Mr. Guest had visited his victim and had gone.
Supper was over. Beef-tea and phosphorous! and Mr. Guest had said his mocking words of good-night.
"Sleep well, Mr. Rathbone! I shall not be compelled to ask you to wear that pretty metal cap until to-morrow, so I won't turn out the light. You have a book to read, you've had your supper, and I wish you a pleasant time alone. No doubt you will occupy your leisure in thinking of Miss Marjorie Poole. You'll recall that occasion in a certain room hung with pink, when you kissed her by the side of the piano in the white and gold case! I know you often recall that happy incident."
He had closed the heavy steel door with a last chuckle of malice and power, leaving the prisoner white and shaking with fear. How did this sinister and devilish gaoler know his intimate thoughts?
He groaned deeply, and then, as he had done a thousand times before, gazed round the place in which he was in terror-struck amazement. Where was he?Whatwas this horrible prison with all its strange contrivances, its inexplicable mysteries?
He was in a large stone cell, brilliantly lit at this moment by two incandescent electric bulbs in the vaulted ceiling far above his head. A long time ago now, how long he could not have said, he was Gerald Rathbone, a man living in the world, seeing the sunlight and breathing the air of day. He had been Gerald Rathbone, moving honourably among his fellow men, seeing human faces, hearing the music of human voices, an accepted lover, and a happy man.
That was long ago, a dream, a vision which was fading away. It seemed years since he had heard any voice but that of the pink, hairless man who fed him and whose slave he had become.
Once more the prisoned thing that had been Gerald Rathbone gazed round the cell, striving with terrible intensity of thought to understand it and penetrate its mysteries. Here he had been put and here he had remained ever since that sickening moment when he had been talking to Sir William Gouldesbrough. He had been standing in front of the baronet, when his arms had been gripped from behind and unseen fingers held a damp cloth, with a faint sickly and aromatic smell, over his face. A noise like the rushing of great waters sounded in his ears, there was a sense of falling into a gulf of enveloping blackness.
He had awakened in the place which he was now surveying again, with frightful and fascinated curiosity.
In the brilliant light of the electric bulbs every object in the cell was clearly seen. The place was not small. It was oblong in shape, some sixteen feet by twelve. The walls were built of heavy slabs of Portland stone cemented together with extreme nicety and care. The door of the cell was obviously new. It was a heavy steel door with a complicated system of locks—very much like the door of a safe. The whole place, indeed, suggested that it had been used as a strong-room at some time or other. There was no window of any kind in the cell. In the centre of the arched roof there was a barred ventilator, and close by an electric fan whirled and whispered unceasingly. The sound made by the purring thing as it revolved two thousand times a minute was almost the only sound Gerald Rathbone heard now.
The floor of the cell was covered with cork carpet of an ordinary pattern. The victim cast his glance on all this without interest. Then, as if he did so unwillingly, but by the force of an attraction he could not resist, he stared, with lively doubt and horror rippling over his face, at something which stood against the opposite wall. He saw a long narrow couch of some black wood, slanting upwards towards the head. The couch stood upon four thick pedestals of red rubber, which in their turn rested upon four squares of thick porcelain. The whole thing had the appearance of a shallow box upon trestles, and at the head was a curious pillow of india-rubber. At the side of this thick pad was a collar-shaped circlet of vulcanite clamped between two arms of aluminium, which moved in any direction upon ball-pivots.
He stared at this mysterious couch, trying to understand it, to realize it.
He rose from the narrow bed on which he sat, and advanced to the centre of the cell—to the centre, but no further than that.
Around his waist a circlet of light steel was welded, and from it thin steel chains ran through light handcuffs upon his wrists, and were joined to steel bands which were locked upon his ankles. And all these chains, hardly thicker than stout watch-chains, but terribly strong, were caught up to a pulley that hung far above his head and, in its turn, gave its central chain to another pulley and swivel fixed in the roof.
In the half of his cell where his little bed was fixed, the prisoner had fair liberty of movement, despite his shackles. He could sit or lie, use his hands with some freedom. But whenever he attempted to cross the invisible line which divided one part of the cell from the other, the chains tightened and forbade him.
He stood now, straining to the limit of his bonds, gazing at the long couch of black wood, with its rubber feet, its clamps and collar at the head.
Above the mysterious couch, upon a triangular shelf by the door, was something that gleamed and shone brightly. It was a cap of metal, shaped like a huge acorn cup, or a bishop's mitre. From an ivory stud in the centre of the peak, coils of silk-covered wire ran to a china plug in the wall.
Rathbone stood upright for several minutes gazing at these things. Then with a long, hopeless sigh, to the accompanying jingle of his fetters, he turned and sat down once more upon his bed.
As prisoners do, he had contracted the habit of talking aloud to himself. It was a poor comfort—this mournful echo of one's own voice!—but it seemed to make the profound solitude more bearable for a moment. He began a miserable monologue now.
"Imustunderstand it!" he said. "That is the first step of all, if I am to keep my brain, if there is ever to be the slightest chance of escape, I must understand this terrible and secret business.
"What are these fiends doing to me?
"Let me go through the whole thing slowly and in order."
He began to reconstruct the scenes of his frequent torture, with the logic and precision with which he would have worked out a proposition of Euclid. It was the only way in which he could keep a grip upon a failing mind; a logical process of thought alone could solve this horrid mystery.
What happened every day, sometimes two or three times a day? Just this. He would be lying on his bed, reading, perhaps, if the electric lights were turned on. There would be a sudden creak and rattle of the big pulleys high up in the roof, a rattle which came without any warning whatever.
Then the central chain, to which all the other thinner chains were fastened, would begin to tighten and move. Slowly, inch by inch, as if some one were turning a winch-handle outside the cell, the chain wound up into the roof. As it did so, the smaller chains, which were fixed to the steel bands upon his limbs, tightened also.
Struggle as he might, the arrangements and balance of the weights were so perfect that in less than a minute he would be swinging clear of the bed, as helpless as a bale of goods at the end of a crane.
Then the upward movement of the chain would stop, the door open with a clicking of its massive wards, and Guest would come in.
In a moment more Gerald always found himself swung on to the long black couch. His neck was encircled by the collar of thick vulcanite, his head was bent upwards by means of an india-rubber pillow beneath it, his hands and feet were strapped to the framework of the couch.
And finally Guest would take the metal cap and fix it firmly upon his head, pressed down to the very eyes so that he could in no way shake it off. The man would leave the cell, sometimes with a chuckle or a malicious sentence that seemed full of hidden meaning, sometimes in silence.
And then the electric light invariably went out.
Rathbone never knew how long he was forced to remain thus in the dark, the subject of some horrible experiment, at the nature of which he could only guess. The period seemed to vary, but there was no possible test of time. Long ago time had ceased to exist for him.
Release would come at last, release, food and light—and so the dreadful silent days went on.
"What are these devils doing to me?"
The hollow voice of reverie and self-communing cut into the silence like a knife.
"It must be that I am being made the victim of an awful revenge and hatred. Charliewood was the decoy and tool of Gouldesbrough; it was all planned from the first. Marjorie was never really relinquished by Gouldesbrough. He meant all along to get me out of the way, to get Marjorie back if he could. All this is clear enough. I thought I was dealing with an honourable gentleman, and a great man, too great to stoop even to anything petty or mean. I have been dealing with desperate and secret criminals, people who live hideous double lives, who walk the world and sit in high places and do unnameable evil in the dark. Yes! That is clear enough. Even now, perhaps, my darling is once more in the power of this monster Gouldesbrough!"
The thin voice failed and died away into a tortured whimper. The tall form shook with agony and the rattle of the steel chains mingled with the "purr," "purr" of the electric fan in the roof.
By a tremendous effort of will Rathbone clutched at his thoughts again. He wrenched his mind back from the memory of his dreadful plight to the solving of the mystery.
Till he had some glimmering of themeaningof what was being done to him, he was entirely hopeless and helpless.
He began to murmur to himself again.
"In the first place Gouldesbrough has got me out of the way successfully. I have disappeared from the world of men, the field is clear for him. But he has not killed me. For some reason or other, dangerous though it must be for him, he is keeping me alive. It surely would have been safer for him to have murdered me in this secret place, and buried me beneath the stone flags here? I am forced to conclude that he is keeping me for an even worse revenge than that of immediate extinction. It is torture enough to imprison me like this, of course. But, if the man is what I feel he is—not man, but devil—would he not have tortured me in another way before now? There are dreadful pains that fiends can make the body suffer. One has read of unbearable agonies in old books, in the classics. Yet nothing of the sort has been done to me yet, and I have been long in this prison. My food has been plentiful and of good quality, even definitely stimulating I have thought at times.
"It is obvious then that I am not to be subjected to any of the horrors one has read of. Whatisbeing done to me? when, each day, I am fixed rigidly upon that couch, and the brass helmet is put upon my head, what is going on? I cannot feel any sensation out of the ordinary when I am tied down there. I am no weaker in body, my faculties are just as unimpaired when I am released as they were before. At least it seems so to me. I can discover no change in me either, mental or physical.
"Something is being done by means of electricity. The coils of wire that lead from the helmet to the plug in the wall show that. The way in which the couch is insulated, the vulcanite collar, the rubber pillow, all lead to the same conclusion. At first I thought that a torturing current of electricity was to be directed into the brain. That my faculties, my very soul itself, were to be dissolved and destroyed by some subtle means. But it is not so. There is no current coming to me through the wire. Nowhere does my head touch metal, the cap is lined throughout with rubber. But yesterday, as my gaoler held up the helmet to examine it before putting it on my head, I had an opportunity of seeing the whole interior for the first time.
"There was very little to see! At the top was a circular orifice which seemed to be closed by a thin disc of some shining material. That was all. It looked just like the part of a telephone into which one speaks. My brain, my body, are not being acted upon. Nothing is being slowly instilled into my being.Can it be that anything is being taken away?"
He bent his head upon his hands and groaned in agony. All was dark and impenetrable, there was no solution, no help. He was in the grip of merciless men, in the clutch of the unknown.
The electric light in the cell went out suddenly.
If Sir William Gouldesbrough represented all that was most brilliant, modern, and daring in the scientific world of Europe, Lord Malvin stood as its official figure-head. He was the "grand old man" of science, and was regarded by every one as a final court of appeal in all such matters.
He was of a great age, almost eighty, in fact, yet his health was perfect, his intellect unimpaired, and his interest in human events as keen and vigorous as that of a man but half his age and in the full prime and meridian of life.
In science, he represented what the President of the Royal Academy represents in art, or the Lord Chief Justice in the law, and although he had almost ceased independent investigations, he was always appealed to and consulted when anything new and revolutionary in science was discovered or promulgated by any of the younger men.
The younger men themselves, while allowing their chief's vast knowledge and experience, his real and undeniable eminence, were apt to call him conservative, and to hint that he was of an alien generation. They would say that his judgment was sometimes obscured by his veneration and love for the past, and because he found himself unable to leap so rapidly to conclusions as they did, they put him down as an old fogey who had done valuable and remarkable work in his time, but who ought to be content with his peerage and immense fortune and retire to the planting of cabbages or the growing of roses in the country.
In the public eye, nevertheless, Lord Malvin remained as familiar and necessary a part of the English landscape as St. Paul's; and, whenever a great man died and the newspapers enumerated the few remaining veterans of the Commonwealth, Lord Malvin was usually the first to be mentioned.
For many years there had been an antagonism between Lord Malvin and Sir William Gouldesbrough. It was not personal so much as scientific, an abstract and intellectual antagonism. When Sir William's star first began to rise above the horizon—he was only Mr. Gouldesbrough then—Lord Malvin had recognized his talent as an inventor, but deprecated many of his theories. These ideas, these possibilities for the future which Gouldesbrough was fond of giving to the world in lectures and reviews, seemed horribly dangerous, subversive, and fantastic to the older man.
He said so in no uncertain voice, and for some years, though he was always kind and civil to Gouldesbrough, he certainly did much to discount the rising star's power of illumination.
But as time went on, each daring theory put forth by Gouldesbrough passed into the realm of actual fact. Lord Malvin saw that Sir William had been almost invariably right. He saw that the new man not only told the world that some day this or that marvel would come to pass, but immediately afterwards set to work and himself made it come to pass!
Lord Malvin was a noble man as well as a nobleman—sometimes a rare combination to-day—and he confessed himself in the wrong. Directly he saw that he had been mistaken, and that Sir William was no charlatan, but one of the most daring and brilliant scientists the world had ever known, the peer gave the newer man all the weight of his support. Nevertheless, while forced by circumstance and Gouldesbrough's justification of his own ideas into a scientific brotherhood, Lord Malvin, who constantly met the other, found a new problem confronting him.
While he had not believed in Gouldesbrough's theories, Lord Malvin had rather liked him personally.
Now that he was compelled to believe in Gouldesbrough's theories, Lord Malvin found that he experienced a growing dislike for the man himself. And as he was a fair and honourable man, Lord Malvin did everything he possibly could to rid himself of this prejudice, with the result that while his efforts to do so were quite unavailing, he redoubled his kindness and attentions to the man he disliked.
All the scientific world knew that Sir William was perfecting some marvellous discovery. In Berlin, Paris, Petersburg, Vienna, and Buda Pesth, learned savants were writing to theirconfrèresin London to know what this might be. The excitement was intense, the rumours were endless, and it is not too much to say that the whole scientific intellect of the globe was roused and waiting.
Now when a number of leading brains are agitated upon one subject, something of that agitation begins to stir and move in the outside world.
Already some hints had got about, and the press of Europe and America was scenting some extraordinary news.
The whole business had at length culminated in the giving of a great reception by Lord Malvin.
Everybody who mattered was asked, not only in the scientific but also in the general world.
And everybody knew, that not only was the reception given in Sir William Gouldesbrough's honour, but that he would say something more or less definite about what he had in hand.
In short, a pronouncement was to be made, and the ears of every one were tingling to hear it.
Among the idle and frivolous section of society the promised revelation had become the topic of the hour. Everything else was quite forgotten. Gerald Rathbone's disappearance was already a thing of the past. Eustace Charliewood's suicide had not lasted for the proverbial nine days as a subject of talk. But here was somethingquitenew! Something all the more attractive because of its mystery.
Some people said that Sir William had invented a way in which any one might become invisible for a few pence.
This suggested delightful possibilities to every one, save only the newly rich, whose whole endeavour was to be seen.
On the other hand there was a considerable section of people who asserted that Sir William had succeeded in supplying the lesion in the brain of the ape, and that now that intelligent animal would be able to talk, own property, and become recognized as a British citizen. Every one began to read theJungle Bookagain, and a serious proposal was made in an Imperialistic Journal that England might thus colonize and secure the unexplored forests of Central Africa, by means of drilling and civilizing the monkeys of the interior.
A Gorilla-General was to be appointed, who should know the English language, but no other, and it was thought that by this means the British dominions and population would be enormously increased. The "Smart Set" especially welcomed this recruitment of their numbers.
In city circles both these conjectures were scouted.
The well-informed insisted that Sir William had discovered a method of solidifying alcohol, so that in future one would buy one's whiskey in chunks, and one's champagne in sticks like barley sugar.
Lord Malvin lived in Portland Place, in one of those great stone houses which, however sombre without, are generally most pleasant and attractive within. He was unmarried, and his niece Dorothea Backhouse acted as hostess and generally controlled his domestic affairs.
The stately rooms were crowded with well-known people of all sorts and conditions. Yet this assembly differed from others in a marked manner. All the society people who lived solely for amusement had been invited, and were there. But mingled with the butterflies, one saw the ants and bees. By the carefully groomed, and not ill-looking face of a young and fashionable man about town, could be seen the domed forehead, and the face gashed and scored with thought, of some great savant or deep thinker.
It was indeed an unusual assemblage that passed through the large and brilliant rooms, laughing and talking. In the blue drawing-room, Kubelik had just arrived and was beginning to play. Every one crushed in to hear the young maestro. Melba was to sing a song, perhaps two, later on in the evening, and the ball-room was filled with supper-tables.
In so much Lord Malvin's party did not differ in any way from that of any other famous and wealthy London host. There was the same light and sparkle of jewels. The warm air was laden with perfume, the same beautiful and tired faces moved gracefully among all this luxury. But the men and women who worked and thought for the world were in this Portland Place palace also. They talked together in eager and animated groups, they paid little or no attention to this or that delight which had been provided for them. All these things were phantoms and unreal to these people. The real things were taking place within the brain as they conversed together. The army of intellect was massing within the citadel of thought, to wrest new territory from the old queen nature, mistress of the kingdom of the unknown.
Lord Malvin and his niece had received their guests at the head of the grand staircase. Now, when almost every one had arrived, the great scientist had withdrawn to an inner room at the end of a long series of apartments, and stood there talking with a small knot of friends.
This inner drawing-room was the culminating part of the suite, the throne room as it were; and the people standing there could look down a long and crowded vista of light and movement, while the yearning and sobbing of Kubelik's violin came to their ears in gusts and throbs of delicious sound.
Lord Malvin, a tall, upright old man with a long white beard, a high white brow beneath his velvet skull-cap, and wearing a row of orders, was talking to Sir Harold Oliver. Sir Harold was the principal of a great Northern University, a slim, hard-faced man of middle age, and the pioneer in the movement which was allowing a place to both philosophy and psychology in modern science.
A third person stood there also, a youngish man of middle height, Mr. Donald Megbie, the well-known journalist and writer on social and religious matters. Donald Megbie held rather a curious position in the literary world. He was the friend of many great people, and more often than not his pen was the vehicle chosen by them to first introduce their ideas and discoveries to the general public. When it was time to let the man in the street know of some stupendous discovery, Megbie was called in, and his articles, always brilliant and interesting, explained the matter in popular terms for the non-technical mind.
"So Gouldesbrough has not yet come?" Sir Harold Oliver said.
"Not yet," Lord Malvin answered. "I have had a telegram from him, however, to say that he is compelled to be rather later than he had expected. I have told the butler to wait in the hall for him, and to bring him straight through here directly he arrives."
"A remarkable man," said Mr. Megbie, in that low and pleasant voice which had become so familiar in high places—even in the private rooms of cabinet ministers it was said—during the last few years.
"A man none of us can afford to ignore," Sir Harold answered with a slight sigh of impatience.
Megbie smiled.
"My dear Donald," Sir Harold went on, "please don't smile in that superior sort of manner. I know what you are thinking. You're thinking 'how these scientists love one another.' You are accusing me of envy, jealousy and uncharitableness. I'm not jealous of Gouldesbrough, great as his attainments are, and I'm sure I don't envy him."
"Any one might be forgiven a little envy on such an occasion as this," Megbie answered. "I confess that if I thought every one of importance in London were met together in Lord Malvin's house to welcomeme, to hear whatIwas going to do next, I should be rather more than pleased."
Lord Malvin smiled kindly, but the noble old face grew sad for a moment.
"Ah!" he said, "you are young, Mr. Megbie. I thought as you think when I was your age. But one finds out the utter worthlessness of fame and applause and so on, as one grows older. The work itself is the thing! Yes! There, and therein only, lies the reward. All else is vain and hollow. I am a very old man, and I am near my end. I suppose I may say that such honours as can be given have fallen to my share. Yet I can honestly say that I would give them all up, I would efface myself utterly if I thought that I was on the brink of the discovery which I believe William Gouldesbrough has made and will tell us something of to-night!"
The other two started. A deep note of seriousness had come into the voice of the venerable old man. It portended something, something vast and far-reaching, and they all stood silent for a moment occupied with their own thoughts.
The distant music of piano and violin rose higher and higher in keen vibrating melody. There was a note of triumph in it which seemed to accentuate the gravity and importance of Lord Malvin's words. The triumphant notes of the man who was coming were singing and ringing through the halls and chambers of this great house!
The music ceased suddenly, and there was a great clapping of hands.
At that moment the three men waiting in the inner room saw a tall, black figure moving towards them, the figure of a man on whom people were beginning to press and converge, a figure that smiled, bowed, stopped continually to shake hands and receive greetings, and made a slow progress towards them.
Sir William Gouldesbrough, the man of the future, radiant, honoured and successful, was arriving to greet Lord Malvin, the man of the past.
So Sir William Gouldesbrough passed through the crowds of friends and acquaintances who crowded round him in a welter of curiosity and congratulation, and came into the inner room, where Lord Malvin, Sir Harold Oliver and Mr. Donald Megbie were waiting to receive him.
Tall, suave, and self-contained, he bowed and shook hands. Then there was a moment's pause—they were waiting for him to speak, expectant of what he should say.
"I am sorry, Lord Malvin," he began, "that I have arrived so late at your party. But I was conducting an experiment, and when I was half-way through I found that it was going to lead me much further than I thought. You know how that happens sometimes?"
"Perfectly, Sir William, and the fact is a scientist's greatest pleasure very often. Now, may I ask you—you will excuse an old man's impatience—may I ask you if you have finally succeeded? When I last saw you the composition of the spectrum presented a difficulty."
"That I have now completely overcome, Lord Malvin."
Lord Malvin trembled, actually trembled with excitement. "Then the series of experiments is complete?"
"Quite. And more than that, I have done, not once or twice but many times, exactly what I told you I hoped to do. The thing, my lord, is an accomplished fact, indisputable—certain!"
Lord Malvin turned to Sir Harold Oliver and Megbie.
"Gentlemen," he said in a clear voice but full of a profound emotion. "The history of life is changed. We all must stand in a new relation to each other, to society and to the world."
Donald Megbie knew that here was a chance of his literary lifetime. Lord Malvin would never have spoken in this way without due consideration and absolute conviction. Something very big indeed was in the air. But what was it? The journalist had not an idea as yet.
He looked eagerly at the aquiline, ascetic face of the inventor, marked the slight smile of triumph that lingered round the lips, and noted how the eyes shone, brilliantly, steadily, as if they were lighted up from behind. Megbie had seen many men in many countries.
And as he looked keenly at Sir William Gouldesbrough two thoughts came into his mind. One was something like this—"You are certainly one of the most intellectual and remarkable men now living. You are unique, and you stand upon a pedestal of fame that only one man in several generations ever reaches. All the same, I shouldn't like to be in your power or to stand in your way!" And moreover the question came to the quick analytic brain of the writer whether the brilliance of those lamp-like eyes was wholly natural, was wholly sane.
These twin thoughts were born and over in a flash, and even as he thought of them Megbie began to speak.
"Now that Lord Malvin has told us so much, Sir William," he said, "won't you tell us some more? I suppose you know that all the world is waiting for a pronouncement?"
"The world will know very soon, Mr. Megbie," Gouldesbrough answered pleasantly. "In about a fortnight's time I am sending out some invitations to some of our leading people to witness the result of my experiments in my laboratories. I hope I may have the pleasure of seeing you there also. But if you wish it, I will certainly give you a slight idea of the work. Since the public seem interested in what I am doing, and something seems to have leaked out, I am quite willing that they should know more. And of course there is no one to whom I would rather say anything than yourself."
Megbie bowed. He was tremendously excited. Brother writers who did not make a tenth of his income and had not a quarter of his eminence were wont to say that his ears twitched when in the presence of a great celebrity. This no doubt was calumny, but the journalist stood in an attitude of strained attention—as well a man might stand when the secret of the hour was about to be revealed to him in preference to all other men.
Gouldesbrough bowed to Lord Malvin.
"I'm going to have half-an-hour's conversation with Mr. Megbie," he said. "Meanwhile, my lord, I wonder if you would give Sir Harold Oliver a slight technical outline of my processes? And of course, as I understand this is to be in some sense a night on which your friends are to be given some general information, I shall place myself entirely in your hands as to any revelations you may think proper to make."
He moved off with the journalist, leaving the two other men already fallen into deep talk.
"Where shall we go, Mr. Megbie?" he said, as they came out into a large room hung with old Flemish tapestry and full of people.
"There is a little conservatory down a corridor here," Megbie answered. "I expect we should be quite undisturbed there. Moreover, we could smoke, and I know that you are like me, Sir William, a cigarette-smoker."
"That will do very well, then," Gouldesbrough answered, and they walked away together. Every one saw them go. Ladies nodded and whispered, gentlemen whispered and nodded to each other. The occasion was perfectly well understood. Sir William was telling Donald Megbie! By supper time it would be all over the rooms and theEastminster Gazetteto-morrow afternoon would have all the details.
"Megbie is always chosen in affairs of this sort." "That's Megbie, the writing Johnny, who sort of stage-manages all these things." "The ubiquitous Donald has got him in his grip, and we shall soon know all the details"—these were the remarks made upon every side as the two men strolled through the rooms.
Then an incident that was much commented on next day in society, occurred quite suddenly. It created quite a little sensation and gave rise to a great deal of gossip.
Sir William and Mr. Megbie came to a part of the room where Lady Poole and her daughter Marjorie were standing talking to General Mayne of the War Office.
Lady Poole saw the scientist.
"Ah, William!" she said, somewhat loudly, and quite in her old manner of the days when Sir William and Marjorie were engaged. "So here you are, blazing with triumph. Every one's talking of you, and every one has been asking Marjorie if she knows what it is you've invented this time!"
Megbie, who knew both Lady Poole and her daughter, but did not wish to enter into a conversation just at this important moment, bowed, smiled at the old lady and the girl, and stood a little aside.
Gouldesbrough took Lady Poole by the hand and bent over it, saying something in a low voice to her. And once more society nodded and whispered as it saw the flush of pleasure in the lady's face and her gratified smile. Again society whispered and nodded as it saw Marjorie Poole shake hands with herex-fiancé, and marked the brightness of her beautiful eyes and saw the proud lips moving in words of friendship and congratulation.
What Gouldesbrough said in answer to Marjorie was this—
"It is so kind and good of you to be pleased, Marjorie. Nothing is more valuable to me than that. I am going to have half-an-hour with Donald Megbie now. I find that it's usual to tell the general public something at this stage. So I'm doing it through Megbie. He's safe, you know, and he understands one. But after that, will you let me take you in to have some supper? Do please let me! It would just make everything splendid, be the final joy, you know!"
"I should be very churlish to refuse you anything to-night, William," she answered sadly, but with great pride for him in her voice. "Haven't you done almost everything for me? You've done what no other living man would have done. I shall be very glad and feel very proud if you will come back here for me after you have talked to Donald Megbie."
Gouldesbrough went away with the journalist. In five minutes every one in Lord Malvin's house was saying that Marjorie Poole was engaged to Sir William Gouldesbrough once more.
Marjorie watched the two men go away. Her heart was full of pride and pain. She rejoiced that all this had come to the chivalrous gentleman who had been her lover and plighted husband. She felt each incident of his growing triumph with intense sympathy and pleasure. He had been so good to her! From the very first he had been splendid. If only she could have loved him, how happy would her lot have been as mate and companion to such a man as this! She was not worldly, but she was of the world and knew it well. She realized most completely all the advantages, the subtle pleasures that would belong to the wife of this great man. The love of power and dominion, the sense of a high intellectual correspondence with the finest brain of the day, the incense of a lofty and chivalrous devotion—all these, yes, all these, would be for the girl Sir William loved and wedded.
She half-wondered if such devotion as his had proved to be ought to go unrewarded.
Was itright? Had any girl a real excuse for making a man like William Gouldesbrough unhappy? Guy Rathbone had faded utterly out of life. The greatest skill, the most active and prolonged inquiry had failed to throw the slightest light upon his disappearance.
As a person, Guy had ceased to exist. He lived only as a memory in her heart. A dear memory, bitter-sweet—ah, sweet and bitter!—but no more a thing of flesh and blood. A phantom, a shadow now and for evermore!
Sir William and Donald Megbie sat in a small palm house talking earnestly together. A tiny fountain sent up its glittering whip of water from a marble pool on which water-lilies were floating, while tiny iridescent fish swum slowly round their roots. There was a silence and fragrance in the pleasant remote place, the perfume of exotic flowers, the grateful green of giant cacti which rested the eye.
Concealed electric lights shed their radiance upon fern, flower, and sparkling water, and both men felt that here was a place for confidences and a fit spot in which matters of import might be unfolded.
Both men were smoking, and in the still warm air, the delicate grey spirals from the thick Turkish cigarettes rose with a fantastic grace of curve that only the pencil of a Flaxman could have given its true value.
"I am all attention, Sir William," Megbie said.
"Well, then, I will put the thing to you in a nutshell, and as simply as possible. When you come to the demonstration at my house in a few days' time, you will be able to gather all the details and have them explained to you. I am going to give you a simple broad statement here and now. For years I have been investigating the nature of thought. I have been seeking to discover what thought really is, how it takes place, what is itsmechanicalas well as its psychical value. Now, I claim that I have discovered the active principle of thought. I have discovered how to measure it, how to harness it, so to speak; how to use it, in fact, just as other investigators in the past have harnessed and utilized electricity!"
Megbie started. "I think I see," he said hurriedly. "I think I see something—but go on, Sir William, go on!"
Gouldesbrough smiled, pleased with the agitation the man who sat by him showed so plainly.
He went on—"Hitherto that which observes—I mean the power of thought, has never been able, strictly speaking, to observe itself. It can never look on at itself from the outside, or view itself as one of the multitude of things that come under its review. It is itself the origin of vision, and the eye cannot see its own power of seeing. I have altered all this. Thought is a fluid just as electricity is, or one may say that it is a peculiar form of motion just as light is. The brain is the machine that creates the motion. I have discovered that the brain gives off definite rays or vibrations which rise from it as steam rises from a boiling pot. That is the reason why one brain can act upon another, can influence another. It explains personal magnetism, hypnotism and so on. What I have done is this: I have perfected a means by which these rays can be collected and controlled. I can place an apparatus upon your head which will collect the thought vibrations as you think and produce them."
"And then, Sir William?"
"Then I can conduct those rays along a wire for any distance in the form of an electric current. Finally, by means of a series of sensitive instruments which I will show you at the forthcoming demonstration, I can transmute these vibrations into actual pictures or words, and throw them upon a screen for all the world to see. That is to say, in actual words, whatever any one is thinking is reproduced exactly as he thinks it, without his having any power to prevent it. Thought, which had hitherto been locked up in the brain of the thinker and only reaches us through his words with whatever modification he likes to make, will now be absolutely naked and bare."
There was a silence of a minute or two as Sir William stopped speaking.
The journalist was thinking deeply, his head bowed upon his hands.
He looked up at last and his face was very pale. Little beads of perspiration stood out upon his forehead. His eyes were luminous.
"It is too big to take in all at once," he said. "But I see some things. In the first instance, your discovery means the triumph ofTRUTH! Think of it! the saying that 'truth shall prevail' will be justified at last!"
Gouldesbrough nodded, and the writer went on, his voice warming into enthusiasm as he continued, his words pouring out in a flood. "No one will lie any more because every one will realize that lying will be useless, when your machine can search out their inmost secrets! In two generations deceit will have vanished from the world. We shall invest in no company unless the directors submit themselves to the scrutiny of your invention. We shall be able to test the genuineness of every enterprise before embarking upon it! Again, your invention means the triumph ofJUSTICE! There will be no more cases of wrongful imprisonment. No man will suffer for a crime he did not commit! Oh, it's wonderful, beyond thinking! The cumbrous machinery of the law-courts will be instantly swept away. The criminal will try himself in spite of himself, he will give the secret of his actions to the world! The whole of life will be changed and made bright! We shall witness the final triumph of all—THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE! Man or maid will be each able to test the reality and depth of each other's affection! There will be no more mercenary marriages, no betrayals of trusting women. And from these unions of love, pure and undefiled by worldly considerations, a new and finer race will spring up, noble, free and wise! And you, you the man sitting here by my side, have done all this!"
His voice failed him for a moment, and the burning torrent of his words was still. In the rush and clamour of the new ideas, in the immeasurable vastness of the conception, speech would not go on. Then he started, and his face grew paler than before. "Forgive me," he said, "forgive me if I seem to doubt. It is all so incredibly wonderful. But you have reallydonethis, Sir William? You are not merely hoping to do it some day? You are not merely advancing along the road which may some day lead to it?"
"I have actually done it, Mr. Megbie, completely, utterly, certainly. And in a few days you shall judge for yourself. But it is certain."
"But it is infinite in its possibilities!" the journalist went on. "Another thing that I see quite clearly will result is this. The right man in the right place will be an accomplished fact in the future. We shall find out early in the life of a child exactly in what direction its true power lies. To-day we find that circumstance and the mistakes of parents and guardians are constantly putting children into walks of life for which they are not in the least fitted. The result is a dreadful waste of power. We see on every side clergymen who ought to be business men, business men who ought to be painters or musicians, clerks who are bad clerks, but who would make excellent soldiers. Your marvellous discovery will change all this for ever. Every day the growing brain of the child will be tested. We shall find out exactly what its true thoughts are; children will cease to be inarticulate and unable to give us a true idea of themselves as they so often are at present. Teaching will become an exact science, because every schoolmaster will be able to find out how much his teaching is appreciated and understood, and how little, as the case may be. And we shall discover other and even more portentous secrets! We shall know what is passing in the minds of the dying who cannot speak to us! We shall know the truth about a future state, inasmuch as we shall be able to find out whether the mind does indeed receive warnings and hintings of the other world at the moment of passing! Then, also, I suppose that we shall be able to penetrate into a world that has been closed to us since the human species began! We shall know at last in what strange way animals think! The pictures that pass into the brain of the dog, the horse, the tiger, through the physical eyes, will be made clear for us to see! We shall wrest his secret from the eagle and see the memories of the primeval forest which linger in the minds of the jaguar and ape!"
The little fountain in the centre of the conservatory tinkled merrily. The electric bulbs in the glass roof shed a soft light upon the broad green leaves of the tropical plants, which seemed as if they had been cunningly japanned. Two men in modern evening dress sat talking together, while distant sounds of talk and laughter floated in to them from the great and fashionable drawing-rooms beyond. It was an ordinary picture enough, and to the superficial eye one without special significance or meaning.
Yet, at that moment and in that place, a stupendous revelation was being made. A tale which the wildest imagination would have hesitated to give a place in the mind was being poured into the ears of one who was the mouthpiece of the public. To-morrow all the world would be thinking the thoughts, experiencing the same mental disturbance, that Donald Megbie was experiencing now. The cables would be flashing the news through vast cities and over the beds of mighty oceans to the furthest corner of the habitable globe.
Megbie realized something of this. "I feel my responsibility very acutely," he said. "You have put into my hands one of the greatest chances that any writer for the public press has ever had. Before I begin to write anything, I must be alone to think things over. You may well imagine how all this has startled me. For the thinking man it almost has an element of terror. One feels an awe that may in any moment change to fear! When I first saw Mount Blanc I felt as I do now."
Sir William gazed keenly at his companion. Megbie was obviously unstrung. It was curious to see how this revelation had gripped and influenced the keen, cool-headed man of the world, curious and full of a thrill, exquisite in its sense of power and dominion. The tall figure of the scientist towered over that of the other man. Gouldesbrough had risen, the usual reserve of his manner had dropped away from him, and great tides of exultation seemed to carry him swiftly and irresistibly to the very heart of human things. During the long years of experiment and toil, Gouldesbrough had occasionally known these moments of savage ecstasy. But never had he known a moment so poignant, so supreme as this. As he stood there the thought came to him that he alone stood apart from all created men in the supremacy of intellect, in the majesty of an utter sovereignty over the minds of mankind.
The rush of furious emotion mastered him for a moment, so terrible was it in its intensity and strength.
"Yes," he cried, with a wild gesture of his arm and in a high vibrating voice. "Yes! You are right! You have said what all the world is about to say. I have stormed the heights of the unknown! The secrets of all men's hearts are mine, and I claim an absolute knowledge of the soul, even as God claims it!"
Megbie started from his reverie. He stared at the tall, swaying figure with fascinated eyes as he heard the bold and terrible words. Was it not thus that Lucifer himself had spoken in Milton's mighty poem?
And how had the star of the morning fallen?
Once more the thought flashed into his mind that there was something of madness in those blazing eyes. However great things this man had done, were not these words of tremendous arrogance the symptom of a brain destined to blaze up for a moment in mighty triumph and then to pass into the dark?
Who could say? Who could tell?
Suddenly Megbie realized that Sir William was speaking in an ordinary voice.
"Forgive me," he was saying quietly, and with a half laugh. "I'm afraid I let myself go for a moment. It's not a thing I often do, you know; but you were so appreciative. Now you will please let me run away. I am afraid I have already been here too long. I have promised to take Miss Poole in to supper."
He shook hands and walked hurriedly away.
Megbie sat where he was for a few moments longer. He intended to leave the house quietly and go home to his chambers in the Temple, perhaps looking in at one of his clubs on the way. He did not want the innumerable questions, the pressure of the curious, which he knew would be his lot if he remained any longer in Portland Place. His mind was in a whirl, entire solitude would alone enable him to collect his thoughts.
He rose to leave the conservatory, when he saw something bright upon the chair on which Sir William Gouldesbrough had been sitting. It was a cigarette-case.
Megbie realized that Gouldesbrough had forgotten it. Being unwilling to seek out the scientist, Megbie put the case into his pocket, meaning to send it round to Sir William's house in the morning. Then he went swiftly into the hall, and managed to get away out of the house without being questioned or stopped.
It was a clear, bright night. There was less smoke about in the sky than usual, and the swift motion of the hansom cab was exhilarating. How fortunate Sir William was! so the journalist thought, as he was driven through the lighted streets. He stood upon a supreme pinnacle of fame, and beautiful Marjorie Poole—a girl to make any man happy—was being kind to him again. The romantic and mysterious Rathbone incident was over and done with. Miss Poole's fancy for the young barrister must have only been a passing one. But what a dark and mysterious business it had all been!
Megbie had known Guy Rathbone a little. He had often met him in the Temple, and he had liked the bright and capable young fellow.
For a moment the writer contrasted the lot of two men—the one he had just left, great, brilliant, and happy; the other, whom he had known in the past, now faded utterly away into impenetrable dark.
He sighed. Then he thought that a cigarette would be refreshing. He found he had no cigarettes of his own, but his fingers touched the case Sir William had left behind him in the conservatory.
Good! there would be sure to be cigarettes in the case.
He drew it out and opened it. There were two cigarettes in one of the compartments.
But it was not the sight of the two little tubes of paper that made the writer's eyes dilate and turned his face grey with sudden fear. Cut deeply into the silver he saw this—
Guy Rathbone,Inner Temple,London, E.C.
When he had left Donald Megbie, Sir William Gouldesbrough went back to the room in which he had last seen Marjorie Poole.
He found her the centre of a circle of friends and acquaintances. Lady Poole was sitting by her daughter's side, and was in a high good humour.
Gouldesbrough saw at once that while he had been talking with Donald Megbie in the conservatory, Lord Malvin had done as Gouldesbrough had asked him. Every one knew, with more or less accuracy, of what the new invention consisted.
If the excitement and stir of expectation had been noticeable at the beginning of the evening, it was now doubly apparent. The rooms hummed like a hive with excited talk, and it was obvious that society considered it had received a remarkable sensation. Sir William knew that things were moving in the direction he wished, when he saw Marjorie Poole holding a little court in this manner. She was always a very popular girl and knew everybody. But to-night was not ordinary. It was plain that both Marjorie and Lady Poole were being courted because of their relationship to Sir William Gouldesbrough. Of course everybody knew the past history of the engagement. But now it seemed almost certain that it would be renewed. Gouldesbrough realized all this in a moment, and with intense satisfaction. The assumption that he and Marjorie were once more engaged, or on the verge of being so, could not but contribute towards the fact.
Yes, it was a propitious hour. Everything was in his favour; this was his grand night, and he meant that it should be crowned by the renewal of the promise of the girl he loved.
As he went up to the group he seemed wonderfully strong and dominant. Marjorie's eyes fell upon him and brightened as they did so. Certainly there was no one else like this man!
Gouldesbrough wanted to carry Marjorie away to the supper-room at once, but he was not to escape so easily. He was surrounded at once, and congratulations were fired at him from every side.
The old Duchess of Marble Arch, an ancient dame painted to resemble a dairy-maid of one and twenty, laid a tremulous claw-like hand, blazing with rings, upon Gouldesbrough's arm. She was a scandal-monger who had ruined homes, a woman who had never done an unselfish action or ever had a thought that was not sordid, malevolent or foul. Yet she was a great lady, a Princess in Vanity Fair, and even Sir William could not disregard her, so great and important was this venerable hag.
"Well," she began in her high impertinent voice, "so you have outdone Aladdin, I hear, Sir William. Really I congratulate you on your thought-trap or whatever it is. I suppose we shall have you in the Upper House soon! I wish you could manage to catch some thoughts for me on the Stock Exchange. Couldn't you have your machine taken down to Capel Court? I should very much like to know what some of the gentlemen who deal in South Africans are thinking just now. The market is really in the most abominable state. And do please bring the machine to one of my At Homes. It would give me intense pleasure to know what is going on in the minds of some of my friends. We could install it in one of the smaller drawing-rooms, behind a screen. No one would know, and we could catch thoughts all the evening—though I expect the machine would want disinfecting after the first half-hour. I will see that there is some Condy's fluid ready."
She moved away chattering shrilly. Young Lord Landsend succeeded her.
That nobleman showed very evident traces of living as hard as his purse and his doctor would let him, and his pale countenance was stamped with a congratulatory grin. "'Pon my soul, Sir William," he said, "this thing you've made is really awfully jolly, you know. Topping idea really. Hope you wont go fishin' round for my thoughts!"
There was a general laugh at this, and some one was heard to remark that they didn't think that Sir William Gouldesbrough would make any very big hauls in that quarter!
"But how splendid of you, Sir William!" said Mrs. Hoskin-Heath, a pretty dark-haired woman with beautiful eyes. "It is really marvellous. Now there will be a real meaning in the saying 'a penny for your thoughts!' Shall you have penny-in-the-slot machines on all the stations of the Twopenny Tube? So nice while one is waiting for a train. Just imagine how nice it will be to let yourcher amiknow how much you like him without having to say any actual compromising words! You are a public benefactor, Sir William."
Another voice broke in upon Gouldesbrough's impatient ear.
"How do you do, Sir William? It is a great pleasure to meet you on such an occasion as this, an occasion which, if I may say so, is really historic! You may not remember me, but I had the privilege of meeting you at Brighton not long ago. My name is Charliewood, Sir Miles Charliewood; we met on the melancholy occasion of my poor second son's—er—death. You were very kind and helpful."
Gouldesbrough shook hands with the old baronet. A shadow passed over his face as he did so, and he would have given much to have avoided the sight of him—not to have known at all that Sir Miles was in Portland Place on this night of triumph.
Gouldesbrough was one of those men who had solved the chief problem of life. Like Napoleon, he was master of his own mind. His mind did not dominate him, as the minds of most of us do. He controlled it absolutely and never allowed thoughts of one part of his life to intrude upon those of another.
And now, with the frightful egotism of supreme self-will, he actually felt aggrieved at this sudden meeting. It was, he thought, hard at this radiant, happy moment! He did not want to be reminded of the past or of the terrible and criminal secret of the present. Why should the pale ghost of Eustace Charliewood come to trouble him now? His partner in an unspeakable infamy, the tool he had used for the satisfaction of his devilish desires was dead. Dead, gone away, no longer in existence. That he, Gouldesbrough, was morally the murderer of the distracted man whom he had forced into crime troubled him not at all. It never had troubled him—he had learned to be "Lord of Himself." And now, in this moment of unprecedented triumph, the wraith of the dead man rose up swiftly and without warning to be a spectre at the feast. It was hard!
But he turned to Sir Miles Charliewood and was as courteous and charming as ever. His marked powers of fascination did not desert him. That strange magnetism that was able to draw people to him, to make them his servants and slaves, surrounded him now like the fabled "aura" of the Theosophists.
He bent over the pompous little man with a smile of singular sweetness.
"Forget?" he said. "My dear sir, how could I forget? It is charming to see you again. I hadn't an idea you knew Lord Malvin or were interested in scientific affairs. Your congratulations are very welcome to me, though you have said far more than I deserve. I hope we shall meet again soon. I am generally at home in Regent's Park in the afternoons. It would have made me very happy if poor Eustace could have been with us to-night. He was one of my most intimate friends, as you know. And I may tell you that he took a great interest in the experiments which have now culminated so satisfactorily for me. Poor dear fellow! It is a great sorrow to me that he is not with us. Well, well! I suppose that these things are arranged for us by a Power over which we have no control, a Force beyond our poor power of measuring or understanding. Good-night, Good-night, Sir Miles. Do come and see me soon."
He bowed and smiled, with Marjorie upon his arm, and then turned away towards the supper-room. And he left Sir Miles Charliewood—who had not cared twopence for his son during his lifetime—full of a pleasing melancholy and regret for the dead man.
Such is the power of success to awake dormant emotions in flinty hearts.
Such is the aroma and influence which "doth hedge a king" in any sphere of modern life!
Sir William walked away with the beautiful girl by his side. He felt the light touch of her fingers upon his arm, and his blood raced and leapt with joy. He felt a boy again, a happy conquering boy. Yes, all was indeed well upon this night of nights!
As they entered the supper-room and found a table, Lord Landsend saw them. He was with Mrs. Pat Argyle, the society actress, and his cousins the young Duke and Duchess of Perth.
Landsend was a fast young man of no particular intellect. But he was kind, popular, and not without a certain personal charm. He could do things that more responsible and important people couldn't do.
As he saw the hero of the occasion and the night come in with Marjorie Poole, an inspiration came to the rackety young fellow.
He jumped up from his chair and began to clap loudly.
There was a moment's dead silence. Everybody stopped talking, the clink and clatter of the meal was still.
Then the little Duchess of Perth—she was Miss Mamie Q. Oildervan, of New York—took Landsend up. She began to clap too. As she had three hundred thousand a year, was young, cheeky and delightful, she was a leader of society at this moment.
Every one followed suit. There was a full-handed thunder of applause.
Lord Landsend lifted a glass of champagne high in the air.
"Here's to the wizard of the day!" he shouted merrily. "Here's to the conqueror of thought!"
There was another second of silence. During it, the Duke of Perth, a boy fresh from Oxford, caught the infection of the moment. He raised his glass also—"And to Miss Poole too!" he said.
People who had spent years in London society said that they had never experienced anything like it. A scene of wild excitement began. Staid and ordinary people forgot convention and restraint. There was a high and jocund chorus of congratulation and applause. The painted roof of the supper-room rang with it.
Society had let itself go for once, and there was a madness of enthusiasm in the air.
Sir William Gouldesbrough stood there smiling. He entered into the spirit of the whole thing and bowed to the ovation, laughing with pleasure, radiant with boyish enjoyment.
He felt Marjorie's hand upon his arm quiver with excitement, and he felt that she was his at last!
She stood by his side, her face a deep crimson, and it was as though they were a king and queen returning home to the seat and city of their rule.
It was so public an avowal, chance had been so kind, fortune so opportune, that Sir William knew that Marjorie would never retrace her steps now. It was an announcement of betrothal for all the world to see! It was just that.
Lady Poole, who was supping with Sir Michael Leeds, the great millionaire who was the prop and mainstay of the English Church, pressed a lace handkerchief to her eyes.
The bewildering enthusiasm of the moment caught her too. She rose from her seat—only a yard or two away from the triumphant pair—and went up to them with an impulsive gesture.
"God bless you, my dears!" she said in a broken voice.
Marjorie bowed her head. She drooped like a lovely flower. Fate, it seemed to her, had taken everything out of her hands. She was the creature of the moment, the toy of a wild and exhilarating environment.
She gave one quick, shy glance at Sir William.
He read in it the fulfilment of all his hopes.
Then old Lord Malvin came down the room, ancient, stately and bland.
"My dears," he said simply, "this must be a very happy night for you."
Sir William turned to the girl suddenly. His voice was confident and strong.
"My dear Marjorie," he said, "how kind they all are to us!"
A little group of four people sat down to the table beneath the crimson-shaded light.
Lord Malvin, the most famous scientist and most courtly gentleman of his time. Sir William Gouldesbrough, the hero of this famous party—to-morrow, when Donald Megbie had done his work, to be the hero of the civilized world.
Lady Poole. Sweet Marjorie Poole, in the grip of circumstances that were beyond her thinking.
And no one of the four—not even Sir William Gouldesbrough, F.R.S.—gave a thought to the man in the living tomb—to Guy Rathbone who was, even at that moment, tied up in india-rubber and aluminium bonds for the amusement of Mr. Guest, the pink, hairless man of Regent's Park. Mr. Guest was drunk of whisky, and sat happy, mocking his prisoner far down in the cellars of Sir William's house.
Other folk were drunk of success and applause in Portland Place.
But Donald Megbie was awake in the Inner Temple, and his thoughts were curious and strange.
Donald Megbie had left the party too early in the evening. He was drunk of nothing at all!