Chapter XI

Again I must resort to my diary:

“I know now how the stranger was killed—the man for whose death John Duncan is being held. Who the medium was through whom Lessman worked I do not know. I imagine that it was Collins, the Chicago detective. I have questioned him, and he does not remember anything about the affair, so far gone is his mind. Yet he has a hazy recollection of having at one time done Lessman’s bidding. Nor have I learned the name of the poor fellow who met death in the heroic attempt to unmask The Bodymaster.

“The dean of Daggett College is dead—murdered! Another professor has been arrested as the murderer. Lessman showed me the paper this morning, chuckling over the gruesome details. There is absolutely no hope for the poor wretch who has been seized by the police, for the evidence is all against him. They will hang him, and the law will consider itself satisfied. I laughed with Lessman at the newspaper account. Is he not right when he states that both of them are merely being ushered into paradise ahead of their time?

“I am certain that I killed Professor Ormsby!

“Years before he and Professor Jacobs had been teachers in the same college where Lessman held a chair. To them Lessman, then a young man, presented some of his astonishing theories. They turned upon him with ridicule, rebuked him, and then reported him as a heretic to the head of the university. It was their testimony which caused Lessman’s dismissal in disgrace. He swore to get revenge.

“Two nights ago Lessman hurled my ego—my spirit—through space. I am certain of it, although my memory is indistinct and is growing weaker every hour. At his command I went to Ormsby’s apartments. Jacobs was seated with his old friend engaged in a heated discussion, for both were argumentative men.

“Before the eyes of Professor Jacobs, Dean Ormsby shrieked as an invisible hand struck him down—then fell writhing to the floor, the purple marks of fingers upon his throat.

“They arrested Jacobs for the murder. Others had heard them arguing. Vainly he tried to tell them the truth—that the argument had been a friendly one and that his friend had been killed by some unseen force.

“They scoffed at his story—for the marks of fingers showed too plainly upon the dead man’s neck.”

ANOTHER ENTRY IN THE DIARY.

“I wonder if my mind is weakening? I seem to do Lessman’s bidding too easily. I fall in with his every suggestion. I know that he is using me in his crimes—that he is getting rich as a result of my efforts—and I do not seem to recollect what transpires, as I used to. Everything is hazy, with here and there some specially vivid remembrance standing out amidst the chaos.

“Occasionally he reads me the papers, or hands them to me after calling my attention to some mysterious crime of which there is an account. Often he tells me, with a sneer, that he is the author and I the perpetrator of these horrible affairs. Innocent men are being made to suffer for things that I have done.

“The police are on the lookout for a mysterious woman who has been seen often where strange crimes have been committed. Can it be that they—Lessman and Meta—are using Avis as they are using me? They both deny it. And Avis tells me that she has no recollection of such things.... I wonder....”