The Brain Thief – Four Stories by Seabury Quinn

Book Details

From countering the insidious effects of forced hypnotism to mitigating the consequences of robbing a lamasery, Jules de Grandin must step into the fray with the powers of the occult.

The Brain-Thief (1930)
An almost unthinkably weird situation tests Jules de Grandin’s powers
A five chapter novelette

The Poltergeist (1927)
An occult adventure of Jules de Grandin-an old-fashioned ghost-tale, with an unusual twist

The Great God Pan (1926)
Jules de Grandin throws a wrench into the schemes of the pagan high priest of a new kind of Pan-worship

The Devil’s Rosary (1929)
Tibetan devil-worshipers play a thrilling part in this eery tale of the French occultist, Jules de Grandin
A five chapter novelette

Seabury Grandin Quinn (1889–1969) was most famous for his stories of the occult detective Jules de Grandin. He wrote over 90 de Grandin stories from 1925 to 1951, published almost entirely in Weird Tales.

The Brain Thief contains 6 illustrations.

Files:

1. SQuinn-BrainThief.epub

Excerpt: The Brain-Thief

An almost unthinkably weird situation tests Jules de Grandin’s powers

“TIENS, Monsieur, you amaze me, you astound me; I am astonished, I assure you. Say on, if you please; I am entirely attentive.” Jules de Grandin’s voice, vibrant with interest, came to me as I closed the front door and walked down the hall toward my consulting-room.

“Holà, Friend Trowbridge,” he hailed as his quick ear caught my step outside, “come here, if you please; there is something I would have you hear, if you can spare the time.”

The tall young man, prematurely gray at the temples, seated opposite de Grandin rose as I entered the study and greeted me with an air of restraint.

“Oh, how d’ye do?” I growled grudgingly, then turned my back on the visitor as I looked inquiringly at de Grandin. If there was one person more than another whom I did not desire my roof to shelter, it was Christopher Norton. I’d known the cub since his first second of life, had tended him for measles, whooping-cough and chicken-pox, had seen him safely through, adolescence, and was among the first to wish, him luck when he married Isabel Littlewood. Now, like every decent man in the city, I had no desire to see any of him, except his back, and that at as great a distance as possible. “If you’ll excuse me—” I began, turning toward the door.

“Parbleu, that is exactly what I shall not!” de Grandin denied. “I know what you think, my friend; I know what everyone thinks, but I shall make you and all of them change your minds; yes, by damn, I swear it! Come, good friend, be reasonable. Sit and listen to the story I have heard, suspending your judgment meantime.

“Say it again, young Monsieur he ordered the visitor. “Relate your so pitiful tale from the beginning, that Dr. Trowbridge may know as much as I.”

There was such a look of distress on young Norton’s face as he looked half pleadingly, half fearfully at me that, had he been anything but the thoroughgoing scoundrel he was, I could have found it in my heart to be sorry for him. “It seems Isabel and I have been divorced,” he began, almost tentatively. “I—I suppose I wasn’t as good to her as I might have been—”

“You suppose, you confounded young whelp!” I burst out. “You know you treated that girl as no decent man would treat a dog! You know perfectly well you broke her heart and every promise you made her at the altar—you smashed her life and betrayed her confidence and the confidence of every misguided friend who trusted you—” I choked with anger, and wheeled furiously on de Grandin.

“Listen to me,” I ordered. “I don’t know what this good-for-nothing young reprobate has been telling you, but I tell you whatever he’s said is a pack of lies—lies from beginning to end. I’ve known him all his life— helped him begin breathing thirty years ago by slapping his two-seconds-old posterior with a wet towel—and I’ve known the girl he married all her life, too. He and she were born within a city block of each other, less than a month apart. Their parents were friends, they went to school together and played together, and were boy and girl sweethearts. When they finally married, all us old fools who’d watched them grow from childhood swarmed round and gave them our blessing. Then, by George, before they’d been married a year, this young jackanapes showed himself in his true colors. He abused her, beat her, finally deserted her and ran off with his best friend’s wife. If that’s the sort of story you’ve listened to, I’m surprized-“

“Cordieu, surprized you most assuredly shall be, my friend, but not as you think,” de Grandin interrupted. “Be good enough to seize your tongue-tip between thumb and forefinger while the young Monsieur concludes his story.”

“I don’t expect you to believe me, sir,” young Norton began again; “I don’t know I’d believe such a story if it were told me—but it’s true, all the same. As far as I can remember, the last time I saw Isabel was this morning when I left for the office. We’d had a little misunderstanding— nothing serious, but enough to put us both in a huff—and I stopped at Caminelli’s and bought some roses as a peace-offering on my way home tonight.

“I fairly ran the last half-block to the house, and didn’t wait for the maid to let me in. It was when I got in the hall I first noticed changes. Most of the old furniture was gone, and what remained was standing in different places. I thought, ‘She’s been doing a lot of house-cleaning since this morning,’ but that was all. I was too anxious to find her and make up, you see.

“I called, ‘Isabel, Isabel!’ once or twice, but no one answered. Then I ran upstairs.”

“He paused, looking pleadingly at me, and the half-puzzled, half-frightened look which had been on his face throughout his recital deepened.

“There was a nurse—a nurse in hospital uniform—leaving the room as I ran down the upper hall,” he continued slowly. “She looked at me and smiled, and said, ‘Why, how nice of you to bring the flowers, Mr. Norton. I’m sure they’ll be delighted.”

“That ‘they’ didn’t mean anything to me then, but a moment later it did. On the bed, with a little, new baby cuddled in the curve of her elbow, lay Betty Baintree! Try and realize that, Dr. Trowbridge; Betty, Jack Baintree’s wife, whom I’d last seen at the Colony Country Club dance last Thursday night, was lying in bed in my house, a young baby in her arms!

“She greeted me familiarly. ‘Why, Kit, dear,’ she said, ‘I didn’t expect you so soon. Thanks for the flowers, honey.’ Then: ‘Come kiss baby; she’s been restless for her daddy the last half-hour.’

“It was then she seemed to notice the look of blank amazement on my face for the first time. ‘Kit, boy, whatever is the matter?’ she asked.

‘Don’t you-‘

” ‘Wha—what are you doing here, Betty?’ I managed to gasp. ‘Isabel— where is she?’

” ‘Isabel?’ she echoed incredulously. ‘What’s got into you, dear— what makes you look so strangely? Haven’t you any greeting for your wife and baby?’

” ‘My—wife—and—baby?’ I stammered. ‘But-”

“I don’t know just what happened next, sir. I’ve a confused recollection of staggering from that accursed room, stumbling down the stairs and meeting the nurse, who looked at me as though she’d seen a ghost, then tottering toward the door and running, hatless and coatless, to my mother’s house in Auburndale Avenue. I ran up the steps, tried the door and found it locked. Then I almost beat in the panels with my fists. A strange maid, not old Sadie, answered my frantic summons and looked at me as though she suspected my reason. The family occupying the house was named Bronson, she told me. They’d lived there for the past two years—‘since shortly after the widow Norton’s death.’

” ‘Am I mad, or is this all some horrible nightmare?’ I asked myself as I turned once more toward my home, or rather toward the house which had been my home this morning.

“It wasn’t a dream, as I assured myself when I returned and found Betty crying hysterically in bed with the nurse trying to comfort her and looking poisoned daggers at me as I came in the door.”

Excerpt From: Seabury Quinn. “The Brain Thief.”