The Black Mask Magazine (Vol. 1, No. 6 - September 1920)

I

The leaky radiator of a flivver was responsible for the discovery. Judson Wheaton, a farmer living in the lower end of the county, was driving to the city when he shut off his overheated engine and climbed down into the dusty roadway. Some distance from the highway stood the Thatcher farmhouse, bleak, ugly and deserted, its pitiful shabbiness charitably hidden by the thick foilage of many maple trees.

Wheaton cursed again that people should build their houses so far from the thoroughfare.

"Now I've got to tramp all th' way up that hill for water," he lamented. A stranger in the neighborhood, he did not know that the place was deserted until he reached the top of the knoll and saw the windows staring vacantly down upon him.

"Just my luck!" he mourned; "probably not a bucket on the place."

The hapless driver made his way along the weed-choked path around the side of the building. Suddenly, rooted in his tracks by horror, he let forth a yell of surprised terror.

Underneath one of the large trees was the body of a man, face turned to the sky. The eyes bulged wide and the muscles of the face were frozen into an expression of wild and livid fright.

A few feet from the body stood a smart limousine, an automobile of expensive make; on the doors were the neatly stenciled initials "K. A. W."

Wheaton raced down the hill, stood in the centre of the roadway as he flapped his long arms up and down in a frantic signal to the motorist who was, at that moment, approaching from the north.

"Dead man up at that house!" he shrieked. "Dead man — think he's murdered!"

Brake bands protesting, Dr. John Lake, a young practicing physician of a nearby suburb, brought his car to a grinding halt.

"Dead man you say? Up at the Thatcher place? That's strange; it's been deserted for two or three years."

He eyed Wheaton with appraising eye; there were a number of road-houses along the highway which took no cognizance of the federal statute framed by a certain Mr. Volstead; the man was not intoxicated.

"I'm a doctor," he added. "I'll go up and see if he is dead."

Wheaton shivered.

"Oh, he's dead all right; I ain't a doctor, but — I saw his face; I think he was — murdered."

"You don't live hereabouts, do you?" queried Dr. Lake. "Well, I would advise you to stick around until the coroner is called; it may save you another trip. Let's go up and look things over."

"I–I've seen enough, thank you," said Wheaton, but, nevertheless, he plodded up the hill at Dr. Lake's heels.

As the two men reached the open spot in the trees. Lake's eyes widened in surprise as he caught sight of the luxurious limousine.

"Phew!" he whistled. "This is somewhat out of the ordinary; I thought it was just a common tramp."

He hurried his steps; as he reached the body, the doctor's head jerked forward in astonishment.

"Great Heavens!" he whispered in amazed awe. "Doctor Waugh!"

In the medical world the name of Dr. Kensaw Arlington Waugh was one to conjure with. A specialist of renown, he had lectured at the medical school from which Doctor Lake had been graduated and, although he did not know him except as a student would be expected to know a class instructor, it made death more of a personal matter and, for a moment, shattered his professional calm. He had always had a great admiration for the somewhat eccentric specialist.

"What a horrible death!" shuddered Dr. Lake. "I never saw such an expression on a human face!"

Mastering his emotions, he became at once" his professional self. With deft fingers he searched for signs of violence; to his perplexity there was no wound, no laceration, not a single mark. Even the clothing bore no evidence of a violent struggle.

He decided that some instantaneous poison must have been used, probably cyanide, which, while it acts so quickly that the victim's life is snapped like a tight-drawn thread, seizes the body in one quick, horrible convulsion and leaves the muscles as of stone. But he failed to find the. tell-tale rigidity of tissues which he had expected.

"Not cyanide, that is certain," he said in abstracted monologue. "Confounded queer business, eh, Wheaton?"

Farmer Weaton stood some feet away, back turned; it was apparent that he had no morbid liking for gruesome things.

Dr. Lake bent forward, his attention attracted by a faint abrasion on Dr. Waugh's neck, a place less than two inches long under the chin and slightly below the ear where the skin had been rubbed nearly raw by some rough surface. Shaking his head in frank bewilderment, he walked over to Farmer Wheaton.

"Wheaton," he said sternly, "why did you tell me that this man was murdered?"

Startled by the accusing, suspicious note in the young doctor's voice, the farmer flushed.

"Because," he said angrily, "a man with an expression like THAT on his face never died a natural death. Why — you don't mean to tell me that he wasn't murdered?"

"There's not a single mark of violence, Mr. Wheaton."

"Mebbe not, Doctor, but his face… it looks… it looks—" His voice dropped to a sepulchral whisper."…like he had been scared to death!"

"Nonsense!" snapped Dr. Lake impatiently. "Men aren't scared to death — outside of book covers."

"You're a doctor, sir; I guess you know," admitted the farmer humbly.

Dr. Lake absently creased his leather automobile gauntlets.

"Something devilish mysterious about this." he said. "What could Dr. Waugh be doing out here at an old deserted farmhouse? A first-rate mystery, I call it. I tell you what you do: There's a farm a quarter of a mile or so down the road. You go down there and telephone to Coroner Hopkins. I'll look around a bit and wait for him. I feel quite an interest in this; Dr. Waugh was one of my instructors at medical college. I might be able to help a bit; the coroner is a feeble old man with a brain about as palsied as his hands. I'm afraid that if we depend on him, the law will be a long time in getting this thing solved."

As Farmer Wheaton made his way back to the road again, Dr. Lake began a survey of the premises.

He mounted the rotting porch steps, the boards creaking under his weight. The branches of the trees, moved by a breeze, rustled against the weather-boarding of the old house.

"A fine, cheerful place at night, I'll bet," he muttered. "Somehow this begins to get on my nerves."

The door which led into the tiny reception hall was ajar. From this old-fashioned entrance were three doors leading into as many rooms. As he opened the sagging door to the right, Dr. Lake paused in startled bewilderment, wondering if his imagination was playing him a trick.

The wall between two rooms had been ripped out, making of them one long apartment. The debris, chunks of plastering and scraps of lath, still littered the floor.

Across the length of the enlongated room had been laid what seemed a miniature railway track, perhaps half the width of a standard gauge railroad. The light steel rails were bolted to heavy pieces of lumber which served as cross-ties.

Resting on the rails were two cars, about seven feet in height, apparently constructed of steel. From where he stood in the doorway, Dr. Lake could see the facing end of one of the cars; from it protruded hundreds of sharp points, almost needle-like in their sharpness.

"Now wouldn't this stump you!" exclaimed the doctor. "I'll say that is a queer business — damned queer!"

In a confusion of uncertainty he advanced cautiously. The steel cars stood perhaps five feet apart. As he stepped nearer another gasp of surprise escaped his lips. The end of one of the cars, hidden from view until this moment, was caved in; the gaping hole exposed a crude framework of light lumber.

"Just a toy," mused Dr. Lake. "Papier maché, or I miss my guess — just cardboard painted to look like steel."

He examined the sharp steel points; they bent back harmlessly at the touch of his finger — also merely cardboard.

Closer examination showed, geared to the rear wheels of both cars, a toy motor such as might have delighted the heart of a child at Christmas time. The electric current for the motors was supplied by two wires which ran along the floor and connected with the track. The wires led to the wall and contact was completed by means of a massive switch which might easily have carried a high-voltage current instead of the weak stream of electricity which was generated by the dozen dry-cell batteries hidden in an adjoining closet.

Dr. Lake threw in the switch, the tiny motors hummed slowly and the mysterious cars edged forward; edged is the proper word, for the motion was barely perceptible. The cars made a speed of only one foot per minute.

"Huh! Nuttiest outfit I ever saw," Lake mused. "Dr. Waugh dead as a hammer and this — this damned foolishness — I wonder what the answer is?"

As he slowly paced the floor, hands deep in his pockets and his face creased by thoughtful lines, he was suddenly aware of a further detail. Fastened from the ceiling was an iron ring and from the ring dangled a short length of rope, the end frayed as if parted under heavy strain. Fastened to the floor, in direct line with that in the ceiling, was another steel ring.

The young doctor started suddenly.

"By Jove!" he gasped. "Somebody was tied in the middle of that track — feet to the floor, rope from his neck to the ceiling."

He remembered the faint abrasion under Dr. Waugh's chin; a rope could have made that mark!

"Great God! The fiends!" shouted Dr. Lake, his voice echoing through the empty rooms. "They tied poor old Dr. Waugh to this track and—"

He shuddered at the picture which his mind swiftly drew — the picture of a man, ignorant of the make believe harmlessness, bound helpless as those cars creeped upon him.

The floor was thick with accumulated dust and the dirt film was broken by footprints, blurred in the spot about the steel ring in the floor, as if someone had nervously scraped his feet back and forth. The young doctor's heart leaped with hope as he saw, also, the clear-cut impression of a man's hand spread flat, fingers and thumb extended.

"Here's where I turn detective," mused Lake, remembering the camera in his car. "Ill try my hand at a bit of photography. I've a notion that the hand, fingerprints and all, will photograph very well."

At that moment a bit of sunshine, breaking through an open space between the maple trees, streamed into the room, lighting the shadows under the strange make-believe cars and glinting against a bit of yellow metal that lay there. Dr. Lake reached for it and found it to be a stickpin of rather fantastic design, something European without a doubt — the gold fashioned into a claw which grasped a blood ruby.

"Now," breathed Lake with satisfaction, "if I'm going to turn detective, I think I've got something to work on."

Lake had just finished taking his photograph of the fingerprints — and a glance at Dr. Waugh's slim, tapering fingers was sufficient to tell him that the impression in the dust was not that of the dead man's hand — when Coroner Hopkins, a bearded old patriarch who had held his office for many years, arrived, peering nearsightedly through a pair of thick-lensed glasses and shaking his head hopelessly.

"Oh, yes," he greeted Dr. Lake; "you're the young doctor from Alamont. They tell me that Doctor — Doctor Waugh is — is dead. Terrible business — can't understand it — what would Dr. Waugh be doing out here? Answer me that! Terrible business — can't understand it. And — what the devil is this contraption?"

His eyes, for the first time, caught sight of the cars. The young doctor explained what he had found.

"I am told that you have already examined, Doctor — the body," pursued the aged coroner. "What do you find?"

Dr. Lake told him.

"Humph!" mourned the coroner sadly. "Queer business; I knew Dr. Waugh by reputation — a wonderful specialist, he was. Great loss to the medical profession — can't understand it."

"What do you propose to do?" ventured Dr. Lake.

Coroner Hopkins shook his head.

"I'm not so young as I used to be, young man. I generally name an assistant to perform an autopsy."

"But," protested Dr. Lake, "won't you proceed with some sort of an investigation?"

"I'm not a detective, young man; I'm the coroner. I shall perform the autopsy, turn my findings over to the state's attorney and examine what witnesses can be found. So far, Mr. — er — Wheaton, who found the body, is the only witness.

Dr. Lake frowned impatiently.

"But, Mr. Coroner," he insisted, "there's a mystery here to be cleared up; we are outside of the city where expert detective talent is available. Of course the reporters for the city newspapers will take a hand at Sherlocking, but really something should be done."

"What would you suggest?" demanded the coroner dryly.

Dr. Lake accepted the invitation eagerly.

"If you would deputize me, I would be glad to serve," he replied. "Dr. Waugh was one of my instructors at medical school and I feel a very deep personal interest in this case. I should like to see no stone unturned—"

"You're deputized, my young friend," cut in Coroner Hopkins. "Be sworn."

II

Dr. John Lake jeopardized his slim but growing practice by abruptly deserting his patients and plunging headlong into the Dr. Waugh mystery. He rushed to the city to delve into the incidents which had preceded the specialist's death. Nor was he alone; a small army of reporters was encountered at every turn; he bumped into feature writers at every step. The city editors had gone frantic over the Dr. Waugh mystery; they printed columns upon columns of entertaining description and fruitless deductions; they plastered their pages with photographs of the Thatcher farmhouse and the mysterious "steel" cars.

The real estate agent who had the renting of the Thatcher farm in charge was able to throw no light on the mystery. He had rented the place by phone. He had received a money order for a year's rent, sent in the name of "Julius Smith." The lessee had never showed up to sign the papers. The Julius Smiths listed in the directory furnished ample proof that it must be some other "Julius Smith."

The autopsy verified Dr. Lake's first examination; there had been no violence done, no poison administered; there was no clot on the brain, no heart lesion.

It remained for Dr. Lake, armed with the stickpin which he had found at the Thatcher farmhouse, to find the only real clue and, for reasons of his own, this clue never got to the newspapers.

Dr. Waugh had no family; he lived alone in a house on Belden Avenue, attended by a servant named Samuels, a reticent and rather wooden-headed and non-observing man of near sixty.

The body of Dr. Waugh had been discovered on Thursday morning. Samuels related, for the benefit of Dr. Lake and reporters alike, that on Tuesday Dr. Waugh had brought home a young man of very shabby and disreputable appearance. The young man had worn a bandage about his eyes and Dr. Waugh had explained to Samuels that he was a patient, suffering from temporary blindness. This was unusual, for Dr. Waugh seldom treated charity patients and never at his home.

Samuels, due to the bandage about the young man's face, could not supply any sort of an adequate description; about all that he was able to say was that he believed the man's hair had been brown and that his chin was black with an untidy stubble of beard.

On Wednesday afternoon Dr. Waugh had dispatched Samuels to the bank with a check for five thousand dollars. This amount, in cash, Samuels had brought home and turned it over to the doctor. No trace of the money was found; it had vanished utterly.

Still later on Thursday Samuels was dispatched on another errand. When he departed, Dr. Waugh and his blind patient were in the house; when he returned both were gone. The specialist's chauffeur furnished another link in the far from complete chain.

Dr. Waugh seldom drove his own car, but, at the time he left his Belden Avenue home for the last time, he had summoned his car from the nearby public garage where it was kept, dismissed the chauffeur, saying that he preferred to do his own driving that afternoon.

When Dr. Lake and Samuels were alone, the young doctor produced the stickpin which he had found in the Thatcher farmhouse.

"Samuels," he said, "did this belong to Dr. Waugh?"

"No, sir," said Samuels promptly, "but I've seen it before."

"Where?"

"Well, sir, I ain't much hand to notice things, but I did notice that pin. The blind young man that the doctor brought home with him was in a terrible condition, sir; his shoes were very badly broken and his clothing hung to him only in shreds. His linen was actually black, sir; he actually looked the tramp — a bum. Yet I noticed that he wore that stickpin; perhaps the reason I noticed it was that I could tell by the glance at it that it was a bit valuable and I wondered why he didn't pawn it and get himself a clean shirt and a pair of shoes."

Dr. Lake grinned triumphantly.

"My hunch wins!" he exulted. "Something told me the minute I found this pin that it was going to be a clue. By the way, Samuels, don't say anything to the newspaper men about this stickpin. I want to work this out in my own way — if I can."

"Very well, sir," agreed Samuels obediently.

After a time the city editors began to lose interest in the Dr. Waugh case; the city detective bureau which had tried to render some little assistance soon found troubles of their own more pressing. Yet once and sometimes twice a week there appeared in the want-ads columns of the newspapers, under the "Lost and Found" classification, this advertisement:

The advertisement brought no response.

After several weeks had passed, Dr. Lake called upon Coroner Hopkins.

"Mr. Coroner," he explained, "I've still got this stickpin that I found out at the Thatcher farmhouse, and I want your permission to keep h a while longer; I want to wear it in my necktie just as long as you will allow me to keep it."

Coroner Hopkins stared at the young doctor in perplexity.

"I fail to grasp just what you mean," he retorted. "If you are asking me to give you property which—"

"No, I don't want the stickpin, Mr. Coroner; but it belonged to the man who knows how Dr. Waugh died. He wore that pin when he was ragged and perhaps hungry. I want to wear that pin three hundred and sixty-five days in the year and ten years if need be and give its owner the chance to see it in my tie. If the law of averages breaks my way, and if he's still in the city, he's going to see it — and the man who thought enough of that pin to wear rags rather than pawn it will make some effort to get it back."

"Oh, I see," snorted the coroner not without a sneer; "I see; you are still playing detective. Well, you are a persistent young fool, but it occurs to me that you'd better be spending a little more time with your medical practice.

"Then I may keep the pin for a while longer?" asked Dr. Lake, eagerly.

"I'd forgotten you had it," grunted the coroner. "By thunder. Doc, I do admire persistency!"

Dr. Waugh's death occurred in June; it was the following September when Dr. Lake, his automobile in the repair shop with a cracked crank case, was forced to make a trip to the city, via trolley. His business took him to the north side and he boarded a crowded surface car at the interurban station. He did not observe that a well-dressed young man — apparently young despite the snow-white streaks through his hair — who had been going in the opposite direction, wheeled suddenly about and swung aboard just as the car got into motion.

Passengers were packed on the rear platform like proverbial sardines, and it might have easily been accidental that the young man lurched against John Lake just as the latter fished a handful of small coins from his pocket to pay his fare. The money fell in a shower to the floor and Lake glanced back in anger.

"I beg your pardon, sir," murmured the young man in polite accents as he stooped to aid in collecting the spill.

"My fault," he added. "Mighty sorry; matter of fact, though it's a shame the way they pack the cars — seven cent fare, too."

Lake growled agreement on this point.

"Fine weather, isn't it?" pursued the young man — he was perhaps in his middle thirties — in the trite manner of the man who wished to drum up a conversation. Lake, ordinarily a friendly soul, was not in a conversational mood; he was on the point of turning his back coldly, when he saw that the stranger's eyes were feasting hungrily on the stickpin; his heart skipped a beat.

"Yes," he agreed, "fine weather, indeed. Live here?"

The stranger nodded.

"I was just noticing that pin in your tie," he broke out eagerly. "Reminds me of one I saw once in Europe — belonged to a friend of mine; odd, isn't it?"

"Yes," Lake laconically agreed; "I presume that it is a trifle unusual; several people have commented on it. I got it in a rather odd way, too."

The other man waited.

"Yes, bought it from a fellow who was down and out — got it rather cheap, but since I've had it I've become quite fond of it."

"Oh," said the other in evident disappointment, "you wouldn't care to part with it then?"

"Probably not for what it's worth."

"W-what do you consider it — worth?" asked the white-haired young man.

"I hadn't thought of pricing it; did you want to buy it?"

"Well, frankly, yes; you see I don't care much for jewelry, but when I saw that pin — er — its counterpart in Europe — I fell quite in love with it. I might be willing to pay your price. Name it."

"I don't believe I'd care to part with it for less than five hundred — and that's more than it's worth, probably twice over."

"I'll take it," replied the stranger with a contented sigh. "If you'll get off the car with me, we'll go to the bank and get the money."

"Very well," agreed Dr. Lake. "What bank?"

"The Liberty National."

At the next block Dr. Lake and his companion left the car and Lake, suddenly remembering that he must telephone that he would be late for an appointment, hurried into a telephone booth at a corner drug store. He called the detective bureau and hastily explained matters.

When Dr. Lake and Justin Graham, as the young man had introduced himself, reached the Liberty National, two plainclothes men met them at the entrance. At a signal from Lake, they seized Graham's arms.

"You are under arrest," one of them announced with proper official solemnity.

Young Graham's eyes widened and an unmistakable pallor crept into his cheeks.

"Under arrest!" he echoed. "What for?"

"For the murder of Dr. Kensaw Arlington Waugh," declared John Lake.

Graham took a grip on himself; he glanced at the stickpin in the doctor's tie and smiled.

"I see," he said, smiling wryly, "you're rather clever. Well, suppose we go to the station and talk it over. I'll tell you about it — but it wasn't murder."

III

In the office of the Chief of Detectives sat the Chief, Dr. Lake and Justin Graham. The prisoner was, perhaps, the coolest of the three, for both the Chief and Lake were excitedly eager — especially Lake.

"I'm glad to get it off my mind; glad to get it all cleared up," Graham began without urging. "I'd better begin right at the beginning and tell you the whole thing. I'd be a fool to deny knowledge of the affair, for I read the newspaper accounts and I know that someone found and photographed my fingerprints; I suppose you still have them. It would be only silly for me to make a denial, for that would indicate that I have something to fear; I haven't."

He paused and turned to Dr. Lake.

"I remember you now from the pictures that appeared in the papers at the time; not very good pictures either. You are the doctor who first examined Dr. Waugh's body. You found no evidence of foul play, did you?"

"You're the man who's being questioned, not I," reminded Lake curtly.

"Yes, that's true," agreed Graham with a short laugh. "But you didn't; you found no wound, no laceration, no evidence of a blow being struck, no poison, no diseased organism — nothing but failure of the heart to function. Isn't that true?"

"Go ahead with your story," growled Lake.

"I will," pursued Graham, "hut I just wanted to remind you, in the beginning, that you are accusing me of murder when you have no evidence that a murder was committed."

"We have evidence that something queer happened out at the Thatcher farm," said John Lake with spirit.

"Yes, that's true, and I'm going to clear that up for you; it's a mighty queer business, as you say. Well, here goes; I'll make it as much to the point as possible."

"On the sixth of June I was broke and hungry — starving. I could starve but I couldn't beg. My life was a failure; I was in debt. It began when I wandered out to Lincoln Park; I was walking along the lagoon and, as I came to a bridge a couple passed me; they were talking about the bridge."

"That's "Suicide Bridge" and they're going to tear it down next month; more than fifty people have jumped from it since it was built during the Chicago World's Fair."

"Until that moment I had not thought of suicide, but the idea took hold of me and, try as I would, I could not shake it off. I tried to walk away from 'Suicide Bridge,' but the power of suggestion was too strong. A park policeman came along; 'Don't do it, buddy,' he said. I pretended that I didn't know what he meant and he went on. When he disappeared I began to climb the steps to the bridge. A voice behind me stopped me.

"I turned around and there was a well-dressed man of about sixty, with a close-cropped vandyke beard, hurrying toward me—"

"Dr. Waugh!" interjected Lake.

"Exactly," agreed Graham. "I waited for him to come up."

" 'Why are you going to kill yourself?' he asked me.

" 'None of your damn business,' I told him.

" 'Come with me,' he said; 'you need a square meal.'

"I went along with him. After the meal, as we sat in a quiet corner of the rather cheap restaurant, he made me his proposition. As near as I can remember it, he said:

" 'Life means nothing to you, for you were about to kill yourself. I want to make a bargain with you. I want to engage in a sort of an adventure; it may cost you your life, it may not — you'll have to take that chance. If you live through it, you will be five thousand dollars the richer; if it costs you your life the five thousand will be disposed of as you see fit. That's my proposition; I shall tell you no more. Take it or leave it.'

"I thought it over. He was right; life meant nothing to me. He was offering me the chance to at least quit the world with a clean slate — it would square up my debts and a little besides. I accepted his proposition.

"He telephoned for his automobile and, while we waited, took me into the washroom of the restaurant where he bandaged my eyes.

" 'I'll have to blindfold you,' he explained; 'it's part of the agreement.'

"When we got into the car we drove for a short time and stopped. We went up some steps; it was the house where he lived. I heard him tell a servant, whose name was Samuels, that I was blind and that he was going to treat me. I might as well have been blind, for there wasn't a ray of light through those bandages.

"Almost at once he had me undress and put me through a physical examination, especially testing my heart.

" 'Sound as an ox,' I heard him say after he used the stethoscope. 'Perfect heart j that's fine.'

"I spent the night at the house and the next day he sent to the bank for the five thousand dollars. An hour or so after that he gave me some decent clothes — some of his I think they were, for we were of about the same build — and led me out to his automobile. He drove himself and I sat on the front seat with him. We went downtown and he allowed me to remove the bandages from my eyes. Then I went into a bank — alone — and deposited the five thousand dollars with instructions as to where to send it if I did not call for it within a week. I got back into the car with him and he seemed much relieved.

" 'I was afraid you'd try to give me the slip after you had the money,' he said. That hadn't occurred to me; I had too much curiosity anyway — I had to see it through.

"After we left the downtown districts he wrapped the bandages on again and we drove for a long time. I could tell by the atmosphere that ft was nightfall. We had left the boulevards and were jolting over rough country roads. At last we stopped and he led me through high grass and weeds; my feet got all tangled up in them.

"He took me into a house and I knew by the musty smell that no one had lived there for some time and I knew by the hollow way that our footsteps echoed through the place that it was unfurnished. We had not walked very far when I stumbled over something which barked my shin. Before I knew what happened, a rope dropped over my neck and was drawn tight. Instinctively I clawed at the thing which was cutting into the flesh of fny neck but he seized my arms and, although I struggled, he succeeded in tying them behind me. Of course that made me helpless. I couldn't offer much resistance when he grabbed my legs and tied my ankles — tied my feet to the floor.

The Deviltry of Dr. Waugh

"I hadn't bargained for anything like this and, to be frank, I was very much afraid — afraid of an unknown something that I could not see. I imagine that I screamed in my fright, but he only laughed at me.

" 'Shout all you want,' he said; 'no one can hear you.'

"Then he took off the bandages. The room was in semi-darkness, lighted only by two flickering candles and, for a moment, I could not make things out clearly. You know what I saw — those railroad cars, looming up in the gloom and the candlelight shining on those points which stuck out from the end of each car. I was tied, standing upright, in the middle of the track. I couldn't move, for the rope about my neck kept me in one position.

" 'Great God!' I shouted. 'What are you going to do to me?'

" 'I am going to kill you,' he said. 'Oh, come, my young friend; you were willing enough to die yesterday. I am cheating you of nothing; you will get the five thousand dollars — and death.

" 'Perhaps you realize what will happen,' he went on. 'Those steel cars will move toward you at the rate of one foot per minute; in fifteen minutes those steel points will prick your flesh and then — they will slowly, slowly — Ha! I see you undersand—'

"He was right; I did understand. I won't burden you gentlemen with the horrors of it. I won't try to tell you the torment that was mine — I couldn't and I don't like to think of it. I — sometimes I dream of it now; it's hell!

"I begged him to shoot me — anything. I knew that he was a madman — some impossible creature in real life stepped right out from a page of Poe. As I begged for mercy he snapped on the electric switch and I could see those cars vibrate a little; they seemed to leap toward me.

"He left the room without a word, leaving me there with that devilish death trap, as ingenious a thing of torture as the 'Pit and the Pendulum.'

"It could not have been long, but it seemed like hours. At last those cars were close enough that, had my arms been free, I could have reached out and touched them. I began to pray and as I prayed I strained at my bonds until the rope cut into my wrists and into the flesh of my neck. I was slowly choking myself to death and, just as I was losing consciousness, I had the sensation of falling. Suddenly the breath rushed back into my bursting lungs and the blackness before my eyes cleared. I had. indeed, fallen; the rope from the ceiling must have been very rotten for it had parted under the strain. The weight of my body had smashed in one of those fiendish make-believe cars.

"Something pricked my wrists; it was a nail and I patiently worked away, severing strand after strand, until my numbed arms were free. It was then but the matter of a moment to loosen the knots which bound my ankles.

"There isn't much more to tell, gentlemen; I—"

"But Dr. Waugh—" eagerly broke in John Lake. "How did he—"

Young Graham smiled shrewdly.

"Oh, yes, I'm getting to that, doctor. When I slipped out of the house, Dr. Waugh was sitting in his limousine, calmly smoking and — reading! In a sudden burst of anger, I made up my mind to kill him!"

"Ah!" breathed the Chief of Detectives; "so you admit—"

"That I killed him? Indeed, no, Chief," denied Justin Graham. "I — er — changed my mind.

"The door of the limousine was open and I slipped across the grass and had seized him before he knew it. Even as my fingers were about his throat I realized that he must be an irresponsible lunatic and that there could be no justice in slaying him. I decided to truss him up, drive him to the city and turn him over to the authorities that a test might be made of his sanity.

"He begged me not to kill him and — then he told me.

"He told me that he was a physician; he said that he had always taken the position that a normal, sound man could literally be scared to death. He told me that other physicians differed with him, arguing that so-called death from fright could occur only when there was a weak heart.

"The desire to prove his contention became an obsession with Dr. Waugh and he decided to prove it. He rented this farm, and set up his play railroad and began to search for a subject. He was hunting, in fact, when he stopped me from jumping from 'Suicide Bridge.' He justified himself on the ground that I would have ended my life anyhow and that I had lost nothing.

"When I realized that Dr. Waugh was not, after all, an irresponsible maniac, my anger returned. That a physician whose life should be dedicated to the relief of human suffering should subject any man — regardless of how lightly he valued life — to the inhuman mental torture that I had endured, all for the sake of proving a silly, unimportant medical theory!

"I had pinned Dr. Waugh to the ground. There was a rope in his tool box. Qifickly I passed one end of it about his neck and fastened it to a tree; the other end I tied to his feet and to the rear axle of the automobile."

"Great God!" cried John Lake. "You were going to—"

Justin Graham did not answer.

"I got into the car," he continued; "I put my foot on the electric starter button; the engine roared and then — I shut off the engine, but—"

Doctor Lake jumped to his feet.

"But Dr. Waugh was dead!" he finished the sentence. "You killed him; you murdered him — in cold blood! You — you scared him to death!"

Graham met the accusing gaze calmly.

"I think that most doctors will contend that a man — a man with a normal heart — cannot be frightened to death," he said quietly.

Doctor Lake eyed the prisoner intently.

"You're a medic yourself," he accused.

"Do you think so?" smiled Graham.

"Do I think so?" thundered John Lake. "I know so! Naturally I have read between the lines of your story — just as you intended that I should. Oh, you're a clever fiend! You gave Dr. Waugh the same chance that he gave you; you tested his heart as he lay there on the ground — probably you used his own stethoscope. You got into the automobile, started the motor with the deliberate intention of — of letting Dr. Waugh prove his own theory. It was deliberate murder!"

"I hardly think you can prove that in — in court," suggested Graham.

"I know damned well I can't," shouted Lake. "You, as cold-blooded a slayer as a man who ever fired a pistol, are safe from the law. So far as the law is concerned, the Waugh case is closed — he died from heart failure. Here's your stickpin. Get out!

The Chief of Detectives was nodding his agreement with Lake's position; the Chief was eyeing Graham curiously.

"Hum!" he rumbled. "Mr. Graham has your — er — hair been white long?"

"Since — since that night," Justin Graham replied.

The door closed.

"Do you know, Lake, I don't blame Graham — much," muttered the Chief.

John Lake stared out of the window.

"Well, Chief," he said, "perhaps I don't either — much."