Page:Weird Tales Volume 12 Issue 06 (1928-12).djvu/53

 this moment the older man's narrow-set eyes had settled with a peculiar gleam of satisfaction on the heavy gold seal ring which adorned the finger of the young man—a ring so well worn that the inscription embossed on its surface had been all but obliterated.

Once or twice, as if in fascination, the bearded man's hand had half reached out to the ring only to be withdrawn with obvious mental effort. Now he touched the young man's arm. "Pardon," said he in a heavy bass voice which went well with his appearance, "you have a very strange ring there. May I ask where you got it?"

The younger man, rather pale of face and poor of dress and yet with a certain distinction in his features, looked up from his paper, plainly more startled by the nearness of that gruff voice to his ear than by the strangeness of the question.

"Oh, I can't tell you," he answered. "It's a family heirloom. It was left to me—that is, it was left with me—by my parents when they died."

The older man nodded. "May I examine it?" he asked.

The young man slipped it off and passed it over to the other, who seized it eagerly between long, powerful fingers. For a moment he examined it closely, turning it this way and that to throw a better light on its yellow surface. Finally he pulled out a small magnifying glass, continuing his scrutiny even more carefully under the lens. From time to time during the examination his eyes shifted to the man beside him, taking in with quick understanding the worn yet neatly mended clothing, the patched shoes and the general air of genteel poverty.

"Will you sell it?" he demanded abruptly.

The young man shook his head. "I couldn't," said he.

"Were your people Russian?" demanded his inquisitor, handing back the ring.

The young man flushed. "I don't know," he replied, in a voice so faint that the bearded man bent closer, drinking in eagerly every word. "I haven't the faintest idea. You see, I was—er—I was a foundling. Somebody left me, a three-weeks old baby, at the door of the Seaman's Institute here in New York City. This ring was tied about my neck by a bit of string. I've clung to it, hoping that some day I might"

The bearded man interrupted, laying a heavy hand on the speaker's arm. "Listen," he said, "I am a physician with a more than ordinary scientific turn of mind. I dabble in psychiatry and hypnotism and that sort of thing. It so happens that at the present moment I am in need of an assistant in my laboratory—somebody who'll be willing to be the subject for a few harmless experiments. If you are willing to put yourself in my hands I can pay you well. You will suffer no pain, and there will be no drawbacks whatsoever. And the work, on the other hand, will be more than fascinating. I can pay as high as fifty dollars a week. If you prove satisfactory, there may be more later."

The face of the younger man lit up. "I'll take it," he said, after a moment's thought. "As a matter of fact I've been looking for work all day. Lost my job because I was too sleepy after nights of study. I'm hoping to be a lawyer, you see. My name's Hearne—Ralph Hearne."

The bearded man drew a card from his pocket. Call at No. East Twenty-Eighth Street, tomorrow afternoon at 2 o'clock," he directed. "That's way over by the river but you can find it all right. Here's my station. Good-bye."

Hearne, looking up in sign of parting, noticed for the first time a faint line of purple, a birthmark running from the end of the bearded man's