The Last
I awoke in the grey light of dawn, stiff with cold and aching in every
limb. Arising, I left my hiding-place and went into the vestibule. The
night porter sat on a stool in his little office toasting his toes
before the stove and reading one of the morning papers. I stepped
up to the door at once. Hearing my footsteps, he looked around.
"Good-morning, Michael," I said, as well as my chattering teeth would
let me. "Do you want all that fire?" I had forgotten that I was
completely invisible. The fellow sprang to his feet with a start and
stared at me aghast. "What's the matter with you?" I demanded, testily.
"'Ere--you keep off. I've done nothing to 'arm you!" he whined, and
he backed before my advance against the wall of the office, the very
picture of abject terror. His appearance recalled me to my senses. But
it was too late to cry over spilt milk. I thought it better to make a
confidant of the man if he would let me.
"Don't be frightened, Michael; there is no need. I'm not a ghost, feel
my hands!" I said.
But panic seized the fellow. He uttered a wild shriek and fled for
his life into the passage. I could hardly help laughing, but I saw a
chance in the contretemps to end my immediate difficulty--so I went
straight to the desk, and fortunately found it open. In Hubbard's
pigeon-hole was the key I wanted. I took it out, caught up a _Times_
and hurried up the stairs. In another moment I was safe in Hubbard's
room with the door locked against intrusion. My first care was to set
the asbestos ablaze and warm myself. Then I opened the paper and found
at once the news I sought under great cross headlines in the main
sheet. Miss Ottley's house had been completely gutted by fire. Some of
the walls still stood, but with the exception of a few pictures, the
whole of the valuable art furniture and the late Sir Robert Ottley's
splendid collection of Egyptian coins, manuscripts and curios had
been destroyed. It was supposed that Dr. Belleville had perished in
the flames, but no sign of his remains had been discovered. The fire,
as far as it was possible to ascertain, had arisen from an accident
due to the unsuccessful conduct of a chemical experiment. It was well
known in scientific circles, said the journal, that the Doctor had been
engaged in a series of experiments, the object of which had been kept
a close secret, but a city firm of manufacturing chemists had recently
supplied him with large quantities of a certain highly inflammable
liquid compound possessing radio activities which had been prepared at
enormous cost, under his directions. The manager of the firm, on being
interviewed, stated that in his opinion, this compound was principally
responsible for the tragic disaster. There was always a danger in
handling it of spontaneous combustion, it appeared, and if it once took
fire, by no means could it be extinguished except by the shutting off
of all supplies of oxygen. Failing this, it would burn to the last with
the most explosive energy. According to Miss Ottley's statement, when
first interrogated by an officer from Scotland Yard, she had been in
the laboratory with Dr. Belleville at the time of the catastrophe. She
had lately been very ill and it seems she had fainted. It was extremely
probable that the Doctor, in his anxiety to revive her, had neglected
his usual caution and had done some careless thing which had led to
his destruction. Probably he had been killed outright by the first
explosion. It was, however, a matter of general relief that Miss Ottley
had managed to escape, and that there had been no further sacrifice of
life. Everyone would sympathise with the unfortunate young lady in her
sad position. Only a few weeks ago the gallant young officer to whom
she had been engaged to be married, had come to an untimely end in a
railway accident on the very eve of his wedding day. Then, a little
later, the dark angel had deprived her of a loving and beloved father,
the great millionaire archæologist, whose recent operations on 'Change
had startled the world, and made of him the richest man in the United
Kingdom. And now, she had lost by death the kind and learned guardian
to whom her late father had entrusted her future and the management
of her enormous fortune. Nobody would be surprised to learn that
this great accumulation of calamities had reduced the fate-stricken
young lady to a state of utter physical prostration. She had been
taken yesterday evening, after her rescue from the burning mansion,
to the Albert Hospital, but she had subsequently been removed to the
Walsingham Hotel, where the management had placed a suite of rooms
at her disposal. She was there being treated under the care of Drs.
Fiaschi and Mason, the well-known heart and nerve specialists. These
gentlemen express themselves hopeful of her ultimate recovery, but they
do not conceal the fact that she is at present in a very low condition,
and it is significant that the road in front of the hotel was, in the
small hours of the morning, thickly overspread with tan.
This last paragraph, as may easily be conceived, filled me with
anxiety. I resolved to go at once to the Walsingham Hotel and find out
exactly how she was for myself. But, fortunately, in moving towards the
door to put my purpose into execution, I had to pass the mirror-backed
door of a clothes press. I did not pass it then. I stopped, spellbound.
I was no longer invisible. That is to say, my face and hands were
not--although my body was. The mirror showed me a head floating
apparently in mid-air and a pair of hands hanging mysteriously from
nothing. My eyes were curiously goggled with a thin, gelatinous-like
film, with a glassy surface that was bound about my head. This I
tore off forthwith and curiously examined. It was actually composed
of gelatine. Tossing it aside, I ran my fingers over my clothing and
discovered, from the sense of touch, that I was clad to the neck in one
unbroken combination suit of rubber overalls, which included footgear.
I soon made out the secret of its fastening, and tearing it open, I
stepped forth into the light of day and perfect visibility, to find
that I still had on all the clothes I had worn when Dr. Belleville
trapped me, except my boots. The overalls, however, remained visible,
or rather partially so, for their inner surface viewed from the opening
was discernible. I put them carefully aside for future investigation
and proceeded to make a toilet. My first care was a hot bath. The hall
porter, whom I had frightened so desperately a little while before,
answered my ring. He was astounded to see me, but I did not choose to
make him any explanations, and he was too overcome to ask me for any.
A little later I was luxuriating in a steaming bath, which removed the
last vestige of my Parisian disguise. Most of the paint, however, had
worn off before, so it was the easier to become myself again. But not
quite my old, familiar self. My experiences had permanently aged me.
There were lines upon my face that I was stranger to, and with which I
made reluctant acquaintance. And my hair was liberally streaked with
grey. I had put on ten years, at least. I felt old, too, that was the
worst of it--old, ill and thick-blooded and infinitely world-weary.
I felt a hunger for the desert and big open spaces; a need to hasten
from the grinding, selfish life of cities, with their secret crimes
and gilded vices and dull-herded groping after sordid happiness. But
I did not wish to go alone. At a little after eight o'clock I entered
the Walsingham and demanded to see Miss Ottley's head nurse. She was
at breakfast, but the waiter told me that Miss Ottley had spent a good
night and was still asleep, so I was content to wait. Afterwards, I had
to lie to the nurse in order to be permitted to see the invalid. I told
her that I was Miss Ottley's nearest living relative, and I suppressed
the fact of my medical qualifications. The woman, otherwise, would
have referred me to the physicians, who had employed her, and I should
have been put off for hours. As it was, it required all my powers of
persuasion to induce her to admit me to the sick room. But I prevailed
on her at last, with a show of stern authority, and a curt intimation
that her position depended on my complaisance. The falsehood is not
one that I feel any shame at, for I knew what an effect my appearance
would make in the patient, and I was determined, at all costs, to be
with her at the moment of her waking. I shall pass over the preliminary
period that I spent beside her bed. It is too full of sorrow to recall
with anything but misery. The poor girl was as frail and wan as any
spirit. They had cut off all her glorious hair, and the hand I kissed,
which lay so weakly on the coverlid, was whiter than a snowflake, and
almost as destitute of vigour. She slept as gently as a weary babe, and
it was hard at first to believe thoroughly she lived. But at length she
sighed and her great eyes slowly opened and looked up questioningly
into mine. She thought that she was dead and that my ghost had sought
her out. "Hugh!" she whispered, and a soft smile lighted her face and
made it infinitely lovely, though so wan. "I knew that I should find
you, dear," she sighed. "And so I could not help but pray to die. Will
God punish us for that?"
But I kissed her on the lips--the first long kiss of love that I had
known--or she--and she came back warm with quickened hope and will to
live within my arms. And all was well with us.
There is little more to tell. As soon as she was strong again we
married quietly, and now we live in a place where crowded cities are
unknown--far from old England's shores. I never again saw Belleville's
Arab servant, who so marvellously resembled the old High Priest of
Amen-Ra; nor his companion, the Nubian, Uromi. They disappeared
after the fire, and not all the efforts of the police could trace
their hiding-place. The invisible suit of overalls is still in my
possession--but it had lost its old mysterious properties, and although
I expended months of patient labour to explore its secret, it was all
in vain. To this day I cannot tell who released me from the chair in
which Belleville had bound me in the murderer's laboratory. And I
am still unable to explain the many other little mysteries that so
involved us in the period of our contention with the wretch, the fatal
termination of whose wicked scheming I have set forth in these pages.
The greater part of Sir Robert Ottley's fortune has been given to the
poor. The rest we settled on my wife's sole living blood relation,
the old bed-ridden aunt, whom she has never seen. We both felt that
we should be doing well to dispose of riches that--to an extent, at
least--must have been acquired by arts of sinister significance. Still,
we have never wanted, and we are not likely to. My profession yields
us a comfortable living in these grand but sparsely settled wilds.
And, although we sometimes think regretfully upon the delight we once
experienced in searching out the lettered past of long-dead centuries,
we have other interests now to fill our lives and banish vain regrets.
We have our growing children to attend to and provide for. We are
of real service to the people who surround us, for my wife is the
schoolmistress of the district, and I am the only surgeon in a radius
of one hundred miles. Then, we have our books and our long evenings
together in the splendid twilight of the endless plains. We have given
up the past for the future. And we are happy in our labour and our love.
THE END