If Peret expected to catch Deweese off his guard, he was sadly
disappointed. The artist met his gaze squarely, and without any apparent
emotion.
Flicking the ashes from his cold cigarette, he applied a lighted match to
it and tossed the charred splinter upon the floor. The corpselike look
of his face became a little accentuated, perhaps, and there was a slight
narrowing of the eyes that had not been apparent before; but, except for
that, there was no change in his manner or appearance.
For a moment neither of the men spoke. Their eyes clashed and held. The
stillness became tense, electric, as they contemplated each other through
the haze of smoke that curled from the ends of their cigarettes. Finally:
“You are quite mad, I think,” remarked Deweese, unmoved. “Where the deuce
did you ever get the idea that I was Dalfonzo?”
Peret was unable to conceal his admiration.
“You are a great actor, _Monsieur_, and a brave man,” he declared in a
tone that left no doubt of his sincerity. “I told part of my story to
test you—a sort of indirect third degree—but so far not a muscle of your
face has moved. What a pity it is you are such a damned scoundrel!”
Deweese laughed shortly.
“It is always safe to insult a man when you have him covered,” he
observed composedly. “Nevertheless, pray continue. You interest me
exceedingly, and cause me no annoyance. Your wild theories brand you a
fool and an ass, and, strangely enough, it always gives me pleasure to
hear an ass bray. Proceed, my dear chap.”
“There are many others whose opinion of me is similar to your own,” said
Peret blandly; “but the fool is he who holds his enemy in contempt.”
Deweese’s eyes flashed.
“Well, dear enemy, what makes you think that I am the chap you call
Dalfonzo?” he questioned, smiling with his lips.
“You will not admit your identity, then?” countered the detective.
“Certainly I will admit my identity,” said Deweese, with a laugh. “I
am Albert Deweese, very much at your service. What reason have you for
believing me to be the man you call Dalfonzo—a man who, if one is to
believe you, seems to be in league with an invisible demon that commits
murders for him? The very fact that I almost met my death at the hands of
the Whispering Thing is proof that I am not the man you seek. If I had
anything to do with the Thing, does it seem reasonable to suppose that I
would turn it loose on myself?”
“The attack on you was an accident, _Monsieur_—a bit of retributive
justice, perhaps. Were it not for the fact that you still suffer from
the effects of it, I would say that you only got part of what was coming
to you. Not a full dose of your own medicine, _Monsieur_—just a taste of
it. Ah, you are clever, my friend, clever as the fiends in hell; but, it
appears, not clever enough, _Diable, Monsieur_, you should have better
trained that terrible monster before you turned it loose, eh?”
“You seem to like to talk in riddles,” snapped Deweese. “What is the
Whispering Thing, anyway? If you know, I shall be obliged if you will
tell me.”
“Very well, my friend,” acquiesced Peret. “I will do so with
pleasure. The invisible monster, the terrible, whispering, breathing,
fear-inspiring demon is—”
“_Well?_” demanded Deweese tersely.
“One little bat,” concluded Peret—“or rather, two little bats.”
Absurd as the detective’s statement may have sounded, its effect on the
artist was, nevertheless, pronounced. His gaze wavered and his face, if
such a thing were possible, became a shade paler. His recovery, however,
was almost immediate.
“I do not know what it was that attacked you last night,” he sneered. “It
may have been and probably was a bat. It is possible that an insect could
strike terror in the heart of a delicate little flower like you. But if
you think a bat attacked _me_—” with one of his chilling laughs—“I can
only say that I think you are a poor damned fool.”
“There are times that I think the same thing,” replied Peret, seriously;
“but this is not one of them. I not only think that the Thing was a
bat—I _know_ it. And to prove to you how futile it is for you to pretend
ignorance of the Thing, and of your own identity, let me reenact in words
the tragedy that ended in the death of two good and innocent men.”
“Do so,” gritted Deweese, his cold blue eyes glittering. “But if you
think you can convince me that the Thing that attacked me was a bat—”
“As I have already stated,” said Peret, fixing his gaze on the unwavering
eyes of the artist, “the murder of M. Berjet was conceived after you
learned that Adolphe had been killed. You deemed it necessary to your own
safety. Having completed your diabolical plans, therefore, you lost no
time in calling at the scientist’s home. Upon reaching your destination,
you entered the house by way of the front door, which you found unlocked.
The door of the library or sitting-room, on the other hand, was secured.
“You therefore placed a chair in front of the door to stand on and opened
the transom over the door. After tying a handkerchief over your mouth and
nostrils, you raised the cover of a little box you had brought with you
and released a bat in the room. Then you closed the transom and departed
from the house as silently as you had entered it.
“The bat proved to be a faithful ally, _Monsieur_. On little rubber pads
that you had glued on the upper side of its wings was a preparation
used by the Dyaks to poison the tips of their arrows and spears.
The preparation, which you used in powdered form, with a few added
ingredients of your own, as employed by the Dyaks, consists of a paste
made from the milky sap of the upas tree, dissolved in a juice extracted
from the tuba root. With one possible exception, it is the most deadly
poison known, a minute quantity, breathed in through the nostrils or
absorbed into the system through an abrasion on the skin, causing almost
instant death.
“When you released the bat in the library, it began to circle around the
room and its fluttering wings scattered the powder and poisoned the air
to such an extent that poor Berjet had only time, before he died, to
realize the significance of the bat’s presence in the room and to leap
through the window in a vain effort to save himself.
“You, in the meantime, had walked slowly down the street, and when the
scientist catapulted himself through the window-sash, you were calmly
lighting a cigarette under the corner lamp post half a block away. The
complication was one you doubtless had not anticipated; you had thought
that Berjet would die an instant death when he got a whiff of the powder.
“Nevertheless, you had nothing to fear, you thought; you had laid your
plans too carefully. Like any innocent pedestrian would be expected to
do, therefore, you ran back down the street, determined to be in at the
finish, to see your work well done.
“All this time the bat—whose mouth and nostrils, by the way, you had
protected with a tiny gauze mask from which the creature could eventually
free itself—was no doubt flying around and around, trying to find egress
from the room. It was while you were standing on the pavement in front of
the house, talking with Sprague and Greenleigh, that the bat discovered
the broken window-sash and escaped into the open air.
“As it winged its way aimlessly over the sidewalk, it flew close enough
to Sprague to scatter some of the powder in his face, and an instant
later, continuing its flight, it passed in front of you.
“Dr. Sprague inhaled a fatal amount of the powder, but you breathed in
only enough to throw you into a kind of convulsion. The struggles of
both you and the physician to get your breath and otherwise to overcome
the seizure made it appear that you were grappling with an invisible
antagonist. Sprague succumbed almost instantly; but you, after a brief
struggle, recovered, and in order to throw me off the track, as you
believed, cleverly conceived the ‘invisible monster.’
“Nor did you have to draw much upon your imagination for the ‘whispering
sound’ and the ‘icy breathing’ of the unholy creature of your mind.
The _whir_ of the bat’s wings as it flew past you made a sound not
unlike that of a sibilant whisper, while the whiffs of air that the
animal’s wings fanned against your cheek, suggested the ‘cold and clammy
breathing’ of the mythical monster.
“_Ma foi!_ well do I know whereof I speak, _Monsieur_, for I heard the
‘whisper’ and felt the ‘breath’ of the Thing myself. The bat that was
loosed in my room last night gave me the fright of my life. When its
wings brushed against the wall it sounded like a whisper of the devil
himself, and when its wings fanned the air against my face, I thought a
corpse was breathing death into my soul. No coward am I, _monsieur_, but
the ‘whispering’ and ‘breathing’ were so terribly real—which only goes
to show what suggestion will do to a vivid imagination. You had talked
so earnestly and so picturesquely about the ‘whisper’ and the ‘breath’
of the Thing, that when I first heard the _whir_ of the little animal’s
wings in the inky-dark room—_Dame!_ It makes me shiver yet!
“Fortunately, however, the bat had been in my room long enough before I
entered it to shake all the deadly powder from its wings. The powder had
settled and the air was pure before I crossed the threshold of that room,
else I would have died a quick and horrible death.
“The same thing is true of the bat that sprinkled death in the face
of Berjet. When you and I, in company with the police, entered the
scientist’s house, the bat had been gone for several minutes, and the
stray particles of pulverized death had settled. You realized this, of
course, or you would not have entered the room. If Strange and I had
entered the house five minutes earlier, you would have let us enter it
alone.”
Peret took a lavender handkerchief from the breast pocket of his coat and
wiped from his brow some beads of perspiration. A slight moisture was
also noticeable on the forehead of the artist, but it was due to another
cause. Although he must have known that each word of the detective’s
was a strand in the rope that was being woven around his neck, he gave
no signs of emotion. Inwardly, the strain had begun to tell on him, but
outwardly he was calm, confident, almost indifferent.
Restoring the handkerchief to his pocket, Peret resumed: “I confess that
at first the case baffled me. Through a mistake of my own, soon to be
explained, I got started on the wrong track. Your story of the Whispering
Thing did not impress me, although I did not at first suspect you of
deliberately trying to deceive me. I laid the Thing to your imagination
and wrought-up condition. My skepticism vanished, however, when I reached
my rooms, as I have explained.
“At first I scarcely knew what to believe. The asphyxiation theory of
Sprague and, later on, of Coroner Rane set my mind in motion, but led me
nowhere, because it did not fit in with my interpretation of Berjet’s
last words. As a matter of fact, nothing else seemed to fit in with
anything. Clues ran counter to each other and the facts themselves
clashed.
“I got my first inspiration when you declared that the breathing of the
Thing was cold and clammy, for this made it seem likely that poison fumes
had been fanned in your face by some mechanical device. Had it not been
for the horrible experience in my room, this is the theory upon which I
should have based my investigation.”
“Then you captured the bat?” said Deweese, in a tense voice.
“_Oui, Monsieur_,” nodded Peret. “I tried to shoot the tiny thing,
without even knowing what it was; but I ask you in all seriousness, my
friend, could one hope to hit with a thirty-two bullet a _chauve-souris_
that one could not see? Not I! So I telephoned for the police and they
came and conquered it with a tear bomb!
“The bat, _Monsieur_, was then turned over to the city chemists, and they
analyzed the traces of powder found adhering to the little pads on its
wings. Their report gave me the name of the poison that opened the gates
of eternity for Berjet and Sprague.”
Peret twisted the needle-points of his slender black mustache and beamed
upon his host.
“But why accuse me?” asked Deweese, smiling. “I have no bats in my
menagerie—nothing, in fact, but a flea-bitten bulldog.”
Peret’s face became sober.
“You stand accused not by me,” he said solemnly, “but by Berjet, the
first of your victims.”
“What’s that?” asked Deweese sharply. For the first time, he seemed
alarmed. He sat up suddenly in his chair, and as suddenly relaxed, but
the hunted look that crept into his eyes continued to show how sharply
the blow had struck home.
“You start, eh? Good! My reasoning is sound. Yes, my friend; Berjet is
your accuser. Just before he died, he uttered two words. The first word
was ‘assassins;’ and the other was a word that I at first believed to be
‘_dix_,’ the French word for ‘ten,’ which is pronounced _dees_. I thought
Berjet meant he had been attacked by ten assassins, incredible as it
seemed. That is what got me all balled up, as the saying goes.
“But after I heard your name, and let it roll around in my mind for
awhile, I realized my mistake. The dying man did not say _Dix_. He
pronounced your name, or rather, your present _alias_, ‘Deweese.’
“When realization of this burst upon me, I was so gratified that I
decided to lay a little trap for you. I became very excited, you may
recall, shouted that I knew what the Whispering Thing was, that the
mystery was solved! I wanted you to show your hand, my friend. But I was
not looking for you to act through a confederate, and as a result I very
obligingly walked into the little trap which you, in turn, laid for me.
“Who was it that put the _chauve-souris_ in my room, eh? Was it Sing Tong
Fat? It could not have been you, for you have been under surveillance
every minute of the time since you left the murdered scientist’s house
last night. I think you gave Sing Tong Fat instructions to destroy me
over the telephone, for the police report you as having called your house
from Greenleigh’s drug store after your departure from Berjet’s. Ah,
that devil of a Chinaman! I was watching him through the kitchen window
for a little while this morning polishing silver, and he was singing to
himself! _Pardieu!_ he has an easy conscience for a would-be murderer,
_monsieur_!”
“You have a very fertile imagination,” remarked Deweese, when Peret
paused to blow the ashes from his cigarette. “But your fairy tale amuses
me, so pray continue. In view of the fact that I was near the scene of
the crime when Berjet was murdered, it is not difficult to perceive how
you might confuse my name with the scientist’s last utterance. But how
you ever came to identify me with Dalfonzo is past my comprehension.”
“That is very easily explained,” was Peret’s affable reply. “After
leaving the scene of the crime last night, I had your house placed under
surveillance of the operative I have already mentioned. While he was
waiting for me to join him, so we could search the house, he saw Sing
Tong Fat through one of the windows and recognized him as your familiar.
“There are very few foreign agents unknown to the Secret Service, and my
operative has the record of you and Sing Tong Fat at his finger-tips. He
knows that you and the Chinaman have been associated for years, and that
at the present time you are working in the interests of Soviet Russia.
Sing Tong Fat is not the idiot he appears to be; he is an international
agent that several countries would give a good deal to lay their hands on.
“When my operative saw Sing Tong Fat in your house, he did not have to
tax his mind much to deduce the name of the ‘master’ he is serving.
Before I joined the operative, some one called Sing Tong Fat on the
’phone and he left the house almost immediately afterward. As the time
of the call coincides with the hour you are reported as having ’phoned
from Greenleigh’s drug store, I have no doubt that the message was from
you. As the operative had instructions to wait for me, he did not shadow
Sing Tong Fat when he left the house, which is a pity, for he probably
would have caught the old scoundrel in the act of putting the bat in my
room. After I arrived on the scene, we amused ourselves by searching your
house—this house—thoroughly.”
“So it was you prowling around here last night, was it?” said Deweese
savagely. “I wish I had known it; you should not have gotten away so
easily.”
“Then I am glad you did not know,” laughed Peret. “Your bulldog and your
bullet made it lively enough as it was.”
“I hope that you found your search worth while,” sneered Deweese.
“No,” replied Peret regretfully; “my search gave you a clean bill
of health. We did not find the formula or anything else that would
incriminate you. Nevertheless, _Monsieur_, your little game has been
played—played and lost.
“And you played the game badly, too, my friend. For a man of your
intelligence, your blunders are inexcusable. Why did you not leave that
blood-thirsty old Chinaman in Russia, _Monsieur_? You can never hope to
remain incognito as long as you have Sing Tong Fat in tow. His hatchet
face is too well known. Your other blunders were all just as glaring
as this one. Why did you linger near the scene of your crime, eh? And
introduced yourself to the human bloodhounds that were searching out your
scent! Ah, _Monsieur_, I admire your self confidence, but you have an
over abundance of it.”
“Perhaps,” said Deweese, with an ironic smile. “At any rate, it doesn’t
desert me now. For I know that you cannot convict me. You haven’t a shred
of real evidence against me, and the chain of circumstantial evidence you
have woven around me would be laughed to scorn in a jury room.”
“You are right,” assented Peret, almost apologetically. “So far I have
only been able to reconstruct the crime in my mind by piecing together
inconsequential nothings that do not constitute legal evidence. Surmises,
deductions, and a stray fact or two—I possess nothing more, my friend.
But for the present they must suffice. Before I am through, however, I
promise to tie you up in a knot of incontestable evidence.”
“That you will never be able to do,” declared Deweese, “for I am innocent
of the murders of Berjet and Sprague. I deny any knowledge of the crimes,
in fact, except what I saw in your presence last night. However, ever
since you have been here, I have noticed your hand toying with the
revolver in your pocket, so I presume that I am under arrest, what?”
“What the devil do I want to arrest you for?” asked Peret, with feigned
astonishment. “You yourself have said that I have no real evidence
against you.”
The lids of Deweese’s eyes narrowed and the lines around his mouth grew
hard. The pupils of his eyes, contracted to half their usual size, looked
like points of cold fire.
“If you are not here to arrest me, what’s your game?” he demanded.
“Oh, I just wanted to see what effect my theories would have on you,”
replied Peret calmly, as he rose to his feet. “I am a close student of
psychology, and I find much in you that interests me. Thanks for your
hospitality, _Monsieur_,” he continued, opening the door. “Perhaps I
shall have an opportunity to return the courtesy some day, as I have no
doubt we shall meet again.”
“Rest assured of that,” rejoined Deweese, with a sinister smile. “We
shall certainly meet again.”
“It is written,” returned Peret.
He looked at Deweese for a moment, and then, with a bow, withdrew from
the room.
_CHAPTER IX._