Page:Weird Tales Volume 4 Number 2 (1924-05-07).djvu/116

physician as the rankest of self-delusion, while he accepted and made use of practices that to her made ancient witchcraft a colorless business, mild and insipid. Consequently she was never sure where she would come upon her employer's line of demarcation. The deceased Mr. Forsythe had been a metaphysician of sorts, a student of the occult of no mean attainments.

"You remember the nail-marks?" she asked diffidently.

"The prints in his hands that developed when he was studying Christian mysticism so deeply?"

The housekeeper nodded. "You know how he concentrated for a clearer conception of the crucifixion—and, as a result, the nail-prints appeared?"

"Yes," replied the physician, "I have seen them. They were a reality."

"Mr. Thomas, the grocery solicitor, told me that the prints had disappeared since his death—absolutely disappeared."

"Eh?" ejaculated Dr. Grant, starting suddenly, and shooting the woman a lightning glance from under his ragged brows, "The nail-prints disappeared? Is he sure of that?"

"Mr. Thomas said he had it from Dr. Ellsworth himself."

"Well, Ellsworth has no business starting a lot of gossip about it anyway."

In the evening the patient sat up while the doctor stitched up the superficial scalp-wound above his ear. Physical strength was coming rapidly; although so far there seemed to be no mental clarity at all. He seemed to understand, in a dazed way, the simple instructions from Dr. Grant; he sat up when told, and drank the mildly stimulating beverages which constituted his diet. Later in the evening the physician dragged an old army cot downstairs under the pretext of seeking an opportunity to snatch a few minutes' rest in the laboratory before he would be able to leave off work for the night and go upstairs to bed. This, of course, was more comfortable than the hard table upon wnich the patient had been lying, and he was soon in a profound sleep, breathing regularly and deeply. On account of the wearing vigil of the previous night the doctor left his patient early, well pleased with his condition and expecting to find him much improved by morning.

As the days passed the man visibly improved. His frame, which had been rather gaunt, filled out amazingly, and he became decidedly more youthful in appearance. His brain, though, never seemed to get clear. Nothing that he could recall, nothing that the doctor could suggest, sufficed to shed the slightest light on his identity. In fact any allusion to the subject only confused him more. He would spend hours looking in the mirror, a puzzled expression on his face, or sit vacantly stroking his cheeks and skin, as one might who wore a full beard. At such times his mental discord apparently reached its height.

From the third day Dr. Grant had not attempted to conceal the fact of his patient's presence in the house. He introduced him as a patient who was suffering from loss of memory, perhaps a trifle melancholy—and told his housekeeper that he wished to have the man where he could be under constant observation.

As the days went by the physician tried everything in his power to restore the man's latent mental functions. In most respects he was normal. There was no reason for this peculiar psychic condition. The most rigid scientific tests failed to reveal any physical deficiency in the man's brain. It was Dr. Grant's object to exhibit him to the world as the dead man whom he had restored to life. For a number of years the doctor had been experimentingon lower animals, and writing articles for the medical journals in support of his peculiar theories. In most eases they had been received with incredulity—often with ill-disguised ridicule. Here now was the undeniable proof of his theory, the justification of his life's work—yet he dared not exhibit this muddled intelligence as an example. A man who nearest approached the normal when sitting, his hands in his lap before him, staring wide-eyed at the open palms, was not the sort of proof he wanted.

Then came a night when the man disappeared, and with him passed Dr. Morton Grant's opportunity for fame as the man who had restored the dead to life. But the physician's sensation was not wholly one of disappointment upon discovering his loss.

ABOUT two years later Mrs. John Ransome was hurrying home to her children one afternoon. With the identification of the garments found upon the man killed at Blair's Crossing she had given up all hope of ever again seeing her husband. She had taken her eldest son out of school at once, and since that time the two of them had managed to support themselves and the younger children. Life was hard, certainly, but not more so than in the eases of thousands of other women who are left each year with growing families and no means of caring for them. As she passed Eighth Avenue walking west on Twenty-third Street, she saw a familiar-looking figure in the garb of a street-worker. At first she received no more striking impression than just of familiarity. She hesitated—turned into Eighth Avenue and approached the man, eagerly scrutinizing his face and figure as she did so.

"John!" she cried, as, standing on the curb, she faced her long absent husband, who eyed her dully in half-dazed wonder. "John, why, where have you been all these years?—why didn't you come home?"

There was no reply. Only the strange, puzzled stare.

"Why don't you speak? Oh, what is it, John—what is the matter?" And half-crying, she ran forward and seized his hand. "What makes you stare so? Why do you look so strange? Don't you know me?—your wife?—Anne?"

"Wife!" he whispered thickly—"wife!" And he shook his head, "No, I don't know."

Her eager eyes fell upon the ugly jagged scar above his ear.

"Ah," she exclaimed, understandingly, "my poor boy! Your head has been terribly injured. And loss of memory has resulted from that injury."

For a moment she stood silent, thinking rapidly. "They said it was a hobo," she mused. Then to him: "Did some one attack you and take your clothesfrom you?"

No reply.

"Did some one—?" Then pointing to the scar on his head. "Was this bad, very bad?—was it just done when you can first remember?"

The man hesitated a moment, still puzzled—then nodded, "Yes."

"And the man who stole your clothes was the man that was killed.

"Oh, John, isn't it fine to have you home again? And we'll nurse you up and make you just as well and strong as you used to be."

Reluctantly, it seemed—dazedly the man followed as she led him to the pavement, and in the direction of the little apartment she called home. The memory that he searched in the attempt to place this woman was a dwelling place of shadows, and among those shadows there was none that resembled her.

"And look!" she cried, examining more closely the hand which she had