Detective Crandall uncovers that Joshua Quincy is killing the Griggs family with leeches to avenge a past betrayal by Captain Phineas Griggs involving stolen pearls and torture in Ceylon. Quincy mirrors his own suffering through his lethal method but is stopped by Crandall. Ultimately, Quincy is incapacitated, and the leeches bring about his own downfall.
Crandall nodded in understanding. As they started to leave, he asked, “Are you armed, captain? Don’t forget that there may be a dangerous killer somewhere in the house. This Ed Fries—”
Anselm produced a businesslike automatic. “I would like to see that devil.”
Be on your guard,” Crandall said. “Stick together.”
Mary shuddered and put her hands before her face. “When I think of Aunt Georgia. Her dead body—”
Anselm put his arm around her shoulder and led her out.
At the doorway, Avery turned and said to the motionless Captain Griggs, “Have no fear, captain. Mr. Crandall can be fully trusted.”
When the three left, Crandall crossed the room to old Phineas. “Now Mr. Griggs, let’s get to work.”
Griggs’s eyes rested on him brightly as he came over to the wheel chair.
If you can’t talk, you can do something else. The others didn’t think of it. You can move your eyes.”
The old man’s eyes were burning intensely, trying, it seemed, to convey an urgent message. They glared at him, then moved quickly to focus on a spot on the wall opposite. Back and forth they moved. Crandall followed their direction and walked over to the row of bookcases along the wall.
He turned to Griggs. “Are you trying to tell me that the answer to our mystery is in this bookcase?”
Grigg’s eyes sparkled. Crandall scanned the books closely. Suddenly his hand shot out and seized one of them. It was a leather-bound diary. He saw that Griggs was straining in his chair. Those eyes, with distended pupils, were literally shouting at him.
There was a line sprawled across the cover: Diary of Captain Phineas Griggs. There was a leather band stretching from edge to edge of each cover, and a small padlock dangled from one end.
“With your permission, sir,” Crandall said. He smashed the lock with the butt of his gun. The book fell open at a page in the center. He read at random, and for a moment, forgot the helpless invalid whose avid eyes were following his every motion. The large, vigorous handwriting was easy to read.
Sept. 28. 1902
Off the Island of Ceylon
Well, I’ve left him there, God, what else could l do? He was wounded, and l had a fortune in pearls. I don’t call it stealing. They had no right to them either, for that matter. It’s him I’m worried about. I saw them capture him. And I left him in their hands—alive!
“It can’t be helped. We’ve weighed anchor. I couldn’t go back now, if I wanted to. But I keep seeing pictures of what they’re doing to him!”
Crandall turned the page. There was no writing, but a clipping torn from a book had been pasted in. It was short.
“In Ceylon, in some of the forests and along the river banks, it is impossible to take a step without being attacked by them. Not only do they creep along the ground seeking what they must devour—they are on every bush and tree, from which they drop on the head and neck of the passerby; nay, they even spring to meet their victim.”
Underneath the clipping was written in pencil:
“And when they finish with you, your body is a bloodless bag of bones. They suck you dry! And l left him to that fate! The Brotherhood of Hirudo will have his blood sucked out of him while I enjoy the pearls. Hirudo—what a name for a leech!”
Crandall slammed the book shut. Leeches! That explained the peculiar triangular marks on the bodies.
The voracious parasites had three triangular teeth in their mouths. They made an incision in the skin, then fastened on with their suckers and clung till their crops were full of a victim’s blood. Then they dropped off, bloated. Fifty leeches no longer than a man’s index finger could drain a body of blood in fifteen minutes.
But who? Who was the fiend that had envisaged such a horrible death for a family? Feverishly, Crandall opened the book, forgetful of Griggs‘ unwavering eyes focused on him, forgetful of the storm that battered against the house.
And suddenly the lights flickered and went out. The room was plunged into darkness. Crandall snapped on his flashlight. The beam penciled the features of old Phineas Griggs. They were contorted with terror. The shock had released his paralyzed muscles. Crandall saw his jaw working. He was trying to talk, to cry out, but no words came. Saliva drooled from the corners of his mouth.
And then Crandall’s skin tingled as a shiver of cold ran up his spine. For from the direction of the kitchen came the voice of Mary Griggs, raised in a fearsome scream. Only once, that scream, and then silence, followed by the thud of a falling body.
Crandall’s gun was out. He left the old man in the wheel chair and dashed into the corridor. He flashed his light down the hall and caught the shadow of a huge figure coming out of the kitchen.
The detective was about to fire his automatic, but he caught his finger in time and lowered the gun. For the figure was carrying on its shoulder the inert body of Mary Griggs. The beam of light had framed her face momentarily.
Crandall launched himself forward. The figure with the girl’s body leaped up the stairs to the upper floor. Crandall sprinted after it. As he swung around the banister, his flashlight swept the kitchen through the open door, showing him two bodies lying on the floor. One was the white-haired Avery, and it stirred under the light. The other, he didn’t have time to recognize.
The stairs creaked under him as he followed the figure ahead. At the top of the stairs, the figure dropped the girl from his shoulder. At the same time, he dropped a box he had been holding in his left hand.
Crandall heard the rending of cardboard as the box broke. At the same moment, he threw himself to one side as a gun roared in the hand of the man above him.
Crandall threw up his gun and fired. The figure staggered backward, stumbled, and collapsed. Crandall knew he had hit him in the shoulder. He threw his light on the man and saw the pain-contorted face of Joshua Quincy.
He pocketed the gun that Quincy had dropped, and played the light on Quincy’s face.
The old sailor stared up at him and winced. “All right,” he gasped. “You got me. But I’d have killed every one of ’em with a little more time!”
“But why, man? Why the leeches?” Crandall demanded.
Quincy screwed his face into a grimace. “Old Phineas. I was his mate. We stole pearls from the Brotherhood—of Hirudo. I was wounded. He—left me. Got away with the pearls. I was caught—and they gave me the leech torture.” His thin lips set in a grin. “But I didn’t die! I got away. I vowed Phineas’ family would never enjoy the wealth we had stolen together. It took me thirty years, but I caught up with him!”
Quincy’s eyes began to close. He was not hit mortally, but the loss of blood was weakening him.
Crandall shook him roughly, and the pain jerked his eyes open.
“What about that ghost?” Crandall demanded. “What about this Ed Fries that Mary and- Avery saw?”
“It was Fries, all right. I found him in Java and brought him here.” Quincy coughed, and his face showed a twinge of pain, but he went on. “I promised I’d let him get his revenge!” He laughed weakly. “I figgered I’d kill off the family an’ then put the blame on him.”
“Where is he now?” Crandall demanded.
Joshua grinned mirthlessly. “I had him hiding in the cellar. When I went out, I was supposed to go to the village. But instead, I stole back in the cellar and stabbed him. I figgered I could say later that I’d met up with him and killed him in self-defense. Then I pulled the fuses an’ come up to the kitchen.” His head dropped back weakly.
Crandall’s mouth was set in a grim line as he turned to the girl. She had fainted. He picked her up and carried her down the stairs. He took her into the kitchen. His flashlight showed him Avery with a bloody head, supporting Anselm Griggs. Avery set Anselm in a chair and took the girl from him.
She opened her eyes.
Crandall said to Avery. “Take my flashlight. Go in and tell Phineas Griggs that everything is all right. We’ve got the murderer.”
Anselm shouted, “You did? Who was it? We didn’t hear a thing after the lights went out: Some one struck me on the head. He must have knocked out Avery, too.”
“It’s Quincy,” said Crandall. “He never went to that farmhouse. He came back and pulled out the fuses. He was sure set on wiping out your family!”
Avery went out with the flashlight. The girl was still dazed. Her eyes slowly lost their glassy expression.
“Where’s Quincy?” Anselm asked.
“Upstairs—wounded in the shoulder?“
“Won’t he get away?”
Crandall allowed himself a grin. “When you get hit by a slug from this little plaything,” he tapped his pocket, “you don’t want to go any place. You just lie down and kind of pass out for a while.”
Avery shuffled back. His eyes were dull. “Old Phineas,” he said slowly, “is no more. The shock.”
Mary stifled a sob. Crandall patted her shoulder and looked across at Anselm. “Sorry, old man,” he said.
The girl’s eyes dropped to her legs. She let out a piercing shriek.
Crandall looked and swore. He bent to her leg and yanked off the slimy thing that clung there. It came away with a “phut” of yielding suction, leaving three red spots like the points of a triangle that showed through the sheer stocking.
He threw the thing to the other end of the room. Anselm had half risen from his chair. “A leech!” he cried. “That’s how they died—Richard and Georgia!”
Crandall jumped up. He had just remembered the box that Joshua Quincy had dropped when he let the girl fall. He remembered hearing the box break.
He snatched the flashlight from Avery and raced up the stairs.
When he came down, they looked at him questioningly. He told them.
Quincy must have fainted from the wound. He had a box of leeches with him. I guess he was going to use them on this little girl. His system was to let them sate themselves on the blood of his victim. When they are full, they fall away. Then he’d let the water run, and the leeches would be washed down the drain. There’d be no trace of them.
“Well, his box of leeches broke, up there. They went to work on him—and a death that he escaped thirty years ago caught up with him.”
Originally Published: Ace Publishing, BEYOND #5, July 1951
Read by ElevenLabs (Daniel Voice)
