Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930

by Various

  The Corpse on the Grating

  _By Hugh B. Cave_

  In the gloomy depths of the old warehouse Dale saw a thing that drew a scream of horror to his dry lips. It was a corpse--the mold of decay on its long-dead features--and yet it was alive!

  _It was a corpse, standing before me like some propped-upthing from the grave._]

  It was ten o'clock on the morning of December 5 when M. S. and I leftthe study of Professor Daimler. You are perhaps acquainted with M. S.His name appears constantly in the pages of the Illustrated News, inconjunction with some very technical article on psycho-analysis or withsome extensive study of the human brain and its functions. He is apsycho-fanatic, more or less, and has spent an entire lifetime of someseventy-odd years in pulling apart human skulls for the purpose ofinvestigation. Lovely pursuit!

  For some twenty years I have mocked him, in a friendly, half-heartedfashion. I am a medical man, and my own profession is one that does notsympathize with radicals.

  As for Professor Daimler, the third member of our triangle--perhaps, ifI take a moment to outline the events of that evening, the Professor'spart in what follows will be less obscure. We had called on him, M. S.and I, at his urgent request. His rooms were in a narrow, unlightedstreet just off the square, and Daimler himself opened the door to us. Atall, loosely built chap he was, standing in the doorway like amotionless ape, arms half extended.

  "I've summoned you, gentlemen," he said quietly, "because you two, ofall London, are the only persons who know the nature of my recentexperiments. I should like to acquaint you with the results!"

  He led the way to his study, then kicked the door shut with his foot,seizing my arm as he did so. Quietly he dragged me to the table thatstood against the farther wall. In the same even, unemotional tone of aman completely sure of himself, he commanded me to inspect it.

  For a moment, in the semi-gloom of the room, I saw nothing. At length,however, the contents of the table revealed themselves, and Idistinguished a motley collection of test tubes, each filled with somefluid. The tubes were attached to each other by some ingeniousarrangement of thistles, and at the end of the table, where a chanceblow could not brush it aside, lay a tiny phial of the resulting serum.From the appearance of the table, Daimler had evidently drawn a certainamount of gas from each of the smaller tubes, distilling them throughacid into the minute phial at the end. Yet even now, as I stared down atthe fantastic paraphernalia before me, I could sense no conclusivereason for its existence.

  I turned to the Professor with a quiet stare of bewilderment. He smiled.

  "The experiment is over," he said. "As to its conclusion, you, Dale, asa medical man, will be sceptical. And you"--turning to M. S.--"as ascientist you will be amazed. I, being neither physician nor scientist,am merely filled with wonder!"

  * * * * *

  He stepped to a long, square table-like structure in the center of theroom. Standing over it, he glanced quizzically at M. S., then at me.

  "For a period of two weeks," he went on, "I have kept, on the tablehere, the body of a man who has been dead more than a month. I havetried, gentlemen, with acid combinations of my own origination, to bringthat body back to life. And ... I have--failed!

  "But," he added quickly, noting the smile that crept across my face,"that failure was in itself worth more than the average scientist'sgreatest achievement! You know, Dale, that heat, if a man is not trulydead, will sometimes resurrect him. In a case of epilepsy, for instance,victims have been pronounced dead only to return to life--sometimes inthe grave.

  "I say 'if a man be not truly dead.' But what if that man _is_ trulydead? Does the cure alter itself in any manner? The motor of your cardies--do you bury it? You do not; you locate the faulty part, correctit, and infuse new life. And so, gentlemen, after remedying the rupturedheart of this dead man, by operation, I proceeded to bring him back tolife.

  "I used heat. Terrific heat will sometimes originate a spark of new lifein something long dead. Gentlemen, on the fourth day of my tests,following a continued application of electric and acid heat, thepatient--"

  Daimler leaned over the table and took up a cigarette. Lighting it, hedropped the match and resumed his monologue.

  "The patient turned suddenly over and drew his arm weakly across hiseyes. I rushed to his side. When I reached him, the body was once againstiff and lifeless. And--it has remained so."

  The Professor stared at us quietly, waiting for comment. I answered him,as carelessly as I could, with a shrug of my shoulders.

  "Professor, have you ever played with the dead body of a frog?" I saidsoftly.

  * * * * *

  He shook his head silently.

  "You would find it interesting sport," I told him. "Take a common drycell battery with enough voltage to render a sharp shock. Then applyyour wires to various parts of the frog's anatomy. If you are lucky, andstrike the right set of muscles, you will have the pleasure of seeing adead frog leap suddenly forward. Understand, he will not regain life.You have merely released his dead muscles by shock, and sent himbolting."

  The Professor did not reply. I could feel his eyes on me, and had Iturned, I should probably had found M. S. glaring at me in honest hate.These men were students of mesmerism, of spiritualism, and mycommonplace contradiction was not over welcome.

  "You are cynical, Dale," said M. S. coldly, "because you do notunderstand!"

  "Understand? I am a doctor--not a ghost!"

  But M. S. had turned eagerly to the Professor.

  "Where is this body--this experiment?" he demanded.

  Daimler shook his head. Evidently he had acknowledged failure and didnot intend to drag his dead man before our eyes, unless he could bringthat man forth alive, upright, and ready to join our conversation!

  "I've put it away," he said distantly. "There is nothing more to bedone, now that our reverend doctor has insisted in making a matter offact thing out of our experiment. You understand, I had not intended togo in for wholesale resurrection, even if I had met with success. It wasmy belief that a dead body, like a dead piece of mechanism, can bebrought to life again, provided we are intelligent enough to discoverthe secret. And by God, it is _still_ my belief!"

  * * * * *

  That was the situation, then, when M. S. and I paced slowly back alongthe narrow street that contained the Professor's dwelling-place. Mycompanion was strangely silent. More than once I felt his eyes upon mein an uncomfortable stare, yet he said nothing. Nothing, that is, untilI had opened the conversation with some casual remark about the lunacyof the man we had just left.

  "You are wrong in mocking him, Dale," M. S. replied bitterly. "Daimleris a man of science. He is no child, experimenting with a toy; he is agrown man who has the courage to believe in his powers. One of thesedays...."

  He had intended to say that some day I should respect the Professor'sefforts. One of these days! The interval of time was far shorter thananything so indefinite. The first event, with its succeeding series ofhorrors, came within the next three minutes.

  * * * * *

  We had reached a more deserted section of the square, a black,uninhabited street extending like a shadowed band of darkness betweengaunt, high walls. I had noticed for some time that the stone structurebeside us seemed to be unbroken by door or window--that it appeared tobe a single gigantic building, black and forbidding. I mentioned thefact to M. S.

  "The warehouse," he said simply. "A lonely, God-forsaken place. We shallprobably see the flicker of the watchman's light in one of the upperchinks."

  At his words, I glanced up. True enough, the higher part of the grimstructure was punctured by narrow, barred openings. Safety vaults,probably. But the light, unless its tiny gleam was somewhere in theinner recesses of the warehouse, was dead. The great building was likean immense burial vault, a tomb--silent and lifeless.

  We had reached the most forbidding se
ction of the narrow street, where asingle arch-lamp overhead cast a halo of ghastly yellow light over thepavement. At the very rim of the circle of illumination, where theshadows were deeper and more silent, I could make out the blackmouldings of a heavy iron grating. The bars of metal were designed, Ibelieve, to seal the side entrance of the great warehouse from nightmarauders. It was bolted in place and secured with a set of immensechains, immovable.

  This much I saw as my intent gaze swept the wall before me. This hugetomb of silence held for me a peculiar fascination, and as I paced alongbeside my gloomy companion, I stared directly ahead of me into thedarkness of the street. I wish to God my eyes had been closed orblinded!

  * * * * *

  He was hanging on the grating. Hanging there, with white, twisted handsclutching the rigid bars of iron, straining to force them apart. Hiswhole distorted body was forced against the barrier, like the form of amadman struggling to escape from his cage. His face--the image of itstill haunts me whenever I see iron bars in the darkness of apassage--was the face of a man who has died from utter, stark horror. Itwas frozen in a silent shriek of agony, staring out at me with fiendishmaliciousness. Lips twisted apart. White teeth gleaming in the light.Bloody eyes, with a horrible glare of colorless pigment. And--_dead_.

  I believe M. S. saw him at the very instant I recoiled. I felt a suddengrip on my arm; and then, as an exclamation came harshly from mycompanion's lips, I was pulled forward roughly. I found myself staringstraight into the dead eyes of that fearful thing before me, foundmyself standing rigid, motionless, before the corpse that hung withinreach of my arm.

  And then, through that overwhelming sense of the horrible, came thequiet voice of my comrade--the voice of a man who looks upon death asnothing more than an opportunity for research.

  "The fellow has been frightened to death, Dale. Frightened mosthorribly. Note the expression of his mouth, the evident struggle toforce these bars apart and escape. Something has driven fear to hissoul, killed him."

  * * * * *

  I remember the words vaguely. When M. S. had finished speaking, I didnot reply. Not until he had stepped forward and bent over the distortedface of the thing before me, did I attempt to speak. When I did, mythoughts were a jargon.

  "What, in God's name," I cried, "could have brought such horror to astrong man? What--"

  "Loneliness, perhaps," suggested M. S. with a smile. "The fellow isevidently the watchman. He is alone, in a huge, deserted pit ofdarkness, for hours at a time. His light is merely a ghostly ray ofillumination, hardly enough to do more than increase the darkness. Ihave heard of such cases before."

  He shrugged his shoulders. Even as he spoke, I sensed the evasion in hiswords. When I replied, he hardly heard my answer, for he had suddenlystepped forward, where he could look directly into those fear twistedeyes.

  "Dale," he said at length, turning slowly to face me, "you ask for anexplanation of this horror? There _is_ an explanation. It is writtenwith an almost fearful clearness on this fellow's mind. Yet if I tellyou, you will return to your old skepticism--your damnable habit ofdisbelief!"

  I looked at him quietly. I had heard M. S. claim, at other times, thathe could read the thoughts of a dead man by the mental image that lay onthat man's brain. I had laughed at him. Evidently, in the presentmoment, he recalled those laughs. Nevertheless, he faced me seriously.

  "I can see two things, Dale," he said deliberately. "One of them is adark, narrow room--a room piled with indistinct boxes and crates, andwith an open door bearing the black number 4167. And in that opendoorway, coming forward with slow steps--alive, with arms extended and afrightful face of passion--is a decayed human form. A corpse, Dale. Aman who has been dead for many days, and is now--_alive_!"

  * * * * *

  M. S. turned slowly and pointed with upraised hand to the corpse on thegrating.

  "That is why," he said simply, "this fellow died from horror."

  His words died into emptiness. For a moment I stared at him. Then, inspite of our surroundings, in spite of the late hour, the loneliness ofthe street, the awful thing beside us, I laughed.

  He turned upon me with a snarl. For the first time in my life I saw M.S. convulsed with rage. His old, lined face had suddenly become savagewith intensity.

  "You laugh at me, Dale," he thundered. "By God, you make a mockery outof a science that I have spent more than my life in studying! You callyourself a medical man--and you are not fit to carry the name! I willwager you, man, that your laughter is not backed by courage!"

  I fell away from him. Had I stood within reach, I am sure he would havestruck me. Struck me! And I have been nearer to M. S. for the past tenyears than any man in London. And as I retreated from his temper, hereached forward to seize my arm. I could not help but feel impressed athis grim intentness.

  "Look here, Dale," he said bitterly, "I will wager you a hundred poundsthat you will not spend the remainder of this night in the warehouseabove you! I will wager a hundred pounds against your own courage thatyou will not back your laughter by going through what this fellow hasgone through. That you will not prowl through the corridors of thisgreat structure until you have found room 4167--_and remain in that roomuntil dawn_!"

  * * * * *

  There was no choice. I glanced at the dead man, at the face of fear andthe clutching, twisted hands, and a cold dread filled me. But to refusemy friend's wager would have been to brand myself an empty coward. I hadmocked him. Now, whatever the cost, I must stand ready to pay for thatmockery.

  "Room 4167?" I replied quietly, in a voice which I made every effort tocontrol, lest he should discover the tremor in it. "Very well, I will doit!"

  It was nearly midnight when I found myself alone, climbing a musty,winding ramp between the first and second floors of the desertedbuilding. Not a sound, except the sharp intake of my breath and thedismal creak of the wooden stairs, echoed through that tomb of death.There was no light, not even the usual dim glow that is left toilluminate an unused corridor. Moreover, I had brought no means of lightwith me--nothing but a half empty box of safety matches which, by someunholy premonition, I had forced myself to save for some future moment.The stairs were black and difficult, and I mounted them slowly, gropingwith both hands along the rough wall.

  I had left M. S. some few moments before. In his usual decisive mannerhe had helped me to climb the iron grating and lower myself to thesealed alley-way on the farther side. Then, leaving him without a word,for I was bitter against the triumphant tone of his parting words, Iproceeded into the darkness, fumbling forward until I had discovered theopen door in the lower part of the warehouse.

  And then the ramp, winding crazily upward--upward--upward, seeminglywithout end. I was seeking blindly for that particular room which was tobe my destination. Room 4167, with its high number, could hardly be onthe lower floors, and so I had stumbled upward....

  * * * * *

  It was at the entrance of the second floor corridor that I struck thefirst of my desultory supply of matches, and by its light discovered aplacard nailed to the wall. The thing was yellow with age and hardlylegible. In the drab light of the match I had difficulty in readingit--but, as far as I can remember, the notice went something like this:

  WAREHOUSE RULES

  1. No light shall be permitted in any room or corridor, as a prevention against fire.

  2. No person shall be admitted to rooms or corridors unless accompanied by an employee.

  3. A watchman shall be on the premises from 7 P.M. until 6 A.M. He shall make the round of the corridors every hour during that interval, at a quarter past the hour.

  4. Rooms are located by their numbers: the first figure in the room number indicating its floor location.

  I could read no further. The match in my fingers burned to a blackthread and dropped. Then, with the burnt stump st
ill in my hand, Igroped through the darkness to the bottom of the second ramp.

  Room 4167, then, was on the fourth floor--the topmost floor of thestructure. I must confess that the knowledge did not bring any renewedburst of courage! The top floor! Three black stair-pits would liebetween me and the safety of escape. There would be no escape! No humanbeing in the throes of fear could hope to discover that tortured outlet,could hope to grope his way through Stygian gloom down a triple ramp ofblack stairs. And even though he succeeded in reaching the lowercorridors, there was still a blind alley-way, sealed at the outer end bya high grating of iron bars....

  * * * * *

  Escape! The mockery of it caused me to stop suddenly in my ascent andstand rigid, my whole body trembling violently.

  But outside, in the gloom of the street, M. S. was waiting, waiting withthat fiendish glare of triumph that would brand me a man withoutcourage. I could not return to face him, not though all the horrors ofhell inhabited this gruesome place of mystery. And horrors must surelyinhabit it, else how could one account for that fearful thing on thegrating below? But I had been through horror before. I had seen a man,supposedly dead on the operating table, jerk suddenly to his feet andscream. I had seen a young girl, not long before, awake in the midst ofan operation, with the knife already in her frail body. Surely, afterthose definite horrors, no _unknown_ danger would send me cringing backto the man who was waiting so bitterly for me to return.

  Those were the thoughts pregnant in my mind as I groped slowly,cautiously along the corridor of the upper floor, searching each closeddoor for the indistinct number 4167. The place was like the center of ahuge labyrinth, a spider-web of black, repelling passages, leading intosome central chamber of utter silence and blackness. I went forward withdragging steps, fighting back the dread that gripped me as I wentfarther and farther from the outlet of escape. And then, after losingmyself completely in the gloom, I threw aside all thoughts of return andpushed on with a careless, surface bravado, and laughed aloud.

  * * * * *

  So, at length, I reached that room of horror, secreted high in thedeeper recesses of the deserted warehouse. The number--God grant I neversee it again!--was scrawled in black chalk on the door--4167. I pushedthe half-open barrier wide, and entered.

  It was a small room, even as M. S. had forewarned me--or as the deadmind of that thing on the grate had forewarned M. S. The glow of myout-thrust match revealed a great stack of dusty boxes and crates, piledagainst the farther wall. Revealed, too, the black corridor beyond theentrance, and a small, upright table before me.

  It was the table, and the stool beside it, that drew my attention andbrought a muffled exclamation from my lips. The thing had been thrustout of its usual place, pushed aside as if some frenzied shape hadlunged against it. I could make out its former position by the marks onthe dusty floor at my feet. Now it was nearer to the center of the room,and had been wrenched sidewise from its holdings. A shudder took hold ofme as I looked at it. A living person, sitting on the stool before me,staring at the door, would have wrenched the table in just this mannerin his frenzy to escape from the room!

  * * * * *

  The light of the match died, plunging me into a pit of gloom. I struckanother and stepped closer to the table. And there, on the floor, Ifound two more things that brought fear to my soul. One of them was aheavy flash-lamp--a watchman's lamp--where it had evidently beendropped. Been dropped in flight! But what awful terror must have grippedthe fellow to make him forsake his only means of escape through thoseblack passages? And the second thing--a worn copy of a leather-boundbook, flung open on the boards below the stool!

  The flash-lamp, thank God! had not been shattered. I switched it on,directing its white circle of light over the room. This time, in thevivid glare, the room became even more unreal. Black walls, clumsy,distorted shadows on the wall, thrown by those huge piles of woodenboxes. Shadows that were like crouching men, groping toward me. Andbeyond, where the single door opened into a passage of Stygian darkness,that yawning entrance was thrown into hideous detail. Had any uprightfigure been standing there, the light would have made an unholyphosphorescent specter out of it.

  I summoned enough courage to cross the room and pull the door shut.There was no way of locking it. Had I been able to fasten it, I shouldsurely have done so; but the room was evidently an unused chamber,filled with empty refuse. This was the reason, probably, why thewatchman had made use of it as a retreat during the intervals betweenhis rounds.

  But I had no desire to ponder over the sordidness of my surroundings. Ireturned to my stool in silence, and stooping, picked up the fallen bookfrom the floor. Carefully I placed the lamp on the table, where itslight would shine on the open page. Then, turning the cover, I began toglance through the thing which the man before me had evidently beenstudying.

  And before I had read two lines, the explanation of the whole horriblething struck me. I stared dumbly down at the little book and laughed.Laughed harshly, so that the sound of my mad cackle echoed in a thousandghastly reverberations through the dead corridors of the building.

  * * * * *

  It was a book of horror, of fantasy. A collection of weird, terrifying,supernatural tales with grotesque illustrations in funereal black andwhite. And the very line I had turned to, the line which had probablystruck terror to that unlucky devil's soul, explained M. S.'s "decayedhuman form, standing in the doorway with arms extended and a frightfulface of passion!" The description--the same description--lay before me,almost in my friend's words. Little wonder that the fellow on thegrating below, after reading this orgy of horror, had suddenly gone madwith fright. Little wonder that the picture engraved on his dead mindwas a picture of a corpse standing in the doorway of room 4167!

  I glanced at that doorway and laughed. No doubt of it, it was that awfuldescription in M. S.'s untempered language that had made me dread mysurroundings, not the loneliness and silence of the corridors about me.Now, as I stared at the room, the closed door, the shadows on the wall,I could not repress a grin.

  But the grin was not long in duration. A six-hour siege awaited mebefore I could hear the sound of human voice again--six hours ofsilence and gloom. I did not relish it. Thank God the fellow before mehad had foresight enough to leave his book of fantasy for my amusement!

  * * * * *

  I turned to the beginning of the story. A lovely beginning it was,outlining in some detail how a certain Jack Fulton, English adventurer,had suddenly found himself imprisoned (by a mysterious black gang ofmonks, or something of the sort) in a forgotten cell at the monastery ofEl Toro. The cell, according to the pages before me, was located in the"empty, haunted pits below the stone floors of the structure...." Lovelysetting! And the brave Fulton had been secured firmly to a huge metalring set in the farther wall, opposite the entrance.

  I read the description twice. At the end of it I could not help but liftmy head to stare at my own surroundings. Except for the location of thecell, I might have been in they same setting. The same darkness, samesilence, same loneliness. Peculiar similarity!

  And then: "Fulton lay quietly, without attempt to struggle. In the dark,the stillness of the vaults became unbearable, terrifying. Not asuggestion of sound, except the scraping of unseen rats--"

  I dropped the book with a start. From the opposite end of the room inwhich I sat came a half inaudible scuffling noise--the sound of hiddenrodents scrambling through the great pile of boxes. Imagination? I amnot sure. At the moment, I would have sworn that the sound was adefinite one, that I had heard it distinctly. Now, as I recount thistale of horror, I am not sure.

  But I am sure of this: There was no smile on my lips as I picked up thebook again with trembling fingers and continued.

  "The sound died into silence. For an eternity, the prisoner lay rigid,staring at the open door of his cell. The opening was black, deserte
d,like the mouth of a deep tunnel, leading to hell. And then, suddenly,from the gloom beyond that opening, came an almost noiseless, paddedfootfall!"

  * * * * *

  This time there was no doubt of it. The book fell from my fingers,dropped to the floor with a clatter. Yet even through the sound of itsfalling, I heard that fearful sound--the shuffle of a living foot! I satmotionless, staring with bloodless face at the door of room 4167. And asI stared, the sound came again, and again--_the slow tread of draggingfootsteps, approaching along the black corridor without_!

  I got to my feet like an automaton, swaying heavily. Every drop ofcourage ebbed from my soul as I stood there, one hand clutching thetable, waiting....

  And then, with an effort, I moved forward. My hand was outstretched tograsp the wooden handle of the door. And--I did not have the courage.Like a cowed beast I crept back to my place and slumped down on thestool, my eyes still transfixed in a mute stare of terror.

  I waited. For more than half an hour I waited, motionless. Not a soundstirred in the passage beyond that closed barrier. Not a suggestion ofany living presence came to me. Then, leaning back against the wall witha harsh laugh, I wiped away the cold moisture that had trickled over myforehead into my eyes.

  It was another five minutes before I picked up the book again. You callme a fool for continuing it? A fool? I tell you, even a story of horroris more comfort than a room of grotesque shadows and silence. Even aprinted page is better than grim reality!

  * * * * *

  And so I read on. The story was one of suspense, madness. For the nexttwo pages I read a cunning description of the prisoner's mentalreaction. Strangely enough, it conformed precisely with my own.

  "Fulton's head had fallen to his chest," the script read. "For anendless while he did not stir, did not dare to lift his eyes. And then,after more than an hour of silent agony and suspense, the boy's headcame up mechanically. Came up--and suddenly jerked rigid. A horriblescream burst from his dry lips as he stared--stared like a dead man--atthe black entrance to his cell. There, standing without motion in theopening, stood a shrouded figure of death. Empty eyes, glaring withawful hate, bored into his own. Great arms, bony and rotten, extendedtoward him. Decayed flesh--"

  I read no more. Even as I lunged to my feet, with that mad book stillgripped in my hand, I heard the door of my room grind open. I screamed,screamed in utter horror at the thing I saw there. Dead? Good God, I donot know. It was a corpse, a dead human body, standing before me likesome propped-up thing from the grave. A face half eaten away, terriblein its leering grin. Twisted mouth, with only a suggestion of lips,curled back over broken teeth. Hair--writhing, distorted--like a mass ofmoving, bloody coils. And its arms, ghastly white, bloodless, wereextended toward me, with open, clutching hands.

  * * * * *

  It was alive! Alive! Even while I stood there, crouching against thewall, it stepped forward toward me. I saw a heavy shudder pass over it,and the sound of its scraping feet burned its way into my soul. Andthen, with its second step, the fearful thing stumbled to its knees. Thewhite, gleaming arms, thrown into streaks of living fire by the light ofmy lamp, flung violently upwards, twisting toward the ceiling. I saw thegrin change to an expression of agony, of torment. And then the thingcrashed upon me--dead.

  With a great cry of fear I stumbled to the door. I groped out of thatroom of horror, stumbled along the corridor. No light. I left it behind,on the table, to throw a circle of white glare over the decayed,living-dead intruder who had driven me mad.

  My return down those winding ramps to the lower floor was a nightmare offear. I remember that I stumbled, that I plunged through the darknesslike a man gone mad. I had no thought of caution, no thought of anythingexcept escape.

  And then the lower door, and the alley of gloom. I reached the grating,flung myself upon it and pressed my face against the bars in a futileeffort to escape. The same--as the fear-tortured man--who had--comebefore--me.

  I felt strong hands lifting me up. A dash of cool air, and then therefreshing patter of falling rain.

  * * * * *

  It was the afternoon of the following day, December 6, when M. S. satacross the table from me in my own study. I had made a rather hesitantattempt to tell him, without dramatics and without dwelling on my ownlack of courage, of the events of the previous night.

  "You deserved it, Dale," he said quietly. "You are a medical man,nothing more, and yet you mock the beliefs of a scientist as great asDaimler. I wonder--do you still mock the Professor's beliefs?"

  "That he can bring a dead man to life?" I smiled, a bit doubtfully.

  "I will tell you something, Dale," said M. S. deliberately. He wasleaning across the table, staring at me. "The Professor made only onemistake in his great experiment. He did not wait long enough for theeffect of his strange acids to work. He acknowledged failure too soon,and got rid of the body." He paused.

  "When the Professor stored his patient away, Dale," he said quietly, "hestored it in room 4170, at the great warehouse. If you are acquaintedwith the place, you will know that room 4170 is directly across thecorridor from 4167."

  * * * * *