Page:Weird Tales Volume 6 Number 3 (1925-09).djvu/66

 An Eery Little Story Is This Banshee Tale

O," Dr. Applegate said reflectingly, "I’m not at all sure we can refer everything to science for an explanation, at least, not to science as we know it."

Renouard, the demonstrator of anatomy, gave his diminutive beard a quick, nervous tug and smiled like an amiable Mephistopheles. "Ah, yes," he mocked, In earth and sky and sea, strange things there be,' eh? Can you give us any sign, doctor?"

Applegate drew thoughtfully at his cigar. "I wouldn’t be too anxious for a sign, if I were you, Renouard," he warned. "Patrick O’Loughlin wanted a sign, and got one.

"It was last spring that O’Loughlin came down with a touch of influenza. Nothing serious; just a case for careful diet and bed-rest treatment; but the family wanted a nurse, so I got them Miss Sandler. Wonderful girl, Sarah Sandler. None better. If she were on night duty and the devil himself came into the sick room, she'd tell him to make as little noise as possible when he put his pitchfork behind the door, and step softly, lest he wake her patient.

"I dropped in to see O’Loughlin toward the end of the week and found him lying on his back, trying to stare a spot of sunlight off the ceiling.

How are you, Pat?' I asked when he took no more notice of me than if I'd not come in. 'Let’s see the chart. Ah, fine; you’ll be up and attending to business by this time next week.'

No, I won't, doctor,' he answered in a hollow voice. 'I'll never get out of this bed till Mike Costello comes to dress me for my funeral.'

Rats!' I answered. 'You’re healthy as a herd of elephants, O’Loughlin. A little touch of flu won’t have any more effect on you than a drink of liquor. Why, your chart shows a steady decline in temperature. You’re as good as recovered this minute, man.'

No, doctor,' he replied with the stubbornness only an Irishman can show. 'I'm a doomed man; I’ve had the sign.'

Sign?' I repeated testily. 'What d'ye mean?'

The comb sign, sir,' he replied. 'Mary Ann had it before she went, and go she did, spite of all you could do to keep her.'

Your daughter had an aggravated case of interstitial nephritis,—it's particularly deadly in the young,' I told him. 'We caught the disease too late, and no power on earth could have saved her. You're a husky man, sound as a trivet, except for a touch of flu—'

She had the sign, and she went, doctor,' he interrupted doggedly, 'and I've had it, and I'll go, too. It's no use your trying to save me; I’m going.'

What do you mean?' I asked, seating myself on the bedside. When a patient gets in such a frame of mind the doctor has to think fast, if he doesn’t want to lose another case. 353