THE GHOST

"I don't know where to begin."

"Begin at the end."

We were in the library of a metropolitan club. It was
in the morning, a trifle after two. Barring the carytides
of the bookshelves, we were alone. Ordinarily I would have
been at home and in bed. But earlier that night I had been
to the theatre with Cally, a physician whom I had nicknamed
Cagliostro -- a pleasantry which he affected to resent but
which secretly he liked. The best of us have our weakness-
es. Afterward, abandoning him, I had looked in at this club
where, in my letter box, I found a note from an editor ask-
ing could I not supply a story with a surprise in it. In a
mental hunt for that surprise I had gone to the library where,
later, Bradish tumbled in on me.

Bradish was one of the few really rich men of my acquain-
tance with whom I had a thought in common. But then we had,
or used to have, affiliated virtues. In spite of his wealth,
his nature had formerly been that of a sun dial. It was only
serene hours of which he took count. For a literary person
that is in the order of things. For a plutocrat it is a feat.

2

There were other ties. I had always known him and I
was to have been best man at his wedding; that is, if it
ever occurred and which, anyway, a tragedy prevented. Since
then his sundial quality had faded. He had become moody
and remote.

"You told me to begin at the end," he threw out. "I
will. I have seen her."

He had been standing, but with that he dropped into a
chair. Ordinarily, his face was a bit sallow. At the moment
I saw that it was flushed and I wondered if he had been drink-
ing.

"I saw her as I see you," he added, "just as plainly."

I nodded at him. "Whom are you talking of?"

He straightened. "Why, Nelly, of course."

Nelly was the beauty whom he had hoped to marry. Since
then, she had died. But whether he had been drinking or not,
it was, I felt, only sympathetic to humor him and I nodded
again.

"Yes, occasionally I see her also."

It was true. I had only to close my eyes to evoke that
girl who looked like a seraph and who perhaps had become one.

The flush on his face deepened. "I tell you, I actually
saw her, saw her in flesh and blood."

"Well," I answered, "there is no such thing as mystery,
there is only ignorance, with which I am abundantly supplied."

He was civil enough to agree with me.

3

"But," I continued, "the long and short of it is that you have seen someone who resembles her."

"Nobody resembles her," he retorted. "In all the world there is no one like her. It was she."

He paused and gloomily added: "I suppose you think me crazy."

I smiled at him. "I would think you abnormal if you were not. In open court here, Spitzka, testifying as an expert, said that all men are insane. In France, Janet said the same thing. Do you object to the evidence?"

He laughed fiercely. "Only in so far as it concerns you."

At that I laughed also. "Well, then, you see, I am in good company. But seriously now, you know as well as I do, and probably better, that alcohol or morphine may produce hallucinations which, though actually seen, represent only the observer's mental condition."

He waved at me. "You are talking rubbish. I don't drink and I don't take morphine."

I sat back. "Certainly not. But any strong emotion can have the same result. I don't mean to bore you, but I know it to be a fact that the attendants at morgues have to be constantly on their guard against the false identification of the dead. People go there, distracted by grief at the loss of a relative, and with the image of that relative so fixed on their retina, that they identify the first body they see."

4

He scowled. "I did not come here to exchange stupidities. My mind is as clear as a bell."

Again I nodded. "And so, you will admit, was Balzac's. Balzac intended to give Gautier a horse. He omitted to, but he talked so much about it, that he believed that he had given it and used to ask Gautier how the horse was. From that you can realize what the imagination is. Now you imagine that you have seen Miss Chilton, whereas you know perfectly well that that is impossible."

He stood up. "I not only saw her, I saw her with Austen."

As he said that I shot back to the tragedy and, behind it, into the recesses of the heart of that girl, who had been in love with Austen and who could have married him, had it not been for her harridan of a mother.

Well, I thought, jealousy is an emotion more violent even than grief. Jealousy too can produce hallucinations.

But I said, "When was it?"

He sat down again. "Today. They were coming out of the Splendor. I was passing, saw them, tried to take hold of her, but they got in a taxi and off."

He hesitated and gloomily resumed. "She never cared for me. She told me so. Oh, she was frank enough about it. But I thought that if we were married I could win her."

"You see," I lamely got in, "Austen, as we all know, had been interested in her. You remember that, but in remembering it, you forget the psychological fact that a man becomes

5

interested, not necessarily in one particular woman, but in
one particular feminine type. Austen has probably met some-
body who resembles her. Affection is merely an instinct when
it does not happen to be a habit."

I would have run on, dosing him with further platitudes,
but he interrupted.

"You still think me mistaken?"

"What else would you have me think? Miss Chilton is dead."

He looked down, then up. "Do you know what a Dorothy
ring is?"

I did not know and I told him so.

"It is a collection of little jeweled rings set one on
top of the other. They are not common, but Nelly had one
which she always wore on the fourth finger of her left hand.
Today, as she got in the taxi, I saw it."

"You are singularly observant," I cut in, "but -- "

"There you are," he again interrupted. "I told you I am
not here to exchange stupidities. I am here for help."

It is a great privilege to be in a position to help any-
one, no matter whom, and I said as much.

"Well, then, I want you to see Austen and get at the bot-
tom of this."

But though it is a privilege to help, it is awkward to
interfere. Yet the fact that he wanted me to showed a gleam
of sanity. It showed that he was not sure. Consequently,
though I did not relish the mission, I agreed.

6

"I'll see Austen tomorrow," I said. "Or rather today. It
is tomorrow now."

With that he got up, in a moment he had gone, and, in
search of a possible explanation I groped mentally back to the
tragedy prior to which Nelly Chilton had seemed less human
than divine.

Except in art and story Proserpine never existed. But
poets have told us how she looked. Nelly Chilton was the
ideal Proserpine. Her charm was of just that quality that
transforms men into pagans and lackeys -- occasionally topper-
haps into madmen, for what else than mad could Bradish be?
Yet was he? I don't know much about lunatics except that they
are supposed to tear their hair, when they have any, and shriek
at you, and Bradish had done nothing of the kind. On the other
hand there had been enough to upset him in this matter, the de-
tails of which I had gathered partly from the newspapers,
partly from Bradish's secretary and partly from my knowledge
of the Chiltons, with whom I had been personally acquainted.

Nelly Chilton had, I knew, been afraid of her mother, a
tall, showy, domineering widow who talked at the top of her
voice and laughed at everything -- when in company, that is.
But in the fastnesses of her Park Avenue apartment, with only
bills and her daughter about, she doubtless assumed another
tone.

From her dear departed who, because of his departure was
probably all the dearer, she had originally come in for quite

7

an amount. But, at the time of the tragedy she had nothing
left, not even a servant; nothing, except debts and her daughter.
Daughters though, some of them at least, fetch fancy prices
and Mrs. Chilton was determined that her daughter should. Yet
while she could and did bully the girl, the morrow obeys no
one and, besides, it is more than probable that Nelly had some
scheme up her sleeve.

Bradish had never appealed to her. More exactly, he
promenaded behind the mountain of her indifference. He did
not happen to be Austen, he was twice her age, what is worse
he was in love with her and made no bones about it, and, when
a girl is in love with some one else, the love of another is
not an attraction, particularly if he is thrown at your head
and the one and only is called an impudent scoundrel -- which
was Mrs. Chilton's pleasant way of referring to Austen.

Well, impudent, certainly, Austen was. To me, it was one
of his charms and, for Nelly, he doubtless had others. But
he was not in a position to provide for a destitute harridan
who, in the son-in-law line, naturally preferred a man rich
as all out of doors.

That though was not Nelly's dream. Darned stockings,
last year's gowns, love and laughter, these were the flesh-
pots that her young heart craved. And, on the day of the
tragedy, as she put on her costly, beautiful and unpaid for
clothes, she may have felt invincible, as youth always
should.

8

On that day, Bradish had arranged to take her and her mother on a junket to his country house where they were to have tea, unless it were dinner, though it may have been both. Barring a trip anywhere, out of the world even, in an aeroplane for that matter, but with Austen, no excursion had the power to interest that girl in the least. But her mother badgered her into it and finally, in his car, off the three went, up Park Avenue, over the bridge, on through Long Island's initial horrors, and out on a wide hard road where, in the sunshine of a radiant afternoon, abruptly it was night.

The next morning I read of it. The car, speeding, had, at a turning, thrown a wheel, reared, reversed, crashed over. The mechanic who alone escaped, got what remained of them back. Bradish had been knocked senseless, Mrs. Chilton mortally injured and Nelly killed outright.

As soon as I could I got to Bradish's house where I saw Stanley, his secretary, a young man with ginger hair and a caterpillar tie, who told me what he knew.

Late the previous afternoon, there had been the sudden advent of Cally, to whom the mechanician had telephoned from Long Island, and who, in preparation, had bundled everybody about. Then a nurse had come. Finally a motor arrived from which Bradish was lifted, while the mechanician told of the smash, told of leaving the Chiltons in Park Avenue and of his own escape, on which he appeared to have dwelt interminably.

Later, Stanley had gone to Park Avenue, where, in the

9

hall of the apartment house he had been referred to Dr. Baker, a fussy little man with an office on the main floor where, as Stanley expressed it, he puffed at him and his inquiries.

"I am just finishing the girl's death certificate," he told him. "Heart failure superinduced by shock. Her mother is alive, but can't recover. What paper are you from? My name is Edward Everett Baker. Two t's in Everett. What paper is it?"

Then Stanley, modestly disclaiming a reporter's high estate, asked whether any one was in attendance.

At the innocent question the little man swelled and glared. "Except a nurse I got in for the old lady, nobody. And I say it intentionally. Nobody! There is a nobody up there who ordered me about. Ordered ME. Austen, he calls himself, Austen!"

He spat the name and, with an abrupt and violent shrug, bent over and signed the certificate.

Meanwhile, at Bradish's, Cally had examined, pronounced, got to work and gone. From Stanley's report of it, Bradish had a broken collar bone, which is nothing, but also concussion, which later explained to me much that subsequently occurred.

At the time Bradish was, of course, unconscious. Afterward, when, through Cagliostro's wizardry, he became convalescent, he was necessarily unaware either of Nelly's death or of her mother's nor, until he was on his feet, was he in-

10

formed. It was Stanley who told him and Bradish was never
very grateful to him for it. But during his convalescence
he appeared to be affected by that curious apathy which death,
in revenge it may be, puts on those for whom it has swooped
and missed, and it was this apathy, I suppose, that prevented
him from probing into all that had occurred. Even otherwise,
they certainly would have lied to him. To convalescents,
truth should be palatable or else withheld.

On the day succeeding the accident, affairs of my own
took me far afield. It was some time before I saw Bradish
and then it was that I noticed the apathy, a condition from
which he passed into another, after learning of Nelly's death.

It is only the evolved who realize that any misfortune is
a boon and that high level he had not then attained. At the
time he was very bitter and became, as I have already noted,
moody and remote. But finally he got there. Finally he viewed
the loss of that girl after the manner of the evolved.

Meanwhile -- in the library where he had left me -- as
the panorama of it unrolled, memory raised a latch, and I re-
called that in cases of concussion the occipital cortex may be
affected.

Ignorant brute that I am, I know precious little about
the marvelous machinery of the pulp behind the forehead. But
then, I am unaware of any one who does know much. Its myster-
ious processes were almost as obscure to Spitzka as they had
been to Hippocrates. But though, generally, I know no more

11

than the law allows, and frequently not as much, yet at the
time I did happen to remember that in any lesion of the occi-
pital cortex, impairment of vision may result.

At once I sprang up, intoning Eurekas, conscious that I
had nailed it, that I had got the clue, that Bradish's sight
was affected and that that was the obvious explanation of the
delusion to which he had so obstinately clung.

But that explanation I later determined would go down all
the easier if compounded in a capsule with other simples which
Austen could probably provide, and that afternoon I went to
his club, a little place just off Fifth Avenue, where a fat
hall porter was civilly ignorant of everything except that Mr.
Austen was not about.

"Hello!" I heard some one exclaim. "Come in and let's
have the latest gossip from Parnassus."

Before me was Brevoort, a good chap, not over-burdened
with intelligence, which is perhaps the characteristic of good
chaps, and who, when he had got me seated by a window in the
main room, continued:

"There is only one rule here. When a member has a guest
in he has to stick to him until he bolts. Pretty severe, eh?
Now, what'll you have?"

"Information," I told him. "I want a line on Austen."

He motioned at a servant. "And a Martini as well. Or
would you prefer something else?"

"Yes, water without any ice."

12

"They won't know of that at the bar." He turned to the servant. "Some Apollinaris and a Martini. Now," he resumed, turning to me, "I'd like a line on Austen myself. I saw him yesterday with, well, I never saw anything finer. Do you know who she is?"

I let it go. "Bradish says she is Miss Chilton."

"The girl that was killed on Long Island?"

Blankly at it and at me he stared. Then, amazedly, his face lightened.

"By George! now you mention it, I'll be shot if she did not look like her."

He paused, indicated the water that had been brought, raised the cocktail, put it down again and helplessly threw out: "I say! You don't believe in ghosts, do you?"

"No, but I am dreadfully afraid of them."

Yet as I uttered that antique and stupid jest, I realised that what I feared was Bradish. What he had seen, Brevoort had also. His error was not due to any impairment of vision.

"Sh!" Brevoort was muttering. "There he is!"

Through the wide entrance came Austen. Tall, slender, insolently good looking, he stopped at the centre table, nodded at us, and took up a paper.

With a gesture at Brevoort I got up and approached him.

"How do do, Austen. I saw Bradish last night and -- "

He threw the paper down. "Tell him from me to go to the devil."

13

"Certainly not," I answered. "I'll carry no such message."

He raised a hand to his mouth and, as though to press some-
thing back, for a second held it there. Then it fell and he
said and civilly enough:

"Yesterday Bradish attempted to take hold of -- er -- ah -- Miss Fellowes, who is a guest of my mother. You will oblige me if you will advise him not to presume to do so again. His behavior was outrageous."

"Good day," I said and turned on my heel. As I did so he must have turned on his, for when I again reached Brevoort he had gone.

"You seemed to be having it hot and heavy," Brevoort pleasantly suggested.

"Well, anyway, I have laid that ghost. It appears that she is a Miss Fellowes."

"Fellowes! Fellowes!" Brevoort surprisingly repeated. "Why, that's it then. Miss Chilton's mother was a Fellowes. The fairy Austen was with must be a cousin and that accounts for the resemblance. Have a cigar?"

"No, thank you." I answered. "I'm off."

And I went. In a taxi a few minutes later I was driving past Cally's office and the next minute I alighted at Bradish's house which, big enough for a regiment, did not happen to contain him then.

14

"Mr. Bradish is motoring," one of his many servants in-
formed me. "But he left word, if you came, would you please
wait. Yes, sir."

The room into which he then showed me was furnished
gravely with infinite taste. I had always liked it and with
a view no doubt to my comfort, the man returned with offers
of refreshment, returned again to switch on the lights, re-
turned once more with the evening papers. Then finally, at
last, Bradish himself appeared.

He was in a cap, a long coat, hideously begoggled and,
as I afterward realised, he must have been curiously and even
desperately calm.

At once I gave it to him about Miss Fellowes and Brevoort's
cousinly deduction. With a smile I added: "Austen says you
are to keep off the grass."

Without visible annoyance he nodded, removed the monstrosi-
ties, threw them aside and remarked quite casually: "Brevoort
is an ass."

For a moment he looked down and away and then at me. "Mrs.
Chilton never had a brother or even a sister. Nelly has taken
her mother's name, that is all there is to it."

I was about to protest but he waved at me.

"I have been making an inquiry or two. Mrs. Chilton is
dead and buried. I have seen her grave. But I could not find
Nelly's. She hasn't any. She did not even have a funeral."

When he appeared I had got up, but at that I sat down,

15

groping vainly for some theory that might pacify him
in this new delusion.

Again he motioned at me. "That Mrs. Chilton should have
a funeral is a matter of course. Mrs. Chilton was fond of
luxury. But Nelly had quieter tastes. Her obsequies were
conducted accordingly. They were kept so dark that there is
not a trace of them left. Not one. But there is every evi-
dence of conspiracy."

He is mad as a hatter, I thought. But I said: "See here,
I am no good at this sort of thing. Suppose we have Cally
in. Perhaps he can tell us the time of day."

He had turned from me, but he turned back. "Very good,
I'll send and ask him to dinner. Meanwhile, I'll just get
some of the dirt off of me."

I nodded at him as he went and wondered whether he would
have to be put under restraint. For obviously he could not go
around talking moonshine and pulling young women about.

These meditations were interrupted by Cally who, with
eyebrows that were a bit upturned, a beak of a nose, a pointed
beard and his usual air of intense satisfaction, looked absol-
utely Mephistophelian.

I fastened on him at once, telling him as quickly as I
could what had occurred, outlining the symptoms and deducing
from them my diagnosis, at which, very rudely, he laughed.

"Pure poetry," he told me. Airily he dismissed it.
"What are you writing now?"

17

which of course is the only way that it could be cooked. But
what were we talking about? Oh, yes, the fashion in ghosts:
Though I must say that venison flavored with vanilla and served
on a sofa of quinces is not a dish to which I object."

"No, thank you," he resumed to a man who was attempting to
provide him with champagne.

"You won't drink?" Bradish inquired.

"Why should I? I feel perfectly well. It is idle for
me to attempt to feel better."

With an eye to the editor who wanted a story I prodded
him. "What about those ghosts?"

Cally, finishing with caviare tsarskief, nodded. "Not
long ago I was called in for consultation. The practitioner
who had preceded me, a most excellent man, thoroughly reliable
in benign cases of influenza, had mistaken the patient's con-
dition and had certified accordingly. He found heart failure
where I discovered suspended animation."

He turned to Bradish: "I have always maintained that the
best test of death is decomposition." In the case of this
patient decomposition would have supervened had it not been for
human intervention."

"Swinburne," I got in, "said that dead folk rise up never."

Cally, after an interlude with his fork, put it down.
"Your Professor Swinburne is not an authority in post mortems.
Neither, I fear, is the excellent practitioner who preceded me.
When he had gone there remained someone who was so interested

18

in the case that, divining rather than recognising what that
most excellent man should have known, he was flattering enough
to call me in. Together we carted her away, to an imaginary
undertaker it is true, but it appears that she was dreadfully
afraid of her mother. I had the young person on her feet in
no time. No, that is an exaggeration. She had a broken ankle.
But yesterday I saw her lunching at the Splendor. As I said,
unburied young women are all the fashion."

"Dann your fashions," Bradish shot out. "Was she with Austen?"

Gally resumed his fork. "Couldn't say. Didn't notice.
But it was to a Mrs. Austen that we took her. Mrs. Austen was
the imaginary undertaker. Nice old lady but -- er -- what is
it now?"

Bradish, flinging a napkin on the table, overturned his
chair and, before the mutely startled servants, hurried from
the room.

I started to follow. With a gesture Cally stayed me. "Let
him be. For the moment he is better alone."

"But, confound it, Cally, that was Miss Chilton you were
telling about and I, the Lord forgive me, thought -- "

"What is this?" he asked of a man who was presenting a
dish. Then he turned. "No, not Miss Chilton, Miss Fellowes.
Miss Chilton is dead, legally at any rate. The certificate of
her death is entered and filed."

19

"Gammon! Why didn't you tell us before?"

He half lifted a hand. "Because, as her physician,
she had asked me not to. But now that the cat is out of
the bag, it is immaterial. It is immaterial too what her
name is. She can even be known as Mrs. Austen as, shortly,
she probably will."

Later she was so known and, at her nuptials, Bradish, who,
meanwhile, had entirely recovered his former serenity, was
represented by his card, his compliments, his best wishes and
as jolly a silver tea-service as anyone could wish to see.

Edgar Saltus