Page:Weird Tales volume 36 number 01.djvu/36

50 "That's what we'll have to find out, or what a board of inquiry will determine," I replied. "Help me get him into that compartment, then we'll see about first aid for these—"

"Here, what goes on?" Weinberg sat up suddenly and stared about him like a man emerging from a bad dream. "What're you guys up to?"

"How d'ye feel?" I countered.

"Terrible, now you mention it. My head is aching like nobody's business, but"—he bent and touched the supine dead man, then straightened with a groan as he pressed hands against his throbbing temples—"what's all this? Did his Nibs pass out, or—"

"Clear out," I assured him. "He's dead as mutton, and the rest of us came near joining him. Look after 'em a moment, will you? I'll be right back."

Fresh air and copious draughts of cognac, followed by black coffee and more brandy, had revived the gas victims when I returned. Amberson was still too weak to stand, apKern complained of dizziness and clouded vision, but Weinberg, tough and wiry as a terrier, seemed none the worse for his close call. Due to her seat beside the window Miss Watrous seemed less seriously affected than the rest. In half an hour she was ministering to apKern and Amberson, and they were loving it.

here, Carmichael," Weinberg said as we bent above the dead man while Amberson went through his papers, "this is no case of CO poisoning."

"If it isn't I never used a pulmotor on a would-be suicide in South Philly," I rejoined. "Why, there's every indication of—"

"Of your granddad's Sunday-go-to-meetin' hat!" he broke in. "Take a look, Professor."

Obediently, I bent and looked where he was pointing. "Well, I'll be—" I began, and he grinned at me, wrinkling up his nose and drawing back his lips till almost all his teeth showed at the same time.

"You sure will," he agreed, "but not until you've told me what you make of it."

"Why, the man was throttled!" I exclaimed.

There was no doubting it. Upon the dead man's throat were five distinct livid patches, one, some three inches in size, roughly square, the other four extending in broken parallel lines almost completely around the neck.

"What d'ye make of it?" he insisted.

I shook my head. "Possibly the bruise left by some sort of garotte," I hazarded. "The neck's broken and the hyoid bone is fractured; dreadful pressure must have been exerted, and with great suddenness. That argues against manual assault. Besides, no human hand is big enough to reach clear round his neck—he must have worn a sixteen collar—and even if it were, there isn't any thumb mark here."

He nodded gloomily, almost sullenly. "You said it. Know what it reminds me of?"

"I'll bite."

"Something I saw when I was hoppin' ambulances at Bellevue. Circus was playin' the Garden and a roustabout got in a tangle with one of the big apes. It throttled him."

"So?" I raised my brows. "Where's the connection?"

"Right here. These livid patches on this feller and the ones on that poor cuss we took down to the morgue are just alike. Charlie Norris had us all down to the mortuary when he performed the autopsy on that circus man and showed us the characteristic marks of an ape's hand contrasted with a man's. He was particular, to point out how a man grasps something, using his thumb as a fulcrum, while the great apes, with the exception of the chimpanzee, make no use of the thumb, but use the