At length the old man spoke.
“Greeting, my son, in the name of Those whom we both serve.”
A quiver ran through the rigid form confronting him, and a thin fold of drapery seemed to shake itself free from the swathing mummy-bands and hang like a long, loose sleeve.
“Whence come you ?” came the questioning voice, as if in some set formula, the quaver of old age sounding in an undertone through its ritual resonance.
“From the Abyss,” came at length the unwilling answer.
“And whither go you ?”
There was a pause, broken only by the slow ash falling in the fire and the rhythmic breathing of Veronica. The log had burnt through and broken before the answer came, but the old man never stirred.
Then Lucas spoke.
“I am in Outer Darkness,” he said. “Blown about by the winds of space. It is useless to ask me whither I am going, for I cannot tell you.”
“Depart, my son, depart, and be at peace,” said the old man. “Face your reckoning and meet it, and then, when the day of life dawns for you once more, you can return to the Path whence you have turned aside.”
The bat-like wings unfolded themselves threateningly from the drapery as Lucas answered angrily. “It is not in your power to bid me depart ; I have made good my foothold on the plane of manifestation to that extent at any rate. We can defy you, between us.”
The old man turned to Veronica. “My daughter,” he said, “it is not in my power to make Justin face his reckoning, as he very truly says, because I cannot drive him out of the form he has built for himself without shattering you, for it is built in part of your substance, but if you will withdraw yourself from him, then I can send him to his own place.”
Veronica slowly raised herself up in her chair and looked from one to another of the two who confronted her. To her psychic condition, neither of them seemed material, but to be different types of force, each expressed through the vehicle of a mind. The old man appeared to her as a prism, transmitting a ray from a great sun hung in space, but Lucas shone with a phosphorescence, luminous as certain fungi are luminous, with the light of their own putrefaction.
“Where will he go ?” she said at length. “Where is his own place. Will it be well with him there ?”
Lucas laughed, and the sound seemed to be taken up by innumerable voices. Every flicker of firelight, every draught of the crazy house seemed to cackle with ghastly merriment.
“My own place,” he said, “is the Dark Planet of Disintegration, the Wandering Planet, that has no orbit. There I shall be returned, cell by cell, molecule by molecule, atom by atom, to the primordial substance whence I arose, for it will not be Purgatory I go to, but annihilation, for I have given myself unreservedly to darkness and said to evil, ‘be thou my good.’”
“Are you quite sure, my son, that you have given yourself unreservedly to evil ?” said the old man.
“It is not my fault if I haven't !” snarled Lucas.
Veronica's voice cut across their dispute. “I could not send him to destruction, Dr. Latimer. I may be very foolish and very wrong, but I really could not do it. I do not think he can do anyone any harm if I won't help him, and perhaps if we give him time, he may have a chance to put things right.”
“Time is the one thing we cannot give him, my dear. There is no slack water in the cosmic tides. He must go one way or the other, back into life or out to the death of the soul.”
“Then why can he not come back, if such a thing is possible ?”
“Because he can only come back through you, and then you will be where he is now.”
“Is that so very terrible ?” said Veronica.
“It is,” said Lucas, briefly.
“For the second time,” said the old man, concentrating his gaze upon the shrouded figure before him. “Where are you going, my son ?”
Lucas did not answer.
“Do you intend to go to your reckoning ?”
The bat-wings folded closer round the swathed figure and a shudder seemed to run through it.
“Not if I can help it.”
“Then do you propose to maintain yourself in manifestation by means of the life-forces of this girl ?”
There was a long pause as Lucas seemed to be unable to come to a decision.
“It will have to be one or the other,” said the old man.
“I know that,” said Lucas.
He looked at Veronica as she lay back in the big chair, and she leant towards him anxiously.
“I do not know what it all means,” she said, “but I shall not send you away, I said I would stand by you and I will. I cannot let you hurt the children, but I will not send you away myself.”
Lucas smiled a crooked smile.
“I may have to send myself away, little Veronica.”
The old man became tensely still in his chair, and seemed hardly to breathe as he waited for the next words from the grey shadow in the corner.
The fire had died to darkness before they were spoken.
“There are some things” the words came slow and heavy, like drops of water falling in a cavern, “—which cannot be done.”
Again silence fell upon the room, unbroken by any sound, within or without, and finally the voice of Lucas spoke again.
“If it were anyone but you, Veronica—no, it cannot be done.” Then the voice, gathering strength, rang like a bell, and into it came a note that was almost joy. “This is good-bye, Veronica. Good-bye and God bless you, go free and be happy. Forget as much as you can and forgive the rest. Or, if you must remember, then remember that I loved you.”
Veronica rose up in the darkness and faced him, and the old man, watching, saw that the child Veronica was no more, for the soul which had lived through the ages had at last entered into full possession of its tenement.
“I shall forget nothing, and there is nothing to forgive. This thing had to be, and we have worked it out together. To you I have been a soul, and to me you shall be a mind. If you go to the Dark Planet, I will go with you, and if I remain here, you will return to me.”
“It is not for us to say what we will do,” said Lucas. “I go to Those who will deal with me as They see fit——” and throwing up his hand he cried in a voice of evocation “——for I go to my reckoning.”
The utterance of the words seemed to bring with them a sudden change. The cowled grey figure was shot through as with streaks of fire, and crimson fumes rolled up all around like the light of a burning city. Once again the cackling laughter rose up from every shadow and crevice of that haunted house, and peal upon peal of hooting merriment answered from high overhead where the night clouds raced across the face of the moon. It seemed as if every patch of gloom harboured triumphant evil and Lucas had been delivered into its hands. A blast of furious gale struck the house broadside till the place rocked on its foundations, rafters and beams creaking as if the whole crazy structure were coming down. The windows, torn bodily from their frames, crashed on to the floor in a shower of flying glass. Something that was thicker than the darkness swept into the room with the gale, passed swiftly over all its surfaces, touching them with intangible tentacles till it found that which it sought, and then swept out again as it had come. The gale sank as suddenly as it had arisen ; the room, vacated of all presences, was simply a shattered human dwelling-place wrecked by a cyclone. No trace remained of the forces that had swept it or the passions that had invoked them, save only that an intolerable stench of putrefaction rolled up in waves from the corner where the grey cowled figure had stood.
CHAPTER TWENTT-SIX
THE TERRIFIC WIND DIED AWAY AS SUDDENLY AS it had arisen, leaving the room in utter darkness. Veronica could hear the old man fumbling for the matches. The little pale flame lit up at last, a feeble gleam among the shadows The lamp, smashed to fragments, lay in a corner, and the old doctor turned slowly round, seeking for something to light. As he turned, he suddenly stopped with a half-strangled exclamation, for, framed in the shattere
d window-space, stood the figure of a man. They both gazed at it in speechless amazement as the dying flame of the match illumined the strange, impassive countenance, exaggerating with its flickering shadows the deep lines of the parchment skin, the hollow cheeks, the high cheek-bones, the great jaw and the lofty forehead. The eyes, deep-set and glittering, were those of the hawk, not the Mongol, otherwise the newcomer might have passed for an Asiatic rather than a European, and the lithe, silent movement with which he entered the room confirmed the illusion of the East, yet Veronica knew that this man was not an Asiatic, any more than he was a Westerner ; he was absolutely detached. He gave the impression of tremendous power, utterly impersonal, completely under control. Veronica had seen enough of the members of the mysterious Fraternity in whose headquarters she had been concealed to recognize the sign manual of its discipline. The glittering eyes of Dr. Latimer, the catlike movement of Lucas, the sense of impersonal power of the hard-faced man, all these she saw developed to a far greater degree and concentrated in a single individual. She knew without telling that this man had to do with the Fraternity, but was far higher, far bigger, than the men she had so far encountered in the handling of its affairs. He as far transcended Lucas as Lucas transcended herself, and she knew without telling that he was not only a man to be obeyed, but to be trusted.
The match burnt itself out in the old man's fingers while he gazed speechless at this apparition, and the room was once again in darkness and silence.
The voice of the stranger broke the spell.
“You know me ?”
“Yes, you are—you are—the Third.” Dr. Latimer spoke brokenly, like a man overwhelmed by emotion.
“Quite right. I am the Third. Now I suggest that you strike a light. There are matters I wish to discuss with you.”
Veronica could here the footsteps of the stranger as he crossed the bare parquet. He moved in the darkness with the precision of a man who could see where he was going, and the clink of metal told her that he had laid hands on the two brass bedroom candlesticks that stood on the table near the door. By the time Dr. Latimer had got the match alight, he was standing before him, holding the candlesticks.
Veronica could now examine him at her leisure. The loose frieze overcoat he wore exaggerated his height and the massiveness of his frame, but as he laid it aside she saw that he was clad in the ordinary lounge suit of civilization. Unlike some students of the occult, the members of this fraternity, which really possessed power and knowledge, did not seek to be impressive, but rather to conceal themselves under the bushel of convention in order to pursue their studies undisturbed. “Don't stir up Mrs. Grundy,” Lucas had once said to her, “she is an old lady well worth conciliating if you want to be let alone.” The newcomer was evidently of the same opinion, for mien and manner were studiously approximated to the ordinary.
He knelt before the smouldering hearth and drew the ashes together gently, as if handling living creatures. The instantaneous blazing of the fire under his hand seemed to Veronica of a piece with his power to move in the darkness : he might wear ordinary clothes, but he was no ordinary man.
For the first time he looked directly at her as she sat motionless in her big chair, as she had sat ever since his entrance.
“Come, my child,” he said, laying his hand on hers. “Draw up to the fire and warm yourself. You are cold.”
That kindly touch, which had nothing of a man's familiarity in it, told Veronica yet more about the stranger. Dr. Latimer had brains and kindness, but no strength ; the hard-faced man had brains and strength, but no kindness ; the newcomer had all three, and Veronica knew by this that he was a far greater man in every way than either of the others was ever likely to be, “Talk of angels and you hear their wings,” says the proverb, and even as she thought of her old opponent, a step sounded on the gravel of the terrace, and his burly figure stood framed in the window.
He looked just as surprised to see the man who had called himself the Third as Dr. Latimer had looked, and Veronica had a secret suspicion that he was not any too pleased. He was not the type of man who would take kindly to yielding, and the stranger would certainly rule any group in which he found himself. On the other hand, she knew intuitively that Dr. Latimer was immensely relieved at the intervention of the unknown man, and quite ready to trust the issue into his hands.
“If you will be good enough to come in, Mr. Fordice,” said that personage, “we will be able to close the window.”
The hard-faced man gave a grunt that sounded rather resentful of even this reasonable request, but nevertheless he did as he was asked, and lent his assistance to secure the mouldering shutters that threatened to fall bodily into the room.
No questions were asked or answered, but nevertheless, Veronica, with her quickened intuition, felt certain that each of these three men had obeyed a silent summons, though whether that summons had issued from the Third, or whether he, too, had been summoned, she could not tell. They were gathered in a semicircle round the now blazing fire, and two pipes and a cigar were rapidly obscuring the atmosphere, and still no word was spoken ; she felt that these men were “sensing” the state of affairs, “sensing” each other, and acting and reacting in a way which she could not divine. She had always thought that occultists were ascetic people who touched neither meat, drink nor tobacco, but Dr. Latimer had always eaten without a murmer whatever the caretaker had chosen to set before him, and the Third was smoking a long black cigar that would have put the average man upon his back. They might be psychics, but they were certainly not sensitives.
Finally the Third spoke. “We must settle this matter as speedily as possible,” he said. “Time is an important factor in the case.”
“I thought it had been settled,” said the hard-faced man, with something that closely approached a sneer.
“I thought so, too,” said Dr. Latimer, looking up in surprise. “Lucas, in my hearing, accepted his fate and went out to the Judgment Hall of Osiris.”
“And was turned back at the gate,” said the Third, “for his time was not yet come. They would no more accept him than they would accept a murdered man or—” he paused significantly, “—a suicide.”
“Would you consider,” said the hard-faced man, “that a criminal who was executed in accordance with the law was a murdered man ?”
“The law of the land rules the land,” said the Third, “and when the Race Spirit takes a life, it is a death according to the law, and therefore a natural death ; whether it is right or wise to take that life, is another matter, and in any case the issue is one we are not concerned with here, for the law was not invoked. It was a private vendetta, gentlemen, and it is no use pretending otherwise, and the consequences of your rash action you must face, for you have caused a soul to leave its body before its natural term had arrived, and that soul, therefore, ‘ walks ‘ as surely as any other suicide.”
“Why do you keep on emphasizing the word suicide ?” asked the man he had called Fordice, peering sharply at the Third.
“Because I do not know what other word to use for a man who voluntarily vacates his body, the makers of dictionaries had not foreseen such an eventuality as the one we are discussing. No, gentlemen, with all your cleverness you did not even succeed in ‘bagging ’ our friend. He eluded you.”
Fordice gave a sound that was almost a snarl. He was evidently more annoyed to learn that his magic had failed of its purpose than relieved to fina that he had not got a crime on his conscience. His character appeared to have undergone a profound change even during the short time that Veronica had known him ; the evil of which Lucas had rid his soul seemed to have entered into him.
“The question is, what do you propose to do with our friend ?” continued the Third. “He is a member of your Lodge, gentlemen, it is your problem.”
“The reason he does not go to his last account is that he is a vampire,” said Fordice. “If you opened the grave you would probably find his body as fresh as when it was buried.”
&n
bsp; “Precisely,” said the Third. “We all know that. But the question is : What are you going to do about it ?”
“You also know the traditional way of dealing with vampires, no doubt ?” answered his opponent, the sneer appearing openly on the surface of his expression.
“I knew it before you were born,” said the Third, a slow smile stirring the lines of his face. “But, considering the circumstances under which this man became a vampire, would you be justified in using it. You, of all men ?”
At this home thrust the hard-faced man winced and kept silence.
“It has always been my belief,” said Dr. Latimer, “that Justin, with all his faults, did not enter our Fraternity without a reason, and it is also my belief that when he gave himself as a voluntary sacrifice to save another, he wiped out a very great deal, if not all, of his debt.”
“Did he not contract a fresh debt when he elected to become a vampire ?” asked Fordice.
“Admittedly. But do you not think that he wiped that out also when he went voluntarily to the Second Death? Remember, we had not power to force him to surrender his wraith-form, he laid it down of his own free will rather than injure one whom he loved. The Second Death is a terrible thing for a man in his position to face, and he had no means of knowing that the Second Death would reject him.”
“And even if he had known it,” interposed the Third, “to wander homeless in the Intermediate State is a much worse thing than to burn in Hell, for you suffer all the pains of purgatory with none of its purification. That soul is out on the astral now, where, between you, you have despatched him.”
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