In partial explanation of my feelings regarding Dr. Dorrimore I will
relate briefly the circumstances under which I had met him some years
before. One evening a half-dozen men of whom I was one were sitting in
the library of the Bohemian Club in San Francisco. The conversation had
turned to the subject of sleight-of-hand and the feats of the
_prestidigitateurs_, one of whom was then exhibiting at a local theatre.
“These fellows are pretenders in a double sense,” said one of the party;
“they can do nothing which it is worth one’s while to be made a dupe by.
The humblest wayside juggler in India could mystify them to the verge of
lunacy.”
“For example, how?” asked another, lighting a cigar.
“For example, by all their common and familiar performances—throwing
large objects into the air which never come down; causing plants to
sprout, grow visibly and blossom, in bare ground chosen by spectators;
putting a man into a wicker basket, piercing him through and through with
a sword while he shrieks and bleeds, and then—the basket being opened
nothing is there; tossing the free end of a silken ladder into the air,
mounting it and disappearing.”
“Nonsense!” I said, rather uncivilly, I fear. “You surely do not believe
such things?”
“Certainly not: I have seen them too often.”
“But I do,” said a journalist of considerable local fame as a picturesque
reporter. “I have so frequently related them that nothing but
observation could shake my conviction. Why, gentlemen, I have my own
word for it.”
Nobody laughed—all were looking at something behind me. Turning in my
seat I saw a man in evening dress who had just entered the room. He was
exceedingly dark, almost swarthy, with a thin face, black-bearded to the
lips, an abundance of coarse black hair in some disorder, a high nose and
eyes that glittered with as soulless an expression as those of a cobra.
One of the group rose and introduced him as Dr. Dorrimore, of Calcutta.
As each of us was presented in turn he acknowledged the fact with a
profound bow in the Oriental manner, but with nothing of Oriental
gravity. His smile impressed me as cynical and a trifle contemptuous.
His whole demeanor I can describe only as disagreeably engaging.
His presence led the conversation into other channels. He said little—I
do not recall anything of what he did say. I thought his voice
singularly rich and melodious, but it affected me in the same way as his
eyes and smile. In a few minutes I rose to go. He also rose and put on
his overcoat.
“Mr. Manrich,” he said, “I am going your way.”
“The devil you are!” I thought. “How do you know which way I am going?”
Then I said, “I shall be pleased to have your company.”
We left the building together. No cabs were in sight, the street cars
had gone to bed, there was a full moon and the cool night air was
delightful; we walked up the California street hill. I took that
direction thinking he would naturally wish to take another, toward one of
the hotels.
“You do not believe what is told of the Hindu jugglers,” he said
abruptly.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
Without replying he laid his hand lightly upon my arm and with the other
pointed to the stone sidewalk directly in front. There, almost at our
feet, lay the dead body of a man, the face upturned and white in the
moonlight! A sword whose hilt sparkled with gems stood fixed and upright
in the breast; a pool of blood had collected on the stones of the
sidewalk.
I was startled and terrified—not only by what I saw, but by the
circumstances under which I saw it. Repeatedly during our ascent of the
hill my eyes, I thought, had traversed the whole reach of that sidewalk,
from street to street. How could they have been insensible to this
dreadful object now so conspicuous in the white moonlight?
As my dazed faculties cleared I observed that the body was in evening
dress; the overcoat thrown wide open revealed the dress-coat, the white
tie, the broad expanse of shirt front pierced by the sword. And—horrible
revelation!—the face, except for its pallor, was that of my companion!
It was to the minutest detail of dress and feature Dr. Dorrimore himself.
Bewildered and horrified, I turned to look for the living man. He was
nowhere visible, and with an added terror I retired from the place, down
the hill in the direction whence I had come. I had taken but a few
strides when a strong grasp upon my shoulder arrested me. I came near
crying out with terror: the dead man, the sword still fixed in his
breast, stood beside me! Pulling out the sword with his disengaged hand,
he flung it from him, the moonlight glinting upon the jewels of its hilt
and the unsullied steel of its blade. It fell with a clang upon the
sidewalk ahead and—vanished! The man, swarthy as before, relaxed his
grasp upon my shoulder and looked at me with the same cynical regard that
I had observed on first meeting him. The dead have not that look—it
partly restored me, and turning my head backward, I saw the smooth white
expanse of sidewalk, unbroken from street to street.
“What is all this nonsense, you devil?” I demanded, fiercely enough,
though weak and trembling in every limb.
“It is what some are pleased to call jugglery,” he answered, with a
light, hard laugh.
He turned down Dupont street and I saw him no more until we met in the
Auburn ravine.