Page:Weird Tales Volume 3 Number 3 (1923-03).djvu/76

 'The Clank of Chains; a Whisper in the Dark; a Woman's Scream of Terror; and Then—Read'

WOMAN'S scream, shrill and filled with agony! A low guttural muttering. The crowd rushed in from all sides. When they arrived they found her lying dead, her throat torn and bleeding, her face disfigured, her clothing ripped almost from her body.

"And not a sign of a footprint but her own. Not a single trace of the murderer anywhere. She was killed—murdered in cold blood! Choked to death! How? We want you to run down her slayer and bring the wretch to justice. The business men of Como are ready to pay any amount—even into the thousands—only put the guilt where it belongs. Will you take the case?"

Thus, tersely and to the point, did John Brayton, the mayor of Como, summarize the peculiar and horrible crime that had caused a wave of rage to sweep over the entire vicinity.

I hesitated. My time was filled to the limit. My men were all out on big cases—cases from which I did not dare to take them. Yet here was an opportunity to accommodate an old friend. I have long since given up active work, devoting my time to the business end of my agency. But here seemed an opportunity to pick up a little easy money and, at the same time, demonstrate to the youngsters of my force that the "old man" had not yet lost the cunning which had made me—if I may say it without egotism—one of America's greatest man hunters.

Briefly stated, the case was a peculiar one, yet one I believed, from what Brayton had told me, I could solve. The business men of the little town of Como had closed up. their stores the day previous and gone to the woods in a body for a community picnic. Miss Claire, one of the picnickers—a girl of unusual beauty, and extremely popular with all who knew her—had quarreled with her sweetheart during the afternoon, following which she had wandered off into the woods a quarter of a mile from the others, probably to enjoy a woman's privilege—a good cry.

They had heard her cries for help. Rushing to the spot, they found things as Brayton had described. The murdered girl's fiance, James Finch, had a clean cut alibi; he had been with the others when the screams were heard and was among the first to reach the slain girl's side.

Naturally, so popular a girl had had other suitors, but according to Brayton all were accounted for at the time of the murder. It looked more like the work of some tramp or wandering degenerate—only there was still to be accounted for the lack of footprints.

The Como police force, consisting of a single constable, had been able to do nothing. Nor had the sheriff's office done any better. The county officers joined with the business men in asking that my services be secured.

Before Brayton finished his narrative, I had decided to accept the commission. I told him of my decision much to his relief, and we were about to enter his car to start for the litlelittle [sic] village when the telephone on my desk rang violently. It was a long distance call for Brayton. He answered, then suddenly grew white faced.

"Great God!" he exclaimed.

He turned to me, his hand over the transmitter. "There's been another mysterious murder!" he whispered huskily. "In the same woods. Another woman, the wife of a farmer. The body was torn and mangled as in the case of Miss Claire. And not a single clew. What shall I tell them? The body has been undisturbed, waiting for news from me."

"Tell them to leave things alone and keep away from the spot!" I exclaimed, leaping for my hat. "Order them not to tramp over the ground or disturb any clews! For we're going to get there as fast as that big touring car of yours can carry us."

Shouting his directions into the phone, Brayton rushed out with me, and an instant later we were burning up the smooth asphalt road towards Como.

E reached the village in the dusk of the late afternoon to find the little place agog with excitement over the second murder within two days. In company with the constable and a half dozen of the leading citizens, we set out for the scene of the tragedy, arriving just as the sun was sinking over the western horizon.

A little group surrounding the body gave way at our approach—all except the victim's husband, a stolid-faced yokel with a tiny, unkempt youngster hanging onto his hand, who sat a short distance away from the body, his head bowed in grief, his eyes filled with unshed tears.

The dead woman lay under a huge tree with low, overhanging branches, located deep in the forest. My orders by telephone had been scrupulously carried out, for, with the exception of the footprints made by the husband when, alarmed at his wife's prolonged absence, he had set out to find her, there was not a single mark on the soft, spongy ground except those made by the woman herself.

Like that of the earlier victim, the body was badly mangled. The neck had been broken, the head being twisted grotesquely out of angle with the trunk. The upper clothing was torn almost from the body, while the flesh was bruised and battered as by a giant fist.

Such an investigation as I could make by the light of my flash light and lanterns hastily procured from nearby farmhouses failed to disclose even the vestige of a clew to work on.

Nor did the story told by the husband assist me any. One of the cows had broken out of the pasture a quarter of a mile away while he had been at work in the fields, he said, dumbly. He being busy, his wife had volunteered to go in search of the straying animal. After an absence of nearly an hour, seeing the cow returning leisurely to the stable and his wife not yet having returned, he had tied his team and gone to look for her, thinking that perhaps some accident had befallen her. He had found her just as we had seen her.