Page:Weird Tales Volume 3 Number 3 (1923-03).djvu/54

Rh and I chortled with glee that the authorities were none the wiser.

Every precaution was taken, you may be sure, to keep my hiding place intact. The winter rains with their influx of water into the basement, threatened to demolish the false wall. What if the investigators should call as streams of swirling water poured into the pit? Such a happening would seal my fate. I speedily acted.

Each night, over a period of many months, I added a pail of clay, no more, to the ground beneath the cellar steps. About the house I planted deep-rooted vegetation, crowding it as thickly as it would grow. I thus checked my enemy, the rain.

Through these years of calm I derived great amusement from my relations with the toad. I lost the dread that he had once provoked; he now moved me to merriment. Ofttimes I whiled away an evening with Bismark. Placing him on a chair, and taking an opposite seat, I carried on ironic conferences. I thanked him profusely for having caused my good fortune. I wiped imaginary tears from my eyes as I mockingly narrated my master's virtues. I asked Bismark confidentially, if he didn't think I had done a neat job in disposing of the old fellow. Then I would tell Bismark how much I liked him, and endeavor to shake hands.

The toad's reactions to this treatment were tragically comical. His out-reaching intelligence seemed to grasp the import of my speech. He would quiver and shake, and, if my eyes deceived not, be actually shriveled at mention of my crime. And, though I little heeded, then, he manifested a very deep hatred for me.

Bismark had visibly altered since his master's death. He ate little; for a long period following the murder, he had starved. He was now a sickly mass of folds and wrinkles. The light died from his eyes and they became hard and steely. He lost whatever animation he had once had. Sometimes I thought he was dead, as he lay stiffly on the floor, letting the ants run at will over his body. Yet—and at this I wondered and was strangely disturbed—he seemed to cling to life, defying death, for a set purpose.

At last the toad crawled away and returned no more. A vast relief upbore me; gone, now, was this ugly shadow of my master, gone the witness and constant reminder of my crime. Pleased by the thought, I hastened to blot out every association of the deed. I burned that emblem of murder, the cane. The dead man's arm-chair, and his picture which still glowered at me from the wall, were fed to the flames. I called builders and had the murder spot converted into a closet—a closet which I took care never to enter. New floors, new furniture, new decorations, new wall paper, put a new and pleasant face on the interior. Coats of bright paint, on the sides and on the roof without, proclaimed that the dead past of the house was buried. So passed from view, and so passed from my mind, the relics of a less happy day. I reasoned with great logic that the murder, from a practical aspect, had never occurred.

THER years sped lightly by, and I grew fat and prosperous. The world greeted me with kindly eyes, and I beamed an answering beam upon the world. I completely forgot the past; I gazed with pleasant anticipation toward the future. Soon, if all went well, I would be happily married.

Then the rains broke forth! Driven by thunder and lightning, a great cataclysm, terrible in power, beat and shook and rocked the ground. Lakes piled over the land. Still unsatisfied, the downpour continued; days, weeks, months, the unending deluge descended. At length, with devilish malice, immense floods invaded my cellar. In a twinkling, they had burst the false wall and were hurtling themselves into the pit. I chilled with anguish—that secret which had withstood the years was uncovered at last!

Ah! but the disappearance, had it not been forgotten? Years before, the investigators had given up the search, had told me that they despaired of ever solving the mystery. Their reappearance, then, was unlikely. Thus I composed myself, resolving that, with the flood over, I would fill the pit with clay. Then I should defy the devil himself to expose my secret.

These meditations were broken by a jingling of my telephone. It was a call from the police! They would arrive directly! I beat myself in a fit of madness. What fate was this, that they should wait for years, and then swoop upon me at the exact instant my secret lay bare? I toddled to the cellar, and in a dumb trance, watched the rushing water as it tumbled into the pit.

Suddenly the water stopped its downward flow and banked itself beside the wall. Rapidly the false wall was being hidden by a sheet of water. Then I sank on my knees and thanked God. The pit had filled! Water screened the false wall! My secret still defied discovery!

Blithely I entered the house, settling myself in an easy-chair, and resolved to welcome the police with the utmost nonchalance. Gay and blustering, like a troop of picknickers they descended upon me.

"Guess what we came for!" cried an investigator, slapping me heartily on the back.

I read irony in his tone. "Why-y—," I stammered, "you came to search for the dead man! Of course! Of course! Go right ahead, gentlemen! and if I—"

The man bent a keen look upon me. "How do you know he's dead?"

I wilted. Luckily, I was struck dumb and remained silent.

"No," he went on in playful pomposity, "official duties did not inspire our mission. Our visit is purely social. We called to see Bismark! Bismark! the wonderful toad. Where is he?"

"Bismark," I echoed. "Yes! Yes! I might have known it. You are right sir!—he is a wonderful toad!—and a toad of great intelligence, sir. Did I tell you—"

"But," gently insisted the investigator, "where is he?"

"Ah, sir," I replied, "the toad was wretched after his master's—disappearance; he became sick and weak, and one day he crept away, never to return. Without doubt, the toad is dead."

At that moment a wild and terrible wail came from below. Age-long sorrows of earth and hell rolled from an awful throat, and it was calling, calling—

We rushed below. We stopped short and they gasped in wonder, and I gasped in knowledge and deep dismay. Half the cellar had caved in! Still-foaming water filled the ghastly pit! At length the watterwater [sic] stirred uneasily and bubbles ruffled its surface. Then, from those depths, there rose a human skull.

It turned its leering face upon us and stared profoundly from its empty sockets. Slowly, then, the skull's jaw spread the water and it labored toward the shore. It grounded. It strained mightily to climb from the water. It pushed upward and shook and trembled on the brink. Then, with a sigh and a splash, back into the pit it fell.

Unwearied, calmly resolved to find a landing-place, the skull cruised and cruised about. Again and again, at many different points it flung itself toward the land; again and again with unvarying monotony it tumbled backward, down into the pit. Finally the skull retired to the opposite bank and, gathering speed, raced through the water. With a leap, it cleared the pit and thudded to the ground.

The skull steadied itself, dragged its thumping bones forward and halted at my feet. It raised its streaming face and (Continued on page 82)