by John Buchan
I sat there staring at the figure in the glow of the one lamp, which seemed to wax more formidable as I looked, and a thousandfold more sinister. I saw the hideous roundness of his head, the mercilessness of his eyes, so that I wondered how I had ever thought him handsome. But now that most of his game was spoiled he only seemed the greater, the more assured. Were there no gaps in his defences? He had kinks in him — witness the silly rhyme which had given me the first clue. . . . Was there no weakness in that panoply which I could use? Physical fear — physical pain — could anything be done with that?
I got to my feet with a blind notion of closing with him. He divined my intention, for he showed something in his hand which gleamed dully. “Take care,” he said. “I can defend myself against any maniac.”
“Put it away,” I said hopelessly. “You’re safe enough from me. My God, I hope that somewhere there is a hell.” I felt as feeble as a babe, and all the while the thought of the little boy was driving me mad.
*****
Suddenly I saw Medina’s eyes look over my shoulder. Someone had come into the room, and I turned and found Kharáma.
He was in evening dress, wearing a turban, and in the dusk his dark malign face seemed an embodied sneer at my helplessness. I did not see how Medina took his arrival, for all at once something seemed to give in my head. For the Indian I felt now none of the awe which I had for the other, only a flaming, overpowering hate. That this foul thing out of the East should pursue his devilries unchecked seemed to me beyond bearing. I forgot Medina’s pistol and everything else, and went for him like a wild beast.
He dodged me, and, before I knew, had pulled off his turban, and tossed it in my face.
“Don’t be an old ass, Dick,” he said.
Panting with fury, I stopped short and stared. The voice was Sandy’s, and so was the figure. . . . And the face, too, when I came to look into it. He had done something with the corners of his eyebrows and tinted the lids with kohl, but the eyes, which I had never before seen properly opened, were those of my friend.
“What an artist the world has lost in me!” he laughed, and tried to tidy his disordered hair.
Then he nodded to Medina. “We meet again sooner than we expected. I missed my train, and came to look for Dick. . . . Lay down that pistol, please. I happen to be armed too, you see. It’s no case for shooting anyhow. Do you mind if I smoke?”
He flung himself into an arm-chair and lit a cigarette. Once more I was conscious of my surroundings, for hitherto for all I knew I might have been arguing in a desert. My eyes had cleared and my brain was beginning to work again. I saw the great room with its tiers of books, some glimmering, some dusky; Sandy taking his ease in his chair and gazing placidly up into Medina’s face; Medina with his jaw set but his eyes troubled — yes, for the first time I saw flickers of perplexity in those eyes.
“Dick, I suppose, has been reasoning with you,” Sandy said mildly. “And you have told him that he was a madman? Quite right. He is. You have pointed out to him that his story rests on his unsupported evidence, which no one will believe, for I admit it is an incredible tale. You have warned him that if he opens his mouth you will have him shut up as a lunatic. Is that correct, Dick?
“Well,” he continued, looking blandly at Medina, “that was a natural view for you to take. Only, of course, you made one small error. His evidence will not be unsupported.”
Medina laughed, but there was no ease in his laugh. “Who are the other lunatics?”
“Myself for one. You have interested me for quite a long time, Mr. Medina. I will confess that one of my reasons for coming home in March was to have the privilege of your acquaintance. I have taken a good deal of pains about it. I have followed your own line of studies — indeed, if the present situation weren’t so hectic, I should like to exchange notes with you as a fellow-inquirer. I have traced your career in Central Asia and elsewhere with some precision. I think I know more about you than anybody else in the world.”
Medina made no answer. The tables were turning, and his eyes were chained to the slight figure in the arm-chair.
“All that is very interesting,” Sandy went on, “but it is not quite germane to the subject before us. Kharáma, whom we both remember in his pride, unfortunately died last year. It was kept very secret for obvious reasons — the goodwill of his business was very valuable and depended upon his being alive — and I only heard of it by a lucky accident. So I took the liberty of borrowing his name, Mr. Medina. As Kharáma I was honoured with your confidence. Rather a cad’s trick, you will say, and I agree, but in an affair like this one has no choice of weapons. . . . You did more than confide in me. You trusted me with Miss Victor and the Marquis de la Tour du Pin, when it was important that they should be in safe keeping. . . . I have a good deal of evidence to support Dick.”
“Moonshine!” said Medina. “Two lunacies do not make sense. I deny every detail of your rubbish.”
“Out of the mouth of two or three witnesses,” said Sandy pleasantly. “There is still a third . . . Lavater,” he cried, “come in, we’re ready for you.”
There entered the grey melancholy man, whom I had seen on my first visit here, and in the house behind Little Fardell Street. I noticed that he walked straight to Sandy’s chair, and did not look at Medina.
“Lavater you know already, I think. He used to be a friend of mine, and lately we have resumed the friendship. He was your disciple for some time, but has now relinquished that honour. Lavater will be able to tell the world a good deal about you.”
Medina’s face had become like a mask, and the colour had gone out of it. He may have been a volcano within, but outside he was cold ice. His voice, acid and sneering, came out like drops of chilly water.
“Three lunatics,” he said. “I deny every word you say. No one will believe you. It is a conspiracy of madmen.”
“Let’s talk business anyhow,” said Sandy. “The case against you is proven to the hilt, but let us see how the world will regard it. The strong point on your side is that people don’t like to confess they have been fools. You have been a very popular man, Mr. Medina, and your many friends will be loath to believe that you are a scoundrel. You’ve the hedge of your reputation to protect you. Again, our story is so monstrous that the ordinary Englishman may call it unbelievable, for we are not an imaginative nation. Again we can get no help from the principal sufferers. Miss Victor and Lord Mercot can tell an ugly story of kidnapping, which may get a life-sentence for Odell, and for Newhover if he is caught, but which does not implicate you. That will be a stumbling-block to most juries, who are not as familiar with occult science as you and I. . . . These are your strong points. But consider what we can bring on the other side. You are a propagandist of genius, as I once told Dick, and I can explain just how you have fooled the world — your exploits with Denikin and such-like. Then the three of us can tell a damning story, and tell it from close quarters. It may sound wild, but Dick has some reputation for good sense, and a good many people think that I am not altogether a fool. Finally we have on our side Scotland Yard, which is now gathering in your associates, and we have behind us Julius Victor, who is not without influence. . . . I do not say we can send you to prison, though I think it likely, but we can throw such suspicion on you that for the rest of your days you will be a marked man. You will recognise that for you that means utter failure, for to succeed you must swim in the glory of popular confidence.”
I could see that Medina was shaken at last. “You may damage me with your lies,” he said slowly, “but I will be even with you. You will find me hard to beat.”
“I don’t doubt it,” was Sandy’s answer. “I and my friends do not want victory, we want success. We want David Warcliff.”
There was no answer, and Sandy went on.
“We make you a proposal. The three of us will keep what we know to ourselves. We will pledge ourselves never to breathe a word of it — if you like we will sign a document to say that we acknowledge our mistake. So far as we a
re concerned you may go on and become Prime Minister of Britain or Archbishop of Canterbury, or anything you jolly well like. We don’t exactly love you, but we will not interfere with the adoration of others. I’ll take myself off again to the East with Lavater, and Dick will bury himself in Oxfordshire mud. And in return we ask that you hand over to us David Warcliff in his right mind.”
There was no answer.
Then Sandy made a mistake in tactics. “I believe you are attached to your mother,” he said. “If you accept our offer she will be safe from annoyance. Otherwise — well, she is an important witness.”
The man’s pride was stung to the quick. His mother must have been for him an inner sanctuary, a thing apart from and holier than his fiercest ambitions, the very core and shrine of his monstrous vanity. That she should be used as a bargaining counter stirred something deep and primeval in him, something — let me say it — higher and better than I had imagined. A new and a human fury burned the mask off him like tissue paper.
“You fools!” he cried, and his voice was harsh with rage. “You perfect fools! You will sweat blood for that insult.”
“It’s a fair offer,” said Sandy, never moving a muscle. “Do I understand that you refuse?”
Medina stood on the hearthrug like an animal at bay, and upon my soul I couldn’t but admire him. The flame in his face would have scorched most people into abject fear.
“Go to hell, the pack of you! Out of this house! You will never hear a word from me till you are bleating for mercy. Get out . . .”
*****
His eyes must have been dimmed by his rage, for he did not see Mary enter. She had advanced right up to Sandy’s chair before even I noticed her. She was carrying something in her arms, something which she held close as a mother holds a child.
It was the queer little girl from the house in Palmyra Square. Her hair had grown longer and fell in wisps over her brow and her pale tear-stained cheeks. A most piteous little object she was, with dull blind eyes which seemed to struggle with perpetual terror. She still wore the absurd linen smock, her skinny little legs and arms were bare, and her thin fingers clutched at Mary’s gown.
Then Medina saw her, and Sandy ceased to exist for him. He stared for a second uncomprehendingly, till the passion in his face turned to alarm. “What have you done with her?” he barked, and flung himself forward.
I thought he was going to attack Mary, so I tripped him up. He sprawled on the floor, and since he seemed to have lost all command of himself I reckoned that I had better keep him there. I looked towards Mary, who nodded. “Please tie him up,” she said, and passed me the turban cloth of the late Kharáma.
He fought like a tiger, but Lavater and I with a little help from Sandy managed to truss him fairly tight, supplementing the turban with one of the curtain cords. We laid him in an arm-chair.
“What have you done with her?” he kept on, screwing his head round to look at Mary.
I could not understand his maniacal concern for the little girl, till Mary answered, and I saw what he meant by “her.”
“No one has touched your mother. She is in the house in Palmyra Square.”
Then Mary laid the child down very gently in the chair where Sandy had been sitting and stood erect before Medina.
“I want you to bring back this little boy’s mind,” she said.
I suppose I should have been astonished, but I wasn’t — at least not at her words, though I had not had an inkling beforehand of the truth. All the astonishment I was capable of was reserved for Mary. She stood there looking down on the bound man, her face very pale, her eyes quite gentle, her lips parted as if in expectation. And yet there was something about her so formidable, so implacable, that the other three of us fell into the background. Her presence dominated everything, and the very grace of her body and the mild sadness of her eyes seemed to make her the more terrifying. I know now how Joan of Arc must have looked when she led her troops into battle.
“Do you hear me?” she repeated. “You took away his soul and you can give it back again. That is all I ask of you.”
He choked before he replied. “What boy? I tell you I know nothing. You are all mad.”
“I mean David Warcliff. The others are free now, and he must be free to-night. Free, and in his right mind, as when you carried him off. Surely you understand.”
There was no answer.
“That is all I ask. It is such a little thing. Then we will go away.”
I broke in. “Our offer holds. Do as she asks, and we will never open our mouths about to-night’s work.”
He was not listening to me, nor was she. It was a duel between the two of them, and as she looked at him, his face seemed to grow more dogged and stone-like. If ever he had felt hatred it was for this woman, for it was a conflict between two opposite poles of life, two worlds eternally at war.
“I tell you I know nothing of the brat . . .”
She stopped him with lifted hand. “Oh, do not let us waste time, please. It is far too late for arguing. If you do what I ask we will go away, and you will never be troubled with us again. I promise — we all promise. If you do not, of course we must ruin you.”
I think it was the confidence in her tone which stung him.
“I refuse,” he almost screamed. “I do not know what you mean . . . I defy you. . . . You can proclaim your lies to the world. . . . You will not crush me. I am too strong for you.”
There was no mistaking the finality of that defiance. I thought it put the lid on everything. We could blast the fellow’s reputation no doubt, and win victory; but we had failed, for we were left with that poor little mindless waif. Mary’s face did not change.
“If you refuse, I must try another way”; her voice was as gentle as a mother’s. “I must give David Warcliff back to his father. . . . Dick,” she turned to me, “will you light the fire.”
I obeyed, not knowing what she meant, and in a minute the dry faggots were roaring up the chimney, lighting up our five faces and the mazed child in the chair.
“You have destroyed a soul,” she said, “and you refuse to repair the wrong. I am going to destroy your body, and nothing will ever repair it.”
Then I saw her meaning, and both Sandy and I cried out. Neither of us had led the kind of life which makes a man squeamish, but this was too much for us. But our protests died half-born, after one glance at Mary’s face. She was my own wedded wife, but in that moment I could no more have opposed her than could the poor bemused child. Her spirit seemed to transcend us all and radiate an inexorable command. She stood easily and gracefully, a figure of motherhood and pity rather than of awe. But all the same I did not recognise her; it was a stranger that stood there, a stern goddess that wielded the lightnings. Beyond doubt she meant every word she said, and her quiet voice seemed to deliver judgment as aloof and impersonal as Fate. I could see creeping over Medina’s sullenness the shadow of terror.
“You are a desperate man,” she was saying. “But I am far more desperate. There is nothing on earth that can stand between me and the saving of this child. You know that, don’t you? A body for a soul — a soul for a body — which shall it be?”
The light was reflected from the steel fire-irons, and Medina saw it and shivered.
“You may live a long time, but you will have to live in seclusion. No woman will ever cast eyes on you except to shudder. People will point at you and say ‘There goes the man who was maimed by a woman — because of the soul of a child.’ You will carry your story written on your face for the world to read and laugh and revile.”
She had got at the central nerve of his vanity, for I think that he was ambitious less of achievement than of the personal glory that attends it. I dared not look at her, but I could look at him, and I saw all the passions of hell chase each other over his face. He tried to speak, but only choked. He seemed to bend his whole soul to look at her, and to shiver at what he saw.
She turned her head to glance at the clock on the mantelpi
ece.
“You must decide before the quarter strikes,” she said. “After that there will be no place for repentance. A body for a soul — a soul for a body.”
Then from her black silk reticule she took a little oddly-shaped green bottle. She held it in her hand as if it had been a jewel, and I gulped in horror.
“This is the elixir of death — of death in life, Mr. Medina. It makes comeliness a mockery. It will burn flesh and bone into shapes of hideousness, but it does not kill. Oh no — it does not kill. A body for a soul — a soul for a body.”
It was that, I think, which finished him. The threefold chime which announced the quarter had begun when out of his dry throat came a sound like a clucking hen’s. “I agree,” a voice croaked, seeming to come from without, so queer and far away it was.
“Thank you,” she said, as if someone had opened a door for her. “Dick, will you please make Mr. Medina more comfortable. . . .”
The fire was not replenished, so the quick-burning faggots soon died down. Again the room was shadowy, except for the single lamp that glowed behind Medina’s head.
I cannot describe that last scene, for I do not think my sight was clear, and I know that my head was spinning. The child sat on Mary’s lap, with its eyes held by the glow of light. “You are Gerda . . . you are sleepy . . . now you sleep” — I did not heed the patter, for I was trying to think of homely things which would keep my wits anchored. I thought chiefly of Peter John.
Sandy was crouched on a stool by the hearth. I noticed that he had his hands on his knees, and that from one of them protruded something round and dark, like the point of a pistol barrel. He was taking no chances, but the thing was folly, for we were in the presence of far more potent weapons. Never since the world began was there a scene of such utter humiliation. I shivered at the indecency of it. Medina performed his sinister ritual, but on us spectators it had no more effect than a charade. Mary especially sat watching it with the detachment with which one watches a kindergarten play. The man had suddenly become a mountebank under those fearless eyes.
