Page:Weird Tales v01n02 (1923-04).djvu/126

Rh Strange, however, seemed to find comfort in the coroner's words. With a determined look on his hard-bitten face, he wheeled.

"Deweese," he rasped, in a tone calculated to impress on the hearer the absolute certainty of his words, "the coroner declares that you were poisoned." He shook a finger at the artist, as if daring him to deny it. "The poison was probably administered several hours before you felt the effects of it. Now think! Who gave it to you? Who had the opportunity to give it to you? Who had a motive?"

"I was not poisoned," rejoined Deweese, quietly but emphatically. "I was choked—choked by an unseen thing that whispered in my ear. Not only did I hear it whisper, but I felt it breathing in my face as well."

Peret half rose to his feet, opened his lips as if to speak, then grunted and sat down in his chair again. Nevertheless, this new bit of evidence, if such it might be called, seemed to impress him, and he continued to eye the artist eagerly.

"Who is this man?" asked Dobson.

Strange, with a gesture of helplessness, explained.

"You see what we are up against, Chief," he said. "I know how to trace a flesh and blood murderer, but, if you'll pardon me for saying so, I'll be damned if I know how to run down a spook, with no more substantial clues than a breath and a whisper."

"Mr. Deweese, you are positive, are you, that you were not attacked by a human being?" questioned the major.

"I am as certain of it as I am that I am alive," answered the artist.

"Nor an animal?"

"Yes."

"Nor something inside of you?"

"If you mean poison, or something like that, yes."

"Do you not think you might have been overcome by poisonous fumes of some sort?"

"Absolutely not. It was not that sort of sensation that I experienced at all."

"Have you any idea what it was that attacked you?"

"Not the remotest idea."

"You did not see it?"

"I did not."

"Could you have seen it if it had had substantial form?"

"Yes, because it was between me and the street lamp."

"Have you ever had any similar experience in the past—any experience that resembles it in the slightest way?"

"Never!"

Dobson threw a puzzled look at the coroner.

"Well," he began, and was interrupted by a blinding flash of light that suddenly illuminated the room.

With a cry of terror, Deweese whirled and, darting across the room, was about to hurl himself through the window, when Strange caught him by the arm and dragged him back.

"S'nothing but a flash-light," [sic] he said reassuringly. "Sergeant Alington is photographing the finger-prints on the dagger. " [sic]S'no wonder it scared you. Made me jump myself."

Deweese shook off the sergeant's hand and glared at the little finger-print expert.

"For God's sake, let me know before you set that thing off again," he cried in a shaking voice. "I've come through an experience that has shot my nerves to pieces and I can't stand any more shocks tonight."

"Sorry," apologized Alington, and then, like the little human bloodhound he was, turned once more to the business of nosing out and developing the finger-prints on the dagger.

"Now," resumed the major, after ordering O'Shane to have the house and vicinity toothcombed, "let us take up these murders and this assault in logical order and see if we cannot get to the bottom of this mystery. Granted that the evidence may at first