Page:Weird Tales Volume 8 Number 5 (1926-11).djvu/50

 not know what is troubling him. He is suffering, that is evident. The X-rays tell too little. As it is, I must proceed on a pure guess. I do not know what I'll find. But it is Pendleton's only chance. That is, if you will do your duty."

"Duty!" The appeal to duty was effective. Miss Cummings smiled faintly and said in a low voice, "Very well, doctor! I'll try!"

Her assistants nodded in fearful assent.

March 23, 1926.—The climax came this morning. I was making the rounds of the patients and stopped in Pendleton's room. He had slept quietly last night, he said. "Still, I feel queer, doctor! As if things had come to a decision. Sort of ready for the final battle. It's going for my heart, I know, trying to take my life for its own. Can't you do something, doctor?"

I reassured him and remarked that we would probably operate on him tomorrow.

"Thank God!" lie muttered. "I don't think I can stand this much longer. Do you think you can rid me of this—whatever it is?"

"I hope so," I answered. "In fact," I added, quite contrary to my actual belief, "I feel sure that I can. I've been studying up this matter and know something definite now."

My fabulation gave him confidence and he seemed more cheerful. So I left him and went down the corridor to see other patients.

Scarcely ten minutes later I heard a fearful scream, a choking cry of "Help!"

I rushed into the hallway and saw the nurses making for Pendleton's room. But they stopped at his door and shrank back.

I ran up and pushed them aside.

Pendleton was in a turmoil, his bed a cyclone of whirling sheets and blankets. He was twisting, tumbling, and bounding up and down, his groans fearful to hear.

Just a few seconds! Then the sheets were whipped aside and I saw Pendleton. His face was red, eyes blood-shot and staring glassily, the mouth wide open, chin pendent, and tongue protruding.

"He's—he's—got me!" he gasped; his body rocked uncertainly on his lips in a rotary motion; a final "A-a-ah-h-h!" Then he snapped erect, and fell over on his side.

Pendleton was dead. I tried restoratives, but it was no use. The coroner, Dr. Bidwinkle, performed the autopsy, in which I helped him. We found the abdominal organs pushed aside as indicated in the X-rays. Just above this the diaphragm was ruptured, the lung shoved aside, the pericardium ripped open. The heart was contracted and furrowed, as if a.

Dr. Bidwinkle was astounded. "Of all the crazy things!" he muttered.

So I told him of the case and also showed him the photographs. "Hell!" he exclaimed, after I had concluded. "You and I, Burnstrum, don't know it all! I think you're right, but we can't afford to expose ourselves to possible ridicule. Your X-rays and witnesses wouldn't convince one out of ten physicians. There are some people that you simply can't convince! So why bother? Here's what I propose to put down on the certificate: 'Death from hemorrhage induced by internal rupture.' Do you agree?"

"Yes, it will be better that way," I said. "But kindly note this!" I added, turning to Pendleton's body. I reached over and placed the fingers of my hand—the right hand—into the impressions or furrows of Pendleton's heart. .