It is not worth while describing the next few days. They were quite or almost colourless. Once each four and twenty hours, Belleville, taking sound precautions, released me for a short while from my prison chair to let me stretch my limbs and in the interests of keeping me alive for his own purposes. We had very little conversation, for he had fallen into a morose and gloomy mood, the result of an attack of insomnia. In answer to direct questions I learned that Sir Robert Ottley's funeral had passed without incident, but that Miss Ottley's violent grief had been succeeded by a long stupor. She was being nursed by a creature of Belleville's, an old Frenchwoman named Elise Lorraine in whom he evidently reposed a deal of confidence. Belleville spent most of his time at work in the laboratory, but what he did I could not see, for he conducted his labours behind my chair. On one occasion he gave way to a savage fit of passion, and without any cause whatever that I could perceive, he broke a number of glass implements upon the floor. Another time, having cut his hand in some experiment, he revenged himself by flogging me with a piece of whalebone until my flesh wherever he could reach it was covered with weals and blisters. He was not a nice man to live with and my hatred of him grew daily more intense. But perforce I was civil to him. On the eighth day he entered the room with a chalk-white face. I knew at once that something had happened; but I was not to learn what it was immediately. He disappeared forthwith behind my chair and for ten minutes stamped about swearing like a pagan. Then the lights went out of a sudden and he departed in the dark. He returned about four hours later, but I did not see him enter, although he put on the lights immediately. I heard him pass my chair; that was all. But a few seconds later a sharp and most acridly irritating odour filled the room, and soon afterwards he came forward and sank into his accustomed chair, opposite to mine. He looked positively ghastly. "To-morrow morning England will mourn the loss of her greatest physician," he announced in quivering tones. "Sir Philip Lang has just committed suicide."
"What!" I cried in deep astonishment. "Sir Philip Lang!"
He bared his teeth. "The world will think so," he snarled. "But in reality—but there, you shall judge. This afternoon without giving me notice the fool came to this house, forced his way into the sick room and had a long private conversation with May Ottley. I do not know to what conclusion he came, but she must have persuaded him of her sanity, for he ordered Elise to take her out for a walk; and if it had not been that Elise refused to obey him pending my arrival there would have been a pretty kettle of fish for me to fry. However, he won't trouble me again."
"You murdered him!" I gasped.
"Like an artist," said Belleville. "I stole upon him while he sat in his private sitting-room at supper and, standing opposite to him unseen, I reached out and poured some aconite into his wine. He was dead inside a quarter hour, and I took care that he made no outcry. The verdict should be suicide, I think. Don't you?"
With that he got up and left me.
That night while I slept he dosed me with chloroform, and while I was senseless he drew over my clothes a suit of rubber overalls. He also did whatever was necessary to render me invisible, and he gagged me with a piece of steel thrust under my tongue and secured around my throat and neck with fine wire that bit deep in the flesh. I awoke groaning with agony to find that I was stretched out on the naked framework of an iron bed.
Belleville stood over me grasping Miss Ottley by the hand. When I saw her I stopped groaning as if by instinct. I knew at once that she did not see anything except the bed. She looked well, but tragically sorrowful and wild. She was staring as it were through me.
"You see nothing," said Belleville's hollow voice, "but his spirit lies there for all that. It is in my power and cannot escape without I set it free. You know my price. It is for you to rule his fate, through me if so you wish.