He laughed.
“That sounds like Doctor Hudson! That was what he wanted to know. Now it’s your question! I’m bound to confess I’d like to know too.” He gripped her arm in strong fingers. “And—no matter how stiffly we revolt against this thing, we’re sure to be sneaking back to it, one at a time, to investigate; so—perhaps we should be honest with each other, and look into it now! Are you willing?”
She nodded, without looking up.
“Take warning! It’s likely to make us as nutty as he was!”
Lighting a cigarette, Bobby strolled to the window, hands in pockets. He turned, and leaning on the windowsill, faced her studiously.
“Not me! I’m not going to do it. I can’t afford to dabble in such stuff. It isn’t good for me. I had no idea I could be so impressionable toward this sort of thing. You can go into it, if you want to … I’m out!” He dismissed it peremptorily, with widespread fingers.
Nancy’s voice was husky.
“You’ll not be able to get away from it! You’re too far in! … And you know it! … It’s got you! … I know it’s got me! I understand now why he went to the Randolph house, that night! There’s something—something sort of inevitable about it! … A form of insanity, maybe; but—once it beckons to you, it’s got you! You may as well come along—first as last! … It has curious, invisible tentacles that reach out and wrap their feelers about you … and draw you up … and into … and drag you along …”
“Stop it, Nancy! … That’s ridiculous!”
Young Watson could hardly have chosen a less opportune moment to put his head in. Mrs. Ashford had a caller, and it was clear that both hostess and guest were labouring under an unusual mental tension … having something of a storm, indeed! Realizing he was de trop, he was for making a hasty retreat, when Nancy recalled him.
“Come on in! You remember Mr. Merrick.”
“Quite!” extending his hand. “I shall always remember you as putting up the gamest fight with pneumonia that I ever watched! And now, I hear, you’re having a battle with old man Gray.”
Turning to Mrs. Ashford, he stated his errand:
“Your Mr. Folsom is rapidly slipping out. In an hour or two he will be quite unconscious. He inquired for you a few minutes ago. Perhaps you will want to run in and see him. There seems to be none of his people in town.”
Murmuring regret, Nancy rose to go.
“Will you wait for me?”
Merrick nodded.
“I’ll go on with this. Take your time. You’ll find me here when you come back.”
The door closed softly behind them.
I reached out my hand greedily for the page Randolph had unfolded, but he shook his head.
“Not just yet,” he said, smiling at my eagerness. “I mean to let you see it; but I must tell you something about it, first. This page contains the rules for generating that mysterious power I mentioned. By following these instructions to the letter, you can have anything you want, do anything you wish to do, be whatever you would like to be. I have tried it. It works. It worked for me. It will work for you!”
Combined impatience and incredulity brought a chuckle from me which he did not resent.
“You saw that piece I was working on when you came in, this morning?”
“Beautiful!” I exclaimed—sincerely.
“You liked it that much?” He was pleased with my enthusiasm.
“Nothing short of a masterpiece!”
“Perhaps I should be more grateful for that compliment, doctor; but I really have had very little to do with it … You may be interested to learn that I was an ordinary stonecutter until about three years ago, hacking out stamped letters with a compression chisel. From my youth, I had cherished an ambition to do something important in stone. But there was never any money for training; never any time for experiment. Such crude and hasty attempts as I had made, from time to time, had netted nothing but discouragement.
“One day, I went to the church my little girl attended, and heard a preacher read what is on this page. It evidently meant nothing to him, for he read it in a dull, monotonous chant. And the congregation sat glassy-eyed, the words apparently making no impression. As for me, I was profoundly stirred. The remainder of the hour was torture, for I wanted to get out where I could think.
“Hurrying home to our bare little house, I found—with considerable difficulty, for I was not familiar with the Bible—that page from which the minister had read. There it was—in black and white—the exact process for achieving power to do, be, and have what you want! I experimented.”
Nancy’s face, sober and troubled, appeared at the door.
“Bobby,” she said softly, “I don’t like to leave you alone so long, but my patient seems to want a hand to hold. I’m afraid I must stay with him a little while.”
“Quite proper,” he agreed, with more than a glance at her. “Stay with him and don’t worry about me. I may have something very important to tell you when you come back. It looks as if the big mystery may be cleared up now at any minute.”
She hesitated, and was about to ask a question; but, seeing how complete was his absorption, withdrew and quietly closed the door.
With that, Randolph handed me the magic page. Some twenty lines of it were heavily underscored in red ink. In silence he puffed his pipe while my eye traversed the cryptic paragraphs, and when I looked up, inquiringly, he said:
“Of course, you will not realize the full importance of all this, instantly. It seems simple because it was spoken dispassionately, with no oratorical bombast or prefatory warning that the formula he was about to state was the key to power!”
Edging his chair closer to mine, he laid a long hand on my knee and looked me squarely in the eyes.
“Doctor Hudson—if you had a small, inadequate brick house, and decided to give yourself more room, what would you need for your building? …
