Page:Weird Tales v01n03 (1923-05).djvu/67

68 and Sayres came within a few feet of each other I could easily see that he felt my presence. He made no attempt to communicate with me and paid no heed to the various things I did to attract his attention.

After a little, he seemed to recover himself and calmly walked across the room to where my soulless body lay, and stood looking down at it. By the gleam in his eyes, and by my wonderful supernatural power of comprehension, I knew in an instant that overwork and nervous strain had at last done their work, that the cord of reason had snapped and that my friend was a madman!

His lips moved and I heard him, or rather felt him, address my body:

"At last I have you in my power! I have waited long for this moment, and at last my waiting is to be rewarded. I have driven the soul from the body, and the body lives; but now I will take away life itself, and you will be dead!"

The word seemed to please him, and he murmured slowly:

"Dead, dead!"

HEARD him continue in his madness:

"It is you who have stolen the honors due me; it is you who would prevent me from becoming famous; it is you, curse you, who will marry the only woman I can ever love—and then you ask me to let you live! No, damn you!"

He then took from a drawer nearby a large and peculiarly-shaped dissecting knife which I had often seen him use, and, with the deliberation of the insane, he proceeded to sharpen it on a steel, testing it from time to time with his thumb.

In my overpowering fear for the safety of my physical self, I know not all that I did, but I do know that it was all in vain. How I longed for the power of speech! And what would I not have given for the use of my own strong body with which to cope with him!

But I was utterly in his power and at his mercy, and the sickening thought came to me that I, the spirit, must stand passive by his side and see my body, still living, hacked and mutilated by the knife he held. I called for help, but knew there was no sound, and in despair I waited.

I heard the madman that was once my friend mutter: “That will do,” and, with the gleaming blade in his hand, he started across the room, and I knew that the awful moment was at hand.

I attempted to grapple with him, but my hands felt nothing. Another step and he would be at the bench and it would all be over. Instinctively, I threw myself between the madman and my body, with my arms stretched forth as if to keep him away. How it was accomplished I cannot tell, but by the look of mortal terror that came in the face before me, such as I have never since seen drawn in any countenance, I knew that I had become visible and that he saw me!

I can imagine the picture at this moment—the spirit guarding the helpless counterpart of itself—and indeed it must have been a tableau to have struck fear to the stoutest heart. My friend’s eyes dilated with horror; the knife dropped from his hand.

One moment thus he stood. Then his lips parted, and I knew that he had uttered a shriek, He then fell at my feet, blood flowing from his mouth and nostrils, his eyes rolling in terror.

I remained chained to the spot by the fear that he would recover from his fit and carry out his fiendish intention.

At length the same feeling of dizziness, which I had before experienced, returned to me, and almost before I could realize what was taking place I found myself sitting upright on the bench, body and soul again united, and the form of Sayres at my feet, to convince me that all was not a hideous dream.

I placed my poor friend on the bench, and finally I succeeded in bringing him back to consciousness, but in a very weak condition.

He passed through a very severe illness, but never regained his sanity. He remained hopelessly insane.

Of this awful story I have related he never recollected any part. I was unable to find any of the wonderful drug in his laboratory, and am as ignorant of its composition now as I was on that terrible night. I have been silent on the matter, hoping that some day Sayres would again regain his reason, but now that he is dead I have been impelled to write this narrative.

HE astonishing fraud perpetrated by Evelyn Lyons of Escanaba, Michigan, who, with the aid of a hot water bottle, fooled the doctors into believing that she had a fever of 118 degrees, is not without precedent. She was the victim of an odd mania that often seizes abnormal women who crave wide notoriety. Doctors and psychologists have long been acquainted with this strange caprice of neurotic women, but it is rarely that one maintains the fake illness for as long a time as did Miss Lyons, who set the nation's medical fraternity in a tempest of learned discussion before her sham was discovered.

This erratic desire to be an object of curiosity often takes other forms, as in the case of Mary Ellen MacDonald of Antigonish, Nova Scotia, who, in order to attract attention, turned herself into a "spook." By starting mysterious fires around her home, walking stealthily through the farmhouse at night and slapping the faces of sleeping persons, rapping on the walls and so forth, she contrived to spread a feeling of dread throughout the countryside. The superstitious country folk were sure that the house was haunted, and as Miss MacDonald carried her hoax still further—sending weird radio messages, tying knots in the tails of cows, attiring herself in ghostly gowns and fleeing across the moonlit fields—the fear of disembodied spirits spread rapidly, and the uncanny "manifestations" became a matter of nation-wide discussion.

Spiritualists, mediums, and others journeyed to Antigonish, and, after watching the unearthly "phenomena," were unanimously agreed that a spirit, or spirits, had returned to haunt the community.

Then Dr. Walter Prince of the Psychical Research Society went there, investigated the "ghost" more thoroughly, and traced all the terrifying happenings to Mary Ellen MacDonald.

Meanwhile, however, Miss MacDonald—like Miss Lyons, the "fever girl"—had gratified her craving for notoriety.