“I think,” replied Noble (as I believed he would), “that we have to deal with an individual — a man like ourselves, with very ordinary human prejudices, opinions and predilections. He may be a fiend of mischief with a streak of idiocy mixed in him, for genius is often leavened with evil; or he may be full of good will, without that good sense which alone makes good will of any practical use.”
“Genius and good sense are not often seen in double harness,” said Jacobs.
“Anyway I would give ten years of my life to meet him, good will, or bad,” declared Strossmayer.
“So would I,” answered his friend. “I would assuredly sacrifice ten years to corner him and convince him, if I could, that his operations are conducted on a hopelessly wrong principle, that he is wasting and bringing into contempt and hatred the power which he controls so marvellously.”
“That, in fact, he is making a hopeless ass of himself,” summed up Paul Strossmayer.
I found myself oppressed by my own thoughts before these conclusions, yet dared not voice them deliberately, or reveal my own knowledge. Unconsciously, however, I did indicate the possession of some secret information, by asking a question which astonished all who heard it. But to Noble’s ear it naturally appeared so irrational, if not childish, that it awoke no suspicion in his mind; neither did Strossmayer nor Jacobs see anything in it save matter for laughter.
“Assuming,” I asked, “that what we call ‘the Bat’ were in reality a living animal, as many intelligent critics still maintain, can you imagine that it might possess sufficient reasoning powers, or even self-consciousness, to come into correspondence with man? Is it possible that this unknown creature, if such it be, could communicate with, receive instruction from, and even obey the direction of, a human being? I imagine an organism with extraordinary physical gifts, and sufficient mind to learn the wishes and follow the orders of a superior organism — just as our dogs, which can do many things we cannot, have enough intelligence to employ their gifts of scent and speed for our convenience.”
Ian Noble stared and the others expressed amusement. They lacked the chemist’s subtlety, instantly to link up these remarks with the mentality of the man who had made them; but this I could see that Ian Noble did. He looked at me with a new expression — a curious expression combining opposite emotions. He was clearly surprised that such suggestions should come from my matter-of-fact intelligence; but the proposition itself appeared to his scientific mind as utterly untenable.
“You can imagine anything,” he admitted, “but one would hardly waste time on such a fantastic theory, while so many more rational and plausible explanations are offered. To imagine a live creature, in the exaggerated shape of a familiar, terrestrial animal seeking either to impart its opinions to mankind or obey his directions and put itself at his service — to imagine such a nightmare might be an easy feat for a professional story-teller, whose imagination is his stock-in-trade, but impossible for me, who only deal with reality.”
He chatted to us for another half hour, explained the spinthariscope and electroscope and showed us other wonderful scientific appliances — some of his own invention; then we took our leave of him; and with renewed advice from Jacobs and myself, to regard his health and give his overtaxed intellect a rest, we left him. But Paul Strossmayer remained for the night, while placing his car at our service.
We never saw either of them again, and ten days later both men were in their graves.
The hideous tragedy actually occurred three days afterwards, and Strossmayer was at the Club of Friends on the evening that followed our visit to Taplow. But Jacobs and I had gone to the theater upon that occasion and did not see him. We heard from those who were present that he had been exceedingly elated and, with a foreign abandon that often marked him in moments of excitement, had declared the future might already be considered as assured to Jugo-Slavia. This he claimed in the light of events connected with Ian Noble. But Jacobs and I perceived very clearly that Strossmayer’s prophecies, as reported on this occasion, were not such as Noble would have supported. Indeed more than one thoughtful man in the club that night began to foresee a time when the Jugo-Slav and his protégé must seriously fall out on questions concerning that mighty energy now declared as within Ian Noble’s grasp. Indeed, after hearing these things, Jacobs and I went still farther and until subsequent facts showed us mistaken, wondered if the first vague hints of the catastrophe which reached the public might not mean that these men were responsible for the death of one another. I recollect that we were actually arguing the possibility on insufficient information, when the truth reached us. That morning had brought the rumor; but an evening paper, which Bishop Blore carried with him from London after nightfall, made all clear enough.
Paul Strossmayer and Ian Noble had been discovered together dead on a footpath by the Thames, some quarter of a mile from the latter’s laboratory, during the early hours of the morning; while the structure which held the young chemist’s secrets — a building vividly in the mind’s eye of Jacobs and myself — had been stricken to dust by the unknown.
There was a feature of this horrible event which brought back the existence of ‘the Bat’ to men’s minds and intensified the vague terror of late somewhat dulled. On the occasion of this double murder, five independent witnesses vouched for the appearance of the creature. The night was clear with a waxing moon, and between the hours of nine and ten, a pair of lovers walking by the river had seen an enormous flying animal circling over the water high above them; a policeman on duty a mile distant also reported it; and a man and his wife, returning home to a cottage not far from Noble’s laboratory, had observed it moving low above a wood. The destruction of the laboratory was not discovered until the following morning; but at midnight, some hours after their death, the bodies of Strossmayer and the chemist had been found, where they fell, by a solitary laborer returning to Taplow. He had informed the police, and subsequent investigation proved that both men were slain by the familiar fatal blow struck into their backs.
It seemed clear that the victims were returning to Noble’s lodging when death overtook them.
CHAPTER XII
THE SUMMONS TO GRIMWOOD
THE death of Paul Strossmayer and his accomplished friend created a sensation that challenged the scientific centers of Europe and America. Ian Noble was already recognized as a man of infinite promise. His early career had been brilliant and his genius none denied. His relations with the representative of Jugo-Slavia were commented upon, and it was pointed out to the British Government by those entitled to speak, that any system which ignored the possibilities of such a man stood self-condemned. Half in earnest and half in jest, it had been proposed that if Italy could put a veto against her art treasures leaving the land of their creation, so modern states should strictly preserve their scientific assets. For all thinking men understood that the future welfare of every nation must largely depend upon such possessions. But Government moved not and the great Universities, which might have spoken with authority, were ruled by those incapable of lifting their trust beyond the Arts, wherein they supposed the world’s salvation to lie.
A fury of inquiry burst out again upon the subject of the unknown, and again the utter powerlessness of man to cope with the adversary appeared. A most disastrous blow against human progress had been struck, and the majority of reflective persons perceived that, in the case of Ian Noble, there had been swept from the world an agent more fruitful of promised good and increased power than any of those who had passed before him. Few possessed much personal knowledge of the dead chemist; but some of these spoke through the Press and painted the picture of a high-minded and honorable servant of Science — a man concerned with the sacred service of truth for its own sake. Their account agreed in every particular with the opinion formed by Leon Jacobs and myself.
Noble’s work had, of course, been conducted in solitude and with native caution; but though the principles upon which he proceeded were common knowledge t
o his peers, the destruction of his laboratory with all that it contained, left no vital material from which his new element might be rediscovered. Indeed, we found presently that Science knew no more than Jacobs and myself had already learned. It was currently rumored that Noble had discovered Element No. 85 of the Periodic Table; but more had not been divulged and few after his death were prepared to admit the truth of the report.
Thus priceless progress in knowledge was arrested at its most critical moment, and Science knew too well that a generation, perhaps more than one, might pass before any future discoverer with the Scotsman’s genius would arise to carry on his broken task. But against that, the more sanguine pointed out that the secret was still in the world and, to the unknown, a secret no longer. This insensate act appeared to bring the invisible assassins into a narrower radius of inquiry and tighten the loop around them. Many, indeed, asserted that they must soon be discovered, and that the ceaseless investigation and unsleeping inquiry now awakened throughout civilization would have a speedy reward. A deep and sullen anger leavened man’s thought on the subject and I confess to a personal satisfaction that, for once, passion winged my friend Leon’s words and led him into the expression of stronger opinion than he often permitted himself. But at the club, during an evening that followed the double funeral, he spoke.
The dead were laid to rest at Taplow and many attended the last rites. Representatives of Jugo-Slavia were present, the Royal Society was also represented, and the Jugo-Slavic family with whom Paul Strossmayer had resided at Chislehurst stood beside his grave. Ian Noble’s parents and a young sister came also, while Leon Jacobs and myself followed the small company out of respect for both dead men.
And at the club that night Leon let himself go.
“The malignant brutes may boast the brain of a god, but it is certain they have the heart of a devil,” he declared; “for what but accursed jealousy could have prompted the murder of a man already great, a man inspired with nothing but good will to his fellow men? He never dirtied his hands with politics; he never took a bribe; he never sought to advance himself before others. His one purpose was to forward the cause of human knowledge, and his sole ambition, through knowledge, to advance the welfare of us all and make the earth a happier place for pitiful mankind to dwell in. He never thought of using his discoveries for any but the purest purpose, and almost the last words I heard him say were wise and kindly words concerned with this damnable destroyer we call ‘the Bat.’
“He was not jealous of it and fully he recognized the amazing skill behind it; but, in common with all just men, he lamented the narrow, bitter, mistaken scope of its actions; and he only regretted that it was impossible for him, or any other large-minded man, to come face to face with this power of darkness and convince the monster of its errors. He longed to explain to those behind the thing that their awful exploits were vain, their ingenious destructions committed to no good purpose whatever.
“Noble pointed out that if a human ideal, or hope, promised real advance along the lines of moral evolution, then to cut off its head was not to kill it. Tyranny, even while triumphant, cannot confound or defeat truth; immortal mind must progress, though man falls again and again upon his journey. He was the sanest, most moderate young philosopher I ever met — a materialist in the highest and best sense — and I say that the power which robbed the world of him is an evil power and the avowed enemy of progress.”
Bishop Blore was the first to speak after Jacobs had ceased.
“You tell us that the poor lad wished to be face to face with this thing, that he might convince it of error. But how, my dear Jacobs, could any man convince it, or reach its mentality before he had trained it to understand him, or learned how to understand it? That is, of course, assuming it not to be human.”
“He assumed no such thing, Bishop,” I replied. “He was of opinion that, within this machinery of terror, there lurked human intellects, or rather a solitary intellect. And surely the argument is unanswerable. He traversed the whole scope of the unknown’s operations, and he asked us — Jacobs, Paul Strossmayer and myself — if it was in the bounds of possibility that a mighty being from another world, whether clothed in the shape of what we call a bat, or in any other physical form, would be likely to trouble itself about our parochial, two-penny half-penny interests — our art, or religion, above all, our politics? And so raised, the question is capable of only one answer. As for the alternative suggestion, he regarded the theory of some terrestrial animal with high intelligence, fetching and carrying at the direction of unknown men, as even more absurd.”
“No,” continued Jacobs, “these things are human work, and more than that: they are the work of an individual. He must have a mind of enormous genius in one direction — a penetrating and synthetic mind supported by extraordinary natural gifts. As such, if ever discovered, he will take his place among the rarest intellects that have dawned on this planet since Newton; but it is a mind which on the plane of human wisdom and understanding of social life is commonplace, reactionary, peddling.”
“It must certainly be a mistaken mind,” admitted the bishop. “The unfortunate individual, if you are right, has no doubt consecrated every energy and devoted his whole existence to Science. Thus he has denied himself experience of anything else, and his opinions concerning economics, ethics and social problems generally are worthless. But religion need not of necessity be denied him. A fanatic, however, he must be — if such a man exists.”
“Hence these tears,” added Jack Smith. “We are to believe that a mental infant is playing with this awful toy. But I do not think so. There is too much method in his madness, Jacobs. He knows very well what he is about and, for one thing, will brook no rival. Probably he never knew the dead men personally, and felt no more dislike for Strossmayer, or the chemist, than we do for the mouse we catch in a trap; but he suspected they were getting too hot on his trail and might presently be a nuisance. So he smudged them out.”
We talked on, each uttering his own opinion; but we missed the familiar fire, the conviction and intensity of Paul Strossmayer. There seemed a hiatus again and again in our interchange, when some challenging or provocative remark was uttered. At such moments I waited, from force of habit, for the foreigner’s impetuous contradiction, or enthusiastic support, only remembering that he was gone beyond question and answer, when no voice broke the silences. Upon this night both General Fordyce and his brother took their share of the conversation; but I recollect that Sir Bruce was the first to leave the circle, though not before he had enjoyed his customary ‘nightcap’ and contributed his opinions to the common store. He had declared unfeigned regret at Ian Noble’s end; but made no pretense of lamenting the death of the Jugo-Slav.
It was not until five o’clock of the following afternoon that Sir Bruce returned to my mind and then, upon the conclusion of my day’s work, there came a telegram for me to the Apollo Life Assurance Society, in Cannon Street. Just as I was addressing myself to my final task, a message, very strongly worded, reached me from Sir Bruce Fordyce himself.
“Come to me at all costs instantly. Vital to vast human interests. Take motor. B. Fordyce, Grimwood.”
I confess that for fully ten minutes I sat bewildered before this imperious demand. I am a man of no great physical courage and the thought of any unique and possibly painful adventure was exceedingly distasteful to me. The very idea produced sensations the reverse of agreeable and an instinct awoke, which strove to launch me along the line of least resistance. I felt, in fact, a strong impulse to ignore this entreaty. But reason speedily dismissed so cowardly a prompting. After all, I was a strong man. I trusted common sense and told myself that even if it were Sir Bruce whom I had seen conversing with a sentient being from another plane of life — even if that hideous vision were real — then, despite the appalling fact, Sir Bruce would still be himself — a man of honor, of delicate sensibilities and high ideals. But was he sane?
Again I hesitated, yet for a moment only.
Sane or stricken, he wanted me, nay, actually needed me; and he spoke of vast human interests. It was impossible to shirk an appeal directed in such terms.
England still lay under the incubus of the great Railway Strike, and though Sir Bruce had evidently got off that morning and returned to his country home, I guessed it might not be possible for me to find a night train for Devonshire. And the event proved that I could not. Inquiry at Paddington revealed no journey by rail possible until the following day; but there was an aërial service to the West of England and airplanes were flying from London by day and night. I had never flown, however, and did not intend to begin. I therefore took a taxicab to a garage familiar to me near Westbourne Grove, and set out to make arrangements.
By chance, upon this very morning, there were indications that Labor and the Government stood on the brink of an arrangement, and before nightfall rumor ran that the railway men had come in sight of victory. Before the event, many tongues anticipated it and declared that the Prime Minister had taken a decisive step along the road already so familiar to the nation. It was thought that he would grant Labor the substance of its demands, while saving the Government’s face with certain shadowy and unimportant conditions.
The conclusions which were hoped would emerge from this struggle had not emerged. The fundamental question: ‘What is wages?’ had not been answered. War had played havoc with the old principles of the economist, and the underlying idea of wages, as value given and value received, was a thing of the past. The war had placed every man at the service of the State, and since the State demanded the work, but ignored the old balance between the thing given and the thing received, wages had ceased to bear any relation to work. Labor was in fact receiving monstrously more than it could earn on any rational rate of values. The employer, toiling for a State in straits, paid what his men asked, since their work was more important than the price. Thus the employer got his commission and the State received the goods, paying for them immeasurably more than they were worth save in the false economic light of necessity. The vicious circle had been forged, and ‘the cost of living’ became the excuse for open rebellion against all laws of economy. Labor deliberately raised the cost of living and then demanded the wherewithal to meet the result of its own errors.
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