The Man Who Was Dead

By Thomas H. Knight

[Illustration: "_I was dead._"]

As Jerry's eyes fell on the creature's head, he shuddered--for the
face was nothing but bone, with dull-brown skin stretched taut over
it. A skeleton that was alive!


It was a wicked night, the night I met the man who had died. A bitter,
heart-numbing night of weird, shrieking wind and flying snow. A few
black hours I will never forget.

"Well, Jerry, lad!" my mother said to me as I pushed back from the table
and started for my sheepskin coat and the lantern in the corner of the
room. "Surely you're not going out a night like this? Goodness gracious,
Jerry, it's not fit!"

"Can't help it, Mother," I replied. "Got to go. You've never seen me
miss a Saturday night yet, have you now?"

"No. But then I've never seen a night like this for years either. Jerry,
I'm really afraid. You may freeze before you even get as far as--"

"Ah, come now, Mother," I argued. "They'd guy me to death if I didn't
sit in with the gang to-night. They'd chaff me because it was too cold
for me to get out. But I'm no pampered sissy, you know, and I want to
see--"

"Yes," she retorted bitingly, "I know. You want to go and bask in that
elegant company. Our stove's just as good as the one down at that dirty
old store," continued my persistent and anxious parent, "and it's
certainly not very flattering to think that you leave us on a night like
this to--Who'll be there, anyway?"

"Oh, the usual five or six I suppose," I answered as I adjusted the wick
of my lantern, hearing as I did the snarl and cut of the wind through
the evergreens in the yard.

"That black-whiskered sphinx, Hammersly, will he be there?"

"Yes, he'll be there, I'm pretty sure."

"Hm-m!" she exclaimed, her expression now carrying all the contempt for
my judgment and taste she intended it should. "Button your coat up good
around your neck, then, if you must go to see your precious Hammersly
and the rest of them. Have you ever heard that man say anything yet?
Does he speak at all, Jerry?" Then her gentle mind, not at all
accustomed to hard thoughts or contemptuous remarks, quickly changed.
"Funny thing about that fellow," she mused. "He's got something on his
mind. Don't you think so, Jerry?"

"Y-es, yes I do. And I've often wondered what it could be. He
certainly's a queer stick. Got to admit that. Always brooding. Good
fellow all right, and, for a 'sphinx' as you call him, likable. But I
wonder what is eating him?"

"What do you suppose it could be, Jerry boy?" questioned Mother
following me to the door, the woman of her now completely forgetting her
recent criticisms and, perhaps, the rough night her son was about to
step into. "Do you suppose the poor chap has a--a--broken heart, or
something like that? A girl somewhere who jilted him? Or maybe he loves
someone he has no right to!" she finished excitedly, the plates in her
hand rattling.

"Maybe it's worse than that," I ventured. "P'r'aps--I've no right to say
it--but p'r'aps, and I've often thought it, there's a killing he wants
to forget, and can't!"

* * * * *

I heard my mother's sharp little "Oh!" as I shut the door behind me and
the warmth and comfort of the room away. Outside it was worse than the
whistle of the wind through the trees had led me to expect. Black as
pitch it was, and as cold as blazes. For the first moment or two,
though, I liked the feel of the challenge of the night and the racing
elements, was even a little glad I had added to the dare of the
blackness the thought of Hammersly and his "killing." But I had not gone
far before I was wishing I did not have to save my face by putting in an
appearance at the store that night.

Every Saturday night, with the cows comfortable in their warm barn, and
my own supper over, I was in the habit of taking my place on the keg or
box behind the red-hot stove in Pruett's store. To-night all the snow
was being hurled clear of the fields to block the roads full between the
old, zigzag fences. The wind met me in great pushing gusts, and while it
flung itself at me I would hang against it, snow to my knees, until the
blow had gone along, when I could plunge forward again. I was glad when
I saw the lights of the store, glad when I was inside.

They met me with mock applause for my pluck in facing the night, but for
all their sham flattery I was pleased I had come, proud, I must admit,
that I had been able to plough my heavy way through the drifts to reach
them. I saw at a glance that my friends were all there, and I saw too
that there was a strange man present.

* * * * *

A very tall man he was, gaunt and awkward as he leaned into the angle of
the two counters, his back to a dusty show-case. He attracted my
attention at once. Not merely because he appeared so long and pointed
and skinny, but because, of all ridiculous things in that frozen
country, he wore a hard derby hat! If he had not been such a queer
character it would have been laughable, but as it was it was--creepy.
For the man beneath that hard hat was about as queer a looking character
as I have ever seen. I supposed he was a visitor at the store, or a
friend of one of my friends, and that in a little while I would be
introduced. But I was not.

I took my place in behind the stove, feeling at once, though I am far
from being unsociable usually, that the man was an intruder and would
spoil the evening. But despite his cold, dampening presence we were soon
at it, hammer and tongs, discussing the things that are discussed behind
hospitable stoves in country stores on bad nights. But I could never
lose sight of the fact that the stranger standing there, silent as the
grave, was, to say the least, a queer one. Before long I was sure he was
no friend or guest of anyone there, and that he not only cast a pall
over me but over all of us. I did not like it, nor did I like him.
Perhaps it would have been just as well after all, I thought, had I
heeded my mother and stayed home.

Jed Counsell was the one who, innocently enough, started the thing that
changed the evening, that had begun so badly, into a nightmare.

"Jerry," he said, leaning across to me, "thinkin' of you s'afternoon.
Readin' an article about reincarnation. Remember we were arguin' it last
week? Well, this guy, whoever he was I've forgot, believes in it. Says
it's so. That people _do_ come back." With this opening shot Jed sat
back to await my answer. I liked these arguments and I liked to bear my
share in them, but now, instead of immediately answering the challenge,
I looked around to see if any other of our circle were going to answer
Jed. Then, deciding it was up to me, I shrugged off the strange feeling
the man in the corner had cast over me, and prepared to view my
opinions.

"That's just that fellow's belief, Jed," I said. "And just as he's got
his so have I mine. And on this subject at least I claim my opinion is
as good as anybody's." I was just getting nicely started, and a little
forgetting my distaste for the man in the corner, when the fellow
himself interrupted. He left his leaning place, and came creaking across
the floor to our circle around the store. I say he came "creaking" for
as he came he did creak. "Shoes," I naturally, almost unconsciously
decided, though the crazy notion was in my mind that the cracking I
heard did sound like bones and joints and sinews badly in need of oil.
The stranger sat his groaning self down among us, on a board lying
across a nail keg and an old chair. Only from the corner of my eye did I
see his movement, being friendly enough, despite my dislike, not to
allow too marked notice of his attempt to be sociable seem inhospitable
on my part. I was about to start again with my argument when Seth
Spears, sitting closest to the newcomer, deliberately got up from the
bench and went to the counter, telling Pruett as he went that he had to
have some sugar. It was all a farce, a pretext, I knew. I've known Seth
for years and had never known him before to take upon himself the buying
for his wife's kitchen. Seth simply would not sit beside the man.

* * * * *

At that I could keep my eyes from the stranger no longer, and the next
moment I felt my heart turn over within me, then lie still. I have seen
"walking skeletons" in circuses, but never such a man as the one who was
then sitting at my right hand. Those side-show men were just lean in
comparison to the fellow who had invaded our Saturday night club. His
thighs and his legs and his knees, sticking sharply into his trousers,
looked like pieces of inch board. His shoulders and his chest seemed as
flat and as sharp as his legs. The sight of the man shocked me. I sprang
to my feet thoroughly frightened. I could not see much of his face,
sitting there in the dark as he was with his back to the yellow light,
but I could make out enough of it to know that it was in keeping with
the rest of him.

In a moment or two, realizing my childishness, I had fought down my fear
and, pretending that a scorching of my leg had caused my hurried
movement, I sat down again. None of the others said a word, each waiting
for me to continue and to break the embarrassing silence. Hammersly,
black-whiskered, the "sphinx" as my mother had called him, watched me
closely. Hating myself not a little bit for actually being the sissy I
had boasted I was not, I spoke hurriedly, loudly, to cover my confusion.

"No sir, Jed!" I said, taking up my argument. "When a man's dead, he's
dead! There's no bringing him back like that highbrow claimed. The old
heart may be only hitting about once in every hundred times, and if they
catch it right at the last stroke they may bring it back then, but once
she's stopped, Jed, she's stopped for good. Once the pulse has gone, and
life has flickered out, it's out. And it doesn't come back in any form
at all, not in this world!"

I was glad when I had said it, thereby asserting myself and downing my
foolish fear of the man whose eyes I felt burning into me. I did not
turn to look at him but all the while I felt his gimlety eyes digging
into my brain.

Then he spoke. And though he sat right next to me his voice sounded like
a moan from afar off. It was the first time we had heard this thing that
once may have been a voice and that now sounded like a groan from a
closely nailed coffin. He reached a hand toward my knee to enforce his
words, but I jerked away.

"So you don't believe a man can come back from the grave, eh?" he
grated. "Believe that once a man's heart is stilled it's stopped for
good, eh? Well, you're all wrong, sonny. All wrong! You believe these
things. I _know_ them!"

* * * * *

His interference, his condescension, his whole hatefulness angered me. I
could now no longer control my feeling. "Oh! You _know_, do you?" I
sneered. "On such a subject as this you're entitled to _know_, are you?
Don't make me laugh!" I finished insultingly. I was aroused. And I'm a
big fellow, with no reason to fear ordinary men.

"Yes, I know!" came back his echoing, scratching voice.

"How do you know? Maybe you've been--?"

"Yes, I have!" he answered, his voice breaking to a squeak. "Take a good
look at me, gentlemen. A good look." He knew now that he held the center
of the stage, that the moment was his. Slowly he raised an arm to remove
that ridiculous hat. Again I jumped to my feet. For as his coat sleeve
slipped down his forearm I saw nothing but bone supporting his hand. And
the hand that then bared his head was a skeleton hand! Slowly the hat
was lifted, but as quickly as light six able-bodied men were on their
feet and half way to the door before we realized the cowardliness of it.
We forced ourselves back inside the store very slowly, all of us rather
ashamed of our ridiculous and childlike fear.

But it was all enough to make the blood curdle, with that live, dead
thing sitting there by our fire. His face and skull were nothing but
bone, the eyes deeply sunk into their sockets, the dull-brown skin like
parchment in its tautness, drawn and shriveled down onto the nose and
jaw. There were no cheeks. Just hollows. The mouth was a sharp slit
beneath the flat nose. He was hideous.

"Come back and I'll tell you my yarn," he mocked, the slit that was his
mouth opening a little to show us the empty, blackened gums. "I've been
dead once," he went on, getting a lot of satisfaction from the weirdness
of the lie and from our fear, "and _I_ came back. Come and sit down and
I'll explain why I'm this living skeleton."

* * * * *

We came back slowly, and as I did I slipped my hand into my outside
pocket where I had a revolver. I put my finger in on the trigger and got
ready to use the vicious little thing. I was on edge and torn to pieces
completely by the sight of the man, and I doubt not that had he made a
move towards me my frayed nerves would have plugged him full of lead. I
eyed my friends. They were in no better way than was I. Fright and
horror stood on each face. Hammersly was worst. His hands were
twitching, his eyes were like bright glass, his face bleached and drawn.

"I've quite a yarn to tell," went on the skeleton in his awful voice.
"I've had quite a life. A full life. I've taken my fun and my pleasure
wherever I could. Maybe you'll call me selfish and greedy, but I always
used to believe that a man only passed this way once. Just like you
believe," he nodded to me, his neck muscles and jaws creaking. "Six
years ago I came up into this country and got a job on a farm," he went
on, settling into his story. "Just an ordinary job. But I liked it
because the farmer had a pretty little daughter of about sixteen or
seventeen and as easy as could be. You may not believe it, but you can
still find dames green enough to fall for the right story.

"This one did. I told her I was only out there for a time for my health.
That I was rich back in the city, with a fine home and everything. She
believed me. Little fool!" He chuckled as he said it, and my anger,
mounting with his every devilish word, made the finger on the trigger in
my pocket take a tighter crook to itself. "I asked her to skip with me,"
the droning went on, "made her a lot of great promises, and she fell for
it." His dry jaw bones clanked and chattered as if he enjoyed the
beastly recital of his achievement, while we sat gaping at him,
believing either that the man must be mad, or that we were the mad ones,
or dreaming.

"We slipped away one night," continued the beast. "Went to the city. To
a punk hotel. For three weeks we stayed there. Then one morning I told
her I was going out for a shave. I was. I got the shave. But I hadn't
thought it worth while to tell her I wouldn't be back. Well, she got
back to the farm some way, though I don't know--"

* * * * *

"What!" I shouted, springing before him. "What! You mean you left her
there! After you'd taken her, you left her! And here you sit crowing
over it! Gloating! Boasting! Why you--!" I lived in a rough country.
Associated with rough men, heard their vicious language, but seldom used
a strong word myself. But as I stood over that monster, utterly hating
the beastly thing, all the vile oaths and prickly language of the
countryside, no doubt buried in some unused cell in my brain, spilled
from my tongue upon him. When I had lashed him as fiercely as I was able
I cried: "Why don't you come at me? Didn't you hear what I called you?
You beast! I'd like to riddle you!" I shouted, drawing my gun.

"Aw, sit down!" he jeered, waving his rattling hand at me. "You ain't
heard a thing yet. Let me finish. Well, she got back to the farm some
way or another, and something over a year later I wandered into this
country again too. I never could explain just why I came back. It was
not altogether to see the girl. Her father was a little bit of a man and
I began to remember what a meek and weak sheep he was. I got it into my
head that it'd be fun to go back to his farm and rub it in. So I came.

"Her father was trying out a new corn planter right at the back door
when I rounded the house and walked towards him. Then I saw, at once,
that I had made a mistake. When he put his eyes on me his face went
white and hard. He came down from the seat of that machine like a flash,
and took hurried steps in the direction of a doublebarrelled gun
leaning against the woodshed. They always were troubled with hawks and
kept a gun handy. But there was an ax nearer to me than the gun was to
him. I had to work fast but I made it all right. I grabbed that ax,
jumped at him as he reached for the gun, and swung--once. His wife, and
the girl too, saw it. Then I turned and ran."

* * * * *

The gaunt brute before us slowly crossed one groaning knee above the
other. We were all sitting again now. The perspiration rolled down my
face. I held my gun trained upon him, and, though I now believed he was
totally mad, because of a certain ring of truth in that empty voice, I
sat fascinated. I looked at Seth. His jaw was hanging loose, his eyes
bulging. Hammersly's mouth was set in a tight clenched line, his eyes
like fire in his blue, drawn face. I could not see the others.

"The telephone caught me," continued our ghastly story-teller, "and in
no time at all I was convicted and the date set for the hanging. When my
time was pretty close a doctor or scientist fellow came to see me who
said, 'Blaggett, you're slated to die. How much will you sell me your
body for?' If he didn't say it that way he meant just that. And I said,
'Nothing. I've no one to leave money to. What do you want with my body?'
And he told me, 'I believe I can bring you back to life and health,
provided they don't snap your neck when they drop you.' 'Oh, you're one
of _those_ guys, are you?' I said then. 'All right, hop to it. If you
can do it I'll be much obliged. Then I can go back on that farm and do a
little more ax swinging!'" Again came his horrible chuckle, again I
mopped my brow.

"So we made our plans," he went on, pleased with our discomfiture and
our despising of him. "Next day some chap came to see me, pretending he
was my brother. And I carried out my part of it by cursing him at first
and then begging him to give me decent burial. So he went away, and, I
suppose, received permission to get me right after I was cut down.

"There was a fence built around the scaffold they had ready for me and
the party I was about to fling, and they had some militia there, too.
The crowd seemed quiet enough till they led me out. Then their buzzing
sounded like a hive of bees getting all stirred up. Then a few loud
voices, then shouts. Some rocks came flying at me after that, and it
looked to me as though the hanging would not be so gentle a party after
all. I tell you I was afraid. I wished it was over.

* * * * *

"The mob pushed against the fence and flattened it out, coming over it
like waves over a beach. The soldiers fired into the air, but still they
came, and I, I ran--up, onto the scaffold. It was safer!" As he said
this he chuckled loudly. "I'll bet," he laughed, "that's the first time
a guy ever ran into the noose for the safety of it! The mob came only to
the foot of the scaffold though, from where they seemed satisfied to see
the law take its course. The sheriff was nervous. So cut up that he only
made a fling at tying my ankles, just dropped a rope around my wrists.
He was like me, he wanted to get it over, and the crowd on its way. Then
he put the rope around my neck, stepped back and shot the trap. Zamm! No
time for a prayer--or for me to laugh at the offer!--or a last word or
anything.

"I felt the floor give, felt myself shoot through. Smack! My weight on
the end of the rope hit me behind the ears like a mallet. Everything
went black. Of course it would have been just my luck to get a broken
neck out of it and give the scientist no chance to revive me. But after
a second or two, or a minute, or it could have been an hour, the
blackness went away enough to allow me to know I was hanging on the end
of the rope, kicking, fighting, choking to death. My tongue swelled, my
face and head and heart and body seemed ready to burst. Slowly I went
into a deep mist that I knew then was _the_ mist, then--then--I was off
floating in the air over the heads of the crowd, watching my own
hanging!

"I saw them give that slowly swinging carcass on the end of its rope
time enough to thoroughly die, then, from my aerial, unseen watching
place, I saw them cut it--me--down. They tried the pulse of the body
that had been mine, they examined my staring eyes. Then I heard them
pronounce me dead. The fools! I had known I was dead for a minute or two
by that time, else how could my spirit have been gone from the shell and
be out floating around over their heads?"

* * * * *

He paused here as he asked his question, his head turning on its dry and
creaking neck to include us all in his query. But none of us spoke. We
were dreaming it all, of course, or were mad, we thought.

"In just a short while," went on the skeleton, "my 'brother' came
driving slowly in for my body. With no special hurry he loaded me onto
his little truck and drove easily away. But once clear of the crowd he
pushed his foot down on the gas and in five more minutes--with me
hovering all the while alongside of him, mind you--floating along as
though I had been a bird all my life--we turned into the driveway of a
summer home. The scientific guy met him. They carried me into the house,
into a fine-fitted laboratory. My dead body was placed on a table, a
huge knife ripped my clothes from me.

"Quickly the loads from ten or a dozen hypodermic syringes were shot
into different parts of my naked body. Then it was carried across the
room to what looked like a large glass bottle, or vase, with an opening
in the top. Through this door I was lowered, my body being held upright
by straps in there for that purpose. The door to the opening was then
placed in position, and by means of an acetylene torch and some easily
melting glass, the door was sealed tight.

"So there stood my poor old body. Ready for the experiment to bring it
back to life. And as my new self floated around above the scientist and
his helper I smiled to myself, for I was sure the experiment would prove
a failure, even though I now knew that the sheriff's haste had kept him
from placing the rope right at my throat and had saved me a broken neck.
I was dead. All that was left of me now was my spirit, or soul. And that
was swimming and floating about above their heads with not an
inclination in the world to have a thing to do with the husk of the man
I could clearly see through the glass of the bell.

* * * * *

"They turned on a huge battery of ultra-violet rays then," continued the
hollow droning of the man who had been hanged, "which, as the scientist
had explained to me while in prison, acting upon the contents of the
syringes, by that time scattered through my whole body, was to renew the
spark of life within the dead thing hanging there. Through a tube, and
by means of a valve entering the glass vase in the top, the scientist
then admitted a dense white gas. So thick was it that in a moment or two
my body's transparent coffin appeared to be full of a liquid as white as
milk. Electricity then revolved my cage around so that my body was
insured a complete and even exposure to the rays of the green and violet
lamps. And while all this silly stuff was going on, around and around
the laboratory I floated, confident of the complete failure of the whole
thing, yet determined to see it through if for no other reason than to
see the discomfiture and disappointment that this mere man was bound to
experience. You see, I was already looking back upon earthly mortals as
being inferior, and now as I waited for this proof I was all the while
fighting off a new urge to be going elsewhere. Something was calling me,
beckoning me to be coming into the full spirit world. But I wanted to
see this wise earth guy fail.

"For a little while conditions stayed the same within that glass. So
thick was the liquid gas in there at first that I could see nothing.
Then it began to clear, and I saw to my surprise that the milky gas was
disappearing because it was being forced in by the rays from the lights
in through the pores into the body itself. As though my form was sucking
it in like a sponge. The scientist and his helper were tense and taut
with excitement. And suddenly my comfortable feeling left me. Until then
it had seemed so smooth and velvety and peaceful drifting around over
their heads, as though lying on a soft, fleecy cloud. But now I felt a
sudden squeezing of my spirit body. Then I was in an agony. Before I
knew what I was doing my spirit was clinging to the outside of that
twisting glass bell, clawing to get into the body that was coming back
to life! The glass now was perfectly clear of the gas, though as yet
there was no sign of life in the body inside to hint to the scientist
that he was to be successful. But I knew it. For I fought desperately to
break in through the glass to get back into my discarded shell of a body
again, knowing I must get in or die a worse death than I had before.

"Then my sharper eyes noted a slight shiver passing over the white thing
before me, and the scientist must have seen it in the next second, for
he sprang forward with a choking cry of delight. Then the lolling head
inside lifted a bit. I--still desperately clinging with my spirit hands
to the outside, and all the time growing weaker and weaker--I saw the
breast of my body rise and fall. The assistant picked up a heavy steel
hammer and stood ready to crash open the glass at the right moment. Then
my once dead eyes opened in there to look around, while I, clinging and
gasping outside, just as I had on the scaffold, went into a deeper,
darker blackness than ever. Just before my spirit life died utterly I
saw the eyes of my body realize completely what was going on, then--from
the inside now--I saw the scientist give the signal that caused the
assistant to crash away the glass shell with one blow of his hammer.

"They reached in for me then, and I fainted. When I came back to
consciousness I was being carefully, slowly revived, and nursed back to
life by oxygen and a pulmotor."

* * * * *

The terrible creature telling us this tale paused again to look around.
My knees were weak, my clothes wet with sweat.

"Is that all?" I asked in a piping, strange voice, half sarcastic, half
unbelieving, and wholly spellbound.

"Just about," he answered. "But what do you expect? I left my friend the
scientist at once, even though he did hate to see me go. It had been all
right while he was so keen on the experiment himself and while he only
half believed his ability to bring me back. But now that he'd done it,
it kinda worried him to think what sort of a man he was turning loose of
the world again. I could see how he was figuring, and because I had no
idea of letting him try another experiment on me, p'r'aps of putting me
away again, I beat it in a hurry.

"That was five years ago. For five years I've lived with only just part
of me here. Whatever it was trying to get back into that glass just
before my body came to life--my spirit, I've been calling it--I've been
without. It never did get back. You see, the scientist brought me back
inside a shell that kept my spirit out. That's why I'm the skeleton you
see I am. Something vital is missing."

He stood up cracking and creaking before us, buttoning his loose coat
about his angular body. "Well, boys," he asked lightly, "what do you
think of that?"

"I think you're a liar! A damn liar!" I cried. "And now, if you don't
want me to fill you full of lead, get out of here and get out now! If I
have to do it to you, there's no scientist this time to bring you back.
When you go out you'll stay out!"

"Don't worry," he grimaced back to me, waving a mass of bones that
should have been a hand contemptuously at me, "I'm going. I'm headed for
Shelton." He stalked the length of the floor and shut the door behind
him. The beast had gone.

"The dirty liar!" I cried. "I wish--yes--I wish I had an excuse to kill
him. Just think of that being loose, will you? A brute who would think
up such a yarn! Of course it's all absurd. All crazy. All a lie."

"No. It's not a lie."

* * * * *

I turned to see who had spoken. Hammersly's voice was so unfamiliar and
now so torn in addition that I could not have thought he had spoken, had
he not been looking right at me, his glittering eyes challenging my
assertion. Would wonders never cease? I asked myself. First this
outrageous yarn, now Hammersly, the "sphinx," expressing an opinion,
looking for an argument! Of course it must be that his susceptible and
brooding brain had been turned a bit by the evening we had just
experienced.

"Why Hammersly! You don't believe it?" I asked.

"I not only believe it, Jerry, but now it's my turn to say, as he did, I
_know_ it! Jerry, old friend," he went on, "that devil told the truth.
He was hanged. He was brought back to life; and Jerry--I was that
scientist!"

Whew! I fell back to a box again. My knees seemed to forsake me. Then I
heard Hammersly talking to himself.

"Five years it's been," he muttered. "Five years since I turned him
loose again. Five years of agony for me, wondering what new devilish
crimes he was perpetrating, wondering when he would return to that
little farm to swing his ax again. Five years--five years."

He came over to me, and without a word of explanation or to ask my
permission he reached his hand into my pocket and drew out my revolver,
and I did not protest.

"He said he was headed for Shelton," went on Hammersly's spoken
thoughts. "If I slip across the ice I can intercept him at Black's
woods." Buttoning his coat closely, he followed the stranger out into
the night.

* * * * *

I was glad the moon had come up for my walk home, glad too when I had
the door locked and propped with a chair behind me. I undressed in the
dark, not wanting any grisly, sunken-eyed monster to be looking in
through the window at me. For maybe, so I thought, maybe he was after
all not headed for Shelton, but perhaps planning on another of his
ghastly tricks.

But in the morning we knew he had been going toward Shelton. Scientists,
doctors, and learned men of all descriptions came out to our village to
see the thing the papers said Si Waters had stumbled upon when on his
way to the creamery that next morning.

It was a skeleton, they said, only that it had a dry skin all over it. A
mummy. Could not have been considered capable of containing life only
that the snow around it was lightly blotched with a pale smear that
proved to be blood, that had oozed out from the six bullet holes in the
horrid chest. They never did solve it.

There were five of us in the store that night. Five of us who know.
Hammersly did what we all wanted to do. Of course his name is not really
Hammersly, but it has done here as well as another. He is
black-whiskered though, and he is still very much of a sphinx, but he'll
never have to answer for having killed the man he once brought back to
life. Hammersly's secret will go into five other graves besides his
own.