IN WHICH A COMPANY OF INTELLIGENT AND FOR THE MOST PART CONCEITED MEN
MEET MORE THAN THEIR MATCH
I still tingle with mortification over an experience at Dabney's last
evening, the only satisfaction being that others tingle with me. We
were talking of the supernatural--that unprofitable but endlessly
alluring theme--and most of us had cited an instance, without,
however, producing much effect. Among the strangers to me was a
little man with an anxious white face, whom Rudson-Wayte had brought,
and he watched each speaker with the closest attention, but said
nothing. Then Dabney, wishing to include him in the talk, turned to
him and asked if he had no experience to relate, no story that
contained an inexplicable element.
He thought a moment. "Well," he said, "not a story in the ordinary
sense of the word: nothing, that is, from hearsay, like most of your
examples. Truth, I always hold, is not only vastly stranger than
fiction, but also vastly more interesting. I could tell you an
occurrence which happened to me personally, and which oddly enough
completed itself only this afternoon."
We begged him to begin.
"A year or two ago," he said, "I was in rooms in Great Ormond
Street--an old house on the Holborn side. The bedroom walls had been
distempered by a previous tenant, but the place was damp and great
patches of discoloration had broken out. One of these--as indeed
often happens--was exactly like a human face; but more faithfully and
startlingly like than is customary. Lying in bed in the morning,
putting off getting up, I used to watch it and watch it, and
gradually I came to think of it as real--as my fellow-lodger, in
fact. The odd thing was that while the patches on the walls grew
larger and changed their contours, this never did. It remained
identically the same.
"While there, I had a very bad attack of influenza, with
complications, and all day long I had nothing to do but read or
meditate, and it was then that this face began to get a firmer hold
of me. It grew more and more real and remarkable. I may say that it
dominated my thoughts day and night. There was a curious turn to the
nose, and the slant of the forehead was unique. It was, in fact,
full of individuality: the face of a man apart, a man in a thousand.
"Well, I got better, but the face still controlled me. I found
myself searching the streets for one like it. Somewhere, I was
convinced, the real man must exist, and him I must meet. Why, I had
no notion: I only knew that he and I were in some way linked by fate.
I frequented places where men congregate in large numbers--political
meetings, football matches, the railway stations when the suburban
trains pour forth their legions on the City in the morning, and
receive them again in the evening. But all in vain. I had never
before realized as I then did how many different faces of man there
are and how few. For all differ, and yet, classified, they belong to
only as many groups as you can count on your hands.
"The search became a mania with me. I neglected everything else. I
stood at busy corners watching the crowd until people thought me
crazy, and the police began to know me and be suspicious. Women I
never glanced at: men, men, men, all the time."
He passed his hand wearily over his brow. "And then," he continued,
"at last I saw him. He was in a taxi driving east along Piccadilly.
I turned and ran beside it for a little way and then saw an empty one
coming. 'Follow that taxi,' I gasped, and leaped in. The driver
managed to keep it in sight and it took us to Charing Cross. I
rushed on to the platform and found my man with two ladies and a
little girl. They were going to France by the 2.20. I hung about to
try and get a word with him, but in vain. Other friends had joined
the party, and they moved to the train in a solid body.
"I hastily purchased a ticket to Folkestone, hoping that I should
catch him on the boat before it sailed; but at Folkestone he got on
board before me with his friends, and they disappeared into a large
private saloon, several cabins thrown into one. Evidently he was a
man of wealth.
"Again I was foiled; but I determined to cross too, feeling certain
that when the voyage had begun he would leave the ladies and come out
for a stroll on the deck. I had only just enough for the single fare
to Boulogne, but nothing could shake me now. I took up my position
opposite the saloon door and waited. After half an hour the door
opened and he came out, but with the little girl. My heart beat so
that it seemed to shake the boat more than the propeller. There was
no mistaking the face--every line was the same. He glanced at me and
moved towards the companion-way for the upper deck. It was now or
never, I felt.
"'Excuse me,' I stammered, 'but do you mind giving me your card? I
have a very important reason for wishing to communicate with you.'
"He seemed to be astonished, as indeed well he might; but he
complied. With extreme deliberation he took out his case and handed
me his card and hurried on with the little girl. It was clear that
he thought me a lunatic and considered it wiser to humour me than not.
"Clutching the card I hurried to a deserted corner of the ship and
read it. My eyes dimmed; my head swam; for on it were the words: Mr.
Ormond Wall, with an address at Pittsburg, U.S.A. I remember no more
until I found myself in a hospital at Boulogne. There I lay in a
broken condition for some weeks, and only a month ago did I return."
He was silent.
We looked at him and at one another and waited. All the other talk
of the evening was nothing compared with the story of the little pale
man.
"I went back," he resumed after a moment or so, "to Great Ormond
Street and set to work to discover all I could about this American in
whose life I had so mysteriously intervened. I wrote to Pittsburg; I
wrote to American editors; I cultivated the society of Americans in
London; but all that I could find out was that he was a millionaire
with English parents who had resided in London. But where? To that
question I received no answer.
"And so the time went on until yesterday morning. I had gone to bed
more than usually tired and slept till late. When I woke the sun was
streaming in the room. As I always do, I looked at once at the wall
on which the face is to be seen. I rubbed my eyes and sprang up in
alarm. It was only faintly visible. Last night it had been as clear
as ever--almost I could hear it speak. And now it was but a ghost of
itself.
"I got up dazed and dejected and went out. The early editions of the
evening papers were already out, and on the contents bill I saw,
'American Millionaire's Motor Accident.' You must all of you have
seen it. I bought it and read at once what I knew I should read.
Mr. Ormond Wall, the Pittsburg millionaire and party, motoring from
Spezzia to Pisa, had come into collision with a wagon and were
overturned; Mr. Wall's condition was critical.
"I went back to my room still dazed, and sat on the bed looking with
unseeing eyes at the face on the wall. And even as I looked,
suddenly it completely disappeared.
"Later I found that Mr. Wall had succumbed to his injuries at what I
take to be that very moment."
Again he was silent.
"Most remarkable," we said; "most extraordinary," and so forth, and
we meant it too.
"Yes," said the stranger. "There are three extraordinary, three most
remarkable, things about my story. One is that it should be possible
for the discoloration in a lodging-house in London not only to form
the features of a gentleman in America, but to have this intimate
association with his existence. It will take Science some time to
explain that. Another is that that gentleman's name should bear any
relation to the spot on which his features were being so curiously
reproduced by some mysterious agency. Is it not so?"
We agreed with him, and our original discussion on supernatural
manifestations set in again with increased excitement, during which
the narrator of the amazing experience rose and said good-night.
Just as he was at the door, one of the company--I rejoice to think it
was Spanton--recalled us to the cause of our excited debate by asking
him, before he left, what he considered the third extraordinary thing
in connection with his deeply interesting story. "You said three
things, you know," Spanton reminded him.
"Oh, the third thing," he said, as he opened the door, "I was
forgetting that. The third extraordinary thing about the story is
that I made it up about half an hour ago. Good-night, again."
After coming to our senses we looked round for Rudson-Wayte, who had
brought this snake to bite our bosoms, but he too had disappeared.