Chapter X: Part 10

I determined at least to tell him of the two letters I had read, as well as of the extraordinary manner in which they had disappeared; and I then inquired if he thought they had been addressed to the woman who had died in the house, and if there were anything in her early history which could possibly confirm the dark suspicions to which the letters gave rise. Mr. J⸺ seemed startled, and, after musing a few moments, answered, “I am but little acquainted with the woman’s earlier history, except as I before told you, that her family were known to mine. But you revive some vague reminiscences to her prejudice. I will make inquiries, and inform you of their result. Still, even if we could admit the popular superstition that a person who had been either the perpetrator or the victim of dark crimes in life could revisit, as a restless spirit, the scene in which those crimes had been committed, I should observe that the house was infested by strange sights and sounds before the old woman died—you smile—what would you say?”

“I would say this, that I am convinced, if we could get to the bottom of these mysteries, we should find a living human agency.”

“What! you believe it is all an imposture? For what object?”

“Not an imposture in the ordinary sense of the word. If suddenly I were to sink into a deep sleep, from which you could not awake me, but in that sleep could answer questions with an accuracy which I could not pretend to when awake,—tell you what money you had in your pocket, nay, describe your very thoughts,—it is not necessarily an imposture, any more than it is necessarily supernatural. I should be, unconsciously to myself, under a mesmeric influence, conveyed to me from a distance by a human being who had acquired power over me my previous _rapport_.”

“But if a mesmerizer could so affect another living being, can you suppose that a mesmerizer could also affect inanimate objects: move chairs,—open and shut doors?

“Or impress our senses with the belief in such effects,—we never having been _en rapport_ with the person acting on us? No. What is commonly called mesmerism could not do this; but there may be a power akin to mesmerism, and superior to it,—the power that in the old days was called Magic. That such a power may extend to all inanimate objects of matter, I do not say; but if so, it would not be against Nature,—it would be only a rare power in Nature which might be given to constitutions with certain peculiarities, and cultivated by practice to an extraordinary degree. That such a power might extend over the dead,—that is, over certain thoughts and memories that the dead may still retain,—and compel, not that which ought properly to be called the SOUL, and which is far beyond human reach, but rather a phantom of what has been most earth-stained on earth, to make itself apparent to our senses, is a very ancient though obsolete theory upon which I will hazard no opinion. But I do not conceive the power would be supernatural. Let me illustrate what I mean from an experiment which Paracelsus describes as not difficult, and which the author of the ‘Curiosities of Literature’ cites as credible: A flower perishes; you burn it. Whatever were the elements of that flower while it lived are gone, dispersed, you know not whither; you can never discover nor re-collect them. But you can, by chemistry, out of the burned dust of that flower, raise a spectrum of the flower, just as it seemed in life. It may be the same with the human being. The soul has as much escaped you as the essence or elements of the flower. Still you may make a spectrum of it. And this phantom, though in the popular superstition it is held to be the soul of the departed, must not be confounded with the true soul; it is but the eidolon of the dead form. Hence, like the best-attested stories of ghosts or spirits, the thing that most strikes us is the absence of what we hold to be soul,—that is, of superior emancipated intelligence. These apparitions come for little or no object,—they seldom speak when they do come; if they speak, they utter no ideas above those of an ordinary person on earth. American spirit seers have published volumes of communications, in prose and verse, which they assert to be given in the names of the most illustrious dead: Shakespeare, Bacon,—Heaven knows whom. Those communications, taking the best, are certainly not a whit of higher order than would be communications from living persons of fair talent and education; they are wondrously inferior to what Bacon, Shakespeare, and Plato said and wrote when on earth. Nor, what is more noticeable, do they ever contain an idea that was not on the earth before. Wonderful, therefore, as such phenomena may be (granting them to be truthful), I see much that philosophy may question, nothing that it is incumbent on philosophy to deny,—namely, nothing supernatural. They are but ideas conveyed somehow or other (we have not yet discovered the means) from one mortal brain to another. Whether, in so doing, tables walk of their own accord, or fiendlike shapes appear in a magic circle, or bodiless hands rise and remove material objects, or a Thing of Darkness, such as presented itself to me, freeze our blood,—still am I persuaded that these are but agencies conveyed, as by electric wires, to my own brain from the brain of another. In some constitutions there is a natural chemistry, and those constitutions may produce chemic wonders,—in others a natural fluid, call it electricity, and these may produce electric wonders. But the wonders differ from Normal Science in this,—they are alike objectless, purposeless, puerile, frivolous. They lead on to no grand results; and therefore the world does not heed, and true sages have not cultivated them. But sure I am, that of all I saw or heard, a man, human as myself, was the remote originator; and I believe unconsciously to himself as to the exact effects produced, for this reason: no two persons, you say, have ever told you that they experienced exactly the same thing. Well, observe, no two persons ever experience exactly the same dream. If this were an ordinary imposture, the machinery would be arranged for results that would but little vary; if it were a supernatural agency permitted by the Almighty, it would surely be for some definite end. These phenomena belong to neither class; my persuasion is, that they originate in some brain now far distant; that that brain had no distinct volition in anything that occurred; that what does occur reflects but its devious, motley, ever-shifting, half-formed thoughts; in short that it has been but the dreams of such a brain put into action and invested with a semisubstance. That this brain is of immense power, that it can set matter into movement, that it is malignant and destructive, I believe; some material force must have killed my dog; the same force might, for aught I know, have sufficed to kill myself, had I been as subjugated by terror as the dog,—had my intellect or my spirit given me no countervailing resistance in my will.”

“It killed your dog,—that is fearful! Indeed it is strange that no animal can be induced to stay in that house; not even a cat. Rats and mice are never found in it.”

“The instincts of the brute creation detect influences deadly to their existence. Man’s reason has a sense less subtle, because it has a resisting power more supreme. But enough; do you comprehend my theory?”

“Yes, though imperfectly,—and I accept any crotchet (pardon the word), however odd rather than embrace at once the notion of ghosts and hobgoblins we imbibed in our nurseries. Still, to my unfortunate house, the evil is the same. What on earth can I do with the house?”

“I will tell you what I would do. I am convinced from my own internal feelings that the small, unfurnished room at right angles to the door of the bedroom which I occupied, forms a starting point or receptacle for the influences which haunt the house; and I strongly advise you to have the walls open, the floor removed,—nay, the whole room pulled down. I observe that it is detached from the body of the house, built over the small backyard, and could be removed without injury to the rest of the building.”

“And you think, if I did that——”

“You would cut off the telegraph wires. Try it. I am so persuaded that I am right, that I will pay half the expense if you will allow me to direct the operations.”

“Nay, I am well able to afford the cost; for the rest allow me to write to you.”

About ten days after I received a letter from Mr. J⸺, telling me that he had visited the house since I had seen him; that he had found the two letters I had described, replaced in the drawer from which I had taken them; that he had read them with misgivings like my own; that he had instituted a cautious inquiry about the woman to whom I rightly conjectured they had been written. It seemed that thirty-six years ago (a year before the date of the letters) she had married, against the wish of her relations, an American of very suspicious character; in fact, he was generally believed to have been a pirate. She herself was the daughter of very respectable tradespeople, and had served in the capacity of a nursery governess before her marriage. She had a brother, a widower, who was considered wealthy, and who had one child of about six years old. A month after the marriage the body of this brother was found in the Thames, near London Bridge; there seemed some marks of violence about his throat, but they were not deemed sufficient to warrant the inquest in any other verdict than that of “found drowned.”

The American and his wife took charge of the little boy, the deceased brother having by his will left his sister the guardian of his only child,—and in event of the child’s death the sister inherited. The child died about six months afterwards,—it was supposed to have been neglected and ill-treated. The neighbors deposed to have heard it shriek at night. The surgeon who had examined it after death said that it was emaciated as if from want of nourishment, and the body was covered with livid bruises. It seemed that one winter night the child had sought to escape; crept out into the back yard; tried to scale the wall; fallen back exhausted; and been found at morning on the stones in a dying state. But though there was some evidence of cruelty, there was none of murder; and the aunt and her husband had sought to palliate cruelty by alleging the exceeding stubbornness and perversity of the child, who was declared to be half-witted. Be that as it may, at the orphan’s death the aunt inherited her brother’s fortune. Before the first wedded year was out, the American quitted England abruptly, and never returned to it. He obtained a cruising vessel, which was lost in the Atlantic two years afterwards. The widow was left in affluence, but reverses of various kinds had befallen her: a bank broke; an investment failed; she went into a small business and became insolvent; then she entered into service, sinking lower and lower, from housekeeper down to maid-of-all-work,—never long retaining a place, though nothing decided against her character was ever alleged. She was considered sober, honest, and peculiarly quiet in her ways; still nothing prospered with her. And so she had dropped into the workhouse, from which Mr. J⸺ had taken her, to be placed in charge of the very house which she had rented as mistress in the first year of her wedded life.

Mr. J⸺ added that he had passed an hour alone in the unfurnished room which I had urged him to destroy, and that his impressions of dread while there were so great, though he had neither heard nor seen anything, that he was eager to have the walls bared and the floors removed as I had suggested. He had engaged persons for the work, and would commence any day I would name.

The day was accordingly fixed. I repaired to the haunted house,—we went into the blind, dreary room, took up the skirting, and then the floors. Under the rafters, covered with rubbish, was found a trapdoor, quite large enough to admit a man. It was closely nailed down, with clamps and rivets of iron. On removing these we descended into a room below, the existence of which had never been suspected. In this room there had been a window and a flue, but they had been bricked over, evidently for many years. By the help of candles we examined this place; it still retained some moldering furniture,—three chairs, an oak settle, a table,—all of the fashion of about eighty years ago. There was a chest of drawers against the wall, in which we found, half rotted away, old-fashioned articles of a man’s dress, such as might have been worn eighty or a hundred years ago by a gentleman of some rank; costly steel buckles and buttons, like those yet worn in court dresses, a handsome court sword; in a waistcoat which had once been rich with gold lace, but which was now blackened and foul with damp, we found five guineas, a few silver coins, and an ivory ticket, probably for some place of entertainment long since passed away. But our main discovery was in a kind of iron safe fixed to the wall, the lock of which it cost us much trouble to get picked.

In this safe were three shelves and two small drawers. Ranged on the shelves were several small bottles of crystal, hermetically stopped. They contained colorless, volatile essences, of the nature of which I shall only say that they were not poisons,—phosphor and ammonia entered into some of them. There were also some very curious glass tubes, and a small pointed rod of iron, with a large lump of rock crystal, and another of amber,—also a loadstone of great power.

In one of the drawers we found a miniature portrait set in gold, and retaining the freshness of its colors most remarkably, considering the length of time it had probably been there. The portrait was that of a man who might be somewhat advanced in middle life, perhaps forty-seven or forty-eight. It was a remarkable face,—a most impressive face. If you could fancy some mighty serpent transformed into man, preserving in the human lineaments the old serpent type, you would have a better idea of that countenance than long descriptions can convey: the width and flatness of frontal; the tapering elegance of contour disguising the strength of the deadly jaw; the long, large terrible eyes, glittering and green as the emerald,—and withal a certain ruthless calm, as if from the consciousness of an immense power.

Mechanically I turned round the miniature to examine the back of it, and on the back was engraved a pentacle; in the middle of the pentacle a ladder, and the third step of the ladder was formed by the date 1765. Examining still more minutely, I detected a spring; this, on being pressed, opened the back of the miniature as a lid. Withinside the lid were engraved, “Marianna to thee. Be faithful in life and in death to ⸺.” Here follows a name that I will not mention, but it was not unfamiliar to me. I had heard it spoken of by old men in my childhood as the name borne by a dazzling charlatan who had made a great sensation in London for a year or so, and had fled the country on the charge of a double murder within his own house,—that of his mistress and his rival. I said nothing of this to Mr. J⸺, to whom reluctantly I resigned the miniature.

We had found no difficulty in opening the first drawer within the iron safe; we found great difficulty in opening the second: it was not locked, but it resisted all efforts, till we inserted in the chinks the edge of a chisel. When we had thus drawn it forth, we found a very singular apparatus in the nicest order. Upon a small, thin book, or rather tablet, was placed a saucer of crystal; this saucer was filled with a clear liquid,—on that liquid floated a kind of compass, with a needle shifting rapidly round; but instead of the usual points of a compass were seven strange characters, not very unlike those used by astrologers to denote the planets. A peculiar but not strong nor displeasing odor came from this drawer, which was lined with a wood that we afterwards discovered to be hazel. Whatever the cause of this odor, it produced a material effect on the nerves. We all felt it, even the two workmen who were in the room,—a creeping, tingling sensation from the tips of the fingers to the roots of the hair. Impatient to examine the tablet, I removed the saucer. As I did so the needle of the compass went round and round with exceeding swiftness, and I felt a shock that ran through my whole frame, so that I dropped the saucer on the floor. The liquid was spilled; the saucer was broken; the compass rolled to the end of the room, and at that instant the walls shook to and fro, as if a giant had swayed and rocked them.

The two workmen were so frightened that they ran up the ladder by which we had descended from the trapdoor; but seeing that nothing more happened, they were easily induced to return.

Meanwhile I had opened the tablet; it was bound in plain red leather, with a silver clasp; it contained but one sheet of thick vellum, and on that sheet were inscribed, within a double pentacle, words in old monkish Latin, which are literally to be translated thus: “On all that it can reach within these walls, sentient or inanimate, living or dead, as moves the needle, so works my will! Accursed be the house, and restless be the dwellers therein.”

We found no more. Mr. J⸺ burned the tablet and its anathema. He razed to the foundations the part of the building containing the secret room with the chamber over it. He had then the courage to inhabit the house himself for a month, and a quieter, better-conditioned house could not be found in all London. Subsequently he let it to advantage, and his tenant has made no complaints.

WOMAN’S SPIRIT IS PHOTOGRAPHED

Before her death, Mrs. Mary McVickers of Los Angeles requested that a photographer be commissioned to take photographs of her body as it lay in the casket. Accordingly, after she died, C. H. Monroe, a licensed photographer, entered the room where her body lay and prepared to obey her dying wish. In making the pictures, he used a velour screen to balance the light; and later he was amazed to find on this screen three weird impressions that are declared to be “spirit photographs.” Monroe declared the screen was the sort he always used and that he examined it carefully before photographing the woman’s body and found nothing unusual about it. Mrs. Mary Vlasek, pastor of the Spiritualist Temple, and a number of her followers stated positively that they had seen Mrs. McVicker’s spirit in the temple, some time after her death, and also at the crematory.

_The Mystery of the Frightful Invisible Monster Is Solved in the Last Chapters of_

The Whispering Thing

_By_ LAURIE McCLINTOCK _and_ CULPEPER CHUNN

_The first half of “The Whispering Thing” was published in
the March issue of WEIRD TALES. A copy will be mailed by the
publishers for 25 cents._

A RESUME OF THE EARLY CHAPTERS:

Stark terror and mysterious death follow in the wake of an
unseen demon, which lurks in the city streets and houses,
whispering in the ears of its victims before killing them.
Medical examination shows that they were, apparently, strangled
to death. One of the victims, before dying, declares the breath
of the Whispering Thing is icy cold. Nobody has seen it. Nobody
can imagine what it is. Then Jules Peret, French detective who
is in America, undertakes to fathom the terrible mystery. After
his preliminary investigation, he goes home, and when he enters
his darkened rooms he feels an ice-cold breath on his cheek,
and he knows he is in the presence of the Whispering Thing.

THE PRESENT INSTALLMENT STARTS HERE

_CHAPTER VI. (Continued)_

THE WHISPERING THING

With a stifled cry, Peret whirled round and made a frantic, though futile, effort to open the door. In his slapdash haste he struck his head against the jamb and dropped the key.

Cursing fluently under his breath in four languages, he fell to his knees and felt around on the carpet. Failing to find the key, he sprang to his feet and began to fumble on the wall for the push-button.

Before he could find it, however, the Thing again whispered its warning of death in his ear and scorched his face with its icy breath.

Almost mad with terror, Peret threw himself backward and crashed against a chair with such violence that he was almost knocked senseless. For a second he lay still, to gather his forces and to fill his bursting lungs with air. His clothes were wet with perspiration, and his body cold and numb.

Expecting each instant to feel the vise-like grip of the Thing on his throat, he staggered to his feet and made another frantic effort to find the push-button. Remembering the flashlight in his pocket, he was about to reach for it, when he felt the ice-cold breath of the Thing on his face, and, in an effort to protect himself, he sprang against the wall. What he had been trying for an eternity to accomplish by strategy was now brought about by accident. His shoulder struck the push-button, and the lights flashed on.

Almost blinded by the sudden glare, blinking rapidly to clear his vision, he took a step back and swept the room with an all-embracing gaze.

Except for himself, the room _was unoccupied_!

It was, in fact, exactly as he had left it earlier in the day. The room bore not the slightest evidence of having been entered during his absence, nor was there anything large enough to afford a human being a place of concealment.

As he stood stupidly surveying the room, the whisper of the invisible menace once more sounded in his ear!

With a cry of terror, Peret whipped out his automatic and, blindly fanning the air in front of him, pulled the trigger until the magazine was empty. A picture fell to the floor with a crash and bits of plaster flew from the walls and ceiling. Scarcely waiting until the last shot was fired, Peret snatched the key off the floor and slipped it in the keyhole.

As he threw open the door, the Thing again whispered in his ear and brushed his face with its clammy breath. With a yell, the Frenchman precipitated himself into the hall with such vigor and rapidity of action that he fell sprawling. Bounding to his feet, he grabbed the knob and violently slammed the door.

“Victory!” he shouted, and his joy was excessive. “Ah, monster! _cochon! boyeux!_ Thing or devil! Whatever you are, I’ve got you now! _Oui!_”

He shook his fist at the door and hurled at the imprisoned horror a string of excited invective.

“Your hour is come. Your shot is bolt! Assassin! Ghoul! _Voila!_ how you frightened me—me, the Terrible Frog! _Dame!_ I am trembling a little yet, I think.”

A number of doors along the corridor opened, and men and women in night attire stuck their heads out cautiously.

“I say, old top, what’s coming off?” asked one of the startled individuals, catching sight of Peret.

“Nothing,” shouted Peret, and wiped the dew from his forehead.

“You are drunk,” said another man, disgusted. “Go to bed. You are keeping everybody awake.”

“You’re a liar!” yelled Peret, and the other, fearing violence hastily closed the door.

Pinching his arm to assure himself that he was not the victim of a nightmare, Peret tried the doorknob to see if the night-latch had, by any ill chance, failed to spring. Having reassured himself on this point, he turned and, taking the steps four at a time, dashed down the stairs.

Scaring the now thoroughly-awake elevator boy nearly out of his senses with his wild gestures and still wilder appearance, Peret careened into a telephone booth, and, after being connected with the police headquarters, barked into the receiver a few disjointed sentences that froze the blood of Central, who had been listening in, and made Detective Sergeant Strange, at the other end of the wire, drop the receiver and bellow an order that brought everybody within hearing distance to their feet.

Whereupon Peret, having heard the order as plainly as if he had been in Strange’s office, reeled out into the lobby and collapsed in a chair to await the arrival of the homicide squad.

_CHAPTER VII._

PERET EXPLAINS

At 9 a. m. on the following morning Jules Peret presented himself at the front door of a small, unpretentious red-brick house on Fifteenth Street, one block from the home of the murdered scientist.

One would never have suspected from his manner or appearance that, eight hours previously, he had battled with an invisible menace in the narrow confines of a darkened room, and had felt stark terror grip his soul before he emerged triumphant from the most harrowing experience of his adventurous career. No one would ever have suspected that, because, to all outward appearance, Peret was at peace with the world and had no thought on his mind of greater weight than the aroma of the cigarette between his lips. Debonair as ever, and attired with the scrupulous neatness that was so characteristic of him, he made a picture that had caused more than one young lady to pay him the honor of a lingering glance when, a half-hour previously, he had issued from his apartment and pursued his way down the well populated thoroughfare.

In answer to the tinkle of the bell the door was opened three inches by the butler, a small, wrinkled, leathery-faced old Chinaman, whose head was as bald and shiny as a polished egg. In one hand he held a faded silk skull cap, which he had evidently just removed from his head or forgotten to put on.

“Whatchee want, huh?” he demanded, with a regrettable lack of civility.

“I want to see your master,” returned Peret courteously, extending his card. “Please present my compliments to him, _Monsieur_, and tell him my business is pressing.”

“Mlaster no see nobody,” chattered Sing Tong Fat. “He sick. Allee samee dlunk. No see noblody. Clome back nex’ week.”

“But it is necessary that I should see your master this morning,” was Peret’s polite but firm retort. “Your master will be glad enough to see me when you show him my card.” He displayed his badge of special officer and added, “Get a wiggle on!”

“_Yak pozee!_” shrilled Sing Tong Fat indignantly, and opened the door. “You clazy. Allee samee tong man. Master have you alested.” He contorted his face until it resembled a hyena’s, and broke into a shrill laugh. “_Tchee, tchee._ (yes, yes.) Alee samee tam fool clazy man.”

“You are an amiable old scamp, _Monsieur_,” laughed Peret. “But we are losing time, and time is of importance. Where does your master hang out, eh? I will present my own card.”

“I tellee him you see him flirst,” chattered the Chinaman. “You wait here. He sleepee. Me wakee him up. He sick. Allee samee dlunk. You wait leddle time. _Tchon-dzee-ti Fan-Fu_ (it is the will of the master).”

A door on the right side of the hall opened and a man stepped out into the hall. In spite of his disheveled hair and the brilliantly-colored dressing robe that covered his heavy frame, there was no mistaking the handsome features of Albert Deweese.

“’S all right, Sing,” he said, when he saw who his visitor was. “I decided to get up for a while.” Then to Peret: “Good-morning, Mr. Peret. I guess you think I am an inhospitable cuss, what? Fact is, I have been trying to sleep.”

“No, I do not think you are inhospitable, _Monsieur_,” replied Peret, as he shook hands. “After your experience last night, you need time to recuperate. The wonder of it is that you are able to be up at all.”

“I agree with you there!” responded Deweese with feeling. “I told Sing last night when I retired to admit no one this morning until I rang, which accounts for his discourtesy in keeping you waiting. I felt the need of a round twelve hours’ sleep to recover from the effects of my adventure, but I haven’t been able to close my eyes. I feel as if I shall _never_ be able to close them.”

Deweese indeed showed the effects of his near-tragic battle with the Whispering Thing. His face was grayish-white and the heavy black circles under his bloodshot eyes accentuated his pallor and gave him an appearance that was almost ghastly. Had he been stretched out on a bed and his eyes closed, one could easily have mistaken him for a corpse.

Dismissing the garrulous and indignant old Chinaman, he crossed the hall and ushered Peret into a large, well-lighted room that was fitted out as a studio. The walls were hung with canvases of an indifferent quality in various stages of completion, and on an easel near a large double window reposed the half-completed picture of a semi-nude, which immediately caught and held the detective’s gaze.

After a moment’s critical inspection of the painting, Peret remarked: “You seem to be a busy man, my friend. But I don’t suppose you find much interest in your paintings this morning, eh? In fact, you look on the verge of a collapse. Have you seen your physician yet?”

“That’s the first thing I did after leaving Berjet’s house last night,” the artist replied. “He found nothing serious the matter with me, however. Shock more than anything else, I suppose. But to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit, Mr. Peret? Have you had any success in running down the Thing?”

“Yes and no,” answered Peret, and then went on to explain: “We are hot on the trail, but haven’t yet succeeded in entirely clearing up the mystery. It was in the hope that you would be able to help me a little that I called upon you this morning. I thought you might like to see the affair through to the end.”

“Good!” cried the artist, his feverish eyes glittering with eagerness. “After I had gotten some sleep, I intended hunting you up, anyway. You are right when you say I want to see the thing through to the finish. You can count on me to help you in any way that lies in my power. God knows, there is no one more eager than myself to get to the bottom of this affair! With the Whispering Thing still at large—”

He shuddered involuntarily, laughed, and added, “It is difficult for you to understand my feelings, I guess.”

“Perhaps it’s not as difficult as you imagine, my friend,” said Peret quietly, subsiding into a chair. He selected a cigarette from the case the artist proffered, and continued: “But let us get down to business. First, I will recount a few facts disclosed by my investigations and then explain how you can help me. In the meantime, let us be comfortable. You are as pale as a ghost. Be seated, my dear fellow, I beg of you,” he added with solicitude.

“Oh, I am not as bad off as I may appear,” declared Deweese confidently, dropping into a chair nevertheless. “I will be all right after a few hours’ rest. Now, let me have your story. Naturally, I am consumed with curiosity to hear what you have discovered.”

“Ah, you are a delightful companion, _Monsieur_,” was Peret’s genial response. “Me—I am a great talker, but a poor listener. I will tell you what I know with pleasure. But let me first congratulate you upon the excellence of these Persian cigarettes. _Sacre!_ But you have a delicate taste, _Monsieur_.”

The artist bowed his acknowledgment to the compliment, but impatiently. It was evident that he was eager to hear what the Frenchman had on his mind, and Peret, remarking this, did not keep him longer in suspense.

“I will not take up your time by recounting all that has transpired since I saw you last night, _Monsieur_,” began Peret, “and for the sake of convenience I will tell my story in a round-about sort of way. Let me begin with my first attempt to motivate Berjet’s murder.

“M. Berjet was, as you are doubtless aware, a scientist of international repute. In scientific circles, in fact, he was a towering figure. I have the honor of having had a casual acquaintanceship with him for several years, and as I knelt beside his dead body on the sidewalk last night I recalled to mind many of the achievements that had brought him moderate wealth and fame. Among other things, I remembered having recently seen a newspaper account of a new invention of his—a poison gas of unparalleled destructive powers, the formula of which several warring nations have been trying to purchase.

“As clues were sadly lacking, and our investigation in his house failed to reveal any satisfactory explanation for Berjet’s death, I at once assumed that the motive for the murder had been the theft of the formula. I knew that at least one of the nations that have been trying to acquire the formula would go to almost any length to gain possession of a new and really effective weapon of this kind. I therefore got in touch with the Secret Service, which usually has an intimate knowledge of such matters, and learned several facts that made me more certain than ever that I was on the right track.

“Berjet’s poison gas, I learned, is indeed a terrible destructive agent. It is said to be even more deadly than Lewisite. A minute portion of a drop, if placed on the ground, will kill every living thing, vegetable and animal, within a radius of half a mile. Think, then, what a ton would do!

“Berjet called his invention ‘Q-gas.’ The formula was first offered to our government for a moderate sum, and rejected, and at the time of his death the savant was negotiating for its sale to the French government.”

“Surely, you are not going to try to make me believe that this Q-gas played a direct part in the death of Berjet and Sprague and the attack on me,” interrupted Deweese. “Believe me, Mr. Peret—”

“I do believe you, my friend,” was Peret’s smiling response. “The gas itself played no part in the tragedy last night, but the formula is at the bottom of all of the trouble, as has been suggested. The murders were simply incidental to the robbery of the formula.”

“Have you discovered who the robber was?” queried Deweese, with natural curiosity.

“Yes,” replied Peret calmly. “Even without clues to work with, this would not have been very difficult. Of the several nations that have been trying to get possession of the Q-gas formula there are only one or two that would authorize their agents to go to such extremes as were employed last night to acquire it, and as virtually all of their agents are known to the Secret Service, our search would have been confined to a limited group of men and women. It would simply have been a matter of elimination.”

Deweese nodded his understanding, and the sleuth continued:

“Almost from the very first, however, for reasons which I will explain later, I was led to suspect a man who has since turned out to be a notorious international agent, known in diplomatic circles as Count Vincent di Dalfonzo. During his absence, I made a somewhat hurried search of his rooms after my departure from the scientist’s house, but could find nothing to incriminate him.

“One of my operatives, however, a former Secret Service agent, was able to identify him, if nothing more. According to this operative, Dalfonzo, who is one of the greatest scoundrels unhung, at the present time bears the secret credentials of a nation I will leave unnamed, but one which, I have reason to know, has made several unsuccessful attempts to buy the Q-gas formula from Berjet.”

Deweese was leaning forward in his chair, an eager listener. As Peret paused to relight his cigarette, he remarked:

“If Dalfonzo is such a notorious character, one would have thought that the Secret Service would have kept him under its eye.”

“One would have thought so, indeed,” agreed Peret, expelling a cloud of smoke from his lungs. “When last heard of several months ago, Dalfonzo was in Petrograd and he probably entered this country in disguise and has since kept himself well under cover.”

“Have you arrested him?”

“I have scarcely had time yet, _Monsieur_,” answered Peret. “I feel safe in saying, however, that he will be in the custody of the police within the next twenty-four hours.”

“Good! I will never feel safe while this scoundrel is at large, if indeed he really did have a hand in the murders of Berjet, Sprague and Adolphe, and the attack on me.”

“Dalfonzo had nothing to do with Adolphe’s murder, and only an indirect hand in the attack on you,” said Peret. “_Sacre bleu!_ Dalfonzo is not the kind of man that strikes down his victims with butcher knives and such; he is a man of delicate ideas and sensibilities, _Monsieur_.”

“So it seems,” said Deweese drily. “I know that the finger prints on the dagger tend to prove that Adolphe was murdered by his employer, but in the light of the other facts can this evidence be considered conclusive? The prints on the dagger may simply be a trick to confuse the police. The Whispering Thing—But stay! For the moment I had forgotten the Whispering Thing. It seems to me that we are getting away from the main issue.”

“Patience, _Monsieur_,” said Peret, with an enigmatical smile. “Everything will be explained in good time. But first, let me assure you that the finger prints on the dagger are genuine. Adolphe was undoubtedly murdered by the scientist, and as the penalty for this crime he gave his own life.”

Deweese started. The Frenchman’s indirect method of telling his story, and the complacence with which he stated apparently contradictory facts, confused and annoyed him.

“You mean—?” he began.

“I mean that Berjet was murdered because he stabbed his valet.”

“Well,” averred Deweese, unable to conceal his impatience, “all of this is about as clear as mud to me. First you say that the motive for Berjet’s murder was the robbery of the formula, and now you declare that he was done away with because he killed his valet. What am I to believe?”

“What you will, _Monsieur_,” replied Peret. “Everything I have stated is true, although I confess that as yet I have nothing to prove it. If the facts seem contradictory, it is because I have expressed myself badly.

“According to my theory, Count Dalfonzo (for a consideration of course), induced Adolphe to steal the formula of Q-gas from his benefactor. When poor Berjet learned that he had been betrayed he stabbed the betrayer in a fit of insane rage and hid the body in the closet in his library until he would have time to dispose of it. Dalfonzo in some way learned of this, or suspected it, and as he already had the formula in his possession, decided that his safest plan would be to murder Berjet before he could communicate with French Secret Service agents operating in this country, who were about to consummate the purchase of the secret. _Eh, bien!_ the murder was committed, and but for one little slip, one tiny slip—_Ha; ha!_ It is amusing, is it not, _Monsieur_?”

“Very!” rejoined Deweese sarcastically. “I think, however, that I have begun to get a glimmer of what you erroneously conceive to be the truth, and that is that Dalfonzo and the mysterious Thing are identical.”

“Patience, _Monsieur_, patience,” cried Peret. “The glimmer of light that you see is a will-o’-the wisp. Dalfonzo is a man; the Thing is—the Thing. The murders were _instigated_ by Dalfonzo, but were _committed_ by the invisible terror.”

Deweese, as had many a man before him, began to wonder if he had to deal with an imbecile or a man by no means as feeble-minded as he seemed. In his puzzlement he stared at Peret for a moment, with mouth agape, then he leaned forward in his chair until less than two feet separated his corpselike face from Peret’s.

“And what the devil _is_ the Whispering Thing?” he asked sharply.

“All in good time,” came the amiable reply. “Let us first consider the little slip that upset Dalfonzo’s apple cart.”

“Well, let us consider the little slip then,” said Deweese, relaxing in his chair. “Where did our diplomatic freelance slip?”

“Why, when he tried to murder me in the same way that he did that poor Berjet,” quietly responded Peret.

The artist half rose from his chair and stared at the detective with astonishment written on his face.

“Do you mean to say that _you_ have been attacked by the Whispering Thing?” he demanded.

“Just that, _Monsieur_. I was attacked by the whispering phantom in my rooms last night after I left the scene of the attack on you. You can realize, therefore, that I can appreciate all that you have gone through. It is true that my experience was, in some respects, not as terrible as your own, because I escaped the Thing before it could do me bodily harm. But I never expect entirely to recover from the fright it gave me. _Mon dieu_, what a monster this Dalfonzo is!”

“It was at his instigation that the Thing attacked you?” questioned Deweese.

“Who else?” asked Peret.

“Well,” cried Deweese, impatiently, “why do you beat around the bush so much? Be definite. What the devil is the Whispering Thing? And who, exactly, is the man you call Dalfonzo?”

Peret lifted his eyes and gazed steadily at the artist.

“I will answer your second question first, _Monsieur_,” he replied, with exasperating slowness. “My answer will explain why I have been beating around the bush, as you call it.”

He leaned slightly forward, his right hand in his coat pocket, his eyes smiling, the muscles around his mouth tense.

“Count Vincent di Dalfonzo,” he said, “is the man who at the present time calls himself Albert Deweese—_Don’t move, Monsieur!_ The revolver in my coat pocket is centered on your heart!”

_CHAPTER VIII._

THE MYSTERY IS SOLVED.

If Peret expected to catch Deweese off his guard, he was sadly disappointed. The artist met his gaze squarely, and without any apparent emotion.

Flicking the ashes from his cold cigarette, he applied a lighted match to it and tossed the charred splinter upon the floor. The corpselike look of his face became a little accentuated, perhaps, and there was a slight narrowing of the eyes that had not been apparent before; but, except for that, there was no change in his manner or appearance.

For a moment neither of the men spoke. Their eyes clashed and held. The stillness became tense, electric, as they contemplated each other through the haze of smoke that curled from the ends of their cigarettes. Finally:

“You are quite mad, I think,” remarked Deweese, unmoved. “Where the deuce did you ever get the idea that I was Dalfonzo?”

Peret was unable to conceal his admiration.

“You are a great actor, _Monsieur_, and a brave man,” he declared in a tone that left no doubt of his sincerity. “I told part of my story to test you—a sort of indirect third degree—but so far not a muscle of your face has moved. What a pity it is you are such a damned scoundrel!”

Deweese laughed shortly.

“It is always safe to insult a man when you have him covered,” he observed composedly. “Nevertheless, pray continue. You interest me exceedingly, and cause me no annoyance. Your wild theories brand you a fool and an ass, and, strangely enough, it always gives me pleasure to hear an ass bray. Proceed, my dear chap.”

“There are many others whose opinion of me is similar to your own,” said Peret blandly; “but the fool is he who holds his enemy in contempt.”

Deweese’s eyes flashed.

“Well, dear enemy, what makes you think that I am the chap you call Dalfonzo?” he questioned, smiling with his lips.

“You will not admit your identity, then?” countered the detective.

“Certainly I will admit my identity,” said Deweese, with a laugh. “I am Albert Deweese, very much at your service. What reason have you for believing me to be the man you call Dalfonzo—a man who, if one is to believe you, seems to be in league with an invisible demon that commits murders for him? The very fact that I almost met my death at the hands of the Whispering Thing is proof that I am not the man you seek. If I had anything to do with the Thing, does it seem reasonable to suppose that I would turn it loose on myself?”

“The attack on you was an accident, _Monsieur_—a bit of retributive justice, perhaps. Were it not for the fact that you still suffer from the effects of it, I would say that you only got part of what was coming to you. Not a full dose of your own medicine, _Monsieur_—just a taste of it. Ah, you are clever, my friend, clever as the fiends in hell; but, it appears, not clever enough, _Diable, Monsieur_, you should have better trained that terrible monster before you turned it loose, eh?”

“You seem to like to talk in riddles,” snapped Deweese. “What is the Whispering Thing, anyway? If you know, I shall be obliged if you will tell me.”

“Very well, my friend,” acquiesced Peret. “I will do so with pleasure. The invisible monster, the terrible, whispering, breathing, fear-inspiring demon is—”

“_Well?_” demanded Deweese tersely.

“One little bat,” concluded Peret—“or rather, two little bats.”

Absurd as the detective’s statement may have sounded, its effect on the artist was, nevertheless, pronounced. His gaze wavered and his face, if such a thing were possible, became a shade paler. His recovery, however, was almost immediate.

“I do not know what it was that attacked you last night,” he sneered. “It may have been and probably was a bat. It is possible that an insect could strike terror in the heart of a delicate little flower like you. But if you think a bat attacked _me_—” with one of his chilling laughs—“I can only say that I think you are a poor damned fool.”

“There are times that I think the same thing,” replied Peret, seriously; “but this is not one of them. I not only think that the Thing was a bat—I _know_ it. And to prove to you how futile it is for you to pretend ignorance of the Thing, and of your own identity, let me reenact in words the tragedy that ended in the death of two good and innocent men.”

“Do so,” gritted Deweese, his cold blue eyes glittering. “But if you think you can convince me that the Thing that attacked me was a bat—”

“As I have already stated,” said Peret, fixing his gaze on the unwavering eyes of the artist, “the murder of M. Berjet was conceived after you learned that Adolphe had been killed. You deemed it necessary to your own safety. Having completed your diabolical plans, therefore, you lost no time in calling at the scientist’s home. Upon reaching your destination, you entered the house by way of the front door, which you found unlocked. The door of the library or sitting-room, on the other hand, was secured.

“You therefore placed a chair in front of the door to stand on and opened the transom over the door. After tying a handkerchief over your mouth and nostrils, you raised the cover of a little box you had brought with you and released a bat in the room. Then you closed the transom and departed from the house as silently as you had entered it.

“The bat proved to be a faithful ally, _Monsieur_. On little rubber pads that you had glued on the upper side of its wings was a preparation used by the Dyaks to poison the tips of their arrows and spears. The preparation, which you used in powdered form, with a few added ingredients of your own, as employed by the Dyaks, consists of a paste made from the milky sap of the upas tree, dissolved in a juice extracted from the tuba root. With one possible exception, it is the most deadly poison known, a minute quantity, breathed in through the nostrils or absorbed into the system through an abrasion on the skin, causing almost instant death.

“When you released the bat in the library, it began to circle around the room and its fluttering wings scattered the powder and poisoned the air to such an extent that poor Berjet had only time, before he died, to realize the significance of the bat’s presence in the room and to leap through the window in a vain effort to save himself.

“You, in the meantime, had walked slowly down the street, and when the scientist catapulted himself through the window-sash, you were calmly lighting a cigarette under the corner lamp post half a block away. The complication was one you doubtless had not anticipated; you had thought that Berjet would die an instant death when he got a whiff of the powder.

“Nevertheless, you had nothing to fear, you thought; you had laid your plans too carefully. Like any innocent pedestrian would be expected to do, therefore, you ran back down the street, determined to be in at the finish, to see your work well done.

“All this time the bat—whose mouth and nostrils, by the way, you had protected with a tiny gauze mask from which the creature could eventually free itself—was no doubt flying around and around, trying to find egress from the room. It was while you were standing on the pavement in front of the house, talking with Sprague and Greenleigh, that the bat discovered the broken window-sash and escaped into the open air.

“As it winged its way aimlessly over the sidewalk, it flew close enough to Sprague to scatter some of the powder in his face, and an instant later, continuing its flight, it passed in front of you.

“Dr. Sprague inhaled a fatal amount of the powder, but you breathed in only enough to throw you into a kind of convulsion. The struggles of both you and the physician to get your breath and otherwise to overcome the seizure made it appear that you were grappling with an invisible antagonist. Sprague succumbed almost instantly; but you, after a brief struggle, recovered, and in order to throw me off the track, as you believed, cleverly conceived the ‘invisible monster.’

“Nor did you have to draw much upon your imagination for the ‘whispering sound’ and the ‘icy breathing’ of the unholy creature of your mind. The _whir_ of the bat’s wings as it flew past you made a sound not unlike that of a sibilant whisper, while the whiffs of air that the animal’s wings fanned against your cheek, suggested the ‘cold and clammy breathing’ of the mythical monster.

“_Ma foi!_ well do I know whereof I speak, _Monsieur_, for I heard the ‘whisper’ and felt the ‘breath’ of the Thing myself. The bat that was loosed in my room last night gave me the fright of my life. When its wings brushed against the wall it sounded like a whisper of the devil himself, and when its wings fanned the air against my face, I thought a corpse was breathing death into my soul. No coward am I, _monsieur_, but the ‘whispering’ and ‘breathing’ were so terribly real—which only goes to show what suggestion will do to a vivid imagination. You had talked so earnestly and so picturesquely about the ‘whisper’ and the ‘breath’ of the Thing, that when I first heard the _whir_ of the little animal’s wings in the inky-dark room—_Dame!_ It makes me shiver yet!

“Fortunately, however, the bat had been in my room long enough before I entered it to shake all the deadly powder from its wings. The powder had settled and the air was pure before I crossed the threshold of that room, else I would have died a quick and horrible death.