Page:Weird Tales volume 24 number 03.djvu/98

Rh "'Some one give it me,' he said at length.

"'Who's the some one?'

"'A man.'

"'What man?'

"'The man that lives in the big house.'

"His evident reluctance to answer only increased my suspicions that something was wrong. I kept questioning him until I learnt that 'the big house' was the place which is now known as 'The Torside Private Sanatorium.' Turning this piece of information over in my mind, I handed him back his coin, and as he dropped it into his pocket I heard it jingle against other money.

"'Ah, have you got many of those pretty bits of silver, Jake?' I asked carelessly, pretending to resume my work as though the matter were of no importance.

"He fell into the trap at once. He was unable to count, but he proudly held up the outstretched fingers of one hand.

"'Five, eh?' I commented with forced geniality. 'He must be a nice, kind man to give away all that money. Do you think he might give me some?'

"'Not all at once,' Jake explained innocently. 'He only gives me one at a time.'

"Oh-ho! thought I, so he has been at the 'big house' four times before today. The mystery was deepening!

"'I think I'll have to pay a visit to this kind gentleman who gives money away,' I smiled. 'I've been wanting to meet some one like that all my life.'

"'You'll have to sing first,' said Jake, eyeing me as though doubtful as to my vocal abilities.

" ' What? ' I cried.

"'I always have to sing before he gives me anything.'

"'And what on earth do you sing?' I asked, utterly bewildered.

"'Songs,' grunted Jake.

"'Sing one to me,' I said, struck by a sudden idea, 'and I'll give you another five shillings.'

"He needed no further inducement, but immediately put down the broom and struck up one of the very unofficial marching tunes that he'd learnt in camp. But it wasn't the tune that caused the color to drain away from my face and my heart to be filled with a sickening horror—it was the doggerel words which he had adopted in place of the quasi-French of the original. They were a crude but recognizable parody of the chemical equation which represented the composition of my secret explosive!

"In a flash I realized what had happened. Underrating the creature's intelligence and forgetting his marvelously retentive memory, I had not troubled to keep my notes out of sight. Somebody had got hold of him and bribed him to learn them off by heart—and who was likely to do such a thing except a secret enemy agent? Cold sweat broke out on my forehead as I saw how narrowly irretrievable disaster had been averted. Once the secret of the gas was in the hands of the enemy, it would be a mere matter of days—perhaps only hours—before their immense and well-equipped system of gas-producing factories would enable them to wipe out the Allied Armies en masse. At that time it was known in official circles that the German guns were firing more than fifty per cent of gas and war-chemical shells, besides using their apparatus for cloud attacks and batteries of short-range Liven's projectors. Was it likely they would refuse to use this new and terrible weapon when once it lay ready to their hands?

"Steadying myself with an effort, I turned to the innocent cause of all the trouble:

"'So that was the song you sang to the W. T.—7