Page:Weird Tales volume 30 number 06.djvu/49

Rh they first make mad' is no idle proverb with the thags of Burma. Non. There is no antidote for it. This poor one will be gone by morning. Meantime"—he put his hands beneath the woman's arms and raised her—"she might as well die in bed in Christian fashion. Will you lead us to her room, Friend Pemberton?"

De Grandin on one side, I on the other, we half led, half carried the chuckling, weeping crone along the passageway. A gust of wind swung the long casement open and I crossed to close it. From the night outside where thickly-growing rhododendron shut the moonlight out there came a laugh like that the fiends of hell might give at the arrival of a new consignment of lost souls. "Ha-ha!—ha-ha-ha!—ha-ha!"

"Sacré nom, I'll make you laugh upon the other side of your misshapen face!" de Grandin cried, dropping the old woman's arm and rushing to the window where he leant across the sill and poured the contents of his automatic pistol at the shadows whence the ghostly laughter came.

A crash of twigs and the flapping-back of displaced branches answered, and from the further distance came an echo of the wild, malignant cachinnation: "Ha-ha!—ha-ha-ha!—ha-ha!"

nd now, my friends, it is for us to formulate our strategy," de Grandin told us as we finished breakfast. "From the things which we have seen and heard I'd say we are beset by human and sub-human agencies; possibly working independently, more probably in concert. First of all I must go to the village to make some purchases and notify the coroner of your late lamented servant's death. I shall return, but"—he cast the phantom of a wink at me—"not for luncheon."

He was back a little after noon with a large, impressive bundle which clanked mysteriously each time he shifted it. When the papers were removed he showed a set of heavy padlocks, each complete with hasp and staple. Together we went round the big house, fixing locks at doors and windows, testing fastenings repeatedly; finally, when our task was done, repairing to the lawn where Appleby awaited us with a teacart-load of toasted muffins, strawberry preserve and steaming oolong.

"What was in that old beer bottle that you stood beside the bed?" I asked. "It looked like ordinary water."

"Water, yes," he answered with a grin, "but not ordinary, I assure you. I have the—what you call him?—hunch?—my friend. Tonight, perhaps tomorrow, we shall have use for what I brought out from the village."

"But what"

"Hullo, there, ready for a spot of tea?" called Pemberton. "I'm famished, and the little woman's just about to haul her colors down."

"You are distrait, Madame?" de Grandin asked, dropping into a willow chair and casting a suspicious glance upon the tray of muffins Appleby extended.

"Indeed, I am. I've been feeling devils all day long." She smiled at him a little wearily above her teacup rim. "Something's seemed to boil up in me—it's the queerest thing, but I've had an urge to dance, an almost irresistible impulse to put an Indian costume on and do the Bramara—the Bee-dance. I know it's dreadful to feel so, with poor old Annie's body lying by the wall and this menace hanging over us, but something seems to urge me almost past resistance to put my costume on and dance"

"Tiens, Madame, one comprehends," he smiled agreement. "I, too, have felt these so queer urges. Regardez, s'il vous plaît: We are beset by mental stress, we