“‘First I created the baboon, based on mental images of creatures I had seen in South Africa. Shortly after, I manifested the cat, patterned after the Asiatic cheetah. It was not until later that Roylott specifically requested a dangerous serpent. I did question why he should want this particular creature, and his response was that it would render our ongoing experiment all the more fascinating. Would a mouse, for instance, seemingly struck by the fangs of this snake believe so in the creature’s veracity and its non-existent poison that it would perish as a result? Have you heard of the aborigines of Australia and their bone pointing? How one of them so cursed will die purely from their belief in the magic?’
“‘This is preposterous,’ I protested. ‘This snake drank milk, proving that it required sustenance as a physical creature. It could not have been an illusion. I am not calling you a liar, sir, and I believe at least that you yourself believe in such things, but my stepfather must have acquired actual animals from another source if not from you.’
“‘Miss Stoner,’ he said, with his black eyes burning into me, ‘snakes do not care to drink milk. If your stepfather put a saucer of milk in front of it, it was only a prop to help him continue to think of the snake as an actual creature, and a loyal pet. Summoning a snake by whistling? As a snake does not hear as we do, I am doubtful one might be trained in such a manner. Again, something Roylott did only to convince himself that his snake was real and obedient to him. I hardly believe that an actual snake could climb a bell pull, so as to lower itself to your sister’s bed and back again, but this snake did so because your stepfather imagined that it could. In as much as he was able, he was controlling those beasts. Why, I ask you, do you think the baboon and cheetah, which could easily have passed over the wall of your property here, did not do so? And, incidentally, there is no such animal as a swamp adder. Oh, infrequently the African swamp viper may be called that, but its venom is not nearly as toxic as that I imagined for the cobra-like snake I invented for Dr Roylott. Creating an animal that did not truly exist, based on the attributes of a number of snakes, was another aspect of the proposed experiment. I gave it the fanciful name of swamp adder, and it is interesting to learn that the appellation suggested itself spontaneously to the sensitive mind of your friend Mr Holmes.’
“I said, ‘But if my stepfather knew all along that the snake was not real, why then did he himself succumb to its bite when it was frightened by Mr Holmes back into Dr Roylott’s chamber?’
“Mr Thurn said gravely, ‘In order for the snake to successfully kill you, Miss Stoner, at that moment your stepfather believed in its existence with all of his might. Without my level of training, he could not balance his belief with his awareness of the illusion. His instinctual fear of a snake attacking him leant the manifestation potency. No poison entered him. It was his own mind that killed him.’
“‘Yet how,’ I asked, ‘would this have worked on my sister, who never knew it was a snake that attacked her? She could not die of imagined poisoning if she did not take in the illusion of a snake at more than a glance. She referred to it only as a speckled band.’
“He said, ‘Grimesby Roylott was a man of great willpower; it is why our experiment was so successful. His will that your sister should die transmitted itself to her mind, almost in the way of a powerful hypnotic suggestion. It was not the snake that killed her, not even an illusory snake, so much as the sheer malevolent force of his own mind. He had no fear of puncture wounds being found on her flesh, because there would be none. You told me your first impression regarding your sister’s demise was that she had died of fear. This was essentially true.
“‘Those three animals were extensions of your stepfather’s will; that is why they were sustained and were so convincing. And from what I have now learned from you, seeing my complicated old friend in a new light, I suspect it was not only to frighten villagers away from his property that he let the baboon and cheetah roam free, but to frighten you and your sister from venturing outside. To keep you prisoners here. I cannot help but wonder if it was not only the money he would lose once you two should marry that caused him to react in so brutal a manner, but fear that you two, upon going into the world, would inform others of his behaviours.’
“My visitor’s speculation caused me great discomfort, and you will forgive me if I do not elaborate,” I said, with my eyes averted from Mr Holmes and Dr Watson. I could utter no more on the subject of this personal distress. On the occasion that we had first met I had exposed the marks of Dr Roylott’s fingers on the flesh of my wrist, and the great fear of my stepfather I had evinced had likely suggested to Mr Holmes and Dr Watson abuses that, as gentlemen, they had not pressed me to discuss.
I continued with my narrative, “Mr Thurn went on to say, ‘Roylott could have had a great mind. He had immense resources of willpower and intensity, but he lacked self-discipline, and now I see how thoroughly he lacked the moral compass as well. Knowing that he had killed a man in uncontrolled fury should have been enough of an indication that he was not a man with whom to share the knowledge I held, but I am too trusting a soul and believe too much in a person seeking betterment. Yet I knew his appetites tended toward the wanton. You told me of the days and even weeks he would spend in the tents of the gypsies he permitted to encamp on this property. I am embarrassed to confess that before I manifested the animals, his first request was for me to conjure a woman for him, which I refused to do.’
“Here, my guest paused and looked away from me as though lost in deep reflection. At last, he directed his eyes back to me.
“He said, ‘My blindness, Miss Stoner, and my assistance in your stepfather’s plans, however unknowing on my part, shame me beyond words. Would that I had never met him, or, having done so, had never struck up a friendship with him no matter how fascinating a person he was to me, how ardent a believer in the marvels I revealed to him. I cannot undo what I have done, but the least I can do is make certain that the last of the three tulpas is destroyed. With your stepfather dead the creatures have lost the force of his will and have, in a way, been starving to death, so the tulpa of the cat may have already expired as well, but I must be sure of it. You say you feel the cheetah has taken shelter in a closed-off wing of this house? Please, will you take me there now?’
“And so I did, first fetching the key to the door that closed off the disused wing. I also brought with me a lantern, and as I unlocked the door I whispered to Mr Thurn, ‘A portion of the roof has collapsed, and I suspect the cheetah has either crawled in through there or through a broken window, although most of them are boarded up.’
“He said nothing, but merely stood silently and grimly beside me at the threshold as I drew the door open. I felt a terror that the great cat might at that very instant be waiting in the shadows beyond to pounce upon us, but the lamplight only showed us a long hallway stretching off into darkness. Again I whispered, ‘The damage to the roof is over the central room. With the door shut and locked it is fortunate that room does not communicate with the rest of the wing.’