If there'd been any basis of fact for this obsession, the secret had died with him. But it was known that if the transfusions had proved successful, Bixby had intended selling the discovery to one of Europe's madmen, so that the blood of the jungle would aid the mothers of a dictator nation to produce more cannon fodder.

Finding the old house in the foothills, he had purchased it and, by means of advertisements in metropolitan newspapers, had attracted several girls to the isolated spot under the guise of housekeepers. Once they were in his power, he had gone ahead with his diabolical schemes. All had died under his experiments save one—a half-witted creature little above the animals herself. It was she the gorilla had killed; then escaped from the enclosure with the body, throwing it in the woods where Betty and I had found it.

Bixby had given up all hope of recapturing the ape when our sudden arrival and its unholy desire for Betty had drawn the creature back to the house, where Bixby had trapped it Our wine had been drugged and Bixby, fired by the thought that we might be trailed, had decided to rush the experiment that very night.

Only the sudden lust for Betty on the part of the black himself had halted the diabolical crime.

SEVERAL years have passed. Betty and I are very happy. But the horror of what we went through on our wedding night is still implanted in our minds. At night, when the wind howls, I note that my wife draws a bit closer to me, although she says that she is not frightened. Her uncle writes us that people still talk in whispers of the insane scientist who lived in the old mansion in the foothills. Betty and I never discuss our adventure. We want to forget.