The Proctor closes his briefcase with a snap and raises both hands. 'I'm sorry. This is absurd. I thought we met to discuss Eliot. To determine any foul play. This talk of possession and what-have-you is sheer nonsense.'
In exasperation, Dante looks to Arthur. The Hebdomidar's face is pale and troubled; he knots his chubby fingers in his lap. 'The lad has said enough,' he says in a quiet though serious voice. 'So tell him, Harry. Stop bloody stalling and tell him why we're here. It's not right to mock him.' The Proctor stares at his partner with a mixture of pity and shock. 'Tell him about May, Harry. Or I will.'
The Proctor turns his face away from both of them, looks at the ceiling, and mutters something to himself out of exasperation.
'May?' Dante asks.
Arthur nods. 'We were both witnesses to a rather unfortunate episode in the spring. And despite the fact that neither of us is prone to believing anything that Eliot has claimed to have seen over the years, something went wrong with his work. We may have humoured him as friends, but until that moment we'd never suspected a sinister aspect to his studies of the occult in St Andrews. But in May, our problems with Eliot began in earnest. They have gradually escalated to the present situation of which you speak.'
'So you believe what I'm telling you —' Dante begins, but the Proctor interrupts.
'Now stop, Arthur. Really. Listen to yourself. I'm telling you to think very carefully about what you're saying. Think, man.'
'Let him have his say,' Dante says. 'The time for rational explanations and back-pedalling and covering your tracks is over. Like Eliot always said, it's time to use a little imagination. I'm not going to go running to some newspaper and ruin your reputation. If that's what scares you, I understand. But that's not my game or style. My friend's gone missing and I want him back. That's all. And today, every student I've watched roll into this town is in danger. You can deny it for as long as you want, but things are going to get worse.'
'We have no choice but to tell him,' Arthur says.
The Proctor straightens his sleeves and stands up. 'It's nonsense. Speculation and superstition. If we can't talk in a sensible manner, then I'm afraid I must leave.'
'Then go, Harry,' Arthur says, and he looks at Dante, who smiles and nods.
The Proctor stiffens, incredulous at his friend's defiance. Arthur finishes his whisky and coughs. 'Could I have a little more?'
'Help yourself,' Dante answers, and relaxes back into the cushions of the chair.
The Proctor removes his tie, and then, reluctantly, resumes his seat. And as the night claims the world outside, Arthur Spencer begins to narrate his story.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
'Toward the end of the last academic year, Eliot's behaviour was cause for a great deal of concern. He became increasingly distant, was prone to the most dramatic shifts in mood, was neglecting his duties, and, quite frankly, was making a fool of himself. Not just within his department and the university, but in the town also.
'We weren't sure what to make of it all. Our contact with him had been brief and rather tense for some time. We'd made several attempts to offer help but he wasn't interested. Similar to your own experience. Whenever we managed to catch him, he was either drunk or in such a state of excitement it made normal conversation impossible. There were altercations too. It appeared to me at the time, and I think we were in general agreement, that he'd suffered something of a collapse. A breakdown was our first thought. There had been a relationship with Janice, whom you have met, and this had fallen apart, some time before. His doing, not hers. To be candid, the end of their relationship was a result of his becoming involved with one of his students. A second-year student. A girl you know as Beth.
'But from our attempts to reason with Eliot, we did manage to fathom one thing. A single preoccupation. A belief, an unshakeable belief, that his research assistants, Beth and a young man called Ben Carter, had some ability. Second sight, he called it. Some kind of clairvoyance he'd helped them to develop. Something he wanted to test.
'He'd plucked them from the paranormal society he'd established earlier, in the previous year, before this collapse I've mentioned. You see, he'd gathered a small group of students around him. To investigate the paranormal. It was something tempting for young people.
'And the group enjoyed a kind of celebrity for a while, which increased in proportion to the weight of opposition against it. But there was little the academic authority could really do without raising concerns over civil rights in a place of higher learning. We found ourselves in an awkward position. It was an extra-curricular exercise. Eliot worked with his group in his own time, and had always been popular with his students. How could we rival that? And after all it wasn't a witches' coven, he told us. There was nothing ritualistic about the group, he said. At least, not in the beginning. All harmless. Just a small number of students with Eliot as guide. And for a while, it was seen as something quite exciting here. With the exception of Raisin week, the academic year is quite ordinary and I suppose Eliot brightened things up. But we still hoped, those that knew him well, that the interest in his group would fade. That it would disappear.
'But as soon as they caught wind of it, the Christian Fellowship, backed by several local groups, opposed his society with some vigour. So Harry and I stepped in again and asked Eliot, as a friend, to either suspend the group's activities until things blew over, or to at least be more discreet. We thought it politic to remind him of the risk he was taking with his position. But he took it badly. Us speaking to him in that way.
'And then something happened, quite suddenly, which pleased us and, more importantly, the now rather vociferous lobby in opposition to him. The paranormal group disbanded. Almost overnight. Just when both the Principal and even a local politician were being pressed to do something to intervene, Eliot's group fell apart.
'Or so it seemed. We now know he was only using the group of students as a device for drawing out those he believed were in possession of this special ability. This second sight. And once he'd discovered the individuals who would be of use to him — Beth and Ben Carter — to take his investigation one step further, he lost interest in the others and ended the meetings. And between those three, we can only imagine there then followed a series of attempts to make contact with what Eliot called the "great restlessness" in the town.
'When the last term of the year began, he abandoned his duties as a tutor and was rarely seen. Beth dropped out of her studies too. Ben still attended classes, but seemed especially distracted. And at this point we discovered, through Janice's attempts at reconciliation with Eliot, a little more about the affair with Beth. It seems she had moved out of her hall of residence and was cohabiting with Eliot.
'Imagine the outcry when it became known. Eliot was three times the age of this beautiful young girl, whose parents were clueless as to what she was doing. There was talk of coercion, manipulation, of Eliot's taking advantage of an innocent girl. Once again, it was getting out of hand. Apparently, she'd broken contact with her parents. And when a concerned mother came looking for her daughter and found the girl with Eliot, she kicked up something of a fuss around here. Who could blame her?