Page:Weird Tales Volume 7 Number 1 (1926-01).djvu/13

Rh diately convinced that something was vitally wrong somewhere. He gripped the mayor by the arm.

"Come with me," he said. "Come, Jason, I'll take you home."

The dull voice of the mayor intoned monotonously: "No, I'm going to kill Glenn Keith."

The street showed no sign of a mutual friend, and the doctor disliked to call on a stranger to aid him save as a last resort.

"Come!" he said, and gripped the arm fiercely.

Then happened a thing which was well-nigh unbelievable in Caledonia. The mayor raised his fist and drove it into the face of Dr. Linn fiercely. The surgeon staggered back and fell dizzily to the sidewalk. When he had risen the mayor was gone.

Jason Andrews continued his search for the man he was going to kill. He came presently to the Red Circle café and walked in. He looked about. Through the haze of cigarette smoke he saw his enemy.

Glenn Keith but added to the horror of the situation. He saw the mayor and smiled.

"Ah!" in a sarcastic tone. "The mayor is here to get the dope on our bootleggers."

Jason Andrews looked upon the man with dull eyes. His brain for a moment was filled with wonder that he was not afraid—that he had no horror of shooting down a man in cold blood. He looked at the fellow without venom, without malice. For a moment he stood there. Then he said in a low, tense voice:

"Keith, I have come to kill you."

It was not a threat—just the statement of a casual fact.

Keith threw back his leonine head and laughed. He inhaled deeply and blew the smoke toward his challenger. "Shoot," he laughed.

"I am going to kill you," the voice of the mayor was calm as death.

Nearly everyone in the café heard the words this time. The atmosphere became tense. All knew and loved the mayor. They wondered what was to follow. The face of Glenn Keith paled.

The mayor of Caledonia drew the revolver from his pocket, thrust it forward, fired without aiming. The bullet struck Keith in the breast.

The café was in an uproar as a wondering, pained expression came over the face of the victim. The mayor turned—and there was none who stretched forth an arm to detain him as he walked from the worn. They were too astounded. Jason Andrews walked toward his home.

It was but a little while later that they came pounding at the door of his house. At first when Jason Andrews woke he thought it had been another dream, but he soon found his mistake. He was in the library—fully clothed. He had full memory of his terrible deed, but now he knew that he had not wanted to do it. Why had he?

The police came in and took him away. There was a trial that lasted a long time—a trial in which his attorneys spoke at length of temporary insanity; a trial in which his spotless character was held up for the world. But murder is murder in Caledonia and presently Jason Andrews was taken in an auto over the twenty-mile road between Caledonia and the state penitentiary. There, by some strange quirk of fate, he was assigned the cell opposite that of the hunchback: and on his first night there he heard a thing which startled him to the core.

The hunchback was jumping up and down in his cell, mouthing gibberish—and then his words became intelligible.

"Fourteen men!" he said softly, but none the less fiercely. "Fourteen men! One by one, or two by two! All will pay! Fourteen men, dear mayor—and you are number one!"