Scientific Romance

by Brian Stableford

  Fisher now had an opportunity to observe the personal characteristics of the Russian baron. He was a young man of about thirty-five, with exceedingly handsome and clear-cut features, but a peculiar head. The peculiarity of his head was that it seemed to be perfectly round on top—that is, its diameter from ear to ear appeared quite equal to its anterior and posterior diameter. The curious effect of this unusual conformation was rendered more striking by the absence of all hair. There was nothing on the baron’s head but a tightly fitting skullcap of black silk. A very deceptive wig hung upon one of the bed posts.

  Being sufficiently recovered to recognize the presence of a stranger, Savitch made a courteous bow.

  “How do you find yourself now?” inquired Fisher, in bad French.

  “Very much better, thanks to Monsieur,” replied the baron, in excellent English, spoken in a charming voice. “Very much better, though I feel a certain dizziness here.” And he pressed his hand to his forehead.

  The valet withdrew at a sign from his master, and was followed by the porter. Fisher advanced to the bedside and took the baron’s wrist. Even his unpracticed touch told him that the pulse was alarmingly high. He was much puzzled, and not a little uneasy at the turn which the affair had taken. Have I got myself and the Russian into an infernal scrape? he thought. But no—he’s well out of his teens, and half a tumbler of such whisky as that ought not to go to a baby’s head.

  Nevertheless, the new symptoms developed themselves with a rapidity and poignancy that made Fisher feel uncommonly anxious. Savitch’s face became as white as marble, its paleness rendered startling by the sharp contrast of the black skullcap. His form reeled as he sat on the bed, and he clasped his head convulsively with both hands, as if in terror lest it burst.

  “I had better call your valet,” said Fisher, nervously.

  “No, no!” gasped the baron. “You are a medical man, and I shall have to trust you. There is something wrong here.” With a spasmodic gesture, he vaguely indicated the top of his head.

  “But I am not . . . ,” stammered Fisher.

  “No words!” exclaimed the Russian, imperiously. “Act at once—there must be no delay. Unscrew the top of my head!”

  Savitch tore off his skullcap and flung it aside. Fisher had no words to describe the bewilderment with which he beheld the actual fabric of he baron’s cranium. The skullcap had concealed the fact that the entire top of Savitch’s head was a dome of polished silver.

  “Unscrew it!” said Savitch, again.

  Fisher reluctantly placed both hands upon the silver skull and exerted a gentle pressure toward the left. The top yielded, turning easily and truly in its threads.

  “Faster!” said the baron, faintly. “I tell you no time must be lost.” Then he swooned.

  At that instant there was a sound of voices from the outer room, and the door leading into the baron’s bed-chamber was violently flung open and as violently closed. The newcomer was a short, spare man of middle age, with a keen visage and piercing, deep-set little gray eyes. He stood for a few seconds scrutinizing Fisher with a sharp, almost jealous regard.

  The baron recovered his consciousness and opened his eyes.

  “Dr. Rapperschwyll!” he exclaimed.

  Dr. Rapperschwyll, with a few rapid strides, approached the bed and confronted Fisher and Fisher’s patient. “What is all this?” he angrily demanded.

  Without waiting for a reply, he laid his hand rudely upon Fisher’s arm and pulled him away from the baron. Fisher, more and more astonished, made no resistance, but suffered himself to be led, or pushed, toward the door. Dr. Rapperschwyll opened the door wide enough to give the American exit, and then closed it with a vicious slam. A quick click informed Fisher that the key had been turned in the lock.

  *

  The next morning Fisher met Savitch coming from the Trinkhalle. The baron bowed with cold politeness and passed on. Later in the day a valet de place handed Fisher a small parcel with the message: Dr. Rapperschwyll supposes that this will be sufficient. The parcel contained two gold pieces of twenty marks.

  Fisher gritted his teeth. “He shall have back his forty marks,” he muttered to himself, “but I will have his confounded secret in return.”

  Then Fisher discovered that even a Polish countess has her uses in the social economy.

  Mrs. Fisher’s table d’hôte friend was amiability itself, when approached by Fisher (through Fisher’s wife) on the subject of Baron Savitch of Moscow. Did she know anything about Baron Savitch? Of course she did, and about everybody else worth knowing in Europe. Would she kindly communicate her knowledge? Of course she would, and be enchanted to gratify in the slightest degree the charming curiosity of her Americaine. It was quite refreshing for a blasée old woman, who had long since ceased to find much interest in contemporary men, women, things and events, to encounter one so recently from the boundless prairies of the new world as to cherish a piquant inquisitiveness about the affairs of the grand monde. Ah, yes, she would very willingly communicate the history of the Baron Savitch of Moscow, if that would amuse her dear Americaine.

  The Polish countess abundantly redeemed her promise, throwing in for good measure many choice bits of gossip and scandalous anecdotes about the Russian nobility, which are not relevant to the present narrative. Her story, as summarized by Fisher, was this:

  The Baron Savitch was not of an old creation. There was a mystery about his origin that had never been satisfactorily solved in St. Petersburg or in Moscow. It was said by some that he as a foundling from the Vospitatelnoi Dom. Others believed him to be the unacknowledged son of a certain illustrious personage nearly related to the House of Romanoff. The latter theory was the more probable, since it counted in a measure for the unexampled success of his career from the day that he graduated at the University of Dorpat.

  Rapid and brilliant beyond precedent his career had been. He entered the diplomatic service of the Czar, and for several years was attached to the legations at Vienna, London and Paris. Created a Baron before his twenty-fifth birthday for the wonderful ability displayed in the conduct of negotiations of supreme importance and delicacy with the House of Hapsburg, he had become a pet of Gortchakoff’s,3 and was given every opportunity for the exercise of his genius in diplomacy. It was even said in well informed circles at St. Petersburg that the guiding mind which directed Russia’s course throughout the Eastern complication, which planned the campaign on the Danube, effected the combinations that gave victory to the Czar’s soldiers, and which meanwhile held Austria aloof, neutralized the immense power of Germany, and exasperated England only to the point where wrath expends itself in harmless threats, was the brain of the young Baron Savitch. It was certain that he had been with Ignatieff at Constantinople when the trouble was first fomented, with Shouvaloff in England at the time of the secret conference agreement, with the Grand Duke Nicholas at Adrianople when the protocol of an armistice was signed, and would soon be in Berlin behind the scenes of the Congress, where it was expected that he would outwit the statesmen of all Europe, and play with Bismarck and Disraeli as a strong man plays with two kicking babies.

  But the countess had concerned herself very little with this handsome young man’s achievements in politics. She had been more particularly interested in his social career. His success in that field had been no less remarkable. Although no one knew with positive certainty his father’s name, he had conquered an absolute supremacy in the most exclusive circles surrounding the imperial court. His influence with the Czar himself was supposed to be unbounded. Birth apart, he was considered the best parti in Russia. From poverty, and by the sheer force of intellect, he had won himself a colossal fortune. Report gave him forty million roubles, and doubtless report did not exceed the fact. Every speculative enterprise he undertook, and they were many and various, was carried to sure success by the same qualities of cool, unerring judgment, far-reaching sagacity, and apparently superhuman power of organizing, combining, and controlling, which had made him in po
litics the phenomenon of the age.

  About Dr. Rapperschwyll? Yes, the countess knew him by reputation and by sight. He was the medical man in constant attendance upon the Baron Savitch, whose high-strung mental organization rendered him susceptible to sudden and alarming fits of illness. Dr. Rapperschwyll was a Swiss—had originally been a watchmaker or an artisan, she had heard. For the rest, he was a commonplace little old man, devoted to his profession and to the baron, and evidently devoid of ambition, since he wholly neglected to turn the opportunities of his position and connections to the advancement of his personal fortunes.

  Fortified with this information, Fisher felt better prepared to grapple with Rapperschwyll for the possession of the secret. For five days he lay in wait for the Swiss physician. On the sixth day the desired opportunity presented itself.

  Half way up the Mercuriusberg, late in the afternoon, he encountered the custodian of the ruined tower, coming down. No, the tower was not closed. A gentleman was up there making observations of the country, and he, the custodian, would be back in an hour or two. So Fisher kept on his way.

  The upper part of this tower is in dilapidated condition. The lack of a stairway to the summit is supplied by a temporary wooden ladder. Fisher’s head and shoulders were hardly through the trap that opens to the platform before he discovered that the man already there was the man he sought. Dr. Rapperschwyll was studying the topography of the Black Forest through a pair of field-glasses.

  Fisher announced his arrival by an opportune stumble and a noisy attempt to recover himself, at the same instant aiming a stealthy kick at the topmost round of the ladder, and scrambling ostentatiously over the edge of the trap. The ladder went down thirty or forty feet with a racket, clattering and banging against the walls of the tower.

  Dr. Rapperschwyll at once appreciated the situation. He turned sharply around and remarked, with a sneer: “Monsieur is unaccountably awkward.” Then he scowled and showed his teeth, for he recognized Fisher.

  “It is rather unfortunate,” said the New Yorker, with imperturbable coolness. “We shall be imprisoned here a couple of hours at the shortest. Let us congratulate ourselves that we each have intelligent company, besides a charming landscape to contemplate.”

  The Swiss coldly bowed, and resumed his topographical studies. Fisher lighted a cigar.

  “I also desire,” continued Fisher, puffing clouds of smoke in the direction of the Teufelmfihle, “to avail myself of this opportunity to return forty marks of yours, which reached me, I presume, by mistake.”

  “If Monsieur the American physician was not satisfied with his fee,” rejoined Rapperschwyll, venomously, “he can without doubt have the affair adjusted by applying to the baron’s valet.”

  Fisher paid no attention to the thrust, but calmly laid the gold pieces on the parapet, directly under the nose of the Swiss.

  “I could not think of accepting any fee,” he said, with deliberate emphasis. “I was abundantly rewarded for my trifling services by the novelty and interest of the case.”

  The Swiss scanned the American’s countenance long and steadily with his sharp little gray eyes. At length he said, carelessly: “Monsieur is a man of science?”

  “Yes,” replied Fisher, with a mental reservation in favor of all sciences save that which illuminates and dignifies our national game.

  “Then,” continued Dr. Rapperschwyll, “Monsieur will perhaps acknowledge that a more beautiful or more extensive case of trepanning has rarely come under his observation.”

  Fisher slightly raised his eyebrows.

  “And Monsieur will also understand, being a physician,” continued Dr. Rapperschwyll, “the sensitiveness of the baron himself, and of his friends, upon the subject. He will therefore pardon my seeming rudeness at the time of his discovery.”

  He is smarter than I supposed, Fisher thought. He holds all the cards, while I have nothing—nothing except a tolerably strong nerve when it comes to a game of bluff. “I deeply regret that sensitiveness,” he continued, aloud, “for it had occurred to me that an accurate account of what I saw, published in one of the scientific journals of England or America, would excite wide attention, and no doubt be received with interest on the Continent.”

  “What you saw?” cried the Swiss, sharply. “It is false. You saw nothing—when I entered you had not even removed the . . .” Here he stopped short and muttered to himself, as if cursing his own impetuosity.

  Fisher celebrated his advantage by tossing away his half-burned cigar and lighting a fresh one.

  “Since you compel me to be frank,” Dr. Rapperschwyll went on, with increasing nervousness, “I will inform you that the baron has assured me that you saw nothing. I interrupted you in the act of removing the silver cap.”

  “I will be equally frank,” replied Fisher, stiffening his face for a final effort. “On that point, the baron is not a competent witness. He was in a state of unconsciousness for some time before you entered. Perhaps I was removing the silver cap when you entered. . . .”

  Dr. Rapperschwyll turned pale.

  “And perhaps,” said Fisher, coolly, “I was replacing it.”

  The suggestion of the possibility seemed to strike Rapperschwyll like a sudden thunderbolt from the clouds. His knees parted, and he almost sank to the floor. He put his hands before his eyes, and wept like a child, or, rather, like a broken old man.

  “He will publish it! He will publish it to the court and the world!” he cried, hysterically. “And at this crisis. . . .”

  Then, by a desperate effort, the Swiss appeared to recover to some extent his self-control. He paced the diameter of the platform for several minutes, with his head bent and his arms folded across his breast. Turning again to his companion, he said: “If any sum you name will. . . .”

  Fisher cut the proposition short with a laugh.

  “Then,” said Rapperschwyll, “if I throw myself on your generosity. . . .”

  “Well?” demanded Fisher.

  “And ask a promise, on your honor, of absolute silence concerning what you have seen?”

  “Silence until such time as the Baron Savitch shall have ceased to exist?”

  “That will suffice,” said Rapperschwyll. “For when he ceases to exist I die. And your conditions?”

  “The whole story, here and now, and without reservations.”

  “It is a terrible price to ask me,” said Rapperschwyll, “but larger interests than my pride are at stake. You shall hear the story.

  “I was bred a watchmaker,” he continued, after a long pause, “in the Canton of Zurich. It is not a matter of vanity when I say that I achieved a marvelous degree of skill in the craft. I developed a faculty of invention that led me into a series of experiments regarding the capabilities of purely mechanical combinations. I studied and improved upon the best automata ever constructed by human ingenuity. Babbage’s calculating machine especially interested me. I saw in Babbage’s idea the germ of something infinitely more important to the world.

  “Then I threw up my business and went to Paris to study physiology. I spent three years at the Sorbonne and perfected myself in that branch of knowledge. Meanwhile my pursuits had extended far beyond the purely physical sciences. Psychology engaged me for a time, and then I ascended into the domain of sociology, which, when adequately understood, is the summary and final application of all knowledge.

  “It was after years of preparations, and as the outcome of all my studies, that the great idea of my life, which had vaguely haunted me ever since the Zurich days, assumed at last a well-defined and perfect form.”

  The manner of Dr. Rapperschwyll had changed from distrustful reluctance to frank enthusiasm. The man himself seemed transformed. Fisher listened attentively and without interrupting the relation. He could not help fancying the necessity of yielding the secret, so long and so jealously guarded by the physician, was not entirely distasteful to the enthusiast.

  “Now, attend, Monsieur,” continued Dr. Rapperschwyll, “to several
propositions which may seem at first to have no direct bearing on each other.

  “My endeavors in mechanism had resulted in a machine which went far beyond Babbage’s in its powers of calculation. Given the data, there was no limit to the possibilities in this direction. Babbage’s cogwheels and pinions calculated logarithms, calculated an eclipse. It was fed with figures, and produced results in figures. Now, the relations of cause and effect are as fixed and unalterable as the laws of arithmetic. Logic is, or should be, as exact a science as mathematics. My new machine was fed with facts, and produced conclusions. In short, it reasoned, and the results of its reasoning were always true, while the results of human reasoning are often, if not always, false. The source of error in human logic is what the philosophers call the ‘personal equation.’ My machine eliminated the personal equation; it proceeded from cause to effect, from premise to conclusion, with steady precision. The human intellect is fallible; my machine was, and is, infallible in its processes.

  “Again, physiology and anatomy taught me the fallacy of the medical superstition which holds the gray matter of the brain and the vital principle to be inseparable. I had seen men living with pistol balls imbedded in the medulla oblongata. I had seen the hemispheres and the cerebellum removed from the crania of birds and small animals, and yet they did not die. I believed that, though the brain were to be removed from a human skull, the subject would not die, although he would certainly be divested of the intelligence which governed all save the purely involuntary actions of the body.

  “Once more: a profound study of history from the sociological point of view, and a not inconsiderable practical experience of human nature, had convinced me that the greatest geniuses that ever existed were on a plane not so very far removed above the level of the average intellect. The grandest peaks in my native country, those which all the world knows by name, tower only a few hundred feet over the countless unnamed peaks that surround them. Napoleon Bonaparte towered only a little over the ablest men around him, yet that little was everything, and he overran Europe. A man who surpassed Napoleon, as Napoleon surpassed Murat, in the mental qualities which transmute thought into fact, would have made himself master of the whole world.