“Well, from the hints they’ve given me, it appears that the Plutonians had got wind of Wilbur Whateley’s intention of letting in the Ancient Ones and were preparing to block them by winning more human confederates, especially here at Miskatonic, and so on. None of us realized it, but we were brushing the fringes of an intercosmic war.”
This revelation left me speechless and it was not until the protesting black-painted iron gate had been pushed open and we stood among the age-darkened moonlit headstones that our conversation was resumed. As I reverently lifted Armitage’s wreath from its container, Wilmarth gripped me by the elbow, and speaking almost into my ear, said with a quiet intensity, “There is another piece of information the Plutonians have supplied me which I believe I should share with you. You may not be willing to credit it at first — I wasn’t! — but now I’ve come to believe it. You know the Plutonians’ trick of extracting the living brains of beings unable to fly through space, preserving those brains immortally in metal canisters, and carrying them about with them throughout the cosmos to see, via the proper instruments, and hear and comment on its secrets? Well — I’m afraid this will give you a nasty shock, but tell yourself there’s a good side to it, for there is — on the night of March 14th, 1937, when the Young Gentleman lay dying in the Rhode Island Hospital, a secret entry was made into the Jane Brown wing, and to use his words — or rather, mine — his brain was removed ‘by fissions so adroit that it would be crude to call the operation surgery,’ so that he is now flying some course between Hydra and Polaris, safe in the arms of a night gaunt, reveling forever in the wonders of the universe he deeply loved.” And with a gesture dignified yet grand, Wilmarth lifted his arm toward the North Star where it faintly shone in the gray sky high above Meadow Hill and the Miskatonic.
I shivered with mixed emotions. Suddenly the sky was full. I knew now the deeper reason I had all evening wanted to shudder at my conductor, yet was deeply happy that it was a reason by which I could respect him the more.
Arm in arm we moved toward the simple grave of Dr. Armitage.