by R. W. Heilig
on the busts of Shakespeare and Balzac unmistakably pointed toward the
new and horrible spectre that Kelly's revelation had raised in place of
his host.
And then, again, the other David appeared, crowned with the lyric
wreath. From his lips golden cadences fell, sweeter than the smell of
many flowers or the sound of a silver bell. He was once more the divine
master, whose godlike features bore no trace of malice and who had
raised him to a place very near his heart.
"No," he cried, "it is impossible. It's all a dream, a horrible
nightmare."
"But he has himself confessed it," she interjected.
"Perhaps he has spoken in symbols. We all absorb to some extent other
men's ideas, without robbing them and wrecking their thought-life.
David may be unscrupulous in the use of his power of impressing upon
others the stamp of his master-mind. So was Shakespeare. No, no, no!
You are mistaken; we were both deluded for the moment by his picturesque
account of a common, not even a discreditable, fact. He may himself have
played with the idea, but surely he cannot have been serious."
"And your own experience, and Abel Felton's and mine--can they, too, be
dismissed with a shrug of the shoulder?"
"But, come to think of it, the whole theory seems absurd. It is
unscientific. It is not even a case of mesmerism. If he had said that he
hypnotised his victims, the matter would assume a totally different
aspect. I admit that something is wrong somewhere, and that the home of
David Gardner is no healthful abode for me. But you must also remember
that probably we are both unstrung to the point of hysteria."
But to Kelly his words carried no conviction.
"You are still under his spell," she cried, anxiously.
A little shaken in his confidence, Chance resumed: "David is utterly
incapable of such an action, even granting that he possessed the
terrible power of which you speak. A man of his splendid resources, a
literary Midas at whose very touch every word turns into gold, is under
no necessity to prey on the thoughts of others. Circumstances, I admit,
are suspicious. But in the light of common day this fanciful theory
shrivels into nothing. Any court of law would reject our evidence as
madness. It is too utterly fantastic, utterly alien to any human
experience."
"Is it though?" Kelly replied with peculiar intonation.
"Why, what do you mean?"
"Surely," she answered, "you must know that in the legends of every
nation we read of men and women who were called vampires. They are
beings, not always wholly evil, whom every night some mysterious impulse
leads to steal into unguarded bedchambers, to suck the blood of the
sleepers and then, having waxed strong on the life of their victims,
cautiously to retreat. Thence comes it that their lips are very red. It
is even said that they can find no rest in the grave, but return to
their former haunts long after they are believed to be dead. Those whom
they visit, however, pine away for no apparent reason. The physicians
shake their wise heads and speak of consumption. But sometimes, ancient
chronicles assure us, the people's suspicions were aroused, and under
the leadership of a good priest they went in solemn procession to the
graves of the persons suspected. And on opening the tombs it was found
that their coffins had rotted away and the flowers in their hair were
black. But their bodies were white and whole; through no empty sockets
crept the vermin, and their sucking lips were still moist with a little
blood."
Chance was carried away in spite of himself by her account, which
vividly resembled his own experience. Still he would not give in.
"All this is impressive. I admit it is very impressive. But you yourself
speak of such stories as legends. They are unfounded upon any tangible
fact, and you cannot expect a man schooled in modern sciences to admit,
as having any possible bearing upon his life, the crude belief of the
Middle Ages!"
"Why not?" she responded. "Our scientists have proved true the wildest
theories of mediæval scholars. The transmutation of metals seems to-day
no longer an idle speculation, and radium has transformed into potential
reality the dream of perpetual motion. The fundamental notions of
mathematics are being undermined. One school of philosophers claims that
the number of angles in a triangle is equal to more than two right
angles; another propounds that it is less. Even great scientists who
have studied the soul of nature are turning to spiritism. The world is
overcoming the shallow scepticism of the nineteenth century. Life has
become once more wonderful and very mysterious. But it also seems that,
with the miracles of the old days, their terrors, their nightmares and
their monsters have come back in a modern guise."
Chance became even more thoughtful. "Yes," he observed, "there is
something in what you say." Then, pacing the room nervously, he
exclaimed: "And still I find it impossible to believe your explanation.
David a vampire! It seems so ludicrous. If you had told me that such
creatures exist somewhere, far away, I might have discussed the matter;
but in this great city, in the shadow of the Flatiron Building--no!"
She replied with warmth: "Yet they exist--always have existed. Not only
in the Middle Ages, but at all times and in all regions. There is no
nation but has some record of them, in one form or another. And don't
you think if we find a thought, no matter how absurd it may seem to us,
that has ever occupied the minds of men--if we find, I say, such a
perennially recurrent thought, are we not justified in assuming that it
must have some basis in the actual experience of mankind?"
Chance's brow became very clouded, and infinite numbers of hidden
premature wrinkles began to show. How wan he looked and how frail! He
was as one lost in a labyrinth in which he saw no light, convinced
against his will, or rather, against his scientific conviction, that she
was not wholly mistaken.
"Still," he observed triumphantly, "your vampires suck blood; but
David, if vampire he be, preys upon the soul. How can a man suck
from another man's brain a thing as intangible, as quintessential as
thought?"
"Ah," she replied, "you forget, thought is more real than blood!"
XXV
Only three hours had passed since Kelly had startled Chance from his
sombre reveries, but within this brief space their love had matured as
if each hour had been a year. The pallor had vanished from his cheeks
and the restiveness from his eyes. The intoxication of her presence had
rekindled the light of his countenance and given him strength to combat
the mighty forces embodied in David Gardner. The child in him had made
room for the man. He would not hear of surrendering without a struggle,
and Kelly felt sure she might leave his fate in his own hand. Love had
lent him a coat of mail. He was warned, and would not succumb. Still she
made one more attempt to persuade him to leave the house at once with
/>
her.
"I must go now," she said. "Will you not come with me, after all? I am
so afraid to think of you still here."
"No, dear," he replied. "I shall not desert my post. I must solve the
riddle of this man's life; and if, indeed, he is the thing he seems to
be, I shall attempt to wrest from him what he has stolen from me. I
speak of my unwritten novel."
"Do not attempt to oppose him openly. You cannot resist him."
"Be assured that I shall be on my guard. I have in the last few hours
lived through so much that makes life worth living, that I would not
wantonly expose myself to any danger. Still, I cannot go without
certainty--cannot, if there is some truth in our fears, leave the best
of me behind."
"What are you planning to do?"
"My play--I am sure now that it is mine--I cannot take from him; that is
irretrievably lost. He has read it to his circle and prepared for its
publication. And, no matter how firmly convinced you or I may be of his
strange power, no one would believe our testimony. They would pronounce
us mad. Perhaps we _are_ mad!"
"No; we are not mad; but it is mad for you to stay here," she asserted.
"I shall not stay here one minute longer than is absolutely essential.
Within a week I shall have conclusive proof of his guilt or innocence."
"How will you go about it?"
"His writing table--"
"Ah!"
"Yes, perhaps I can discover some note, some indication, some proof--"
"It's a dangerous game."
"I have everything to gain."
"I wish I could stay here with you," she said. "Have you no friend, no
one whom you could trust in this delicate matter?"
"Why, yes--Jack."
A shadow passed over her face.
"Do you know," she said, "I have a feeling that you care more for him
than for me?"
"Nonsense," he said, "he is my friend, you, you--immeasurably more."
"Are you still as intimate with him as when I first met you?"
"Not quite; of late a troubling something, like a thin veil, seems to
have passed between us. But he will come when I call him. He will not
fail me in my hour of need."
"When can he be here?"
"In two or three days."
"Meanwhile be very careful. Above all, lock your door at night."
"I will not only lock, but barricade it. I shall try with all my power
to elucidate this mystery without, however, exposing myself to needless
risks."
"I will go, then. Kiss me good-bye."
"May I not take you to the car?"
"You had better not."
At the door she turned back once more. "Write me every day, or call me
up on the telephone."
He straightened himself, as if to convince her of his strength. Yet when
at last the door had closed behind her, his courage forsook him for a
moment. And, if he had not been ashamed to appear a weakling before the
woman he loved, who knows if any power on earth could have kept him in
that house where from every corner a secret seemed to lurk!
There was a misgiving, too, in the woman's heart as she left the boy
behind,--a prey to the occult power that, seeking expression in multiple
activities, has made and unmade emperors, prophets and poets.
As she stepped into a street car she saw from afar, as in a vision, the
face of David Gardner. It seemed very white and hungry. There was no
human kindness in it--only a threat and a sneer.
XXVI
For over an hour Chance paced up and down his room, wildly excited by
Kelly's revelations. It required an immense amount of self-control for
him to pen the following lines to Jack: "I need you. Come."
After he had entrusted the letter to the hall-boy, a reaction set in and
he was able to consider the matter, if not with equanimity, at least
with a degree of calmness. The strangest thing to him was that he could
not bring himself to hate David, of whose evil influence upon his
life he was now firmly convinced. Here was another shattered idol; but
one--like the fragment of a great god-face in the desert--intensely
fascinating, even in its ruin. Then yielding to a natural impulse,
Chance looked over his photographs and at once laid hold upon the
austere image of his master and friend. No--it was preposterous; there
was no evil in this man. There was no trace of malice in this face, the
face of a prophet or an inspired madman, a poet. And yet, as he
scrutinised the picture closely a curious transformation seemed to take
place in the features; a sly little line appeared insinuatingly about
David's well-formed mouth, and the serene calm of his Jupiter-head
seemed to turn into the sneak smile of a thief. Nevertheless, Chance was
not afraid. His anxieties had at last assumed definite shape; it was
possible now to be on his guard. It is only invisible, incomprehensible
fear, crouching upon us from the night, that drives sensitive natures to
the verge of madness and transforms stern warriors into cowards.
Chance realised the necessity of postponing the proposed investigation
of David's papers until the morning, as it was now near eleven, and
he expected to hear at any moment the sound of his feet at the door.
Before retiring he took a number of precautions. Carefully he locked the
door to his bedroom and placed a chair in front of it. To make doubly
sure, he fastened the handle to an exquisite Chinese vase, a gift of
David's, that at the least attempt to force an entrance from without
would come down with a crash.
Then, although sleep seemed out of the question, he went to bed. He had
hardly touched the pillow when a leaden weight seemed to fall upon his
eyes. The day's commotion had been too much for his delicate frame. By
force of habit he pulled the cover over his ear and fell asleep.
All night he slept heavily, and the morning was far advanced when a
knock at the door that, at first, seemed to come across an immeasurable
distance, brought him back to himself. It was David's manservant
announcing that breakfast was waiting.
Chance got up and rubbed his eyes. The barricade at the door at once
brought back to his mind with startling clearness the events of the
previous evening.
Everything was as he had left it. Evidently no one had attempted to
enter the room while he slept. He could not help smiling at the
arrangement which reminded him of his childhood, when he had sought by
similar means security from burglars and bogeys. And in the broad
daylight Kelly's tales of vampires seemed once more impossible and
absurd. Still, he had abundant evidence of David's strange influence,
and was determined to know the truth before nightfall. Her words, that
thought is more real than blood, kept ringing in his ears. If such was
the case, he would find evidence of David's intellectual burglaries,
and possibly be able to regain a part of his lost self that had been
snatched from him by the relentless dream-hand.
But under no circumstances could he face David in his present state
of mind. He was convinced that if in the fleeting vision of a moment the
terribly afraid as to shriek like a maniac. So he dressed particularly
slowly in the hope of avoiding an encounter with his host. But fate
thwarted this hope. David, too, lingered that morning unusually long
over his coffee. He was just taking his last sip when Chance entered the
room. His behaviour was of an almost bourgeois kindness. Benevolence
fairly beamed from his face. But to the boy's eyes it had assumed a new
and sinister expression.
"You are late this morning, Chance," he remarked in his mildest manner.
"Have you been about town, or writing poetry? Both occupations are
equally unhealthy." As he said this he watched the young man with the
