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1929 · PDF PAGE 37

The Stratagem and Other Stories

…ool million,” “a million mil- lion million million million million” and so on: then abruptly: “Fanny’s dog’s dead.” I cannot explain the last sentence to my readers; I may, however, remark that it meant everything to me. I burst into tears. At that moment I caught Arthur's thought, “You ought to be busy with the note-book, not crying.” I resolutely dried my eyes, took courage, and began to write. II The doctor came in at this moment and begged me to go and rest. “You are only distressing yourself, Mrs. Blair,” he said; “and needlessly, for he i…

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1929 · PDF PAGE 14

The Stratagem and Other Stories

…ngland, whence we could arrange with the French Government for rehabilitation. “Such was the simple yet subtle plan of Dodu. Down to the last detail was it perfected—until one fatal day. “The spy, stricken by yellow fever, dropped suddenly dead in the fields before noon ‘Cease work’ had sounded. Instantly, without a moment’s hesitation, Dodu strode across to me and said, at the risk of the lash: ‘The whole plan which I have explained to you in cipher these last four months is a blind. That spy knew all. His lips are sealed in death. I have anot…

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1929 · PDF PAGE 51

The Stratagem and Other Stories

…eternal is change and pain unspeakable. Beyond thought, which is change and pain, lies be- ing, which is change and pain. These were the last words intelligible; they lapsed into the eternal moan, Woe! Woe! Woe! Woe! Woe! Woe! Woe! in unceasing monotony that rings always in my ears if I let my thought fall from the height of activ- ity, listen to the voice of my sensorium. In my sleep I am partially protected, and I keep a lamp constantly alight to burn tobacco in the room: but yet too often my dreams throb with that reiterated Woe! Woe! Woe! W…

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1929 · PDF PAGE 39

The Stratagem and Other Stories

…. It was the gnashing of the teeth of a damned soul. III The demon-shape, which I now clearly recognized as that which had figured in my last “dream” at Cam- bridge, seemed to gulp. At that instant a convulsion shook the dying man and a coughing eructation took the “demon.” Instantly the whole theory dawned on me, that this “demon” was an imaginary personification of the disease. Now at once I understood demonology, from Bodin and Weirus to the moderns, without a flaw. But was it imaginary or was it real? Real enough to swal- low up the “sane” …

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1929 · PDF PAGE 32

The Stratagem and Other Stories

…ernoon I learnt that Arthur was seriously ill, had been ill, indeed, for months. The doctor called it Bright's disease. VIII I said “the last of the dreams.” For the next year we travelled, and tried various treatments. My powers re- mained excellent, but I received none of the subcon- scious horrors. With few fluctuations, he grew steadily worse; daily he became more listless, more indifferent, more depressed. Our experiments were necessarily cur- tailed. Only one problem exercised him, the problem of

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1929 · PDF PAGE 50

The Stratagem and Other Stories

…d lava, jetted from the volca- noes of the infinite, this “lake of fire that is reserved for the devil and his angels,” might not one at last touch bottom? Ah! but time was no more, neither any eidolon thereof!

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1929 · PDF PAGE 29

The Stratagem and Other Stories

…ur ex- periments again. My powers had returned, and in triple force. Arthur explained my “intuition” as follows: “The doc- tor (when you last saw him) did not know consciously that he had cancer; but subconsciously Nature gave warning. You read this subconsciously, and it sprang into your consciousness when you read on the nurse's face that he was ill.” This, farfetched as it may seem, at least avoids the shallow theories about “telepathy.” From this time my powers constantly increased. I could read my husband's thoughts from imperceptible move…

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1929 · PDF PAGE 53

The Stratagem and Other Stories

…te Professor Blair. Her mind undoubtedly became unhinged through grief at her husband's death; the medical man who at- tended him in his last illness grew alarmed at her condi- tion, and had her watched. She tried (fruitlessly) to pur- chase dynamite at several shops, but on her going to the laboratory of her late husband, and attempting to manufacture Chloride of Nitrogen, obviously for the pur- pose of suicide, she was seized, certified insane, and placed in my care. The case is most unusual in several respects. (1) I have never known her ina…

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1929 · PDF PAGE 16

The Stratagem and Other Stories

HIS SECRET SIN Inscribed admiringly to Alexander Coote. THEODORE BUGG had made England what she is. The last forty-two years had elevated him from errand-boy to biggest retail grocer in the Midlands. Twenty-eight years of wedded happiness had left him with a clear con- science, a five-year old grave to keep in order “To the memory of my beloved relict,” as he had written until the clerk suggested a trifling alteration, and a strapping daughter just turned twenty. I wish I could stop here. But there is a rough side to every canvas, and Theodore …

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1929 · PDF PAGE 31

The Stratagem and Other Stories

…they were in his subconscious waking self, for one occurred in the afternoon, when he was out shooting, and not in the least asleep. The last of them occurred towards the end of the October term. He was lecturing as usual, I was at home, lethargic after a too heavy breakfast following a wakeful night. I saw suddenly a picture of the lecture-room, enormously greater than in reality, so that it filled all space; and in the rostrum, bulging over it in all direc-

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1929 · PDF PAGE 1

The Stratagem and Other Stories

…ws it, to the country that tolerates it, to the civilisation that permits that such things should be. The same thing happened to me here last year, sir, though luckily on that occasion I had but half-an-hour to wait. But I wrote to The Times a strong half-column letter on the subject, and I’m damned if they didn’t re- fuse to print it. Of course, our independent press, etc.; I might have known. I tell you, sir, this country is run by a ring, a dirty ring, a gang of Jews, Scotchmen, Irish, Welsh—where’s the good old jolly True Blue English- man?…

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1929 · PDF PAGE 21

The Stratagem and Other Stories

… out? Don't, don't give away your poor old father, Gertie! My little Gertie!” There was a silence. “Excuse me, father,” said the girl at last, “but I've just had a glimpse of you for the first time in my life, and it's a bit of a shock. I must think.” And she stood motionless until her hapless father at- tracted her attention by backing into his wicker chair. “Don't touch holy things,” she snapped suddenly, taking the sketch from his nerveless hand, and replacing it rev- erently in the portfolio. The action seemed to decide her.

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1929 · PDF PAGE 36

The Stratagem and Other Stories

…let an Anarchist throw a bomb and smash Magdalen into a million pieces! espe- cially the brain! and the brain first. O God! my first and last prayer: smash Magdalen into a million pieces!” The horror of this thought was my conviction—then and now—that it represented perfect sanity and coher- ence of thought. For I dreaded utterly to think what such words might imply. At the door of the sick-room I was met by the male nurse, who asked me not to enter. Uncontrollably, I asked, “Is he dead?” and though Arthur lay absolutely senseless on the bed I …

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