KARL GRIER
KARL GRIER
The Strange Story of a
Man with a Sixth Sense
BY
LOUIS TRACY
AUTHOR OF “THE WINGS OF THE MORNING,” “THE PILLAR
OF LIGHT” AND “THE GREAT MOGUL.”
[Illustration]
New York
Edward J. Clode
156 Fifth Avenue
1906
COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY
EDWARD J. CLODE
_Entered at Stationers’ Hall_
_The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass. U.S.A._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
THE AFFAIR OF THE TEA-GARDEN 1
CHAPTER II
THE SAVING OF CONSTANTINE 14
CHAPTER III
THE FINDING OF MAGGIE HUTCHINSON 27
CHAPTER IV
A CAT AND FRANK HOOPER 41
CHAPTER V
KARL’S FIRST MEETING WITH STEINDAL 53
CHAPTER VI
IN WHICH CONSTANTINE HAS A VISION 66
CHAPTER VII
“BLOOD IS A VERY PECULIAR JUICE” 78
CHAPTER VIII
MAGGIE HUTCHINSON INTERVENES 90
CHAPTER IX
THE CONFOUNDED HOTEL CLERK 101
CHAPTER X
MAGGIE TELLS WHAT BEFEL HER 115
CHAPTER XI
THE KEY OF THE TREASURE-HOUSE 126
CHAPTER XII
THE SCENE IN THE GARDEN COURT 138
CHAPTER XIII
CONSTANTINE TAKES A JOURNEY 151
CHAPTER XIV
CONSTANTINE ENCOUNTERS THE SHARK 165
CHAPTER XV
THE OTHER WOMAN 177
CHAPTER XVI
WOMEN CALLED HIM “THE MAGNET” 190
CHAPTER XVII
I MEET NORA CAZENOVE 203
CHAPTER XVIII
THE PROBLEM TAKES SHAPE 216
CHAPTER XIX
THE UNBIDDEN GUEST 231
CHAPTER XX
STEINDAL GIVES A PUBLIC PERFORMANCE 246
CHAPTER XXI
HOOPER SUGGESTS A WAY OUT 260
CHAPTER XXII
NORA FACES THE INEVITABLE 275
CHAPTER XXIII
“A STRUGGLE ’TWIXT LOVE AND DEATH” 292
CHAPTER XXIV
THE FALL OF THE CURTAIN 308
KARL GRIER
CHAPTER I
THE AFFAIR OF THE TEA-GARDEN
The chief actor in the singular, perhaps unprecedented, incidents
herein recorded now leads a sedate existence of British top-hatted
respectability. Many reputable citizens of London and Edinburgh, not
to mention cosmopolitan Paris and New York, to whom he is personally
known, would be exceedingly surprised were they to recognize, through
the thin disguise of places and people, the popular man of the world
whose extraordinary career is now set forth for the first time.
Some few there are who dimly comprehend Karl Grier’s secret. They, for
reasons that shall be obvious, will keep their amazed imaginings locked
in their own hearts. Others, men of precise science for the most part,
who have been approached in order that certain remarkable phenomena
might be sanely investigated, refute with scorn the suggestion that
such a person ever lived. That is to say, they cannot deny Karl Grier,
with his giant frame and his hearty whole-souled laugh, but they do
deny most emphatically that he ever possessed the unknown power which
he exercised in a marvelous way during several eventful years.
If aught could make Karl angry, it is the stupid agnosticism of these
learned critics, true children of the dull tribe which began, ages
ago, to create its own unbending gods of stone and wood, and has been
setting up barriers to knowledge ever since, building dogmatic walls
the crossing of which is forbidden by bell, book, and candle.
Yet it is not within my province to rail against these infallibles,
who smile at the density which imprisoned Galileo in the sixteen
hundreds, but refuse to-day’s evidence of a new realm in man’s mental
activity. Sometimes Karl has been tempted, with me, his biographer,
as tempter, to place before an astounded world such an array of facts
as must convert these scoffers into perfervid disciples. He has
been deterred--and here I may claim some credit, too--by personal
considerations, by dread of the fierce light of publicity being shed on
those near and dear to him, and, in lesser degree, by the fact that a
settled, happy existence has stifled the weird and subtle sense which
was vouchsafed to him during the growth and plentitude of his bodily
and spiritual powers. So, peace be to the critics. “Eppur si muove!”
sighed the astronomer, recanting the truth to save his life.
For, without further preamble be it said, my friend Grier was endowed
with, or permitted by Providence to use, a sixth sense, which he and
I, seeking its correct classification in after years, named telegnomy,
or far-knowing. That is the nearest the vocabulary of our times will
approach to the description of his mysterious faculty. Strictly
speaking, it was not a new sense, as one differentiates seeing from
hearing, or taste from touch. Purists in words may even quarrel with me
for using the term “sense” to denote a transcendental union of reason
with physical attributes. But, in writing a quaint, almost sensational,
narrative of actual occurrences, it is well to be content with the
simple phraseology of every-day life, and, in that well-defined vehicle
of plain thought, the faculty vouchsafed to Karl Grier was a sense.
Its stupendous range, its curiously rational limitations, will be
grasped only by an intelligent reading of these memoirs. So a truce to
the “Yea” and “Nay” of theorists. Let the story, or group of queer
incidents, as it may be termed, speak for itself.
“I have always thought,” said Karl, musing once in analytical mood,
“that my sixth sense owed its inception to the Babel-like jargon of
languages which surrounded my youthful years. I remember distinctly
being attired, on my fourth birthday, in a new sailor suit, which
showed to an admiring family circle that I was rated as a first-class
A.B. on His Majesty’s ship _Victorious_. We lived then in India, where
my father grew tea on a Darjeeling plantation. I had a half-caste
French nurse from Trichinopoly, a Mahomedan bearer, or male servant,
a Scottish father and a German mother, and each member of our little
republic spoke his or her own tongue when the heart was stirred.
In my jubilation I endeavored to climb a creeper, and fell off the
low veranda on to a path covered with sharp flints. Both I and the
suit were damaged at all points of contact with the globe. My mother
shrieked: ‘Ach, Himmel!’ but, being a woman of steady nerves, she soon
perceived that little real mischief had resulted, and she went on: ‘Er
ist zum seemann nicht geboren’ (He is not cut out for a sailor). My
father said, with a laugh: ‘We should hae kepit the bairn in a cutty
sark.’ The nurse flew to my assistance, crying: ‘Pauvre p’tit! Tu
n’es pas assez adroit!’ whilst Abdul Khan, my bearer, tried to console
my grief with his ‘Kuchparwani, batcha, mainne mitai lata!’ (Never
mind, little one, I have some sweets for you.) Now, these varied
exclamations, conveying many distinct ideas in four languages, of which
the Eastern differed in every respect from the European, were instantly
intelligible to me. Abdul Khan alone comforted me--the others hurt my
pride. But the real point is that I understood them all to the finest
shade of meaning. To put it plainly, sounds, and not words, conveyed
clear ideas. It was the first unknown step along an uncharted road; the
step a fox-terrier takes when he grasps the inflections of his master’s
voice.”
“I suppose that is what people mean when they say that you can
never really speak a language well until you learn to think in that
language?” said I.
Karl laughed gently, and a dreamy look came into his eyes. At one time
this would have been the certain prelude to a condition which, for
want of a more accurate term, we called a “trance,” though it was far
removed from the muscular or mental subjection induced by mesmerism or
clairvoyance. Now he simply dropped his eyelids, took a whiff or two
of his pipe, and, when he glanced at me again, there was quiet humor,
not fantasy, in his big blue orbs.
“No,” he answered, “the states may be kin, but they differ, as the
visual powers of a daisy, which can see the sun, differ from those
of man. Education, by its necessary artificiality, tends to destroy
natural gifts. The daily growth of a living language supplies adequate
proof of this truism. The first sounds uttered by man, quite apart from
signs and symbols, implied a want or an emotion. Those primary words
run in unbroken gamut through all variations of speech or dialect.
Of course, they vary, but not greatly, no more than the bark of the
Indian dog, the grunt of the Indian pig, the caw of the Indian crow--I
could recite hundreds of examples--vary from the typical cries of
their European congeners. To my childish intelligence, sounds were all
sufficing. I knew the voices of nature. The whinney of a horse told
me whether he was hungry or thirsty, afraid or angered. I heard the
kites whistling their fellow-ghouls to the feast. I could actually
distinguish the answering bleat of a kid to the hoarse summons of its
dam amidst a flock of goats. Good heavens! if only my baby mind could
have uttered its knowledge, and found a scientific recorder, what
undeciphered mysteries of human development might I not have solved!”
Although this train of reminiscence was somewhat removed from the
far more curious and complex sense he developed afterwards, it was
interesting as showing a tendency towards the abnormal.
“Have you any reason to believe that animals ever knew you possessed
the key to their utterances?” I asked.
“Not in a convincing degree. Oddly enough, my intelligence was more
receptive than creative. Certainly my dogs, ponies, birds, and other
so-called dumb creatures with which I was brought in contact were in
extraordinary sympathy with me. But such human and animal collusions
are far from rare. And I could not speak to them with effect. Our
physical appliances are fashioned by use, remember. If the nasal sounds
of French will change the shape of the roof of a Frenchman’s mouth, or
singing develop the singer’s throat in a single lifetime, how much more
profoundly must untold generations of ordered language have modified
the vocal organs. So my four-footed friends could not understand my
harsh imitations. They were too far down the scale. I could plumb
_their_ depths, but _they_ could only gaze at me wistfully, as men look
at the stars.”
He went on to tell how he startled his father, one day, by the
information that a colony of minahs (the Indian starling) had found a
snake in a flower-bed, which was true, though none could guess how the
child knew it; and he made me shake with merriment as he described the
antics of a monkey, whose chattering rage he did succeed in burlesquing
with some degree of realism. But these are not serious contributions
to science, and I am truly endeavoring to help forward my fellow-men
along the path which Morse, Edison, Marconi, and many another earnest
worker, each in a separate sphere, yet each striving for the same goal,
have indicated to a world not yet ready to advance. I pass, therefore,
to the first recorded use of his sixth sense. In all probability there
were minor instances, which were unnoticed either by his parents or by
the child himself. This one could not be gainsaid. It verified itself
most dramatically.
Karl’s peculiar gift of understanding the crude languages of nomads--he
lost the hidden key long before any one thought of testing him with
Homeric verse or the polished periods of Cicero--enabled him to
converse with the unkempt Nepalese and wilder Tibetans who occasionally
visited the station in the guise of petty traders. He was six years
old when the famous Hutchinson Raid took place. Already he had learnt
to read, but, luckily, his parents, being wise folk, determined that
such a precocious child must not be encouraged in his studies, else the
growth of method in that wondrous little brain must already have dimmed
his comprehension of primeval speech.
The Griers’ tea-garden, with its fine bungalow and spacious coolie
quarters, was an old estate. It stood on the outskirts of the scattered
houses which comprised the station. In a neighboring valley, two miles
away, a London company had established a huge garden, employing nearly
three thousand coolies, and the manager was a Mr. Frank Hutchinson. One
day, at the beginning of the hot weather, Hutchinson drove to the local
bank, and obtained a very considerable sum of money, some twenty odd
thousand rupees, to pay the monthly wages. Being a “brither Scot,” he
called on the Griers, left his wife there for a gossip, and his little
daughter, Maggie, for a romp with Karl. The three set out towards home
in time for dinner, and Karl was, naturally, very reluctant to part
from his little playmate.
She, too, nearly wept, so he consoled her by saying:--
“Don’t cwy, Maggie”--for he had a slight lisp--“Mamsie says we are
coming to see you soon, and _I’ll think of you until Nanna_ (the French
nurse) _puts me to bed_.”
Maggie evidently found consolation in this limited promise of fidelity.
It can only be assumed that the boy kept his vow. In his mind he
followed the child and her parents down into the valley, across the
river, and up the hill-side to the spacious compound which held the
house and offices. Arrived there, in fancy, his active brain roamed
about the place, which he knew well. Then his wits wandered. His
father, quitting the monthly accounts in time for dinner, found the
nurse sitting in the veranda, sewing, in a dim light. Near her was
Karl, unusually quiet, curled up in a big peg-chair. Grier spoke, but
the boy did not answer. Stooping, he noticed a tiny stream of blood
issuing from a nostril.
Though not a nervous man, he lifted Karl into his arms with quick
anxiety, and the youngster appeared to wake from a light sleep.
“What is the matter, sonny?” he asked, somewhat puzzled. “Why is your
nose bleeding?”
“I don’t know, Daddy, but I have been a long way, and maybe I hurted
myself.”
“Been a long way! Has Master Karl been out, Mathilde?” he inquired.
“Mais non, m’sieur. He play some time, then he sit himself in the
chair.”
“But I have, Daddy,” persisted the child. “I went with Maggie. I heard
Mr. Hutchinson tell Mrs. Hutchinson that their tea crop was not a good
one, as the soil was too light, and he thought the Company had not
chosen a good pitch.”
This was sufficiently bewildering from a boy of six, being an opinion
which Hutchinson would not utter even to Grier himself. But Karl, whose
lisp need not be reproduced, was brimful of news.
“Oh, it is quite, quite true,” he cried in response to his father’s
laughing protest. “Maggie went in, and was a naughty girl because
she could not sit up for dinner. Then I went around the house, and I
saw some hill men in a wood. They said they were going to kill Mr.
Hutchinson to-night, and steal his money. One of them will give the
_chowkidars_ (watchmen) something to make them sleep. They will put the
bags of money on some ponies, and go by a hill path into Sikkim. There
are eight brown ponies and one white one. I counted them.”
Some inkling of a tremendous fact stayed the remonstrance on Mr.
Grier’s lips. He was Scottish, you see, a Highlander bred and born,
and he _almost_ believed in second sight. So he encouraged Karl to
talk, obtained additional and more convincing details, for the child
gave him the exact phrases of the Shillong patois used by the bandits,
and finally handed over the youthful visionary to Mathilde, telling her
to ask Mrs. Grier to keep some dinner for him--he was called away on
urgent business.
He rode to the house of the District Superintendent of Police. As a
favor, for Grier was a popular man, Captain Melville gathered a few
mounted constables, and they all cantered off to the Hutchinsons’
garden. In the compound they found a stranger fraternizing with the
servants, and in his possession was a quantity of sweetmeats, which
subsequent examination proved to be rank with _dhatura_, an Indian drug
which can induce sleep or death.
A raid on the wood secured a dozen rascals armed to the teeth, and the
nine ponies, exactly as Karl had described them. There was a small
fight, in which a sepoy’s head was cut open, but the surprise was
too effectual for any serious resistance to be offered. “Conspiracy”
was the root word of the legal indictment which sent the gang to the
Andamans convict settlement.
The affair was known as the “Hutchinson Raid.” Such things happen
in India. But Karl’s share in the adventure was kept quiet by the
authorities. It would have discredited the otherwise conclusive
evidence, they thought.