ledge that no
breath of suspicion has touched him. Sime, you remember a girl I told
you about at Oxford one evening, a girl who came to visit him?"

Sime nodded slowly.

"Well--he killed her! Oh! there is no doubt about it; I saw her body
in the hospital."

"_How_ had he killed her, then?"

"How? Only he and the God who permits him to exist can answer that,
Sime. He killed her without coming anywhere near her--and he killed
his adoptive father, Sir Michael Ferrara, by the same unholy means!"

Sime watched him, but offered no comment.

"It was hushed up, of course; there is no existing law which could be
used against him."

"_Existing_ law?"

"They are ruled out, Sime, the laws that _could_ have reached him; but
he would have been burnt at the stake in the Middle Ages!"

"I see." Sime drummed his fingers upon the table. "You had those ideas
about him at Oxford; and does Dr. Cairn seriously believe the same?"

"He does. So would you--you could not doubt it, Sime, not for a
moment, if you had seen what we have seen!" His eyes blazed into a
sudden fury, suggestive of his old, robust self. "He tried night after
night, by means of the same accursed sorcery, which everyone thought
buried in the ruins of Thebes, to kill _me_! He projected--things--"

"Suggested these--things, to your mind?"

"Something like that. I saw, or thought I saw, and smelt--pah!--I seem
to smell them now!--beetles, mummy-beetles, you know, from the skull
of a mummy! My rooms were thick with them. It brought me very near to
Bedlam, Sime. Oh! it was not merely imaginary. My father and I caught
him red-handed." He glanced across at the other. "You read of the
death of Lord Lashmore? It was just after you came out."

"Yes--heart."

"It was his heart, yes--but Ferrara was responsible! That was the
business which led my father to drive to Ferrara's rooms with a loaded
revolver in his pocket."

The wind was shaking the windows, and whistling about the building
with demoniacal fury as if seeking admission; the band played a
popular waltz; and in and out of the open doors came and went groups
representative of many ages and many nationalities.

"Ferrara," began Sime slowly, "was always a detestable man, with his
sleek black hair, and ivory face. Those long eyes of his had an
expression which always tempted me to hit him. Sir Michael, if what
you say is true--and after all, Cairn, it only goes to show how little
we know of the nervous system-