Fingers of Death

CHAPTER XIX. THE PENALTY OF REMORSE

IT was three nights after Willard Saybrook had been rescued from the chamber of doom. Doctor Felton Shores, driving past the Bartram mansion, kept on his way. He had paid a visit at the house on the evening following Saybrook’s disappearance. He had heard Grace Bartram’s expression of anxiety.

“Willard called from the office this morning,” Grace had said. “He told Mahinda that he was called from town for a while. I can’t understand it, doctor. He left before breakfast, and never asked to talk to me when he called—”

Doctor Shores had calmed the girl’s worry. But he had not returned to the Bartram home. Grace had called him to say that she had heard nothing from her fiance; and that she could no longer stand the gloom of the old mansion. Doctor Shores had advised her to take a trip.

Grace Bartram had followed the physician’s advice — but only after a consultation with Hurley Adams.

The old lawyer had seemed perplexed over Saybrook’s sudden departure. When he had heard the physician’s suggestion, he had urged the girl to do as Shores advised.

Adams had promised to inform Saybrook of her trip when he returned, and Grace Bartram, supplied with funds from the estate, had left for New York.

Mahinda remained in charge of the house.

Despite the fact that he had previously called for the secret purpose of conferring with Mahinda, Doctor Shores now avoided the Bartram homestead. He glanced at the gloomy building, and sped rapidly along.

He reached the apartment house where he and his family lived, and alighted from his car.

Shores was noticeably pale as he rode upstairs in the automatic elevator. His fingers trembled as they unlocked the door. The family was out tonight. Shores seemed troubled because he was alone.

The physician paced the floor of his living room, and finally entered the small office which he had always kept in his apartment for special consultations. He seated himself at a desk, drew forth paper and pen, and thumbed his chin nervously while he wondered how he should begin to write.

Thoughts failing, Shores went into a bedroom and hurriedly packed a large valise. He returned to his office, carrying the bag with him. Again, he returned to the task of writing. Only the table lamp was lighted, and it threw a bright circle of light upon the paper that lay before the physician.

DESPERATION began to show on the physician’s face. Shores sank back in his chair; then, with sudden inspiration, he seized the telephone and called a number. A man’s voice answered.

“Is Mr. Hurley Adams there?” queried Shores.

“He is not in, sir,” came Unger’s reply. “I expect him shortly. Who is calling?”

“Tell him I must see him immediately upon his return. This is Doctor Felton Shores.”

When he completed the telephone call, Shores became more restless than before. He snatched up a newspaper that lay upon a chair. Emblazoned in large headlines was the account of the mysterious slaying which had taken both Julius Selwick and Howard Grady. With a hideous gasp, Shores flung the newspaper across the room. He gripped the edge of the desk and panted like a cornered beast.

Again, Shores seized the telephone and called the home of Hurley Adams. He recognized Unger’s voice, and calmed himself sufficiently to express his message.

“Tell Mr. Adams that I must see him,” Shores persisted. “Try to communicate with him. Call places where he may be. Tell him to come to my apartment at once. It is very urgent.”

Unger received the message, and Shores became less nervous. He walked to the outer door of the apartment, and opened it. He looked out into the hall as though expecting to see Hurley Adams appear at any moment. Then, with an expression of resignation, the physician returned to his office desk.

From a wall case, Shores produced a hypodermic syringe; also a small bottle of injection liquid. He poured some of the substance from the bottle into the syringe. He put a label on each, marking the syringe A and the bottle B.

With calm deliberation, Felton Shores picked up the pen and poised it above the sheet of paper. Slowly, Shores began to write these lines:

Doctor Shores ceased writing. His eyes were glued upon the table just beyond the spot where the paper lay. There, like a huge, yellowish spider, a living hand was creeping forward, its fingers ghastly limbs!

Fingers of death!

The physician’s own fingers seemed paralyzed. Motionless, they poised while the threatening claw crept forward until its murderous talons had locked themselves upon the hand of Felton Shores. An ugly chuckle caused the physician to glance upward and meet the gaze of eyes that were before him. Felton Shores groaned. He was in the grip of a murderer — clutched by a man whose insidious schemes he had furthered. The physician was unable to resist. He crouched in his chair, and stared away from the face that leered before him.

“That will be sufficient, Doctor Shores,” said the voice of the visitor. “You should have waited until I arrived before you began your confession. So long as dead names are alone recorded, all is well. But when you are about to name the living—”

“I’m going away,” blurted Shores. “I couldn’t go with all this horror on my mind. That is why I wanted to complete it — so I could give it to you — to keep.”

“You are sure you intended to give it to me?”

“Yes! Yes!” Shores was protesting vehemently. “I wanted you to have it—”

“You did not expect me to come here.”

“Yes! Yes! I felt sure you would be here. I–I was afraid to come to see you after I realized the meaning of all this crime. The death of Risbey made me realize that you had used the method which — which was mine — and I was broken after that. I knew then that you had killed the others — that when Selwick and Grady were slain, it was your work.

“I–I did not know whether you would come here or not — but if you did not come, I would have gone to you. Let me complete my confession. You may keep it then.”

The voice chuckled harshly. The fingers of death still clutched the physician’s hand.

“Wait!” was the command. “You have written enough. The fact that you would write one confession means that you might write another. I entered through your open door, to find you. I offered you wealth, with no participation in the crimes which I took upon myself. I did not expect you to lose your nerve.”

“I did not understand,” protested Shores. “It was not until after Risbey’s death that I realized murder would be wholesale. What have you done with Willard Saybrook? You could have had no cause to murder him!”

“Ah! Saybrook’s death worried you? I should have realized that it would.

“Well, Doctor Shores, I expected you to weaken — but not so soon. I let you learn the truth; I put you to the test. Those visits with Mahinda were merely to check up on you. He was sworn to further every murder. I knew Mahinda would not weaken. He could be trusted with the truth!”

An intense pallor crept over the physician’s face. He was bordering upon a state of complete mental collapse. He seemed to lack the power to resist the dominating methods of the man before him.

“Your confession, Doctor Shores,” said the chuckling voice, “would be acceptable, if complete. Your plan was evidently to deliver it or have it finished when called for. However, it is better in its present state. Its completion must be delayed; and your departure also.”

THE second hand crept across the table. Doctor Shores stared aghast as he saw it pick up the hypodermic syringe that bore the label. Fingers of death brought the needle point close to the physician’s wrist. Wildly, Shores tried to draw away.

“This will suffice,” came the chuckled tones. “The injection that you gave to Josiah Bartram, reserved for yourself. Let us relish the thought of give and take. Why draw away, doctor? Did Josiah Bartram suffer greatly when he died?”

“No! No! Not that!”

Shores was rising now, ready to put up a struggle, but his indecision proved costly. Before he could pull his wrist from the fingers that clutched it; before he could bring his other arm into play, the fingers that held the hypodermic thrust the needle deep into the physician’s wrist.

On his feet, Felton Shores staggered across the room. His visitor was there before him, blocking the door.

Shores cried out for aid; but the closing door prevented his voice from carrying far. The physician tottered. His strength was leaving him. He sank to his knees, and began to clutch at his throat. In maddened desperation, he cried out the only words that came to his mind — those words that he had heard Josiah Bartram utter:

“Fingers of death! Fingers of death!”

The cry became a gargle. Other words that Shores sought to utter died in his throat. The physician’s body rolled upon the floor and lay motionless.

The fingers of death became active. They carefully polished the syringe, and placed it, still labeled, beside Shores. They did not touch the incomplete confession. A gas jet extended from the wall. The fingers turned the handle, and an odor manifested itself in the room.

Turning his back upon the still body of Doctor Felton Shores, the man who had done these deeds opened the door of the office and stepped forth. He closed the door behind him. His footsteps shuffled out of the apartment.

The single lamp upon the office table showed the inert form of Doctor Felton Shores. It gleamed upon the paper that the man had written. The hissing of the gas jet continued.

Those who might enter upon this ghastly scene would gain an obvious conclusion. Doctor Felton Shores, despondently writing a confession of crime, had seized that fact to take his own life. He had turned on the gas to assure his suicide; then, to make death positive, he had injected into his own body the same solution that he had used upon Josiah Bartram.

There lay the scene — sure evidence of suicide. The man who had weakened was silenced forever.

Fingers of death had worked cunningly tonight!

Doctor Felton Shores had paid the penalty of remorse.