The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories

Charles M. Green was one of the pseudonyms of Erle Stanley Gardner. While most pulp writers struggled to earn a living, Gardner managed to leap into the big time very quickly. His first two fictional works were sold in 1921 to Breezy Stories. His third story, “The Shrieking Skeleton,” was sold to Black Mask in 1923 under the pen name Charles M. Green. He continued to use this byline to sell stories and articles to such publications as Life, Droll Stories, Mystery Magazine, Chicago Ledger, The Smart Set, TripleX, and, of course, Black Mask, for the next year.

Among the other Gardner pseudonyms are A. A. Fair, his most well-known, under which he wrote a long series of novels about Bertha Cool and Donald Lam; Carleton Kendrake, for a single novel, The Clew of the Forgotten Murder (1935), which has been frequently reprinted under Gardner’s own name as The Clue of the Forgotten Murder; and Charles Kenny, also with a single novel, This Is Murder (1935), also reissued under Gardner’s own name.

While Perry Mason is nearly a household name, Gardner created numerous other series characters for the pulps, including Ed Jenkins, known variously as “the Phantom Crook” and “the Gentleman Rogue”; Sidney Zoom, the master of disguise; Soo Hoo Duck, the “King of Chinatown”; Speed Dash, the “Human Fly”; Lester Leith, con man extraordinaire; Ken Corning, a lawyer in the Mason mold; Paul Pry, the brilliant grifter; and the Patent Leather Kid.

“The Shrieking Skeleton” was published in the issue of December 1923.

When a man buys the body of his greatest enemy and makes a skeleton out of it, there are almost sure to be rare doings — not all of them easily explainable by human motives. You’ll get a thrill when the skeleton and the detectives get to work.

I have heard much about the power of money, but the greatest surprise of my life came when I learned that my friend Dr. Alfred Potter had purchased the body of his old-time enemy, Elbert Crothers, “for scientific purposes.”

A long acquaintance with the numerous vagaries of my rich medical friend had so inured me to his eccentricities that I felt nothing from that quarter could surprise me. His long-standing antagonism to Elbert Crothers had furnished many spectacular quarrels, until Crothers had lost his fortune in one grand smash, after which I had heard but little of the feud.

I knew, it is true, that Dr. Potter employed detectives to keep him advised of the location and activities of his old enemy, who had become a common hobo; but I was at a loss to account for the motive which prompted the Doctor to obtain Crothers’ body after the latter’s death, or the means employed to secure such an unusual result.

The confidential note in which my friend gave me the information was typical of the man:

To say that I was puzzled to account for this latest eccentricity on the part of the wealthy doctor would be to put it mildly; but I was under sufficient obligations to him to make me feel anxious to comply with his request. A man much my senior, he had been responsible for putting me through law school, and had seen me started in the practice which was now bringing me in a very comfortable income. Each year he extended me an invitation to visit his Santa Delbara home for a week or two, and I eagerly looked forward to these trips.

Dr. Potter lived alone, except for his servants, in a magnificent house built on the hills nearly a mile from the city of Santa Delbara. He had long since retired from general practice, and devoted his attention to investigations along the line of scientific research. Of great wealth, and a recluse by nature, he was free to devote his entire time to experiments which were not only highly original, but which, rumor had it, were sometimes a trifle weird in their nature.

In due course I arrived at Santa Delbara, and was met at the train by the Doctor’s chauffeur, John Dawley, a young man whom I had met on my previous visits.

I had never fully approved of Dawley. He had seemed a trifle “fresh,” and I greeted him with what I was convinced was formal dignity. It took more than a formal greeting to repress the young scamp, and he addressed me with that free and easy manner which was so distasteful.

“H’llo Guv’ner. See you’re back with us again. The Boss’ll be glad to see you, but it’ll make a lot more work for me with no extra pay. That is, unless the tips is good. Ha, ha! Nothin’ like askin’ for what a feller wants these days.”

I made some reply, and, ignoring the hint, entered the car. I never could understand why Dr. Potter, with his quiet refinement, keen mind and unfailing courtesy, permitted a man like John Dawley to remain in his employ. I remembered hearing some gossip about his being the relative of Dr. Potter’s dead brother. Rumor said he was an illegitimate son of the dead brother, who had requested Dr. Potter to look after the boy.

Although I had eagerly looked forward to meeting my friend again, yet it was with grave misgivings that I approached the large, white mansion perched on the hill. Intuition told me Dr. Potter had something more in mind than the mere selection of a skeleton for his den, when he had arranged for the purchase of the body of his dead enemy.

I was met at the door by the Doctor’s confidential manservant, “Kimi.” I believe that originally Kimi’s name was Kukui Shinahara, but the Doctor had always referred to him as “Kimi” (meaning “you” in the Japanese language), and “Kimi” he had become.

There is perhaps nothing more flattering on earth than the smile of a Japanese friend, it is so expansive and enthusiastic. Even when one doubts the absolute sincerity behind it, it is flattering.

In the case of Kimi I really numbered him as a friend following the custom of the Doctor, who treated Kimi with every consideration, and more as a friend than a servant. He had been with the Doctor for years, a trusted and loyal employee. He knew all of the Doctor’s friends, and the manner in which he greeted them was a pretty good indication of just where they stood in the favor of his employer.

It was partly a knowledge of this custom on the part of the grinning servant which made me feel such pleasure at the sincerity of his greeting and the expansive smile with which he greeted me. He told me the “master” was awaiting me in the study, and I lost no time in following him to that portion of the house.

Dr. Potter really was glad to see me; of that I am positive, and subsequent developments proved it; but, to one who did not know his peculiar character, it would have been hard to believe, from anything in his greeting, that he had not seen me for nearly a year, or that he cared anything about me. His greeting was as casual and matter-of-fact as though I had just returned from an hour’s absence.

Lest I give you a wrong impression of my friend, I must mention something of his wonderful control of his emotions, and his philosophy of life. A deep student of the “mystic,” he believed both pleasure and pain were merely relative mental states, and had nothing whatever to do with the real facts of life. A rigorous schooling had taught him to absolutely control his emotions, and I doubt if I have ever heard him laugh; and certain I am that he has never given way to any expression or ejaculation of surprise or dismay in my presence.

Tall, thin, yet filled with a supple grace of movement, and with muscles like whipcords, in spite of his sixty years; by far the most striking thing about him was his face, calm, serene, immobile, almost expressionless, it furnished a setting for a pair of deep blue eyes from which seemed to emerge a species of violet ray, playing over one like a searchlight peering into the mind.

“Well, well, Pearce,” he greeted in his crisp, well-modulated tone, “it is indeed a pleasure to see you once more, and a double pleasure to think that you responded so promptly to my note.”

“And it’s mighty good to see you!” I exclaimed, grasping him by the hand, with an eager enthusiasm I made no effort to control. “I should indeed be a sorry friend, to say nothing about being an ungrateful one, if I failed to accept an invitation to spend a week or two with you, when my presence might be of some benefit to you.”

A flash of gratification momentarily played over his features. It was merely an emotional flicker which would have meant nothing in another man; but, in the case of Dr. Potter, it showed how deep and sincere was his pleasure and gratification, and was another indication of the fact that something was in the wind — a something which had not been so fully disclosed but which made him anxious to have me with him.

“Which brings us to the subject of my note,” he rapped out in that direct, sometimes abrupt manner which was so characteristic of the man. “Run up to your room for a wash, for I know what a dusty trip you have had, and then rejoin me here for a chat over our cigars.”

The study was in reality a private laboratory and workroom combined, and I knew that a conference held there would be upon strictly business subjects, and that the matter must be of something more than ordinary importance.

The room was perhaps thirty feet long by twenty wide, furnished with a few wicker chairs, deep and comfortable, yet severe in their lines; and by benches, shelves and bookcases. Here it was my friend spent by far the greater portion of his time, working, experimenting and studying.

The room was in the southeast corner of the house, and had only one door, that leading to a hallway on the west side. This door had a spring lock, and when experimenting or engaged in study, Dr. Potter would allow no one to enter on any pretext. It was his custom, on such occasions, to keep the latch on the door, so that it locked automatically when closed.

When I rejoined the Doctor in the study, no time was lost in getting promptly to the business in hand. Opening the door of a small closet on the south side of the room, he showed me, suspended on the inside of the door, a complete skeleton.

“Permit me,” he remarked in the most serious tone, “to present my associate, and one-time enemy, Elbert Crothers.

“Crothers,” turning to the skeleton, “This is Walter Pearce, an attorney of Los Angeles, of whom you have doubtless heard me speak.”

I am as willing as the next man to face the vital facts of existence, and I realize only too well the lot of all mortal flesh, but there is something uncanny and creepy in a human skeleton dangling from the inside of a closet door, its sightless eyes staring hollowly into space, its lipless grin mocking the warm red corpuscles of one’s blood, penetrating to and chilling the marrow of one’s bones. This effect is enhanced when the skeleton is that of a man one has known, and the impression caused by the formal introduction was grim, unreal and hideous.

My flesh began to creep as the bleached bones that had once been the mortal abode of Elbert Crothers appeared to rattle and sway in acknowledgment of the introduction.

At first I thought Dr. Potter had some method of manipulating the door to make the skeleton gyrate in an uncanny shimmy of death; but a closer inspection showed that the joints had been so perfectly adjusted in articulation, and the skeleton hung with such a nice degree of accuracy, that the slightest motion of the door would cause the bones to sway backward and forward for several seconds.

I am not particularly nervous, and yet I know my face was a shade lighter than usual as I sank into my chair. The Doctor, on the other hand, positively seemed to enjoy the proximity of the skeleton, and stood by the door of the closet, his lean face expressionless as ever, the slender fingers of his right hand stroking the long bones of what had once been the powerful forearm of Elbert Crothers.

“Pearce,” came the sudden inquiry, “have I title to this thing or not?”

The question took me somewhat off my guard.

“Just how do you mean?” I countered.

“Just this,” resumed my host, concisely, “Elbert Crothers passed out in the County Hospital of a small Indiana town in which is located a medical university. Instead of burying the indigent casualties in a local Potters’ Field, the custom is to turn the bodies, for a nominal consideration, over to the dissecting department of the university.

“This made things easier for me, although I should have had my way in any event; a little pull with the faculty of the university, a little money, and — presto! — the thing was done. Elbert Crothers, or all that was left of him, was delivered into my possession, to do with as I liked.

“Now in regard to title. Crothers, I understood at the time, left no direct relatives. Subsequent investigations show that he had a cousin who, it seems, is a spiritualist, or ‘spiritist,’ as he prefers to be called. In some way this cousin — Jorgensen is the name he goes by — has found out that I have the skeleton here.”

The problem thus presented to me was one which is not often placed before an attorney in the course of a general practice, and I had to reason back to elementals before answering:

“As a general rule, a man, strange as it may seem, has no property in his dead body. It is really the property of the state. Custom and usage, in most jurisdictions, have decreed that a person may dispose of his remains, as far as indicating the manner of burial or cremation. The body itself is not an asset. It may not be attached, nor levied upon under an execution.

“In the present case if you have acted without regular permission from the proper authorities, and I take it that you have, there is a possibility that this man, Jorgensen, may make you some trouble; not particularly because of the relationship, but as an interested citizen who may start the proper judicial machinery of the state in operation to inquire how you came by the skeleton.

“What I can’t understand is how you allowed him to find out that you had the body. Understand, I mean no criticism, but it seems strange that you allowed him to get the information.”

My friend favored me with that twinkle of the eye, a mere relaxation of the muscles, which passes for a smile in his vocabulary of facial expressions.

“Thereby hangs a tale. Naturally, I acted with all secrecy, and you may imagine my feelings when I received this letter in the mail a few days after the body had been prepared into the skeleton which you see before you.”

The paper passed over to me consisted of a single sheet on which was written, in a fine, Spencerian hand, presumably that of a clerical person, the following rather remarkable note:

I re-read the letter before speaking.

“Do you mean to tell me that you believe this rot? This is beyond question the work of a gang of blackmailers who have either traced the shipment of the body, or else have secured information from some member of your own household.”

The Doctor spoke decidedly:

“There was no earthly way in which the writer of that letter could have traced the body to this house. When I tell you that I went to considerable trouble and expense to protect myself against developments of just this nature, and that even my own detectives did not and do not know who was their employer, or what was done with the body, you will understand that I am not speaking idly.

“My chauffeur, who might be considered open to suspicion by a stranger, unfortunately has not the advantage of breeding or education, but I have every reason to believe he is loyal, as he owes everything he has in the world to me. Kimi, I would trust anywhere, and he has been with me for years. The only other inmate of the house, Professor Gordon Kennedy, is a person whom you have not met, but one whose mind is entirely steeped in abstract scientific research. He is the typical absent-minded scientist, and has been employed as my assistant for the past few months.

“No, I have absolutely no doubt as to the honesty or discretion of the persons in this household or associated with me; but the real point is that they knew nothing of the receipt of the body nor the preparation of the skeleton; and when the skeleton was completed and I was ready to hang it on this door, I surreptitiously removed another skeleton I had been keeping in the study. It would take a skilled anatomist to detect the difference.”

“Then how the devil could this cousin of Crothers have traced the skeleton here?” I puzzled.

“That is the problem which has given me some food for reflection. You are doubtless aware that scientific research has proven that most of the supposedly spiritistic phenomena are in reality based on mental telepathy. I believe that it is possible that this Jorgensen (the name is an assumed one, by the way) has learned of the location of the body, or skeleton, through some telepathic method. There remains the only other explanation mentioned in this letter.”

I scrutinized the speaker narrowly, thinking at first he might be joking.

“Surely you are not seriously advocating spiritualism?”

The Doctor shrugged.

“Who knows?

“If you really wish my candid opinion,” he added, choosing his words carefully lest I misunderstand his meaning, “I have been greatly intrigued by some of the more recent claims of the spiritists; and some time ago I determined to investigate the matter for myself when a proper opportunity should arise. Upon learning of the death of Elbert Crothers I felt that if I could convey his body to my study in such a manner that no one could possibly know of it, I might lay the foundation for an instructive experiment.

“Crothers would use every ounce of any force which might be at his command on the other side to prevent my carrying out such a scheme. ‘Haunt’ me, I believe, is the popular word.

“Therefore, I substituted bodies in this Indiana town with all secrecy, sold the substituted body as that of Crothers to the dissecting department of the university, transported the real body by roundabout methods to Los Angeles, and from there drove it myself at night to the house here, after making absolutely certain that I was not followed.

“A few days after I had prepared the skeleton, which I did by secret and original methods, I received that letter in the mail. You will notice that the letter hints at the process which was used in preparing the skeleton from the body.

“Of course, I immediately left no stone unturned until I had located the writer of that letter. His true name is Phillips, he lives in San Francisco, and as he claims to be, is probably a cousin of Crothers.”

The situation was getting too much for my conservative, legal type of mind, and I was about to bring to bear all my powers of logic to prove to my friend that he was the victim of some blackmailing gang, or otherwise mistaken in his premises, when — my blood froze in my veins!

Low and menacing, and from somewhere in the vicinity of the head of the skeleton, came a vindictive, ominous moan, long drawn out and indescribably weird. There was something in the nature of the sound which immediately convinced one that it could never have emanated from a human throat!

“For God’s sake, what is that?” I shouted.

The Doctor did not answer for a moment. Apparently as calm and serene as ever, his head was cocked slightly to one side, in an effort to determine the exact location of the sound. It was nearly a minute before he spoke, and, when he did so, he might have been lecturing a classroom for all the emotion displayed.

“I was just about to mention those moans, and am very glad that you have had this opportunity to hear them. I cannot tell you what produces or causes the sound; but several times each twenty-four hours since I have had our friend Mr. Crothers hanging on that door, and usually while I am absolutely alone in the room, that moan or wail can be distinctly heard, lasting for a few seconds, and sounding much the same as you have just heard it.”

I could feel the cold sweat breaking out on my forehead as I stared into the sightless caverns of the grinning skull.

“But,” I stammered, “it seemed to come from the very mouth of the skeleton.”

“That,” was the rejoinder, “we shall soon discover. In anticipation of a repetition of the sound, I had constructed a coil containing a sound screen in a magnetic field, by which the direction of sound may be accurately determined. The method is not particularly new, and is an adaptation of the means used to ascertain the direction of a wireless sending station. When this moan started, I pressed the button you see here on the chair, which started the current flowing through the sound detector. There was no other sound in the room at the time, and, as I shut off the current immediately upon the cessation of the noise, we should have some results.

“If you will be so good as to take a look at that box in the corner, you will find an arrow suspended on the top of a needle. Sight along that arrow, and you will find the exact direction of the sound.”

Dr. Potter indicated a box sitting in a corner of the study on the top of which was a little arrow, cunningly mounted on a swivel, on a thin steel rod. I had not taken three steps in that direction before I knew the answer.

“It is pointed directly toward the head of the skeleton!” I exclaimed.

“Exactly,” came the dry comment of my host. “Now you will understand why I am giving to the matter of that letter more than a passing interest.”

The events of the last few moments had left me shaken and excited. The unreality of the whole business, coupled with the tone of deadly menace in that moan, so apparently emanating from the dead bones gibbering at us from the closet door, had entirely upset my nerves.

“Let’s get out of here,” I gasped.

Without a word the Doctor arose, calmly closed the closet door, and escorted me to the floor above, where the luxuriously furnished living-room looked out over the blue waters of the Pacific. The room was directly over the studio beneath, and I was probably not over twenty feet away from the skeleton in a direct line; but there was something so serene in the tranquil sunlight pouring in the wide windows that I felt miles away from the gruesome thing in the room below.

Feeling ashamed of my emotion, I sank into a chair and stole a glance at my host. His face was as expressionless as ever. He was sitting, puffing reflectively on a cigar, exhaling the smoke in those short, crisp puffs which, experience has taught me, denote mental concentration in the habitual smoker.

A wave of emotion swept over me. I was probably the only confidant he had in the world, and he had done so much more for me than I could ever do for him that I felt humbled and meek.

“For heaven’s sake, Alfred,” I burst out with sudden feeling, “take that ghastly thing and give it a burial. Get rid of it. Get it out of the house tonight, now. Something seems to tell me that you are going to be exposed to danger unless that skeleton is taken away and taken away at once.”

The face turned toward me was tranquil in its calm decision, and I knew the answer even before it came.

“If I did that, Walter, I should lose the best opportunity I will ever have to make an impartial investigation of modern spiritistic phenomena. This bids fair to be an unusual case, and I had much rather lose my life than back out of the solution of a problem of scientific interest.”

I knew, indeed, that the scientist was speaking the simple truth, without boasting or bravado, merely making a plain statement of fact, and that any further argument would be worse than wasted.

I was on the point of making some reply, however, when I experienced that peculiar feeling which creeps over me when someone is standing close to me, and of whose presence I am otherwise unaware. The recent experience in the study had made me nervous, and I jumped from my chair, spinning around on my heel — to find Kimi standing at my elbow with the tea service.

This betrayal of my intense nervous state caused me considerable embarrassment, and the laugh with which I attempted to pass over the matter had a hysterical ring in it which chagrined me still further.

If anyone noticed this besides myself nothing was said about it. Kimi silently proceeded with the duties in hand, and the Doctor discussed a game of golf he had enjoyed the week before.

“You know,” I remarked, as Kimi slipped out of the room, “there is something uncanny in the way Kimi moves in and out of a room without a sound. I remember commenting on the subject the last time I was here, and he has grown worse since. He glides around like a shadow.”

My companion smiled.

“That is one of the things I have been trying to teach him. There is nothing more annoying to me than to be interrupted in the midst of some deep problem by the noise of a person crossing the room. I have been impressing on Kimi the necessity for absolute silence at all times when I am working. As you probably know, when I am locked in the study nothing is ever allowed to disturb me. In fact, I have the only key in existence for that door. I latch it when I go in and I am sure no one will interrupt me.

“Professor Kennedy, the assistant of whom I spoke, is sometimes with me, but when I am about to engage in private work, I do not allow even him in the room. As I said before, he is rather absent-minded. He is rather a character.

“Here he comes now, by the way. I am anxious to have you meet him, but you must not mind if he fails to acknowledge the introduction.”

A rather short, heavy-set man entered the room. I judged him to be about forty-seven or — eight. His eyes were distorted by a huge pair of heavy, tortoise-shell spectacles containing lenses of unusual thickness. His features were heavy and his neck thick and muscular. I noticed a frown on his forehead as he approached Dr. Potter, absolutely ignoring my presence, and I am convinced he did not even know I was in the room.

“Look here, Doctor,” he began in a thin, high-pitched voice, “I can’t seem to get any proper results with my germ cultures. I had arranged an electric incubator, and now your confounded Japanese servant has juggled the thermostatic adjustment on me and the temperature has dropped twenty degrees.”

It seemed such an oddity for so large a man to complain of what was doubtless so trivial a matter in such a querulous voice that I smiled covertly.

“Never mind that for the present, Professor Kennedy,” said my host, and his slight accent on the title convinced me that his assistant was a stickler for that form of salutation, “I want you to meet my very dear friend and adviser Mr. Walter Pearce, the Los Angeles attorney of whom you have heard me speak.”

If I had previously entertained any doubt as to the absent-minded abstraction of Professor Kennedy, it was removed right there. I was standing at his right, but he turned to his left, as if expecting to find me standing there; saw no one, turned to the right, and gave me his short, thick hand in a grasp of remarkable vigor, jerked out that he was pleased to know me, and returned immediately to the subject of his complaint.

“I don’t know what’s the matter; I can’t seem to keep things in order in my laboratory. I’m afraid those cultures are ruined.”

“Well, I will look into the matter later,” soothed Dr. Potter. “At present I am taking Pearce out for a ride. If the cultures are ruined there is nothing for it but to start a new batch, and I suppose it will be possible to put a set-screw on the thermostatic control to prevent its being thrown out of adjustment again by any accidental jar.”

“It wasn’t any accidental jar that threw that incubator out of adjustment,” squeaked the irate Professor, as he turned on his heel and, without a word to me, left the room with quick, nervous steps.

I smiled at Dr. Potter.

“Your assistant is certainly a peculiar combination. Where did you pick him up?”

I thought for a moment Dr. Potter was going to smile, the twinkle in his eye was pronounced, which was saying a good deal, for him.

“Yes,” he replied, “he is certainly peculiar. He is a chemist of no mean ability, and as an electrical engineer, he is a wonder. There is nothing he cannot construct along the lines of electrical machinery. His periods of abstraction absolutely unfit him for a practical life, and prevent him from turning his knowledge to any financial benefit to himself. I pay him no fixed salary, but give him whatever money he requires from time to time, and he is really in the seventh heaven. Also, by the way, he is very jealous of his title of Professor, and be sure to address him by it when you have occasion to talk with him.

“I suggest that we take a drive for an hour or two in the fresh air. It will steady your nerves and give you an appetite for dinner.”

I had no hesitancy about admitting that I would like an opportunity to recover my mental poise, and eagerly accepted the suggestion.

That afternoon was the most perfect I have ever seen in a climate which revels in perfection. The trip was simply wonderful, and my companion became unusually sociable. In view of later developments, I shall always look back upon that drive as the most delightful three hours I have ever spent with my friend.

There was only one thing which in any wise marred the pleasure of the trip, and that was the annoying habit of John Dawley, the chauffeur, of keeping his head partially turned in order to hear the conversation.

I finally suggested to my companion that the draught from the front of the car with the window open was slightly annoying, and he obligingly raised the plate-glass which separated the driver’s compartment from the tonneau.

We spent three hours in the delightful, warm air, driving down to the white sand where the breakers washed almost to the wheels, and then in less than half an hour ascending the Pindola Grade, rising in a few miles more than four thousand feet above the blue Pacific.

Tucked away near the top of the grade, nestling in a little valley, surrounded by mountains, we found a ranch house, where we secured some excellent milk, and rested for a few minutes. I had been taking a short walk admiring the little valley and the stream of mountain water, purling and plashing down the canyon, while the Doctor chatted with the man who owned the place. Upon my return I found my host standing near the car, engaged in conversation with Dawley, who was talking rapidly and vehemently. Something in their postures indicated that the subject of conversation was not intended for my ears, and it was plain to be seen that Dawley was very much excited about something.

I therefore made some commonplace remark about the scenery while I was still several feet from the pair, and Dawley immediately broke away and busied himself about the car, the color of his face and the set of his jaw showing he was under a great emotional strain; but Dr. Potter was his usual self, quiet, courteous and patient.

Again I found occasion to speculate to myself what it was which could make a man of the refinement of the Doctor maintain such a young boor in his employ. There must be some bond, something which did not appear on the surface to account for the easy tolerance and courteous treatment he gave to one who was very apparently entitled to nothing except an immediate discharge.

It was after dark when we approached the house; but Kimi had the place blazing with lights, and it certainly presented a warm and cheerful aspect. Dinner was served shortly after we arrived, and I was pleased to find myself fully recovered from the shock of the afternoon.

A place was set at the table for Professor Kennedy, but we did not wait for him, and indeed he did not show up during the meal. Kimi had called him twice, and each time the Professor had promised to be right up, and each time had immediately forgotten all about it. Dr. Potter told me it was a frequent occurrence when the chemist was working on some problem for him to neglect to come to his meals, and to even resent the interruption when Kimi would bring his plate to him in the little laboratory he had fixed up.

During the evening my host announced that he had arranged an appointment with one of the best detectives from the office of the Sheriff of Los Angeles. This detective, he further announced, was to arrive on the evening train, and would stay several days, provided he appeared to understand the exact requirements of the situation.

As it was then only an hour before the train was due, it was apparent that arrangements had been made for the presence of the detective several hours previous, if not on some preceding day. It was typical of my friend that he had said nothing of this matter during our earlier conversations, and it was also an indication that there were developments of which I knew nothing which had made my friend feel the presence of a detective necessary.

He turned his keen gaze on my face as he said:

“Don’t think for a minute I am turning this case over to a detective. I am merely taking precautions from a scientific standpoint to make sure that any phenomena I may observe and record, are not of a material and mundane origin.

“I am getting this detective for the same reason that I would perform a delicate physical experiment in a room isolated from sound waves and immune to thermal variations. I wish to eliminate all outside agencies which might form a disturbing element in my experiments.”

I was on the point of replying, but the words never came.

I was sitting, facing the big window which opened from the dining-room on to the spacious front porch. At that hour of the night the window was dark and black; but, even as I looked, a white face, drawn and ghastly, pressed against the pane, the features sharply outlined against the black background, the eyes fastened on the back of my companion’s head in a stare of such intensity that everything else within the vision of the apparition seemed excluded!

A moment the face showed startlingly clear against the plate-glass window, and then, silently and swiftly, it was withdrawn.

The calm tones of Dr. Potter brought me back to earth:

“From the expression on your face, Pearce,” he observed, keenly and evenly, “I should say you had seen something or somebody peering in the window behind me. I noticed the shade had not been lowered when we drove up this evening.

“Have some of these olives. They are particularly good and grown and cured especially for me.

“Kimi, please lower the shades.”

“My Heavens!” I shouted. “How can you sit there and talk in that calm manner! Within ten feet of your back, some prowler has just stared cold, deliberate murder at the back of your head — and you haven’t even turned in your chair!”

“Come, come,” soothed my host, as though he were talking to an excited child, “go on with your dinner. You are getting worked up over a trifle. I knew by the expression of your face that you had a brief glimpse of something at the window, and the natural supposition was that it was the face of some person. I also knew that the face had been withdrawn, and that it would, therefore, do me no good to turn around and look.

“Whoever it was, or what he wants will be disclosed in good time. Personally I do not care very much who or what it is unless it should in some manner interfere with my experiments. Hence the detective. Simply and purely, as I said before, to eliminate the possibility of outside agencies interfering in my research work.

“Speaking of the detective reminds me — By the way, Kimi, I wish you would take the car to the station, where you will meet a Mr. Arthur Dwire, of Los Angeles. He will be looking for you when the train pulls in, and will be staying here tonight, perhaps for several days.”

Kimi, who had lowered the shades, signified his immediate departure, and silently withdrew from the room. As far as I was concerned, however, the meal was a failure. Time after time, I would start, peer over my shoulder, and fancy I had seen a shadow, or the outline of a face just beyond the closed shade. The shade over the window seemed to only partially hide a menace, lurking just within the shadow, and ready to strike. I felt that peculiar sensation which comes over me when someone is watching me.

I was unquestionably a very poor companion. My host, however, with that excellent tact and consideration which had endeared him to me so many times, continued as though nothing had happened, and acted just as though I was my natural self and holding up my end of both conversation and food.

I can’t remember when I have ever been so frankly pleased and relieved to see anyone, as I was to see Mr. Arthur Dwire.

The detective was rather slender, and firmly knit, one of those alert, active men who radiate vigor and vitality. There was an efficiency and competency about him which made him seem capable of meeting and mastering any situation. Quick in his movements and very evidently possessing great agility and vitality, he upset my conception of the modern detective by proving a thorough gentleman, well read and a college graduate.

The speed and accuracy with which he grasped the situation were remarkable. Dr. Potter very briefly outlined the case, showed him the study and “introduced” him to the skeleton. The sight of that grinning skeleton swaying and rattling on the door revived my horror, and I never took my eyes off the hollow eye sockets of the gibbering skull, waiting with bated breath for a repetition of that awful wail, so menacing and blood-curdling.

However, nothing happened, and we returned the skeleton to the inside of the closet by the simple expedient of shutting the closet door, and returned to the living-room.

“Doctor,” remarked Dwire, when our host had given a general summary of the events to date, “either someone is playing a prank on you, or you’re entertaining a spook. Personally, I don’t take much stock in ghosts, but that’s neither here nor there. You’ve got all the scientific education, and if it’s a ghost, you get him; if it’s something else, that’s my meat. The very first thing I want to do is to make a minute search of the house, especially that closet. We may find some interesting things.”

It was with an approving twinkle of the eye the Doctor replied:

“Yes — search, by all means. Devote all day tomorrow to it if you wish. Tonight, however, I wish to try an experiment.

“You have grasped my idea exactly. It may be that someday we will know a great deal more of the existence after death. In the meantime, I wish to satisfy myself there are no natural causes for the sounds we have heard before undertaking a serious investigation, based upon the theory there is something supernatural causing those noises.

“Now, then, what I first want to find out is whether those sounds are being made by some person concealed on the outside of the room. Inasmuch as the skeleton is hung on the south wall, it is barely possible someone might be directly in line with the skeleton on the outside of the house, making the noises.

“I usually hear them several times during the evening, when I am alone in the study, and tonight I am going to go down to the study as usual, and ask you two to keep a sharp watch from the porch above. You can easily see any person sneaking around the outside wall.

“I nearly always hear the sound when I have turned out the light for the night, or just before I turn it on when entering the room. It has occurred to me that darkness makes it easier for the noises to be produced, and tonight I will sit in the room without turning the lights on. There will be enough moonlight to enable me to distinguish the outlines of objects.”

It may have been some premonition of impending evil, or it may have been the aftermath of the shocks to which I had been subjected that day, but I felt it would be tempting the fates for Dr. Potter to enter that room alone in the dark. I was about to voice my sentiments, when Professor Kennedy entered the room. As usual he walked directly to Dr. Potter, ignoring all other matters, and commenced to discuss some matter of research which was too deep for me to follow.

Dr. Potter, taking him gently by the arm, turned to Dwire.

“Professor Kennedy,” he said formally, “may I have the pleasure of presenting my friend Mr. Arthur Dwire of Los Angeles? Mr. Dwire will be with us for the next few days.

“Dwire, permit me to present Professor Kennedy, my associate, who has kindly volunteered to spend the summer with me, and to assist in constructing laboratory equipment and carry on research work.”

Dwire and Kennedy shook hands, the latter blinking away behind his heavy glasses, peering closely into the detective’s face, taking much more interest in him than he had in me when I had made his acquaintance.

“You have known the Doctor long?” he inquired in his jerky, explosive manner.

The question was just a trifle awkward, as Dr. Potter had apparently wished to conceal from Kennedy the fact that Dwire was a detective, and in the house as such. I admired the skillful manner in which the detective turned the question.

“Not as long as you have, Professor, but long enough to have heard Dr. Potter speak of your work in glowing terms.”

The Professor was plainly pleased.

“I have a little skill along my lines,” he confessed. “The big trouble in this house is to keep my equipment in adjustment. Somebody always seems to investigate everything I construct, and manages to leave it out of adjustment. I can’t help but feel that confounded Jap has his nose in about everything going on in the house.”

Our host explained:

“I have the study on the lower floor on the south side of the house, and I have fixed up a laboratory in one of the northern rooms for Professor Kennedy; between us we have the house pretty well filled with apparatus, and I am afraid, Professor Kennedy, dealing as he does with electrical equipment, finds it difficult to maintain delicate adjustments in a house whose foundations were built for residential purposes, rather than those of scientific investigation. You see, it only takes a very slight jar on the floor of the house to cause a shock to be transmitted throughout the place, which is fatal to the microscopic adjustment of delicate instruments.”

The chemist grunted.

“Your solution may be correct; but I think someone in this house who knows enough about electricity to understand the apparatus I am using is tampering with things.

“I will advise you here and now that in the future I want no servant in my room under any pretext. If I miss a meal, that’s my own business. As for sweeping and dusting, I’ll do it myself. I have just adjusted a lock and bolt on my laboratory door, and I want no Jap snooping around, or even knocking at the door. When I’m in, I’m in; and when I get ready to come out, I’ll come out.”

Having delivered this ultimatum, the Professor snapped around on his heel, nodded his head to us and left the room.

I turned to Dr. Potter and smiled:

“Evidently your assistant has some decided ideas of his own.”

“It is really an insane prejudice,” answered my friend. “He feels that Kimi is spying on him, and tampering with his delicate electrical apparatus. As a matter of fact, Kimi, while an excellent servant, has absolutely no curiosity, and, I am satisfied, has no ambition in life other than to attend to my wants.”

“I notice that you did not intimate to Professor Kennedy what my real job is,” Dwire broke in; “I therefore take it that you wish to keep my work a secret; but I was pretty sure that your Jap servant, who met me at the train, knew what I was here for. Are you taking special pains to keep the Professor in the dark?”

Dr. Potter looked troubled for a moment.

“I must admit the truth of what you say, but I don’t want you to think I am suspecting Professor Kennedy of anything, nor do I want you to do so. As far as I know, he has no idea that there is anything unusual in the matter of the skeleton. The peculiar moaning noise I have described has never occurred while he has been in my study. He knows nothing about it.”

Dwire smiled.

“I should say that the failure of the ghost to howl when Professor Kennedy was present was point number one.”

Dr. Potter made no reply; seemingly this point had either been in his mind before, or else he was considering the significance of it.

“By the way,” inquired the detective, “I presume it’s in order to ask where you picked the Professor up, and what you know of him.”

Dr. Potter answered readily enough:

“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:

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.”

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.