AT LAST!
When the sounds of amused laughter at Lord Landsend's unconscious
revelation had passed away, and that young nobleman, slightly flushed
indeed, but still with the imperturbability that a man of his class and
kind learns how to wear on all occasions, had regained his seat, a fire
of questions poured in upon Sir William Gouldesbrough.
The famous scientists of the party had all risen and were conferring
together in a ripple of rapid and exciting talk, which for the
convenience of the foreign members of their number, was conducted in
French.
Marjorie Poole, who had not looked at Sir William at all during the
whole of the afternoon, was very pale and quiet.
Gouldesbrough had noticed this, and even in the moment of supreme
triumph his heart was heavy within him. He feared that something
irrevocable had come between him and the girl he loved, and her pallor
only intensified his longing to be done with the whole thing, to be
alone with her and to have the explanation which he desired so keenly
and yet dreaded so acutely. For what Lord Malvin had said to him had
stabbed him with a deadly fear, as each solemn, significant word rang
through the room.
"Could it be," he asked himself, "could it possibly be that these people
suspected or knew anything?"
His quick brain answered the question in its own swift and logical
fashion. It was utterly impossible that Lord Malvin _could_ know
anything. His words were a coincidence and that was all. No, he need not
fear, and possibly, he thought, the long strain of work and worry had
had its influence upon his nerves and he had become morbid and unstrung.
That fear passed, but there was still in his heart the fear, and
strangely enough an even greater fear, that he would never now make
Marjorie his own.
His outward face and demeanour showed nothing of the storm and riot
within. He was calm, self-possessed, and smiling, quick to answer and to
reply, to explain this or that point in his discoveries, to be adequate,
confident and serene.
In reply to a question from Dean Weare, Sir William leant upon one of
the cases which covered the thought-transforming mechanism and gave a
little lecture.
"Quite so, Mr. Dean," he said; "it is exactly as you suppose, the form,
power, and vividness of the pictures upon the screen correspond exactly
with the strength of the intellect of the person whose thoughts are
making these pictures. You will find your strongly imaginative man, or
your man whose brain is much turned inward upon himself, and who, for
this very reason takes little part in the action or movement of life,
will give a far more complete and vivid picture than any other. For
example, assuming that the Bishop's valet is an ordinary servant and
accompanied his Lordship to Palestine a few months ago, and saw exactly
what his Lordship saw, that man's memories would not be thrown upon the
screen with such wonderful vividness as his Lordship's were. He would
not be able, in all probability, to produce a picture, a general
impression, which is a real picture and not a photograph, and which so
conveys the exact likeness of a place far more than any photograph could
ever do. His thoughts would probably be represented by some special
incident which had struck his fancy at the time and assumed a proportion
in his mind which a cultured and logical faculty of thought would at
once reject as being out of due proportion. And finally, in a precise
ratio to the power of the brain--I do not mean to its health, or
ill-health, its weight or size, I mean its pure _thinking_ power--so
are the thoughts, when transformed into light, vivid or not vivid, as
the case may be."
Mrs. Hoskin-Heath turned to Lord Landsend, who was sitting beside her.
Her pretty face wore a roguish smile as she whispered to him.
"Billy, what an awful donkey _you_ must be."
Lord Landsend looked at her for a moment. Then he answered--
"Well, you know, I am not at all sure that it is not a jolly good thing
to be sometimes. I would not be that fellow Gouldesbrough for anything."
She looked at him in amusement. There was something quite serious in the
young man's face.
"Why," she said, in a whisper, "what do you mean, Billy?"
"I may not be clever," said Lord Landsend, "but I prefer to spend my
life doing what amuses me, not what other people think I ought to do. At
the same time I know men, and I know that scientific Johnny over there
has got something on his mind which I should not care to have. Poor
Tommy Decies had that look in his eyes the night before Ascot last year,
poor Eustace Charliewood had it just before he went down to Brighton and
shot himself; and you may take it from me, Mrs. Hoskin-Heath, that I
know what I am talking about."
"And now," said Sir William, looking up and down the rows of faces
opposite him. "And now, which of you will submit himself to the next
experiment?"
Then Lord Landsend spoke. He was determined to "get his own back," as he
would have put it, if possible.
"Why don't you have a try yourself, Sir William," he said, with a not
very friendly grin; "or won't what d'you call 'em work for its master?
You had my thoughts for nothing, I'll give you twopence for yours."
There was an ill-suppressed titter from the more frivolous portion of
the spectators; but Lord Malvin turned round and looked at the young man
with a frown of disapproval. There was something in that leonine head
and those calm wise eyes which compelled him to silence.
Then Herr Schmoulder, a famous savant from Berlin, spoke.
"It would an interesting demonstration make," he said, "of der statement
of der relative power that the strong and weak brain possesses if we
could see der apparatus in operation upon der thought vibrations
transformed of an intelligence which not equal to our own is."
Mrs. Hoskin-Heath chimed in, her beautiful, silvery notes coming, after
the deep, grave, guttural, like a peal of bells heard in the lull of a
thunderstorm.
"What a _good_ idea, Sir William!" she said. "I wish you would let me
send for my footman. He is sure to be in the servants' hall. It would be
so interesting to know his real opinion of me and my husband; and he
certainly is a most consummate fool, and would be a thoroughly good
subject for such an experiment. I brought him out of Gloucestershire.
You know, he was one of the under-footmen at my brother's place, and I
have been trying to train him, though with little success. I mean that
he is too stolid to be shy, and, therefore, won't object at all, as some
men would, to put the cap on and sit down here in the dark. He won't be
frightened, I am sure."
"By all means, Mrs. Hoskin-Heath," Gouldesbrough said with a smile. "No
doubt one could not have a better subject, and I really shall be able to
illustrate the difference between the relative values of brain-power by
this means. You will all be able to notice the difference in the
vividness and outline of the pictures or words that will appear."
Sir William turned round for Wilson Guest, whom he proposed to send upon
the mission, but could not find him.
"I will ring for the butler," he said, "and tell him to fetch your man,
Mrs. Hoskin-Heath."
"Oh! don't do that," a voice said upon the second tier.
"I--I--am--er--not feeling very well, Sir William, and I was going to
ask your permission to go and sit down in the hall for a few minutes; I
will tell one of your servants, they are sure to be about."
The voice was the voice of Donald Megbie. He did not look at all ill,
but he stepped down with a smile and went out of the laboratory, while
everybody waited for the advent of Mrs. Hoskin-Heath's footman.
Once more Sir William looked round to see if Wilson Guest had returned.
The actual projecting apparatus by which the transformed light rays were
thrown upon the screen required some attention. The delicate apparatus
which focussed the lens of the projector, in order to bring it into the
nearest possible co-ordination with the light which it had to magnify
and transmit, needed some little care.
"Will you excuse me for a moment," he said to everybody there, "if I
leave you in darkness again, until the man comes? I wish to attend to a
portion of the mechanism here, and I can only do so by turning off the
lights."
There was a chorus of "Oh, please do so, Sir William," and suddenly the
laboratory was once more plunged into utter blackness.
Nobody talked much now, curiously enough. For a moment there was nothing
heard but the regular beating of Lady Poole's fan, and one whispering
conversation which might, or might not, have been carried on between
Lord Landsend and Mrs. Hoskin-Heath.
Then the thunder, which had been quiet for a little time, began to
mutter once more. The dark air became hot and full of oppression. And in
the dark Lord Malvin took the hand of Marjorie Poole in his own. "Be
brave," he said into her ear. "I know what you must suffer, believing
what you believe."
She whispered back to him.
"I have known it ever since I have been in this place," she said. "Oh!
Lord Malvin, I have known it quite certainly, _Guy is in this house_!"
"Donald Megbie has gone out, as you saw just now," he answered. "Be
brave! be strong! I believe that God is guiding you. I too have felt the
psychic influence of something strange and very, very terrible in the
air of this house."
In a moment more the beginning of the end came. The great twelve-foot
circle of light flashed out upon the screen, but now with an
extraordinary brightness and vividness, such as the spectators had not
seen before during the course of the experiments. For a space of,
perhaps, ten seconds, there was no sound at all. Nobody quite realized
that anything out of the ordinary was happening, except possibly the
scientists, who had a complete grasp of the mechanical methods of the
experiments and realized that in this room, at any rate, no one was
wearing the cap.
There was a loud cry of astonishment, and, so it seemed, of alarm.
Sharply outlined against the brilliant circle, sharply outlined in a
gigantic shape, and standing full in the screen of the light that
streamed from the lens of the projector, the spectators saw that Sir
William Gouldesbrough was standing. They caught a glimpse of his face.
It was a face like the face of a dead man. His arms were whirling in the
air like mills, and then as a cry died away in mournful echoes in the
high roof of the laboratory, there was a dead sound as the figure of the
scientist disappeared and fell out of the circle of light upon the
floor.
Upon the screen itself there came a picture. It was the picture of a
girl, but of a girl with a face so sweetly tender and compassionate, so
irradiated with utter confidence and trust, so pained and yet so tender,
that no painter had ever put so wonderful a thing on canvas, and no
Madonna in the galleries of the world was more beautiful or more kind.
And the face was one that they all knew well and recognized in a moment.
It was the face of one of them, the face of Marjorie Poole, and it was
so beautiful because it was painted by an artist whose pictures have
never before appealed so poignantly to human eyes--it was painted by
despairing Love itself.
At that marvellous sight, a sight which none of those present ever
forgot in after life, a strange cry went up into the high-domed roof. It
was a cry uttered by many voices and in many keys. There was a gasp of
excitement and of fear, shrill women's tones, the guttural of the
Teuton, the bass of the startled Englishmen, the high, staccato cry of
the Latin, as the French savants joined in it.
But in whatever key the exclamations were pitched, they all blended into
something like a wail, a composite, multiple thing, the wail of a
company of people who had seen something behind the Veil for the first
time in their lives.
The picture glowed and looked out at them in all its ineffable
tenderness and glory, and then grew dim, trembled, dissolved, and melted
away.
Then upon the screen came words, terrible, poignant words--
"MARJORIE, MARJORIE DEAR, I KNOW THAT YOU ARE NEAR ME, NOW IN BODY
AS YOU ARE ALWAYS NEAR ME IN THOUGHTS. I FEEL IT, I KNOW IT, AND
EVEN IN THIS CRUEL PRISON, THIS HOPELESS PRISON, WHERE I AM DYING,
AND SHALL SHORTLY DIE, I KNOW THAT YOU ARE NEAR ME IN BODY, AND IN
THAT SPIRIT YOU ARE ALWAYS MINE AND I AM ALWAYS YOURS. LOVE, IF THE
THOUGHTS THAT THEY ARE ROBBING ME OF, IF THE THOUGHTS THAT FILL MY
MIND, AND WHICH THOSE TWO FIENDS ARE PROBABLY LOOKING AT AND
LAUGHING OVER, HAVE ANY POWER AT ALL, THEN I SEND THEM TO YOU WITH
MY LAST EFFORT, IN ONE LAST ATTEMPT TO REACH YOU AND TO SAY THAT I
LOVE YOU AND TO SAY GOOD-BYE."
The circle of white light grew dimmer. Faint, eddying spirals of
something that seemed like smoke rose up and obscured the words. They
saw an ashen vapour of grey creep over the circle, as the shadow of the
moon creeps over the sun at an eclipse. Then the circle disappeared
finally, and they were left once more in the dark.
In the dark, indeed, but not in silence. A tumult of agonized voices
filled the laboratory. And over them all a brave voice beat in upon the
sound with the strong and regular assurance of a great bell, a bell like
the mighty mass of metal which hangs in the ancient belfry of Bruges.
Lord Malvin was calling to them to be calm and silent, was telling them
that he knew what all this meant and that they must be of courage and
good cheer.
Then some one struck a match. It was Lord Landsend, his face very white
and serious. He held it up above his head and called to Lord Malvin.
"Here you are, Sir," he said. "I will get down to you in a second. Then
we can find the switch to turn on the electric light."
He stumbled down to where Lord Malvin sat,--showing the value of the
practical man and polo player in a crisis--and together the two peers,
the famous and honoured scientist and the wealthy young man whom the
world flattered and called _dilettante_ and a fool, went their way to
the switch-table in the guiding light of this small torch.
Suddenly a blaze of light dispelled the darkness and showed a company of
ghosts looking at each other with weeping faces.
It showed also the figure of a girl sunk upon its chair in a deadly
swoon. And it showed also the body of Sir William Gouldesbrough lying
upon the floor between the series of machines and the screen upon the
opposite wall. The dead face was so horrible that some one ran up
immediately and covered it with a handkerchief.
This was Lord Landsend.
The tumult was indescribable, but by sheer power of authority and wisdom
Lord Malvin calmed them all. His hand was raised as the hand of a
conductor holds the vehemence of a band in check.
In a few short trenchant sentences he told them the history of the
strange occurrence which Donald Megbie and Mrs. Poole had brought to his
notice; and even as he told them, Sir Harold Oliver and Lady Poole were
bringing back the unconscious girl to life and realization.
"The man is here," Lord Malvin said, "the man is here. Guy Rathbone lies
dying and prisoned in this accursed house. Sir Harold Oliver, I will ask
you to remain with these ladies while I will go forth and solve this
horrid mystery."
He looked round with a weary, questioning eye, seeking who should be his
companion, and as he did so young Lord Landsend touched him on the arm
and smiled.
"Come, my dear boy," the old man said with a melancholy smile of
kindness, "you are just the man I want; come with me."
Then, before he left the laboratory, he spoke a few rapid words in
French to one or two of the foreign scientists.
Upon that, these gentlemen went down among the strange and fantastic
apparatus upon the tables and lifted up That which but a few minutes ago
had held the soul and the personality of Sir William Gouldesbrough. They
carried the long, limp, terrible dead Thing to the other end of the
room, where there was a screen.