The Soul Stealer

CHAPTER XIX

A DEATH-WARRANT IS PRESENTED TO A PRISONER

When Wilson Guest spoke of the final extinction of the wretched subject of their experiments, Sir William Gouldesbrough did not answer. He began to pace the long room, his head was sunk upon his breast, and his face was like the face of Minos, inscrutable and deadly calm.

Suddenly the whistle of a speaking tube sounded in the wall. All the laboratories and experimental rooms were thus connected with the house proper. None of the servants were allowed to pass the connecting door, unless by special leave.

Guest went to the speaking-tube and placed it against his ear – an ear that was pointed like a goat's ear.

Then he looked at the tall figure which was pacing the laboratory. "William," he called out with an impish giggle, "a lady has called to see you. A lady from Curzon Street!"

Gouldesbrough stopped short in his walk and raised his head. His face suddenly became a mask of eager attention and alertness.

Guest tittered with amusement at the effect which his words had produced. "Don't be agitated," he said, "and don't look like Henry Irving when he played Romeo. It isn't the young lady. It's the old one. It's Lady Poole. The butler has shown her into the study, and she's waiting to know if you can see her."

Gouldesbrough did not reply, but left the laboratory at once. Guest could hear his hurried footsteps echoing along the corridor. Then the pink-faced man turned to the whisky bottle again. He poured out a four-finger peg and sat down in the arm-chair which stood by the vulcanite table which controlled the vast and complicated apparatus of the thought spectrum. He sipped the whisky and looked at his watch. "Rathbone's had the cap on for an hour," he said. "Well, he can go on wearing it for a bit. If William agrees when he comes back it will be the last time Rathbone will have the pleasure of helping in our experiments. I may as well take a peep at his thoughts now. Lord! what a fascinating game it is!" He turned a switch, and all the lights in the place went out suddenly. Then his fingers found the starting lever of the machines.

He moved it, and immediately a low humming sound, as of a drum or fan revolving at immense speed was heard, far away at the other end of the laboratory. Then, immediately in front of where the scientist sat, the great white disc of light, full twelve feet in diameter, suddenly flashed into view.

Images and pictures began to form themselves upon the screen.

Sir William found old Lady Poole in his study, not sitting placidly in the most comfortable chair she could find, her usual plan wherever she might be, but standing upon the hearth-rug and nervously swinging a thin umbrella, the jewelled handle of which sparkled in the firelight.

"Ah, William," she said at once in an agitated voice, letting him lead her to a chair while she was speaking. "Ah, William, I am upset about Marjorie. I am very upset about the girl. I thought over what was best to be done, and I determined that I would take the bull by the horns and come and talk things over with you. That is right, isn't it?"

There was a little anxiety in the good lady's voice, for, however much she desired Sir William for a son-in-law and liked him personally, she was considerably afraid of him in certain of his moods.

"My dear Lady Poole," he replied with one of his rare and charming smiles, "there is no one whom I would rather see than you. And I'm sure that you know that. Tell me all about it."

His tone was gentle and confidential, and Lady Poole's face brightened at once.

"Dear William!" she said. "Well, I've come to you to talk about Marjorie. Our interests are absolutely identical in regard to her. You can't want to marry my daughter more than I want to see my daughter married to you. Lately things have been going well between you both. I saw that at once; nothing escapes me where Marjorie is concerned. She was quite forgetting her foolish fancy for that wretched young Rathbone, owing to his perfectly providential disappearance or death or whatever it was. Then I made sure that everything had come right at Lord Malvin's party, and especially when I heard that you were going to call next day. I went out. I thought it better. And when I came home my maid told me that Marjorie had not seen you after all. And since then I've kept an eye on all that was going on, and I'm very seriously disturbed. Anything I say seems to have no effect. Marjorie will hardly let me mention your name to her; I cannot understand it at all. Her manner is changed too. She seems expecting something or some one. My firm conviction is that she has another fit of pining for young Rathbone. I told her as much one evening. In fact, I'm afraid I rather lost my temper. 'Guy Rathbone is most certainly dead,' I told her. 'I was as kind and sympathetic as I could be,' I said, 'when Mr. Rathbone first disappeared. I very much disapproved of him, but I recognized you had a certain right to choose your own future companion, within limits. But now you're simply making yourself and me miserable and ridiculous, and you're treating one of the best-hearted and distinguished men in England in a way which is simply abominable. It's heartless, it's cruel, and you will end by disgusting society altogether, and we shall have to go and live among the retired officers at Bruges or some place like that.'"

Lady Poole paused for breath. She had spoken with extreme volubility and earnestness, and there were tears in her voice.

It is a mistake to assume that because people are worldly they are necessarily heartless too. Lady Poole really loved her daughter, but she did earnestly desire to see her married to this wealthy and famous man who seemed to have no other desire.

Sir William broke in upon the pause. "All you tell me, dear Lady Poole," he said, "is very chilling and depressing to my dearest hope. But difficulties were made to be overcome, weren't they? and to the strong man there are no fears – only shadows. But what answer did Marjorie make when you said all this to her?"

"A very strange one, William. She said, 'Guy is not dead, mother. I know it. I feel it. I feel certain of it. And when I feel this how can I say anything to Sir William!' Then I asked her if she proposed to keep you waiting for the rest of both your lives before she said anything definite. She burst into tears and said that she was very miserable, but that she intended to say something definite to you after the coming reception here when you are going to show every one your new invention."

"Yes," Sir William answered. "She has promised that, but I fear what her answer will be. Well, we must hope for the best, Lady Poole. If I were you I shouldn't worry. Leave everything to me. I have everything at stake."

"Well, I felt I must come and tell you, William," Lady Poole said. "I felt that it would help you to know exactly how things stand. Perhaps all will come well. Girls are very difficult to manage. I wanted Marjorie to go out a great deal in order to occupy her mind and to keep her from brooding over this absurd fancy that Guy Rathbone is alive. But she seems to shun all engagements. However, she's fortunately thought that she would like to try her hand at writing something, she was always interested in books, you know. So she's spending a good deal of time over it – a story I think – and Mr. Donald Megbie is helping her. He calls now and then and makes suggestions on what she has done. A nice, quiet little man he seems, and a fervent admirer of yours. I sounded him on that point the other day. So even this little fancy of Marjorie's for writing may turn out to be a help. Mr. Megbie is sure to become enthusiastic if your name is mentioned in any way, and it will keep the fact of how the world regards you well before Marjorie. Now, good-bye. It's a relief to have come and told you everything. I must fly, and I know you will want to get back to your electricity and things."

Sir William went with her to the garden-gate in the wall, where her carriage was waiting. Then he went back to the study and took down the speaking-tube that communicated with the large laboratory. He asked Wilson Guest to come to him at once.

In a few minutes the assistant shambled in. His eyes were bright with the liquid brightness of alcoholic poisoning; his speech was much clearer and more decided than it had been earlier in the day. It had tone and timbre. The crimson blotches on the face were less in evidence. Guest had drunk a bottle of whisky since breakfast-time, a quantity which would hopelessly intoxicate three ordinary men and probably kill one. But this enormous quantity of spirit was just sufficient, in the case of this man, to make him as near the normal as he could ever get. A bottle of whisky in the morning acted upon the drink-sodden tissues as a single peg might act upon an ordinary person who was jaded and faint.

Gouldesbrough knew all the symptoms of his assistant's disease very well. He recognized that the moment in the day when Guest was most himself and was most useful had now arrived. The effects of yesterday's drinking were now temporarily destroyed.

"I want your help, Wilson," he said, with a strange look in his eyes. "I want to resume the discussion we were beginning when Lady Poole called. You are all right now?"

"Oh yes, William," the man answered without a trace of his usual giggle, with the former sly malice of his manner quite obliterated. "This is my good hour. I feel quite fit – for me – and I'm ready. About Rathbone you mean?"

"Exactly. Lady Poole has given me to understand that her daughter is still pining after this person."

"Call him a thing, William. He isn't a person any more. He is just a part of our machinery, nothing more. And moreover a part of our machinery that is getting worn out, that we don't want any more, and that we ought to get rid of."

"You think so?"

"I'm certain of it. We must not lose sight of the fact that while there is life in that body there is always danger for us. Not much danger, I admit – everything was managed too well in the first instance. But still there is danger, and a danger that grows."

"How grows?"

"Because at the present moment the newspapers of the civilized world are full of your name. Because the eyes of the whole world are directed towards this house in Regent's Park."

"There is something in that, Wilson. Now my thought is that if the body could actually be found, then Miss Poole would know, with the rest of the world, that the fellow was actually dead. Could that be managed?"

Guest lit a cigarette. "I suppose so," he said, thoughtfully. "But that would be giving up an experiment I had hoped to have had the opportunity of performing. Human vivisection would give us such an enormous increase of scientific knowledge. It is only silly sentiment that does not give the criminal to the surgeon. But have it your own way, William. I will forego the experiment. It is obvious that if the body is to be found, there must be no traces of anything of that sort. There would be a post-mortem of course."

"Then what do you propose, Guest?"

"Let me smoke for a moment and think."

He sat silent for two or three minutes with the heavy eyelids almost veiling the large bistre-coloured eyes.

Then he looked up. His smile was so horrible in its cunning that Gouldesbrough made an involuntary shrinking movement. But it was a movement dictated by the nerves and not by the conscious brain, for, dreadful as was the thing Guest was about to say, there was something in Sir William Gouldesbrough's mind which was more dreadful still.

"The body shall be found," Guest said, "in the river, somewhere down Wapping way, anywhere in the densely-populated districts of the Docks. It shall be dressed in common clothes. When it is discovered and identified – I know how to arrange a certain identification – it will be assumed that Rathbone simply went down to the slums and lost himself. There have been cases known where reputable citizens have suddenly disappeared from their surroundings of their own free will and dropped into the lowest kind of life for no explainable reason. De Quincey mentions such a case in one of his essays."

"Good. But how can it be done? We can't carry a body to Wapping in a brown paper parcel."

"Of course not. But has it not occurred to you that we are close to the Regent's Canal? I haven't worked out details. They will shape themselves later on. But there are plenty of barges always going up and down the canal. Certainly we can do the thing. It is only a question of money. We have an unlimited command of money. But, listen. Our body is alive still. It will be quite easy for us – with our knowledge – to treat this living body with certain preparations, and in such a way that when it is dead it will present all the appearance of having been killed by excess in some drug. The post-mortem will disclose it. If we keep it alive during a month from now, we can make it a morphia maniac to all appearance. We can inject anything we like into this Rathbone and make him a slave to some drug, whether he likes it or not!"

"No, Guest. The really expert pathologist would discover it. It couldn't be done in a month. It might in six."

"The really expert pathologist won't perform the post-mortem, William. There are only ten in London! Some local doctor of the police will apply the usual tests and discover exactly what we wish him to discover. He will analyze a corpse. He won't synthesize a history of the corpse. Only ten men in England could do that with certainty, and you and I are two of those ten, though it is many years ago since we gave up that sort of work for physics. So you see your object will be doubly served. The actual death will be proved, and the fellow's life be discredited while the apparently true reason of his disappearance will be revealed."

Sir William looked steadily at his assistant. "Your brain is wonderfully sufficient," he said. "It is extraordinary how it withstands the ravages of alcohol. Really, my dear Wilson, you are a remarkable man. All you say is quite excellent. And, meanwhile, I have a proposal to make."

He suddenly rose from his chair, and his eyes began to blaze with insane passion. He shook with it, his whole face was transformed. In his turn he became abnormal.

And just as the famous man had thought of the lesser, a moment or two ago – had regarded him coldly and spoken of him, to him, as a mind diseased – so now the lesser, stimulated to spurious sanity for the moment, saw the light of mania in his chief's eyes.

Two great forces, two great criminals, two horrid egotists, and both lost men! Lost far more certainly and irrevocably than the prisoned and dying gentleman far below in the strong room, where the electric fans whispered all day and night, where the fetters jingled and the heart was turning to salt stone!

The man was changed utterly. The grave courtly ascetic vanished as a breath on glass vanishes. And in his stead stood a creature racked with evil jealousy and malice, a gaunt inhuman figure in whose eyes was the glitter of a bird of prey.

Guest saw the swift and terrible drop into the horrible and the grotesque. He realized that for a brief moment he was master of the situation.

"Tell me, William," he said. "And what is your idea?"

Gouldesbrough stopped. He turned towards his questioner and shook a long, threatening arm at him.

"Why," he said, "all this time the man Rathbone has never known why we are keeping him in prison. He has never seen me, but day by day you have descended to his cell, caught him up in the toils of the chains which he wears, and hoisted him on to the couch. And all this time, when you have fitted the cap upon his head, the man has known nothing of the reasons. He is in the dark, mentally, as he is so often in the dark from a physical point of view, when you, his jailer, see fit to turn off the light. But now he shall know what we are doing with him. I am going down to tell him that every thought which has been born in his brain has been noted and recorded by you and by me. I am going to tell him what we are going to do with his wretched body. He shall know of your proposals, how that we, his lords and masters, will simulate in his tissues the physical appearances of protracted vice. He shall know to-day how his body will be discovered, and how his memory will be for ever discredited in the eyes of the world. And I shall tell him to-day, that as he lies bound and in my power, wearing the helmet of brass which robs him of his own power of secret thought, that I am going up-stairs to watch his agony in pictures, and that Marjorie will be with me – that she is utterly under my influence – and that we shall laugh together as we see each thought, each agony, chasing one another over the screen. We shall be together, I shall tell him, my arms will be round her, her lips will seek mine, and for the first time in the history of the world…"

He stopped for a moment. His hand went up to his throat as if the torrent of words were choking him. Then Guest cut in to his insane ecstasy.

"You are a fool, William," came from the pink-faced man, in an icy titter. "Of course when you tell him why and how we have used him, he will believe it. But I don't think that he will believe in your pleasant fiction of you and the girl as a sort of latter-day Lacoön in one arm-chair, laughing together as you take your supreme revenge."

Gouldesbrough strode up to Guest. He clutched him by the shoulder. "Give me the keys," he said, "the keys, the keys."

Guest was not at all dismayed. Laughing still, he put his hand into his pocket and took out the pass-key of the strong-room.

"There you are, William," he said; "now go down and enjoy yourself. Our friend is still tied down on the couch – he's been like that for several hours, because I've forgotten to go and loose him. I'm going to have some more whisky, and then I shall go to the big laboratory and switch on the current. If I'm not very much mistaken, our friend's brain will provide a series of pictures more intense and vivid, more sharply defined in both outline and colour, than I have ever seen before, during the whole course of our experiments."

Gouldesbrough took the key and was out of the room in a flash. Guest groped for the decanter.

His hair was quite grey now. All the gold had gone from it, just as the youth had passed from his face – his face which was now the colour of ashes, and gashed with agony.

And he lay there, trussed and tied in his material fetters of india-rubber and aluminium. On his head the gleaming metal cap was clamped. He was supine and an old man. All the sap had gone from the fine athlete of a few weeks ago, and the splendid body that had been, was just a shell, a husk.

But the soul looked through the eyes still, tortured but undaunted, in agony but not afraid.

In the lower silence of that deep cellar where Guy suffered there were but two sounds. One was the insistent whisper of the electric fan, the other was the voice which came from Sir William Gouldesbrough as he bent over the recumbent figure – the broken, motionless figure in which, still, brave eyes were set like jewels.

"So now you know! You know it all, you realize, dead man, all that I have done to you, and all that I am going to do. Down here, in this little room, you have thought that you were alone. You have imagined that whatever had happened to you, you were yet alone with the agony of your thoughts, and with God! But you were not! Though you never knew it until now, you never were! Each prayer that you thought you were sending up to the unknown force that rules the world, was caught by me. For weeks I have daily seen into your soul, and laughed at its irremediable pain. I have got your body, and for the first time in the history of the world, your mind, your soul, are mine also."

The voice stopped for a moment. It had become very harsh and dry. It clicked and rang with a metallic sound in this torture-chamber far underground.

And still the bright eyes watched the body of the man who was possessed, very calmly, very bravely.

The horrid voice rose into an insane shriek.

"She is up-stairs now, the girl you presumed to love, the rose of all the roses that you dared to come near, is sitting, laughing as she sees all that you are thinking now, vividly before her in pictures and in words. In a moment I shall be with her, and together we shall mock your agonies, twined in each other's arms."

Perhaps a vault in the dungeons of the Inquisition or in some other place of horror where merciless men have watched the agonies of their brethren, has echoed with pure merriment. Who can say, who can tell?

Such a thing may have happened, but we do not know. But to-night, at this very moment, from the prone figure stretched on its bed of pain, from the heart of a man who had just heard that he was doomed to a cruel death, and robbed of his very individuality, there came a bright and merry laugh which rang out in that awful place as the Angelus rings over the evening fields of France, and all the peasants bow in homage to their Maker.