Page:Weird Tales Volume 12 Issue 06 (1928-12).djvu/20

 last-minute news, sandwiched between the announcement of a sheriff's sale and a patent medicine advertisement:

"You see?" de Grandin asked as I put the paper down with an exclamation of dismay.

"No, I'm hanged if I do," I shot back. "The whole gruesome business is beyond me. Is there any connection between what we saw at the Cloisters last night and"

"Mort d'un rat noir, is there connection between the serpent and his venom—the Devil and the flames of hell?" he cried. "Yes, my friend, there is such a connection as will take all our skill and courage to break, I fear. Meantime, let us hasten, let us fly to the City Hospital. There is that there which shall prove more than a surprize to those vile miscreants, those forsworn servants of the Lord, when next we see them, mon vieux."

"What in the world are you talking about?" I demanded. "Whom do you mean by 'forsworn servants of the Lord'?"

"Ha, good friend," he returned, his face working with emotion, "you will know in due time, if what I suspect is true. If not" He raised his narrow shoulders in a fatalistic shrug as he snatched his overcoat from the hall rack.

upward of half an hour I cooled my heels in the frosty winter air while de Grandin was closeted in conference with the superintendent of the City Hospital, but when he came out he was wearing such a smile of serene happiness that I had not the heart to