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

by Unknown

  Dwire merely smiled and made no comment. I felt that he had some more or less tangible clue.

  So it happened that Kelley, the old patrolman, was quartered with me during Dwire’s absence. At the suggestion of Dwire, who informed me Kelley was as superstitious as he was brave, I said nothing whatever about the connection of the skeleton with the murder. I was in the study with him once and he noticed the skeleton hanging from the closet door, but I made no explanation of how it came to be there.

  The night Dwire returned Kimi met him at the train and drove him to the house. He was just in time for dinner, and it was apparent that he was laboring under some considerable excitement. Once during the course of the meal he quietly remarked to me that he would have a solution of the mystery within the next forty-eight hours.

  This announcement was made in a low voice, but Professor Kennedy, who sat at the end of the table, apparently engrossed in his own thoughts, snapped into immediate attention.

  “What’s that, Mr. Dwire,” he exploded, peering through his heavy lenses at the detective. “What’s that you say? A solution of the murder within the next forty-eight hours?”

  Dwire gazed directly into the Professor’s face.

  “Your hearing seems remarkably good tonight, Professor.”

  I fancied Dwire was slightly discourteous, but it also impressed me as strange that Professor Kennedy, who was habitually so absorbed in his thoughts as to make it necessary to speak two or three times to get his attention at the table, should have heard the low remark Dwire undoubtedly intended for my ears alone.

  A few seconds later the Professor abruptly arose from the table and retired to his laboratory.

  Kimi, who, I flattered myself, had always been devoted to me as a friend of the master’s, had passed to me with the estate, and his quiet deference and efficiency was the one bright spot in the whole tragic chain of events.

  That night he asked permission to spend the evening in town with friends, and I readily consented. Since the Doctor’s death he had had very little opportunity to get out and I was glad to give him the chance for a little recreation, since both Kelley and Dwire were to spend the night with me.

  Hardly had we retired to the library than Dwire pulled a photograph from his pocket, and asked me if I had ever seen the face before. The likeness was so perfect that I was startled. There could be no doubt of it. The face was that of the man I had seen looking in the window the night of the crime.

  “I thought so,” said Dwire. “That’s a photo of the person who wrote to Dr. Potter demanding a burial of the skeleton, and signed himself ‘J. B. Jorgensen.’ However, unless I’m mistaken, he’s not the man who committed the murder, but he can give us a lot of interesting information when we catch him—for catch him we will.”

  Hardly had the words left his mouth than, ringing and wailing through the house, rising and falling, louder than I had ever heard it before, came a ghastly wail, which I knew was coming from the grinning skeleton in the room below!

  This time, however, it was not as it had been before, an isolated moan, but wail after wail shivered through the house, rising to the highest crescendo of fiendish menace, then dying away to the moan of a tormented soul. Never on earth could such a noise have been produced from a human throat, the volume of sound alone was such that no human being could have produced it, and the delicate nerves of one’s body tingled with a psychic recognition of the unearthly quality of the sound.

  Kelley, the rough police officer of hundreds of wild and dangerous experiences, turned white as a sheet and crossed himself repeatedly. As for myself, I know that the color left my face, and I could feel the cold chills chasing each other up and down my spine, while the roots of my hair tingled as the flesh crawled and crept on the top of my head.

  Dwire alone seemed cool.

  “So that’s our friend again, howling for more blood, and I guess it’s mine he’s after this time.”

  “My Gawd!” shouted Kelley, “and do yez tell me ’twas a banshee that killed the Doctor?”

  “Look here, fellows, and you, Kelley, get this,” snapped Dwire. “Let’s not get stampeded by some noise we can’t understand. A noise is nothing to get afraid of.

  “I’m going to show you men just how this crime was committed, and no fool noise is going to scare me out. The thing we’ve all been overlooking is that it was possible for someone to have sneaked in at that window in spite of the fact that Pearce and I were watching from the porch. Moonlight is a mighty deceptive thing, particularly when it’s the light coming through a fog.

  “Now I’m going to prove to you men that I’m right. The moon’s full tonight, but the clouds are heavier, and, on the whole, it’s just about the same light as we had the night of the murder. I’m going down into that room, sit in that same chair in exactly the same position the Doctor sat, and I want Kelley to keep a watch from the porch.

  “Some time after ten minutes, and not later than half an hour—Pearce can, of course, choose his own time—he will sneak along the wall, just far enough away from the white surface not to be outlined against it, and I’ll bet he can enter that window without Kelley seeing him.

  “I will probably be able to ‘spot’ him as he enters the window, and I’ll call out. In fact that’s just what happened when Dr. Potter was killed. He saw someone entering the window, and called to us, thinking at first it must have been either Pearce or myself. Where we all made our mistake was in thinking it was impossible for such a person to have entered through the window without our seeing him. After the murder he could have simply left the study by the door which latched and locked automatically behind him.

  “Come on out on the porch and I’ll put you fellows in place.”

  As the detective finished speaking, there came again, in a lower key than before, but seemingly penetrating to every corner of the house, that wailing shriek. It is impossible to describe that weird and ominous ululation. I harked back to the stories I had heard of ghouls and banshees screaming for human blood. In spite of myself I felt my blood curdle, and I am willing to swear that the hair on the top of my head actually moved.

  “My God, man!” I exploded to Dwire. “Are you crazy? I don’t know what foolish theory you may have, but I’ll bet all I have that if you enter that room alone tonight and sit in the dark with that skeleton, your life won’t be worth a plugged nickel.”

  Outwardly Dwire was calm, but as he started to speak, I noticed that he gulped twice before the words came. His tongue was cleaving to the roof of his mouth!

  “Come on out on the porch,” he said, “and can that chatter about ghosts. You act like a bunch of school-kids!”

  I might have resented the remark had it not been for what I had just seen. As it was, in spite of the awful feeling that some mysterious presence was shrieking and howling for my blood, I was forced to smile. Dwire was as scared as I was, but trying to “bluff it through.”

  I had expected that last shriek would have been the last straw as far as Kelley was concerned. He had heard nothing of the supernatural aspect of the case, but he was getting it in bunches right then, and I rather expected he would be ready to give up the fight right then and there; but when I looked at him I saw a surprising change had taken place.

  Having convinced himself he was in for a battle with ghosts, Kelley had no thought of leaving us. I verily believe the lovable old Irishman never expected to see another sunrise, but he had pulled a silver dime from his pocket, bent it between his powerful teeth, and was engaged in cramming it down the barrel of his revolver.

  “Yez may laugh all ye like, my boy,” he remarked as he saw me looking at him; “but ye’ll be battlin’ fer yer life wit a banshee before the night’s much older, and tiz a silver bullet that is a man’s only hope in a time like that.”

  Dwire grabbed us by the arms and led us out on the porch; and, as he did so, a piercing shriek shattered the peaceful silence of the night. Now that we were on the porch, it became apparent that the sound was coming
from the study below. The window had been left open, and that piercing, wailing, undulating yell rose to a veritable crescendo of triumph as we entered the darkness of the porch, and slowly died away in a long drawn moan of fiendish glee and unspeakable menace.

  The manner of the detective underwent a rapid change. He started to whisper rapidly:

  “Look here, fellows, my talk in the living-room was a blind. I’m going down in that study in the dark, and I’m pretty sure an attempt will be made to kill me within the next ten minutes, and the good Lord only knows what weird experience is in store for me—or I should say for us, for you will be with me.

  “The same person or thing which murdered Dr. Potter will make an attempt on my life, and we must use our heads, and catch the murderer red handed. I believe that our talk in the living-room was overheard, and I took advantage of that fact to set a trap for the murderer. I’ll go down the steps and into the study all right, but, instead of waiting here on the porch you’ll go right on down and climb in the window as noiselessly as possible, and without a word to betray your presence will conceal yourselves as close to me as possible.

  “Whatever is going to occur will take place within the next five or ten minutes, and you must remember that what took place the night Dr. Potter was in the study was sufficient to shatter even his iron nerve. Don’t forget that he called the name of Crothers and don’t forget the way that skeleton was shimmying on the door when we entered the room. I’m mentioning these things so you will be prepared for anything that may happen.

  “Let’s go.”

  With that, and without giving us a chance for any further argument, he passed through the French window just as Dr. Potter had done on the night of the murder and took his way to the dark study and the shrieking skeleton.

  By common impulse Kelley and I shook hands, the silent tribute to a brave man. Then we sneaked quietly and rapidly for that chamber of horror.

  We waited for a moment with drawn revolvers before the window (I had lost no time in purchasing a heavy revolver after the murder), while Dwire entered the room and seated himself in the wicker chair facing the skeleton. Then, without a word and with as little noise as possible, Kelley and I sneaked through the window and secreted ourselves in the dark behind the wicker chair occupied by the shadowy form of Dwire, who did not so much as turn to acknowledge our presence.

  It could not have been over sixty seconds after the slamming of the study door announced the entrance of Dwire, before it became apparent that something was happening in the vicinity of the skeleton. The light was just dim enough to make it difficult to distinguish objects in the room, but bright enough to make the white bones of the skeleton readily visible as a white blur against the door on which they hung.

  As we sat there in that dark room, straining our eyes toward the gruesome souvenir of the feud between Dr. Potter and Elbert Crothers, I reflected that the light must have been just about the same the night of the murder, and that I was now experiencing just about what had been the sensations of Dr. Potter as he sat there in that dark room and realized that those noises were caused by a stealthy, ominous rustling of the skeleton itself.

  And then the skeleton commenced to move!

  I felt the perspiration break out in cold, clammy beads as the bones, apparently of their own volition, silently and stealthily commenced writhing on the door of the closet.

  Then the skeleton became a vague blur—and disappeared!

  It was only with the greatest effort that I was able to control a desire to whisper, “It’s gone.”

  Suddenly, and without warning, a glowing lambent fire broke out over the bones of that grizzly object, sharply outlining in a blotch of glowing light the dangling arms and legs, the hollow ribs and the grinning skull. Then I saw that the thing had climbed down from its place on the door, and was standing upright on the floor, supported by its own bony limbs.

  I had hardly appreciated the full significance of this new development before the skeleton commenced to walk slowly toward us, emitting as it did so the wailing screech of a soul in torment. I could distinctly see the legs moving up and down, the articulation of the knee joints, and the swinging arms as the weird spectre walked toward us.

  And then I saw something else! The hands were not empty! The bony fingers clutched a long knife, glinting and sparkling in the ghastly light given off by the dead bones of the approaching skeleton.

  The voice of Dwire breaking the silence had a distinct quaver in it, and I confess I couldn’t have spoken a word if my life had depended on it. As for Kelley, the brave old cop was crossing himself with one hand, but the gun which he held in the other was steady as a rock.

  “Halt in the name of the law. You are under arrest,” said Dwire.

  The skeleton did halt for a moment, and then doubled on itself. The bones lost their support, and the joints collapsed, seeming unequal to the holding up of the weight.

  At least that was the way it seemed to me at first, and then—suddenly I understood!

  The skeleton had crouched for a spring!

  I raised my revolver, but it was too late.

  With a wild cry, the apparition sprang straight for Dwire, and, either because of the fact it was hard to judge perspective in the dim light, or because of some uncanny agility, it soared through the air like a bird, arms outspread, and the dagger pointing straight at Dwire’s breast.

  It all happened so suddenly, and the change from the slow, solemn tread to the flying leap was so abrupt, that it was too late for me to do anything by the time I had perceived the murderous intention of the horrible apparition.

  Thank God that the others had more presence of mind, for, with a splitting roar, the revolver of Kelley blazed into the night; and, almost at the same instant, a spurt of flame from the automatic of Dwire leapt to meet the grinning skull.

  Both bullets, fired at point-blank from heavy calibre revolvers, arrested the flying figure in midair, just as it was about to descend on Dwire, hurled it back and to the floor, where it fell with a human and solid thud.

  By that time I had recovered my sluggish wits, and was racing for the switch, and flooded the room with lights.

  Lying still on the floor, with a widening pool of blood spreading over the black robes which covered it, lay a very substantial figure. The skeleton of Elbert Crothers hung, swinging from the closet door.

  Dwire, seemingly as cool as though performing an act of ordinary routine, raised the black robe from the still figure of Kimi, who had been instantly killed by a bullet in the forehead.

  “I am sorry to have to prove to you that a trusted servant, and a professed friend, has been false,” said Dwire, turning to me, “but I received evidence in San Francisco which pointed to Kimi as a spy in the employ of interests adverse both to Dr. Potter and our national government. I had made a secret search of his rooms before I left, and found data which gave me the first real clue, including the fact that, in his younger days, in Japan, the Doctor had deserted a native wife, who proved to be Kimi’s sister.

  “An examination of the cellar showed where he had constructed a cunningly arranged passage through the floor of the closet. You will find a phosphorescent skeleton painted upon the black robe which he wore. The rest was simple. He entered the closet through the trapdoor, moved the skeleton about a bit, stepped in front of it and with his back to the chair thereby concealing the phosphorescent skeleton painted on the robe he wore, and also concealing the bones for a moment, then by the simple expedient of turning around was able to present the spectacle of a glowing skeleton which had just stepped down from the closet door. His victim would ordinarily be paralyzed with shock, and it would be a simple matter to stab him before he could make a move.

  “Kimi was an electrical engineer, which explains his interest in Professor Kennedy’s apparatus, and will probably explain the mysterious sounds. He found Phillips, who wrote to us as Jorgensen, found out he was a spiritist, and through a corrupt medium led him to write the note he did, and
to make a nocturnal visit to the house the night of the murder.

  “Kimi had tried to steal the knowledge of a new and terrific war gas the Doctor had developed. Failing in that he resolved to murder him, both for his secret and to avenge his sister. When he learned that I was hot on the trail, he decided to work the scheme again and dispose of me, particularly after overhearing our talk in the living-room. You will find Professor Kennedy is the harmless scientist he appears to be, and that Dawley is just a fresh young hoodlum, who planned to take the Doctor’s car to meet some lady friend.”

  A subsequent investigation proved Dwire correct in every detail. A modification of an electric automobile siren was found imbedded in the door of the closet directly behind the mouth of the skeleton, and a system of wires made it possible to work this siren from several parts of the house. The length of time the contact was maintained varied the volume and pitch of the noise.

  Professor Kennedy, locked in his laboratory, and with his mind on his abstract, scientific problems, had worked through the evening, hearing neither the wails of the siren, nor the revolver shots.

  The Santa Delbara police took charge of the situation and it was hushed up with as little publicity as possible, owing to the fact that a war secret was involved.

  Since I have been in possession of the house, regardless of the elimination of the supernatural aspect of the case, I have had it completely remodeled, and you may be sure the skeleton of Elbert Crothers no longer hangs in the study. Spirits or not, I have never been able to rid my mind of the impression that my friend and benefactor in some way attracted to himself the events which led to his tragic death, by bringing the skeleton of his ancient enemy to hang on the door of his study closet.

  Drop Dead Twice

  Hank Searls