“Two . . . this time it shall be two,” and the words had filled her with an indescribable fear, and she had turned to run; but her way had been blocked by a figure, gigantic in stature—and its monstrous shape had moved towards her, and she knew it was the incarnation of evil itself. If it had touched her Daphne was certain that she would have gone mad. . . .
She looked at her watch. Two o’clock. A few more hours and it would be dawn. The fire had died down once more. She stretched out her hand for more wood; but there were only a few sticks left. Anne must have used their supply while she was sleeping.
Without the security of the fire slumber would be impossible. She looked at Anne. Her head lay on her left shoulder, her fair hair falling back from her forehead. Daphne thought she looked very young and very, very sweet. No, she wouldn’t disturb her.
The whistling had grown in volume, it seemed to fill the air in a pæan of triumph. She must collect more sticks. . . . The darkness would be unbearable. She got up and walked out of the circle away from the sandy patch and the friendly embers into the sombre mystery of the island.
The night closed round her. . . . She was alone, quite alone. But that was ridiculous. After all, Jean was there, and Anne.
She felt afraid: she would walk towards the huge monolith where Jean was watching. She remembered his face, reddened by the light of his fire. His determined expression . . . the set look, akin to martyrdom, in his eyes; he knew the danger they were threatened by . . . he could only wait.
It was difficult walking. There was no moon; and the tough sea-grass tore at her legs. Where was Jean? There! She caught the glow of the ashes of his fire. She stumbled towards it. But where was Jean? She stood on a small hillock peering into the darkness.
“Jean! Jean!” Her voice sounded strangled and strange.
She moved towards the fire; and as she drew nearer she noticed something glistening in the dim light, glistening with a pale phosphorescence. She bent down, the better to discover what it could be. She started back with an exclamation of disgust. The side of the fire where Jean had been sitting was a pool of slime—reeking and foul; the thought came to her that a giant slug might have made that mark—a giant sea-slug. And then real fear gripped her. She was rooted to the spot; stricken with the paralysis of fear. She gazed at the filthy trail at her feet.
“Daphne!” It was Anne’s voice—and terror was in it—incredible terror.
“Daphne! . . . Jean! . . . Daphne! Help! Help! Oh, my God!”
The cries suddenly ceased, and a silence, more significant than any clamour, froze her heart.
With an effort she staggered towards their camp, her lips gasping, “I’m coming . . . I’m coming.”
She tottered to the top of the rise below which was their sleeping place.
“Anne!” Her scream rose shrilly in the air. “What is it? I’m coming, Anne.”
She ran to their camp. Where Anne had lain was a second pool of slime—the same odour of putrefaction . . . and the same trail that led—towards the sea.
Now, if ever courage was needed, she must have it. Such horrors could not be allowed to happen—and she was alone. Anne was gone; and so was Jean. Something had taken them. She gazed in horror at the slimy track; remembered the story of the artist who had disappeared. Jean had said, “No one rightly knows what happened to him.”
She stumbled on trying to follow the trail of the Thing that had taken Anne. It was difficult to see by the starlight. Occasionally a smear of slime shone on some exposed rock. And always the way led to the sea. Several times she fell, her hands were torn and bleeding, her legs cut by the rocks and the sharp blade-like grass.
“Anne! Anne!”
But the only answer was the faint beating of the waves on the shore. Everything seemed uncannily quiet. Daphne sobbed aloud in her fear.
She realised that the whistling had stopped.
Mrs. Arraway sat in the stern of the boat, her eyes fixed on the island they were approaching. Tobit, in the mellow sun of the late afternoon, presented an appearance of impressive beauty. The jagged outline of her coasts bravely challenged the surrounding waters; the blood-red seaweed gently rose and fell on the waves.
Mrs. Arraway’s face was grim, and her eyes were anxious. In the boat were four islanders—sturdy fishermen with muscles of steel, and they rowed in silence. The boat grounded. Mrs. Arraway was the first to reach the shore. She ran to the higher ground.
“Jean! Jean! Miss Daphne! Jean!”
And the caves echoed, “Jean! Jean!” And the sea chuckled as it churned in the channels between the rocks.
Behind her the fishermen padded, heavy-footed, scrambling up the rocks.
“There’s one of ’em!” Jim Tregarth shouted.
Mrs. Arraway turned quickly. On the shore below her Daphne sat by a deep pool, her hands full of the red seaweed. She appeared to be unaware of the presence of the fishermen.
Mrs. Arraway ran towards her. She bent down and shook her by the shoulder. Daphne looked up, and there was a great wisdom and understanding in her eyes.
“Jean . . . where’s Jean?”
“Jean?” Daphne shook her head. “Jean?”
“And Miss Anne? Tell me, what’s happened? Where are they?”
“You’d like to know, wouldn’t you? I can see you would. But you won’t. . . . You won’t. Because nobody knows rightly what happened to them.” She laughed to herself. She possessed a great secret, and one that nobody must share. She gave the woman a cunning look; and stroked the seaweed that she held between her fingers. “No,” she continued, “nobody will rightly know what happened to them. This time it claimed two. This time. Tobit has taken two!”
For a long time she would not consent to leave the island.
And if you care to go and see her in the square yellow brick building where she was sent, she will beckon you over to her, and drawing your head down to hers will begin to confide her secret to you. But she will never finish it, for she is afraid that if she does the Thing on Tobit will know that she has told—and Tobit belongs to the sea.
THE LAST NIGHT
“Please, doctor,” the girl’s voice quavered, “please, doctor, let Nurse stay with me. Something awful is going to happen. I know it. Tell Nurse she’s to stay with me to-night. It’s my last night. I’m going out to-morrow. If you don’t tell her to stay I’ll kill myself somehow. I swear I will.”
The nurse looked at Doctor Patterson with the resigned patient look that adults employ when dealing with a naughty child.
Dr. Patterson smiled. “But, my dear,” he said, “what could possibly happen to you? What is it you’re afraid of?”
“I can’t tell you. I’m afraid to . . . but tell her not to leave me, doctor; tell her she mustn’t leave me alone.”
He raised his eyebrows at the nurse.
“She won’t confide in me. I’ve no idea what she means, doctor.”
“I tell you I daren’t. He’d get to hear of it.”
“He? Who do you mean?”
“Dr. Morris.”
“Dr. Morris?” Patterson was puzzled.
“Yes.” Nora almost whispered the answer. She glanced apprehensively round her small white room with its heavily barred windows and narrow spotless bed. There was an air of impersonal and cleanly efficiency that is only found in hospitals and institutions.
“She’s a little tired to-night with the excitement,” the nurse broke in crisply. “Your mother will be here to-morrow, Nora,” she added; “you mustn’t over-excite yourself, you know, or we’ll have to keep you here a little longer until you are quite well again.”
Nora sat down on the edge of her bed. Keep her here longer, would they? For three years she had been in this “mental home”—“A private home,” Mrs. Little had impressed upon her friends, “of course Nora is in a private home. Poor child. But the doctor says she has been much better lately, and so she’ll soon be back with me again.”
“Yes, Nora—your mother will come for you tom
orrow, and she mustn’t see a tired-eyed child, must she? Now, don’t think any more about it, or, as nurse says, you won’t be fit to leave. You’re not behaving at all reasonably, you know.” He believed in humouring the patients . . . to a point! “Just a minute, nurse,” he said.
Together they crossed to the door and went outside into the whitewashed corridor. Nora could hear the low murmur of their voices. What were they saying? she asked herself frenziedly. Were they saying that she was mad—that she didn’t know what she was talking about? She shuddered, rocking backwards and forwards, her face set masklike with fear. Dr. Morris would come along to-night as he had said he would. She couldn’t bear it—she couldn’t. His eyes would look at her—those terrible eyes. . . .
Dimly she heard a woman laughing—high, shrieking maniac laughter. It rose shrilly—a penetrating animal scream. The door opened—and the doctor said: “That’s number 18 started again. I suppose I’d better see what’s the matter.” The nurse came into the room. Nora heard the clatter of the doctor’s feet on the oil-cloth of the corridor floor.
“Really, Nora, no more of this nonsense, if you please. Come now and get ready for bed. It’s eight o’clock.”
“Nurse . . . if I tell you, you’ll help me, won’t you. You’ll believe me?”
“That’s enough. If you say any more I’ll tell the doctor you’re bad again. You’re a very naughty girl.”
Mutely Nora started her evening preparations. If she said any more they wouldn’t let her go . . . dear God, that would mean more nights. Perhaps Doctor Morris wouldn’t come after all.
“Well, good night, Nora.” The nurse switched off the light by the door. “Go to sleep, dear, and don’t let me hear another word from you.” The door closed with an angry bang.
Nora lay beneath her blankets, her eyes open. Sleep—she must sleep. To-morrow wasn’t far away. She was going home to-morrow. She must go to sleep. In the silence she heard the wild laughter of the woman in No. 18. She was bad to-night, the doctor had said. She must go to sleep . . . she must go to sleep . . . she must go to sleep. . . .
Dr. Patterson was worried. He realised of course that it was absurd to pay any attention to Nora’s words. She was excited at the prospect of her discharge on the following day, that was all. And yet her terror had seemed so genuine. . . .
He wondered if he should consult Morris; but decided that it would only disturb him needlessly. He mustn’t pay any attention. Good Lord, if he took all that his patients said seriously, he would have been one of them years ago. But still—there was something tragic in Nora’s pleading. No, he decided, he’d say nothing to Morris. He hadn’t seemed very fit lately; he’d been working too hard—and overdoing his pleasures too, if he, Patterson, wasn’t mistaken. He was a good-looking brute of a man, and had an extremely strong personality . . . forceful. Dr. Patterson was very precise and liked to amend his thought sentences until they expressed his exact meaning.
Dr. Patterson thought of his own rather meagre form, and sighed perhaps a little enviously. But there was no time for speculation, he told himself; there was too much to do. The woman in No. 18, for instance, would need settling off for the night. A sleeping draught might make the poor soul easier.
Hugh Morris pressed the bell on his desk, and bent his dark head once more over his writing. There was a knock on the door.
“Come in.” Hugh’s voice was slow and deep. “Oh, Todd,” he continued, “I rang to say I shouldn’t need you any more to-night. You may go to bed. I’ve a lot of work to get through, and do not wish to be disturbed under any consideration.”
“Very good, sir. And will you be wanting anything left out for you, sir?”
“No, Todd. Good night.”
“Good night, sir.”
Morris listened to the sound of his retreating footsteps. No—on no account did he wish to be disturbed . . . Todd could swear he had been working in his study all night. He took off his dinner-jacket and shrugged his shoulders into his professional white linen coat. Then he drew soft rubber gloves on to his hands. He crossed to the mirror above the mantelpiece and looked at his reflection with satisfaction.
He saw a man in his middle forties, of immense physique, with dark hair curling crisply back from his forehead, strong chin, and a firm mouth with thick rather negroid lips. It was a good-looking face—but not in any way remarkable, with the exception of the eyes. Large and of a deep blue, they burned with the light of fanaticism. His enemies said that his eyes were those of a demented man. His lady friends, and they were many, said that they were “terrified by Hugh’s eyes—they’re hypnotic.” But Morris really paid little attention to what friends or enemies said—he had only one aim and object in his life, his profession—the study of the human brain—and to-night . . . to-night, he smiled exultantly, he was going to test his theory of how far a subject under hypnotic influence could resist bodily pain. He glanced at the time. It would be safer to wait an hour.
The moonlight flooded Nora’s tiny room, bleaching it of what little colour it possessed. For hours it had seemed to Nora that she had lain awake, stark with fear, listening, listening for those sure and heavy footsteps that she knew so well. She would have run out into the corridor, but the door was self-locking, and could only be opened from the outside, unless one had a key, and she would get into trouble if she were found wandering in the corridors.
And then, when her taut nerves told her she could bear the suspense no more, sleep had come to her.
The clock over the gateway of the Menyham Mental Home struck two. The building was in darkness, except where one patch of dull orange showed the room in which the nurse on night duty sat reading or knitting. It was seldom that she was disturbed by her patients.
Softly Morris opened the door of his dispensary. The passage was deserted. Like most men of great physical strength he could, when occasion demanded it, move as lightly as a cat. Outside room 18 he paused. There was no sound.
He noted with satisfaction that the patient had responded to the sleeping draught that Patterson had prescribed. His hand caressed a small scalpel in the pocket of his coat—lovingly fingering the cold metal.
Nora opened her eyes. Surely, oh surely, it was nearly morning. She glanced anxiously at the window. It was so difficult to judge time. In a few hours her mother would be here. It was to-day she was leaving. Her mother! Oh, it would be good to be home again; among colour and warmth and friendly interest.
A slight noise outside the door startled her. She saw a thin wedge of light. It slowly widened. Fascinated, she could not tear her eyes away. Doctor Morris! She knew that there had been no chance of escape. Why hadn’t she told nurse—insisted on Dr. Patterson listening to her. He’d told her only that morning. “It’s to be our secret, my dear,” Dr. Morris had said, “you understand that, don’t you? If you tell anyone that I shall come, I’ll kill you.”
She shivered as she thought of his blue eyes blazing down into hers. She had seemed paralysed, incapable of speech. And now he was here. . . .
Hugh’s broad bulk filled the lighted space.
“Doctor Morris,” Nora whispered the words.
“Be quiet, you little fool.”
He stepped inside the room and leant against the door. The gentle click of its closing was very clear in the silence of the room. With two strides he was standing over her. Her face, a pallid moon-blanched oval, looked pitifully up at him. “Doctor Morris,” she repeated.
Hugh sat on her bed, which creaked protestingly beneath his weight. His hands caught hers.
“Nora—look at me.” His face was very near her—his large square teeth gleaming startlingly white against the tan of his skin.
“Nora . . . remember what I said to you this morning. You told no one I was coming here—did you?”
“No one, doctor.”
“Look at me,” his grip on her hands tightened. “You will do as I say—do you hear?” he spoke without expression. “You feel no pain—there is no such thing as pain. Repeat
that after me. There is no such thing as pain. There is no need to be frightened. Repeat it. . . . There is no need to be frightened. . . . ‘There is no such thing as pain.’ ”
“There is no such thing as pain.”
“Pain exists only in the imagination.”
“Pain exists only in the imagination.”
Gradually Nora felt her consciousness slipping. She was tired—oh, so tired. She couldn’t keep awake any longer. . . . Something in the back of her mind told her it was dangerous to let herself go to sleep, very dangerous. But really she didn’t care dreadfully any more. She wished Doctor Morris would stop looking at her. His terrible eyes seemed boring into her head . . . she tried to cry out—and then everything went black.
Hugh saw her expression go blank. With a soft grunt of pleasure he released her hands. Still peering steadfastly into her face he pulled out the small gleaming scalpel. He touched her hand with the cold steel, but the girl gave no sign of feeling it.
“Nora—can you hear me?”
There was no response. Carefully he picked up the tiny instrument. The blade glimmered in the cold light of the moon. He made a small incision on the back of the girl’s hand. Immediately a thin scarlet line showed on the white flesh.
“Pain exists only in the imagination.” Hugh was triumphant. His experiment had started well.
Nora was moving her hand, vaguely and without purpose. She was smiling—a silly meaningless smile. He watched what would happen. Abruptly her hand quivered and crawled spiderlike across the sheet towards his. It grasped the scalpel. Morris stood up. It was interesting, he thought, to see what her next move would be. His scientist’s fascination rooted him to the spot.
“Nora—make a small cut on your left thumb—do you hear me? There is no such thing as pain.”
The girl hesitated. Morris was tense with excitement—if the subject inflicted injury on herself without suffering. . . .
Nora was standing facing the window, her face clear in the moonlight; calmly she raised her right hand holding the knife. For a moment she stood quite still, then, with a deliberate movement, she moved her hand across her throat.
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