The daughter was
absent from home, but the proprietress, a large woman very much as he
described her, told my secretary that he had seemed a very strange,
absent-minded kind of gentleman, and after his disappearance she had
feared for a long time that he had met with a violent end in the
neighbouring forest where he used to roam about alone. “I should like to have obtained a personal interview with the daughter
so as to ascertain how much was subjective and how much actually took
place with her as Vezin told it. For her dread of fire and the sight of
burning must, of course, have been the intuitive memory of her former
painful death at the stake, and have thus explained why he fancied more
than once that he saw her through smoke and flame.”

“And that mark on his skin, for instance?” I inquired. “Merely the marks produced by hysterical brooding,” he replied, “like
the stigmata of the _religieuses_, and the bruises which appear on the
bodies of hypnotised subjects who have been told to expect them. This
is very common and easily explained. Only it seems curious that these
marks should have remained so long in Vezin’s case. Usually they
disappear quickly.”

“Obviously he is still thinking about it all, brooding, and living it
all over again,” I ventured. “Probably. And this makes me fear that the end of his trouble is not
yet. We shall hear of him again. It is a case, alas! I can do little to
alleviate.”

Dr. Silence spoke gravely and with sadness in his voice. “And what do you make of the Frenchman in the train?” I asked
further—“the man who warned him against the place, _à cause du sommeil
et à cause des chats?_ Surely a very singular incident?”

“A very singular incident indeed,” he made answer slowly, “and one I
can only explain on the basis of a highly improbable coincidence—”

“Namely?”

“That the man was one who had himself stayed in the town and undergone
there a similar experience. I should like to find this man and ask him. But the crystal is useless here, for I have no slightest clue to go
upon, and I can only conclude that some singular psychic affinity, some
force still active in his being out of the same past life, drew him
thus to the personality of Vezin, and enabled him to fear what might
happen to him, and thus to warn him as he did. “Yes,” he presently continued, half talking to himself, “I suspect in
this case that Vezin was swept into the vortex of forces arising out of
the intense activities of a past life, and that he lived over again a
scene in which he had often played a leading part centuries before. For
strong actions set up forces that are so slow to exhaust themselves,
they may be said in a sense never to die. In this case they were not
vital enough to render the illusion complete, so that the little man
found himself caught in a very distressing confusion of the present and
the past; yet he was sufficiently sensitive to recognise that it was
true, and to fight against the degradation of returning, even in
memory, to a former and lower state of development. “Ah yes!” he continued, crossing the floor to gaze at the darkening
sky, and seemingly quite oblivious of my presence, “subliminal
up-rushes of memory like this can be exceedingly painful, and sometimes
exceedingly dangerous. I only trust that this gentle soul may soon
escape from this obsession of a passionate and tempestuous past. But I
doubt it, I doubt it.”

His voice was hushed with sadness as he spoke, and when he turned back
into the room again there was an expression of profound yearning upon
his face, the yearning of a soul whose desire to help is sometimes
greater than his power. CASE III: THE NEMESIS OF FIRE

I

By some means which I never could fathom, John Silence always contrived
to keep the compartment to himself, and as the train had a clear run of
two hours before the first stop, there was ample time to go over the
preliminary facts of the case. He had telephoned to me that very
morning, and even through the disguise of the miles of wire the thrill
of incalculable adventure had sounded in his voice. “As if it were an ordinary country visit,” he called, in reply to my
question; “and don’t forget to bring your gun.”

“With blank cartridges, I suppose?” for I knew his rigid principles
with regard to the taking of life, and guessed that the guns were
merely for some obvious purpose of disguise. Then he thanked me for coming, mentioned the train, snapped down the
receiver, and left me, vibrating with the excitement of anticipation,
to do my packing. For the honour of accompanying Dr. John Silence on
one of his big cases was what many would have considered an empty
honour—and risky. Certainly the adventure held all manner of
possibilities, and I arrived at Waterloo with the feelings of a man who
is about to embark on some dangerous and peculiar mission in which the
dangers he expects to run will not be the ordinary dangers to life and
limb, but of some secret character difficult to name and still more
difficult to cope with. “The Manor House has a high sound,” he told me, as we sat with our feet
up and talked, “but I believe it is little more than an overgrown
farmhouse in the desolate heather country beyond D——, and its owner,
Colonel Wragge, a retired soldier with a taste for books, lives there
practically alone, I understand, with an elderly invalid sister. So you
need not look forward to a lively visit, unless the case provides some
excitement of its own.”

“Which is likely?”

By way of reply he handed me a letter marked “Private.” It was dated a
week ago, and signed “Yours faithfully, Horace Wragge.”

“He heard of me, you see, through Captain Anderson,” the doctor
explained modestly, as though his fame were not almost world-wide; “you
remember that Indian obsession case—”

I read the letter. Why it should have been marked private was difficult
to understand. It was very brief, direct, and to the point. It referred
by way of introduction to Captain Anderson, and then stated quite
simply that the writer needed help of a peculiar kind and asked for a
personal interview—a morning interview, since it was impossible for him
to be absent from the house at night. The letter was dignified even to
the point of abruptness, and it is difficult to explain how it managed
to convey to me the impression of a strong man, shaken and perplexed. Perhaps the restraint of the wording, and the mystery of the affair had
something to do with it; and the reference to the Anderson case, the
horror of which lay still vivid in my memory, may have touched the
sense of something rather ominous and alarming. But, whatever the
cause, there was no doubt that an impression of serious peril rose
somehow out of that white paper with the few lines of firm writing, and
the spirit of a deep uneasiness ran between the words and reached the
mind without any visible form of expression. “And when you saw him—?” I asked, returning the letter as the train
rushed clattering noisily through Clapham Junction.