Page:Weird Tales Volume 13 Number 06 (1929-06).djvu/7

 be told they had loft at a quarter past 8—in plenty of time to reach the Junction by 9, even if they had bad going. When I heard that I began to worry sure enough. By 11 o'clock I was fit to be tied.

"Bill was getting worried, too, but thought that one of 'em might have been taken ill and that they'd rushed right to Harrisonville without coming through the Junction, so we 'phoned their house here. Their folks didn't know any more than we did.

"We caught the next bus to Harrisonville, and went right up to the Eatons'. When nothing was heard of the girls by 4 the next morning, Mr. Eaton notified the police."

"U'm?" de Grandin nodded slowly. "Proceed, if you please, young Monsieur."

"The searching parties didn't find a trace of the girls till next day about noon," young Wilberding answered; "then a State Trooper came on Ewell's Ford smashed almost out of shape against a tree half a mile or more from the river, but no sign of blood anywhere around. A little later a couple of hunters found Ewell's party dress, stockings and slippers on the rocks above Shaminee Falls. Mazie"

"They found th' pore child's body up agin th' grilles leadin' to th' turbine intakes o’ Pierce’s Mills next day, sor," Costello put in softly.

"Yes, they did," Wilberding agreed, "and Mazie was wearing her dance frock—what was left of it. Why didn't Ewell jump in the falls with hers on, too, if Mazie did? But Mazie didn't!"

Sergeant Costello shook his head sadly. "Th' coroner’s jury" he began, as though reasoning with a stubborn child, but the boy interrupted angrily:

"Oh, damn the coroner's jury! See here, sir"—he turned to de Grandin as if for confirmation—"you're a physician and know all about such things. What d'ye say to this? Mazie's body was washed through the rapids above Shaminee Falls and was terribly mauled against the rocks as it came down, so badly disfigured that only the remnants of her clothes made identification possible. No one could say definitely whether she'd been wounded before she went into the water or not; but she wasn't drowned!"

"Eh, what is it you say?" de Grandin straightened in his chair, his level, unwinking stare boring into the young man's troubled eyes. "Continue, if you please, Monsieur; I am interested."

"I mean just what I say," the other returned. "They didn't find a half-teacupful of water in her lungs at the autopsy; besides, this is March, and the water's almost ice-cold—yet they found her floating next morning; if"

"Barbe d'un chauve canard, yes!" de Grandin exclaimed. "Tu parles, mon garçon! In temperature such as this it would be days—weeks, perhaps—before putrefaction had advanced enough to form sufficient gas to force the body to the surface. But of course, it was the air in her lungs which buoyed her up. Morbleu, I think you have right, my friend; undoubtlessly the poor one was dead before she touched the water!"

"Aw, Doc, ye don't mean to say you're failin' for that theory?" Costello protested. "It's true she mightn't 'a' been drownded, but th' coroner said death was due to shock induced by"

De Grandin waved him aside impatiently, keeping his gaze fixed intently on Everett. "Do you know any reason she might have had for self-destruction, mon vieux?" he demanded.

"No, sir—none whatever. She and Bill were secretly married at Hacketstown last Christmas Eve. They'd been keeping it dark till Bill got his promotion—it came through last week, and they were going to tell the world last Sunday. You see, they