For these two years, then, which had followed his retirement, Roupert had given himself to these studies of occult and spiritual influences, learning about the healing powers contained in mental suggestion, and trying to get behind that into the more elemental and essential mysteries of man; leaving the servant, as he had said, in the hall of the house, while he went further into the presence of the master of the house. Often, during these “go-to-bed” cigarettes that multiplied themselves into the night, he told me tales that did not make going to sleep any easier. Nothing was too extravagant for his investigations; witchcraft, spiritualism, Satanism, the healing touch, and, above all, demoniacal possession were the subjects of this study that went deeper into the human organism than mind. There was no myth or exploded superstition that he did not examine, to see whether the explosion had been complete and shattering, or whether among the débris there did not remain some grains of solid stuff that were still solid, though science had affirmed that a puff of scattered smoke was all that was extant.... Consequently this evening, when Frank Hampden had gone to bed, I was quite prepared to find that Roupert had something to tell, some guess to hazard that had illumined his inquiries, the more so indeed because I had not seen him for some dozen nights. “Did you receive the message I left at your house?” he asked abruptly as the door closed behind his cousin. “No; I haven’t been home. But your servant told me you had asked me to come in,” said I. “Yes, I did. You have done just what I wanted. In my note I asked you to come in and observe my cousin, and tell me your impression. I saw you couldn’t help observing him, so now let us have the impression.” “Quite frankly? All?” I said. “Of course.” “I never saw anyone so utterly terrible,” I said. “Terrible? Exactly how?” he asked. The very intensity of my feeling about Hampden blurred the outline of it, and I paused trying to put a definite shape to it. “Incomparably terrible,” I said. “Murderous, I think: murderous for the fun of it. I felt like Fifi.” “I saw you did,” he said; “and I suspect you are right, you and Fifi....” He walked up and down the room once or twice, then sat down with the air of settling himself. “Did you hear him ask about my cat?” he said. “He killed her last night; he buried her in the garden.” There was a grotesqueness, a ludicrousness even in this after the talk of murder, but that only added horror to it. “What do you mean?” I asked.