It was fully ten years since he had been in that place before, and he could scarcely believe it was the same. Then it had been a cold, empty barrack, peopled only by dust and echoes. Now it welcomed him with warmth and light. The great hall was lit by means of incandescent paraffin lamps, hung by brackets round the walls; and in the cavernous hearth a great fire of logs roared and spluttered. In front of the blaze a bearskin rug made an island of comfort on the stone floor. Round it stood easy chairs and a settee, from which a little grey-headed man got up and came towards him, hand outstretched.
“This is Dr. Pellew, Mr. Tony,” said Mrs. Lorrimer. “He’s staying with us while Sir Anthony’s badly.”
Tony took the bony hand.
“It’s very good of you, Doctor,” said he. “How is my father now?”
The doctor’s eyes slipped sideways from Tony’s face.
“He’s resting quietly, Mr. Lovell,” he answered, “but he is very weak.”
“Can I see him now?”
“Of course. But you mustn’t stay too long. He must not be excited.”
Lorrimer took Tony’s hat and coat, and he walked with the doctor towards the magnificent staircase which sprang from the far end of the hall to a gallery running across beneath the roof.
“Your father has had a very severe shock, Mr. Lovell,” the doctor remarked as they climbed the stairs.
“So Lorrimer told me. But what sort of shock, Doctor?”
“I can’t say,” the other said shortly. “That happened before I was summoned.”
Tony sensed the opposition and gave up the attack. At the top of the staircase the doctor turned to the right and led the way down the gallery, which stretched the entire breadth of the building. They passed a number of closed doors and stopped at another. Dr. Pellew looked sideways at Tony, and said:
“Again I must warn you: no excitement, and no questions, please.”
The young man nodded, and they went in.
It was not a large room, but the solitary candle burning beside the great canopied bed made it seem enormous with its flickering shadows. The remains of a fire smouldered on the hearth.
Sir Anthony Lovell lay motionless upon his back, his eyes half closed. His sparse grey hair was disordered, and the bones of his face showed sharply white through the tight-stretched, yellow skin. He looked pitifully old.
Tony caught his breath and went swiftly to the bedside, heedless of the doctor’s warning hand.
“Father!” he gasped.
The grey head turned painfully towards him, and the dim eyes sought his face. There was a long silence, broken only by the soft rustle of the fire. Very slowly recognition crept into the empty eyes, the pupils of which showed like black pinpricks in the faded blue. A whisper, very faint and far-away, came from the pale lips:
“Tony, my boy — I knew you’d come.”
Then, in a moment, extinguishing that little spark of reason, black horror came welling up into his eyes, and the old man sat upright, his features dreadfully contorted, and a scream gathering on his lips.
Tony felt himself pushed unceremoniously aside as the doctor sprang forward, a hypodermic needle glittering in his hand. There was a brief, futile struggle, and Sir Anthony sank back, breathing heavily.
Without a word Dr. Pellew gripped Tony by the arm and led him out.
In the gallery he paused, and carefully fitted the syringe into its case. Tony watched him, trembling from head to foot. At last he found words.
“What is it, Doctor? What is it?”
“I don’t know, my boy, and that’s the simple truth. When I came yesterday your father was practically insane; through sheer terror, I judged. If I had been much later he would have been either a dead man or a lunatic. He has been under the influence of a hypnotic drug ever since. The sight of you awakened his memory, and for a moment overcame the effect of the drug.”
“But what can be done? Will he recover?”
“I don’t know. I hope so. Frankly, I am at a loss. The obvious course is to get him away from here, but I dare not risk moving him. His heart has been badly strained, and it might well prove fatal.”
“Oh, but it’s horrible! Something must be done.”
“I know, my boy; I’m doing all I can. Now come downstairs and have a drink. Then we can talk this over quietly.”
Tony suffered the doctor to lead him away, and when they were sitting before the fire once more he managed to get a grip on himself.
The Lorrimers had retired to their own quarters, and he and the doctor were alone. The great hall, which so short a while before had seemed a haven of light and warmth, was now a place of menacing shadows, which the flaring lamps did nothing to disperse. Tony’s glass was empty before he spoke again. Now he said:
“How long can this go on, Doctor?”
“Not more than a week, I’m afraid. If I fail to administer the drug every twelve hours he will remember, and lose his reason; but I doubt if his heart will stand more than a dozen further injections.”
“But there must be some other way!”
“I only wish there were. But we cannot erase his memory.”
Tony looked up sharply.
“We can’t; you or I. But there are those who can.”
“Hypnotism, you mean? No, Mr. Lovell; I may be an old man, and out of touch with modern thought, but I can’t believe that.”
“At least we can try,” Tony insisted. “I cannot stand and see my father die without making some effort to prevent it.”
“As you will,” the doctor shrugged. “But I must decline to be associated with the case if you call in a professional hypnotist.”
“You’ll stay until he comes if I do?” Tony inquired anxiously.
“Naturally. But not afterwards. I may be old-fashioned, but I will not work with a charlatan.”
Tony stood up.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Pellew,” he said, “but I see no other way. There’s a telegraph office at Portreath, isn’t there?”
The doctor nodded gloomily, and Tony went on:
“Very well, I shall send Tregellis across first thing in the morning with a wire to a friend of mine, asking him to send down the best man in town.”
Chapter III
I
John Hamilton propped Tony’s wire against the coffee pot and lit his pipe thoughtfully, his eyes still on the brief message:
Get best psychotherapist in London stop send him to Kestrel immediately stop Tony.
His keen brain was rapidly filling in the gaps which Tony had left in that urgent appeal. He noted the careful use of “psychotherapist” instead of “psychiatrist,” and understood that Sir Anthony Lovell was suffering from no ordinary disease of the brain, but from a deep-seated malady of the soul. Remembering the strange tale which Tony had told him on their last evening together, he could guess that yet another member of the unhappy family had fallen under the influence, real or imaginary, of the alleged curse.
At last he went to his telephone and rang up an acquaintance on the staff of one of the great “dailies” to which he himself contributed. This man covered medical subjects for his paper, and was able to supply an address in Harley Street.
Taking a taxi thither, Hamilton soon found himself in the consulting-room of one of the greatest mind-doctors in Europe.
He gave a brief outline of the case, so far as he was able, and showed Tony’s wire to the great man. The latter was manifestly interested, but regretted that he was unable to leave his practice at a moment’s notice. However, he advised Hamilton to consult a certain Dr. Nicholas Gaunt, at an address in Hampstead. This gentleman, he said, was a brilliant psychotherapist, though he was not at all well known and had no regular practice. He explained that Dr. Gaunt would see no one without a personal introduction, but promised to telephone, and prepare him for Hamilton’s visit.