The Beetle (11 page)

'I did, sir.'

'Then how comes he here?'

'Really, sir,'—Edwards put his hand up to his head as if be was
half asleep—'I don't quite know.'

'What do you mean by you don't know? Why didn't you stop him?'

'I think, sir, that I must have had a touch of sudden faintness,
because I tried to put out my hand to stop him, and—I couldn't.'

'You're an idiot.—Go!' And he went. I turned to the stranger.
'Pray, sir, are you a magician?'

He replied to my question with another.

'You, Mr Atherton,—are you also a magician?'

He was staring at my mask with an evident lack of comprehension.

'I wear this because, in this place, death lurks in so many subtle
forms, that, without it, I dare not breathe,' He inclined his
head.—though I doubt if he understood. 'Be so good as to tell me,
briefly, what it is you wish with me.'

He slipped his hand into the folds of his burnoose, and, taking
out a slip of paper, laid it on the shelf by which we were
standing. I glanced at it, expecting to find on it a petition, or
a testimonial, or a true statement of his sad case; instead it
contained two words only,—'Marjorie Lindon.' The unlooked-for
sight of that well-loved name brought the blood into my cheeks.

'You come from Miss Lindon?' He narrowed his shoulders, brought
his finger-tips together, inclined his head, in a fashion which
was peculiarly Oriental, but not particularly explanatory,—so I
repeated my question.

'Do you wish me to understand that you do come from Miss Lindon?'

Again he slipped his hand into his burnoose, again he produced a
slip of paper, again he laid it on the shelf, again I glanced at
it, again nothing was written on it but a name,—'Paul
Lessingham.'

'Well?—I see,—Paul Lessingham.—What then?'

'She is good,—he is bad,—is it not so?'

He touched first one scrap of paper, then the other. I stared.

'Pray how do you happen to know?'

'He shall never have her,—eh?'

'What on earth do you mean?'

'Ah!—what do I mean!'

'Precisely, what do you mean? And also, and at the same time, who
the devil are you?'

'It is as a friend I come to you.'

'Then in that case you may go; I happen to be over-stocked in that
line just now.'

'Not with the kind of friend I am!'

'The saints forefend!'

'You love her,—you love Miss Lindon! Can you bear to think of him
in her arms?'

I took off my mask,—feeling that the occasion required it As I
did so he brushed aside the hanging folds of the hood of his
burnoose, so that I saw more of his face. I was immediately
conscious that in his eyes there was, in an especial degree, what,
for want of a better term, one may call the mesmeric quality. That
his was one of those morbid organisations which are oftener found,
thank goodness, in the east than in the west, and which are apt to
exercise an uncanny influence over the weak and the foolish folk
with whom they come in contact,—the kind of creature for whom it
is always just as well to keep a seasoned rope close handy. I was,
also, conscious that he was taking advantage of the removal of my
mask to try his strength on me,—than which he could not have
found a tougher job. The sensitive something which is found in the
hypnotic subject happens, in me, to be wholly absent.

'I see you are a mesmerist.'

He started.

'I am nothing,—a shadow!'

'And I'm a scientist. I should like, with your permission—or
without it!—to try an experiment or two on you.'

He moved further back. There came a gleam into his eyes which
suggested that he possessed his hideous power to an unusual
degree,—that, in the estimation of his own people, he was
qualified to take his standing as a regular devil-doctor.

'We will try experiments together, you and I,—on Paul
Lessingham.'

'Why on him?'

'You do not know?'

'I do not.'

'Why do you lie to me?'

'I don't lie to you,—I haven't the faintest notion what is the
nature of your interest in Mr Lessingham.'

'My interest?—that is another thing; it is your interest of which
we are speaking.'

'Pardon me,—it is yours.'

'Listen! you love her,—and he! But at a word from you he shall
not have her,—never! It is I who say it,—I!'

'And, once more, sir, who are you?'

'I am of the children of Isis!'

'Is that so?—It occurs to me that you have made a slight
mistake,—this is London, not a dog-hole in the desert.'

'Do I not know?—what does it matter?—you shall see! There will
come a time when you will want me,—you will find that you cannot
bear to think of him in her arms,—her whom you love! You will
call to me, and I shall come, and of Paul Lessingham there shall
be an end.'

While I was wondering whether he was really as mad as he sounded,
or whether he was some impudent charlatan who had an axe of his
own to grind, and thought that he had found in me a grindstone, he
had vanished from the room. I moved after him.

'Hang it all!—stop!' I cried.

He must have made pretty good travelling, because, before I had a
foot in the hall, I heard the front door slam, and, when I reached
the street, intent on calling him back, neither to the right nor
to the left was there a sign of him to be seen.

'I wonder what that nice-looking beggar really means, and who he
happens to be?' That was what I said to myself when I returned to
the laboratory. 'If it is true that, now and again, Providence
does write a man's character on his face, then there can't be the
slightest shred of a doubt that a curious one's been written on
his. I wonder what his connection has been with the Apostle,—or
if it's only part of his game of bluff.'

I strode up and down,—for the moment my interest in the
experiments I was conducting had waned.

'If it was all bluff I never saw a better piece of acting,—and
yet what sort of finger can such a precisian as St Paul have in
such a pie? The fellow seemed to squirm at the mere mention of the
rising-hope-of-the-Radicals' name. Can the objection be political?
Let me consider,—what has Lessingham done which could offend the
religious or patriotic susceptibilities of the most fanatical of
Orientals? Politically, I can recall nothing. Foreign affairs, as
a rule, he has carefully eschewed. If he has offended—and if he
hasn't the seeming was uncommonly good!—the cause will have to be
sought upon some other track. But, then, what track?'

The more I strove to puzzle it out, the greater the puzzlement
grew.

'Absurd!—The rascal has had no more connection with St Paul than
St Peter. The probability is that he's a crackpot; and if he
isn't, he has some little game on foot—in close association with
the hunt of the oof-bird!—which he tried to work off on me, but
couldn't. As for—for Marjorie—my Marjorie!—only she isn't mine,
confound it!—if I had had my senses about me, I should have
broken his head in several places for daring to allow her name to
pass his lips,—the unbaptised Mohammedan!—Now to return to the
chase of splendid murder!'

I snatched up my mask—one of the most ingenious inventions, by
the way, of recent years; if the armies of the future wear my mask
they will defy my weapon!—and was about to re-adjust it in its
place, when someone knocked at the door.

'Who's there?—Come in!'

It was Edwards. He looked round him as if surprised.

'I beg your pardon, sir,—I thought you were engaged. I didn't
know that—that gentleman had gone.'

'He went up the chimney, as all that kind of gentlemen do.—Why
the deuce did you let him in when I told you not to?' 'Really,
sir, I don't know. I gave him your message, and—he looked at me,
and—that is all I remember till I found myself standing in this
room.'

Had it not been Edwards I might have suspected him of having had
his palm well greased,—but, in his case, I knew better. It was as
I thought,—my visitor was a mesmerist of the first class; he had
actually played some of his tricks, in broad daylight, on my
servant, at my own front door,—a man worth studying. Edwards
continued.

'There is someone else, sir, who wishes to see you,—Mr
Lessingham.'

'Mr Lessingham!' At that moment the juxtaposition seemed odd,
though I daresay it was so rather in appearance than in reality.
'Show him in.'

Presently in came Paul.

I am free to confess,—I have owned it before!—that, in a sense,
I admire that man,—so long as he does not presume to thrust
himself into a certain position. He possesses physical qualities
which please my eye—speaking as a mere biologist like the
suggestion conveyed by his every pose, his every movement, of a
tenacious hold on life,—of reserve force, of a repository of bone
and gristle on which he can fall back at pleasure. The fellow's
lithe and active; not hasty, yet agile; clean built, well hung,—
the sort of man who might be relied upon to make a good recovery.
You might beat him in a sprint,—mental or physical—though to do
that you would have to be spry!—but in a staying race he would
see you out. I do not know that he is exactly the kind of man whom
I would trust,—unless I knew that he was on the job,—which
knowledge, in his case, would be uncommonly hard to attain. He is
too calm; too self-contained; with the knack of looking all round
him even in moments of extremest peril,—and for whatever he does
he has a good excuse. He has the reputation, both in the House and
out of it, of being a man of iron nerve,—and with some reason;
yet I am not so sure. Unless I read him wrongly his is one of
those individualities which, confronted by certain eventualities,
collapse,—to rise, the moment of trial having passed, like
Phoenix from her ashes. However it might be with his adherents, he
would show no trace of his disaster.

And this was the man whom Marjorie loved. Well, she could show
some cause. He was a man of position,—destined, probably, to rise
much higher; a man of parts,—with capacity to make the most of
them; not ill-looking; with agreeable manners,—when he chose; and
he came within the lady's definition of a gentleman, 'he always
did the right thing, at the right time, in the right way.' And
yet—! Well, I take it that we are all cads, and that we most of
us are prigs; for mercy's sake do not let us all give ourselves
away.

He was dressed as a gentleman should be dressed,—black frock
coat, black vest, dark grey trousers, stand-up collar, smartly-
tied bow, gloves of the proper shade, neatly brushed hair, and a
smile, which if was not childlike, at any rate was bland.

'I am not disturbing you?'

'Not at all.'

'Sure?—I never enter a place like this, where a man is matching
himself with nature, to wrest from her her secrets, without
feeling that I am crossing the threshold of the unknown. The last
time I was in this room was just after you had taken out the final
patents for your System of Telegraphy at Sea, which the Admiralty
purchased,—wisely—What is it, now?'

'Death.'

'No?—really?—what do you mean?'

'If you are a member of the next government, you will possibly
learn; I may offer them the refusal of a new wrinkle in the art of
murder.'

'I see,—a new projectile.—How long is this race to continue
between attack and defence?'

'Until the sun grows cold.'

'And then?'

'There'll be no defence,—nothing to defend.'

He looked at me with his calm, grave eyes.

'The theory of the Age of Ice towards which we are advancing is
not a cheerful one.' He began to finger a glass retort which lay
upon a table. 'By the way, it was very good of you to give me a
look in last night. I am afraid you thought me peremptory,—I have
come to apologise.'

'I don't know that I thought you peremptory; I thought you—
queer.'

'Yes.' He glanced at me with that expressionless look upon his
face which he could summon at will, and which is at the bottom of
the superstition about his iron nerve. 'I was worried, and not
well. Besides, one doesn't care to be burgled, even by a maniac.'

'Was he a maniac?'

'Did you see him?'

'Very clearly.'

'Where?'

'In the street.'

'How close were you to him?'

'Closer than I am to you.'

'Indeed. I didn't know you were so close to him as that. Did you
try to stop him?'

'Easier said than done,—he was off at such a rate.'

'Did you see how he was dressed,—or, rather, undressed?'

'I did.'

'In nothing but a cloak on such a night. Who but a fanatic would
have attempted burglary in such a costume?'

'Did he take anything?'

'Absolutely nothing.'

'It seems to have been a curious episode.'

He moved his eyebrows,—according to members of the House the only
gesture in which he has been known to indulge.

'We become accustomed to curious episodes. Oblige me by not
mentioning it to anyone,—to anyone.' He repeated the last two
words, as if to give them emphasis. I wondered if he was thinking
of Marjorie. 'I am communicating with the police. Until they move
I don't want it to get into the papers,—or to be talked about.
It's a worry,—you understand?'

I nodded. He changed the theme.

'This that you're engaged upon,—is it a projectile or a weapon?'

'If you are a member of the next government you will possibly
know; if you aren't you possibly won't.'

'I suppose you have to keep this sort of thing secret?'

'I do. It seems that matters of much less moment you wish to keep
secret.'

'You mean that business of last night? If a trifle of that sort
gets into the papers, or gets talked about,—which is the same
thing!—you have no notion how we are pestered. It becomes an
almost unbearable nuisance. Jones the Unknown can commit murder
with less inconvenience to himself than Jones the Notorious can
have his pocket picked,—there is not so much exaggeration in that
as there sounds.—Good-bye,—thanks for your promise.' I had given
him no promise, but that was by the way. He turned as to go,—then
stopped. 'There's another thing,—I believe you're a specialist on
questions of ancient superstitions and extinct religions.'