Page:Weird Tales Volume 5 Number 1 (1925-01).djvu/72

"Say, Lee Gow—what the—"

But in that instant his ankles were meshed in something, the tether of which was fast to the floor.

With Killian tugging in the dark, endeavoring to free his legs, the Chinaman slip-slupped to a corner of the room.

A tip of flame dawned in the cup of two bony hands, the match touched the lamp.

When the light seeped through the room, Butch Killian, his arms aloft, handcuffed to the heavy chandelier chain, his feet bound in several windings of folded bed sheeting secured in the iron ring of the cellar door, looked into the placid face of Yong Lo dressed in a red silk mandarin robe.

Butch Killian tore with his great strength at the cuffs securing his wrists, but the steel snarled back at him. He tried to kick free of the sheeting about his ankles, but the ten or twelve-ply bandage of linen was stronger, stronger even than Butch's hydra strength.

Yong Lo stood off a little way and laughed.

"Butch Killian big boob. You let Lee Gow make rummy of you. Lee Gow hide here from cops. He kill white girl. Lee Gow double-cross Yong Lo. Tell you Yong's wheel work crooked. Lee Gow then write you to get my cash. I wrote note, not Lee Gow. I tell you to ring bell and kill Yong Lo when he come to front door. Hie! I send Lee Gow in my clothes. Him think you cops. You think him me. You kill Lee Gow, not me. Lee Gow dead in sewer for killing white girl. You die for killing Lee Gow. You big strong boob. Only Yong Lo get free. Hie!"

At a wall where chains came through the paneling, Yong Lo turned a windlass and Butch Killian was hoisted with the chandelier as it raised on chains, passing through holes in the ceiling,

"Money heavy tonight in chandelier, Butch."

Wrists in the steel cuffs, Butch's arms were drawn taut above his head. Marshaling the strength of four men, he tried to withhold the chains from pulling him upward, but the windlass was a squeaky music box in Yong's hands.

The chains tightened, creaked, till they had lifted Butch's two hundred and forty pounds three inches clear of the floor.

The windlass complained at Butch's added weight, and Yong threw the pawl in the crank ratchet and left the cursing man swinging by his wrists, dangling from the ceiling like a heifer about to be skinned.

"Butch not holler now, else Yong call cops and tell how Butch kill Lee Gow and throw in sewer."

From a bunk Yong Lo brought another sheet.

He wound it about Butch's body, across the stomach. He tied the knot at the back of the suspended man. Through the loop of the sheet Yong Lo thrust a curtain pole, devising an enormous tourniquet about Butch Killian's middle.

Yong Lo belonged to the family of boas that coil and throttle.

He gave the curtain pole a half-turn, taking up the slack in the sash about Butch's torso.

The big man was silent, fumbling with his wits for a way out. He swayed, jerked, cavorted on his fastenings, but the handcuffs held him aloft. The metal gnawed at his wrists till something warm trickled down his cold arms.

He grew weak. Sweat dripped from him, and the shriveled yellow man below him, a spider plying at a huge fly, gave the wooden pole another turn.

The flesh folded beneath Butch's clothing.

He tried to curse, to shout, but rage and exhaustion stifled the effort. The