The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Original)

by Unknown

  “I know very little about him personally, and a great deal about him professionally. He is hardly the type one would expect to find as a professor of electricity and chemistry, but such is the case, and he is one of the leaders in those sciences.

  “During the war I did some slight work along the line of developing new gases, and of controlling submarines by electricity. Professor Kennedy has some German blood in his veins; and, as it happened, was in Germany at the outbreak of the war. He was detained by the German government and forced to remain throughout the war, cooperating in the manufacture of war material, a work which was performed by him with reluctance, but which he was forced to do.

  “Through the German secret service he, in some way, learned of my own modest activities in assisting the Allies along the same lines, and conceived the idea of making my personal acquaintance. Following the armistice he got in touch with me through a mutual friend, and has since been of the greatest assistance to me in connection with some of the electrical equipment I am making for my experiments. He has gradually become a fixture here, and has taken the position of assistant.

  “However, all this discussion is keeping us from the real work at hand. Step out on the porch a moment and let me show you exactly what I wish you to do.”

  By leaning over the rail of the porch, we could see the entire south wall of the study, and the two windows opening to the south. As the porch had a projecting roof, and vines trailing up the pillars, our heads would not be outlined against the sky, and we could plainly see any person on the ground below, without standing much chance of being seen ourselves.

  Dr. Potter looked around the porch, peered at the ground below, and then placed us near a pillar almost directly over the study window.

  “Now if you two will just wait here, I will enter the study, carefully locking the door behind me. The entire outside wall will be under your observation; I will leave the window open so you can hear any sounds which may come from below, and can call to you if I desire. If you see any person approaching that study window, capture him at any cost. There may, perhaps, be more to this than appears on the surface.”

  “Alfred,” I pleaded, “let me accompany you. Dwire can watch the wall all right, and I hate to think of you sitting alone in the dark with that thing.”

  “Nonsense,” came the retort. “I sincerely and keenly appreciate your concern; but I rather expect there will be occasion for you to pursue a very material skeleton with flesh and blood on its bones, and there will be absolutely no one in the study except myself. I am merely the decoy. Keep a sharp watch on that window, and if anyone tries to get through it stop him, even if you have to shoot.”

  With no other parting than this, Dr. Potter abruptly took himself downstairs to the study, from the window of which we shortly saw his head protruding.

  “That’s fine,” he said, in response to my inquiry as to our positions. “I will remain here with the lights out. There is enough reflected light in the room to see outlines, and you keep a sharp watch on the window and the ground. You will probably have to wait an hour or so until things quiet down.”

  With this whispered admonition he withdrew his head, leaving us straining our ears and eyes, and accustoming our vision to the semi-darkness of the night.

  “Are there any servants, gardeners or other attendants likely to be about?” whispered the detective. “If I see anyone prowling around here I want to be sure of my ground, as I am likely to shoot first and ask questions afterward.”

  I answered in the same tone:

  “No. Kimi has his own quarters, opening from the kitchen, does all the inside work, including the preparation of meals. The chauffeur lives in town, and goes home every night at five-thirty, Kimi doing any driving required after that. Professor Kennedy certainly is not a night prowler, and has given us his assurance that he will be locked in the laboratory at the north end of the house.”

  Dwire kept his eye glued to the ground and windows below, while I, mindful of the face I had seen at the window earlier in the evening, kept my attention about equally divided between the ground below and the porch on which we were sitting.

  The moon was nearly half full, and barely visible through high fog clouds. The surroundings were enveloped in silence, penetrated at intervals by the whine of an automobile hurrying along the highway.

  The influence of the calm night acted soothingly on my nerves, and I fell into a reverie, thinking of the courage of the scientist, and the stern control with which he mastered his emotions.

  My thoughts were interrupted by a slight pressure on my arm. Almost at the same time I heard a faint noise, something in the nature of a rustle, apparently coming from the study itself. I strained my eyes into the darkness, and then, suddenly, without warning, the silence of the night was shattered by a cry from Dr. Potter such as I had never expected to hear.

  “Quick, Pearce, Dwire! Here, quick!” he shrieked. “Good God—CROTHERS!!”

  Then silence.

  I knew the lay of the land better than Dwire, and was able to enter the study window ahead of him. After fumbling in the dark for a moment, I switched on the lights. I am satisfied that not more than ten or twelve seconds elapsed from the time of the first cry until the room was flooded with light.

  Never will I forget the sight which met my eyes!

  Sitting in a wicker chair, some ten feet from the south wall of the room, and facing the window, sat Dr. Potter; but, from the manner in which he was slumped over the arm of the chair, I knew the reason we had heard nothing more from him after the first cry. A knife or other pointed instrument had penetrated his heart, and death must have been instantaneous.

  Facing him, and some twelve feet distant, the skeleton of Elbert Crothers danced and swayed from its hanging on the closet door. Rattling and oscillating in an ever diminishing orbit, it looked just as though it had been walking around, and had suddenly climbed back on the door when it heard us enter the room!

  The ribs scraped softly against the wood; the bones of the fingers quivered and rattled, and the fleshless face grinned into the dead countenance of my murdered friend!

  I had just time to take in the situation when Kimi, with a bath robe around him, knocked at the study door, which Dr. Potter had latched with the spring lock when he entered the room. Kimi had heard the cry, even in his bedroom, and realized as well as I did that nothing within the realm of human experience could have forced his master to utter such a sound.

  I opened the door for him and silently indicated the tragic sight. It took him a moment to realize that his beloved master was dead; and then, as his emotion overcame him, he bowed his head in silence, regardless for the moment of our presence.

  At that instant, just as Dwire completed his examination of the body, and looked up to give his conclusions, a white, drawn face, the same I had seen earlier in the evening, peered for a moment against the dark background of the open window—and was gone.

  Almost as quick as the face “registered” in my vision, Dwire had drawn his revolver and rushed to the casement. Unarmed as I was, I jumped through the window right at his heels.

  The yard was deserted.

  “You take that corner,” directed Dwire in low, crisp tones, “and I’ll take this.”

  It was not until after I had reached the corner of the house that I remembered I had no weapon, and should I overtake the mysterious prowler would probably be killed myself; but I had only to think of that still form in the chair to make me feel I would gladly chance my life just for the satisfaction of getting my hands on the murderer.

  We made a thorough search of the yard, as well as we could in the darkness, but could see nothing, and again met at the back of the house following a ten-minute, fruitless search.

  “Did you look in the garage?” whispered Dwire.

  I confessed that I had not, and we started together toward the low building. Even as we did so, there came the whine of an electric starter, the roar of a motor, and Dr. Potter’s car leaped
from the building, skidded into the turn of the graveled driveway, and disappeared down the concrete highway at terrific speed, the whine of the tires on the smooth surface of the road sounding for several seconds after we had lost sight of the speeding car.

  In the momentary flash of reflected light from the headlights of the automobile as it rounded the turn, I had recognized the form of Dawley, the chauffeur, crouched over the wheel.

  “Hell!” exploded Dwire. “If we’d been five seconds earlier we could have stopped that bird. As it was, I could have taken a shot at him, but we can telephone the police at Santa Delbara and have him stopped before he has gone five miles. Come on, let’s get to the phone.”

  We rushed back to the house, found the telephone in order, and were assured that two motorcycle officers would be sent out at once to apprehend the driver of the car. The sergeant who answered the telephone advised us Kimi had telephoned in a few minutes earlier advising of the murder of Dr. Potter and that a police car was even now on its way to the house.

  We hung up the receiver and stepped downstairs to find Kimi. He was crouched before a door on the north side of the house, his ear to the keyhole, and an expression of diabolical hate distorting his dark face. When he heard us in the corridor, he straightened up and knocked at the door.

  “Mista Ploffessa Kennedy,” he advised us, “I tell him what happens.”

  It took three or four minutes of hard pounding, however, before we were able to rouse the Professor from his studies. Then he came to the door, unbolted it, jerked it open and immediately started to protest at being interrupted in his work. His querulous complaint was snapped out with a jerk of the head for each word.

  Dwire quickly interrupted him.

  “Dr. Potter has been murdered in his study. The police are on the way here, and it is advisable for you to prepare to meet them.”

  The Professor blinked his eyes rapidly for a moment or two; it seemed to take that long for him to get his mind down to earth and let the idea sink in.

  “Murdered, murdered,” he muttered. “Impossible! You talk like crazy men.”

  At this moment the shriek of a siren interrupted the conversation and the police car swept up the drive. We left the Professor still blinking and expostulating, and went to pilot the police through the house.

  McDougal, the chief of police himself, had happened to be in the office when Kimi had telephoned, and had taken charge of the case in person. It seemed he was very familiar with the work and standing of Dwire, although he had never met the detective personally; and the two were soon plowing through a mass of detail, examining fingerprints, mapping the premises, and otherwise taking steps to preserve such clues as might exist. Once again I had occasion to be thankful for the presence of Dwire.

  Not only was I greatly relieved to know that the best detective in Southern California was working on the case, but the fact that I had been with him at the time of the murder was certainly a means of saving me many embarrassing questions, and, perhaps, from having the finger of suspicion pointed at me.

  Dwire frankly outlined all the facts at his command to McDougal, but I could see that the hard-headed Scotchman paid little or no attention to those facts which seemed to involve a supernatural agency. As far as he was concerned, the person who peered into that window was the person who committed the crime, and the rest of the case was all hokum.

  The motorcycle officers had stopped Dawley, traveling at a rate of speed far in excess of the legal limit, and returned him to the house. He seemed white and shaken as he waited in the library, but refused to make any statement as to his business on the premises or the reason for his haste.

  Professor Kennedy was summoned to the library, and McDougal, after a complete survey of the crime, held an informal examination. As I have mentioned, I was saved the ordeal of answering questions because of my having been with Dwire.

  Professor Kennedy told one story, one story only, and he refused to elaborate on it, supply any further details, or to expand on what he had previously said when asked questions by the officers.

  He said he had come to the house some three or four months before, was assisting Dr. Potter in research work, that he declined to state the nature of the work, that he had never noticed anything in the house which would arouse his suspicions, that he was at a complete loss to account for the murder, and that ever since he had left us that night in the living-room he had been locked in his laboratory at work and had heard no further sound until we pounded on his door to advise him of the crime.

  During the time he was being questioned, he produced a pencil and paper, and from time to time would sketch diagrams. At these times his mind seemed entirely to wander from the matter in hand. McDougal became plainly exasperated, but the Professor did not even notice the impatience of his audience. He was plainly regarding the proceeding as an unwarranted interruption of his work.

  Dawley, the chauffeur, proved rather more of a problem. He assumed an exasperating what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it attitude, and refused to make any statement as to his reasons for being on the place or taking the car.

  On one subject he talked fluently. He claimed to be the child of a half brother of Dr. Potter, and as such felt that the Doctor owed him a living. He even went so far as to express the hope that the “old man” had remembered him in the will.

  I do not think I have ever seen such a contemptible exhibition of selfishness and it was with difficulty that I managed to preserve my dignity and silence.

  McDougal was in somewhat of a quandary. The facts pointed suspiciously toward Dawley, but they were hardly sufficient to warrant an arrest. The chief, after a conference with Dwire and myself, arranged to release Dawley but to keep him under surveillance.

  A “drag net,” as McDougal termed it, was thrown out after the spy I had twice seen looking in the window, and there the matter rested.

  The next few days, as I look back on them, were more in the nature of a dream than a reality, the coroner’s inquest and the attendant airing of the facts of the tragedy; the usual verdict of death at the hands of some person unknown, and the funeral at which the morbidly curious elbowed to one side the grieving friends who sought to pay their last sad respects to one who had advanced the cause of science and died a martyr.

  And then came a new and surprising development. While I had known that Dr. Potter had no relatives, unless Dawley could be considered as such, I certainly had no intimation that I was to be the beneficiary under his will.

  Although he had been a wealthy man, and what he had done for me had been little enough when compared with his means, it had been enough to leave me indebted to him for life, and I was astounded to learn, when summoned to the offices of his local attorneys in Santa Delbara, that the will left everything to me.

  Here again I was faced with another strange fact. The will in my favor had been executed the day before my arrival, and with the will was a letter to me showing that my friend had recognized the gravity of the situation and felt something of the fatal menace of the mysterious force fighting against him.

  The letter read:

  My dear Pearce:

  As I write this I know you have responded to my request to spend a few days with me and assist me in the matter of which I wrote you.

  I have a premonition that the next few days will see us exposed to some considerable danger, from a force we do not entirely comprehend. If you ever have occasion to read these lines it will be because that force has brought about my death, and will be attempting to bring about yours.

  As some compensation for your loyalty and for exposing you to this danger, I am leaving you my entire estate. I have no strings to tie to this gift, but I wish if possible you would continue with the investigation where we left off; that you continue Professor Kennedy with you until he has completed his vitamine experiments, and that you guard yourself at all times.

  There is more to this matter than appears on the surface, and there are secrets of moment locked within that house
.

  Profit by my death and spare neither money nor energy in seeking a solution, for if you ever have occasion to read this you will be a marked man. Good-bye.

  Your affectionate friend,

  Alfred Potter.

  I was greatly affected by the letter. The quiet dignity with which my friend had gone about settling his affairs in order to give me protection and compensation, his thoughtfulness of others, and the rare courage he had displayed moved me to tears.

  Dwire, of course, continued on the case. He would have done so in any event, but I saw to it that lack of financial compensation was no hindrance. He was sending out numbers of telegrams, studying diagrams of the house and yard, and made one quick trip by motor to Los Angeles.

  In the meantime I had taken a surreptitious trip to the study, once or twice, by daylight each time, rather expecting to hear the ghastly wail from the skeleton, but ever since the murder we had not heard a sound from it, and for several days it remained mute. Dwire made a careful search of the closet where it hung and reported nothing suspicious in its construction or arrangement.

  I had hardly seen Professor Kennedy. He rarely came to the table, and when he did, treated Dwire and myself as being so far beneath him intellectually as to have nothing in common with him. He would bolt his food in silence, blink owlishly at us, jerk back his chair, and leave the room with those short, quick steps which seemed so inconsistent in a man of his bulk.

  At the repeated request of McDougal, I had continued John Dawley in my employ. The chief felt there was a great possibility he knew more of the murder than he was willing to admit, and wanted him where he could “keep an eye on him.”

  Then about a week after the tragedy Dwire announced a hurried trip to San Francisco. During his absence he arranged to have a loyal old Irish police officer who had assisted him on many cases quartered in the house with me.

  “I’m glad,” I assured him. “I wouldn’t stay in the house for a minute without him. If it wasn’t for the request Dr. Potter left in that letter that skeleton would have been buried a long time ago. I can’t get it out of my head but what that grinning skeleton had something to do with the murder of my friend, and that we shall find somehow, somewhere, Elbert Crothers, alive or dead, has a finger in the pie.”