Page:Weird Tales volume 11 number 02.pdf/63

206 commanded as I gained the wall's top, then played the beam of his pocket flash along the bricks beside us. Running along the wall-top were four parallel wires, each supported at intervals of twenty feet or so by little porcelain insulators. But for the warning we received when the cat was killed, and de Grandin's fore-thought in fetching the rubber curtains, we should surely have been electrocuted the moment we scaled the wall, for the wires were so spaced that contact with at least one of them could not possibly be avoided by anyone attempting to scramble across the

Taking advantage of the ample shelter afforded by the great trees, we stole across the wide lawn and brought up at the house without incident. Nowhere was there any trace of occupancy, for all the windows were darkened, and, save for the night wind soughing through the towering evergreens, the place lay wrapped in graveyard silence. By a side door we found the big black ear which had brought Laïla and Fräulein Mueller. Working rapidly, de Grandin unfastened the twisted wires with which the can of luminous paint was attached to the gas tank and tossed the nearly empty tin into an adjacent flower bed. This done, he considered the big machine speculatively a moment, then grinned like a mischievous boy about to perpetrate a prank. "Why not, pour l'amour de Dieu?" he demanded with a chuckle as he drew a wicked-looking case knife from his pocket and made four or five incisions in each of the vehicle's balloon tires close to the rims. As the air fled hissing from the punctured tubes he turned away with a satisfied laugh. "Nom d'un canard, but they shall blaspheme most horribly when they discover what I have done," he assured me as we continued our circuit of the house.

The tenants evidently placed implicit faith in their electrified wall, for there seemed no attempt to bar ingress, once the intruder had managed to pass the silent sentries on the wall-top. An unlatched window at the front of the building invited us to push our explorations farther, and a moment later we had let ourselves in, and, guided by cautious flashes from de Grandin's pocket light, were creeping down a wide central hall.

"Now, my friend," de Grandin whispered, "I wonder much which way leads to—s-s-sh!" he paused abruptly as a quick, nervous step sounded at the hall's farther end.

There was no time to reconnoiter the position, for the beam of our flashlight would surely betray our presence. Some four paces back we had passed a doorway, and, shutting off his light, de Grandin wheeled in his tracks, grasped my arm and dragged me toward it with all speed.

Fortunately the lock was unfastened and the knob turned soundlessly in his hand. Grasping his revolver, he took a deep breath, motioned me to silence, swung the door back and stepped softly into the room.

, black and impenetrable as a curtain of sable velvet, closed about us as we crossed the threshold. Dared we flash our light? Was there anyone hidden behind that veil of gloom, ready to pounce on us the moment we disclosed our position? We rested a moment, silently debating our next move, when:

"Doctor—Dr. Martulus"—a weak feminine voice quavered from the room's farther end—"I'll sign the paper. I'll go through the ordeal, only, for pity's sake, let me out. Don't let him visit me again. Oh, o-o-o-oh, I'll go insane if he comes again. Truly, I will!"

"Eh, what is this?" de Grandin demanded sharply, taking a hasty