had built some twenty miles from town, the familiar objects which
surrounded him seemed to have grown remote, unfamiliar. Smoking his
pipe, with the half-read newspaper on his knee, his ear was worried by
the insistent ticking of the clock, and this ticking seemed a novel,
almost uncanny, phenomenon. He could not remember having heard a sound
from that timepiece before. There were features about the sideboard,
too, as he gazed at it fixedly, that appeared quite strange to him.
Certain details of inlay-work on the Sheraton-pattern legs he perceived
now for the first time. These little unfamiliarities observed with his
mind on the stretch--the latent primitive man in him scenting danger in
solitude--added to the loneliness. The sheltering walls of the usual
were pushed away from him. He felt himself exposed, out of the call of
friends, in a desolation hinted by invisible malevolences. Of course,
the feeling was absurd. He shook himself and tried to summon up a
little of the bravura with which he had dismissed his wife and daughter
to the dance at the village a mile away, making light of their protests
that it was the one servant’s evening out, saying that at any rate she
in the kitchen would not be much company to him in the dining-room
where he proposed to sit and smoke. His friend Williamson might drop
in, too--anyway, he would be all right.
His friend Williamson had not dropped in, and with every slow minute
ticked out by that confounded clock he had found himself less at ease.
Once he got up and walked into another room, but the sound of his own
footsteps, heard with astonishing loudness in the house empty of any
other person, afflicted his nerves, and he returned to his former seat
in the dining-room.
The seven-thirty express from town rushed by on the railway line which
ran, fifty yards distant, parallel with the road; and the sound of it
heartened him for a minute or two. The world of fellow-men was brought
close to him for a flying second, and all his sociable instincts
greeted it, claiming acquaintance, as it sped along. Then, as the noise
of it died away into a silence yet more profound than before, the
primitive in him again peeped out through his civilization, panicky,
ear at stretch for stealthy danger. The stillness which surrounded the
lonely house seemed charged with perils that stole near with noiseless
footfall. A weird, mournful cry outside, breaking suddenly on that
stillness, pulled him erect on his feet, listening, trembling. The
cry was repeated, and he sat down again, telling himself that it was
an owl, as doubtless it was; but his hand shook as he picked up his
newspaper again and tried to read.
With some effort he forced his brain to grasp the meanings of the
words, which related a murder case, announced in massive letters at
the top of the column. The mental machine seemed to stop every now
and then and he found himself gazing at some unimportant, common word
in the line until it looked as strange and devoid of meaning as one
in a foreign and unknown language. The comprehension of it required a
deliberate effort of will.
Suddenly, with a soul-shaking unexpectedness, there was a violent,
rapid knocking at the door.
* * * * * *
He was on his feet in an instant, shaking in every limb,
panic-stricken as an Indian in a place of spirits. A primitive vague
dread of the supernatural held him motionless, obsessed by a formless
horror.
The knocking at the door renewed itself, a frantic hammering. The
repetition lightened him, redeemed it from the vague purposelessness of
the ghostly, suggested human anxiety at fever pitch. His imagination,
relieved from the spell, flew to work, building catastrophes after
familiar models. His wife and daughter? The disasters of fire,
vehicular collision or heart-failure presented themselves in confused
and fragmentary pictures. The door now resounded under a ceaseless rain
of blows; and, trembling so violently as to feel almost ill, he ran to
open it.
On the threshold stood a little, stout bearded man, past middle age. He
struck one or two frenzied blows at the air after the door had swung
away from him.
“What do you want?” demanded Mr. Gilchrist.
His visitor looked at him vacantly for a moment, seemingly unable to
adjust his mind to human intercourse.
“For God’s sake, give me some brandy--if you are a Christian man!”
“Come inside,” said Mr. Gilchrist, and he led the way into the
dining-room, the stranger following. “Bless my soul! What is it? An
accident?” He spoke nervously, more to himself than to his guest, who
replied nothing but stood swaying on his legs and kept from falling
only by the clutched-at support of the table. “Dear me--dear me! One
moment--I have some brandy here.” He fumbled with the key of the
tantalus. “Here you are. Steady, man, steady! Sit down.”
The stranger drank off the brandy and took a deep breath, passing his
hand over his brow like one recovering from a swoon. In the moment or
two of silence Mr. Gilchrist had leisure to scrutinize him. He was
without a hat, and his head shone in the lamplight, a polished dome
rising from a narrow forehead and a half-ring of gray wisps over
his ears. His eyes protruded, globularly, but it could be guessed
that they carried impressions to an active brain. His gray beard
converged irresolutely to a point in front of his chin. His clothes
were respectable but not well cut, and they were now soiled with earth.
One trouser-leg, Mr. Gilchrist noticed, was badly torn. Altogether his
appearance suggested a benevolent old gentleman, connected possibly
with some dissenting religious body, who had been badly mauled in
conflict with a gang of ruffians.
“Feel better?” asked Mr. Gilchrist. “Have some more.”
“No, I thank you, sir,” replied the stranger, and the tone of his voice
assured his host that he had to deal with an educated man. “I feel much
better. Alcohol, I may say, is an unfamiliar stimulant to me, and the
action of a comparatively small quantity is powerful. If I might beg a
little further indulgence of your kindness, however, I should be glad
to rest myself a minute or two.”
“Certainly, certainly--by all means. You will find that a more
comfortable chair. Have you met with an accident?”
The stranger’s protruding eyes flashed with a singular brightness at
the question. Then he sighed and again pressed the palm of his hand
across his brow.
“Your courtesy, sir, undoubtedly deserves some explanation of the
plight you have so generously relieved.” The man’s tone and phrasing
indicated a person accustomed to put his thoughts into an elaborated
word-structure for the attention of an audience. “I hardly think that
accident is the correct description of my misfortune. I am the victim,
sir, of a traitorous chain of circumstances, a chain of circumstances
so strange as to be scarcely credible.”
“Indeed?” Mr. Gilchrist had reseated himself and now bent forward, his
face alight with interest kindled by his guest’s last sentence. “If I
can help you in any way, I shall be glad to do so.”
The stranger acknowledged the offer by a downward inclination of the
head.
“Your great kindness of heart needs no further exposition, sir--it is
self-evident. I have no words sufficient to thank you. I greatly fear,
however, that I am beyond human help. A matter of a few hours is the
utmost respite from my fate that I can expect. None the less, I am
deeply grateful to you for this breathing-space.”
The stranger sighed again, and his countenance settled into a resigned
melancholy.
“You make me curious,” said Mr. Gilchrist. “Of course, I don’t wish to
intrude----”
The old gentleman raised his eyebrows and made a protesting movement
with his hand.
“In all probability, sir, you will soon be made acquainted with a
garbled newspaper version of the calamity which has befallen me. Its
dreadful nature is bound to flare into publicity. It is useless,
therefore, for me to attempt to conceal it. If you care to hear
the true version of a tragedy which every newsboy will be shouting
to-morrow morning--a version stranger than the one counsel for defence
and prosecution will adopt as a battle-ground for their wits--I will
do my best to gratify your curiosity. I may say that it will be some
comfort to me to know that one fellow human being--especially so
kind-hearted a one as yourself--is acquainted with the real facts.”
“My dear sir!” began Mr. Gilchrist. “Surely--you are overwrought--an
accident--I cannot believe----”
“I do not look like a murderer,” said the old gentleman, interrupting
him, a pathetic little smile on his grave face. “Nevertheless I am
one. It is the terrible truth, I assure you, sir. I am a murderer, a
murderer trapped into crime by that chain of circumstances I spoke of.
And I am a man that until to-day never wittingly took the life of any
creature, however small.”
“But--my dear sir!” Mr. Gilchrist half rose from his chair. His guest
waved him back into it.
“I am speaking the sober truth. You think that you are harbouring a
madman. I am as sane as you. If you care to listen, I will relate the
story, and when I have finished, if you desire to call in the local
police, you are at liberty to do so. I give you my word that there will
be no disturbance.”
Mr. Gilchrist sat back in his chair, half-fascinated, half-frightened.
“Go on,” he said briefly, not trusting himself to speak.
“I must first request your patience whilst I relate a few circumstances
which, however remote they may appear from the terrible fact that has,
among other things, made me your guest, are nevertheless intimately
connected with it.
“I am a man in business for myself, in a small way, as the saying is.
It might have been a larger way had not my intellectual activities been
employed on subjects which I regard as of graver and deeper import than
the purchase and sale of ephemeral commodities. For many years my mind
has been more familiar with that region known briefly as the occult,
than with the intricacies of terrestrial markets. I have striven
earnestly to penetrate to those great secrets which throb behind this
earthly veil--with what success I need not specify. Suffice it that
a small society of fellow-seekers after the Truth chose me as their
president, a position I still hold.
“However small your acquaintance with this difficult subject, sir,
you are probably aware--from hearsay, at least--that it has two great
aspects, good and evil. The pure in heart may achieve a certain mastery
over forces hidden from the multitude and use them for innocent or
praiseworthy ends, such, for example, as establishing communication
between our loved ones who have crossed the threshold and those who
remain here. This is known vulgarly as white magic. But there is a
black magic. It is known to every adept that it is possible--difficult,
perhaps, but possible--for self-seeking men who have, perchance before
they became perverted, had the key to these vast mysteries put in
their hands, to control the mighty forces of which I have spoken and
turn them, regardless of the suffering they inflict, to their personal
advantage.
“It is possible, I say, though exceedingly rare. Few men, good or evil,
are so fortunately endowed as to acquire a mastery over those forces
for any purpose, and of those who have acquired it the majority are
good. In any case they are rare. For myself, despite years of study
and anxious striving, I have utterly failed to grasp those forces save
in one or two trifling instances. This, by the way. For some time past
I have been conscious--I cannot now tell you by what agency I became
aware of it--that a group of men, greater adepts than any I have known,
had in fact subjected forces terrible in their power and were using
them to the danger of the world.”
The stranger turned his bulbous bright eyes to Mr. Gilchrist, who sat
silent, gripped in a spell which was partly fear. In the moment or two
of silence he heard that infernal clock ticking along with insistent
industry. The stranger waited a brief space for some comment, and,
receiving none, proceeded.
“You know, I have no doubt, that in the past--in the Middle Ages, for
example--certain secret societies existed for purposes partly occult.
I use _occult_ as a synonym for the spiritual, for all that lies
beyond the veil. Such, I may remark, were the Rosicrucians. Others are
known to every student of the subject. One might almost class it as
common historical knowledge. Few, however, suspect that to-day such a
society, immeasurably more powerful than the ordinary man considers
possible, exists. It exists, and by some means it has penetrated to the
very arcana of the spiritual world. It wields a power, by its control
over forces that to call cosmic is to minimize, quite beyond ordinary
resistance. And it wields that power for evil. I could point out
several frightful disasters of recent times directly traceable to that
society. It is a menace to the world!”
The old gentleman’s eyes flashed excitement at Mr. Gilchrist, who felt
in a dream, scarcely knowing whether he was awake or sleeping.
“In one way only can it be overthrown--and it must be overthrown if our
civilization is to continue. A group of men--equally adept but pure in
soul--must meet and check each of their schemes and finally turn the
immense forces, too great for ordinary comprehension, with which they
work, against them, wiping them out of existence. Where that group
of men is to be found, sir, I do not know; but if the disease is to
find a remedy it must first be diagnosed. It was my duty, then, having
discovered this monstrous danger, to proclaim it to the world. And,
knowing full well the awful risks I ran, I did so. I contributed a long
article to a periodical which exists for the diffusion of spiritual
truth, and, so far as my knowledge permitted me, exposed the terrible
enemy.
“I knew I invited disaster. Immediately I was warned--I cannot tell
you by what channel the warning came to me--that the gravest perils
threatened me. You, an ordinary man, whose most terrible engine of
destruction possible to the imagination is a monster-gun battleship,
can have no conception of the powers unchained against me. I cannot
tell you with what fervour I strove to acquire control over forces
that might befriend me, but in vain. Ever I was thwarted and baffled.
I lost what little powers I had. Stripped of every means of defence,
I waited in anguish for the blow to fall. What kind of blow it would
be and whence it would come I could not tell. I knew only that it was
inevitable. An undying enmity was all around me.
“I expected something cataclysmic, world-shaking. Fool that I was, I
might have known better. ‘They’ are far too cunning thus to advertise
their power needlessly. Day after day I dwelt in a world of terror, and
nothing happened, save the complete interruption of any intercourse
with the spiritual world. Malevolent forces had closed that door. I
waited, each moment expecting disaster, I knew not from what quarter,
as a man waits in a dark wood for the lurking danger to spring at him.
Suddenly--a week ago to-day--they commenced to act.”
He stopped to allow the import of his words to have full effect on his
host. Mr. Gilchrist opened his mouth as if to speak, but he could not
give utterance to a sound.
“I was walking, about six o’clock in the afternoon, along Piccadilly.
The thoroughfare was crowded. I felt almost happy in the throng. My
mind was for the moment distracted from its ever-present anxiety, and I
had almost forgotten my danger. Suddenly a man jostled against me and
thrust a piece of paper into my hand. I glanced at it and knew my doom
was upon me. Here it is.”
He took a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Mr.
Gilchrist. It bore only the words, in fat black type: “Prepare to meet
thy Judge.”
“But,” said his host, grasping at the familiar in this strange story,
“this is merely a leaflet circulated by some religious body.”
“I know,” said the stranger, smiling. “That is their cunning. It
conveys little or nothing to an outsider. _But they knew I would know._
I looked around for the man. He had disappeared. The blood surged to
my head; I reeled dizzily against a lamp-post and for a moment or
two knew nothing. The shock, long expected though it was, was awful.
After a brief space my brain cleared. My giddiness seemingly had not
been noticed. The street looked normal. I shook myself and prepared
to continue on my way. At that moment I happened to look round and
saw a large white bulldog sitting on the pavement and regarding me
fixedly. Even then--_I knew_. But I affected to take no notice of it
and commenced to walk onward. The dog got up and followed me. I walked
faster, but the dog was always a couple of feet behind my heels. I
stopped. The dog stopped. I went on again. The dog went on again also.
There was no doubt of its connection with me.
“I cannot make you realize, sir, the awful fear that surged up in me,
mastering me, throttling me. I almost choked. The lights, the houses,
the people swam in my vision. For some moments I walked along blind,
unseeing. I trust that I am not a coward, that ordinary danger would
find me ready to meet it with some calmness of mind, but in contact
now with the peril I had dreaded, such firmness as I have gave way.
The seeming innocence of the manner in which my death-sentence was
conveyed, the apparently innocuous character of the messenger they
had sent, accentuated my terror. I felt that it was useless to appeal
to my fellow-creatures for help. The certain reply would have been an
imputation of madness. Above all, the purpose of the dog baffled me. It
seemed impossible that my enemies, with all the vast forces at their
command, should use so petty an instrument to strike at me. I could not
even imagine in what manner the dog was to bring about my annihilation.
The disparity of means to the end seemed grotesque.
“So strongly did I feel this that I half-persuaded myself that I was
under an illusion, that the dog was merely a stray that had followed
me for a few yards in the hope of finding a new home. Walking along,
looking straight in front of me, for I dared not turn my head, I
was almost comforted by a semi-belief that the dog was no longer in
pursuit. Presently, with an effort of will, I looked back--to find, as
reason told me I should, the animal still at my heels, padding along
with its nose to the ground.
“I stopped, more from a suspension of faculties than from any desire
to do so, and the dog stopped also. It sat calmly down, looking at me,
and I could almost fancy a quiet, diabolic smile on the loose, ugly,
dripping jaws. We exchanged a steadfast gaze--I can see it now; its
eyes were red-rimmed, bleary, cunning. Standing there, I strove to
divine its purpose. Suddenly it flashed upon me. The dog was tracking
me to my home. Over the trail it had gone once it would go again, this
time accompanied by the active agents of my foes. Why this roundabout
method of reaching me was adopted will no doubt seem a puzzle to you,
sir--it is so to me. But I was and am convinced of the fact.
“No sooner had I realized this,” pursued the old gentleman, “than I
thought over means of ridding myself of it. The obvious way was simple.
I walked along the streets in quest of a policeman. The dog got quietly
on its legs again and followed. Some hundred yards or so farther on
I saw an officer and approached him. It was at the corner where the
street flows into Piccadilly Circus, and the open space was a maelstrom
of traffic, starred overhead by the lamps which were beginning to glow
against the darkening sky. I had to wait an agonized minute or two at
the policeman’s elbow whilst he set two fussy and nervous old ladies
upon their right way. At last he turned to me, and a radiance of hope
commenced to break over the dark tumult of my mind as I explained to
him that I was being followed by a stray dog and wished to give it into
his charge.
“He looked patiently down at me from his towering bulk of body,
nodded, and asked: ‘Where’s the dog?’ I turned to point it out. To my
astonishment, it had disappeared. No shape of dog was anywhere visible.
The policeman’s eyes rested upon me with so questioning a look that I
felt uncomfortable. I could divine that he was thinking me deranged
or intoxicated. My mind was in a state of bewilderment also at the
sudden disappearance of the creature that a moment before had hung at
my heels with all the quiet persistency of Fate. I stammered, strove to
explain, found myself entangled in nervous foolishness rendered worse
by the slightly contemptuous, steady gaze of the policeman. I leaped
desperately out by the common exit from such embarrassments and tipped
the policeman with the only coin I happened to have in my pocket. It
was a half-crown. He smiled as I made off quickly, my ears burning.
“Thank God, at any rate I was freed from my enemy. With a bounding
lightness of spirits I plunged into the vortex of traffic and made my
way across the Circus. I was supremely happy. I remember smiling round
at the garish lights, at the thronging people, at the poor, at the
wealthy, at the flower-girls, at the vicious. I was glad, unutterably
glad, like a prisoner just reprieved, to be among my kind, of whatever
sort. I am not musical, but I found myself singing a trivial melody,
picked up somewhere from a barrel-organ.
“Thus I proceeded on my way, going eastward, making, in fact, for the
station, where I take train to my home some few miles farther down the
line than this.
“I was somewhere in the Strand when suddenly I heard a girl who passed
me say to her companion: ‘Oh, what an ugly beast!’ I turned sharply, an
ice-cold hand clutching at my heart, and saw to my horror the white dog
again at my heels. He looked up at me, and I fled, with a cry, down a
side street. The dog followed easily.
“In wild terror I ran as fast as my strength, never great, would
permit. It was useless, of course. The dog found no difficulty in
keeping up with me. I stopped at last from sheer exhaustion, and the
creature seemed to grin at my distress. Had a policeman been visible, I
would have tried again to hand it over to him, convinced though I was
that the attempt would be in vain.
“One means of escape presented itself to me, but I could not avail
myself of it. I might have called a taxicab, but I had no money. I
ought to have tried that way first.
“A wild rage seized me. I rushed at the dog, kicking at him furiously.
The animal dodged me with ease. I could not touch him. I ran on again.
“Thus, now running in mad panic, now walking with the slow deliberation
of settled despair, I continued on my way, and always the dog followed.
Why I did not go in another direction and throw the animal off the
scent, I do not know. My one leading idea was to get home, and perhaps
subconsciously I knew that, whatever stratagems I tried, the dog was
not to be shaken from his trail.
“I was almost demented with terror when unexpectedly salvation showed
itself. My station was not many hundred yards distant--I was in Broad
Street, I think--when suddenly there was a snarl and a furious barking
behind me. A large dog, belonging to some passer-by, had sprung at my
enemy, and they were locked in desperate fight. In a few seconds a
crowd collected. I saw a policeman hastening up. It was my chance. With
all that remained to me of strength I ran toward the station.
“I heard voices calling after me, but I heeded them not. The sounds of
angry strife continued, muffled, and lent me hope and speed. Calling up
every energy, I raced along, sped down the approach, saw that it wanted
but the fraction of a minute to seven-thirty, dashed through the gate,
which clanged behind me, and flung myself into the train for home just
as it started. I thought I was safe. As I put my hand out of the window
to shut the door, I heard a commotion at the gate. I looked out and
saw the dog struggling with the officials, vainly striving to leap the
barrier. We moved out of the station, leaving him behind.”
He stopped, looking at his host. Mr. Gilchrist gasped and nodded. The
stranger continued:
“For a few exultant minutes I thought that I was saved. But presently,
as I calmed and my reason began to work, I realized that ‘they’
had gained their point. They had only to watch and wait. On the
morrow a human emissary of my foes would accompany the dog over the
trail, starting at the same time, arriving within a few minutes of
seven-thirty at that station platform. From that the direction, at
least, of my home could easily be deduced. Convinced that sooner or
later I should be journeying on that line, they had only to watch and
wait till I appeared. I knew that there was no hope for me, that my
doom was certain.