IV
THE tread of many feet sounded in the hall.
Chief McGraw paused in the doorway, staring down at the blue-clad skeleton on the floor, a look of horror on his face. Behind him were four policemen in uniform.
"Is—is that the skeleton of poor old Rooney?" he asked.
"I'm afraid it is," replied Dr. Dorp.
The chief knelt and examined the star on the bagging blue coat.
"It's hellish, positively hellish," he said, rising. "Do you know what killed him?"
"We are working on a theory—" began the doctor, but was interrupted by the chief.
"Theories be damned!" he snapped. "Work on your theories if you want to. This thing has gone too far. I'm going to get some facts." He swung on the four men behind him. "Search the house," he said. "Look sharp for anything of a suspicious nature. An infernal machine, perhaps, or a blood sucking animal. There is a man-killer of some kind, human or otherwise, hidden in this house, and it's our business to find it."
When the men had departed he stepped over Rooney's skeleton.
"I'll search this room myself," he said.
He did, with professional thoroughness, looking for hidden panels and sounding the walls, both in the open areas and behind the shelves, for hollow spaces. Then he began opening the drawers in a tall cabinet that stood in one corner, disclosing surgical and dissecting instruments of various kinds, an indexed set of microscope slides with some extra lenses, platinum dishes, porcelain drying pans, crucibles, glass rods and tubing, pipettes, rubber tubing and stoppers, rubber gloves and aprons, and other miscellaneous laboratory paraphernalia.
The bottom drawer of the cabinet was quite large and deep. The chief cried out excitedly when he saw its contents.
"Good Lord! Look at that!" he exclaimed.
It was filled to the top with dry, white bones.
"Nothing but the bones of small animals," said Dr. Dorp, picking up a skull. "This, for instance, is the skull of a dog." Then, taking up another: "Here is the skull of a rabbit. Notice the characteristic chisel-shaped teeth. This one beside it once supported the bewhiskered countenance of a common house cat."
"What do you suppose he was doing with them?" asked the chief.
"It is my belief that they were brought here to be killed and devoured by the same thing that killed the professor and Rooney."
"And that thing is—"
"At present, merely a shadowy theory, although it most certainly has an existence. There is a power in this house that is a menace to everyone under this roof—a malignant entity that destroys human beings in some mysterious manner unparalleled in the annals of science or human experience. This much we know, reasoning from effects. Reasoning from possible causes we are aware that the hobby of Professor Townsend was the endeavor to create a living thing from inorganic matter, and putting the two together it seems to me that the logical hypothesis would be that he either succeeded in creating a monster of a sort unknown to biologists, or discovered and developed unheard of powers and habits in a creature already known."
"If there's such a thing in this house, believe me I'm going to find it," said the chief, stamping out of the room.
"Now that we have a few moments to ourselves," said Dr. Dorp when McGraw had departed, "let us conduct a search, or rather an inquiry on our own account. I perceive that we have a very excellent compound microscope at our disposal and am curious to examine the liquid which has so mysteriously risen and changed color in the tank."
He took a blank slide from the cabinet drawer and a small glass rod from the table. As he was about to dip the rod in the liquid he uttered a low exclamation of surprise.
"What's up now?" I asked.
"This amazing liquid has again become transparent," he replied. "The red tint is gone."
He plunged the tip of the rod into the viscous liquid, twisted it slightly and withdrew it. Although the liquid seemed quite heavy it slipped from the end of the rod much after the manner of the white of an egg. After considerable juggling he succeeded in obtaining a small amount which he smeared on the slide. He then placed the slide in position and adjusted the microscope with a practiced hand.
"Well," I asked, after he had peered into the eyepiece for a full ten minutes, "what is the stuff, anyway?"
"Here, look for yourself," he replied.
What I saw in the field of the micro scope appeared to be a mesh work or foam work of exceedingly fine bubbles or perhaps globules. Granules of different sizes and shapes seemed imbedded in these globules and the whole was dotted at intervals with small white objects. While I watched several of these white objects seemed to dissolve and disappear. All of them apparently were endowed with life, for I noticed that they expanded or contracted spasmodically and seemed endeavoring to push their way through the surrounding bubbles.
"Seems to be a sort of foam," I said. "with something alive floating in it."
"The foam, as you call it, bears a singular resemblance to the basic life principle, protoplasm, when seen under the microscope," replied the doctor.
"But those white things—" I began.
"The white things," he went on, "are the living remnants of a complex organ ism that has been destroyed. They are waging an unequal and hopeless battle against assimilation by the globules that surround them. These faithful guardians of the organism when alive still fight, and will continue to fight the enemy until, figuratively speaking, the last man falls."
"But what are they?" I demanded.
"Unless I am very much mistaken," he replied, "they are—"
His answer was cut short by the appearance of Chief McGraw.
"Coroner and jury are downstairs", he said tersely. "I suppose they'll want your testimony. I'll leave a couple of men on guard here if you want to come down."
"Let us go down to the study and complete our perusal of the professor's manuscripts while the jury is in session," said the doctor. "We can thus save considerable time and will be on hand when they are ready to question us."
We met Coroner Haynes and his jurors at the foot of the stairs. They were about to go up for an inspection of the laboratory and its gruesome contents.
Dr. Dorp switched on one of the reading lamps and closed the door. Then he established himself in a comfortable chair with a pile of manuscripts and I followed his example. We found essays and articles on almost every subject pertaining to the transmission or generation of life. There were papers on anatomy, bacteriology, cell-structure, microbiology and embryology. There were treatises on evolution, spontaneous generation, and the structures and
