Burn, Witch, Burn!

I transferred the slide to the micro-manipulator, hoping to isolate the corpuscle, and touched it with the

tip of the manipulating needle. At the instant of contact the corpuscle seemed to burst. The globe of

phosphorescence appeared to flatten, and something like a miniature flash of heat-lightning ran over the

visible portion of the slide.

And that was all-the phosphorescence was gone.

We prepared and examined slide after slide. Twice more we found a tiny shining globe, and each time

with the same result, the bursting corpuscle, the strange flicker of faint luminosity-then nothing.

The laboratory 'phone rang. Hoskins answered.

"It's Braile. He wants you-quick."

"Keep after it, Hoskins," I said, and hastened to Peters' room. Entering, I saw Nurse Walters, face chalk

white, eyes closed, standing with her back turned to the bed. Braile was leaning over the patient,

stethoscope to his heart. I looked at Peters; and stood stock still, something like a touch of unreasoning

panic at my own heart. Upon his face was that look of devilish expectancy, but intensified. As I looked, it

gave way to the diabolic joy, and that, too, was intensified. The face held it for not many seconds. Back

came the expectancy then on its heels the unholy glee. The two expressions alternated, rapidly. They

flickered over Peters' face like-like the flickers of the tiny lights within the corpuscles of his blood. Braile

spoke to me through stiff lips:

"His heart stopped three minutes ago! He ought to be dead-yet listen-"

The body of Peters stretched and stiffened. A sound came from his lips-a chuckling sound; low yet

singularly penetrating, inhuman, the chattering laughter of a devil. The gunman at the window leaped to his

feet, his chair going over with a crash. The laughter choked and died away, and the body of Peters lay

limp.

I heard the door open, and Ricori's voice: "How is he, Dr. Lowell? I could not sleep-" He saw Peters'

face.

"Mother of Christ!" I heard him whisper. He dropped to his knees.

I saw him dimly for I could not take my eyes from Peters' face. It was the face of a grinning, triumphant

fiend-all humanity wiped from it-the face of a demon straight out of some mad medieval painter's hell.

The blue eyes, now utterly malignant, glared at Ricori.

And as I looked, the dead hands moved; slowly the arms bent up from the elbows, the fingers

contracting like claws; the dead body began to stir beneath the covers-

At that the spell of nightmare dropped from me; for the first time in hours I was on ground that I knew. It

was the rigor mortis, the stiffening of death-but setting in more quickly and proceeding at a rate I had

never known.

I stepped forward and drew the lids down over the glaring eyes. I covered the dreadful face.

I looked at Ricori. He was still on his knees, crossing himself and praying. And kneeling beside him, arm

around his shoulders, was Nurse Walters, and she, too, was praying.

Somewhere a clock struck five.

CHAPTER II: THE QUESTIONNAIRE

I offered to go home with Ricori, and somewhat to my surprise he accepted with alacrity. The man was

pitiably shaken. We rode silently, the tight-lipped gunmen alert. Peters' face kept floating before me.

I gave Ricori a strong sedative, and left him sleeping, his men on guard. I had told him that I meant to

make a complete autopsy.

Returning to the hospital in his car, I found the body of Peters had been taken to the mortuary. Rigor

mortis, Braile told me, had been complete in less than an hour-an astonishingly short time. I made the

necessary arrangements for the autopsy, and took Braile home with me to snatch a few hours sleep. It is

difficult to convey by words the peculiarly unpleasant impression the whole occurrence had made upon

me. I can only say that I was as grateful for Braile's company as he seemed to be for mine.

When I awoke, the nightmarish oppression still lingered, though not so strongly. It was about two when

we began the autopsy. I lifted the sheet from Peters' body with noticeable hesitation. I stared at his face

with amazement. All diabolism had been wiped away. It was serene, unlined-the face of a man who had

died peacefully, with no agony either of body or mind. I lifted his hand, it was limp, the whole body

flaccid, the rigor gone.

It was then, I think, that I first felt full conviction I was dealing with an entirely new, or at least unknown,

agency of death, whether microbic or otherwise. As a rule, rigor does not set in for sixteen to twenty-four

hours, depending upon the condition of the patient before death, temperature and a dozen other things.

Normally, it does not disappear for forty-eight to seventy-two hours. Usually a rapid setting-in of the

stiffening means as rapid a disappearance, and vice versa. Diabetics stiffen quicker than others. A sudden

brain injury, like shooting, is even swifter. In this case, the rigor had begun instantaneously with death,

and must have completed its cycle in the astonishingly short time of less than five hours-for the attendant