Manly Wade Wellman - Judge Pursuivant 01 (4 page)

 
          
 
Then Gird, from his seat across the room,
screamed hoarsely.

 
          
 
"That thing isn't my daughter
- "

 
          
 
In the time it took him to rip out those five
words, the huddled monster at my knees whirled back and away from me, reared
for a trice like a deformed giant, and leaped across the intervening space upon
him. I saw that Gird had tried to rise, his chained wrist hampjering him. Then
his voice broke in the midst of what he was trying to say; he made a choking
sound and the thing emitted a barking growl.

 
          
 
Tearing loose from its wax fastenings, the
chair fell upon its side. There was a struggle and a clatter, and Gird squealed
like a rabbit in a trap. The attacker fell away from him toward us.

 
          
 
It was all over before one might ask what it
was about.

           
 
''I don't know what kiUed him."

 
          
 
Just when I got up I do not remember, but I
was on my feet as the grapplers separated. Without thinking of danger - and
surely danger was there in the room - I might have rushed forward; but Susan
Gird, lying limp in her chair, hampered me in our mutual shackles. Standing
where I was, then, I pawed in my pocket for something I had not mentioned to
her or to Zoberg; an electric torch.

 
          
 
It fitted itself into my hand, a compact
little cylinder, and I whipped it out with my finger on the switch. A cone of
white light spurted across the room, making a pool about and upon the
motionless form of Gird. He lay crumpled on one side, his back toward us, and a
smudge of black wetness was widening about his slack head and shoulders.

 
          
 
With the beam I swiftly quartered the room,
probing it into every corner and shadowed nook. The creature that had attacked
Gird had utterly vanished. Susan Gird now gave a soft moan, like a dreamer of
dreadful things. I flashed my light her way.

 
          
 
It flooded her face and she quivered under the
impact of the glare, but did not open her eyes. Beyond her I saw Zoberg,
doubled forward in his bonds. He was staring blackly at the form of Gird, his
eyes protruding and his clenched teeth showing through his beard.

 
          
 
"Doctor Zoberg!" I shouted at him,
and his face jerked nervously toward me. It was fairly cross-hatched with tense
lines, and as white as fresh pipe-clay. He tried to say something, but his
voice would not command itself.

 
          
 
Dropping the torch upon the floor, I next dug
keys from my jacket and with trembling haste unlocked the irons from Susan
Gird's wrist and ankle on my side. Then, stepping hurriedly to Zoberg, I made
him sit up and freed him as speedily as possible. Finally I returned, found my
torch again and stepped across to
Gird
.

 
          
 
My first glance at close quarters was enough;
he was stone-dead, with his throat torn brutally out. His cheeks, too, were
ripped in parallel gashes, as though by the grasp of claws or nails. Radiance
suddenly glowed behind me, and Zoberg moved forward, holding up the carbide
lamp.

 
          
 
"I found this beside your chair," he
told me unsteadily. "I found a match and lighted it." He looked down
at Gird, and his lips twitched, as though he would be hysterical.

 
          
 
"Steady, Doctor," I cautioned him
sharply, and took the lamp from him. "See what you can do for Gird."

 
          
 
He stooped slowly, as though he had grown old.
I stepped to one side, putting the lamp on the table. Zoberg spoke again:

 
          
 
"It is absolutely no use.
Wills.
We can do nothing. Gird has been killed."

 
          
 
I had turned my attention to the girl. She
still sagged in her chair, breathing deeply and rhythmically as if in
untroubled slumber.

 
          
 
"Susan," I called her.
"Susan!"

 
          
 
She did not stir, and Doctor Zoberg came back
to where I bent above her. "Susan," he whispered penetratingly,
"wake up, child."

 
          
 
Her eyes unveiled themselves slowly, and
looked up at us. "What -" she began drowsily.

 
          
 
"Prepare
yourself
,"
I cautioned her quickly. "Something has happened to your father."

 
          
 
She stared across at Gird's body, and then she
screamed, tremulously and long. Zoberg caught her in his arms, and she swayed
and shuddered against their supporting circle. From
her own
wrists my irons still dangled, and they clanked as she wrung her hands in aimless
distraction.

 
          
 
Going to the dead man once more, I unchained
him from the chair and turned him upon his back. Susan's black cloak lay upon
one of the other chairs, and I picked it up and spread it above him. Then I
went to each door in turn, and to the windows.

 
          
 
"The seals are unbroken," I
reported. "There isn't a space through which even a mouse could slip in or
out. Yet
- "

 
          
 
"I did it!" wailed Susan suddenly.
"Oh, my God, what dreadful thing came out of me to murder my
father!
"

 
          
 
I unfastened the parlour door and opened it.
Almost at the same time a loud knock sounded from the front of the house.

 
          
 
Zoberg lifted his head, nodding to me across
Susan's trembling shoulder. His arms were still clasped around her, and I could
not help but notice that they seemed thin and ineffectual now. When I had
chained them, I had wondered at their steely cording. Had this awful calamity
drained him of strength?

 
          
 
"Go," he said hoarsely. "See
who it is."

 
          
 
I went. Opening the front door, I came face to
face with a tall, angular silhouette in a slouch hat with snow on the brim.

 
          
 
"Who are you?" I jerked out,
startled.

 
          
 
"O'Bryant," boomed back an
organ-deep bass. "What's the fuss here?"

 
          
 
"Well -" I began,
then
hesitated.

 
          
 
"Stranger in town, ain't you?" was the
next question. "I saw you when you stopped at the Luther Inn. I'm O'Bryant
- the constable."

 
          
 
He strode across the door-sill, peered about
him in the dark, and then slouched into the lighted dining room. Following, I
made him out as a stern, roughly dressed man of forty or so, with a lean face
made strong by a salient chin and a similar nose. His light blue eyes studied
the still form of John Gird, and he stooped to draw away the cloak. Susan gave
another agonized cry, and I heard Zoberg gasp as if deeply shocked. The
constable, too, flinched and replaced the cloak more quickly than he had taken
it up.

 
          
 
"Who done that?" he barked at me.

 
          
 
Again I found it hard to answer. Constable
O'Bryant sniffed suspiciously at each of us in turn, took up the lamp and
herded us into the parlour. There he made us take seats.

 
          
 
"I want to know everything about this
business," he said harshly.

 
          
 
"You," he flung at me, "you
seem to be the closest to sensible. Give me the story, and don't leave out a
single bit of it."

 
          
 
Thus commanded, I made shift to describe the
seance and what had led up to it. I was as uneasy as most innocent people are
when unexpectedly questioned by peace officers. O'Bryant interrupted twice with
a guttural "Huh!" and once with a credulous whistle.

 
          
 
"And this killing happened in the
dark?" he asked when I had finished. "Well, which of you dressed up
like a devil and done it?"

 
          
 
Susan whimpered and bowed her head. Zoberg,
outraged, sprang to his feet.

 
          
 
"It was a creature from another
world," he protested angrily. "None of us had a reason to kill Mr
Gird."

 
          
 
O'Bryant emitted a sharp, equine laugh.
"Don't go to tell me any ghost stories. Doctor Zoberg. We folks have heard
a lot about the hocus-pocus you've pulled off here from time to time. Looks
like it might have been to cover up some kind of rough stuff."

 
          
 
"How could it be?" demanded Zoberg.
"Look here.
Constable, these handcuffs."
He
held out one pair of them. "We were all confined with them, fastened to
chairs that were sealed to the floor. Mr Gird was also chained, and his chair
made fast out of our reach. Go into the next room and look for yourself."

 
          
 
"Let me see them irons," grunted
O'Bryant, snatching them.

 
          
 
He turned them over and over in his hands,
snapped them shut, tugged and pressed, then held out a hand for my keys.
Unlocking the cuffs, he peered into the clamping mechanism.

 
          
 
"These are regulation bracelets," he
pronounced. "You were all chained up, then?"

 
          
 
"We were," replied Zoberg, and both
Susan and I nodded.

 
          
 
Into the constable's blue eyes came a sudden
shrewd light. "I guess you must have been, at that. But did you stay that
way?" He whipped suddenly around, bending above my chair to fix his gaze
upon me.
"How about you, Mr Wills?"

 
          
 
"Of course we stayed that way," I
replied.

 
          
 
"Yeh?
Look here,
ain't you a professional magician?"

 
          
 
"How did you know that?" I asked.

 
          
 
He grinned widely and without warmth.
"The whole town's been talking about you, Mr Wills. A stranger can't be
here all day without his whole record coming out." The grin vanished.
"You're a magician, all right, and you can get out of handcuffs. Ain't
that so?"

 
          
 
"Of course it's so," Zoberg answered
for me. "But why should that mean that my friend has killed Mr Gird?"

           
 
O'Bryant wagged his head in triumph.
"That's what we'll find out later. Right now it adds up very simple. Gird
was killed, in a room that was all sealed up. Three other folks
was
in with him, all handcuffed to their chairs. Which of
them got loose without the others catching on?" He nodded brightly at me,
as if in answer to his own question.

 
          
 
Zoberg gave me a brief, penetrating glance,
then
seemed to shrivel up in his own chair. He looked almost
as exhausted as Susan. I, too, was feeling near to collapse.

 
          
 
"You want to own up, Mr Wills?"
invited O'Bryant.

 
          
 
"I certainly do not," I snapped at
him. "You've got the wrong man."

 
          
 
"I thought," he made answer, as
though catching me in a damaging admission, "that it was a devil, not a
man, who killed Gird."

 
          
 
I shook my head. "I don't know what
killed him."

 
          
 
"Maybe you'll remember after a
while." He turned toward the door. "You come along with me. I'm going
to lock you up."

 
          
 
I rose with a sigh of resignation, but paused
for a moment to address Zoberg. "Get hold of
yourself
,"
I urged him. "Get somebody in here to look after Miss Susan, and then
clarify in your mind what happened. You can help me prove that it wasn't
I."

 
          
 
Zoberg nodded very wearily, but did not look
up.