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Title: The murderer
Author: Murray Leinster
Release date: May 12, 2024 [eBook #73612]
Language: English
Original publication: Indianapolis, IN: Popular Fiction Publishing Company, 1929
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MURDERER ***
The Murderer
By Murray Leinster
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Weird Tales January 1930.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The murderer's hair lifted at the back of his neck. A crawling
sensation spread down his spine. There was something moving in the
room! It was pitch-dark, with vague rectangles of faint grayishness
where windows opened upon the rainy night outside. The murderer had
left this room half an hour before, maybe only twenty minutes before.
He'd gone plunging away through the darkness, knowing that before dawn
the rain would have washed away the tire-tracks of his car. And then
he'd remembered something. He'd come back to pick up a thing he'd left,
the only thing that could possibly throw suspicion upon him. And there
was something moving in the room!
His scalp crawled horribly. He had to clench his teeth to keep them
from chattering audibly.... He heard the sound again! Something alive
in the room. Something furtive and horrible and--and terribly playful!
It was amused, that live thing in the room. It was diverted by the one
gasp of pure terror he had given at the first sound it made.
The murderer stood teetering upon his toes, with his hand outstretched
and touching the wall, fighting against an unnameable fear. He was in
the right house, certainly. And in the right room. He could catch the
faint acrid reek of burnt smokeless powder. His senses were uncannily
acute. He could even distinguish the staling scent of the cigarette he
had lighted when he was here before.... This was the room in which he
had killed a man. Yonder, by the wide blotch of formless gray, there
was a chair, and in that chair there was an old man, huddled up, with a
bullet-wound in his throat and a spurt of deepening crimson overlaying
his shirt-front. The murderer who stood by the wall, sick with fear,
had killed him no more than half an hour before.
And there could not be anyone else in the house. The murderer listened,
stifling his breathing to deepen the silence. Nothing but the shrill
and senseless singing of a canary-bird that was one of the dead man's
two pets. The bird stopped, began again drowsily, and was silent. In
the utter stillness that followed, the vastly muffled purring of his
own motor-car reached the murderer, and the slow, drizzling sound of
rain, even the curious humming of the telephone wires that led away
from the house.
But then he heard the noise again, such a sound as might have been
made by a man drumming softly and meditatively upon a table with his
finger-tips. A tiny sound, an infinitely tiny sound, but the sound of
something alive. The murderer stifled a gasp. It came from the chair
where the dead man was sitting!
There was cold sweat upon the forehead of the man by the wall. It
seemed, insanely, as if the dead figure, sitting upright in its chair,
had opened its eyes to stare at him through the blackness, while the
stiff fingers tapped upon the table-cloth as they had done in life.
A surge of despairing hatred came to the murderer, while icy-cold
crawlings went down his spine. Those finger-tappings ... those furtive,
stingy fingers that were always so restless, always touching something,
always fumbling desirously at something.... Why, he'd shot the old
man when he was fumbling with his cigarette-case, avidly plucking out
a cigarette to smoke in secret, being too miserly to buy even the
cheapest of tobacco for himself.
The murderer felt some of his fear vanish. He'd shot the old man.
Killed him. He was dead. He'd made only one mistake. He'd made sure
the bullet went just where he intended, and then he'd fled, out to
the car and plunged away. No need to stop and rob. The dead man was
the murderer's uncle, and the state and the courts would deliver his
wealth in time. Everything was all right, except for one mistake, and
he'd come back to rectify that.
He deliberately fanned the hatred that had helped so much in the
commission of his crime, and now was crowding out his terror. He had
only to think of the old man to grow furious. Rich--and a miser.
Old--and a skinflint. He wouldn't keep a servant, because servants cost
money. He wouldn't keep a watch-dog, because watch-dogs had to be fed.
It was typical of him that he kept two pets as an economical jest--a
canary because it would eat bread-crumbs, and a cat because it would
feed itself. The murderer by the wall had seen the old man chuckling at
sight of the huge cat stalking a robin upon the lawn....
* * * * *
The murderer moved forward confidently, now. He'd shot his uncle
as the old man was fumbling cigarettes out of the nephew's case.
He'd made sure that death had come, and he'd fled--but without the
cigarette-case. Now he'd come back for it. It had been foolish of him
to feel afraid....
He heard the drumming of reflective finger-tips upon the table-top.
Stark terror swept over him again, and he pressed on the button of his
flashlight.... The old, unprepossessing figure was outlined in full.
Grayed, unkempt hair, bushy eye-brows, head bent down, hand extended
toward the cigarette-case on the table.... All was as it should have
been. But the coat, the long, dingy coat that hung down from the
extended arm--that was moving! Muscles in the sleeve had been flexing
and unflexing. The coat was flapping back and forth. The man in the
chair was alive!
With a snarl, the murderer sprang forward, his hands outstretched. An
instant later he fell back with a rattle in his throat. The flesh he
had touched was cold and already rigid.
He stood still, fighting down an impulse to scream. The man in the
chair was dead. And then he heard that insane, deliberate tapping
again. He could feel the dead eyes upon him, gazing up from a
bent-forward head and looking through the bushy brows. A strange,
malevolent joy was possessing the dead thing. It was gazing at him,
tapping meditatively, while it debated a suitable revenge for its own
death.
The murderer cursed hoarsely and groped for the table. He was
livid with terror and a queer, helpless rage. He hated his victim,
dead, as he had never hated him living. His fingers touched the
cigarette-case--and it was jerked from beneath his touch.
The murderer choked. He had to have the cigarette-case. It was proof of
his presence--proof against which his carefully prepared alibi would be
of no use. He'd been seen to use it no more than an hour since, when he
left the house in which he was a weekend guest to come hurtling across
country for his murder. He had to have it!
And the tapping came again, insanely gleeful, diabolically reflective.
The man in the chair was beyond reach. No more harm could come to him.
And he could toy with the living man as a cat toys with a mouse.
Numb with unreasoning terror of the thing that was dead, and yet moved,
that was not two yards away and yet was removed by all the gulf between
the living and the dead, the murderer pressed the flashlight button
again. He clenched his teeth as he seemed to sense the stoppage of a
stealthy movement by the thing in the chair. His cigarette-case was
gone, missing from the table.
The flashlight beam swept about the room in a last flare of common
sense. It was empty. No one, nothing.... Nothing in the house except
the dead man, to seize that one small article which would damn the
murderer.
He remembered suddenly and switched off the light. There were
neighbors. Not near neighbors, but people who would notice the glow
of a flashlight if it met their eyes. They knew the old man for what
he was, and probably whispered among themselves of buried treasure or
hidden money. They would suspect a robber of like mind if they saw the
flashlight going.
They might have noticed it then! He had to get the cigarette-case and
go away quickly....
Forcing his brain to function while he was stiff with a terror that
he could not down, he masked the bulb with his fingers and let a
little ray trickle over the table. The old, claw-like hand. It seemed
to be nearer the telephone than it had been. The cloth table-top. No
monogrammed case. It had been there. He had seen it not two minutes
since. But it had vanished utterly.
The living man could have screamed with rage. He seemed to feel the
thing in the chair shaking with silent laughter. The chair was shaking!
God! It _was_ shaking!
The murderer fled to the doorway upon caving knees, his whole soul
writhing in panic. And then he heard the reassuring purring of his
motor-car, waiting to carry him away. Outside was sanity. Only within
was nightmarish horror. He could not go away and leave that case to
hang him....
He was grinding his teeth as he came back. He was doggedly desperate
in his resolution. He got down on his hands and knees and let a little
trickle of light slip between his fingers. Instinctively he kept out
of reach of the dead fingers. Not yet had he come to think of danger
there. The thing in the chair enraged him while it terrified him,
because it mocked him. But he would get this one thing and go....
* * * * *
The floor was bare. The case had not fallen from the table to the floor.
He let his light go out again, while his scalp crawled. But he
could not go without the case. Leaving it, he left safety--perhaps
life--behind. There was no single thing to connect him with this murder
save that. His alibi was prepared, was perfect. But he had been seen to
use that case an hour ago. Found here, it would damn him. If it were
carried away, he would be unsuspected.
He had planned it perfectly. That was the only flaw in the whole plan,
and he had only to pick up the monogrammed case of silver to be both
safe and rich. Why, he'd even planned out the funeral! He would be
dutifully grieved. Some of the neighbors would be there--some because
it was the proper thing, but more from curiosity. The only person who
would really regret the old man's death would be the telephone-girl.
The old man paid her a small extra sum to give his line special
attention. It was, he said, his burglar-protection. And every month,
grudgingly, he paid her a small sum, with a deduction for each time he
could claim to have been kept waiting for a number.
There was a scratching sound from the chair. The murderer sprang to his
feet, his terror making his throat dry. The scratching came again, like
a fingernail on rough-polished sheet metal. The telephone! The thing in
the chair was reaching for the telephone!
The murderer acted without thought, in pure sweating fear. He sprang
like a wildcat. The table toppled heavily to the floor and the
telephone went spinning against the wall. He flung the extended wrist
aside....
It resisted his hand. And he jerked away and stood moaning softly, in
an ecstasy of fear and desperation.
Once more the feeling as if the thing in the chair were laughing,
shaking in silent, ghastly laughter. The one thing that held the
murderer in the room was the cigarette-case that could hang him. And
the thing was tormenting him and shaking in horrible mirth....
Long past the power to reason, the murderer brought forth all his
willpower. It was really a conflict between two fears, a panic-stricken
horror of the dead thing before him, and terror of a noose that awaited
him. He flashed his light despairingly--and saw the cigarette-case.
It was projecting invitingly from the pocket of the thing in the
chair. It had been on the table. It had been filched from beneath his
descending hand. It was in the dead man's pocket, as if tucked there
by stiff and clumsy fingers--or as if left projecting to lure him to a
snatch. And the extended hand, with its clawing fingers outstretched,
quivered a little as if with eagerness for him to make an attempt to
get it.
He whimpered. It was trying to get him to reach for the case,
invitingly in sight. But if he reached, he would be within the length
of its arms. And they would move stiffly but very swiftly to seize
him....
He whimpered. He dared not go without that case. He dared not reach
in his hand to seize it. He sobbed a little with pure terror. Then,
glassy-eyed with horror, he swung his foot in a sudden, nervous kick.
If he could kick the case from its insecure position, he could retrieve
it from the floor....
He was quivering. The kick failed. The thing remained motionless, but
it seemed to him that it was tensing itself for a sudden effort.... The
murderer wrung his hands. He kicked again, and sheer icy fear flowed
through his veins as he felt the soft resistance of the cloth against
his foot. But he missed.
He heard a curious little chuckling sound that could not possibly have
come from anything but a human throat. It was a human voice. It was
syllables, divided to form words, but words in a strangled, distant,
ghastly tone....
Drenched in the sweat of undiluted horror, the murderer swung his
foot a third time, desperately, with his eyes glassy and the breath
whistling in his throat.
Then he screamed....
The flashlight dropped to the floor. There was utter darkness. There
was no noise for seconds save those chuckling sounds. They were louder,
now. The murderer stood rigid, balanced upon one foot, his eyes
terrible. He screamed again. Something had hold of his foot. Something
grasped at his trouser-leg and tugged at it gently. Not strongly.
Gently. But it was tugging....
The murderer screamed and screamed, with his eyes the eyes of a man
in the depths of hell. Not because his foot was caught, but because
something was pulling him, weakly but inexorably, in furtive little
tugs, toward the man in the chair--who was dead.
Then sharp nails sank in his flesh and the murderer broke away. He
fell, and in falling his slipping foot crashed against the leg of the
chair, and that turned over upon him....
* * * * *
The telephone operator had been listening since the receiver was flung
off its hook by the fall of the telephone. She had spoken several
times, asking what was wanted, and the sound had issued from the
receiver on the floor like--well--like the chuckle of a man amused
in a horrible fashion. When she heard screaming, she sent men to
investigate. And they found a dead man tumbled out of the chair in
which he had died, and another man crawling about the room. The living
man was crawling about on his hands and knees, his eyes wide and
staring and terrified, while a huge pet cat made playful pounces at his
trouser-leg, tugging at it, worrying it, pulling backward upon it. And
whenever the cat pulled at the bit of cloth, the living man screamed in
a sickly, terrified fashion.
[Illustration: "A huge pet cat made playful pounces at his trousers."]
They never did get at the rights of the matter, but the coroner was
somewhat annoyed by the cat, during the inquest. He was sitting in the
chair the dead man had sat in, beside the table on which the telephone
stood. And the cat buffeted his coat-tails; hanging down, with playful
pats of its paws. The sound was very much like that of a man drumming
softly and meditatively upon a table.
But it was not that which annoyed the coroner. He liked cats. What did
annoy him was the fact that he had put his lighted cigarette on the
edge of the table for an instant, and the cat sank its claws in the
table-cover. With the jerk, the cigarette fell from the table into the
coroner's pocket, and burned a hole through to the skin.
"If that cigarette had been in its case, now," said the coroner,
smiling at his own feeble joke, "it wouldn't have done any harm."
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MURDERER ***
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