“The creature is beyond all bounds. He’s in league with the stars and all the forces of Nature. Don’t think I’m still crazy, James — I swear to you I’m not! I’ve had too many glimpses to doubt. He gave me new pleasures that were forms of his palaeogean worship, and the greatest of those was the black fever.
“God, James! Haven’t you seen through the business by this time? Do you still believe the black fever came out of Thibet, and that I learned about it there? Use your brains, man! Look at Miller’s article here! He’s found a basic antitoxin that will end all fever within half a century, when other men learn how to modify it for the different forms. He’s cut the ground of my youth from under me — done what I’d have given my life to do — taken the wind out of all the honest sails I ever flung to the breeze of science! Do you wonder his article gave me a turn? Do you wonder it shocks me out of my madness back to the old dreams of my youth? Too late! Too late! But not too late to save others!
“I guess I’m rambling a bit now, old man. You know — the hypodermic. I asked you why you didn’t tumble to the facts about black fever. How could you, though? Doesn’t Miller say he’s cured seven cases with his serum? A matter of diagnosis, James. He only thinks it is black fever. I can read between his lines. Here, old chap, on page 551, is the key to the whole thing. Read it again.
“You see, don’t you? The fever cases from the Pacific Coast didn’t respond to his serum. They puzzled him. They didn’t even seem like any true fever he knew. Well, those were my cases! Those were the real black fever cases! And there can’t ever be an antitoxin on earth that’ll cure black fever!
“How do I know? Because black fever isn’t of this earth! It’s from somewhere else, James — and Surama alone knows where, because he brought it here. He brought it and I spread it! That’s the secret, James! That’s all I wanted the appointment for — that’s all I ever did — just spread the fever that I carried in this gold syringe and in the deadlier finger-ring-pump-syringe you see on my index finger! Science? A blind! I wanted to kill, and kill, and kill! A single pressure on my finger, and the black fever was inoculated. I wanted to see living things writhe and squirm, scream and froth at the mouth. A single pressure of the pump-syringe and I could watch them as they died, and I couldn’t live or think unless I had plenty to watch. That’s why I jabbed everything in sight with the accursed hollow needle. Animals, criminals, children, servants — and the next would have been—”
Clarendon’s voice broke, and he crumpled up perceptibly in his chair.
“That — that, James — was — my life. Surama made it so — he taught me, and kept me at it till I couldn’t stop. Then — then it got too much even for him. He tried to check me. Fancy — he trying to check anybody in that line! But now I’ve got my last specimen. That is my last test. Good subject, James — I’m healthy — devilish healthy. Deuced ironic, though — the madness has gone now, so there won’t be any fun watching the agony! Can’t be — can’t—”
A violent shiver of fever racked the doctor, and Dalton mourned amidst his horror-stupefaction that he could give no grief. How much of Alfred’s story was sheer nonsense, and how much nightmare truth he could not say; but in any case he felt that the man was a victim rather than a criminal, and above all, he was a boyhood comrade and Georgina’s brother. Thoughts of the old days came back kaleidoscopically. “Little Alf” — the yard at Phillips Exeter — the quadrangle at Columbia — the fight with Tom Cortland when he saved Alf from a pommeling. . . .
He helped Clarendon to the lounge and asked gently what he could do. There was nothing. Alfred could only whisper now, but he asked forgiveness for all his offences, and commended his sister to the care of his friend.
“You — you’ll — make her happy,” he gasped. “She deserves it. Martyr — to — a myth! Make it up to her, James. Don’t — let — her — know — more — than she has to!”
His voice trailed off in a mumble, and he fell into a stupor. Dalton rang the bell, but Margarita had gone to bed, so he called up the stairs for Georgina. She was firm of step, but very pale. Alfred’s scream had tried her sorely, but she had trusted James. She trusted him still as he shewed her the unconscious form on the lounge and asked her to go back to her room and rest, no matter what sounds she might hear. He did not wish her to witness the awful spectacle of delirium certain to come, but bade her kiss her brother a final farewell as he lay there calm and still, very like the delicate boy he had once been. So she left him — the strange, moonstruck, star-reading genius she had mothered so long — and the picture she carried away was a very merciful one.