The Malignant Entity Read Free Page B

interrupted by the chief.
    “Theories be damned!” he snapped. “Work on your theories if you want to. This thing has gone too far. I'm going to get some facts'.” He swung on the four men behind him. “Search the house,” he said. “Look sharp for anything of a suspicious nature. An infernal machine, perhaps, or a blood sucking animal. There is a man-killer of some kind, human or otherwise, hidden in this house, and it’s our business to find it.”
    When the men. had departed he stepped over Rooney’s skeleton.
    “I’ll search this room myself,” he said.
    He did, with professional thoroughness, looking for hidden panels and sounding the walls, both in the open areas and behind the shelves, for hollow spaces. Then he began opening the drawers in a tall cabinet that stood in one corner, disclosing surgical and dissecting instruments of various kinds, an indexed set of microscope slides with some extra lenses, platinum dishes; porcelain drying pans, crucibles, glass rods and tubing, pipettes, rubber tubing and stoppers, rubber gloves and aprons, and other miscellaneous laboratory paraphernalia.
    The bottom drawer of the cabinet was quite large and deep. The chief cried out excitedly when he saw its contents.
    “Good Lord! Look at that!” he exclaimed.
    It was filled to the top with dry, white bones. “Nothing but the bones of small animals,” said Dr. Doi’p, picking up a skull. “This, for instance, is the skull of a dog.” Then, taking up another: “Here is the skull of a rabbit. Notice the characteristic chisel-shaped teeth. This one beside it once supported the be-whiskered countenance of a common house cat.”
    “What do you suppose he was doing with them ?” asked the chief.
    “It is my belief that they were brought here to be killed and devoured by the same thing that killed the professor and Rooney.”
    “And that thing is—”
    “At present, merely a shadowy theory, although it most certainly has an existence. There is a power in this house that is a menace to everyone under this roof—a malignant entity that destroys human beings in some mysterious manner unparalleled in the annals of science or human experience. This much we know, reasoning from effects. Reasoning from possible causes we are aware that the hobby of Professor Townsend was the endeavor to create a living thing from inorganic matter, and putting the two together it seems to me that the logical hypothesis would be that he either succeeded in creating a monster of a sort unknown to biologists, or discovered and developed unheard of powers and habits in a creature already known.” “If there’s such a thing in this house, believe me I’m going to find it,” said the chief, stamping out of the room.
    “Now that we have a few moments to ourselves,” said Dr. Dorp when McGraw had departed, “let us conduct a search, or rather an inquiry on our own account. I perceive that we have a very excellent compound microscope at our disposal and am curious to examine the liquid which-has so mysteriously risen and changed color in the tank.”
    He took a blank slide from the cabinet drawer and a small glass rod from the table. As he was about to dip the rod in the liquid he uttered a low exclamation of surprise.
    “What’s up now?” I asked.
    “This amazing liquid has again become transparent,” he replied. “The red tint is gone.”
    He plunged the tip of the rod into the viscous liquid, twisted it slightly and withdrew it. Although the liquid seemed quite heavy it slipped from the end of the rod much after the manner of the white of an egg. After considerable juggling he succeeded in obtaining a small amount which he smeared on the slide. He then placed the slide in position and adjusted the microscope with a practiced hand.
    “Well,” I asked, after he had peered into the eyepiece for a full ten minutes, “what is the stuff, anyway?”.
    “Here, look for yourself,” he replied.
    What I saw in the field of the microscope