Westcott nodded. The young doctor noted that the farmer’s hands were quivering, however.
“As you admit I am a doctor,” he said, “perhaps you will give me a doctor’s privilege of questioning you. Do you ever take drugs?”
“I do not take drugs,” replied Westcott, “and I do not give you a doctor’s privilege of questioning me. When I need a doctor I send for one. I do not need one now.”
The bright moon placed a silver sword between them. Westcott rose to his feet.
“I have given you my advice,” he said. “You will do as you please about it.”
He turned toward the door.
“Wait,” cried Dreeme. Westcott turned on his heel and regarded him smilingly.
“Will you answer three questions?” the young doctor asked. Westcott said:
“Ask them and I will answer or not as I see fit.”
“Why did you hypnotize Deborah?”
“I didn’t hypnotize Deborah.”
“Who killed Wagner?”
“I don’t know who killed Wagner.”
“Where is the place called Dagon?”
“I never heard of the place called Dagon.”
“Three lies in as many seconds,” said Dreeme bitterly.
“Only two of them were lies,” remarked Westcott. He actually chuckled. His hands had stopped trembling and he stood easily, nonchalantly, watching Dreeme sardonically with his large dark eyes.
“No, doctor,” he said. “You are beating at a stone wall. When I first saw you I detested you. Later I revised my reaction to you. In fact, I feel a sympathetic pity for you. You are so … so obtuse. Sooner or later you will cut your own throat.”
“You say you belong here,” broke out Dreeme, ignoring the farmer’s remarks. “I don’t believe it. You don’t talk like a farmer. You have nothing in common with Slater or Bidwell or Barnson. You live alone out in that secluded house. Are you so ashamed of yourself that you exist so secretly? What are you up to in that room lined with books? Are you fashioning yourself into the image of an old god?”
The last question had popped into his head suddenly. He was quite fearless, indeed, he experienced the peculiar sensation that there was a conversational rapport between him and the farmer if he could only find the key to it. There was no doubt in his mind now that Westcott was mad, that he was ridden by some monstrous theory, that he pursued some irrational objective. He suspected that if he could discover the proper opening Westcott would pour out as much of it as he dared. He began to believe that the farmer was a theoretical fool masked as a lion. His last question had arrested Westcott who had already turned to go.
“What’s that?” asked the farmer. “What’s that?”
He turned slowly. He said:
“What do you know about old gods?”
“Perhaps I know more than you think,” insinuated Dreeme craftily.
Westcott eyed him suspiciously and with some concern.
“I wonder …” he mused to himself and then broke off. He surveyed Dreeme coolly.
“You picked that question up somewhere?” he said. “You never thought of it yourself.”
A light dawned on him and he smiled.
“Ah, dear Martha,” he murmured. “Dear talkative Martha.”
He came back and sat down in the embrasure. The moonlight flung great silver arms about him.
“You bring to life an inborn loquaciousness,” he said. “I had forgotten the need of conversation. Doctor Dreeme, I am not an ignorant man. I have studied in three countries and I bear a degree from one of the most famous German universities. I have traveled in Arabia and in Persia and in India. I have lived among the secret priests of unknown religions. Behind all their conflicting dogmas I discovered one objective. Years ago the peculiar circumstances of my birth pushed me into a specific line of investigation. The seeds of that particular knowledge for which I sought were buried in this valley and I settled here with the determination to foster them and cause them to grow. You say that I have nothing in common with the farmers of Marlborough but that only reveals your ignorance. I have this in common with them—they, too, know of the seed. They, too, keep the ground fertile that it may grow in its appointed time. Their lives and the lives of their forefathers are but a preparation for the time when that seed will sprout. I am the self-constituted gardener. I am the man who directs.”
He paused and gazed across the moonlit room. His eyes were filmed, trance-like, and he seemed to be looking inward at the secret growths of his mind.
“To fashion myself in the image of an old god,” he murmured. “That is a crass way of putting it. There are no old gods. There are only new gods, gods builded out of our invincible wills and forced by the strength of intelligence into the domains of high powers. The greatest of all gods is man’s will. If a man possesses enough knowledge he can do anything, shape the destinies of those about him, influence the comings and goings upon the surface of the earth, cause wars and the breakup of nations, and even, when the seed is sprouted and the tree has flowered, defeat the purpose of death.”
Westcott seemed entirely unconscious of Dreeme. He was talking to himself now.
“ ‘And the will therein lieth which dieth not,’ ” he quoted. “The instincts of man are constantly drawn toward what, for want of a better word, we call evil, as a filing of iron is drawn toward a magnet. Evil is therefore the fountainhead of life. All the gods, Buddha, Allah, Christ, are the enemies of the will for they pretend to dominate it. The only god is that demon of the mind who places himself in bold antagonism to the high tyrants of the heavens. Satan is the only god and he is the god that we daily create out of our will. All that we are springs out of evil. We have misunderstood evil so long, masked it in outrageous masks and clothed it in obscene garments, that we forget that it is a pure essence, that
