The Monkey God | Page 2

of honor and propriety, but so immersed in his
beloved study of anthropology that theft or murder would scarcely
deter him from the acquisition of a relic of scientific value, "What if he
should--" she shook her narrow shoulders as one who puts away an
unpleasant thought, and stepped across the library threshold.
"I know something terrible will happen," Miss Milsted wailed softly in
the Professor's ear.
"Nonsense, Madam; control yourself!" Forrester replied sharply, his
narrow nostrils quivering with excitement.
The north wind, sweeping furiously across the rolling Maryland hills,
hurled a barrage of sleet and snow against the windows, a man coughed
with the abrupt sharpness of nervousness, and a woman tittered with

embarrassment. The logs in the hall fireplace snapped and crackled;
otherwise the house was as silent as a Quaker meeting before the Spirit
moves. Two minutes dragged slowly by while the party in the drawing
room watched the library door with bated breath. What drama was
being enacted behind those unresponsive panels?
"Oh, I know--" the Milsted person began her dismal prophecy once
more, then checked her speech with a little squeak like that of an
unsuspecting mouse suddenly snared in a trap. Dying with a short flare,
like a shred of dried grass touched with a match, the electric lights
winked out, and, save for the reflection of the blazing logs in the hall
fireplace, the house was hooded in darkness.
"Oh, I knew it--" Miss Milsted asserted, but Professor Forrester strode
impatiently across the polished floor toward the closed door of the
library.
"Control yourself, Madam," he snapped. "The wires have been
short-circuited by the storm. Here, somebody, bring some candles!" It
was characteristic of him that he should assume command in the
emergency. The man who had braved sandstorms in the Sahara,
glaciers in the Himalayas and natives of Somaliland while tracing the
footprints of early civilizations was not to be daunted by imperfect
electric power systems. "Fetch some candles," he repeated sharply; "we
can't--"
Voices rose in angry discord behind the library door. A man's shout, a
woman's scream, Milsted's half-uttered curse mingled in sudden, sharp
babel, then bang! the wicked, whiplike snap of a pistol-shot punctuated
the hubbub.
The Professor was first to reach the library. He darted through the door,
swinging it shut behind him, stilled the renewed voices with a single,
sharp command, and struck a match, kneeling over a long, inert object
stretched before the grate of glowing coke beneath the mantelpiece.
"Oh, I know something terrible is going to happen! I know it--" Miss
Milsted screamed, clawing futilely at the coat-sleeve of the nearest

man.
"Madam, be still!" the Professor's voice, dry and sharp with suppressed
excitement, cut through the gloom as he re-entered the drawing room.
"Be quiet; nothing terrible is going to happen. It's already happened. Mr.
Milsted is dead."
"Dead!" the dreadful word flew from lip to lip about the circle of
frightened guests. And, as if the tragic announcement were the cue to a
theatrical electrician, the dimmed lights of the big country house
suddenly sprang into brightness once more, shedding their sharp,
yellow rays on the group of pale, terrified faces and bringing the rouge
on lips and cheeks into ghastly prominence as frightened women turned
hysterically to equally frightened men for comfort and protection.
"How--" began young Carmody, but the Professor cut him short.
"Call the nearest post of state troopers," he ordered curtly. "Then get in
touch with the sheriff and the county coroner. Everyone stay where he
is, please; the authorities will tell us when we may leave.
"NOW" -- Forrester closed the door against the chattering throng in the
drawing room and faced the six people in the library-- "just what
happened?"
"We had just come in, Uncle Harvey," Rosalie answered, speaking with
slow care, for in times of excitement her English, still only a
half-familiar tongue, completely deserted her; "we had just come in
here, and Mr. Milsted was deciding which one of us should go into the
museum first, when the lights went out. Somehow, just at the same
time, that window there"--she pointed to a casement between two
ceiling-high bookcases-- "blew open, and, it seemed to me, I saw a
head at the opening. I'm not sure about that, though. Mr. Carpenter here
started across the room to close the window, and I think someone else
did, too, though I don't know who it was, and Mr. Milsted began to
swear and ran toward me, then there was a flash and a report, and--"
"And he shot himself," young Mr. Carpenter supplied, interrupting the

girl's story. "I don't know why he did it, but we all saw the flash and
heard him cry out with a sort of choke, and saw him fall. There was
light enough from