The Blind Spot | Page 5

could it be? He remembered the cigar clerk. Neither cigar nor sun! From
what manner of land could the man come? A detective has a certain gift of intuition.
Though on the face of it, outside of the man's personality, there could be nothing to it but
a joke, he chose to act upon the impulse. He pulled back the door which had been closed
behind them and re- entered the boat. When he returned the boat had arrived at the pier.
"You are going to Oakland?"
It was a chance question.
"No, to Berkeley. I take a train here, I understand. Do all the trains go to Berkeley?"
"By no means. I am going to Berkeley myself. We can ride together. My name is Jerome.
Albert Jerome."
"Thanks. Mine is Avec. Rhamda Avec. I am much obliged. Your company may be
instructive."
He did not say more, but watched with unrestrained interest their manoeuvre into the slip.
A moment later they were marching with the others down the gangways to the trains
waiting. Just as they were seated and the electric train was pulling out of the pier the sun
breaking through the mist blazed with splendid light through the cloud rifts. The stranger
was next to the window where he could look out over the water and beyond at the citied
shoreline, whose sea of housetops extended and rose to the peaks of the first foothills.
The sun was just coming over the mountains.
The detective watched. There was sincerity in the man's actions. It was not acting. When
the light first broke he turned his eyes full into the radiance. It was the act of a child and,
so it struck the officer, of the same trust and simplicity--and likewise the same effect. He
drew away quickly: for the moment blinded.
"Ah!" he said. "It is so. This is the sun. Your sun is wonderful!"
"Indeed it is," returned the other. "But rather common. We see it every day. It's the whole
works, but we get used to it. For myself I cannot see anything strange in the 'sun's still
shining.' You have been blind, Mr. Avec? Pardon the question. But I must naturally infer.

You say you have never seen the sun. I suppose--"
He stopped because of the other's smile; somehow it seemed a very superior one, as if
predicting a wealth of wisdom.
"My dear Mr. Jerome," he spoke, "I have never been blind in my life. I say it is wonderful!
It is glorious and past describing. So is it all, your water, your boats, your ocean. But I
see there is one thing even stranger still. It is yourselves. With all your greatness you are
only part of your surroundings. Do you know what is your sun?"
"Search me," returned the officer. "I'm no astronomer. I understand they don't know
themselves. Fire, I suppose, and a hell of a hot one! But there is one thing that I can tell."
"And this--"
"Is the truth."
If he meant it for insinuation it was ineffective. The other smiled kindly. In the fine effect
of the delicate features, and most of all in the eyes was sincerity. In that face was the
mark of genius--he felt it--and of a potent superior intelligence. Most of all did he note
the beauty and the soft, silky superlustre of the eyes.
We have the whole thing from Jerome, at least this part of it; and our interest being
retrospect is multiplied far above that of the detective. The stranger had a certain call of
character and of appearance, not to say magnetism. The officer felt himself almost
believing and yet restraining himself into caution of unbelief. It was a remark
preposterous on the face of it. What puzzled Jerome was the purpose; he could think of
nothing that would necessitate such statements and acting. He was certain that the man
was sane.
In the light of what came after great stress has been laid by a certain class upon this
incident. We may say that we lean neither way. We have merely given it in some detail
because of that importance. We have yet no proof of the mystic and until it is proved, we
must lean, like Jerome, upon the cold material. We have the mystery, but, even at that, we
have not the certainty of murder.
Understand, it was intuition that led Jerome into that memorable trip to Berkeley; he
happened to be going off duty and was drawn to the man by a chance incident and the
fact of his personality. At this minute, however, he thought no more of him than as an
eccentric, as some refined, strange wonderful gentleman with a whim for his own brand
of humour. Only that could explain it.