Until twelve I want a chance to get this story exclusively for our paper. If she is not free by then it means I have fallen down on it, and you and the police are to begin to batter in the doors."The two young men left the cab, and at some distance from each other walked to Sowell Street. At the house of Dr. Prothero, Ford stopped and rang the bell. From across the street Cuthbert saw the door open and the figure of a man of almost gigantic stature block the doorway. For a moment he stood there, and then Cuthbert saw him step to one side, saw Ford enter the house and the door close upon him. Cuthbert at once ran to a telephone, and, having instructed Ford's landlord as to the part he was to play, returned to Sowell Street. There, in a state nearly approaching a genuine nervous breakdown, he continued his vigil.
Even without his criminal record to cast a glamour over him, Ford would have found Dr. Prothero, a disturbing person. His size was enormous, his eyes piercing, sinister, unblinking, and the hands that could strangle a bull, and with which as though to control himself, he continually pulled at his black beard, were gigantic, of a deadly white, with fingers long and prehensile. In his manner he had all the suave insolence of the Oriental and the suspicious alertness of one constantly on guard, but also, as Ford at once noted, of one wholly without fear. He had not been over a moment in his presence before the reporter felt that to successfully lie to such a man might be counted as a triumph.
Prothero opened the door into a little office leading off the hall, and switched on the electric lights. For some short time, without any effort to conceal his suspicion, he stared at Ford in silence.
"Well?" he said, at last. His tone was a challenge.
Ford had already given his assumed name and profession, and he now ran glibly into the story he had planned. He opened his card-case and looked into it doubtfully. "I find I have no card with me," he said; but I am, as I told you, Lieutenant Grant, of the United States Navy. I am all right physically, except for my nerves.
They've played me a queer trick. If the facts get out at home, it might cost me my commission. So I've come over here for treatment.""Why to ME?" asked Prothero.
"I saw by your advertisement," said the reporter, "that you treated for nervous mental troubles. Mine is an illusion," he went on. "Isee things, or, rather, always one thing-a battle-ship coming at us head on. For the last year I've been executive officer of the KEARSARGE, and the responsibility has been too much for me.""You see a battle-ship?" inquired the Jew.
"A phantom battle-ship," Ford explained, "a sort OF FLYINGDUTCHMAN. The time I saw it I was on the bridge, and I yelled and telegraphed the engine-room. I brought the ship to a full stop, and backed her. But it was dirty weather, and the error was passed over. After that, when I saw the thing coming I did nothing. But each time I think it is real." Ford shivered slightly and glanced about him. "Some day," he added fatefully, it WILL be real, and Iwill NOT signal, and the ship will sink!"
In silence, Prothero observed his visitor closely. The young man seemed sincere, genuine. His manner was direct and frank. He looked the part he had assumed, as one used to authority.
"My fees are large," said the Russian.
At this point, had Ford, regardless of terms, exhibited a hopeful eagerness to at once close with him, the Jew would have shown him the door. But Ford was on guard, and well aware that a lieutenant in the navy had but few guineas to throw away on medicines. He made a movement as though to withdraw.
"Then I am afraid," he said, "I must go somewhere else."His reluctance apparently only partially satisfied the Jew.
Ford adopted opposite tactics. He was never without ready money.
His paper saw to it that in its interests he was always able at any moment to pay for a special train across Europe, or to bribe the entire working staff of a cable office. From his breast-pocket he took a blue linen envelope, and allowed the Jew to see that it was filled with twenty- pound notes. "I have means outside my pay,"said Ford.
I would give almost any price to the man who can cure me." The eyes of the Russian flashed avariciously.
"I will arrange the terms to suit you," he exclaimed. "Your case interests me. Do you See this-mirage only at sea?""In any open place," Ford assured him. "In a park or public square, but of course most frequently at sea."The quack waved his great hands as though brushing aside a curtain.
"I will remove the illusion," he said, "and give you others more pretty." He smiled meaningfully--an evil, leering smile. "When will you come?" he asked. Ford glanced about him nervously.
"I shall stay now," he said. " I confess, in the streets and in my lodgings I am frightened. You give me confidence. I want to stay near you. I feel safe with you. If you will give me writing-paper, I will send for my things."For a moment the Jew hesitated, and then motioned to a desk. As Ford wrote, Prothero stood near him, and the reporter knew that over his shoulder the Jew was reading what he wrote. Ford gave him the note, unsealed, and asked that it be forwarded at once to his lodgings.
"To-morrow," he said, "I will call up our Embassy, and give my address to our Naval Attache.
"I will attend to that," said Prothero.
From now you are in my hands, and you can communicate with the outside only through me. You are to have absolute rest-- no books, no letters, no papers. And you will be fed from a spoon. I will explain my treatment later. You will now go to your room, and you will remain there until you are a well man."Ford had no wish to be at once shut off from the rest of the house.
The odor of cooking came through the hall, and seemed to offer an excuse for delay.
