Chapter VIII: Part 8

“Stop shooting!” Bowen flung back over his shoulder. The white men were glad to obey. Their ammunition almost was spent. Strangely enough, the _Yengi_ of the front rank lowered their weapons. They turned, jabbering excitedly to others. Bowen flung out to them the square of ideographed silk.

“It—it’s your only hope, my brothers!” gasped Bowen. “Take one jar—if you will....”

At this he pitched forward, clawing with his hands at the body of one of the _Yengi_. Roberts saw that the dead Chinese had leather pads in place of hands at the end of his wrists....

* * * * *

With the melting away of the horde of _Yengi_, Roberts—bearing Bowen, who was unconscious part of the time—and Porterfield found a way out. At the surface they saw full two hundred of the lepers, yet none of the latter moved to attack. The instant the white men left the opening, the _Yengi_ fought in swarms to return.

“I told them ... cure.... Maybe it is ... maybe not ...” gasped Bowen. He shuddered and lay still. Roberts held a dead man in his arms.

Nevertheless he stalked on to the place where the two Chinese had been left. Then he relinquished his burden. Porterfield gave over to him the eight-paneled jar which represented the whole of their achievement.

“On the way back each of us will eat a dozen of these eggs,” stated Roberts. “Bowen may be wrong, but I believe what he said. Those old emperors knew....”

At the camp Porterfield collapsed, sobbing. The full horror of what he had experienced had begun to seep down to his consciousness. Roberts cared for him.

“Then I take it you won’t be with me—when I go back?”

Porterfield roused himself. “Go back?” he cried. “I would not go back for all the wealth of the Indies! You don’t mean to say...?”

“I do,” answered Roberts grimly. “Within six months. Men may live or die, but history must be written. The _Yengi_ may not have smashed _all_ of those forty jars....”

THE WISH

An Odd Fragment of Fiction

By MYRTLE LEVY GAYLORD

Burned and scarred by the hot breath of passion and the deep wounds of life, the mother took the newborn girl-child, Leonore, to her breast for the first time. She trembled with joy and pain at the touch of the greedy little lips.

Presently the woman and the child at her breast slept. The mother dreamed that out of a black sky a silver fairy appeared in a cloud of light.

“One wish, one wish only, for the newborn,” the fairy offered.

The mother, clutching the child closer to her, trembled and choked, and it seemed that she would not be able to answer. Finally words came, as if involuntarily:

“That she may not feel, that she may not suffer, that passion, love that scorches and does not warm, may never touch her!”

The fairy smiled a faint, far smile and inscribed a circle with her star-tipped wand.

“It is well,” said she.

The cloud of light faded into a black sky. The child stirred, and the mother awoke, her heart aching, she knew not why.

* * * * *

Leonore, the woman, was tall, pale and exceptionally beautiful. She gazed out of clear, gray eyes that had lost the wonder of childhood without ever gaining the warmth of womanhood.

She passed through life as one in a dream. She saw much, she understood much, but when, in those intense moments that sometimes come, the quick tears of sympathy and love sprang to the eyes of those about her, her heart would seem a thing of stone. She knew that she _should_ weep, but she could not. Then she would whisper to herself:

“Tears are not real. No one really feels. They just pretend.”

Donald, the young poet, loved her suddenly, burningly, gloriously. He looked into her cool gray eyes and swore to himself that in their depths slumbered the answer to all life.

He wooed her passionately, beseechingly, and in vain. He laid bare to her all that aching beauty that was his soul. She smiled vaguely, detached as a pine tree outlined against the evening sky....

They dragged him from the little pond behind the house. He lay among the flowers, still and beautiful, with the fire that had burned so painfully forever extinguished.

There were tears in the eyes of those who had gathered around him in the great, gray room, tears in the eyes of all save Leonore. Leonore looked at the waxen face and thought only that it was beautiful. She did not weep.

“How cruel,” she heard them whisper. “It was for love of Leonore, and she is a stone. She does not feel.”

For many days she struggled with this thought. She did not feel. How could she feel? She began to look for misery that she might weep. She went to the funeral of a child who had died at its mother’s breast. But neither the child in the little white casket, nor the mother, with her streaming hair and wild eyes, could bring tears to Leonore.

One night she sat before the fireplace in her bedroom, staring at the flames. The flickering light fascinated her. For a long time she sat motionless, watching it.

Then, out of the glowing heart of the fire, Donald spoke to her:

“Leonore, you _can_ feel, but you will not.”

She shook her head sadly. “I can not—I _can not_.”

“The fire—feel!” he cried. “Surely you can feel the fire. Try!”

Obediently, she placed her slim, white hand into the flames.

“You feel? Now you _do_ feel?” he begged her.

“No,” she whispered. “No!”

“You are not a woman,” he gasped. “Ice water, not blood, flows in your veins. See,” he pointed to a keen-edged paper knife that lay gleaming on the table.

Obediently, she reached for the knife, and with steady fingers she cut the artery at her wrist. Donald faded back into the flames....

When they found her in the morning they knew that she had sought death, but they could not understand why she had burned her left hand so cruelly.

_Death and Terror Are Spread Broadcast by the Icy Breath of_

The WHISPERING THING

By Laurie McClintock and Culpeper Chunn

_CHAPTER I._

THE THING STRIKES.

Jules Peret, known to the underworld as The Terrible Frog, hated the foul air in crowded street cars and the “stuffiness” of a taxicab, and, whenever possible, he avoided both.

Hence, having nothing in view that demanded haste, after leaving police headquarters, he had, in spite of the lateness of the hour, elected to make the journey home on foot. He had not gone very far, however, before he began to wish that he had chosen some other mode of traveling, for he had scarcely ever seen such a gloomy night. It was January, and the atmosphere was of that uncertain temperature that is best described as raw. The darkness was Stygian. A fine mist was falling from the starless skies, and a thick grayish-yellow fog enwrapped the city like a wet blanket.

The chimes in a church steeple, two blocks farther on, had just struck the hour of ten, and except for Peret and one other wayfarer, who had paused in the sickly glare of the corner lamp to light a cigarette, the street was deserted.

“A fine night for a murder!” muttered Peret to himself, as, with head lowered, he plowed his way through the fog. “_Diable!_ I must find a taxi.”

With this thought in mind, he was about to quicken his pace when, instead, he jerked himself to an abrupt halt and stood in an attitude of listening, as the tomblike silence was suddenly broken by a hoarse scream, and, almost immediately afterward, a cry of agony and terror:

“Help! help! I’m dying!”

The cry, though muffled, was loud enough to reach the alert ears of Peret. It appeared to come from a tall, gloomy-looking building on the right side of the street. By no means certain of this, however, Peret crouched behind a tree and strained his ears to catch the sound should it be repeated.

But no cry came. Instead, there was a terrific crash of breaking glass, and Peret twisted his head around just in time to see a man hurl himself through the leaded sash of one of the lower windows of the house and fall to the pavement with a thud and a groan.

A moment later Peret was by his side. Whipping out a small flashlight, he directed the little disc of light on the man’s face.

“_Nom d’un nom!_” he cried. “It is M. Max Berjet. What is the matter, my friend? Are you drunk? Ill? _Sacre nom!_ Speak quickly, while you can. What ails you?”

The man rolled from side to side, convulsively, and tore at the air with clawlike hands. To Peret, he seemed to be grappling with an invisible antagonist that was slowly crushing his life out. His face was blue and horribly distorted: his breath was coming in short, jerky gasps.

Suddenly his tensed muscles relaxed and he lay still. Unable to speak, he could only lift his eyes to Peret’s in desperate appeal.

“_Dame!_ You are a sick man, my friend,” observed Peret, feeling the man’s pulse. “I will run for a physician. But tell me quickly what happened to you, _Monsieur_.”

There was an almost imperceptible movement of the dying man’s froth-rimmed lips, and Peret held his head nearer.

“Now, speak, my friend,” he entreated. “I am Jules Peret. You know me, eh? Tell me what is the matter with you. Were you attacked?”

“As-sas-sins,” gasped the stricken man faintly.

“What?” cried Peret, excitedly. “Assassins?”

The look in Berjet’s eyes was eloquent.

“Who are they?” pleaded the detective. “Tell me their names, _Monsieur_, before it is too late. I will avenge you. I promise you. I swear it. Quickly, _Monsieur, their names_—”

Berjet murmured something in a voice almost too faint to be audible.

“_Dix?_” questioned Peret, straining to catch the man’s words. “You mean ten, eh?”

With his glazing eyes fixed on the detective, Berjet made a desperate effort to reply, but the effort was in vain. The ghost of a sigh escaped from his lips, a slight tremor shook his frame, and, with a gurgling sound in his throat, he died.

“_Peste!_ What did he mean by that?” muttered Peret, getting to his feet. (_Dix_ is the French word for “ten”.) “Did he mean he was attacked by ten assassins? The devil! It does not take an army to kill a single man.”

“What’s the matter, old chap?” It was the pedestrian whom Peret had observed lighting a cigarette near the corner lamp a few minutes previously. “The old boy looks as if he had had a shot of bootlegger’s private stock.”

“He has been murdered,” returned Peret shortly, after giving the man a keen scrutiny. Then: “Be so kind as to run to the drug store across the street and ask the druggist to send for a physician. Also request him to notify police headquarters that a murder has been committed. Have the notification sent in the name of Jules Peret. Hurry, my friend!”

Without waiting to reply, the man spun on his heel and dashed across the street. Dropping to his knees again, Peret made a hasty but thorough search of the dead man’s clothing, but beyond a few stray coins in the pockets of his trousers, found nothing. As he was finishing his examination, the stranger returned, accompanied by the druggist and a physician who had chanced to be in the drug store.

Peret rose to his feet and stepped back to make room for the doctor.

“What’s the trouble?” asked Dr. Sprague, a large, swarthy-faced man with a gray Vandyke beard.

“Murder, I’m afraid,” replied Peret, pointing at Berjet’s motionless body.

Dr. Sprague bent over the inert form of the scientist and made a brief examination.

“Yes,” he said gravely, “he is beyond human aid.”

“He is dead?”

“Quite.”

“Can you tell me what caused his death?”

“I cannot be positive,” replied the physician, “but he bears all the outward symptoms of asphyxiation.”

“Asphyxiation?” repeated Peret incredulously.

“Yes.”

Peret’s skepticism was written plainly on his face.

“But that is at variance with the dead man’s last words. I was with M. Berjet when he died and there was certainly nothing in his actions to suggest asphyxiation. However—” He exhibited his card. “I am Jules Peret, a detective. The man that you have just pronounced dead is Max Berjet, the eminent French scientist. If he was murdered—and I have reason to believe that he was—the murderer has not yet had time to escape, as M. Berjet has been dead less than two minutes. It is possible, therefore, that I can apprehend the assassin if I act at once. Can you stay here with the body pending the arrival of the police?”

Dr. Sprague glanced at the detective’s card and nodded, whereupon Peret, with a single bound, cleared the iron fence that inclosed the little yard in front of Berjet’s house. As he landed, feet first, on the lawn, he heard Dr. Sprague give a piercing scream.

So startled was he by the unexpectedness of it that he lost his footing and fell forward on his face. Leaping to his feet, he whirled around and directed the beam from his flashlight on the physician.

Dr. Sprague, with his hands clawing the air in front of him, appeared to be grappling with an invisible _something_ that was rapidly getting the best of him. His lips were drawn back in a snarl: his eyes seemed as if they were about to pop from his head, and bloody froth had begun to ooze between his clenched teeth and run from the corners of his mouth.

As Peret was preparing to leap back over the fence, he heard a terrible scream issue from the throat of the unknown pedestrian, and saw him throw up his arms as if to ward off a blow. Then the man reeled back against the fence and began to struggle desperately with something that Peret could not see.

Whipping out his automatic, the detective again vaulted the fence, but before he could reach either of them, both Dr. Sprague and the pedestrian crashed to the pavement, the first dead, the second still fighting for his life.

_CHAPTER II._

THE MYSTERY DEEPENS.

Although the moment was obviously one that demanded caution, Jules Peret was never the man to hesitate in the face of an unknown danger.

He realized that he was in the presence of some terrible invisible thing that might strike him down at any moment, but, as he had no idea what that thing was and could not hope to cope with it until it attacked him or in some manner made itself manifest, he dismissed it from his mind for the moment and turned his attention to the two men who had gone down before its onslaught.

Kneeling beside Dr. Sprague’s prostrate form, he bent over and peered in the physician’s face. One look at the horribly distorted features and the glassy eyes that stared into his own told him that the man was dead.

Turning now from the dead to the living, Peret jumped to his feet and ran to help the pedestrian who, with the help of the terrified little druggist, was in the act of staggering to his feet. Although the druggist’s teeth were chattering with fear, his first thought seemed to be for the sufferer, and he helped Peret support the man, too weak to stand unaided, when he reeled back against the fence.

Choking, gasping, spitting, the pedestrian fought manfully to regain his breath. His face was purple with congested blood, and his glazed eyes were bulging. Great beads of sweat poured from his forehead and mingling with the froth that oozed from between his lips, flecked his face as he twisted his head from side to side in agony.

“What is the matter with you?” shouted Peret. “Speak! I want to help you.”

The stricken man made a violent effort to throw off the invisible horror that had him in its clutches. Then the muscles of his body relaxed, and he ceased to struggle. Drawing in a deep breath of air, he expelled it with a sharp whistling sound. Then, exhausted, he shook off Peret’s hand, and sank down on the pavement in a sitting posture.

“_Sacrebleu!_” yelled Peret. “Speak to me, my friend, so I can avenge you! One little word is all I ask. _What attacked you?_”

“I—I don’t know,” the man gasped. “It—It was something I could not see! It was a monster—an invisible monster. It whispered in my ear, and then it began to choke me. Oh, God—.”

His head fell forward; he began to sob weakly.

“An invisible monster,” repeated Peret, staring at the man curiously. “What do you mean by that?”

Before the man could reply, the police patrol-wagon swung around the corner and, with a clang of the bell, drew up to the curb. Detective Sergeant Strange of the homicide squad and two subordinates leaped to the sidewalk and approached the Frenchman.

“Well?” demanded Strange, with characteristic brevity.

“Murder,” returned Peret, with equal conciseness, and nodded at the two bodies on the pavement.

“How?” Strange shot out.

“I don’t know,” replied Peret. “As I was passing the house ten minutes ago, Max Berjet, the man on your left, hurled himself through the window, cried out that he had been attacked by ten assassins, and died immediately afterward. After summoning a physician, I started to enter the house to investigate, and heard the doctor scream. When I turned I saw Dr. Sprague and this man”—pointing to the pedestrian—“struggling in the grasp of something I could not see. Before I could reach them, the two men fell to the pavement. Dr. Sprague died almost instantly; this other man, as you see, is recovering. He has just informed me that he was attacked by an invisible monster.”

Strange’s bellicose features twisted into a grin.

“An invisible monster, eh? Well, it had better stay invisible if it’s still sticking around.” He whirled about, and to the patrolman: “I want all available men here on the jump, Bill. Call the coroner at the same time. O’Shane”—to one of the plainclothes men who accompanied him—“watch the front of that house and keep an eye on these bodies until the coroner comes. Mike, take care of the back of the house, and,” he added with a grim humor, “keep your eye peeled for an ‘invisible monster’.”

Strange turned once more to the Frenchman.

“You’re sure these two men are dead, Peret?”

“They will never be any deader,” replied Peret shortly.

“All right—Who is that man?”—pointing over his shoulder at the druggist.

“I am the proprietor of the drug store across the street,” spoke up the druggist. “I ran over with Dr. Sprague, who happened to be in the store when this gentleman summoned assistance.”

Strange nodded.

“I may have to hold you as a witness,” was his curt reply. “Stick around until I can find time to question you. Now Peret, before we enter the house, spill the details. What do you know about this ‘invisible monster’?”

“Little more than I have already told you,” answered Peret, and launched into a detailed recital of his harrowing experience.

Although Detective Strange was a man difficult to surprise, he made no effort to conceal his astonishment when Peret brought his story to an end.

“You say Dr. Sprague and this other man were seized by the Thing when your back was turned?” he questioned.

“_Oui_; as I was leaping over the fence,” nodded Peret, “I heard Dr. Sprague scream just as I landed on the ground. When I turned to see what was the matter, both he and the other man appeared to be struggling with some invisible antagonist. Before I could reach them, both men fell to the ground. Sprague was apparently dead before he fell. The other man, after a struggle, threw off the Thing—whatever it was or is.”

“Didn’t you see anything at all?” demanded Strange.

“Absolutely nothing.”

“Hear anything?”

“No. But that man”—jerking his thumb at the pedestrian—“said he heard the Thing whisper.”

“I also heard the Thing whisper,” interposed the druggist, a small, bald-headed individual with a cataract over one of his eyes. Still in a state of nervous apprehension, he had edged up close to the two detectives as if seeking their protection. “I was talking to Dr. Sprague when he was attacked,” he continued, darting furtive glances over his shoulder from time to time. “An instant before he screamed I heard a—a whispering sound.”

Peret’s eyes shone with interest.

“It’s strange that I did not hear this sound,” he muttered, half to himself. “Just what, exactly, do you mean by a whispering sound, _Monsieur?_”

“I scarcely know,” replied the druggist, after a moment’s thought. “It was a whisper—nothing that I could understand. Just an inarticulate _whisper_. I had hardly heard it when Sprague screamed and began to struggle.”

“Whence did the whisper emanate, _Monsieur_?” queried Peret eagerly.

“I do not know.”

“You _saw_ nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“’S damn funny,” growled Strange, scratching his ear. “An ‘invisible monster’ that whispers is a new one on me.” He looked at the Frenchman, perplexedly. “Queer business, Peret.”

“It is,” agreed Peret; then whirled around to confront the pedestrian. “Ah, _Monsieur_, perhaps you can help us a little, eh? How are you feeling now?”

“Considerably better,” returned the other in a hoarse voice, and then added, “But I don’t believe I’ll ever recover from the shock. What in God’s name was it, anyway?”

He was a tall, heavy-set man with glittering black eyes, a close-cropped mustache and, though his features were irregular, had rather a handsome countenance. Although deathly pale and still a little shaken, he seemed to have himself pretty well in hand.

Strange looked at him shrewdly.

“What’s your name?” he asked, taking out his notebook.

“Albert Deweese,” replied the man. “I am an artist and have a studio in the next block. I was on my way home when I heard the crash of breaking glass as Mr. Berjet jumped through the window-sash. Naturally, I ran back to find out what the trouble was.”

Strange made a note and nodded.

“What attacked you?” he suddenly shot out.

“I don’t know,” replied Deweese. “The Thing, whatever it was, was invisible. I _felt_ it, God knows, but did not _see_ it.”

“But you must have some idea of what the Thing was,” Strange insisted. “Was it a man, or an animal, or—?”

Deweese shook his head slowly.

“I have said that I do not know,” was his emphatic reply, “and I do not. How _could_ I, when I did not see it? It was large, powerful and ferocious, but whether it was an animal of some kind, or a demon out of hell, I do not know.”

“Perhaps your ears served you better than your eyes?” said Strange. “Did you hear the Thing when it leaped upon you?”

“I did,” replied Deweese, with a shudder. “At almost the very instant that it attacked me I heard it whisper.”

“_Eh, bien, Monsieur_,” cried Peret, “and what did it say to you?”

“It did not say anything intelligible,” was Deweese’s disappointing reply. “It just whispered.”

Strange and Peret looked at each other in silence. The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders, and exhaled a cloud of cigarette smoke. Strange took a hitch in his trousers, and his face became stern.

“All right,” he said curtly to Deweese. “Stick around till the coroner comes. I want to question you and this other man further, a little later on.”

He gave an order to O’Shane, who was standing a little distance away with his eyes glued on the front of Berjet’s house, then turned to Peret.

“I’m going in,” he growled, and drew his revolver.

The Frenchman threw his cigarette on the pavement, drew his own automatic, and, opening the front gate, ran across the little yard. Followed by Strange and Deweese, who asked and obtained permission to accompany them, Peret buttoned his coat around his frail body, got a firm grip on the window ledge and, with the agility of a monkey, climbed through the broken sash of the window through which Berjet had projected himself.

The room in which the detectives found themselves had evidently been the scientist’s sitting room. It was simply but comfortably furnished and was quite masculine in character. The walls were lined with well-filled book shelves, and in the center of the room was a large table, littered with a miscellany of papers, pamphlets, pipes, burnt matches and tobacco ashes. On the carpeted floor near the table lay an open book, the leaves of which were rumpled and torn. Except for this, the room was in perfect order.

“No signs of gas anywhere,” said Strange, audibly sniffing the air. “The asphyxiation theory of Dr. Sprague’s is a dud, in my opinion.”

Peret, who had begun to make an inspection of the room, did not reply. Strange continued his investigation, while Deweese stood near the window looking on.

The result of Peret’s examination, which, while brief, was more or less thorough, annoyed and confounded him. The detective sergeant also appeared to be puzzled. The Frenchman was the first to give expression to his thoughts.

“The three doors and the four windows in this room, sergeant, are _locked on the inside_,” he remarked, as Strange paused for a moment to look at him with questioning eyes. “The key to that door on the far side of the room, and which I am sure is the door of a closet, is missing, but the other keys are in the locks. The windows, moreover, are, as you have no doubt observed, fastened with a form of mechanism that could not possibly have been sprung from the outside. Yet Berjet said he was attacked by ten assassins!”

“The point that you are trying to make, I take it,” Strange grunted, “is that the broken window is the only means of egress from the room.”

“Your penetration is remarkable,” snapped Peret, who always became irritated when baffled.

“It’s the devil’s own work,” commented Deweese, who had been watching the movements of the two detectives with keen interest. “Certainly there was nothing human about the Thing that attacked me, and I imagine that Berjet’s death can be laid at the door of the same agency.”

Peret flung himself into a chair and lit a cigarette.

“Any way you look at the thing, it seems preposterous,” he said reflectively. “The ‘invisible monster’ theory is too absurd for serious consideration, and the other theories that have been advanced do not stand up in the presence of the facts. However, let us consider. We will assume that Berjet was, as he said, attacked by ten men. _Eh! bien!_ How did they get out of the room? All of the exits are locked on the inside, as you see.

“There is a small transom over that door opening onto the hall, it is true, but it is not large enough for a child to crawl through, much less a man. Dr. Sprague seemed to think that Berjet was asphyxiated. Yet this room, as you yourself observed when we entered it, sergeant, contained not the slightest trace of any kind of gas. As a matter of fact, the room is lighted by electricity. What are we to conclude from these premises? That the poison fumes, assuming that poison fumes were the cause of Berjet’s death, were administered by human hands? If so, oblige me, my friend, by telling me how the owner of those hands got out of the room?”

“Well, if the murderers were invisible, and they were, if the testimony of you and Deweese counts for anything,” rejoined Strange, “they might have followed Berjet through the window without having been observed by you.”

“_Invisible_ murderers!” snorted Peret, with a contemptuous shrug of his shoulders. “You are growing feeble-minded, my friend. Didn’t Berjet say he _saw_ his murderers?”

“So you say,” returned Strange rudely. “But _you_ didn’t see Sprague’s murderer, although you claim to have been looking at him when he was attacked. Maybe your eyesight is failing you,” he added.

Peret glared at the detective sergeant, but said nothing.

“Perhaps Berjet was subject to a hallucination,” ventured Strange, after a moment’s thought. “He may just have imagined he saw the murderers.”

“Perhaps he just imagined he was murdered, too,” retorted the Frenchman, and returned to his examination of the room.

At this juncture someone rapped on the door opening into the hall. Strange crossed the room, turned the key in the lock and, opening the door, admitted Central Bureau Detectives Frank and O’Shane.

“Well?” demanded Strange.

“Major Dobson sent us four men from headquarters, and we’ve searched the house as you ordered,” answered O’Shane. “We drew an absolute blank. The house is empty.”

“Hasn’t Berjet got a family?” inquired Strange.

“The people next door say that Berjet’s wife and daughter are spending the winter at Palm Beach.”

“Ain’t they any servants?”

“All of the servants go home at night except Adolphe, the murdered man’s valet.”

“Did you find him?”

“No.”

“Was the front door, and the rest of the doors and windows in the house, locked?”

“The front door was not only unlocked but slightly ajar. The rest of the house was secured.”

“Do you not think it possible that the murderer might have slipped out of the front door while you were watching without being seen by you?”

“Absolutely not,” said O’Shane, emphatically. “I didn’t take my eye off the front of the house after you entered it until the men the major sent arrived. Mike watched the back of the house with equal care. Nobody could a-got out without one of us knowin’ it. If a murder’s been committed the murderer’s still in the house somewhere.”

The burly sergeant nodded his satisfaction.

“Well, if he’s here, we’ll get him,” he declared. As an after-thought: “Got the house surrounded?”

“I’ve thrown a cordon around the whole block,” replied O’Shane. “A mouse couldn’t get through it without getting its neck broke.”

“Good.” Strange drew his revolver, which he had returned to his pocket after entering the room, and tried the handle of the closet door. “Now, men, before we go any farther, let’s get this closet open. It may contain a secret exit, for all we know. Take a chair and burst it in, one of you.”

“Wait, my friend, I know an easier way,” said Peret.

He drew a jimmy from his inside coat pocket, inserted the flattened end in the crack between the door and the jamb, and bore down on the handle. Yielding to the powerful leverage, the door creaked, splintered around the lock and flew open.

“Ten thousand devils!” cried Peret, leaping back.

The body of a dead man rolled out on the floor!

_CHAPTER III._

ALINGTON FINDS A CLUE.

Violent death means nothing to the average police official; he comes in almost daily contact with the most brutal and horrible form of it.

Therefore, while the utter unexpectedness of the corpse’s arrival in their midst had a very noticeable effect on the excitable French sleuth, and more especially on Deweese, with his wracked nerves, the others, though momentarily startled, seemed to consider it all in the day’s work.

Strange flashed a brief glance at Peret, and then finding him glaring blankly at the cadaver, shifted his gaze to encompass the gruesome object of the Frenchman’s regard.

The dead man, like Peret, it was easy to see, was—or, rather had been—a native of France. The cast of his features was unmistakable. He was of medium height and build, was slightly bald, and his upper lip was adorned with a small, black, tightly-waxed mustache. The dagger that was buried to the hilt in his breast gave silent though ample testimony to the manner in which he had met his death.

His clothing was badly torn, and there was other evidence to show that he had put up a desperate fight with his murderer before the fatal blow was struck. In his present state he made a ghastly spectacle, for his face was badly discolored and smeared over with dried blood, and his eyes, one of which was nearly torn from its socket, were wide open and fixed on the ceiling in a glassy stare.

“Who is he?” asked O’Shane, after a brief silence.

“Adolphe,” replied Peret, bending over the body. “Berjet’s valet.”

“You knew him,” Strange stated rather than questioned.

“Yes, yes,” said Peret. “I have seen him. He was _le bon valet_. See, sergeant, his limbs are cold and stiff. He was assassinated at least two hours before his master was. _Mon dieu!_ What does it all mean?”

He rose to his feet, ran his fingers through his hair in a distracted manner and stared at the corpse as if he hoped to find an answer to the baffling mystery in the glassy eyes.

“Well, for one thing, it means that we got to get busy,” was Strange’s energetic response.

Whereupon O’Shane began to explore the closet. Strange, however, seemed to be in no hurry to follow the example set by his subordinate. He made several entries in his notebook, leisurely scratched his ear and looked at Peret from the corner of his eye. Though he would have died rather than admit it, the detective sergeant was one of the little Frenchman’s staunchest admirers.

He had been associated with Peret almost daily for several years, and had given up a good many hours to the study of the other’s methods in the hope that some day he would be able to emulate his friend’s success. He knew that, mentally at least, Peret was his superior, and he was ever ready to place himself under the other’s guidance when he could veil his real intentions sufficiently to make it appear that he himself was the leader.

“This case, at first glance, is the cat’s meow,” he said, tentatively. “It’s the most complicated murder mystery I ever had anything to do with. What do you make of it, Peret?”

As Peret was about to reply, the door opened and three men entered the room. The first of these, a tall, middle-aged man, with a gray mustache and a fine, upright carriage, was Major and Superintendent of Police Dobson. Immediately behind him came Coroner Rane, an elderly man with penetrating gray eyes, and Police Sergeant Alington, small, stoop-shouldered and addicted to big-rimmed spectacles.

“What’s all the trouble about, sergeant?” was Dobson’s greeting. He nodded to Peret, and continued: “I happened to be in my office when your call came, so I hurried over.”

“I’m mighty glad you came,” said Strange. “I’m afraid this case is going to prove troublesome. Did you view the bodies on the pavement.”

“Yes,” said the major. “I helped Rane examine them.”

“Well, here’s another one for you to examine,” said the detective grimly, and, stepping aside, he exposed to the view of the newcomers the body of the dead valet.

“This is not murder, it’s a massacre!” exclaimed the coroner.

He knelt beside the body, and scrutinized the valet’s face.

“This man has been dead for several hours, major,” he continued. “Death was probably instantaneous, as this dagger is buried to the hilt in his heart.” He tapped the hilt of the weapon with one of his fingers, and looked up at Strange. “Is this man supposed to have been murdered by the ‘invisible monster’ also?” he asked sarcastically.

“So you’ve heard about the ‘invisible monster’,” returned Strange, non-committally.

“Detective Frank, who was guarding the bodies on the pavement, told us some wild tale about an invisible murderer,” remarked Dobson, with a quizzical uplift of his brows. Then, failing to draw an explanation from the sergeant, he asked: “Have you made any arrests?”

“I have not,” replied Strange, then gave a rapid account of the measures he had taken to prevent the murderer’s escape.

Dobson nodded his approval.

“Now, tell me all you know about these mysterious deaths,” he suggested, and Strange, nothing loath, gave a brief though vivid recital of all the known facts in the case.

“This third murder,” he said in conclusion, “instead of complicating matters, seems to make the going a little easier. In the dagger, with which this man was killed, we have something tangible, anyway. But as for Max Berjet and Dr. Sprague—.”

“Dr. Rane,” interrupted Peret from the depths of a morris chair into which he had dropped, “will you venture an opinion as to how Berjet and Sprague met their deaths?”

“It is impossible to reply with any degree of certainty until after the autopsy,” answered the coroner: “but offhand I should say that they were either asphyxiated or poisoned.”

Peret scowled at the coroner and relapsed into silence.

Strange, however, seemed to find comfort in the coroner’s words. With a determined look on his hard-bitten face, he wheeled.

“Deweese,” he rasped, in a tone calculated to impress on the hearer the absolute certainty of his words, “the coroner declares that you were poisoned.” He shook a finger at the artist, as if daring him to deny it. “The poison was probably administered several hours before you felt the effects of it. Now think! Who gave it to you? Who had the opportunity to give it to you? Who had a motive?”

“I was _not_ poisoned,” rejoined Deweese, quietly but emphatically. “I was choked—choked by an unseen thing that whispered in my ear. Not only did I hear it whisper, but I felt it breathing in my face as well.”

Peret half rose to his feet, opened his lips as if to speak, then grunted and sat down in his chair again. Nevertheless, this new bit of evidence, if such it might be called, seemed to impress him, and he continued to eye the artist eagerly.

“Who is this man,” asked Dobson.

Strange, with a gesture of helplessness, explained.

“You see what we are up against, Chief,” he said. “I know how to trace a flesh and blood murderer, but, if you’ll pardon me for saying so, I’ll be damned if I know how to run down a spook, with no more substantial clues than a breath and a whisper.”

“Mr. Deweese, you are positive, are you, that you were not attacked by a human being?” questioned the major.

“I am as certain of it as I am that I am alive,” answered the artist.

“Nor an animal?”

“Yes.”

“Nor something _inside of you_?”

“If you mean poison, or something like that, yes.”

“Do you not think you might have been overcome by poisonous fumes of some sort?”

“Absolutely not. It was not that sort of sensation that I experienced at all.”

“Have you any idea what it was that attacked you?”

“Not the remotest idea.”

“You did not see it?”

“I did not.”

“Could you have seen it if it had had substantial form?”

“Yes, because it was between me and the street lamp.”

“Have you ever had any similar experience in the past—any experience that resembles it in the slightest way?”

“Never!”

Dobson threw a puzzled look at the coroner.

“Well,” he began, and was interrupted by a blinding flash of light that suddenly illuminated the room.

With a cry of terror, Deweese whirled and, darting across the room, was about to hurl himself through the window, when Strange caught him by the arm and dragged him back.

“S’nothing but a flash-light,” he said reassuringly. “Sergeant Alington is photographing the finger-prints on the dagger. S’no wonder it scared you. Made me jump myself.”

Deweese shook off the sergeant’s hand and glared at the little finger-print expert.

“For God’s sake, let me know before you set that thing off again,” he cried in a shaking voice. “I’ve come through an experience that has shot my nerves to pieces and I can’t stand any more shocks tonight.”

“Sorry,” apologized Alington, and then, like the little human bloodhound he was, turned once more to the business of nosing out and developing the finger-prints on the dagger.

“Now,” resumed the major, after ordering O’Shane to have the house and vicinity toothcombed, “let us take up these murders and this assault in logical order and see if we cannot get to the bottom of this mystery. Granted that the evidence may at first appear to point that way, to contend that they were committed by a supernatural agency is absurd. Even if the murderers had some way of making it impossible for their victims to see them, we know that they were either human or animal, or, at least, directed or controlled by human intelligence.

“First of all, we have the death of Max Berjet. This man, it appears, died in the presence of our friend Peret. He hurled himself through that window, had a convulsion, and died. Before he died, however, he told Peret that he had been attacked by ten men. By the way, Peret, what were Berjet’s last words?”

Peret sat hunched in his chair in an abstracted manner, staring into vacancy with knitted brow. He was evidently not pleased by the interruption, and showed his displeasure by scowling at the major.

“Just before Berjet hurled himself through the window,” he explained, ungraciously, “I heard him cry, ‘Help! help! I’m dying!’ As he lay dying on the pavement he gasped, ‘_Assassins ... dix!_’ just like that. _Dix_, in the French language, means ‘ten,’ and Berjet was a Frenchman. Figure it out for yourself.”

The major nodded, thoughtfully.

“The words scarcely need any figuring out,” he observed drily. “They seem to figure themselves out. However, in view of the fact that all of the exits were fastened on the inside, and also because there is no evidence to show that any considerable number of men have recently been in this room, I think that we may leave the number of the scientist’s murderers open to question.

“Turning now to the second death, Dr. Sprague appears to have been attacked in the sight of at least two men, our amiable friend Peret and the druggist. Mr. Deweese was attacked at or about the same time that Sprague was, and the attack was also witnessed by the two persons named. Sprague and Deweese struggled with their antagonists, who, from all testimony, appear to have been of immense strength and ferocity.

“Sprague was killed almost instantly, and our friend the artist, after a desperate struggle, was fortunate enough to overcome, or at least to throw off the Thing that had him in its grasp. Deweese, the druggist and Peret declare that they did not see the Thing—that, in short, it was invisible; but both of the former gentlemen testify to the fact that they heard it whisper, and Deweese informs us further that he felt it breathing in his face.

“It seems safe to assume, therefore, that the Thing had substantial form, for even if we have to admit in the face of the facts that the Thing was invisible, we know that it could not have been a supernatural being, since supernatural beings are not supposed to whisper and breathe.”

He paused, looked at the coroner as if inviting speech, and then, when only silence answered, continued:

“Let us turn now to the murder of the valet. There is certainly no doubt as to the manner in which _he_ died. He was stabbed to death, and Dr. Rane has expressed the opinion that he has been dead for several hours. Yet, in spite of this, and in spite of the fact that the form of his murder is entirely different from that of Berjet and Sprague, it seems clear that the three murders, as well as the attack on the artist, are closely related to each other.

“Whether or not they are correlated is a matter which only the future can determine: but that they all bear some connection with each other and were committed by the same agency, there seems to be no doubt. The circumstances that surround the several murders speak for themselves. Therefore, in view of the fact that Berjet’s valet was the first of the three men to meet his death, it is my opinion that if you find _his_ murderer you will have found the man or Thing responsible for the other two murders, and for the attack on our friend, Deweese.”

Strange heaved a sigh of profound satisfaction. He was now on familiar ground. Unseen and unknown forces that struck men down, forces that were apparently of some other world, were beyond his depth; but human knife-wielders were his meat. Given something tangible, a clue, or a motive, or even a theory that was not beyond his comprehension, there was no man on the force who could obtain quicker or more satisfactory results than he.

Therefore, while in his own mind, he had already settled on the dagger as the one key to the mystery in sight, it flattered him, in spite of the obviousness of the clue, to have the major’s opinion coincide with his own.

“I agree with you, major,” he cried heartily. “The man that we want most is the man that murdered the valet; and,” he added with a tightening of his jaws, “I’m gonna get him!”

“Wait,” said Sergeant Alington, who had been an interested listener to the major’s summing up of the case. “I have some information to reveal which I think will be of interest to you.”

He cleared his throat, set his glasses more firmly on the bridge of his nose, and glanced at several slips of paper he held in his hand.

“Before the bodies of Sprague and Berjet were taken to the morgue, I secured the finger-prints of both of them. I have since photographed a number of prints found on various objects in this room. Among the latter are a set of well-defined prints on the handle of the dagger that killed the valet. The photographs of these prints will not be available for purposes of comparison, of course, until I develop them; but the impressions on the daggerhandle are so clean-cut that they stand out clearly under the developing powder, when a magnifying glass is applied to them. While I cannot speak positively, therefore, I think that I have succeeded in identifying them.”

“Well?” growled Strange, straining forward.

“Well,” replied Alington, “instead of clearing up the mystery surrounding the murders of Sprague and Berjet, the finger-prints on the dagger tend to complicate it—that is, if we are to assume that the prints were made by the valet’s murderer, and this, I am sure, all of you will agree with me in doing.”

“Well?” repeated Strange, who saw his last glimmer of hope growing dimmer and dimmer. “Who murdered the valet?”

“If the prints were made by the man I think they were,” said Alington slowly, as if to prolong the taste of his words, “the valet was murdered by Max Berjet.”

_CHAPTER IV._

THE TERRIBLE FROG TAKES THE TRAIL.

Strange, at once perceiving the blank wall into which his inquiry had led him, sat down on the arm of a chair and sought to hide his discomfiture by biting a liberal sized chew from the plug of tarlike tobacco that he fished out of his trousers pocket.

He had, very naturally, believed that the solution of the mystery was to be found in the finger-prints on the dagger, and his sudden disillusionment annoyed and angered him. He felt himself baffled and, having a profound dislike for the little finger-print expert anyway, it incensed him to have to admit even momentary defeat at the latter’s hands, especially in the presence of his superior.

The major, however, accepted the exploding of his theory with equanimity.

“It is obviously impossible for the scientist to have had any direct hand in Sprague’s murder,” he observed, “if he himself was murdered at least ten or fifteen minutes before the doctor was. And even if we assume that he had an indirect hand in it, and the circumstances surrounding the several murders would seem to disprove this, there is his own death still to be accounted for.” He turned to the artist. “Mr. Deweese, did you know Max Berjet?”

Deweese shook his head.

“Never heard of him until tonight,” he declared.

The major sighed.

“I thought as much,” he asserted. “It seems a waste of time to try to fasten Sprague’s murder and the attack on you on Berjet.” He thought for a moment; then: “Sergeant Alington, you are sure, are you, that you have not been over-hasty in the conclusions you have drawn from your cursory examination of the prints? If there is any doubt in your mind, I suggest that you return to headquarters and develop the plates at once.”

“You can judge for yourself, major,” returned Alington, a little nettled. Like most experts, so-called and otherwise, it annoyed him to have a carefully-formed opinion of his disputed or even questioned. He could countenance such a thing in court, under the baleful eye of His Honor; but it was quite another thing at the scene of a crime, where he felt himself to be upon his own ground.

Strange, sensing his annoyance, paused long enough in his exploration of the table drawer to look at him and grin. Catching the latter’s eye he winked, which exasperated the expert to such an extent that he dropped his magnifying glass. Strange, feeling fully repaid for any fancied injury, grinned again and dumped the contents of the drawer on the table.

With an injured air, Alington retrieved his magnifying glass and offered it to the major. He then held out for Dobson’s inspection a set of finger-prints on a regulation blank and the dagger that the coroner had withdrawn from the breast of the dead valet. The dagger was an ordinary white bone-handled hunting knife, with a six-inch, double-edged blade. Dobson held it gingerly by the blood-smeared blade, in order not to disturb the thin coating of black powder that had been sprinkled over the handle.

Like most efficient police officials, Dobson had some knowledge of dactyloscopy, and the detectives awaited his verdict with eagerness. Applying the magnifying glass to the handle of the knife, the major leisurely examined the series of whorls and ridges that showed through the black coating. He then compared them with the finger-prints of the dead scientist, and, when he had concluded his examination, slowly nodded his head.

“You are right, sergeant,” he was forced to acknowledge. “The two sets of prints are undoubtedly identical.” He handed the dagger and glass to the expert. “Your evidence can not be combated, sergeant,” he added.

Alington inclined his head slightly and retired to his place beside the table.

“Well,” grumbled Strange, disappointed by the expert’s vindication, “that at least clears up the first murder. As for the murder of Berjet, as clues are wholly lacking, in my opinion the only way we will make any headway is to motivate the crime.”

“Has the ownership of the dagger been established?” asked the coroner.

“It has,” replied Strange, without enthusiasm.

He held up to view the sheath of the hunting-knife, which he had found in the table drawer. A large “M. B.” had been cut on the front of the leather covering by an unskilled hand. The letters were crude and the edges worn, and they had evidently been cut in the leather a long while ago.

The coroner examined the letters closely and returned the sheath to Strange.

“There can scarcely be any doubt as to the ownership of the knife,” he agreed.

“What progress are your men making with their search?” demanded the major.

“The men have gone over the house twice without success,” declared Strange. “O’Brill and Muldoon are now on the roof and the other men are searching the adjoining houses.”

“And have they found no evidence of any person having been in this house?”

“No one except Berjet and the valet.”

“Dr. Rane, what do you think of this affair?” questioned Dobson impatiently. “We are progressing too slowly to please me. Have you any suggestions to offer?”

“I think it might help us if Mr. Deweese would describe in the most minute detail exactly what happened to him,” returned Rane. “There is much of his story that has yet to be cleared up.”

“Mr. Deweese,” said Dobson, turning to the artist, “suppose you recount the details of your attack in your own way, and then, if necessary, we will question you.”

Deweese had entirely recovered from his shock by this time and seemed eager to be of aid.

“On my way home from the theater,” he began, “I stopped near the corner lamp, less than half a block away, to light a cigarette. As I was striking a match I heard a terrific crash of breaking glass behind me, and at once ran back to see what had happened. I found this gentleman”—nodding at Peret—“bending over the body of a man on the pavement. The body has since been identified as that of Max Berjet. Mr. Peret declared that the scientist had been murdered, and, at his bidding, I went to the drug store on the other side of the street to summon aid.