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his family and to Dr. Willett, and his frantic note of the previous month he
dismissed as mere nerves and hysteria. He insisted that this shadowy bungalow
possessed no library possessed no library or laboratory beyond the visible ones,
and waxed abstruse in explaining the absence from the house of such odours as
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now saturated all his clothing. Neighbourhood gossip he attributed to nothing
more than the cheap inventiveness of baffled curiousity. Of the whereabouts of
Dr. Allen he said he did not feel at liberty to speak definitely, but assured
his inquisitors that the bearded and spectacled man would return when needed. In
paying off the stolid Brava who resisted all questioning by the visitors, and in
closing the bungalow which still seemed to hold such nighted secrets, Ward
shewed no signs of nervousness save a barely noticed tendency to pause as though
listening for something very faint. He was apparently animated by a calmly
philosophic resignation, as if he removal were the merest transient incident
which would cause the least trouble if facilitated and disposed of once and for
all. It was clear that he trusted to his obviously unimpaired keenness of
absolute mentality to overcome all the embarrassments into which his twisted
memory, his lost voice and handwriting, and his secretive and eccentric
behaviour had led him. His mother, it was agreed, was not to be told of the
change; his father supplying typed notes in his name. Ward was taken to the
restfully and picturesquely situated private hospital maintained by Dr. Waite on
Conanicut Island in the bay, and subjected to the closest scrutiny and
questioning by all the physicians connected with the case. It was then that the
physical oddities were noticed; the slackened metabolism, the altered skin, and
the disproportionate neural reactions. Dr. Willett was the most perturbed of the
various examiners, for he had attended Ward all his life and could appreciate
with terrible keenness the extent of his physical disorganisation. Even the
familiar olive mark on his hip was gone, while on his chest was a great black
mole or cicatrice which had never been there before, and which made Willett
wonder whether the youth had ever submitted to any of the witch markings reputed
to be inflicted at certain unwholesome nocturnal meetings in wild and lonely
places. The doctor could not keep his mind off a certain transcribed witch-trial
record from Salem which Charles had shewn him in the old non-secretive days, and
which read: 'Mr. G. B. on that Nighte putt ye Divell his Marke upon Bridget S.,
Jonathan A., Simon O., Deliverance W., Joseph C., Susan P., Mehitable C., and
Deborah B.' Ward's face, too, troubled him horribly, till at length he suddenly
discovered why he was horrified. For above the young man's right eye was
something which he had never previously noticed - a small scar or pit precisely
like that in the crumbled painting of old Joseph Curwen, and perhaps attesting
some hideous ritualistic inoculation to which both had submitted at a certain
stage of their occult careers.
While Ward himself was puzzling all the doctors at the hospital a very strict
watch was kept on all mail addressed either to him or to Dr. Allen, which Mr.
Ward had ordered delivered at the family home. Willett had predicted that very
little would be found, since any communications of a vital nature would probably
have been exchanged by messenger; but in the latter part of March there did come
a letter from Prague for Dr. Allen which gave both the doctor and the father
deep thought. It was in a very crabbed and archaic hand; and though clearly not
the effort of a foreigner, shewed almost as singular a departure from modern
English as the speech of young Ward himself. It read:
Kleinstrasse 11,
Altstadt, Prague,
11th Feby. 1928.
Brother in Almonsin-Metraton:-
I this day receiv'd yr mention of what came up from the Saltes I sent you. It
was wrong, and meanes clearly that ye Headstones had been chang'd when
Barnabas gott me the Specimen. It is often so, as you must be sensible of from
the Thing you gott from ye Kings Chapell ground in 1769 and what H. gott from
Olde Bury'g Point in 1690, that was like to ende him. I gott such a Thing in
Aegypt 75 yeares gone, from the which came that Scar ye Boy saw on me here in
1924. As I told you longe ago, do not calle up That which you can not put
downe; either from dead Saltes or out of ye Spheres beyond. Have ye Wordes for
laying at all times readie, and stopp not to be sure when there is any Doubte
of Whom you have. Stones are all chang'd now in Nine groundes out of 10. You
are never sure till you question. I this day heard from H., who has had
Trouble with the Soldiers. He is like to be sorry Transylvania is pass't from
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Hungary to Roumania, and wou'd change his Seat if the Castel weren't so fulle
of What we Knowe. But of this he hath doubtless writ you. In my next Send'g
there will be Somewhat from a Hill tomb from ye East that will delight you
greatly. Meanwhile forget not I am desirous of B. F. if you can possibly get
him for me. You know G. in Philada. better than I. Have him upp firste if you
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