Page:Weird Tales Volume 7 Number 2 (1926-02).djvu/90

On the Dead Man’s Chest An Occult Serial By ELI COLTER

The Story So Far

FELIX UNDERWOOD, a repulsive-looking cripple with a heart of gold, is a member of The Squared Circle, a club of fifty men who pro- fess to be atheists. His love of nature and its beauties leads him to believe in God, and his yearning for a more beautiful body than the ugly one he possesses leads him to believe in a life after death, in which he can shed his monstrous husk and have a beautiful body such as he desires.

Told by the specialists that he has not long to live, Underwood denounces the atheistic views of his fellow club-members, and promises to come back after death in a beautiful body, patterned after one of the club members. He as Lafe Daniels, president of the Inner Circle (the picked inner group of the Squared Circle), to pin a little white immortelle right on the center of his chest when he dies, and agrees to come back after death and show the flower to him.

His death comes suddenly, and it is learned that he has been busy among all the members the Inner Circle for several days before he died, piecing together the details of his promised re- turn from the grave.

THE undertaker stood quietly waiting by the door as eighteen men filed slowly past him into the back room where, upon a small platform, stood the large, espe- cially constructed casket containing the body of Felix Underwood. LHigh- teen men, thought Pete Garvin, last in line; eighteen men and not one woman. Just ahead, Lafe Daniels turned to glance at him a look of puz- zled inquiry. The undertaker, fol- lowing at Garvin’s heels, motioned the men to a double row of chairs placed against the wall facing the casket. Walking to the platform, he paused and waited for them to seat them- selves. Daniels, stepping to one side to let the three intervening pass, slipped into a chair beside Pete Gar- vin.

“This is a funny funeral, Pete," he whispered. "Why don’t they have it in the chapel, instead of the back room?"

“I’d noticed that,’’ Garvin whis- pered in reply. ‘‘I thought Felix was dead when I called Doe Hammer- ton, but he wasn’t. He rallied and talked to Doe for quite a while before he died. He had no people, and he left all arrangements with Doce. Thinking he was dead,. I’d gone on. I couldn’t—stand it. I suppose this must be something he wanted.’’ Car- vin paused, seeing that the under- taker had stepped upon the platform and was about to speak.

“This ceremony is somewhat un- usual, gentlemen, but it was the wish of the deceased,’’ said the undertak- er, as though in response to Garvin’s thought. His professionally muted voice jarred on the deceased’s old friends. Garvin nudged the banker, who nodded, his eyes on the under- taker. The quiet voice proceeded: ‘“‘Mr. Underwood left arrange- ments in the hands of Dr. Hammer- ton, who is waiting in the adjoining room to perform his part in the rite. That is all I have to say, I believe. Dr. Hammerton.’’ He raised his voice slightly, and the door behind him opened; the physician entered the room and approached the plat- form to assume a position at the un- dertaker’s side.

As he stepped close to the coffin and halted, Hammerton gazed stead- ily into the open bier, then raised his