uence, there is some talk
of getting him certified. They're afraid he may do something involving
the estate or develop homicidal tendencies, and they talk of possible
suicide--you remember his father's death--but I say that's all bunkum.
The fellow is just a bit cranky, and nothing more."

"What are his symptoms?" asked Thorndyke.

"Oh, he thinks he is being followed about and watched, and he has
delusions; sees himself in the glass with the wrong face, and that sort
of thing, you know."

"You are not highly circumstantial," Thorndyke remarked.

Mr. Brodribb looked at me with a genial smile.

"What a glutton for facts this fellow is, Jervis. But you're right,
Thorndyke; I'm vague. However, Fred will be here presently. We travel
down together, and I took the liberty of asking him to call for me.
We'll get him to tell you about his delusions, if you don't mind. He's
not shy about them. And meanwhile I'll give you a few preliminary facts.
The trouble began about a year ago. He was in a railway accident, and
that knocked him all to pieces. Then he went for a voyage to recruit,
and the ship broke her propeller-shaft in a storm and became helpless.
That didn't improve the state of his nerves. Then he went down the
Mediterranean, and after a month or two, back he came, no better than
when he started. But here he is, I expect."

He went over to the door and admitted a tall, frail young man whom
Thorndyke welcomed with quiet geniality, and settled in a chair by the
fire. I looked curiously at our visitor. He was a typical
neurotic--slender, fragile, eager. Wide-open blue eyes with broad
pupils, in which I could plainly see the characteristic "hippus"--that
incessant change of size that marks the unstable nervous
equilibrium--parted lips, and wandering taper fingers, were as the
stigmata of his disorder. He was of the stuff out of which prophets and
devotees, martyrs, reformers, and third-rate poets are made.

"I have been telling Dr. Thorndyke about these nervous troubles of
yours," said Mr. Brodribb presently. "I hope you don't mind. He is an
old friend, you know, and he is very much interested."

"It is very good of him," said Calverley. Then he flushed deeply, and
added: "But they are not really nervous, you know. They can't be merely
subjective."

"You think they can't be?" said Thorndyke.

"No, I am sure they are not." He flushed again like a girl, and looked
earnestly at Thorndyke with his big, dreamy eyes. "Bu