“I’ll make a report today,” he promised, and left the room with a stack of dishes and the folded napkin.
He deposited the dishes in the kitchen sink. The napkin went into his hip pocket. Then he started upstairs for his other clothes. At her bedroom door he paused, listening. The door stood open. Mrs. Peyton, downstairs, was sitting at the breakfast table, absently crumbling a bit of toast in her fingers, a faraway look in her eyes. Barry, at her bedroom door, was remarking the small mahogany desk, where, two nights ago, the “ghost” had written his warning to her.
In three swift strides he crossed to the desk, searched hurriedly among the papers there and neatly pocketed one of these. Then he continued to his room. Mrs. Peyton still sat at the breakfast table in a pensive reverie, her wistful brown gaze lost in the morning sunshine beyond the leaded casements.
* * * * *
An hour later Barry alighted from a train in Chicago and forthwith called on a colleague, whose skill in analyzing handwriting and identifying finger prints had earned him the title of “expert.” He spent considerable time with this man; and then he went to his office and wrote his report for Mrs. Peyton.
And when the report was finished he sat gazing at it musingly—somewhat as Mrs. Peyton had gazed from her breakfast-room window this morning.
With an energetic shrug, as if to shake off his odd mood, he sealed the report in an envelope, and put it in his pocket and started for an office building in lower Michigan Avenue.
Presently he entered a room in this building, luxuriously furnished and unoccupied, and abruptly halted. In the adjoining room he could hear the voices of Scott Peyton and his wife; and since the door between the two offices stood partly open, he could also see their faces. Himself unobserved, Barry stood silently watching and listening.
“I suppose you’re right, Scott,” she said, standing beside her husband’s desk and looking down at him. “After what happened last night, I’m just about ready to do as you say—give the house up and move back to town. But I do so hate to leave that old place. I wish—”
“Why should you?” he interrupted, scowling at his desk and avoiding her eyes.
Mrs. Peyton looked down, biting a corner of her lip and twisting the wedding ring of her finger.
“It’s not so much what _I_ want,” she faltered, her voice tremulously low, “but—the city is no place—not the _best_ place for our—_Oh, Scott!_” she cried passionately, and flung out her hands to him in appeal. “Can’t you _see_?”
Scott Peyton looked up and met his wife’s eyes; and the thing he saw in their liquid brown depths instantly chased the frown from his face and took him to his feet in a swift rush of remorse and gladness.
In the next instant she was sobbing in his arms; and he was tenderly patting her shoulders and saying soothingly:
“It’s all right, honey. We won’t give the place up. I don’t think—the ghost—will bother us again....”
At this juncture Barry quietly departed.
* * * * *
A little later he again sat at his desk, gazing again at the report he had written. And he now knew that this report would never be seen by any eye save his.
But while he is sitting here suppose we look over his shoulder and glance at the thing before he tears it up:
“In Re Peyton ‘ghost’: ... Using a King Lear costume, which he put on and off with lightning agility, the ‘ghost’ hoped, by his nocturnal prowling, to frighten Mrs. Peyton into abandoning the house as her husband desired.... Following his nightly appearances, he quickly removed and concealed his costume, and returned to his bed, careful to make no sound. He varied this procedure, however, night before last, when he visited Mrs. Peyton’s room. Had she left her key in the lock that night, instead of hiding it under her pillow, he would have been unable to call upon her. As it was, he readily unlocked the door and entered. Leaving silently, he hid his costume, then left the house and returned, making considerable noise.... The finger prints he left in glue last night and those he left on his napkin this morning, as well as his real and disguised handwriting positively identify the ‘ghost’ as Mrs. Peyton’s husband, Scott Peyton.”
[Illustration]
_Have You Been Reading About King Tut? If so, You’ll be Interested in_
OSIRIS
_The Weird Tale of an Egyptian Mummy_
_By_ ADAM HULL SHIRK
“_Mandrake_”
_By ADAM HULL SHIRK_
_Will appear in the July WEIRD TALES_
_It’s a Strange Yarn of Superstitious Fear_
_Don’t Miss It!_
The recent and lamentable death of Sir Richard Parmenter, F. R. G. S., is too fresh in the public’s mind to warrant further reference, and were it not that I feel myself capable of throwing light upon the incidents contributing to the sudden and apparently unnecessary snuffing out of a valuable life, I should refrain from again alluding to it.
It is well known that the physicians at the time decided that valvular weakness of the heart must have been responsible for the death of the noted Egyptologist, but the statement of his own doctor that Sir Richard had never theretofore exhibited indications of such weakness, and that he was, to all appearances, in the best of health just prior to his death, caused considerable wonder.
I had thought to let the facts remain buried, but, for certain reasons, I shall reconsider my determination and tell what I know.
I shall always remember the night on which Sir Richard summoned me, as his counselor, to attend him at his apartments in the Albermarle. It was a night of storm, and the London streets were a mass of slime and slush. A beastly wind had sprung up, and as I left my chambers at the Temple it almost took me off my feet. Therefore, it was with no little satisfaction that I found a cheery log fire awaiting me in the library of my distinguished client’s home, and the nip of brandy he provided was a life saver.
I noted, however, that for all his assumption of cheerfulness, something was preying upon his mind, and I determined to get at the root of the matter without delay:
“How can I serve you, Sir Richard?” I asked, briskly. “I see there is something troubling you.”
“Is it as apparent as that?” he asked, trying to appear unconcerned: but his strong, homely features belied his effort at calmness.
Before I could reply, he went on:
“But never mind that: I want you to write my will—now.”
“Your will?” My expression of surprise and incredulity was natural, for since I had been retained by him I had marked it as one of his few idiosyncrasies that he had never made his will. When I had mentioned to him the advisability of doing so, he had put it by with a whimsical remark about being superstitious.
“I am in earnest,” he declared, “and it will be very simple—just a brief form, and I’ll sign it with my man as witness.”
“But why the haste?” I said. “Why not wait till I can have the document properly drawn up at my office tomorrow—”
“No; now!” he said, and there was such finality in his tone I had no choice.
My concern for my client, whom I really liked and respected immensely, prompted me to ask:
“You’re not ill, Sir Richard?”
He shook his head, with the ghost of a smile on his rugged face.
“Physically—no. But—”
He paused, and after a moment he again urged me to proceed with the making of the will.
I drew up the document, which was a simple one, leaving the bulk of his large properties to his sister in Surrey, with numerous small bequests to friends and distant relatives, and a handsome sum and his private collection to the British Museum and the Imperial Museum of Egyptology. We had in his man, and the document was duly signed, after which he drew a long breath of relief and, with a return of something like his natural manner, passed me his cigar-case and leaned back in his chair, smoking comfortably.
“I’ve a story to tell you, Madden,” he said between puffs, “and it’s a queer yarn, too. You’ll think—but never mind. Listen first, and say what you like afterward. Only—” he glanced about him with an apprehensive expression that fairly set my nerves atingle. “I hope we have time.”
“Time for what?” I asked.
He relaxed again and smiled:
“It’s all right,” he declared. “I’m a bit nervous, I guess, but it’s all right. Have another brandy.”
We drank solemnly together. Then he settled back once more and I prepared to listen.
“Madden,” said he, “perhaps you’ll smile at what has seemed to me serious enough to warrant the steps I have just taken—making my will, I mean—but, however you look at it, I want you to know it’s true—every word of it.
“My last trip to Egypt—from which I just returned a fortnight ago—was to have been my final one, anyway. I’ve made six trips out there in my life, and I’ve collected enough information to fill a dozen volumes. Also, I’ve contributed many fine specimens to the museum and corrected many misapprehensions concerning the interpretation of some of the hieroglyphs. So, all in all, I think I’ve done pretty well.