Can Such Things Be?

In partial explanation of my feelings regarding Dr. Dorrimore I will relate briefly the circumstances under which I had met him some years before.  One evening a half-dozen men of whom I was one were sitting in the library of the Bohemian Club in San Francisco.  The conversation had turned to the subject of sleight-of-hand and the feats of the prestidigitateurs, one of whom was then exhibiting at a local theatre.

“These fellows are pretenders in a double sense,” said one of the party; “they can do nothing which it is worth one’s while to be made a dupe by.  The humblest wayside juggler in India could mystify them to the verge of lunacy.”

“For example, how?” asked another, lighting a cigar.

“For example, by all their common and familiar performances—­throwing large objects into the air which never come down; causing plants to sprout, grow visibly and blossom, in bare ground chosen by spectators; putting a man into a wicker basket, piercing him through and through with a sword while he shrieks and bleeds, and then—­the basket being opened nothing is there; tossing the free end of a silken ladder into the air, mounting it and disappearing.”

“Nonsense!” I said, rather uncivilly, I fear.  “You surely do not believe such things?”

“Certainly not:  I have seen them too often.”

“But I do,” said a journalist of considerable local fame as a picturesque reporter.  “I have so frequently related them that nothing but observation could shake my conviction.  Why, gentlemen, I have my own word for it.”

Nobody laughed—­all were looking at something behind me.  Turning in my seat I saw a man in evening dress who had just entered the room.  He was exceedingly dark, almost swarthy, with a thin face, black-bearded to the lips, an abundance of coarse black hair in some disorder, a high nose and eyes that glittered with as soulless an expression as those of a cobra.  One of the group rose and introduced him as Dr. Dorrimore, of Calcutta.  As each of us was presented in turn he acknowledged the fact with a profound bow in the Oriental manner, but with nothing of Oriental gravity.  His smile impressed me as cynical and a trifle contemptuous.  His whole demeanor I can describe only as disagreeably engaging.

His presence led the conversation into other channels.  He said little—­I do not recall anything of what he did say.  I thought his voice singularly rich and melodious, but it affected me in the same way as his eyes and smile.  In a few minutes I rose to go.  He also rose and put on his overcoat.

“Mr. Manrich,” he said, “I am going your way.”

“The devil you are!” I thought.  “How do you know which way I am going?” Then I said, “I shall be pleased to have your company.”

We left the building together.  No cabs were in sight, the street cars had gone to bed, there was a full moon and the cool night air was delightful; we walked up the California street hill.  I took that direction thinking he would naturally wish to take another, toward one of the hotels.

“You do not believe what is told of the Hindu jugglers,” he said abruptly.

“How do you know that?” I asked.

Without replying he laid his hand lightly upon my arm and with the other pointed to the stone sidewalk directly in front.  There, almost at our feet, lay the dead body of a man, the face upturned and white in the moonlight!  A sword whose hilt sparkled with gems stood fixed and upright in the breast; a pool of blood had collected on the stones of the sidewalk.

I was startled and terrified—­not only by what I saw, but by the circumstances under which I saw it.  Repeatedly during our ascent of the hill my eyes, I thought, had traversed the whole reach of that sidewalk, from street to street.  How could they have been insensible to this dreadful object now so conspicuous in the white moonlight?

As my dazed faculties cleared I observed that the body was in evening dress; the overcoat thrown wide open revealed the dress-coat, the white tie, the broad expanse of shirt front pierced by the sword.  And—­horrible revelation!—­the face, except for its pallor, was that of my companion!  It was to the minutest detail of dress and feature Dr. Dorrimore himself.  Bewildered and horrified, I turned to look for the living man.  He was nowhere visible, and with an added terror I retired from the place, down the hill in the direction whence I had come.  I had taken but a few strides when a strong grasp upon my shoulder arrested me.  I came near crying out with terror:  the dead man, the sword still fixed in his breast, stood beside me!  Pulling out the sword with his disengaged hand, he flung it from him, the moonlight glinting upon the jewels of its hilt and the unsullied steel of its blade.  It fell with a clang upon the sidewalk ahead and—­vanished!  The man, swarthy as before, relaxed his grasp upon my shoulder and looked at me with the same cynical regard that I had observed on first meeting him.  The dead have not that look—­it partly restored me, and turning my head backward, I saw the smooth white expanse of sidewalk, unbroken from street to street.

“What is all this nonsense, you devil?” I demanded, fiercely enough, though weak and trembling in every limb.

“It is what some are pleased to call jugglery,” he answered, with a light, hard laugh.

He turned down Dupont street and I saw him no more until we met in the Auburn ravine.