“Possibly a mere coincidence,” he replied. “And now I must go, for
I have a ‘date,’ as they say in America, with a rather charming and
profligate young woman. Could you possibly lend me a little money?”
When he had gone Bellamy washed his person very thoroughly in a hot
bath, brushed his teeth with zeal, and felt a little cleaner. He tried
to read in bed, but between him and Mr. Jacobs’s ‘Night-Watchman’ a
bestial and persistent phantasmagoria forced its way. He dressed again,
went out, and walked the streets till dawn.
Some time later Mr. Solan happened to overhear a conversation in the
club smoking-room.
“I can’t think what’s happened to Bellamy,” said one. “He does no work
and is always about with that incredible swine Clinton.”
“A kink somewhere, I suppose,” said another, yawning. “Dirty streak
probably.”
“Were you referring to Mr. Edward Bellamy, a friend of mine?” asked Mr.
Solan.
“We were,” said one.
“Have you ever known him do a discreditable thing?”
“Not till now,” said another.
“Or a stupid thing?”
“I’ll give you that,” said one.
“Well,” said Mr. Solan, “you have my word for it that he has not
changed,” and he passed on.
“Funny old devil that,” said one.
“Rather shoves the breeze up me,” said another. “He seems to know
something. I like Bellamy, and I’ll apologise to him for taking his
name in vain when I see him next. But that bastard Clinton!----”
* * * * *
“It will have to be soon,” said Mr. Solan. “I heard to-day that he will
be given notice to quit any day now. Are you prepared to go through
with it?”
“He’s the Devil incarnate,” said Bellamy. “If you knew what I’d been
through in the last month!”
“I have a shrewd idea of it,” replied Mr. Solan. “You think he trusts
you completely?”
“I don’t think he has any opinion of me at all, except that I lend him
money whenever he wants it. Of course, I’ll go through with it. Let it
be Friday night. What must I do? Tell me exactly. I know that but for
you I should have chucked my hand in long ago.”
“My dear Bellamy, you have done marvellously well, and you will finish
the business as resolutely as you have carried it through so far. Well,
this is what you must do. Memorise it flawlessly.”
* * * * *
“I will arrange it that we arrive at his rooms just about eleven
o’clock. I will ring up five minutes before we leave.”
“I shall be doing my part,” said Mr. Solan.
Clinton was in high spirits at the Café Royal on Friday evening.
“I like you, my dear Bellamy,” he observed, “not merely because you
have a refined taste in pornography and have lent me a good deal of
money, but for a more subtle reason. You remember when we first met
I was puzzled by you. Well, I still am. There is some psychic power
surrounding you. I don’t mean that you are conscious of it, but there
is some very powerful influence working for you. Great friends though
we are, I sometimes feel that this power is hostile to myself. Anyhow,
we have had many pleasant times together.”
“And,” replied Bellamy, “I hope we shall have many more. It has
certainly been a tremendous privilege to have been permitted to enjoy
so much of your company. As for that mysterious power you refer to, I
am entirely unconscious of it, and as for hostility--well, I hope I’ve
convinced you during the last month that I’m not exactly your enemy.”
“You have, my dear fellow,” replied Clinton. “You have been a charming
and generous companion. All the same, there is an enigmatic side to
you. What shall we do to-night?”
“Whatever you please,” said Bellamy.
“I suggest we go round to my rooms,” said Clinton, “bearing a bottle
of whisky, and that I show you another little experiment. You are now
sufficiently trained to make it a success.”
“Just what I should have hoped for,” replied Bellamy enthusiastically.
“I will order the whisky now.” He went out of the grill-room for a
moment and had a few words with Mr. Solan over the telephone. And then
he returned, paid the bill, and they drove off together.
Clinton’s rooms were in a dingy street about a hundred yards from the
British Museum. They were drab and melancholy, and contained nothing
but the barest necessities and some books.
It was exactly eleven o’clock as Clinton took out his latchkey, and it
was just exactly then that Mr. Solan unlocked the door of a curious
little room leading off from his study.
Then he opened a bureau and took from it a large book bound in plain
white vellum. He sat down at a table and began a bizarre procedure. He
took from a folder at the end of the book a piece of what looked like
crumpled tracing paper, and, every now and again consulting the quarto,
drew certain symbols upon the paper, while repeating a series of short
sentences in a strange tongue. The ink into which he dipped his pen for
this exercise was a smoky sullen scarlet.
Presently the atmosphere of the room became intense, and charged with
suspense and crisis. The symbols completed, Mr. Solan became rigid and
taut, and his eyes were those of one passing into trance.
* * * * *
“First of all a drink, my dear Bellamy,” said Clinton.
Bellamy pulled the cork and poured out two stiff pegs. Clinton drank
his off. He gave the impression of being not quite at his ease.
“Some enemy of mine is working against me to-night,” he said. “I feel
an influence strongly. However, let us try the little experiment. Draw
up your chair to the window, and do not look round till I speak.”
Bellamy did as he was ordered, and peered at a dark façade across the
street. Suddenly it was as if wall after wall rolled up before his
eyes and passed into the sky, and he found himself gazing into a long
faintly-lit room. As his eyes grew more used to the dimness he could
pick out a number of recumbent figures, apparently resting on couches.
And then from the middle of the room a flame seemed to leap and then
another and another until there was a fiery circle playing round
one of these figures, which slowly rose to its feet and turned and
stared at Bellamy; and its haughty, evil face grew vast, till it was
thrust, dazzling and fiery right into his own. He put up his hands to
thrust back its scorching menace--and there was the wall of the house
opposite, and Clinton was saying, “Well?”
“Your power terrifies me!” said Bellamy. “Who was that One I saw?”
“The one you saw was myself,” said Clinton smiling, “during my third
reincarnation, about 1750 B.C. I am the only man in the world who can
perform that quite considerable feat. Give me another drink.”
Bellamy got up (it was time!). Suddenly he felt invaded by a mighty
reassurance. His ghostly terror left him. Something irresistible was
sinking into his soul, and he knew that at the destined hour the
promised succour had come to sustain him. He felt thrilled, resolute,
exalted.
He had his back to Clinton as he filled the glasses, and with a
lightning motion he dropped a pellet into Clinton’s which fizzled like
a tiny comet down through the bubbles and was gone.
“Here’s to many more pleasant evenings,” said Clinton. “You’re a brave
man, Bellamy,” he exclaimed, putting the glass to his lips. “For what
you have seen might well appal the devil!”
“I’m not afraid because I trust you,” replied Bellamy.
“By Eblis, this is a strong one,” said Clinton, peering into his glass.
“Same as usual,” said Bellamy, laughing. “Tell me something. A man I
knew who’d been many years in the East told me about some race out
there who cut out paper patterns and paint them and send them to their
enemies. Have you ever heard of anything of the sort?”
Clinton dropped his glass on the table sharply. He did not answer for a
moment, but shifted uneasily in his chair.
“Who was this friend of yours?” he asked, in a voice already slightly
thick.
“A chap called Bond,” said Bellamy.
“Yes, I’ve heard of that charming practice. In fact, I can cut them
myself.”
“Really, how’s it done? I should be fascinated to see it.”
Clinton’s eyes blinked and his head nodded.
“I’ll show you one,” he said, “but it’s dangerous and you must be very
careful. Go to the bottom drawer of that bureau and bring me the piece
of straw paper you’ll find there. And there are some scissors on the
writing table and two crayons in the tray.” Bellamy brought them to him.
“Now,” said Clinton, “this thing, as I say, is dangerous. If I wasn’t
drunk I wouldn’t do it. And why am I drunk?” He leaned back in his
chair and put his hand over his eyes. And then he sat up and, taking
the scissors, began running them with extreme dexterity round the
paper. And then he made some marks with the coloured pencils.
The final result of these actions was not unfamiliar in appearance to
Bellamy.
“There you are,” said Clinton. “That, my dear Bellamy, is potentially
the most deadly little piece of paper in the world. Would you please
take it to the fireplace and burn it to ashes?”
Bellamy burnt a piece of paper to ashes.
Clinton’s head had dropped into his hands.
“Another drink?” asked Bellamy.
“My God, no,” said Clinton, yawning and reeling in his chair. And then
his head went down again. Bellamy went up to him and shook him. His
right hand hovered a second over Clinton’s coat pocket.
“Wake up,” he said, “I want to know what would make that piece of paper
actually deadly?”
Clinton looked up blearily at him and then rallied slightly.
“You’d like to know, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Bellamy. “Tell me.”
“Just repeating six words,” said Clinton, “but I shall not repeat
them.” Suddenly his eyes became intent and fixed on a corner of the
room.
“What’s that?” he asked sharply. “There! there! there! in the corner.”
Bellamy felt again the presence of a power. The air of the room seemed
rent and sparking.
“That, Clinton,” he said, “is the spirit of Philip Franton, whom you
murdered.” And then he sprang at Clinton, who was staggering from his
chair. He seized him and pressed a little piece of paper fiercely to
his forehead.
“Now, Clinton,” he cried, “say those words!”
And then Clinton rose to his feet, and his face was working hideously.
His eyes seemed bursting from his head, their pupils stretched and
curved, foam streamed from his lips. He flung his hands above his head
and cried in a voice of agony:
“He cometh and he passeth by!”
And then he crashed to the floor.
* * * * *
As Bellamy moved towards the door the lights went dim, in from the
window poured a burning wind, and then from the wall in the corner a
shadow began to grow. When he saw it, swift icy ripples poured through
him. It grew and grew, and began to lean down towards the figure on the
floor. As Bellamy took a last look back it was just touching it. He
shuddered, opened the door, closed it quickly, and ran down the stairs
and out into the night.
PROFESSOR POWNALL’S OVERSIGHT
PROFESSOR POWNALL’S OVERSIGHT
A note by J. C. Cary, M.D.:
About sixteen years ago I received one morning by post a parcel, which,
when I opened, I found to contain a letter and a packet. The latter was
inscribed, “To be opened and published fifteen years from this date.”
The letter read as follows:
“Dear Sir,
“Forgive me for troubling you, but I have decided to entrust the
enclosed narrative to your keeping. As I state, I wish it to be
opened by you, and that you should arrange for it to be published.
I enclose five ten-pound notes, which sum is to be used, partly to
remunerate you, and partly to cover the cost of publication, if such
expenditure should be found necessary. About the time you receive
this, I shall disappear. The contents of the enclosed packet, though
to some extent revealing the cause of my disappearance, give no index
as to its method.--E.P.”
The receipt of this eccentric document occasioned me considerable
surprise. I attended Professor Pownall (I have altered all names,
for obvious reasons) in my professional capacity four or five times
for minor ailments. He struck me as a man of extreme intellectual
brilliance, but his personality was repulsive to me. He had a virulent
and brutal wit which he made no scruple of exercising at my and
everyone else’s expense. He apparently possessed not one single friend
in the world, and I can only conclude that I came nearer to fulfilling
this rôle than anyone else.
I kept this packet by me for safe keeping for the fifteen years, and
then I opened it, about a year ago. The contents ran as follows:
The date of my birth is of complete unimportance, for my life began
when I first met Hubert Morisson at the age of twelve and a half at
Flamborough College. It will end to-morrow at 6.45 p.m.
I doubt if ever in the history of the human intellect there has been
so continuous, so close, so exhausting a rivalry as that between
Morisson and myself. I will chronicle its bare outline. We joined the
same form at Flamborough--two forms higher, I may say, than that in
which even the most promising new boys are usually placed. We were
promoted every term till we reached the Upper Sixth at the age of 16.
Morisson was always top, I was always second, a few hundred marks
behind him. We both got scholarships at Oxford, Morisson just beating
me for Balliol. Before I left Flamborough, the Head Master sent for
me and told me that he considered I had the best brain of any boy who
had passed through his hands. I thought of asking him, if that were
so, why I had been so consistently second to Morisson all through
my school career; but even then I thought I knew the answer to that
question.
He beat me, by a few marks, for all the great University prizes for
which we entered. I remember one of the examiners, impressed by my
papers, asking me to lunch with him. “Pownall,” he said, “Morisson
and you are the most brilliant undergraduates who have been at Oxford
in my time. I am not quite sure why, but I am convinced of two
things; firstly, that he will always finish above you, and secondly,
that you have the better brain.”
By the time we left Oxford, both with the highest degrees, I had
had remorselessly impressed upon me the fact that my superiority
of intelligence had been and always would be neutralised by some
constituent in Morisson’s mind which defied and dominated that
superiority--save in one respect: we both took avidly to chess, and
very soon there was no one in the University in our class, but I
became, and remained, his master.
Chess has been the one great love of my life. Mankind I detest and
despise. Far from growing wiser, men seem to me, decade by decade, to
grow more inane as the means for revealing their ineptitude become
more numerous, more varied and more complex. Women do not exist for
me--they are merely variants from a bad model: but for chess, that
superb, cold, infinitely satisfying anodyne to life, I feel the
ardour of a lover, the humility of a disciple. Chess, that greatest
of all games, greater than any game! It is, in my opinion, one of the
few supreme products of the human intellect, if, as I often doubt, it
is of human origin.
Morisson’s success, I realise, was partly due to his social gifts; he
possessed that shameless flair for making people do what he wanted,
which is summed up in the word “charm,” a gift from the gods, no
doubt, but one of which I have never had the least wish to be the
recipient.
Did I like Morisson? More to the point, perhaps, did I hate him?
Neither, I believe. I simply grew profoundly and terribly used to
him. His success fascinated me. I had sometimes short and violent
paroxysms of jealousy, but these I fought, and on the whole conquered.
He became a Moral Philosophy Don at Oxford: I obtained a similar but
inevitably inferior appointment in a Midland University. We used to
meet during vacations and play chess at the City of London Club.
We both improved rapidly, but still I kept ahead of him. After ten
years of drudgery, I inherited a considerable sum, more than enough
to satisfy all my wants. If one avoids all contact with women one
can live marvellously cheaply: I am continuously astounded at men’s
inability to grasp this great and simple truth.
I have had few moments of elation in my life, but when I got into the
train for London on leaving that cesspool in Warwickshire, I had a
fierce feeling of release. No more should I have to ram useless and
rudimentary speculation into the heads of oafs, who hated me as much
as I despised them.
Directly I arrived in London I experienced one of those irresistible
impulses which I could never control, and I went down to Oxford.
Morisson was married by then, so I refused to stay in his house, but
I spent hours every day with him. The louts into whom he attempted
to force elementary ethics seemed rather less dingy but even more
mentally costive than my Midland half-wits, and, so far as that went,
I envied him not at all. I had meant to stay one week; I was in
Oxford for six, for I rapidly came to the conclusion that I ranked
first and Morisson second among the chess players of Great Britain.
I can say that because I have no vanity: vanity cannot breathe and
live in rarified intellectual altitudes. In chess the master surveys
his skill impersonally, he criticises it impartially. He is great; he
knows it; he can prove it; that is all.
I persuaded Morisson to enter for the British Championship six months
later, and I returned to my rooms in Bloomsbury to perfect my game.
Day after day I spent in the most intensive study, and succeeded in
curing my one weakness. I just mention this point briefly for the
benefit of chess players. I had a certain lethargy when forced to
analyse intricate end-game positions. This, as I say, I overcame. A
few games at the City Club convinced me that I was, at last, worthy
to be called Master. Except for these occasional visits I spent
those six months entirely alone: it was the happiest period of my
life. I had complete freedom from human contacts, excellent health
and unlimited time to move thirty-two pieces of the finest ivory over
a charming checkered board.
I took a house at Bournemouth for the fortnight of the Championship,
and I asked Morisson to stay with me. I felt I had to have him near
me. He arrived the night before play began. When he came into my
study I had one of those agonising paroxysms of jealousy to which I
have alluded. I conquered it, but the reaction, as ever, took the
form of a loathsome feeling of inferiority, almost servility.
Morisson was six foot two in height; I am five foot one. He had, as I
impartially recognise, a face of great dignity and beauty, a mind at
once of the greatest profundity and the most exquisite flippancy. My
face is a perfect index to my character; it is angular, sallow, and
its expression is one of seething distaste. As I say, I know my mind
to be the greater of the two, but I express myself with an inevitable
and blasting brutality, which disgusts and repels all who sample it.
Nevertheless, it is that brutality which attracted Morisson, at times
it fascinated him. I believe he realised, as I do, how implacably
our destinies were interwoven.
Arriving next morning at the hall in which the Championship was to
be held, I learned two things which affected me profoundly. The
first, that by the accident of the pairing I should not meet Morisson
until the last round, secondly, that the winner of the Championship
would be selected to play in the forthcoming Masters’ Tournament at
Budapesth.
I will pass quickly over the story of this Championship. It fully
justified my conviction. When I sat down opposite Morisson in the
last round we were precisely level, both of us having defeated all
our opponents, though I had shown the greater mastery and certainty.
I began this game with the greatest confidence. I outplayed him from
the start, and by the fifteenth move I felt convinced I had a won
game. I was just about to make my sixteenth move when Morisson looked
across at me with that curious smile on his face, half superior,
half admiring, which he had given me so often before, when after a
terrific struggle he had proved his superiority in every other test
but chess. The smile that I was to see again. At once I hesitated.
I felt again that sense of almost cringing subservience. No doubt
I was tired, the strain of that fortnight had told, but it was, as
it always had been, something deeper, something more virulent,
than anything fatigue could produce. My brain simply refused to
concentrate. The long and subtle combination which I had analysed
so certainly seemed suddenly full of flaws. My time was passing
dangerously quickly. I made one last effort to force my brain to
work, and then desperately moved a piece. How clearly I remember
the look of amazement on Morisson’s face. For a moment he scented
a trap, and then, seeing none, for there was none, he moved and I
was myself again. I saw I must lose a piece and the game. After
losing a Knight, I fought with a concentrated brilliance I had never
attained before, with the result that I kept the game alive till the
adjournment and indeed recovered some ground, but I knew when I left
the hall with Morisson that on the next morning only a miracle could
save me, and that once again, in the test of all tests in which I
longed to beat him, he would, as ever at great crises, be revealed as
my master. As I trotted back to my house beside him the words “only
a miracle” throbbed in my brain insinuatingly. Was there no other
possibility? Of a sudden I came to the definite, unalterable decision
that I would kill Morisson that night, and my brain began, like the
perfectly trained machine it is, to plan the means by which I could
kill him certainly and safely. The speed of this decision may sound
incredible, but here I must be allowed a short digression. It has
long been a theory of mine that there are two distinct if remotely
connected processes operating in the human mind. I term these
the “surface” and the “sub-surface” processes. I am not entirely
satisfied with these terms, and I have thought of substituting for
them the terms “conscious” and “subconscious.” However, that is a
somewhat academic distinction. I believe that my sub-surface mind had
considered this destruction of Morisson many times before, and that
these paroxysms of jealousy, the outcome as they were of consistent
and unjust frustration, were the minatory symptoms that the content
of my sub-surface would one day become the impulse of my surface
mind, forcing me to plan and execute the death of Morisson.
When we arrived at the house I went first to my bedroom to fetch a
most potent, swift-working, and tasteless narcotic which a German
doctor had once prescribed for me in Munich when I was suffering
from insomnia. I then went to the dining-room, mixed two whiskies
and soda, put a heavy dose of the drug into Morisson’s tumbler, and
went back to the study. I had hoped that he would drink it quickly:
instead, he put it by his side and began a long monologue on luck.
Possibly my fatal move had suggested it. He said that he had always
regarded himself as an extremely lucky man, in his work, his friends,
his wife. He supposed that his rigidly rational mind demanded for its
relief some such inconsistency, some such sop. “About four months
ago,” he said, “I had an equally irrational experience, a sharp
premonition of death, which lingered with me. I told my wife--you
will never agree, Pownall, but there is something to be said for
matrimony: if I were dying I should like Marie to be with me, gross
sentimentality, of course--I told my wife, who is of a distinctly
psychic, superstitious if you like, turn of mind, and she persuaded
me to go to a clairvoyant of whom she had a high opinion. I went
sceptically, partly to please her, partly for the amusement of
sampling one of this tribe. She was a curious, dingy female, slightly
disconcerting. She stared at me remotely and then remarked, ‘It was
always destined that he should do it.’ I plied her with questions,
but she would say nothing more. I think you will agree, Pownall,
that this was a typically nebulous two-guineas’ worth.” And then he
drained his glass.
Shortly afterwards he began to yawn repeatedly, and went to bed. He
staggered slightly on entering his room. “Good-night, Pownall,” he
said, as he closed the door, “let’s hope somehow or other we may both
be at Budapesth.”