When the Cuckoo Called

When the Cuckoo Called by H.D. Umbstaetter

In "When the Cuckoo Called" by H.D. Umbstaetter, London music hall audiences are enthralled by "The Girl with the Guitar," one of the two Zillerthaler sisters, whose Tyrolean second-sight séance earns two hundred guineas a night across four halls. The blindfolded sister names articles borrowed from the audience and held up silently by the manager thirty feet behind her, while the other sister plays strange, haunting music on a guitar. The news makes Mr. Seymour Gaston smile in his nineteenth-floor New York office. He is an ingenious, well-traveled bachelor who recently invented a folding fire-escape. The act recalls a ten-minute drama he once lived through. Four years earlier, while managing a large American enterprise in London, Gaston learned by cablegram that his business partner had robbed him of everything. Sleepless and broken, he wandered the Continent. Baden-Baden only irritated his insomnia, so he toured the Black Forest. At the village of Trieberg he amused himself by bribing the custodian of an exhibition hall to set off all the cuckoo clocks and music-boxes at once, to the dismay of a party of hurried American tourists. Seeking adventure, Gaston found an unused trail near the waterfall. His landlord called it the Witches' Path and warned that whoever follows it never returns. Indifferent to living or dying, Gaston set out the next morning with a knapsack and alpenstock. After a night in the forest, he reached a cottage on the edge of an immense cleft. There he was welcomed by Caspar Kollner, a white-bearded mountaineer who made cuckoo clocks with his niece. After supper, Kollner and Gaston played écarté while the niece played weird airs on her guitar. Gaston lost steadily, and he was drawn to the girl's beauty and music. Kollner returned all his winnings, citing the law of hospitality. Kollner showed Gaston to a room containing a huge hand-carved cuckoo clock and a small balcony over the gorge. He explained that the echo, "The Ghost of the Gorge," would answer the niece's guitar at dawn, and told Gaston to come to the balcony when the cuckoo called. Gaston slept badly. At the cuckoo's cry he stumbled toward the window and overturned the chair propping it open. The balcony fell away and swung on iron hinges over the abyss, and he realized it was a man-trap. Then the clock slid aside, revealing a hidden door. Kollner burst in, stunned to see his guest alive, and attacked him. Gaston pinned the old man's arms and forced him to the window, and Kollner met his end in the gorge. Gaston then confronted the niece, who confessed under threat of the police. Her uncle had taught her since childhood to signal, through notes and chords on the guitar, the cards his opponents held. That told him whether a guest carried money, and returning the winnings won the guest's trust. He then set the trap from the room below. The gorge held the remains of thirty victims, yet Kollner boasted that he had never killed a man. Gaston left Trieberg the next evening, his business troubles forgotten. He rebuilt his fortune in America, and he says the folding fire-escape was suggested by something he saw abroad. He claims no second sight, but he is sure the Zillerthalers' guitar strains describe the borrowed articles to the blindfolded sister.

By H.D. Umbstaetter · First published 1900 · Genre: Crime fiction, Mystery, Thriller · 2,904 words

First lines

The announcement that London music hall audiences are losing their heads and hearts over "The Girl with the Guitar" causes Mr. Seymour Gaston to smile as he looks down upon the world from his offices on the nineteenth floor of a New York sky-scraper. Mr. Gaston is an ingenious, much traveled young bachelor with a history and a fortune. He recently invented a folding fire-escape, which also has a history and in which another fortune is said to await him. And "The Girl with the Guitar" is one of the two Zillerthaler sisters, whose permanent address is unknown and who receive two hundred guineas a night for presenting their Tyrolean second-sight séance. To such an extent do these mysterious maidens from the mountains hypnotize the public that they appear nightly at four different music halls. At the Alhambra they open the performance at eight o'clock, after which they are rushed by their manager in an automobile to the stage door of the second music hall, where they appear at eight forty-five, and so on, winding up at the Aquarium at a few minutes before ten with a thousand dollars in their pockets for the evening's work.

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short story · mystery · suspense · crime fiction · murder · Black Forest · Tyrolean setting · cuckoo clocks · music hall · second sight · guitar music · man-trap

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When the Cuckoo Called is listed on Textopian as a short story by H.D. Umbstaetter, dated 1900 CE.

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