The Soul Stealer

CHAPTER XV

HAIL TO THE LOVERS!

When he had left Donald Megbie, Sir William Gouldesbrough went back to the room in which he had last seen Marjorie Poole.

He found her the centre of a circle of friends and acquaintances. Lady Poole was sitting by her daughter's side, and was in a high good humour.

Gouldesbrough saw at once that while he had been talking with Donald Megbie in the conservatory, Lord Malvin had done as Gouldesbrough had asked him. Every one knew, with more or less accuracy, of what the new invention consisted.

If the excitement and stir of expectation had been noticeable at the beginning of the evening, it was now doubly apparent. The rooms hummed like a hive with excited talk, and it was obvious that society considered it had received a remarkable sensation. Sir William knew that things were moving in the direction he wished, when he saw Marjorie Poole holding a little court in this manner. She was always a very popular girl and knew everybody. But to-night was not ordinary. It was plain that both Marjorie and Lady Poole were being courted because of their relationship to Sir William Gouldesbrough. Of course everybody knew the past history of the engagement. But now it seemed almost certain that it would be renewed. Gouldesbrough realized all this in a moment, and with intense satisfaction. The assumption that he and Marjorie were once more engaged, or on the verge of being so, could not but contribute towards the fact.

Yes, it was a propitious hour. Everything was in his favour; this was his grand night, and he meant that it should be crowned by the renewal of the promise of the girl he loved.

As he went up to the group he seemed wonderfully strong and dominant. Marjorie's eyes fell upon him and brightened as they did so. Certainly there was no one else like this man!

Gouldesbrough wanted to carry Marjorie away to the supper-room at once, but he was not to escape so easily. He was surrounded at once, and congratulations were fired at him from every side.

The old Duchess of Marble Arch, an ancient dame painted to resemble a dairy-maid of one and twenty, laid a tremulous claw-like hand, blazing with rings, upon Gouldesbrough's arm. She was a scandal-monger who had ruined homes, a woman who had never done an unselfish action or ever had a thought that was not sordid, malevolent or foul. Yet she was a great lady, a Princess in Vanity Fair, and even Sir William could not disregard her, so great and important was this venerable hag.

"Well," she began in her high impertinent voice, "so you have outdone Aladdin, I hear, Sir William. Really I congratulate you on your thought-trap or whatever it is. I suppose we shall have you in the Upper House soon! I wish you could manage to catch some thoughts for me on the Stock Exchange. Couldn't you have your machine taken down to Capel Court? I should very much like to know what some of the gentlemen who deal in South Africans are thinking just now. The market is really in the most abominable state. And do please bring the machine to one of my At Homes. It would give me intense pleasure to know what is going on in the minds of some of my friends. We could install it in one of the smaller drawing-rooms, behind a screen. No one would know, and we could catch thoughts all the evening – though I expect the machine would want disinfecting after the first half-hour. I will see that there is some Condy's fluid ready."

She moved away chattering shrilly. Young Lord Landsend succeeded her.

That nobleman showed very evident traces of living as hard as his purse and his doctor would let him, and his pale countenance was stamped with a congratulatory grin. "'Pon my soul, Sir William," he said, "this thing you've made is really awfully jolly, you know. Topping idea really. Hope you wont go fishin' round for my thoughts!"

There was a general laugh at this, and some one was heard to remark that they didn't think that Sir William Gouldesbrough would make any very big hauls in that quarter!

"But how splendid of you, Sir William!" said Mrs. Hoskin-Heath, a pretty dark-haired woman with beautiful eyes. "It is really marvellous. Now there will be a real meaning in the saying 'a penny for your thoughts!' Shall you have penny-in-the-slot machines on all the stations of the Twopenny Tube? So nice while one is waiting for a train. Just imagine how nice it will be to let your cher ami know how much you like him without having to say any actual compromising words! You are a public benefactor, Sir William."

Another voice broke in upon Gouldesbrough's impatient ear.

"How do you do, Sir William? It is a great pleasure to meet you on such an occasion as this, an occasion which, if I may say so, is really historic! You may not remember me, but I had the privilege of meeting you at Brighton not long ago. My name is Charliewood, Sir Miles Charliewood; we met on the melancholy occasion of my poor second son's – er – death. You were very kind and helpful."

Gouldesbrough shook hands with the old baronet. A shadow passed over his face as he did so, and he would have given much to have avoided the sight of him – not to have known at all that Sir Miles was in Portland Place on this night of triumph.

Gouldesbrough was one of those men who had solved the chief problem of life. Like Napoleon, he was master of his own mind. His mind did not dominate him, as the minds of most of us do. He controlled it absolutely and never allowed thoughts of one part of his life to intrude upon those of another.

And now, with the frightful egotism of supreme self-will, he actually felt aggrieved at this sudden meeting. It was, he thought, hard at this radiant, happy moment! He did not want to be reminded of the past or of the terrible and criminal secret of the present. Why should the pale ghost of Eustace Charliewood come to trouble him now? His partner in an unspeakable infamy, the tool he had used for the satisfaction of his devilish desires was dead. Dead, gone away, no longer in existence. That he, Gouldesbrough, was morally the murderer of the distracted man whom he had forced into crime troubled him not at all. It never had troubled him – he had learned to be "Lord of Himself." And now, in this moment of unprecedented triumph, the wraith of the dead man rose up swiftly and without warning to be a spectre at the feast. It was hard!

But he turned to Sir Miles Charliewood and was as courteous and charming as ever. His marked powers of fascination did not desert him. That strange magnetism that was able to draw people to him, to make them his servants and slaves, surrounded him now like the fabled "aura" of the Theosophists.

He bent over the pompous little man with a smile of singular sweetness.

"Forget?" he said. "My dear sir, how could I forget? It is charming to see you again. I hadn't an idea you knew Lord Malvin or were interested in scientific affairs. Your congratulations are very welcome to me, though you have said far more than I deserve. I hope we shall meet again soon. I am generally at home in Regent's Park in the afternoons. It would have made me very happy if poor Eustace could have been with us to-night. He was one of my most intimate friends, as you know. And I may tell you that he took a great interest in the experiments which have now culminated so satisfactorily for me. Poor dear fellow! It is a great sorrow to me that he is not with us. Well, well! I suppose that these things are arranged for us by a Power over which we have no control, a Force beyond our poor power of measuring or understanding. Good-night, Good-night, Sir Miles. Do come and see me soon."

He bowed and smiled, with Marjorie upon his arm, and then turned away towards the supper-room. And he left Sir Miles Charliewood – who had not cared twopence for his son during his lifetime – full of a pleasing melancholy and regret for the dead man.

Such is the power of success to awake dormant emotions in flinty hearts.

Such is the aroma and influence which "doth hedge a king" in any sphere of modern life!

Sir William walked away with the beautiful girl by his side. He felt the light touch of her fingers upon his arm, and his blood raced and leapt with joy. He felt a boy again, a happy conquering boy. Yes, all was indeed well upon this night of nights!

As they entered the supper-room and found a table, Lord Landsend saw them. He was with Mrs. Pat Argyle, the society actress, and his cousins the young Duke and Duchess of Perth.

Landsend was a fast young man of no particular intellect. But he was kind, popular, and not without a certain personal charm. He could do things that more responsible and important people couldn't do.

As he saw the hero of the occasion and the night come in with Marjorie Poole, an inspiration came to the rackety young fellow.

He jumped up from his chair and began to clap loudly.

There was a moment's dead silence. Everybody stopped talking, the clink and clatter of the meal was still.

Then the little Duchess of Perth – she was Miss Mamie Q. Oildervan, of New York – took Landsend up. She began to clap too. As she had three hundred thousand a year, was young, cheeky and delightful, she was a leader of society at this moment.

Every one followed suit. There was a full-handed thunder of applause.

Lord Landsend lifted a glass of champagne high in the air.

"Here's to the wizard of the day!" he shouted merrily. "Here's to the conqueror of thought!"

There was another second of silence. During it, the Duke of Perth, a boy fresh from Oxford, caught the infection of the moment. He raised his glass also – "And to Miss Poole too!" he said.

People who had spent years in London society said that they had never experienced anything like it. A scene of wild excitement began. Staid and ordinary people forgot convention and restraint. There was a high and jocund chorus of congratulation and applause. The painted roof of the supper-room rang with it.

Society had let itself go for once, and there was a madness of enthusiasm in the air.

Sir William Gouldesbrough stood there smiling. He entered into the spirit of the whole thing and bowed to the ovation, laughing with pleasure, radiant with boyish enjoyment.

He felt Marjorie's hand upon his arm quiver with excitement, and he felt that she was his at last!

She stood by his side, her face a deep crimson, and it was as though they were a king and queen returning home to the seat and city of their rule.

It was so public an avowal, chance had been so kind, fortune so opportune, that Sir William knew that Marjorie would never retrace her steps now. It was an announcement of betrothal for all the world to see! It was just that.

Lady Poole, who was supping with Sir Michael Leeds, the great millionaire who was the prop and mainstay of the English Church, pressed a lace handkerchief to her eyes.

The bewildering enthusiasm of the moment caught her too. She rose from her seat – only a yard or two away from the triumphant pair – and went up to them with an impulsive gesture.

"God bless you, my dears!" she said in a broken voice.

Marjorie bowed her head. She drooped like a lovely flower. Fate, it seemed to her, had taken everything out of her hands. She was the creature of the moment, the toy of a wild and exhilarating environment.

She gave one quick, shy glance at Sir William.

He read in it the fulfilment of all his hopes.

Then old Lord Malvin came down the room, ancient, stately and bland.

"My dears," he said simply, "this must be a very happy night for you."

Sir William turned to the girl suddenly. His voice was confident and strong.

"My dear Marjorie," he said, "how kind they all are to us!"

A little group of four people sat down to the table beneath the crimson-shaded light.

Lord Malvin, the most famous scientist and most courtly gentleman of his time. Sir William Gouldesbrough, the hero of this famous party – to-morrow, when Donald Megbie had done his work, to be the hero of the civilized world.

Lady Poole. Sweet Marjorie Poole, in the grip of circumstances that were beyond her thinking.

And no one of the four – not even Sir William Gouldesbrough, F.R.S. – gave a thought to the man in the living tomb – to Guy Rathbone who was, even at that moment, tied up in india-rubber and aluminium bonds for the amusement of Mr. Guest, the pink, hairless man of Regent's Park. Mr. Guest was drunk of whisky, and sat happy, mocking his prisoner far down in the cellars of Sir William's house.

Other folk were drunk of success and applause in Portland Place.

But Donald Megbie was awake in the Inner Temple, and his thoughts were curious and strange.

Donald Megbie had left the party too early in the evening. He was drunk of nothing at all!

CHAPTER XVI

STRANGE OCCURRENCE IN THE TEMPLE

Like most writers, Donald Megbie was of a nervous and sensitive temperament. Both mental and physical impressions recorded themselves very rapidly and completely upon his consciousness.

He arrived at the Inner Temple with every nerve in a state of excitement, such as he had hardly ever known before.

He walked down the dim echoing ways towards the river, his chambers being situated in the new buildings upon the embankment.

A full moon hung in the sky, brilliant and honey-coloured, attended by little drifts of amber and sulphur-tinted clouds.

But the journalist saw nothing of the night's splendour. He almost stumbled up the stairs to the first floor.

A lamp was burning over the door of his rooms, and his name was painted in white letters upon the oak. He went in and turned on the electric light. Then, for a moment, he stood still in the hall, a richly-furnished place surrounded on all sides by doors painted white. His feet made no sound upon the thick Persian carpet, and the whole flat was perfectly still.

He felt uneasy, curiously so, as if some calamity was impending. The exhilaration of his stirring talk with Sir William Gouldesbrough – so recent, so profoundly moving – had now quite departed. His whole consciousness was concentrated upon a little box of metal in the pocket of his overcoat. It seemed alive, he was acutely conscious of its presence, though his fingers were not touching it.

"By Jove!" he said to himself aloud, "the thing's like an electric battery. It seems as if actual currents radiated from it." His own voice sounded odd and unnatural in his ears, and as he hung up his coat and went into the study with the cigarette-case in his hand, he found himself wishing that he had not given his man a holiday – he had allowed him to go to Windsor to spend a night at his mother's house.

A bright fire glowed in the grate of red brick. It shone upon the book-lined walls, playing cheerily upon the crimson, green and gold of the bindings, and turned the great silver inkstand upon the writing-table into a thing of flame.

Everything was cheerful and just as usual.

Megbie put the box down on the table and sank into a huge leather arm-chair with a sigh of relief and pleasure.

It was good to be back in his own place again, the curtains drawn, the lamps glowing, the world shut out. He was happier here than anywhere else, after all! It was here in this beautiful room, with its books and pictures, its cultured comfort, that the real events of his life took place, those splendid hours of solitude, when he set down the vivid experiences of his crowded life with all the skill and power God had given him, and he himself had cultivated so manfully and well.

Now for it! Tired as his mind was, there lay a time of deep thinking before it. There was the article for to-morrow to group and arrange. It was probably the most important piece of work he had ever been called upon to do. It would startle the world, and it behoved him to put forth all his energies.

Yet there was something else. He must consider the problem of the cigarette-case first. It was immediate and disturbing.

How had this thing come into Sir William's possession? What communication had Gouldesbrough had with Guy Rathbone? That they were rivals for the hand of Miss Poole Megbie knew quite well. Every one knew it. It was most unlikely that the two men could have been friends or even acquaintances. Indeed Megbie was almost certain that Rathbone did not know Sir William.

Was that little shining toy on the table a message from the past? Or was it rather instinct with a present meaning?

He took it up again and looked at it curiously.

Immediately that he did so, the sense of agitation and unrest returned to him with tremendous force.

Megbie was not a superstitious man. But now-a-days we all know so much more about the non-material things of life that only the most ignorant people call a man with a belief in the supernatural, superstitious.

Like many another highly educated man of our time, Megbie knew that there are strange and little-understood forces all round us. When an ex-Prime Minister is a keen investigator into the psychic, when the principal of Birmingham University, a leading scientist, writes constantly in dispute of the mere material aspect of life – the cultured world follows suit.

Megbie held the cigarette-case in his hand. All the electric lights burned steadily. The door was closed and there was not a sound in the flat.

Then, with absolute suddenness, Megbie saw that a man was standing in front of him, at the other side of the fireplace, not three yards away. He was a tall man, clean-shaven, with light close-cropped hair and a rather large face. The eyes were light blue in colour and surrounded by minute puckers and wrinkles. The nose was aquiline, the mouth clean-cut and rather full. The man was dressed in a dark blue overcoat, and the collar and cuffs of the coat were heavily trimmed with astrachan fur.

The room was absolutely still.

Something like a grey mist or curtain descended over Megbie's eyes. It rolled up, like a curtain, and Megbie saw the man with absolute clearness and certainty. He could almost have put out his hand and touched him.

Measured by the mere material standard of time, these events did not take more than a second, perhaps only a part of a second.

Then the writer became aware that the room was filled with sound – sudden, loud and menacing. It was a sound as of sudden drums at midnight, such a sound as the gay dances in Brussels heard on the eve of Waterloo, when the Assembly sounded in the great square, and the whole city awoke.