Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 151, Nos. 1 & 2. Whole Nos. 916 & 917, January/February 2018

“It’s a hole made in a dead body, by a stake. This is meant to represent an exorcism. It is an exorcism. Someone’s been driving out an Evil Spirit.

“I wonder what they were afraid of.” And he added, murmuring: “And I wonder if it worked.”

Down the High Street, through the velvet darkness, the church bell struck seven. We stood in silence until the last note had rolled away. I shivered and welcomed the harsh scream of a police-car siren in the distance and an outburst of seasonal revelry as a door at the George swung open and shut. “Sounds of the rude world, heard in the day...” I thought and was glad to hear them, still out there, anchoring us in the modern world.

“Who would feel so strongly about a doll that they would behave in this mad, primitive way? What kind of a nutter are we looking at?”

I didn’t seriously expect an answer, but one came.

“Any one of the five or six dead men whose lives she destroyed, any one of their wives whose life she ruined, any one of their children seeking an end to it. Or perhaps, more logically, the last in the line of her victims.”

He gathered up the punch jug with a grin. “I’ll just reheat this, shall I? There’s a good slug each left in there. We’ll need to stiffen the old sinews before we plumb the depths of Rosa’s wicked legacy.”

I glanced at Rosa, smiling her mysterious smile, pink silk arms flexed, preparing to rise up from her casket lid, and I picked up the glasses and followed him into the kitchen.

I didn’t want to be left alone with her.

“So, when Rosa died driving an ambulance two miles behind the front in the Great War, the doll, along with all her other worldly goods, came into the possession of her married sister. A year later, fighting off all his wife’s entreaties, her husband, Clement, signed on and marched off to war. He needn’t have done so. He was in a reserved occupation and a bit of a weed, frankly, but off he went. Ears ringing with her curses, most probably. Things had not been going well between them and it was suspected that, on the whole, he preferred the company to be found in the trenches on the Somme. He never returned. Rosa’s second victim?”

“I think we should start counting.”

“His wife didn’t follow her sister’s example. Violet turned her face to the wall and faded away. But before she turned, she got rid of the doll. Suddenly couldn’t abide it. She formed the peevish plan of making a gift of it to the family of the man whose treachery had inspired it.”

“Ah. Now I see where you’re going with this.”

“From Mayfair to Studley Court! Our local stately home. The family name, as you well know — and that’s really what brought you and the dolly to my door after your pocket-picking enterprise — is Langridge, or was until the main line died out and they sold up last week.”

“And is anyone surprised that they’ve died out? A pretty disastrous family latterly?”

“Do you need me to name them, the series of luckless males? Four more, as far as we know. The adulterer... the absconder... the alcoholic... one by one, they all came to no good.”

“I know the stories. But if you put yourself about in the riding, shooting, and financial worlds, you’re more likely than most to come to a sticky end.”

“I agree. But it’s been relentless. Divorce and sudden death have haunted the family ever since... ever since...”

“Rosa moved in?”

“Crazy, but it would seem so. The moment the male head of the house inherits, he seems to become mad, bad, and dead — all or any of those — in short order. And, apparently we’re not the first to whom this thought has occurred.”

“The stake man? The Dolly Killer? Someone suffering from the same mad delusions as ourselves, blamed the doll for his troubles...”

“...or hers...”

“and tried to put an end to it. Staked poor Rosa like a vampire, cut her throat, and dumped her in the bottom of some dark chest in the basement. And there she languished until I came along with my needles and resuscitated her.”

“Sounds reasonable to me.”

“I ought to have put her on the bonfire.”

He considered this for a moment. “That’s not so certain for someone of a primitive turn of mind. Releases the vengeful spirits into the air. Like sneezing when you have the flu virus, I suppose. The stake through the middle is the only sure way, I understand, for those who believe in possession or vampirism. And think of the relief it must bring to a troubled and angry soul to plunge a sharpened stake into yielding, hated flesh — or stuffing!”

“Which means she’s... er... safe now? Deactivated... rendered harmless?” I pulled myself together, hearing my querulous voice. “I can’t believe I’m saying this! She’s a doll, for goodness sake! A doll with a hole in her chest. A doll who, with a bit of careful stitchery, would fetch a good price at Sotheby’s.”