"Professor Turton is an old friend of mine," I explained. "He may be able to help us suggest some explanation. I wonder if you'd mind telling him what you have just told me?"
"One moment," said Turton. "Just think it over while I have a good look at our friend, Brike."
He left the room and trotted out of the house. Through the window I saw the two men meet a few yards to the left of the garden gate. They conversed for quite five minutes. Brike was evidently in a very humble mood, for he frequently touched his cap.
"I just told him that you were in here, Miss Pinson," said the professor, when: he came hurrying in out of the rain, "in case he wanted to find you. A curious type, Miss Pinson. I should think he was more than half a negro; childishly superstitious—at least, he would seem so to you. Now, if you would just tell me—"
Audrey Pinson repeated her story, but apparently with some reluctance. The professor smiled and rubbed his hands together.
"That's the idea," he said. "He's going to perform a miracle—bring the dead to life."
"My dear Turton!" I exclaimed.
"I've paid special attention to that kind of thing," the professor said. "In fact, I have quite a lot of notes on the subject. But the evidence is not very reliable—all native evidence, mind you. What happens, or is supposed to happen, is this: A man dies and is brought to life again by the witch-doctor. Of course, if there is any truth in the evidence—and I really believe there is—the witch-doctor has some method of producing the appearance of death—of stopping the beating of the heart and the breathing—for quite a long while. Then he pronounces his incantations, and the dead man comes to life again."
I laughed and suggested that this semblance of death would hardly deceive an English doctor. It might be good enough for a pack of ignorant niggers, but with young Saltby, for instance—
"Still, Brike is going to have a try," said Turton.
"But, my dear Turton," I exclaimed, "whatever has put such a ridiculous idea into your head?"
"Because Brike asked me where he could find a black fowl, and a black bird is one of the articles required in this ceremony."
Audrey Pinson began to laugh—rather hysterically, so it seemed to me. I do not think she was scared at all by this talk about witchcraft and ju-ju, but she was relieved to find that Brike was up to nothing worse.
I cut into her laughter with another question:
"Why," I asked Turton, "should Brike want to perform these ridiculous rites?".
The professor did not answer immediately, and I glanced at Audrey Pinson, as much as to say: "I've got him there." But the professor was one of those men that are very difficult to drive into a corner.
"I should say," he replied, after a pause, "that Brike is not an impostor, like the witch-doctors. Brike firmly believes that he can bring the dead to life. He has seen this trick performed, and he does not know that it is merely a trick. He knows what has to be done—what he has possibly seen done on several occasions among his own people. He intends to wait until Mr. Arum is really dead, and then he hopes to bring him to life again."
"Would this be of any advantage to Brike?" I asked.
"Brike fancies that it would," Turton replied, "because Brike really believes that he can bring Arum back to life. Brike would naturally expect Arum's gratitude to take some concrete form—the gift of a large sum of money, or perhaps his master's entire fortune when Arum dies again."
I thought it better to say nothing of Arum's will. I could not betray the trust that had been placed in me, just to make a point in an idle argument.
"My dear Turton," I said, after a pause, "you forget that Arum refuses to let even a doctor save him from death. Is it likely that he would be pleased with this unholy interference with the course of Nature?"
"Perhaps that has not occurred to Brike."
"Oh, the man's not a fool!" I said sharply. "And I think that disposes of your theory."
But one could not dispose of Turton so easily as that.
"No doubt Brike will keep his rites and incantations to himself," he replied. "He will make it appear—and he will have witnesses to prove his assertion—that he effected this miracle by prayer."
I smiled.
"You are an expert swordsman, Turton," I said, "but the whole idea is too fantastic. You are really building up this wonderful structure on nothing more than the fact that Brike is of negro descent, and that he has asked you where he could purchase a black fowl. You are a very learned man, Turton, and have been engaged on research all your life, especially in this sort of thing. To gentry like you a very small detail will indicate a promising line of inquiry."
Turton nodded.
"There's no other way of getting at the truth," he said.
"Oh, yes, there is!" I laughed.
And then Audrey Pinson, who had been standing at the window, and apparently taking no interest whatever in our discussion, suddenly exclaimed:
"Here's Brike, back again!"
The professor remained by the fireplace, but I crossed the room to the girl's side. It was still raining, and Brike passed, his head bent down and the basket on his arm. A gust of wind blew aside a corner of the cloth that covered the basket, and the head and neck of a black fowl popped out and disappeared again.
"I expect," I said to Miss Pinson, with a laugh, "that you will have chicken for dinner tonight."
"He's got them, eh?" said Turton.
"One, at any rate," I replied.
Turton chuckled and rubbed his hands together.
"If only I could get into that house," he said. "Very remarkable, a civilized negro, in these days—and in England. Miss Pinson, I implore you to stay at Brent Lodge a little longer. If you go—well, you're the only link between that place and the outside world."
Before Miss Pinson could reply, I said: "It's not a fit place for her, alone with that black devil! Great Scott, Turton, have you no imagination?"
"I intend to stay," Audrey Pinson said quietly. "I do not think the professor is right, but he has excited my curiosity. One could picture Brike doing anything."
"That's just it," I answered roughly, "and I insist—"
"You insist, Mr. Hart?" she queried stiffly.
"I insist on you having some kind of weapon," I said humbly. "I know those brutes, and if Brike worked himself up into a sort of religious frenzy—well, I'm going to give you a pistol so that you can protect yourself."
The girl shrugged her shoulders.
"I should probably shoot myself," she said, "and I'm sure I'd never hit what I aimed at."
The professor went to a drawer in a mahogany cabinet.
"Please; Miss Pinson," I said gently, "you don't understand. Brike may be all right when he's in his senses, but when he's worked himself up over some devilish business—I have a jolly little auto-
