“You speak of this man Randolph as if he figured somewhat in the tale. I never heard of him.”
“Yes, Randolph is by way of being the hero of the piece, as far as I have gone. I leave it to you to say, after you’ve made his acquaintance, whether Randolph is an apostle of light or as mad as the Hatter. Personally, I haven’t any use for him. He makes his début in the story as an exceptionally gifted hypnotist … Turns out to be a sort of—miracle-man.”
“Are you trying to tell me,” demanded Nancy, “that Wayne Hudson took an interest in a person of that sort?”
“Well—you shall see … This Randolph fellow was in a studio partitioned off from the main production room. He was not a mere stonecutter, but a sculptor—an uncommonly good one … Artist type. The piece he was doing, according to the journal, was a triumphant angelic figure, heroic size, gracefully poised on a marble pedestal, altar-shaped; an exquisitely modelled hand shading the eyes which gazed toward the far horizon, entranced by some distant radiance … It had all the combined delicacy and strength of a Canova—”
“Are you quoting?”
“Yes; it’s in the book—just that way.”
“But Doctor Hudson knew practically nothing about art!”
“He may have known more about it than you thought. He was heavily influenced by this crazy Randolph, as you shall see; and Randolph was a consummate artist.”
“Oh, I wonder—do you suppose it could have been Clive Randolph? You know—the sculptor who did that group of children in the Metropolitan. He has been dead for years. Why, Bobby, I do believe he used to live here in Detroit!”
“Likely as not.” He put his pencilled notes down on the table and sat for some time with half-closed eyes, absorbed. “Another genius,” he mumbled. “Nancy, geniuses do have a right to be batty, don’t they?”
“Certainly!” Nancy glowed. Bobby was seeing the light.
He took up his memorandum.
“Well, on the face of this altar-shaped pedestal was engraved, in high relief, in ecclesiastical letters, these words: ‘Thanks Be to God Who Giveth Us the Victory.’ ”
Nancy murmured that she thought it odd.
“How do you mean ‘odd’? It’s in the Bible somewhere, isn’t it?”
“Doubtless,” she conceded, with a nervous laugh. “It could be in the Bible, almost anywhere, and still be odd, couldn’t it? But what I mean is that it seems queer to find Doctor Hudson reciting a quotation from the Bible. He wasn’t the tiniest mite religious!”
“Don’t you be too sure about that!” he warned.
“Why, Bobby, he was not only unconcerned; he was almost contemptuous of religious organizations; hadn’t been inside a church, except at weddings, for twenty years. He was soured on churches as a small boy; told me once—it was when some quite dreadful evangelist was here and the papers were full of his cheap vulgarities—that the churches in his village were forever haranguing people to ‘come apart from the world,’ when they had nothing to offer in exchange for such renunciation but the vestigial remains of medieval superstitions!”
“But, couldn’t he have been interested in—in the supernatural without being a church adherent?”
“Well, would he? … It isn’t customary.”
“Oh, well! if you propose to analyze this thing in the light of what’s customary, let’s go to the football game and quit torturing ourselves … I ask you! … Is it customary for a man to conduct his ordinary charities by stealth; scampering, squirrel-fashion, into his hole and pulling the hole in after him, at the approach of anyone who might discover he had done somebody a good turn? Is it customary for a man to write the story of his madness in a kiddish cipher? I’ll tell you what he was! … one of these old-time mystics! … believed in fairies … had visions … played with the angels!”
“Bobby Merrick—you’re c‑r‑a‑z‑y!”
“No—not yet; but I’ve a queer feeling I’m going to be.”
Nancy pushed back her plate and impatiently waved the waiter away when he asked if everything wasn’t all right.
“No—” Bobby slowly shook his head, judicially. “It wasn’t really religion that he had; not what I think of as religion, anyway. I don’t pretend to know much about it, but isn’t religion just a more or less perfunctory acceptance of a lot of old myths abstracted from the folklore of the Jews; tries to make people say they believe this and that about God; imagines it knows what God wants humanity to do—sometimes waiting sadly for mankind to do it, and at other times pushing people about so that they’ve got to do it, willy-nilly; takes up subscriptions to send barkers to the so-called heathen, warning them they’ll seethe in hell if they don’t leave off calling their God whatever-it-is and call Him something else?”
Nancy laughed.
“It isn’t that bad, Bobby. It couldn’t possibly be that silly. People do get a lot of comfort out of their religion, or they wouldn’t stick to it.”
“Comfort!” he echoed. “I’m glad you used that word. I believe I can tell you now what I think was the difference between this stuff that Doctor Hudson had—and the conventional sort of religion. Ordinary religion is intended to bring comfort. Believe such-and-such, and have comfort, peace, assurance that all is well and a Great Somebody is looking after things. Well—this religion that Hudson had certainly brought him no comfort! … Rode him like the Old Man o’ the Sea … lashed him on … hounded him by day and haunted him by night … worked him like a slave … obsessed him!”
“He could have given it up, couldn’t he, if it annoyed him?”
“Ah—there you are! Now you’ve touched the vital spot! No! He couldn’t give it up because it furnished his motive power! It was what kept him going! … Says it made him—professionally!”
“I’m afraid you’ve let this book get horribly on your nerves, Bobby.” Nancy drew on her gloves. “Let us go out to Brightwood, where we’ll not be interrupted, and see what it’s all about.”
Bobby was slow to rise.
“Nancy, my whole attitude towards this matter is changing, since talking it over with you.
