Jules Peret, known to the underworld as The Terrible Frog, hated the
foul air in crowded street cars and the “stuffiness” of a taxicab, and,
whenever possible, he avoided both.
Hence, having nothing in view that demanded haste, after leaving police
headquarters, he had, in spite of the lateness of the hour, elected to
make the journey home on foot. He had not gone very far, however, before
he began to wish that he had chosen some other mode of traveling, for
he had scarcely ever seen such a gloomy night. It was January, and the
atmosphere was of that uncertain temperature that is best described as
raw. The darkness was Stygian. A fine mist was falling from the starless
skies, and a thick grayish-yellow fog enwrapped the city like a wet
blanket.
The chimes in a church steeple, two blocks farther on, had just struck
the hour of ten, and except for Peret and one other wayfarer, who had
paused in the sickly glare of the corner lamp to light a cigarette, the
street was deserted.
“A fine night for a murder!” muttered Peret to himself, as, with head
lowered, he plowed his way through the fog. “_Diable!_ I must find a
taxi.”
With this thought in mind, he was about to quicken his pace when,
instead, he jerked himself to an abrupt halt and stood in an attitude
of listening, as the tomblike silence was suddenly broken by a hoarse
scream, and, almost immediately afterward, a cry of agony and terror:
“Help! help! I’m dying!”
The cry, though muffled, was loud enough to reach the alert ears of
Peret. It appeared to come from a tall, gloomy-looking building on the
right side of the street. By no means certain of this, however, Peret
crouched behind a tree and strained his ears to catch the sound should it
be repeated.
But no cry came. Instead, there was a terrific crash of breaking glass,
and Peret twisted his head around just in time to see a man hurl himself
through the leaded sash of one of the lower windows of the house and fall
to the pavement with a thud and a groan.
A moment later Peret was by his side. Whipping out a small flashlight, he
directed the little disc of light on the man’s face.
“_Nom d’un nom!_” he cried. “It is M. Max Berjet. What is the matter, my
friend? Are you drunk? Ill? _Sacre nom!_ Speak quickly, while you can.
What ails you?”
The man rolled from side to side, convulsively, and tore at the air with
clawlike hands. To Peret, he seemed to be grappling with an invisible
antagonist that was slowly crushing his life out. His face was blue and
horribly distorted: his breath was coming in short, jerky gasps.
Suddenly his tensed muscles relaxed and he lay still. Unable to speak, he
could only lift his eyes to Peret’s in desperate appeal.
“_Dame!_ You are a sick man, my friend,” observed Peret, feeling the
man’s pulse. “I will run for a physician. But tell me quickly what
happened to you, _Monsieur_.”
There was an almost imperceptible movement of the dying man’s
froth-rimmed lips, and Peret held his head nearer.
“Now, speak, my friend,” he entreated. “I am Jules Peret. You know me,
eh? Tell me what is the matter with you. Were you attacked?”
“As-sas-sins,” gasped the stricken man faintly.
“What?” cried Peret, excitedly. “Assassins?”
The look in Berjet’s eyes was eloquent.
“Who are they?” pleaded the detective. “Tell me their names, _Monsieur_,
before it is too late. I will avenge you. I promise you. I swear it.
Quickly, _Monsieur, their names_—”
Berjet murmured something in a voice almost too faint to be audible.
“_Dix?_” questioned Peret, straining to catch the man’s words. “You mean
ten, eh?”
With his glazing eyes fixed on the detective, Berjet made a desperate
effort to reply, but the effort was in vain. The ghost of a sigh escaped
from his lips, a slight tremor shook his frame, and, with a gurgling
sound in his throat, he died.
“_Peste!_ What did he mean by that?” muttered Peret, getting to his feet.
(_Dix_ is the French word for “ten”.) “Did he mean he was attacked by
ten assassins? The devil! It does not take an army to kill a single man.”
“What’s the matter, old chap?” It was the pedestrian whom Peret had
observed lighting a cigarette near the corner lamp a few minutes
previously. “The old boy looks as if he had had a shot of bootlegger’s
private stock.”
“He has been murdered,” returned Peret shortly, after giving the man a
keen scrutiny. Then: “Be so kind as to run to the drug store across the
street and ask the druggist to send for a physician. Also request him to
notify police headquarters that a murder has been committed. Have the
notification sent in the name of Jules Peret. Hurry, my friend!”
Without waiting to reply, the man spun on his heel and dashed across the
street. Dropping to his knees again, Peret made a hasty but thorough
search of the dead man’s clothing, but beyond a few stray coins in
the pockets of his trousers, found nothing. As he was finishing his
examination, the stranger returned, accompanied by the druggist and a
physician who had chanced to be in the drug store.
Peret rose to his feet and stepped back to make room for the doctor.
“What’s the trouble?” asked Dr. Sprague, a large, swarthy-faced man with
a gray Vandyke beard.
“Murder, I’m afraid,” replied Peret, pointing at Berjet’s motionless body.
Dr. Sprague bent over the inert form of the scientist and made a brief
examination.
“Yes,” he said gravely, “he is beyond human aid.”
“He is dead?”
“Quite.”
“Can you tell me what caused his death?”
“I cannot be positive,” replied the physician, “but he bears all the
outward symptoms of asphyxiation.”
“Asphyxiation?” repeated Peret incredulously.
“Yes.”
Peret’s skepticism was written plainly on his face.
“But that is at variance with the dead man’s last words. I was with M.
Berjet when he died and there was certainly nothing in his actions to
suggest asphyxiation. However—” He exhibited his card. “I am Jules Peret,
a detective. The man that you have just pronounced dead is Max Berjet,
the eminent French scientist. If he was murdered—and I have reason to
believe that he was—the murderer has not yet had time to escape, as M.
Berjet has been dead less than two minutes. It is possible, therefore,
that I can apprehend the assassin if I act at once. Can you stay here
with the body pending the arrival of the police?”
Dr. Sprague glanced at the detective’s card and nodded, whereupon Peret,
with a single bound, cleared the iron fence that inclosed the little yard
in front of Berjet’s house. As he landed, feet first, on the lawn, he
heard Dr. Sprague give a piercing scream.
So startled was he by the unexpectedness of it that he lost his footing
and fell forward on his face. Leaping to his feet, he whirled around and
directed the beam from his flashlight on the physician.
Dr. Sprague, with his hands clawing the air in front of him, appeared to
be grappling with an invisible _something_ that was rapidly getting the
best of him. His lips were drawn back in a snarl: his eyes seemed as if
they were about to pop from his head, and bloody froth had begun to ooze
between his clenched teeth and run from the corners of his mouth.
As Peret was preparing to leap back over the fence, he heard a terrible
scream issue from the throat of the unknown pedestrian, and saw him throw
up his arms as if to ward off a blow. Then the man reeled back against
the fence and began to struggle desperately with something that Peret
could not see.
Whipping out his automatic, the detective again vaulted the fence, but
before he could reach either of them, both Dr. Sprague and the pedestrian
crashed to the pavement, the first dead, the second still fighting for
his life.
_CHAPTER II._