MacIan, quite white, made a step forward, but the speaker did not alter his easy attitude or his flow of words.  “Again we urged that this duel was not to be admired, that it was a mere brawl, but the people were ignorant and romantic.  There were signs of treating this alleged Highlander and his alleged opponent as heroes.  We tried all other means of arresting this reactionary hero worship.  Working men who betted on the duel were imprisoned for gambling.  Working men who drank the health of a duellist were imprisoned for drunkenness.  But the popular excitement about the alleged duel continued, and we had to fall back on our old historical method.  We investigated, on scientific principles, the story of MacIan’s challenge, and we are happy to be able to inform you that the whole story of the attempted duel is a fable.  There never was any challenge.  There never was any man named MacIan.  It is a melodramatic myth, like Calvary.”

Not a soul moved save Turnbull, who lifted his head; yet there was the sense of a silent explosion.

“The whole story of the MacIan challenge,” went on the Master, beaming at them all with a sinister benignity, “has been found to originate in the obsessions of a few pathological types, who are now all fortunately in our care.  There is, for instance, a person here of the name of Gordon, formerly the keeper of a curiosity shop.  He is a victim of the disease called Vinculomania—­the impression that one has been bound or tied up.  We have also a case of Fugacity (Mr. Whimpey), who imagines that he was chased by two men.”

The indignant faces of the Jew shopkeeper and the Magdalen Don started out of the crowd in their indignation, but the speaker continued: 

“One poor woman we have with us,” he said, in a compassionate voice, “believes she was in a motor-car with two such men; this is the well-known illusion of speed on which I need not dwell.  Another wretched woman has the simple egotistic mania that she has caused the duel.  Madeleine Durand actually professes to have been the subject of the fight between MacIan and his enemy, a fight which, if it occurred at all, certainly began long before.  But it never occurred at all.  We have taken in hand every person who professed to have seen such a thing, and proved them all to be unbalanced.  That is why they are here.”

The Master looked round the room, just showing his perfect teeth with the perfection of artistic cruelty, exalted for a moment in the enormous simplicity of his success, and then walked across the hall and vanished through an inner door.  His two lieutenants, Quayle and Hutton, were left standing at the head of the great army of servants and keepers.

“I hope we shall have no more trouble,” said Dr. Quayle pleasantly enough, and addressing Turnbull, who was leaning heavily upon the back of a chair.