off to sleep. I'll read you an old story to help you relax of the stressful day behind you and drift off to sleep. Visit justsleeppodcast.com slash support for more information.
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Speaker 1Twin Identity by Edith Stewart Jury So lie down, close your eyes, and let me read you a story. What am I, you ask? Because I say I've had, though I am only 30. A stranger experience than any with which you five gentlemen have favored us to beguile the weary time we are snowed up in the train. And as it seems it will be quite an hour before we get on to London, I will tell you, if you care to hear the story, why I say so and what I am. Only I hope those two ladies will not be shocked to find themselves in my company. No? Thanks. Well then. I am an agent de police, and I've just come over from Paris to spend Christmas with some English friends. Even we poor police agents get a little holiday sometimes. And the life has its attractions too, as well as its dangers and repulsions. Personally, I had little choice, for I was born in the service, brought up in it. For my father was a very clever officer of the Paris secret police. I married in the force, widowed in it. And being one of their best women detectives, I was sure of retaining my position. Nature has favored me, for as you see, I am a tall but very slight-made woman, with a face which lends itself well to masculine disguise. Pardon, madame, what did you say? Oh, I make a handsome young fellow too. I have often been told so. And that I have a woman's wits and a man's courage. One needs both in my profession too, I can tell you. And steady nerves too, as you will see. Well, about this time five years ago, all Paris was suddenly startled into horror by the discovery of one of those revoltingly brutal crimes in which, I must confess, France is only occasionally rivaled by the wildest deeds of the far west. Some few months previously, a wealthy banker named Falkade had married a very pretty American girl, one of twins, who in all but personal resemblance was so absolutely beautiful. Absolutely as one being, and so deeply attached, as to be singular even for twins. Remember that I knew nothing of this till nearly the termination of my connection with the case. All that the police knew was the bare fact that Madame Falkade had a sister, who after the former's marriage had returned to Virginia, U.S., and was there when the tragedy took place. The news of it completely prostrating her health for months. Remember that also. Monsieur Falkade had a villa in large grounds some way out of Paris, in a lonely place, and that fatal evening the banker, having a violent headache, retired about ten o'clock, leaving his wife down in the salon reading, with her pet dog, a Scotch terrier, in the room. And that was the last the poor fellow saw of his wife and her faithful would-be defender alive. Monsieur Falkade awoke at two in the morning, and finding himself still alone, got up, partially dressed, and went downstairs, thinking his wife had dropped asleep over her book. The salon was empty, the window open, and blood was on the floor near the wife's chair. Monsieur was frantic, called up the household, sent for the nearest police, and every inch of the grounds was searched. As a result, Paris soon blazed with the horrible discovery that Madame Falkade had been stabbed to the heart, from behind, the doctor said. Probably in the room. And the body carried out to a remote corner of the grounds and literally cut up piecemeal. For the head, trunk, hands, and limbs were found by degrees in different parts of the grounds. Also, a long, sharp-pointed knife, blood-stained, was found, and the sergeant de police himself discovered, in a remote spot, under a bush, the body of the poor terrier, all bloody from a ghastly stab. But close to its mouth, as if the teeth in the death axe, the body of the poor terrier, all bloody from a ghastly stab. The body of the poor terrier, all bloody from a ghastly stab. unclenched and dropped it, was a man's right-hand fourth finger with a ring upon it. The faithful animal had evidently flown at the murderer and bitten off that little finger, then doubtless mortally wounded itself, fled to the bushes and died before it could reach the house with its prize. Of the assassin there was no trace whatsoever, not even a footprint, for the ground was dry under a black, hard frost. Well, the finger was, of course, at once preserved in spirits. The signet ring, we found, had a monogram on the stone in it of L.S. On that finger and ring and knife, we had to rely primarily to identify the murderer. Of course, Monsieur Foucault himself was questioned as under possible suspicion, but it was soon clear that he was guiltless. The marriage had been one of love. He was a fond and unjealous husband and one worthy of true trust. But that some savage hate and jealousy was the motive of the crime was tolerably clear. Nothing was stolen nor touched. The devilish deliberation and sequence to the murder betrayed a bloodthirsty revenge. But for what? By whom done? A lover scorned, perhaps? But when and where? No trace, no sign of anyone to suspect, present or missing, whom she had known, could be found, although Monsieur Foucault made it understood that no expense or time should be bounded, and that the arrest of the murderer would be well recognized. You know that in France we do not allow any reward, officially or openly offered, as you do here for such things. It is done, of course, but sabrosa. The case was in my special chief's hands, but I was not in it then, for my hands were full, as that week I went off to Vienna on a matter of political crime, which took me six months to run my men to earth and have them arrested. I only learned the details of the Foucault tragedy on my return, learned of necessity from my chief, M. Dupré. I have been so intensely absorbed in a case so passionately set on success, all my faculty so entirely concentrated on that end. This almost abnormal unfolding of my whole being in the interests of those who had so loved the ill-fated lady may perhaps account for the strange sequel. I set to work my own way. I visited the Villa Foucault, saw the place, the picture of Madame Foucault there, and the knife, ring, and finger in our possession, and all the people connected with the case. Then I went off to the Riviera, taking a photo of Madame, of course, went to Nice, Monte Carlo, and after weeks of patient research I discovered that a certain Polish lady had said that at a rather mixed mask ball last autumn she had noticed a very pretty American who was rather annoyed by the notice of a blue domino. Following up that slender chance I traced out the pole, a work of time, and she recognized the photo, laughed at the freedom of American girls, said this one appeared to be alone and to have come in bravado, but I got frightened at the attentions or persecutions of the blue domino, had hastily resumed her mask, and vanished. Here then was surely the root of the subsequent tragedy. A reckless lark, as you English say. An ignorance of the world. An encounter probably followed by secret persecution. The girl, afraid to betray her mad escapade to her friends, lest the worst construction should be put on it. The man, doubtless in love, in a fashion, jealousy, revenge, voilà tout. I returned hopefully to Monte Carlo, and after some time, obtained the slightest clue to that blue domino, which led me to suspect that, if he were the murderer, he would have made his way to London several months after that. The crime, as the safest hiding place. So it is, so vast, so many millions to be lost amongst. Well, I came straight over to London, it being the October after the murder, and at once went to Scotland Yard to put the authorities there on qui vive for a man such as I described, lacking a finger, and the hand probably marked still by the wound of the dog's teeth. Why did I not advertise, you ask, monsieur? Because I didn't. Because my bird was clearly wary, clever, and I wanted him to be lulled into false security, and think the police had given up in despair after nearly a year. I was unremitting in my cautious inquiries and watchful search, continually changing my disguises, mostly masculine, of necessity, and invariably armed with a loaded revolver for self-defense, or to prevent the bird's escape. I am a dead shot and can hit where I will, I may assert. Day and night, until quite late, I was abroad, here, there, and everywhere, in public resorts, public vehicles, great thoroughfares, east, west, north, and south. I haunted the gambling resorts, from the West End Propriety Club to the Low Hell, all en garçon, of course. How could I get the entree of some of these, you say, madame? Ha ha, that was easily enough managed with money, and I am an accomplished gambler. To be au fait in that line was a great achievement. It was part of my training. But day after day, week after week passed, and I was still baffled. I got not one clue, and at last, just before Christmas, I wrote to my chief. Even I am almost in despair that L.S. is either dead or at the Antipodes. And if I learn nothing by December 31st, I fear I must resort to the desperate measure of advertising. I am mad at failing. And more, my whole soul and brain are ragged. That letter reached Paris a few days before Christmas. On the 24th of December, all day, I had detectives watching the great stations for any man answering to such description as I had, as the assassin might possibly spend the festive season out of town. I myself was about the West End in the evening, dressed, much as I am now, in black, with a dark fur toque. I gave a look over Paddington Terminus, and about ten o'clock I thought, I would return to my lodging in Bloomsbury, and there decide on my further action tonight, or whether I should rest, that is, if I could. It was the very anniversary of the tragedy I was to unravel, Christmas Eve. I was beginning to feel the long, heavy strain on mental and physical powers, I suppose, and every nerve was strung up to a high, nervous tension. I felt in a curious, unaccountable manner that would not be shaken off. I stepped into a city-going omnibus. Sitting down by the door, and instinctively taking notice of the other passengers. Only two stout old men at the far end. For it was a bitterly cold night, with a heavy, snow-laden sky, dreary enough to make one lonely and miserable under any circumstances. I was both. Yet withal, as we started eastwards, there began to steal over me an odd, internal excitement, as of a vague expectancy, a restlessness, an intensified desire to gain my end, which became almost agony in its passionate vividness. It seemed to grip me, thrall my very soul like a visible force. God of justice, was there nothing above or below that knew the dread secret I sought? No power, seen or unseen, from whence my inmost being could draw the knowledge of that one man's hiding place. What, too, was my chief thinking of his trusted agent, on whose success he had flung his whole credit? What, on this dread night, were the feelings of her relations that their beloved dead was still unavenged? In those moments I felt half-manned with longing, and then in and through that longing there grew a strange sensation as if something—I knew not what—went out from me, taking my life from me, then seeming to draw back with it in returning something that I could not grasp or define, that I never shall be able to define, but made me, with a sort of, sudden mental wrench, look up, impelled by a force quite outside myself to see, sitting opposite to me, a lady, young and lovely, dressed in handsome mourning. How and when had she got in? Had the omnibus stopped or even slackened, unnoticed by me in my strange absorption? No, how could it? Yet there the stranger sat. And what a singular face it was, what deathly pallor and painful collie in every line, but sad, wistful eyes that seemed full of unshed tears, and kept looking, looking at me, through me, into my soul, with an intense, strained gaze that never wavered and seemed every moment to grow deeper in its dumb agony of appeal, as of one struggling for the speech of which God had bereft her tongue. I looked away, aside, out of the doorway, conscious that my blood was creeping dull and heavily, like half-frozen water through my veins. But a strange, weird fascination compelled me to again meet that gaze. Did she know me? Impossible. I had certainly never seen her before. My heart throbbed up into my throat. My blood began to beat fast and warm again, and as we rolled onwards I was aware of a curious subtle change in my sensations. Every nerve, every fibre, was still strung up, to a painful tension. But there stole over me, into me, body and spirit, a sense of steel-like strength, a strange settling down of my faculties into cool, steadfast power. And more than that, a sense that grew slowly to impelling conviction that that fellow passenger knew what I did not, whosoever or whatsoever she was, and that my movements must follow hers, blindly. As that odd feeling deepened and possessed me, my eyes again turned to the mirror, and I again went to the woman's face, to meet a look of intense restfulness and content that dominated all other expression of anguish or strained eagerness, as if after something unreached. Did she, or it, read my soul, and find there all its tortured, trammeled spirit sought? It gave me almost a shock to suddenly see the stalwart, berserk conductor at the doorway asking for fares to Tottenham Court Road, which I had named when I got in. I noticed at once that he did not even glance at my strange neighbour, seemed not to see her. But I saw her shake her head to me. No, I said to the man, I'm going further. I'll stop you when I want to get out. Under this curious calm that had settled on me, I was not at all surprised at the man's evident obliviousness of that passenger. I should have been surprised if he had evinced any knowledge of her presence, and it seemed to me quite in the order of things when, on reaching Gray's inn road, she raised her white hand to me and glided out onto the pavement unnoticed by the conductor. I paid him and stepped to the stranger's side, thrilled right through with a weird feeling that should ordinarily unnerve one. Yet I had never felt more strong, cool, ready for the most desperate danger or emergency. And as my guide, I following, moved swiftly along, northwards, I drew off my gloves and felt in my bosom to make sure the revolver was ready to hand. There was grim work I knew. She led on, straight up, past the shops, still ablaze at past eleven in that neighbourhood, on this eve, and at last turned down a street which I knew to be mostly filled with third-rate, shady lodging-houses, where doors are on the latch all night, and never a question is asked of whence, whither, or what. This class of houses had the commonest latch locks that are easily fitted, and of course I was well provided with such appliances of noiseless entrance. Before one of these houses my mysterious guide stopped. Save a light in the first-floor window, all was darkness. Either the inmates were asleep or out. To that window my guide eagerly pointed, with a look and gesture that vehemently urged instant action. As if a minute's delay were fatal, so I drew out and fitted a key. She was close. Her lips moved, but there was no sound, not a whisper. Yet into my mind, as if I had heard it, came a name. Louis. Sommelier. And at that moment I opened the door and entered, leaving the door just ajar for her to follow. But she did not. What I meant to do or felt I never could put into words. My mind was concentrated on one great fact, that the murderer was in that lighted room, about to escape, and that I, a woman, alone, must stop him and arrest him. Terror, danger, were not present to me then. I was too strung up, grimly cool. It was I who was dangerous. I stole up, quietly, easily, as if I had a right there, opened that door, and paused. One glance took in the scene. A shabby room, scantily furnished, a fire nearly out, wine and food on the table, a valise packed up. And just drinking a glass of wine, using the left hand, was a rather tall, good-looking, but sallow-faced man. Mon Dieu, I must see that other hand by some ruse. Que diable, said I, with a bitter but abandoned kind of manner. But you are a cruel enough lover to me, Monsieur Sommelier. He swung round, so startled, that he staggered and caught at a chair with the right hand, to which it was nearest. I saw it full under the lamplight. A dark scar across it. The fourth finger gone. The assassin at last. Who the devil are you? he demanded savagely, recovering himself a little. I never saw you before, and you are too damned handsome to be forgotten. Leave my room. I have to catch a train, and my name is Mercier. Pardon, Monsieur, said I coolly, my right hand on the butt of my weapon, my eyes on his, ready for his attack. You are Louis Sommelier, and you are my prisoner for murder. I stood near the door, he at the far end of the large room. At the last awful word he snatched a knife from the table with a fierce sacre, and sprang towards me. But at that second I fired, and the fellow reeled back with a yell like a wounded wild beast, and fell heavily, partially stunned by the blow to his head, on the floor, the blood coming from his side. I knew where to hit safely. I was turning quickly to get police help before my prisoner regained consciousness, when men's steps came quickly along from below, up the stairs, and two constables came into the room, one exclaiming, Helloa, what's this? Murder? Are you hurt too, ma'am? Shaken now a little, I leaned against the wall as the other man knelt beside Sommelier. No, no, I said. I fired in self-defense. I am here to arrest that man for the murder of Madame Volcade. I am a French police agent. It is all right. One was the sergeant, and whilst the other bound up the slight wound, I briefly explained matters and gave my captive in charge. The sergeant sent for the divisional surgeon, who had Sommelier removed to the hospital, in custody, of course, and said in two or three days he would be able to be taken to Bow Street for the necessary formalities of extradition. After we had left him at the hospital with the constable in charge, I asked the sergeant, as we walked back westward, how they arrived so opportunely. Had they heard the shot and cry? Yes, just outside, he said. But they had come from the station near, at the summons of a lady in black, who was as white as a bird. She was as white as a ghost, and was dumb. For she could only beckon, beckon like mad. And when we followed, led us to that house, just as the shot was fired, and was gone before we could look round. Awful strange, ma'am, he added. Who was she? I do not know, I answered, in a choked voice. Good night. I am dead tired now. I was shaken to the centre now, that the terrible long strain was so far over, and the murderer secured. But next day, Christmas day, I wired to my chief, and received a reply that he would send over a responsible official, with an arrest warrant, to receive the prisoner from the English authorities, and bring him over to Paris. Meanwhile, I, of course, had to obtain, at Bow Street, a warrant under the Extraditions Act, and two days later, Sommelier was pronounced quite able to be removed. As a result, well, within five or six days of his arrest, he was safely lodged in the Parisian prison. I had travelled with my French comrades, two, of course, and their captive, who had maintained a sulky silence save once, to savagely curse that diablesse of an agent. I went the same day of our arrival to report myself to my delighted chief, who asked how I had trapped the bird at last. I felt too shattered then to tell him the actual truth. I shrank in sensitive dread from the possible smile of incredulity. So I said, that the person I met by chance had spoken of a Frenchman named Sommelier who had one finger gone, and this person had shown me his lodgings, which he was on the point of leaving when I entered. So I had to be Sommelier in my actions, I added, as I rose to go. Quite right, Marie. You are invaluable, and have well redeemed my confidence in you. You have earned a rest, truly, and a reward from Monsieur Falkade. By the way, I have made a promise there for you. Comment, Monsieur? I was surprised. My existence is unknown to him and his. Individually, yes, but professionally, not so. I went myself to tell Monsieur Falkade of the daring arrest of the assassin by my clever agent, a woman, I added, and he made me promise to send you to his house here in Paris directly you arrived. He and his sister-in-law, the wife's twin sister, especially wished to see the woman of whom I spoke. I started but said quietly, The twin sister, Monsieur? Is she then over there? For though outwardly not a muscle of mine moved, I was startled right through by his words, by the wildly extraordinary fancy that flashed across me as I recalled all that had taken place on Christmas Eve. Yes, Dupre replied. Mademoiselle Clarisse Gray came over here to her bereaved brother-in-law just before Christmas. She was too ill to bear the voyage earlier. Will you have a fiacre and goat once? Yes, assuredly, I said. I felt that I must go at once and solve this mystery, which was surely on the borderland of the real and unreal, the seen and the wondrous unseen, of which our finite humanity, the soul's prison, knows so little and conjectures so much. I went then to the banker's house, but found that he himself was not yet returned from the bank, though momentarily expected. Would I see Mademoiselle Clarisse? I said. Yes. Gave my name, and was shown into an elegant salon. In three minutes a young lady came in, and in that moment as we faced each other we both stood transfixed, dazed, as if pulsation itself were arrested. Each had seen the other, each knew where, but not how. Not how. My strange silent fellow-passenger and guide of Christmas Eve, no flesh and blood, as was this who now came slowly forward, and held my hands tightly. But the same identity, only that the other was in the spirit. We know each other, she said, in a hushed, odd way. Not in the flesh, but in the soul. And yet a reality, not a dream, though they say I lay like one dead asleep. And when I came back to sentient life knew nothing of where we, she and I, had been. We? You and she, I repeated, feeling my flesh creep and my heart stand still. There, there were not two, but one guide with me. We, twain, but always one, Clarice said in the same way, her wistful eyes looking into mine. Dead and living. Our twin-born souls are one identity forever, and so the dread secret with which her soul was oppressed passed with it into mine, but densely trammeled by my mortality, till your despair and strength of purpose and desire drew us from our mortal prison, to your aid. I felt the mighty spell of your agony unfolding itself with my own maddened thirst for justice. a strange oblivion stealing my physical senses, and knew no more, save when I awoke, a deep joy, gratitude, triumph, a restfulness. I knew before your chief spoke that the murderer was arrested by the agent he named. It all came back to me then, and I, We Twain, knew all. I stood looking at her, as her mystic presence that night had looked at me. What awesome secret of the unknown was indeed half-unfolded, it seemed, in these twin-born sisters, whom even the mystery of death could not part from their entwined coexistence. Had, in truth, the dead sister's soul passed, as it were, into its twin soul, yet encompassed by its mortal body, and so through its own beyond-death knowledge, God-given yet only through a glass darkly, had a mystic power as the one spirit of the twin identity. To guide me, the mortal agent who was the material instrument of God's justice. It might be so. Could I, could any mortal in his bounded finiteness, say it could not be? So there must it rest as a mystery till all mystery shall be seen face to face. You ask me, what was the end of that grim tragedy? Well, I traced out summary's antecedents, and my suspicions. If his motive proved to be correct, his guilt was undeniable by the proofs we had, the ring, the finger, and the knife, and many other collateral links of evidence, and Louis Sommelier was condemned and guillotined. It was months before I could work again, and indeed, Monsieur Falkade and Clarice Gray would have had me retire on the competence they insisted on settling on me. But I could not settle to a quiet, useless life, lest I was young and strong. So I am still. I am Jean de Police, and I am going to visit Clarice in London, where she is married to an Englishman. Ah, see, the train is going on again, and we shall soon reach London. Clarice likes her chère Marie Lacroix to be with her on Christmas Eve. Good night. Thank you.
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