Palisadian., 1925-05-01

any poison, ana Doctor Vh1ePS Dellef
that the man had been strangled
seemed without support, as no foreign
substance or growth of any kind was
found In the windpipe or air passages
Nevertheless, Doctor Thiel was firm
and blunt: "The man was strangled,"
he maintained. Make the best of
that, gentlemen, and then go to your
dinners"
One thing only seemed certain, one
| thing only was undisputed-The Man
VINO Did Things Twice, with severed
wlndpipe and autopsy-marred body,
| would not duplicate his own death
upon the morrow. He had come to his
death on Tuesday, Tuesday with
Wh1ch-had he lived-he would have
begun new course of action to be
duplicated on Wednesday. But he had
died, and now for once The Man Who
Did Things Twice. would fail in his
eccentricity. Perhaps for that his
spirit would be troubled.
Next morning, while the attendant
| who had been first on the death scene
of the previous day was holding forth
at length on the tragedy with certain
servant cronies, the call-bell suddenly
rang and the hand of the call dial
spun around and pointed to No. 63.
The man hastened to obey the sum-
mons, not noticing that the hands of
the hall clock pointed to fifteen min
utes of ten, nor delaying to recollect
what guest occupied room GO. The
tragedy of the preceding day had been
the event of his life, and he had not
as vet descended to the trifies of his
daily routine.
AS he tapped briskly at the door of
room 63 and put his hand upon the,
knob to enter, it suddenly came over
him that he had done precisely such
a thing before. That at about that
time of some other morning he had
been summoned by the call-bell to
room 63-had knocked, turned the
knob, entered-and-a loud cry, a
shout thick with horror, broke from
the mans lips, and he reeled back into
the hallway.
There before him, in the center of
the fateful room, half dressed, battling
with the invisible air, with blue lips
and protruding eyes, stood The Maa
Who Did Things Twice.
| The ominous, ghostly hush that fol
lowed the frightened attendants cry
! was quickly broken by the hurry of
many feet, and soon again the hotel
was aroused and again Doctor Thiel
bent over the PROSTATE and dying Hen
ry Hobart.
! Outside and distantly could be heard
the clang of the fire bells, but in the
room of death all was sudden silence,
all were hushed by the frightful, ghost
| ly thought that the scene before them
! had been enacted before-the dying
man with his discolored face and
struggling hands, the physician bend
ing over him, the alarmed, pitying
faces of the gathered guests, and the
frightened servants huddled in the
background. And the man must die
die as he had died!
They looked on, and waited. Then
the end came, md Doctor Thiel, aris-
ing, said, "He is dead!" He had ut
tered those words once before and un-
der like conditions. And the guests
and the servants spoke together in hor-
rified whispers, as they had done be-
fore; then the assembly broke up and
the hallway was cleared, as before
There was something immeasurably
painful about 1t all, to live a thing
over in that frightful way, to be, as
it were, mere puppets at show, and
one day to be to another day as re-
Election in a mirror.
For time those who had witnessed
both tragedies seemed to live In kind
of trance, and moved about and whis-
pered together like being in a dream !;
but finally the natural reasserted it.
self, and then curiosity seized them.
What was the meaning of it.? Hen.
ry Hobart had died and his body had
been mutilated by the surgeons knife
How, then, had he died a second time
and his body shown no marks of the
knife? Had they been deceived by a
ghost? No: there in room 63 lay the
dead man-flesh and blOod-and seven
blocks away, resting on marble slab,
with the water dripping continually on
it, lay the other body of Henry Hobart
The Man Who Did Things Twice.
A sudden doubt came into the mind
of Doctor Thiel a misgiving that
frightened. him. Was that other body
that autopsy-marred body-still rest
ing quietly ON its slab at the morgue :?
| Or
Hastily quitting the hotel, he hur-
ried towards the morgue, and sudden
ly came up against an insurmountable
blank wall of mystery. The morgue
was heap of Charred ruin and smol.
dering, steaming ashes, and if the au-
topsy-marred body of Henry Hobart
had been lying on it's slab during the
period of the fire, then it had been
totally consumed, and that other body
I'D at the hotel was that of a second
Henry Hobart; but, if the autopsy
marred body Of Henry Hobart had not
been lying quietly on its slab during
the raging of the fire, then, in Gods
name, who and what was he who had
died up at the Sumner house that
morning?
Brought Up to Date