Page:Weird Tales Volume 7 Number 5 (1926-05).djvu/37

Rh her death. She was scared to death, literally.

"I returned from New York, where I’d been attending a banquet given by my alumni association, about 2 o’clock this morning, I let myself in with my latch key and went upstairs to my room, which adjoined my wife’s, and was beginning to undress when I heard her call out in terror. I flung the connecting door open and ran into her bedroom just in time to see her fall to the floor beside her bed, clutching at her throat and trying to say something about a hand."

"Ah?" de Grandin looked at our host with his sharp cat-stare. "And then?"

"And then I saw—well, I fancied I saw a—a something drift across the room, about level with my shoulders, and go out the window. I ran over to where my wife lay, and—and when I got there she was dead."

"Ah?" murmured de Grandin thoughtfully, inspecting his well-manicured nails with an air of preoccupation.

Richards gave him an annoyed look as he continued: "It was not till this morning that I discovered all my wife’s jewels and about twenty thousand dollars’ worth of unregistered Liberty bonds had disappeared from the wall-safe in her room.

"Of course," he concluded, "I didn’t really see anything in the air when I ran from my room. That’s impossible."

"Quite obviously," I agreed.

"Sure," Sergeant Costello nodded.

"Not at all," Jules de Grandin denied, shaking his head vigorously in dissent. "It is more possible your eyes did not deceive you, Monsieur. What was it that you saw?"

Richards’ annoyance deepened into exasperation. "It looked like a hand," he snapped. "A hand with four or five inches of wrist attached to it, and no body. Silly rot, of course. I didn’t see any such thing!"

"Quod erat demonstrandum!" de Grandin replied softly.

"What say?" Mr. Richards demanded testily.

"I said this is truly a remarkable case."

"Well, do you want to look at the room?" Richards turned toward the door leading to the stairway.

"But no, Monsieur," de Grandin blandly refused. "The good Sergeant Costello has already looked over the ground. Doubtless he can tell me all I need to know. I shall look elsewhere for confirmation of a possible theory."

"Oh, all right," Richards agreed with a snort of ill-concealed contempt; "tackle the matter in your own way. I’ll give you forty-eight hours to accomplish something; then I’ll call up Blynn’s agency and see what real detectives can do."

"Monsieur is more than generous in his allowance," de Grandin replied icily.

To me, as we left the house, he confided, "I should greatly enjoy pulling that Monsieur Richards’ nose. Friend Trowbridge."

you come over to my house right away, Dr. Trowbridge?" a voice hailed me as de Grandin and I entered my office.

"Why, Mr. Kinnan," I answered, as I recognized the caller, "what’s the matter?"

"Huh!" he exploded. "What isn’t the matter? Hell’s broken loose. My wife’s had hysterics since this morning and I’m not sure I oughtn’t ask you to commit me to some asylum for the feeble-minded."

"Pardieu, Monsieur," de Grandin exclaimed, "that statement, he is vastly interesting, but not very instructive. You will explain, n’est-ce-pas?"

"Explain?" growled the other. "How am I going to explain something I know isn’t so? At twenty