Page:Weird Tales v01n03 (1923-05).djvu/84

Rh fanned in your face by some mechanical device. Had it not been for the horrible experience in my room, this is the theory upon which I should have based my investigation.”

“Then you captured the bat?” said Deweese, in a tense voice.

“Oui, Monsieur,” nodded Peret. “I tried to shoot the tiny thing, without even knowing what it was; but I ask you in all seriousness, my friend, could one hope to hit with a thirty-two bullet a chauve-souris that one could not see? Not I! So I telephoned for the police and they came and conquered it with a tear bomb!

“The bat, Monsieur, was then turned over to the city chemists, and they analyzed the traces of powder found adhering to the little pads on its wings. Their report gave me the name of the poison that opened the gates of eternity for Berjet and Sprague.”

Peret twisted the needle-points of his slender black mustache and beamed upon his host.

“But why accuse me?“” [sic]asked Deweese, smiling. “I have no bats in my menagerie—nothing, in fact, but a flea-bitten bulldog,”

Peret’s face became sober.

“You stand accused not by me,” he said solemnly, “but by Berjet, the first of your victims.”

“What's that?” asked Deweese sharply. For the first time, he seemed alarmed. He sat up suddenly in his chair, and as suddenly relaxed, but the hunted look that crept into his eyes continued to show how sharply the blow has struck home.

“You start, eh? Good! My reasoning is sound. Yes, my friend; Berjet is your accuser. Just before he died, he uttered two words. The first word was ‘assassins;’ and the other was a word that I at first believed to be ‘dix,’ the French word for ‘ten,’ which is pronounced dees. I thought Berjet meant he had been attacked by ten assassins, incredible as it seemed. That is what got me all balled up, as the saying goes.

“But after I heard your name, and let it roll around in my mind for awhile, I realized my mistake. The dying man did not say Dix. He pronounced your name, or rather, your present alias, ‘Deweese.’

“When realization of this burst upon me, I was so gratified that I decided to lay a little trap for you. I became very excited, you may recall, shouted that I knew what the Whispering Thing was, that the mystery was solved! I wanted you to show your hand, my friend. But I was not looking for you to act through a confederate, and as a result I very obligingly walked into the little trap which you, in turn, laid for me.

“Who was it that put the chauve-souris in my room, eh? Was it Sing Tong Fat? It could not have been you, for you have been under surveillance every minute of the time since you left the murdered scientist's house last night. I think you gave Sing Tong Fat instructions to destroy me over the telephone, for the police report you as having called your house from Greenleigh’s durugdrug [sic] store after your departure from Berjet’s. Ah, that devil of a Chinaman! I was watching him through the kitchen window for a little while this morning polishing silver, and he was singing to himself! Pardieu! he has an easy conscience for a would-be murderer, monsieur!”

“You have a very fertile imagination,” remarked Deweese, when Peret paused to blow the ashes from his cigarette. “But your fairy tale amuses me, so pray continue. In view of the fact that I was near the scene of the crime when Berjet was murdered, it is not difficult to perceive how you mghtmight [sic] confuse my name with the scientist’s last utterance. But how you ever came to identify me with Dalfonzo is past my comprehension.”

“That is very easily explained,” was Peret’s affable reply. “After leaving the scene of the crime last night, I had your house placed under surveillance of the operative I have already mentioned. While he was waiting for me to join him, so we could search the house, he saw Sing Tong Fat through one of the windows and recognized him as your familiar.

“There are very few foreign agents unknown to the Secret Service, and my operative has the record of you and Sing Tong Fat at his finger-tips. He knows that you and the Chinaman have been associated for years, and that at the present time you are working in the interests of Soviet Russia. Sing Tong Fat is not the idiot he appears to be; he is an international agent that several countries would give a good deal to lay their hands on.

“When my operative saw Sing Tong Fat in your house, he did not have to tax his mind much to deduce the name of the ‘master’ he is serving. Before I joined the operative, some one called Sing Tong Fat on the ‘phone and he left the house almost immediately afterward. As the time of the call coincides with the hour you are reported as having *phoned from Greenleigh’s drug store, I have no doubt that the message was from you. As the operative had instructions to wait for me, he did not shadow Sing Tong Fat when he left the house, which is a pity, for he probably would have caught the old scoundrel in the act of putting the bat in my room. After I arrived on the scene, we amused ourselves by searching your house—this house—thoroughly.”

“So it was you prowling around here last night, was it?” said Deweese savagely. “I wish I had known it; you should not have gotten away so easily.”

“Then I am glad you did not know,” laughed Peret. “Your bulldog and your bullet made it lively enough as it was.”

“I hope that you found your search worth while,” sneered Deweese.

“No,” replied Peret regretfully; “my search gave you a clean bill of health. We did not find the formula or anything else that would incriminate you. Nevertheless, Monsieur, your little game has been played—played and lost.

“And you played the game badly, too, my friend. For a man of your intelligence, your blunders are inexcusable. Why did you not leave that blood-thirsty old Chinaman in Russia, Monsieur? You can never hope to remain incognito as long as you have Sing Tong Fat in tow. His hatchet face is too well known. Your other blunders were all just as glaring as this one. Why did you linger near the scene of your crime, eh? And introduced yourself to the human bloodhounds that were searching out your scent! Ah, Monsieur, I admire your self confidence, but you have an over abundance of it.”

“Perhaps,” said Deweese, with an ironic smile. “At any rate, it doesn’t desert me now. For I know that you cannot convict me. You haven’t a shred of real evidence against me, and the chain of circumstantial evidence you have woven around me would be laughed to scorn in a jury room.”

“You are right,” assented Peret, almost apologetically, “So far I have only been able to reconstruct the crime in my mind by piecing together inconsequential nothings that do not constitute legal evidence. Surmises, deductions, and a stray fact or two—I possess nothing more, my friend. But for the present they must suffice. Before I am through, however, I promise to tie you up in a knot of incontestable evidence.”

“That you will never be able to do,” declared Deweese, “for I am innocent of the murders of Berjet and Sprague. I deny any knowledge of the crimes, in fact, except what I saw in your presence last night. However, ever since you have been here, I have noticed your hand toying with the revolver in your pocket, so I presume that I am under arrest, what?