A crowd of excited men, headed by the sheriff and myself, made for the Thornsdale place. The light still dimly illuminated the hall through the open door.
“I’ll go in first, sheriff,” I offered. “Have your men surround the place.”
I stole into the hall. A terrible stench greeted me. I found it came from a door opening out into the hall. A feeble light burned within. About me stood several boxes, with the sides torn open, and excelsior hanging and strewn about them.
Before me, completely assembled in every detail, stood what the boxes had contained—an operating table and all its many surgical accessories. Out of a long box in the corner sprawled the hairy limbs of the fast-decaying Horace, the male gorilla.
Taking a small oil lamp from the stand, I turned to examine the dead body; and I noticed a paper, which fell to the floor. A quick look at the side of the beast’s head revealed a great gash, rottening at the edges, through which, it was evident, the brain had been removed.
I hastily recalled Dr. Calgroni’s theories. Could it be—
My eyes chanced to drop to the floor. Holding forth the lamp, I saw there was handwriting on the bit of paper.
I picked it up and read the note, which, even at the last stand, Calgroni had directed to me, Von Meine, chief disparager of his wild theories:
“Herr Von Meine, of Vienna, you said I could not do it. You berated me for my endeavors to alleviate the distress of the insane and feeble-minded. Yet I know now that I have accomplished it, without killing the subject as you claimed would be the result of such an operation. That’s why I followed you here, to show you! It was successful, Von Meine. I could tell by the way his eyes looked into mine, when he finally came to. But I could see the brain I had substituted for Will’s atrophied one was too vigorous—that expression didn’t belong to Simple Will. I am fleeing before he gains his strength. I admit my fear; for after this operation the former half-wit will be a dangerous customer, with the too vigorous and ferocious brain of the Gorilla Horace in his head!”
Ten Pallbearers For This Mammoth Woman