Amazing Stories, Vol. 2, No. 1 — page 46: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ee => ¢ a! a a 4 Gre yh" + Bo Bo THE MAN IN THE ROOM ——the shutters of the Treasurer’s Office were fast- ened. Trant could not remember ever before hav- ing seen the shutters closed on University Hall. They had stood open until, on many, the hinges had rusted solid. He glanced at Dr. Reiland, who shuddered, but straightened again, stiffly. “There must be a gas leak,” Trant commented, sniffing, as they entered the empty building. But the white-faced man beside him paid no heed, as they sped down the corridor. N both sides of them were doors with high, ground-glass transoms, and as they advanced toward the corridor door of Dr. Lawrie’s office the smell of gas grew stronger. Dr. Reiland tried it; but Trant stooped to the keyhole and found it plugged with paper. He caught the transom bar, set his foot upon the knob and, drawing himself up, pushed against the transom. It resisted; but he pounded it in, and, as its glass panes fell tinkling, the fumes of illuminating gas burst out and choked him. “A foot,” he called down to his trembling com- panion, as he peered into the darkened room. ‘Some one on the lounge!”’ Dropping down, he threw his strong shoulder vainly against the door. Reiland hurried to a recitation room across the corridor and dragged out a heavy table. Together they drove a corner of this against the lock; it broke, and as the door whirled back on its hinges the fumes of gas poured forth, stifling them and driving them back. Head lowered, Trant rushed in, threw up the three win- dows, one after the other, and beat open the shut- ters. He leaped upon the flat-topped desk under the gas fixtures in the center of the room and turned off the four jets from which the gas was pouring. Darting across the hall, he opened the windows of the room opposite. At once the strong morning breeze eddied through the building, clearing the gas before it. It set doors swinging, and, unnoticed at the moment, while Dr. Reiland with tears streaming from his eyes knelt by the body of his lifelong friend, it lifted from a metal tray upon the desk scores of frag- ments of charred paper which scattered over the room, over the floor and furniture, over even the couch where the still figure lay, with its white face drawn and contorted. Reiland arose and touched his old friend’s hand, his voice breaking. “He has been dead for hours. Oh, Lawrie!” Through the open windows the view embraced a dozen recitation halls and laboratories. The great buildings, so silent now, in a very few moments would be echoing to the tread of hundreds of stu- dents. As the two men stood beside the dead body of him in whose charge had been all finances of this great institution, their eyes met, and in those of Trant was a silent question. Reddening and paling by turns, Reiland answered it, “No, Trant, nothing lies behind this death. Whether it was on purpose or by accident, no secret, no disgrace, drove him to it. That I know.” ° The young: man’s oddly mismated eyes glowed ake’ aera cs ais Pp Vs DrmAN aes ret as r Vie me pec? 2 Sy gs err: Fey ah ps Ss we a ¥ 3 ee ae Fav fares oe Moe nhs Cos 4 Pere «3 Es vai I Deine mais . ® stig ; a 3 . age iy FAS. “ _ er eA , - 4 “a ss *. : ON oo iu a fe ae us pike 5 ‘~< ee Sieg 2% eS Res ty ia pipe A ee > ern. ee = . ho oe i Nee ‘ i a. = > on aT al th bn nonast Rae Ee Sot tres Oran, he ‘ - ekg © 7 it a J 45 into his, questioningly. “We must get President Joslyn,” he said. While he was at the telephone, Dr. Reiland swept the fragments of glass across the sill, and closed the door and windows. Already feet were sounding in the corridors; and the rooms about were fast filling before Trant made out the president’s thin figure, an overcoat across its shoulders, bending against the wind as he hurried across the campus. Dr. Joslyn’s swift glance as Trant opened the door to him—a glance which, in spite of the stu- ‘dent pallor of his high-boned face, marked the man of action—considered and comprehended all. “Who laid Lawrie there?” he asked sharply after an instant. : “He laid himself there,” Reiland softly replied. “Tt was there we found him.” Trant put his finger on a scratch on the wall paper made by the sharp corner of the davenport lounge; the corner was still white with plaster. Plainly, the lounge had been violently pushed out of its position, scratching the paper. Dr. Joslyn’s eyes passed on about the room, passed by Reiland’s appeal, met Trant’s direct look and followed it to the smaller desk beside the dead Treasurer’s. He opened the door to his own office. “When Mr. Harrison comes,” he commanded, “tell him I wish to see him. The Treasurer’s Office will not be opened this morning.” “Harrison is late,” he commented, as he returned to the others. “He usually is here by seven-thirty.” Harrison was Dr. Lawrie’s secretary and assistant. “Now give me the particulars,” the president said, turning to Trant. “They are all before you,” Trant replied briefly. “The room was filled with gas. These four outlets of the fixture were turned full on. And besides,” he touched now with his fingers four lava burner tips which lay upon the table, “these tips had been removed, probably with these pliers that lie beside them. Where the tool came from I do not know.” “They belong here,” Joslyn answered, absently. “Lawrie had the tinkering habit.” He opened a lower desk drawer, filled with tools and nails and screws, and dropped ‘the nippers into it. “The door was looked inside? 2?” inquired the Presi- dent. “Yes, it is a spring lock,” Trant answered. Dr. Joslyn straightened, and his eyes met Rei- land’s almost sternly. “Reiland,” he demanded, “you have been closer to Lawrie than any other man. What was the cause of this?” “T have been close’ to him,” the old man answered bravely. “You and I, Joslyn, were almost his only friends. We, at least, should know there can have been no—real reason. Lawrie’s life has been open as noonday.” “Yet he had been burning papers.” The president pointed quietly to the metal tray. Dr. Reiland winced. “Some one had been burning papers,” Trant softly interpolated. “Some one?” The president looked up sharply. “These ashes were all in the tray. I think,” Trant =e Ycomich Beak ‘com