The Secrets of Dr. Taverner (15 page)

Taverner, even in his shabby garments, was an imposing
figure, and the man on the divan stared at him in astonishment.
"You wish to purchase the Irritans variety of the Tonquin bean?"
said my companion.

The man nodded, without removing the cigarette from his
lips, continuing to stare at Taverner, who was adopting quite a
different tone towards him from that which he had used towards
Minski.

"The Irritans bean is not generally used in commerce,"
Taverner went on. "May I inquire for what purpose you require
it?"

"That is no concern of yours," replied the man with the
cigarette.

"I ask your pardon," said Taverner, "but this bean possesses
certain properties not generally known outside the East, where it
is raised at its true value, and I wondered whether you wished to
avail yourself of these properties, for some of the beans which I
hold were prepared with that end in view."

"I should very much like to!" The unnaturally bright eyes
became even brighter with the speaker's eagerness.

"Are you by any chance one of us?" Taverner dropped his
voice to a conspirator's whisper.

The bright eyes glowed like lamps. "I am exceedingly
interested in these matters."

"They are subjects worthy of interest," said Taverner; "but
this is a child's way of development." And he carelessly opened
his hand, showing the black seeds which had come from the
poppy, which served him as his pretended sample.

The cigarette came out of the languid mouth now. "Do you
mean that you know something about Kundalini?"

"The Sacred Serpent Fire?" said Taverner. "Of course I am
acquainted with its properties, but I do not make use of it
personally. I regard its action as too drastic; it is apt to unhinge
the mind that is not prepared for it. I always use the ritual
method myself."

"Do you--er--undertake the training of students?" cried our
new acquaintance, nearly beside himself with eagerness.

"I do occasionally, if I find a suitable type," said Taverner,
absent-mindedly playing catch with the black seeds.

"I am exceedingly interested in this matter," said the man on
the divan. `Would you consider me a suitable type? I am certain
that I am psychic. I often see the most peculiar things."

Taverner considered him for a long moment, while he hung
upon the verdict.

"It would be a small matter to put you in possession of astral
vision."

Our new acquaintance sprang to his feet. "Come round to my
studio." he cried; "we can talk things over quietly there. You
have, I presume, a fee? I am not a rich man, but the labourer is
worthy of his hire, and I would be quite willing to remunerate
you for your trouble."

"My fee is five guineas," said Taverner, with an expression
worthy of Uriah Heep.

The man with the scented cigarette gave a little gasp of relief;
I am sure that if Taverner had added on a nought he would have
paid it. We adjourned to his studio--a large, well-lit room
decorated with a most bizarre mixture of colours. A couch,
which probably served as a bed by night, stood at an angle in
front of the fireplace; from the far corner of the room issued that
indescribable odour which cannot be avoided where food is
stored--a blend of bacon rind and coffee floated towards us, and
the drip of some hidden tap proclaimed our host's washing
accommodation.

Taverner bade him lie down on the couch, and producing a
packet of dark powder from his pocket, shook some grains into a
brass incense burner which stood on the mantelpiece. The heavy
fumes drifted across the studio, overwhelming the domestic
odours from the corner, and made me think of joss-houses and
the strange rituals that propitiated hideous gods.

Except for the incense, Taverner was proceeding as in
ordinary hypnotic treatment, a process with which my medical
experience had rendered me familiar, and I watched the man on
the couch pass rapidly into a state of deep hypnosis, and thence
into a relaxed condition with almost complete cessation of the
vital functions, a level to which very few hypnotists either can or
dare reduce a subject. Then Taverner set to work upon one of
the great centres of the body where a network of nerves
converge. What his method was I could not clearly see, for his
back was towards me, but it did not take many minutes, and
then, with a series of swift hypnotic passes, he drew his victim
back to normal consciousness.

Half dazed, the man sat up on the couch, blinking stupidly at
the light; the whole process had occupied some twenty minutes,
and he showed pretty plainly that he did not consider he had had
his money's worth, counting out the notes to Taverner without
any too good a grace.

Taverner, however, showed no disposition to go, lingering in
talk, and as I noticed, watching his man closely. The latter
seemed fidgety and, as we made no move, he finally said:
"Excuse me, I believe there is someone at the door," and
crossing the studio, quickly opened it and looked outside.
Nothing but an empty passage rewarded his gaze. He returned
and renewed his conversation with Taverner, but with a divided
attention, from time to time glancing over his shoulder uneasily.

Then suddenly interrupting my colleague in the middle of a
sentence, he said: "I am certain there is someone in the room; I
have a most peculiar feeling, as if I were being watched," and he
whipped aside a heavy curtain that hung across an alcove--but
there was nothing but brooms and brushes behind it. Across he
went to the other corner and opened a cupboard, then looked
under the bed and proceeded to a systematic search of the whole
studio, looking into hiding places that could barely have
concealed a child. Finally, he returned to us, whose presence he
seemed to have forgotten, so absorbed was he in his search.

"It is most peculiar," he said. "But I cannot get away from the
feeling that I am being watched, as if some evil presence were
lurking in the room waiting for my back to be turned."

Suddenly he looked upward. "What are those extraordinary
balls of light moving about the ceiling?" he exclaimed.

Taverner plucked me by the sleeve. "Come along," he said,
"it is time for us to be going. Irving's little friends won't be
pleasant company."

We left him stock still in the centre of the room, following
with his eyes the invisible object that was slowly working its
way down the wall. What would happen when it reached the
floor I did not inquire.

Out in the street I heaved a sigh of relief. There was
something about that studio which was distinctly unpleasant.
"What in the world have you done to the man?" I asked my
companion.

"What I agreed to do--give him clairvoyance," replied
Taverner.

"How is that going to punish him for the atrocities he has
committed?"

"We don't know that he has committed any atrocities," said
Taverner blandly.

"Then what are you driving at?"

"Just this. When a man gets the Sight, one of the first things
he sees is his naked soul, and if that man was the one we think
he is, it will probably be the last, for the soul that perpetrated
those cold-blooded murders will not bear looking at. If, on the
other hand, he is just an ordinary individual, neither strikingly
good nor bad, then he will be the richer for an interesting
experience."

Suddenly, from somewhere over our heads, a bloodcurdling
yell rang out into the gathering dusk. It had that quality of terror
which infects with panic all those who hear it, for other
passers-by as well as ourselves stopped dead at the sound. A
door slammed somewhere in the great echoing building we had
just vacated, and then running footsteps passed rapidly down the
road in the direction of the river.

"Good Lord!" I said, "he will go over the Embankment," and
was startled into pursuit when Taverner laid a restraining hand
on my arm.

"That is his affair, not ours," he said. "And any way, I doubt
if he will face death when it comes to the point; death can be
singularly nasty, you know."

He was right, for the running footsteps returned down the
street, and the man we had just left passed us, flying blindly
towards the flaring lights and human herd of the roaring Fulham
Road.

"What is it he saw?" I demanded of Taverner, cold shivers
chasing each other down my spine. I am not easily scared by
anything I can see, but I frankly admit I fear the thing I cannot.

"He has met the Guardian of the Threshold," said Taverner,
and his mouth snapped shut. But I had no wish to press the
inquiry further; I had seen Irving's face as he passed us, and it
told me all I needed to know of the nature of that strange
Dweller in outer darkness.

Taverner paused to push the wad of notes in his hand into the
collecting box of the Cancer Hospital.

"Rhodes," he said, "would you prefer to die and be done with,
or to spend all your life in fear of death?"

"I would sooner die ten times over," I replied.

"So would I," said Taverner. "A life sentence is worse than a
death sentence."

**********************

The Death Hound

"Well?" said my patient when I had finished stethoscoping
him, "have I got to go softly all the days of my life?"

"Your heart is not all it might be," I replied, "but with care it
ought to last as long as you want it. You must avoid all undue
exertion, however."

The man made a curious grimace. "Supposing exertion seeks
me out?" he asked.

"You must so regulate your life as to reduce the possibility to
a minimum."

Taverner's voice came from the other side of the room. "If
you have finished with his body, Rhodes, I will make a start on
his mind."

"I have a notion," said our patient, "that the two are rather
intimately connected. You say I must keep my body quiet,"--he
looked at me--"but what am I to do if my mind deliberately
gives it shocks?" and he turned to my colleague.

"That is where I come in," said Taverner. "My friend has told
you what to do; now I will show you how to do it. Come and tell
me your symptoms."

"Delusions," said the stranger as he buttoned his shirt. "A
black dog of ferocious aspect who pops out of dark corners and
chivvies me, or tries to. I haven't done him the honour to run
away from him yet; I daren't, my heart's too dickey, but one of
these days I am afraid I may, and then I shall probably drop
dead."

Taverner raised his eyes to me in a silent question. I nodded;
it was quite a likely thing to happen if the man ran far or fast.

"What sort of a beast is your dog?" enquired my colleague.

"No particular breed at all. Just plain dog, with four legs and
a tail, about the size of a mastiff, but not of the mastiff build."

"How does he make his appearance?"