What follows is a verbatim transcription of all pertinent sections of the journal of Henry Morris, as related to his mysterious partnership with Hermann Kermit Warm and the defection from his post as the Commodore’s scout and longtime confidant.
* Approached by Warm today, quite out of the blue, and after having scarcely laid eyes upon him for nearly a week. I was passing through the hotel lobby and he snuck to my side, lifting my arm by the elbow like a gentleman helping a lady over patchy terrain. This surprised me, naturally, and I broke off with a start. At this, he looked hurt and demanded, ‘Are we engaged to be married or aren’t we?’ It was nine o’clock in the morning but he was drunken, that was plain. I told him to leave off following me, which surprised him and me both, for though I had sensed a body spying on me these last few days and nights, it was a distant feeling and I had not formulated the words in my own mind. But I saw by his guilty expression that he had been following me, and I was glad to have stood my ground with him. He asked if I would loan him a dollar and I said I would not. Upon receiving my answer he popped his top hat, frayed and dusty, and left the hotel with his thumbs hooked in his vest, his head tilted proudly back. Crossing past the awning, he stepped into the street, and the bright warmth of the sun. This gave him pleasure, and he extended his arms as if to soak in the light. A team of horses was pulling a load of garbage up the hill and Warm climbed casually onto the back of the cart, this accomplished so nimbly as to have gone unnoticed by the driver. It was a graceful exit, I could not deny it, though generally he is looking all the worse than when I first laid eyes on him, not so much from drink as overall misuse of self. He smells ghastly. I should not be surprised if he expires before those two from Oregon City arrive to put him down.* One of the odder days I have yet passed. This morning, Warm was once again waiting in the lobby. I spotted him before he did me, and I made a study of his markedly improved appearance. His clothes had been cleaned and mended and he had bathed. His beard was combed, his face scrubbed, and he looked to be an altogether different person from the man who had accosted me twenty-four hours earlier. Presently he spied me at the base of the stairway and hurried across the lobby to take up my hand, offering his sincerest apologies for his behavior on the previous day. He looked touched, genuinely, when I accepted this, which in turn touched me, or gave me pause, for here was an unknown version of a man I had thought I knew, and knew well. To my increased amazement he then asked if he might treat me to lunch, and though I was not hungry I took him up on this, curious as I was to learn what change of fate had befallen this previously destitute and grubby individual.We retired to a restaurant of his choosing, a charmless garbage chute of a lopsided shack called the Black Skull, where Warm was enthusiastically greeted by the owner, a rank-smelling man with a black-and-red-checkered leather eye patch and not a single tooth in his head. This dubious personage asked Warm how his ‘work’ was progressing, and Warm replied with a single word, ‘Glowingly.’ This made little sense to me but tickled the owner acutely. He showed us to a far table with a curtain, bringing us two bowls of tasteless stew and a loaf of bread, tangy with threat of mold. No bill was ever presented to us, and when I asked Warm about the nature of his and the owner’s alliance he whispered that it was not yet realized but that he had ‘every faith it would come to nothing.’After lunch, when the owner had cleared the table and drawn the curtain for us, Warm’s jovial composure changed, and he became stiff and serious. He took a half minute to gather his thoughts and at last looked me in the eye, saying, ‘I have been watching you, yes, it is the truth. I began to do this at first with the thought of learning your weaknesses. Let me admit it to you then. I have thought about killing you, or having you killed.’ When I asked him why he would wish such a thing he said, ‘But of course the moment I saw you I knew you were the Commodore’s man.’ ‘The Commodore?’ I said vaguely. ‘Whatever in the world is that?’ He shook his head at my novice playacting, dismissing it out of hand, and returned to his speech. ‘My feelings for you quickly changed, Mr. Morris, and I’ll tell you why. You haven’t a dishonest bone in your body. Typically, for example, when a man wishes another man a good morning, he will smile just as long as he is facing the other person, but as soon as he passes by, the smile immediately drops from his face. His smile had been a false one. That man is a liar, do you see?’ ‘But everyone does that,’ I said. ‘It is only a small civility.’ ‘You do not do it,’ he told me. ‘Your smile, though slight, remains on your lips long after you have turned away. You take a genuine pleasure in communing with another man or woman. I saw this happen time and again and thought, if only I could have a person like that on my side, I would see my every idea through to completion. I meant to broach this very subject during my visit of yesterday morning, but my purpose was mislaid, as you will recall. I was nervous to face you, frankly, and I thought a drink would give me courage.’ He lowered his head at the memory. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘this morning I awoke in my hovel suffering extreme shame. This was not a new occurrence for me, but today there was something wholly disabling about it. The shame had a heaviness I had never experienced, and hope to never experience again. It was as though I had hit a wall, reached my very limit of self-loathing. Some would call this an epiphany. Call it what you will. But I faced the day today and have vowed to change my life, to cleanse my body, to cleanse my mind, to share my secrets with you, because I know you are a good man, and because a good man is the thing I need most in my life, just now.’Before I could respond to the passionate oration, Warm pulled from his pockets several loose, much-abused papers, and he laid these before me, imploring me to look upon them, which I did, finding page after page of scribbled, intricate numerical lists, figures, and scientific calculations imparting I did not know what. At last I had to admit my ignorance to him. ‘I’m afraid I have no idea what all of this represents,’ I said. ‘It is the bedrock of a momentous discovery,’ he told me. ‘And what is the discovery?’ ‘It is perhaps the most significant scientific event of our lifetime.’ ‘And what is the event?’ Nodding, he collected the papers into an untidy stack, pushing this away beneath his coat. With the corners of the pages peeking over his lapel, he chuckled, regarding me as though I were a very clever man indeed. ‘You are asking for a demonstration,’ he said knowingly. ‘I am not,’ I responded. ‘You will have one, all the same.’ He pulled a watch from his coat and stood to leave. ‘I have to go now, but I will visit you in the morning at your hotel. I will make my demonstration, at the conclusion of which I will have your opinion, and your decision.’ ‘Decision in regards to what?’ I asked, for I had no clue what he was actually proposing. But he only shook his head and said, ‘We can discuss it tomorrow morning. Is this agreeable with your calendar?’ I told the funny man it was, and he gripped my hand, hurrying off to some other crucial location. I watched him pushing through the restaurant, and I saw that he was laughing. And then he was gone.* No sooner had I risen from bed than Warm knocked on my door. His appearance had improved further in that he was wearing a new top hat. When I commented on this he removed it to show me the hat’s every detail, the interior stitching, the softness of its calfskin band, and what he called its ‘general richness and fineness.’ I inquired what he had done with his old hat and he became cagey. I pressed him and he admitted to dropping it over an unsuspecting pigeon sunning itself in the street. The pigeon could not escape from under the weight, and so Warm had the guilty pleasure of watching the topper run away from him, rounding a corner for parts unknown. As he told me this story I spied a covered crate at his feet. I asked what this was for, and he raised his finger, and said, ‘Ah.’