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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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'MR. GREGORY POLSON,' said Taverner, reading the card that had been brought to him. 'Evidently a junior member of the firm. Lincoln's Inn is where they have their abode, so they are probably solicitors. Let us have a look at him.'
A man's work generally puts its mark on him, and our visitor, although a comparatively young man, already showed the stamp of the legal profession.
'I want to consult you,' he began, 'about a very curious matter—I cannot call it a case. It seems to me however, that you are the only man who can deal with it and therefore although it may not be strictly in your line—I should be exceedingly grateful to you if you would look into it.'
Taverner nodded his acquiescence, and our visitor took up the burden of his story.
'I daresay you have heard of old Benjamin Burmister, who made such an enormous fortune during the War? We—that is, my father's firm—are his solicitors and are also personal friends of the family, or, to be exact, his brothers' families, for old Mr. Burmister is unmarried. My sister and I have grown up with the two sets of Burmister cousins as if we were all one big household; in fact, my sister is at present engaged to one of David Burmister's boys—an awfully nice chap, my particular friend, in fact. We are very pleased about the engagement, for the Burmisters are nice people, although the other two brothers were not wealthy. Well, to make a long story short, after Edith and Tim had been engaged about six months, my people were a lot more pleased about the engagement (but I can't say that I am, however), for old Benjamin Burmister made a new will leaving his money to Tim.'
'Why should you regard this as a disadvantage?'
'Because the people he has left his money to have an unfortunate knack of committing suicide.'
'Indeed?'
'Yes,' said our visitor, 'it has happened upon no fewer than three occasions. The will I have just completed in favour of Tim is his fourth. Murray, Tim's eldest brother, who was the last one Mr. Burmister had chosen to be his heir, jumped off a cliff near Brighton about a month ago.'
'You say that each time Mr. Burmister makes a will, the principal beneficiary commits suicide?' said Taverner. 'Can you tell me the conditions of the will?'
'They are rather unfair in my opinion,' said Gregory Polson. 'Instead of dividing the money among his nephews and nieces, who are none too well off, he insists upon leaving the bulk of it to one nephew. His idea seems to be that he will found a kind of dynasty—he has already purchased the country seat—and that he will make one Burmister an influential man, instead of making about a dozen of them comfortable.'
'I see,' said Taverner, 'and as soon as the will is made the principal beneficiary commits suicide.'
'That is it,' said Polson; 'they have had three suicides in two years.'
'Tut, tut,' said Taverner, 'as many as that? It certainly does not look like chance. Now who has benefited by these deaths?'
'Only the next heir, who speedily commits suicide himself.'
'What determines your client in his choice of an heir?'
'He picks the nephew whom he thinks is most likely to do him credit.'
'He does not follow any rule of birth?'
'None whatever. He chooses according to his estimate of their character, picking the more forceful natures first. Tim is a much quieter, more retiring kind of fellow than his cousins—I was rather surprised to see old Burmister's selection fall on him—but there is not much choice now; there are only three boys left after these ghastly tragedies.'
'Then it is one of these three men who will ultimately benefit if another suicide takes place?'
'That is so. But one can hardly conceive a criminal cold blooded enough to kill off an entire family on the off chance that the final choice might fall upon himself!'
'What manner of men are these three remaining cousins?'
'Henry is an engineer, doing quite well and engaged to be married. He will never set the Thames on fire, but he is a decent chap. He is Tim's younger brother. Bob, Tim's cousin, is a bit of a ne'er-do-well. We have had to extricate him from a breach of promise and one or two other unpleasantnesses, but I should say he was a good-hearted, irresponsible lad, his own worst enemy. The last of the family is Irving, Bob's brother, a harmless enough chap, but not fond of honest work. Joseph Burmister's boys never did as well as David's; they inclined to the artistic rather than the practical, and that type never makes money.
'Joseph's wife, however, had a fair amount, and each of her children has about a hundred and fifty a year of his own; not affluence, but it keeps them out of the workhouse. Bob does odds and ends to supplement his means; he is secretary of a Golf Club at present, but Irving is the family genius and has set out to be an artist, though I don't think he has ever produced anything. His sole occupation, so far as I know, is to write a monthly art criticism for a paper that thinks publicity is sufficient payment.'
'He will not get very fat at that rate,' said Taverner. 'How does he manage to exist on his hundred and fifty?'
'He lives in a single room studio and eats out of a frying pan. It is not so unattractive as it sounds, however; he has extraordinarily good taste, and has got his little place quite charming.'
'So these are the people who might possibly benefit under the will—a steady-going engineer, a good-natured scatterbrain, and an artistic Bohemian.'
'There were originally seven possible beneficiaries, providing old Benjamin adhered to his policy. Three are dead by their own hand, one is at present under sentence of death—'
'What do you mean by that?' interrupted Taverner quickly.
'Ah!' said Polson, 'that is the thing that gave me a nasty turn, and made me come to you. The three men who are dead all committed suicide in the same way by flinging themselves from a height. Tim was in my office yesterday; our chambers are at the top of the building, a considerable height up. He leant out of the window for quite a while, and when I asked him what he was looking at he said: 'I wonder what it would feel like to take a header on to the pavement.' I told him to come in and not play the fool but, it gave me a nasty shock, coming on top of the other suicides, so I came to you.'
'Why to me?' asked Taverner.
'I have read something of occultism and something of psychology and heard how you work the two systems in combination,' said Polson, 'and it seemed to me that this was a case for you.'
'There is more in this than you have told me,' said Taverner. 'What is it that you suspect?'
'I have no evidence whatever; in fact, it is the lack of evidence that has made me seek an explanation outside the normal. Why should these men, perfectly healthy average individuals, take their own lives for no reason whatsoever? One cannot account for it on any of the accepted theories, but if one admits the feasibility of thought transference, and pretty nearly everybody does nowadays, then it seems to me that it would be possible to give mental suggestion to these men to commit suicide.'
'It is not only possible,' said Taverner, 'but in less extreme forms this exercise of secret pressure is exceedingly common. I could tell you some curious stories in connection with the Great War in this line. Not all the men who were 'got at' were reached through their pockets; many were approached by the channel of their subconscious minds. But continue. There is someone whom you are watching, sub-consciously, if not consciously?'
'I have given you all the facts that could possibly be admitted as evidence. I haven't got a clue that would hang a cat, but I suspect Irving.'
'On what grounds?'
'On none whatever; chiefly on the principle of "I do not like you, Dr. Fell."'
'Give me your unbowdlerized impressions of him.'
'He is not straight, sir. I have never once caught him out, but I should never trust him. Then he is in with a set I don't like the look of: they play about with hashish and cocaine and each other's wives. They are not wholesome. I prefer Bob's wild-cat company promoters to Irving's long-haired soul-mates.
'Thirdly, Irving is the last one old Benjamin would be likely to leave his money to. I think he would leave it to Irving before he left it outside the family, for he is terribly proud of the Burmister name, but he is not at all fond of the fellow. They never got on together; Benjamin is a rough, downright old chap, and Irving is a bit of an old maid.
'Fourthly, if you knew Bob and Henry, you would know that it was out of the question that they should do such a thing, but Irving might—when a man fools with drugs he may do anything. Besides, he has read along the same lines as I have; in fact it was he who first put me on to them.'
'Have you any reason to believe that Irving is a trained occultist?'
'He is interested in occultism, but I should not imagine that he would ever train in anything; he is nothing but a dabbler.'
'Then he is not very likely to be able to perform a mental assassination. Thought transference requires more effort than swinging a sledge hammer. If you are ever offered your choice between being an occultist and a blacksmith, choose the lighter job and enter the forge rather than the Lodge.
'Well, you suspect Irving? As you say, there is no evidence to hang a cat, but we will put him through the sieve and see what he yields. Did he become very intimate with old Mr. Burmister's heirs after the wills became known?'
'No more so than usual; they are a united family and always saw a lot of each other. The only thing that Irving ever did that was out of the ordinary was to decorate their rooms for them—he has a wonderful taste in colouring—but then he did that for a good many of us, and designed the girl's dresses, too. He is an extraordinary chap, who makes a hobby of that sort of thing; he knows all the out-of-the-way shops where you can get queer brands of coffee and cigarettes, and restaurants where you can get weird food. It has always seemed to me the sort of thing for a woman rather than a man to be interested in.'
'Ah!' said Taverner, 'he designed their rooms. Now that is a peculiarly intimate thing to do—the man who designs the place you live in can exercise a great influence over your life if he knows how to make use of his opportunities. But before we go any further afield, try and think if there was anything of any sort that the dead men had in common and the living ones have not got, any mode of life, possession, peculiarity—anything in fact, that differentiated them.'
Polson racked his brains for several minutes
'The only thing I can possibly think of,' he said at length, 'is a particular kind of scent that Irving manages to get hold of and gives to his particular friends. He makes a great mystery of it, but then he loves making mysteries about nothing in particular; it makes him feel important.'
'Come now,' said Taverner, 'we have struck a warm trail at last. The psychological effect of scents is very great; what has our friend been playing at with his mysterious smells?'
'I don't know,' said Polson; 'he probably gets it at the Stores. He had some wonderful tea once that was supposed to come direct from Lhassa, and we found a Lyons' label round it. He is that sort of chap.'
'But what about this scent? Did he give it to each of the dead men and to none other?'
'He used to give it to his particular pals as a special favour. His great wheeze was to get those big poppy heads the chemists sell for making poultices, paint them all sorts of Futurist colours, stuff them with pot-pourri and fix them on the end of strips of pliable cane. They really look very well in a vase, like great gaudy flowers. He gave me a bunch once, but I wasn't honoured with the sacred perfume that he has in his own quarters; but Percy (one of the boys who was dead) had some, and he has given Tim a bunch. I am not sure whether they are scented or not.'
'Then the best thing you can do is to go round to your cousin, get hold of those poppy heads, and bring them to me to have a look at.'
POLSON sallied forth on his mission, and as the door closed
behind him, Taverner turned to me.
'You see,' he said, 'the advantage of intuition. Polson had nothing whatever to go on, but he instinctively distrusted Irving; when he begins to suspect foul play, he proceeds to countercheck his intuitions by observation, which is a peculiarly effective method of work, for you will see how the use of the intuition is able to point out a profitable line of observation and, by means of the subtlest and most elusive of subjective clues, lead us to what promises to be solid ground. We must see what evidence the poppy heads yield, however, before we begin to theorize. There is nothing so misleading as a preconceived opinion; one is very apt to twist the facts to fit it.'
WE went on to other cases, and had got to the end of our
appointments when the butler informed us that Mr. Polson had
returned and would like to see us again. He was ushered in,
bearing a long parcel in his hand, his eyes bright with
excitement.
'Tim has been given the special scent,' he cried as soon as he was inside the door.
'How did you manage to obtain possession of the poppy heads? Did you tell him why you wanted them?'
'I told him I wanted to show them to a friend. It was no use worrying him until we have something definite to go on, or he might commit suicide by sheer auto-suggestion.'
'Wise man!' said Taverner. 'You have read to some purpose.'
Polson unrolled his parcel, and laid half-a-dozen gorgeously-coloured poppy heads on the desk. They looked like wonderful tropical fruit, and certainly formed an acceptable present. Taverner examined them one by one. Five of them yielded nothing to his probing save a shower of fine black seeds, but the sixth exhaled a curious heavy perfume, and rattled when shaken.
This poppy head,' said Taverner, 'is going to meet with an accident,' and he crashed a paper weight down on it. Out on the blotter rolled three or four objects that looked like dried raisins, and most curious of all—a fair sized moonstone.
At the sight of this we exclaimed as one man. Why should anyone place a gem worth several pounds in the inside of a poppy-head where it was never likely to be seen? Taverner turned over the black objects with his pencil. 'Scented seeds of some sort,' he remarked and handed them to me. 'Smell them, Rhodes.'
I took them in my hand and sniffed them gingerly.
'What do you make of them?' inquired my partner.
'Not bad,' I said, 'but they are slightly irritating to the mucous membrane; they make me feel as if I were going to sneeze, only instead of the sneeze coming to anything, the irritation seems to run up into my head and cause a peculiar sensation as if a draught of cold air was blowing on my forehead.'
'So they stir up the pineal gland, do they?' said Taverner. 'I think I can see some method in the gentleman's madness. Now take the moonstone in your other hand, go on sniffing the seeds, look at the moonstone, and tell me the thoughts that come into your head, just as if you were being psychoanalysed.'
I did as I was instructed.
'I think of soapy water,' I began. 'I think my hands would be improved by a wash. I think of a necklace of my mother's. I think this stone would be very hard to find if I dropped it on the carpet. It would be harder still to find if I dropped it out of the window. I wonder what it would be like to be thrown out of the window. I wonder what it would feel like to be thrown from a height? Does one—?'
'That will do,' said Taverner, and took the moonstone away from me. I looked up in surprise, and saw that Polson had buried his face in his hands.
'My God!' he said. 'And I used to play with that boy!'
I looked from one to the other of my companions in surprise.
'What does it all mean?' I asked.
'It means this,' said Taverner. 'Someone has hit upon a singularly ingenious way of bottling psychism. A man who is incapable, by reason of his lack of development, of doing mental work on his own account, has found a way of buying occultism by the ounce. There must be a factory where they are turning out this precious product, and where an unscrupulous scoundrel like Irving can go and buy two-penn'orth and bring it away in a paper bag.'
I HAD always understood that occult work could only be done by
men of unusual natural gifts who had devoted long years to their
development, and this idea of taking your turn at the counter and
buying the hidden powers like acid drops tickled my fancy. It was
only the expression on Polson's face that prevented me from
bursting out laughing. But I saw what deadly possibilities were
latent in the plan that Taverner had outlined so grotesquely.
'There is nothing original in this scheme,' said Taverner. 'It is simply the commercial application of certain natural laws that are known to occultists. I have always told you that there is nothing supernatural about occult science; it is merely a branch of knowledge that has not been generally taken up, and which has this peculiarity, that its professors do not hasten to publish their results. This exceedingly clever trick of the moonstone and the scented seeds is simply an application of certain occult knowledge for the purpose of crime.'
'Do you mean,' said Polson, 'that there is some sort of mental poison inside that poppy head? I can understand that the smell of those seeds might affect the brain, but what part does the moonstone play?'
'The moonstone is tuned to a keynote, and that keynote is suicide,' said Taverner. 'Someone—not Irving, he hasn't got the brains—has made a very clear mental picture of committing suicide by flinging oneself from a height, and has impressed that picture (I won't tell you how) on that moonstone, so that anyone who is in close contact with it finds the same image rise into his mind, just as a depressed person can infect others with depression without speaking one single word to them.'
'But how can an inanimate object be capable of feeling emotion?' I inquired.
'It couldn't,' said Taverner, 'but is there such a thing as an inanimate object? Occult science teaches that there is not. It is one of our maxims that mind is entranced in the mineral, sleeps in the plant, dreams in the animal and wakes in the man. You have only to watch a sweet-pea tendril reach out for a support to realize that the movements of plants are anything but purposeless, and the work connected with the fatigue of metals is well known. Ask your barber if his razors ever get tired, and he will tell you that he rests them regularly, because fatigued steel will not take a fine edge.'
'Granted,' I said. 'But do you mean to tell me that there is sufficient consciousness in that bit of stone to be capable of taking in an idea and transmitting it to someone's subconscious mind?'
'I do,' said Taverner. 'A crystal is the highest development of the mineral kingdom, and there is quite enough mind in that stone on the table to take on a certain amount of character if a sufficiently strong influence be brought to bear upon it. Remember the history of the Hope diamond and various other well-known gems whose records are known to collectors. It is this mental development of crystals which is taken advantage of in the making of talismans and amulets for which the precious stones, and next to them the precious metals, have been used from time immemorial. This moonstone is simply an amulet of evil.'
'Taverner,' I said, 'you don't mean to tell me that you believe in charms?'
'Certainly! Don't you?'
'Good Heavens, no, not in this enlightened age!'
'My dear boy, if you find a belief universally held throughout all ages by races that have had no communication with each other, then you may be sure that there is something in it.'
'Then to put it crudely,' said Polson, who had hitherto stared at Taverner in silence, 'you believe that someone has taught this moonstone how to give hypnotic suggestion?'
'Crudely, yes,' replied Taverner, 'just as middle C struck on a piano will cause the C string of another piano to vibrate in sympathy.'
'How does the moonstone manage the hypnosis?' I inquired, not without malice, I am afraid.
'Ah, it has to have help with that,' said Taverner. 'That is where those scented seeds come in, and a more diabolically ingenious device it would be hard to find.
'Everybody is not psychic, so some means had to be devised of inducing at least temporary sensitiveness in the stolid, matter of fact Burmisters against whom this device was directed. As even you will admit, Rhodes, there are certain drugs that are capable of changing the condition and state of consciousness—alcohol for one, chloroform for another.
'In the East, where they know a great deal more about these things than we do, a careful study has been made of the drugs that will induce the change, and they are acquainted with many substances which the British Pharmacopoeia knows nothing about. There is a considerable number of drugs which are capable of producing, at least temporarily, a state of clairvoyance, and those black seeds are among the number. I don't know what they are—they are unfamiliar to me—but I shall try and find out, as they cannot be common, and we may then be able to trace their origin and get this devil's workshop shut down.'
'Then,' said Polson, 'you think someone has imprinted an idea on the soul of that moonstone so that anyone who was sensitive would be influenced by it, and then added the seeds to his fiendish pot-pourri so as to drug an ordinary person into abnormal sensitiveness and make him susceptible to the influences of the moonstone?'
'Exactly!'
'And some devil manufactures these things and then sells them to dangerous fools like Irving?'
'That is my opinion.'
'Then he ought to be hanged!'
'I disagree with you.'
'You would let such a cold-blooded brute go unpunished?'
'No, I would not, but I would make the punishment fit the crime. Occult offences are always dealt with by occult means. There are more ways of killing a cat than drowning it in cream.'
'IT has not taken you long to dispose of that case,' I remarked to Taverner as Polson withdrew, profuse in his thanks.
'If you think that is the end,' said my colleague, 'you are very much mistaken; Irving will certainly have another try, and equally certainly, I shall not let the matter rest.'
'You will only get abused if you go to the police station,' I told him. 'If you think that 12 British grocers in a jury box would hang Irving you are very much mistaken; they would probably ask the court missionary to visit you and see if he couldn't get your family to do something for you.'
'I know all that,' said Taverner. 'It is quite useless to go to law in a case of occult attack, but there is such a thing as the psychic police, you know. The members of all regularly organized Lodges are bound by their oath either to take up themselves or report to their fraternity any case of mental malpractice that comes within their knowledge, and we have our own way of doing justice.'
'Do you intend to give Irving a dose of counter-suggestion?'
'No, I won't do that. We are not absolutely certain that he is guilty, though it looks suspiciously like it. I shall deal with him by another method, which, if he is innocent, will leave him scatheless, and if he is guilty will be singularly appropriate to his crime. The first thing, however, is to get in touch with our man without arousing his suspicions. How would you go to work, Rhodes?'
'Get Polson to introduce me,' I said.
'Poison and Irving are not on any too good terms; moreover, I have the misfortune to have a certain amount of fame, and Irving will smell a rat the minute I appear in the case. Try again.'
I hazarded several suggestions, from giving him a commission to paint poppyheads to falling in a fit at his feet as he issued from his studio. All of these Taverner vetoed as leaving too much to chance and likely to rouse his suspicions and prevent the possibility of a second attempt to corner him if the first failed.
'You must work along the line of his interests, and then he will fall into your hand like a ripe pear. What is the use of reading psychology if you never use it? I will bet you that before a week is out I shall have Irving begging me, as an enormous favour, to execute justice on him.'
'How do you propose to go to work?' I asked.
Taverner rolled the seeds over thoughtfully with a pencil.
'These things cannot be too common; I will find out first what they are and where he got them. Come along with me to Bond Street; there is a man in a perfumer's there who will probably be able to tell me what I want to know.'
WE were not long in arriving at our destination, and then I
saw that curious little by-play that I had often witnessed when
Taverner was in need of assistance. A man in a dirty white
laboratory coat, who obviously did not know Taverner from Adam,
was summoned from the back of the shop, my companion made a sign
with his left hand that would have passed unobserved if one had
not known what to look for, and immediately the attitude of our
new acquaintance changed. We were led behind the counter into a
room that was half laboratory, half store room, and there, amid a
litter of chemical appliances, gaudy wrappers, hampers of herbs
smelling up to high heaven, and the remains of a meal, the
mysterious seeds were spread out for investigation.
'It is one of the Dipteryx,' said the man in the white coat, 'the same family as the Tonquin Bean; Dipteryx Irritans is its name. It is sometimes used for adulterating the true Tonquin bean when imported in powder form. Of course a small amount cannot be detected by any chemical tests, but you would not care to have a sachet of it among your handkerchiefs; it would give you a form of hay fever, and affect your eyesight.'
'Is it imported into this country much?'
'Never, save as an adulterant, and then only in powder form. It has no commercial value—you could not buy it here if you tried, in fact you could not buy it in Madagascar (where it comes from), because no scent merchant would own to having any on his premises. You would have to collect it yourself from the wild vines.'
'What trade paper do you scent-makers affect?'
'We have not got one of our own, but you could get at the scent trade through the druggists' journals.'
Taverner thanked him for his information, and we returned to Harley Street, where Taverner busied himself in drawing up an advertisement to the effect that a Mr. Trotter had a parcel of Dipteryx Irritans to dispose of and solicited offers.
ABOUT a week later we received, via the journal's
office, a letter to say that a Mr. Minski, of Chelsea, was
prepared to do business with us if we would furnish him with a
sample and state our lowest price. Taverner chuckled when he
received this epistle.
'The fish bites, Rhodes,' he said. 'We will proceed to call upon Mr. Minski forthwith.'
I nodded my acquiescence and reached for my hat.
'Not in these clothes, Rhodes,' said my colleague. 'Mr. Minski would put up the shutters if he saw a top hat approaching. Let me see what I can find in my vanity bag.'
His 'vanity bag' was the name by which Taverner designated an old suit case that held certain disreputable garments that served him as disguise when he did not wish to obtrude his Harley Street personality upon an unappreciative world. In a few minutes I was denuded of my usual panoply, and was invested in a seedy brown suit of pseudo-smart cut; black boots that had once been brown, and a Trilby hat completed my discomfort, and Taverner, resplendent in a greenish frock coat and moth-eaten top hat, informed me that if it were not for my ruby tie-pin (which came out of a cracker) he would not altogether care to be seen out with me!
WE took a bus to Victoria Station, and thence, via the
King's Road, to our destination in an obscure side street. Mr.
Minski's shop proved to be something of a surprise—we had
thought to interview a man of the 'old clo' dealer type, but we
found that the shop we sought had some pretensions. A collection
of Ruskin pottery and Futurist draperies graced the window,
studio-made jewelry of the semiprecious persuasion hung in a case
by the door, and Mr. Minski, in a brown velvet coat and tie like
a miniature sash, made Taverner look as if he had called for the
washing!
My colleague placed a forefinger, carefully begrimed at the consulting room grate, upon the velveteen coat of the owner of the shop. 'You are the gentleman who wants to buy the Tonquin beans?' he inquired.
'I don't want any Tonquin beans, my good man,' said that worthy impatiently. 'I understood your advertisement to say that you had a parcel of Dipteryx Irritans to dispose of. The Tonquin bean belongs to a different genus, Dipteryx Odorata. I can get that anywhere, but if you are able to obtain the Irritans bean for me, we may be able to do business.'
Taverner closed one eye in a revolting wink. 'You know what you are talking about, young fellow,' he informed the velveteen individual. 'Now, are you buyin' these beans for yourself, or on commish?'
'What has that got to do with you?' demanded Mr. Minski haughtily.
'Oh, nothing,' said Taverner, looking more rag-and-bony than ever, 'only I prefer to do business with principals, and I always give ten per cent for an introduction.'
Minski opened his eyes at this, and I saw that what Taverner had guessed was probably true—Minski was buying on behalf of someone else, who might or might not be Irving. I also saw that he would not be above accepting a commission from both parties to the transaction. He had evidently been bidden to conceal the identity of his client, however, and was wondering how far he dared exceed his instructions. Finally he said: 'Since you refuse to deal with me, I will communicate with my customer and see whether he is prepared to buy from you direct. Come back on Wednesday at the same time, and I will let you know.'
WE returned to civilization and put off the garments of our
humiliation until the appointed time came round, when, dressed
once more in the uniform of the shabby genteel, we returned to
the shop of Mr. Minski. As we entered, we saw a man seated on a
kind of divan in the corner, smoking a scented cigarette. He was,
I should say, 31 or 32 years of age, sallow and unwholesome of
complexion, with the pupils of his eyes unnaturally dilated; the
way in which he lay back among the cushions showed that his
vitality was low, and the slight tremor of the nicotine-stained
fingers pointed to the cause.
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 rated 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—Dr—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, absentmindedly 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 20 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—given 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 10 times over,' I replied.
'So would I,' said Taverner. 'A life sentence is worse than a death sentence.'
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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