od's
sake believe what I say!"

~ ~ ~

For the next several days I watched him sink lower and lower into
despondency of so contagious a nature that I felt the insufferable
pangs of it myself. He worked late at night on the murder cases,
referring constantly to autopsy protocols and police memoranda,
and more than once I saw him reading his Bible. On several occasions
he visited the county morgue and examined the remains of the
Head-hunter's victims, and following each such visit he lapsed
into a state of mental and physical agitation that exhausted him
within a few hours.

The nights were almost unbearable, and I would lie awake for hours
listening to the mumbles and moans which came from his room,
oftentimes distinguishing such words as "God forbid it! God forbid
it!" and frequently he would scream the word "Head-hunter." There was
no doubt that Carse had delved too deeply into this case, and that
hour by hour he was descending into the clutch of a dangerous
neurosis.

During my stay with him I engaged several servants, but he discharged
them, and I was unable to reconcile him to my point of view. His
resentment of my visit became more acute as the days passed, and I was
beginning to fear that he would forcibly eject me.

It was easy to explain this increased irritability, for I myself, as
well as every soul in the city, was nervously awaiting the next prowl
of the Head-hunter, and in it I recognized more fuel for the fire that
was burning Carse's reason. He was waiting for the fatal Monday night
as a man waits for his doom, and each hour found him closer to a
mental attack. On Sunday afternoon I discovered him in my room packing
my luggage.

"You must go now," he said. "I appreciate your interest in me, but now
you must go--you must!"

The tremor of anxiety in his voice nearly convinced me that he was
right, but doggedly I clung to my set purpose to save him in spite of
himself. I could not leave him alone in face of the developments which
would occur sometime between then and Tuesday morning, and I told him
so.

"Fool!" he exploded; "I can do nothing with you. Stay if you wish--but
it's on your own head!"

The irony of that final statement, whether intentional or not, is
something I shall remember to my grave. I don't think that Carse meant
it literally--_on my own head_--but I was unable to shake his words
out of my ears, and throughout the night and the following day they
hung about me l