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 CHAPTER VIII

THE FIRST LINKS

HAVE been piecing things together gradually, as I lay silent upstairs," said Gortre, drawing his chair a little closer to the fire.

"Slowly, little by little, I have added link and link to a chain of circumstantial evidence which has led me to an almost incredible conclusion. When you have heard what I have to say you will realise two things. One is that there are depths of human wickedness so abysmal and awful that the mind can hardly conceive of them. The other is that, for what reason it is not for us to try and divine, I have been led, by a most extraordinary series of events and coincidences, to something very near the truth about the discovery in Jerusalem. My story begins some months ago, on the night before I was struck down with brain-fever. You will remember that Constantine Schuabe" — he spoke the name with a shudder of horror that instinctively communicated itself to Mr. Byars — "that Schuabe called here on that night about the school scholarships. When I went away, I left the house with him. He invited me to go on to Mount Prospect and I did so. Earlier in the evening we had been talking of the antichrist and I had said to you that I saw in Schuabe a modern type of the old mediæval idea. My mind was peculiarly sensitive on these points that night, awake, alert, and inquiring. When Schuabe invited me to his house, something impelled me to go, 225