Although the moment was obviously one that demanded caution, Jules Peret
was never the man to hesitate in the face of an unknown danger.
He realized that he was in the presence of some terrible invisible thing
that might strike him down at any moment, but, as he had no idea what
that thing was and could not hope to cope with it until it attacked him
or in some manner made itself manifest, he dismissed it from his mind
for the moment and turned his attention to the two men who had gone down
before its onslaught.
Kneeling beside Dr. Sprague’s prostrate form, he bent over and peered in
the physician’s face. One look at the horribly distorted features and the
glassy eyes that stared into his own told him that the man was dead.
Turning now from the dead to the living, Peret jumped to his feet and
ran to help the pedestrian who, with the help of the terrified little
druggist, was in the act of staggering to his feet. Although the
druggist’s teeth were chattering with fear, his first thought seemed to
be for the sufferer, and he helped Peret support the man, too weak to
stand unaided, when he reeled back against the fence.
Choking, gasping, spitting, the pedestrian fought manfully to regain his
breath. His face was purple with congested blood, and his glazed eyes
were bulging. Great beads of sweat poured from his forehead and mingling
with the froth that oozed from between his lips, flecked his face as he
twisted his head from side to side in agony.
“What is the matter with you?” shouted Peret. “Speak! I want to help you.”
The stricken man made a violent effort to throw off the invisible horror
that had him in its clutches. Then the muscles of his body relaxed, and
he ceased to struggle. Drawing in a deep breath of air, he expelled it
with a sharp whistling sound. Then, exhausted, he shook off Peret’s hand,
and sank down on the pavement in a sitting posture.
“_Sacrebleu!_” yelled Peret. “Speak to me, my friend, so I can avenge
you! One little word is all I ask. _What attacked you?_”
“I—I don’t know,” the man gasped. “It—It was something I could not see!
It was a monster—an invisible monster. It whispered in my ear, and then
it began to choke me. Oh, God—.”
His head fell forward; he began to sob weakly.
“An invisible monster,” repeated Peret, staring at the man curiously.
“What do you mean by that?”
Before the man could reply, the police patrol-wagon swung around the
corner and, with a clang of the bell, drew up to the curb. Detective
Sergeant Strange of the homicide squad and two subordinates leaped to the
sidewalk and approached the Frenchman.
“Well?” demanded Strange, with characteristic brevity.
“Murder,” returned Peret, with equal conciseness, and nodded at the two
bodies on the pavement.
“How?” Strange shot out.
“I don’t know,” replied Peret. “As I was passing the house ten minutes
ago, Max Berjet, the man on your left, hurled himself through the
window, cried out that he had been attacked by ten assassins, and died
immediately afterward. After summoning a physician, I started to enter
the house to investigate, and heard the doctor scream. When I turned I
saw Dr. Sprague and this man”—pointing to the pedestrian—“struggling in
the grasp of something I could not see. Before I could reach them, the
two men fell to the pavement. Dr. Sprague died almost instantly; this
other man, as you see, is recovering. He has just informed me that he was
attacked by an invisible monster.”
Strange’s bellicose features twisted into a grin.
“An invisible monster, eh? Well, it had better stay invisible if it’s
still sticking around.” He whirled about, and to the patrolman: “I want
all available men here on the jump, Bill. Call the coroner at the same
time. O’Shane”—to one of the plainclothes men who accompanied him—“watch
the front of that house and keep an eye on these bodies until the coroner
comes. Mike, take care of the back of the house, and,” he added with a
grim humor, “keep your eye peeled for an ‘invisible monster’.”
Strange turned once more to the Frenchman.
“You’re sure these two men are dead, Peret?”
“They will never be any deader,” replied Peret shortly.
“All right—Who is that man?”—pointing over his shoulder at the druggist.
“I am the proprietor of the drug store across the street,” spoke up the
druggist. “I ran over with Dr. Sprague, who happened to be in the store
when this gentleman summoned assistance.”
Strange nodded.
“I may have to hold you as a witness,” was his curt reply. “Stick around
until I can find time to question you. Now Peret, before we enter
the house, spill the details. What do you know about this ‘invisible
monster’?”
“Little more than I have already told you,” answered Peret, and launched
into a detailed recital of his harrowing experience.
Although Detective Strange was a man difficult to surprise, he made no
effort to conceal his astonishment when Peret brought his story to an end.
“You say Dr. Sprague and this other man were seized by the Thing when
your back was turned?” he questioned.
“_Oui_; as I was leaping over the fence,” nodded Peret, “I heard Dr.
Sprague scream just as I landed on the ground. When I turned to see what
was the matter, both he and the other man appeared to be struggling with
some invisible antagonist. Before I could reach them, both men fell to
the ground. Sprague was apparently dead before he fell. The other man,
after a struggle, threw off the Thing—whatever it was or is.”
“Didn’t you see anything at all?” demanded Strange.
“Absolutely nothing.”
“Hear anything?”
“No. But that man”—jerking his thumb at the pedestrian—“said he heard the
Thing whisper.”
“I also heard the Thing whisper,” interposed the druggist, a small,
bald-headed individual with a cataract over one of his eyes. Still
in a state of nervous apprehension, he had edged up close to the two
detectives as if seeking their protection. “I was talking to Dr. Sprague
when he was attacked,” he continued, darting furtive glances over his
shoulder from time to time. “An instant before he screamed I heard a—a
whispering sound.”
Peret’s eyes shone with interest.
“It’s strange that I did not hear this sound,” he muttered, half to
himself. “Just what, exactly, do you mean by a whispering sound,
_Monsieur?_”
“I scarcely know,” replied the druggist, after a moment’s thought. “It
was a whisper—nothing that I could understand. Just an inarticulate
_whisper_. I had hardly heard it when Sprague screamed and began to
struggle.”
“Whence did the whisper emanate, _Monsieur_?” queried Peret eagerly.
“I do not know.”
“You _saw_ nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“’S damn funny,” growled Strange, scratching his ear. “An ‘invisible
monster’ that whispers is a new one on me.” He looked at the Frenchman,
perplexedly. “Queer business, Peret.”
“It is,” agreed Peret; then whirled around to confront the pedestrian.
“Ah, _Monsieur_, perhaps you can help us a little, eh? How are you
feeling now?”
“Considerably better,” returned the other in a hoarse voice, and then
added, “But I don’t believe I’ll ever recover from the shock. What in
God’s name was it, anyway?”
He was a tall, heavy-set man with glittering black eyes, a close-cropped
mustache and, though his features were irregular, had rather a handsome
countenance. Although deathly pale and still a little shaken, he seemed
to have himself pretty well in hand.
Strange looked at him shrewdly.
“What’s your name?” he asked, taking out his notebook.
“Albert Deweese,” replied the man. “I am an artist and have a studio in
the next block. I was on my way home when I heard the crash of breaking
glass as Mr. Berjet jumped through the window-sash. Naturally, I ran back
to find out what the trouble was.”
Strange made a note and nodded.
“What attacked you?” he suddenly shot out.
“I don’t know,” replied Deweese. “The Thing, whatever it was, was
invisible. I _felt_ it, God knows, but did not _see_ it.”
“But you must have some idea of what the Thing was,” Strange insisted.
“Was it a man, or an animal, or—?”
Deweese shook his head slowly.
“I have said that I do not know,” was his emphatic reply, “and I do
not. How _could_ I, when I did not see it? It was large, powerful and
ferocious, but whether it was an animal of some kind, or a demon out of
hell, I do not know.”
“Perhaps your ears served you better than your eyes?” said Strange. “Did
you hear the Thing when it leaped upon you?”
“I did,” replied Deweese, with a shudder. “At almost the very instant
that it attacked me I heard it whisper.”
“_Eh, bien, Monsieur_,” cried Peret, “and what did it say to you?”
“It did not say anything intelligible,” was Deweese’s disappointing
reply. “It just whispered.”
Strange and Peret looked at each other in silence. The Frenchman shrugged
his shoulders, and exhaled a cloud of cigarette smoke. Strange took a
hitch in his trousers, and his face became stern.
“All right,” he said curtly to Deweese. “Stick around till the coroner
comes. I want to question you and this other man further, a little later
on.”
He gave an order to O’Shane, who was standing a little distance away with
his eyes glued on the front of Berjet’s house, then turned to Peret.
“I’m going in,” he growled, and drew his revolver.
The Frenchman threw his cigarette on the pavement, drew his own
automatic, and, opening the front gate, ran across the little yard.
Followed by Strange and Deweese, who asked and obtained permission to
accompany them, Peret buttoned his coat around his frail body, got a
firm grip on the window ledge and, with the agility of a monkey, climbed
through the broken sash of the window through which Berjet had projected
himself.
The room in which the detectives found themselves had evidently been the
scientist’s sitting room. It was simply but comfortably furnished and
was quite masculine in character. The walls were lined with well-filled
book shelves, and in the center of the room was a large table, littered
with a miscellany of papers, pamphlets, pipes, burnt matches and tobacco
ashes. On the carpeted floor near the table lay an open book, the leaves
of which were rumpled and torn. Except for this, the room was in perfect
order.
“No signs of gas anywhere,” said Strange, audibly sniffing the air. “The
asphyxiation theory of Dr. Sprague’s is a dud, in my opinion.”
Peret, who had begun to make an inspection of the room, did not reply.
Strange continued his investigation, while Deweese stood near the window
looking on.
The result of Peret’s examination, which, while brief, was more or
less thorough, annoyed and confounded him. The detective sergeant also
appeared to be puzzled. The Frenchman was the first to give expression to
his thoughts.
“The three doors and the four windows in this room, sergeant, are _locked
on the inside_,” he remarked, as Strange paused for a moment to look at
him with questioning eyes. “The key to that door on the far side of the
room, and which I am sure is the door of a closet, is missing, but the
other keys are in the locks. The windows, moreover, are, as you have no
doubt observed, fastened with a form of mechanism that could not possibly
have been sprung from the outside. Yet Berjet said he was attacked by ten
assassins!”
“The point that you are trying to make, I take it,” Strange grunted, “is
that the broken window is the only means of egress from the room.”
“Your penetration is remarkable,” snapped Peret, who always became
irritated when baffled.
“It’s the devil’s own work,” commented Deweese, who had been watching
the movements of the two detectives with keen interest. “Certainly there
was nothing human about the Thing that attacked me, and I imagine that
Berjet’s death can be laid at the door of the same agency.”
Peret flung himself into a chair and lit a cigarette.
“Any way you look at the thing, it seems preposterous,” he said
reflectively. “The ‘invisible monster’ theory is too absurd for serious
consideration, and the other theories that have been advanced do not
stand up in the presence of the facts. However, let us consider. We will
assume that Berjet was, as he said, attacked by ten men. _Eh! bien!_ How
did they get out of the room? All of the exits are locked on the inside,
as you see.
“There is a small transom over that door opening onto the hall, it is
true, but it is not large enough for a child to crawl through, much less
a man. Dr. Sprague seemed to think that Berjet was asphyxiated. Yet this
room, as you yourself observed when we entered it, sergeant, contained
not the slightest trace of any kind of gas. As a matter of fact, the room
is lighted by electricity. What are we to conclude from these premises?
That the poison fumes, assuming that poison fumes were the cause of
Berjet’s death, were administered by human hands? If so, oblige me, my
friend, by telling me how the owner of those hands got out of the room?”
“Well, if the murderers were invisible, and they were, if the testimony
of you and Deweese counts for anything,” rejoined Strange, “they might
have followed Berjet through the window without having been observed by
you.”
“_Invisible_ murderers!” snorted Peret, with a contemptuous shrug of his
shoulders. “You are growing feeble-minded, my friend. Didn’t Berjet say
he _saw_ his murderers?”
“So you say,” returned Strange rudely. “But _you_ didn’t see Sprague’s
murderer, although you claim to have been looking at him when he was
attacked. Maybe your eyesight is failing you,” he added.
Peret glared at the detective sergeant, but said nothing.
“Perhaps Berjet was subject to a hallucination,” ventured Strange, after
a moment’s thought. “He may just have imagined he saw the murderers.”
“Perhaps he just imagined he was murdered, too,” retorted the Frenchman,
and returned to his examination of the room.
At this juncture someone rapped on the door opening into the hall.
Strange crossed the room, turned the key in the lock and, opening the
door, admitted Central Bureau Detectives Frank and O’Shane.
“Well?” demanded Strange.
“Major Dobson sent us four men from headquarters, and we’ve searched the
house as you ordered,” answered O’Shane. “We drew an absolute blank. The
house is empty.”
“Hasn’t Berjet got a family?” inquired Strange.
“The people next door say that Berjet’s wife and daughter are spending
the winter at Palm Beach.”
“Ain’t they any servants?”
“All of the servants go home at night except Adolphe, the murdered man’s
valet.”
“Did you find him?”
“No.”
“Was the front door, and the rest of the doors and windows in the house,
locked?”
“The front door was not only unlocked but slightly ajar. The rest of the
house was secured.”
“Do you not think it possible that the murderer might have slipped out of
the front door while you were watching without being seen by you?”
“Absolutely not,” said O’Shane, emphatically. “I didn’t take my eye off
the front of the house after you entered it until the men the major
sent arrived. Mike watched the back of the house with equal care.
Nobody could a-got out without one of us knowin’ it. If a murder’s been
committed the murderer’s still in the house somewhere.”
The burly sergeant nodded his satisfaction.
“Well, if he’s here, we’ll get him,” he declared. As an after-thought:
“Got the house surrounded?”
“I’ve thrown a cordon around the whole block,” replied O’Shane. “A mouse
couldn’t get through it without getting its neck broke.”
“Good.” Strange drew his revolver, which he had returned to his pocket
after entering the room, and tried the handle of the closet door. “Now,
men, before we go any farther, let’s get this closet open. It may contain
a secret exit, for all we know. Take a chair and burst it in, one of you.”
“Wait, my friend, I know an easier way,” said Peret.
He drew a jimmy from his inside coat pocket, inserted the flattened end
in the crack between the door and the jamb, and bore down on the handle.
Yielding to the powerful leverage, the door creaked, splintered around
the lock and flew open.
“Ten thousand devils!” cried Peret, leaping back.
The body of a dead man rolled out on the floor!
_CHAPTER III._