The Mayfair Mystery: 2835 Mayfair. Frank Richardson

Harding.

      But the other would not allow him to proceed.

      ‘Say no more about it,’ he said. ‘I admit that you have insulted me grossly. I can imagine no more terrible insult than to assume a man is dead, except perhaps to meet the man and behave as though he was a ghost. You are an eminent K.C. Good heavens, old chap, to think that on the evidence of Reggie Pardell you came to the conclusion that I was dead! I can forgive a man anything except the presumption that I am dead. Great Scott! if the idea got about among my patients it would do me a deuce of a lot of harm. There is one thing a doctor can’t be. and that is dead.’

      Harding justified himself. He described his interview with Reggie. He described it with great accuracy and the other listened keenly. At the conclusion he said:

      ‘There it is. I have told you exactly what occurred. Is Reggie mad, or is he not? How much of this is true and how much is invention?’

      ‘In the first place,’ Clifford replied, ‘I am not dead. That is clear. Mind you, I can’t prove that I’m not dead. And I won’t labour the point. You must form your own conclusion. My own idea is that I am not dead. But, after all, we know so little about death that it is quite probable that when we are absolutely defunct we shall not be able to grasp the fact. Perhaps that is the explanation of ghosts. It may well be that it will take some time before people become convinced that they are extinct. As a rule, ghosts are more or less contemporary. At most, they have only been dead two or three hundred years. You never hear nowadays of the appearance of a ghost dating from the time of the Caesars. I expect that a man of ordinary intelligence after ten years of decease takes the knock—if I may use the expression—with regard to so serious a matter. He gives up trying to behave as a living man.’

      Harding was nonplussed at his levity.

      ‘Don’t you worry,’ he said, ‘you are not a ghost. If you were a ghost, it would be almost impossible to account for the disappearance of the steak which you are eating with such intense rapidity. A ghost never eats, or, indeed, does anything useful. Joking apart,’ he added, ‘was all this an hallucination of Reggie’s? Mind you, he swore to me that he had seen you lying dead on the floor in King Street. He told me that he had touched your face and it was cold. What are you going to do about it?’

      ‘Do about it? Why, nothing! What can one do about it? Is it worth while doing anything about it?’

      ‘Perhaps not, but what about Reggie? If he gets into the habit of making these statements, he will be a deuce of a nuisance, won’t he? Anyhow, if he is liable to see corpses on carpets, there must be something awfully wrong with him. You, a physician, an expert in nerve diseases, must grasp the fact that his is a very bad case.’

      Slowly the great physician answered him.

      ‘Do you know that a man who is only insane on one subject is the exception? Most of us are mad on half a dozen subjects. Some of us are so devoid of all sense of proportion that we are mad about practically everything. Of course, Reggie’s brain is not normal. He has led a devil of a life, a much worse life than mine. I have been able to stand it. He has not. But mind you, I don’t think he will come to any evil owing to his trouble. It doesn’t matter what he says about me. I shan’t bring an action for slander against him. And on all other points he is completely sane. But with regard to me he can’t tell the truth; his vision is distorted; he sees everything wrong. When you meet him again, old chap, it will be better not to mention the matter, because he has probably forgotten all about it by now. Of course, he has forgotten all about it by now.’