XI.
THE STORY OF THE LATE MR. ELVESHAM.
I set this story down, not expecting it will be believed, but, ifpossible, to prepare a way of escape for the next victim. He, perhaps, mayprofit by my misfortune. My own case, I know, is hopeless, and I am now insome measure prepared to meet my fate.
My name is Edward George Eden. I was born at Trentham, in Staffordshire,my father being employed in the gardens there. I lost my mother when I wasthree years old, and my father when I was five, my uncle, George Eden,then adopting me as his own son. He was a single man, self-educated, andwell-known in Birmingham as an enterprising journalist; he educated megenerously, fired my ambition to succeed in the world, and at his death,which happened four years ago, left me his entire fortune, a matter ofabout five hundred pounds after all outgoing charges were paid. I was theneighteen. He advised me in his will to expend the money in completing myeducation. I had already chosen the profession of medicine, and throughhis posthumous generosity and my good fortune in a scholarshipcompetition, I became a medical student at University College, London. Atthe time of the beginning of my story I lodged at 11A University Street ina little upper room, very shabbily furnished and draughty, overlooking theback of Shoolbred's premises. I used this little room both to live in andsleep in, because I was anxious to eke out my means to the very lastshillings-worth.
I was taking a pair of shoes to be mended at a shop in the Tottenham CourtRoad when I first encountered the little old man with the yellow face,with whom my life has now become so inextricably entangled. He wasstanding on the kerb, and staring at the number on the door in a doubtfulway, as I opened it. His eyes--they were dull grey eyes, and reddish underthe rims--fell to my face, and his countenance immediately assumed anexpression of corrugated amiability.
"You come," he said, "apt to the moment. I had forgotten the number ofyour house. How do you do, Mr. Eden?"
I was a little astonished at his familiar address, for I had never seteyes on the man before. I was a little annoyed, too, at his catching mewith my boots under my arm. He noticed my lack of cordiality.
"Wonder who the deuce I am, eh? A friend, let me assure you. I have seenyou before, though you haven't seen me. Is there anywhere where I can talkto you?"
I hesitated. The shabbiness of my room upstairs was not a matter for everystranger. "Perhaps," said I, "we might walk down the street. I'munfortunately prevented--" My gesture explained the sentence before I hadspoken it.
"The very thing," he said, and faced this way, and then that. "The street?Which way shall we go?" I slipped my boots down in the passage. "Lookhere!" he said abruptly; "this business of mine is a rigmarole. Come andlunch with me, Mr. Eden. I'm an old man, a very old man, and not good atexplanations, and what with my piping voice and the clatter of thetraffic----"
He laid a persuasive skinny hand that trembled a little upon my arm.
I was not so old that an old man might not treat me to a lunch. Yet at thesame time I was not altogether pleased by this abrupt invitation. "I hadrather----" I began. "But I had rather," he said, catching me up, "and acertain civility is surely due to my grey hairs."
And so I consented, and went with him.
He took me to Blavitiski's; I had to walk slowly to accommodate myself tohis paces; and over such a lunch as I had never tasted before, he fendedoff my leading question, and I took a better note of his appearance. Hisclean-shaven face was lean and wrinkled, his shrivelled, lips fell over aset of false teeth, and his white hair was thin and rather long; he seemedsmall to me,--though indeed, most people seemed small to me,--and hisshoulders were rounded and bent. And watching him, I could not help butobserve that he too was taking note of me, running his eyes, with acurious touch of greed in them, over me, from my broad shoulders to mysuntanned hands, and up to my freckled face again. "And now," said he, aswe lit our cigarettes, "I must tell you of the business in hand.
"I must tell you, then, that I am an old man, a very old man." He pausedmomentarily. "And it happens that I have money that I must presently beleaving, and never a child have I to leave it to." I thought of theconfidence trick, and resolved I would be on the alert for the vestiges ofmy five hundred pounds. He proceeded to enlarge on his loneliness, and thetrouble he had to find a proper disposition of his money. "I have weighedthis plan and that plan, charities, institutions, and scholarships, andlibraries, and I have come to this conclusion at last,"--he fixed his eyeson my face,--"that I will find some young fellow, ambitious, pure-minded,and poor, healthy in body and healthy in mind, and, in short, make him myheir, give him all that I have." He repeated, "Give him all that I have.So that he will suddenly be lifted out of all the trouble and struggle inwhich his sympathies have been educated, to freedom and influence."
I tried to seem disinterested. With a transparent hypocrisy I said, "Andyou want my help, my professional services maybe, to find that person."
He smiled, and looked at me over his cigarette, and I laughed at his quietexposure of my modest pretence.
"What a career such a man might have!" he said. "It fills me with envy tothink how I have accumulated that another man may spend----
"But there are conditions, of course, burdens to be imposed. He must, forinstance, take my name. You cannot expect everything without some return.And I must go into all the circumstances of his life before I can accepthim. He _must_ be sound. I must know his heredity, how his parentsand grandparents died, have the strictest inquiries made into his privatemorals."
This modified my secret congratulations a little.
"And do I understand," said I, "that I----"
"Yes," he said, almost fiercely. "You. _You_."
I answered never a word. My imagination was dancing wildly, my innatescepticism was useless to modify its transports. There was not a particleof gratitude in my mind--I did not know what to say nor how to say it."But why me in particular?" I said at last.
He had chanced to hear of me from Professor Haslar; he said, as atypically sound and sane young man, and he wished, as far as possible, toleave his money where health and integrity were assured.
That was my first meeting with the little old man. He was mysterious abouthimself; he would not give his name yet, he said, and after I had answeredsome questions of his, he left me at the Blavitiski portal. I noticed thathe drew a handful of gold coins from his pocket when it came to paying forthe lunch. His insistence upon bodily health was curious. In accordancewith an arrangement we had made I applied that day for a life policy inthe Loyal Insurance Company for a large sum, and I was exhaustivelyoverhauled by the medical advisers of that company in the subsequent week.Even that did not satisfy him, and he insisted I must be re-examined bythe great Doctor Henderson.
It was Friday in Whitsun week before he came to a decision. He called medown, quite late in the evening,--nearly nine it was,--from crammingchemical equations for my Preliminary Scientific examination. He wasstanding in the passage under the feeble gas-lamp, and his face was agrotesque interplay of shadows. He seemed more bowed than when I had firstseen him, and his cheeks had sunk in a little.
His voice shook with emotion. "Everything is satisfactory, Mr. Eden," hesaid. "Everything is quite, quite satisfactory. And this night of allnights, you must dine with me and celebrate your--accession." He wasinterrupted by a cough. "You won't have long to wait, either," he said,wiping his handkerchief across his lips, and gripping my hand with hislong bony claw that was disengaged. "Certainly not very long to wait."
We went into the street and called a cab. I remember every incident ofthat drive vividly, the swift, easy motion, the vivid contrast of gas andoil and electric light, the crowds of people in the streets, the place inRegent Street to which we went, and the sumptuous dinner we were servedwith there. I was disconcerted at first by the well-dressed waiter'sglances at my rough clothes, bothered by the stones of the olives, but asthe champagne warmed my blood, my confidence revived. At first the old mantalked of himself. He had already told me his name in the cab; he
wasEgbert Elvesham, the great philosopher, whose name I had known since I wasa lad at school. It seemed incredible to me that this man, whoseintelligence had so early dominated mine, this great abstraction, shouldsuddenly realise itself as this decrepit, familiar figure. I daresay everyyoung fellow who has suddenly fallen among celebrities has felt somethingof my disappointment. He told me now of the future that the feeble streamsof his life would presently leave dry for me, houses, copyrights,investments; I had never suspected that philosophers were so rich. Hewatched me drink and eat with a touch of envy. "What a capacity for livingyou have!" he said; and then with a sigh, a sigh of relief I could havethought it, "it will not be long."
"Ay," said I, my head swimming now with champagne; "I have a futureperhaps--of a passing agreeable sort, thanks to you. I shall now have thehonour of your name. But you have a past. Such a past as is worth all myfuture."
He shook his head and smiled, as I thought, with half sad appreciation ofmy flattering admiration. "That future," he said, "would you in truthchange it?" The waiter came with liqueurs. "You will not perhaps mindtaking my name, taking my position, but would you indeed--willingly--takemy years?"
"With your achievements," said I gallantly.
He smiled again. "Kummel--both," he said to the waiter, and turned hisattention to a little paper packet he had taken from his pocket. "Thishour," said he, "this after-dinner hour is the hour of small things. Hereis a scrap of my unpublished wisdom." He opened the packet with hisshaking yellow fingers, and showed a little pinkish powder on the paper."This," said he--"well, you must guess what it is. But Kummel--put but adash of this powder in it--is Himmel."
His large greyish eyes watched mine with an inscrutable expression.
It was a bit of a shock to me to find this great teacher gave his mind tothe flavour of liqueurs. However, I feigned an interest in his weakness,for I was drunk enough for such small sycophancy.
He parted the powder between the little glasses, and, rising suddenly,with a strange unexpected dignity, held out his hand towards me. Iimitated his action, and the glasses rang. "To a quick succession," saidhe, and raised his glass towards his lips.
"Not that," I said hastily. "Not that."
He paused with the liqueur at the level of his chin, and his eyes blazinginto mine.
"To a long life," said I.
He hesitated. "To a long life," said he, with a sudden bark of laughter,and with eyes fixed on one another we tilted the little glasses. His eyeslooked straight into mine, and as I drained the stuff off, I felt acuriously intense sensation. The first touch of it set my brain in afurious tumult; I seemed to feel an actual physical stirring in my skull,and a seething humming filled my ears. I did not notice the flavour in mymouth, the aroma that filled my throat; I saw only the grey intensity ofhis gaze that burnt into mine. The draught, the mental confusion, thenoise and stirring in my head, seemed to last an interminable time.Curious vague impressions of half-forgotten things danced and vanished onthe edge of my consciousness. At last he broke the spell. With a suddenexplosive sigh he put down his glass.
"Well?" he said.
"It's glorious," said I, though I had not tasted the stuff.
My head was spinning. I sat down. My brain was chaos. Then my perceptiongrew clear and minute as though I saw things in a concave mirror. Hismanner seemed to have changed into something nervous and hasty. He pulledout his watch and grimaced at it. "Eleven-seven! And to-night I must--Seven-twenty-five. Waterloo! I must go at once." He called for the bill,and struggled with his coat. Officious waiters came to our assistance. Inanother moment I was wishing him good-bye, over the apron of a cab, andstill with an absurd feeling of minute distinctness, as though--how can Iexpress it?--I not only saw but _felt_ through an invertedopera-glass.
"That stuff," he said. He put his hand to his forehead. "I ought not tohave given it to you. It will make your head split to-morrow. Wait aminute. Here." He handed me out a little flat thing like a seidlitz-powder."Take that in water as you are going to bed. The other thing was adrug. Not till you're ready to go to bed, mind. It will clear your head.That's all. One more shake--Futurus!"
I gripped his shrivelled claw. "Good-bye," he said, and by the droop ofhis eyelids I judged he too was a little under the influence of thatbrain-twisting cordial.
He recollected something else with a start, felt in his breast-pocket, andproduced another packet, this time a cylinder the size and shape of ashaving-stick. "Here," said he. "I'd almost forgotten. Don't open thisuntil I come to-morrow--but take it now."
It was so heavy that I wellnigh dropped it. "All ri'!" said I, and hegrinned at me through the cab window as the cabman flicked his horse intowakefulness. It was a white packet he had given me, with red seals ateither end and along its edge. "If this isn't money," said I, "it'splatinum or lead."
I stuck it with elaborate care into my pocket, and with a whirling brainwalked home through the Regent Street loiterers and the dark back streetsbeyond Portland Road. I remember the sensations of that walk very vividly,strange as they were. I was still so far myself that I could notice mystrange mental state, and wonder whether this stuff I had had was opium--adrug beyond my experience. It is hard now to describe the peculiarity ofmy mental strangeness--mental doubling vaguely expresses it. As I waswalking up Regent Street I found in my mind a queer persuasion that itwas Waterloo Station, and had an odd impulse to get into the Polytechnicas a man might get into a train. I put a knuckle in my eye, and it wasRegent Street. How can I express it? You see a skilful actor lookingquietly at you, he pulls a grimace, and lo!--another person. Is it tooextravagant if I tell you that it seemed to me as if Regent Street had,for the moment, done that? Then, being persuaded it was Regent Streetagain, I was oddly muddled about some fantastic reminiscences that croppedup. "Thirty years ago," thought I, "it was here that I quarrelled with mybrother." Then I burst out laughing, to the astonishment and encouragementof a group of night prowlers. Thirty years ago I did not exist, and neverin my life had I boasted a brother. The stuff was surely liquid folly, forthe poignant regret for that lost brother still clung to me. AlongPortland Road the madness took another turn. I began to recall vanishedshops, and to compare the street with what it used to be. Confused,troubled thinking is comprehensible enough after the drink I had taken,but what puzzled me were these curiously vivid phantasm memories that hadcrept into my mind, and not only the memories that had crept in, but alsothe memories that had slipped out. I stopped opposite Stevens', thenatural history dealer's, and cudgelled my brains to think what he had todo with me. A 'bus went by, and sounded exactly like the rumbling of atrain. I seemed to be dipping into some dark, remote pit for therecollection. "Of course," said I, at last, "he has promised me threefrogs to-morrow. Odd I should have forgotten."
Do they still show children dissolving views? In those I remember one viewwould begin like a faint ghost, and grow and oust another. In just thatway it seemed to me that a ghostly set of new sensations was strugglingwith those of my ordinary self.
I went on through Euston Road to Tottenham Court Road, puzzled, and alittle frightened, and scarcely noticed the unusual way I was taking, forcommonly I used to cut through the intervening network of back streets. Iturned into University Street, to discover that I had forgotten my number.Only by a strong effort did I recall 11A, and even then it seemed to methat it was a thing some forgotten person had told me. I tried to steadymy mind by recalling the incidents of the dinner, and for the life of me Icould conjure up no picture of my host's face; I saw him only as a shadowyoutline, as one might see oneself reflected in a window through which onewas looking. In his place, however, I had a curious exterior vision ofmyself, sitting at a table, flushed, bright-eyed, and talkative.
"I must take this other powder," said I. "This is getting impossible."
I tried the wrong side of the hall for my candle and the matches, and hada doubt of which landing my room might be on. "I'm drunk," I said, "that'scertain," and blundered needlessly on the staircase to sust
ain theproposition.
At the first glance my room seemed unfamiliar. "What rot!" I said, andstared about me. I seemed to bring myself back by the effort, and the oddphantasmal quality passed into the concrete familiar. There was the oldglass still, with my notes on the albumens stuck in the corner of theframe, my old everyday suit of clothes pitched about the floor. And yet itwas not so real after all. I felt an idiotic persuasion trying to creepinto my mind, as it were, that I was in a railway carriage in a train juststopping, that I was peering out of the window at some unknown station. Igripped the bed-rail firmly to reassure myself. "It's clairvoyance,perhaps," I said. "I must write to the Psychical Research Society."
I put the rouleau on my dressing-table, sat on my bed, and began to takeoff my boots. It was as if the picture of my present sensations waspainted over some other picture that was trying to show through. "Curseit!" said I; "my wits are going, or am I in two places at once?"Half-undressed, I tossed the powder into a glass and drank it off. Iteffervesced, and became a fluorescent amber colour. Before I was in bedmy mind was already tranquillised. I felt the pillow at my cheek, andthereupon I must have fallen asleep.
* * * * *
I awoke abruptly out of a dream of strange beasts, and found myself lyingon my back. Probably every one knows that dismal, emotional dream fromwhich one escapes, awake indeed, but strangely cowed. There was a curioustaste in my mouth, a tired feeling in my limbs, a sense of cutaneousdiscomfort. I lay with my head motionless on my pillow, expecting that myfeeling of strangeness and terror would pass away, and that I should thendoze off again to sleep. But instead of that, my uncanny sensationsincreased. At first I could perceive nothing wrong about me. There was afaint light in the room, so faint that it was the very next thing todarkness, and the furniture stood out in it as vague blots of absolutedarkness. I stared with my eyes just over the bedclothes.
It came into my mind that some one had entered the room to rob me of myrouleau of money, but after lying for some moments, breathing regularly tosimulate sleep, I realised this was mere fancy. Nevertheless, the uneasyassurance of something wrong kept fast hold of me. With an effort I raisedmy head from the pillow, and peered about me at the dark. What it was Icould not conceive. I looked at the dim shapes around me, the greater andlesser darknesses that indicated curtains, table, fireplace, bookshelves,and so forth. Then I began to perceive something unfamiliar in the formsof the darkness. Had the bed turned round? Yonder should be thebookshelves, and something shrouded and pallid rose there, something thatwould not answer to the bookshelves, however I looked at it. It was fartoo big to be my shirt thrown on a chair.
Overcoming a childish terror, I threw back the bedclothes and thrust myleg out of bed. Instead of coming out of my truckle-bed upon the floor, Ifound my foot scarcely reached the edge of the mattress. I made anotherstep, as it were, and sat up on the edge of the bed. By the side of my bedshould be the candle, and the matches upon the broken chair. I put out myhand and touched--nothing. I waved my hand in the darkness, and it cameagainst some heavy hanging, soft and thick in texture, which gave arustling noise at my touch. I grasped this and pulled it; it appeared tobe a curtain suspended over the head of my bed.
I was now thoroughly awake, and beginning to realise that I was in astrange room. I was puzzled. I tried to recall the overnightcircumstances, and I found them now, curiously enough, vivid in my memory:the supper, my reception of the little packages, my wonder whether I wasintoxicated, my slow undressing, the coolness to my flushed face of mypillow. I felt a sudden distrust. Was that last night, or the nightbefore? At any rate, this room was strange to me, and I could not imaginehow I had got into it. The dim, pallid outline was growing paler, and Iperceived it was a window, with the dark shape of an oval toilet-glassagainst the weak intimation of the dawn that filtered through the blind. Istood up, and was surprised by a curious feeling of weakness andunsteadiness. With trembling hands outstretched, I walked slowly towardsthe window, getting, nevertheless, a bruise on the knee from a chair bythe way. I fumbled round the glass, which was large, with handsome brasssconces, to find the blind cord. I could not find any. By chance I tookhold of the tassel, and with the click of a spring the blind ran up.
I found myself looking out upon a scene that was altogether strange to me.The night was overcast, and through the flocculent grey of the heapedclouds there filtered a faint half-light of dawn. Just at the edge of thesky the cloud-canopy had a blood-red rim. Below, everything was dark andindistinct, dim hills in the distance, a vague mass of buildings runningup into pinnacles, trees like spilt ink, and below the window a tracery ofblack bushes and pale grey paths. It was so unfamiliar that for the momentI thought myself still dreaming. I felt the toilet-table; it appeared tobe made of some polished wood, and was rather elaborately furnished--therewere little cut-glass bottles and a brush upon it. There was also a queerlittle object, horse-shoe shape it felt, with smooth, hard projections,lying in a saucer. I could find no matches nor candlestick.
I turned my eyes to the room again. Now the blind was up, faint spectresof its furnishing came out of the darkness. There was a huge curtainedbed, and the fireplace at its foot had a large white mantel with somethingof the shimmer of marble.
I leant against the toilet-table, shut my eyes and opened them again, andtried to think. The whole thing was far too real for dreaming. I wasinclined to imagine there was still some hiatus in my memory, as aconsequence of my draught of that strange liqueur; that I had come into myinheritance perhaps, and suddenly lost my recollection of everything sincemy good fortune had been announced. Perhaps if I waited a little, thingswould be clearer to me again. Yet my dinner with old Elvesham was nowsingularly vivid and recent. The champagne, the observant waiters, thepowder, and the liqueurs--I could have staked my soul it all happened afew hours ago.
And then occurred a thing so trivial and yet so terrible to me that Ishiver now to think of that moment. I spoke aloud. I said, "How the devildid I get here?" ... _And the voice was not my own_.
It was not my own, it was thin, the articulation was slurred, theresonance of my facial bones was different. Then, to reassure myself I ranone hand over the other, and felt loose folds of skin, the bony laxity ofage. "Surely," I said, in that horrible voice that had somehow establisheditself in my throat, "surely this thing is a dream!" Almost as quickly asif I did it involuntarily, I thrust my fingers into my mouth. My teethhad gone. My finger-tips ran on the flaccid surface of an even row ofshrivelled gums. I was sick with dismay and disgust.
I felt then a passionate desire to see myself, to realise at once in itsfull horror the ghastly change that had come upon me. I tottered to themantel, and felt along it for matches. As I did so, a barking cough sprangup in my throat, and I clutched the thick flannel nightdress I found aboutme. There were no matches there, and I suddenly realised that myextremities were cold. Sniffing and coughing, whimpering a little,perhaps, I fumbled back to bed. "It is surely a dream," I whispered tomyself as I clambered back, "surely a dream." It was a senile repetition.I pulled the bedclothes over my shoulders, over my ears, I thrust mywithered hand under the pillow, and determined to compose myself to sleep.Of course it was a dream. In the morning the dream would be over, and Ishould wake up strong and vigorous again to my youth and studies. I shutmy eyes, breathed regularly, and, finding myself wakeful, began to countslowly through the powers of three.
But the thing I desired would not come. I could not get to sleep. And thepersuasion of the inexorable reality of the change that had happened to megrew steadily. Presently I found myself with my eyes wide open, the powersof three forgotten, and my skinny fingers upon my shrivelled gums, I was,indeed, suddenly and abruptly, an old man. I had in some unaccountablemanner fallen through my life and come to old age, in some way I had beencheated of all the best of my life, of love, of struggle, of strength, andhope. I grovelled into the pillow and tried to persuade myself that suchhallucination was possible. Imperceptibly, steadily, the dawn grewclearer
.
At last, despairing of further sleep, I sat up in bed and looked about me.A chill twilight rendered the whole chamber visible. It was spacious andwell-furnished, better furnished than any room I had ever slept in before.A candle and matches became dimly visible upon a little pedestal in arecess. I threw back the bedclothes, and, shivering with the rawness ofthe early morning, albeit it was summer-time, I got out and lit thecandle. Then, trembling horribly, so that the extinguisher rattled on itsspike, I tottered to the glass and saw--_Elvesham's face_! It wasnone the less horrible because I had already dimly feared as much. He hadalready seemed physically weak and pitiful to me, but seen now, dressedonly in a coarse flannel nightdress, that fell apart and showed thestringy neck, seen now as my own body, I cannot describe its desolatedecrepitude. The hollow cheeks, the straggling tail of dirty grey hair,the rheumy bleared eyes, the quivering, shrivelled lips, the lowerdisplaying a gleam of the pink interior lining, and those horrible darkgums showing. You who are mind and body together, at your natural years,cannot imagine what this fiendish imprisonment meant to me. To be youngand full of the desire and energy of youth, and to be caught, andpresently to be crushed in this tottering ruin of a body...
But I wander from the course of my story. For some time I must have beenstunned at this change that had come upon me. It was daylight when I didso far gather myself together as to think. In some inexplicable way I hadbeen changed, though how, short of magic, the thing had been done, I couldnot say. And as I thought, the diabolical ingenuity of Elvesham came hometo me. It seemed plain to me that as I found myself in his, so he must bein possession of _my_ body, of my strength, that is, and my future.But how to prove it? Then, as I thought, the thing became so incredible,even to me, that my mind reeled, and I had to pinch myself, to feel mytoothless gums, to see myself in the glass, and touch the things about me,before I could steady myself to face the facts again. Was all lifehallucination? Was I indeed Elvesham, and he me? Had I been dreaming ofEden overnight? Was there any Eden? But if I was Elvesham, I shouldremember where I was on the previous morning, the name of the town inwhich I lived, what happened before the dream began. I struggled with mythoughts. I recalled the queer doubleness of my memories overnight. Butnow my mind was clear. Not the ghost of any memories but those proper toEden could I raise.
"This way lies insanity!" I cried in my piping voice. I staggered to myfeet, dragged my feeble, heavy limbs to the washhand-stand, and plunged mygrey head into a basin of cold water. Then, towelling myself, I triedagain. It was no good. I felt beyond all question that I was indeed Eden,not Elvesham. But Eden in Elvesham's body!
Had I been a man of any other age, I might have given myself up to my fateas one enchanted. But in these sceptical days miracles do not passcurrent. Here was some trick of psychology. What a drug and a steady starecould do, a drug and a steady stare, or some similar treatment, couldsurely undo. Men have lost their memories before. But to exchange memoriesas one does umbrellas! I laughed. Alas! not a healthy laugh, but awheezing, senile titter. I could have fancied old Elvesham laughing at myplight, and a gust of petulant anger, unusual to me, swept across myfeelings. I began dressing eagerly in the clothes I found lying about onthe floor, and only realised when I was dressed that it was an eveningsuit I had assumed. I opened the wardrobe and found some more ordinaryclothes, a pair of plaid trousers, and an old-fashioned dressing-gown. Iput a venerable smoking-cap on my venerable head, and, coughing a littlefrom my exertions, tottered out upon the landing.
It was then, perhaps, a quarter to six, and the blinds were closely drawnand the house quite silent. The landing was a spacious one, a broad,richly-carpeted staircase went down into the darkness of the hall below,and before me a door ajar showed me a writing-desk, a revolving bookcase,the back of a study chair, and a fine array of bound books, shelf uponshelf.
"My study," I mumbled, and walked across the landing. Then at the sound ofmy voice a thought struck me, and I went back to the bedroom and put inthe set of false teeth. They slipped in with the ease of old, habit."That's better," said I, gnashing them, and so returned to the study.
The drawers of the writing-desk were locked. Its revolving top was alsolocked. I could see no indications of the keys, and there were none in thepockets of my trousers. I shuffled back at once to the bedroom, and wentthrough the dress suit, and afterwards the pockets of all the garments Icould find. I was very eager, and one might have imagined that burglarshad been at work, to see my room when I had done. Not only were there nokeys to be found, but not a coin, nor a scrap of paper--save only thereceipted bill of the overnight dinner.
A curious weariness asserted itself. I sat down and stared at the garmentsflung here and there, their pockets turned inside out. My first frenzy hadalready flickered out. Every moment I was beginning to realise the immenseintelligence of the plans of my enemy, to see more and more clearly thehopelessness of my position. With an effort I rose and hurried hobblinginto the study again. On the staircase was a housemaid pulling up theblinds. She stared, I think, at the expression of my face. I shut the doorof the study behind me, and, seizing a poker, began an attack upon thedesk. That is how they found me. The cover of the desk was split, the locksmashed, the letters torn out of the pigeon-holes, and tossed about theroom. In my senile rage I had flung about the pens and other such lightstationery, and overturned the ink. Moreover, a large vase upon the mantelhad got broken--I do not know how. I could find no cheque-book, no money,no indications of the slightest use for the recovery of my body. I wasbattering madly at the drawers, when the butler, backed by twowomen-servants, intruded upon me.
* * * * *
That simply is the story of my change. No one will believe my franticassertions. I am treated as one demented, and even at this moment I amunder restraint. But I am sane, absolutely sane, and to prove it I havesat down to write this story minutely as the things happened to me. Iappeal to the reader, whether there is any trace of insanity in the styleor method, of the story he has been reading. I am a young man locked awayin an old man's body. But the clear fact is incredible to everyone.Naturally I appear demented to those who will not believe this, naturallyI do not know the names of my secretaries, of the doctors who come to seeme, of my servants and neighbours, of this town (wherever it is) where Ifind myself. Naturally I lose myself in my own house, and sufferinconveniences of every sort. Naturally I ask the oddest questions.Naturally I weep and cry out, and have paroxysms of despair. I have nomoney and no cheque-book. The bank will not recognise my signature, for Isuppose that, allowing for the feeble muscles I now have, my handwritingis still Eden's. These people about me will not let me go to the bankpersonally. It seems, indeed, that there is no bank in this town, and thatI have an account in some part of London. It seems that Elvesham kept thename of his solicitor secret from all his household. I can ascertainnothing. Elvesham was, of course, a profound student of mental science,and all my declarations of the facts of the case merely confirm the theorythat my insanity is the outcome of overmuch brooding upon psychology.Dreams of the personal identity indeed! Two days ago I was a healthyyoungster, with all life before me; now I am a furious old man, unkempt,and desperate, and miserable, prowling about a great, luxurious, strangehouse, watched, feared, and avoided as a lunatic by everyone about me. Andin London is Elvesham beginning life again in a vigorous body, and withall the accumulated knowledge and wisdom of threescore and ten. He hasstolen my life.
What has happened I do not clearly know. In the study are volumes ofmanuscript notes referring chiefly to the psychology of memory, and partsof what may be either calculations or ciphers in symbols absolutelystrange to me. In some passages there are indications that he was alsooccupied with the philosophy of mathematics. I take it he has transferredthe whole of his memories, the accumulation that makes up his personality,from this old withered brain of his to mine, and, similarly, that he hastransferred mine to his discarded tenement. Practically, that is, he haschanged bodies. But how such a change ma
y be possible is without the rangeof my philosophy. I have been a materialist for all my thinking life, buthere, suddenly, is a clear case of man's detachability from matter.
One desperate experiment I am about to try. I sit writing here beforeputting the matter to issue. This morning, with the help of a table-knifethat I had secreted at breakfast, I succeeded in breaking open a fairlyobvious secret drawer in this wrecked writing-desk. I discovered nothingsave a little green glass phial containing a white powder. Round the neckof the phial was a label, and thereon was written this one word,"_Release_." This may be--is most probably--poison. I can understandElvesham placing poison in my way, and I should be sure that it was hisintention so to get rid of the only living witness against him, were itnot for this careful concealment. The man has practically solved theproblem of immortality. Save for the spite of chance, he will live in mybody until it has aged, and then, again, throwing that aside, he willassume some other victim's youth and strength. When one remembers hisheartlessness, it is terrible to think of the ever-growing experiencethat... How long has he been leaping from body to body?... But I tire ofwriting. The powder appears to be soluble in water. The taste is notunpleasant.
* * * * *
There the narrative found upon Mr. Elvesham's desk ends. His dead body laybetween the desk and the chair. The latter had been pushed back, probablyby his last convulsions. The story was written in pencil and in a crazyhand, quite unlike his usual minute characters. There remain only twocurious facts to record. Indisputably there was some connection betweenEden and Elvesham, since the whole of Elvesham's property was bequeathedto the young man. But he never inherited. When Elvesham committed suicide,Eden was, strangely enough, already dead. Twenty-four hours before, he hadbeen knocked down by a cab and killed instantly, at the crowded crossingat the intersection of Gower Street and Euston Road. So that the onlyhuman being who could have thrown light upon this fantastic narrative isbeyond the reach of questions. Without further comment I leave thisextraordinary matter to the reader's individual judgment.