Weird Tales/Volume 1/Issue 3/The Whispering Thing

by Laurie McClintock and Culpeper Chunn

The Mystery of the Frightful
Invisible Monster Is Solved
in the Last Chapters of

The Whispering Thing^[1]

By LAURIE McCLINTOCK and CULPEPER CHUNN

A RESUME OF THE EARLY CHAPTERS:

STARK terror and mysterious death follow in the wake of an unseen demon, which lurks in the city streets and houses, whispering in the ears of its victims before killing them. Medical examination shows that they were, apparently, strangled to death. One of the victims, before dying, declares the breath of the Whispering Thing is icy cold. Nobody has seen it. Nobody can imagine what it is. Then Jules Peret, French detective who is in America, undertakes to fathom the terrible mystery. After his preliminary investigation, he goes home, and when he enters his darkened rooms he feels an ice-cold breath on his cheek, and he knows he is in the presence of the Whispering Thing.

THE PRESENT INSTALLMENT STARTS HERE

CHAPTER VI. (Continued)

THE WHISPERING THING

WITH a stifled cry, Peret whirled round and made a frantic, though futile, effort to open the door. In his slapdash haste he struck his head against the jamb and dropped the key.

Cursing fluently under his breath in four languages, he fell to his knees and felt around on the carpet. Failing to find the key, he sprang to his feet and began to fumble on the wall for the push-button.

Before he could find it, however, the Thing again whispered its warning of death in his ear and scorched his face with its icy breath.

Almost mad with terror, Peret threw himself backward and crashed against a chair with such violence that he was almost knocked senseless. For a second he lay still, to gather his forces and to fill his bursting lungs with air. His clothes were wet with perspiration, and his body cold and numb.

Expecting each instant to feel the vise-like grip of the Thing on his throat, he staggered to his feet and made another frantic effort to find the push-button. Remembering the flashlight in his pocket, he was about to reach for it, when he felt the ice-cold breath of the Thing on his face, and, in an effort to protect himself, he sprang against the wall. What he had been trying for an eternity to accomplish by strategy was now brought about by accident. His shoulder struck the push-button, and the lights flashed on.

Almost blinded by the sudden glare, blinking rapidly to clear his vision, he took a step back and swept the room with an all-embracing gaze.

Except for himself, the room was unoccupied!

It was, in fact, exactly as he had left it earlier in the day. The room bore not the slightest evidence of having been entered during his absence, nor was there anything large enough to afford a human being a place of concealment.

As he stood stupidly surveying the room, the whisper of the invisible menace once more sounded in his ear!

With a cry of terror, Peret whipped out his automatic and, blindly fanning the air in front of him, pulled the trigger until the magazine was empty. A picture fell to the floor with a crash and bits of plaster flew from the walls and ceiling. Scarcely waiting until the last shot was fired, Peret snatched the key off the floor and slipped it in the keyhole.

As he threw open the door, the Thing again whispered in his ear and brushed his face with its clammy breath. With a yell, the Frenchman precipitated himself into the hall with such vigor and rapidity of action that he fell sprawling.

Bounding to his feet, he grabbed the knob and violently slammed the door.

"Victory!" he shouted, and his joy was excessive. "Ah, monster! cochon! boyeux! Thing or devil! Whatever you are, I've got you now! Oui!"

He shook his fist at the door and hurled at the imprisoned horror a string of excited invective.

"Your hour is come. Your shot is bolt! Assassin! Ghoul! Voila! how you frightened me—me, the Terrible Frog! Dame! I am trembling a little yet, I think."

A number of doors along the corridor opened, and men and women in night attire stuck their heads out cautiously.

"I say, old top, what's coming off?" asked one of the startled individuals, catching sight of Peret.

"Nothing," shouted Peret, and wiped the dew from his forehead.

"You are drunk," said another man, disgusted. "Go to bed. You are keeping everybody awake."

"You're a liar!" yelled Peret, and the other, fearing violence hastily closed the door.

Pinching his arm to assure himself that he was not the victim of a nightmare, Peret tried the doorknob to see if the night-latch had, by any ill chance, failed to spring. Having reassured himself on this point, he turned and, taking the steps four at a time, dashed down the stairs.

Scaring the now thoroughly-awake elevator boy nearly out of his senses with his wild gestures and still wilder appearance, Peret careened into a telephone booth, and, after being connected with the police headquarters, barked into the receiver a few disjointed sentences that froze the blood of Central, who had been listening in, and made Detective Sergeant Strange, at the other end of the wire, drop the receiver and bellow an order that brought everybody within hearing distance to their feet.

Whereupon Peret, having heard the order as plainly as if he had been in Strange’s office, reeled out into the lobby and collapsed in a chair to await the arrival of the homicide squad.

CHAPTER VI.

PERET EXPLAINS

AT 9 a. m. on the following morning Jules Peret presented himself at the front door of a small, unpretentious red-brick house on Fifteenth Street, one block from the home of the murdered scientist.

One would never have suspected from his manner or appearance that, eight hours previously, he had battled with an invisible menace in the narrow confines of a darkened room, and had felt stark terror grip his soul before he emerged triumphant from the most harrowing experience of his adventurous career. No one would ever have suspected that, because, to all outward appearance, Peret was at peace with the world and had no thought on his mind of greater weight than the aroma of the cigarette between his lips. Debonair as ever, and attired with the scrupulous neatness that was so characteristic of him, he made a picture that had caused more than one young lady to pay him the honor of a lingering glance when, a half-hour previously, he had issued from his apartment and pursued his way down the well populated thoroughfare.

In answer to the tinkle of the bell the door was opened three inches by the butler, a small, wrinkled, leathery-faced old Chinaman, whose head was as bald and shiny as a polished egg. In one hand he held a faded silk skull cap, which he had evidently just removed from his head or forgotten to put on.

"Whatchee want, huh?" he demanded, with a regrettable lack of civility.

"I want to see your master," returned Peret courteously, extending his card. "Please present my compliments to him, Monsieur, and tell him my business is pressing."

"Mlaster no see nobody," chattered Sing Tong Fat. "He sick. Allee samee dlunk. No see noblody. Clome back nex' week."

"But it is necessary that I should see your master this morning," was Peret's polite but firm retort. "Your master will be glad enough to see me when you show him my card." He displayed his badge of special officer and added, "Get a wiggle on!"

"Yak pozee!" shrilled Sing Tong Fat indignantly, and opened the door. "You clazy. Allee samee tong man. Master have you alested." He contorted his face until it resembled a hyena's, and broke into a shrill laugh. "Tchee, tchee. (yes, yes.) Alee samee tam fool clazy man."

"You are an amiable old scamp, Monsieur," laughed Peret. "But we are losing time, and time is of importance. Where does your master hang out, eh? I will present my own card."

"I tellee him you see him flirst," chattered the Chinaman, "You wait here. He sleepee. Me wakee him up. He sick. Allee samee dlunk, You wait leddle time. Tchon-dzee-ti Fan-Fu (it is the will of the master)."

A door on the right side of the hall opened and a man stepped out into the hall. In spite of his disheveled hair and the brilliantly-colored dressing robe that covered his heavy frame, there was no mistaking the handsome features of Albert Deweese.

"'S all right, Sing," he said, when he saw who his visitor was. "I decided to get up for a while." Then to Peret: "Good-morning, Mr. Peret. I guess you think I am an inhospitable cuss, what? Fact is, I have been trying to sleep."

"No, I do not think you are inhospitable, Monsieur," replied Peret, as he shook hands. "After your experience last night, you need time to recuperate. The wonder of it is you are able to be up at all."

"I agree with you there!" responded Deweese with feeling. "I told Sing last night when I retired to admit no one this morning until I rang, which accounts for his discourtesy in keeping you waiting. I felt the need of a round twelve hours’ sleep to recover from the effects of my adventure, but I haven’t been able to close my eyes. I feel as if I shall never be able to close them."

Deweese indeed showed the effects of his near-tragic battle with the Whispering Thing. His face was grayish-white and the heavy black circles under his bloodshot eyes accentuated his pallor and gave him an appearance that was almost ghastly. Had he been stretched out on a bed and his eyes closed, one could easily have mistaken him for a corpse.

Dismissing the garrulous and indignant old Chinaman, he crossed the hall and ushered Peret into a large, well-lighted room that was fitted out as a studio. The walls were hung with canvases of an indifferent quality in various stages of completion, and on an easel near a large double window reposed the half-completed picture of a semi-nude, which immediately caught and held the detective's gaze.

After a moment's critical inspection of the painting, Peret remarked: "You seem to be a busy man, my friend. But I don't suppose you find much interest in your paintings this morning, eh? In fact, you look on the verge of a collapse. Have you seen your physician yet?"

"That's the first thing I did after leaving Berjet's house last night," the artist replied. "He found nothing serious the matter with me, however. Shock more than anything else, I suppose, But to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit, Mr. Peret? Have you had any success in running down the Thing?"

"Yes and no," answered Peret, and then went on to explain: "We are hot on the trail, but haven't yet succeeded in entirely clearing-up the mystery. It was in the hope that you would be able to help me a little that I called upon you this morning. I thought you might like to see the affair through to the end."

"Good!" cried the artist, his feverish eyes glittering with eagerness. "After I had gotten some sleep, I intended hunting you up, anyway. You are right when you say I want to see the thing through to the finish. You can count on me to help you in any way that lies in my power. God knows, there is no one more eager than myself to get to the bottom of this affair! With the Whispering Thing still at large—"

He shuddered involuntarily, laughed, and added, "It is difficult for you to understand my feelings, I guess."

"Perhaps it's not as difficult as you imagine, my friend," said Peret quietly, subsiding into a chair. He selected a cigarette from the case the artist proffered; and continued: "But let us get down to business. First, I will recount a few facts disclosed by my investigations and then explain how you can help me. In the meantime, let us be comfortable. You are as pale as a ghost. Be seated, my dear fellow, I beg of you," he added with solicitude.

"Oh, I am not as bad off as I may appear," declared Deweese confidently, dropping into a chair nevertheless. "I will be all right after a few hours' rest. Now, let me have your story. Naturally, I am consumed with curiosity to hear what you have discovered."

"Ah, you are a delightful companion, Monsieur," was Peret's genial response. "Me—I am a great talker, but a poor listener. I will tell you what I know with pleasure. But let me first congratulate you upon the excellence of these Persian cigarettes. Sacre! But you have a delicate taste, Monsieur."

The artist bowed his acknowledgment to the compliment, but impatiently. It was evident that he was eager to hear what the Frenchman had on his mind, and Peret, remarking this, did not keep him longer in suspense.

"I will not take up your time by recounting all that has transpired since I saw you last night, Monsieur," began Peret, "and for the sake of convenience I will tell my story in a round-about sort of way. Let me begin with my first attempt to motivate Berjet's murder.

"M. Berjet was, as you are doubtless aware, a scientist of international repute. In scientific circles, in fact, he was a towering figure. I have the honor of having had a casual acquaintanceship with him for several years, and as I knelt beside his dead body on the sidewalk last night I recalled to mind many of the achievements that had brought him moderate wealth and fame. Among other things. I remembered having recently seen a newspaper account of a new invention of his—a poison gas of unparalleled destructive powers, the formula of which several warring nations have been trying to purchase.

"As clues were sadly lacking, and our investigation in his house failed to reveal any satisfactory explanation for Berjet's death, I at once assumed that the motive for the murder had been the theft of the formula. I knew that at least one of the nations that have been trying to acquire the formula would go to almost any length to gain possession of a new and really effective weapon of this kind. I therefore got in touch with the Secret Service, which usually has an intimate knowledge of such matters, and learned several facts that made me more certain than ever that I was on the right track.

"Berjet's poison gas, I learned, is indeed a terrible destructive agent. It is said to be even more deadly than Lewisite. A minute portion of a drop, if placed on the ground, will kill every living thing, vegetable and animal, within a radius of half a mile. Think, then, what a ton would do!

"Berjet called his invention 'Q-gas.' The formula was first offered to our government for a moderate sum, and rejected, and at the time of his death the savant was negotiating for its sale to the French government."

"Surely, you are not going to try to make me believe that this Q-gas played a direct part in the death of Berjet and Sprague and the attack on me," interrupted Deweese. "Believe me, Mr. Peret—"

"I do believe you, my friend," was Peret's smiling response. "The gas itself played no part in the tragedy last night, but the formula is at the bottom of all of the trouble, as has been suggested. The murders were simply incidental to the robbery of the formula."

"Have you discovered who the robber was?" queried Deweese, with natural curiosity.

"Yes," replied Peret calmly, "Even without clues to work with, this would not have been very difficult. Of the several nations that have been trying to get possession of the Q-gas formula there are only one or two that would authorize their agents to go to such extremes as were employed last night to acquire it, and as virtually all of their agents are known to the Secret Service, our search would have been confined to a limited group of men and women. It would simply have been a matter of elimination."

Deweese nodded his understanding, and the sleuth continued:

"Almost from the very first, however, for reasons which I will explain later, I was led to suspect a man who has since turned out to be a notorious international agent, known in diplomatic circles as Count Vincent di Dalfonzo. During his absence, I made a somewhat hurried search of his rooms after my departure from the scientist's house, but could find nothing to incriminate him.

"One of my operatives, however, a former Secret Service agent, was able to identify him, if nothing more. According to this operative, Dalfonzo, who is one of the greatest scoundrels unhung, at the present time bears the secret credentials of a nation I will leave unnamed, but one which, I have reason to know, has made several unsuccessful attempts to buy the Q-gas formula from Berjet."

Deweese was leaning forward in his chair, an eager listener. As Peret paused to relight his cigarette, he remarked:

"If Dalfonzo is such a notorious character, one would have thought that the Secret Service would have kept him under its eye."

"One would have thought so, indeed," agreed Peret, expelling a cloud of smoke from his lungs. "When last heard of several months ago, Dalfonzo was in Petrograd and he probably entered this country in disguise and has since kept himself well under cover."

"Have you arrested him?"

"I have scarcely had time yet, Monsieur,” answered Peret. "I feel safe in saying, however, that he will be in the custody of the police within the next twenty-four hours."

"Good! I will never feel safe while this scoundrel is at large, if indeed he really did have a hand in the murders of Berjet, Sprague and Adolphe, and the attack on me."

"Dalfonzo had nothing to do with Adolphe's murder, and only an indirect hand in the attack on you," said Peret. "Sacre bleu! Dalfonzo is not the kind of man that strikes down his victims with butcher knives and such; he is a man of delicate ideas and sensibilities, Monsieur."

"So it seems," said Deweese drily. "I know that the finger prints on the dagger tend to prove that Adolphe was murdered by his employer, but in the light of the other facts can this evidence be considered conclusive? The prints on the dagger may simply be a trick to confuse the police. The Whispering Thing—But stay! For the moment I had forgotten the Whispering Thing. It seems to me that we are getting away from the main issue."

"Patience, Monsiour," said Peret, with an enigmatical smile. "Everything will be explained in good time. But first, let me assure you that the finger prints on the dagger are genuine. Adolphe was undoubtedly murdered by the scientist, and as the penalty for this crime he gave his own life."

Deweese started. The Frenchman's indirect method of telling his story, and the complacence with which he stated apparently contradictory facts, confused and annoyed him.

"You mean—?" he began.

"I mean that Berjet was murdered because he stabbed his valet."

"Well," averred Deweese, unable to conceal his impatience, "all of this is about as clear as mud to me. First you say that the motive for Berjet's murder was the robbery of the formula, and now you declare that he was done away with because he killed his valet. What am I to believe?"

"What you will, Monsieur," replied Peret. "Everything I have stated is true, although I confess that as yet I have nothing to prove it. If the facts seem contradictory, it is because I have expressed myself badly.

"According to my theory, Count Dalfonzo (for a consideration of course), induced Adolphe to steal the formula of Q-gas from his benefactor. When poor Berjet learned that he had been betrayed he stabbed the betrayer in a fit of insane rage and hid the body in the closet in his library until he would have time to dispose of it. Dalfonzo in some way learned of this, or suspected it, and as he already had the formula in his possession, decided that his safest plan would be to murder Berjet before he could communicate with French Secret Service agents operating in this country, who were about to consummate the purchase of the secret. Eh, bien! the murder was committed, and but for one little slip, one tiny slip—Ha; ha! It is amusing, is it not, Monsieur?"

"Very!" rejoined Deweese sarcastically. "I think, however, that I have begun to get a glimmer of what you erroneously conceive to be the truth, and that is that Dalfonzo and the mysterious Thing are identical."

"Patience, Monsieur, patience," cried Peret. "The glimmer of light that you see is a will-o'-the wisp. Dalfonzo is a man; the Thing is—the Thing. The murders were instigated by Dalfonzo, but were committed by the invisible terror."

Deweese, as had many a man before him, began to wonder if he had to deal with an imbecile or a man by no means as feeble-minded as he seemed. In his puzzlement he stared at Peret for a moment, with mouth agape, then he leaned forward in his chair until less than two feet separated his corpselike face from Peret's.

"And what the devil is the Whispering Thing?" he asked sharply.

"All in good time," came the amiable reply. "Let us first consider the little slip that upset Dalfonzo's apple cart."

"Well, let us consider the little slip then," said Deweese, relaxing in his chair. "Where did our diplomatic freelance slip?"

"Why, when he tried to murder me in the same way that he did that poor Berjet," quietly responded Peret.

The artist half rose from his chair and stared at the detective with astonishment written on his face.

"Do you mean to say that you have been attacked by the Whispering Thing?" he demanded.

"Just that, Monsieur. I was attacked by the whispering phantom in my rooms last night after I left the scene of the attack on you. You can realize, therefore, that I can appreciate all that you have gone through. It is true that my experience was, in some respects, not as terrible as your own, because I escaped the Thing before it could do me bodily harm. But I never expect entirely to recover from the fright it gave me. Mon dieu, what a monster this Dalfonzo is!"

"It was at his instigation that the Thing attacked you?" questioned Deweese.

"Who else?" asked Peret.

"Well," cried Deweese, impatiently, "why do you beat around the bush so much? Be definite. What the devil is the Whispering Thing? And who, exactly, is the man you call Dalfonzo?"

Peret lifted his eyes and gazed steadily at the artist.

"I will answer your second question first, Monsieur," he replied, with exasperating slowness. "My answer will explain why I have been beating around the bush, as you call it."

He leaned slightly forward, his right hand in his coat pocket, his eyes smiling, the muscles around his mouth tense.

"Count Vincent di Dalfonzo," he said, "is the man who at the present time calls himself Albert Deweese—Don't move, Monsieur! The revolver in my coat pocket is centered on your heart!"

CHAPTER VIII.

THE MYSTERY IS SOLVED.

IF PERET expected to catch Deweese off his guard, he was sadly disappointed. The artist met his gaze squarely, and without any apparent emotion.

Flicking the ashes from his cold cigarette, he applied a lighted match to it and tossed the charred splinter upon the floor. The corpselike look of his face became a little accentuated, perhaps, and there was a slight narrowing of the eyes that had not been apparent before; but, except for that, there was no change in his manner or appearance,

For a moment neither of the men spoke. Their eyes clashed and held. The stillness became tense, electric, as they contemplated each other through the haze of smoke that curled from the ends of their cigarettes. Finally:

"You are quite mad, I think," remarked Deweese, unmoved. "Where the deuce did you ever get the idea that I was Dalfonzo?"

Peret was unable to conceal his admiration.

"You are a great actor, Monsieur, and a brave man," he declared in a tone that left no doubt of his sincerity. "I told part of my story to test you—a sort of indirect third degree—but so far not a muscle of your face has moved. What a pity it is you are such a damned scoundrel!"

Deweese laughed shortly.

"It is always safe to insult a man when you have him covered," he observed composedly. "Nevertheless, pray continue. You interest me exceedingly, and cause me no annoyance. Your wild theories brand you a fool and an ass, and, strangely enough, it always gives me pleasure to hear an ass bray. Proceed, my dear chap."

"There are many others whose opinion of me is similar to your own," said Peret blandly; "but the fool is he who holds his enemy in contempt."

Deweese's eyes flashed.

"Well, dear enemy, what makes you think that I am the chap you call Dalfonzo?" he questioned, smiling with his lips.

"You will not admit your identity, then?" countered the detective.

"Certainly I will admit my identity," said Deweese, with a laugh. "I am Albert Deweese, very much at your service. What reason have you for believing me to be the man you call Dalfonzo—a man who, if one is to believe you, seems to be in league with an invisible demon that commits murders for him? The very fact that I almost met my death at the hands of the Whispering Thing is proof that I am not the man you seek. If I had anything to do with the Thing, does it seem reasonable to suppose that I would turn it loose on myself?"

"The attack on you was an accident, Monsieur—a bit of retributive justice, perhaps. Were it not for the fact that you still suffer from the effects of it, I would say that you only got part of what was coming to you. Not a full dose of your own medicine, Monsieur—just a taste of it. Ah, you are clever, my friend, clever as the fiends in hell; but, it appears, not clever enough. Diable, Monsieur, you should have better trained that terrible monster before you turned it loose, eh?"

"You seem to like to talk in riddles," snapped Deweese, "What is the Whispering Thing, anyway? If you know, I shall be obliged if you will tell me."

Very well, my friend,” acquiesced Peret, "I will do so with pleasure. The invisible monster, the terrible, whispering, breathing, fear-inspiring demon is—"

"Well?" demanded Deweese tersely.

"One little bat," concluded Peret—"or rather, two little bats."

Absurd as the detective's statement may have sounded, its effect on the artist was, nevertheless, pronounced. His gaze wavered and his face, if such a thing were possible, became a shade paler. His recovery, however, was almost immediate.

"I do not know what it was that attacked you last night," he sneered. "It may have been and probably was a bat. It is possible that an insect could strike terror in the heart of a delicate little flower like you. But if you think a bat attacked me—" with one of his chilling laughs—"I can only say that I think you are a poor damned fool."

"There are times that I think the same thing," replied Peret, seriously; "but this is not one of them. I not only think that the Thing was a bat—I know it. And to prove to you how futile it is for you to pretend ignorance of the Thing, and of your own identity, let me reenact in words the tragedy that ended in the death of two good and innocent men."

"Do so," gritted Deweese, his cold blue eyes glittering. "But if you think you can convince me that the Thing that attacked me was a bat—"

"As I have already stated," said Peret, fixing his gaze on the unwavering eyes of the artist, "the murder of M. Berjet was conceived after you learned that Adolphe had been killed. You deemed it necessary to your own safety. Having completed your diabolical plans, therefore, you lost no time in calling at the scientist's home. Upon reaching your destination, you entered the house by way of the front door, which you found unlocked. The door of the library or sitting-room, on the other hand, was secured.

"You therefore placed a chair in front of the door to stand on and opened the transom over the door. After tying a handkerchief over your mouth and nostrils, you raised the cover of a little box you had brought with you and released a bat in the room. Then you closed the transom and departed from the house as silently as you had entered it.

"The bat proved to be a faithful ally, Monsieur. On little rubber pads that you had glued on the upper side of its wings was a preparation used by the Dyaks to poison the tips of their arrows and spears. The preparation, which you used in powdered form, with a few added ingredients of your own, as employed by the Dyaks, consists of a paste made from the milky sap of the upas tree; dissolved in a juice extracted from the tuba root. With one possible exception, it is the most deadly poison known, a minute quantity, breathed in through the nostrils or absorbed into the system through an abrasion on the skin, causing almost instant death.

"When you released the bat in the library, it began to circle around the room and its fluttering wings scattered the powder and poisoned the air to such an extent that poor Berjet had only time, before he died, to realize the significance of the bat’s presence in the room and to leap through the window in a vain effort to save himself.

"You, in the meantime, had walked slowly down the street, and when the scientist catapulted himself through the window-sash, you were calmly lighting a cigarette under the corner lamp post half a block away. The complication was one you doubtless had not anticipated; you had though that Berjet would die an instant death when he got a whiff of the powder.

"Nevertheless, you had nothing to fear, you thought; you had laid your plans too carefully. Like any innocent pedestrian would be expected to do, therefore, you ran back down the street, determined to be in at the finish, to see your work well done.

"All this time the bat—whose mouth and nostrils, by the way, you had protected with a tiny gauze mask from which the creature could eventually free itself—was no doubt flying around and around, trying to find egress from the room. It was while you were standing on the pavement in front of the house, talking with Sprague and Greenleigh, that the bat discovered the broken window-sash and escaped into the open air.

"As it winged its way aimlessly over the sidewalk, it flew close enough to Sprague to scatter some of the powder in his face, and an instant later, continuing its flight, it passed in front of you.

"Dr. Sprague inhaled a fatal amount of the powder, but you breathed in only enough to throw you into a kind of convulsion. The struggles of both you and the physician to get your breath and otherwise to overcome the seizure made it appear that you were grappling with an invisible antagonist. Sprague succumbed almost instantly; but you, after a brief struggle, recovered, and in order to throw me off the track, as you believed, cleverly conceived the 'invisible monster.'

"Nor did you have to draw much upon your imagination for the 'whispering sound' and the 'icy breathing' of the unholy creature of your mind. The whir of the bat's wings as it flew past you made a sound not unlike that of a sibilant whisper, while the whiffs of air that the animal's wings fanned against your cheek, suggested the 'cold and clammy breathing' of the mythical monster.

"Ma foi! well do I know whereof I speak, Monsieur, for I heard the 'whisper' and felt the 'breath' of the Thing myself. The bat that was loosed in my room last night gave me the fright of my life. When its wings brushed against the wall it sounded like a whisper of the devil himself, and when its wings fanned the air against my face, I thought a corpse was breathing death into my soul. No coward am I, monsieur, but the 'whispering' and 'breathing' were so terribly real—which only goes to show what suggestion will do to a vivid imagination. You had talked so earnestly and so picturesquely about the 'whisper' and the 'breath' of the Thing, that when I first heard the whir of the little animal’s wings in the inky-dark room—Dame! It makes me shiver yet!

"Fortunately, however, the bat had been in my room long enough before I entered it to shake all the deadly powder from its wings. The powder had settled and the air was pure before I crossed the threshold of that room, else I would have died a quick and horrible death.

"The same thing is true of the bat that sprinkled death in the face of Berjet. When you and I, in company with the police, entered the scientist’s house, the bat had been gone for several minutes, and the stray particles of pulverized death had settled. You realized this, of course, or you would not have entered the room. If Strange and I had entered the house five minutes earlier, you would have let us enter it alone.”

Peret took a lavender handkerchief from the breast pocket of his coat and wiped from his brow some beads of perspiration. A slight moisture was also noticeable on the forehead of the artist, but it was due to another cause. Although he must have known that each world of the detective's was a strand in the rope that was being woven around his neck, he gave no signs of emotion. Inwardly, the strain had begun to tell on him, but outwardly he was calm, confident, almost indifferent.

Restoring the handkerchief to his pocket, Peret resumed: 'I confess that at first the case baffled me. Through a mistake of my own, soon to be explained, I got started on the wrong track. Your story of the Whispering Thing did not impress me, although I did not at first suspect you of deliberately trying to deceive me. I laid the Thing to your imagination and wrought-up condition. My skepticism vanished, however, when I reached my rooms, as I have explained.

At first I scarcely knew what to believe. The asphyxiation theory of Sprague and, later on, of Coroner Rane set my mind in motion, but led me nowhere, because it did not fit in with my interpretation of Berjet's last words. As a matter of fact, nothing else seemed to fit in with anything. Clues ran counter to each other and the facts themselves clashed.

"I got my first inspiration when you declared that the breathing of the Thing was cold and clammy, for this made it seem likely that poison fumes had been fanned in your face by some mechanical device. Had it not been for the horrible experience in my room, this is the theory upon which I should have based my investigation.”

“Then you captured the bat?” said Deweese, in a tense voice.

“Oui, Monsieur,” nodded Peret. “I tried to shoot the tiny thing, without even knowing what it was; but I ask you in all seriousness, my friend, could one hope to hit with a thirty-two bullet a chauve-souris that one could not see? Not I! So I telephoned for the police and they came and conquered it with a tear bomb!

“The bat, Monsieur, was then turned over to the city chemists, and they analyzed the traces of powder found adhering to the little pads on its wings. Their report gave me the name of the poison that opened the gates of eternity for Berjet and Sprague.”

Peret twisted the needle-points of his slender black mustache and beamed upon his host.

“But why accuse me? “asked Deweese, smiling. “I have no bats in my menagerie—nothing, in fact, but a flea-bitten bulldog,”

Peret’s face became sober.

“You stand accused not by me,” he said solemnly, “but by Berjet, the first of your victims.”

“What's that?” asked Deweese sharply. For the first time, he seemed alarmed. He sat up suddenly in his chair, and as suddenly relaxed, but the hunted look that crept into his eyes continued to show how sharply the blow has struck home.

“You start, eh? Good! My reasoning is sound. Yes, my friend; Berjet is your accuser. Just before he died, he uttered two words. The first word was ‘assassins;’ and the other was a word that I at first believed to be ‘dix,’ the French word for ‘ten,’ which is pronounced dees. I thought Berjet meant he had been attacked by ten assassins, incredible as it seemed. That is what got me all balled up, as the saying goes.

“But after I heard your name, and let it roll around in my mind for awhile, I realized my mistake. The dying man did not say Dix. He pronounced your name, or rather, your present alias, ‘Deweese.’

“When realization of this burst upon me, I was so gratified that I decided to lay a little trap for you. I became very excited, you may recall, shouted that I knew what the Whispering Thing was, that the mystery was solved! I wanted you to show your hand, my friend. But I was not looking for you to act through a confederate, and as a result I very obligingly walked into the little trap which you, in turn, laid for me.

“Who was it that put the chauve-souris in my room, eh? Was it Sing Tong Fat? It could not have been you, for you have been under surveillance every minute of the time since you left the murdered scientist's house last night. I think you gave Sing Tong Fat instructions to destroy me over the telephone, for the police report you as having called your house from Greenleigh’s durug store after your departure from Berjet’s. Ah, that devil of a Chinaman! I was watching him through the kitchen window for a little while this morning polishing silver, and he was singing to himself! Pardieu! he has an easy conscience for a would-be murderer, monsieur!”

“You have a very fertile imagination,” remarked Deweese, when Peret paused to blow the ashes from his cigarette. “But your fairy tale amuses me, so pray continue. In view of the fact that I was near the scene of the crime when Berjet was murdered, it is not difficult to perceive how you mght confuse my name with the scientist’s last utterance. But how you ever came to identify me with Dalfonzo is past my comprehension.”

“That is very easily explained,” was Peret’s affable reply. “After leaving the scene of the crime last night, I had your house placed under surveillance of the operative I have already mentioned. While he was waiting for me to join him, so we could search the house, he saw Sing Tong Fat through one of the windows and recognized him as your familiar.

“There are very few foreign agents unknown to the Secret Service, and my operative has the record of you and Sing Tong Fat at his finger-tips. He knows that you and the Chinaman have been associated for years, and that at the present time you are working in the interests of Soviet Russia. Sing Tong Fat is not the idiot he appears to be; he is an international agent that several countries would give a good deal to lay their hands on.

“When my operative saw Sing Tong Fat in your house, he did not have to tax his mind much to deduce the name of the ‘master’ he is serving. Before I joined the operative, some one called Sing Tong Fat on the ‘phone and he left the house almost immediately afterward. As the time of the call coincides with the hour you are reported as having *phoned from Greenleigh’s drug store, I have no doubt that the message was from you. As the operative had instructions to wait for me, he did not shadow Sing Tong Fat when he left the house, which is a pity, for he probably would have caught the old scoundrel in the act of putting the bat in my room. After I arrived on the scene, we amused ourselves by searching your house—this house—thoroughly.”

“So it was you prowling around here last night, was it?” said Deweese savagely. “I wish I had known it; you should not have gotten away so easily.”

“Then I am glad you did not know,” laughed Peret. “Your bulldog and your bullet made it lively enough as it was.”

“I hope that you found your search worth while,” sneered Deweese.

“No,” replied Peret regretfully; “my search gave you a clean bill of health. We did not find the formula or anything else that would incriminate you. Nevertheless, Monsieur, your little game has been played—played and lost.

“And you played the game badly, too, my friend. For a man of your intelligence, your blunders are inexcusable. Why did you not leave that blood-thirsty old Chinaman in Russia, Monsieur? You can never hope to remain incognito as long as you have Sing Tong Fat in tow. His hatchet face is too well known. Your other blunders were all just as glaring as this one. Why did you linger near the scene of your crime, eh? And introduced yourself to the human bloodhounds that were searching out your scent! Ah, Monsieur, I admire your self confidence, but you have an over abundance of it.”

“Perhaps,” said Deweese, with an ironic smile. “At any rate, it doesn’t desert me now. For I know that you cannot convict me. You haven’t a shred of real evidence against me, and the chain of circumstantial evidence you have woven around me would be laughed to scorn in a jury room.”

“You are right,” assented Peret, almost apologetically, “So far I have only been able to reconstruct the crime in my mind by piecing together inconsequential nothings that do not constitute legal evidence. Surmises, deductions, and a stray fact or two—I possess nothing more, my friend. But for the present they must suffice. Before I am through, however, I promise to tie you up in a knot of incontestable evidence.”

“That you will never be able to do,” declared Deweese, “for I am innocent of the murders of Berjet and Sprague. I deny any knowledge of the crimes, in fact, except what I saw in your presence last night. However, ever since you have been here, I have noticed your hand toying with the revolver in your pocket, so I presume that I am under arrest, what? "What the devil do I want to arrest you for?" asked Peret, with feigned astonishment, "You yourself have said that I have no real evidence against you."

The lids of Deweese’s eyes narrowed and the lines around his mouth grew hard. The pupils of his eyes, contracted to half their usual size, looked like points of cold fire.

"If you are not here to arrest me, what's your game?" he demanded.

"Oh, I just wanted to see what effect my theories would have on you," replied Peret calmly, as he rose to his feet. "I am a close student of psychology, and I find much in you that interests me. Thanks for your hospitality, Monsieur," he continued, opening the door. "Perhaps I shall have an opportunity to return the courtesy some day, as I have no doubt we shall meet again."

"Rest assured of that," rejoined Deweese, with a sinister smile. "We shall certainly meet again."

"It is written," returned Peret.

He looked at Deweese for a moment, and then, with a bow, withdrew from the room.

CHAPTER IX.

THE WORM TURNS

WHEN the door had closed behind the detective, Deweese walked across the room and put his ear to the keyhole.

He heard the shrill chatter of Sing Tong Fat as he let Peret out of the house, and the slam of the front door when he closed it behind him. Heaving a sigh of relief, Deweese threw himself into a chair. The strain through which he had just come had been terrific. Ordinarily, he would have found a battle of wits with the detective much to his liking, for it was for just such games as this that he lived. But his experience with the Whispering Thing had left his nerves in such a state that he felt he had been no match for the Frenchman.

Nevertheless, now that he was at least temporarily unembarrassed by the detective's presence, his brain began to function more normally and he set about evolving plans to extricate himself from his hazardous position. What a devil the Frenchman was! The man's powers of deduction smacked of the supernatural. And yet—

He kitted his brow. Recalling to his mind his own blundering, it was not so difficult, after all, to perceive how the detective had arrived at his conclusions. He, Deweese, had laid his plans so carefully, that he had believed detection impossible. But now, viewing the working out of his plan in retrospection, he could see where he had erred, and cursed himself for his carelessness. His blunders, as Peret had implied, had been too obvious to escape notice. Should not the remarkable accuracy of Peret’s reasoning, therefore, be attributed to chance rather than to genius? The accursed dying speech of the scientist had given him the key to the mystery, and it was certainly only an ill chance that had led him to be on hand to hear it. With such a clue to work on, he reasoned, the solving of the ease had simply been a matter of routine. Without this clue, the detective would have been lost. The fact that he himself had been attacked by the Whispering Thing would have shielded him from suspicion.

As he thought of his chance encounter with the bat, he shuddered. The accident in itself proved his carelessness. It had indeed almost proved his death. As Peret had said, he had been a fool to linger near the scene of his crime, but he had been so sure, so confident, that he had done his work too well to fear detection. As for Peret—well, his very frankness proved that he was something of a fool. Who but an idiot would have exposed his hand when he knew that his opponent held the strongest cards!

Of course, there was a possibility that the Frenchman was holding something back, but what if he was? Was he, Count Vincent di Dalfonzo, "mystery man" of a hundred aliases and acknowledged by the police to be the cleverest international crook outside of prison bars, to be deprived of his liberty and a fortune by an imbecile of a private detective?

He laughed, and his laugh did not sound pleasant. After all, he had the formula, and the game was not yet lost. His blunders had not been as bad as they might have been. He would have been arrested at once, he argued, had Peret believed that there was even the slightest chance of convicting him. It only remained for him to make one imperative move, and then sit tight. The Frenchman was bluffing, or perhaps he was laying another of his diabolical traps. Well, he should see!

After fortifyng himself with a stiff drink of whisky from the flask in the table drawer, he tapped the hand-bell on the table, and Sing Tong Fat, as if he had been awaiting the summons, entered the room with noiseless tread.

"Did you let that blankety-blank Frenchman out?" demanded Deweese.

"Tchèe, tchée," chattered Sing Tong Fat. "He gone. Me watchee him glo dlown stleet. He allee samee tam fool clazy man. He say he blowee topee head off. Hoi, hoi." He drew one of the silken sleeves of his blouse across his face and looked at his master anxiously. "He say polis alle lound house in stleet, Fan-Fu. He talkee allee samee Victrolee—"

"The house is still under surveillance, is it?" observed Deweese, wrinkling his brow. "‘Well, so much the better. We work best when we work cautiously, and we are not likely to be incautious when we know we are watched."

He lighted a fresh cigarette and gazed reflectively at the thread of smoke that curled upward from the lighted end. The drink of whisky had cleared his brain, and, alert, feverishly bright-eyed, every nerve in tune, he was now the man who for years had matched wits with the continental police and eluded them at every turn. Sing Tong Fat, well aware of the seriousness of the situation, shuffled his feet uneasily. and waited, with an anxious look on his face, for his "master" to speak.

"Sing Tong Fat," said Deweese, finally, "you and I have been friends and co-workers for many years. We have associated in many dangerous enterprises and I have always been liberal when it came to a division of the spoils. As we have shared the pleasures of our adventures, so too have we shared their dangers. I feel it only fair to tell you, therefore, that our peril has never been so great as it is now. Unless we act quickly we are doomed. You follow me, do you not?"

Sing Tong Fat touched his forehead and gravely nodded.

"It seems as if Fate has been against us from the very beginning in the Q-gas business," resumed Deweese in an unemotional tone. "The murder of Berjet, while necessary, was unfortunate, and since then we have had one stroke of bad luck after the other. We erred in trying to kill the French detective in the manner we did. He should have been knifed, swiftly, surely, silently. The bat that I instructed you to put in his room failed to accomplish his death and gave him a clue which, if we are not careful, may prove to be our undoing. Most important of all, both of us have been recognized. So you can realize how serious the situation is."

"I await thy command, O Illustrious Master," said the Chinaman gravely, in his native tongue.

Deweese, as if he took this for granted, nodded and proceeded:

"Of the two of us you have the most cunning, and you therefore stand the better chance of eluding the police. This is not flattery; it is wisdom I have acquired through the years of my association with you. You are as elusive as

a phantom when at large, and, when in the toils, as slippery as an eel. Execution of the plan I have formed, therefore, I am going to entrust to you. It is very doubtful if I could slip through the cordon of police around the house but I think that you may be able to do so, and it is very necessary that one of us should. Here, then, is what I want you to do:

"The soviet agent, No. 29, is waiting in New York for the Q-gas formula. He is stopping at the Alpin Hotel. The formula is locked in a safe-deposit box in the Exporter's Bank in this city. The box was rented by me under the name of John G. McGlynn. I want you to take the first train to New York and get No. 29 to return to Washington with you. It is too risky for you to try to telegraph him.

"I will give you a paper authorizing him to open the box and remove the formula. The formula is to be replaced with fifty thousand dollars in gold, the second and final installment of the price No. 29 agreed to pay for the secret.

"After the exchange, which must take place in your presence, you are to rejoin me here and we will settle our score with Peret, and then take steps to extricate ourselves from the net he has woven around us. The most important thing now is the formula. Once we have gotten rid of that, we can doubtless make our get-away. We have done so many times in the past under circumstances almost as trying as the present ones, and we can doubtless do so again.

"What do you think of the plan, Sing? It is filled with danger, but—if you can think of a better one, I should be glad to hear it."

"I agree with you as to the danger," rejoined the Chinaman in a strange voice, and then, very suddenly, he pressed the muzzle of an automatic against Deweese's temple.

With is free hand he then swept the wax wrinkles from his face and grinned. Deweese, in spite of the proximity of the automatic, recoiled. The man was not Sing Tong Fat. He was Jules Peret!

"Move at your peril, Monsieur," warned the detective. Then, raising his voice, "Hello, major!" he shouted.

The door swung open, and Major Dobson, accompanied by Detective Sergeant Strange and Harvey Bendlow, entered the room. Behind them came O'Shane and Frank, dragging between them Sing Tong Fat, the latter bound and gagged and minus his skull cap and outer clothing which, needless to say, now adorned the head and body of the mirthful French detective.

"Did you hear the conversation, Major?" cried Peret gleefully.

"Every word of it," declared Dobson, much gratified at the success of Peret's stratagem. "Sergeant Strange and I were watching through a crack in the door and heard and saw all. The stenographer in the hall has it all down. The jig is up, Mr. Alias Deweese," he added, turning to the international agent. "Your goose is cooked and the mystery of the 'invisible monster' is a thing of the past."

"You devil!" shouted Deweese hoarsely, glaring at the Frenchman; "you have trapped me!"

"So I have," agreed Peret, wiping the yellow stain from his face with a handkerchief. "But did I not promise you that I would do so? Ah, Monsieur, if you but knew what it cost me to keep my promise! Did I not have to sacrifice my hair and beautiful mustache this morning? Still, the wig and false mustache I wore before I donned Sing Tong Fat's regalia looked very natural, did they not? They must have, since they deceived you, my friend. But you should see my head without a covering! it looks like the egg of the ostrich."

He pressed Sing Tong Fat's skull-cap down more firmly on his head and laughed heartily.

"Ma foi," he continued, as he removed from his face the little pads of wax that had given his eyes an almond slant, "I almost feel tempted to make my impersonation permanent. Sing is such a handsome and charming man—which doubtless explains why he fought so hard to retain his identity. When he was seized by my good friends in the vestibule, as he opened the door to let me out awhile ago, he was an astonished and infuriated man. He fought, hissed and scratched like the cat of the alley. And how he glared at them when they divested him of his clothing and helped me to make up my face to look like his own. Look at him glaring at me now!

"My colleagues say I am a mimic and make-up artist of the first order, and when I think how beautifully I deceived you, M. le Comte di Dalfonzo, I am almost persuaded that they are right."

THE END.

1. The first half of "The Whispering Thing" was published in the March issue of WEIRD TALES. A copy with be mailed by the publishers for 25 cents.