BEEF TEA AND A PHOSPHATE SOLUTION
Sir William Gouldesbrough remained in Brighton for three days. Eustace
Charliewood had died in two minutes after the lift-man and the scientist
had burst into the room. The suicide had said no word, and indeed was
absolutely unconscious from the moment the shot had been fired, until
his almost immediate death.
Sir William had made all the necessary arrangements. He had communicated
with old Sir Miles Charliewood, of Norfolk, he had expedited the
arrangements for the inquest, and he was, as the newspapers said,
"overcome with grief at the death of his old and valued friend."
During the three days, the demeanour of the famous scientist was
reported on with great admiration in all quarters. He had known of
nothing to cause Mr. Eustace Charliewood any trouble or worry, and he
was struck down by the loss he had sustained.
"It shows," many of the leading people in Brighton said to each other,
"that science is, after all, not the de-humanizing agency it is
popularly said to be. Here is perhaps the most famous scientific man of
the age, grieving like a brother for his friend, a mere society man of
charming manners and without any intellectual attainments. Melancholy as
the occasion is, it has served to bring out some fine and noble traits
in a man whose private life has always been something of a mystery to
the public."
The inquest was a short one. There were few witnesses. One or two
intimate friends of the dead man came down from London--club friends
these--and testified that they knew of nothing which could have prompted
the suicide, though the dead man had been noticed to be somewhat
depressed for the last fortnight or so.
Sir William himself, in a short but learned exposition given during the
course of his evidence, pronounced it as his opinion that Eustace
Charliewood had been suddenly seized by one of those unexplainable
impulses of mania which, like a scarlet thread, sometimes lurk
unsuspected for years in the pearly cells of the brain.
His view was accepted by the coroner and the jury, and the usual verdict
of temporary insanity was returned.
"He was," Sir William had said at the close of the evidence and in a
voice broken with deep feeling, "the best and truest friend I have ever
had. Our walks in life were utterly different. He took no interest in,
nor did he understand, my scientific work. And I, on the other hand,
took very little part in the social duties and amusements which made up
the greater part of Mr. Eustace Charliewood's life. Perhaps for that
very reason we were the more closely drawn together. No one will ever
know, perhaps, the real underlying goodness, generosity and faithfulness
in my dead friend's character. I cannot go into details of his private
life, I can only say that the mysterious seizure which has robbed
society of one of its ornaments, has taken from the world a gentleman in
every thought and deed, a type of man we can ill afford to lose in the
England of to-day."
Young Lord Landsend, who, with Mr. Percy Alemare, had attended the
inquest from London, looked at his friend with a somewhat cynical smile,
as the deep voice of Sir William Gouldesbrough faltered in its
peroration. Mr. Percy Alemare replied to the smile with a momentary
wink. Both of the young men were very sorry that Eustace Charliewood had
dropped out so suddenly. They had liked him well enough, but they
certainly had not discerned the innate nobility of character, so
feelingly set forth by Sir William Gouldesbrough, and so fully reported
by the newspaper-men present.
Afterwards, in the hotel, old Sir Miles Charliewood had shaken the
scientist warmly by the hand.
"What I have heard you say, Sir," he said, "comforted me very much. I
wish poor Eustace's eldest brother had been here to hear you say it. But
James is in India with his regiment. Eustace did not come to us at
Charliewood Hall. There were family reasons of long standing, why there
was a breach between his family and himself. These, Sir William, I will
not enter into here. But death heals all breaches, and remembering
Eustace as a bright and happy boy at Eton, before we became estranged, I
feel a father's natural sorrow. But let me say, Sir William, once more,
that you have lightened that sorrow somewhat. I had regarded my son as
living a useless and selfish life upon the allowance I was in the habit
of paying into his bank. To hear that there was an underlying strata of
goodness and nobleness in his character is indeed a solace."
Sir William had bowed, and old Sir Miles, a courtly old gentleman of
great age, whose grief had not prevented him from making an excellent
dinner the evening before, and from passing somewhat acrid criticisms
upon the hotel wine, drove away to the station, smoking a cigar, and
feeling that the troublesome and unpleasant episode was well over.
Thus, Mr. Eustace Charliewood, man about town, made his sudden exit from
Vanity Fair.
Thus, Sir William Gouldesbrough, F.R.S., had another secret to lock up
in the sombre recesses of his brain.
During the three days that he had been forced to remain in Brighton by
the tragedy, Sir William had seen something of the two ladies at the
Palace Hotel.
Both Lady Poole and Marjorie during that time had come insensibly to
lean upon him, and to ask his advice about this or that. A terrible gap
had been created in Marjorie's life, and though Gouldesbrough could not
fill it, he came at the right moment to comfort and sustain.
Before he returned to London, Sir William had gradually glided into a
new relation with the girl to whom he had been engaged. He found his
power over her had increased. She was more dependent and subservient in
her great trouble than she had ever been during the time when she was
promised to be his wife, and he must sue for favours.
And Gouldesbrough noticed also that, though the girl's grief seemed in
no way lessened her hopes of ever seeing Guy Rathbone again seemed to
be dwindling. The cunning words that he had spoken, the little hint of a
vulgar Circe was perhaps beginning to germinate within Marjorie's brain.
She was too loyal to believe any such statement, but, nevertheless, it
had an unconscious influence with her. At any rate, she began to cease
discussion of the mystery, and there was the hinting of a coming
resignation to the hard and impenetrable fact.
This at least was what Sir William Gouldesbrough deduced.
Trained watcher of the mind and human impulse as he was, psychologist of
marvellous knowledge and penetration, he began to see, or so he thought
to himself, that all was not yet lost, that it might well be that the
events of the last few weeks would some day--not yet or soon, but some
day--place him upon a higher pedestal than ever before.
On the evening of the fourth day after his arrival, Sir William
Gouldesbrough returned to town. In the afternoon he had driven with Lord
Landsend and Percy Alemare to the cemetery.
It had been a cold and blustering afternoon, and the plain hearse and
the single carriage that followed it had trotted through the
semi-deserted streets until the grave-side was reached. The shivering
vicar of a neighbouring church, whose turn it was to take the cemetery
duty for the week, had said the words of the burial-service, and in some
half-an-hour all that was mortal of Mr. Eustace Charliewood had
disappeared for ever and a day.
He would never stroll up Bond Street in his fur coat any more. Never
again would he chat with the head-waiter upon the important question of
a lunch. No longer would Mr. Proctor, the masseur, set the little rubber
hammers to beat out the lines of dissipation upon that weak and handsome
face. Mr. Eustace Charliewood had resigned his membership of the St.
James's Street Clubs, and had passed out of Vanity Fair into the night.
After the funeral, Gouldesbrough went to say good-bye to Lady Poole and
Marjorie. His last words to them were these--
"I shall go on," he said, "doing all that I can in every possible way.
And everything that I do I will let you know, and if I can discover the
slightest clue to this terrible mystery, you shall hear it at once. But
don't buoy yourself up with false hopes, that is all I ask. None of us
can say what the future may have in store, but for my part I have not
much hope. It may seem a cruel thing for me to say, Marjorie, but I
think it is my duty to say it. Bear up and be brave, and remember that I
am always close by to do anything I can in any and every way to help you
and your mother."
And when he had gone, the two ladies, sitting in the twilight before the
glowing fire in the open hearth of the hotel sitting-room, had felt that
something, some one, who had become necessary to them, had departed.
Sir William Gouldesbrough travelled up to Victoria in a Pullman car. He
sat in his arm-chair before a little table, on which was a pile of
evening papers. During the first ten minutes he had glanced through all
of them, and only one part of the news' columns claimed his
attention--this was the portion of the paper devoted to the "Rathbone
Mystery."
He noticed that already the clamour and agitation was beginning to die
down. The shrewd purveyors of news were beginning to realize that the
mystery was not likely to be solved, and that the public appetite was
satiated with it.
The two columns or more which had been usual in the early days of
Rathbone's disappearance, had now dwindled to a single three-quarters of
a column. Sir William realized that the public interest was already
dying out.
For a few minutes, when he had methodically folded the papers in a pile,
he allowed his thoughts to dwell upon the recent incidents at Brighton.
Charliewood had killed himself. What did that mean? It simply meant that
Eustace Charliewood was out of the way. The baronet had not a single
regret in his mind. Despite the geniality of his manner to his late
henchman, when circumstances had seemed to require that, he had regarded
him as simply a servant and a tool, and as of considerably less
importance in the scheme of things than, say, a delicate induction coil,
or a new drum armature.
Then there was Marjorie. In his quick summarizing way, allowing no
emotion to enter his brain at the moment, Sir William reviewed that
aspect of his Brighton visit too. Well, that also was satisfactory.
Things were going indeed far better than he had hoped. He had
accomplished exactly what he had meant to do, rather more indeed, and he
had done so with singular success. His position with Lady Poole and her
daughter was perhaps stronger than it had ever been, even in the days
when his position was, so to speak, an official one. Good again!
And with that, the cool, hard intellect dismissed personal affairs
entirely, and with a sigh of relief the physical body of the man leant
back in his chair, while the brain went swiftly and gladly into the high
realms of science.
At Victoria, Sir William's motor brougham was waiting, and he was driven
swiftly through the lighted streets of London towards his own house in
Regent's Park. He smoked a cigar and bent forward, looking at the moving
panorama of people under the gas-lamps, as a man sits in an arm-chair
and lets the world defile before him. And as he watched the countless
throngs, streams that moved and pulsed in the arteries of the great city
as the blood moves and pulses in the veins and arteries of man, he was
filled with a tremendous exultation and pride.
Soon, ah, soon! he would be master of every single mind and soul that,
housed in its envelope of flesh, flitted so rapidly past the windows of
the swift-moving machine in which he sat.
No secrets, great or small, noble or petty, worthy or evil, would be
hidden from him, and he, alone, by the power of his intellect and the
abnormal force of his will, had wrested from nature the most stupendous
and mysterious of all her secrets.
There was but little more to be done now, before the great invention
would be shown to the leading scientists of the world.
Already slight hints, thin rumours of what was being done in the
laboratories of Regent's Park, were beginning to filter through the most
important scientific circles. A paper read by Sir William at the British
Association, a guarded article contributed to the _Nineteenth Century_,
propounding some most daring theories as to the real action of the
mind, had already prepared some of the shrewdest brains in Europe for a
possible revelation of something stupendously startling in the realms of
scientific achievement.
A few keen and brilliant brains had realized, if Sir William was right,
even in these preliminary conclusions, whither the conclusions tended.
Lesser scientists who could not see so far, knew nothing. The man in the
street was only aware that the great scientist had been working for
years upon abstruse problems which had no interest for him whatever.
But, nevertheless, in the highest circles, there was an indubitable stir
and rumour.
Yes! But little now remained to be done before absolute perfection of
the invention was obtained. A few more experiments, more delicate and
decisive than any that had gone before, still remained to be made. The
apparatus itself was completed. Its working under certain conditions was
certain. It was still necessary, however, to test it by means of
continuous experiments upon a living human brain.
During the last year of their work, Gouldesbrough and Wilson Guest had
begun to realize this last necessity with increasing conviction. They
saw that the coping-stone of the marvellous edifice which they had
slowly built up through the years, was now resolving itself into this,
and this alone. Neither had said as much to each other in so many
words, until some four months ago. Then, upon one memorable night, when,
excited by drink to an unusual freedom and openness of speech, Guest had
voiced the unspoken thought of his master and himself.
A human brain, a living human brain, in a living human body was an
absolute and final requirement.
There were not wanting, there never have been wanting, scientific
enthusiasts who will submit themselves to experiment. But in this case a
voluntary subject was impossible, for reasons which will presently
appear. It became a definite problem with the two men as to how, and by
what means, they should obtain a living creature who should be
absolutely subject to their will.
And then chance had provided Sir William with the unique opportunity. He
had seen his way to rid himself of a hated rival, and to provide a
subject for experiment at one and the same time. He had not hesitated.
Brains so far removed from the ordinary sphere of humanity as his never
hesitate at anything.
Guy Rathbone had disappeared.
The motor stopped at the door in the great, grim wall which surrounded
Sir William's house. He said good-night to the chauffeur who looked
after his two cars at a garage some half-a-mile away, and opened the
wicket with his key.
As he walked through the dark garden and saw the great square block of
the house looming up before him, it was with a quickening sense of
anticipation and pleasure. All the worries of his life were momentarily
over and done with, he was coming back to his great passion, to his life
work, the service of science!
It was about ten o'clock, and as he opened the front door and came into
the hall, everything was silent and still. He lifted up the padded stick
which hung beside the dinner-gong and struck the metal, standing still
while the deep booming note echoed mournfully through the house.
The butler did not answer the summons. Sir William realized that the man
must be out; Wilson Guest had probably given the servants an evening's
holiday for some purpose of his own.
He crossed the dimly-lit hall, pushed open the baize door which led to
the study, and entered his own room.
The fire was burning brightly, the electric lights glowed, but the place
was quite empty. On his writing-table were a pile of letters, on a round
table set beside the fire was a cold chicken and a bottle of claret.
Obviously his first surmise had been right, and the servants were out.
He left the study, proceeded onwards down the passage and unlocked
another door, a door through which no one but himself and Guest were
allowed to penetrate, a door that was always kept locked, and which led
to the laboratories, mechanical rooms, and invention studios, which had
been built out at the back of the house over what were once the tennis
lawns, and occupied a considerable area.
Locking the door behind him, Sir William went on down a short passage.
The first door on the right had the letter "A" painted on it in white.
He opened this door and looked in.
The room was empty, though it was brilliantly lit. It was a place filled
with large tables, on which there were drawing instruments, sheets of
figures and tracings.
Guest was not there.
Closing the door again and passing onward, Sir William entered the
chemical laboratory, a long, low place, lit by a sky-light in day, and
by electricity at night. As he opened the door quietly, he heard sounds
of movement. And then immediately, at the far end of the laboratory, he
saw the man he was looking for.
The place was in entire darkness save at one end, where two incandescent
bulbs glowed above an experiment table.
The assistant was bending over a Bunsen burner above which a large glass
tube was clamped, in which some liquid was boiling.
Suddenly he heard Sir William's advancing footsteps, and leapt up. For a
single moment the grey-pink hairless face was suffused with furtive
terror at the sound. It shone out in the light of the lamps clear and
distinct, though the lower part of the body was hidden by the darkness.
"Here you are then," Gouldesbrough said. "The whole house seems
deserted."
Guest sighed with relief, and then began to titter in his curious,
almost feminine, way--
"By Jove!" he said, "you startled me, William. I had no idea when you'd
be back. My nerves are like lumps of wet velvet. He! he!"
His hand shook as he came forward to greet his chief. Sir William knew
well that this man was a consistent and secret drunkard, and he never
made any comment on the fact. Guest was at liberty to do exactly as he
pleased, to gratify his vices to the full--because Guest, drunk or
sober, was a complete and brilliant helper, and because Sir William not
only could not do without him, but knew that the man was his, body and
mind, so long as he was allowed to indulge himself as he would. Yet, as
the greater man shook hands with the lesser, he was conscious of a
sudden thrill of repulsion at the filthy fears of the sensualist.
"Yes, I'm back," Gouldesbrough answered, "and everything has gone very
well. I suppose you have seen that Eustace Charliewood killed himself?"
"Yes, I did," Guest answered, "and for a few hours I was considerably
troubled about it. Then I saw by the paper that you were down there, so
I knew it would be all right. He never said anything, of course, or left
anything behind him?"
"Only a letter to me, which I destroyed."
"Good," Guest answered, and his interest in Eustace Charliewood and his
end ceased immediately. "Well, I've lots to tell you. I've gone as far
as I could on my own lines, but I've been longing for you to come back.
My dear William, it's simply splendid! How right you have been always!
How absolutely necessary it was to have a living brain to experiment
on!"
"How is the man, in good health?"
"Well, of course there's been a considerable waste of tissue, and the
absolute lack of exercise has had its effect. But the cell is well
ventilated with an electric fan which I keep constantly going, and I
allow the subject to read two or three hours every day--such books as he
may ask for. The rest of the time I turn out the light, after I have
fixed on the cap. I find that the thought images thrown upon the screen
in room "D" are more vivid when the subject is kept in darkness. Still,
speaking as a whole, the physical health is good, and it's singular how
vivid the thought pictures are, which shows that the cerebrum is in a
perfectly strong and healthy condition. As you know, it is from that
part of the brain we get all our voluntary and actual pictures;
therefore, we are to be congratulated that there is no weakness in that
regard so far. Still, when you came in, I was just preparing a phosphate
solution which I'm going to mix with the subject's soup, which he will
take in an hour or so. Three or four days' phosphate treatment will
intensify the vibrations within the magnetic field of the cap. I was
doing this in view of your return, when we shall really begin to
experiment seriously."
"Have you had any trouble, physical trouble I mean, with the subject?"
Gouldesbrough asked.
"Oh, no," Guest replied indifferently. "Of course he's as strong as a
horse, but the aluminium fetters and the system of india-rubber cord
that you suggested, have proved all that was necessary. I can render him
quite helpless directly I get inside the cell and before he could
possibly reach me. Then fitting the cap is a simple matter. The head is
rigid in the vulcanite depression which encloses the neck, and there is
no resistance at all."
"Good," Gouldesbrough answered. "Curiously enough, I found that design
in a strange old book published at the time of the Reformation,
detailing some of the methods of the Holy Office in Spain, with
appropriate wood cuts."
Guest chuckled horribly.
"Of course as yet," Gouldesbrough went on in calm, even tones, "the
subject has not the slightest idea what the experiments mean? He doesn't
know why you fit on the receiver? He is quite in the dark?"
"Entirely," Guest answered, "and he is at a loss to imagine what we are
doing to him."
"Ah, well," Gouldesbrough replied, "when we do tell him----"
"It will be lovely," the assistant replied, tittering once more, "to
watch the pictures that come on the screen when he knows that we are
reading his inmost thoughts when he tries to control them, to alter
them, and fails in his agony! When he realizes that he doesn't belong to
himself any more!"
The creature rubbed its plump and delicate hands together in an ecstasy
of evil enjoyment.
"I suppose," Gouldesbrough said with some slight hesitation, "you've
gathered a good deal of the fellow's opinions, memories, etc., lately?"
"Never had such an amusing time in all my life," Guest answered. "I've
gone down and put on the cap and tied him up, and I've come up and sat
alone in front of the screen in Room "D," turned on the generating
current and sat in an arm-chair with a bottle of whisky at my side, and
laughed till I cried! You'll learn a few home truths about yourself,
William, before very long. The curious thing is, that whenever your
picture comes upon the screen, it's all distorted. You are a fairly
passable-looking man, as men go, William, but you should see yourself as
this man sees you in his brain."
He laughed once more, malicious and horrible laughter which echoed high
up in the sky-light of this weird and empty place.
Gouldesbrough made an impatient movement.
"How do you mean?" he said.
"Well," Guest answered, intensely enjoying the situation, "I've seen a
good many pictures of nasty ugly looking devils and monsters, and I've
been in the Weirtz Museum at Brussels, but no artist who ever painted or
drew, and no man who ever modelled in wax, ever made such a face as this
man's brain makes of you, when he thinks of you!"
Gouldesbrough laughed grimly.
"Poor devil," he said indifferently, "he naturally would. But I'm glad
we have got such an excellent brain for experiment. The Pons Varolii
must be exceptionally active."
"I should think it was," Guest answered. "You should see the pictures
that come on the screen when he is thinking of Marjorie Poole!"
Gouldesbrough started.
"How do you mean?" he said.
"Well," Guest replied, turning off the blue flame of the Bunsen burner,
and stirring the mixture in the test-tube with a glass rod--"well,
Marjorie Poole's a pretty girl, but when this man calls her up in his
memory, she's a sort of angel. You know what a difficulty we had when we
got over the Lithium lines in the ash of the muscular tissue of the
blood, which had to be translated through the new spectroscope into
actual colour upon the screen? Well, we did get over it, but when the
subject thinks of Marjorie Poole, the colour all fades out of the
picture, the actual primary colours, I mean. The girl flashes out into
the dark in white light, like a sort of angel! and the first time I saw
it I jumped up from my chair, shut off the connecting switch and turned
up the lamps. It was so unlike any of the other pictures we have ever
got, and for a moment I thought I had been over-doing it a little in the
whisky line."
Gouldesbrough stopped the strange inhuman creature in his unholy
amusement.
"Well, I'm going to bed now," he said. "We'll begin work to-morrow. I
saw some supper put out for me in the study."
"Right oh," Guest answered. "Good-night then, William. I'm going to take
the beef broth and phosphates to our Brain down below in the cell."