I.

      "It isn't the kind of thing I could mention to a stranger," said Adams wistfully.

      The doctor leaned forward with sudden earnestness. An appeal to his friendship had never failed to stir the kindliness of his Irish blood.

      "Speak to me as to your best friend," he said warmly, "and I'll advise you in the same spirit. Now get busy right away."

      "First of all," began Adams nervously, "you've no reason to think I'm going mad or subject to delusions in any way? I hope you'll answer me candidly."

      The doctor stared with an almost comical look of perplexity, but it speedily disappeared as he noted the earnestness at his friend.

      "You're as sane as the best of us," he said shortly, "go ahead now."

      "There's a large mirror in my sitting-room."

      "I've noticed it often."

      "For several weeks past ever since I returned from abroad, in fact, whenever I look in that mirror I see another face looking over my shoulder."

      The doctor stood up in his amazement. He opened his mouth, but could find no words to reply to such an extraordinary statement.

      "When I turn round," continued Adams quietly, "there's nobody there. This happens most every day."

      "What kind of life have you been living lately?"

      "I've been practically a teetotaller for years. My average time for bed is eleven o'clock. I certainly smoke a good deal if that's anything to do with it."

      "Nothing at all," said the doctor, briefly. "Have you been worrying about anything?"

      "I came in for my grandfather's money four months ago. Since then I've spent three months abroad, the happiest three months of my life."

      "And I can answer for the fourth month," said the doctor perplexedly. "Of course, a man, a perfectly sane and healthy man, might look in his mirror about twilight and imagine he saw what you say. If that happened a couple of times he would be predisposed to see the face afterwards pretty easily."

      But Adams shook his head and then suddenly passed an envelope across the table. He handled it with an extraordinary repulsion, as though it were something uncanny.

      Doctor Doyle took a small photo print from tile envelope and stared at it long and earnestly. It had evidently been snapped in front of the mirror and showed distinctly the two faces.

      Adams' eyes were dilated in an expression of horror that made him almost unrecognisable.

      As for the other face, it was merely a mask of human features, behind which, lurked something unspeakable horrible.

      The eyes, sombre and cruel-looking, evidently fascinated Adams, even as he shrank away in loathing. And, look as hard as he might, the doctor could not find the smallest trace of a body. It was a face, that was all.

      He passed back the photo silently, and Adams replaced it in his wallet.

      "I've an hour to spare," said Doyle presently. "Will you take me to your flat now."

      Adams rose instantly. "I'm only too glad to do anything that may help to clear the mystery," he said, as they descended the stairs. "If it goes on much longer I certainly shall go mad, whatever I may be now."

      "We'll fix it up before that happens. Now, as we go along, just let me ask a few questions. Have you an enemy?"

      "Not one, so far as I know."

      "Who is your best friend," asked Doyle cynically.

      "I think you are," replied Adams gratefully.

      "H'm! Who else?"

      "Teddy Saunders," was the prompt reply.

      "Your cousin, isn't he?"

      "Yes. I scarcely knew him until my grandfather died. Everybody thought he would get the dollars. In fact he gets them yet if I die unmarried."

      "And the fact of your getting the legacy he expected caused him to take a sudden liking to you?"

      "You put it in the wrong way," said Adams, in a hurt tone, "it brought us together, and I felt a great deal of sympathy for him and tried to show it. We were all sorry for him. He was engaged to be married to a girl, and everybody thought she was after the money and would desert him, but she stuck to him through it all. It was he who suggested I should travel for a few months, although he tried to give her the credit for the idea."

      "Does he know of your visit to me?" said Doyle, still half doubtingly.

      "It was his idea, absolutely his own idea that time," replied Adams eagerly. "You two are the only persons who know of this mirror affair."

      "He advised you to see me?"

      "Yes, but I would not go for a long time, until he positively worried me into it."

      "Does he know I've made a special study of these phantasmal manifestations?" persisted Doyle.

      "That was why he suggested you."

      Doyle could not find another word to say. His suspicions of Saunders were badly shaken, but even yet he was a man of great tenacity, and he refused to give them up altogether.

      The mirror stood up on a long ornamental shelf, and was heavily clamped to the wall. Doyle examined it thoroughly, and, in fact, went all round the room, but could not find the slightest sign of trickery. Then he asked Adams to stand in front of the mirror. The younger man shrugged his shoulders but complied.

      "You see the face will not appear."

      "When you don't expect it," snapped Doyle. "Does that convey anything to your mind?"

      "You mean that I imagine the whole business — that, expecting to see a face I evolve one out of my own subconsciousness."

      "It's quite possible."

      "Then what about the photo?"

      "That, also, is possible. These manifestations have been photographed in several cases."

      "I hope your view is correct, Doyle. But in the meantime ——"

      "I suppose it's no use advising you not to look in the mirror?"

      "Not a bit. The thing fascinates me and draws me closer, although I loathe it."

---

II.

      After several hours of hard thinking Doyle's opinion swung between two possibilities. Either Saunders was playing some low-down trick to revenge himself for the loss of the legacy, or possibly with a still more sinister motive, or else the face was a morbid creation of Adams' inner consciousness, a mental phantom, without any real existence.

      "But none the less horrible for the poor fellow for that reason," thought Doyle gravely. "I'll call and see him on my round of visits this afternoon."

      The short; winter day was beginning to show signs of coming shadows when he arrived at Adams' flat.

      He was not at home, but an elderly woman who was there doing a little cleaning invited Doyle in to await his return.

      "He'd never forgive me, Dr. Doyle, if I let you go without seeing him," she explained. "He'll surely be here in less than twenty minutes, if you'll wait. I'll get home now my work's finished."

      Doyle took a seat in a corner of the fast darkening room and began to brood over the case of his young friend. He hoped for Adams' own sake that the trouble originated with Saunders, because they would have a chance of catching him and putting a stop to it. But in the other event ——   Somehow, as he sat in his gloomy corner, almost buried in an arm-chair, with the uncanny mirror right facing him, the ghostly theory began to grow upon him. Once he sprang to his feet, and stared intently into the glass but he only saw his own face. Just at that moment he heard Adams running up the iron staircase in the street.

      His first impulse was to go along the hall to meet him, but a sudden idea caused him to step back into the room and bury himself in the easy-chair again.

      Adams entered the room briskly enough, and reached out his hand towards a silver match-stand. He was standing at that moment just in front of the mirror, and Doyle saw his body suddenly become rigid, with the right hand still outstretched to wards the matches.

      "He's hypnotising himself," he thought, nodding his head in the darkness, "quite unconsciously; this accounts for the whole business."

      Just to satisfy himself completely, he rose silently from his chair taking care that his own reflection should not cone within the scope of the mirror. But at the first glance he became aware, to his unutterable horror, that there were already two faces reflected, and the second was staring over Adams' shoulder, exactly as the latter had described it.

      Doyle was a man of extraordinary nerve and power, but this was utterly outside his experience. He found himself moistening his lips with his tongue and glancing nervously round the dark room as he did so.

      Apart from the monstrous fact of a bodyless face that could materialise in the empty air there was something indescribably sinister about the face itself. It was far worse than the photograph had led him to expect.

      His livid complexion and almost unhuman rigidity about the features made it look like a death-mask.

      For the second time that evening Doyle acted on a sudden impulse. His first idea was to spring forward to the aid of his friend, but instead of that he stepped silently to the door and down the gloomy hall. Then he turned and retraced his steps noisily.

      Adam turned a white, appealing face to him as he entered, but was quite beyond speech for the moment.

      "You're a careless sort of chap with your front door," said the doctor briskly. "But I guess you saw me coming."

      Adams opened his lips, but no sound came. The doctor seized him by the arm.

      "Look here," he said sympathetically, "I called in to ask how you were, but there's no need to ask. You're bad. You look as if you've been moping inside too much. Come out in my car a while. I've got it at the door."

      Adams allowed him to put his hat on for him, and led him down the street. As they stood on the sidewalk for a moment the doctor said casually, "How's that wonderful mirror going on? Been doing any more photographic games?"

      "I saw it again just before you came," said Adams, almost in a whisper.

      Doyle climbed into the car after him, scarcely knowing what to say. "I'll tell you this," he cried suddenly. "You'll see it again a few times maybe, but I'll bet you the best dinner this city can furnish that you've finished with it before the end of the month."

      "I hope so. I'll take your bet, anyhow doctor and hope you win."

      "Sure."

      They drove on in silence for some time after this. The doctor was evidently thinking out an idea he had. Once or twice, he glanced at Adams, as though hesitating whether to take him into his confidence but finally decided to work alone.

      "What are the terms of your grandfather's will, apart from leaving you his fortune?" he asked presently.

      "Haven't a notion beyond that I've got the dollars."

      "Then how do you know that your cousin will inherit if you die unmarried?"

      "He told me himself," said Adams warmly, "and advised me to look out for a wife. Or the other hand ——"

      "Yes," said Doyle eagerly.

      Adams shrugged his shoulders. "This is a most suspicious bit of evidence," he said solemnly. "Miss Marvin protested against his advising me to get married merely for the sake of the money. She said marriage was the most serious contract an honorable man or woman ever undertook, and so on. And she looked at that lucky man, Saunders, in a way nobody ever looked at me," concluded Adams, with a real seriousness.

      "That reminds me," he added, "that I promised to dine with him this evening."

      "And that reminds me," returned Doyle, "that I have to make a call down town. Will you come?"

      "If you'll excuse me, I'll leave you here. You've been very kind, and I feel heaps better."

      "You'll be better still before the end of the month. Well off you go. Shall you be at home to-morrow afternoon if I call?"

      "I'll wait in."

      "Well, I'll call about 3 — not before."

---

III.

      When Doyle set out for Adams' flat on the following afternoon his mind was still oscillating between the same two explanations of the mystery as at first.

      After the evidence of what he himself had seen, he 'had veered strongly towards the view that the face was the result of an extraordinarily strong auto-suggestion, so strong as actually to materialise human thought.

      Against this he had discovered, by an inspection of the will, that two conditions, and not one, were expressly mentioned, under either of which Saunders was to inherit. The second, which the latter had apparently concealed, was the event of Adams becoming insane.

      "Which a very little more of this horrible business will make him," thought Doyle grimly, as he reached the flat.

      Adams welcomed him with suspicious eagerness, found him an easy-chair, and cut a cigar for him.

      "Seen anything lately?" said the doctor, nodding curtly towards the mirror.

      "Oh, no. It seldom appears in daylight. Only once or twice, when I snapped it, you know. Its favorite time appears to be just as darkness is creeping over the room, say, in about an hour from now. I see it then most every day."

      "You're beginning to look out for it," thought the doctor gravely. "It's getting a hold on you."

      But instead of speaking his thoughts he turned the conversation to general matters. As he rose to go, about 4 o'clock, he said half jokingly —

      "I suppose when I've gone you'll have a look at your wonderful mirror before you light the gas?"

      "Sure," said Adams gloomily. "Although I know perfectly well it's getting a dangerous fascination for me. There's only one end, I suppose."

      "And that isn't far off," replied his friend. "You won't be troubled much longer with this affair. But I must be going. Don't come to the door, I'll pull it to as I go."

      "Thank you," said Adams, absent-mindedly. He was already glancing eagerly towards the mirror, only waiting for the doctor to go.

      As for the latter, he strode briskly down the hall, which was in darkness, opened the street door, and closed it with a bang, remaining in the hall whilst he did so.

      His next movement was to draw a pen knife across his bootlaces and remove his boots.

      Then, in his stockinged feet, he trod swiftly and silently back to the room, passing along the wall to the arm-chair he had occupied on the previous day.

      Adams was already standing in front of the mirror. Doyle, rising noiselessly, saw again the hideous, mask-like face staring over the shoulder of his friend. But this time he turned his eyes to the opposite wall and could scarcely repress a cry of joy at what he saw.

      A small trap-door had been excavated behind a picture, the latter being held to one side by some automatic arrangement. The opening was just large enough to admit the face which appeared to be covered with a kind of phosphorescent paint. The owner of the face was presumably in the next flat.

      In his younger days Doyle had been the heavy-weight champion of his college, with a famous lightning drive from the shoulder that rarely failed to convince his opponents. With some recollection of this he sprang swiftly to the front of the trap and drove his fist, with 14 stone behind it, right into the face.

      Adams turned with a sharp scream, and Doyle prepared to complete his victory.

      "You see what the trick was," he cried. "Now come along next door. We won't trouble about the back way out, because I don't think that chap will want to move for a time. We've got him right enough."

      "Do you know who it was?" asked Adams nervously as he opened the front door.

      "No, I don't. We won't trouble with their door, this window is easy enough. If I give you a lift, can you smash a pane and unfasten the catch?"

      Instead of replying, Adams clutched his companion’s arm and pointed down the street. About 50 yards away, just passing beneath a lamp, a man was coming leisurely along.

      "It's Saunders," cried Adams, almost hysterically, "Teddy Saunders! You thought he was doing this, but I knew better." He lifted his voice suddenly in a joyous call to his friend, heedless of who heard him. "Teddy! Teddy! Come along, quick. We'll have him in with us," he said excitedly, and began to wave his arms again towards Saunders, who had broken into a run when he heard himself called.

      A few words were sufficient to explain matters. The doctor, who said nothing but watched the new comer closely, was bound to admit that he certainly looked innocent enough.

      Adams climbed into the flat and helped his friends after him. The three men found themselves in a room that was quite unfurnished except for the window curtains.

      "It's the next room," said Adams, and they dashed into the hall. There was a sudden scuffling as they turned the corner and entered the second room.

      This was partly furnished, but the lights were all switched off except one.

      "There he is," cried Doyle, and was on his knees with all his indignation gone in an instant, and only his professional instincts alive.

      The man who lay groaning on the floor beneath the trap was certainly in a bad way.

      "Some water," said the doctor briefly. "Warm water, and a sponge."

      Adams had it for him in a moment, and the doctor sponged the bruised face. As he did so Saunders suddenly uttered a cry of amazement. The injured man recognised him with a sudden flush.

      "Yes, its me right enough," he said doggedly. "But we were doing it for you as much as ourselves."

      "You say 'we,'" said Saunders hoarsely. "Who else? Who's with you?"

      "Best leave it with me."

      But Saunders sprang forward and shook him in an absolute frenzy. The next moment he staggered back to the nearest chair and buried his face in his hands.

      "I know," he whispered, as though speaking to himself. "I know who it is."

      Marvin raised himself to a sitting position. He looked at the man who was to have married his sister with an extraordinary mixture of contempt and respect.

      "Come closer," he said. "I've something to say." And then, as Saunders stooped towards him, he whispered. "She's hiding in the kitchen. If you can get her away, I'll stand for this alone."

      "For myself," said the doctor as though he had not heard the last remark, "I think all's well that ends well. I propose we two return to your flat Adams, and perhaps Mr. Saunders will follow later."

      "I agree," said Adams, "on one condition, and that is that you'll come travelling with me a while, Teddy. I want to do Europe, and I want my best friend with me."

      Saunders gripped the outstretched hand almost passionately, but could not speak. He remained motionless until the street door banged, apparently lost in the saddest thoughts.

      Then he went into the kitchen, closing the door behind him.

originally from:     
— "Yes or No"