A CONSPIRACY OF SCIENTISTS
Sir William Gouldesbrough had been up very late the night before. He
came down from his room on a grey morning a fortnight after the day on
which he had told Marjorie something of his hopes. It was nearly twelve
o'clock. He had not retired to rest until four upon the same morning.
And when he had at last left the great laboratories built out of the
back of the house, he had stumbled up to his room, a man drunk with an
almost incredible success--a success of detail so perfect and complete
that his intelligence staggered before the supreme triumph of his hopes.
But the remaining portion of the night, or rather during the beginning
of the chill wintry dawn, he had lain alone in his great Georgian
bedroom, watching the grey light filtering into the room, flood by
flood, until the dark became something more terrible, something filled
with vast moving shadows, with monstrous creatures which lurked in the
corners of the room, with strange half lights that went and came, and
gave the wan mirrors of the wardrobe, of the mantel-shelf, a ghost-like
life only to withdraw, and then once more increase it.
And as this great and famous man lay in this vast lonely room without
power of sleep, two terrible emotions surged and throbbed within
him,--two emotions in their intensity too great for one mind to hold.
One was the final and detailed triumph of all he held dear in the world
of science and in the department of his life's work. The other was the
imminent and coming ruin of his heart's hope, and the love which had
come to him, and which had seemed the most wonderful thing that life
could give.
Yes, there he lay, a king of intellect, a veritable prince of the powers
of the air, and all his triumph was but as dust and ashes and
bitterness, because he knew that he was losing a smaller principality
perhaps, but one he held dearer than all his other possessions.
Emperor of the great grey continent of science, he must now resign his
lordship of the little rosy principality of Love.
So, as he came down-stairs close upon mid-day of the winter's morning--a
tall distinguished figure in the long camel's-hair dressing-gown, with
its suggestion of a monk's robe--the butler who was crossing the hall
at the time was startled by the fixed pallor of his face.
The man went up to him.
"Excuse me, Sir William," he said, "but you're working too hard. You're
not well, sir. You mustn't overdo it. I have got you a sole and
mushrooms for breakfast, sir, but I should not advise you to touch it,
now I've seen you. If you'll allow me to offer my advice, I should
suggest a bowl of soup."
"Thank you, Delaine," Sir William answered. "But I don't think I could
even take anything at present. Will you send my letters into the study?"
"Yes, Sir William," the man replied, "and I shall make so bold as to
bring you a bowl of soup in half-an-hour, as well."
Gouldesbrough crossed the great gloomy hall and entered the study.
A bright fire was glowing on the hearth, the place was all dusted, tidy
and cheerful, even though the world outside was a blank wall of fog.
He stood up in the middle of the room. Tall, columnar, with a great
dignity about him, had there been any one there to see. It was a dual
dignity, the dignity of supreme success and the dignity of irremediable
pain.
The butler came in with the letters upon a copper tray. There was a
great pile of them, and as the man closed the door after he put the tray
upon the writing-table, Sir William began to deal the letters like a
pack of cards, throwing this and that one on the floor, with a shuffling
movement of the wrist, and as he did so his eyes were horrid in their
searching and their intensity. At last he came to the one he sought. A
letter addressed to him in a bold but feminine handwriting. As his
fingers touched it a loud sob burst out into the silence of the room.
With shaking fingers he tore it open, standing among the litter of the
unopened letters, and began to read.
He read the letter right through, then walked to the mantel-piece,
leaning his right arm upon it as if for support. But the tension was now
a little relaxed. He had come down to find the worst, to meet the
inevitable. He had met it, and there was now neither premonition of the
moment of realization nor the last and torturing flicker of despairing
hope.
This was the letter. It began without preface or address--
"You must have known this was coming. Everything in your manner has
shown me that you knew it was coming. And for that, unhappy as I
am, I am glad. I have a terrible confession to make to you. But
you who are so great, you who know the human mind from your great
height, as a conquering general surveys a country from a
mountain-top, you will understand. When you asked me to marry you
and I said 'Yes,' I was pleased and flattered, and I had a
tremendous admiration and respect for you and for all you have
done. Then when we came to know each other, I began to see the
human side of you, and I had, and if you will let me say so, still
have, a real affection for you. And had it not been that something
more powerful than affection has come into my life, I would have
been a true and faithful wife and companion to you.
"But you have seen, and you must know, that things are changed. Are
we not all subject to the laws of destiny, the laws of chance? Is
it not true that none of us on our way through the world can say by
whom or how we shall be caught up out of ourselves and changed into
what we could not be before? Oh, you know it all. You of all men
know it!
"I need not here speak in detailed words, because from things you
have seen you know well enough what I am about to say, of whom I
would speak if I could. But it is enough, William, to tell you what
you already know. That I love some one else, and that if I am true
to myself, which is after all the first _duty_ of all of us, I
could never marry you. I can never be to you what you wish or what
I would like to be as your wife. I am stricken down with the
knowledge of the pain all this will give you, though, thank God, it
is not a pain for which you are unprepared. I dare not ask your
forgiveness, I can say nothing to console you. I have acted
wickedly and wrongly, but I cannot do anything else but what I am
doing.
"Forgive, if you can. Think kindly, if you can, of Marjorie."
Now he knew. He folded the letter gently, kissed it--an odd action for a
man so strong--and put it in the inside pocket of his coat, which
pressed next his heart.
Then he rang the bell.
"Ask Mr. Guest to come," he said.
"Very well, Sir William," the butler answered, "but Mr. Charliewood has
just arrived."
"Then ask him in," Gouldesbrough answered.
Charliewood came into the room.
"By Jove!" he said, "you look about as seedy as I've ever seen you
look!"
Sir William went up to him and put his hand upon his shoulder.
"Look here," he said, "I've had a smack in the face this morning,
Charliewood. You know what it is, I need not tell you. And look here,
too, I'm going to ask you to help me as you've never helped me before.
I'm afraid, old fellow, I've often been a nuisance to you, and often
rather rubbed in the fact that you owe me money, and that you've had to
do things for me. Forgive me now, if you will. I'm going to call upon
you for active friendship."
"Oh," Charliewood answered, "we won't talk about friendship between you
and me. I've done what I had to do and there's enough."
Sir William still held him by the shoulder. "You don't really feel that,
Charliewood?" he said in a quiet voice, and as he did so the magnetism
of his personality began to flow and flood upon the weaker man and
influence him to kindliness.
"Well, well," he said, "what is it now? I suppose we've been running
round a vicious circle and we've come to the last lap?"
"That's just about it," Sir William answered. "Just let me say that this
is the last service I shall ever ask from you. I'll give you back all
the I.O.U.'s and things, and I'll give you enough money to put yourself
absolutely right with the world, then we'll say good-bye."
Charliewood started. "That's awfully good of you," he said. "I don't
think that I want to say good-bye. But still, what is it?"
"Rathbone," Sir William answered, pronouncing the name with marked
difficulty.
"It's all over then?" Charliewood answered.
"Yes."
"I thought it would be. I have told you all that has been going on, and
I knew it would be."
"She's written to me this morning," Gouldesbrough said. "A kind letter,
but a letter finishing it all."
Then the weaker, smaller man became, as so often happens in life, the
tempter--the instrument which moves the lever of a man's career towards
the dark sinister side of the dial.
Charliewood was touched and moved by the unexpected kindness in his
patron's voice.
"Don't say it's finished," he said; "nothing is finished for a man like
you, with a man like me to help him. Of course it's not finished. You
have not always been all you might to me, William, but I'll help you
now. I'll do anything you want me to do. Buck up, old boy! You will pass
the post first by a couple of lengths yet."
"How?"
"Well, what were you going to ask me to do?"
They looked each other in the face with glowing eyes and pale
countenances, while a horrible excitement shone out upon them both.
At that moment the door opened very quietly, and an extraordinary person
came into the room.
He was a short, fat, youthful-looking man, with a large, pink, and quite
hairless face. The face was extremely intelligent, noticeably so, but it
was streaked and furrowed with dissipation. It told the story not of the
man who enjoyed the sensuous things of life in company, and as part of a
merry progress towards the grave, but it betrayed the secret sot, the
cunning sensualist private and at home.
This man was Mr. Guest, Sir William's faithful assistant in science, a
man who had no initiative power, who could rarely invent a project or
discover a scientific fact, but a man who, when once he was put upon the
lines he ought to go, could follow them as the most intelligent
sleuth-hound in the scientific world.
Wilson Guest was perhaps the greatest living physicist in Europe. He was
of inestimable value to his chief, and he was content to remain between
the high red-brick walls of the old house in Regent's Park, provided
with all he needed for his own amusements, and instigated to further
triumphs under the ægis of his master.
"Well, what is it?" said this fat, youthful and rather horrible-looking
person.
"We've come to grips of the great fact, Guest," Sir William answered,
still with his hand upon Charliewood's shoulder.
The pink creature laughed a hollow and merciless laugh.
"I knew it would come to this," he said, "since you have added another
interest to your scientific interests, Gouldesbrough. Why have you
called me in to a consultation?"
Gouldesbrough's whole face changed; it became malignant, the face of a
devil.
"I'm going to win," he said. "I've had a knock-down blow, but I'm going
to get up and win still! Mr. Rathbone must disappear. That can be easily
arranged with the resources at our command."
Guest gave a horrible chuckle.
"And when we've got him?" he said.
"He must disappear for always," Gouldesbrough answered.
"Quite easy," Guest replied. "Quite easy, William. But, _not until we've
done with him, shall he_?"
"What do you mean?"
"Why, isn't it the last condition of our experiments that we should have
some one a slave, a dead man to the world, to use as we shall think fit?
Here's your man. Do what you like to him afterwards. Let's make your
rival a stepping-stone to your final success."
Then the three men looked at each other in fear.
Charliewood and Sir William Gouldesbrough were pale as linen, but the
short, fat man was pink still, and laughed and chuckled nervously.