The Long Arm

by Franz Nabl

passing fancy, and Isoon forgot all about him."

  "That Hindoo," said my old school-fellow thoughtfully, "knew thingsabout the secret forces in the universe that made him almost a god. Andhe taught me things that the wisest philosopher in the world doesn'tsuspect. Still, your father may have been right. I think it very likelythat what he taught me may send me to hell!"

  I shivered. I looked up nervously to make sure that the way was clear tothe door. I began to suspect that my friend Banaotovich, though he wascertainly not a criminal, might be a dangerous lunatic.

  My _vis-a-vis_ rubbed absently at a protuberance on his left side. I hadnoticed it when he first came across the room to speak to me. Adeformity--I was sure it had not been there when he was a boy--orperhaps a tumor or some such thing as that.

  "I kept very quiet about what the Hindoo taught me, because I knew mostpeople felt about such things much as you say your father did. And Iwanted to get on in the world. But I had an idea the Hindoo could helpme get on. Perhaps he _has_----"

  And he stared gloomily at space.

  "Perhaps he has. And perhaps he hasn't."

  He brooded. Then he took up the thread of his story.

  "Wolansky nearly drove me to suicide. I read and studied and crammed,day and night. I tried everything I could think of to overcome the man'santagonism. I crawled in the dust before him like a whipped cur! Nothingdid any good. And when I saw he hated me and was determined to smash me,I began to hate _him_, too. I came to hate him worse than I hated thedevils in hell. There was a time when I had to hold myself back with allmy strength to keep from sticking a knife into him or braining him witha chair. But the Hindoo and I made some experiments with telepathy, andI discovered that there are other ways of killing a man besides stabbinghim or giving him poison.

  "I learned how to make a man in front of me on the street turn aroundand look at me. I learned how to make _you_ dream about me and come andtell me the dream the next morning," (when he said that, I jumped, for Iremembered having done exactly that thing!). "I learned how to bring outa bruise on Wolansky's face although he lived on the other side of town;so that he went around asking people how he could have bumped hisforehead without knowing it. And at last I went to bed one night, set mymind on Wolansky, and said over and over to myself a thousand times:Die, you dog! You've _got_ to die! I _order_ you to die!

  "I said it over till I fell into a sort of trance. It wasn't sleep, Itell you. You can't sleep when you are in a state like that. And in mytrance, I could feel another arm grow out of my side here and growlonger and longer, and grow out through the window although the windowwas closed, and grow out across the street and down the street and rightthrough the walls and across the river.

  "I had never known where Wolansky lived. But that night I knew. I hadnever known the street or the house number. I had never been there in mylife. But I can tell you just exactly how his bedroom looked. Thewash-stand between the two windows, the work-table against the westwall, the wardrobe, the old divan against the north wall. In a cornerthe blue-gray tiled stove with some of the tile chipped off. And againstthe south wall--the bed he lay in. I can tell you the color of theblanket he pulled up over his face. It was a dirty brownish red.

  "But my hand seemed to go through the blanket and grip Wolansky by thethroat. First he sighed and turned his head to one side and tried towriggle free. Then he raised his arms and tried to get hold of somethingthat wasn't there. His sighs turned into groans, and the groans changedto a death rattle. He threw his arms and legs wildly around in the air,his body bent up like a bow. But my hand held his head down against thepillow. At last he quit struggling and dropped down limp on the bed.Then the arm came crawling back in to my body, and I came out of thetrance--and went to sleep--or perhaps I fainted.

  "The next morning the director came into our classroom and told usWolansky had died in the night of some sort of attack. You rememberthat, I am sure----"

  When Banaotovich began to tell me this story, he had looked away fromme, and his eyes never met mine during the telling. He had begun with apainful effort, but as he went on he grew more and more excited and moreand more inflamed with hatred of the malicious old Greek teacher, tillit almost seemed as if he had forgotten me and was living the astoundingexperience through for himself alone. When he was through, his ecstasyof indignation left him and he sat dejected and apprehensive, studyingme pitifully out of the corners of his deep gray eyes.

  * * * * *

  When he stopped speaking, there was a moment of silence. Then I saidsomething. I think what I said was, "Very extraordinary!"

  He smiled, a strained, sarcastic smile. "Extraordinary?" he repeated,with an interrogation point in his voice.

  "Your nerves were strained to the breaking-point," I said. "Your troublewith the old rascal had driven you half distracted. Then there was allthat occultistic hodgepodge with the old Hindoo. And you were overworkedand run down, anyway. No wonder you dreamed dreams and saw visions. Andit may have been that there was some telepathic contact between you andWolansky, and when he had his apoplectic attack----"

  The sarcastic smile deepened on Banaotovich's face. "So you have it allexplained, and I'm acquitted?" he inquired.

  "Acquitted?" I cried. "You were never even accused. If the state were tobring action against every man who had a feeling that he would behappier if someone else were out of the way, the state would have a bigjob on its hands!"

  "Very true," Banaotovich assented icily. "I see I haven't got very farwith you yet. You are forcing me to continue my not very edifyingautobiography.--Did you know my father?"

  I remembered his father, and I remembered that he had not enjoyed thebest possible reputation.

  "I think I knew him," I said hesitantly. "He was a--a money-lender,wasn't he?"

  "Don't spare my feelings," said Banaotovich bitterly. "He was a usurer,and a cruel one. I had a feeling for years that his business was adisgrace to the family, and I made no bones about telling him so. Therewere ugly scenes. I thought several times of leaving home. Finally,Father told me one day that since I didn't approve of the way he got hismoney, he was doing me the favor of disinheriting me. I told him thatwas all right with me, that I'd rather starve than live on money thatwas stained with the blood of poor debtors.

  "I thought at the time that I meant it. But about that time I had becomeinterested in a young woman. I had never had much to do with the girls,and very few of them seemed at all interested in me. But this oneappeared to like me, and when I made advances to her, she didn't repelme. I am no connoisseur of female beauty, but I think she was unusuallyattractive, and at that time I was half mad about her. Still waters rundeep, you know.

  "Well, she had me under her spell so completely that I changed my mindabout Father's money. I began to truckle to him, much as I had truckledto Wolansky. I began to feel him out to find whether he had made a will.He was very cold and non-committal. Finally I asked him outright if hewould reconsider his decision to leave me penniless. He told me it was Ithat had made the decision, not he, and that he had no use forwishy-washy people that changed their minds like weather-cocks. He wasvery sarcastic. I lost my temper and answered him back. We had aterrible quarrel, and finally he--he struck me. I was twenty years oldand a bigger man than he. And I think no man ever had more stubbornpride, at bottom, than I have.

  "It was the Wolansky thing all over again. The humiliation, the effortat ingratiation, the failure, the long, eating, gnawing, growing hatred.And it--it ended the same way. The night of brooding that hardened intoa devilish decision, the vision of the long arm, growing, stretching,crawling--but not so far this time, only through two walls and acrossour own house. You remember that Father died of an apoplectic stroke,just as Wolansky had done a year or two before."

  "Yes, I think I remember," I said in considerable embarrassment. Thething _did_ begin to look uncanny. I was thoroughly sorry for the poor,cracked fellow, but I would just as soon not have been alone with him inthat solitary dri
nking-place in the twilight.

  "Well?" he said, almost sharply.

  "Well, Banaotovich," I answered with a show of confidence, "you have hada great deal of unhappiness, and you have my sympathy. This strangefaculty you have of anticipating deaths, like the night-owls and thedeath-watch that ticks in the walls, has made these bereavements anoccasion of self-torment for you. I think you should see apsychiatrist."

  "Anticipating--anticipating?" Banaotovich had gone back and wasrepeating a word I had used, and as he repeated it he drummed madly onthe table with his fingers. "It's a curious coincidence that'anticipating' is just the word my wife used when I told her about it."

  "You--told--your wife--what you have just