"Do you swear that?"
He laughed, a strange laugh.
"Do you seek to catch me tripping? You conduct your case with too much animus. You must allow me to grasp the exact purport of your inquiry before I can undertake to reply to it on oath."
"Are you not aware that at present there is in London an individual who claims to have had a very close, and a very curious, acquaintance with you in the East?"
"I am not."
"That you swear?"
"That I do swear."
"That is singular."
"Why is it singular?"
"Because I fancy that that individual haunts you."
"Haunts me?"
"Haunts you."
"You jest."
"You think so?-You remember that picture of the scarabaeus which, yesterday morning, frightened you into a state of semi-idiocy."
"You use strong language.-I know what you allude to."
"Do you mean to say that you don"t know that you were indebted for that to your Oriental friend?"
"I don"t understand you."
"Are you sure?"
"Certainly I am sure.-It occurs to me, Mr Atherton, that an explanation is demanded from you rather than from me. Are you aware that the purport of my presence here is to ask you how that picture found its way into your room?"
"It was projected by the Lord of the Beetle."
The words were chance ones,-but they struck a mark.
"The Lord-" He faltered,-and stopped. He showed signs of discomposure. "I will be frank with you,-since frankness is what you ask." His smile, that time, was obviously forced. "Recently I have been the victim of delusions;" there was a pause before the word, "of a singular kind. I have feared that they were the result of mental overstrain. Is it possible that you can enlighten me as to their source?"
I was silent. He was putting a great strain upon himself, but the twitching of his lips betrayed him. A little more, and I should reach the other side of Mr Lessingham,-the side which he kept hidden from the world.
"Who is this-individual whom you speak of as my-Oriental friend?"
"Being your friend, you should know better than I do."
"What sort of man is he to look at?"
"I did not say it was a man."
"But I presume it is a man."
"I did not say so."
He seemed, for a moment, to hold his breath,-and he looked at me with eyes which were not friendly. Then, with a display of self- command which did him credit, he drew himself upright, with an air of dignity which well became him.
"Atherton, consciously, or unconsciously, you are doing me a serious injustice. I do not know what conception it is which you have formed of me, or on what the conception is founded, but I protest that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, I am as reputable, as honest, and as clean a man as you are."
"But you"re haunted."
"Haunted?" He held himself erect, looking me straight in the face. Then a shiver went all over him; the muscles of his mouth twitched; and, in an instant, he was livid. He staggered against the table. "Yes, G.o.d knows it"s true,-I"m haunted."
"So either you"re mad, and therefore unfit to marry; or else you"ve done something which places you outside the tolerably generous boundaries of civilised society, and are therefore still more unfit to marry. You"re on the horns of a dilemma."
"I-I"m the victim of a delusion."
"What is the nature of the delusion? Does it take the shape of a- beetle?"
"Atherton!"
Without the slightest warning, he collapsed,-was transformed; I can describe the change which took place in him in no other way. He sank in a heap on the floor; he held up his hands above his head; and he gibbered,-like some frenzied animal. A more uncomfortable spectacle than he presented it would be difficult to find. I have seen it matched in the padded rooms of lunatic asylums, but nowhere else. The sight of him set every nerve of my body on edge.
"In Heaven"s name, what is the matter with you, man? Are you stark, staring mad? Here,-drink this!"
Filling a tumbler with brandy, I forced it between his quivering fingers. Then it was some moments before I could get him to understand what it was I wanted him to do. When he did get the gla.s.s to his lips, he swallowed its contents as if they were so much water. By degrees his senses returned to him. He stood up. He looked about him, with a smile which was positively ghastly.
"It"s-it"s a delusion."
"It"s a very queer kind of a delusion, if it is."
I eyed him, curiously. He was evidently making the most strenuous efforts to regain his self-control,-all the while with that horrible smile about his lips.
"Atherton, you-you take me at an advantage." I was still. "Who- who"s your Oriental friend?"
"My Oriental friend?-you mean yours. I supposed, at first, that the individual in question was a man; but it appears that she"s a woman."
"A woman?-Oh.-How do you mean?"
"Well, the face is a man"s-of an uncommonly disagreeable type, of which the powers forbid that there are many!-and the voice is a man"s,-also of a kind!-but the body, as, last night, I chanced to discover, is a woman"s."
"That sounds very odd." He closed his eyes. I could see that his cheeks were clammy. "Do you-do you believe in witchcraft?"
"That depends."
"Have you heard of Obi?"