Page:Weird Tales Volume 8 Number 3 (1926-09).djvu/53

I pass over the horror of the electrocution, which I witnessed. Radovitch did not seem wholly to understand why they strapped his arms, nor why they seated him in the chair. One instant he looked round him in stupid amazement—the next an indelible aspect of terror and amazement convulsed his features, as though he realized that life was to be snatched from him by stealth. The death mask was adjusted, the warden dropped his handkerchief, the body strained against the straps, and in an instant the life had gone.

The examination was performed, the body was laid to rest. I dismissed all thought of Radovitch from my mind as well as I was able. At that time Brodsky, who seemed to have taken a liking to me, had asked me to assist him in some delicate laboratory work, which threw us continually together.

About five days after the electrocution, when we had been working late and were about to leave his private laboratory in the hospital, the emergency bell was jerked rapidly and violently and a man came hurrying in. I recognized him at once as the jailer. He stumbled up to Brodsky, mumbling some unintelligible words. The doctor took him by the shoulders.

"Gently," he said, leading him to a chair. "Take your time."

"You—told—me to come to you—if I was in trouble," the man panted. "Then I did not know—what you meant. Now I know. My little girl—she———"

"Yes," said Brodsky, soothingly, slipping a syringeful of morphine into his coat pocket. "I will come with you immediately. Do you care to see a curious case of what I should be compelled officially to term 'alternating personality,' though it is nothing of the kind?" he continued, turning to me.

I assented eagerly to the invitation, and soon we three were traversing the deserted streets, the little doctor with difficulty keeping pace with the jailer's hasty strides. After five or ten minutes we arrived at his house, which flanked the jail. The jailer's wife, weeping and much agitated, opened the door to us.

"He knows," her husband whispered with awe, fearfully indicating Brodsky. And then for the first time it flashed across my mind that these people must doubtless be well acquainted with the doctor, had, perhaps, come to rely upon him through many experiences. One could see that they trusted him implicitly from the manner in which they hung upon his lightest word and gesture.

"When did all this begin?" he inquired, more to elicit particulars, as it seemed to me, than from any desire for knowledge of the main facts.

"Until this morning she never spoke," muttered the jailer, crossing himself. "Then he—he—he—he—he———" The man's teeth were chattering as though he were ague-stricken.

"Quite so," said Brodsky, pleasantly, turning to me. "He was naturally dazed and dumb and stupid, and not feeling at all himself when he awoke from an unusual experience. Then he found his tongue. Almost anybody might be struck dumb after several thousand volts had been sent coursing through his body, which was furthermore dissected and then buried away in quicklime."

"Do you mean to say," I gasped, "that Radovitch———?"

"That our friend Radovitch has come to life again?" said Brodsky. "That he has come back without his overcoat? Quite probably—I have known such cases—although this may be merely a subjective condition induced through auto-suggestion caused from brooding over his departure. However, that would be far more improbable. Yes, my friend, I think