Part 33

I step off the rubber mat and nod to the electrician; the current is again thrown on, this time for five seconds. When I now listen over the heart, I am reminded of a clock that is running down; the heart beats are fainter—they become slower—they commence to skip—I fail to feel the pulsation in the neck—there is a heavier glaze over the eyes—the pupils, small and contracted a moment before, are now widely dilated. The head rests on the shoulders, and the face is directed toward the chandelier with its many lights, but there is no reaction of the pupil as the bright light strikes the eye—it remains wide and big. The muscles of the face are set, and saliva drools from the angles of the mouth.

I again place my stethoscope upon the chest, but no sound reaches my ear. I listen for five—for ten—for twenty seconds. There is nothing; all the vital reactions have disappeared.

Physicians among the witnesses are invited to listen; they take their time, for there is no reason for hurry now. After the last one finishes I make a final examination. It is as before—nothing.

My notes now state: “Second contact—5 seconds—5:47:00. Pronounced dead at 5:52:00.”

I turn toward the Warden and say, “I pronounce this man dead.”

The law has been obeyed.

The general attitude of tenseness is relieved. The guards quickly unbuckle the straps and carry the body to the autopsy room, and after placing it upon the stone-topped table begin to remove the clothes. The hum of conversation becomes general. The witnesses are departing.

I commence the autopsy, feeling that my report will be, “Autopsy upon the body of ⸺ No. ⸺, convicted of murder, first degree and today executed at this prison, showed all organs and tissues to be normal.”

As I begin my long sweeping incision, the thought always strikes me: “This must also be done because it is the Law,” and the invariable question comes, “Is it really the Law, or is it to insure the carrying out of the Law?”

In other words, if the Chair fails, the post mortem succeeds.

* * * * *

There is little left to tell. The evening papers will state that “So-and-so, convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death, was electrocuted at Sing Sing Prison early this morning.” They will rehearse the grewsome history of the crime and will tell how the murderer, with firm step, entered the execution chamber at 5:44:10 a. m., and was strapped in the chair at 5:45:00 a. m.

These details are quite correct. I can vouch for them, for I let the reporters take my notes, which are official, and they copy the data and embody it in their stories.

They invariably dress up the “first contact,” however, so their stories read about like this, “At 5:45:10 Warden Blank threw the switch, pressed the button, or dropped his handkerchief, as a signal” (it is always one of these three).

Well, I’m rather glad that they credit it to the Warden, and I really feel better that I and my new, bright yellow pencil, freshly sharpened, have been overlooked.

Rare Music Disappears Mysteriously

Caslav Albrecht, a Chicago violinist, recently made a trip to Europe and brought back about thirty-five rare pieces of violin manuscript, which cannot be duplicated. Many of the compositions were original copies and the whole is valued at $5,000. The music disappeared at a party given by Frank Steiner, another musician, which Albrecht attended. He says he had the music with him when he came, and left it in the cloak-room during the festivities, and that it was gone when he was ready to leave for home. Although Albrecht was sure the manuscripts were merely mislaid, no trace of them could be found.

The Cauldron

_True Adventures of Terror_

CONDUCTED BY PRESTON LANGLEY HICKEY

While most of the material in =WEIRD TALES= is, of course, fiction, we are of the belief that there are innumerable persons who have lived through experiences as weird, terrible and horrifying as anything ever chronicled by a fictionist. This belief, and the fact that =WEIRD TALES= deals exclusively with the bizarre and unusual, has resulted in the establishment of =THE CAULDRON=.

Readers who have had a hand in strange adventures, or who have been victims of experiences of a startling and terrifying nature, are cordially invited to send accounts of them to =THE CAULDRON=. A concrete idea of what is desired may be ascertained by reading this month’s contributions. Manuscripts may be as horrible and hair-raising as it is in the power of the author to make them, but they must be clean from a moral standpoint. Those accepted will be paid for at our usual rate. Tell your story clearly and briefly. Double-spaced, typewritten manuscripts are preferred, but those in long hand will be considered if legibly written. No manuscript will be returned unless accompanied by a stamped and self addressed envelope.

THE GHOST OF DEATH

Editor of The Cauldron: There are those who are as firmly convinced in the existence of ghosts as they are that day follows night. I have heard intelligent men and women discuss ghosts seriously and tell of this and that spiritualistic seance that they attended where, before their very eyes, misty forms of long departed dead have been materialized before their very eyes. To me all this appears more or less ridiculous. During the past fifteen years I have made a very thorough study of the “phenomena” of spiritualism, and my findings have resulted in my becoming skeptical on this subject. It is because of my emphatic disbelief in the supernatural, as far as its direct relation to human man is concerned, that I submit the following as one of the most inexplicable and terrifying things that has ever occurred to me:

During the summer of 1906, my wife and I were residing in the township of North Lamoine, Maine, a fishing village situated on Frenchman’s Bay, an arm of the Atlantic which extends some miles inland. Our first born, then twenty months old, had not been well for some time, and we thought perhaps a summer in the open country close to the sea would be beneficial.

For a time the little one appeared to rally, but failed to put on the weight or to assume the healthy look that a normal baby of her age should. Then came a day when my wife struck terror to my heart by telling me that she had a premonition that something would happen—that the child would not live.

I scoffed at the notion and cheered her as best I could, but there was a great weight on my heart. I had begun to feel the same way, and the fact that my wife mentioned it only intensified my grief.

Just two days after this conversation there occurred the manifestation of which I write. My work kept me up later than usual, and it was not until after midnight that I finally retired. Worn out as I was from the

## activities of the day, and though late the hour, it was some time before

I could compose myself to sleep.

The baby, who slept with my wife at the other end of the room, moaned. A heavy electrical storm raged outside—the wind lashing the rain against the window panes in unabating fury—and my thoughts were in a turmoil.

Finally I began to doze and, I believe, was about to fall asleep when, with a start, I found myself staring wide eyed at the ceiling. No one had spoken, and, save for the baby’s moans and the storm, there had been no sound, but something had impelled me to open my eyes. A moment later a cold perspiration broke out over my body.

At first, nothing was visible and then, even in the almost pitch darkness of the room, a filmy though strangely luminous grayish white object began to take form close to the ceiling just above my wife’s bed. It became clearer and clearer until finally it moved.

As rigid as a marble statue I lay. Though not exactly afraid, to have saved my life I don’t believe I could have moved at that moment. Gradually this indescribable object began to settle over the other bed. Just as it seemed to merge itself with the faint whiteness of the covers, the baby cried out, to be followed an instant later by a piercing scream from my wife.

“Back! back!” she gasped. “No! no! you shall not! For God’s sake _back_!”

I remained motionless but an instant, long enough, however, to see the specter gather itself into a compact form, flash upward and disappear. Then, with a mighty effort, I pulled myself together and bounded out of bed.

“Oh,” my wife cried, sitting up, “did you see it?”

“See what, dear?” I asked.

“Just now something white seemed to come down, with arms outstretched, as if to take little Helen away. I am sure I was not asleep.”

“You must have been,” I answered. “I was wide awake all along and did not see anything. The room is quite empty.”

“Ugh,” she shuddered, “what a terrible dream!”

There was no sleep for me the rest of that night. For hours I sat in the living-room, trying to fathom the mystery that I had beheld. I knew it could not have been imagination, for my wife had seen it also. There was no accounting for it.

And I am just as much in the dark now as I was then. God only knows what it was that my wife and I saw that night! Perhaps it was a matriculated spirit from the Valley of Death, after all.

In any event, Baby Helen died the next day.

OWEN KING.

Editor of The Cauldron: During the street car strike in Denver in 1919, I was a reporter on the _Times_. On the night when the strikers and “Black Jack” Jerome’s “breakers” met in deadly conflict, I was assigned to the East Denver barns, in which Jerome’s men were fortified.

Toward midnight, the strikers stormed _en masse_ and, during the melée, I dropped with a bullet in my chest. Regaining consciousness, I found myself in the City Hospital. Kneeling beside my bed was my wife—Estelle. I tried to move.

“Lie still, dear,” she said, rising. “You must keep very quiet. They are going to probe for the bullet.”

Upon reaching the operating room, the ether instantly choked me into unconsciousness. Then occurred the strangest thing I have ever experienced. I seemed suddenly transported into a great hall, with tall, shining pillars. All around me were people clothed in white. From afar came the sound of soft music.

But what attracted me was a raised section at one end on which sat a benevolent-looking old gentleman. In his eyes there seemed to be all the sorrow and suffering of a wicked world’s countless centuries. He beckoned to me. When I had come before him he spoke, and in his voice there was the golden ring of perfectly tuned chimes.

“My son,” he said, “you have been brought to judgment. At present you are no longer a part of the earth’s sphere. Back there science is fighting for your life. Whether science succeeds is determined by this court of justice. What have you to say for yourself?”

I trembled and became afraid. Where was I? Was I dead and in some spiritual sphere far removed from the earth?

Then I spoke. I recall, distinctly, that I rambled on at great length, attempting to make a good impression. As I spoke he listened intently, occasionally nodding his head slowly and sadly.

When I finished, he resumed:

“Words and actions mean nothing here,” he said. “In passing judgment we consider only motives. They are everything. Remember that. It is the motives behind all actions that are important.”

So saying, he turned to an aged man, who was writing in a book, and asked: “Any prayers?”

“Yes, a young woman kneels at his bed.”

“You shall return to earthly existence for a time then,” the judge said, raising his hands. “Heed well my words.”

Then I saw a great light swell from some invisible source, and, as I looked, there seemed to be ragged scars in his palms that ran red.

When finally I opened my eyes I was again in my little bed, with Estelle and the doctor standing by. Eventually I recovered from my serious wound.

The weird vision that I had while on the operating table, though, has always been a great mystery to me. Dreams are nothing unusual for me, but this was so entirely different from anything that I have ever experienced before! I have spoken of it many times and to many people. They have not laughed, but have listened in astonishment.

What was it, I wonder? Was it the effect of the anesthetic upon my weakened system? Was it the wild distortion of my brain or, when life is flickering on the brink of eternity, are we actually brought face to face with our Creator? Will this question ever be answered in life? I wonder!

OTIS TREVOR.

THE DEATH PLUNGE

Editor of The Cauldron: I am an expert riveter. When beams are hoisted into place on buildings I hang suspended in space on a swinglike seat and rivet the sections together. Had I followed any other pursuit I probably would never have had the distinction of being the only man to fall twelve stories and live. It was during the construction of an eighteen story bank building that I experienced this extraordinary adventure.

I was working in front on the twelfth story. At this particular time I was directly under the crane which hoisted the great girders. Happening to glance down, I saw an exceptionally large load coming up. There were five. It is seldom that more than three are hoisted at once. I watched them ascend, interested in the process of landing so many. When they had almost reached the level of the fifteenth story, the roof-man gave the signal to slow down. Mistaking his motions, the crane operator pulled his reverse and the great beams swung inward.

Seeing that collision between the front of the structure and the beams was unavoidable, I attempted to get out of the way in the event anything happened. I was not quick enough. With a crash, the girders smashed into the building right over the heavy rope from which I hung, cutting it as though it were string.

Things happened so fast then that my memory of them is confused. Instantly I was precipitated downward. I do not know what sensations a drowning man experiences, but have heard that a whole life time is flashed across the victim’s mind. That is just what happened in my case. Everything I ever did came before me in those terrifying moments.

Though stricken with horror, I tried to keep my mind clear. Far below me I could see clusters of people gazing at me, horror stricken, as I fell, turning over and over.

In a moment’s time I was within four stories of the pavement. My breath was almost gone. Insane with the thought of the terrible fate that awaited me, I shut my eyes. Then, with a great roaring in my ears, I struck, and, though almost dead, knew that it wasn’t the street. For an instant I was aware of great pain and then ... nothingness.

Within an hour I had regained consciousness. Fate was with me that day. Just as I fell a big open truck, piled high with cardboard boxes, had stopped beneath me. In this I landed; my fall was broken by these boxes, and I escaped a most horrible death.

Upon examination, it was found that I suffered four fractured ribs, a compound fracture of the left leg, two breaks in my right arm and a break in my left wrist in addition to severe cuts about the body and head. That is my story. I call it a narrow escape.

JOHN BURKHOLZ.

THE EYRIE

The time has come to talk of cats and Chinamen, and rattlesnakes and skulls—and why it is these things abound in yarns for WEIRD TALES.

## Particularly cats and Chinamen. Believe it or not, every second

manuscript we open (and that’s placing the average rather low) is concerned with one or the other, or both, of these.

Why is this? Is it because a cat and a Chinaman suggest the mysticism of the Orient, and thus seem excellent “props” for weird fiction? Or is it merely because both mind their own business, imperturbably pursue their destinies, and thereby create the impression that there’s some deep-laid mystery here? We ask you that.

Whatever the reason, it’s an odd and curious fact that when an author sets out to tell a weird tale his mind turns, as if instinctively, to cats and Chinamen. And then, for good measure, he not infrequently throws in a few rattlesnakes and a skull or two.

Sometimes the result is interesting. And sometimes it is awful! And again, sometimes, it is a ludicrous thing, unconsciously funny.

We have no prejudices against Chinese characters in fiction, and we have none whatever against cats. For that matter, we haven’t any prejudices of any sort. We’ve published a good many stories about Chinese, and quite a large number about cats, and not a few that featured skulls and rattlesnakes. You’ll find some in this June issue.

But we didn’t accept those stories because of the aforementioned features, nor yet in spite of them. We accepted them solely because they were GOOD stories. We observe one rule, and one rule only, in selecting stories for your entertainment. We think we’ve mentioned this before, but we’ll say again that our only requirement is: The thing MUST be interesting!

If a story interests us it will likewise interest others, or so we believe. And if it doesn’t—Thumbs Down! And it doesn’t matter a good gosh darn whether the hero, or villain, has yellow skin and oblique eyelids, or flaxen hair and sky-blue eyes, or whether or not a green-eyed cat howls atop a grinning skull. The story’s the thing!

All the same, though, we would like to know why all these cats and Chinamen are slinking mysteriously through our manuscripts. We read eight before breakfast this morning (chosen quite at random), and we hope to die if there wasn’t a Chinaman in every last one of them!

* * * * *

And still the letters pour in from delighted readers—plenty of them! Manifestly, it is quite impossible to print more than a fractional part of them here, but we can’t refrain from quoting at least three that concern Paul Suter’s story, “Beyond the Door,” which appeared in the April WEIRD TALES.

We take it you remember this story and will therefore be interested in these comments. The first letter comes from R. E. Lambert, secretary of the Washington Square College of New York University, New York, and reads as follows:

“Dear sir: Just as Woodrow Wilson used to say during his most trying days in the presidency that when he wanted to get his mind completely off his work he would turn to a detective story, so I turn for my own relaxation to the horror story.

“I suppose it would take exhaustive questioning by a psychoanalyst to discover why this sort of literature appeals to me, but the fact is it does so appeal. While there are hundreds of others like me in this respect, I doubt whether the number is great enough to make such a venture as yours a considerable financial success—therefore, the more praise to you for your courage in launching WEIRD TALES.

“What particularly impelled me to write this letter is the story in the current issue, entitled ‘Beyond the Door.’ One reason why I single this one from such a congeries of thrilling, weird tales is that, with all its mystery and suggestion of the supernatural, the dénouement and everything that leads up to it are discovered at the end to be logically and physically ‘possible.’ So often, in mystery stories, we are called upon to accept much that simply is not naturally possible, and we turn from them, duly horrified, but unpersuaded that the tale is more than a figment of a morbid imagination.

“From the standpoint of construction, I have read few stories that so faithfully adhere to the trinity of short story tradition—unity, coherence and mass. Especially on the score of unity, the most important of the trinity, do I find this tale worthy of much praise. Not a situation, not a paragraph, nor a sentence, but which has a direct bearing on the unfoldment of the plot. And I find no single instance where the choice of words seems to have resulted from a straining for effect. Of how many stories, whether horrific or any other kind, can this truly be said?

“Then, too, very few tales are really brought home to the reader’s own intimate experience of life. Yet here we shudder at the terrors created by a guilty conscience, and approve, while we shudder, of the terrible punishment that is meted out for the wrong-doing. How very real it thus becomes to all of us!

“Finally, the author dares to do, and admirably succeeds in doing, what so few writers of fiction attempt—and mostly bungle when they do attempt. I refer to the linking of his story in the closing paragraphs to man’s inevitable, age-old uncertainty as to what is to come in the hereafter. This alone elevates ‘Beyond the Door’ out of the ordinary run of fiction.

“Here’s wishing you a well-merited success!”

The next one was written by Rev. Andrew Wallace MacNeill, minister of the Bethlehem Congregational Church, International Falls, Minnesota:

“Gentlemen: I have read with much interest and pleasure the April number of your new magazine, which I believe will make a distinctive and acceptable place for itself in magazine literature.

“I am particularly interested in the story by a new writer, Paul Suter, ‘Beyond the Door’ proving exceptionally appealing and gripping. I hope you will publish more work by this writer, as I believe if he maintains the standard of this story your readers will make quite a popular response.”

And the third letter, which arrived in the same mail that brought the first two, came from the author himself:

“Dear Mr. Baird: I take it that even editors enjoy an occasional pat on the back, in the midst of the many black looks they receive, so I am presuming to express my appreciation of the way in which you printed my story, ‘Beyond the Door,’ in your April issue.

“There is a story which might easily have been rendered monotonous by unintelligent press work—because the effect of slowly undermining horror, which I had to attain, is akin to monotony. You avoided that pitfall by change of type—and (this to me is the remarkable thing) I can tell by the way in which you ran in those changes that you got absolutely every subtle suggestion which I concealed in that story—and I buried quite a lot of them there. You must have read my manuscript with a microscope. May I take the liberty of expressing my opinion that as an editor you are emphatically THERE?

“Cordially yours,

“J. Paul Suter.”

We almost dislike to print this last one—it’s too much like pinning a medal on our coat—but we can plead, in extenuation, that the excellence of Mr. Suter’s story was not due to our editing, or printer’s directions, or anything of the sort, but solely to his splendid craftsmanship. He wrote a good story and we published it, and no amount of editing could have made it any better.