"Do you know, Dick, it may seem strange to you, but I do not mind saying that I attribute all this trouble to Nikola."
"Good gracious," I cried, in well-simulated amazement, "why on earth to Nikola?"
"Because, as was the case five years ago, it has been all trouble since we met him. You remember how he affected Gertrude at the outset. She was far from being herself on the night of our tour through the city, and now in her delirium she talks continually of his dreadful house, and from what she says, and the way she behaves, I cannot help feeling inclined to believe that she imagines herself to be seeing some of the dreadful events which have occurred or are occurring in it."
"God help her," I said to myself. And then I continued aloud to my wife, "Doubtless Nikola's extraordinary personality has affected her in some measure, as it does other people, but you are surely not going to jump to the conclusion that because she has spoken to him he is necessarily responsible for her illness? That would be the wildest flight of fancy."
"And yet, do you know," she continued, "I have made a curious discovery."
"What is that?" I asked, not without some asperity, for, having so much on my mind, I was not in the humour for fresh discoveries.
She paused for a moment before she replied. Doubtless she expected that I would receive it with scepticism, if not with laughter; and Phyllis, ever since I have known her, has a distinct fear of ridicule.
"You may laugh at me if you please," she said, "yet the coincidence is too extraordinary to be left unnoticed. Do you happen to be aware, Dick, that Doctor Nikola called at this hotel at exactly eleven o'clock?"
I almost betrayed myself in my surprise. This was the last question I expected her to put to me.
"Yes," I answered, with an endeavour to appear calm, "I do happen to be aware of that fact. He merely paid a visit of courtesy to the Don, prior to the other's accepting his hospitality. I see nothing remarkable in that. I did the same myself, if you remember."