Philip, looking out cautiously, saw the man who had been addressed as Ogledon start, as if a blow had been struck him; hesitate for a moment, with a face that was ghastly; and then start off at a run after Tokely. The Inspector, who was totally unprepared for pursuit, was overtaken in a few strides; seized; swung round; and confronted with the startled face of the other man.
“Stop—stop—and listen to me!” cried Ogledon, wildly. “What of this—this man—this prisoner—this”—he appeared to have some difficulty in getting out the name from his throat—as though it stuck there a little—“this Dandy Chater?”
“Ah—that stirs you up a bit—does it?” said Tokely, grinning. “Let me tell you then, that your friend Mr. Dandy Chater lies at this moment in Chelmsford Jail, awaiting his trial for murder—ah—that makes your face turn white—eh?—murder committed in this very village.”
Ogledon had dropped his hands from the other’s shoulders, and was staring at him, with an expression of stupid wonderment, incredulity and deadly fear. After a moment or two, he said, in a sort of whisper—“Then I did read of it; I haven’t merely seen the name in every paper I’ve picked up—just in the same fashion as I have seen it on the lips of every man I met; heard it in every wind that blew; seen it spelled in the stars on every night-sky.” He broke off suddenly, and looked at the other man, as if only just aware at that moment of his presence; looked at him silently for a space; and then burst into a peal of the most frightful laughter imaginable.
“There’s nothing like being merry, when you’ve got a chance,” said the Inspector, savagely.
“Merry!” cried the other, with another shout of laughter. “You’d make the dead rise from their graves, to laugh at such a jest as this! Merry! And so you’ve got Dandy Chater safe in Chelmsford Jail—have you? Well—keep him safe; lock and bolt and bar him in—and stop up every chink and keyhole—or, by Heaven!—Dandy Chater may give you the slip, my man! Dandy Chater in Chelmsford Jail!”
He burst into another frightful roar of laughter, and turned away; while the Inspector, after looking at him oddly, for a few moments, continued his way down the hill towards the road. Ogledon stopped in the same spot as before, near where Philip still lay, and sat down on the bank, above the very ditch in which the fugitive crouched, but with his back towards him.
“My God—what does this mean?” He spoke aloud, quite unconsciously, in the strong emotion which was upon him. “Is this some devil’s trick, to frighten and trouble me? Or has Something come back to earth, to take up again its old way of life, and mock me?” He stretched out one clenched hand, and looked at it. “With this hand I struck him down; my eyes saw him lying dead; other eyes have seen him—food for worms—taken from the river. Yet this Thing starts up again, full of life, the very next day; haunts the places where he was known; appears even to me; stands out as a living fact to all men, and is even printed about, in black and white, before my eyes. Am I going mad; is this some distortion of the brain? Do I dream that every one talks of him, even in a chance meeting like this a few minutes since—or what is it?”
After a time, he got up, and spoke more resolutely.
“I’ve allowed myself to think of him too much; I’ll do so no longer. I’ve heard of men who, dwelling on one frightful vision always, grow at last to see it in everything about them—hear it in every word that’s uttered—until it fills every fibre of their being, like some horrible disease, and saps their reason and their life. I’ll have no more of it; the man is dead, and I stand in his place; let that end it.”