It Might Lead Anywhere

by E. R. Punshon

  “Till I came here I had never seen him. I spoke one evening in the old market place before his home. Many listened and scoffed as is the way of those who hear things they do not wish to believe or to understand. Many listened not, as is the way of those who care not neither do they heed. But after I had spoken Brother Brown came to me and we had much talk, and I wrestled greatly to expound to him the Vision. He was much troubled in his mind and he fought hard against me. There was that in his life that held him back.”

  “What was it?” Bobby asked quickly.

  “He did not tell me nor did I ask,” Duke Dell explained. “The past is nothing. It was and it is not. It is now that matters, for Now is the appointed time.”

  “Religious mania,” said Mr. Spencer with an air of relief, for now he felt he knew it all.

  “That ain’t no reason for what he done to me,” grumbled Allen.

  “Was it because of what you said to him that Brown began to interfere with the services at St. Barnabas?” Bobby asked.

  “It was rather a way by which he sought to escape the burden of the truth I laid upon him,” Dell answered. “He sought to escape me in the Church. A poor escape, a weak refuge, poor and weak indeed.”

  “Blasphemy now,” commented Allen, a choir member of long standing. “Assaulting an officer in the discharge of his duty and now it’s blasphemy.”

  “The Church gave him nothing for it had nothing to give,” Dell went on. “A blind alley, leading nowhere. But Brother Brown was greatly troubled, in great distress of mind, troubled again when he found practices in church which he called Romish or popish and he thought wrong. I warned him that none of all that, popish or Romish or anything else, mattered; nothing except the Vision that is high above all such little paltry matters, above all forms or laws or ceremony.”

  “Above the law?” asked Mr. Spencer. “You said above all laws?”

  “The Vision is the only law for those to whom it is given,” Dell answered tranquilly. “For them no other law exists or could exist.”

  “Well, we know where we are with you, anyhow,” observed Mr. Spencer, eyeing him doubtfully. “But you may find the law does exist all the same, vision or none.”

  “What did Brown say that made you think there was something in his past that troubled him?” Bobby asked.

  Duke Dell waved the question aside with some impatience.

  “I forget, I paid no attention,” he said. “I did not ask. It was of no interest or importance. Had he done murder or worse, what was that to him or me if I could lead him to the Vision? Yet it hindered and held him, whatever it was, this memory from the past. He was troubled too by thought of some sacrifice he would have to make, something he valued and that he possessed but seemed to fear he would have to give up. He feared the Vision. He feared it greatly. He feared it would compel him to remember, compel him to give up what he so much valued. That was well, for fear of the Vision is the first step. Fear of the Vision is the beginning of seeing it. So it came. Of all those to whom I have spoken, he was the first to whom it came.” Duke Dell drew himself to the full of his great height so that his head just touched the low ceiling beam, he held out his arms as if in a huge embrace, he glowed with the fire of the intensity of his emotion and his belief. It was as though he had been rapt into another world. He lifted his hands. In the harsh, strained whisper Bobby had heard him use before, he said: “I think that it is coming now.”

  “Look out, sir,” muttered Allen. “He’ll be going for us next. Clean off his nut.”

  Slowly Dell lowered his hands, his tense muscles relaxed, he seemed to shrink as it were and he trembled slightly.

  “It did not come,” he said. “I thought—I hoped. But there was nothing. It faded, faded.” He looked darkly at Mr. Spencer, without interest at Allen, more darkly still at Bobby. “It was your presence prevented it,” he said. “But for you it would have come. Your mind is evil and worldly and unbelieving, and so how could it come?”

  “Assaulting a police officer in the execution of his duty,” commented Allen bitterly. “Blasphemy next and now it’s using insulting language.”

  “You think I frightened away whatever it is you think you see?” Bobby asked. “Doesn’t say much for it, does it? Looks as if I am the stronger. Is that it?”

  Dell seemed a little puzzled by this, as if he had been presented with a new idea he did not quite know what to make of. He began to speak and then paused, uncertain how to continue. Finally he said:

  “Nothing can be stronger than the Vision.”

  “Well, it seems T am,” Bobby suggested, “since apparently it cleared off when it saw me. Of course, I haven’t the least idea what you are talking about. If Brown had seen it, whatever it is, how could he deny it? Why should he, for that matter, if he had really seen it?”

  “He doubted,” Dell said. “Doubt is worse than denial. He told someone he knew about it and he was told in return that he had been drinking too much. That was true in a way.”

  “Who was it told him that?” Bobby asked; and asked eagerly, for he thought the answer might be useful.

  But Dell shook his head.

  “I never asked and he never said,” he replied. “One he had known a long time and who had great influence over him. I know no more. All that was nothing to me, but when I found he doubted what he had seen, I wrestled greatly with him, for I was full of fear for him. I brought him at last to understand that never could any amount of drink have produced or created what he saw. Yet he was not wholly safe. Those who once begin to doubt never are safe. The grain of doubt is always there. There is always the danger that it may sprout again. So for his sake I rejoice—and greatly—that he has been called hence to where he will be for ever in its presence.”

  “If that’s the way you look at it,” Mr. Spencer said, “if you think it’s such a good thing, what has happened, did you take care that it did happen?”

  The question seemed to puzzle Duke Dell, as if he did not fully grasp its meaning.

  “How do you mean? In what way?” he asked; and now his voice seemed more natural, more human, his tone less exalted. “How could I?”

  “Was it you killed him?” demanded Spencer bluntly.

  “Oh no,” Dell answered. “Why should I? Did I kill him to make him safe, is that what you mean? I never thought of that.”

  “You might have done it if you had thought of it?” Spencer insisted.

  “It would have needed much consideration,” Duke Dell said seriously. “If guidance had come—but I don’t think it likely. No. It is one thing to lead back the strayed, even to compel them; another thing altogether to use violence.”

  “You nearly killed him at Chipping Up, didn’t you?” Mr. Spencer pressed.

  “Not knowingly, not willingly,” Duke Dell answered. “If it had happened so, then guidance would have been clear. But it didn’t.” He paused, looking more troubled, more disturbed than he had ever seemed before. “I must go now,” he said. “You have troubled me. And I need rest and quiet. When the Vision nearly comes but not altogether, as just now, then you get the test, the trial, the exhaustion, but there is no revival of strength to follow. I must go,” he repeated.

  He moved towards the door, but there, his back to it, firm, courageous, determined, and badly scared, was Constable Allen. In a voice that shook a little but which all the same contrived to be resolute as well he said:

  ‘No, you don’t, not till Mr. Spencer says.”

  With unexpected meekness, Duke Dell turned.

  “I must have rest and quiet; quiet, that’s what I want. I will go upstairs to rest there if you like.”

  He went stumblingly and heavily up the stairs while the other three watched him with astonishment. Helplessly Mr. Spencer turned to Bobby.

  “What do you make of that?” he asked. “Religious mania? Can we get him certified?”

  “I don’t think so,” Bobby answered. “Not a chance. No doctor would call him irresponsible. All he says is quite coherent.�
�

  “Well, what is it?” Spencer asked. “Hypocrisy? Humbug?”

  “Neither,” Bobby said. “It’s much too dangerous, too formidable, to be either one or the other.”

  “You don’t think it’s real, genuine? I mean all the talk about this Vision of his? You can’t swallow that, can you? You don’t believe it’s real?”

  “There’s an old question,” Bobby said. “As old as man. What is real? Don’t they teach in India that all is illusion, Maya?”

  “No illusion about Brown being murdered,” retorted Spencer crossly; and in an undertone not meant to be heard but that Bobby’s sharp ears picked up, Constable Allen said disgustedly:

  “He’s gone balmy, too. Catching, that’s what it is.” Bobby would have liked to agree to this last remark, but he gave no sign of having heard. Instead he said: “Oh yes, no delusion about the murder, but there’s a difference between illusion and delusion. Duke Dell has certainly had some sort of mental experience. The question is: objective or subjective? I suppose in a sense both are equally real. Obviously, a dream is real in the sense that you have really had it. And it may really affect what you do, which may be real enough.”

  “Yes, but, hang it all,” retorted Spencer. “Where does all that get us?”

  “Isn’t the question rather where did all that get Duke Dell, if anywhere?” Bobby suggested. “Even if Dell’s Vision he talks about is mere imagination, mere imagination may have material results. Dell told us one or two things of interest though. What he says accounts in a very subtle and interesting way for Brown’s outbursts at St. Barnabas, as an effort to escape from some old fear or memory Dell’s preaching had started up again. Our next job is to get to know what it was and if it has anything to do with his murder. Then there’s this old friend he visited. Important to get to know who. May be the key to everything. And apparently he talked about some possession of his he valued but might have to give up. What was that? None of his possessions seem specially valuable.”

  “Except that wireless set,” Mr. Spencer said, looking at it longingly. “He seems to have got New York on it as easily as Home Service. Nothing else.”

  “Do you think there’s any chance,” Bobby suggested, “that there’s something hidden somewhere here that hasn’t been found yet? Something like the key of a deposit safe in Midwych? Or his bank book? Anything like that? There is nothing to show how he lived and he must have had something.”

  “Well, the whole place has been gone over pretty thoroughly,” Mr. Spencer said.

  “Yes, I know,” agreed Bobby, “one can see that—very skilful, very careful search. Obviously. But did your men think of testing the floors or—or the water butt or anything like that, or under the roof? No reason why they should. I’m sure I wouldn’t in their place. But that’s the sort of thing I’m thinking about now.”

  g,” Duke Dell answered. “Then all is yours.”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about,” Spencer said peevishly. “What vision? What’s vision got to do with it?”

  For the first time Duke Dell showed some signs of interest, even of animation.

  “That is what I am here to tell those who have ears to listen,” he answered. “Have you?” he demanded abruptly.

  “The fellow’s off his head,” said Mr. Spencer despairingly.

  “Mr. Dell,” interposed Bobby, “will you please tell us what you know of Brown?”

  “You have not told me yet if what I heard is true?” Dell countered.

  “Mr. Brown was found late last night,” Bobby answered, “or rather early this morning, lying dead with his head battered in. There was nothing to show who was the murderer. The poker had been used.”

  “It is well,” Duke Dell said slowly, as if indeed musing aloud. “It is very well. For his call came after he had seen the Vision and now he knows the truth and now he can never deny it. To deny the Vision is the only sin that those who have seen it can ever sin and for it there can be no forgiveness. So now is Alfred Brown saved for evermore and it is well.”

  “Oh, is it?” snorted Allen in the background. “Been and done it himself as like as not and that’s why he thinks it a bit of all right.”

  “Will you tell us,” Bobby asked again, “anything, everything, you know about him? When did you first meet? Did you know him before you came here?”

  “Till I came here I had never seen him. I spoke one evening in the old market place before his home. Many listened and scoffed as is the way of those who hear things they do not wish to believe or to understand. Many listened not, as is the way of those who care not neither do they heed. But after I had spoken Brother Brown came to me and we had much talk, and I wrestled greatly to expound to him the Vision. He was much troubled in his mind and he fought hard against me. There was that in his life that held him back.”

  “What was it?” Bobby asked quickly.

  “He did not tell me nor did I ask,” Duke Dell explained. “The past is nothing. It was and it is not. It is now that matters, for Now is the appointed time.”

  “Religious mania,” said Mr. Spencer with an air of relief, for now he felt he knew it all.

  “That ain’t no reason for what he done to me,” grumbled Allen.

  “Was it because of what you said to him that Brown began to interfere with the services at St. Barnabas?” Bobby asked.

  “It was rather a way by which he sought to escape the burden of the truth I laid upon him,” Dell answered. “He sought to escape me in the Church. A poor escape, a weak refuge, poor and weak indeed.”

  “Blasphemy now,” commented Allen, a choir member of long standing. “Assaulting an officer in the discharge of his duty and now it’s blasphemy.”

  “The Church gave him nothing for it had nothing to give,” Dell went on. “A blind alley, leading nowhere. But Brother Brown was greatly troubled, in great distress of mind, troubled again when he found practices in church which he called Romish or popish and he thought wrong. I warned him that none of all that, popish or Romish or anything else, mattered; nothing except the Vision that is high above all such little paltry matters, above all forms or laws or ceremony.”

  “Above the law?” asked Mr. Spencer. “You said above all laws?”

  “The Vision is the only law for those to whom it is given,” Dell answered tranquilly. “For them no other law exists or could exist.”

  “Well, we know where we are with you, anyhow,” observed Mr. Spencer, eyeing him doubtfully. “But you may find the law does exist all the same, vision or none.”

  “What did Brown say that made you think there was something in his past that troubled him?” Bobby asked.

  Duke Dell waved the question aside with some impatience.

  “I forget, I paid no attention,” he said. “I did not ask. It was of no interest or importance. Had he done murder or worse, what was that to him or me if I could lead him to the Vision? Yet it hindered and held him, whatever it was, this memory from the past. He was troubled too by thought of some sacrifice he would have to make, something he valued and that he possessed but seemed to fear he would have to give up. He feared the Vision. He feared it greatly. He feared it would compel him to remember, compel him to give up what he so much valued. That was well, for fear of the Vision is the first step. Fear of the Vision is the beginning of seeing it. So it came. Of all those to whom I have spoken, he was the first to whom it came.” Duke Dell drew himself to the full of his great height so that his head just touched the low ceiling beam, he held out his arms as if in a huge embrace, he glowed with the fire of the intensity of his emotion and his belief. It was as though he had been rapt into another world. He lifted his hands. In the harsh, strained whisper Bobby had heard him use before, he said: “I think that it is coming now.”

  “Look out, sir,” muttered Allen. “He’ll be going for us next. Clean off his nut.”

  Slowly Dell lowered his hands, his tense muscles relaxed, he seemed to shrink as it were and he trembled slightly.

  �
��It did not come,” he said. “I thought—I hoped. But there was nothing. It faded, faded.” He looked darkly at Mr. Spencer, without interest at Allen, more darkly still at Bobby. “It was your presence prevented it,” he said. “But for you it would have come. Your mind is evil and worldly and unbelieving, and so how could it come?”

  “Assaulting a police officer in the execution of his duty,” commented Allen bitterly. “Blasphemy next and now it’s using insulting language.”

  “You think I frightened away whatever it is you think you see?” Bobby asked. “Doesn’t say much for it, does it? Looks as if I am the stronger. Is that it?”

  Dell seemed a little puzzled by this, as if he had been presented with a new idea he did not quite know what to make of. He began to speak and then paused, uncertain how to continue. Finally he said:

  “Nothing can be stronger than the Vision.”

  “Well, it seems I am,” Bobby suggested, “since apparently it cleared off when it saw me. Of course, I haven’t the least idea what you are talking about. If Brown had seen it, whatever it is, how could he deny it? Why should he, for that matter, if he had really seen it?”

  “He doubted,” Dell said. “Doubt is worse than denial. He told someone he knew about it and he was told in return that he had been drinking too much. That was true in a way.”

  “Who was it told him that?” Bobby asked; and asked eagerly, for he thought the answer might be useful.

  But Dell shook his head.

  “I never asked and he never said,” he replied. “One he had known a long time and who had great influence over him. I know no more. All that was nothing to me, but when I found he doubted what he had seen, I wrestled greatly with him, for I was full of fear for him. I brought him at last to understand that never could any amount of drink have produced or created what he saw. Yet he was not wholly safe. Those who once begin to doubt never are safe. The grain of doubt is always there. There is always the danger that it may sprout again. So for his sake I rejoice—and greatly—that he has been called hence to where he will be for ever in its presence.”