Page:Weird Tales Volume 13 Number 1 (1929-01).djvu/75

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"It fell over on the horribly mutilated body of its victim."
"It fell over on the horribly mutilated body of its victim."

"It fell over on the horribly mutilated body of its victim."

Walter Parsons is dead. At the inquest the jury returned a verdict to the effect that the deceased came to his death by being accidentally crushed under a machine with which he was experimenting. But that is not true. It ignores several peculiar things which the panel of men could not understand and before which their matter-of-fact minds recoiled in horror. Now I do not wish to be misunderstood. Perhaps the verdict, as rendered, was the only sane one that could be returned. Nevertheless, if ever a man was murdered, that man was Walter Parsons. Let me put the incredible facts on paper. I do not expect to be believed, and yet . . .


Last February I was coming out of an employment agency in Pasadena, California, when a vigorous-looking gentleman of about fifty years accosted me.

"Pardon me, but I overheard what you said to the lady inside. You are a machinist?"

"Yes."

"And looking for work?"

"I am."

"Would you consider a hundred and fifty dollars a month and your board?"

"You've hired me."

He smiled briefly. "My name is Rowan, Captain Rowan. And yours?"

"Lester. John Lester."

73

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