Page:Weird Tales volume 31 number 03.djvu/7

 gosling, we should have—sapristi! Stop him, he is intent on self-destruction!"

At his shouted warning I looked toward the footwalk and descried a figure in a heavy ulster climbing up the guard rail. Shooting on my power, I jerked the car ahead, then cut the clutch and jammed the brakes down hard, swinging us against the curb abreast of the intending suicide. I kicked the door aside and raced around the engine-hood, but de Grandin disdained such delays and vaulted overside, half leaping, half sliding on the slippery pavement and cannoning full-tilt against the man who sought to climb the breast-high railing. "Parbleu, you shall not!" he exclaimed as he grasped the other's legs with outflung arms. "It is wet down there. Monsieur, and most abominably cold. Wait for summer if you care to practise diving!"

The man kicked viciously, but the little Frenchman hung on doggedly, and as the other loosed his hold upon the rail they both came crashing to the pavement where they rolled and thrashed like fighting dogs.

I hovered near the mêlée, intent on giving such assistance as I could, but my help was not required; for as I reached to snatch the stranger's collar, de Grandin gave a quick twist, arched his body upon neck and heels and with a blow as rapid as a striking snake's chopped his adversary on the Adam's apple with his stiffened hand. The result was instantaneous. The larger man collapsed as if he had been shot, and my little friend slipped out from underneath him, teeth flashing in an impish grin, small blue eyes agleam. "A knowledge of jiu-jutsu comes in handy now and then," he panted as he rearranged his clothing. "For a moment I had fears that he would take me with him to a watery bed."

"Well, what shall we do with him?" I asked. "He's out completely, and we can't afford to leave him here. Hell surely try to kill himself again if"

"Parbleu! Attendez, s'il vous plait!" he interrupted, "Le parfum—do you smell him?" He paused with back-thrown head, narrow nostrils quivering as he sniffed the moist, cold air.

There was no doubt of it. Faint and growing quickly fainter, but plainly noticeable, the aura of a scent hung in the atmosphere. It was an odd aroma, not wholly pleasant, yet distinctly fascinating, seeming to combine the heavy sweetness of patchouli with the bitterness of frankincense and the penetrating qualities of musk and civet; yet underlying it there was a faint and slightly sickening odor of corruption.

"Why, I never smelled" I began, but de Grandin waved aside my observation.

"Nor I," he nodded shortly, "but unless I am at fault this is the perfume which the good Costello told us of. Cannot you see, my friend? We have here our laboratory specimen, an uncompleted suicide with the redolence of this mysterious scent upon it. Help me lift him in the car, mon vieux; we have things to say to this one. We shall ask him, by example, why it was"

"Suppose that he won't talk?" I broke in.

"Ha, you suppose that! If your supposition proves correct and he is of the obstinacy, you shall see a beautiful example of the third degree. You shall see me turn him inside out as if he were a lady's glove. I shall creep into his mind, me. I shall—mordieu, before the night is done I damn think I shall have at least a partial answer to the good Costello's puzzle! Come, let us be of haste; en avant!"

his height the salvaged man did not weigh much, and we had no trouble getting him inside the car. In