The Mystery of Evelin Delorme: A Hypnotic Story

by Albert Bigelow Paine

Splendid shop windows threw a flood of light upon the pavement, making it like day. The shouts of the newsboys and street venders, the jangling of the car-bells, the rushing cabs and carriages, the hurrying crowds, the brilliant lights, the liquor in his brain, all whirled together and sent the blood racing through his arteries, tingling to the surface now and again in burning waves of misery and shame.

People paused for a moment to look at the strange figure, and hurried on. Everybody was hurrying—hurrying somewhere. He, too, was hurrying, as one pursued by furies; but where?

Suddenly, in front of an illuminated window, he paused; why, he did not know. There was nothing there to attract him. It was a place where they sold shoes. Numberless shoes were arranged for display, and in the midst of them a little white lamp-globe revolving by clock-work with two words painted on it in black letters:

GENTLEMEN'S SHOES.

He read the words over and over as the little globe came round, and round, and round. "Gentlemen's shoes—Gentlemen's shoes—Gentlemen's shoes." The thing fascinated him. It was such a funny little globe. It reminded him of a merry-go-round he had once ridden on as a child. He wondered how many times a day it spelled out the words, and if it kept on going, there in the dark, after the place was closed. Then he hurried on, but the little white globe and its black, flying letters were still before him. They had impressed their image upon his brain. More than once he repeated the words aloud. They seemed to have blended themselves into his whirling senses and become a monotonous undertone.

"Gentlemen's shoes—Gentlemen's shoes—Gentlemen's shoes."

Here and there he stopped at a saloon and drank. He drank deeply and the liquor was strong.

The lights were beginning to grow fewer. He had turned in his walk, and was leaving the whirl and glare behind him. He did not know what direction he had taken. He only knew that he was going, going, going, in a mad effort to get away from himself.

The people that passed him he did not see. He saw only the white face of Eva Delorme, and that piteous look in the eyes of the other, that had, in one instant, revived within him, and with ten-fold vigor, all the strange, torturing suspicions he had once felt regarding these two mysterious lives. The faces that turned to look at him, he did not notice; he saw only these two, and mingled with them, and whirling round, and round, and round, the little white globe with its black letters, "Gentlemen's shoes—Gentlemen's shoes—Gentlemen's shoes."

After a long time he noticed that he was passing a small suburban railway station. There was a bustle of preparation as though a train was expected to arrive. He crossed the shining steel tracks and entered. A number of people were inside, chattering, laughing and waiting. Waiting to go somewhere. Everybody was going somewhere—everybody but him. Suddenly a group in one corner attracted him as had the lighted window and the revolving globe.