He plunged into a labyrinth of narrow streets—he had studied his plan to some purpose—and only hesitated when he reached a cul-de-sac which was more spacious than the street from which it opened. One oil lamp at the farther end added rather to the gloom. Tall, windowless houses rose on either side, and each was pierced by a door. On the left door the doctor, after a moment’s hesitation, knocked twice.
Instantly it opened noiselessly. He hesitated.
“Enter,” said a voice in Spanish; “the señor need not fear.”
He stepped into the black void and the door closed behind him.
“Come this way,” said the voice. In the pitch darkness he could make out the indistinct figure of a little man.
The doctor stepped inside and surreptitiously wiped the sweat from his forehead. The old man lit a lamp, and Essley took stock of him. He was very little, scarcely more than four feet in height. He had a rough white beard and head as bald as an egg. His face and hands were alike grimy, and his whole appearance bore evidence of his aversion to water.
A pair of black twinkling eyes were set deeply in his head, and the puckering lines about them revealed him as a man who found humour in life. This was Dr. Cajalos, a famous man in Spain, though he had no social standing.
“Sit down,” said Cajalos; “we will talk quietly, for I have a señora of high quality to see me touching a matter of lost affection.”
Essley took the chair offered to him and the doctor seated himself on a high stool by the table. A curious figure he made, with his dangling little legs, his old, old face and his shining bald pate.
“I wrote to you on the subject of certain occult demonstrations,” began the doctor, but the old man stopped him with a quick jerk of the hand.
“You came to see me, señor, because of a drug I have prepared,” he said, “a preparation of ⸻”2
Essley sprang to his feet.
“I—I did not tell you so,” he stammered.
“The green devil told me,” said the other seriously. “I have many talks with the foot-draggers, and they speak very truly.”
“I thought—”
“Look!” said the old man. He leapt down from his high perch with agility. In the dark corner of one of the rooms were some boxes, to which he went. Essley heard a scuffling, and by and by the old man came back, holding by the ears a wriggling rabbit.
With his disengaged hand he unstoppered a little green bottle on the table. He picked a feather from the table, dipped the point gingerly into the bottle. Then very carefully he lightly touched the nose of the rabbit with the end of the feather—so lightly, indeed, that the feather hardly brushed the muzzle of the animal.
Instantly, with no struggle, the rabbit went limp, as though the life essence had been withdrawn from the body. Cajalos replaced the stopper and thrust the feather into a little charcoal fire that burnt dully in the centre of the room.
“P⸺e,” he said briefly; “but my preparation.” He laid the dead animal on the floor at the feet of the other. “Señor,” he said proudly, “you shall take that animal and examine it; you shall submit it to tests beyond patience; yet you shall not discover the alkaloid that killed it.”
“That is not so,” said Essley, “for there will be a contraction of the pupil which is an invariable sign.”
“Search also for that,” said the old man triumphantly.
Essley made the superficial tests. There was not even this invariable symptom.
A dark figure, pressed close to the wall outside, listened. He was standing by the shuttered window. He held to his ear a little ebonite tube with a microphonic receiver, and the rubber which covered the bell-like end was pressed against the shutter.
For half an hour he stood thus, almost motionless, then he withdrew silently and disappeared into the shadows of the orange grove that grew in the centre of the long garden.
As he did so, the door of the house opened and, with lantern in hand, Cajalos showed his visitor into the street.
“The devils are greener than ever,” chuckled the old man. “Hey! there will be happenings, my brother!”
Essley said nothing. He wanted to be in the street again. He stood quivering with nervous impatience as the old man unfastened the heavy door, and when it swung open he almost leapt into the street outside.
“Goodbye,” he said.
“Go with God,” said the old man, and the door closed noiselessly.
II
Colonel Black, Financier
The firm of Black and Gram had something of a reputation in City circles. Gram might have been a man beyond reproach—a veritable Bayard of finance, a churchgoer, and a generous subscriber to charities. Indeed, Black complained with good-humoured irritation—if the combination can be visualized—that Gram would ruin him one of these fine days by his quixotic munificence.
Gram allowed his heart to dictate to his head; he was too soft for business, too retiring. The City was very sceptical about Gram. It compared him with a certain Mrs. Harris, but Black did not fly into a temper; he smiled mysteriously at all the suspicion which the City entertained or expressed, and went on deploring the criminal rustiness of a man who apparently sought, by Black’s account, to made the firm reputable in spite of the rumours which centred about Colonel J. Black.
In this way did Black describe himself,
