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Secret Agent X, October, 1935
This Ozark hotel had an oppressive air of silent menace, and its gloomy lobby smelled like a tomb. But no tomb ever echoed with such a weird and unearthly wail. And even tombs do not have crucified bodies with grinning skulls for heads.
THE lobby of the resort hotel was almost deserted. A thin-faced, gray- haired man, seated at a table playing solitaire and smoking a black cigar, jerked his head up quickly as Jordan Dale, private detective, made his way toward the desk. By the broad-windows overlooking the lake, a pink-cheeked man with wavy brown hair peeked over the top of a magazine, slid his eyes toward the card player, then resumed his reading.
Dale shivered. There was an oppressive air of silent menace about the place he could not describe. It was only a little past nine o'clock, yet all except these two guests in the usually gay hotel in the Ozarks had gone to bed, and the dank, gloomy lobby smelled like a tomb.
A pallid youth at the desk looked up with round, frightened eyes as Dale approached, held out a pen with trembling fingers.
“Is Mr. John Miller here?” Dale asked.
The card player swerved sharply. His jutting eyebrows were drawn together in an ominous frown. “What do you want him for?” he demanded.
Dale replied crisply: “Reckon that's my business, mister.”
The man glowered. “You better not mess around with something that's not your business,” he warned.
He turned back to his card game, then sprang erect, scattering the cards on the floor as a weird, spine-chilling wail rose and fell and echoed dismally in the cavernous lobby.
Dale felt as though a blast of cold air had struck him, experienced a vague sense of impending doom, as the unearthly wail died away. The pen the clerk was holding dropped from nerveless fingers and splattered the white pages of the register.
“Look!” the gray-haired man cried.
A magazine crashed to the floor. Dale spun on his heel, saw the other guest staring in green-faced terror out of the window and mouthing soundless words.
Four long-legged strides carried him to the window. He felt his scalp crawl as his horrified eyes took in the grisly sight.
At the edge of the lake, some two hundred yards from the hotel, a rude cross had been erected. Nailed to this, the body of a nude woman gleamed like marble in the moonlight. In his career as a Kansas City policeman and as a private detective, Dale had seen many revolting sights; but none had aroused in him the same feeling of cold terror, of loathsome savagery this did.
He sensed someone near him, swerved nervously and looked into the washed-out eyes of the man who had been playing solitaire. They were like the eyes of a dead fish. Dale shouldered the man roughly aside, shuddered slightly as though he had touched a snake, and stalked across the lobby to the desk.
“Call the sheriff,” he barked to the pallid clerk, turned on his heel and strode to the door. The two guests followed him silently down the steps and across the sandy beach.
When he drew near the gruesome body, Dale felt the muscles of his throat go taut. The head had been severed from the body and in its place stared a grinning skull. No blood incarnadined the satin skin of the slim, nude body. The skull seemed to be a part of the crucified trunk. Around the neck hung a small placard, on which had been printed in neat letters: “She Died A Sinner.”
Suddenly, that spine-chilling wail again bent upon the still night air.
The wail issued from the grinning mouth of the skull.
Dale felt the blood wash from his face, a cold gnawing in the pit of his stomach.
Screaming tires of a motor car jarred him back to reality. He was alone. The two guests apparently had taken one look at the horror on the cross and had fled with that wail of agony and despair shrieking at their heels. The door of a car slammed and Dale saw a man in white linen suit and wide- brimmed Panama hat running toward him. The man stopped, caught his breath in a whistling gasp and turned away.
“Horrible,” he muttered. “Has the sheriff been notified?”
Dale nodded. Silently they crossed the beach to the hotel, mounted the steps and entered the deserted lobby. The man dropped into a chair, took off his hat and mopped his face. Thick, black hair, graying at the temples, was brushed back from a high forehead. His features were regular and handsome. There was about him the unmistakable air of an actor. Dale folded his six feet of lean frame and dropped into a chair opposite him.
“This is going to finish me for the season,” the man said hopelessly. “Wish I'd stayed in the show business!” He broke off, coughed apologetically. “I suppose you know—I'm Sanderson, proprietor of the hotel. Most of my guests have left because of a damned banshee that moans and wails and shrieks at night.” Fear flooded his dark eyes. “Now this ghastly thing happens. And we don't even know who the victim is.”
Dale told who he was. Sanderson's face lighted with sudden interest and he said hopefully: “Maybe you can find out what's going on.”
“I've got to see John Miller first. That's why I'm here. This other is the sheriff's business.”
Miller, a childish old Indian, swamped with millions when oil was struck on his land in Oklahoma, had wired his life was in danger and to come at once, Dale explained.
“Miller's disappeared,” Sanderson replied uneasily, rose to his feet. “I'll let you talk to his wife. She's here; didn't want to stay in their cottage alone.” Spinning on his heel, he walked away rapidly down a long, dim corridor.
Dale swept his eyes over the deserted lobby nervously, looked around sharply when shuffling footsteps whispered across the cavernous room.
A SMALL man, clad in a flowing white toga, was walking toward him. In his right hand, he carried an old railroad lantern which threw grotesque shadows on the walls; in his left, he held a long staff. A white beard billowed down his chest and snowy hair fell to his shoulders. He paused in front of Dale.
“Another sinner has paid,” he croaked in solemn tones. “The devil is abroad in the land leading men and women to sin. All sinners must die.” A crafty look came into his eyes, black and shining with a fanatical light. He produced an old six-shooter from the folds of his robe. “This weapon in the hands of Buddachrist will wipe out his Satanic majesty for all time and the world will be free from sin and temptation.”
Muttering warnings to beware the wrath of Satan, the old man shuffled across the empty lobby on leather sandals and went out into the night. Who was that old goat who croaked of sin and the devil? Dale shook his head, breathed with relief when Sanderson returned, followed by a flashy blonde, whom he introduced as Mrs. Miller. She had been a show girl, Dale recalled, and the newspapers a few years back had been full of her romance with the oil-wealthy old Indian. She seated herself on the edge of a chair, nervously twisted a damp handkerchief while she answered Dale's questions.
Her husband had been nervous and uneasy, she said, ever since the arrival at the hotel yesterday of a former Indian agent who had lost his job for trying to defraud Miller and other Indians several years ago. That morning, Williams, the agent, had come to their cottage and he and her husband had quarreled violently.
“My husband seemed very much upset the rest of the morning,” she added. “In the afternoon he went for a walk. He hasn't returned. He was always home by five o'clock. There was a note in his room saying he was a sinner and would die unless he gave $100,000 to endow a new church and save his soul from hell. Williams must be trying a new racket to get my husband's money,” she concluded tartly.
She shivered as she spoke of Williams, said he reminded her of a snake.
Dale asked: “Who's the pink-cheeked guy with the marcel wave I saw in the lobby when I first came in?”
The woman's eyes quivered and a nervous flush flooded her white neck.
It was Sanderson who explained he was a crooner named Jasper.
Dale recalled a singer named Carson had been discharged from an evangelistic troupe a year ago because of a scandal connected with Mrs. Miller; concluded they were the same person and made a mental note to keep an eye on the crooner.
“And the old goat in the nightgown, who's he?” Dale continued.
Sanderson frowned. “A religious fanatic who calls himself Buddachrist. He lives in an old castle above the lake, which was built by his folks years ago as the center of some sort of religious colony. They left him the castle and a little money when they died. He stayed on alone in one wing of the place, spent all his time reading books on religion and got the idea he was the reincarnation of Buddha and Christ. The hill-billies swear the old man is in league with the devil and won't go near his place.”
Dale asked the number of Williams's room, untangled his legs and got to his feet. Assuring Mrs. Miller her husband probably would turn up all right, although he didn't believe it, he sought out the wing where the ex-agent was staying.
An ex-Indian agent who had been discharged for trying to defraud old John Miller, a psalm-singing evangelist who had been involved in a scandal with the voluptuous Mrs. Miller, an atrocious murder which evidently had no connection with Miller's disappearance, an eerie skull that wailed and moaned like a lost soul, a half- witted religious fanatic who believed he was the reincarnation of Buddha and Christ—any or all of these might be mixed up with the millionaire Indian's affairs.
He stopped at the door of Room 165, knocked briskly.
After a moment's pause, a voice called: “Come in.”
Dale turned the knob, pushed open the door, stopped abruptly and summoned the fatuous look he wore in moments like this.
Across the room, Williams sat in a straight-backed chair. In one hairy paw he gripped a heavy .45 that was trained on Dale's stomach.
The detective grinned amiably, heeled the door shut, nodded at the weapon. “What's the idea?”
The thin-faced agent stared with his fishy eyes. “What do you want?” he asked at last.
“I'm looking for John Miller.”
The dead, expressionless eyes did not waver. “Who the hell are you?”
Dale told him.
The man grunted, let his opaque eyes travel slowly over the tall, raw-boned detective.
“Yeah? I'm John Barrymore.”
The detective grinned. “There's a telegram in my pocket that will prove I'm Jordan Dale.”
“Let's see it. Don't try any monkey business.”
The side pocket of his coat yielded the message he had received that day from John Miller.
Williams read it, said: “Seems O. K. Sit down.”
Dale straddled a chair. A marked transformation came over the ex-agent. Fire seemed to have been kindled in the cold, fishy eyes; the ugly toadlike mouth lost its slackness and tightened into a grim line.
“This place is slimy with evil,” he said. “There's stuff going on I can't make out. If I thought such a thing possible, I'd say the devil himself was at the bottom of it. That screaming skull, for example—it's damnably uncanny.” He lowered his voice. “And around that cross out there I saw tracks of cloven hoofs.”
Such a thing was impossible, Dale told himself uneasily. The man was imagining things.
“I hot-footed it here when John sent me a wild message someone was after his money,” Williams went on. “I tried to keep him from marrying that show girl five years ago. After she had hooked him, she managed to get me fired.
“When I got here, John said the devil was after him. I told him he was crazy. Then this morning he showed me a note demanding $100,000 for a new church and threatening to kill him if he didn't come across. I told him I bet his wife was mixed up in it. He got sore and bawled me out and I left.
“That church business looks like the old galoot on the bluff may be in it, too. Plumb nuts, he is.” He paused, leaned forward and whispered hoarsely: “I got an idea who killed that dame out there and hung that sign on her.”
He hunched his chair forward, started to speak. A look of terror flooded his eyes and he choked, tore madly at his throat.
“Jasper—” he gurgled and pitched forward. He writhed a moment in agony, then stiffened out and was still.
Dale sprang forward. His eyes narrowed and he felt suddenly cold when he saw a small dart sticking out of the dead ex-agent's breast.
INSTINCTIVELY he raised his eyes to the window by which Williams had been sitting. He froze stiff and the hair along the back of his neck crawled. Framed in the window was the head and shoulders of an imp of hell. The face shone with a scarlet light. Snakelike eyes flashed with sardonic malevolence. Pointed ears stood out from the thin, evil face and two horns jotted from a hairless head that glistened like a red billiard ball.
While Dale stared, a wailing cry beat upon the night air. The livid face in the window split in an evil grin, a thin forked tongue licked scarlet lips and a long-nailed finger pointed menacingly at the detective.
Then the imp vanished. Dale whipped through the door and pounded up the echoing corridor. A dozen long-legged strides brought him back to the lobby. Sanderson and Mrs. Miller were gone. Only a small light burned above the clerk's desk.
Dale swept the shadows rapidly with eyes that held a glint of steel, thought he detected a furtive movement in a far corner.
His fingers closed on a small automatic in a holster under his left arm. Grimly he paced toward the corner, paused a few feet from it.
“Come on out before I drill you,” he ordered.
“Don't shoot; I'll come,” a voice whined from the darkness.
From behind the chair a head rose, followed by a bulky body.
“Jasper?”
There was a slight pause, a tremulous sigh. “Yes.”
“You're the guy I'm looking for. Come on out, and make it snappy.”
The crooner stepped out, followed Dale to the circle of light shed by the single lamp over the desk, and sank into a chair. His wavy hair was disheveled, his face the color of wood ashes.
“What are you hiding from?” Dale demanded harshly.
“I heard your step. I thought it was—” He shuddered, tugged at a loose underlip. “I thought it was the stalking Satan. I saw him out there.”
“When?”
“A few minutes ago.”
“Where's John Miller?”
“I don't know.”
“You've got him somewhere,” Dale barked angrily. “You're fixing to rook him out of a wad of dough and then beat it with his wife. I know you're the same guy that was fired from the Holy Rollers, or whatever you called yourself, for getting mixed up with her.”
The white, pasty face turned a sickly green in the dim light. “You're dead wrong,” he chattered. “Old Buddachrist gave me a haven here after I left the evangelistic company. Everything was all right until about two weeks or more ago. Then some evil influence appeared. I've seen Satan stalking those balls.” Fear turned his baby face into an ugly mask.
“I guess you'll be saying next that the devil nailed that dame to the cross,” Dale flung at him.
Jasper expelled his breath in a quick, nervous gasp. “And he has taken John Miller.” The man's terror-laden eyes slid to the front door, down the dark, ghostly corridors. “I'm sure I heard him talking in the castle tonight. I told Williams just before you arrived.”
“You married?” Dale shot the question at him like a rifle shot.
For a moment the crooner's lips worked, but no sound came.
A mirthless grin split the detective's face and he seized the terrified singer roughly, jerked him to his feet. “Sure you are. And that's your wife nailed to the cross. She followed you here and was about to spoil your little game with Mrs. Miller. So you killed her and cut off her head so she wouldn't be identified.”
“I didn't,” Jasper whined. “My wife's back in New York. Buddachrist had the devil kill that woman out there. He told me all those who live in sin must die. It's probably one of the waitresses.”
With an oath, Dale threw the cringing man back. “By God, I'm going up there. You're going with me. We've got to get Miller quick.”
Jasper cowered back in his chair, his face contorted with abject terror. “No, no. I've seen enough of that hell hole.”
“You're going to see a lot more, brother,” Dale said grimly. “You're to show me around. I think you're lying like hell.”
“I'm not. I could tell you a lot more if I dared.”
“All right, brother. Wait till I call the sheriff, then we'll go.”
He turned, walked to the desk, then jarred to a halt as a gun barked and echoed in the cavernous lobby. The light globe shattered, plunging the room in darkness. Dale dropped to the floor, cuddled his automatic in his hand and waited, senses alert. Then from the direction of the beach rose that spine-chilling wail again. The wail ended this time with a shriek of sardonic laughter.
SOUNDS of footsteps echoed along one of the corridors and streaks of light danced down the floor. Dale got to his knees, peered around the edge of the desk. A wave of relief swept over him when he saw Sanderson hurrying toward him, candle in hand. Dale stepped out to meet him.
“What's wrong?” Sanderson asked hoarsely. Terror was in his eyes, and the hand that held the candle trembled. “I heard a shot.”
Rapidly Dale told him what had happened. A look of hopelessness crept into the hotel owner's classic features, hopelessness mixed with a haunting fear. His eyes searched the lurking shadows. “Where's Jasper?”
Dale's lips straightened into a thin, hard line. “He's gone to the castle, I reckon,” he replied tersely. “I'm going up there to get him.”
Sanderson's jaw dropped. “They'll kill you,” he whispered, “as they did that woman out there; as they did Williams.”
Dale grunted. “Maybe. But they'll know they had a scrap,” he answered grimly. “How do you get there?”
“By a path at the south end of the lake.”
“Call the sheriff and tell him about Williams. If you don't hear anything from me in a couple of hours, tell him to come up with an army.”
Despite Sanderson's frenzied protests, Dale swiveled, crossed the lobby and stalked out the door. The gruesome cross was gone, he noted, as he turned south and followed the shore of the lake. He swore roundly when he thought of how the dough-faced crooner had outsmarted him.
It wasn't difficult to find the path. Dale plunged into the black shadows of the overhanging trees and toiled doggedly up the rocky lane. He'd come down here to help old John Miller and he was going to find him in spite of all the imps in hell.
He glanced uneasily over his shoulder, began whistling to relieve the aching silence about him. He came abruptly to the brow of the hill and stepped out into a clearing. Ahead of him, an old medieval castle squatted on a crag. It was surrounded by a deep ravine. The only approach was by a raised drawbridge. At each end of the sprawling stone building, turreted towers poked above a many chimnied roof. All of the windows stared back at him like so many sightless eyes.
Just to the right of the drawbridge. loomed, an object that jarred Dale to a halt, urged him to turn and flee from this dark old pile that brooded atop the crag like a vulture.
Nailed to a rude cross was the body of a naked man—a man with wavy hair, a round baby face—Jasper! Around his neck had been hung a placard on which was hastily scrawled: “Another Sinner Pays.”
Over his heart was a blue slit and from it a dark red fluid still oozed sluggishly.
Had Buddachrist discovered the singer's relations with Mrs. Miller and killed him?
Would she be the next victim of his crusade?
As if in answer to his unspoken question, a voice behind him said softly: “You're next.”
Dale whirled, found himself staring into a crimson face. Swiftly he took in the pointed ears, the two jutting horns. There was deadly menace in the cold, glittering eyes. A steady hand pressed a three-tined fork against his stomach.
The red face split into a crooked grin. “The Buddachrist has ordered your death, but not as a sinner,” a smooth, silky voice said. “This will go around your neck.” He raised his other hand, held before Dale's horrified eyes a neatly printed placard: “The Man Who Knew Too Much.”
Desperation, born of cold terror, sent Dale's right hand flashing to the holster under his arm. Before he could grasp the automatic, he was seized from behind by powerful arms and borne crashing to the ground.
A sharp blow on the head when he struck the ground stunned him. When his brain cleared, he was being carried forward, his arms and legs bound.
At the brink of the ravine, his captors lowered him to the ground. The same silky voice spoke again. “On second thought, we will let the drawbridge obliterate you.” Then the grind of rusted gears shattered the silence.
Dale raised his eyes, stared in fascinated horror. The open, drawbridge was directly above him, slowly descending. As the full realization of the fiendish cruelty of these imps of hell came over him, a cold, paralyzing fear gripped him, numbed his brain.
Slowly, inexorably, the massive structure ground nearer. It wasn't more than two or three feet above his head. In another moment he'd be crushed to a pulp.
As this thought pounded at his paralyzed brain, he strained at his bonds until the cords of his neck stood out in great ridges. He felt a rope give, lunged desperately, and plunged headlong into space.
Almost instantly he felt a wrenching jerk at his ankle and he hung head downward, bumping against the stone support of the bridge. He clawed at the rough stone, pulled himself slowly to the right. Searching fingers closed over a scaling ladder of rough timbers hugging the side of the ravine. He pulled himself upward with one arm about the ladder, Inched his knife from his pocket with the other, opened the blade with his teeth and slashed the ropes about his ankles.
While he chafed his numb legs, he swore he'd get into that castle of dread in some way and find old John Miller, probably half dead from superstitious fear by now, before they made him the victim of fiendish murder.
HE descended the ladder into the black pit below, paced forward until his fingers touched the damp walls of the castle. Following this, he at length felt a draft of musty air in his face, stepped into a black, drafty corridor.
Groping his way along this Stygian passage, he came abruptly to a sharp turn.
Fifty feet ahead of him, he saw a black curtain. From around its edges seeped the dancing light of red fire. He felt for his automatic, found to his dismay it had been taken from him. Grimly he balled his hands into huge fists and stole with catlike tread toward the light.
Reaching the heavy curtain, he peered around the edge, stared in amazement a moment, then nodded with grim satisfaction. A large rectangular room, originally intended for a chapel, had been transformed into a fantastic scene in hell. At intervals around the chamber stood braziers containing Greek fire. The lurid light shone on silent figures in black robes lining the walls. Inside the hood of one of the figures he could see a grinning skull.
“So that's it,” Dale muttered. “I should have thought of that”
On a dais at the end of the room nearest Dale, his Satanic majesty, garbed in gorgeous red, with tights and flowing robe, sat upon an ornate throne. On either side of him stood a burly devil with folded arms. In front of them burned a taper in a high brass candlestick. Steam from a bubbling cauldron filled the room with the odor of brimstone.
Groveling on the floor at the foot of Satan's throne, lay a gray-haired man. His coppery skin shone like brass in the red glare. In solemn, measured tones, Satan was speaking.
“You are dead and your soul has come to hell. You can save yourself from eternal damnation only by giving $100,000 to Buddachrist.”
The prone figure stirred, looked up out of eyes of haunting terror. “How can I when I am dead?” he moaned.
Satan, with impressive gesture, pointed to the steaming cauldron. “The magic potion in that kettle will restore you to life. If you don't give $100,000 in cash to a representative of Buddachrist after being returned to the world, your soul will burn in everlasting fire. Listen to one who disobeyed.”
He pointed to a small table near him. On it, Dale saw, rested a skull. At a command from Satan, the jaws began to move and a hollow, sepulchral voice avowed it had not kept faith with Satan and had died a thousand deaths. The words broke off in a harrowing shriek of agony.
The old Indian, lying prone, face pillowed in his arms, babbled he would give all his fortune to Buddachrist if Satan would release him from eternal torture. Satan nodded. One of the attending demons stepped forward, dipped a goblet of dark, red liquor from the cauldron and knelt by the Indian.
“Drink,” Satan commanded.
Eager, trembling old hands reached for the goblet, were about to grasp it, when a voice rang out sharp and clear. Miller turned in terror to see what new agonies were in store for him.
“Don't drink that devil's brew,” the voice commanded.
Dale swerved toward the sound of the voice, stared in admiration and amazement. Buddachrist was striding majestically down the center of the room. His black eyes blazed with righteous anger and every fiber of his aging frame seemed to quiver with indignation. Without faltering, he paced to where the moaning Indian lay, raised his staff and sent the goblet in the hand of the burly demon spinning to the floor, where it crashed into scattering pieces. Then he turned and pointed at Satan, who sat stupefied on his gaudy throne.
“I have searched long for you, O Satan,” he cried. “Now you are finished. You have defiled the castle of Buddachrist with your hellish orgies.”
With lightning swiftness, he drew his ancient revolver from the folds of his robe.
Satan, recovered from his astonishment, reached for his own weapon. Dale galvanized into action. Muscles bunched, he sprang upon the dais.
The huge demon by Satan's side, at a barked command, leaped forward. A swinging fist caught Dale above the ear and he stumbled; but before he fell, he knocked an automatic from Satan's flaming hand.
Two shots shattered the silence of the room. Satan staggered, collapsed on him throne. Straggling to his feet. Dale lurched toward the infuriated henchman. Orange flame leaped from a hairy fist and a bullet clipped his ear.
With a sweeping movement, he seized one of the great brass candlesticks; raised it above his head and brought it down with terrific force on the devil's head. There was a sound of crunching bone, a gurgling sigh bubbled from the demon's lips and he sprawled against the steaming cauldron.
Instantly Dale swiveled toward the white-bearded fanatic, saw the other demon leap for Buddachrist and wrest the revolver from the old man's hand. Still gripping the candlestick, Dale drew back his arm, poised a moment on his toes and hurled the heavy brass piece. True as a javelin, it hurtled through the air, caught the huge henchman, squarely in the back of the neck. The spine snapped. The scarlet-clad hulk dived headlong to the floor, writhed a moment and was still.
As the man fell, Buddachrist raised his face toward heaven and with upraised arms cried exultantly: “I have conquered Satan.”
Dale turned toward Satan's throne, saw a blue hole in the center of the red forehead and a dark red stream coursing down the scarlet cheeks.
“I guess that's all for you, Mr. Satan Sanderson,” he said. “You sure put on a good show; almost as good as your old 'Hell's Belles' that used to pack 'em in on the burlesque wheel. Same old costumes and props.”
But Satan did not reply.
BACK at the hotel, Dale told the sheriff and the pop-eyed clerk what had happened. “I knew your boss was playing Satan,” he said, “as soon as I saw that room in hell. I recognized it right away as a scene from Satan Sanderson's 'Hell's Belles.' A great show it used to be.”
The clerk, still pale from the fright of the last two days, nodded, mopped his face. “He brought those two gorillas from Chicago a couple of weeks ago to handle baggage. I've seen them carting scenery out of the basement at night and wondered what was going on.”
The sheriff spat ruminatively. “Sure was a perfect set-up.”
Dale nodded. “You couldn't beat it. Props and scenery he had salvaged from his show, a wealthy, but superstitious and simple-minded Indian and a religious fanatic to throw suspicion on.”
He was interrupted by a rustle of silk, an aroma of heavy perfume and a gushing voice saying: “I must thank you, Mr. Dale, for your splendid work in rescuing my poor husband.”
Dale grunted: “Cut it out. This will cost you a thousand bucks. And listen, sister, you take a tip from me and behave yourself. I didn't recognize you at first as Goldie La Rue, leading woman in Sanderson's show. You and Satan had it all fixed up to rook old John out of $100,000. Then you were going to beat it together.
“Satan's wife almost queered the game, so he killed her and stuck that trick skull which moaned in the wind on her shoulders so she'd not be recognized, and to scare John and the rest of us. I can't prove anything on you, sister, but the next time you may get your head in a noose.”