Before I knew it I was turning the calendar to another bleak November. It was just short of one year since the unfortunate bookkeeper’s death and Prof. Glauben’s subsequent conviction. So preoccupied had I been with my grim employment that I failed entirely to visit my mentor in prison. And while I faithfully continued the experiments, I must confess that my progress was despairingly slow. Prof. Glauben and I had been on the brink of success, but without his guidance I now felt hopelessly lost.
I therefore resolved finally to make a call at the penitentiary, hoping for a word of encouragement or an enlightened suggestion from my mentor. But when I arrived at the stark stone edifice and inquired of Ludwig Glauben, the duty officer informed me that he had died on December 21, just days after he had first arrived. My teacher and friend was dead! The cause of death was recorded as cardiac arrest, but surely there was more to the story. I felt profound sadness at his passing, anxiety about the loss of my teacher, and agonizing guilt for having neglected to visit him earlier.
The duty officer mentioned that the prison authorities had been unable to identify any next of kin, and that they still retained a small box with Prof Glauben’s few personal effects. He asked if I would like to have them. I answered in the affirmative and within 20 minutes I was riding home with a dusty pasteboard box on my lap.
The hackney deposited me back at my apartments near the university. Dusk was settling as I ascended the narrow stairway. The weather had turned frightfully dreary and cold, and the wind howled through the branches of the property’s ancient yew trees that endlessly grasped at passersby. I entered my rooms and reposed in front of the fire with the box. It contained a pair of gold spectacles, a malodorous briar pipe with deep tooth marks on the stem, a well-worn rosary, and a small, dog-eared journal. This last item I opened to a few pages at random, finding it was in essence a cross between a journal and commonplace book. Entries were recorded chronologically and included summaries of contemporary news, some chemical formulae, selected Bible passages, and other snippets of information. Most of the entries were in German, but the final entry, which was dated December 20th–the day before he died–was written hastily in English. It read thus:
You may think me mad, but I
must have more asparagus. I hope to
retrieve a small bunch from the commissary.
My mind and my
body demand it
immediately!
Had my friend and mentor succumbed to madness? These senseless ravings were incongruent with his customary enunciations. But while the words did not ring of his voice they clearly were of his hand. I searched the lines for meaning, and then somehow my eye glanced along the left edge of the page. At once it all became clear; Prof. Glauben’s mind had been sound when he wrote this. And he wrote it specifically for me. He had created a modified acrostic, delivering a message that employed the first word of each line:
You
Must
Retrieve
My
Body
Immediately!
Without hesitation I ran downstairs and out the front door, procured a spade from the garden shed, and hastily returned to the penitentiary, whose graveyard stood on a low hill behind its chapel. I held my dark lantern to a score of headstones before its weak light fell on the name I sought. After drawing a long breath, I threw down my coat and, with shaking hands, began to remove the moist earth from the rectangular plot in front of the granite grave marker. Down, down I dug, until at last I heard the hollow knock of my spade against the coffin. After a few more minutes I had cleared away the mouldy clay from the lid and was prepared to pry it from the box. I experienced trouble, however, in forcing the crowbar under the lid, and after fully 10 minutes of effort I threw down my tools in frustration.
I wiped my brow and stretched my neck, then gazed at the coffin. Although buried not even a year, rust streaked from the nail heads and mould had accumulated on the rotting wood. Surely there was no point of retrieving a body thus buried! But having come this far, I resolved to make one last attempt. I held the crowbar to the lid and swung the hammer with all my strength. The crowbar slid through my hand and under the lid, and decay instantly filled my nostrils.
PART 5 WILL APPEAR ON WEDNESDAY
Chasing Phantoms 