Page:Weird Tales v01n04 (1923-06).djvu/83

82 consolation. The sheriff came and read the death warrant.

Light, flooding through the barred windows from the newly-risen sun, filled the jail with golden radiance as, through the iron corridors, feet shuffling drearily, the death march moved in solemn silence toward the gallows

OCTORS with stethoscopes watched the final pulsations of ebbing life. They pronounced him dead.

The body was wheeled off on a tumbril into the jail morgue and turned over to assistants of an undertaker employed by the family. Placing it on a stretcher and covering it with a mantle, these hurried it to a motor ambulance waiting in the alley. They slid the stretcher into the vehicle and slammed the doors. The machine got quickly under way, gathered speed, began to fly through the streets.

No sooner had the doors of the ambulance slammed shut than strange things began to happen inside. A physician and a nurse who had been secreted in the car, fell upon the body with feverish haste, stripped it of clothing, dashed alcohol over it from head to foot, began to massage the still warm flesh, chafing the wrists, slapping limbs and torso with smart, stinging thumps.

Then, to conserve what little heat remained, they bundled the body in heavy blankets kept warm in a fireless contrivance. And all the while the ambulance, its gong clanging madly, was plunging at wild speed across the city, swaying from side to side, turning corners on two wheels.

It drew up at last in front of a small undertaking shop on a back street, and the body was hurried inside. Laid upon a table, it looked as if carved from ivory. The coal-black hair curled about the white brow in glossy abandon. The long black lashes of the nearly-shut eyes left deep shadows on the cold pallor of the cheeks. No tint of blood, no sign of life appeared.

Quickly a pulmotor was applied. Oxygen was pumped into the lungs while the body was again vigorously rubbed with alcohol. Guisseppi's father and mother and close relatives stood about in an excited group, eyes wide with feverish interest, their hearts in their mouths. Doctors and nurses worked with dynamic energy.

No sign of rekindled life rewarded them. Their drastic efforts seemed lost labor. The boy's soul, apparently, had journeyed far into the dark places beyond life's pale and was not to be lured back to its fleshly habitation.

Still they persisted, hoping against hope.

"Per dio!" suddenly exclaimed a physician. "Do you see that?"

A faint flush appeared in Guisseppi's cheek.

"He lives again!" burst in a tense whisper from the bloodless lips of the father.

The tiny stain spread, tinging the marble flesh.

"My boy, my darling boy!" cried the mother, wringing her hands in delirious joy.

Guisseppi's chest began to rise and fall slowly, with an almost imperceptible movement of respiration. The suspicion of a smile hovered for a moment at the corners of his mouth.

He opened his eyes. He lived!

EVIL" CARDELLO sat at his desk in a corner of his pool room. The morning was young; no customers had yet arrived to play pool or billiards. Basco, the porter, pail and mop in hand, stood for a moment gossiping.

"They say he died game," remarked Basco.

"They all do," sneered Cardello.

"And kept his mouth shut."

"No; he spilled everything. But the police didn't believe him. That's all that saved me."

"I heard he said his ghost would come back to haunt you."

"Ho! That's a good one," laughed Cardello. "The devil has got him on a spit over the fire and will keep him turning. I should worry about the little fool's ghost!"

A whisper of sound from the direction of the billiard tables caused both men to glance up.

There stood Guisseppi a few paces away, surveying them in silence, a blue-steel revolver in his hand!

"Mother of God!" screamed Basco, dropping his pail and mop, and dashing into the street.

Cardello's eyes bulged from their sockets. His face went as white as paper. Panic, terror, pulled his lips back in a ghastly grin from his chattering teeth. He rose heavily to his feet and stood swaying.

"Guisseppi!" he breathed scarely above a whisper. "Guisseppi!"

Guisseppi's lips curled.

"Yes," he replied. "The boy you ruined, betrayed, sent to death on the gallows."

"No, no, Guisseppi. The police got you. I was your friend."

"Liar! But for you, I would be happy; my father and mother would not bear the black disgrace of a son hanged on the gallows."

"Why have you come back from the dead, Guisseppi? Why should you haunt your old pal?"

"I have a score to settle with you."

"In the name of God the Father, go back to the grave! Leave me in peace."

Guisseppi raised his weapon.

"I have come to kill you," he said.

Cardello fell upon his knees.

"Spare me, Guisseppi!" he screamed, stretching out imploring arms. "Mercy, Guisseppi, mercy! Don't—"

There was a crash—a leap of fire.

A wisp of blue smoke drifted above a billiard table.

HE POLICE DRAGNET for the slayer of Cardello was far flung, and zest was added to the man hunt by the offer of $1,000 reward. Throughout the Italian quarter, Basco spread the story of Guisseppi's recrudescence and his ghostly revenge.

The superstitious residents accepted the weird tale with simple faith. Fear of the phantom became rife. Children remained indoors after dark. Pedestrians quickened their pace when passing lonely spots at night. Turning a corner suddenly, they half-expected to come face to face with Guisseppi's ghost, wry-necked from the hangman's noose.

Policeman Rafferty, traveling beat in the neighborhood of Death Corners, was told time and again that Guisseppi's ghost had murdered Cardello. Yes, it was truce, Basco had seen the phantom. Others in the colony had seen it slipping like a shadow through some deserted street at night. There was no doubt that Guisseppi had come back from the dead.

Policeman Rafferty laughed. When had ghosts started in bumping off live folks? That was what he would like to know. How could the poor simpletons believe such stuff? Funny lot of jobbies, these dagoes!

But when Policeman Rafferty had heard the story of Guisseppi's ghost for the thousandth time, he scratched his head and did a little thinking, not forgetting the $1,000 reward. Guisseppi was dead. Of course. He had been hanged, and the newspapers had been full of the stories of his execution. So Guisseppi couldn't have killed Cardello. That was out of the question. But could it be possible that dead Guisseppi had a living double? Hah!

Policeman Rafferty got in touch with his favorite stool-pigeon without delay.