The Man Who Found Out by Algernon Blavkwood
Author: OMNICAdmin
Date: 2017-03-05 04:06:33+00:00

All-Story Weekly, May 12, 1917

A “Different” Story.

ROFESSOR MARK EBOR, the there came the mystery! For under the scientist, led a double life, and the pseudonym of “Pilgrim” (the author of that P only persons who knew it were his brilliant series of books that appealed to so assistant, Dr. Laidlaw, and his publishers.

many), his identity was as well concealed But a double life need not always be a bad as that of the anonymous writer of the one, and, as Dr. Laidlaw and the gratified weather reports in a daily newspaper.

publishers well knew, the parallel lives of Thousands read the sanguine,
this particular man were equally good, and optimistic, stimulating little books that indefinitely produced would certainly have issued annually from the pen of Pilgrim, ended in a heaven somewhere that can and thousands bore their daily burdens suitably contain such strangely opposite better for having read; while the press characteristics as his remarkable generally agreed that the author, besides personality combined.

being an incorrigible enthusiast and For Mark Ebor, F.R.S., et cetera, et optimist, was also—a woman. But no one cetera, was that unique combination hardly ever succeeded in penetrating the veil of ever met with in actual life; a man of anonymity and discovering that Pilgrim, science and a mystic.

and the biologist were one and the same As the first, his name stood in the person.

gallery of the great, and as the second—but Mark Ebor, as Dr. Laidlaw knew

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him in his laboratory, was one man; but the great man would go and to what end Mark Ebor, as he sometimes saw him after this curious combination of logic and work was over, with rapt eyes and ecstatic

“illumination” would eventually lead him.

face, discussing the possibilities of “union

“Only last night,” continued the with God” and the future of the human elder man, a sort of light coming into his race, was quite another.

rugged features, “the vision came to me

“I have always held, as you know,”

again—the one that has haunted me at he was saying one evening as he sat in the intervals ever since my youth, and that will little study beyond the laboratory with his not be denied.”

assistant and intimate, “that vision should Dr. Laidlaw fidgeted in his chair.

play a large part in the life of the awakened

“About the Tablets of the Gods, you man—not to be regarded as infallible of mean—and that they lie somewhere hidden course, but to be observed and made use of in the sands," he said patiently. A sudden as a guide-post to possibilities—”

gleam of interest came into his face as he

“I am aware of your peculiar views turned to catch the professor’s reply.

sir,” the young doctor put in deferentially,

“And
that

I am to be the one to find yet with a certain impatient.

them to decipher them, and to give the

“For visions come from a region of great knowledge to the world—”

the consciousness where observation and

“Who will not believe,” laughed
experiment are out of the question,” Laidlaw shortly, yet interested in spite of pursued the other with enthusiasm, not his thinly veiled contempt.

noticing the interruption, “and while they

“Because even the keenest minds, should be checked by reason afterward, in the right sense of the word, are they should not be laughed at or ignored.

hopelessly—unscientific,” replied the other All inspiration, I hold is of the nature of gently, his face positively aglow with the interior vision, and all our out best memory of his vision.

knowledge has come—such is my

“Yet what is more likely,” he
confirmed belief—as a sudden revelation to continued after a moment’s pause, peering the brain prepared to receive it—”

into space with rapt eyes that saw things

“Prepared by hard work first, by too wonderful for exact language to concentration, by the closest possible study describe, “than that there should have been of ordinary phenomena,” Dr. Laidlaw given to man in the first ages of the world allowed himself to observe sharply.

some record of the purpose and problem

“Perhaps,” sighed the other; “but by that had been set him to solve? In a word.”

a process, none the less, of spiritual he cried, fixing his shining eyes upon the illumination. The best match in the world face of his perplexed assistant, “that God’s will not light a candle unless the wick be messengers in the far-off ages should have first suitably prepared.”

given to his creatures some full statement It was Laidlaw’s turn to sigh. He of the secret of the world, of the secret of knew so well the impossibility of arguing the soul, of the meaning of life and death—
with his chief when he was in the region of the explanation of our being here, and to the mystic, but at the same time the respect what great end we are destined in the he felt for his tremendous attainments was ultimate fullness of things?”

so sincere that he always listened with Dr. Laidlaw sat speechless. These attention and deference, wondering how far outbursts of mystical enthusiasm he had

The Man Who Found Out 3

witnessed before. With any other man he

“they would say that I wrote with my would not have listened to a single tongue in my cheek. But wait!” he added sentence, but to Professor Ebor, a man of significantly; “wait till I find these Tablets knowledge and a profound investigator he of the Gods! Wait till I hold the solutions listened with respect, because he regarded of the old world-problems in my hands!

this condition as temporary and Wait till the light of this new revelation pathological, and in some sense a reaction breaks upon confused humanity, and it from the intense strain of the prolonged wakes to find its bravest hopes justified!

mental concentration of many days.

Ah, then, my dear Laidlaw—”

He smiled with something between He broke off suddenly; but the
sympathy and resignation as he met the doctor, cleverly guessing the thought in his other’s rapt gaze.

mind, caught him up at once.

“But you have said, sir, at other

“Perhaps this very summer,” he
times, that you considered the ultimate said, trying hard to make the suggestion secrets to be screened from all possible—”

keep pace with honesty; “in your

“The
ultimate secrets, yes,” came explorations in Assyria—your digging in the unperturbed reply; “but that there lies the remote civilizations of what was once buried somewhere an indestructible record Chaldea, you may find—what you dream of the secret meaning of life, originally of—”

known to men in the days of their pristine The professor looked up with a
innocence, I am convinced. And, by this delighted smile on his fine old face.

strange vision so often vouchsafed to me, I

“Perhaps,” he murmured softly,
am equally sure that one day it shall be

“perhaps!”

given to me to announce to a weary world And the young doctor, thanking the this glorious and terrific message.”

gods of science that his leader’s aberrations And he continued at great length were of so harmless a character, went home and in glowing language to describe the strong in the certitude of his knowledge of species of vivid dreams that had come to externals, proud that he was able to refer all him at intervals since earliest childhood, visions to self-suggestion, and wondering showing in detail how he discovered these complacently whether in his own old age very Tablets of the Gods, and proclaimed he might not after all suffer himself from their splendid contents—whose precise visitations of the very kind that afflicted his nature was always, however, withheld from chief.

him in the vision—to a patient and And as he got into bed and thought suffering humanity.

again of his master’s rugged face and finely

“The

Scrutator, sir, well described shaped head, and the deep lines traced by

‘Pilgrim’ as the Apostle of Hope,” said the years of work and self-discipline, he turned young doctor gently, when he had finished; over on his pillow and fell asleep with a

“and now, if that reviewer could hear you sigh that was half of wonder, half of regret.

speak, and realize from what strange depths comes your simple faith—” The professor II.

held up his hand, and the smile of a little child broke over his face like sunshine.

IT was in February, nine months later, that

“Half the good my books do would Dr. Laidlaw made his way to Charing be instantly destroyed,” he said sadly; Cross to meet his chief after his long

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absence of travel and exploration. The For a moment it was as though an utterly vision about the so-called Tablets of the alien personality stood before him in that Gods had meanwhile passed almost noisy, bustling throng. Here, in all the entirely from his memory.

homely, friendly turmoil of a Charing There were few people in the train, Cross crowd, a curious feeling of cold for the stream of traffic was now running passed over his heart, touching his life with the other way, and he had no difficulty in icy finger, so that he actually trembled and finding the man he had come to meet. The felt afraid.

shock of white hair beneath the low-He looked up quickly at his friend, crowned felt hat was alone enough to his mind working with startled and distinguish him easily.

unwelcome thoughts.

“Here I am at last!” exclaimed the

“Only this?” he repeated, indicating professor, somewhat wearily, clasping his the bag. “But where’s all the stuff you went friend’s hand as he listened to the young away with? And—have you brought
doctor’s warm greetings and questions. nothing home—no treasures?”

“Here I am—a little older, and much dirtier

“This is all I have,” the other said than when you last saw me!” He glanced briefly. The pale smile that went with the down laughingly at his travel-stained words caused the doctor a second garments.

indescribable sensation of uneasiness.

“And much wiser,” said Laidlaw Something was very wrong, something was with a smile, as he bustled about the very queer; he wondered now that he had platform for porters and gave his chief the not noticed it sooner.

latest scientific news.

“The rest follows, of course, by At last they came down to practical slow freight,” he added tactfully, and as considerations. “And your luggage—where naturally as possible. “But come, sir, you is that? You must have tons of it, I must be tired and in want of food after your suppose,” said Laidlaw.

long journey. I’ll get a cab at once, and we

“Hardly anything,” Professor Ebor can see about the other luggage afterward.”

answered. “Nothing, in fact, but what you It seemed to him he hardly knew
see.”

quite what he was saying; the change in his

“Nothing but this hand-bag?” friend had come upon him so suddenly and laughed the other, thinking he was joking.

now grew upon him more and more

“And a small portmanteau in the
distressingly. Yet he could not make out van,” was the quiet reply. “I have no other exactly in what it consisted. A terrible luggage.”

suspicion began to take shape in his mind

“You have no other luggage?” troubling him dreadfully.

repeated Laidlaw, turning sharply to see if

“I am neither very tired, nor in need he were in earnest.

of food, thank you,” the professor said

“Why should I need more?”

quietly. “And this is all I have. There is no Something in the man’s face, or luggage to follow. I have brought home voice, or manner—the doctor hardly knew nothing—nothing but what you see.” His which—suddenly struck him as strange. words conveyed utter finality. They got There was a change in him, a change so into a cab, tipped the porter, who had been profound—so little on the surface, that is—
staring in amazement at the venerable that at first he did not become aware of it.

figure of the scientist, and were conveyed

The Man Who Found Out 5

slowly and noisily to the house in the north the other in a voice like the ring of iron; of London where the laboratory was, the

“and I have—deciphered them.”

scene of their labors for years. And the Profound despair, the gloom of
whole way Professor Ebor uttered no word, outer darkness, the dead sound of a nor did Dr. Laidlaw find the courage to ask hopeless soul freezing in the utter cold of a single question.

space seemed to fill in the pauses between It was only late that night, before he the brief sentences. A silence followed, took his departure, as the two men were during which Dr. Laidlaw saw nothing but standing before the fire in the study-that the white face before him alternately fade study where they had discussed so many and return. And it was like the face of a problems of vital and absorbing interest—
dead man.

that Dr. Laidlaw at last found strength to

“They are, alas, indestructible,” he come to the point with direct questions.

heard the voice continue, with its even, The professor had been giving him a metallic ring.

superficial and desultory account of his

“Indestructible,” Laidlaw repeated travels, of his journeys by camel, of his mechanically, hardly knowing what he was encampments among the mountains and in saying, or what to do with his seething the desert, and of his explorations among thoughts.

the buried temples, and, deeper into the Again a silence of several minutes waste of the prehistoric sands, when passed, during which, with a creeping cold suddenly the doctor came to the desired about his heart, he stood and stared into the point with a kind of nervous rush almost eyes of the man he had known and loved so like a frightened boy.

long—ay, and worshiped, too; the man

“And you found—” he began who had first opened his own eyes when stammering, looking hard at the other’s they were blind, and had led him to the dreadfully altered face, from which every gates of knowledge, and no little distance line of hope and cheerfulness seemed to along the difficult path beyond; the man have been obliterated as a sponge wipes the who, in another direction, had passed on markings from a slate—“you found—”

the strength of his faith into the hearts of

“I found,” replied the other in a thousands by his books.

solemn voice, and it was the voice of the

“I may see them?” he asked at last, mystic rather than the man of science—“I in a low voice he hardly recognized as his found what I went to seek. The vision own. “You will let me know—their never once failed me. It led me straight to message?”

the place like a star in the heavens. I Professor Ebor kept his eyes fixedly found—the Tablets of the Gods.”

upon his assistant’s face as he answered, Dr. Laidlaw caught his breath, and with a smile that was more like the grin of steadied himself on the back of a chair. The death than a living, human smile.

words fell like particles of ice upon his

“When I am gone,” he whispered;
heart. For the first time the professor had

“when I have passed away. Then you shall uttered the well-known phrase without the find them and read the translation I have glow of light and wonder in his face that made. And then, too, in your turn, you always accompanied it. “You have—
must try, with the latest resources of brought them?” he faltered.

science at your disposal to aid you, to

“I have brought them home,” said compass their utter destruction.” He paused

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a moment, and his face grew pale as the There was nothing to work for any face of a corpse.

longer!

“Until that time,” he added

The professor's first step was to presently, without looking up, “I must ask recall as many of his books as possible; his you not to refer to the subject again—and second to close his laboratory and stop all to keep my confidence meanwhile— ab-so-research. He gave no explanations, he lute-ly.”

invited no questions. His while personality crumbled away, so to speak, till his daily III.

life became a mere mechanical procession of clothing the body, feeding the body, A YEAR passed slowly by, and at the end keeping it in good health so as to avoid of it Dr. Laidlaw had found it necessary to physical discomfort, and above all, doing sever his working connection with his nothing that could interfere with sleep. The friend and one-time leader. Professor Ebor professor did everything he could to was no longer the same man. The light had lengthen the hours of sleep, and therefore gone out of his life; the laboratory was of forgetfulness.

closed; he no longer put pen to paper or It was all clear enough to Dr.

applied his mind to a single problem. In the Laidlaw. A weaker man, he knew, would short space of a few months he had passed have sought to lose himself in one form or from a hale and hearty man of late middle another of sensual indulgence—sleeping-life to the condition of old age—a man drafts, drink, the first pleasures that came collapsed and on the edge of dissolution.

to hand. Self-destruction would have been Death, it was plain, lay waiting for the method of a little stronger type; and him in the shadows of any day—and he deliberate evil-doing, poisoning with his knew it.

awful knowledge all he could, the means of To describe faithfully the nature of still another kind of man. Mark Ebor was this profound alteration in his character and none of these. He held himself under fine temperament is not easy, but Dr. Laidlaw control, facing silently and without summed it up to himself in three words: complaint the terrible facts he honestly loss of hope. The splendid mental powers believed himself to have been unfortunate remained indeed undimmed, but the enough to discover.

incentive to use them, to use them for the Even to his ultimate friend and
help of others, had gone.

assistant, Dr. Laidlaw, he vouchsafed no The character still held to its fine word of true explanation or lament. He ascetic and unselfish habits of years, but went straight as a die to the end, knowing the far goal to which they had been the well that the end was not very far away.

leading strings had faded away. The desire And death came very quietly one day to for knowledge—knowledge for its own him, as he was sitting in the arm-chair of sake—had died, and the passionate hope the study, directly facing the doors of the which hitherto had animated with tireless laboratory—the doors that no longer energy the heart and brain of this opened. Dr. Laidlaw, by happy chance, was splendidly equipped intellect had suffered with him at the time, and was just able to total eclipse. The central fires had gone out.

reach his side in response to the sudden Nothing was worth doing, thinking, painful efforts for breath; just in time, too, working for.

to catch the murmured words that fell from

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the pallid lips like a message from the other man’s sanity and hope—what the
side of the grave:

inscription was that he had believed to have

“Read them, if you must; and, if deciphered thereon.

you can—destroy. But—but”—his voice The curious feature of it all to his sank so low that Dr. Laidlaw only just own mind was, that whereas his friend had caught the dying syllables—“but—never dreamed of finding a message of glorious never—give them out to the world.” And hope and comfort, he had apparently found like a gray bundle of dust loosely gathered (so far as he had found anything intelligible up in an old garment the professor sank at all, and not invented the whole thing in back into his chair and expired.

his dementia) that the secret of the world, But this was only the death of the and the meaning of life and death, was of body His spirit had died two years before.

so terrible a nature that it robbed the heart of courage and the soul of hope. What, IV.

then, could be the contents of the little brown parcel the professor had bequeathed THE estate of the dead man was small and to him with his pregnant dying sentences?

uncomplicated, and Dr. Laidlaw, as sole Actually his hand was trembling as executor and residuary legatee, had no he turned to the writing-table and began difficulty in settling it up. A month after slowly to unfasten a small old-fashioned the funeral he was sitting alone in his up-desk on which the small gilt initials “ M.

stairs library, the last sad duties completed, E.” stood forth as a melancholy memento.

and his mind full of poignant memories and He put the key into the lock and half-turned regrets for the loss of a friend he had it. Then, suddenly, he stopped and looked revered and loved, and to whom his debt about him. Was that a sound at the back of was so incalculably great.

the room? It was just as though some one The last two years, indeed, had had laughed and then tried to smother the been for him terrible. To watch the swift laugh with a cough.

decay of the greatest combination of heart A slight shiver ran over him as he and brain he had ever known, and to realize stood listening.

he was powerless to help, was a source of

“This is absurd,” he said aloud; “too profound grief to him that would remain to absurd for belief—that I should be so the end of his days.

nervous! It’s the effect of curiosity unduly At the same time an insatiable prolonged.” He smiled a little sadly and his curiosity possessed him. The study of eyes wandered to the blue summer sky and dementia was, of course, outside his special the plane trees swaying in the wind below province as a specialist, but he knew his window. “It’s the reaction,” he enough of it to understand how small a continued. “The curiosity of two years to matter might be the actual cause of how be quenched in a single moment! The great an illusion, and he had been devoured nervous tension, of course, must be from the very beginning by a ceaseless and considerable.”

increasing anxiety to know what the He turned back to the brown desk professor had found in the sands of and opened it without further delay. His

“Chaldea,” what these precious Tablets of hand was firm now, and he took out the the Gods might be, and particularly—for paper parcel that lay inside without a this was the real cause that had snapped the tremor. It was heavy.

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A moment later there lay on the
end, missing no word, uttering each table before him a couple of weather-worn syllable distinctly under his breath as he plaques of gray stone—they looked like read.

stone, although they felt like metal—on The pallor of his face grew dreadful which he saw markings of a curious as he neared the end. He began to shake all character that might have been the mere over as with ague. His breath came heavily tracings of natural forces through the ages, in gasps. He still gripped the sheet of or, equally well, the half-obliterated paper, however, and deliberately, as by an hieroglyphics cut upon their surface in past intense effort of will, read it through a centuries by the more or less untutored second time from beginning to end.

hand of a common scribe.

And this time, as the last syllable He lifted each stone in turn and dropped from his lips, the whole face of the examined it carefully. It seemed to him that man flamed with a sudden and terrible a faint glow of heat passed from the anger. His skin became deep, deep red, and substance into his skin, and he put them he clenched his teeth. With all the strength down again suddenly, as with a gesture of of his vigorous soul he was struggling to uneasiness.

keep control of himself.

“A very clever, or a very

For perhaps five minutes he stood imaginative, man," he said to himself, there beside the table without stirring a

"who could squeeze the secrets of life and muscle. He might have been carved out of death from such broken lines as those!”

stone. His eyes were shut, and only the Then he turned to an envelope lying heaving of the chest betrayed the fact that beside them in the desk, with the single he was a living being. Then, very quietly—
word on the outside in the writing of the with a horrible quietness, in fact—he lit a professor—the word “Translation.”

match and applied it to the sheet of paper

“Now,” he thought, taking it up he held in his hand. The ashes fell slowly with a sudden violence to conceal his about him, piece by piece, and he blew nervousness, “now for the great solution.

them from the window-sill into the air, his Now to learn the meaning of the worlds, eyes following them as they floated away and why mankind was made, and why on the summer wind that breathed so discipline is worth while, and sacrifice and warmly and peacefully over the world. He pain the true law of advancement.”

turned back slowly into the room. Although There was the shadow of a sneer in his actions and movements were absolutely his voice, and yet something in him steady and controlled, it was clear that he shivered at the same time. “He held the was on the very edge of violent action. A envelope as though weighing it in his hand, hurricane might burst upon the still room his mind pondering vaguely many things.

any moment. His muscles were tense and Then curiosity won the day, and he rigid.

suddenly tore it open with the gesture of an Then, suddenly, he whitened,
actor who tears open a letter on the stage, collapsed, and sank backward into a chair, knowing there is no real writing inside at like a tumbled bundle of inert matter. He all.

had fainted.

A page of finely written script in In less than half an hour he
the late scientist’s handwriting lay before recovered consciousness and sat up. As him. He read it through from beginning to before, he made no sound. Not a syllable

The Man Who Found Out 9

passed his lips. He rose quietly and looked He took his hat and passed down-about the room.

stairs into the street.

Then he did a curious thing.

Taking a heavy stick from the rack V.

in the corner he approached the
mantelpiece, and with a heavy, shattering IT was five o’clock, and the June blow he smashed the clock to pieces. The sun lay hot upon the pavement. He felt the glass fell in shivering atoms about his feet.

metal door-knob burn the palm of his hand.

“Cease your lying voice for ever,”

“Ah, Laidlaw, this is well met,”

he said, in a curiously still, even tone. cried a voice at his elbow; “I was in the act

“There is no such thing as time! ”

of coming to see you. I’ve a case that will He took the watch from his pocket, interest you, and besides, I remembered swung it round several times by the long that you flavored your tea with orange gold chain, smashed it into smithereens leaves!—and I admit—”

against the wall with a single blow, and It was Alexis Stephan, the great then walked into his laboratory next door, hypnotic doctor.

and hung its broken body on the bones of

“I’ve had no tea to-day,” Laidlaw the skeleton, in the corner of the room.

said in a dazed manner, after staring for a

“Let one damned mockery hang moment as though the other had struck him upon another,” he said, smiling oddly. in the face. A new idea had suddenly

“Delusions, both of you, and cruel as entered his mind.

false!”

“What’s the matter?” asked Dr.

He slowly moved back to the front Stephan quickly. “Something’s wrong with room. He stopped opposite the book-case you. It’s this sudden heat, or overwork.

where stood in a row the “Scriptures of the Come, man, let’s go inside.”

World,” choicely bound and exquisitely A sudden light broke upon the face printed, the late professor’s most treasured of the younger man, the light of a possession, and next to them several books heavensent inspiration. He looked into his signed “Pilgrim.”

friend’s face, and told a direct lie.

One by one he took them from the

“Odd,” he said, “I myself was just shelf and hurled them through the open coming to see you! I have something of window.

great importance to test your confidence

"A devil's dreams! A devil's with. But in your house, please,” as splendid dreams!” he cried, with a horrid Stephan urged him toward his own door—
laugh.

“in your house. It’s only round the corner, Presently he stopped from sheer and I—I cannot go back there—to my exhaustion. He turned his eyes slowly to rooms—till I have told you. “I’m your the wall opposite, where hung a weird array patient—for the moment,” he added of Eastern swords and daggers, scimitars stammeringly as soon as they were seated and spears, the collections of many in the privacy of the hypnotist's sanctum, journeys. He crossed the room and ran his

"and I want-er”

finger along the edge. His mind seemed to

“My dear Laidlaw,” interrupted the waver. “No,” he muttered presently; “not other in that soothing voice of command that way. There are easier and better ways which had suggested to many a suffering than that.”

soul that the cure for its pain lay in the

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powers of its own reawakened will, “I am VI.

always at your service, as you know. You have only to tell me what I can do for you, AN hour later they passed back into the and I will do it.” He showed every desire to front room again. The sun was already help him out. His manner was behind the houses opposite, and the indescribably tactful and direct. Dr. shadows began to gather.

Laidlaw looked up into his face. “I

“I went off easily?” Laidlaw asked.

surrender my will to you,” he said, already

“You were a little obstinate at first.

calmed by the other’s healing presence, But though you came in like a lion, you

“and I want you to treat me hypnotically—
went out like a lamb. I let you sleep a bit er—and at once. I want you to suggest to afterward.”

me”—his voice became very tense—“that I Dr. Stephan kept his eyes rather shall forget—forget till I die—everything steadily upon his friend’s face.

that has occurred to me during the last two

“What were you doing by the fire hours; till I die, mind,” he added, with before you came here?” he asked, pausing, solemn emphasis, “till I die! ”

in a casual tone, as he lit a cigarette and He floundered and stammered like a handed the case to his patient.

frightened boy. Alexis Stephan looked at

“I? Let me see. Oh, I know; I was him fixedly without speaking.

worrying my way through poor old Ebor’s

“And further,” Laidlaw continued, papers and things. I’m his executor, you

“I want you to ask me no questions. I wish know. Then I got weary and came out for a to forget forever something I have recently whiff of air.” He spoke lightly and with discovered—something so terrible and yet perfect naturalness. Obviously he was so obvious that I can hardly understand telling the truth. “I prefer specimens to why it is not patent to every mind in the papers,” he laughed cheerily.

world—for I have had a moment of

“I know, I know,” said Dr. Stephan, absolute
clear vision—of merciless holding a lighted match for the cigarette.

clairvoyance— But I want no one else in His face wore an expression of content.

the whole world to know what it is—least The experiment had been a complete of all, old friend, yourself.”

success. The memory of the last two hours He talked in utter confusion, and was wiped out utterly. Laidlaw was already hardly knew what he was saying. But the chatting gaily and easily about a dozen pain on his face and the anguish in his other things that interested him.

voice were an instant passport to the Together they went out into the street, and other’s heart.

at his door Dr. Stephan left him with a joke

“Nothing is easier,” replied Dr. and a wry face that made his friend laugh Stephan, after a hesitation so slight that the heartily.

other probably did not even notice it.

“Don’t dine on the professor’s old

“Come into my other room, where we shall papers by mistake,” he cried, as he not be disturbed. I can heal you. Your vanished down the street.

memory of the last two hours shall be Dr. Laidlaw went up to his study at wiped out as though it had never been. You the top of the house. Half way down he met can trust me absolutely.”

his housekeeper, Mrs. Pewings. She was

"I know I can," Laidlaw said flustered and excited, and her face was very simply, as he followed him in.

red.

The Man Who Found Out 11

“There’ve been burgulars here,” she the courtyard, and she must have seen the cried excitedly, “or something funny! All books come crashing down, and also have your things is just any’ow, sir. I found was heard her master leave the house a few very confused.” In this orderly and very minutes later.

precise very precise establishment it was

“And what’s this rubbish the brutes unusual to find a thing out of place.

have left?” he cried taking up the two slabs

“Oh, my specimens!” cried the of worn, gray, stone lying on the writing doctor dashing up the rest of the stairs at table. “Bath brick, or something, I do top speed. “Have they been touched, or—
declare.”

He flew to the door of the laboratory. Mrs.

He looked very sharply again at the Pewings panted up heavily behind him.

confused and troubled housekeeper.

“The lab’at’ry ain’t been touched,”

“Throw them on the dust heap, Mrs.

she explained breathlessly, “but they Pewings, and—and let me know if any-smashed the lib’ry clock and they’ve ’ung thing is missing in the house, and I will your gold watch, sir, on the skelington’s notify the police this evening.”

’ands. And the books that weren’t no value When she had left the room he went they flung out er the window just like so into the laboratory and took his ruined gold much rubbish. They must have been wild watch off the skeleton’s fingers. His face drunk, Dr. Laidlaw, sir!”

wore a troubled expression, but after a The young scientist made a hurried moment’s thought it cleared again. His examination of the rooms. Nothing of value memory was a complete blank.

was missing. He began to wonder what

“I suppose I left it on the writing-kind of burglars they were. He looked up table when I went out to take the air,” he sharply at Mrs. Pewings standing in the said. And there was no one present to doorway. For a moment he seemed to cast contradict him.

about in his mind for something.

He crossed to the window and blew

“Odd,” he said at length. “I only left carelessly some ashes of burned paper from here an hour ago and everything was all the sill, and stood watching them as they right then.”

floated away lazily over the tops of the

"Was it, sir? Yes, sir." She glanced plane trees.

sharply at him. Her room looked out upon