Arthur Machen by The Three Impostors

Author:The Three Impostors [Impostors, The Three]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2011-12-27T02:19:32+00:00

Pausing a little at the end of Professor Gregg’s statement, Miss Lally continued her tale in the following words: —

Such was the almost incredible story that the professor had left behind him. When I had finished reading it, it was late at night, but the next morning I took Morgan with me, and we proceeded to search the Grey Hills for some trace of the lost professor. I will not weary you with a description of the savage desolation of that tract of country, a tract of utterest loneliness, of bare green hills dotted over with grey limestone boulders, worn by the ravages of time into fantastic semblances of men and beast. Finally, after many hours of weary searching, we found what I told you — the watch and chain, and purse, and the ring — wrapped in a piece of coarse parchment. When Morgan cut the gut that bound the parcel together, and I saw the professor’s property, I burst into tears, but the sight of the dreaded characters of the Black Seal repeated on the parchment froze me to silent horror, and I think I understood for the first time the awful fate that had come upon my late employer.

I have only to add that Professor Gregg’s lawyer treated my account of what had happened as a fairy tale, and refused even to glance at the documents I laid before him. It was he who was responsible for the statement that appeared in the public press, to the effect that Professor Gregg had been drowned, and that his body must have been swept into the open sea.

Miss Lally stopped speaking, and looked at Mr. Phillipps, with a glance of some inquiry. He, for his part, was sunken in a deep reverie of thought; and when he looked up and saw the bustle of the evening gathering in the square, men and women hurrying to partake of dinner, and crowds already besetting the music-halls, all the hum and press of actual life seemed unreal and visionary, a dream in the morning after an awakening.

‘I thank you,’ he said at last, ‘for your most interesting story; interesting to me, because I feel fully convinced of its exact truth.’

‘Sir,’ said the lady, with some energy of indignation, ‘you grieve and offend me. Do you think I should waste my time and yours by concocting fictions on a bench in Leicester Square?’

‘Pardon me, Miss Lally, you have a little misunderstood me. Before you began I knew that whatever you told would be told in good faith, but your experiences have a far higher value than that of bona fides. The most extraordinary circumstances in your account are in perfect harmony with the very latest scientific theories. Professor Lodge would, I am sure, value a communication from you extremely; I was charmed from the first by his daring hypothesis in explanation of the wonders of spiritualism (so called), but your narrative puts the whole matter out of the range of mere hypothesis.’

‘Alas! sir, all this will not help me.

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