THE NIGHT WATCH
Though a room had been prepared for Dr.Mannering, he did not occupy it long.The early hours of night found him in a bad temper, and suffering from considerable exacerbation of nerves.He troubled little for himself, and still less concerning the police, for he was human, and their indifference to his advice annoyed him; but for Sir Walter he was perturbed, and did not like the arrangements that he had planned.The doctor, however, designed to go and come and keep an eye upon the old man, and he hoped that the master of Chadlands would presently sleep, if only in his study chair.For himself he suffered a somewhat unpleasant experience toward midnight, but had himself to thank for it.He rested for an hour in his bedroom, then went downstairs, to find Mary and her father sitting quietly together in the great library.They were both reading, while at the farther end, where a risen moon already frosted the lofty windows above him, lay Septimus May in his coffin.Mary had plucked a wealth of white hothouse flowers, which stood in an old Venetian bowl at his feet.
Sir Walter was solicitous for the doctor.
"Not in bed!" he exclaimed."This is too bad, Mannering.We shall have you ill next.You have been on your feet for countless hours and much lies before you to-morrow.Do be sensible, my dear fellow, and take some rest - even if you cannot sleep.""There is no sleep to-night for me.Lord knows how soon I may be wanted by those fools playing with fire upstairs.""We cannot interfere.For myself a great peace has descended upon me, now that initiative and the need for controlling and directing is taken out of my hands.I began to feel this when poor Hardcastle arrived; but that composure was sadly shattered.I am even prepared for the needful publicity now.I can face it.If I erred in the matter of this devoted priest, I shall not question the judgment of my fellow-men upon me.""Fear nothing of that sort," answered Mannering."Your fellow-man has no right to judge you, and the law, with all its faults, appreciates logic.
Who can question your right to believe that this is a matter outside human knowledge? Your wisdom may be questioned, but not your right.Plenty would have felt the same.When the mind of man finds itself groping in the dark, you will see that, in the huge majority of cases, it falls back upon supernatural explanations for mystery.This fact has made fortunes for not a few who profit by the credulity of human nature.Faiths are founded on it.May carried too many guns for you.He honestly convinced you that his theory of his son's death was the correct theory; and I, for one, though I deplore the fact that you came to see with his eyes, and permitted him to do what he believed was his duty, yet should be the last to think your action open to judicial blame.No Christian judge, at any rate, would have the least right to question you.In a word, there is no case yet against anybody.The force responsible for these things is utterly unknown, and if ill betides the men upstairs, that is only another argument for you."Sir Walter put down his book - a volume of pious meditations.Events had drawn him into a receptive attitude toward religion.He was surprised at Dr.Mannering.
"I never thought to hear you admit as much as that.How strangely the currents of the mind ebb and flow, Mannering.Here are you with your scepticism apparently weakening, while I feel thankfully assured, at any rate for the moment, that only a material reason accounts for these disasters.""Why?" asked the physician.
"Because against the powers of any dark spirit Septimus May was safe.Even had he been right and his prayer had freed such a being and cast it out of my house, would the Almighty have permitted it to rend and destroy the agent of its liberation? May could not have suffered death by any conscious, supernatural means if our faith is true; but, as he himself said, when he came here after the death of his boy, he did not pretend that faith in God rendered a human being superior to the laws of matter.If, as was suggested at dinner to-day, there is somebody in this house with a mind unhinged who has discovered a secret of nature by which human life can be destroyed and leave no sign, then this dead clergyman was, of course,as powerless against such a hideous danger as any other human being." "But surely such a theory is quite as wild as any based on supernaturalassumptions? You know the occupants of this house - every one of them, Sir Walter.Mary knows them, Henry knows them.I have attended most of them at one time or another.Is there one against whom such a suspicion can be entertained?""Not one indeed."
"Could the war have made a difference?" asked Mary."We know how shell shock and wounds to a poor man's head had often left him apparently sound, yet in reality weakened as to his mind.""Yes, that is true enough.And when the unfortunate men get back into everyday life from the hospitals, or endeavor to resume their old work, the weakness appears.I have seen cases.But of all the men in Chadlands there are only three examples of any such catastrophe.I know a few in the village - none where one can speak of actual insanity, however.Here there is only Fred Caunter, who was hurt about the head on board ship, but the injury left no defect.""Fred is certainly as sane as I am - perhaps saner," admitted Sir Walter."Don't think I really imagine there is anything of the kind here," added Mannering."But if these four men are in a condition to proceed with their work to-morrow, you must expect them to make a searching examination of everybody in the house.And they may find a good number of nervous and hysterical women, if not men.It is not their province, however, to determine whether people are weak in the head, and I know, as well as you do, that none in this house had any hand in thesedisasters."
"Never was a family with fewer secrets than mine," declared Sir Walter.
"The morning may bring light," said Mary.
