But Benlian seemed dissatisfied.
"There's something wrong somewhere," he said. "It isn't so perfect as
that yet--I can feel within me it isn't. It's merely that your camera
isn't strong enough to find me, Pudgie."
"I'll get another in the morning," I cried.
"No," he answered. "I know something better than that. Have a cab here by
ten o'clock in the morning, and we'll go somewhere."
By half-past ten the next morning we had driven to a large hospital, and
had gone down a lot of steps and along corridors to a basement room.
There was a stretcher couch in the middle of the room, and all manner of
queer appliances, frames of ground glass, tubes of glass blown into
extraordinary shapes, a dynamo, and a lot of other things all about. A
couple of doctors were there too, and Benlian was talking to them.
"We'll try my hand first," Benlian said by-and-by.
He advanced to the couch, and put his hand under one of the frames of
ground glass. One of the doctors did something in a corner. A harsh
crackling filled the room, and an unearthly, fluorescent light shot and
flooded across the frame where Benlian's hand was. The two doctors
looked, and then started back. One of them gave a cry. He was sickly
white.
"Put me on the couch," said Benlian.
I and the doctor who was not ill lifted him on the canvas stretcher. The
green-gleaming frame of fluctuating light was passed over the whole of
his body. Then the doctor ran to a telephone and called a colleague....
We spent the morning there, with dozens of doctors coming and going. Then
we left. All the way home in the cab Benlian chuckled to himself.
"That scared 'em, Pudgie!" he chuckled. "A man they can't X-ray--that
scared 'em! We must put that down in the diary--"
"Wasn't it ripping!" I chuckled back.
He kept a sort of diary or record. He gave it to me afterwards, but
they've borrowed it. It was as big as a ledger, and immensely valuable,
I'm sure; they oughtn't to borrow valuable things like that and not
return them. The laughing that Benlian and I have had over that diary!
It fooled them all--the clever X-ray men, the artists of the academies,
everybody! Written on the fly-leaf was "_To My Pudgie_." I shall publish
it when I get it back again.
Benlian had now got frightfully weak; it's awfully hard work, passing
yourself. And he had to take a little milk now and then or he'd have
died before he had quite finished. I didn't bother with miniatures any
longer, and when angry letters came from my employers we just put them
into the fire, Benlian and I, and we laughed--that is to say, I laughed,
but Benlian only smiled, being too weak to laugh really. He'd lots of
money, so that was all right; and I slept in his studio, to be there for
the passing.
And that wouldn't be very long now, I thought; and I was always looking
at the statue. Things like that (in case you don't know) have to be done
gradually, and I supposed he was busy filling up the inside of it and
hadn't got to the outside yet--for the statue was much the same to look
at. But, reckoning off his sips of milk and snatches of sleep, he was
making splendid progress, and the figure must be getting very full now.
I was awfully excited, it was getting so near....
And then somebody came bothering and nearly spoiling all. It's odd, but I
really forget exactly what it was. I only know there was a funeral, and
people were sobbing and looking at me, and somebody said I was callous,
but somebody else said, "No, look at him," and that it was just the other
way about. And I think I remember, now, that it wasn't in London, for I
was in a train; but after the funeral I dodged them, and found myself
back at Euston again. They followed me, but I shook them off. I locked my
own studio up, and lay as quiet as a mouse in Benlian's place when they
came hammering at the door....
* * * * *
And now I must come to what you'll called the finish--though it's awfully
stupid to call things like that "finishes."
I'd slipped into my own studio one night--I forget what for; and I'd gone
quietly, for I knew they were following me, those people, and would catch
me if they could. It was a thick, misty night, and the light came
streaming up through Benlian's roof window, with the shadows of the
window-divisions losing themselves like dark rays in the fog. A lot of
hooting was going on down the river, steamers and barges.... Oh, I know
what I'd come into my studio for! It was for those negatives. Benlian
wanted them for the diary, so that it could be seen there wasn't any
fake about the prints. For he'd said he would make a final spurt that
evening and get the job finished. It had taken a long time, but I'll bet
_you_ couldn't have passed _yourself_ any quicker.
When I got back he was sitting in the chair he'd hardly left for weeks,
and the diary was on the table by his side. I'd taken all the scaffolding
down from the statue, and he was ready to begin. He had to waste one last
bit of strength to explain to me, but I drew as close as I could, so that
he wouldn't lose much.
"Now, Pudgie," I just heard him say, "you've behaved splendidly, and
you'll be quite still up to the finish, won't you?"