CHAPTER XXV
STATEMENT OF DAMAR GREEFE, M.D.
The speaker reeled and seemed about to fall. Whereupon Gatton sprangforward and placed an armchair, which he himself had occupied, for Dr.Damar Greefe. The latter inclined his head in acknowledgment and sankdown weakly, clutching at both arms of the chair.
For my own part, I had not yet recovered power of speech; but:
"Dr. Damar Greefe," said the Inspector, closely watching the man whosat there collapsed in the chair, "I arrest you on a charge of murder.I have to warn you that anything you now say will be used in evidenceagainst you."
The Eurasian exerted a supreme effort, straightening his gaunt body,and fixing the gaze of those hawk eyes upon Inspector Gatton. When hespoke his harsh voice had gained strength and his manner wasimperious.
"Detective-Inspector Gatton," he replied, "you do no more than yourduty. I have come here only with the utmost difficulty in my weakstate. Therefore, you need apprehend no attempt at escape on my part.I have come with a purpose. This purpose I shall fulfill; afterwhich"--he shrugged his square shoulders--"I shall be at yourservice."
"Very good," said Gatton shortly, but I noted that his face wasflushed in a way which betokened repressed excitement.
Giving me a significant glance, he went out to the ante-room, and:
"Sydenham 1448," I heard him call.
Damar Greefe closed his eyes and lay back in the chair; and a momentlater:
"Hullo!" said Gatton. "Detective-Inspector Gatton, C.I.D., speakingfrom Willow Cottage, College Road. Send two men in a cab here at onceto remove a prisoner.... Right! Good-by."
He came in again, and closing the door behind him, stood staring atDamar Greefe in a sort of wonderment. The Eurasian wearily opened hiseyes and looked slowly from side to side. Then:
"Pray be seated, Inspector Gatton," he said. "I have a communicationto make."
Gatton, with never a word, drew up a chair and sat down.
"I do not desire to be interrupted," continued Damar Greefe, "until mycommunication is finished. You understand? It will not be repeated."
"I am afraid," murmured Gatton dryly, "it will have to be."
The Eurasian fully opened his glittering black eyes, and fixing themupon the speaker:
"It will not be repeated," he said harshly. "If I am misunderstood,inform me."
His peremptory manner in the circumstances was extraordinary--uncanny.As I had perceived in the first hour of our meeting, Dr. Damar Greefewas a man possessing tremendous force of character and a pride ofintellect which clearly rendered him indifferent even of retribution.
"This point being settled," he continued, "be good enough, InspectorGatton, and"--he turned his eyes in my direction--"Mr. Addison, togive me your undivided attention."
His manner was that of a lecturer--of a lecturer who takes it forgranted that his discourse is above the heads of his audience; butwhen I say that the statement now made by this strange and terribleman held Gatton and me spellbound I say no more than the truth.Wearily, and more often than not having his eyes closed, Dr. DamarGreefe commenced to unfold a story of nameless horrors--and save thathis harsh voice grew ever weaker and weaker, he displayed not theslightest trace of emotion throughout his appalling revelations.
"I am informing you," he said, "of these facts concerning my inquiriesin the realm of teratology and the subjoined province of animismbecause I know that my life-work upon this subject can never now becompleted. It having been necessary for me to destroy my papers andthose specimens which, at hideous cost, I had accumulated duringtwenty years of travel through some of the most barbaric as well asthe most civilized parts of the world, this present brief verbalaccount of the most important inquiry of all shall alone survive me.You are privileged. Therefore listen:
"Two important facts contributed to my choice of a special study: thesocial ostracism which very early in my professional career I found tobe my lot; and the fact that in myself I afforded a living example ofthe _hybrid_. It has been said and not untruly that the Eurasian hateshis father and scorns his mother. Certainly, this unnatural passion isreciprocated by the parent stock; for the Eurasian is barelyacknowledged by his dark brethren and hardly tolerated by the white.
"In spite of my qualifications--I am a Doctor of Medicine, a Master ofArts, and hold other degrees of Leipzig, the Sorbonne, andelsewhere--I recognized very early in my career that ordinary practicewas impossible for me. I therefore turned my attention to the specialstudy of embryology, as I fortunately possessed sufficient privatemeans to enable me--by careful living--to dispense with the usualproceeds of my profession.
"In short, I hoped to triumph over my hereditary handicap and to buildfor myself a reputation which should rise above the petty disabilitiesof caste and place my name upon a level with those of Haeckel,Weismann, Wallace, Focke and the other great students who have helpedto advance our knowledge of the science of evolution.
"I early turned my attention to the traditions associated with the_Cynocephalus hamadryas_, or Sacred Baboon of Abyssinia. I took up myquarters on the banks of the Hawash and succeeded in ingratiatingmyself with the Amharun. The result of my sojourn amongst thesestrange people is embodied in my work 'The Ape-Men of Shoa.'
"This work is unpublished and may never see the light, but briefly Imay state that the Amharun are a Semitic tribe allied to the Falashasand have been settled for many generations in this southern provinceof Abyssinia. Claiming descent from Menelek, son of Suleiman and theQueen of Sheba, they have always been regarded as unclean pariahs. Inpart this is due to their bestial custom of eating meat cut fromliving animals, but it is more particularly attributable to theperiodical appearance among them of these _cynocephalytes_, orman-apes, which form the subject of my work.
"My close inquiries into the physiological history of thesemonstrosities were only conducted with the utmost difficulty. In thefirst place I found that it was customary among the Amharun to slaythe creatures at birth, but in those rare cases of survival the_cynocephalytes_ were banished from the community and were compelledto lead a wild life, subsisting as best they might in the foothills ofthe desolate mountain region.
"Thus, in the first place these creatures were difficult of access; inthe second place, they readily contracted tuberculosis, even in thatwarm, dry climate; and in the third place their ferocity rendered themmore formidable to approach than any tiger in its lair. I may add herethat this predisposition to pulmonary disease is (and this I havedefinitely established) a characteristic of all mammalian hybrids.
"Nevertheless, my studies were by no means unfruitful, since theyresulted in a triumphant vindication of my theory, which, contrary tothat universally received and more closely allied to the 'exploded'Mendel's Law, ascribed the appearance of such monsters not to anystrict physiological process but to a hitherto unclassified law ofembryology which I had hoped would one day take its place in scienceunder my name.
"Armed with the results of my Abyssinian inquiry, I next proceeded toSyria; for among certain desert tribes I hoped to find furtherevidence to support my theory. In short, in the Arabic tradition ofthe jackal-man (which is allied to the medieval and universal beliefin the were-wolf or _loup-garou_) and in the Indian myth of the womanwho, possessing an ordinary human form by day, assumes that of atigress by night, I thought I detected a profound truth.
"Since my life-work is destroyed, I am egotist enough to desire thatcredit for it should not accrue to another. I do not propose,therefore, more than lightly to touch upon the Damar Greefe Law, but Imay say that in its essentials it is this:
"Such strange hybrids do actually occur periodically and in rare casessurvive; but their animal proclivities which are physicallydemonstrable, and the possession of certain animal attributes (as thefurry body of the _cynocephalyte_, the claws and teeth of thejackal-man, etc.), are _physical_ reflections of a _mental_ processtaking place in the female parent."
He glared at me wildly, as if anticipating contradiction, but Gattonand I r
emaining silent:
"There is no physical association," he continued, "between the hybridand that creature whose qualities and peculiarities he seeminglyinherits. I have proved by a long series of elaborate experiments thata _true_ hybrid of this description is a physiological impossibility.But that a _false_ hybrid such as I have indicated may appear is afact which does not rest solely upon my studies amongst the Amharun,nor upon my subsequent inquiries throughout Assyria, Somaliland andthe middle valleys of the Yellow River."
He paused, and suddenly turning a glance of the hawk-like eyes uponme:
"As an explorer of the Dark Continent, Mr. Addison," he said, "andalso, if I mistake not, something of an Orientalist, the significanceof this itinerary may possibly be apparent to you. But I waste time:
"The discovery which triumphantly crowned my life's work by what somemay deem poetic justice was destined also to destroy it. This bringsme to the matter which has led to my presence here to-night. Mypreceding remarks were a necessary foreword. I come to the year 1902,when I was established in Cairo, whither I had conveyed the results ofthe labor of many years and where I had taken up my quarters in alarge native house not twenty yards from the Bab-es-Zuwela."
Gatton stirred restlessly in his chair and my own curiosity knew nobounds.
"My inquiries at this time had nearly exhausted my always slenderfinancial resources, and the proceeds of a small practice which Isucceeded in establishing (exclusively amongst the extensivehalf-caste colony resident in this neighborhood) proved a welcomeaddition to my income. It was due to the fact that at this time I wasan active practitioner that I came in touch with the most perfect andnotable example of a _psycho-hybrid_ which I had ever encountered,indeed which, so far as I am aware, has ever appeared."
He paused again, as if overcome with faintness, and in anticipation ofwhat was to come I could scarcely contain myself, when:
"At this time," he resumed, in a yet lower voice, "and indeed untilquite recently, there were but few reliable European medical men inCairo, and during the summer of 1902 an outbreak of choleratemporarily depleted their already scanty ranks. It happened then thatone night, whilst I sat in the huge, lofty room, once the principalharem apartment of the house, which I had appropriated as a study,Cassim, my Nubian servant, communicated to me (by means of asign-language which I had taught him) some startling news. Myimmediate presence was desired at the residence of Sir BurnhamCoverly, then newly appointed to a government office, and who with hiswife had only arrived in the country some few months earlier.
"I thought I knew the nature of the services required of me, but myemployment by this typical English aristocrat, hide-bound with castetraditions as he could not fail to be, since he had spent five yearsof his official life in India, surprised me very greatly. I was laterto learn that the services of no other medical man (or of no medicalman so highly qualified as myself) were available; but even had Iknown this at the time I should have put my pride in my pocket, andfor this reason:
"I had learned from a native acquaintance of a certain occurrencewhich had taken place on the very day of the baronet's arrival inEgypt; and it led me to look for a particular manifestation, in fact,I will boldly declare, since science is admittedly a callous mistress,that it had led me to _hope_ for this manifestation, howeverunpleasant it might prove for those intimately concerned. Accordingly,having made suitable preparation I accompanied Sir Burnham's servantback to the residence of the baronet...."
I heard the door-bell ring, and I heard Coates's regular tread as heproceeded along the passage. There was a brief, muttered colloquy, arap on the study-door, and Coates entered.
"A sergeant of police and a constable, sir, to see Inspector Gatton!"
Damar Greefe raised his thin, yellow hand. His voice, when next hespoke, exhibited no trace of emotion.
"Let them be told to wait," he said. "I have not finished."
It was wildly bizarre, that scene in my study, with the dignifiedwhite-haired Eurasian doctor, palpably laboring against some deathlysickness, sitting there unperturbed, his brilliant, pervertedintellect holding him aloof from the ordinary things of life--whilstthose who came to hale him to a felon's cell waited in the ante-room!
I glanced swiftly at Gatton, and he nodded impatiently.
"Let them stay in the dining-room, Coates," I said. "Make themcomfortable."
"Very good, sir."
Unmoved, Coates withdrew--and I saw Gatton glance at his watch.Throughout the latter part of his strange narrative, neither Gattonnor I interrupted the narrator, therefore I give his story, so far asI remember it, in his own words. He no longer addressed either of usdirectly; he seemed, indeed, to be thinking aloud.