Page:Weird Tales Volume 4 Number 3 (1924-11).djvu/32

FOR the fifth time in less than an hour the call bell clanged noisily. Automatically Verne Eldridge, the orderly, rose from his chair and slipped silently down the dimly lit corridor of the old Berlin hospital. Merely another fretful patient demanding attention. Eldridge sighed. He possessed an adventure-loving soul and a capacity for daring which, during the war, had helped to make him one of the most trusted and efficient members of the American intelligence department, and which naturally enough chafed mightily under the monotony of his present forced inaction.

Not but that his position even now was sufficiently dangerous. Eldridge was well aware that he had escaped the Wilhelmstrasse agents by what seemed a miracle. He knew that as long as they believed him to be in Germany, and thus far there had been absolutely no opportunity for escape, they would be constantly on the alert for his capture and arrest. Though the armistice had been signed, Eldridge well knew that one who had done so much as himself towards the downfall of the Kaiser's forces would have earned the private vengeance of the imperialists. Even now he was convinced from certain veiled remarks that Doctor Jaeger, the physician in charge, suspected his secret. Eldridge was treading on very thin ice and was fully aware of the fact. He had been employed as orderly in the hospital for nearly two months now, posing as a wounded German soldier of whose papers he had possessed himself, and he knew that it was only a matter of time before the ruse would be discovered.

It was well into March of 1919. The night was cold and foggy, and fitful gusts of rain were dashed against the windows by the high wind which had come up at sunset. The gale moaned and shrieked among the towers and turrets of the ancient pile, which trembled slightly under the heavier shocks. A fitting night for murder and crime of all sorts, thought the impressionable Eldridge, as he sleepily made his way back to his room.

As he approached the stairs leading to the basement, he perceived Dr. Jaeger himself standing beside them in a rather listless attitude. Although it was three o'clock in the morning, it was nothing unusual for the famous scientist and research worker to keep even later hours in his private laboratory. At present he was standing relaxed, smoking a cigaret. and no doubt planning his next day's research program. A slender, erect man of medium height was the doctor, with sharp, strong features accentuated by a neatly trimmed black beard. Rumors were afloat in scientific circles regarding certain experiments successfully carried out by Jaeger in the preservation of living tissues in special liquids, although as yet he had given out nothing to the world. The doctor had previously come into renown from several chemical innovations pertain-

31