Having accomplished so much, Mersereau would by no means be content to
let him go. Davidson knew that! He could talk to him occasionally now,
or at least could hear him and answer back, if he chose, when he was
alone and quite certain that no one was listening.
Mersereau was always saying, when Davidson would listen to him at
all—which he wouldn’t often—that he would get him yet, that he would
make him pay, or charging him with fraud and murder.
“_I’ll choke you yet!_” The words seemed to float in from somewhere, as
if he were remembering that at some time Mersereau had said just that
in his angry, savage tone—not as if he heard it; and yet he was hearing
it of course.
* * * * *
“_I’ll choke you yet! You can’t escape! You may think you’ll die a
natural death, but you won’t, and that’s why I’m poisoning your food
to weaken you. You can’t escape! I’ll get you, sick or well, when you
can’t help yourself, when you’re sleeping. I’ll choke you, just as you
hit me with that club. That’s why you’re always seeing and feeling this
hand of mine! I’m not alone. I’ve nearly had you many a time already,
only you have managed to wriggle out so far, jumping up, but some day
you won’t be able to—see? Then—_”
* * * * *
The voice seemed to die away at times, even in the middle of a
sentence, but at the other times—often, often—he could hear it
completing the full thought. Sometimes he would turn on the thing and
exclaim:
“Oh, go to the devil!” or, “Let me alone!” or, “Shut up!” Even in
a closed room and all alone, such remarks seemed strange to him,
addressed to a ghost; but he couldn’t resist at times, annoyed as he
was. Only he took good care not to talk if any one was about.
It was getting so that there was no real place for him outside of
an asylum, for often he would get up screaming at night—he had to,
so sharp was the clutch on his throat—and then always, wherever he
was, a servant would come in and want to know what was the matter. He
would have to say that it was a nightmare—only the management always
requested him to leave after the second or third time, say, or after an
explosion or two. It was horrible!
He might as well apply to a private asylum or sanatorium now, having
all the money he had, and explain that he had delusions—delusions!
Imagine!—and ask to be taken care of. In a place like that they
wouldn’t be disturbed by his jumping up and screaming at night, feeling
that he was being choked, as he was, or by his leaving the table
because he couldn’t eat the food, or by his talking back to Mersereau,
should they chance to hear him, or by the noises when they occurred.
They could assign him a special nurse and a special room, if he
wished—only he didn’t wish to be too much alone. They could put him in
charge of some one who would understand all these things, or to whom he
could explain. He couldn’t expect ordinary people, or hotels catering
to ordinary people, to put up with him any more. Mersereau and his
friends made too much trouble.
He must go and hunt up a good place somewhere where they understood
such things, or at least tolerated them, and explain, and then it would
all pass for the hallucinations of a crazy man,—though, as a matter of
fact, he wasn’t crazy at all. It was all too real, only the average
or so-called normal person couldn’t see or hear as he could—hadn’t
experienced what he had.