Page:Amazing Stories Volume 15 Number 12.djvu/136

136 Perdeau ground the ashes of the papers into the alley mud and stepped out into the streets once more. Now he was grinning broadly. With the evidence gone he was much safer. He could even go back to the laboratory right now and resume his own body. Then he could safely slay Mortain.

But no. That was too simple, and not in line with the cunning incredibly ironic scheme he had worked out. Perdeau touched the gun in his pocket and grinned.

He had figured out the logical person to kill. A person who could be slain unobserved. That would give Perdeau time to get back to the laboratory after the murder—and after planting evidences of Mortain's person about the scene of the crime—and resume his own body. Perdeau intended also to be identified by some one as he was leaving the scene of the murder. Then, in the morning, the police would appear looking for the culprit Mortain.

There was a little cobbler who worked late in his shop every night. Perdeau had watched him for two weeks now, while perfecting his plan. The cobbler's wife stayed with him in the back of the small shop. It would be simple, beautifully simple.

Perdeau was now less than a few blocks from the cobbler's place. And nearing the outskirts of the city cafe section, on the way to the shop, Perdeau reeled a little. The alcohol in Mortain's body—It drew attention from those who sat drinking at the sidewalk tables. Perdeau grinned. [sic] Everything helped. Even these people might recall having seen Mortain within a few blocks of the cobbler's shop.

Perdeau paid no attention to the feminine voice squealing behind him. No attention, that is, until the cry was repeated less than two feet from his ear and a pair of fat arms encircled him playfully from behind.

"Cheri! Cheri!"

Then a grotesquely painted face was leering close to his, and the tawdry slattern who'd embraced him was speaking.

"Cheri, you have come back! What kept you so long, my loved one?"

Perdeau felt a wave of nausea engulfing him as she planted a cognac-reeking kiss on his lips. While he struggled to free himself from her fat, python-like arms he realized that this must be the wench Mortain had mentioned before falling drunkenly asleep in his apartment. This, then, must be the cafe at which Mortain had been drinking.

Perdeau managed at last to free himself from the embrace. Holding the slattern at arm's length, he managed to catch his breath. This was bad. Mortain's tastes were not those of Perdeau, even though Perdeau happened to be inhabiting his body at the moment.

Then, in spite of the revulsion he felt toward the painted creature, Perdeau had to smile. For this was luck. This was perfect. He could drink with the trollop for perhaps an hour. And during his drinking he could show the wench the gun he carried, boast of what he planned to do to the cobbler, and thus create a first rate witness for Mortain's murder trial.

RINNING, Perdeau led the red-mouthed slattern to a seat at one of the sidewalk tables. Sitting down, he called loudly for brandy. Then, as he talked rapidly to the wench, Perdeau pretended to indulge in heavy drinking. But he only pretended, for he would need a clear head this evening. On every chance he got, Perdeau managed to get rid of his brandy by the simple expedient of spilling it inconspicuously on the sidewalk. Now and then he