Page:Weird Tales v01n02 (1923-04).djvu/131

130 felt life slipping from my grasp, the pressure on my throat and chest relaxed and, too exhausted to stand, I fell to the pavement."

"Unconscious?" asked the coroner.

"No, never for a single instant did I lose consciousness. Every terrible second of that eternity is indelibly stamped on my mind."

The recollection of his frightful experience made the artist tremble. Drawing a handkerchief from his pocket, he mopped his face.

"Was Dr. Sprague still struggling with his—ah—antagonist when you were attacked?" questioned the major.

"I cannot say," replied Deweese. "After I was attacked I had little thought to give to anything but my own defense."

"The testimony of both Peret and the druggist show that Deweese and Sprague were attacked at practically the same time," observed Strange, shifting his quid from east to west. "Both men struggled for a few seconds—about half a minute, according to Peret—and fell to the pavement at the same instant."

"Then it appears that we have more than one thing to contend with," interposed the major a little grimly. "Mr. Deweese, you are positive, are you, that you did not see the Thing? Think before you reply."

"It is not necessary for me to think," retorted the artist, "God knows, if I had seen the Thing I should not have been able to forget it this quickly!"

"When did you hear the Thing whisper—before or after it attacked you?"

"Before. After it hurled itself upon me I heard nothing."

"But you felt it breathing in your face?"

"Not after the attack: no. It was immediately after I heard the whispering sound that I felt the Thing's breath on my face. After that terrible grip became fastened on my throat, everything else became negligible."

"You mean that even if the Thing had been breathing in your face it is doubtful if you would have known it?"

"Yes."

"Did this breathing sound or feel like the breathing of a man?"

"No; the Thing's breath was quick and jerky and as cold as ice."

"Cold?" cried Peret, leaping to his feet.

He had been sitting back in his chair in an attitude of dejection, staring at a blank space on the wall. He had, with one ear, however, been drinking in every word of the conversation, and now he rose from his chair with such suddenness that he all but upset the little finger-print expert standing in front of him.

"Yes, cold," repeated Deweese, the perspiration dripping from his brow, "cold and clammy."

"Dame!" cried the Frenchman, breathing on his hand as if to test the temperature of his breath. "Think well, my friend, of what you are saying. The breath of living things is warm. Perhaps it was not the breathing of a monster that you heard. It may have been—." He hesitated, and then, at a loss, stopped.

"There was no mistaking the—the thing I felt on my face," rejoined the artist grimly. "Except for the fact that it was cold and spasmodic it was like the breathing of a man."

"Like the breathing of a man choking on a piece of ice?" suggested the coroner.

"Exactly."

"Eh, bien!" called the Frenchman, and smote himself on the forehead with his clenched fist. "Why did you not tell us this before?"

The Frenchman was transformed. Heretofore, in appearance at least, he had been an insignificant little man with no special capacity for the intricacies of unsolved crime mysteries. But now that the germ of an