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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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I HAD been dragged at Taverner's chariot-wheels all down Charing Cross Road in quest of some tome that caused the merchants of that district to eye us askance. Finally he gave up the quest in despair, and as a reward for my patience, promised me tea in a café the walls whereof were decorated with particularly choice devils. My fleshly soul yearned for a brand of oyster cocktail which may be obtained at the corner of Tottenham Court Road, but Taverner, who was fond of tea as an old maid, had so evidently set his heart on the devil-shop that I sacrificed my well-being to his desires.
New Oxford Street ceases to be respectable to the east of Charing Cross Road, and becomes shabby-genteel and dubious until the plain commerciality of Holborn restores it to self-respect. The side turnings are narrow and lead to Bohemia; delicatessen shops and emporiums of haberdashery of an amazing brilliance and instability loom in their narrow canyons; strange faces look from the windows of their cliff-like facades. It is all un-English, sordid, and vaguely sinister. The crust over the underworld is thin here.
On an island in the midst of that roaring torrent of traffic we were compelled to halt. A bare-headed, sleek-haired woman jammed a marketing basket into the small of my back, and the yard of bread protruding from it prodded Taverner, under whose elbow peered out the pallid sharp-featured face of a little 'matcher' whose bunch of patterns was clutched in a small red fist as if life itself depended on them. Past us roared the tide of commercial London, and through that tide there darted another flotsam of the traffic, to be cast up as if by a breaker upon our island. My mind instantly reverted to my schoolbook pictures of Richard III, the same ferrety, yet intellectual face, low stature, and slightly hunched back which served to barrel out the chest into an enormously powerful though ungainly structure. The greyness of the skin told of chronic ill-health, or an unwholesome life in the foul and sunless air of which the denizens of that district are so fond. The eyes were a pale grey, and of a brightness and beadiness usually associated with black eyes of the boot-button type. The mouth, large and thin-lipped, looked cruel, the mouth of the cold sensualist, who has sensations but no emotions.
The face caught my attention even in that brief glance, for it was a face of power, but his subsequent behaviour fixed all details in my mind, for no sooner had he raised his eyes to meet Taverner's than his expression changed from that of an alert jackdaw to a cornered cat. He emitted a sound that was almost like a hiss, and darted straight back into the stream of traffic from which he had emerged.
A yell, a crash, and a shriek of brakes showed that the expected had happened, and at our very feet the man lay insensible, blood pouring from a cut in his head where it had hit the curb. Almost before the car that struck him had backed away, Taverner and I were bending over him; I examining his head, and Taverner, to my intense surprise, examining his pockets. He withdrew a shabby and bulging notebook from the breast pocket, glanced hastily through it, seemed to register mental notes in that miraculous memory of his, and returned it whence he had taken it, and by the time the white-faced chauffeur was beside us, had resumed his most professional manner and was rendering first aid in the orthodox fashion. A policeman's helmet loomed through the traffic, and Taverner twitched my sleeve, and we, in our turn, made a bolt through the congested mass of vehicles, and with better luck than the ferret-faced man, reached the pavement in safety, and slipped down a side street that led to Taverner's abode of the devils, leaving it to those who enjoy such things to superintend the embarkation of the casualty in its ambulance.
'That is an amazing piece of luck,' said Taverner. 'Do you know who that was? It was Josephus. He is supposed to be in Tunisia, even Paris had got too hot for him, and here he is, back in London, and looking prosperous too, so he must be in mischief, and I've got his address.'
I COULD not join in Taverner's enthusiasm over the discovery
of Josephus, as I had not the pleasure of that worthy's
acquaintance, and Taverner was soon engaged in revelry over hot
buttered toast and much too interested in the symbolism of the
devils careering round the frieze to attend to anything so
mundane; meanwhile I endeavoured to twine my legs around the
rungs of the little tile-topped table designed for the
accommodation of the under-nourished breed that feeds at such
places. Taverner disposed of his long legs by stretching them
across the gangway, and between us I am afraid we took up much
more than our fair share of the exiguous accommodation.
Luckily we had the place practically to ourselves, for the tea hour was overpast, and there was no one to note the intrusion of the Philistines upon this West Central Bohemia save a man and woman lingering over the remains of their meal at a neighbouring table, and they were much too absorbed in their conversation to pay any attention to anything save their own affairs.
Or rather, to be strictly accurate, the man was absorbed, for the woman seemed to be listening wearily, with an air of uneasy detachment, as if seeking an opportunity to put an end to the interview and make her escape from the importunity of her companion. I could see her face across the dimly lit room, its expressionless calm in strange contrast to the tenseness of the man who spoke to her; the large grey eyes, set in the pallor of an oval face, seemed to be gazing at some far horizon, oblivious of the narrow Bloomsbury streets.
Oblivious, that was the word to characterize her. She was oblivious of her companion, his viewpoint, his needs; her eyes were upon some vision in which he could not share and had no part.
Even as I watched, the woman rose to depart, and I saw that she was swathed in a loose, burnous-like garment that had no relation to fashion, and upon her feet were sandals. The man also rose, but she checked him with a gesture, and her voice came to us across the room.
'You promised you would not try to follow me, Pat,' she said.
The man who was between her and the door paused irresolutely, and then he flashed out with pent-up vehemence: 'He's ruining you,' he cried. 'Body and soul, he's ruining you. Let me get at him and I'll break his neck if I hang for it.'
'It is useless,' was the reply, 'You can do nothing. Let me pass. Nothing you can do will make any difference.'
The man lifted both arms above his head, and though his back was to us, we could see his whole body shaking with passion.
'Curse him!' he cried. 'Curse him! May the Black Curse of Michael be upon him!'
The Irish brogue, unleashed by emotion, rolled from his lips, and seemed to add pungency to his curses, if that were possible. The startled waitresses, in their gaudy cretonne overalls, huddled in a corner, staring, and an obese manageress waddled from some sanctum behind a bead curtain, but before she could intervene, the woman in the burnous, with a quick lithe movement, had slipped round the little table and out of the door into the dusk, and the man turning hastily to follow her, fell right over Taverner's legs and came all asprawl on to our tea table.
He dropped into the nearest chair, white and shaken from his passion, while we gazed ruefully at smashed crockery and streaming milk.
He was the first to recover himself, and passing his hand across his forehead in a dazed way, seemed to awaken from his nightmare.
'I beg your pardon,' he said, the Irish brogue vanished from his speech. 'A thousand apologies. Here, waitress, clear up these gentlemen's table and bring them another tea.'
The manageress waddled up, glaring at him, and he turned to her.
'I cannot apologize sufficiently,' he said. 'I was greatly upset by—by domestic trouble, and I fear my feelings got the better of me.'
He lay back in his chair as if completely exhausted. 'It's lost she is, body and soul,' he muttered, more to himself than to us.
'"Pray to the Blessed Virgin," said Father O'Hara, and so I have—for her, but it's to the Holy Michael I'll pray for Josephus, may the Black Curse be upon him!'
Taverner leaned forward and laid his hand gently on the man's arm.
'It seems as if your prayers have been heard,' he said, 'for not half an hour ago we saw Josephus taken off to hospital with a nasty scalp wound. I don't know what your complaint against him may be,' he continued, 'but I know Josephus, and I should imagine it is amply justified.'
'You know Josephus?' said the man, staring at us dazedly.
'I do,' said Taverner, 'and I may as well tell you that I am "after" him myself on one or two little accounts, and I think I have the means of bringing him to book, so may I suggest that we make common cause against him?' And he laid his card on the little table before the shaken, grey-faced man in front of us.
'Taverner, Dr. Taverner,' said the stranger thoughtfully as he fingered the card. 'I have heard that name somewhere. Did you not once meet a man called Coates in a curious affair over a stolen manuscript?'
'I did,' said Taverner.
'They always said there was more in that matter than met the eye,' said our new acquaintance. 'But I never believed in such things till I saw what Josephus could do.'
He looked at Taverner keenly out of deep-set eyes.
'I believe you are the one man in London who would be of any use in the matter,' he said.
'If I can, I shall be glad to assist you,' replied Taverner, 'for, as I said before, I know Josephus.'
'My name's McDermot,' said our new acquaintance, 'and that lady you saw with me was my wife. I say "was my wife,"' he added, the flame of passion lighting up again in his dark eyes, 'for she is gone from me now. Josephus has taken her. No, not in the ordinary sense,' he added hastily lest our thought should smirch her, 'but into that extraordinary group of his that he does his seances with, and she is as much lost to me as if she had entered a nunnery. Do you wonder that I curse the man who has broken up my home? If he had taken her because he loved her I could have pardoned him more easily, but there is no question of love in this; he has taken her because he wants to use her for some purpose of his own, just as he has taken lots of other women, and whatever it is she will lose her soul. This thing is evil, I tell you,' he continued, with renewed excitement. 'I don't know what it is, but I know it's evil. You have only to look at the man to see that he is evil right through, and she thinks he's a saint, an inspired teacher, an adept, whatever you call it,' he added bitterly. 'But I tell you, men don't grow faces like that on clean living and high thinking.'
'Can you give me any information as to his doings? I have lost touch with Josephus since the last time he had to leave the country, but I imagine he is doing much the same sort of thing he used to do.'
'So far as I know,' said McDermot, 'he appeared on the scene about a year ago from no one knows where, and advertised classes in psychic development. That brought him in touch with various people who are interested in that sort of thing—I'm not, my church doesn't allow it, and I don't wonder—Mary, that's my wife, used to belong to a sort of occult club that Coates ran in St. John's Wood; Coates being a fool, took up Josephus, burnt his fingers with him, and dropped him, but not before he had got hold of two or three women out of that set, my wife among them. Then Josephus seemed to find his feet and thrive amazingly. (He had been a pretty seedy-looking adventurer when he first turned up.) And now he has got a house somewhere, though nobody except those who are in the secret knows where, and he has got, so my wife says, a group of women who help him in his work. Exactly what it is that they do, I don't know, but he seems to have got a tremendous hold on them. They all seem to be in love with him, and yet they live peaceably in the same house. It is an amazing affair altogether. It is not money he is after in his inner circle though he gets plenty of that from the rest of his devotees, but, so far as I can make out, a particular type of physique, and it appears to me that, as he thrives, they go down hill. At any rate, he has to introduce fresh blood into his group periodically, and sometimes there is a desperate hunt for a new recruit while Josephus slowly wilts, and then, having got a fresh favourite, he seems suddenly to take on a new lease of life. The whole thing is queer, and uncanny, and unsavoury, and even before it broke up my home I couldn't bear it.'
Taverner nodded. 'He has done much the same sort of thing several times already. It may interest you to know that I assisted in thrashing Josephus and ducking him in a horse trough in my student days after we had had a succession of his victims in our wards. There was a society working on his system then; but I believe it was stamped out as an organization. However, he seems to be restarting it, so the sooner we take him in hand the better, lest he get a foothold in the subconscious mind of the nation. Such a thing is possible you know.'
'You can count on me,' said McDermot, holding out a sinewy hand, his eyes sparkling with the light of battle. 'The first thing we have to do is to find out where his house is, and the next to get into it, and then—"Once aboard the lugger and the maid is mine," as the song says.'
'With regard to the first, that is already accomplished,' said Taverner. 'The second is the problem that immediately confronts us, but I believe it to be capable of solution; but as to the third, I am not so sure; Josephus will hold those women in the unseen world in a way which you do not understand, and it will be very difficult to free them without their co-operation, and almost impossible to obtain their co-operation. I have often dealt with these cases before, and know their difficulties. An infatuated woman at any time is difficult to deal with, but when they have been initiated into a fraternity with ritual they are almost impossible. The first thing to do, however, is to gain a foothold in that house by some means or other.'
'I think I can help you there,' I said, 'I can call and offer to give evidence as to the accident, and then worm myself in as a convert.'
'That is an idea with possibilities,' said Taverner, 'though I am not sure that Josephus will look upon additional Adams as an asset to his Eden, but a doctor always has his value, especially when you are doing risky things you want kept quiet. There is a whole nest of hospitals round here that he might have been taken to; phone them up till you find out where he went, represent yourself as a member of the family to the hospitals, and a member of the hospital to the family, and chance your luck. This is a hunt after my own heart. A slimier villain never wanted exterminating, and Josephus is no light-weight. He will put up a fight worth seeing.'
THE early diners were arriving at the little tea-room, and our
party broke up with mutual expressions of good will, Taverner to
return to Hindhead, and McDermot and I to the telephone. My first
guess proved to be the right one. Josephus had been taken to the
Middlesex, had his head sewn up, and been sent home. So, sending
McDermot off to wait for me in the oyster dive in Tottenham Court
Road, I went round to a square not 50 yards away, and there rang
the bell of an imposing looking house whose lower windows were
shuttered in an inhospitable fashion.
The door was opened by a girl in a loose blue burnous, and to her I stated my business. She seemed quite unsuspicious and conducted me into an ordinary enough dining-room where in a few minutes an older woman came to me. She was a tall woman, and at some time must have been handsome, but her face was drawn, haggard and strained, to the last degree, and I thought of McDermot's remark that Josephus' pupils wilted as their master throve.
I could see that she was on her guard, though anxious for my assistance, but my tale was a perfectly straightforward one and had the additional advantage of being true so far as it went. I was standing on the island when Josephus was knocked down. I rendered first aid, but did not stop to give my name and address to the policeman because I was in a hurry, but took this, the first opportunity of repairing the omission. There was no flaw in my statement, and she accepted it, but when I backed it with my card bearing the Harley Street address I saw her suddenly become abstracted.
'Excuse me a moment,' she said, and hastily left the room.
She was gone more than a moment, and I began to wonder whether my scheme had miscarried and what my chances were of getting out of the house without unpleasantness, when she reappeared.
'I should be so grateful,' she said, 'if you would come to Dr. Josephus' room and have a little talk with him.'
'So far as I am concerned, I should be quite willing, but a head injury ought to be kept quiet,' I said, my medical self triumphing over me in my new role of conspirator. To my relief she brushed aside my objection.
'It will do more good than harm,' she said, 'because if he takes to you, we may be able to get him to let you attend him. He is a very tiresome person to deal with.'
She added with a smile, as of a mother speaking of her spoilt darling of whom even the naughtinesses are adorable.
She led me, not upstairs, but down into the basement, and there, in what had probably been a scullery looking out into a back yard, we found Josephus. The room was as amazing as the man. Walls, floor, and ceiling were jet black, so that the room was a hollow cube of gleaming darkness lit only by a shaded lamp that stood at Josephus' elbow. He himself was not in bed, as I had expected, but lay upon the piled up cushions of a divan, robed in the burnous which seemed to be the universal wear of this strange fraternity. In his case it was a flaming scarlet, and lying back among his cushions, with his strange sallow face surmounted by white bandages, he looked as if he had stepped straight out of the Arabian Nights.
The tall woman subsided among her draperies on a stool at Josephus' side, and he, with a wave of his hand, invited me to be seated on the edge of the divan. He looked amazingly fit in spite of the fact that he had had his head laid open at five o'clock that afternoon, and even I, man though I am and knowing what I did of his record, could feel the extraordinary fascination of his personality.
The tall woman made us known to each other, and one could almost see her anxiously smoothing his feathers and turning her pet about to make him exhibit himself at his best angle, and he, nothing loth, set himself out to make a favourable impression. I could imagine invisible fingers feeling all over my soul to find out the best way of handling me. I felt that his willingness to consult me was a quick opportunism, it was I who was to be in his hands, not he in mine, and I remembered Taverner's words that a doctor was a useful thing when risky work that needed concealment was afoot.
We talked for a few minutes, but I felt that he had no intention of pressing the case against the chauffeur, probably valuing his privacy more highly than any compensation he was likely to get; all the same, he pretended to want my evidence, but I put my foot down.
'Look here, sir,' I said. 'You have had a certain amount of concussion, and the one thing for you is darkness and quiet. I will come to see you again in a few days when you are in a condition to go into the matter, which you are not now. But at the present moment not another word will I say unless I can be of any use to you in my professional capacity.'
I saw by the tall woman's amazed expression that Josephus was not accustomed to be talked to in this fashion, but he took it quite amicably.
'Ah,' he said, with a grin which roused all my latent animosity against the man, 'I have resources that you ordinary medical men know nothing of.' And we parted with mutual expressions of esteem.
I PICKED up McDermot at the oyster dive, and he took me back
to the flat that had been his home, where it was arranged that I
was to stop for the next few days pending developments with
Josephus. The rooms bore pathetic witness to the truth of his
story. I could see the disordered evidences which told me that he
had first put away all the things that could remind him of his
wife, and then, in desperation, got them out again. We settled
down with our pipes amid the neglect and muddle, and McDermot
went over the story for the twentieth time. He could tell me
nothing I did not already know by heart, but the telling of it
seemed to relieve him. It was the old story of the paddler who
got into deep water, striking those unsuspected potholes in the
unseen which for ever threaten bathers who cannot swim if they
venture into those dark and uncharted waters.
I DID not call on Josephus next day, for I did not want to
appear too pressing, but the following day I rang him up on the
phone. The great man himself answered my call and was more than
cordial.
'I wish I had known where to find you,' he said. 'I should have asked you to come round yesterday.'
I picked up a taxi, and was soon at the house whose lower shutters seemed to be kept permanently closed. Once again I was taken to the strange subterranean sanctum which seemed so appropriate a setting for that rococo personality which was known to us as Dr. Josephus. His head was naturally still in bandages, though the burnous had given place to a grey lounge suit, but even so, he would have been a marked man anywhere. I had thought Taverner the strangest personality I had ever met, but he was normal compared to Josephus.
He made coffee himself in the Turkish fashion, produced cigarettes rolled in a curious golden paper of a type I had never met before, and set himself to the task of intriguing my imagination, in which, in spite of my knowledge of his record, he certainly succeeded. Like Taverner, his culture was encyclopaedic, and he seemed to have travelled off the beaten track in most parts of the world. I admit quite frankly that I thoroughly enjoyed myself. It did not take long before the talk edged round to occultism, in which I avowed my interest, and then Josephus began to spread his feathers, cautiously at first, as if to see if the ice would bear, and then he opened his heart when he found that I had some knowledge of the subject and did not appear to be over-burdened with moral scruples.
'The trouble with this sort of thing,' I said, 'is that although one can hear any amount about the theory, it is extraordinarily difficult to get hold of anything tangible. Either the people who do all the writing and lecturing haven't got any real knowledge, or else they haven't got the nerve to put it into practice.'
He rose to my bait like a fish.
'Ah,' he said, 'you have hit the right nail on the head. Precious few men have the nerve for practical occultism,' and he preened himself in a way that told me where the man's weak spot lay.
Josephus paused for a moment and seemed to weigh me in the balance, and then, watching me carefully and choosing every word, he began to speak.
'I suppose you know,' he said, 'that a very little development would render you psychic?'
I was frankly surprised, and, I admit it, secretly flattered, for I had always been held up as the archetype of materialistic stolidity. Then I remembered that Taverner had often laughingly quoted these very words as the stock opening of charlatanism, and I pulled myself together, with a sudden angry defensiveness, for it startled me to see the extent to which Josephus had obtained empire over my imagination during our short intercourse. I hid my uneasiness, however, and returned his lead in kind.
'Psychism is all right so far as it goes,' I said, 'but what I am really interested in is ritual magic,'
IT was a bow drawn at a venture, and I saw that I had overshot
the mark, as I generally do when I try to swim with the brass
pots in the deep waters of occultism. Josephus did not quite like
it; why, I could not make out, and he seemed to edge away from me
mentally.
'Know much about ritual magic?' he asked with an assumption of ease which I felt sure he did not feel.
I did not know what he was driving at, and not wishing to be caught out, I followed Mark Twain's advice, and fell back upon the truth.
'No,' I said frankly, 'I do not.' And, catching the look of relief on Josephus' face, I added mentally to myself, 'And neither do you.'
He spoke again, pausing impressively between each word.
'If you are in earnest, and are prepared to take the risk, I can show you something that very few men alive at the present time have even dreamt of. But,' he continued, and I saw that his quick brain was rapidly maturing a scheme, 'I shall have to test you first.'
I bid him name his test.
Still eyeing me closely, evidently trying each step and ready to back away from his intention the instant I showed any sign of uneasiness, he continued:
'I shall test first,' he said, 'your incipient psychism, by seeing whether you have sufficient intuition to discern my intentions towards you and trust me without question.'
I thought that this was the neatest presentation of the confidence trick I had ever met, and bowed my assent.
'You will come tonight at a quarter to nine to the alley that runs at the back of these houses; the coal cellar opens on to it, and I will be there to admit you. You must wait in the coal cellar until I have re-entered the house, and you hear sounds of chanting, and then you must come through the other door of the coal cellar, which communicates with the yard. The bars of that window take out if you push them downwards, and they are held in place by springs, and you can get into this room, but be sure to replace the bars, I don't want anyone to find 'em loose. In here you will find behind the cushions a bright scarlet robe with a cowl like an Inquisitor's. Put it on and pull the cowl right down over your face, there are eye-holes in it, and walk boldly upstairs to the first floor and give five knocks on the drawing- room door. When the door is opened, say "In the name of the Council of Seven, Peace be unto you," and walk right in and up to me; I shall be cowled the same as you, but you will know me because my robe is also scarlet. I shall be on a dais at the end of the room. When you get up to me, I shall rise, and we will shake hands, and then you will take my chair, and I shall sit at your right. You will stretch out your hand and say:
'"I come in the name of the Great Chiefs."'
'Then we will proceed to business. You will answer yes or no, to any question you are asked, but nothing more. And if you fail—' and he pushed his ugly face right into mine, 'you will have to reckon with the Unseen Forces which you have invoked. Is that clear?'
'Perfectly clear,' I said. 'Only I am not sure that I can remember it all, and how am I to know whether to answer yes or no?'
'You will watch me out of the corner of your eye. If I stir my right foot, you will answer yes, if I stir my left, you will answer no. I shan't move 'em much, so you must keep a sharp lookout. And when I fold my hands you must stand up, say 'It is finished,' and walk out. Come down here and clear out the way you came, being careful to see that the red robe is well hidden under the cushions, the bars replaced, and the coal cellar door shut.'
WHEN Josephus finished he looked me straight in the eyes with
a very steady gaze, which I returned equally steadily. I allowed
a moment to elapse before I replied, for I did not want to appear
to accept with too great alacrity.
'I'll take it on,' I said.
A gleam of satisfaction lit up Josephus' curious eyes; he looked very much like a jackdaw who has secreted some bauble.
We parted the best of friends, and I returned to Harley Street, where Taverner, having finished the day's interviews, was awaiting me.
I recounted the conversation that had taken place, and Taverner was immensely intrigued.
'That tells me a great many things,' he said. 'I agree with you that Josephus is not a trained occultist, but he knows a great deal about the secret side of both sex and drugs, and he is a very clever manipulator of human nature and loves intrigue for its own sake, as this scheme of his shows.'
'What do you make of it?' I said. 'What is he driving at?'
'I should say that his group was getting restless,' said Taverner. 'He evidently does not take them into his confidence, vide the window bars. You are apparently designed to appear as some messenger of higher powers whom he has invoked in support of his authority. This leads me to believe that he is conducting a one man show, and this taken in conjunction with what we suppose to be his ignorance of ritual magic, makes me think that he never has been initiated into any fraternity. But, my God, if he had been, what wouldn't he have done if he had had a knowledge of the Names of Power in addition to his natural gifts! The fraternities are well guarded, Rhodes, we don't often have a traitor.
'Now come along, we have just got nice time for a meal before the evening's entertainment.'
WE went to the restaurant in Soho where the metaphysical head
waiter, who appeared to be interested in the same subjects as
Taverner, held sway. Of course we had our usual warm but
respectful welcome and were led to a retired table, and as the
metaphysician hovered round us with the wine list, Taverner
beckoned him nearer and said:
'Giuseppi, we are going this evening to number seven, Malvern Square, near Gower Street. It has a back entrance into the alley behind, and the bars of a window looking into the back yard can be removed by pressing them down. Ring me up at Harley Street at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning, and if I am not back, take steps in the matter. You know what to do.'
As soon as we were alone Taverner produced a small silver pocket flask and a pad of gauze, which he passed to me under cover of the table cloth.
'That's chloroform,' he said. 'Have the pad ready and clap it over his nose as soon as he opens the door. I have got a length of cord in my pocket. Josephus is not going to appear in this act.'
'But what am I going to do when I am sitting in the seats of the mighty and Josephus isn't there to twiddle his toes when they ask awkward questions?' I said anxiously.
'Wait and see,' said Taverner. I noticed that beside his chair was a small suit case.
We timed our arrival in the back alley just nicely, and I heard a crunching of the coals that betokened Josephus' advent, just as I was putting the chloroform on to the pad.
'Now!' whispered Taverner, and I knocked softly on the grimy door.
It opened an inch.
'That you, Rhodes?' whispered a voice from the darkness. 'Come in quietly, they're all about, damn them. Fussing with the supper things. Why can't women leave things alone?' The voice sounded bad-tempered.
'Where are you, old chap?' I said, feeling for him in the darkness. My hand touched his throat and instantly closed on it. I clapped the pad over his face and thrust him backward with my whole strength. Down he went on to the coals with me on top of him. He was a powerful man and struggled like a cat, but I was much the bigger, and he hadn't a chance. His struggles slackened as the chloroform got in its work, and when Taverner, who had been securing the door, flashed a hooded torch upon us, I was kneeling on his inanimate form.
Taverner tied him up with an expertness which indicated experience, and then cast about for somewhere to conceal him.
'I don't want him discovered prematurely, if anyone should want a scuttle of coals,' he said.
'Why not dig a hole and bury him?' I suggested, having thoroughly entered into the spirit of the place. 'Here's a shovel. Make a hole and stick him in up to the neck, and put that old bottomless bucket over his head.'
Taverner chuckled, and in two minutes Josephus was as if he had never been, and leaving him thus very indecently interred, we made our way cautiously into the yard. It was pitch black, but my knowledge of the geography of the place enabled me to find the window, and in less time than it takes to tell, we had dislodged the bars, got in, switched on the light, and locked the door on the inside.
'Here's your garment,' said Taverner, pulling a flowing scarlet robe from under the sofa cushions and inducting me into it with a knowledge of its anatomy which pointed to previous experience.
There was a soft knock at the door and I held my breath. 'Are you ready, dearest? They are all assembled,' said a feminine voice.
'Go on in and begin,' snarled Taverner, in a voice so exactly like Josephus' that I involuntarily looked over my shoulder.
We heard the footsteps die away down the passage (evidently Josephus had taught them not to argue), and in a few minutes the sound of chanting broke out overhead.
Taverner opened his suitcase and took out the most wonderful robes I have ever seen in my life. Stiff with embroidery and heavy with bullion, the great cope looked like the mines of Ophir in the shaded light of that sombre room. Taverner put it on over an emerald green soutane and I fastened the jewelled clasp upon his breast. Then he handed to me, for he could not raise his arms, the Head-dress of Egypt, and I placed it on his head. I have never seen such a sight. The gaunt lineaments of Taverner framed in the Egyptian drapery, his tall figure made gigantic by the cope, and the jewelled ankh in his hand (which I was thankful to see was sufficiently heavy to be effective as a weapon)—made a picture which I shall remember to my dying day. Every time he moved, the incense of many rituals floated from the folds of his garments, the silk rustled, the gold-work clinked; it seemed as if a priest-king of lost Atlantis had come, in response to an invocation, to claim the obedience of his worshippers.
We went up the narrow stairs into the darkened hall, and thence to the drawing-room floor, where a smell of incense told us that we were upon the right track. Taverner smote upon the door five times, and we heard a voice say: 'Guardian of the Gate, see who seeks admission.'
The door opened, and we were confronted by a plump and dumpy figure robed and cowled in black, which nearly went over backwards at sight of Taverner. My scarlet robe evidently led the doorkeeper to mistake me for Josephus, for we were admitted without demur, and found ourselves in what was evidently the temple of the strange worship which he conducted.
I made straight for the dais, as I had been instructed, and sat down before they could notice my height, and I am pretty certain that they all thought their usual magus was in the chair. Taverner, however, advanced to the altar, and extending the golden ankh towards the assembly, said in that resonant voice of his:
'Peace to all beings.'
This was evidently the opening they expected, for the figure on a raised dais at the far end of the room, which from its height I judged to be the tall woman, replied:
'From whom do you bring greeting?'
'I do not bring it,' said Taverner. 'I give it.'
This was evidently not the right cue, and threw the whole lodge into confusion, but so completely did Taverner dominate them, that it was they, not he, who did not know their part.
All eyes turned to me, believing me to be Josephus, but I sat like a graven image and gave no sign.
Then Taverner spoke again.
'The name of the Council of Seven has been invoked, and I who am the Senior of Seven, have come unto you. Know me by this sign,' and he extended his hand. On the forefinger flashed a great ring. I don't believe any one in the room was any the wiser, but the lodge officers, who were supposed to know, were ashamed to admit they didn't and the rank and file naturally followed their lead.
THERE was dead silence in the room, which was suddenly broken
by a rustle of drapery as a figure upon a third dais on my left
arose, and I heard the voice of Mary McDermot speaking.
'I ask pardon for my lack of faith,' she said. 'It was I who invoked the Council of Seven because I believed them to be non- existent. But I realize my error. I see the power and I acknowledge it. Your face tells me of your greatness, the vibrations of your personality tell me of your truth and goodness. I recognize and I obey.'
Taverner turned towards her.
'How came it that you believed the Council of Seven to be nonexistent?' He demanded in that great resonant voice of his.
'Because my husband's importunities had come between me and my duty to the Order. Because his prayers and invocations of the saints had spread like a cloud between me and the brightness of the Master's face, so that I could not see his glory, and believed him to be a vulgar sensualist and charlatan, taking advantage of our credulity.'
'My daughter,' said Taverner, and his voice was very gentle, 'do you believe in me?'
'I do,' she cried. 'I not only believe, I know. It is you I have seen in my dreams, you are the initiator I have always sought. The Master Josephus promised he would bring me to you, and he has kept his word.'
'Approach the altar,' commanded Taverner.
She came and knelt before him unbidden. He touched her forehead with the golden ankh, and I saw her sway at the touch.
'From the Unreal, lead me to the Real. From Darkness bring me to Light. From Impurity cleanse me and sanctify me,' came the deep resonant voice. Then he took her by the hand and raised her, and placed her beside me on the dais.
Taverner returned to the altar and took his stand before it and surveyed the room. Then from under his cope he produced a curiously wrought metal box. He opened one end and took out of it a handful of white powder and strewed it upon the altar in the form of a cross.
'Unclean,' he said, and his voice was like the tolling of a bell.
He opened the other end of the box and took out a handful of ashes, and these also he strewed upon the altar, defiling its white linen covering.
'Unclean,' he said again.
He stretched forth his ankh, and with the head of it extinguished the lamp that burnt upon the altar.
'Unclean,' he said a third time, and as he did so, all sense of power seemed to leave the room, and it became flat, ordinary, and rather tawdry. Taverner alone seemed real, all the rest were make-believe. He seemed like a live man in a room full of waxworks.
He turned, and I rose, and with the girl between us, we left the room in the midst of dead silence. I closed the door softly behind us, and, finding that the key was in the lock, took the precaution to turn it.
IN the darkened hall, unlit save for the rays of a street lamp
through the fanlight, Taverner confronted the bewildered girl.
She had pushed back her cowl, and her bright hair fell in
disorder about her face. He placed his hands on her shoulder.
'My daughter,' he said. 'You cannot advance save by the path of duty. You cannot rise to the higher life on broken faith and neglected obligations. The man who has given his name and heart into your keeping cannot have a home unless you make him one; cannot have a child unless you give him one. You may free yourself from him, but he cannot free himself from you. In this incarnation you have elected to choose the Path of the Hearth- fire, and therefore no other is open to you. Return, and see that the fire is lit and that hearth swept and garnished, and I will come to you and show you how illumination may be obtained upon that Path. You have invoked the Council of Seven, and have therefore come under the discipline of the Council of Seven, and coming under the discipline, you have come under the protection. Depart in peace.'
And he opened the door and put her outside.
We hastily collected our impedimenta and followed her. A violent ringing of electric bells in the basement showed that the people upstairs had discovered that they were locked in.
THE night drive down to Hindhead cleared my brain, which
whirled strangely. A vision of Taverner in cope and head-dress
danced before my eyes, which the everyday appearance of my chief
in frieze overcoat and muffler did nothing to allay. At length we
reached our destination, put the car to bed, and stood for a
moment under the tranquil stars before entering the silent house,
long since wrapt in slumber, and as I thought of the events of
the evening I seemed to move in a dream. Suddenly recollection
hit me on the solar plexus and I woke with a start.
'Taverner!' I said, 'supposing someone delivers a load of coals on top of Josephus—?'
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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