Page:Amazing Stories Volume 02 Number 06.pdf/23

542 I came so near being asphyxiated and frozen to death, is equipped with a similar refrigeration plant, and it it probable that we shall find more of them which have not been used, in other rooms.

HE matter of the lights going out and again being turned on will be settled as soon as we can find the radio controlled rheostat and switch which operates them. Is everything clear?"

"You have not explained what it was which drove my dog mad," Miss Van Loan reminded him.

"Your dog," he said, "had hydrophobia. As I found a bottle of the virus which produces this disease in the house occupied by Mr. Hegel, I don't think it at all remarkable that the dog was infected. No doubt it was acquainted with and friendly toward your cousin, who found an opportunity to inoculate it when it was ranging on your estate. The queer behaviour of the dog, thereafter, is common to all animals that contract the disease. In my opinion the dog was inoculated three or four days ago. It would certainly have died within a few hours, had you not shot it when you did."

"What I cannot understand," said Mr. Brandon, the electrical engineer, "is how Mr. Hegel found the time or opportunity to install this complicated array of electrical equipment. Mr. Van Loan, I understand, had only been dead a little more than a month."

"I made a few investigations today which cleared up that point," replied the doctor. "It is a matter of common knowledge that Gordon Van Loan died from cancer of the stomach. Mr. Van Loan was not aware that he had this disease, although both his niece and nephew had been apprised of the fact nearly a year before his death by the family physician. They had also been informed that an operation would be fruitless and fatal, and were told almost to the day just how long their uncle would live.

"Last winter, in the vain hope that he might better his condition, Gordon Van Loan went to Florida for a three months' stay, taking his two servants with him. Some time before, the nephew had left in a huff after Mr. Van Loan, in a fit of anger, had disclosed to him the contents of the will he had made. Being in possession both of the knowledge of the will and the probable length of time his uncle would live, Hegel laid his plans for winning the estate. Just before Mr. Van Loan left for Florida, he visited him, saying was out of a job and penniless, and asking

might be given something to do in order that he might earn some money. The house was badly in need of cleaning and decorating, and, as he had good taste in this line, he was permitted to oversee the work of papering, painting, and varnishing while his uncle was away, asking in return only a very small salary and the privilege of rooming in the house. His uncle turned over the keys of the house to him, paid him his salary in advance, and established credit with a firm of decorators.

"Hegel's supposed trip to Europe was, of course, only a blind to hide his recent operations here. Are there any more questions?"

"Yes," said Mr. Easton. "Now that Hegel has been apprehended, what can the law do with him? What charges can be placed against him?"

"He will be charged with robbery, resisting an officer, and attempted murder. You see he robbed a radio and camera shop after stealing a small truck, in order to get equipment for this elaborate installation, which his slender means would not permit him to buy. A police officer on night duty saw him just as he was leaving the shop, but Hegel wounded him with a revolver shot, and escaped. As he left finger prints, and the stolen articles will be easy to identify, there is no possible way for him to escape final and certain conviction."