Twelve Stories and a Dream (19 page)

"I do not know how I can possibly thank you enough," began the letter he
wrote me from England, "for all your kindness to a total stranger," and
proceeded for some time in a similar strain. "Had it not been for your
generous assistance, I could certainly never have returned in time for
the resumption of my scholastic duties, and my few minutes of reckless
folly would, perhaps, have proved my ruin. As it is, I am entangled in
a tissue of lies and evasions, of the most complicated sort, to account
for my sunburnt appearance and my whereabouts. I have rather carelessly
told two or three different stories, not realising the trouble this
would mean for me in the end. The truth I dare not tell. I have
consulted a number of law-books in the British Museum, and there is
not the slightest doubt that I have connived at and abetted and aided a
felony. That scoundrel Bingham was the Hithergate bank manager, I find,
and guilty of the most flagrant embezzlement. Please, please burn this
letter when read—I trust you implicitly. The worst of it is, neither my
aunt nor her friend who kept the boarding-house at which I was staying
seem altogether to believe a guarded statement I have made them
practically of what actually happened. They suspect me of some
discreditable adventure, but what sort of discreditable adventure they
suspect me of, I do not know. My aunt says she would forgive me if I
told her everything. I have—I have told her MORE than everything, and
still she is not satisfied. It would never do to let them know the truth
of the case, of course, and so I represent myself as having been waylaid
and gagged upon the beach. My aunt wants to know WHY they waylaid and
gagged me, why they took me away in their yacht. I do not know. Can
you suggest any reason? I can think of nothing. If, when you wrote, you
could write on TWO sheets so that I could show her one, and on that one
if you could show clearly that I really WAS in Jamaica this summer,
and had come there by being removed from a ship, it would be of great
service to me. It would certainly add to the load of my obligation
to you—a load that I fear I can never fully repay. Although if
gratitude..." And so forth. At the end he repeated his request for me to
burn the letter.

So the remarkable story of Mr. Ledbetter's Vacation ends. That breach
with his aunt was not of long duration. The old lady had forgiven him
before she died.

Mr. Bessel was the senior partner in the firm of Bessel, Hart, and
Brown, of St. Paul's Churchyard, and for many years he was well known
among those interested in psychical research as a liberal-minded and
conscientious investigator. He was an unmarried man, and instead of
living in the suburbs, after the fashion of his class, he occupied rooms
in the Albany, near Piccadilly. He was particularly interested in the
questions of thought transference and of apparitions of the living, and
in November, 1896, he commenced a series of experiments in conjunction
with Mr. Vincey, of Staple Inn, in order to test the alleged possibility
of projecting an apparition of one's self by force of will through
space.

Their experiments were conducted in the following manner: At a
pre-arranged hour Mr. Bessel shut himself in one of his rooms in the
Albany and Mr. Vincey in his sitting-room in Staple Inn, and each then
fixed his mind as resolutely as possible on the other. Mr. Bessel
had acquired the art of self-hypnotism, and, so far as he could, he
attempted first to hypnotise himself and then to project himself as a
"phantom of the living" across the intervening space of nearly two miles
into Mr. Vincey's apartment. On several evenings this was tried without
any satisfactory result, but on the fifth or sixth occasion Mr. Vincey
did actually see or imagine he saw an apparition of Mr. Bessel standing
in his room. He states that the appearance, although brief, was very
vivid and real. He noticed that Mr. Bessel's face was white and his
expression anxious, and, moreover, that his hair was disordered. For
a moment Mr. Vincey, in spite of his state of expectation, was too
surprised to speak or move, and in that moment it seemed to him as
though the figure glanced over its shoulder and incontinently vanished.

It had been arranged that an attempt should be made to photograph any
phantasm seen, but Mr. Vincey had not the instant presence of mind to
snap the camera that lay ready on the table beside him, and when he
did so he was too late. Greatly elated, however, even by this partial
success, he made a note of the exact time, and at once took a cab to the
Albany to inform Mr. Bessel of this result.

He was surprised to find Mr. Bessel's outer door standing open to the
night, and the inner apartments lit and in an extraordinary disorder.
An empty champagne magnum lay smashed upon the floor; its neck had
been broken off against the inkpot on the bureau and lay beside it.
An octagonal occasional table, which carried a bronze statuette and
a number of choice books, had been rudely overturned, and down the
primrose paper of the wall inky fingers had been drawn, as it seemed for
the mere pleasure of defilement. One of the delicate chintz curtains had
been violently torn from its rings and thrust upon the fire, so that
the smell of its smouldering filled the room. Indeed the whole place was
disarranged in the strangest fashion. For a few minutes Mr. Vincey, who
had entered sure of finding Mr. Bessel in his easy chair awaiting him,
could scarcely believe his eyes, and stood staring helplessly at these
unanticipated things.

Then, full of a vague sense of calamity, he sought the porter at the
entrance lodge. "Where is Mr. Bessel?" he asked. "Do you know that all
the furniture is broken in Mr. Bessel's room?" The porter said nothing,
but, obeying his gestures, came at once to Mr. Bessel's apartment to see
the state of affairs. "This settles it," he said, surveying the lunatic
confusion. "I didn't know of this. Mr. Bessel's gone off. He's mad!"

He then proceeded to tell Mr. Vincey that about half an hour previously,
that is to say, at about the time of Mr. Bessel's apparition in Mr.
Vincey's rooms, the missing gentleman had rushed out of the gates of
the Albany into Vigo Street, hatless and with disordered hair, and had
vanished into the direction of Bond Street. "And as he went past me,"
said the porter, "he laughed—a sort of gasping laugh, with his mouth
open and his eyes glaring—I tell you, sir, he fair scared me!—like
this."

According to his imitation it was anything but a pleasant laugh. "He
waved his hand, with all his fingers crooked and clawing—like that.
And he said, in a sort of fierce whisper, 'LIFE!' Just that one word,
'LIFE!'"

"Dear me," said Mr. Vincey. "Tut, tut," and "Dear me!" He could think
of nothing else to say. He was naturally very much surprised. He turned
from the room to the porter and from the porter to the room in the
gravest perplexity. Beyond his suggestion that probably Mr. Bessel would
come back presently and explain what had happened, their conversation
was unable to proceed. "It might be a sudden toothache," said
the porter, "a very sudden and violent toothache, jumping on him
suddenly-like and driving him wild. I've broken things myself before now
in such a case..." He thought. "If it was, why should he say 'LIFE' to
me as he went past?"

Mr. Vincey did not know. Mr. Bessel did not return, and at last Mr.
Vincey, having done some more helpless staring, and having addressed
a note of brief inquiry and left it in a conspicuous position on the
bureau, returned in a very perplexed frame of mind to his own premises
in Staple Inn. This affair had given him a shock. He was at a loss to
account for Mr. Bessel's conduct on any sane hypothesis. He tried to
read, but he could not do so; he went for a short walk, and was so
preoccupied that he narrowly escaped a cab at the top of Chancery Lane;
and at last—a full hour before his usual time—he went to bed. For a
considerable time he could not sleep because of his memory of the silent
confusion of Mr. Bessel's apartment, and when at length he did attain an
uneasy slumber it was at once disturbed by a very vivid and distressing
dream of Mr. Bessel.

He saw Mr. Bessel gesticulating wildly, and with his face white and
contorted. And, inexplicably mingled with his appearance, suggested
perhaps by his gestures, was an intense fear, an urgency to act. He
even believes that he heard the voice of his fellow experimenter calling
distressfully to him, though at the time he considered this to be an
illusion. The vivid impression remained though Mr. Vincey awoke. For a
space he lay awake and trembling in the darkness, possessed with that
vague, unaccountable terror of unknown possibilities that comes out of
dreams upon even the bravest men. But at last he roused himself, and
turned over and went to sleep again, only for the dream to return with
enhanced vividness.

He awoke with such a strong conviction that Mr. Bessel was in
overwhelming distress and need of help that sleep was no longer
possible. He was persuaded that his friend had rushed out to some dire
calamity. For a time he lay reasoning vainly against this belief, but at
last he gave way to it. He arose, against all reason, lit his gas, and
dressed, and set out through the deserted streets—deserted, save for a
noiseless policeman or so and the early news carts—towards Vigo Street
to inquire if Mr. Bessel had returned.

But he never got there. As he was going down Long Acre some
unaccountable impulse turned him aside out of that street towards Covent
Garden, which was just waking to its nocturnal activities. He saw the
market in front of him—a queer effect of glowing yellow lights and busy
black figures. He became aware of a shouting, and perceived a figure
turn the corner by the hotel and run swiftly towards him. He knew at
once that it was Mr. Bessel. But it was Mr. Bessel transfigured. He
was hatless and dishevelled, his collar was torn open, he grasped a
bone-handled walking-cane near the ferrule end, and his mouth was pulled
awry. And he ran, with agile strides, very rapidly. Their encounter was
the affair of an instant. "Bessel!" cried Vincey.

The running man gave no sign of recognition either of Mr. Vincey or of
his own name. Instead, he cut at his friend savagely with the stick,
hitting him in the face within an inch of the eye. Mr. Vincey, stunned
and astonished, staggered back, lost his footing, and fell heavily on
the pavement. It seemed to him that Mr. Bessel leapt over him as he
fell. When he looked again Mr. Bessel had vanished, and a policeman and
a number of garden porters and salesmen were rushing past towards Long
Acre in hot pursuit.

With the assistance of several passers-by—for the whole street was
speedily alive with running people—Mr. Vincey struggled to his feet.
He at once became the centre of a crowd greedy to see his injury. A
multitude of voices competed to reassure him of his safety, and then to
tell him of the behaviour of the madman, as they regarded Mr. Bessel.
He had suddenly appeared in the middle of the market screaming "LIFE!
LIFE!" striking left and right with a blood-stained walking-stick, and
dancing and shouting with laughter at each successful blow. A lad and
two women had broken heads, and he had smashed a man's wrist; a little
child had been knocked insensible, and for a time he had driven every
one before him, so furious and resolute had his behaviour been. Then he
made a raid upon a coffee stall, hurled its paraffin flare through
the window of the post office, and fled laughing, after stunning the
foremost of the two policemen who had the pluck to charge him.

Mr. Vincey's first impulse was naturally to join in the pursuit of
his friend, in order if possible to save him from the violence of the
indignant people. But his action was slow, the blow had half stunned
him, and while this was still no more than a resolution came the news,
shouted through the crowd, that Mr. Bessel had eluded his pursuers. At
first Mr. Vincey could scarcely credit this, but the universality of
the report, and presently the dignified return of two futile policemen,
convinced him. After some aimless inquiries he returned towards Staple
Inn, padding a handkerchief to a now very painful nose.

He was angry and astonished and perplexed. It appeared to him
indisputable that Mr. Bessel must have gone violently mad in the midst
of his experiment in thought transference, but why that should make him
appear with a sad white face in Mr. Vincey's dreams seemed a problem
beyond solution. He racked his brains in vain to explain this. It seemed
to him at last that not simply Mr. Bessel, but the order of things
must be insane. But he could think of nothing to do. He shut himself
carefully into his room, lit his fire—it was a gas fire with asbestos
bricks—and, fearing fresh dreams if he went to bed, remained bathing
his injured face, or holding up books in a vain attempt to read, until
dawn. Throughout that vigil he had a curious persuasion that Mr. Bessel
was endeavouring to speak to him, but he would not let himself attend to
any such belief.

About dawn, his physical fatigue asserted itself, and he went to bed and
slept at last in spite of dreaming. He rose late, unrested and anxious,
and in considerable facial pain. The morning papers had no news of
Mr. Bessel's aberration—it had come too late for them. Mr. Vincey's
perplexities, to which the fever of his bruise added fresh irritation,
became at last intolerable, and, after a fruitless visit to the Albany,
he went down to St. Paul's Churchyard to Mr. Hart, Mr. Bessel's partner,
and, so far as Mr. Vincey knew, his nearest friend.

He was surprised to learn that Mr. Hart, although he knew nothing of the
outbreak, had also been disturbed by a vision, the very vision that Mr.
Vincey had seen—Mr. Bessel, white and dishevelled, pleading earnestly
by his gestures for help. That was his impression of the import of his
signs. "I was just going to look him up in the Albany when you arrived,"
said Mr. Hart. "I was so sure of something being wrong with him."