XI

BAFFLED

Was it a dream?  The next I knew somebody was dousing water down my neck.  It was Hobart Fenton.  “Lord,” he was saying, “I thought you were never coming to.  What hit us?  You are pretty well cut up.  That was some fight.  This Rhamda, who is he?  Can you figure him out?  Did you hear that bell?  What was it?”

I sat up.  “Where is the Nervina?” I asked.  “The who?” He was bewildered.  “Oh, down at the cafe, I suppose.  Thought you had forgotten her.  Wasn’t her mate enough?  It might be healthy to forget his Nervina.”

He was a fine sight; his clothes were in ribbons; his plump figure was breaking out at the seams.  He regarded me critically.

“What d’you think of the Blind Spot?” he asked.  “Who is the Rhamda?  He put us out pretty easily.”

“But the girl?” I interrupted.  “The girl?  Confound it, the girl?”

It was sometime before I could make him understand; even then he refused to believe me.

“It was all a dream,” he said; “all a dream.”

But I was certain.

Fenton began prodding about the room.  I do not believe any apartment was ever so thoroughly ransacked.  We even tore up the carpet.  When we were through he sat in the midst of the debris and wiped his forehead.

“It’s no use, Harry—­no use.  We might have known better.  It can’t be done.  Yet you say you saw a string of incandescence.”

“A single string; the form of Watson; a blur—­then nothing,” I answered.

He thought.  He quoted the professor: 

“’Out of the occult I shall bring you the proof and the substance.  It will be concrete—­within the reach of your senses.’  Isn’t that what the doctor said?”

“Then you believe Professor Holcomb?”

“Why not?  Didn’t we see it?  I know a deal of material science; but nothing like this.  I always had faith in Dr. Holcomb.  After all, it’s not impossible.  First we must go over the house thoroughly.”

We did.  Most of all, we were interested in that bell.  We did not think, either of us, that so much noise could come out of nothing.  It was too material.  The other we could credit to the occult; but not the sound.  It had drowned our consciousness; perhaps it had saved us from the Rhamda.  But we found nothing.  We went over the house systematically.  It was much as it had been previously described, only now a bit more furnished.  The same dank, musty smell and the same suggestive silence.  We returned to the lower floor and the library.  It was a sorry sight.  We straightened up the shelves and returned the books to their places.

It was getting along toward morning.  Hobart sailed at nine o’clock.  We must have new clothing and some coffee; likewise we must collect our wits.  I had the ring, and had given my pledge to Watson.  I was muddled.  We must get down to sane action.  First of all we must return to our rooms.