Page:Weird Tales Volume 4 Number 2 (1924-05-07).djvu/115

eating the three. "Unless it might be by their clothes."

"This one's all right, though," indicating the fourth.

"Yes—but we might as well let 'em all go together," was the nonchalant reply.

"Take some of their clothes for identification. Just a matter of form—nobody'll trouble to look at 'em."

So it happened that when the local accommodation train passed a short time later four rough boxes, each containing the remains of one of the men, were put aboard, accompanied by a bundle of such of their clothing as the boss of the wrecking crew deemed possible of identification.

Next day they were buried in Ironville. So far no one had attempted to identify them, or even seemed at all interested in the dead hoboes. But the clothes were preserved, and many days later Mrs. Ransome, overwhelmed with anxiety at the disappearance of her husband, came to learn that one of the hoboes who lost his life at Blair's Crossing was wearing a blue serge coat and a gray tweed cap. By dint of much persistent correspondence with the proper authorities she at last succeeded in getting these meager relics forwarded to New York. There she identified them as positively as might be under the circumstances; the names of makers and merchants bearing out the identification in every particular.

"Can I give you a hand with that trunk, doctor?" demanded a dark-bearded man, who stood at the curb watching Dr. Grant and the truckman as they unloaded the heavy trank at the sidewalk in front of the physician's home.

"Very kind of you, Mr. Forsythe," replied the doctor. "One end of it is a pretty big load for an old man like me. If you'll just take hold here, I guess this expressman's husky enough to carry his end."

Then as his neighbor attempted to take the whole weight of one end of the trank on himself, "Hold on there, man—I know you're strong as an ox, but that's no reason why you should try to show me how weak and decrepit I am."

"Any calls?" demanded the doctor of his housekeeper, as he turned to watch his neighbor returning to the less strenuous occupation of watering his lawn. "Too much blood-pressure for that kind of exertion. His face is purple now, what little of it shows around the edges of his whiskers."

"Nothing important, doctor," replied the woman, following the physician to the laboratory door, just within which they had deposited the trunk. "I wasn't expecting you back yet—told everybody you wouldn't be back before tomorrow. Oh, yes, Mr. Mills wanted you to call up and make an appointment to see him about that Perkins case just as soon as you got in."

"All right, we'll let Mills think I got home tomorrow."

"And Mr. Forsythe had a bad attack a day or two ago. They came for you, then called Dr. Ellsworth."

"What was it?—about as usual?" demanded the physician keenly.

The housekeeper nodded. "I suppose so," she replied. "He was up and about next day. Seemed to feel as well as ever."

"Strange man," commented Dr. Grant, shaking his head. "Simply will not take care of himself. Of course he says he has no great interest in his body. Told me the last time I saw him professionally that he'd be glad to be rid of it. Still I noticed just now that he was proud as a boy to show off his great physical strength. I'm almost as keen on metaphysics as he is, but I haven't completely given up the physical yet."

The woman shrugged. "Mr. Forsythe is a deep student," said she with a judicial air which it seemed was meant to convey the impression that she herself was not wholly ignorant of such matters. "But here I am talking when I ought to be in the kitchen. I wasn't expecting you, doctor—dinner will be a little late, I'm afraid."

"Never mind that," replied Dr. Grant hastily, "I was called in consultation on a very serious case down at Red Falls and will have to do some laboratory work tonight. Just make up a few sandwiches and a pot of coffee. I'll take them into the laboratory and get right to work."

By the time the physician had settled with the expressman and run upstairs to wash and change into a light alpaca coat, the housekeeper was on hand with the sandwiches and coffee. Dr. Grant swept aside a rack of test-tubes, a spirit-lamp, two or three retorts containing strange-looking mixtures, and a skull, to make place for his food; then, telling the woman that he was on no account to be disturbed that night, locked the door behind her, and after eating a sandwich and drinking a cup of coffee, uncorded the trank.

No alteration was apparent in the appearance of the corpse. No indication of rigor mortis was yet discernible, which fact seemed to give satisfaction to Dr. Grant, although he admitted to himself that it might not have set in yet in spite of the treatment he had given the corpse en route.

A long table stood under the chandelier in the center of the room. This Dr. Grant cleared of the mass of chemical apparatus under which it groaned, and placed the limp body upon it. First, he again applied the liquid that he used on the train, touching it to eyes, nostrils and mouth—then subcutaneously. Next he took up a large notebook in which he had kept a record of experimentation upon cavies and other small animals, and for half an hour or more diligently studied these records.

For hours the physician labored; at first psychically, then physically, as the phases of his experiment passed from the higher to the lower human functions. After the first few hours he came almost to despair of attracting the higher elements of the man into close relations with the body, but at last, at a little past one o'clock, his efforts were rewarded. A pulmotor went far toward completing his task when there remained only the reawakening of the physical functioning of the body. Dawn was already breaking when the man began to breathe ever so faintly.

Gradually the physical body began to function in response to external stimuli, but all day the spark of life was very faint, very uncertain. At noon Dr. Grant came out of his laboratory, locking the door securely behind him, and warning his housekeeper against any sudden noise or heavy jar, saying that the vibrations set up in such case might work disaster upon the delicate experiment which was in process of consummation within.

"Any news?" he demanded of the housekeeper when he came to the end of the list of instructions.

"Mr. Forsythe died suddenly in the night," she replied. "It was about one o'clock this morning. I happened to hear them calling for Dr. Ellsworth. Apoplexy, it seems."

"Forsythe!" exclaimed the doctor, "William Forsythe! At one o'clock! Good Heavens!" Then after a moment, "I don't know why I should feel surprised at the news; I've been looking for it for years. He was a perfect subject for apoplexy. No details, of course?"

The woman shook her head doubtfully. Dr. Grant was an anomaly to his housekeeper—an unfathomable mixture of the spiritual and the material. Most of the good old universally accepted superstitions which had come to be an integral part of her being were ridiculed by the