The Beetle · Part IX

He shrunk back.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.--I don’t want the thing.--Take it away.’

‘Think twice,--the chance may not recur.’

‘I tell you I don’t want it.’

‘Sure?--Consider!’

‘Of course I’m sure!’

‘Then the cat shall have it.’

‘Let the poor brute go!’

‘The poor brute’s going,--to the land which is so near, and yet so far. Once more, if you please, attention. Notice what I do with this toy gun. I pull back the spring; I insert this small glass pellet; I thrust the muzzle of the gun through the opening in the glass box which contains the Apostle’s cat,--you’ll observe it fits quite close, which, on the whole, is perhaps as well for us.--I am about to release the spring.--Close attention, please.--Notice the effect.’

‘Atherton, let the brute go!’

‘The brute’s gone! I’ve released the spring--the pellet has been discharged--it has struck against the roof of the glass box--it has been broken by the contact,--and, hey presto! the cat lies dead,--and that in face of its nine lives. You perceive how still it is,--how still! Let’s hope that, now, it’s really happy. The cat which I choose to believe is Paul Lessingham’s has received its quietus; in the morning I’ll send it back to him, with my respectful compliments. He’ll miss it if I don’t.--Reflect! think of a huge bomb, filled with what we’ll call Atherton’s Magic Vapour, fired, say, from a hundred and twenty ton gun, bursting at a given elevation over the heads of an opposing force. Properly managed, in less than an instant of time, a hundred thousand men,--quite possibly more!--would drop down dead, as if smitten by the lightning of the skies. Isn’t that something like a weapon, sir?’

‘I’m not well!--I want to get away!--I wish I’d never come!’

That was all Woodville had to say.

‘Rubbish!--You’re adding to your stock of information every second, and, in these days, when a member of Parliament is supposed to know all about everything, information’s the one thing wanted. Empty your glass, man,--that’s the time of day for you!’

I handed him his tumbler. He drained what was left of its contents, then, in a fit of tipsy, childish temper he flung the tumbler from him. I had placed--carelessly enough--the second pellet within a foot of the edge of the table. The shock of the heavy beaker striking the board close to it, set it rolling. I was at the other side. I started forward to stop its motion, but I was too late. Before I could reach the crystal globule, it had fallen off the edge of the table on to the floor at Woodville’s feet, and smashed in falling. As it smashed, he was looking down, wondering, no doubt, in his stupidity, what the pother was about,--for I was shouting, and making something of a clatter in my efforts to prevent the catastrophe which I saw was coming. On the instant, as the vapour secreted in the broken pellet gained access to the air, he fell forward on to his face. Rushing to him, I snatched his senseless body from the ground, and dragged it, staggeringly, towards the door which opened on to the yard. Flinging the door open, I got him into the open air.

As I did so, I found myself confronted by someone who stood outside. It was Lessingham’s mysterious Egypto-Arabian friend,--my morning’s visitor.

CHAPTER XVII. MAGIC?--OR MIRACLE?

The passage into the yard from the electrically lit laboratory was a passage from brilliancy to gloom. The shrouded figure standing in the shadow, was like some object in a dream. My own senses reeled. It was only because I had resolutely held my breath, and kept my face averted that I had not succumbed to the fate which had overtaken Woodville. Had I been a moment longer in gaining the open air, it would have been too late. As it was, in placing Woodville on the ground, I stumbled over him. My senses left me. Even as they went I was conscious of exclaiming,--remembering the saying about the engineer being hoist by his own petard,

‘Atherton’s Magic Vapour!’

My sensations on returning to consciousness were curious. I found myself being supported in someone’s arms, a stranger’s face was bending over me, and the most extraordinary pair of eyes I had ever seen were looking into mine.

‘Who the deuce are you?’ I asked.

Then, understanding that it was my uninvited visitor, with scant ceremony I drew myself away from him. By the light which was streaming through the laboratory door I saw that Woodville was lying close beside me,--stark and still.

‘Is he dead?’ I cried. ‘Percy!--speak, man!--it’s not so bad with you as that!’

But it was pretty bad,--so bad that, as I bent down and looked at him, my heart beat uncomfortably fast lest it was as bad as it could be. His heart seemed still,--the vapour took effect directly on the cardiac centres. To revive their action, and that instantly, was indispensable. Yet my brain was in such a whirl that I could not even think of how to set about beginning. Had I been alone, it is more than probable Woodville would have died. As I stared at him, senselessly, aimlessly, the stranger, passing his arms beneath his body, extended himself at full length upon his motionless form. Putting his lips to Percy’s, he seemed to be pumping life from his own body into the unconscious man’s. As I gazed bewildered, surprised, presently there came a movement of Percy’s body. His limbs twitched, as if he was in pain. By degrees, the motions became convulsive,--till on a sudden he bestirred himself to such effect that the stranger was rolled right off him. I bent down,--to find that the young gentleman’s condition still seemed very far from satisfactory. There was a rigidity about the muscles of his face, a clamminess about his skin, a disagreeable suggestiveness about the way in which his teeth and the whites of his eyes were exposed, which was uncomfortable to contemplate.

The stranger must have seen what was passing through my mind,--not a very difficult thing to see. Pointing to the recumbent Percy, he said, with that queer foreign twang of his, which, whatever it had seemed like in the morning, sounded musical enough just then.

‘All will be well with him.’

‘I am not so sure.’

The stranger did not deign to answer. He was kneeling on one side of the victim of modern science, I on the other. Passing his hand to and fro in front of the unconscious countenance, as if by magic all semblance of discomfort vanished from Percy’s features, and, to all appearances, he was placidly asleep.

‘Have you hypnotised him?’

‘What does it matter?’

If it was a case of hypnotism, it was very neatly done. The conditions were both unusual and trying, the effect produced seemed all that could be desired,--the change brought about in half a dozen seconds was quite remarkable. I began to be aware of a feeling of quasi-respect for Paul Lessingham’s friend. His morals might be peculiar, and manners he might have none, but in this case, at any rate, the end seemed to have justified the means. He went on.

‘He sleeps. When he awakes he will remember nothing that has been. Leave him,--the night is warm,--all will be well.’

As he said, the night was warm,--and it was dry. Percy would come to little harm by being allowed to enjoy, for a while, the pleasant breezes. So I acted on the stranger’s advice, and left him lying in the yard, while I had a little interview with the impromptu physician.

CHAPTER XVIII. THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE BEETLE

The laboratory door was closed. The stranger was standing a foot or two away from it. I was further within the room, and was subjecting him to as keen a scrutiny as circumstances permitted. Beyond doubt he was conscious of my observation, yet he bore himself with an air of indifference, which was suggestive of perfect unconcern. The fellow was oriental to the finger-tips,--that much was certain; yet in spite of a pretty wide personal knowledge of oriental people I could not make up my mind as to the exact part of the east from which he came. He was hardly an Arab, he was not a fellah,--he was not, unless I erred, a Mohammedan at all. There was something about him which was distinctly not Mussulmanic. So far as looks were concerned, he was not a flattering example of his race, whatever his race might be. The portentous size of his beak-like nose would have been, in itself, sufficient to damn him in any court of beauty. His lips were thick and shapeless,--and this, joined to another peculiarity in his appearance, seemed to suggest that, in his veins there ran more than a streak of negro blood. The peculiarity alluded to was his semblance of great age. As one eyed him one was reminded of the legends told of people who have been supposed to have retained something of their pristine vigour after having lived for centuries. As, however, one continued to gaze, one began to wonder if he really was so old as he seemed,--if, indeed, he was exceptionally old at all. Negroes, and especially negresses, are apt to age with extreme rapidity. Among coloured folk one sometimes encounters women whose faces seem to have been lined by the passage of centuries, yet whose actual tale of years would entitle them to regard themselves, here in England, as in the prime of life. The senility of the fellow’s countenance, besides, was contradicted by the juvenescence of his eyes. No really old man could have had eyes like that. They were curiously shaped, reminding me of the elongated, faceted eyes of some queer creature, with whose appearance I was familiar, although I could not, at the instant, recall its name. They glowed not only with the force and fire, but, also, with the frenzy of youth. More uncanny-looking eyes I had never encountered,--their possessor could not be, in any sense of the word, a clubable person. Owing, probably, to some peculiar formation of the optic-nerve one felt, as one met his gaze, that he was looking right through you. More obvious danger signals never yet were placed in a creature’s head. The individual who, having once caught sight of him, still sought to cultivate their owner’s acquaintance, had only himself to thank if the very worst results of frequenting evil company promptly ensued.

It happens that I am myself endowed with an unusual tenacity of vision. I could, for instance, easily outstare any man I ever met. Yet, as I continued to stare at this man, I was conscious that it was only by an effort of will that I was able to resist a baleful something which seemed to be passing from his eyes to mine. It might have been imagination, but, in that sense, I am not an imaginative man; and, if it was, it was imagination of an unpleasantly vivid kind. I could understand how, in the case of a nervous, or a sensitive temperament, the fellow might exercise, by means of the peculiar quality of his glance alone, an influence of a most disastrous sort, which given an appropriate subject in the manifestation of its power might approach almost to the supernatural. If ever man was endowed with the traditional evil eye, in which Italians, among modern nations, are such profound believers, it was he.

When we had stared at each other for, I daresay, quite five minutes, I began to think I had had about enough of it. So, by way of breaking the ice, I put to him a question.

‘May I ask how you found your way into my back yard?’

He did not reply in words, but, raising his hands he lowered them, palms downward, with a gesture which was peculiarly oriental.

‘Indeed?--Is that so?--Your meaning may be lucidity itself to you, but, for my benefit, perhaps you would not mind translating it into words. Once more I ask, how did you find your way into my back yard?’

Again nothing but the gesture.

‘Possibly you are not sufficiently acquainted with English manners and customs to be aware that you have placed yourself within reach of the pains and penalties of the law. Were I to call in the police you would find yourself in an awkward situation,--and, unless you are presently more explanatory, called in they will be.’

By way of answer he indulged in a distortion of the countenance which might have been meant for a smile,--and which seemed to suggest that he regarded the police with a contempt which was too great for words.

‘Why do you laugh--do you think that being threatened with the police is a joke? You are not likely to find it so.--Have you suddenly been bereft of the use of your tongue?’

He proved that he had not by using it.

‘I have still the use of my tongue.’

‘That, at least, is something. Perhaps, since the subject of how you got into my back yard seems to be a delicate one, you will tell me why you got there.’

‘You know why I have come.’

‘Pardon me if I appear to flatly contradict you, but that is precisely what I do not know.’

‘You do know.’

‘Do I?--Then, in that case, I presume that you are here for the reason which appears upon the surface,--to commit a felony.’

‘You call me thief?’

‘What else are you?’

‘I am no thief.--You know why I have come.’

He raised his head a little. A look came into his eyes which I felt that I ought to understand, yet to the meaning of which I seemed, for the instant, to have mislaid the key. I shrugged my shoulders.

‘I have come because you wanted me.’

‘Because I wanted you!--On my word!--That’s sublime!’

‘All night you have wanted me,--do I not know? When she talked to you of him, and the blood boiled in your veins; when he spoke, and all the people listened, and you hated him, because he had honour in her eyes.’

I was startled. Either he meant what it appeared incredible that he could mean, or--there was confusion somewhere.

‘Take my advice, my friend, and don’t try to come the bunco-steerer over me,--I’m a bit in that line myself, you know.’

This time the score was mine,--he was puzzled.

‘I know not what you talk of.’

‘In that case, we’re equal,--I know not what you talk of either.’

His manner, for him, was childlike and bland.

‘What is it you do not know? This morning did I not say,--if you want me, then I come?’

‘I fancy I have some faint recollection of your being so good as to say something of the kind, but--where’s the application?’

‘Do you not feel for him the same as I?’

‘Who’s the him?’

‘Paul Lessingham.’

It was spoken quietly, but with a degree of--to put it gently--spitefulness which showed that at least the will to do the Apostle harm would not be lacking.

‘And, pray, what is the common feeling which we have for him?’

‘Hate.’

Plainly, with this gentleman, hate meant hate,--in the solid oriental sense. I should hardly have been surprised if the mere utterance of the words had seared his lips.

‘I am by no means prepared to admit that I have this feeling which you attribute to me, but, even granting that I have, what then?’

‘Those who hate are kin.’

‘That, also, I should be slow to admit; but--to go a step farther--what has all this to do with your presence on my premises at this hour of the night?’

‘You love her.’ This time I did not ask him to supply the name,--being unwilling that it should be soiled by the traffic of his lips. ‘She loves him,--that is not well. If you choose, she shall love you,--that will be well.’

‘Indeed.--And pray how is this consummation which is so devoutly to be desired to be brought about?’

‘Put your hand into mine. Say that you wish it. It shall be done.’

Moving a step forward, he stretched out his hand towards me. I hesitated. There was that in the fellow’s manner which, for the moment, had for me an unwholesome fascination. Memories flashed through my mind of stupid stories which have been told of compacts made with the devil. I almost felt as if I was standing in the actual presence of one of the powers of evil. I thought of my love for Marjorie,--which had revealed itself after all these years; of the delight of holding her in my arms, of feeling the pressure of her lips to mine. As my gaze met his, the lower side of what the conquest of this fair lady would mean, burned in my brain; fierce imaginings blazed before my eyes. To win her,--only to win her!

What nonsense he was talking! What empty brag it was! Suppose, just for the sake of the joke, I did put my hand in his, and did wish, right out, what it was plain he knew. If I wished, what harm would it do! It would be the purest jest. Out of his own mouth he would be confounded, for it was certain that nothing would come of it. Why should I not do it then?

I would act on his suggestion,--I would carry the thing right through. Already I was advancing towards him, when--I stopped. I don’t know why. On the instant, my thoughts went off at a tangent.

What sort of a blackguard did I call myself that I should take a woman’s name in vain for the sake of playing fool’s tricks with such scum of the earth as the hideous vagabond in front of me,--and that the name of the woman whom I loved? Rage took hold of me.

‘You hound!’ I cried.

In my sudden passage from one mood to another, I was filled with the desire to shake the life half out of him. But so soon as I moved a step in his direction, intending war instead of peace, he altered the position of his hand, holding it out towards me as if forbidding my approach. Directly he did so, quite involuntarily, I pulled up dead,--as if my progress had been stayed by bars of iron and walls of steel.

For the moment, I was astonished to the verge of stupefaction. The sensation was peculiar. I was as incapable of advancing another inch in his direction as if I had lost the use of my limbs,--I was even incapable of attempting to attempt to advance. At first I could only stare and gape. Presently I began to have an inkling of what had happened.

The scoundrel had almost succeeded in hypnotising me.

That was a nice thing to happen to a man of my sort at my time of life. A shiver went down my back,--what might have occurred if I had not pulled up in time! What pranks might a creature of that character not have been disposed to play. It was the old story of the peril of playing with edged tools; I had made the dangerous mistake of underrating the enemy’s strength. Evidently, in his own line, the fellow was altogether something out of the usual way.

I believe that even as it was he thought he had me. As I turned away, and leaned against the table at my back, I fancy that he shivered,--as if this proof of my being still my own master was unexpected. I was silent,--it took some seconds to enable me to recover from the shock of the discovery of the peril in which I had been standing. Then I resolved that I would endeavour to do something which should make me equal to this gentleman of many talents.

‘Take my advice, my friend, and don’t attempt to play that hankey pankey off on to me again.’

‘I don’t know what you talk of.’

‘Don’t lie to me,--or I’ll burn you into ashes.’

Behind me was an electrical machine, giving an eighteen inch spark. It was set in motion by a lever fitted into the table, which I could easily reach from where I sat. As I spoke the visitor was treated to a little exhibition of electricity. The change in his bearing was amusing. He shook with terror. He salaamed down to the ground.

‘My lord!--my lord!--have mercy, oh my lord!’

‘Then you be careful, that’s all. You may suppose yourself to be something of a magician, but it happens, unfortunately for you, that I can do a bit in that line myself,--perhaps I’m a trifle better at the game than you are. Especially as you have ventured into my stronghold, which contains magic enough to make a show of a hundred thousand such as you.’

Taking down a bottle from a shelf, I sprinkled a drop or two of its contents on the floor. Immediately flames arose, accompanied by a blinding vapour. It was a sufficiently simple illustration of one of the qualities of phosphorous-bromide, but its effect upon my visitor was as startling as it was unexpected. If I could believe the evidence of my own eyesight, in the very act of giving utterance to a scream of terror he disappeared, how, or why, or whither, there was nothing to show,--in his place, where he had been standing, there seemed to be a dim object of some sort in a state of frenzied agitation on the floor. The phosphorescent vapour was confusing; the lights appeared to be suddenly burning low; before I had sense enough to go and see if there was anything there, and, if so, what, the flames had vanished, the man himself had reappeared, and, prostrated on his knees, was salaaming in a condition of abject terror.

‘My lord! my lord!’ he whined. ‘I entreat you, my lord, to use me as your slave!’

‘I’ll use you as my slave!’ Whether he or I was the more agitated it would have been difficult to say,--but, at least, it would not have done to betray my feelings as he did his. ‘Stand up!’

He stood up. I eyed him as he did with an interest which, so far as I was concerned, was of a distinctly new and original sort. Whether or not I had been the victim of an ocular delusion I could not be sure. It was incredible to suppose that he could have disappeared as he had seemed to disappear,--it was also incredible that I could have imagined his disappearance. If the thing had been a trick, I had not the faintest notion how it had been worked; and, if it was not a trick, then what was it? Was it something new in scientific marvels? Could he give me as much instruction in the qualities of unknown forces as I could him?

In the meanwhile he stood in an attitude of complete submission, with downcast eyes, and hands crossed upon his breast. I started to cross-examine him.

‘I am going to ask you some questions. So long as you answer them promptly, truthfully, you will be safe. Otherwise you had best beware.’

‘Ask, oh my lord.’

‘What is the nature of your objection to Mr Lessingham?’

‘Revenge.’

‘What has he done to you that you should wish to be revenged on him?’

‘It is the feud of the innocent blood.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘On his hands is the blood of my kin. It cries aloud for vengeance.’

‘Who has he killed?’

‘That, my lord, is for me,--and for him.’

‘I see.--Am I to understand that you do not choose to answer me, and that I am again to use my--magic?’

I saw that he quivered.

‘My lord, he has spilled the blood of her who has lain upon his breast.’

I hesitated. What he meant appeared clear enough. Perhaps it would be as well not to press for further details. The words pointed to what it might be courteous to call an Eastern Romance,--though it was hard to conceive of the Apostle figuring as the hero of such a theme. It was the old tale retold, that to the life of every man there is a background,--that it is precisely in the unlikeliest cases that the background’s darkest. What would that penny-plain-and-twopence-coloured bogey, the Nonconformist Conscience, make of such a story if it were blazoned through the land. Would Paul not come down with a run?

‘“Spilling blood” is a figure of speech; pretty, perhaps, but vague. If you mean that Mr Lessingham has been killing someone, your surest and most effectual revenge would be gained by an appeal to the law.’

‘What has the Englishman’s law to do with me?’

‘If you can prove that he has been guilty of murder it would have a great deal to do with you. I assure you that at any rate, in that sense, the Englishman’s law is no respecter of persons. Show him to be guilty, and it would hang Paul Lessingham as indifferently, and as cheerfully, as it would hang Bill Brown.’

‘Is that so?’

‘It is so, as, if you choose, you will be easily able to prove to your own entire satisfaction.’

He had raised his head, and was looking at something which he seemed to see in front of him with a maleficent glare in his sensitive eyes which it was not nice to see.

‘He would be shamed?’

‘Indeed he would be shamed.’

‘Before all men?’

‘Before all men,--and, I take it, before all women too.’

‘And he would hang?’

‘If shown to have been guilty of wilful murder,--yes.’

His hideous face was lighted up by a sort of diabolical exultation which made it, if that were possible, more hideous still. I had apparently given him a wrinkle which pleased him most consummately.

‘Perhaps I will do that in the end,--in the end!’ He opened his eyes to their widest limits, then shut them tight,--as if to gloat on the picture which his fancy painted. Then reopened them. ‘In the meantime I will have vengeance in my own fashion. He knows already that the avenger is upon him,--he has good reason to know it. And through the days and the nights the knowledge shall be with him still, and it shall be to him as the bitterness of death,--aye, of many deaths. For he will know that escape there is none, and that for him there shall be no more sun in the sky, and that the terror shall be with him by night and by day, at his rising up and at his lying down, wherever his eyes shall turn it shall be there,--yet, behold, the sap and the juice of my vengeance is in this, in that though he shall be very sure that the days that are, are as the days of his death, yet shall he know that THE DEATH, THE GREAT DEATH, is coming--coming--and shall be on him--when I will!’

The fellow spoke like an inspired maniac. If he meant half what he said,--and if he did not then his looks and his tones belied him!--then a promising future bade fair to be in store for Mr Lessingham,--and, also, circumstances being as they were, for Marjorie. It was this latter reflection which gave me pause. Either this imprecatory fanatic would have to be disposed of, by Lessingham himself, or by someone acting on his behalf, and, so far as their power of doing mischief went, his big words proved empty windbags, or Marjorie would have to be warned that there was at least one passage in her suitor’s life, into which, ere it was too late, it was advisable that inquiry should be made. To allow Marjorie to irrevocably link her fate with the Apostle’s, without being first of all made aware that he was, to all intents and purposes, a haunted man--that was not to be thought of.