Page:Weird Tales Volume 5 Number 1 (1925-01).djvu/26

himself another cigar, and sat down to wait and to speculate.

He was interrupted in this revery by his niece, who suddenly appeared at the door.

"However much longer are you going to be?" she demanded; then, coming into the room, she perceived that the doctor was alone. "Why! what have you done with Arthur?"

Dr. Ainsworth looked at his watch. It was a quarter to 10.

"We are having a little experiment, a very fascinating experiment," the doctor continued. "Listen, dear, and tell me what you think will be the outcome. For myself, I am unable to make up my mind."

He thereupon went over the facts of the case to the girl, speaking as he would have spoken of any other scientific experiment of his. He did not even notice the horror in his hearer's face.

"Why! You're murdering him, uncle!" she cried, springing up.

The doctor looked at her agitation with surprize. Then he smiled a slow smile.

"My dear, it's quite harmless," he said. "There is no danger. When I came out of the room, I disconnected the current of the batteries. He can do himself no harm."

"But the other thing! He may be choosing that!"

Ainsworth laughed outright.

"Water, dear, water. I shall, of course, tell him afterwards, when he has made his choice. There only remains the gas, and that is disconnected also. You see, dear, it is quite bloodless."

The clock then pointed to five minutes to 10.

"Oh, hurry, uncle, hurry!" the girl panted. "It's torture! I think you must be mad. It's cruel—cruel!"

"On the contrary, dear, it is as fascinating an experiment as any I have undertaken. Doubtless he is making his decision now."

He had allowed the girl to drag him upstairs.

"I have always supposed that experiments with the human mind would be of all experiments the most fascinating, and I see now that I was right in supposing so," he remarked on the way up.

"By the way, if by any chance this young man of yours has chosen to face the uncertainty of the injection, and if, suspecting his blood to be tainted, he asks to be released from his engagement to you, before knowing the injection to be harmless, I shall entirely withdraw my opposition to your marriage. A most fascinating problem."

He had reached the door of the laboratory and fumbled with the handle.

"Oh, hurry, uncle, hurry. He must have had such a terrible fright."

The old man chuckled, "I dare say he has."

He had.

When they reached him, he was quite dead.