CHAPTER XII
A MORNING VISITOR
All through the night, waking and sleeping, and in my dreams, Iwondered what Marjorie could see in him! In those same dreams Isatisfied myself that she could, and did, see nothing in him, buteverything in me,--oh the comfort! The misfortune was that when I awokeI knew it was the other way round,--so that it was a sad awakening. Anawakening to thoughts of murder.
So, swallowing a mouthful and a peg, I went into my laboratory to planmurder--legalised murder--on the biggest scale it ever has beenplanned. I was on the track of a weapon which would make war not onlyan affair of a single campaign, but of a single half-hour. It would notwant an army to work it either. Once let an individual, or two or threeat most, in possession of my weapon-that-was-to-be, get within a mileor so of even the largest body of disciplined troops that ever yet anation put into the field, and--pouf!--in about the time it takes youto say that they would be all dead men. If weapons of precision, whichmay be relied upon to slay, are preservers of the peace--and the man isa fool who says that they are not!--then I was within reach of thefinest preserver of the peace imagination ever yet conceived.
What a sublime thought to think that in the hollow of your own handlies the life and death of nations,--and it was almost in mine.
I had in front of me some of the finest destructive agents you couldwish to light upon--carbon-monoxide, chlorine-trioxide, mercuric-oxide,conine, potassamide, potassium-carboxide, cyanogen--when Edwardsentered. I was wearing a mask of my own invention, a thing that coveredears and head and everything, something like a diver's helmet--I wasdealing with gases a sniff of which meant death; only a few daysbefore, unmasked, I had been doing some fool's trick with a couple ofacids--sulphuric and cyanide of potassium--when, somehow, my handslipped, and, before I knew it, minute portions of them combined. Bythe mercy of Providence I fell backwards instead of forwards;--sequel,about an hour afterwards Edwards found me on the floor, and it took theremainder of that day, and most of the doctors in town, to bring meback to life again.
Edwards announced his presence by touching me on the shoulder,--when Iam wearing that mask it isn't always easy to make me hear.
'Someone wishes to see you, sir.'
'Then tell someone that I don't wish to see him.'
Well-trained servant, Edwards,--he walked off with the message asdecorously as you please. And then I thought there was an end,--butthere wasn't.
I was regulating the valve of a cylinder in which I was fusing someoxides when, once more, someone touched me on the shoulder. Withoutturning I took it for granted it was Edwards back again.
'I have only to give a tiny twist to this tap, my good fellow, and youwill be in the land where the bogies bloom. Why will you come whereyou're not wanted?' Then I looked round. 'Who the devil are you?'
For it was not Edwards at all, but quite a different class of character.
I found myself confronting an individual who might almost have sat forone of the bogies I had just alluded to. His costume was reminiscent ofthe 'Algerians' whom one finds all over France, and who are the mostpersistent, insolent and amusing of pedlars. I remember one who used tohaunt the repetitions at the Alcazar at Tours,--but there! Thisindividual was like the originals, yet unlike,--he was less gaudy, anda good deal dingier, than his Gallic prototypes are apt to be. Then hewore a burnoose,--the yellow, grimy-looking article of the Arab of theSoudan, not the spick and span Arab of the boulevard. Chief differenceof all, his face was clean shaven,--and whoever saw an Algerian ofParis whose chiefest glory was not his well-trimmed moustache and beard?
I expected that he would address me in the lingo which these gentlemencall French,--but he didn't.
'You are Mr Atherton?'
'And you are Mr--Who?--how did you come here? Where's my servant?'
The fellow held up his hand. As he did so, as if in accordance with apre-arranged signal, Edwards came into the room looking excessivelystartled. I turned to him.
'Is this the person who wished to see me?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Didn't I tell you to say that I didn't wish to see him?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Then why didn't you do as I told you?'
'I did, sir.'
'Then how comes he here?'
'Really, sir,'--Edwards put his hand up to his head as if he was halfasleep--'I don't quite know.'
'What do you mean by you don't know? Why didn't you stop him?'
'I think, sir, that I must have had a touch of sudden faintness,because I tried to put out my hand to stop him, and--I couldn't.'
'You're an idiot.--Go!' And he went. I turned to the stranger. 'Pray,sir, are you a magician?'
He replied to my question with another.
'You, Mr Atherton,--are you also a magician?'
He was staring at my mask with an evident lack of comprehension.
'I wear this because, in this place, death lurks in so many subtleforms, that, without it, I dare not breathe,' He inclined hishead--though I doubt if he understood. 'Be so good as to tell me,briefly, what it is you wish with me.'
He slipped his hand into the folds of his burnoose, and, taking out aslip of paper, laid it on the shelf by which we were standing. Iglanced at it, expecting to find on it a petition, or a testimonial, ora true statement of his sad case; instead it contained two wordsonly,--'Marjorie Lindon.' The unlooked-for sight of that well-lovedname brought the blood into my cheeks.
'You come from Miss Lindon?' He narrowed his shoulders, brought hisfinger-tips together, inclined his head, in a fashion which waspeculiarly Oriental, but not particularly explanatory,--so I repeatedmy question.
'Do you wish me to understand that you do come from Miss Lindon?'
Again he slipped his hand into his burnoose, again he produced a slipof paper, again he laid it on the shelf, again I glanced at it, againnothing was written on it but a name,--'Paul Lessingham.'
'Well?--I see,--Paul Lessingham.--What then?'
'She is good,--he is bad,--is it not so?'
He touched first one scrap of paper, then the other. I stared.
'Pray how do you happen to know?'
'He shall never have her,--eh?'
'What on earth do you mean?'
'Ah!--what do I mean!'
'Precisely, what do you mean? And also, and at the same time, who thedevil are you?'
'It is as a friend I come to you.'
'Then in that case you may go; I happen to be over-stocked in that linejust now.'
'Not with the kind of friend I am!'
'The saints forefend!'
'You love her,--you love Miss Lindon! Can you bear to think of him inher arms?'
I took off my mask,--feeling that the occasion required it. As I did sohe brushed aside the hanging folds of the hood of his burnoose, so thatI saw more of his face. I was immediately conscious that in his eyesthere was, in an especial degree, what, for want of a better term, onemay call the mesmeric quality. That his was one of those morbidorganisations which are oftener found, thank goodness, in the east thanin the west, and which are apt to exercise an uncanny influence overthe weak and the foolish folk with whom they come in contact,--the kindof creature for whom it is always just as well to keep a seasoned ropeclose handy. I was, also, conscious that he was taking advantage of theremoval of my mask to try his strength on me,--than which he could nothave found a tougher job. The sensitive something which is found in thehypnotic subject happens, in me, to be wholly absent.
'I see you are a mesmerist.'
He started.
'I am nothing,--a shadow!'
'And I'm a scientist. I should like, with your permission--or withoutit!--to try an experiment or two on you.'
He moved further back. There came a gleam into his eyes which suggestedthat he possessed his hideous power to an unusual degree,--that, in theestimation of his own people, he was qualified to take his standing asa regular devil-doctor.
'We will try experiments together, you and I,--on Paul Less
ingham.'
'Why on him?'
'You do not know?'
'I do not.'
'Why do you lie to me?'
'I don't lie to you,--I haven't the faintest notion what is the natureof your interest in Mr Lessingham.'
'My interest?--that is another thing; it is your interest of which weare speaking.'
'Pardon me,--it is yours.'
'Listen! you love her,--and he! But at a word from you he shall nothave her,--never! It is I who say it,--I!'
'And, once more, sir, who are you?'
'I am of the children of Isis!'
'Is that so?--It occurs to me that you have made a slightmistake,--this is London, not a dog-hole in the desert.'
'Do I not know?--what does it matter?--you shall see! There will come atime when you will want me,--you will find that you cannot bear tothink of him in her arms,--her whom you love! You will call to me, andI shall come, and of Paul Lessingham there shall be an end.'
While I was wondering whether he was really as mad as he sounded, orwhether he was some impudent charlatan who had an axe of his own togrind, and thought that he had found in me a grindstone, he hadvanished from the room. I moved after him.
'Hang it all!--stop!' I cried.
He must have made pretty good travelling, because, before I had a footin the hall, I heard the front door slam, and, when I reached thestreet, intent on calling him back, neither to the right nor to theleft was there a sign of him to be seen.
The Beetle: A Mystery Page 12