Page:Weird Tales volume 31 number 03.djvu/39

 of her tiny shoes nearly touching her chestnut hair beneath her chic little hat, her throat and jaw muscles stretched like oversharp violin strings, her teeth and pink gums bared in a ghastly grin. Her breasts were rising and falling spasmodically; she breathed in dioking, rattling gasps. The fair, pale flesh of her oval face was purpling.

"God!" Ethredge stumbled to his feet, stood swaying drunkenly, his hands outstretched; he had utterly forgotten the servant Stepan. For an instant the little man struggled to rise, then sank back weakly.

The obscene colossus grinned. "Do not fear; she will live a long time. Her nerves will tire; then she will relax for a moment. She will breathe more easily, then."

And, as though the prophecy were a command, Mary's body went suddenly, horribly limp, melted against the barren floor as though death had abruptly collapsed every straining muscle. Only her gulping, hurried breathing and the gradual fading of the terrible purple congestion from her face told that she was still alive. Mucus was beginning to run from her loosely open mouth.

Ethredge took a slow, uncertain step forward. "God!" he mumbled, again. Then he found words, babbling, pleading words. "You—devil! Free her, only free her, and"

"Commissioner!" It was Peters' voice, harsh, rasping. "Commissioner" With a sudden, gasping sob he paused, for, with the sharply reiterated exclamation Mary's body had once more tensed, knotted into a backward-bent bow more terrible to look upon than had she twisted and writhed.

"Dear God!" Ethredge moaned. He took a second, wavering step forward. And then Peters found speech.

"Commissioner!" His voice was implacable, steely. "Stop! Do you know what you are doing, in surrendering to this—beast of hell? You are dishonoring yourself for ever, you are promising him immunity to torture, and murder, and debase—yes, for he has done all of these things"

Ethredge's lips were a twisted snarl, "Peters, I would promise him my soul—to free Mary!" Dmitri was grinning, grinning....

Peters' words were like the flicking of a rapier, "Mary would loathe you—if she knew. Mary would never permit this—sacrifice of honor."

Ethredge took another step forward. He seemed not to have heard.

sudden, grim determination Peters plunged his left hand deep in his breast pocket. His right hand dropped the gun to the floor, his right arm constricted about Dmitri's throat There was a small white pellet in the fingers of his left hand.

"Dmitri!" he snarled, "this tablet; can you guess what it is?—it smells of almonds!"

The powerful biceps of his right arm tightened. Caught in that strangling embrace, Dmitri writhed weakly, horribly, his pig-like eyes wildly staring.

Peters' face was inches above Dmitri's fear-maddened eyes. The pellet moved closer to Dmitri's slavering, gasping jaws.

"Just a touch against the tip of the tongue! You attempted trickery, Dmitri; had you not done that we might have drawn your fangs and let you live. But now"

Swiftly, then, he forced the bitter-smelling pellet into Dmitri's wide-distended mouth, crushed the man's jaws violently together.