"Come, Awdrey, wake up, you don't know what you are talking about," said
the doctor. He grasped his patient firmly by one arm, and shook him
slightly. The dazed and stricken man gazed at the doctor in
astonishment.
"Where am I, and what is the matter?" he asked.
"You are spending the night in my house, and have just had a bad dream,"
said Dr. Rumsey. "Don't go back to bed just yet. Come and sit by the
fire for a few minutes."
As the doctor spoke, he put a warm padded dressing-gown of his own over
his shivering and cowed-looking patient.
Awdrey wrapped himself in it, and approached the fire. Dr. Rumsey drew a
chair forward. He noticed the shaking hands, thin almost to emaciation,
the sunken cheeks, the glazed expression of the eyes, the look of age
and mental irritation which characterized the face.
"Poor fellow? no wonder that he should be simply slipping out of life if
this kind of thing continues night after night," thought the doctor.
"What is to be done with him? His is one of the cases which baffle
Science. Well, at least, he wants heaps of nourishment to enable him to
bear up. I'll go downstairs and prepare a meal for him."
He spoke aloud.
"You shiver, Awdrey, are you cold?"
"Not very," replied Awdrey, trying to smile, although his lips
chattered. He looked into the fire, and held out one hand to the
grateful blaze.
"You'll feel much better after you have taken a prescription which I
mean to make up for you. I'll go and prepare it now. Do you mind being
left alone?"
"Certainly not. Why should I?"
"He has already forgotten his terrors," thought Dr. Rumsey. "Queer case,
incomprehensible. I never met one like it before. In these days, it is
true, one comes across all forms of psychological distress. Nothing now
ought to be new or startling to medical science, but this certainly is
marvellous."
The doctor speedily returned with a plate of cold meat, some bread and
butter, and a bottle of champagne.
"As we are both spending the night other than it should be spent," he
said, "we must have nourishment. I am going to eat, will you join me?"
"I feel hungry," answered Awdrey. "I should be glad of something."
The doctor fed him as though he were an infant. He drank off two glasses
of champagne, and then the color returned to his cheeks, and some
animation to his sunken eyes.
"You look better," said the doctor. "Now, you will get back to bed,
won't you? After that champagne a good sleep will put some mettle into
you. It is not yet four o'clock. You have several hours to devote to
slumber."
The moment Rumsey began to speak, Awdrey's eyes dilated.
"I remember something," he said.
"I dare say you do--many things--what are you specially alluding to?"
"I saw something a short time ago in this room. The memory of it comes
dimly back to me. I struggle to grasp it fully. Is your house said to be
haunted, Dr. Rumsey?"
Dr. Rumsey laughed.
"Not that I am aware of," he replied.
"Well, haunted or not, I saw something." Awdrey rose slowly as he
spoke--he pointed in the direction of the farthest window.
"I was sleeping soundly but suddenly found myself broad awake," he
began--"I saw over there"--he pointed with his hand to the farthest
window, "what looked like a perfect sphere or globe of light--in the
centre of this light was a picture. I see the whole thing now in
imagination, but the picture is dim--it worries me, I want to see it
better. No, I will not get back to bed."
"You had a bad dream and are beginning to remember it," said Rumsey.
"It was not a dream at all. I was wide awake. Stay--don't question
me--my memory becomes more vivid instant by instant. I was wide awake as
I said--I got up--I approached the thing. It never swerved from the one
position--it was there by the window--a sphere of light and the picture
in the middle. There were two men in the picture."
"A nightmare, a nightmare," said the doctor. "What did you eat for
dinner last night?"
"It was not an ordinary nightmare--my memory is now quite vivid. I
recall the whole vision. I saw a picture of something that happened.
Years ago, Dr. Rumsey--over five years ago now--there was a murder
committed on the Plain near my place. Two men, undergraduates of Oxford,
were staying at our village inn--they fought about a girl with whom they
were both in love. One man killed the other. The murder was committed in
a moment of strong provocation and the murderer only got penal
servitude. He is serving his time now. It seems strange, does it not,
that I should have seen a complete picture of the murder! The whole
thing was very vivid and distinct--it has, in short, burnt itself into
my brain."
Awdrey raised his hand as he spoke and pressed it to his forehead. "My
pulse is bounding just here," he said--he touched his temple. "I have
only to shut my eyes to see in imagination what I saw in reality half an
hour ago. Why should I be worried with a picture of a murder committed
five years ago?"
"It probably made a deep impression on you at the time," said Dr.
Rumsey. "You are now weak and your nerves much out of order--your brain
has simply reverted back to it. If I were you I would only think of it
as an ordinary nightmare. Pray let me persuade you to go back to bed."
"I could not--I am stricken by the most indescribable terror."
"Nonsense! You a man!"
"You may heap what opprobrium you like on me, but I cannot deny the
fact. I am full of cowardly terror. I cannot account for my sensations.
The essence of my torture lies in the fact that I am unable to see the
face of the man who committed the murder."
"Oh, come, why should you see his face--you know who he was?"
"That's just it, doctor. I wish to God I did know." Awdrey approached
close to Dr. Rumsey, and stared into his eyes. His own eyes were queer
and glittering. He seemed instinctively to feel that he had said too
much, for he drew back a step, putting his hand again to his forehead
and staring fixedly out into vacancy.
"You believe that I am talking nonsense," he said, after a pause.
"I believe that you are a sad victim to your own nervous fears. You need
not go to bed unless you like. Dress yourself and sit here by the fire.
You will very likely fall asleep in this arm-chair. I shall remain close
to you."
"You are really good to me, and I would thank you if I were capable of
gratitude. Yes, I'll get into my clothes."
Rumsey turned on the electric light, and Awdrey with trembling fingers
dressed himself. When he came back to his easy-chair by the warm fire he
said suddenly:
"Give me a sheet of paper and a pencil, will you?"
The doctor handed him a blank sheet from his own note-paper, and
furnished him with a pencil.
"Now I will sketch what I saw for you," he said.
He drew with bold touches a broad sphere of light. In the centre was a
picture, minute but faithful.
At one time Awdrey had been fond of dabbling in art. He sketched a night
scene now, with broad effects--a single bar of moonlight lit up
everything with vivid distinctness. A man lay on the ground stretched
out flat and motionless--another man bent over him in a queer
attitude--he held a stick in his hand--he was tall and slender--there
was a certain look about his figure! Awdrey dropped his pencil and
stared furtively with eyes dilated with horror at his own production.
Then he put his sketch face downward on the table, and turned a white
and indescribably perplexed countenance to Dr. Rumsey.
"What I have drawn is not worth looking at," he said, simulating a yawn
as he spoke. "After all I cannot quite reproduce what I saw. I believe I
shall doze off in this chair."
"Do so," said the doctor.
A few minutes later, when the patient was sound asleep, Dr. Rumsey
lifted the paper on which Awdrey had made his sketch. He looked fixedly
at the vividly worked-up picture.
"The man whose back is alone visible has an unmistakable likeness to
Awdrey," he muttered. "Poor fellow, what does this mean!--diseased
nerves of course. The next thing he will say is that he committed the
murder himself. He certainly needs immediate treatment. But what to do
is the puzzle."