Part 16

“Is it as apparent as that?” he asked, trying to appear unconcerned: but his strong, homely features belied his effort at calmness.

Before I could reply, he went on:

“But never mind that: I want you to write my will—now.”

“Your will?” My expression of surprise and incredulity was natural, for since I had been retained by him I had marked it as one of his few idiosyncrasies that he had never made his will. When I had mentioned to him the advisability of doing so, he had put it by with a whimsical remark about being superstitious.

“I am in earnest,” he declared, “and it will be very simple—just a brief form, and I’ll sign it with my man as witness.”

“But why the haste?” I said. “Why not wait till I can have the document properly drawn up at my office tomorrow—”

“No; now!” he said, and there was such finality in his tone I had no choice.

My concern for my client, whom I really liked and respected immensely, prompted me to ask:

“You’re not ill, Sir Richard?”

He shook his head, with the ghost of a smile on his rugged face.

“Physically—no. But—”

He paused, and after a moment he again urged me to proceed with the making of the will.

I drew up the document, which was a simple one, leaving the bulk of his large properties to his sister in Surrey, with numerous small bequests to friends and distant relatives, and a handsome sum and his private collection to the British Museum and the Imperial Museum of Egyptology. We had in his man, and the document was duly signed, after which he drew a long breath of relief and, with a return of something like his natural manner, passed me his cigar-case and leaned back in his chair, smoking comfortably.

“I’ve a story to tell you, Madden,” he said between puffs, “and it’s a queer yarn, too. You’ll think—but never mind. Listen first, and say what you like afterward. Only—” he glanced about him with an apprehensive expression that fairly set my nerves atingle. “I hope we have time.”

“Time for what?” I asked.

He relaxed again and smiled:

“It’s all right,” he declared. “I’m a bit nervous, I guess, but it’s all right. Have another brandy.”

We drank solemnly together. Then he settled back once more and I prepared to listen.

“Madden,” said he, “perhaps you’ll smile at what has seemed to me serious enough to warrant the steps I have just taken—making my will, I mean—but, however you look at it, I want you to know it’s true—every word of it.

“My last trip to Egypt—from which I just returned a fortnight ago—was to have been my final one, anyway. I’ve made six trips out there in my life, and I’ve collected enough information to fill a dozen volumes. Also, I’ve contributed many fine specimens to the museum and corrected many misapprehensions concerning the interpretation of some of the hieroglyphs. So, all in all, I think I’ve done pretty well.

“This last visit was in many respects the most satisfactory, and indeed it witnessed a triumph in my career as an Egyptologist that would be a crowning achievement, were it not for—but we won’t speak of that—yet.

“I wonder, Madden, if you know anything about the ancient Egyptian religious ceremonies and forms of worship? Anyway, I may tell you that the Nile dwellers, as they were called, recognized as their supreme deity, Osiris, lord of the underworld. By some he has been identified with the Sun and, with the forty assessors of the dead, he was supposed to have judged the souls brought before him by Horus in the double halls of truth, after their good and evil deeds had been weighed by Anubis.

“The Egyptians reverenced Osiris with as devout worship as the Chinese give to Buddha, and the high priests of Osiris were regarded with almost as much awe as the deity himself.

“In all our studies and investigations, however, we have never been able actually to identify Osiris, but it is now generally conceded that he was believed to have lived on earth at one time and that it was only after his death that he assumed deific prerogatives. In this respect the modern Christian theology may be said to resemble the more ancient form to some extent.

“Osiris was pictured on many of the tablets as a creature with the head of a bull, though there is some disagreement on this score. In any event, his tomb was said to exist near Heliopolis, and it was to investigate this tradition that I made my last trip to Egypt.”

Sir Richard paused to relight his cigar and listened to the storm which raged without. Again he gave that hasty, apprehensive glance about him, then proceeded:

“It would be impossible for me to explain to you, a layman, my inordinate joy at finding—by what means and after what tedious labor, I won’t stop to tell now—a deserted tomb which I knew, from certain hieroglyphic markings I found, was the very one of which I had been in search for the best part of half a year.

“Understand that this whole tradition of the tomb of Osiris was regarded by my fellow scientists as a myth, and if it had been publicly known that I was giving it sufficient credence to spend a lot of time and money searching for it I should have been looked upon as a madman and laughed out of the societies. This may enable you to appreciate more fully my sensations on actually locating at least the tomb. What I should find within, I hardly dared conjecture!

“The tomb of a God! Can you imagine it, Madden?

“And yet, if I had only stopped there! If only I had been content to pause with the knowledge I already possessed, without proceeding further and desecrating with sacrilegious hands that lonely sarcophagus in the desert!

“How I succeeded in penetrating this tomb, of the horrors of bats and crawling things that failed to stop me—of the almost supernatural awe that came upon me—I can not pause to tell. It is enough to say that I stood at last beside the tremendous coffin of stone, trembling from an unknown dread. And, as I stood there, something white fluttered by me and up through the opening into the outer air. A sacred Ibis—but how it had penetrated there and how it had lived, I can not say.

“Pour out another brandy, Madden—and throw that other log on the fire, too, if you don’t mind. My, how the wind blows! Did you speak?... Pardon me—I’m nervous tonight as I said before, very nervous.... Where was I? Oh, yes—

“That great sarcophagus stood before me, and on it I saw inscribed the sacred scarabæus and the feather of truth, while in the center was the word—the one, wonderful name—‘Heseri’—which is the Egyptian for Osiris!

“Insatiable curiosity now took the place of the reverential awe that should have possessed me, and with vandal hands I forced the stone lid from the casket. One glance I had of a great, bovine face, a _living_ face, whose eyes looked into the depths of my soul—and then I fled as though all the devils of Amenti were at my heels....

“That is all Madden, except that I am nervous—fearfully so. It is so unlike me. You know how small a part fear has played in my life. I have faced the dreaded simoon; I have been lost among savage tribes, I have confronted death in a hundred forms—but _never_ have I felt as I do now. I tremble at a sound; my ears trick me into believing that I am always hearing some unusual noise; my appetite is failing, and I am feeling my age as I have never felt it until.... Good God! Madden! What was that sound?... Oh! _look behind you_, Madden! _Look!_...”

* * * * *

And now I come to that portion of my statement that will probably be refused credence by those who read; but, as I live, it is the truth.

As Sir Richard uttered his last words, he felt forward to his full length upon the hearth rug, even as I turned in obedience to his command. The shadows were heavy in the far corner of the spacious room, but I could see a great, bulky something that swayed there, something that was a part, and yet, seemingly, was independent, of the shadows.

I had a vision of two burning eyes and a black shining muzzle—a heavy, misshapen head. A strange, animal-like, fetid odor was in my nostrils.

I shrieked, and, turning, ran madly from the room, stumbled to the stairs and fled into the wind-swept night.

Failure to Keep Tab on Quitting Time Kills Two

Troy Hocker and Hugh Simpson, linemen for the Oklahoma Gas and Electric Company, were repairing wires on top of a pole in Oklahoma one afternoon recently. As they worked, they engaged in banter. It was nearly five o’clock—their quitting time—but neither looked at his watch. The engineer down at the power house saw it was ten minutes past five, time to turn on the city’s arc lights. He pulled down the switch and sent 2,300 volts out to light the city. The men up on the pole ceased their banter. Their bodies became stiff. Those on the ground laughed. This must be some new prank of the boys. Then someone noticed smoke issuing from Hocker’s shoes. Back at the power plant the amperage was fluctuating back and forth, and the engineer knew something was amiss. He threw off the current—but the men were already dead.

_A New Story by Julian Kilman, Master of Weird Fiction_

THE WELL

Jeremiah Hubbard toiled with a team of horses in a piece of ground some distance down the road from his dwelling. When it neared five o’clock in the autumn afternoon, he unwound the lines from his waist, unhooked the traces and started home with his horses.

He was a heavy man, a bit under middle age, with a dish-shaped face and narrow-set eyes. He walked with vigor. One of the horses lagged a trifle, and he struck it savagely with a short whip.

They came presently to the Eldridge dwelling, abandoned and tumbled down, on the opposite side of the road. The farm was being worked on shares by a man named Simpson, who lived five miles away and drove a “tin Lizzie.” An ancient oak tree, the tremendous circumference of its trunk marred by signs of decay, reared splendid gnarled branches skyward.

These branches shaded a disused well—a well that had been the first one in Nicholas County, having been dug in the early fifties by the pioneering Eldridge family. It went forty feet straight down into the residual soil characteristic of the _locale_, but, owing to improved drainage, it had become dry. Nothing remained of the old pump-house, save the crumbling circle of stonework around the mouth, to give evidence of its one-time majesty.

A child of eight ran from the rear of the premises. Hubbard frowned and stopped his team.

“You better keep away from there,” he growled, “or you’ll fall into the well.”

The girl glanced at him impishly.

“You an’ Missus Hubbard don’t speak to each other, do you?”

Hubbard’s face went black. His whip sprang out and caught the girl about the legs. She yelped and ran.

An eighth of a mile farther along the road Hubbard turned in and drove his team to a big barn. He fed his stock. It was after six when he entered the house. This was a structure that, by comparison with the gigantic barn in the rear, seemed pigmy-like.

A sallow, flat-chested woman, with a wisp of hair twisted into a knot, took from Hubbard the two pails of milk he carried. She set them in the kitchen. The two exchanged no words.

Hubbard strode to the washstand, his boots thumping the floor, and performed his ablutions. He rumpled his hair and beard, using much soap and water and blowing stertorously. In the dining-room a girl of twelve sat with a book. As her father came in she glanced at him timorously.

He gave no heed to her as he slumped down into a chair standing before a desk. The desk was littered with papers, among which were typewritten sheets of the sort referred to as “pleadings”; there was a title-search much bethumbed and black along the edges, where the “set-outs” had been scanned with obvious care.

The man adjusted a pair of antiquated spectacles to his dish-face. To do this he was compelled to pull the ends of the bows tight back over the ears as his nose afforded practically no bridge to support the glasses.

Presently he spoke to the girl:

“Tell your mother to bring on the supper.”

The girl hastened out, and shortly thereafter the mother appeared carrying dishes. Food was disposed about the table in silence. The farmer ate gustily and in ten minutes finished his meal. Then he addressed his daughter, keeping his eyes averted from his wife. “Tell your mother,” he said, “that I’ll want breakfast at five o’clock tomorrow morning.”

“Where you goin’, Pa?” asked the girl.

“I’m goin’ to drive to the county seat to see Lawyer Simmons.”

Hubbard’s gaze followed the girl as she helped clear the table.

“Look-a here,” he said. “You been a-talkin’ to that Harper child?”

“No,” returned the daughter, with a trace of spirit. “But I jest saw her father over by the fence.”

“What was he a-doin’ there?”

“I didn’t stay. I was afeard he’d catch me watchin’ him.”

Hubbard glowered and reached for his hat.

“I’ll find out,” he snarled.

Walking rapidly, he crossed a field of wheat stubble, keeping his eyes fixed sharply ahead. It was dusk, but presently, at the northern extremity of his premises, he made out the figure of a man.

“Hey, Harper!” he shouted. “You let that fence be.”

He ran forward swiftly.

The men were now separated by two wire-strand fences that paralleled each other only three feet apart. These fences, matching one another for a distance of about two hundred yards—each farmer claiming title to the fence on the side farthest from his own—represented the basis of the litigation over the boundary claim that had gone on between them for four years.

The odd spectacle of the twin fences had come to be one of the show places in the county. It had been photographed and shown in agricultural journals.

“I don’t trust ye, Harper,” announced Hubbard, breathing hard. “You got the inside track with Jedge Bissell, an’ the two of you are a-schemin’ to beat me.”

A laugh broke from the other.

“I’ll beat you, all right,” he said coolly. “But it won’t be because Judge Bissell is unfair.”

His manner enraged Hubbard, who rushed swiftly at the first fence and threw himself over. With equal celerity, he clambered over the second fence.

Startled at the sudden outburst of temper, Harper had drawn back. He held aloft a spade. Hubbard leaped at him. The spade descended.

Harper was slightly-built, however, and the force of the blow did not halt the infuriated man, now swinging at him with all his might. They clinched. Hubbard’s fingers caught at the throat of the smaller man, and the two stumbled to the ground, Hubbard atop. The fall broke his grip. With his huge fists he began to hammer the body. He continued until it was limp.

Then, his rage suddenly appeased, he drew back and stared at the inert figure lying strangely quiet.

“So!” he gasped.

There came the sound of someone singing, the voice floating distinctly through the night air. Hubbard recognized it for that of an itinerant Free Methodist minister, whose church in Ovid he and his family occasionally attended.

The song rolling forth, as the Man of God drove along the highway in his rig, was _Jesus, Lover of My Soul_.

* * * * *

For the moment Hubbard shielded his face with an arm as if to ward off an invisible thing.

Then, bending over the prostrate form, he ran his hand inside the clothing to test the action of the heart. He performed the act mechanically, because he knew he had killed his man.

He discovered the handbag. Evidently Harper was on his way to Ovid to catch the train to the county seat for the trial on the morrow. This meant that he would not be missed by his wife for at least twenty-four hours.

The murderer studied his next move. Where to secrete the body? A piece of wood lay back of him, but he was aware that it was constantly combed by squirrel hunters. He thought of the railroad. Why not an accident? Killed by the very train he was bound for?

He started to lug the body toward the track which passed half a mile to the north. Realizing, however, that for the time at hand the distance was too great, he let the body slide to the ground. Next he stole along the twin fences to the highway and peered both ways. No one seemed abroad.

He came back on the dead run, and in twenty minutes he had carried the body to the Eldridge premises and flung it down the ancient well.

When he returned he found his wife and daughter together in the parlor, where with the itinerant preacher, all three were kneeling on the floor in prayer. Hubbard unceremoniously nudged the clergymen.

“That’ll do,” he said.

The minister rose, his tall, lanky figure towering over Hubbard.

“Brother,” he began, in an orotund voice, “come with the Lord—”

“Yes. I know,” returned Hubbard, with a patience that surprised his wife. “But I’ve got something to talk over with my family.” He paused. “Here,” he added, feeling in his pocket and producing a small coin, “take this and go along.”

When the preacher had left, Hubbard called to his daughter.

“Harper was gone when I got over to the fence.”

“What kept you so long?”

“I walked over to the woods. There’s a nest of coons. They’re a-goin’ to play havoc with the corn.” He smiled unnaturally. “Look-a here! If we can catch ’em, I’ll give you the money their pelts bring.”

Hubbard divined that his acting was poor. Both the girl and his wife were frankly regarding him.

“Well!” he shouted. “What’s the matter with ye?”

“Oh, nuthin’, Pa, nuthin’,” whimpered the girl.

“Then go to bed, the two of ye.”

Next morning Hubbard started for the county seat, a ten mile drive. He returned that evening and complained that the case had been adjourned because Harper had failed to appear in court.

The following day he went back to his field far down the road for more ploughing. Twice he was called to the roadside by passersby to discuss the disappearance of Harper.

One morning a week later, when he came along the road with his team, he discovered the Harper child on the Eldridge premises. She was sitting at the edge of the well.

With a suppressed oath, he dropped the lines and half-walked, half-ran, to where the little girl sat.

“Didn’t I tell you to stay away from there!” he exploded.

The girl stared at him, but made no move, though her lips quivered. Hubbard glanced back to observe the road. Then he caught her arm.

“Go home!” he shouted.

He spun her roughly. She continued to stare at him as she retreated homeward.

All that morning Hubbard worked his horses hard. He realized that he was eager to go back by the Eldridge dwelling. Promptly at twelve o’clock, therefore, he tied his team and started up the road. A flash of relief came to him when he did not observe the little girl. It left him cold, however.

“Eatin’ dinner,” he mumbled.

He moved off, without looking into the well. Until four o’clock that afternoon he labored. On his way home he discovered the girl again seated by the well. She was bending over and acting queerly.

Hurrying his horses to the roadside, he looped the lines over one of the posts in the old “snake” fence. As he approached, he saw her toss a piece of stone down the hole.

Hubbard waited until he was sure of his voice.

“Come with me,” he said.

Gripping the girl he started with her toward her home but a short distance away. When they arrived the front door was ajar. A woman, with eyes red from weeping, looked at Hubbard in silence.

“Here!” he said gruffly. “This child ought to be kept to home. She’ll fall into the well.”

Mrs. Harper merely reached out her arms for her daughter. Hubbard remained standing awkwardly.

“Have you heard anything of Harper yet?” he asked.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” replied the woman.

Hubbard turned on his heel. Waiting for him by his horses, was the deputy sheriff. The two further discussed the disappearance.

“If you yourself wasn’t so well known, Jeremiah,” finally declared the official, “they’d sure be thinkin’ you was in it some way.”

“Why?” grunted the farmer, as he untied the lines.

“Well, everybody knows you an’ Harper been lawin’ it for years over that boundary line.”

Hubbard achieved a laugh.

“I’ll tell ye where Harper is. He’s cleared out, that’s what I think—deserted his family.”

That night, and many following nights, Hubbard did not sleep. Some weeks later a tremendous electric storm broke in the night. One particularly heavy clap so startled the wakeful Hubbard that he leaped from his bed and dressed. In the pouring rain he started out.

Inevitably his steps took him toward the well. It was black, and he could not see at first. But another flash came, and he observed a strange thing:

The huge oak, standing at the side of the well, had been split in two by lightning, and one portion of the tree had fallen over the mouth of the hole.

* * * * *

Next morning Simpson, the man with the “tin Lizzie,” stopped at Hubbard’s place. He was a blunt-spoken, red-faced man whom Hubbard hated.

“That was a bad storm last night,” he said. “The lightning struck the big oak tree by the well.”

“What of it?” snapped Hubbard.

“There was a skeleton in the center of that tree,” explained Simpson. “I was talking this morning with the sheriff over the telephone. He said seventy-five years ago a man was murdered in Ovid, and they never found his body. This skeleton must be his.”

Hubbard cleared his throat sharply.

“What did you do with it?”

“The skull and one of the leg bones fell down into the well when I tried to gather them up. I want to borrow some rope so I can get down in there.”

For a bare second Hubbard was silent.

“What you ought to do,” he said, gathering himself, “is to fill up that hole. It’s dangerous.”

“Yes. That’s so. But I’m goin’ to get that skull first. It’ll be a good exhibit. I’m wonderin’ whether we’ll ever find Harper’s skeleton.”

“Wait a moment,” said Hubbard huskily, starting for the barn. “I’ll get some rope and help you.”

The two returned to the Eldridge farm. They found there the dead man’s child. She had perched herself on the fallen tree.

“Damn fool!” muttered Hubbard. “Her mother lettin’ her play around here!”

A pulley was rigged over the branch and the rope inserted with a board for a rest.

“I’ll go down,” vouchsafed Hubbard.

Simpson looked his surprise as he assented.

It took Hubbard five minutes or so to retrieve the missing skeleton parts. He brought them up, the leg bone and the grinning skull. He was pale when he hauled himself over the edge.