“We shall see now,” he promised them, smiling, “another kind of dance. There is only one thing I should like to point out. The little instrument I hold in my hand now is adjusted to any distance up to two hundred yards. By turning the handle a dozen more times, the distance could be increased to a mile, and more in proportion. The length of my silk-covered wire is immaterial. It could stretch, if desired, from here to Broadway. Now watch.”
They all sat with their eyes fastened upon the corner of the pathway. A slight uneasiness which Lavendale in particular had felt, was almost banished by a thrilling sense of expectancy. Suddenly a portly figure appeared, a policeman whom they had passed soon after entering the park. He approached with his hands behind him, walking in ruminating fashion. Suddenly, as his foot touched the thread, he came to a halt. There was something unnatural in his momentarily statuesque attitude. Then, before their eyes he seemed to stiffen, fell like a log on his right side, with his head in the roadway. His helmet rolled a few feet away. The man remained motionless. Lavendale sprang to his feet, but Mr. Moreton pushed him back.
“That is of no consequence,” he said softly. “Wait for a moment.”
Lavendale even then would have obeyed his instinct and jumped from the car, but his limbs seemed powerless. A man and a girl, arm in arm, appeared round the corner. Suzanne stood up. A strange, hysterical impulse seized her and she tried to shout. Her voice sounded like the feeblest whimper. The two lovers, as their feet touched the thread, seemed suddenly to break off in their conversation. It was as though the words themselves were arrested upon their lips, as though all feeling and movement had become paralysed. Then they, too, stiffened and fell in the same direction. A park-keeper, who had seen the collapse of the policeman, came running across the road, shouting all the time, and an automobile which had been crawling along, increased its speed and raced to the spot. Mr. Moreton touched a button in the instrument which he was holding. The thunder died away and the blue flashes ceased. Suzanne leaned back in the car; her cheeks were as pale as death. Lavendale bent over her.
“It’s all right, Suzanne,” he assured her. “Sit here while I go down. There is nothing wrong with those people really. It’s just another of Mr. Moreton’s little jokes.”
Nevertheless, when Lavendale’s feet touched the ground he gave a little cry, for the earth seemed quaking around him. Mr. Moreton, who was walking by his side, patted him on the shoulder.
“Steady, my boy! Steady!” he said. “You see, the whole of the earth between here and that little thread of white silk is heavily charged. You feel, don’t you, as though the ground were rising up and were going to hit you in the chin. I’ve grown used to it. There goes poor Jimmy. Dear me, he hasn’t the nerve of a chicken!” Young Moreton fell over in a dead faint. Lavendale set his teeth and staggered on. A little crowd was already gathering around the three prostrate bodies.
“You see,” Mr. Moreton explained reassuringly, “I have broken the connection now. Nothing more will happen.”
“What of those three—the policeman, the man and the girl?” Lavendale faltered.
Mr. Moreton patted him on the back. They had reached now the outskirts of the little group.
“Theirs,” he said gravely, “was the real dance. You have been fortunate, young man. Your journey from Europe has been worth while, after all. You have seen the Hamlin Trio in their Jugglers’ Dance, and you have seen here in the sunshine, under the green, trees, with all the dramatic environment possible, the greatest dance of all—the dance of death.”
Lavendale felt the blood once more flowing freely in his veins. He turned almost fiercely upon his companion as he pushed his way through the gathering crowd.
“You don’t mean that they are really dead?” he cried.
“Even your wonderful friend Bowden,” Mr. Moreton assured him sweetly, “could never wake a single beat in their hearts again.”
An ambulance had just glided up. A man who seemed to be a doctor rose to his feet, shaking the dust from his knees.
“These three people are dead,” he pronounced sombrely. “The symptoms are inexplicable.”
He suddenly recognised Moreton, who held out his hand genially towards him.
“Dr. Praxton, is it not?” he remarked. “It is very fortunate that I should have so reliable a witness upon the spot. I shall be obliged, doctor, if you will take the bodies of these fortunate people into your keeping and prepare a careful examination of their condition.”
“Do you know anything about their death?” the doctor asked.
The great inventor smiled in a superior fashion.
“Why, my dear fellow, yes!” he assented. “I killed them. You see that little skein of what seems to be white silk? If a million people had trodden upon it, one after the other, or if I in my car had been twenty miles away with my instrument properly regulated, there would still be a million dead lying here. I am Moreton—Ned Moreton, the inventor, you know, doctor. I can strip the universe of life, if I choose. I should have liked—” he added, glancing a little peevishly over his shoulder, “the young lady to have seen this. I shall make a point of her coming on to the hospital.”
The doctor glanced meaningly at the two or three policemen who had forced their way to the front. They led Mr. Moreton back to the car, and a few minutes later he was driven off, seated between them, smoking a cigar, the picture of amiability. Suzanne and Lavendale found a taxicab and left the park by another exit. She sat close to him, clinging to his arm.
“Suzanne,” he whispered, “can you be a woman now for the sake of the great things?”
She sat up by his side. Her face was marble white, but some latent force seemed to have asserted itself.
“Go on, Ambrose,” she begged. “I can listen. Do not be afraid.”
“I have told this man,” he continued, “to drive to the docks. The Marabic is sailing at five o’clock.”
She looked at him for a moment as though she failed to understand. His arm tightened around her.
“I have the instruments and a skein of the thread in my pocket,” he whispered.
A sudden light flashed in her eyes. She leaned over and kissed him firmly and deliberately upon the lips.
“You are a man, Ambrose,” she declared. “Do not be afraid. We are allies, is it not so?”
“In this, yes!” he promised her.
* * * * *
Two hours later; as they moved slowly down the river, the tugs shrieking in front of them, and siren whistles blowing on every side, they examined for the first time, in the security of Lavendale’s stateroom, their new treasures—the black, camera-like instrument, the smaller one, with its dial face, and a little skein of the white, silk-covered wire. They both gazed at them almost in stupefaction—harmless-looking objects, silent, dead things.
“Only think,” she whispered, clutching his arm, “we have but to learn their secret and we can end the war!”
Lavendale hid them away and silently they stole up on deck. They heard the engines quicken their beat, saw the great buildings of the city fade into an evening mist. They saw the lights shoot out from the Statue of Liberty and felt the ocean breeze on their cheeks. They turned their faces eastwards. The apprehension of great things kept them silent. They faced the Unknown.
9. AN INTERRUPTED REVUE
Table of Contents
MADAME FÉLANIE sat before the gaily-decorated mirror which swung upon her dressing table, contemplating the result of her maid’s careful and strenuous attentions. Her dressing-room, during the many months of her great success, had become transformed into a little bower of luxury and comfort. A telephone stood at her elbow amongst a chaos of tortoiseshell-backed toilet articles. There was a soft green carpet upon the floor, a wonderful divan in the most comfortable corner, a few trifles of Empire furniture, an etching or so upon the wall. Madame Félanie was a clever woman and she understood the art of environment.
Her costume now for the second act of the brilliant revue in which her
success had been almost phenomenal, was practically completed. She wore still a rose-coloured dressing-gown over garments not remarkable for their prodigality, and though the evening papers, a French novel, a little volume of poetry sent from the author, and a box of Russian cigarettes stood at her elbow, she still continued to gaze a little abstractedly at the reflection of her own features in the looking-glass. London had found her beautiful, seductive, vivacious. She was all of these. Her dark and beautifully-set eyes restrained their gleam of natural violet notwithstanding the encompassment of stage make-up. No rouge could conceal the pearly brilliancy of her complexion, no cake of powder the charming lines of her mouth. It was not at these things, however, that she looked. Her eyes’ were fixed steadily upon the roots of her blue-black hair, drawn back from her forehead in a manner peculiar to herself. She even raised the tiny magnifying glass on the table before her, to concentrate her regard, and there was in her face almost at that moment a shadow, as though some faint foreboding was hovering over her, even in these halcyon days of her great triumph.
She laid the magnifying glass down.
‘It is impossible,’ she murmured to herself, stretching out her hand for a cigarette.
There was a knock at the door. Her maid came softly in—an elderly woman in prim black, softly-shod and with the art of moving noiselessly. She carried a card in her hand, which she presented to her mistress.
‘Madame,’ she announced, ‘this gentleman desires the favour of a word with you.’
Félanie stretched out her hand.
‘You know so well, Marie,’ she complained, ‘that I receive here only those who need send no card. Give him my address, if it is a gentleman from the Press.’
‘I thought madame would prefer to see this gentleman,’ the maid said quietly.
Still with a queer reluctance, Félanie took the card into her white fingers. Before she glanced at it she knew very well what name she would find written there, and she hated the knowledge. The black, letters stared up at her—
Mr. Ambrose Lavendale, 17 Sackville Street.
Félanie turned her head slowly and looked upwards at her maid. The woman’s face, however, was blank.
‘The gentleman is doubtless known to Mr. Wiltshaw,’ the latter continued. ‘He secured the entrée here without difficulty. He waits now in the passage.’
‘You can show him in,’ her mistress ordered.
There were a few seconds during which another woman looked into that gaily-hung mirror, and another reflection appeared there. The mouth was no longer seductive, but grim. The eyes were no longer insolent, half challenging conquest, half promising tenderness, but seemed, indeed, to have receded a little, to be filled with the shrinking light of fear. The transition was extraordinary and complete. Here sat a terrified woman, face to face with some evil thing!
Then there came a knock at the door. As with the touch of her fingers upon the switch the gloom of the room was changed into brilliant light, so Félanie almost miraculously recovered herself. She swung round in her dainty revolving chair. Her lips, even, fell naturally and easily into the lines of her most seductive smile. What fear there was at the woman’s heart showed itself no longer in her face.
‘Monsieur Lavendale—Monsieur Ambrose Lavendale, is it not?’ she added, with a momentary glance at the card. ‘You wish to see me?’
Lavendale came a little further into the room and bowed. At a glance from her mistress, the maid softly withdrew, closing the door. In his severely simple evening clothes, Lavendale seemed in that little room to be taller even than his six feet two. Félanie, who had risen to her feet, felt herself suddenly dominated.
‘Madame,’ Lavendale said, ‘I have ventured to present myself in order to renew a very delightful acquaintance.’
She played the game bravely.
‘But, monsieur,’ she protested, ‘I have not the pleasure of knowing you.’
He sighed.
‘It is, alas! then, your memory, madame, which is at fault.’
‘Or yours?’ she queried softly. He shook his head.
‘Those who have had the privilege of knowing the lady who calls herself now Madame Félanie, could make no mistake.’
‘Yet it seems,’ she persisted, acknowledging his courtesy with a smile, ‘that that is what has happened. You are gallant, monsieur, but there are so many of us upon the stage who resemble one another.’
He shook his head with a self-confidence which she hated.
‘There is no man in this world,’ he declared, ‘who could fail to recognize Adèle Goetz, even under the guise of Madame Félanie. May I congratulate you upon your great success? Your revue, they tell me, will run for ever.’
‘You are very kind,’ she said, her knees beginning to tremble a little, ‘but indeed you are mistaken. My name is Elaine Félanie. It is my own name. I came from the Odéon. I am so well-known in Paris. This lady of whom you speak perhaps resembled me.’
Lavendale did not for a moment reply. His face had become a shade graver, his grey eyes held hers.
‘Is there, then, a reason, madame,’ he asked, ‘why Adèle Goetz preferred to disappear and Madame Félanie to rise from her ashes? Am I not one of those who could be trusted? My memories of Mademoiselle Adèle are too delightful for me to bear anything but goodwill towards Madame Félanie.’
She stood for a moment quite still. Her brain was working quickly. After all, the man was an American. She looked at him a little doubtfully. He smiled—and she yielded. She gave him both her hands.
‘Monsieur Ambrose,’ she said, ‘it can go on no longer. I thought myself an actress but you have conquered. You are my friend?’
‘Your devoted friend,’ he assured her.
‘You can imagine, then, why here in England it is Elaine Félanie alone who exists?’
‘Adèle Goetz, if I remember rightly,’ he replied, ‘was of German birth.’
She glanced almost nervously around her. He went on without pause.
‘So far as that simple fact is concerned,’ he continued, ‘you will not—you need have no fear of my discretion.’
She gave him her hands again and this time there was more of invitation in lier gesture.
‘You were always kind to me,’ she murmured. ‘We shall see something of one another now, is it not so?’
He shook his head.
‘Alas! no, madame,’ he sighed. ‘I am engaged to be married.’
‘And mademoiselle is jealous?’ she inquired, with a little pout.
‘There is no woman in the world,’ he told her, ‘who would not be jealous of Madame Félanie.’
She laughed at him with something of her old gaiety, threw herself back in her chair and passed him the cigarettes.
‘We have a few minutes longer, at least,’ she pleaded, ‘before we make our pathetic farewells. You have not lost the gift of saying pleasant things, Ambrose.’
‘Nor you, Adèle, the art of inspiring them,’ he replied.
‘Oh, là, là!’ she exclaimed lightly. ‘Tell me of your life here in London? Tell me why you came to renew our acquaintance if it is to be only a matter of this one visit?’
He had refused her offer of a chair and the cigarette, still unlit, was between his fingers.
‘Yes, I will tell you that,’ he said. ‘You read, without a doubt, of the sinking of the Marabic?’
She shrugged her shoulders.
‘Who has talked of anything else in London these few days?’
‘I was amongst the saved,’ he continued, ‘I and the young lady to whom I am engaged to be married. We were in the last boat that left the ship and lost everything except the clothes we stood up in. That circumstance has, to a certain extent, changed my outlook upon this struggle.’
There was the slightest of frowns upon her velvet brow. She waited. He had the air of one, however, who has concluded all he has to say. He turned towards the door. She stopped him with an imperative gesture.
‘You have not given me the promise
I desire—I demand?’ she cried. ‘Monsieur Ambrose, you will not leave me like this?’
‘That promise,’ he said gravely, ‘is yours—conditionally.’
His departure was a little abrupt and gesture to recall him too late. She sat for a moment thinking, a curious shadow upon her face. Then she touched the bell.
‘Ask Monsieur Anders to spare me a moment,’ she directed her maid.
There was a brief interval, then the sound of a cheerful whistling outside. The door was opened and Monsieur Anders himself appeared. He was a small man with a strangely-lined face, a mouth whose humour triumphed even over his plastic make-up. He was attired with great magnificence in the costume of a beau of the last century. His fingers glittered with rings, lace cuffs fell over his wrists and a little waft of peculiar perfume entered with him. It was not for nothing that for many years he had been considered upon the French stage the embodiment of a certain type of elegance.
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