Chapter III

Moris Klaw deposited a large grip and a travelling rug upon the veranda.

“Good day, Mr. Haufmann! Good day, Mr. Searles!” At an open window the white-aproned figure of a nurse appeared. “Good day, Nurse! I am direct from Paris. This is a case which cannot be dealt with under the head of the Cycle of Crime, and I do not think it has any relation with the history of The Park. But thoughts are things, Mr. Haufmann. How helpful that is!”

Forty-eight hours had elapsed since Haufmann and I had picked up Ottley for dead in the poplar avenue. Now he lay in a bed made up in the billiard room hovering between this world and another. I had a shrewd suspicion that the doctor who attended him was mystified by some of the patient’s symptoms.

Haufmann stared oddly at Moris Klaw, not altogether comprehending the drift of his words.

“If only Ottley could tell us!” he muttered.

“He will tell us nothing for many a day,” I said; “if, indeed, he ever speaks again.”

“Ah,” interrupted Moris Klaw, “to _me_ he will speak! How? With the mind! Something--we have yet to learn what--struck him down that night. The blow, if it was a blow, made so acute an impression upon his brain that no other has secured admittance yet! Good! That blow, it still resides within his mind. To-night I shall sleep beside his bed. I shall be unable odically to sterilize myself, but we must hope. From amid the phantasms which that sick brain will throw out upon the astral film--upon the surrounding ether--I must trust that I find the thought, the last thought before delirium came!”

Haufmann looked amazed. I had prepared him, to some extent, for Klaw’s theories, but, nevertheless, he was tremendously surprised. Klaw, however, paid no attention to this. He looked around at the trees.

“I am glad,” he rumbled, impressively, “that you managed to hush up. Distinctly, we have now a chance.”

“A chance of what?” I cried. “The thing seems susceptible of no ordinary explanation! How can you account for what happened to Ottley and for his condition? What incredible thing came out from the poplars?”

“No thing!” answered Moris Klaw. “No thing, my good friend!”

“Then what did he fire at?”

“At the coach house!”

I met the gaze of his peculiar eyes, fixed upon me through the pince-nez.

“If you will look at the coach-house chimney,” he continued, “you will see it--the hole made by his bullet!”

I turned quickly, and even from that considerable distance the hole was visible; a triangular break on the red-tiled rim.

“What on earth does it mean?” I asked, more hopelessly mystified than ever.

“It means that Ottley is a clever man who knows his business; and it means, Mr. Searles, that we must take up this so extraordinary affair where the poor Ottley dropped it!”

“What do you propose?”

“I propose that you invite yourself to a few days’ holiday, as I have done. You stay here. Do not allow even the doctor to know that you are in the house. The nurse you will have to confide in, I suppose. Mr. Haufmann”--he turned to the latter--“you will occupy your old room. Do not, I beg of you, go outside after dusk upon any consideration. If either of you shall hear it again--the evil whispering--come out by the front door, and keep in the shadow. Carry no light. Above all, do not come out upon the balcony!”

“Then you,” I said, “will be unable to stay?”

“I shall be so unable,” was the reply; “for I go to Brighton to secure the interview with Miss Greta which the poor Ottley so much required!”

“You don’t suggest that she knows----”

“She knows no more than we do, Mr. Searles! But I think she holds a clue and does not know that she holds a clue! For an hour I shall slumber--I who, like the tortoise, know that to sleep is to live--I shall slumber beside the sick man’s bed. Then, we shall see!”