HOOPER SUGGESTS A WAY OUT
Though Steindal was gone, we remained the center of observation.
Perhaps others wondered, like Scapin, what the deuce he was doing in
our boat. Karl, who was distinctly fatigued, did that which I had never
seen him do before--he drank some wine. He seemed to be willing enough
to talk freely, but held in leash by the presence of so many strangers.
Hooper, I knew, was consumed with impatience, but he preserved the
outward demeanor of a North American Indian. So there was a common
agreement when I suggested that my sitting-room was the right place in
which to smoke. Once there, Hooper threw aside the mask.
“I have the accumulated questions of five years to fire at you. Are you
ready?” he said to Karl.
“Quite ready. I would only ask you to remember that a Hindu ascetic
once devoted thirty years to the consideration of one great question:
‘Whence?’ and when he emerged from retirement he astonished his
disciples by merely propounding another: ‘Whither?’”
“I go one better by putting both. Whence comes this amazing sense of
yours, and whither does it tend?”
“If it amuses you to hear my guesses on those points, I am not
disinclined to bring them into the light. Have either of you heard
of Paul Flechsig’s ‘organs of thought’ theory? Yes? Well, he holds,
as you know, that in the gray bed of the brain there are four inner
spheres of sensation--the sphere of touch in the vertical lobe, the
sphere of sight in the occipital lobe, the sphere of smell in the
frontal lobe, and the sphere of hearing in the temporal lobe. These
are the sense-centers. Between, and in active communication with
them, lie the four great thought-centers, containing an elaborate
and peculiar nerve-structure. Take away the enveloping tissues and
bones, and you have a wonderfully complex instrument, balanced, so to
speak, on the spinal cord. This, in the descent of man, is not the
outcome of, but an essential preliminary to, the brain. I imagine
that a comparative anatomist would assign far more importance to the
spinal cord than, let us say, a philosopher would give it. Be that
as it may, I am quite certain, in my case, that the spine possesses
magnetic polarity to an extraordinary degree. Without going into an
extensive lecture on the subject, I believe that I have answered your
first question. The second bristles with difficulties. I can only
tell you that I affect others, who have the same latent attributes,
by the exercise of the principle roughly known to science as magnetic
induction. Notwithstanding the curious things you have seen, my
powers are strictly limited. At a given moment I can induce varying
sensations in different subjects, and these sensations, carried to the
thought-centers, set in motion the sense-centers. If such faculties
were common to all, life would be more simple, and, perhaps, less
mechanical.”
“That is an extraordinary conclusion,” I broke in.
“It sounds contradictory, but I think analysis of my meaning will bear
me out. Come now, Hooper, I look to you for support. I recall your
famous thesis that man contains within himself all the possibilities
of invention. Man required the power to communicate speedily with his
fellows. After long ages, he has evolved the electric telegraph and the
telephone. I reach the same end without the cumbrous means. Certain
people would dub my sixth sense supernatural, or transcendental,
meaning thereby something which can exist and operate without a
material basis. That is ridiculous. If such well-known beverages
as tea and coffee can stimulate thought, if alcohol can intensify
feeling, if musk can reanimate the fainting consciousness and ether
deaden it, is it not clear that the ordinary senses have an anatomical
basis yielding to chemical action? My sixth sense is a true natural
phenomenon, and, when I come to be dissected in the interests of
science, you must ask the anatomist to explain--”
There was a sound at the door as of one fumbling at the handle.
I rose, surprised that any one should seek to enter without knocking.
Then the door opened, and Steindal appeared. I learned afterwards
that he had recovered very rapidly from his seeming madness, and had
persuaded the hotel attendants to leave him alone, on the plea that he
would sleep. A doctor, too, summoned hastily, bore out his statement
that he was in a normal condition of health. By tipping a housemaid,
who knew nothing of the scene in the restaurant, he reached my room.
So far as I could judge, he was unarmed. Nevertheless, I barred the
way, but he paid no heed to me. He dodged, in order to see Karl.
“I want to speak to you,” he said thickly, addressing Karl.
“Come in, then,” was the answer.
Thinking that three of us could surely overpower him at once if he
attempted violence, I stood aside.
Seen in the half-light of the corridor, Steindal looked his own tubby,
commonplace self, but the bright interior of the room revealed the
rough usage to which he had been subjected. His chin was scratched, his
collar and shirt loosened by the breaking of a stud, the breast-pocket
of his coat was torn, and his long, black, smooth hair ruffled.
The expression of his face offered a study in physiology. The corners
of his thick, salacious lips turned upward with the scowl of an enraged
animal. His eyes, usually black and beady, were now dark red, and
darting shifting glances at all parts of Karl’s body. Their constant
movement was fascinating. If you have ever seen a bull-fight, and
watched the last stand of the Andalusian monarch of the herd as he
faces the matador, well aware that the bright straight blade in the
man’s right hand is ready to seek his heart’s blood, yet compelled
to watch the flutterings of a bit of red silk on the _muleta_ in his
predestined slayer’s left hand, you will form some notion of the
suppressed fury which gleamed from Steindal’s quickly-moving eyes.
Yet his voice, though it had lost its smoothness, was well under
control.
“Whatever else you may be, I don’t suppose you are a coward,” said he.
I believe, to this day, that Steindal could actually smell blood in
that instant. His nostrils twitched slightly, and his tongue darted
forth to salivate his lips. Hooper and I might have been non-existent
for all the heed he paid to us.
“No, I am not,” said Karl.
“Then you will travel with me to France to-morrow?”
“That would be useless, Steindal. I can paralyze your arm, root you
immovable to the ground.”
“Ah, but that would make you, indeed, a coward. Yet, I take the chance.
I will fight you with my hands tied, if need be. My teeth will serve.”
“I cannot fight you,” said Karl, slowly. “I refuse to murder you, and
certainly I shall not let you murder me. No, Steindal, you must live. I
am sorry to be so hard on you, but you really must continue to exist.”
“Is that your final answer?”
“Absolutely.”
“Do you assign a cause?”
“For you, punishment, and, it may be, retribution, to be followed
perhaps by the emergence of a soul from your bloated body. For me,
suffering too, in a form you cannot understand.”
“I decline your terms,” murmured Steindal, moistening his lips again
and advancing a pace.
“Go!” said Karl, sternly, and, to my utter surprise, the other man
turned and quitted the room. We heard him walk steadily down the
corridor, and caught the click of his boots as he stepped on to a
marble staircase. It was Hooper who broke the queer silence which fell
on us.
“You seem to have taken the measure of Steindal’s backbone, at any
rate?” he commented.
“Where I am concerned, he is no longer a free agent,” said Karl,
wearily.
“Tell me,” I interposed, “why you deal so harshly with a man you have
never actually met before to-night?”
“Because I loathe such a creature. He represents the pig in man. He has
brought horror and abasement to hundreds. Now he must wallow in the
only degradation that makes him contemptible in his own esteem. But
forgive me if I leave you. You and Hooper can find much to discuss, and
I must be alone.”
He stood upright, and drew a hand across his eyes. I seemed to perceive
a slackening of the muscles of his finely molded frame which was
almost a symptom of complete enervation. It was a new and unaccountable
alarm which impelled me to say:
“Will you go home, Karl, and promise me to try and sleep?”
“I am going home,” he replied. “Good-night!”
Clearly, he did not desire any courteous leave-taking in the vestibule.
I did not offer to accompany him. When I knew that he had descended
the stairs--thus avoiding the elevator and its possible publicity--I
rejoined Hooper.
He was smoking, and his gaze was fixed on the ceiling. I was in no mood
for talk just then. More by force of habit than otherwise, I rang for a
waiter and ordered whisky and soda. The mere presence of the man, with
his servile affability and his laden tray, was a tonic in itself. He
brought me back from illimitable depths to the workaday world.
“Do you partake?” I asked Hooper.
“Yep.”
The cigar wedged between his teeth rendered the final labial the easier
manner of speech. I found his presence soothing, too. I poured out a
small quantity of spirit, and, while the waiter was uncorking a bottle
of soda water, I looked out of the window. It was a glorious summer
evening when last I saw the streets. Now the flaring lights were
reflected in wavering zigzags on road and pavements, while the shining
capes of ’bus-drivers and cabmen caught the eye as moving pyramids.
“Good heavens!” I cried, “it is raining!”
There was a loud report. The attendant had drenched himself.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” he stammered, “but you did make me jump, an’
no mistake.”
“Better have the remainder of the soda poured over your head,” snapped
Hooper at me.
“But I tell you it is raining,” I shouted excitedly.
“Give it to me, waiter, if you are afraid,” said Hooper, firmly.
“Oh, I had forgotten you did not know that Karl has to exert many times
the force in unsettled weather that he requires when the sky is clear.
Hooper, he may not live days, let alone weeks.”
I quailed before the American’s warning glance, and ceased speaking.
The waiter was glad to close the door on us, I am sure. Hooper led me
to a chair.
“Sit down, partner,” he said. “I have been trying to theorize. A
certain Greek gentleman named Empedocles, dated 500 B.C., believed that
he had solved the puzzle of life when he defined the love and hatred
of the elements. I think we have reached his track. But you know the
kind of elements we have to deal with, and I do not. Discourse to me of
Karl, and Maggie, and--is there another woman?”
“There is,” I said.
“Bully for me!” he cried delightedly. “The eternal feminine would have
the shortest life on record if there weren’t two of ’em. Now, let’s
have the whole yarn. I am a good listener.”
So I told him everything, fact and fancy, until my voice gave out, and
we were amazed to find I had been talking for nearly three hours. It
was long past midnight when I noticed the clock.
“Let us to bed,” I wheezed. “We must consult in the morning.”
He, in his turn, looked out at the weather.
“It has ceased raining and the stars are visible,” he said.
“Thank goodness for that! Karl will experience some relief.”
“I think not. If he and the rest of us are not qualifying for an asylum
by believing the truth of what you have told me, don’t you see that
the strain is cumulative? He cannot, I may almost say he dare not,
sleep. He is deliberately sacrificing himself to save those women. He
thinks, and we agree with him, that his death will snap the tension.
They will grieve over his loss, no doubt, but their tears will be a
measure of salvation. I tell you, my friend, we are up against a hard
proposition. Were it not utterly selfish, I could almost wish you had
left me in Paris.”
“I was tempted to share the responsibility with some one whom I could
trust.”
“Yes, I see that. And don’t think I would shirk my duty to a comrade
like Karl. Yet, I fear for him. Something must be done, and done
quickly, if we would rescue him. Oh, if only I knew more of science and
less of law! What is the meaning of this resistance we hear so much of?
Is it the same thing in Steindal and Nora Cazenove? It seems to stir
up ignoble passion in both, though the manner of it is so different to
our perception. And that is strange, unless the question of sex enters
largely into it.”
“Affinity and repulsion are the two fundamental principles of all
creation. I have heard you say, years ago, that Karl threw us back to
first causes.”
“We are dealing now with men and women of to-day,” he cried, pacing up
and down the room.
I had never before seen him so genuinely disturbed. His artificial
coolness had melted, as ice might fall off a volcano in eruption after
long quiescence. I had great respect for the clearness of his mental
vision; there was also a certain consolation in witnessing this sudden
upheaval. That a skilled lawyer, a man of great acumen in affairs,
and, for one of his years, an astonishingly cool-headed judge of human
nature, should be so perturbed by the issues submitted to him, offered
some proof that I had not magnified their gravity.
“Do you think we can regard Steindal as a negligible quantity?” he
asked, halting in front of me and piercing me with his large earnest
eyes.
“It would seem to be reasonable from his latest attitude,” I admitted.
“Then we are driven back on the women. What of this girl, Nora? She
is the chief difficulty. It is perfectly evident that the sympathetic
bond, or whatever it is, which exists between Karl and Maggie, was
broken, or remained in abeyance, from the day of Constantine’s death
until there sprang up some lover-like relationship between Karl and
Nora. Then Maggie intervened, whether by her own volition or not
is unknown, and, to an extent, inconsequent. Karl recognized the
impossibility of marriage with Nora, but it was beyond him to give a
reason that would be accepted by his father, nor was he so callous as
to offer up Maggie as a holocaust. Therefore, he has definitely adopted
a course of action which demands his own death. There is no other
alternative. Either Maggie or he must die. The way out--if there is
one--lies with Nora--or Maggie.”
“But what can we do? We cannot kill one of them, even for the sake of
our friend.”
“No, but we can bring them together before it is too late.”
“What good purpose will that accomplish?”
“It may achieve a hundred different purposes which are impracticable
when one woman is in Italy and the other woman in England. Let us get
them face to face and things will happen. Sit right down and write me a
letter of introduction to Nora. Just say I am a friend of all parties,
and leave the remainder of the explanation to me. I will take care of
her, and of Karl, too, not to mention Steindal, until you bring Maggie
from the Castello Rondo.”
“Until I--bring--”
“Repetition is the vainest form of argument. Don’t speak, there’s a
good fellow. Indeed, you can’t. When all this trouble is through, I
would advise you to consult a specialist. Weakness of the vocal chords
is an early symptom of decay. Now write, while I look up the train
service.”
I compared Hooper to a volcano; I might go further and say that the
lava-stream of his impetuosity quite swept me off my feet. It is a
splendid thing, in a crisis, to have a masterful ally. His confidence
lent me new life. He rushed off to make inquiries beneath, and I sat
down to write a note to Nora. In black and white the task was not so
easy as Hooper would have it.
Ultimately, I wrote as follows:
“It would not be just to you or to Karl were I to conceal my firm
conviction that you both are faced with a most serious problem.
Certain events which took place in this hotel to-night, combined
with my own observations of Karl’s health, force me to tell you that
the ensuing week may see the gravest developments, so far as he is
concerned. In my opinion, I can best help him by taking a journey to
Italy, without losing an unnecessary hour. I want you also to help,
and I am sending you this letter by the hands of one who is a friend
of Karl’s, anxious to be of service to you, and thoroughly acquainted
with the present critical condition of affairs. Trust him, as I hope
you will trust me, to act for the common good.”
I read through what I had written, not once, but half a dozen times.
Letters to excitable young ladies are dangerous as the boomerang in the
hands of a novice. If the worst came to the worst, and Karl died, who
could tell what hubbub might be raised by Nora Cazenove? At any rate,
it was quite inadvisable to allude more specifically to the uncanny
workings of a sixth sense.
“Telegnomy and a coroner’s jury do not run in tandem,” said Hooper,
taking my view of the need there was to use guarded phrases.
He also approved of the reference to Italy.
“She has jumped Maggie’s claim and she knows it. It may be my
regrettable duty to make that clear right away,” he remarked.
“Do not blame the girl,” I said. “Remember that the match was made by
Mr. Grier and Lord Sandilands.”
“I guess that didn’t worry Nora. But your best train leaves at nine in
the morning, and you have a voice like a crow. If you don’t give it a
rest you will not be able to ask for your ticket. Leave Nora to me,
there’s a good chap. I’ll fix her.”
I had seen Nora ablaze with the fire of the gods, so I doubted the
effect of Hooper’s coercion or persuasiveness. Yet he had brought
action where there was uncertainty, substituted ordered effort for
chaos, and I was grateful to him.
Hence, I slept and breakfasted, and caught the first morning express
for the Continent.