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Next, Tanuma rigged up a gigantic kaleidoscope which seemed to fill the entire length of his laboratory. This was rotated by a motor, and with each rotation of the giant cylinder the mammoth flower patterns of the kaleidoscope would change in form and hue—red, pink, purple, green, vermilion, black—like the flowers of an opium addict's dream. And Tanuma himself would crawl into the cylinder, dancing there crazily among the flowers, his stark naked body and limbs multiplying like the petals of the flowers, making it seem as if he too were one of the flowery features of the kaleidoscope.

Nor did his madness end here—far from it. His fantastic creations multiplied rapidly, each on a larger scale than the previous one. Until about this time I had still believed that he was partly sane; but finally even I had to admit he had completely lost his mind. And shortly thereafter came the terrible, tragic climax.

One morning I was suddenly awakened by an excited messenger from Tanuma's house.

"A terrible thing has happened! Miss Kimiko wants you to come immediately!" the messenger cried, his face white as a sheet of rice-paper.

"What's the matter?" I asked, hurriedly getting into my clothes.

"We don't know yet," exclaimed the servant. "But for God's sake, come with me at once!"

I tried to question the servant further, but he was so incoherent that I gave up and hurried as fast as I could to Tanuma's laboratory.

Entering that eerie place, the first person I saw was Kimiko, the attractive young parlormaid whom Tanuma had made his mistress. Near her stood several of the other maids, all huddled together and gazing horror-struck at a large spherical object reposing in the center of the room.

This sphere was about twice as large as the ball on which circus clowns often balance themselves. The exterior was completely covered with white cloth. What terrified me was the fantastic way this sphere kept rolling slowly and haphazardly, as if it were alive. Far more terrible, however, was the strange noise that echoed faintly from the interior of the ball—it was a laugh, a spine-chilling laugh that seemed to come from the throat of a creature from some other world.

"What—what's going on? What in the world is happening?" I asked the stunned group.

"We—we don't know," one of the maids replied dazedly. "We think our master's inside. But we can't do anything. We've called several times, but there's been no answer except the weird laughter you hear now."

Hearing this, I approached the sphere gingerly, trying to find out how the sounds got out of the sphere. Soon I discovered several small air holes. Pressing my eye to one of these small openings, I peered inside; but I was blinded by a brilliant light and could see nothing clearly. However, I did ascertain one thing—there was a creature inside!

"Tanuma! Tanuma!" I called out several times, putting my mouth against the hole. But the same weird laughter was all that I could hear.

Not knowing what to do next, I stood, uncertainly watching the ball roll about. And then suddenly I noticed the thin lines of a square partition on the smooth exterior surface. I realized at once that this was a door, allowing entry into the sphere. "But if it's a door, where's the knob?" I asked myself. Examining the door carefully, I saw a small screw-hole which must have held some kind of a handle.

At the sight of this I was struck by a terrible thought. "It's quite possible," I told myself, "that the handle has accidentally come loose, trapping inside whoever it is that entered the sphere. If so, the man must have spent the entire night inside, unable to get out."

Searching the floor of the laboratory, I soon found a T-shaped handle. I tried to fit it to the hole, but it would not work, for the stem was broken.

I could not understand why in the world the man inside —if indeed it was a man—didn't shout and scream for help instead of letting out those weird chuckles and laughs. "Maybe," I suddenly reminded myself with a start, "Tanuma is inside and has gone