Page:Weird Tales Volume 12 Issue 05 (1928-11).djvu/108

lay motionless for a few minutes as though gloomily pondering over the matter.

"Then in a flash it had gone; I had just an impression of a huge expansion like a roller-blind snatched across the sky, and then it was thousands of feet above us and appeared no larger than a tablecloth, and as harmless. In the flick of an eyelid followed another extension and instant diminution to a mere smudge that for an instant floated in profundity. And after that all trace of it vanished, and for a moment I was left awed by the imagination of prodigious heights and a lone monster fearlessly navigating the silent infinite void beyond.

"'It's gone this time, anyway,' I heard Daimler mutter; and at his voice I returned to solid earth and things understandable.

"'Yes, I hope forever to the hell it came from,' said I, savagely. 'But we'd better move before they cast it out with other stunts to try on us.'

"At once we climbed the steep ascent, and on the crest stood for an instant to ease the distress that now acutely beset Daimler. No longer spurred by imminent danger, he complained of pain and weakness in his limbs, faintness and dizziness, and would have lain on the rocks and coarse grass; but fearing the relaxation might incapacitate him I sternly refused to allow it.

"While we stood resting, my gaze wandered with loathing over the somber solitude that lay below us, and unbidden there came to me a thought of the poor girl who found death awaiting her in this treacherous loneliness—a tragedy which, as I now recalled, had never been solved, even as Daimler's fate if he had been solitary.

"'My God! Of course—that nightmare from space!' I muttered, aghast at the thought of that horror. For I knew beyond a shadow of doubt that I had solved the mystery of Harriet Conroy's slaying.

"'Come on, Daimler!' I urged hoarsely.

"The rest of the story, gentlemen, is of no moment. Eventually we reached a farmhouse and secured a conveyance to this inn. Today my friend is confined to his bed, so bruised in limb and racked with nausea that I do not anticipate he will be fit to leave it for several days. The local man—Dr. Slater—assures me that save for shock and this severe bruising my friend is as sound as ever. But he awaits a friend of his, a famous specialist, with much impatience to learn his opinion. It seems that they collaborated in the examination of certain extraordinary phases at the poor girl's inquest recently; and with this new evidence on the matter he is anxious that I should meet him and relate our astounding and terrible experience. Moreover I understand that still another tragedy is linked with this locality. I mean the fate of young Symington—you know I am but little interested in such matters, being, I suppose, of skeptical temperament and completely immersed in my profession, and having no time to waste on the merely sensational; though I have some recollection of the affair, but very fragmentary and certainly nothing on which to found any conclusion of resemblance. Yet Dr. Slater assures me that our encounter with this unique assailant has forged the key to an otherwise inexplicable tragedy. Doubtless the whole matter will receive the closest official attention, even not improbably a world-wide investigation, and some definite conclusions and co-operation of offensive—if possible—be arrived at. For I can not conceive of a greater catastrophe to humanity than the existence in numbers of such monstrous, malignant creatures.