"It's long odds that the Great Unknown will," Godfrey retorted, and
bade me good-bye.
Except for that chance meeting, I saw nothing of him, and in this I
was disappointed, for there were many things about the whole affair
which I did not understand. In fact, when I sat down of an evening
and lit my pipe and began to think it over, I found that I understood
nothing at all. Godfrey's theory held together perfectly, so far as I
could see, but it led nowhere. How had Drouet and Vantine been
killed? Why had they been killed? What was the secret of the cabinet?
In a word, what was all this mystery about? Not one of these
questions could I answer; and the solutions I guessed at seemed so
absurd that I dismissed them in disgust. In the end, I found that the
affair was interfering with my work, and I banished it from my mind,
turning my face resolutely away from it whenever it tried to break
into my thoughts.
But though I could shut it out of my waking hours successfully
enough, I could not control my sleeping ones, and my dreams became
more and more horrible. Always there was the serpent with dripping
fangs, sometimes with Armand's head, sometimes with a face unknown to
me, but hideous beyond description; its slimy body glittered with
inlay and arabesque; its scaly legs were curved like those of the
Boule cabinet; sometimes the golden sun glittered on its forehead
like a great eye.
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