The Dream of X and Other Fantastic Visions

by William Hope Hodgson; Douglas A. Anderson

  As I have said, during the next month Harrison and Nell had made their preparations, and at the end of that period Tony was installed in a small house off Cheyne Walk, with a huge “pressure-box” in a properly constructed gas furnace, with everything in train for what he called a “year’s sit-down” to tend it. Briefly, their theory was that, given a certain latitude of time, temperature of a certain exact ratio of gradations of diminishment was the surest way to success. They had broken free from Jarnock’s and Urfur’s theory of a very protracted period of time for this phase of the experiment, and believed entirely, with Mr. Laodwen, in an exact ratio of diminishing temperatures; though, of course, Laodwen was never more than a theorist, and his statement had yet to be tested.

  When the explosion was made in the “pressure-box,” both Miss Gwynn and Harrison stayed in to watch the result. Luckily their calculations had been made with a sufficient margin of safety; for the pressure came on without a burst, which would possibly have wrecked the place. And after that, as I have said, Harrison settled to his year’s “sit-down” to tend the apparatus—a lime-jet furnace, the lime packed about the clay-covered, cylindrical “pressure-box,” and the jet passing through the lime.

  It was arranged between the two of them that Nell Gwynn should come down every day and tend the furnace for a few hours in the afternoon whilst Harrison got out for fresh air. This she did, bringing her young sister with her for company, and possibly as a sort of chaperon, which arrangement Harrison thought very sensible, particularly when he found that the Jew was developing a habit of coming down to have a look in for a moment during the times when Nell was on watch.

  Previously, that is during the preliminary stages, Mr. Moss had been rigorously excluded, for, as Harrison told him, “The secret is our secret, and we’re not giving it away. We’ve agreed with you to give a half-share of the results; but we do not intend to tell you our secret. You must be content, and keep your part of the agreement.”

  The Jew had grumbled loudly at this; but had finally assented, and they had seen no more of him until the business was well under way, and Harrison had written to tell him that he might pay a visit of inspection any time that pleased him. This he had done, and was now following it up by a series of “casual” visits during Miss Gwynn’s watch, as I have said. At first he had grumbled at the presence of Nell’s sister, saying that it would get all round the place that they were making diamonds; but this proved to be chiefly an excuse to get the younger girl away so that he could talk to Miss Gwynn.

  It was three months later that the Jew had a conversation with Nell which she kept entirely to herself; for she did not want to worry her lover, nor to have any trouble before the great experiment was concluded.

  The Jew began the talk by saying that nothing could come of the attempt, that he had financed it merely to please her; that Harrison was poor, whilst he—Mr. Moss—was rich, and loved her. Would she marry him? In short, it was a proposal, approached delicately and strategically from the Jew’s way of looking at things, and certainly it ticketed his character rather neatly. He took her refusal with a fat, unbelieving, smile, and told her to “think it over,” which offer she briefly but firmly declined.

  It took the man a week of steady refusals to make him realise that the girl meant what she said. “But he’s poor, and this’ll come to nothing,” he assured her a dozen times, as if no more fatal argument could be used against Harrison and favour his own suit. Finally, when at last he did realise that she would not have him at any price, he became rude, and said several things for which next day he came back to tender a heavy and cunning apology.

  “We can still be friends,” he said, after he had explained his lapse of manners. “No use not to be friends.”‘

  And he insisted on her shaking his big, fat, flabby hand. And the girl, disliking him heartily, agreed to consider him as such, for the sake of the well-being of the great experiment.

  From then onwards through a great many days his visits were very regular, and the girl observed that he seemed to examine the fittings of the furnace in a constant and rather furtive manner. She noticed also that his talk now centred very much around the making of diamonds, and this suited her very well; for she could talk by the hour on such a subject, and so keep him from his objectionable attitude of a badly used lover. At the end of a fortnight, however, she realised that he was no longer talking and questioning in a general way about their work, but was attempting to “pump” her. She grew a little suspicious, and evaded straight answers; and had finally to tell him directly in so many words that he must not ask too much, as she could not answer some of his questions without making known some of their secrets. At this the disappointment was plain for a moment on the man’s coarse, fat face; but he hid it, and turned the conversation. After that day for a week he stayed away altogether.

  From that time onward Mr. Moss ceased to bother Miss Gwynn with his presence to any great extent. He took, however, to calling on Tony Harrison, possibly to find out whether the girl had said anything about his offer of marriage; but whether this was one reason or not, it was soon obvious to Harrison that the Jew was on the search for information, particularly with regard to the ratio of diminishment of the temperatures and concerning the minimum length of time necessary to complete the cooling.

  Because of these questions Harrison grew suspicious, but instead of saying flatly that he would not give the information, and so, perhaps, having trouble which he wished to avoid, he supplied the Jew with a great deal of inaccurate data, which that gentleman digested with a smiling and contented face.

  At odd times the Jew offered to relieve Harrison for a few hours from his constant watch, so that he might take advantage of the fine weather and go for a walk. Once or twice Harrison accepted the service, and went for a trip into the country with Nell, though she, for her part, was not truly happy on such occasions, feeling that something might be “done” or “happen” whilst they were away. But Tony laughed at her fears.

  “It’s all right, my dear,” he told her. “He won’t meddle, not yet awhile. If he’s any thought of that it’ll be later, when things are approaching the end. He’s simply paving the way for some notion he has for the future, and I don’t see why we shouldn’t take advantage now of his offer to watch. We can be sure he sees no one touches anything or comes in, and the ‘ratio’ hasn’t to be varied until eight to-night, long after we’re back and he’s gone.”

  And so it proved at that time. The Jew kept a faithful enough watch, and Harrison always made an examination of everything on returning, only to find all in order; though once he fancied that his cupboards had been visited, as if someone had been prying or searching for something. But if the Jew had been looking for papers or formulas he had been disappointed, for those were kept at the bank under Miss Gwynn’s and Harrison’s joint signatures.

  It was in this eighth month that Tony discovered that the house was being watched. He had seen the man before, in a sub-conscious fashion; but on this night, happening to look out of the window just before he drew down the blind, he caught sight of the fellow standing opposite, under the glare of the street lamp.

  The man was obviously looking across at the house, and Harrison paused, with the blind half down, watching him. He remembered suddenly that he had seen him several times before, and always in the vicinity. Abruptly the fellow seemed to have become aware that he had attracted attention, for he turned and walked awkwardly up the street in a self-conscious manner. Harrison noted him carefully as he went, and realised that he was a big, hulking man, likely to be dangerous if it were made worth his while. Then he drew the blind and went back to his work, wondering whether he was getting fanciful.

  Three nights later, having to run out for something he wanted, he saw the same man again, this time talking to someone just in the mouth of a side street, from where he could see the house. A sudden suspicion came to Harrison as to the personality of the man to whom the rough was talking, and he turned quickly and wa
lked past the entrance of the side alley. As he cleared the corner he saw Mr. Moss, apparently shrinking back to avoid observation.

  He said nothing to show that he had seen the Jew; instead, he went into the first shop he came to. When he returned a few minutes later the Jew had gone, and the big rough was slouching in an unconcerned fashion down the street, where presently he came to a pause, and began to retrace his steps, evidently patrolling the front of the house.

  Harrison knew now without any doubt that the house was being watched, and more, that the Jew was the instigator of the watching. All of which made him very uneasy, so that the nest day he had a long talk with Nell Gwynn on the matter, and she in return told him all that she had hitherto kept back.

  “What’s he up to? That’s what bothers me!” said Harrison. “Does he think we’re going to run away with the red-hot cylinder in our pockets, or has he some dirty scheme in his mind? I wish it was all over.”

  That night when the alarm clock called Harrison, at 2 a.m., to take a look at the furnace, he had a queer and unpleasant surprise. The furnace was dead out. That is to say, the lime was hot but the jet had gone out, and there was gas on.

  He caught up a box of matches and applied a light to make sure; but there was no sound anywhere of gas escaping. He ran to the meter and found it full on, as ordinary, then he tried the other gases in the house, but none of them would light. He looked out at the street gas-lamps, and found them all burning as usual, and ran back to his furnace in despair. What devilment was on? If the gas did not come on soon, the whole experiment and all those months and months of weariful watching would be spoilt and lost.

  He stood there, in his stockinged feet, and listened. Far away it seemed to him that he could hear a faint sound. He ran to the door of the room, and put his head out, but the noises were not in the house. He returned hurriedly to the furnace, and listened. He heard it again—a slight sound of tapping, and then an odd, chinking sound, as of steel, and immediately the low, vague murmur—so he thought—of men’s voices, but he could not be sure. He struck a match and stared round the room. There was nothing.

  He caught up a spare length of iron pipe for a weapon, and stared round again. Then the match burnt his fingers, and he dropped it. He caught the faint noises again. They seemed to come from the direction of the furnace, and he stepped close to it. He heard the sounds very distinctly now, though very low and distant seeming. They appeared to come from somewhere behind the furnace—from beyond the furnace. But the wall was there, and only an empty house lay on the other side. He knew it, for he had been through it himself before he took the one in which he stood.

  Abruptly he realised that there were men in the other house, on the other side of the wall, and they were doing something. They it must be who had cut off his gas supply, and were ruining the great experiment. He grasped his iron pipe and turned hastily to the door. And in that minute the gas came on with a rush, hissing vigorously through the big jets. He applied a match to the furnace, then settled down to think it all out, with the result that he decided to do nothing until the morning, but to sit up the rest of the night and get the temperature of the furnace correct again.

  In the morning he went out, back and front, and had a look at the next-door house, but it stood untenanted as usual, the windows dirty, and the notice, “THIS HOUSE TO LET,” still in the windows. After that, he returned to his watching.

  When Nell came in the afternoon to relieve him, he told her what had happened in the night. After he had finished she was silent a minute, then she said, abruptly:

  “I should like you to go right out now, Tony, and buy a revolver. I’m not a bit happy. There’s something going to happen, and I want you to be led by me in this.”

  As a result, an hour later, Harrison, armed with a licence, went into a gunsmith’s, and came out with a fine, heavy Smith and Wesson in his pocket, along with a box of fifty cartridges.

  “Nell’s right,” he said to himself. “I shall feel happier to-night.”

  Having procured the weapon he paid a visit to the landlord of the house next door, who was also the landlord of the one he was inhabiting. Here he made inquiries as to whether he could go through the other house; but was told that it had been let for the past three weeks. This certainly made things look a bit more definite, and Harrison, began to see a possible explanation. He resolved, if he could to find out who were the queer tenants who took a house and left the windows uncleaned and the notice up, and who, moreover, at two o’clock in the morning, meddled with the gas to such a tune that they had put out his furnace.

  He walked back to his own house and asked Nell whether she had seen Mr. Moss. She told him that the Jew had just gone down the street in company with another man, who was dressed in blue overalls.

  “Then I’ll bet there’s no one in next door now,” he replied, for he had given her all his news. “I’m going to try the back way.”

  To his delight he found the back door merely on the latch. He opened it quietly and stepped inside. He tiptoed into the kitchen and then along the little passage into the front apartment. Here he found a plumber’s lamp and a bag of tools, down by the door, but no one in the house. He went down the passage again, and entered the little, middle room. There was a smell of white lead and burnt gas, and here it was that he found an explanation of all that bothered him.

  In the far corner, against the wall where—on the other side—was built his own furnace, stood one in every way similar. On the floor, in front of it, was a heap of wet fire clay, and by this was a massive, new-seeming metal cylinder which Harrison recognised at once as being a “pressure-box,” identical with the one in his furnace. Evidently both furnace and cylinder had been made by the same firms to whom he had gone.

  He went to the door and listened, then back and across to the cylinder. The head was loosely screwed in, and with a twist or two he had it free. Inside, there was a quantity of crude carbon, whereat he smiled rather grimly, for now he perceived the whole plot. He screwed back the head of the cylinder, and went quickly into the kitchen, for the Jew and his man, or men, might return at any moment. As he passed out through the back door, he heard the rattle of the front handle, and knew that he had not been a moment too soon in making his escape. He put a hand on the low dividing wall between the two diminutive yards, and vaulted over into his own, then hurried in to tell all that he knew to Nell.

  “You see how Moss means to jew us,” he concluded. “He’ll come in one of these days soon, and offer to take my watch for a bit whilst I take you for a run round. While we’re gone he’ll bring in his cylinder, which he’s stuffed with carbon and some other rubbish, and put it in our furnace, in the place of the genuine cylinder which holds the diamonds. That he’ll cart into his own, and grade down the temperature according to some rather picturesque formulæ I gave him months ago, and which he’s probably noted carefully for the occasion. I tell you, Nell, he’s a hog of the very first water, if there is such a thing! He means not only to rob us of our share of the diamonds, but to rob us of our chance of marrying soon. I suppose the brute thinks you might look at him if the experiment turns out a failure, as he means to make it appear!”

  He stopped, breathless with anger and bitterness, and the girl nodded, with a little scornful laugh at the futility of the Jew’s mean schemes.

  “The beauty of it is,” continued Harrison, “that I’ll let him do all that he’s meaning to do, only there’ll be one little alteration which will make just a slight difference. I’ll fake up a dummy cylinder, fireclay it, and put it in the top of the furnace, and have the genuine one right down out of sight at the bottom. “What do you think of the notion?”

  “Splendid!” said the girl, delighted. “It’s just a splendid idea. We shall have him all along the line, sha’n’t we? And he won’t dare say a word afterwards, when he finds out how we’ve got back on him, as we say at home,”

  “Yes, I think we’ve got him all right.” said Harrison. “He’ll take the visibl
e, dummy cylinder, and leave his own in place of it. Then he’ll put the dummy to bed in his own furnace, believing that it contains the diamonds. Meanwhile we’ll remove his, and hide it until we need it, and bring the genuine one up to its proper place again. In a month from to-day we’ll open the real one; and get the diamonds, if there are any, without saying a word to Moss. Then we’ll shove the faked cylinder back into the furnace, and invite him to come in and see it opened, telling him we’ve been cooling down for days, and that it is now ready. As soon as we get it open, he’ll shake his head, and say that he feared the experiment could hardly come to anything—just a matter of chance and luck. Then he’ll go away hugging himself with the belief that he has the real cylinder safe in his own furnace—see?”

  Harrison proved something of a prophet; for in no single thing was he wide of his mark. The Jew did offer to take his watch one day soon, whilst he took Miss Gwynn for an outing. When he returned, a very brief examination showed him that the Jew had effected the exchange. When the two lovers wore assured of the fact, they looked at each other, and laughed heartily. Afterwards they hoisted the faked cylinder out of the furnace, and hid it away at the bank.

  “Three weeks later Harrison removed the genuine cylinder from the furnace and replaced it with the faked counterpart. Then he put the real one into hot sand to cool off. At the end of another week, he judged it would be safe to venture upon opening it.

  Yet when they came to open it, they found that the screwed head was hopelessly fused solid with the remainder of the cylinder. Harrison, however, had foreseen this, and had provided himself with a suitable hacksaw and a plentiful supply of spare blades. Yet, before he attempted to do anything else, he drilled a small hole in the side of the steel case to let off the imprisoned gases. As the drill bit through the last fraction of steel, there came a sharp report and a shrill whistling of rushing gas. The drill was blown clean out of Harrison’s hand, and rang against the opposite wall; but, fortunately, neither he nor Nell was hurt.