The faint, desperate appeal came again:
"Clay--listen! It's all a trick. A ghastly hoax! _Listen!_"
A hoax! That word brought me back at a run. My outraged sanity had
fought grimly against belief. But there had seemed no escape. What
could have been the motive for so frightful a deception?
"My child!" Amazement boomed in the voice of Doctor Kyle. "What are you
saying?"
"Listen!" repeated Valyne. "To that!"
She struggled to sit up, pointing at the dead monster. Wonderingly, I
moved toward it, stooped. And abruptly, in the still, frosty air, I
heard a familiar sound: the jangling tick of a cheap watch.
"It's Jud!" her faint voice said. "I heard his watch, when he was
carrying me."
I flung back the hideous head, and tore at its ghastly face. It came
away in my hands, a painted mask of wax and soft rubber adhesive.
Beneath, dark with oozing blood, was the broad, bearded face of Jud
Geer. The glazed, protruding eyes, still open, leered up with the
fearful grin of death.
"Jud!" exclaimed the hollow, surprized voice of Doctor Kyle. "How could
he----"
* * * * *