‘What was this you found upon your study table,—merely a drawing?’
‘It was a representation, produced by what process I cannot say, which was so wonderfully, so diabolically, like the original, that for a moment I thought the thing itself was on my table.’
‘Who put it there?’
‘That is precisely what I wish you to find out,—what I wish you to make it your instant business to ascertain. I have found the thing, under similar circumstances, on three separate occasions, on my study table,—and each time it has had on me the same hideous effect.’
‘Each time after you have returned from a late sitting in the House of Commons?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Where are these—what shall I call them—delineations?’
‘That, again, I cannot tell you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What I say. Each time, when I recovered, the thing had vanished.’