Toppleton's Client; Or, A Spirit in Exile

by John Kendrick Bangs

What he saw was a small oblong room in which there was no window, and, at first glance, no means of entrance or exit. It was high-ceiled like the room in which he stood, and, with the exception of a narrow couch covered with a black velvet robe, with a small pillow of the same material at the far end, the room was bare of furniture. There was no fire, no fixture of any kind, lamp or otherwise, from which illumination could come, and yet the room was brilliant with that same green light that Chatford had described to Hopkins at his office in the Temple. So dazzling was it, that for a moment Hopkins had difficulty in ascertaining just what there was in the apartment, but as he looked he became conscious of forms which grew more and more distinct as his eye accustomed itself to the light. On the couch in a moment appeared, rigid as in death, the body of Barncastle; the eyes lustreless and staring, the hands characterless and bluish even in the green light, the cheeks sunken and the massive forehead white and cold as marble. The sight chilled Toppleton to the marrow, and he averted his eyes from the horrible spectacle only to see one even more dreadful, for on the other side of the apartment, grinning fiendishly, the source of the wonderful light that flooded the room, he now perceived the fiend, making ready to assume once more the habiliments of mortality. He was stirring a potion, and, as Hopkins watched him, he began to whistle a combination of discords that went through Toppleton's ears like a knife.

The watcher became sick at heart. This was the frightful thing he had to cope with! So frightful was it that he tried to remove his eye from the peep-hole, and seek again the easy chair, when to his horror he found that he could not move. If his eye had in reality been glued to the aperture, he would not have found it more firmly fixed than it was at present. As he struggled to get away from the vision that was every moment being burned more and more indelibly into his mind, the fiend's fearful mirth increased, at the close of one of the paroxysms of which he lifted the cup in which the potion had been mixed to his lips, and quaffed its contents to the very dregs. As the last drop trickled down the fiend's throat, Hopkins was startled further to see the light growing dim, and then he noticed that the fiend was rapidly decreasing in size, shrinking slowly from a huge spectral presence into a hardly visible ball of green fire which rolled across the apartment to where the body lay; up the side of the couch to the pillow; along the pillow to that marble white forehead, where it paused. A tremor passed through the human frame lying prostrate there, and in a moment all was dark as night. The ball of fire had disappeared through the forehead, and a deep groan told Toppleton that the body of Barncastle was once more a living thing having the semblance of humanity. A moment later another light appeared in the apartment into which Toppleton still found himself compelled to gaze. This time the light was more natural, for it was the soft genial light of a lamp shining through a sliding panel at the other end of the room, through which the Lord of Burningford passed. It lasted but a moment, for as the defendant in this fearful case of Chatford v. Burningford passed into the room beyond, the slide flew back and all was black once more.

With the departure of Barncastle, Toppleton was able to withdraw from his uncomfortable position, and in less than a moment lay gasping in his chair.

"It is too real!" he moaned to himself. "Chatford did not deceive me. I am not the victim of hallucination. Alas! I wish I were."

A knock at the door put an end to his soliloquizing, and he was relieved to hear it. Here was something earthly at last. He flew from his chair across the room through the darkness to the door and threw it wide open.

"Come in," he cried, and Barncastle himself, still pale from the effects of the ordeal he had passed through, entered the room.

"I have come to see if there is anything I can do for you," he said pleasantly, touching an electric button which dissipated the darkness of the room by lighting a hundred lamps. "The Duchess of Bangletop has arrived and is anxious to meet you; but you look worn, Toppleton. You are not ill, I hope?"

"No," stammered Toppleton, slightly overcome by Barncastle's coolness and affability, "but I—I've been taking a nap and I've had the—the most horrible dream I ever had."

"Which was?"

"That I—ah—why, that I was writing an obituary poem on—"