The Silver Scourge

CHAPTER XX AFTER DEATH

“CHARLTON will be here shortly,” said Doctor Conrad Guyon. “Then we shall be ready to proceed with the autopsy.”

Warden Willis Barringer nodded. He and the physician were standing in a gloomy, stone-walled room. Before them, stretched upon a low table, was the inert form of Silk Elverton.

“Do you intend to do any of the dissection yourself?” questioned the warden. “Or will you leave it to Doctor Charlton?”

“I shall begin,” declared Guyon. “After that, Charlton may continue while I supervise. Of course, we have Harper here to help us” — the physician indicated a solemn-faced attendant who stood by the door — “so everything will be simplified.”

“Nevertheless,” remarked Barringer, “you are putting yourself out, Doctor Guyon. The autopsy could easily have been postponed until the morning. We could have kept the body at the penitentiary.”

“It is better this way,” asserted Guyon. “Here, in my own dissecting room, I take little account of time. Indeed, I prefer to work at night. It is wise, also, to perform an autopsy of this sort as soon after the execution as is possible.”

As the warden stood silent, Guyon extended his hand to bid the official good night. Harper, the taciturn attendant, began to busy himself in preparation for the autopsy. Barringer turned and walked to the door, with Guyon beside him.

As soon as the warden was gone, Guyon returned and indicated the door. He issued quick commands to his assistant.

“Be sure that the outer door is bolted,” ordered Guyon. “Then get Doctor Charlton on the telephone. Tell him it will not be necessary for him to come until I call him; that I am temporarily engaged, and that I intend to delay the autopsy for a short while.”

While Harper was obeying these instructions, Doctor Guyon began a preliminary study of the body. The physician’s usual languor had entirely disappeared. He was eager and alert tonight.

PLACING his hands upon Silk Elverton’s chest, Guyon began a slow pressure.

When Harper reappeared, the physician was still at work. He ordered the attendant to wheel up a small machine that stood in the corner. Harper complied; Guyon attached an apparatus that covered Elverton’s face. This machine, as Guyon started it with a slow whir, seemed to be having the effect of a pulmotor.

Harper was now standing by. Doctor Guyon made repeated motions which the man seemed to understand. He brought different instruments to the physician. Guyon received a stethoscope which he attached to his ears; he then applied the instrument to the body that lay in front of him.

Long minutes went by. Guyon’s face was apprehensive. He ordered Harper to remove the pulmotor device from Elverton’s face. Still listening intently through the stethoscope, the physician beckoned to the attendant.

“There is a chance, Harper,” he said, as he removed the stethoscope from his head. “A long one — but the possibilities are here. Results will occur rapidly if they occur at all. Bring me the epinephrin.”

Harper appeared with a small box. Guyon took out a hypodermic syringe, he tore aside the clothing that partially covered Elverton’s chest, and placed the point of the needle against the flesh.

There was a tenseness in the physician’s manner. Harper, the silent man beside Guyon, knew the reason. The physician was about to perform the most difficult of all injections; one which could fail if he made the slightest slip. Guyon was sending the point of the needle directly to Elverton’s heart!

Slowly, with calculated precision, Guyon made the injection. He withdrew the needle. He studied the inert form. He nodded to Harper. The test had been made; its success was in the balance.

The stethoscope again. While Guyon used it, Harper appeared with a vial containing a bluish liquid. The physician drew up a quantity of the substance with a dropper. He let three globs of the potent liquid fall within Elverton’s mouth, Harper holding the jaws apart while the operation was performed.

“Another injection may be necessary later on,” observed Guyon, standing with the stethoscope in his hands. “If we succeed, and I believe we shall, there will be a remarkable recovery. I pronounced this man dead, Harper, in time to eliminate another application of the current.”

A pause; the physician then spoke reminiscently:

“You remember the case of that murderer Carish. We could have completely revived him, Harper, had we chosen to do so. Carish received more shocks than this man. Of course, there was no reason why we should have brought Carish back to life. Perhaps” — Guyon’s tone was ironic — “that was the reason why he showed such signs of resuscitation.

“I am glad now, Harper, that I never recommended the use of alternating current instead of direct. Electricity has its oddities. It is a freakish force. Ah!”

The exclamation came as Guyon suddenly bent above Silk Elverton’s body. The physician fancied that he had seen a flicker of the eyelids.

Was the dead man coming back to life?

New preparations began with great rapidity. At intervals, Guyon was on the point of making a second injection of epinephrin. Then, when the restoration of life appeared most futile, a noticeable flicker appeared upon Silk Elverton’s eyelids. Doctor Guyon emitted a low cry of triumph.

“We have won, Harper!” he exclaimed. “It will be a question of minutes now. We have won!”

A telephone began to ring in an adjoining room. Doctor Guyon glanced at his watch. It was exactly half past three. The physician gripped Harper’s arm and pointed to the machine.

“Attach it,” he ordered. “I shall answer the telephone. It may be Charlton. I must talk to him this time.”

While Harper followed the physician’s instructions, Guyon went through a doorway. He picked up the telephone and spoke in a quiet tone. He heard the voice of Foulkrod Kendall.

“Yes… Yes…” A slow smile crept to Doctor Guyon’s lips. “I understand… Certainly… Mecke’s threat was to be expected… Yet it is no cause for alarm… You say he is still there… Very well, bring him with you and come here… Yes, tell him that I can explain everything to his satisfaction… Come secretly, of course. What is that?… Never mind… Leave it all to me. I shall explain when you arrive.”

The physician hung up the receiver and returned to the dissecting room. Harper was still working upon Silk Elverton’s body. The dim room, its illumination centered upon the table, was a morbid place.

Two men at work upon a corpse which seemed to live! Yet neither Guyon, skillful in his actions, nor Harper, silent and in readiness, seemed at all perturbed.

IT was nearly four o’clock when Doctor Guyon again left the dissecting room in response to a muffled clang that came from without. Some one had arrived at this place.

Guyon had chosen to answer the door himself. The physician walked through a vaulted corridor, unbarred a door, and admitted two men. The visitors were Foulkrod Kendall and Tim Mecke.

With a smile, Guyon led the men into the room where the telephone was located. He motioned them to chairs. Kendall sat down, a worried took upon his face. Mecke remained standing, eying Guyon with a challenging expression.

“You will pardon me a moment,” said the physician. “I have an important call to make.”

He picked up the telephone and rang a number. After a pause he spoke to some one at the other end.

“Hello, Charlton,” said the physician. “I am just beginning the autopsy… Yes, the dead man’s body is here… Suppose you come up in about half an hour… Very well… I shall have progressed well by that time.”

Hanging up the telephone, Guyon turned to his visitors. He put a quiet question, in a tone that indicated wonderment.

“What is the trouble?” he asked.

“The trouble!” Tim Mecke was the one who answered. “I’ll tell you the trouble. I thought this was a stall, the moment Kendall wanted me to come down here. I don’t know what Kendall’s been telling you, Guyon, but you’re pretty close to him, so I’ll spill the news to you to start.

“I’m a crook, and so is Kendall! We were both in the racket with Silk Elverton. That’s why Kendall wanted you to back his plea to the governor. The pardon was a fake. I came down to the pen with an unsigned paper. That’s why you’re carving up Silk Elverton’s corpse right now.

“I’ve told Kendall he’s a double-crosser. He claims the governor signed the pardon. We came down here because Kendall said you would explain something. What there is to explain, I don’t know—”

“Mecke,” interposed Guyon in a voice which made the gangster stop his frenzied discourse, “I have seen you before, but I have never talked with you. Perhaps that explains your present attitude. You seem to be laboring under the impression that I know nothing — or very little — about what has been going on.

“As a matter of fact, I have been very close to Kendall during all these activities. In public life, he plays the part of the businessman; I, the part of a mere shareholder in his enterprises. Actually, we have always teamed together.”

Tim Mecke stood with open mouth. He had wondered why Kendall had insisted upon his coming here. The revelation made by Guyon left the gangster in dumfoundment.

“Kendall and I,” resumed Guyon, “conspired to save Silk Elverton’s life. I prepared the plea; Kendall put it across. If Kendall says he thought the pardon was signed, I am ready to accept his word for it. As I understand it, you were up by the warden’s office when the execution took place. I was downstairs in the death room. Believe me, Mecke, my anxiety was as great as yours.”

“I have told Mecke to be reasonable,” asserted Kendall. “I brought him here so that you could talk to him, Guyon. I have told him that we will do all we can for him; that there is nothing which we cannot do.”

“You can’t bring back Silk Elverton!” blurted Tim. “That’s what I want — it’s what Barbier and Cumo want. Without Silk, the game is ended. You wanted to get rid of him — the pair of you—”

Doctor Guyon held up his hand in interruption. He walked slowly to the door of the dissecting room and beckoned to the others to follow. Kendall wondered. Mecke suspected a trap. Nevertheless, they obeyed the physician’s call.

TIM MECKE stared as he saw the body that rested upon the low table in the gloomy room. The face, half covered, bore the marks of the dissector’s knife.

“The corpse of Ronald Elverton,” announced Guyon quietly. “I am about to remove the brain, to preserve it for study. Another physician, Doctor Charlton, is coming to continue the work with me.”

“Is that Silk’s body?” gasped Tim.

“Officially, yes,” returned the physician, with a shrewd, knowing smile. “Actually, no. It is a corpse which I obtained recently for dissection, so that I might remove the body of Elverton after the electrocution.”

“Why?” queried Kendall, in surprise.

“What have you done with Silk’s body?” demanded Tim.

“I shall answer both questions simultaneously,” smiled Doctor Guyon. “Come with me.”

He opened a door on the other side of the dissecting room. He ushered Foulkrod Kendall and Tim Mecke into a small lighted apartment. Both visitors stopped and gasped incredulously.

Propped upon a hospital cot, his eyes wide open and flashing as they stared toward the door, was Silk Elverton! While Kendall and Mecke met the smooth crook’s steady gaze, the voice of Conrad Guyon sounded softly close beside them.

“Ronald Elverton,” declared the physician slowly. “Sentenced to die for murder. Electrocuted in the State prison. Brought here that I might begin an autopsy upon his body.

“Ronald Elverton. You see him after death. Yes, after death, he has returned to life! I have brought him from the grave!”