THE OTHER WORLD - Vb-tech.co.za

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Two Wink had started worrying over
his own suggestion by the time he came
back with a chloroform bottle that was widenecked
and stoppered with a wadded rag.
“If we kill him,” he said hoarsely, “and
they catch us, it might be kind of bad.”
“If we kill him and they don’t catch
us,” advised Fancife, “we will both be
millionaires.”
Two Wink was an amateur as far as
murder was concerned. His hand began
shaking, and somehow it occurred to his
twisted mind that—if they were caught—his
part of the crime might be held less heinous if
he didn’t actually apply the lethal chloroform.
He handed the bottle to Fancife.
“You do it,” he said shrilly.
Fancife said, “With a lot of pleasure,”
and got down on his knees and poured the
chloroform on the towel, running a small
stream out until the bottle was entirely empty,
Fancife stood with a cocked gun, and
his left hand gripped a pillow!
and by the time he had finished the victim’s
eyes were closed.
Fancife shoved Chris Columbus’
head, and there was looseness of
unconsciousness in the neck.
“Now,” said Fancife, “where’s this
fellow who brought the strange skins to St.
Louis? What name did you say he used?”
“Decimo Tercio,” explained the
white-faced Two Wink.
Two Wink was not enjoying his first
participation in a murder.
Decimo Tercio had stopped at the
Black Fox Hotel, which was in the fur district,
an ancient hostelry constructed back in the
days when a black fox skin was a rare and
expensive article, before fur farming brought
the price down to almost the level of a firstclass
dark mink pelt.
The Black Fox Hotel, although it had
entertained its share of queer patrons—the
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