Weird Tales, Volume 1, Number 4, June, 1923: The unique magazine

Stealthily, he approached the steps. All that he could see was a murky hole, into which the cement stairs disappeared. A step at a time he made his way down—

And then he paused, holding himself bent forward, rigid as a man of stone. From beyond the door which opened out of this pit came a strange sound, the like of which he had never before heard. It was like a jet of steam, or like sand sifting into a tin pail from a considerable height.

Then came another sound—the sing-song voice of the Chinaman, crooning something in a rhythmic chant. Louie could not understand the words, but there was a swing and lilt to the thing that had a curious effect on him: _he felt as if he were being rocked to sleep_.

He threw off this mood with a start. There had come another sound—the squealing of many rats. And there was a grating noise, as if a heavy body were dragging itself about the floor. The rat chorus swelled. The creatures evidently had been turned loose, and were racing about the floor in an agony of terror.

The chorus thinned. Something was happening to them. Presently the last of the rats emitted one long, agonized squeal, and was still.

Louie Martin made his way out of the cellarway and hurried dizzily back to the shelter of the bushes. He didn’t know what had been happening behind that horrible door, but he knew that it was something which turned his flesh to ice. A strange smell had come to him from under the door—

Louie noted with relief that the lights in Colonel Knight’s rooms had been snapped off. That meant that the Colonel had gone to bed. Soon he would be sleeping, and then Louie could put his plan into execution—that would enable him to forget this baffling but vaguely horrible experience.

Somehow, he felt as if great unseen creatures were flying about him, striking at him with black, featherless wings. The air seemed to be in motion.

He caught himself firmly.

“Got to cut it out!” he mumbled under his breath. “Getting dippy! Likely to bite somebody! Got to think about something else!”

He began to think about the jewels; and then his mind shifted, and he was thinking of the woman from whom he and his companions had stolen the pendant. She had been called “Mother of the Friendless.” The jewels had been given to her by a rich patron, to assist in the work of providing for the many who were dependent on her for charity.

The wolves had done a clever bit of work that time. They had caught the jewels while they were in process of transfer from the original owner to the old woman—

Another tangent. Louie was thinking with cold amusement of the fate of Madam Celia, the “Mother of the Friendless.” Luck had turned against her, with the loss of the jewels. Others who had helped her in her earlier years had turned away after that—as if the old woman had suffered contamination by accepting this gift, bequeathed by a certain rather notorious beauty whose affairs had upset thrones and dynasties.

Yes, a very good joke on the old woman. And she had died in abject poverty. That was the way that sort of thing went, Louie realized. One was really a fool to do anything for anyone but one’s self.

A sound came through the half-open window of Colonel Knight’s suite—and again Louie Martin grinned. The master crook, who had stolen the jewels from the “Mother of the Friendless,” was now about to pass them on—only he didn’t know it!

Louie brought the metal barrel over under the window and set it, bottom up, so as to form a secure means of approach to the room beyond. He had thrown off his depression now. But he must work fast.

Cautiously, he stepped upon the barrel and raised his hands to the bottom bar. Twisting it slowly and at the same time pulling, he drew both bar and bolts from their sockets and tossed them to the ground. He wanted to laugh! So this was the wisdom of a Chinaman? He might have known!

There was a stone coping a couple of feet above the top of the thing on which he stood. Louie rested his foot on this coping and laid his hands on the sill. Lightly he drew himself up against the face of the wall.

He paused to listen. The man within was breathing heavily and regularly.

Louie thrust his head through the opening—nothing in sight to alarm him. Then, with a quick spring, he threw his weight upon the sill and was halfway through the window—

Half-way, but no farther; for as his weight descended fully upon the sill, the upper sash crashed down like the lever of a great engine. The thief cried out once, a hideous, choking cry that echoed through the room and on into the house of Ah Wing.

Then he was silent, drooping there like one who has been broken on the wheel. Blood dripped from his mouth and nostrils, and he had ceased to breathe. He was caught like a huge rat in a trap!

_CHAPTER SEVEN_

THE DEAD MAN SPEAKS

Somewhere beyond the mist-enshrouded marshes the whistle of a grain ship boomed, to be answered a moment later by the metallic scream of a siren. Vague and mysterious filaments of sound drifted in with the eddying night wind.

“Damn such a country!” the “Kid” snarled, as he turned from the door and tramped back into the house. “How long you going to keep us rusticating out here, Chief? I’m fed up on nature!”

Monte Jerome scowled at his assistant.

“We’re going to stay here till we get what we came for!” he replied. “If Martin doesn’t show up by morning, we got to decide what he’s up to!”

An uncanny silence gripped the four Wolves. Nearly twenty-four hours had passed since Louie Martin went on duty, and nothing had been heard from him. An uncomfortable idea was developing in the minds of the various members of the “mob.”

Suddenly the “Kid” voiced this general suspicion. With a snarl, he pointed accusingly at Monte.

“Fact is, Louie ain’t coming back, Chief, and you know it! He’s grabbed something—maybe the sparklers—and he’s beat it. Don’t blame him a damn bit, neither. We’re going to set around here with our mouths open till the dicks get after us. But Louie ain’t coming back, and you just put that down in your note-book!”

Monte turned toward the speaker.

“Is that your opinion, you lump-head? Well, keep it till I ask you for it. The trouble with you is you’ve been thinking of cutting loose, yourself. Louie will show up all right. Don’t you worry about him.”

“Hell of a lot you know about it!” mumbled the “Kid” angrily.

Monte walked slowly toward him, his eyes blazing.

“Trying to start something?” he demanded. “If you are—”

The Strangler intervened at this critical moment. He and the “Kid” had had a disagreement earlier in the evening when the latter moved into the room left vacant by Louie Martin’s unexplained absence. This was a ground-floor room with an abundance of light and sun, and the “Kid,” with a loose-lipped grin, announced that his doctor had told him he ought to have it. The Strangler had protested; but the “Kid” had possession, and made it plain that he meant to hang on.

Now the Strangler sided maliciously with Monte.

“You’re always belly-aching about something, Kid,” he declared. “You better lay off and give us a rest. The Chief knows what he is doing!”

Monte paused, thankful for this opportune intervention. He had made up his mind to square account with the “Kid” just as soon as the real business which held them together was finished, but a show-down now would be dangerous to the success of the larger affair.

“Let’s cut it all out, boys!” he suggested pacifically. “I’ll go on duty up to two o’clock. Doc, you set the alarm. You’ll relieve me. I’ll try to find out something—that Chink may have grabbed Louie. We ought to know what has happened before we pull anything!”

He nodded to the others and left the house. The three crooks settled down to their usual evening: the “Kid” got out a deck of cards and began to play a one-handed game of his own devising; Billy the Strangler drew his chair over in front of the fireplace and adjusted his feet on the mantle—in this position he would smoke and stare into the coals till he grew sleepy—and “Doc” took from the table an illustrated magazine and turned to the serial he was reading. Occasionally he glanced covertly at one of his companions: “Doc” sensed the coming battle between these two gunmen, and had no intention of being caught within the firing lines.

The wind freshened, and they could hear it wailing around the house and through the upper windows. The window in the “Kid’s” room rattled and banged, and he looked abstractedly up.

“Hell of a night!” he mumbled. “Sounds like all the dead men in this neck of the woods was hanging around outside, wheezing to be took in by the fire! Listen to that window rattle!”

The Strangler smoked on imperturbably.

From somewhere in the house above there came a sound—low and uncertain at first, then rising to a sort of scream. The “Kid” threw down his cards and staggered to his feet. The Strangler hauled his long legs down from the mantle and reached under his coat for the handle of his automatic. “Doc” turned pale—he was too sophisticated to be superstitious, but this unearthly cry was a fact rather than a theory.

“What the devil was that?” the “Kid” demanded hoarsely. “Say, if that was one of them birds—”

“That must have been it!” “Doc” decided aloud. “A night heron, blown against the chimney! What a night to be out in!”

He shivered and picked up his magazine, but the zest had gone out of his reading. From the corners of his eyes he observed that the “Kid” was gathering up his cards, and that Billy had not again elevated his feet to the mantle.

“Well, I guess I’ll be going to _my_ room,” the “Kid” drawled presently, emphasizing the possessive pronoun to tantalize the Strangler. “Kind of feel like a little snooze would take the wrinkles out of my brains. This place sure does give me the willies!”

He slouched into the hall communicating with the back rooms—a kitchen and his bedroom—and they heard him shuffling through the darkness. Following a moment of silence, his voice sounded in a steady mumble. Then it was raised in expostulation.

“Who the hell has been fooling with my light? It won’t turn on!”

Another brief interval of silence, then a bellow of rage and fear from the man in the back bedroom.

“Who’s there? Go way from me! Damn—”

They leaped up at the sound of the “Kid’s” stumbling gallop. He burst into the room, and they saw that his face was the color of ashes.

“For God’s sake, who’s in that room—my room?” he cried, staring at them through straining, glassy eyes. “Come on, you fellows! Here, I’ll take a flashlight—the globe must be burned out!”

He snatched up an electric torch and led the way back through the hall, the Strangler at his shoulder, “Doc” some distance behind.

“Someone let out a groan when I went inside the door,” the “Kid” was explaining. “And then he says right in my ear, ‘This ain’t your room, Kid!’ Listen!”

They were within five feet of the bedroom door when the “Kid” paused and held up a trembling hand. He was directing the light of the torch upon the doorway. And at that moment there came from it a groan, followed by a muttered protest.

“_My room!_” a voice within the room said distinctly.

“Holy Mother!” whispered the Strangler. “That sounds like Louie! He must be hurt!”

“How in hell would he get in there?” protested the “Kid.” “Come on—let’s see!”

They stepped inside the room, and the ray of the flashlight began to circle it. Suddenly the circling beam came to a stop.

“In the bed!” gasped the “Kid.” “He’s there, covered up!”

Slowly and unwillingly, an inch at a time as if drawn by some irresistible force, the three Wolves crossed the room and approached the bed. They could all see the huddled form lying there, covered even to the face. There was something about it—an utter absence of motion—that terrified them. But they could not turn back.

The “Kid” reached the bedside and for a long moment stood glaring down. Then, with shaking fingers, he caught the edge of the bedding and threw it back.

In the concentrated light of the lantern, there stared up at them the livid face of Louie Martin. His glazed eyes protruded, and there was a trickle of blood running from his nostril to the left corner of his mouth. And in his face was an expression of frozen horror which stopped the hearts even of the hardened crooks who looked down in momentary paralysis.

With a scream, the “Kid” dropped the lantern and turned, treading upon the toes of the Strangler. Another scream sounded, high and shrill—it came from the direction of the bed.

“Why can’t you let me rest?” a quavering voice protested. “This is my room—”

They heard no more. The three swore and sobbed as they raced for the front room. They slammed doors behind them, and brought up, shaking as if in ague, directly under the big, brilliantly lighted chandelier.

“Somebody bumped him off—and he came back to tell us about it!” the “Kid” whispered.

_CHAPTER EIGHT_

AH WING LISTENS IN

“He’s certainly good and dead!” Monte said, as he stood looking down at the body of Louie Martin. “Whatever they did to him, it was a plenty! But you boys must be a little bilious—you can see for yourselves that he hasn’t been doing any talking for some time. What you heard was the wind, blowing around the corners of the house!”

The “Kid” drew the back of his hand across his glistening forehead. He was standing near the door.

“Don’t kid yourself, Chief!” he snarled. “We heard him talk—all of us did! And there’s another thing: us being bilious wouldn’t account for Louie Martin walking in on us here, and climbing into that bed!”

Monte was staring down at the dead man.

“You say you heard the windows back here rattling earlier in the evening?” he demanded.

“Sure. Why wouldn’t they? The whole house was rattling!”

Monte nodded. He had his own ideas on this subject, but he didn’t intend to spread them before his already demoralized followers.

“Well, the thing we’ve got to decide is what we’re going to do with him,” he commented. “We’ve got to handle the whole business ourselves, and say nothing. We can’t afford to have the dicks asking questions around here just now!”

Tacitly, Monte’s three companions agreed, but there was in their pale faces a question which none of them had the courage to voice. Monte continued, apparently unconscious of their emotions.

“Billy,” he said, “you get the spade and dig a grave over close to the fence. After we get him planted, we’ll move that pile of old bean poles over the place. It’s kind of tough, but Louie is dead—and we got to look out for ourselves!”

The Strangler went silently out into the dark. They heard him rummaging for a spade, and presently the _clink_ of the latter implement came industriously to them. The grave was finished by the time the first gray light of dawn began to filter down around the cottage, and presently the body of the dead crook, wrapped in a blanket, was lowered into it. Then the dirt was shoveled back till the cavity would hold no more, and the superfluous earth was scattered over the surface of the garden. The shifting of a pile of bean poles finished the ceremony.

“I’ll trade rooms with you, Kid,” Monte said to the saturnine strong-arm man—who for once looked rather cowed. “I never was afraid of a dead man—just so that he was really dead. I guess you’re kind of soured on that part of the house!”

“Soured is right,” mumbled the “Kid.” “Say, I wouldn’t sleep in there if you was to give me all the sparklers in New York! Just let me get my stuff out!”

As he went back toward the room from which the body had recently been removed, the “Kid” saw the mocking glance of the Strangler fastened upon him. Billy was enjoying his discomfiture. He went into the room and turned on the light—the burned-out bulb had been replaced, so that now he was able to see into all the corners. He began to gather up his property, staring nervously about him the while.

Cautiously, he approached the closet, where he had stored his bathrobe and an extra suit, a couple of pairs of shoes and a pearl gray hat. He opened the door wide and stepped back. Nothing inside. Hastily he carted the clothing out. Then he crossed over to the bureau and opened the left-hand upper drawer, in which he had placed his jewelry—some rings and tie pins.

The “Kid” drew the drawer fully open and stood looking down into it. Then a startled exclamation escaped him, and he bent nearer, staring wide-eyed.

All of his possessions were there; but in addition he saw, close to the back of the drawer, a morocco covered box of peculiar design. The “Kid” had seen that box once before!

With trembling fingers he undid the clasp and opened the lid. He could feel his heart pounding in the top of his head, and his throat seemed to contract, so that he fought for breath. The Resurrection Pendant! A single glance convinced him of that. But how had it come into this drawer?

The “Kid’s” mind deviated from the line of this natural inquiry. He could forget that for the moment—the fact was that here it was. But there was no reason why he should share this discovery with the other Wolves. This supreme good fortune had come to him, not to them! He quickly shut the lid of the case and slid the box into an inside pocket.

He removed his property to Monte’s room, hiding the jewel case under the mattress. His blood had turned to liquid fire. He had that for which they had all been searching—and it was his alone!...

Monte went on guard that evening, taking “Doc” with him: not that Monte was afraid, but he realized that the battle had now entered its final and decisive phase. And it was real war. Monte Jerome had no doubt that Martin had, in some mysterious way, been done to death in the house of Ah Wing.

“You boys better get to bed early,” he said. “Billy, you take the clock and set it for half past one. You wake the Kid as soon as you get up—we’ll stand double guard from now on!”

The “Kid” hardly heard Monte speaking. He wanted to examine the jewels again, wanted to figure out just how he was going to make the break which would free him from his comrades.

For a time, after the other two had departed, he sat around smoking and cleaning out the barrel of his pistol, which the fogs of this marshy neighborhood were corroding. He cleaned barrel and chamber and oiled the action, then replaced the clip of cartridges and slipped the gun into a side pocket.

“Well,” he mumbled, half aloud, “I guess I’ll be getting to bed. An’ I hope to God there won’t be no voices around here tonight!”

The Strangler grunted, and the “Kid” slouched off up the stairs and into the room that had been Monte’s. He closed the door carefully, crossed over to the light, and then stood listening.

The night wind was stirring around the house, whistling and moaning down the chimney; but the “Kid” had an antidote for fear tonight: he went over to his bed and fumbled for the jewels. The touch of the smooth leather-covered box started his heart to pounding.

He laid the box on the bed and opened it. The light was reflected into his eyes from a thousand sharp facets, crimson and blue and white—but perhaps the charm was wearing off: the stones did not look as wonderful to him tonight as they had in that momentary view he had caught during the afternoon.

“And that’s the bunch of sparklers men go dippy about!” the “Kid” mumbled. “Hell, I wouldn’t give two bits for the whole bunch, if I couldn’t sell ’em! There’s too many of ’em, and they don’t shine so terrible much! I saw a big buck nigger on State Street once with a solitaire on that would have made them look phoney—and it was glass! Oh, well, I should worry. I ain’t going to wear ’em—I’m going to _sell_ ’em! I’ll have to play safe—”

At the ghost of a sound from behind, the “Kid” whirled. He had left the door closed, but now it was open—and the Strangler stood inside the room, grinning.