Chapter IX: "Now There Are Three"

I shall never forget that night. When we stepped to the pavement the whole world was shrouded. The heavy fog clung like depression; life was gone out--a foreboding of gloom and disaster. It was cold, dank, miserable; one shuddered instinctively and battered against the wall with steaming columns of breath. Just outside the door we were detained.

“Dr. Hansen?”

Someone stepped beside us.

“Dr. Hansen?”

“Yes, sir.”

“A message, sir.”

The doctor made a gesture of impatience.

“Bother!” he spoke. “Bother! A message. Nothing in the world would stop me! I cannot leave.”

Nevertheless he stepped back into the light.

“Just a minute, gentlemen.”

He tore open the envelope. Then he looked up at the messenger and then at us. His face was startled--almost frightened.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I am sorry. Not a thing in the world would detain me but this. I would go with you, but I may not. My duty as a physician. I had hopes.” He came over to me and spoke softly. “I am going to send you one of the greatest specialists in the city in my stead. This young man should have attention. Have you the address?”

“288 Chatterton Place,” I answered.

“Very well. I am sorry, very much disappointed. However, it is my daughter, and I cannot do otherwise. Continue the brandy for a while--and this.” He slipped an envelope into my hand. “By that time Dr. Higgins will be with you.”

“You think there is hope?” I asked.

“There’s always hope,” replied the doctor.

I returned to my companions. They were walking slowly. It was work for poor Watson. He dragged on, leaning on Hobart’s arm. But at last he gave up.

“No,” he said, “I can’t make it. I’m too far gone. I had thought--Oh, what a lapse it has been! I am eighty years of age; one year ago I was a boy. If only I had some more brandy. I have some at the house. We must make that. I must show you; there I can give you the details.”

“Hail a cab,” I said. “Here’s one now.”

A few minutes later we were before the House of the Blind Spot. It was a two storey drab affair, much like a thousand others, old-fashioned, and might have been built in the early nineties. It had been outside of the fire limits of 1906, and so had survived the great disaster. Chatterton Place is really a short street running lengthwise along the summit of the hill. A flight of stone steps descended to the pavement.

Watson straightened up with an effort.

“This is the house,” he spoke. “I came here a year ago. I go away tonight. I had hoped to find it. I promised Bertha. I came alone. I had reasons to believe I had solved it. I found the Rhamda and the Nervina. I had iron will and courage--also strength. The Rhamda was never able to control me. My life is gone but not my will. Now I have left him another. Do not surrender, Harry. It is a gruesome task; but hold on to the end. Help me up the steps. There now. Just wait a minute till I fetch a stimulant.”

He did not ring for a servant. That I noticed. Instead he groped about for a key, unlocked the door and stumbled into a room. He fumbled for a minute among some glasses.

“Will you switch on a light?” he asked.

Hobart struck a match; when he found it he pressed the switch.

The room in which we were standing was a large one, fairly well furnished, and lined on two sides with bookshelves; in the centre was an oak table cluttered with papers, a couple of chairs, and on one of them, a heavy pipe, which, somehow, I did not think of as Watson’s. He noticed my look.

“Jerome’s,” he explained. “We live here--Jerome, the detective, and myself. He has been here since the day of the doctor’s disappearance. I came here a year ago. He is in Nevada at present. That leaves me alone. You will notice the books, mostly occult: partly mine, partly the detective’s. We have gone at it systematically from the beginning. We have learned almost everything but what would help us. Mostly sophistry--and guesswork. Beats all how much ink has been wasted to say nothing. We were after the Blind Spot.”

“But what is it? Is it in this house?”

“I can answer one part of your question,” he answered, “but not the other. It is here somewhere, in some place. Jerome is positive of that. You remember the old lady? The one who died? Her actions were rather positive even if feeble. She led Jerome to this next room.” He turned and pointed; the door was open. I could see a sofa and a few chairs; that was all.

“It was in here. The bell. Jerome never gets tired of telling. A church bell. In the centre of the room. At first I didn’t believe; but now I accept it all. I know, but what I know is by intuition.”

“Sort of sixth sense?’

“Yes. Or foresight.”

“You never saw this bell nor found it? Never were able to arrive at an explanation?”

“No.”

“How about the Rhamda? The Nervina? Do they come to this house?”

“Not often.”

“How do they come in? Through the window?”

He smiled rather sadly. “I don’t know. At least they come. You shall see them yourself. The Rhamda still has something to do with Dr. Holcomb. Somehow his very concern tells me the doctor is safe. Undoubtedly the professor made a great discovery. But he was not alone. He had a co-worker--the Rhamda. For reasons of his own the Rhamda wishes to control the Blind Spot.”

“Then the professor is in this Blind Spot?”

“We think so. At least it is our conjecture. We do not know.”

“Then you don’t think it trickery?”

“No, hardly. Harry, you know better than that. Can you imagine the great doctor the dupe of a mere trickster? The professor was a man of great science and was blessed with an almighty sound head. But he had one weakness.”

Hobart spoke up.