6: The Laughing Thing
Weird Tales, May 1929
"VERY WELL, Mr. Drewe! I'll sign the agreement, though no one but you would drive such a devil's bargain."
The speaker's tall, emaciated body vibrated with indignation, and his strange light eyes blazed like incandescent lamps. There was something of the brooding menace of the gray sea in the latter, and a note in his voice reminded me of the sullen mutter of the wind before a storm. A little shiver of apprehension ran through me as I turned from him to my brother-in-law, Jason Drewe.
Nothing could have been more utterly and infuriatingly complacent than the latter, who was leaning back in the most comfortable chair my office afforded, with an expensive cigar in his mouth, his big frame clad in the smartest of light tweeds, and an orchid in h
