Page:Weird Tales Volume 4 Number 3 (1924-11).djvu/94



HE inquest was over. The coroner had gone, and so had the twelve men who formed his jury. The police officials and reporters for the press had ceased to ring our doorbell. The undertaker, polite and low-spoken, had got his work well in hand and the two coffins lay side by side in the dimly-lighted parlor. An awed silence was in the house where but a few hours ago grim tragedy stalked its hideous way.

But I am starting my story at the wrong end. Let us turn back forty-eight hours to the beginning.

It was early on Wednesday night, and my uncle and I, dressed for dinner, sat, each at a window in the living-room watching every passing taxi in the street. At last one stopped outside; two figures stepped out into the cold night; and while one paid the taxi driver, the other rushed up the front steps and came into the front hall and flung her arms round my uncle's neck. It was my kid sister Joe, back from a five months honeymoon in the far-distant and mysterious countries of the orient.

"Well, well," said my uncle, "is the little rosebud glad to be home again and rest once more in her uncle's arms?"

And Joe said: "Yes—oh, yes!" and burst out crying and hid her face on my uncle's oversize vest and held his coat lapels each with a tiny, girlish hand.

I went out to greet her husband but fell back before him as he advanced, so shocked was I at the change in his appearance. From a handsome youth, well-built and smiling, he had become a pale, shriveled figure which staggered under the weight of the light hand baggage he was dragging into the house.

My uncle and I had planned to give the travelers a royal welcome. Our plans, however, were rudely swept aside, and the bridegroom was rushed upstairs to bed and the doctor summoned.

Just what the sick man's ailment was the physician was unable to determine. There were times when his heart raced like fury and his breath came in gasps and his neck swelled and his eyes bulged. At such times he clutched the bed clothes with an iron claw and tried to raise himself. Then, the spell would pass like a snap of the fingers, and the patient would relax and fall back as if exhausted from a violent struggle.

About midnight he rested easier, and Joe, my uncle and I sat down to the untasted dinner.

"A month ago, in China," said Joe, "we went up into the mountains one day, to a temple where a horrible old creature sat on the floor with incense burning all around him. He was a magician, or priest, or soothsayer or something, and had power with the Chinese gods. But