The part he had thus taken upon himself, the difficulties he had to
encounter in this unceasing vigilance, had produced a new Hamar--a
Hamar that was a personality; a personality so utterly unlike the
old Hamar--the meek and servile clerk--as to make one wonder if
there could possibly be two Hamars--outwardly and physically the
same--inwardly and psychologically diametrically opposed. A year ago,
Curtis and Kelson would have ridiculed the idea of being afraid of
Hamar--such an idea would have struck them as simply absurd; but they
were afraid of him now, they dreaded his anger more than anything,
more even than the prospect of infringing their compact with the
Unknown. "We have made pots of money," Curtis remarked one day. "Why can't we
give up work and enjoy it?" "Because I say no!" Hamar hissed. "No! We can't give up--not, at
least, until the last stage has been safely gone through. To give up
now would be to break the compact!" "Well, why not?" Curtis mumbled. "Why not!" Hamar cried. "Heavens, man, can't you understand! Can you
form no conception of what failure to keep the compact means? Has the
memory of that night--of that tree and all the foul things it
suggested, passed completely out of your mind? It hasn't out of
mine--it is as clear now as it was then. And often--mark this, both of
you--often when I am alone in the night, I see queer luminous
shapes--shapes of repulsive vegetable growths--of polyps--and of
disgusting tongues that come towards me through the gloom and circle
slowly round the bed, whilst the whole room vibrates with soft,
mocking laughter! You know how mirrors shine in the moonlight. Well,
the other night, when I looked at mine, I saw in it the reflection,
not of a face, but of two light evil eyes that looked at me
and--smiled! Smiled with a smile that said more plainly than words, 'I
am waiting!' and that is what the shapes, and the very atmosphere of
the place at night always seem to say--'We are waiting! You are
enjoying the joke now--we shall enjoy it later on!' If we knew exactly
what was in store for us it wouldn't be so bad, but it is the
vagueness of it, the vagueness of the horrors that the Unknown has
hinted at, that makes it so appalling! We may die awful deaths--or we
may not die AT ALL--the shapes, indefinite and misty no longer, but
materialized--wholly and entirely materialized--may come for us and
take us away with them! And it is to prevent this, that I am urging
you, compelling you, to stick to the compact, and give the Unknown no
loophole! Think of the tremendous rewards, if we succeed in passing
through the last stage! As I have said before, Curtis need do nothing
else but eat, whilst you, Matt, can become a Mormon and marry all the
pretty girls in London!" This speech had the desired effect, and nothing more--for the time at
least--was said about retiring. "Do you think Leon is quite--er--like--er--like us?" Kelson said, when
Hamar left them, after administering his admonition. "At times he
hardly looks human. His face is such a funny colour, such a lurid
yellow, and his eyes, so piercing! He gives me the jumps! I can't bear
to think of him at night!" "Rubbish," Curtis growled. "You imagine it. There's nothing of the
spook about Leon! He's of this world and nothing but this world." It was odd, however, that from that time he, too, began to have the
same feeling--the feeling that Hamar was perpetually watching
them--watching them awake and watching them asleep! Curtis awoke one
night to see, standing on his hearth, a shadowy figure with a lurid
yellow face and two gleaming dark eyes, which were fixed on him. He
called out, and it vanished! "Of course it's the nut steak!" And thus he tried to assure himself. But he was badly scared all the same. Another night, he saw some one, he took to be Hamar, peeping at him
from behind the window curtains. He threw a slipper at the figure, and
the slipper went right through it. If Hamar's phantom had been the
only thing he saw, he would not have minded much; but both he and
Kelson soon began to see and hear other things. Curtis frequently saw
half-materialized forms, forms of men with cone-shaped heads and
peculiarly formed limbs, stealing up the staircase in front of him,
and, turning into his bedroom, vanish there. He heard them moving
about, long after he had got into bed. Sometimes they would glide up
to the bed and bend over him, and though he could never see their
eyes, he could feel they were fixed mockingly on him. Once he saw the
door of his wardrobe slowly open, and a white something with a
dreadful face--half human and half animal--steal slyly out and
disappear in the wall opposite. And once when he put out his hand to
feel for the matches, they were gently thrust into his palm, whilst
the walls of the room shook with laughter. Kelson was equally tormented, though the phenomena took rather a
different form. Alone in his bedroom at night, the shape of the room
would frequently change; either the walls and ceiling would recede,
and recede, until they assumed the proportions of some vast chamber,
full of gloom and strange shadows; or they would slowly, very slowly,
close in upon him, as if it were their intention to crush him to
death. A feeling of suffocation would come over him, and he would
gasp, choke, beat the air with his arms, be at the verge of losing
consciousness, when there would be a loud, mocking laugh--and the
walls and ceiling would be in their proper places again. At other
times he would see strange figures on the wall--numbers of circles,
that would keep on revolving in the most bewildering fashion. Then,
suddenly, they would leave the wall and slowly approach him,
increasing in circumference; and the same thing would happen, as
happened with the wall and ceiling; he would undergo the whole
sensation of asphyxiation, and be on the brink of swooning, when there
would be a loud peal of evil, satirical laughter, and the circles
would instantly disappear. Sometimes the bedclothes would assume extraordinary shapes; sometimes
the articles on his dressing-table; sometimes his clothes; and once,
when he was about to put on his bedroom slippers, he found them
already occupied--occupied by icy cold feet. Another time, when he put
out his hand to take hold of a tumbler, he put it on the back of
another hand--smooth, cold and pulpy! Hardly a night passed without some sort of manifestation happening to
one or other of the trio, and even Curtis--fat and stolid
Curtis--began to lose flesh and look harassed. On the eve of the initiation into stage four, the three, separating
for the night, retired to their respective quarters in a far from
pleasant state of expectation. Hamar was undressing, when there came a loud ring at the telephone,
outside his door. "Holloa!" he called out, "who are you?" "Are you Mr. Hamar?" a voice asked, breathlessly. Hamar replied in the affirmative, and the voice continued--

"I'm Mrs. Anderson-Waite, of 30 Queen's Mansions, Queen's Gate.