第 一 章 · A PSYCHICAL INVASION

. A PSYCHICAL INVASION

“And what is it makes you think I could be of use in this particular

case?” asked Dr. John Silence, looking across somewhat sceptically at

the Swedish lady in the chair facing him.

“Your sympathetic heart and your knowledge of occultism----”

“Oh, please--that dreadful word!” he interrupted, holding up a finger

with a gesture of impatience.

“Well, then,” she laughed, “your wonderful clairvoyant gift and your

trained psychic knowledge of the processes by which a personality may

be disintegrated and destroyed--these strange studies you’ve been

experimenting with all these years----”

“If it’s only a case of multiple personality I must really cry off,”

interrupted the doctor again hastily, a bored expression in his eyes.

“It’s not that; now, please, be serious, for I want your help,” she

said; “and if I choose my words poorly you must be patient with my

ignorance. The case I know will interest you, and no one else could

deal with it so well. In fact, no ordinary professional man could deal

with it at all, for I know of no treatment or medicine that can restore

a lost sense of humour!”

“You begin to interest me with your ‘case,’” he replied, and made

himself comfortable to listen.

Mrs. Sivendson drew a sigh of contentment as she watched him go to the

tube and heard him tell the servant he was not to be disturbed.

“I believe you have read my thoughts already,” she said; “your

intuitive knowledge of what goes on in other people’s minds is

positively uncanny.”

Her friend shook his head and smiled as he drew his chair up to a

convenient position and prepared to listen attentively to what she had

to say. He closed his eyes, as he always did when he wished to absorb

the real meaning of a recital that might be inadequately expressed,

for by this method he found it easier to set himself in tune with the

living thoughts that lay behind the broken words.

By his friends John Silence was regarded as an eccentric, because

he was rich by accident, and by choice--a doctor. That a man of

independent means should devote his time to doctoring, chiefly

doctoring folk who could not pay, passed their comprehension entirely.

The native nobility of a soul whose first desire was to help those who

could not help themselves, puzzled them. After that, it irritated them,

and, greatly to his own satisfaction, they left him to his own devices.

Dr. Silence was a free-lance, though, among doctors, having neither

consulting-room, bookkeeper, nor professional manner. He took no

fees, being at heart a genuine philanthropist, yet at the same time

did no harm to his fellow-practitioners, because he only accepted

unremunerative cases, and cases that interested him for some very

special reason. He argued that the rich could pay, and the very poor

could avail themselves of organised charity, but that a very large

class of ill-paid, self-respecting workers, often followers of the

arts, could not afford the price of a week’s comforts merely to be told

to travel. And it was these he desired to help: cases often requiring

special and patient study--things no doctor can give for a guinea, and

that no one would dream of expecting him to give.

But there was another side to his personality and practice, and one

with which we are now more directly concerned; for the cases that

especially appealed to him were of no ordinary kind, but rather of that

intangible, elusive, and difficult nature best described as psychical

afflictions; and, though he would have been the last person himself to

approve of the title, it was beyond question that he was known more or

less generally as the “Psychic Doctor.”

In order to grapple with cases of this peculiar kind, he had submitted

himself to a long and severe training, at once physical, mental, and

spiritual. What precisely this training had been, or where undergone,

no one seemed to know,--for he never spoke of it, as, indeed, he

betrayed no single other characteristic of the charlatan,--but the fact

that it had involved a total disappearance from the world for five

years, and that after he returned and began his singular practice no

one ever dreamed of applying to him the so easily acquired epithet of

quack, spoke much for the seriousness of his strange quest and also for

the genuineness of his attainments.

For the modern psychical researcher he felt the calm tolerance of the

“man who knows.” There was a trace of pity in his voice--contempt he

never showed--when he spoke of their methods.

“This classification of results is uninspired work at best,” he said

once to me, when I had been his confidential assistant for some years.

“It leads nowhere, and after a hundred years will lead nowhere. It is

playing with the wrong end of a rather dangerous toy. Far better, it

would be, to examine the causes, and then the results would so easily

slip into place and explain themselves. For the sources are accessible,

and open to all who have the courage to lead the life that alone makes

practical investigation safe and possible.”

And towards the question of clairvoyance, too, his attitude was

significantly sane, for he knew how extremely rare the genuine power

was, and that what is commonly called clairvoyance is nothing more than

a keen power of visualising.

“It connotes a slightly increased sensibility, nothing more,” he would

say. “The true clairvoyant deplores his power, recognising that it adds

a new horror to life, and is in the nature of an affliction. And you

will find this always to be the real test.”

Thus it was that John Silence, this singularly developed doctor, was

able to select his cases with a clear knowledge of the difference

between mere hysterical delusion and the kind of psychical affliction

that claimed his special powers. It was never necessary for him to

resort to the cheap mysteries of divination; for, as I have heard him

observe, after the solution of some peculiarly intricate problem--

“Systems of divination, from geomancy down to reading by tea-leaves,

are merely so many methods of obscuring the outer vision, in order

that the inner vision may become open. Once the method is mastered, no

system is necessary at all.”

And the words were significant of the methods of this remarkable man,

the keynote of whose power lay, perhaps, more than anything else,

in the knowledge, first, that thought can act at a distance, and,

secondly, that thought is dynamic and can accomplish material results.

“Learn how to _think_,” he would have expressed it, “and you have

learned to tap power at its source.”

To look at--he was now past forty--he was sparely built, with speaking

brown eyes in which shone the light of knowledge and self-confidence,

while at the same time they made one think of that wondrous gentleness

seen most often in the eyes of animals. A close beard concealed the

mouth without disguising the grim determination of lips and jaw,

and the face somehow conveyed an impression of transparency, almost

of light, so delicately were the features refined away. On the

fine forehead was that indefinable touch of peace that comes from

identifying the mind with what is permanent in the soul, and letting

the impermanent slip by without power to wound or distress; while, from

his manner,--so gentle, quiet, sympathetic,--few could have guessed the

strength of purpose that burned within like a great flame.

“I think I should describe it as a psychical case,” continued the

Swedish lady, obviously trying to explain herself very intelligently,

“and just the kind you like. I mean a case where the cause is hidden

deep down in some spiritual distress, and----”

“But the symptoms first, please, my dear Svenska,” he interrupted, with

a strangely compelling seriousness of manner, “and your deductions

afterwards.”

She turned round sharply on the edge of her chair and looked him in the

face, lowering her voice to prevent her emotion betraying itself too

obviously.

“In my opinion there’s only one symptom,” she half whispered, as though

telling something disagreeable--“fear--simply fear.”

“Physical fear?”

“I think not; though how can I say? I think it’s a horror in the

psychical region. It’s no ordinary delusion; the man is quite sane; but

he lives in mortal terror of something----”

“I don’t know what you mean by his ‘psychical region,’” said the

doctor, with a smile; “though I suppose you wish me to understand that

his spiritual, and not his mental, processes are affected. Anyhow, try

and tell me briefly and pointedly what you know about the man, his

symptoms, his need for help, _my_ peculiar help, that is, and all that

seems vital in the case. I promise to listen devotedly.”

“I am trying,” she continued earnestly, “but must do so in my own words

and trust to your intelligence to disentangle as I go along. He is a

young author, and lives in a tiny house off Putney Heath somewhere. He

writes humorous stories--quite a genre of his own: Pender--you must

have heard the name--Felix Pender? Oh, the man had a great gift, and

married on the strength of it; his future seemed assured. I say ‘had,’

for quite suddenly his talent utterly failed him. Worse, it became

transformed into its opposite. He can no longer write a line in the

old way that was bringing him success----”

Dr. Silence opened his eyes for a second and looked at her.

“He still writes, then? The force has not gone?” he asked briefly, and

then closed his eyes again to listen.

“He works like a fury,” she went on, “but produces nothing”--she

hesitated a moment--“nothing that he can use or sell. His earnings have

practically ceased, and he makes a precarious living by book-reviewing

and odd jobs--very odd, some of them. Yet, I am certain his talent has

not really deserted him finally, but is merely----”

Again Mrs. Sivendson hesitated for the appropriate word.

“In abeyance,” he suggested, without opening his eyes.

“Obliterated,” she went on, after a moment to weigh the word, “merely

obliterated by something else----”

“By some _one_ else?”

“I wish I knew. All I can say is that he is haunted, and temporarily

his sense of humour is shrouded--gone--replaced by something dreadful

that writes other things. Unless something competent is done, he will

simply starve to death. Yet he is afraid to go to a doctor for fear of

being pronounced insane; and, anyhow, a man can hardly ask a doctor to

take a guinea to restore a vanished sense of humour, can he?”

“Has he tried any one at all----?”

“Not doctors yet. He tried some clergymen and religious people; but

they _know_ so little and have so little intelligent sympathy. And

most of them are so busy balancing on their own little pedestals----”

John Silence stopped her tirade with a gesture.

“And how is it that you know so much about him?” he asked gently.

“I know Mrs. Pender well--I knew her before she married him----”

“And is she a cause, perhaps?”

“Not in the least. She is devoted; a woman very well educated, though

without being really intelligent, and with so little sense of humour

herself that she always laughs at the wrong places. But she has

nothing to do with the cause of his distress; and, indeed, has chiefly

guessed it from observing him, rather than from what little he has

told her. And he, you know, is a really lovable fellow, hard-working,

patient--altogether worth saving.”

Dr. Silence opened his eyes and went over to ring for tea. He did

not know very much more about the case of the humorist than when he

first sat down to listen; but he realised that no amount of words from

his Swedish friend would help to reveal the real facts. A personal

interview with the author himself could alone do that.

“All humorists are worth saving,” he said with a smile, as she poured

out tea. “We can’t afford to lose a single one in these strenuous days.

I will go and see your friend at the first opportunity.”

She thanked him elaborately, effusively, with many words, and he, with

much difficulty, kept the conversation thenceforward strictly to the

teapot.

And, as a result of this conversation, and a little more he had

gathered by means best known to himself and his secretary, he was

whizzing in his motor-car one afternoon a few days later up the Putney

Hill to have his first interview with Felix Pender, the humorous writer

who was the victim of some mysterious malady in his “psychical region”

that had obliterated his sense of the comic and threatened to wreck his

life and destroy his talent. And his desire to help was probably of

equal strength with his desire to know and to investigate.

The motor stopped with a deep purring sound, as though a great black

panther lay concealed within its hood, and the doctor--the “psychic

doctor,” as he was sometimes called--stepped out through the gathering

fog, and walked across the tiny garden that held a blackened fir tree

and a stunted laurel shrubbery. The house was very small, and it was

some time before any one answered the bell. Then, suddenly, a light

appeared in the hall, and he saw a pretty little woman standing on

the top step begging him to come in. She was dressed in grey, and the

gaslight fell on a mass of deliberately brushed light hair. Stuffed,

dusty birds, and a shabby array of African spears, hung on the wall

behind her. A hat-rack, with a bronze plate full of very large cards,

led his eye swiftly to a dark staircase beyond. Mrs. Pender had round

eyes like a child’s, and she greeted him with an effusiveness that

barely concealed her emotion, yet strove to appear naturally cordial.

Evidently she had been looking out for his arrival, and had outrun the

servant girl. She was a little breathless.

“I hope you’ve not been kept waiting--I think it’s _most_ good of you

to come----” she began, and then stopped sharp when she saw his face in

the gaslight. There was something in Dr. Silence’s look that did not

encourage mere talk. He was in earnest now, if ever man was.

“Good evening, Mrs. Pender,” he said, with a quiet smile that won

confidence, yet deprecated unnecessary words, “the fog delayed me a

little. I am glad to see you.”

They went into a dingy sitting-room at the back of the house, neatly

furnished but depressing. Books stood in a row upon the mantelpiece.

The fire had evidently just been lit. It smoked in great puffs into the

room.

“Mrs. Sivendson said she thought you might be able to come,” ventured

the little woman again, looking up engagingly into his face and

betraying anxiety and eagerness in every gesture. “But I hardly dared

to believe it. I think it is really too good of you. My husband’s case

is so peculiar that--well, you know, I am quite sure any _ordinary_

doctor would say at once the asylum----”

“Isn’t he in, then?” asked Dr. Silence gently.

“In the asylum?” she gasped. “Oh dear, no--not yet!”

“In the house, I meant,” he laughed.

She gave a great sigh.

“He’ll be back any minute now,” she replied, obviously relieved to see

him laugh; “but the fact is, we didn’t expect you so early--I mean, my

husband hardly thought you would come at all.”

“I am always delighted to come--when I am really wanted, and can be of

help,” he said quickly; “and, perhaps, it’s all for the best that your

husband is out, for now that we are alone you can tell me something

about his difficulties. So far, you know, I have heard very little.”

Her voice trembled as she thanked him, and when he came and took a

chair close beside her she actually had difficulty in finding words

with which to begin.

“In the first place,” she began timidly, and then continuing with a

nervous incoherent rush of words, “he will be simply delighted that

you’ve really come, because he said you were the only person he would

consent to see at all--the only doctor, I mean. But, of course, he

doesn’t know how frightened I am, or how much I have noticed. He

pretends with me that it’s just a nervous breakdown, and I’m sure he

doesn’t realise all the odd things I’ve noticed him doing. But the main

thing, I suppose----”

“Yes, the main thing, Mrs. Pender,” he said encouragingly, noticing her

hesitation.

“----is that he thinks we are not alone in the house. That’s the chief

thing.”

“Tell me more facts--just facts.”

“It began last summer when I came back from Ireland; he had been here

alone for six weeks, and I thought him looking tired and queer--ragged

and scattered about the face, if you know what I mean, and his manner

worn out. He said he had been writing hard, but his inspiration had

somehow failed him, and he was dissatisfied with his work. His sense of

humour was leaving him, or changing into something else, he said. There

was something in the house, he declared, that”--she emphasised the

words--“prevented his feeling funny.”

“Something in the house that prevented his feeling funny,” repeated the

doctor. “Ah, now we’re getting to the heart of it!”

“Yes,” she resumed vaguely; “that’s what he kept saying.”

“And what was it he _did_ that you thought strange?” he asked

sympathetically. “Be brief, or he may be here before you finish.”

“Very small things, but significant it seemed to me. He changed his

workroom from the library, as we call it, to the sitting-room. He

said all his characters became wrong and terrible in the library;

they altered, so that he felt like writing tragedies--vile, debased

tragedies, the tragedies of broken souls. But now he says the same of

the smoking-room, and he’s gone back to the library.”

“Ah!”

“You see, there’s so little I can tell you,” she went on, with

increasing speed and countless gestures. “I mean it’s only very small

things he does and says that are queer. What frightens me is that he

assumes there is some one else in the house all the time--some one I

never see. He does not actually say so, but on the stairs I’ve seen him

standing aside to let some one pass; I’ve seen him open a door to let

some one in or out; and often in our bedroom he puts chairs about as

though for some one else to sit in. Oh--oh yes, and once or twice,” she

cried--“once or twice----”

She paused, and looked about her with a startled air.

“Yes?”

“Once or twice,” she resumed hurriedly, as though she heard a sound

that alarmed her, “I’ve heard him running--coming in and out of the

rooms breathless as if something were after him----”

The door opened while she was still speaking, cutting her words off in

the middle, and a man came into the room. He was dark and clean-shaven

sallow rather, with the eyes of imagination, and dark hair growing

scantily about the temples. He was dressed in a shabby tweed suit, and

wore an untidy flannel collar at the neck. The dominant expression of

his face was startled--hunted; an expression that might any moment

leap into the dreadful stare of terror and announce a total loss of

self-control.

The moment he saw his visitor a smile spread over his worn features,

and he advanced to shake hands.

“I hoped you would come; Mrs. Sivendson said you might be able to find

time,” he said simply. His voice was thin and reedy. “I am very glad to

see you, Dr. Silence. It is ‘Doctor,’ is it not?”

“Well, I am entitled to the description,” laughed the other, “but I

rarely get it. You know, I do not practise as a regular thing; that is,

I only take cases that specially interest me, or----”

He did not finish the sentence, for the men exchanged a glance of

sympathy that rendered it unnecessary.

“I have heard of your great kindness.”

“It’s my hobby,” said the other quickly, “and my privilege.”

“I trust you will still think so when you have heard what I have to

tell you,” continued the author, a little wearily. He led the way

across the hall into the little smoking-room where they could talk

freely and undisturbed.

In the smoking-room, the door shut and privacy about them, Pender’s

attitude changed somewhat, and his manner became very grave. The doctor

sat opposite, where he could watch his face. Already, he saw, it

looked more haggard. Evidently it cost him much to refer to his trouble

at all.

“What I have is, in my belief, a profound spiritual affliction,” he

began quite bluntly, looking straight into the other’s eyes.

“I saw that at once,” Dr. Silence said.

“Yes, you saw that, of course; my atmosphere must convey that much to

any one with psychic perceptions. Besides which, I feel sure from all

I’ve heard, that you are really a soul-doctor, are you not, more than a

healer merely of the body?”

“You think of me too highly,” returned the other; “though I prefer

cases, as you know, in which the spirit is disturbed first, the body

afterwards.”

“I understand, yes. Well, I have experienced a curious disturbance

in--_not_ in my physical region primarily. I mean my nerves are all

right, and my body is all right I have no delusions exactly, but my

spirit is tortured by a calamitous fear which first came upon me in a

strange manner.”

John Silence leaned forward a moment and took the speaker’s hand and

held it in his own for a few brief seconds, closing his eyes as he

did so. He was not feeling his pulse, or doing any of the things that

doctors ordinarily do; he was merely absorbing into himself the main

note of the man’s mental condition, so as to get completely his own

point of view, and thus be able to treat his case with true sympathy. A

very close observer might perhaps have noticed that a slight tremor ran

through his frame after he had held the hand for a few seconds.

“Tell me quite frankly, Mr. Pender,” he said soothingly, releasing the

hand, and with deep attention in his manner, “tell me all the steps

that led to the beginning of this invasion. I mean tell me what the

particular drug was, and why you took it, and how it affected you----”

“Then you know it began with a drug!” cried the author, with

undisguised astonishment.

“I only know from what I observe in you, and in its effect upon myself.

You are in a surprising psychical condition. Certain portions of your

atmosphere are vibrating at a far greater rate than others. This is the

effect of a drug, but of no ordinary drug. Allow me to finish, please.

If the higher rate of vibration spreads all over, you will become, of

course, permanently cognisant of a much larger world than the one you

know normally. If, on the other hand, the rapid portion sinks back to

the usual rate, you will lose these occasional increased perceptions

you now have.”

“You amaze me!” exclaimed the author; “for your words exactly describe

what I have been feeling----”

“I mention this only in passing, and to give you confidence before

you approach the account of your real affliction,” continued the

doctor. “All perception, as you know, is the result of vibrations; and

clairvoyance simply means becoming sensitive to an increased scale of

vibrations. The awakening of the inner senses we hear so much about

means no more than that. Your partial clairvoyance is easily explained.

The only thing that puzzles me is how you managed to procure the drug,

for it is not easy to get in pure form, and no adulterated tincture

could have given you the terrific impetus I see you have acquired. But,

please proceed now and tell me your story in your own way.”

“This _Cannabis indica_,” the author went on, “came into my possession

last autumn while my wife was away. I need not explain how I got it,

for that has no importance; but it was the genuine fluid extract, and

I could not resist the temptation to make an experiment. One of its

effects, as you know, is to induce torrential laughter----”

“Yes; sometimes.”

“----I am a writer of humorous tales, and I wished to increase my own

sense of laughter--to see the ludicrous from an abnormal point of view.

I wished to study it a bit, if possible, and----”

“Tell me!”

“I took an experimental dose. I starved for six hours to hasten the

effect, locked myself into this room, and gave orders not to be

disturbed. Then I swallowed the stuff and waited.”

“And the effect?”

“I waited one hour, two, three, four, five hours. Nothing happened. No

laughter came, but only a great weariness instead. Nothing in the room

or in my thoughts came within a hundred miles of a humorous aspect.”

“Always a most uncertain drug,” interrupted the doctor. “We make very

small use of it on that account.”

“At two o’clock in the morning I felt so hungry and tired that I

decided to give up the experiment and wait no longer. I drank some

milk and went upstairs to bed. I felt flat and disappointed. I fell

asleep at once and must have slept for about an hour, when I awoke

suddenly with a great noise in my ears. It was the noise of my

own laughter! I was simply shaking with merriment. At first I was

bewildered and thought I had been laughing in dreams, but a moment

later I remembered the drug, and was delighted to think that after

all I had got an effect. It had been working all along, only I had

miscalculated the time. The only unpleasant thing _then_ was an odd

feeling that I had not waked naturally, but had been wakened by some

one else--deliberately. This came to me as a certainty in the middle of

my noisy laughter and distressed me.”

“Any impression who it could have been?” asked the doctor, now

listening with close attention to every word, very much on the alert.

Pender hesitated and tried to smile. He brushed his hair from his

forehead with a nervous gesture.

“You must tell me all your impressions, even your fancies; they are

quite as important as your certainties.”

“I had a vague idea that it was some one connected with my forgotten

dream, some one who had been at me in my sleep, some one of great

strength and great ability--of great force--quite an unusual

personality--and, I was certain, too--a woman.”

“A good woman?” asked John Silence quietly.

Pender started a little at the question and his sallow face flushed;

it seemed to surprise him. But he shook his head quickly with an

indefinable look of horror.

“Evil,” he answered briefly, “appallingly evil, and yet mingled with

the sheer wickedness of it was also a certain perverseness--the

perversity of the unbalanced mind.”

He hesitated a moment and looked up sharply at his interlocutor. A

shade of suspicion showed itself in his eyes.

“No,” laughed the doctor, “you need not fear that I’m merely humouring

you, or think you mad. Far from it. Your story interests me exceedingly

and you furnish me unconsciously with a number of clues as you tell it.

You see, I possess some knowledge of my own as to these psychic byways.”

“I was shaking with such violent laughter,” continued the narrator,

reassured in a moment, “though with no clear idea what was amusing me,

that I had the greatest difficulty in getting up for the matches, and

was afraid I should frighten the servants overhead with my explosions.

When the gas was lit I found the room empty, of course, and the door

locked as usual. Then I half dressed and went out on to the landing,

my hilarity better under control, and proceeded to go downstairs. I

wished to record my sensations. I stuffed a handkerchief into my mouth

so as not to scream aloud and communicate my hysterics to the entire

household.”

“And the presence of this--this----?”

“It was hanging about me all the time,” said Pender, “but for the

moment it seemed to have withdrawn. Probably, too, my laughter killed

all other emotions.”

“And how long did you take getting downstairs?”

“I was just coming to that I see you know all my ‘symptoms’ in advance,

as it were; for, of course, I thought I should never get to the bottom.

Each step seemed to take five minutes, and crossing the narrow hall at

the foot of the stairs--well, I could have sworn it was half an hour’s

journey had not my watch certified that it was a few seconds. Yet I

walked fast and tried to push on. It was no good. I walked apparently

without advancing, and at that rate it would have taken me a week to

get down Putney Hill.”

“An experimental dose radically alters the scale of time and space

sometimes----”

“But, when at last I got into my study and lit the gas, the change came

horridly, and sudden as a flash of lightning. It was like a douche of

icy water, and in the middle of this storm of laughter----”

“Yes; what?” asked the doctor, leaning forward and peering into his

eyes.

“----I was overwhelmed with terror,” said Pender, lowering his reedy

voice at the mere recollection of it.

He paused a moment and mopped his forehead. The scared, hunted look in

his eyes now dominated the whole face. Yet, all the time, the corners

of his mouth hinted of possible laughter as though the recollection of

that merriment still amused him. The combination of fear and laughter

in his face was very curious, and lent great conviction to his story;

it also lent a bizarre expression of horror to his gestures.

“Terror, was it?” repeated the doctor soothingly.

“Yes, terror; for, though the Thing that woke me seemed to have gone,

the memory of it still frightened me, and I collapsed into a chair.

Then I locked the door and tried to reason with myself, but the

drug made my movements so prolonged that it took me five minutes to

reach the door, and another five to get back to the chair again. The

laughter, too, kept bubbling up inside me--great wholesome laughter

that shook me like gusts of wind--so that even my terror almost made

me laugh. Oh, but I may tell you, Dr. Silence, it was altogether vile,

that mixture of fear and laughter, altogether vile!

“Then, all at once, the things in the room again presented their

funny side to me and set me off laughing more furiously than ever.

The bookcase was ludicrous, the arm-chair a perfect clown, the way

the clock looked at me on the mantelpiece too comic for words; the

arrangement of papers and inkstand on the desk tickled me till I roared

and shook and held my sides and the tears streamed down my cheeks. And

that footstool! Oh, that absurd footstool!”

He lay back in his chair, laughing to himself and holding up his hands

at the thought of it, and at the sight of him Dr. Silence laughed too.

“Go on, please,” he said, “I quite understand. I know something myself

of the hashish laughter.”

The author pulled himself together and resumed, his face growing

quickly grave again.

“So, you see, side by side with this extravagant, apparently causeless

merriment, there was also an extravagant, apparently causeless terror.

The drug produced the laughter, I knew; but what brought in the terror

I could not imagine. Everywhere behind the fun lay the fear. It was

terror masked by cap and bells; and I became the playground for two

opposing emotions, armed and fighting to the death. Gradually, then,

the impression grew in me that this fear was caused by the invasion--so

you called it just now--of the ‘person’ who had wakened me: she was

utterly evil; inimical to my soul, or at least to all in me that wished

for good. There I stood, sweating and trembling, laughing at everything

in the room, yet all the while with this white terror mastering my

heart. And this creature was putting--putting her----”

He hesitated again, using his handkerchief freely.

“Putting what?”

“----putting ideas into my mind,” he went on, glancing nervously about

the room. “Actually tapping my thought-stream so as to switch off the

usual current and inject her own. How mad that sounds! I know it,

but it’s true. It’s the only way I can express it. Moreover, while

the operation terrified me, the skill with which it was accomplished

filled me afresh with laughter at the clumsiness of men by comparison.

Our ignorant, bungling methods of teaching the minds of others, of

inculcating ideas, and so on, overwhelmed me with laughter when I

understood this superior and diabolical method. Yet my laughter seemed

hollow and ghastly, and ideas of evil and tragedy trod close upon the

heels of the comic. Oh, doctor, I tell you again, it was unnerving!”

John Silence sat with his head thrust forward to catch every word of

the story which the other continued to pour out in nervous, jerky

sentences and lowered voice.

“You _saw_ nothing--no one--all this time?” he asked.

“Not with my eyes. There was no visual hallucination. But in my mind

there began to grow the vivid picture of a woman--large, dark-skinned,

with white teeth and masculine features, and one eye--the left--so

drooping as to appear almost closed. Oh, such a face----!”

“A face you would recognise again?”

Pender laughed dreadfully.

“I wish I could forget it,” he whispered, “I only wish I could forget

it!” Then he sat forward in his chair suddenly, and grasped the

doctor’s hand with an emotional gesture.

“I _must_ tell you how grateful I am for your patience and sympathy,”

he cried, with a tremor in his voice, “and--that you do not think

me mad. I have told no one else a quarter of all this, and the

mere freedom of speech--the relief of sharing my affliction with

another--has helped me already more than I can possibly say.”

Dr. Silence pressed his hand and looked steadily into the frightened

eyes. His voice was very gentle when he replied.

“Your case, you know, is very singular, but of absorbing interest to

me,” he said, “for it threatens, not your physical existence, but

the temple of your psychical existence--the inner life. Your mind

would not be permanently affected here and now, in this world; but in

the existence after the body is left behind, you might wake up with

your spirit so twisted, so distorted, so befouled, that you would be

_spiritually insane_--a far more radical condition than merely being

insane here.”

There came a strange hush over the room, and between the two men

sitting there facing one another.

“Do you really mean--Good Lord!” stammered the author as soon as he

could find his tongue.

“What I mean in detail will keep till a little later, and I need only

say now that I should not have spoken in this way unless I were quite

positive of being able to help you. Oh, there’s no doubt as to that,

believe me. In the first place, I am very familiar with the workings

of this extraordinary drug, this drug which has had the chance effect

of opening you up to the forces of another region; and, in the second,

I have a firm belief in the reality of super-sensuous occurrences as

well as considerable knowledge of psychic processes acquired by long

and painful experiment. The rest is, or should be, merely sympathetic

treatment and practical application. The hashish has partially opened

another world to you by increasing your rate of psychical vibration,

and thus rendering you abnormally sensitive. Ancient forces attached to

this house have attacked you. For the moment I am only puzzled as to

their precise nature; for were they of an ordinary character, I should

myself be psychic enough to feel them. Yet I am conscious of feeling

nothing as yet. But now, please continue, Mr. Pender, and tell me the

rest of your wonderful story; and when you have finished, I will talk

about the means of cure.”

Pender shifted his chair a little closer to the friendly doctor and

then went on in the same nervous voice with his narrative.

“After making some notes of my impressions I finally got upstairs again

to bed. It was four o’clock in the morning. I laughed all the way

up--at the grotesque banisters, the droll physiognomy of the staircase

window, the burlesque grouping of the furniture, and the memory of that

outrageous footstool in the room below; but nothing more happened to

alarm or disturb me, and I woke late in the morning after a dreamless

sleep, none the worse for my experiment except for a slight headache

and a coldness of the extremities due to lowered circulation.”

“Fear gone, too?” asked the doctor.

“I seemed to have forgotten it, or at least ascribed it to mere

nervousness. It’s reality had gone, anyhow for the time, and all

that day I wrote and wrote and wrote. My sense of laughter seemed

wonderfully quickened and my characters acted without effort out of

the heart of true humour. I was exceedingly pleased with this result

of my experiment But when the stenographer had taken her departure and

I came to read over the pages she had typed out, I recalled her sudden

glances of surprise and the odd way she had looked up at me while I was

dictating. I was amazed at what I read and could hardly believe I had

uttered it.”

“And why?”

“It was so distorted. The words, indeed, were mine so far as I could

remember, but the meanings seemed strange. It frightened me. The sense

was so altered. At the very places where my characters were intended to

tickle the ribs, only curious emotions of sinister amusement resulted.

Dreadful innuendoes had managed to creep into the phrases. There was

laughter of a kind, but it was bizarre, horrible, distressing; and

my attempt at analysis only increased my dismay. The story, as it

read then, made me shudder, for by virtue of these slight changes it

had come somehow to hold the soul of horror, of horror disguised as

merriment. The framework of humour was there, if you understand me, but

the characters had turned sinister, and their laughter was evil.”

“Can you show me this writing?”

The author shook his head.

“I destroyed it,” he whispered. “But, in the end, though of course

much perturbed about it, I persuaded myself that it was due to some

after-effect of the drug, a sort of reaction that gave a twist to my

mind and made me read macabre interpretations into words and situations

that did not properly hold them.”

“And, meanwhile, did the presence of this person leave you?”

“No; that stayed more or less. When my mind was actively employed I

forgot it, but when idle, dreaming, or doing nothing in particular,

there she was beside me, influencing my mind horribly----”

“In what way, precisely?” interrupted the doctor.

“Evil, scheming thoughts came to me, visions of crime, hateful pictures

of wickedness, and the kind of bad imagination that so far has been

foreign, indeed impossible, to my normal nature----”

“The pressure of the Dark Powers upon the personality,” murmured the

doctor, making a quick note.

“Eh? I didn’t quite catch----”

“Pray, go on. I am merely making notes; you shall know their purport

fully later.”

“Even when my wife returned I was still aware of this Presence in the

house; it associated itself with my inner personality in most intimate

fashion; and outwardly I always felt oddly constrained to be polite and

respectful towards it--to open doors, provide chairs and hold myself

carefully deferential when it was about. It became very compelling at

last, and, if I failed in any little particular, I seemed to know that

it pursued me about the house, from one room to another, haunting my

very soul in its inmost abode. It certainly came before my wife so far

as my attentions were concerned.

“But, let me first finish the story of my experimental dose, for I took

it again the third night, and underwent a very similar experience,

delayed like the first in coming, and then carrying me off my feet

when it did come with a rush of this false demon-laughter. This time,

however, there was a reversal of the changed scale of space and

time; it shortened, instead of lengthened, so that I dressed and got

downstairs in about twenty seconds, and the couple of hours I stayed

and worked in the study passed literally like a period of ten minutes.”

“That is often true of an overdose,” interjected the doctor, “and you

may go a mile in a few minutes, or a few yards in a quarter of an hour.

It is quite incomprehensible to those who have never experienced it,

and is a curious proof that time and space are merely forms of thought.”

“This time,” Pender went on, talking more and more rapidly in his

excitement, “another extraordinary effect came to me, and I experienced

a curious changing of the senses, so that I perceived external things

through one large main sense-channel instead of through the five

divisions known as sight, smell, touch, and so forth. You will, I

know, understand me when I tell you that I _heard_ sights and _saw_

sounds. No language can make this comprehensible, of course, and I

can only say, for instance, that the striking of the clock I saw as a

visible picture in the air before me. I saw the sounds of the tinkling

bell. And in precisely the same way I heard the colours in the room,

especially the colours of those books in the shelf behind you. Those

red bindings I heard in deep sounds, and the yellow covers of the

French bindings next to them made a shrill, piercing note not unlike

the chattering of starlings. That brown bookcase muttered, and those

green curtains opposite kept up a constant sort of rippling sound like

the lower notes of a wood-horn. But I only was conscious of these

sounds when I looked steadily at the different objects, and thought

about them. The room, you understand, was not full of a chorus of

notes; but when I concentrated my mind upon a colour, I heard, as well

as saw, it.”

“That is a known, though rarely-obtained, effect of _Cannabis indica_,”

observed the doctor. “And it provoked laughter again, did it?”

“Only the muttering of the cupboard-bookcase made me laugh. It was so

like a great animal trying to get itself noticed, and made me think

of a performing bear--which is full of a kind of pathetic humour, you

know. But this mingling of the senses produced no confusion in my

brain. On the contrary, I was unusually clear-headed and experienced

an intensification of consciousness, and felt marvellously alive and

keen-minded.

“Moreover, when I took up a pencil in obedience to an impulse to

sketch--a talent not normally mine--I found that I could draw nothing

but heads, nothing, in fact, but one head--always the same--the head

of a dark-skinned woman, with huge and terrible features and a very

drooping left eye; and so well drawn, too, that I was amazed, as you

may imagine----”

“And the expression of the face----?”

Pender hesitated a moment for words, casting about with his hands in

the air and hunching his shoulders. A perceptible shudder ran over him.

“What I can only describe as--_blackness_,” he replied in a low tone;

“the face of a dark and evil soul.”

“You destroyed that, too?” queried the doctor sharply.

“No; I have kept the drawings,” he said, with a laugh, and rose to get

them from a drawer in the writing-desk behind him.

“Here is all that remains of the pictures, you see,” he added, pushing

a number of loose sheets under the doctor’s eyes; “nothing but a few

scrawly lines. That’s all I found the next morning. I had really drawn

no heads at all--nothing but those lines and blots and wriggles. The

pictures were entirely subjective, and existed only in my mind which

constructed them out of a few wild strokes of the pen. Like the altered

scale of space and time it was a complete delusion. These all passed,

of course, with the passing of the drug’s effects. But the other thing

did not pass. I mean, the presence of that Dark Soul remained with me.

It is here still. It is real. I don’t know how I can escape from it.”

“It is attached to the house, not to you personally. You must leave the

house.”

“Yes. Only I cannot afford to leave the house, for my work is my sole

means of support, and--well, you see, since this change I cannot even

write. They are horrible, these mirthless tales I now write, with their

mockery of laughter, their diabolical suggestion. Horrible! I shall go

mad if this continues.”

He screwed his face up and looked about the room as though he expected

to see some haunting shape.

“The influence in this house, induced by my experiment, has killed in

a flash, in a sudden stroke, the sources of my humour, and, though I

still go on writing funny tales--I have a certain name, you know--my

inspiration has dried up, and much of what I write I have to burn--yes,

doctor, to burn, before any one sees it.”

“As utterly alien to your own mind and personality?”

“Utterly! As though some one else had written it----”

“Ah!”

“And shocking!” He passed his hand over his eyes a moment and let the

breath escape softly through his teeth. “Yet most damnably clever in

the consummate way the vile suggestions are insinuated under cover of

a kind of high drollery. My stenographer left me, of course--and I’ve

been afraid to take another----”

John Silence got up and began to walk about the room leisurely without

speaking; he appeared to be examining the pictures on the wall and

reading the names of the books lying about. Presently he paused on the

hearthrug, with his back to the fire, and turned to look his patient

quietly in the eyes. Pender’s face was grey and drawn; the hunted

expression dominated it; the long recital had told upon him.

“Thank you, Mr. Pender,” he said, a curious glow showing about his

fine, quiet face, “thank you for the sincerity and frankness of your

account. But I think now there is nothing further I need ask you.” He

indulged in a long scrutiny of the author’s haggard features, drawing

purposely the man’s eyes to his own and then meeting them with a look

of power and confidence calculated to inspire even the feeblest soul

with courage. “And, to begin with,” he added, smiling pleasantly, “let

me assure you without delay that you need have no alarm, for you are no

more insane or deluded than I myself am----”

Pender heaved a deep sigh and tried to return the smile.

“----and this is simply a case, so far as I can judge at present, of a

very singular psychical invasion, and a very sinister one, too, if you

perhaps understand what I mean----”

“It’s an odd expression; you used it before, you know,” said the

author wearily, yet eagerly listening to every word of the diagnosis,

and deeply touched by the intelligent sympathy which did not at once

indicate the lunatic asylum.

“Possibly,” returned the other, “and an odd affliction too, you’ll

allow, yet one not unknown to the nations of antiquity, nor to those

moderns, perhaps, who recognise the freedom of action under certain

pathogenic conditions between this world and another.”

“And you think,” asked Pender hastily, “that it is all primarily due to

the _Cannabis_? There is nothing radically amiss with myself--nothing

incurable, or----?”

“Due entirely to the overdose,” Dr. Silence replied emphatically, “to

the drug’s direct action upon your psychical being. It rendered you

ultra-sensitive and made you respond to an increased rate of vibration.

And, let me tell you, Mr. Pender, that your experiment might have had

results far more dire. It has brought you into touch with a somewhat

singular class of Invisible, but of one, I think, chiefly human in

character. You might, however, just as easily have been drawn out of

human range altogether, and the results of such a contingency would

have been exceedingly terrible. Indeed, you would not now be here to

tell the tale. I need not alarm you on that score, but mention it as

a warning you will not misunderstand or underrate after what you have

been through.

“You look puzzled. You do not quite gather what I am driving at; and

it is not to be expected that you should, for you, I suppose, are

the nominal Christian with the nominal Christian’s lofty standard of

ethics, and his utter ignorance of spiritual possibilities. Beyond

a somewhat childish understanding of ‘spiritual wickedness in high

places,’ you probably have no conception of what is possible once you

break down the slender gulf that is mercifully fixed between you and

that Outer World. But my studies and training have taken me far outside

these orthodox trips, and I have made experiments that I could scarcely

speak to you about in language that would be intelligible to you.”

He paused a moment to note the breathless interest of Pender’s face and

manner. Every word he uttered was calculated; he knew exactly the value

and effect of the emotions he desired to waken in the heart of the

afflicted being before him.

“And from certain knowledge I have gained through various experiences,”

he continued calmly, “I can diagnose your case as I said before to be

one of psychical invasion.”

“And the nature of this--er--invasion?” stammered the bewildered writer

of humorous tales.

“There is no reason why I should not say at once that I do not yet

quite know,” replied Dr. Silence. “I may first have to make one or two

experiments----”

“On me?” gasped Pender, catching his breath.

“Not exactly,” the doctor said, with a grave smile, “but with your

assistance, perhaps. I shall want to test the conditions of the

house--to ascertain, if possible, the character of the forces, of this

strange personality that has been haunting you----”

“At present you have no idea exactly who--what--why----” asked the

other in a wild flurry of interest, dread and amazement.

“I have a very good idea, but no proof rather,” returned the doctor.

“The effects of the drug in altering the scale of time and space, and

merging the senses have nothing primarily to do with the invasion. They

come to any one who is fool enough to take an experimental dose. It is

the other features of your case that are unusual. You see, you are now

in touch with certain violent emotions, desires, purposes, still active

in this house, that were produced in the past by some powerful and evil

personality that lived here. How long ago, or why they still persist

so forcibly, I cannot positively say. But I should judge that they are

merely forces acting automatically with the momentum of their terrific

original impetus.”

“Not directed by a living being, a conscious will, you mean?”

“Possibly not--but none the less dangerous on that account, and more

difficult to deal with. I cannot explain to you in a few minutes the

nature of such things, for you have not made the studies that would

enable you to follow me; but I have reason to believe that on the

dissolution at death of a human being, its forces may still persist

and continue to act in a blind, unconscious fashion. As a rule they

speedily dissipate themselves, but in the case of a very powerful

personality they may last a long time. And, in some cases--of which I

incline to think this is one--these forces may coalesce with certain

non-human entities who thus continue their life indefinitely and

increase their strength to an unbelievable degree. If the original

personality was evil, the beings attracted to the left-over forces

will also be evil. In this case, I think there has been an unusual and

dreadful aggrandisement of the thoughts and purposes left behind long

ago by a woman of consummate wickedness and great personal power of

character and intellect. Now, do you begin to see what I am driving at

a little?”

Pender stared fixedly at his companion, plain horror showing in his

eyes. But he found nothing to say, and the doctor continued--

“In your case, predisposed by the action of the drug, you have

experienced the rush of these forces in undiluted strength. They

wholly obliterate in you the sense of humour, fancy, imagination,--all

that makes for cheerfulness and hope. They seek, though perhaps

automatically only, to oust your own thoughts and establish themselves

in their place. You are the victim of a psychical invasion. At the same

time, you have become clairvoyant in the true sense. You are also a

clairvoyant victim.”

Pender mopped his face and sighed. He left his chair and went over to

the fireplace to warm himself.

“You must think me a quack to talk like this, or a madman,” laughed

Dr. Silence. “But never mind that. I have come to help you, and I can

help you if you will do what I tell you. It is very simple: you must

leave this house at once. Oh, never mind the difficulties; we will deal

with those together. I can place another house at your disposal, or

I would take the lease here off your hands, and later have it pulled

down. Your case interests me greatly, and I mean to see you through, so

that you have no anxiety, and can drop back into your old groove of

work to-morrow! The drug has provided you, and therefore me, with a

short-cut to a very interesting experience. I am grateful to you.”

The author poked the fire vigorously, emotion rising in him like a

tide. He glanced towards the door nervously.

“There is no need to alarm your wife or to tell her the details of

our conversation,” pursued the other quietly. “Let her know that you

will soon be in possession again of your sense of humour and your

health, and explain that I am lending you another house for six months.

Meanwhile I may have the right to use this house for a night or two for

my experiment. Is that understood between us?”

“I can only thank you from the bottom of my heart,” stammered Pender,

unable to find words to express his gratitude.

Then he hesitated for a moment, searching the doctor’s face anxiously.

“And your experiment with the house?” he said at length.

“Of the simplest character, my dear Mr. Pender. Although I am myself an

artificially trained psychic, and consequently aware of the presence

of discarnate entities as a rule, I have so far felt nothing here at

all. This makes me sure that the forces acting here are of an unusual

description. What I propose to do is to make an experiment with a view

of drawing out this evil, coaxing it from its lair, so to speak, in

order that it may _exhaust itself through me_ and become dissipated for

ever. I have already been inoculated,” he added; “I consider myself to

be immune.”

“Heavens above!” gasped the author, collapsing on to a chair.

“Hell beneath! might be a more appropriate exclamation,” the doctor

laughed. “But, seriously, Mr. Pender, this is what I propose to

do--with your permission.”

“Of course, of course,” cried the other, “you have my permission and my

best wishes for success. I can see no possible objection, but----”

“But what?”

“I pray to Heaven you will not undertake this experiment alone, will

you?”

“Oh dear, no; not alone.”

“You will take a companion with good nerves, and reliable in case of

disaster, won’t you?”

“I shall bring two companions,” the doctor said.

“Ah, that’s better. I feel easier. I am sure you must have among your

acquaintances men who----”

“I shall not think of bringing men, Mr. Pender.”

The other looked up sharply.

“No, or women either; or children.”

“I don’t understand. Who will you bring, then?”

“Animals,” explained the doctor, unable to prevent a smile at his

companion’s expression of surprise--“two animals, a cat and a dog.”

Pender stared as if his eyes would drop out upon the floor, and then

led the way without another word into the adjoining room where his wife

was awaiting them for tea.

II

A few days later the humorist and his wife, with minds greatly

relieved, moved into a small furnished house placed at their free

disposal in another part of London; and John Silence, intent upon his

approaching experiment, made ready to spend a night in the empty house

on the top of Putney Hill. Only two rooms were prepared for occupation:

the study on the ground floor and the bedroom immediately above it;

all other doors were to be locked, and no servant was to be left in

the house. The motor had orders to call for him at nine o’clock the

following morning.

And, meanwhile, his secretary had instructions to look up the past

history and associations of the place, and learn everything he could

concerning the character of former occupants, recent or remote.

The animals, by whose sensitiveness he intended to test any unusual

conditions in the atmosphere of the building, Dr. Silence selected

with care and judgment. He believed (and had already made curious

experiments to prove it) that animals were more often, and more truly,

clairvoyant than human beings. Many of them, he felt convinced,

possessed powers of perception far superior to that mere keenness of

the senses common to all dwellers in the wilds where the senses grow

specially alert; they had what he termed “animal clairvoyance,” and

from his experiments with horses, dogs, cats, and even birds, he had

drawn certain deductions, which, however, need not be referred to in

detail here.

Cats, in particular, he believed, were almost continuously conscious of

a larger field of vision, too detailed even for a photographic camera,

and quite beyond the reach of normal human organs. He had, further,

observed that while dogs were usually terrified in the presence of such

phenomena, cats on the other hand were soothed and satisfied. They

welcomed manifestations as something belonging peculiarly to their own

region.

He selected his animals, therefore, with wisdom so that they might

afford a differing test, each in its own way, and that one should not

merely communicate its own excitement to the other. He took a dog and a

cat.

The cat he chose, now full grown, had lived with him since kittenhood,

a kittenhood of perplexing sweetness and audacious mischief. Wayward

it was and fanciful, ever playing its own mysterious games in the

corners of the room, jumping at invisible nothings, leaping sideways

into the air and falling with tiny mocassined feet on to another part

of the carpet, yet with an air of dignified earnestness which showed

that the performance was necessary to its own well-being, and not done

merely to impress a stupid human audience. In the middle of elaborate

washing it would look up, startled, as though to stare at the approach

of some Invisible, cocking its little head sideways and putting out a

velvet pad to inspect cautiously. Then it would get absent-minded, and

stare with equal intentness in another direction (just to confuse the

onlookers), and suddenly go on furiously washing its body again, but in

quite a new place. Except for a white patch on its breast it was coal

black. And its name was--Smoke.

“Smoke” described its temperament as well as its appearance. Its

movements, its individuality, its posing as a little furry mass of

concealed mysteries, its elfin-like elusiveness, all combined to

justify its name; and a subtle painter might have pictured it as a

wisp of floating smoke, the fire below betraying itself at two points

only--the glowing eyes.

All its forces ran to intelligence--secret intelligence, the wordless,

incalculable intuition of the Cat. It was, indeed, _the_ cat for the

business in hand.

The selection of the dog was not so simple, for the doctor owned many;

but after much deliberation he chose a collie, called Flame from his

yellow coat. True, it was a trifle old, and stiff in the joints, and

even beginning to grow deaf, but, on the other hand, it was a very

particular friend of Smoke’s, and had fathered it from kittenhood

upwards so that a subtle understanding existed between them. It was

this that turned the balance in its favour, this and its courage.

Moreover, though good-tempered, it was a terrible fighter, and its

anger when provoked by a righteous cause was a fury of fire, and

irresistible.

It had come to him quite young, straight from the shepherd, with the

air of the hills yet in its nostrils, and was then little more than

skin and bones and teeth. For a collie it was sturdily built, its nose

blunter than most, its yellow hair stiff rather than silky, and it had

full eyes, unlike the slit eyes of its breed. Only its master could

touch it, for it ignored strangers, and despised their pattings--when

any dared to pat it. There was something patriarchal about the old

beast. He was in earnest, and went through life with tremendous

energy and big things in view, as though he had the reputation of his

whole race to uphold. And to watch him fighting against odds was to

understand why he was terrible.

In his relations with Smoke he was always absurdly gentle; also he

was fatherly; and at the same time betrayed a certain diffidence or

shyness. He recognised that Smoke called for strong yet respectful

management. The cat’s circuitous methods puzzled him, and his elaborate

pretences perhaps shocked the dog’s liking for direct, undisguised

action. Yet, while he failed to comprehend these tortuous feline

mysteries, he was never contemptuous or condescending; and he presided

over the safety of his furry black friend somewhat as a father,

loving but intuitive, might superintend the vagaries of a wayward and

talented child. And, in return, Smoke rewarded him with exhibitions of

fascinating and audacious mischief.

And these brief descriptions of their characters are necessary for the

proper understanding of what subsequently took place.

With Smoke sleeping in the folds of his fur coat, and the collie lying

watchful on the seat opposite, John Silence went down in his motor

after dinner on the night of November 15th.

And the fog was so dense that they were obliged to travel at quarter

speed the entire way.

* * * * *

It was after ten o’clock when he dismissed the motor and entered the

dingy little house with the latchkey provided by Pender. He found the

hall gas turned low, and a fire in the study. Books and food had also

been placed ready by the servant according to instructions. Coils of

fog rushed in after him through the opened door and filled the hall and

passage with its cold discomfort.

The first thing Dr. Silence did was to lock up Smoke in the study with

a saucer of milk before the fire, and then make a search of the house

with Flame. The dog ran cheerfully behind him all the way while he

tried the doors of the other rooms to make sure they were locked. He

nosed about into corners and made little excursions on his own account.

His manner was expectant. He knew there must be something unusual about

the proceeding, because it was contrary to the habits of his whole

life not to be asleep at this hour on the mat in front of the fire. He

kept looking up into his master’s face, as door after door was tried,

with an expression of intelligent sympathy, but at the same time a

certain air of disapproval. Yet everything his master did was good in

his eyes, and he betrayed as little impatience as possible with all

this unnecessary journeying to and fro. If the doctor was pleased to

play this sort of game at such an hour of the night, it was surely not

for him to object. So he played it too; and was very busy and earnest

about it into the bargain.

After an uneventful search they came down again to the study, and here

Dr. Silence discovered Smoke washing his face calmly in front of the

fire. The saucer of milk was licked dry and clean; the preliminary

examination that cats always make in new surroundings had evidently

been satisfactorily concluded. He drew an arm-chair up to the fire,

stirred the coals into a blaze, arranged the table and lamp to his

satisfaction for reading, and then prepared surreptitiously to watch

the animals. He wished to observe them carefully without their being

aware of it.

Now, in spite of their respective ages, it was the regular custom of

these two to play together every night before sleep. Smoke always made

the advances, beginning with grave impudence to pat the dog’s tail, and

Flame played cumbrously, with condescension. It was his duty, rather

than pleasure; he was glad when it was over, and sometimes he was very

determined and refused to play at all.

And this night was one of the occasions on which he was firm.

The doctor, looking cautiously over the top of his book, watched

the cat begin the performance. It started by gazing with an innocent

expression at the dog where he lay with nose on paws and eyes wide open

in the middle of the floor. Then it got up and made as though it meant

to walk to the door, going deliberately and very softly. Flame’s eyes

followed it until it was beyond the range of sight, and then the cat

turned sharply and began patting his tail tentatively with one paw.

The tail moved slightly in reply, and Smoke changed paws and tapped

it again. The dog, however, did not rise to play as was his wont, and

the cat fell to patting it briskly with both paws. Flame still lay

motionless.

This puzzled and bored the cat, and it went round and stared hard into

its friend’s face to see what was the matter. Perhaps some inarticulate

message flashed from the dog’s eyes into its own little brain, making

it understand that the programme for the night had better not begin

with play. Perhaps it only realised that its friend was immovable. But,

whatever the reason, its usual persistence thenceforward deserted it,

and it made no further attempts at persuasion. Smoke yielded at once to

the dog’s mood; it sat down where it was and began to wash.

But the washing, the doctor noted, was by no means its real purpose;

it only used it to mask something else; it stopped at the most busy

and furious moments and began to stare about the room. Its thoughts

wandered absurdly. It peered intently at the curtains; at the shadowy

corners; at empty space above; leaving its body in curiously awkward

positions for whole minutes together. Then it turned sharply and stared

with a sudden signal of intelligence at the dog, and Flame at once

rose somewhat stiffly to his feet and began to wander aimlessly and

restlessly to and fro about the floor. Smoke followed him, padding

quietly at his heels. Between them they made what seemed to be a

deliberate search of the room.

And, here, as he watched them, noting carefully every detail of

the performance over the top of his book, yet making no effort to

interfere, it seemed to the doctor that the first beginnings of a

faint distress betrayed themselves in the collie, and in the cat the

stirrings of a vague excitement.

He observed them closely. The fog was thick in the air, and the

tobacco smoke from his pipe added to its density; the furniture at the

far end stood mistily, and where the shadows congregated in hanging

clouds under the ceiling, it was difficult to see clearly at all; the

lamplight only reached to a level of five feet from the floor, above

which came layers of comparative darkness, so that the room appeared

twice as lofty as it actually was. By means of the lamp and the fire,

however, the carpet was everywhere clearly visible.

The animals made their silent tour of the floor, sometimes the dog

leading, sometimes the cat; occasionally they looked at one another

as though exchanging signals; and once or twice, in spite of the

limited space, he lost sight of one or other among the fog and the

shadows. Their curiosity, it appeared to him, was something more than

the excitement lurking in the unknown territory of a strange room;

yet, so far, it was impossible to test this, and he purposely kept his

mind quietly receptive lest the smallest mental excitement on his part

should communicate itself to the animals and thus destroy the value of

their independent behaviour.

They made a very thorough journey, leaving no piece of furniture

unexamined, or unsmelt. Flame led the way, walking slowly with lowered

head, and Smoke followed demurely at his heels, making a transparent

pretence of not being interested, yet missing nothing. And, at length,

they returned, the old collie first, and came to rest on the mat

before the fire. Flame rested his muzzle on his master’s knee, smiling

beatifically while he patted the yellow head and spoke his name; and

Smoke, coming a little later, pretending he came by chance, looked from

the empty saucer to his face, lapped up the milk when it was given him

to the last drop, and then sprang upon his knees and curled round for

the sleep it had fully earned and intended to enjoy.

Silence descended upon the room. Only the breathing of the dog upon the

mat came through the deep stillness, like the pulse of time marking

the minutes; and the steady drip, drip of the fog outside upon the

window-ledges dismally testified to the inclemency of the night beyond.

And the soft crashings of the coals as the fire settled down into the

grate became less and less audible as the fire sank and the flames

resigned their fierceness.

It was now well after eleven o’clock, and Dr. Silence devoted himself

again to his book. He read the words on the printed page and took

in their meaning superficially, yet without starting into life

the correlations of thought and suggestion that should accompany

interesting reading. Underneath, all the while, his mental energies

were absorbed in watching, listening, waiting for what might come.

He was not over sanguine himself, yet he did not wish to be taken

by surprise. Moreover, the animals, his sensitive barometers, had

incontinently gone to sleep.

After reading a dozen pages, however, he realised that his mind was

really occupied in reviewing the features of Pender’s extraordinary

story, and that it was no longer necessary to steady his imagination

by studying the dull paragraphs detailed in the pages before him. He

laid down his book accordingly, and allowed his thoughts to dwell upon

the features of the Case. Speculations as to the meaning, however, he

rigorously suppressed, knowing that such thoughts would act upon his

imagination like wind upon the glowing embers of a fire.

As the night wore on the silence grew deeper and deeper, and only

at rare intervals he heard the sound of wheels on the main road a

hundred yards away, where the horses went at a walking pace owing to

the density of the fog. The echo of pedestrian footsteps no longer

reached him, the clamour of occasional voices no longer came down the

side street The night, muffled by fog, shrouded by veils of ultimate

mystery, hung about the haunted villa like a doom. Nothing in the house

stirred. Stillness, in a thick blanket, lay over the upper storeys.

Only the mist in the room grew more dense, he thought, and the damp

cold more penetrating. Certainly, from time to time, he shivered.

The collie, now deep in slumber, moved occasionally,--grunted, sighed,

or twitched his legs in dreams. Smoke lay on his knees, a pool of warm,

black fur, only the closest observation detecting the movement of his

sleek sides. It was difficult to distinguish exactly where his head and

body joined in that circle of glistening hair; only a black satin nose

and a tiny tip of pink tongue betrayed the secret.

Dr. Silence watched him, and felt comfortable. The collie’s breathing

was soothing. The fire was well built, and would burn for another two

hours without attention. He was not conscious of the least nervousness.

He particularly wished to remain in his ordinary and normal state of

mind, and to force nothing. If sleep came naturally, he would let it

come--and even welcome it. The coldness of the room, when the fire

died down later, would be sure to wake him again; and it would then be

time enough to carry these sleeping barometers up to bed. From various

psychic premonitions he knew quite well that the night would not pass

without adventure; but he did not wish to force its arrival; and he

wished to remain normal, and let the animals remain normal, so that,

when it came, it would be unattended by excitement or by any straining

of the attention. Many experiments had made him wise. And, for the

rest, he had no fear.

Accordingly, after a time, he did fall asleep as he had expected, and

the last thing he remembered, before oblivion slipped up over his eyes

like soft wool, was the picture of Flame stretching all four legs at

once, and sighing noisily as he sought a more comfortable position for

his paws and muzzle upon the mat.

* * * * *

It was a good deal later when he became aware that a weight lay upon

his chest, and that something was pencilling over his face and mouth. A

soft touch on the cheek woke him. Something was patting him.

He sat up with a jerk, and found himself staring straight into a pair

of brilliant eyes, half green, half black. Smoke’s face lay level with

his own; and the cat had climbed up with its front paws upon his chest.

The lamp had burned low and the fire was nearly out, yet Dr. Silence

saw in a moment that the cat was in an excited state. It kneaded with

its front paws into his chest, shifting from one to the other. He felt

them prodding against him. It lifted a leg very carefully and patted

his cheek gingerly. Its fur, he saw, was standing ridgewise upon its

back; the ears were flattened back somewhat; the tail was switching

sharply. The cat, of course, had wakened him with a purpose, and the

instant he realised this, he set it upon the arm of the chair and

sprang up with a quick turn to face the empty room behind him. By some

curious instinct, his arms of their own accord assumed an attitude

of defence in front of him, as though to ward off something that

threatened his safety. Yet nothing was visible. Only shapes of fog hung

about rather heavily in the air, moving slightly to and fro.

His mind was now fully alert, and the last vestiges of sleep gone. He

turned the lamp higher and peered about him. Two things he became aware

of at once: one, that Smoke, while excited, was _pleasurably_ excited;

the other, that the collie was no longer visible upon the mat at his

feet. He had crept away to the corner of the wall farthest from the

window, and lay watching the room with wide-open eyes, in which lurked

plainly something of alarm.

Something in the dog’s behaviour instantly struck Dr. Silence as

unusual, and, calling him by name, he moved across to pat him. Flame

got up, wagged his tail, and came over slowly to the rug, uttering a

low sound that was half growl, half whine. He was evidently perturbed

about something, and his master was proceeding to administer comfort

when his attention was suddenly drawn to the antics of his other

four-footed companion, the cat.

And what he saw filled him with something like amazement.

Smoke had jumped down from the back of the arm-chair and now occupied

the middle of the carpet, where, with tail erect and legs stiff as

ramrods, it was steadily pacing backwards and forwards in a narrow

space, uttering, as it did so, those curious little guttural sounds of

pleasure that only an animal of the feline species knows how to make

expressive of supreme happiness. Its stiffened legs and arched back

made it appear larger than usual, and the black visage wore a smile of

beatific joy. Its eyes blazed magnificently; it was in an ecstasy.

At the end of every few paces it turned sharply and stalked back again

along the same line, padding softly, and purring like a roll of little

muffled drums. It behaved precisely as though it were rubbing against

the ankles of some one who remained invisible. A thrill ran down the

doctor’s spine as he stood and stared. His experiment was growing

interesting at last.

He called the collie’s attention to his friend’s performance to see

whether he too was aware of anything standing there upon the carpet;

and the dog’s behaviour was significant and corroborative. He came

as far as his master’s knees and then stopped dead, refusing to

investigate closely. In vain Dr. Silence urged him; he wagged his

tail, whined a little, and stood in a half-crouching attitude, staring

alternately at the cat and at his master’s face. He was, apparently,

both puzzled and alarmed, and the whine went deeper and deeper down

into his throat till it changed into an ugly snarl of awakening anger.

Then the doctor called to him in a tone of command he had never known

to be disregarded; but still the dog, though springing up in response,

declined to move nearer. He made tentative motions, pranced a little

like a dog about to take to water, pretended to bark, and ran to and

fro on the carpet. So far there was no actual fear in his manner, but

he was uneasy and anxious, and nothing would induce him to go within

touching distance of the walking cat. Once he made a complete circuit,

but always carefully out of reach; and in the end he returned to his

master’s legs and rubbed vigorously against him. Flame did not like the

performance at all: that much was quite clear.

For several minutes John Silence watched the performance of the cat

with profound attention and without interfering. Then he called to the

animal by name.

“Smoke, you mysterious beastie, what in the world are you about?” he

said, in a coaxing tone.

The cat looked up at him for a moment, smiling in its ecstasy, blinking

its eyes, but too happy to pause. He spoke to it again. He called to it

several times, and each time it turned upon him its blazing eyes, drunk

with inner delight, opening and shutting its lips, its body large and

rigid with excitement. Yet it never for one instant paused in its short

journeys to and fro.

He noted exactly what it did: it walked, he saw, the same number of

paces each time, some six or seven steps, and then it turned sharply

and retraced them. By the pattern of the great roses in the carpet

he measured it. It kept to the same direction and the same line. It

behaved precisely as though it were rubbing against something solid.

Undoubtedly, there was something standing there on that strip of

carpet, something invisible to the doctor, something that alarmed the

dog, yet caused the cat unspeakable pleasure.

“Smokie!” he called again, “Smokie, you black mystery, what is it

excites you so?”

Again the cat looked up at him for a brief second, and then continued

its sentry-walk, blissfully happy, intensely preoccupied. And, for an

instant, as he watched it, the doctor was aware that a faint uneasiness

stirred in the depths of his own being, focusing itself for the moment

upon this curious behaviour of the uncanny creature before him.

There rose in him quite a new realisation of the mystery connected

with the whole feline tribe, but especially with that common member

of it, the domestic cat--their hidden lives, their strange aloofness,

their incalculable subtlety. How utterly remote from anything that

human beings understood lay the sources of their elusive activities.

As he watched the indescribable bearing of the little creature mincing

along the strip of carpet under his eyes, coquetting with the powers

of darkness, welcoming, maybe, some fearsome visitor, there stirred in

his heart a feeling strangely akin to awe. Its indifference to human

kind, its serene superiority to the obvious, struck him forcibly with

fresh meaning; so remote, so inaccessible seemed the secret purposes of

its real life, so alien to the blundering honesty of other animals.

Its absolute poise of bearing brought into his mind the opium-eater’s

words that “no dignity is perfect which does not at some point ally

itself with the mysterious”; and he became suddenly aware that the

presence of the dog in this foggy, haunted room on the top of Putney

Hill was uncommonly welcome to him. He was glad to feel that Flame’s

dependable personality was with him. The savage growling at his heels

was a pleasant sound. He was glad to hear it. That marching cat made

him uneasy.

Finding that Smoke paid no further attention to his words, the doctor

decided upon action. Would it rub against his leg, too? He would take

it by surprise and see.

He stepped quickly forward and placed himself upon the exact strip of

carpet where it walked.

But no cat is ever taken by surprise! The moment he occupied the space

of the Intruder, setting his feet on the woven roses midway in the line

of travel, Smoke suddenly stopped purring and sat down. It lifted up

its face with the most innocent stare imaginable of its green eyes. He

could have sworn it laughed. It was a perfect child again. In a single

second it had resumed its simple, domestic manner; and it gazed at him

in such a way that he almost felt Smoke was the normal being, and _his_

was the eccentric behaviour that was being watched. It was consummate,

the manner in which it brought about this change so easily and so

quickly.

“Superb little actor!” he laughed in spite of himself, and stooped to

stroke the shining black back. But, in a flash, as he touched its fur,

the cat turned and spat at him viciously, striking at his hand with

one paw. Then, with a hurried scutter of feet, it shot like a shadow

across the floor and a moment later was calmly sitting over by the

window-curtains washing its face as though nothing interested it in the

whole world but the cleanness of its cheeks and whiskers.

John Silence straightened himself up and drew a long breath. He

realised that the performance was temporarily at an end. The

collie, meanwhile, who had watched the whole proceeding with marked

disapproval, had now lain down again upon the mat by the fire, no

longer growling. It seemed to the doctor just as though something that

had entered the room while he slept, alarming the dog, yet bringing

happiness to the cat, had now gone out again, leaving all as it was

before. Whatever it was that excited its blissful attentions had

retreated for the moment.

He realised this intuitively. Smoke evidently realised it, too, for

presently he deigned to march back to the fireplace and jump upon his

master’s knees. Dr. Silence, patient and determined, settled down once

more to his book. The animals soon slept; the fire blazed cheerfully;

and the cold fog from outside poured into the room through every

available chink and cranny.

For a long time silence and peace reigned in the room and Dr. Silence

availed himself of the quietness to make careful notes of what had

happened. He entered for future use in other cases an exhaustive

analysis of what he had observed, especially with regard to the

effect upon the two animals. It is impossible here, nor would it be

intelligible to the reader unversed in the knowledge of the region

known to a scientifically trained psychic like Dr. Silence, to

detail these observations. But to him it was clear, up to a certain

point--and for the rest he must still wait and watch. So far, at least,

he realised that while he slept in the chair--that is, while his will

was dormant--the room had suffered intrusion from what he recognised

as an intensely active Force, and might later be forced to acknowledge

as something more than merely a blind force, namely, a distinct

personality.

So far it had affected himself scarcely at all, but had acted directly

upon the simpler organisms of the animals. It stimulated keenly the

centres of the cat’s psychic being, inducing a state of instant

happiness (intensifying its consciousness probably in the same way

a drug or stimulant intensifies that of a human being); whereas it

alarmed the less sensitive dog, causing it to feel a vague apprehension

and distress.

His own sudden action and exhibition of energy had served to disperse

it temporarily, yet he felt convinced--the indications were not lacking

even while he sat there making notes--that it still remained near to

him, conditionally if not spatially, and was, as it were, gathering

force for a second attack.

And, further, he intuitively understood that the relations between the

two animals had undergone a subtle change: that the cat had become

immeasurably superior, confident, sure of itself in its own peculiar

region, whereas Flame had been weakened by an attack he could not

comprehend and knew not how to reply to. Though not yet afraid, he was

defiant--ready to act against a fear that he felt to be approaching. He

was no longer fatherly and protective towards the cat. Smoke held the

key to the situation; and both he and the cat knew it.

Thus, as the minutes passed, John Silence sat and waited, keenly on

the alert, wondering how soon the attack would be renewed, and at what

point it would be diverted from the animals and directed upon himself.

The book lay on the floor beside him, his notes were complete. With one

hand on the cat’s fur, and the dog’s front paws resting against his

feet, the three of them dozed comfortably before the hot fire while the

night wore on and the silence deepened towards midnight.

It was well after one o’clock in the morning when Dr. Silence turned

the lamp out and lighted the candle preparatory to going up to bed.