The Elliott O’Donnell Supernatural Megapack

by Elliott O'Donnell

  “Charing Cross—under clock—after show to-night,” she whispered as she flew hurriedly past him. “I want to speak to you.”

  Now it so happened that Hamar had given Kelson orders to return to his rooms, directly the performance was over, and to remain in them till morning, in case he was wanted in connection with the initiation. But he might have spared himself the trouble. It was Lilian, and Lilian only, that Kelson now thought of—it was Lilian, and Lilian only, that he would obey. The idea of meeting her—of having her all to himself—of being able to do her a service—filled him with such uncontrollable delight, that he hardly knew how to comport himself so as not to arouse Hamar’s suspicions. Directly the performance was over he sneaked out of the Hall, and pretending not to hear Hamar, who called after him, he jumped into a taxi, and was whirled away to the trysting-place. Lilian Rosenberg, who arrived a moment later, was dressed in a new costume, and Kelson thought her looking smarter and daintier than ever.

  “You shall kiss me at once,” she said, “if you promise me one thing.”

  “And what is that?” he asked, looking hungrily at her lips.

  “I want you to let me see the Unknown when it comes to you to-night,” she said.

  “Good God! What do you know about the Unknown!” he exclaimed, his jaws falling, and a look of terror creeping into his eyes.

  “A great deal,” she laughed, “so much that I want to learn more”—and of what she knew she told him, just as much as she had told Hamar. “And now,” she said, “I repeat my promise—you shall have a kiss—think of that—if only you will hide me somewhere so that I can see the Unknown or its emissary.”

  “I would do anything for a kiss,” Kelson said, “but I fear it is impossible to fulfil the condition, because I haven’t the remotest idea where or when the Unknown will appear. Besides, it is just as likely to go to Hamar or Curtis as to come to me; and up to the present I haven’t felt the remotest suggestion of its favouring me. Is this the only condition I can fulfil, so that you will let me kiss you?”

  “Certainly,” Lilian Rosenberg replied. “I am not in the habit of being kissed. Such an event can only happen in the most exceptional and privileged circumstances—such, for example, as exist at the present moment, when I ask you to put yourself to some considerable trouble—if not actually to incur danger—in order to accomplish what I wish.”

  “And yet I remember kissing you unconditionally,” Kelson commented.

  “Memory is a fickle thing,” Lilian Rosenberg replied, “and so is woman. Times have changed. I’ll leave you at once, unless you promise to do your very utmost to grant my request.”

  Kelson promised, and—after they had had supper at the Trocadero, suggested that they should take a stroll in Hyde Park.

  “I hope you are not awfully shocked?” he inquired rather anxiously, “but a sudden impulse has come over me to go there. I believe it is the will of the Unknown. Will you come with me?”

  “We shan’t be able to get in, shall we, it’s so late?” Lilian Rosenberg said. “Otherwise I should like to—I’m rather in a mood for adventure.”

  “They don’t shut the gates till twelve,” Kelson said, “and it’s not that yet.”

  “Very well, let’s go, then. I’m game to go anywhere to see the Unknown,” and so saying Lilian rose from the table, and Kelson followed her into the street.

  They took a taxi, and alighting at Hyde Park Corner entered the Park. It was very dark and deserted.

  “It’s nearly closing time,” a policeman called out to them rather curtly.

  “We are only taking a constitutional,” Kelson explained. “We shall be back in five minutes.”

  They crossed the road to the statue, and were deliberating which direction to take, when they heard a groan.

  “It’s only some poor devil of a tramp,” Kelson said. “The benches are full of them—they stay here all night. We had better, perhaps, turn back.”

  “Nonsense!” Lilian Rosenberg replied. “I’m not a bit afraid. There’s another groan. I’m going to see what’s up,” and before he could stop her she had disappeared in the darkness. “Here I am,” she called; “come, it’s some one ill.”

  Plunging on, in the darkness, Kelson at last found Lilian. She was sitting on a chair under a tree, by the side of a man, who was lying, curled up, on the ground.

  “He’s had nothing to eat for two days, and has Bright’s Disease,” Lilian Rosenberg announced. “Can’t we do something for him?”

  “Two gentlemen told me just now,” the man on the ground groaned, “that if I stayed here for a couple of hours—they would pass by again and guarantee to cure me. I reckoned there was no cure for Bright’s Disease, when it is chronic, like it is in my case; but they laughed, and said, ‘We can—or at least—shall be able to cure anything.’”

  “What were the two gentlemen like?” Kelson asked.

  “How could I tell?” the man moaned. “I couldn’t see their faces any more than I can see yours—but they talked like you. Twang—twang—twang—all through their noses.”

  “Sounds as if it might be Hamar and Curtis,” Kelson remarked.

  “That’s it!” the man ejaculated. “‘Amar. I heard the other fellow call him by that name.”

  “How long ago is it since they were here?” Kelson asked.

  “I can’t say, perhaps ten minutes. I’ve lost count of time and everything else, since I’ve slept out here. They talked of going to the Serpentine.”

  “We had better try and find them,” Kelson said.

  “If you had the money couldn’t you get shelter for the night,” Lilian Rosenberg said. “It must be awful to lie out here in the cold, feeling ill and hungry.”

  “I dare say some place would take me in,” the man muttered, “only I couldn’t walk—at least no distance.”

  “Well! here’s five shillings,” Lilian Rosenberg said, “put it somewhere safe—and try and hobble to the gates. If they haven’t closed them, you will be all right.”

  “Five shillings!” the man gasped; “that’s—it’s no good—I can’t count. I’ve no head now. Thank you, missy! God bless you. I’ll get something hot—something to stifle the pain.” He struggled on to his knees, and Lilian Rosenberg helped him to rise.

  “How could you be so foolish as to touch him,” Kelson said, as they started off down a path, they hoped would take them to the Serpentine. “You may depend upon it, he was swarming with vermin—tramps always are.”

  “Very probably, but I run just as much risk in a ‘bus, the twopenny tube, or a cinematograph show. Besides, I can’t see a human being helpless without offering help. Listen! there’s some one else groaning! The Park is full of groans.”

  What she said was true—the Park was full of groans. From every direction, borne to them by the gently rustling wind, came the groans of countless suffering outcasts—legions of homeless, starving men and women. Some lay right out in the open on their backs, others under cover of the trees, others again on the seats. They lay everywhere—these shattered, tattered, battered wrecks of humanity—these gangrened exiles from society, to whom no one ever spoke; whom no one ever looked at; whom no one would even own that they had seen; whose lot in life not even a stray cat envied. Here were two of them—a man and a woman tightly hugged in each other’s embrace—not for love—but for warmth. Lilian Rosenberg almost fell over them, but they took no notice of her. Every now and then, one of them would emerge from the shelter of the trees, and cross the grass in the direction of the distant, gleaming water, with silent, stealthy tread. Once a tall, gaunt figure, suddenly sprang up and confronted the two adventurers; but the moment Kelson raised his stick, it jabbered something wholly unintelligible, and sped away into the darkness.

  “A scene like this makes one doubt the existence of a good God,” Lilian Rosenberg sa
id.

  “It makes one doubt the existence of anything but Hell,” Kelson said. “Compared with all this suffering—the suffering of these thousands of hungry, hopeless wretches—the bulk of whom are doubtless tortured incessantly, with the pains of cancer and tuberculosis, to say nothing of neuralgia and rheumatism—Dante’s Inferno and Virgil’s Hades pale into insignificance. The devil is kind compared with God.”

  “I believe you are right,” Lilian Rosenberg said, “I never thought the devil was half as bad as he was painted. The Park to-night gives the lie direct to the ethics of all religions, and to the boasted efforts of all governments, churches, chapels, hospitals, police, progress and civilization. There is no misery, I am sure, to vie with it in any pagan land, either now or at any other period in the world’s history.”

  “True,” Kelson replied, “and why is it? It is because civilization has killed charity. Giving—in its true sense—if it exists at all—is rarely to be met with—giving in exchange—that is, in order to gain—flourishes everywhere. People will subscribe for the erection of monuments to kings and statesmen, or to well-known and, often, richly-endowed charitable institutes, in exchange for the pleasure of seeing, in the newspapers, a list of the subscribers’ names, and themselves included amongst those whom they consider a peg above them socially; or in exchange for votes, or notoriety, they will give liberally to the brutal strikers, or outings for poor.”

  “I suppose, by the poor, you mean the pampered, ill-mannered and detestably conceited County Council children,” Lilian Rosenberg chimed in. “I wouldn’t give a farthing to such a miscalled charity, no—not if I were rolling in riches.”

  “And I think you would be right,” Kelson replied. “But for these really poor Park refugees it is a different matter. Obviously, no one will make the slightest effort to work up the public interest on their behalf, simply because they are labelled ‘useless.’ They belong nowhere—they have no votes—they are too feeble to combine—they are even too feeble to commit an atrocious murder; consequently, for the help they would receive, they could give nothing in return. By the bye, I doubt if they could muster between them a pair of suspenders—a bootlace—a shirt-button, or even a—”

  Lilian Rosenberg caught him by the arm. “Stop,” she said, “that’s enough. Don’t get too graphic. What’s the matter with that tree?”

  They were now close beside the banks of the Serpentine; the moon had broken through its covering of black clouds, and they perceived some twenty yards ahead of them, a tall, isolated lime, that was rocking in a most peculiar manner.

  CHAPTER XXVII

  THE RIGHT GIRL TO MARRY

  Though the wind was nothing more than the usual night breeze of early autumn, the lime-tree was swaying violently to and fro, as if under the influence of a stupendous hurricane. Lilian Rosenberg and Kelson were so fascinated that they stood and watched it in silence. At last it left off swaying and became absolutely motionless. They then noticed, for the first time, that there were three figures standing under its branches, and that one of the figures was a policeman.

  “Hide quickly,” Kelson whispered, “those two are Hamar and Curtis. Quick, for God’s sake—or they will see you.”

  Lilian Rosenberg hid behind an elm.

  “Hulloa!” Kelson called out, advancing to the group.

  “Why it’s you, Matt!” Curtis cried. “Hamar said you would come!”

  “Said I would come! How the deuce did he know?” Kelson exclaimed. “I didn’t know myself till the moment before I started.”

  “I willed you,” Hamar explained; “as soon as I got back to my rooms after the Show, a voice said in my ears—I heard it distinctly—‘Be at the Serpentine—the south bank—underneath a lime-tree—you will know which—at twelve to-night.’ I looked round—there was no one there. Naturally, concluding this was a message from the Unknown I hastened off to Curtis, who was in his digs—and needless to say—eating, and having dragged him away with me in a diabolical temper—I then sought you. Where were you?”

  “Taking a walk. I felt I needed it.”

  “Alone! Are you sure you weren’t out with some girl.”

  “I swear it.”

  “It seems as if I’m not the only liar!” Lilian Rosenberg said to herself in her place of concealment. “What would Shiel say to that?”

  “Humph! I don’t know if I ought to believe you,” Hamar remarked. “Did you feel me willing you to come here?”

  “Rather!” Kelson said. “That is why I came. I seemed to hear your voice say ‘To Hyde Park—to Hyde Park—the Serpentine—the Serpentine.’” Then sinking his voice he whispered, “What’s up with the policeman, he looks deuced queer?”

  “He’s in a trance. We found him like this,” Hamar said. “He is undoubtedly under the control of the Unknown. I expect it to speak through him every moment. Get ready to take down all he says. I’ve come prepared,” and he handed Kelson and Curtis, each, a pencil and a reporter’s notebook.

  He had hardly done so, when the policeman—a burly man well over six feet in height, who was standing bolt upright as if at “attention,” his limbs absolutely rigid, his eyes wide open and expressionless—began to speak in a soft, lisping voice that the trio at once identified with the voice of the Unknown—the voice of the tree on that eventful night in San Francisco.

  “The great secret of medicine—the secret of healing—will now be revealed to you,” the voice said. “Pay heed. In cases of tumours and ulcers take a young seringa, lay it for half an hour over the stomach of the afflicted person, then plant it with the mumia, i. e. either the hair, blood, or spittle of the sick person, at midnight. As soon as the seringa begins to rot, the ulcer will heal.

  “In phthisis pulmonalis, the mumia of the sick person should be planted with a cutting of the catalpa, after the latter has been subjected for some minutes to the breath of the diseased person. As soon as the cutting shows signs of decay, the sick person will be cured.

  “In diabetes, plant the mumia of the patient with a bignonia, and as soon as the latter begins to rot, the diabetes will go.

  “In appendicitis, cover the stomach of the sick person with a piece of raw beef, until the sweat enters it. Then give the meat to a cat, and as soon as the latter has eaten it, the patient will recover.”

  “What becomes of the cat?” Kelson asked.

  “The appendicitis is transferred to it,” the voice explained. “It should be killed at once.

  “In cancer take the sea wrack Torrek Mendrek—a weed of deep mauve colour streaked with white. It must be boiled for three hours in clear spring water (3 ozs. of wrack to half a pint of water), and then let to cool. When quite cold, a dessert-spoon of it should be taken by the sufferer every four hours—and at the end of two days the disease will have completely disappeared. The wrack is to be found at the twenty fathom level, six miles west-south-west of the Scilly Isles.

  “In Bright’s disease, the mumia of the afflicted should be planted at 1 a.m., with a cutting of sassafras, after the latter has been slept on, for one whole night, by the sufferer. As soon as the sassafras begins to rot, the patient will be cured.

  “In dropsy, place a hare, that has been strangled, over the diseased portion of the body, and let it remain there for one hour. Then bury the hare, together with the mumia of the sick person, and as soon as the hare begins to decay, the patient will recover.

  “In jaundice and liver diseases (apart from sarcoma), plant the mumia of the afflicted, at 2 a.m., with a cutting of black walnut, and as soon as the latter begins to decay, the sufferer will get well.

  “In all skin diseases, the mumia of the patient must be planted, at midnight, with a cutting of hickory, and when the latter begins to rot the disease disappears.

  “In all fevers, the mumia must be planted, at 3 a.m., with laurel cuttings, after the latter have been pl
aced under the bed of the patient for one night. As soon as the cuttings show signs of rotting, the fever abates.

  “In acute inflammations, diseases of the heart, rheumatism, and lumbago, the mumia must be buried, at midnight, with a raven that has been drowned, and placed on a chair by the left side of the patient for one night. As soon as the raven begins to rot, the patient will be fully restored to health.

  “In cases of insanity, hysteria, and nervous diseases the mumia of the sufferer must be planted, at 2 a.m., with a cutting of white poplar, and as soon as the latter shows evidences of decay, the afflicted will get well.

  “In cases of hypochondria, and melancholia, the mumia of the sufferer must be planted, at 4 a.m., with a crocus, and as soon as the latter begins to rot, the disease will depart.

  “In every case it will be necessary to prelude the performance with the following invocation—

  “‘Oh most powerful and prescient Unknown, before whom the greatest of the Atlanteans prostrate themselves. That was in the Beginning, that is now and always will be. I conjure thee by the magic symbols of the club-foot, the hand with the fingers clenched, and the bat, in this the magical year of Kefana, to extend to me thy wonderful powers of healing. Rena Vadoola Hipsano Eik Deoo Barrinaz.’”

  The lisping voice ceased, and, with a convulsive start, the policeman came to himself.

  “Hulloa!” he said, in his natural gruff tones, rubbing his eyes. “I must have ‘dropped off.’ Who are you? What are you doing in the Park at this time of night?”

  “We’ve been watching you!” Hamar said. “It is a bit of a phenomenon to see a London bobby asleep on his beat.”

  “And to hear him talking in his sleep too,” Curtis added.