lood the following morning. But there
was one ghastly difference: Emil Drukker had committed his crime with
full purposeful foreknowledge, whereas I had committed my crime under
hypnotic inducement!

"There is no other answer for what has happened in these last six
weeks. I have racked my brain to find another solution, but there is
none. I am being hypnotized by some unexplainable force, and once each
week I come under the power of this evil which directs and commands my
being. Last night I went to bed with the full knowledge of what would
occur during the night. That is why I locked you in your room. This
morning when I awakened I found the head exactly where the other five
had lain; then I carried it to the basement and buried it. I cleaned
up the blood and burned the towel.

"If you are numbed with horror, try to imagine how I feel about it.
Six crimes in six weeks! And I can only thank merciful God that it
will end with only one more. Perhaps it is ended now. That German
servant who loaned me the diary said it would be only six or seven."

"Do you think the police will believe all of this?" I demanded. "What
you have told me has no sane explanation. It--it's demonism!"

~ ~ ~

Carse smiled pitiably. "There are more things in heaven and earth," he
began; then he heaved his shoulders as if flinging off an attempt at
levity. "The human mind is a strange organ, and no man can explain its
mysteries. I have seen too much of atavism to ridicule any theories.
There is nothing we can do but wait and hope that the German servant's
prediction is true. Six or seven. _Six_--or _seven_?"

"Do you mean you expect me to grant you leniency?" I exclaimed. "Great
heavens, Carse, there have been six horrible murders! Society demands
a reckoning."

"I have atoned enough for ten times six!" he cried. "Have you no soul
in you? The crimes will stop now. The German said they would, and
everything else he predicted has come true. As my lifelong friend it
is your duty to see me through."

"But those six----"

"No man can bring them back to life, but I am still a living man and
you must save me. I shall divide my estate among the families of the
six, and I swear to you that I shall never open a book on criminology
again. You must do it--you must!"

"Do you honestly believe it is over?" I asked hoarsely.

"I do; with all my heart and soul, I do!"

"But you would say that anyway," I cried. "Suppose there is a Number