although carriston stated that he came to me for aid, and, it may be, for protection, he manifested the greatest reluctance in following any advice i offered him. the obstinacy of his refusal to obtain the assistance of the police placed me in a predicament. that madeline rowan had really disappeared i was, of course, compelled to believe. it might even be possible that she was kept against her will in some place of concealment. in such a case it behooved us to take proper steps to trace her. her welfare should not depend upon the hallucinations and eccentric ideas of a man half out of his senses with love and grief. i all but resolved, even at the risk of forfeiting carriston’s friendship, to put the whole matter in the hands of the police, unless in the course of a day or two we heard from the girl herself, or carriston suggested some better plan.
curiously enough, although refusing to be guided by me, he made no suggestion on his own account. he was racked by fear and suspense, yet his only idea of solving difficulties seemed to be that of waiting. he did nothing. he simply waited, as if he expected that chance would bring what he should have been searching for high and low.
some days passed before i could get a tardy consent that aid should be sought. even then he would not go to the proper quarter; but he allowed me to summon to our councils a man who advertised himself as being a private detective. this man, or one of his men, came at our call, and heard what was wanted of him. carriston reluctantly gave him one of madeline’s photographs.[249] he also told him that only by watching and spying on ralph carriston’s every action could he hope to obtain the clew. i did not much like the course adopted, nor did i like the look of the man to whom the inquiry was intrusted; but at any rate something was being done.
a week passed without any news from our agent. carriston, in truth, did not seem to expect any. i believe he only employed the man in deference to my wishes. he moved about the house in a disconsolate fashion. i had not told him of my interview with his cousin, but had cautioned him on the rare occasions upon which he went out of doors to avoid speaking to strangers, and my servants had strict instructions to prevent any one coming in and taking my guest by surprise.
for i had during those days opened a confidential inquiry on my own account. i wanted to learn something about this mr. ralph carriston. so i asked a man who knew everybody to find out all about him.
he reported that ralph carriston was a man well known about london. he was married and had a house in dorsetshire; but the greater part of his time was spent in town. once he was supposed to be well-off; but now it was the general opinion that every acre he owned was mortgaged, and that he was much pressed for money. “but,” my informant said, “there is but one life between him and the reversion to large estates, and that life is a poor one. i believe even now there is talk about the man who stands in his way being mad. if so, ralph carriston will get the management of everything.”
after this news i felt it more than ever needful to[250] keep a watchful eye on my friend. so far as i knew there had been no recurrence of the trance, and i began to hope that proper treatment would effect a complete cure, when, to my great alarm and annoyance, carriston, while sitting with me, suddenly and without warning fell into the same strange state of body and mind as previously described. this time he was sitting in another part of the room. after watching him for a minute or two, and just as i was making up my mind to arouse him and scold him thoroughly for his folly, he sprung to his feet, and shouting, “let her go! loose her, i say!” rushed violently across the room—so violently, that i had barely time to interpose and prevent him from coming into contact with the opposite wall.
upon returning to his senses he told me, with great excitement, that he had again seen madeline; moreover, this time he had seen a man with her—a man who had placed his hand upon her wrist and kept it there; and so, according to carriston’s wild reasoning, became, on account of the contact, visible to him.
he told me he had watched them for some moments, until the man, tightening his grip on the girl’s arm, endeavored, he thought, to lead her or induce her to follow him somewhere. at this juncture, unaware that he was gazing at a vision, he had rushed to her assistance in the frantic way i have described—then he awoke.
he also told me he had studied the man’s features and general appearance most carefully with a view to future recognition. all these ridiculous statements were made as he made the former ones, with the air of one relating simple, undeniable facts—one speaking[251] the plain, unvarnished truth, and expecting full credence to be given to his words.
it was too absurd! too sad! it was evident to me that the barrier between his hallucinations, dreams, visions, or what he chose to call them, and pure insanity, was now a very slight and fragile one. but before i gave up his case as hopeless i determined to make another strong appeal to his common-sense. i told him of his cousin’s visit to me—of his intentions and proposition. i begged him to consider what consequences his extraordinary beliefs and extravagant actions must eventually entail. he listened attentively and calmly.
“you see now,” he said, “how right i was in attributing all this to ralph carriston—how right i was to come to you, a doctor of standing, who can vouch for my sanity.”
“vouch for your sanity! how can i when you sit here and talk such arrant nonsense, and expect me to believe it? when you jump from your chair and rush madly at some visionary foe? sane as you may be in all else, any evidence i could give in your favor must break down in cross-examination if an inkling of these things got about. come, carriston, be reasonable, and prove your sanity by setting about this search for miss rowan in a proper way.”
he made no reply, but walked up and down the room apparently in deep thought. my words seemed to have had no effect upon him. presently he seated himself; and, as if to avoid returning to the argument, drew a book at hazard from my shelves and began to read. he opened the volume at random, but after reading a few lines seemed struck by something that[252] met his eyes, and in a few minutes was deeply immersed in the contents of the book. i glanced at it to see what had so awakened his interest. by a curious fatality he had chosen a book the very worst for him in his present frame of mind—gilchrist’s recently published life of william blake, that masterly memoir of a man who was on certain points as mad as carriston himself. i was about to remonstrate, when he laid down the volume and turned to me.
“varley, the painter,” he said, “was a firm believer in blake’s visions.”
“varley was a bigger fool than blake,” i retorted. “fancy his sitting down and watching his clever but mad friend draw spectral heads, and believing them to be genuine portraits of dead kings whose forms condescended to appear to blake!”
a sudden thought seemed to strike carriston. “will you give me some paper and chalk?” he asked. upon being furnished with these materials he seated himself at the table and began to draw. at least a dozen times he sketched, with his usual rapidity, some object or another, and a dozen times, after a moment’s consideration, threw each sketch aside with an air of disappointment and began a fresh one. at last one of his attempts seemed to come up to his requirements. “i have it now, exactly!” he cried with joy—even triumph—in his voice. he spent some time in putting finishing touches to the successful sketch, then he handed me the paper.
“that is the man i saw just now with madeline,” he said. “when i find him i shall find her.” he spoke with all sincerity and conviction. i looked at the paper with, i am bound to say, a great amount of curiosity.
no matter from what visionary source carriston had drawn his inspiration, his sketch was vigorous and natural enough. i have already mentioned his wonderful power of drawing portraits from memory, so was willing to grant that he might have reproduced the outline of some face which had somewhere struck him. yet why should it have been this one? his drawing represented the three quarter face of a man—an ordinary man—apparently between forty and fifty years of age. it was a coarse-featured, ill-favored face, with a ragged ruff of hair round the chin. it was not the face of a gentleman, nor even the face of a gentle-nurtured man; and the artist, by a few cunning strokes, had made it wear a crafty and sullen look. the sketch, as i write this, lies before me, so that i am not speaking from memory.
now, there are some portraits of which, without having seen the original, we say, “what splendid likenesses these must be.” it was so with carriston’s sketch. looking at it you felt sure it was exactly like the man whom it was intended to represent. so that, with the certain amount of art knowledge which i am at least supposed to possess, it was hard for me, after examining the drawing and recognizing the true artist’s touch in every line, to bring myself to accept the fact that it was but the outcome of a diseased imagination. as, at this very moment, i glance at that drawing, i scarcely blame myself for the question that faintly frames itself in my innermost heart. “could it be possible—could there be in certain organizations powers not yet known—not yet properly investigated?”
my thought, supposing such a thought was ever there—was not discouraged by carriston, who, speaking as if his faith in the bodily existence of the man whose portrait lay in my hand was unassailable, said,
“i noticed that his general appearance was that of a countryman—an english peasant; so in the country i shall find my love. moreover, it will be easy to identify the man, as the top joint is missing from the middle finger of his right hand. as it lay on madeline’s arm i noticed that.”
i argued with him no more. i felt that words would be but wasted.
