Chapter VII · PERET EXPLAINS

At 9 a. m. on the following morning Jules Peret presented himself at the front door of a small, unpretentious red-brick house on Fifteenth Street, one block from the home of the murdered scientist.

One would never have suspected from his manner or appearance that, eight hours previously, he had battled with an invisible menace in the narrow confines of a darkened room, and had felt stark terror grip his soul before he emerged triumphant from the most harrowing experience of his adventurous career. No one would ever have suspected that, because, to all outward appearance, Peret was at peace with the world and had no thought on his mind of greater weight than the aroma of the cigarette between his lips. Debonair as ever, and attired with the scrupulous neatness that was so characteristic of him, he made a picture that had caused more than one young lady to pay him the honor of a lingering glance when, a half-hour previously, he had issued from his apartment and pursued his way down the well populated thoroughfare.

In answer to the tinkle of the bell the door was opened three inches by the butler, a small, wrinkled, leathery-faced old Chinaman, whose head was as bald and shiny as a polished egg. In one hand he held a faded silk skull cap, which he had evidently just removed from his head or forgotten to put on.

“Whatchee want, huh?” he demanded, with a regrettable lack of civility.

“I want to see your master,” returned Peret courteously, extending his card. “Please present my compliments to him, Monsieur, and tell him my business is pressing.”

“Mlaster no see nobody,” chattered Sing Tong Fat. “He sick. Allee samee dlunk. No see noblody. Clome back nex’ week.”

“But it is necessary that I should see your master this morning,” was Peret’s polite but firm retort. “Your master will be glad enough to see me when you show him my card.” He displayed his badge of special officer and added, “Get a wiggle on!”

“Yak pozee!” shrilled Sing Tong Fat indignantly, and opened the door. “You clazy. Allee samee tong man. Master have you alested.” He contorted his face until it resembled a hyena’s, and broke into a shrill laugh. “Tchee, tchee. (yes, yes.) Alee samee tam fool clazy man.”

“You are an amiable old scamp, Monsieur,” laughed Peret. “But we are losing time, and time is of importance. Where does your master hang out, eh? I will present my own card.”

“I tellee him you see him flirst,” chattered the Chinaman. “You wait here. He sleepee. Me wakee him up. He sick. Allee samee dlunk. You wait leddle time. Tchon-dzee-ti Fan-Fu (it is the will of the master).”

A door on the right side of the hall opened and a man stepped out into the hall. In spite of his disheveled hair and the brilliantly-colored dressing robe that covered his heavy frame, there was no mistaking the handsome features of Albert Deweese.

“’S all right, Sing,” he said, when he saw who his visitor was. “I decided to get up for a while.” Then to Peret: “Good-morning, Mr. Peret. I guess you think I am an inhospitable cuss, what? Fact is, I have been trying to sleep.”

“No, I do not think you are inhospitable, Monsieur,” replied Peret, as he shook hands. “After your experience last night, you need time to recuperate. The wonder of it is that you are able to be up at all.”

“I agree with you there!” responded Deweese with feeling. “I told Sing last night when I retired to admit no one this morning until I rang, which accounts for his discourtesy in keeping you waiting. I felt the need of a round twelve hours’ sleep to recover from the effects of my adventure, but I haven’t been able to close my eyes. I feel as if I shall never be able to close them.”

Deweese indeed showed the effects of his near-tragic battle with the Whispering Thing. His face was grayish-white and the heavy black circles under his bloodshot eyes accentuated his pallor and gave him an appearance that was almost ghastly. Had he been stretched out on a bed and his eyes closed, one could easily have mistaken him for a corpse.

Dismissing the garrulous and indignant old Chinaman, he crossed the hall and ushered Peret into a large, well-lighted room that was fitted out as a studio. The walls were hung with canvases of an indifferent quality in various stages of completion, and on an easel near a large double window reposed the half-completed picture of a semi-nude, which immediately caught and held the detective’s gaze.

After a moment’s critical inspection of the painting, Peret remarked: “You seem to be a busy man, my friend. But I don’t suppose you find much interest in your paintings this morning, eh? In fact, you look on the verge of a collapse. Have you seen your physician yet?”

“That’s the first thing I did after leaving Berjet’s house last night,” the artist replied. “He found nothing serious the matter with me, however. Shock more than anything else, I suppose. But to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit, Mr. Peret? Have you had any success in running down the Thing?”

“Yes and no,” answered Peret, and then went on to explain: “We are hot on the trail, but haven’t yet succeeded in entirely clearing up the mystery. It was in the hope that you would be able to help me a little that I called upon you this morning. I thought you might like to see the affair through to the end.”

“Good!” cried the artist, his feverish eyes glittering with eagerness. “After I had gotten some sleep, I intended hunting you up, anyway. You are right when you say I want to see the thing through to the finish. You can count on me to help you in any way that lies in my power. God knows, there is no one more eager than myself to get to the bottom of this affair! With the Whispering Thing still at large—”

He shuddered involuntarily, laughed, and added, “It is difficult for you to understand my feelings, I guess.”

“Perhaps it’s not as difficult as you imagine, my friend,” said Peret quietly, subsiding into a chair. He selected a cigarette from the case the artist proffered, and continued: “But let us get down to business. First, I will recount a few facts disclosed by my investigations and then explain how you can help me. In the meantime, let us be comfortable. You are as pale as a ghost. Be seated, my dear fellow, I beg of you,” he added with solicitude.

“Oh, I am not as bad off as I may appear,” declared Deweese confidently, dropping into a chair nevertheless. “I will be all right after a few hours’ rest. Now, let me have your story. Naturally, I am consumed with curiosity to hear what you have discovered.”

“Ah, you are a delightful companion, Monsieur,” was Peret’s genial response. “Me—I am a great talker, but a poor listener. I will tell you what I know with pleasure. But let me first congratulate you upon the excellence of these Persian cigarettes. Sacre! But you have a delicate taste, Monsieur.”

The artist bowed his acknowledgment to the compliment, but impatiently. It was evident that he was eager to hear what the Frenchman had on his mind, and Peret, remarking this, did not keep him longer in suspense.

“I will not take up your time by recounting all that has transpired since I saw you last night, Monsieur,” began Peret, “and for the sake of convenience I will tell my story in a round-about sort of way. Let me begin with my first attempt to motivate Berjet’s murder.

“M. Berjet was, as you are doubtless aware, a scientist of international repute. In scientific circles, in fact, he was a towering figure. I have the honor of having had a casual acquaintanceship with him for several years, and as I knelt beside his dead body on the sidewalk last night I recalled to mind many of the achievements that had brought him moderate wealth and fame. Among other things, I remembered having recently seen a newspaper account of a new invention of his—a poison gas of unparalleled destructive powers, the formula of which several warring nations have been trying to purchase.

“As clues were sadly lacking, and our investigation in his house failed to reveal any satisfactory explanation for Berjet’s death, I at once assumed that the motive for the murder had been the theft of the formula. I knew that at least one of the nations that have been trying to acquire the formula would go to almost any length to gain possession of a new and really effective weapon of this kind. I therefore got in touch with the Secret Service, which usually has an intimate knowledge of such matters, and learned several facts that made me more certain than ever that I was on the right track.

“Berjet’s poison gas, I learned, is indeed a terrible destructive agent. It is said to be even more deadly than Lewisite. A minute portion of a drop, if placed on the ground, will kill every living thing, vegetable and animal, within a radius of half a mile. Think, then, what a ton would do!

“Berjet called his invention ‘Q-gas.’ The formula was first offered to our government for a moderate sum, and rejected, and at the time of his death the savant was negotiating for its sale to the French government.”

“Surely, you are not going to try to make me believe that this Q-gas played a direct part in the death of Berjet and Sprague and the attack on me,” interrupted Deweese. “Believe me, Mr. Peret—”

“I do believe you, my friend,” was Peret’s smiling response. “The gas itself played no part in the tragedy last night, but the formula is at the bottom of all of the trouble, as has been suggested. The murders were simply incidental to the robbery of the formula.”

“Have you discovered who the robber was?” queried Deweese, with natural curiosity.

“Yes,” replied Peret calmly. “Even without clues to work with, this would not have been very difficult. Of the several nations that have been trying to get possession of the Q-gas formula there are only one or two that would authorize their agents to go to such extremes as were employed last night to acquire it, and as virtually all of their agents are known to the Secret Service, our search would have been confined to a limited group of men and women. It would simply have been a matter of elimination.”

Deweese nodded his understanding, and the sleuth continued:

“Almost from the very first, however, for reasons which I will explain later, I was led to suspect a man who has since turned out to be a notorious international agent, known in diplomatic circles as Count Vincent di Dalfonzo. During his absence, I made a somewhat hurried search of his rooms after my departure from the scientist’s house, but could find nothing to incriminate him.

“One of my operatives, however, a former Secret Service agent, was able to identify him, if nothing more. According to this operative, Dalfonzo, who is one of the greatest scoundrels unhung, at the present time bears the secret credentials of a nation I will leave unnamed, but one which, I have reason to know, has made several unsuccessful attempts to buy the Q-gas formula from Berjet.”

Deweese was leaning forward in his chair, an eager listener. As Peret paused to relight his cigarette, he remarked:

“If Dalfonzo is such a notorious character, one would have thought that the Secret Service would have kept him under its eye.”

“One would have thought so, indeed,” agreed Peret, expelling a cloud of smoke from his lungs. “When last heard of several months ago, Dalfonzo was in Petrograd and he probably entered this country in disguise and has since kept himself well under cover.”

“Have you arrested him?”

“I have scarcely had time yet, Monsieur,” answered Peret. “I feel safe in saying, however, that he will be in the custody of the police within the next twenty-four hours.”

“Good! I will never feel safe while this scoundrel is at large, if indeed he really did have a hand in the murders of Berjet, Sprague and Adolphe, and the attack on me.”

“Dalfonzo had nothing to do with Adolphe’s murder, and only an indirect hand in the attack on you,” said Peret. “Sacre bleu! Dalfonzo is not the kind of man that strikes down his victims with butcher knives and such; he is a man of delicate ideas and sensibilities, Monsieur.”

“So it seems,” said Deweese drily. “I know that the finger prints on the dagger tend to prove that Adolphe was murdered by his employer, but in the light of the other facts can this evidence be considered conclusive? The prints on the dagger may simply be a trick to confuse the police. The Whispering Thing—But stay! For the moment I had forgotten the Whispering Thing. It seems to me that we are getting away from the main issue.”

“Patience, Monsieur,” said Peret, with an enigmatical smile. “Everything will be explained in good time. But first, let me assure you that the finger prints on the dagger are genuine. Adolphe was undoubtedly murdered by the scientist, and as the penalty for this crime he gave his own life.”

Deweese started. The Frenchman’s indirect method of telling his story, and the complacence with which he stated apparently contradictory facts, confused and annoyed him.

“You mean—?” he began.

“I mean that Berjet was murdered because he stabbed his valet.”

“Well,” averred Deweese, unable to conceal his impatience, “all of this is about as clear as mud to me. First you say that the motive for Berjet’s murder was the robbery of the formula, and now you declare that he was done away with because he killed his valet. What am I to believe?”

“What you will, Monsieur,” replied Peret. “Everything I have stated is true, although I confess that as yet I have nothing to prove it. If the facts seem contradictory, it is because I have expressed myself badly.

“According to my theory, Count Dalfonzo (for a consideration of course), induced Adolphe to steal the formula of Q-gas from his benefactor. When poor Berjet learned that he had been betrayed he stabbed the betrayer in a fit of insane rage and hid the body in the closet in his library until he would have time to dispose of it. Dalfonzo in some way learned of this, or suspected it, and as he already had the formula in his possession, decided that his safest plan would be to murder Berjet before he could communicate with French Secret Service agents operating in this country, who were about to consummate the purchase of the secret. Eh, bien! the murder was committed, and but for one little slip, one tiny slip—Ha; ha! It is amusing, is it not, Monsieur?”

“Very!” rejoined Deweese sarcastically. “I think, however, that I have begun to get a glimmer of what you erroneously conceive to be the truth, and that is that Dalfonzo and the mysterious Thing are identical.”

“Patience, Monsieur, patience,” cried Peret. “The glimmer of light that you see is a will-o’-the wisp. Dalfonzo is a man; the Thing is—the Thing. The murders were instigated by Dalfonzo, but were committed by the invisible terror.”

Deweese, as had many a man before him, began to wonder if he had to deal with an imbecile or a man by no means as feeble-minded as he seemed. In his puzzlement he stared at Peret for a moment, with mouth agape, then he leaned forward in his chair until less than two feet separated his corpselike face from Peret’s.

“And what the devil is the Whispering Thing?” he asked sharply.

“All in good time,” came the amiable reply. “Let us first consider the little slip that upset Dalfonzo’s apple cart.”

“Well, let us consider the little slip then,” said Deweese, relaxing in his chair. “Where did our diplomatic freelance slip?”

“Why, when he tried to murder me in the same way that he did that poor Berjet,” quietly responded Peret.

The artist half rose from his chair and stared at the detective with astonishment written on his face.

“Do you mean to say that you have been attacked by the Whispering Thing?” he demanded.

“Just that, Monsieur. I was attacked by the whispering phantom in my rooms last night after I left the scene of the attack on you. You can realize, therefore, that I can appreciate all that you have gone through. It is true that my experience was, in some respects, not as terrible as your own, because I escaped the Thing before it could do me bodily harm. But I never expect entirely to recover from the fright it gave me. Mon dieu, what a monster this Dalfonzo is!”

“It was at his instigation that the Thing attacked you?” questioned Deweese.

“Who else?” asked Peret.

“Well,” cried Deweese, impatiently, “why do you beat around the bush so much? Be definite. What the devil is the Whispering Thing? And who, exactly, is the man you call Dalfonzo?”

Peret lifted his eyes and gazed steadily at the artist.

“I will answer your second question first, Monsieur,” he replied, with exasperating slowness. “My answer will explain why I have been beating around the bush, as you call it.”

He leaned slightly forward, his right hand in his coat pocket, his eyes smiling, the muscles around his mouth tense.

“Count Vincent di Dalfonzo,” he said, “is the man who at the present time calls himself Albert Deweese—Don’t move, Monsieur! The revolver in my coat pocket is centered on your heart!”