"What do you think?" asked Hallworthy as we were on our way back.
"I think what I said to Van Dorn. That Clement is telling the truth and that Falrath was insane."
"Yet, could even violent insanity cause a man of Falrath's age and disability to spring on and nearly kill a younger man with his bare hands? Could insanity have put strength in those shrivelled muscles and bloodless tissues which had refused to even support his frail body for so many years?"
"That--or else Van Dorn is lying or insane himself," I answered, and for a time the conversation was dropped. Van Dorn had plenty of money and at the time I could see no way in which we could aid him.
At the trial something might come up.
That night as I turned out the light, preparatory to retiring, I had an opportunity to observe the power of thought suggestion. Michael Costigan's tale had been revolving in the back of my mind and as I plunged the room in darkness, I smiled to myself at the hint of movement in the shadows about me, which my vivid imagination created.
"Suicide follows sudden attack of insanity. The people of a boarding house on--Street were last night roused by a terrific commotion going on in an upstairs room, and upon investigation found Michael Costigan, ex-prizefighter, engaged in a debauchery of destruction, smashing chairs and tables and tearing the doors from their hinges, in the darkness of his room. A light being turned on, Costigan, a man of huge frame and remarkable strength, stopped short in what was apparently a battle with figments of his imagination, stared wildly at the astounded watchers, then suddenly snatched a revolver from the hand of the landlady and placing the muzzle against his breast, fired four shots into his body, dying almost instantly. The theory advanced is that Costigan was a victim of delirium tremens, but he was not known to be a drinking man. The landlady maintains that he was insane, and asserts that he had been talking strangely for some time."
Laying down the paper in which I had read the above article, I gave myself over to musing. This indeed was unusual. Had Costigan's obsession of Battling Rourke's ghost driven him to suicide or was this obsession merely one of the incidents of a latent insanity which had finally destroyed him? This seemed more likely; a man like Costigan was not one to kill himself because of a fancied "ghost" even though he had confessed to a partial belief in its existence. Moreover, considering the terrible punishment he had received in his years in the ring, it was likely that his mentality had been affected.
I picked up the paper and idly scanned the columns, glancing over the usual lists of murders and assaults, which seemed extraordinarily numerous, somehow.
Later in the day I paid a visit to the Hallworthys who lived not overly far from my apartments. I could tell that their minds were still running on Van Dorn and deliberately steered all talk into other channels.
I leaned back in my easy chair regarding the two who sat on a lounge before me. Malcolm Hallworthy was such a man as I had always hoped my sister would marry; a kind man, kind almost to a fault, generous and gentle, yet not weak like Van Dorn. He was not many years older than Joan but he seemed so because of his indulgently protecting attitude, yet at times they seemed like happy children together.
This attitude was shown in his unconscious posture, an arm about the girl's slim body as she nestled against him. My only doubt was that he was too indulgent. She was a willful, reckless sort of a girl, not old enough to have any judgment, and she needed, at times, a strong hand to guide her.
"How do you manage this little spit-fire, Malcolm?" I asked bluntly.
He smiled and gently caressed her curls.
"Love will tame the wildest, Steve."
"I doubt if love alone will tame a woman," I answered. "Before she married she could be a little wildcat when she wanted to. The first thing you know you'll let her have her way so much that you'll spoil her."
"You talk as if I were a child," Joan pouted.
"You are. I warn you, Malcolm, her mother gave her her last spanking when she was seventeen."
A shadow touched Hallworthy's fine, sensitive features.
"That's never necessary. Punishing a child is simply brutal--that's all. A relic of the Stone Age that should have no place in the twentieth century. Nothing revolts me quite as much as someone coercing a weaker mortal by the ancient tyranny of flogging."
I laughed. Long roaming in the by-ways of the world had calloused me to many things. I could scarcely get Hallworthy's viewpoint on some subjects; Joan's either, for that matter. Though we were brother and sister, yet our lives, until recent years had been as different as the poles. She had been raised in luxury, but I had wandered forth into the world at the age of eight and some of the things I had seen and the ways I had travelled had not been of the nicest.
"Many things may not be right," I said. "But they are necessary."
"I deny that!" exclaimed Hallworthy. "Wrong is never necessary! The rightness of a thing makes it necessary, just as wrongness makes it unnecessary."
"Wait!" I raised a hand. "You think, then, if a thing is Right, it should be done, no matter if the consequences are bad."
"The consequences of Right are never bad."
"You are a hopeless idealist. According to your theory, all knowledge gained by research should be given to the people, since it is certainly Wrong to keep the race in ignorance?"
"Certainly. You seem to believe that the end makes things right or wrong. I believe that everything is fundamentally right or wrong and that nothing can make for good results but right."
"Wait. You forget that the great host of people cannot even assimilate such knowledge as has been gained through the past centuries. Suppose hypnotism were a proven fact; would it be right to give to all people the power of controlling others?"
"Yes, if it were a proven fact. It is wrong to suppress knowledge, therefore it is right to dispense knowledge and the results would be good."
That evening I visited Professor Falrath's apartments. I had gotten permission to do so, with the intention of going through his papers to see if any light could be thrown on the murder, or his past relations with Van Dorn.
Among them I found the following letter which he had evidently never finished; it was addressed to Professor Hjalmar Nordon, Brooklyn, New York, and the part which caught my attention follows:
"For the last few nights I have been the victim of a peculiar hallucination. After I turn out the light, I seem to sense the presence of something in my room. There is a suggestion of movement in the darkness and straining my eyes it sometimes seems as though I can almost see vague and intangible shadows which glide about through the darkness. Yet, I know that I cannot see these things, as one sees a physical object; I feel them, somehow, and the sensation is so realistic that they seem to register themselves on my sight and hearing. I cannot understand this. Can it be that I am losing my mind? As yet I have said nothing to anyone, but tonight when Van Dorn comes here, I shall tell him of this illusion and see if he can offer any logical explanation."
Here the letter ended abruptly. I re-read it, again conscious of that strange feeling of an unknown door opening somewhere and letting in the dank air of outer spaces.
This was monstrously strange. Michael Costigan and Hildred Falrath had been as far apart as the poles, yet here seemed a common thought between them. Costigan, too, had spoken of shadows lurking and gliding about his room, and the strange thing, each had spoken of FEELING the presence of the spectres. Each had impressed the fact that the Things were unseeable and unhearable, yet each spoke vaguely of SEEING and HEARING.