“The phantom?”

“Most assuredly.  Would you call him human?” His grey eyes were flecked with light.  “Come now, Mr. Wendel, would you?”

“Well,” I answered, “I don’t know.  Not after what I have seen.  But for all that, I have proof of his sinews.  I am inclined to blend the two.  There is a law somewhere, a very natural one.  The Blind Spot is undoubtedly a combination of phenomena; it has a control.  We do not know what it is, or where it leads to; neither do we know the motive of the Rhamda.  Who is he?  If we knew that, we would know everything.”

“And this ring?”

“I shall wear it.”

“Then God help you.  I watched Watson.  It’s plain poison.  You have a year; but you had better count on half a year; the first six months aren’t so bad; but the last—­it takes a man!  Wendel, it takes a man!  Already you’re eating your heart out.  Oh, I know—­you have opened the windows; you want sunshine and air.  In six months I shall have to fight to get one open.  It gets into the soul; it is stagnation; you die by inches.  Better give me the ring.”

“This Budge Kennedy,” I evaded, “we must find him.  We have time.  One clue may lead us on.  Tell me what you know of the Blind Spot.”

“Very easy,” he answered; “you have it all.  I have been here a number of years.  You will remember I fell into the case through intuition.  I never had any definite proof, outside the professor’s disappearance, the old lady, and that bell; unless perhaps it is the Rhamda.  But from the beginning I’ve been positive.

“Taking that lecture in ethics as a starter, I built up my theory.  All the clues lead to this building.  It’s something that I cannot understand.  It’s out of the occult.  It’s a bit too much for me.  I moved into the place and waited.  I’ve never forgotten that bell, nor that old lady.  You and Fenton are the only ones who have seen the Blind Spot.”

I had a sudden thought.

“The Rhamda!  I have read that he has the manner of inherent goodness.  Is it true?  You have conversed with him.  I haven’t.”

“He has.  He didn’t strike me as a villain.  He’s intrinsic, noble, out of self.  I have often wondered.”

I smiled.  “Perhaps we are thinking the same thing.  Is this it?  The Blind Spot is a secret that man may not attain to.  It is unknowable and akin to death.  The Rhamda knows it.  He couldn’t head off the professor.  He simply employed Dr. Holcomb’s wisdom to trap him; now that he has him secure, he intends to hold him.  It is for our own good.”

“Exactly.  Yet—­”

“Yet?”

“He was very anxious to put you and Fenton into this very Spot.”

“That is so.  But may it not be that we, too, knew a bit too much?”

He couldn’t answer that.

Nevertheless, we were both of us convinced concerning the Rhamda.  It was merely a digression of thought, a conjecture.  He might be good; but we were both positive of his villainy.  It was his motive, of course, that weighed up his character; could we find that, we would uncover everything.