The William P. McGivern Fantasy MEGAPACK™: 25 Classic Fantasy Stories from the Pulps

First published in Fantastic Adventures, November 1942.

Chapter I

The man lying on the bed in the dingy room was flabby and pale; his bloated cheeks were shadowed with two days’ growth of beard; his eyes were a weak watery blue.

A sharp, insistent knock sounded suddenly on the door and the man on the bed raised himself on one elbow. He was wearing cheap, flashy clothes that were now baggy and wrinkled.

“Who is it?” he said.

“You know right enough who it is,” an angry feminine voice shouted back. “It’s Mrs. MacDougal and I want none of your fine airs, Silas Harker. You can’t lay around in my rooms day after day and give me nothing but your malarkey when it comes time to pay-up. If you don’t pay up today, out you go and no mistake.”

Silas Harker climbed to his feet and slouched across the room, his face set in bitter lines. He opened the door. Mrs. MacDougal was standing in the narrow, dirty hall, arms akimbo. She was a solid, stout woman with a red face and graying hair.

“I want my rent money,” she said bluntly. “You owe me now for three weeks. If you can’t pay up, out you go and no mistake. I’m tired of your shilly-shallying. It’s hard enough to run an honest—”

“Let’s don’t go into that,” Silas Harker said wearily. He fished into his vest pocket and brought forth the carefully preserved stub of a cigarette, lit it and blew a cloud of smoke toward the dirty ceiling. He ran a pale thin hand over his whiskered, sallow cheeks and regarded his landlady with bitter eyes.

“You’ll get your money,” he said. “And when I pay you I’ll leave this flea-infested fire trap so fast your eyes will blink. When I say goodbye to this hole and to your fish-wife nagging I’ll be the happiest man in the city of Chicago. Don’t think I’m staying here because I like it.”

“Well,” Mrs. MacDougal said, slightly taken aback by the venom in his voice, “that’s a fine way to repay my goodness to you. Here I’ve let you stay in my house, trusting you ’till you found some work, and now you flare at me like an ungrateful dog. I like your crust, I do.”

“Well, thank you for your charity,” Harker said with heavy sarcasm. His face tightened and his eyes changed to a wild, angry gleam. “I could buy fifty hovels like this,” he snarled, “if it weren’t—”

“More of your big talk,” Mrs. MacDougal broke in impatiently. “I’ve heard enough of it and no mistake. If you had a rich father and he did cut you out of the will, like you’re always claimin’, I can surely understand why. You’re nothin’ but an ungrateful pup, Silas Harker, and I’ve had enough of your alibis and airs. Out you go tonight unless you pay-up in full. And no mistake about it.”

With a final glare Mrs. MacDougal turned and clumped off down the corridor. Silas Harker stared after her bitterly, before re-entering his room and stretching out again on the bed. He reached automatically for the bottle on the night table and poured himself a drink of the cheap whisky it contained.

He drained the glass at a single gulp. The fiery liquor burned his throat, almost gagging him. He lay back on the bed, gasping, feeling the warming effect of the whisky coursing through his body. A spot of color tinged his cheeks and he felt stronger.

“Damn her,” he said, “damn her to hell.”

There was a dry chuckle from the doorway.

“So,” a soft voice said, “you do not approve of our excellent landlady, t-h?”

Silas Harker raised himself on an elbow and squinted at the man standing in the doorway of his room. He was a small man, stooped and bent, with a bald, domed head and bright, piercing eyes. Harker recognized him as one of the tenants of the rooming house, a Dr. Something-or-other, who occupied a room a few doors from his own.

Harker lay back on the bed and reached again for the bottle.

“No I don’t,” he said. He finished his drink and looked at the Doctor, who was still standing in the doorway, watching him with his hard bright eyes. “But I can’t see where it’s any of your business,” he added.

“You are in a charming mood, today,” the Doctor said with mild irony. “Do you mind if I come in?”

Silas Harker shrugged.

“Come ahead if you care to. But if you’re here to borrow money, save your breath.”

The Doctor entered the room and closed the door carefully behind him. He seated himself on the spare chair.

“That is not the purpose of my visit,” he said.

“Then what’s the angle?” Harker asked, squinting cynically at him. “Don’t tell me yours is an errand of mercy, comforting the forlorn and needy, or something like that?”

“Hardly,” the Doctor said. “I’m not a philanthropist. My presence here is the result of a very mundane and materialistic idea. There is nothing noble or altruistic in my idea; but there might be a handsome profit in it — for both of us.”

Harker looked at him to make sure that he was serious. The Doctor’s small pinched face was perfectly grave and his eyes were as sharp as daggers. Harker sat up and swung his feet to the floor.

“Okay,” he said, “I’m listening. But I am not in the mood for jokes.”

“This is no joke. First, let me introduce myself. I am Doctor Henrich Zinder. During the last war I was with the Imperial German Army’s medical corps. Since then—”

Harker nodded. “You’ve been on your uppers.” His glance touched the Doctor’s frayed clothes briefly. “You look it. Now get to the point. What’s this profitable deal you spoke about?”

“You are right,” Doctor Henrich Zinder said. “I have been, as you say, on my uppers. But I have not been idle. I have continued to work on my experiments, but the stupid morons of the medical world refuse even to listen to what I have accomplished. And I have accomplished miracles.”

“Okay,” Harker said. “Granting all that, I’m still waiting to hear your proposition. The world is full of crackpots, Doctor, who think they’ve accomplished miracles; so you’re sales talk had better be convincing.”

Doctor Zinder smiled faintly.

“I know what you are thinking,” he said, “but if you will hear me out I think I can change your opinion of me. First, let me ask you, Mr. Harker, what are your plans for the immediate future?”

“Why?” Harker said surlily. “My plans happen to be my own business. Oh, I guess it doesn’t make any difference anyway, though.” He lit a cigarette with a nervous hand. “I’m going into the army, I suppose. There’s nothing else to do. I’m thirty-five, in fair health, so I’ll be inducted in a few months.”

Doctor Zinder leaned forward. The light from the window gleamed on his high-domed bald head. His little eyes were sharp and speculative.

“Do you want to go into the army?” he asked. “Do you want to trade your freedom for a miserable pittance each month? Are you looking forward to wearing coarse woolen uniforms, eating slop, drilling under hot suns until you’re ready to collapse? Will it be pleasant to have some illiterate sergeant order you about like a dog?”

Harker sucked slowly on his cigarette.

“That’s dangerous talk in these times,” he said softly. “Supposing I reported you for what you’ve just said?”

“I don’t think you will,” Dr. Zinder smiled. “You see, I know you pretty well. I know how you feel about these things. And you may trust me, Silas Harker.”

“Why should I trust you?” Harker said coldly.

“Hear me out. It is true, is it not, that your father was a very wealthy man?”

“Yes,” Harker said with savage bitterness, “that’s true. My father’s estate right now is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. And I’m forced to live in a hovel like this, hardly knowing where my next miserable meal is coming from. But what’s that to you?”

“I feel for you, my boy,” Doctor Zinder said gently. “I appreciate what a grave injustice has been done you. So touched was I by your plight that I determined to do something about it. And I think possibly I have hit upon a scheme which might help you to regain what is rightfully yours. That is the profitable idea I have mentioned.”

“If you’re thinking about breaking my father’s will, it’s impossible,” Harker said. “I’ve seen the best lawyers in the country about that and none of them has given me the slightest hope. My father disowned and disinherited me for—” He broke off and glared at the Doctor. “Why he disinherited me is none of your business.”

“I know why he disinherited you,” Doctor Zinder said, smiling. “I mentioned that I knew you rather well. I have gone to considerable trouble to look up your background. It was that little matter of the disappearance of quite a sum of money from his wall safe, wasn’t it? That, plus your drinking and gambling and other ungentlemanly habits you picked up here and there.”

Silas Harker ran a hand over his slack jaw. The muscles in his pale face twitched uncontrollably. The strength seemed to flow from his veins. His thin courage melted and he stared nervously at the Doctor.

“You’ve gone to a lot of trouble to look me up,” he said weakly.

“Yes,” Doctor Zinder said carefully, “I have. But do not be alarmed, my boy. My investigations were for our mutual benefit. Let me ask you this: Have you ever read your father’s will?”

“Yes. The entire estate is willed to an elderly couple who kept house for him. They are having rather a hard time getting along while the will is being probated, but in a few months they come into all of his money and they’ll be set for life. A stupid, senile pair of fools, that’s what they are.”

“That is right,” Doctor Zinder said. “And you are left, as you say, out in the cold. However, there is one important clause in the will which is interesting. If,” the doctor tapped his finger carefully on his knee, “you are in any way incapacitated and unable to earn a living for yourself, the property reverts to you. You are aware of that?”

“Of course,” Harker said irritably. “But there’s nothing wrong with me. Just my luck to be good army-bait and nothing else.”

“Now we are finally getting around to my little proposition,” Doctor Zinder said. “What would be your reaction if I were to tell you that it is possible for me to arrange things so that you will come into your rightful inheritance and stay out of the army?” Harker stared at the Doctor and a slow excitement crept through his thoughts.

“Do you realize what you’re saying?” he said hoarsely. “If you could fix things — but no! It’s impossible. It can’t be done.”

“I would not be so sure of that, my boy,” Doctor Zinder said. “I say definitely that it can be one, but—” He paused and studied Harker thoughtfully, a faint humorless smile curving his lips.

“But what?” Harker cried. He stood up, towering over the slight figure of the doctor, his fists clenched. “Tell me, damn you,” he said excitedly. “I won’t be played with like a baby.”

“Calmly, my friend,” Doctor Zinder said. “Listen to me carefully now. If you were to — ah — lose a leg you would thereby become eligible to benefit under the terms of your father’s will. Is that not so?”

Harker sank back on the bed, his eyes widening with horror.

“Yes,” he said thickly, “then I would—” His voice faltered and he stared at the doctor’s wrinkled face with sudden revulsion. “Is that your plan?” he cried. Panic rose in his breast as the doctor continued to regard him in silence. “Yes, that is your idea! You want to hack me up like a butchered hog, don’t you?”

“You are leaping to conclusions,” the Doctor murmured. “Part of what you say is true, I admit, but hear me out. In the years since I left Germany I have experimented exclusively with amputation and artificial grafting. The results I have obtained would rock the medical world were they known. I have perfected a technique of grafting human limbs onto live bodies. Skin grafting is common but I undertook to graft the muscles, bone and nerves together in the same manner. Do you see now what I am getting at?”

Harker pressed his hands to his temples. His brain seemed to be racing furiously, but he was unable to think coherently.

“No, no,” he gasped, “I don’t know what you mean and I don’t want to know.”

“I will be explicit. If you lost a leg in an accident you would become the beneficiary of your father’s will, for you would be incapacitated and unable to support yourself. Also you would be deferred from military service. That much you can follow, yes? Good. Now listen carefully. I can give you a new leg. A flesh and blood leg as good or better than the one you will lose. This operation will only take a few months. At the end of that time you will have a perfect leg. No one will know of this. It will be presumed that you have gotten yourself an artificial leg. You will have the complete estate of your father and freedom to do as you please; for the army doctors will have deferred you from service. Do you understand now what I mean?”

“Y — yes,” Harker faltered. “I see.” He looked guiltily about the room, as if fearful of being overheard. “But how do I know you can get me a new leg? If you fail I’ll go through life a cripple, helpless—”

“Even if I did fail,” the doctor said, “it would not be too bad. You would have money, life would be pleasant for you.”

“No!” Harker cried hoarsely. He looked down at his legs and shuddered. “I must be sure.”

“Do not be alarmed,” Doctor Zinder said. “I said ‘if’ I failed. I will not fail. You do not have to take my word for that. I will let you examine completely the record of my experiments over the past twenty-five years and you will see things that I have done. Have no fear. You will be convinced. Within three months after you lose your leg I will have grafted another one in place for you. And it will be a perfect leg.”

“Why are you doing this for me?” Harker said. “What do you want out of this deal for yourself?”

“When you inherit your father’s estate you will be a wealthy man. I need money. We will work something out that will be satisfactory to both of us, I think. That is a trifle.” Harker stood up and paced up and down the floor. Tiny beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. He ran a hand through his thinning, sandy hair. His mind ran in circles like a caged rat. Doubts assailed him and his skin grew feverish. Amputation! The word had a horrible sound. A cold, gleaming knife poised to slice— No! He bit his lower lip until the salty taste of the blood was in his mouth.

But his greed was great. The thought of his father’s money, tantalizingly close to his grasp, was maddening. All the things he had lusted for in his poverty would be his again, if he took this step. Could he trust this man?

“You want money?” he said jerkily to the doctor.

“That is correct.”

Harker’s breath became ragged as his suspicion grew.

“Why don’t you sell this technique of yours?” he snarled. “That should bring you millions. Damn you, what’s your game?”

“Who would buy it?” Doctor Zinder said gently. “The government? Hardly. They might take it, use it, but such things are never sold. They become public property when their discovery is announced. It is not so much altruism but the force of public opinion that makes doctors release the rights of their discoveries for the public welfare. Also there is a slight matter of pride. The fools have ridiculed my ideas and theories for two decades. Am I to crawl to them again, begging respectfully that they take my grafting technique as a gift? In that case I would not even receive the credit for the discovery.”

“All right, all right,” Harker snapped. He paced the floor, thudding his right fist into his left hand. He stopped suddenly in front of the doctor.

“Where will you get the leg?” he demanded.

Doctor Zinder smiled and his face was unpleasantly shadowed.

“That is a mere detail,” he murmured. “You may leave that in my hands. Have you made up your mind?”

Harker’s breath came in shuddering gasps and his fingers were tightened into straining fists.

“Yes,” he said, “I’ve made up my mind.”

Chapter II

Five weeks later Silas Harker was wheeled into the luxuriously furnished private office of Counselor Morton Fortescue, senior partner of the law firm of Fortescue and Higgins.

Harker was in a wheel chair. One shod foot was visible against the foot-rest of the chair. The other was conspicuously missing.

Counselor Fortescue was seated behind a wide mahogany desk. At his side were an elderly, white-haired couple, with bewildered, apprehensive expressions on their tired faces. There was a secretary at the opposite side of the desk with a notebook pad in her hand.

Counselor Fortescue was a heavy-set man with pendulous jowls and snapping brown eyes. He looked up and nodded to Silas Harker.

“It’s been some time, Silas, since I’ve seen you,” he said. “Sorry to meet you again under such — er — unhappy circumstances.”

Harker smiled wanly but didn’t answer. His face was pale and drawn and there were lines about his mouth that had not been there a month before. But his eyes were sharp with a new cunning and sense of power.

“You — er — may come up closer to the desk,” Counselor Fortescue said. “It will be easier for us all if we can hear each other clearly.”

Harker looked over his shoulder. Doctor Zinder was standing impassively behind the wheel chair.

“Doctor, I do not believe you have met Mr. Fortescue, my father’s attorney.”

Doctor Zinder bowed and smiled stiffly.

“It is a pleasure, Counselor.”

“How do you do?” Fortescue said, as Doctor Zinder moved Harker’s chair slowly to the side of the desk. He cleared his throat and glanced down at the papers on his desk. Then he raised his eyes to Silas. “As you know Silas you father’s will was not made in your favor. The bulk of the estate, he left to Mr. and Mrs. Mason, who, as you know, were his only servants for the last twenty five years of his life. You, I am sure, remember the Masons favorably.” He smiled reassuringly at the white-haired couple at his side.

Harker looked up at the two old people, who stood, hands clasped together, watching the scene with troubled eyes.

“I remember the Masons,” he said. He nodded to them and turned his gaze again to the lawyer. “Please go on.”

“However,” Counselor Fortescue said, “there was a provision in your father’s will stipulating that you would become the beneficiary if you should in any way be disabled or incapacitated.” His gaze wavered from Harker’s and dropped to the one shoe visible against the foot rail of the wheel chair. He coughed and mopped his brow with a handkerchief. “Since your unfortunate accident you have become, under the terms of the will, your father’s sole beneficiary. However there are a few things remaining to be cleared up.”

“What things?” Harker asked quickly.

“First, I must have a complete report of how the accident occurred, to add to the account we already have. It is a formality, but unfortunately a necessary one. Dr. Zinder, I believe, was the surgeon who performed the operation?”

“Yes,” said Harker.

“That is excellent,” the lawyer said. He leaned back in his chair. “Suppose you tell us, Doctor, the circumstances surrounding the operation. My secretary will take complete notes and we will have this business over with.”

“You have made several references to accident,” Doctor Zinder said quietly. “It was not an accident, but a gangrenous infection that necessitated the operation. Mr. Harker has rooms in the establishment where I reside. A simple scratch on his leg resulted in the infection. When he asked me to examine him it was too late for anything but emergency measures. I performed the operation in my room. I am a licensed surgeon and I have the necessary equipment in my rooms. That is all there is to the matter. It is extremely unfortunate for Mr. Harker that he did not have his cut taken care of immediately, but there is nothing that can be done about that now.”

“I see,” Fortescue said. He tapped a pencil against the sheets of paper on his desk and frowned. “In that case there is no need to take up any more of your time. I will have the necessary papers drawn up. A few signatures will be necessary and then your father’s estate will be in your hands.”

“Thank you,” Harker said.

“There is just one more thing,” Fortescue said. He smiled at the elderly couple beside him. “Mr. and Mrs. Mason served your father long and faithfully and it was obviously his wish that they be taken care of. This change in the will has left them in extremely difficult straits. Now, just as a suggestion, I think it might be a nice gesture if you were to give them something in the way of a pension to take care of their simple wants. A thousand or two a year would do it nicely and — er — you can see it won’t be for many years.” Harker looked thoughtfully at the Masons and then at Morton Fortescue.

“Would they have done it for me?” he inquired mildly.

“Why, my boy,” Fortescue said in surprise, “I thought you knew. They had made arrangements to provide you with a yearly income for life out of the estate. They felt distressed that you had been left out completely, and they felt your father wouldn’t mind too much. I had all the papers drawn, but of course your unfortunate accident has changed everything.”

“So they were going to do that for me,” Harker said softly.

“Certainly,” Fortescue said heartily. “They’re wonderful people. It’s little wonder that your father thought so much of them. Now I’d suggest as a pension—”

“Mr. Fortescue,” Harker said icily, “in the future I can dispense with your advice and suggestions. The Masons were stupid fools if they thought one damn about me. Because they were going to make an addle-headed, sentimental gesture, does it follow that I have to be equally foolish? Certainly not.”

Morton Fortescue dropped his eyes to the desk and a flush stained his heavy face.

“I see,” he said. “I will send over the papers for your signature by messenger. Good day.”

Harker smiled thinly.

“Goodbye, Counselor,” he said lightly.

He was still smiling in comfortable satisfaction as Doctor Zinder turned his chair and wheeled him out of the office.

Chapter III

“Where’s my leg?”

Silas Harker shouted the question at Doctor Zinder He was seated in his wheel chair in a sumptuously furnished hotel suite and the doctor was regarding him blandly from the comfortable depths of an over-stuffed chair.

Harker’s hands were hooked like claws about the arms of his chair and his face was flushed with rage.

“You heard me!” he bellowed. “Don’t sit there and grin at me, damn you! Where is the leg you promised me? It’s been five months now since my operation. You’ve got all the money you need, haven’t you?”

“Yes, now that you mention it, I have plenty of money,” the doctor said calmly. He blew a lazy wreath of smoke toward the ceiling. “These things cannot be rushed, my boy. Securing just the exact type of leg I need for the operation is taking a little longer than I thought. You see it must be the leg of a man close to your own age and size. I have a prospect lined up for tonight and maybe luck will be with me this time.”

“You still haven’t told me how you’re going to get the leg,” Harker said. “Are you going to buy it? Who’d be foolish enough to sell a leg?”

“You were,” Doctor Zinder chuckled. “Shut up!” shouted Harker. “I did it only because I trusted you. I don’t want any more of your damn attempts at comedy, Zinder.”

He pulled the blanket closer about his lap and wheeled his chair sulkily away from the doctor. His gaze moved disconsolately over the rich furnishings of the room. They suddenly seemed a heavy, outrageous price to pay for his miserable helplessness.

Doctor Zinder stood and walked to the door.

“Au revoir, my impetuous friend.” He glanced at his watch. “I meet our new prospect in less than an hour. Perhaps when I return I shall have good news to report.”

When the doctor had gone Harker wheeled his chair to the wide double windows that commanded a view of the tossing gray lake and his eyes grew cold as he watched the white sails far out on the water and the swooping gulls playing tag with foamy-crested breakers that dashed against the shore.

Everything he gazed on seemed joyous and carefree and unfettered. His eyes dropped to his lap and a choking anger swept over him.

If Zinder had been lying to him... The thought was too much. Zinder couldn’t have fabricated all the records and photographs of experiments over the last two decades.

It was then, as he sat before the window watching the gray lake, that he decided Zinder must die. He wondered why the thought had never occurred to him before. Whether Zinder had lied to him or not, whether he accomplished the grafting of the new leg or not, was immaterial. The man knew too much and for that reason he would always be dangerous.

The thought of Zinder’s death gave him a measure of comfort. Harker was slightly surprised at the extent of his own callousness in this respect. He turned over in his mind a half dozen methods he could use to eliminate the doctor and he was pleased to discover that the process was a pleasant and stimulating pastime.

Once the decision to kill Zinder was made, he felt strangely relieved. He realized then that in all probability he had been subconsciously planning the man’s murder for months. It was all so logical and simple that it startled him. Zinder was the only man who could ever cause him trouble. No one in the world suspected that the amputation of his leg had been deliberate, and no one could possibly dream that he was planning to have a flesh and blood leg grafted onto his stump. Zinder, however, knew those things, and he was probably intending to blackmail him for the rest of his life when the operation was completed.

Harker chuckled out loud and the first smile in months touched his lips. What an unpleasant surprise was in store for the little German doctor!

For the rest of the afternoon he concentrated on ways and means. A gun would be simple and definite but the noise would create attention. The opportunities for poison were somewhat limited. That left the alternative of cold steel.

A knife would be perfect, Harker decided. He could easily conceal it in the folds of his blanket and when Zinder turned his back — that would be that.

There would then be the problem of disposing of the body, but he could figure out something without too much difficulty.

When Zinder returned to the hotel apartment it was dark. He closed the door hurriedly behind him and strode across the room to Harker. His face was flushed and his hands trembled as he lit a cigarette.

“Well, what luck?” Harker asked anxiously.

“I have the leg,” Zinder said. His eyes were flicking nervously about the room as he spoke.

Harker felt a thrill of excitement. He leaned forward in his chair, eyes blazing.

“You’ve got it?” he cried.

“Yes,” said Zinder.

“Wonderful! How soon can we start the operation?”

“Immediately. I’ve already sent for the car to take you to the laboratory. There is not a second’s time to lose. I must perform the operation before rigor mortis sets into the leg.”

“Rigor mortis!” Harker cried. “Then the leg has just been freshly amputated. Zinder, where is this leg? Where did you get it?”

“I’ve sent the leg on to the laboratory,” Zinder said. “Now stop bothering me with questions. You’ve got to get ready.”

“Zinder!” Harker cried desperately, “where did you get that leg? Whose was it? Where is that person now? I must know. You can’t possibly understand how I feel.”

“You’re behaving like a child,” Zinder snapped. “What difference does it make where I got the leg? It will be yours within twenty-four hours, you fool.”

“That’s why I must know,” Harker said.

“I will tell you this much,” Zinder said. “The former owner of the leg has no use for it now.”

Harker relaxed slowly in his chair.

“I feel better,” he said. “You got the leg then from the morgue, didn’t you?”

Doctor Zinder paused in the act of lighting a cigarette and studied Harker deliberately.

“You are being rather naive, my friend,” he murmured. “I had to take drastic measures to secure this particular leg. To be blunt, I had to murder the man.”

“Murder?” gasped Harker. “But—”

“Don’t act so shocked,” Doctor Zinder said coldly. “You don’t imagine I wanted to kill the fool, do you? It was the only thing I could do. I met him at a lonely spot far from the city. Everything was perfect except that his fondness for his leg was greater than the inducement of your cash. So I had to put him out of the way. Now stop babbling. The thing has been done. And if we’re going to perform a successful operation we must hurry.”

“But it seems so horrible,” Harker said in a stunned voice. He couldn’t account for the feeling of revulsion that gripped him. Not an hour before he had been pleasantly plotting Zinder’s death without the tiniest qualm of conscience. But this, somehow, seemed different. He passed a shaking hand over his forehead.

“All right,” he said, “I will get ready.”

His voice was heavy and dull and his arms seemed tired and old as he wheeled his chair toward the bedroom.

Chapter IV

Twenty-four hours later Silas Harker lay on an operation table in Doctor Zinder’s laboratory. A white sheet was draped over his body. His breathing was heavy and labored. Occasionally he twisted on the table and a feeble moan passed his lips.

Doctor Zinder worked swiftly and silently over him. For an hour there was no sound in the small room but the dry scraping sound of the scalpel and Harker’s rhythmic breathing. Finally Doctor Zinder laid aside his instruments and slipped his arms from the surgical dressing gown he was wearing.

An almost fanatical light of triumph was in his eyes as he studied the results of his work. He checked Harker’s pulse and then snapped out the gleaming battery of overhead lights.

When Harker awoke he stared without comprehension at the ceiling of the room. He felt sick and weak. Finally he realized that he was back at the hotel, in his own bedroom. Consciousness left him then, but he came to again in a few hours. He was able to raise his head from the pillow and glance down at his form, outlined under the thin bed covering. A quick exultation swept over him as he saw the outlines of two legs stretching toward the foot of the bed.

Zinder had done it!

That was his first deliriously happy thought. His new leg was bandaged tightly from hip to ankle and there was no sensation or feeling to it at all. It might have been a heavy bar of lead attached to his body — but Harker knew it wasn’t.

The bedroom door opened and Doctor Zinder appeared.

“How are you feeling?” he asked. “Fine,” Harker said, “fine. H — how did things go?”

“Excellent. I have every reason to believe that the operation was a complete success. Within a few weeks you should be up and walking. Do you feel anything in your recently acquired member?”

“Nothing,” Harker said.

“That is to be expected.”

“I haven’t tried to move it,” Harker said. “Would it hurt to try?”

“No, but you will not be able to move the muscles until the cast is removed. That will not be for a few days. Until then, just rest.”

A week later Zinder removed the cast from the new leg and Harker was able to sit up for the first time since the operation.

“You will not be able to walk for some time,” Zinder said. “It will take you a while to become accustomed to the leg. Have you tried to move the muscles yet?”

“No,” Harker said, “I–I’ve been afraid.”

“Nonsense, there is nothing to fear. The muscles and nerves should have mended by this time. It will not hurt to use them a little each day. In fact you must exercise this new leg to strengthen it. Try now.”

Harker leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. His new leg was stretched straight before him on a cushioned stool. Except for the ugly red incisions above the knee it was as perfect as his own leg. In fact, it was a good deal larger and more muscular than the leg with which Nature had endowed him.

“Try!” Doctor Zinder said. His voice cracked with authority. “You must!”

“I’m trying,” Harker gasped.

Sweat stood out on his brow and ran in tiny rivulets down his cheeks. His fingers gripped the arms of the chair until his knuckles whitened. Slowly, painfully, he flexed the new leg until the knee was lifted slightly from the stool.

“There!” Doctor Zinder cried triumphantly. “You have done it.”

Harker relaxed, breathing heavily. The leg sank back to its cushioned support.

“I did it,” Harker said tremulously. “You saw it, Doctor. I really moved it, didn’t I?”

“Of course,” Doctor Zinder said. “And you must continue to use it until it is as strong as your other leg.”

For two weeks Harker exercised his new leg religiously, until he felt that it was as strong and dependable as his own leg. He had not yet tried to walk on his new leg but that day, he knew, was not far away.

And when that day arrived he would have no further use for the good Doctor Zinder. The thought of the doctor’s death was a tonic to him during his days of convalescence.

Finally the day came when he walked. At first he took a few cautious steps about the room, then, growing bolder, he advanced cautiously into the living room and from there to the kitchen and eventually back to his bedroom.

He sank into his chair, breathing hard, but tremendously excited and happy. He had walked! That was all he had been waiting for. When his strength returned he walked to the kitchen and rummaged through the drawers until he found what he wanted — a slim, razor-sharp carving knife.

When Doctor Zinder returned he was sitting in his wheel chair, swaddled in blankets.

“Well,” the doctor said, striding toward him, “how did it go today?”

“Not so well,” Harker said weakly. “Something gave way while I was taking my exercises. The knee has been hurting like the devil ever since.”

“Hmmm,” the doctor said, “we’ll have to see about that.”

He bent down beside Harker’s chair and turned back the blanket.

“It looks all right,” he said quietly, “but I’ll make a complete examination.”

Harker smiled.

“I think that would be best,” he said.

His hand closed tenderly over the hilt of the knife.

“By the way, Doctor,” he said, “do you remember how you got this leg for me? You killed a man for it, didn’t you?”

“That is a subject which is closed,” Doctor Zinder said shortly.

“I’ve often wondered how you did it,” Harker said musingly. His eyes were measuring the exact spot on the doctor’s thin neck where he would plunge the knife. He derived an ironic satisfaction from talking about the man the doctor had murdered, while preparing to end the doctor’s own life. It was the perfect touch. His smile widened.

“Did you use a knife?” he asked.

“No. I stunned the man with a blow from behind.”

“Then,” Harker said softly, “you borrowed his leg.”

“Yes.”

“But the body?”

“It was a deserted section of the city. No remains will ever be found.” The doctor went on talking but Harker was not listening. He was not interested in what the doctor had done with the body. The time had come to strike.

“Does it still hurt?” Doctor Zinder asked.

“Very much,” Harker said.

Frowning, the doctor bent over the leg and his back was to Harker. Unhurriedly Harker drew the knife from the folds of the blanket and plunged it through the back of the doctor’s neck.

It was all over very quickly. The doctor lurched forward, a strangling, gurgling cry bursting from his throat. As he struck the floor he rolled over and for an instant Harker stared into the dying man’s hate-filled, impotently blazing eyes — and then the spark in those eyes went out forever.

There was quite a lot of blood and it took Harker several hours to clean up the mess. But when he finished he congratulated himself. The doctor’s body was in an asbestos lined trunk which was securely locked and bolted. The express company would pick the trunk up that afternoon and cart it to a river warehouse. Harker had made these arrangements in advance. The bloodstains had been removed from the carpeting and floor, the butcher knife was back in the kitchen drawer where it belonged.

Everything was perfect. It took him only a few moments to pack his bags and then he left the hotel. He did not intend to return. He was leaving the city that night. As he rode down in the elevator he felt magnificent. True he was a little weak from his exertions, but his new leg was strong and buoyant beneath him and he felt fine.

And Zinder was out of the way forever. That was another reason for his ebullient feelings. He was safe now from exposure. His life was his own, to live as he deemed.

Whistling, he strode through the lobby of the hotel and into the bright sunlight of Michigan Boulevard. He hailed a cab and directed the driver to take him to a downtown hotel. As long as he had the entire afternoon to kill he decided to get a little rest. With a contented sigh he leaned back and lighted a cigarette. His eye chanced to fall on an army recruiting poster as he was driven along and he smiled cynically.

“Suckers,” he thought.

Chapter V

He was tired when he got to his hotel room. His breath was short and he was perspiring freely. The new leg was the only part of his body that seemed fresh and strong. The muscles of his own leg were trembling with weariness. He sank gratefully onto the soft bed and stretched out, closing his eyes.

For several minutes he lay there, resting comfortably and musing on the delights of the existence that he would be soon enjoying. And then he noticed that his new leg was twitching strangely. He sat up, perplexed, and as he did, the leg swung off the bed and pulled him up to a standing position.

He stood beside the bed frowning bewilderedly. One instant he had been comfortably lying down, with no immediate intention of getting up; but now, here he was, on his feet. Perhaps he had imagined the entire thing. Maybe he only imagined that the leg, for an instant, had acted independently of his will.

The thought that it might not have been just imagination; had, in fact, actually happened, brought a chill sweat to his forehead.

For several seconds he pondered the happening uneasily, and he had just decided that it was an accidental reflex when the leg moved again, in a long step toward the door. Harker’s own leg moved automatically to keep him from his losing his balance and the other leg continued walking. Powerless to stop, Harker found himself striding across the room to the door.

He would have have crashed into the solid wood of the door if he hadn’t, at the last instant, jerked it open. He was in the hallway then, striding helplessly toward the emergency stairway that led to the street.

He was so confused and bewildered that he was unable to think coherently. The leg started determinedly down the steps and Harker could do nothing but follow. When he reached the street the leg turned sharply and headed for the downtown district with long swinging strides.

Harker fought down the panic mounting in his breast. Obviously there was some rational explanation for the leg’s conduct. Maybe the nerves and muscles of the leg were not as yet coordinated to his thinking processes and were acting with independent, automatic reflexes, like the twitching halves of a severed snake.

There was little comfort in this rationalization. The long strides of the leg forced his own leg to unaccustomed exertion to keep him from falling to the ground with each step. His breath was coming hard and he was perspiring freely after six or seven blocks, but stilt the leg gave no indication of slowing or stopping. When they reached the downtown area the leg apparently lost its determined purposefulness for it led Harker on an aimless, wandering tour of the Loop that lasted until darkness had come and lights were winking on from windows of the office buildings.

Harker was becoming dizzy with fatigue. His body ached and his mouth was parched and dry. Each breath was an effort that became increasingly hard to make. Hunger and thirst were gnawing at him but he was powerless to stop, even for a quick swallow of water. The leg was tireless. It marched along block after block, crossing streets, turning down alleys, retracing its pathway aimlessly and endlessly.

Finally, as the evening was wearing on toward midnight, the leg left the Loop and headed southward. Now there seemed to be a new purpose and direction in its movements and its strides grew longer, more determined.

Harker’s breath sounded like the rasping of dry paper; his body trembled with weariness, but he stumbled on helplessly. He tried to throw himself to the ground to gain a moment’s respite but the leg held him to its course with frightening strength.

Hysteria was plucking at him now, torturing his thoughts with a thousand mad possibilities. He didn’t dare ask himself the questions that hammered at his brain.

The Loop was now far behind. Harker’s hysterically gleaming eyes saw that he was passing through the city’s industrial district. The streets were deserted and the occasional lights cast a ghostly illumination against the crude, squat factory buildings.

The leg’s determined strides slackened noticeably as it turned and started up a dark side street. Halfway down the darkened street it stopped.

A sobbing cry of relief broke from Harker’s parched lips. This hellish business had finally come to an end. He leaned against the wall of a building until his giddy weakness passed and some of his strength returned.

But when he tried to move he found it impossible. The leg was firmly attached to the ground as if it had been rooted there. Harker made a dozen attempts to walk away but they were hopelessly futile. Sobbing, he sank back against the wall of the building. His wild staring eyes tried to pierce the gloomy darkness of the side street. There was no one in sight. The street was deserted.

Fear swept over him in shuddering shocks. What would happen to him? Was he doomed to remain rooted here until he died of thirst? He groaned and dropped his head into his hands. What madness had prompted him to enter into this terrible, inhuman situation? He cursed Doctor Zinder until he was weak and spent.

Suddenly he heard a footstep on the sidewalk. He jerked his head up and saw a bulky dark form moving slowly toward him. His tongue clove to the roof of his mouth and a shuddering hysteria swept over him.

The approaching figure stopped. “All right, buddy,” a voice from the darkness said. “What’s the idea? This ain’t a public park. Get moving?” Harker almost fainted with relief as he recognized the tone of authority and saw, as the man stepped closer, the uniform and badge he was wearing.

A light flashed in the darkness and a stab of illumination leaped into Harker’s face. He blinked in the glare.

“What’s the matter with you?” the officer demanded. “I ought to run you in for loitering here. This is a defense area, you know.”

Fear was again hammering at Harker. In the terror of his immediate predicament he had forgotten that he had the blood of Doctor Zinder on his hands. And the man holding the light in his face was an officer of the law, the law which Harker had brazenly flouted. He couldn’t afford to be arrested now.

“I–I just stopped to rest a minute,” he said weakly. “I’m sorry.”

“Well, get movin’ then.”

Sweat poured out of Harker’s pores as he tried frantically to walk away from the spot. But the leg was as firmly attached to the sidewalk as a stone post.

“What’s the matter with you?” the officer demanded suspiciously. “I told you to get movin’ didn’t I? What are you waiting for? A little help from my club?”

“N — no,” gasped Harker, “it’s just—”

Suddenly the leg came to life again. With a single stride it turned Harker around and started back toward the cross-street. Now it moved more rapidly, more determinedly than ever.

And Harker realized then that the leg had been looking for something. And now it seemed to have found the trail for which it had been seeking; for its strides were sure and steady.

His heart trembled with this realization. A sobbing cry choked in his throat and his eyes were wild and mad with horror.

What was the leg searching for?

He didn’t dare answer this question; his mind recoiled from it in sharp terror.

The leg strode with inevitable sureness and strength through the darkened factory district and headed west toward the deserted waste areas of Chicago’s sprawling southwest side. Saliva drooled from Harker’s slack lips. His face was stiff with blind, unreasoning fear.

For an hour the leg carried him straight west until it reached a vast deserted lot, used by the city as a refuse heap. There it swung sharply and entered the lot, striding heedlessly, blindly, over the heaps of rusted cans, bottles and filth dumped in squat ugly piles over the face of the lot.

Ahead in the darkness Harker could see the bulky outlines of a crumbling wall, sagging with the weight of its years. The leg was carrying him toward the lowest section of the wall, which was hardly two feet high. Harker sank to his ankles in the slime and ooze of the refuse and he staggered blindly with weariness.

Babbling, hysterical words poured from his lips and the sound of the sobbing voice was a weird cacophony that roared inside his head like maniacal thunder.

Something was plucking at his mind. A blind, frantic thought was hammering through the maze of panic that clouded his brain. It was something that had been said to him, but he couldn’t remember what it was or who had said it.

His wild eyes swung over the deserted lot with its piles of dirt and refuse and then to the broken, crumbling wall that loomed closer with each of the leg’s powerful, determined strides.

The wall enclosed a pit. And in that pit something gleamed whitely.

A sobbing scream tore from Harker’s throat.

He knew of this place. Doctor Zinder had told him of this place. And that was the thought that had been flickering on the border of his consciousness.

Doctor Zinder had told of this place!

This was the spot where Doctor Zinder had committed murder and stolen a leg. The leg which was now drawing him irresistibly toward the gleaming whiteness at the bottom of the pit.

Doctor Zinder had told him this, but he had been preparing to kill him at the time and the words had hardly registered.

Doctor Zinder had said: “No remains will ever be found!”

Harker screamed madly as the leg stepped up to the crumbling wall. With every atom of his strength he fought against the leg, but his frantic efforts were unavailing.

Doctor Zinder’s words pounded like a gong in his head.

“No remains will ever be found!” The stench of fumes from the lime pit were in Harker’s nostrils as the leg broke into a stumbling run that covered the last few feet in a faltering rush. Harker screamed, and the sound was a horrible choking noise in his throat. He screamed again as the leg took the last final step and that scream was broken off in a ragged gurgling shriek as his plummeting body struck the cloying waves of corrosive lime...

And in that last horrible instant Harker knew what the leg had been searching for.