‘Silence!—You know not of what you speak!—I warn you, as I warned Paul Lessingham, be careful not to go too far. Be not like him,—heed my warning.’
‘What is it I am being warned against,—the beetle?’
‘Yes,—the beetle!’
Were I upon oath, and this statement being made, in the presence of witnesses, say, in a solicitor’s office, I standing in fear of pains and penalties, I think that, at this point, I should leave the paper blank. No man likes to own himself a fool, or that he ever was a fool,—and ever since I have been wondering whether, on that occasion, that ‘child of Isis’ did, or did not, play the fool with me. His performance was realistic enough at the time, heaven knows. But, as it gets farther and farther away, I ask myself, more and more confidently, as time effluxes, whether, after all, it was not clever juggling,—superhumanly clever juggling, if you will; that, and nothing more. If it was something more, then, with a vengeance! there is more in heaven and earth than is dreamed of in our philosophy. The mere possibility opens vistas which the sane mind fears to contemplate.
Since, then, I am not on oath, and, should I fall short of verbal accuracy, I do not need to fear the engines of the law, what seemed to happen was this.
He was standing within about ten feet of where I leaned against the edge of the table. The light was full on, so that it was difficult to suppose that I could make a mistake as to what took place in front of me. As he replied to my mocking allusion to the beetle by echoing my own words, he vanished,—or, rather, I saw him taking a different shape before my eyes. His loose draperies all fell off him, and, as they were in the very act of falling, there issued, or there seemed to issue out of them, a monstrous creature of the beetle type,—the man himself was gone. On the point of size I wish to make myself clear. My impression, when I saw it first, was that it was as large as the man had been, and that it was, in some way, standing up on end, the legs towards me. But, the moment it came in view, it began to dwindle, and that so rapidly that, in a couple of seconds at most, a little heap of drapery was lying on the floor, on which was a truly astonishing example of the coleoptera. It appeared to be a beetle. It was, perhaps, six or seven inches high, and about a foot in length. Its scales were of a vivid golden green. I could distinctly see where the wings were sheathed along the back, and, as they seemed to be slightly agitated, I looked, every moment, to see them opened, and the thing take wing.
I was so astonished,—as who would not have been?—that for an appreciable space of time I was practically in a state of stupefaction. I could do nothing but stare. I was acquainted with the legendary transmigrations of Isis, and with the story of the beetle which issues from the woman’s womb through all eternity, and with the other pretty tales, but this, of which I was an actual spectator, was something new, even in legends. If the man, with whom I had just been speaking, was gone, where had he gone to? If this glittering creature was there, in his stead, whence had it come?
I do protest this much, that, after the first shock of surprise had passed, I retained my presence of mind. I felt as an investigator might feel, who has stumbled, haphazard, on some astounding, some epoch-making, discovery. I was conscious that I should have to make the best use of my mental faculties if I was to take full advantage of so astonishing an accident. I kept my glance riveted on the creature, with the idea of photographing it on my brain. I believe that if it were possible to take a retinal print—which it someday will be—you would have a perfect picture of what it was I saw. Beyond doubt it was a lamellicorn, one of the copridae. With the one exception of its monstrous size, there were the characteristics in plain view;—the convex body, the large head, the projecting clypeus. More, its smooth head and throat seemed to suggest that it was a female. Equally beyond a doubt, apart from its size, there were unusual features present too. The eyes were not only unwontedly conspicuous, they gleamed as if they were lighted by internal flames,—in some indescribable fashion they reminded me of my vanished visitor. The colouring was superb, and the creature appeared to have the chameleon-like faculty of lightening and darkening the shades at will. Its not least curious feature was its restlessness. It was in a state of continual agitation; and, as if it resented my inspection, the more I looked at it the more its agitation grew. As I have said, I expected every moment to see it take wing and circle through the air.
All the while I was casting about in my mind as to what means I could use to effect its capture. I did think of killing it, and, on the whole, I rather wish that I had at any rate attempted slaughter,—there were dozens of things, lying ready to my hand, any one of which would have severely tried its constitution;—but, on the spur of the moment, the only method of taking it alive which occurred to me, was to pop over it a big tin canister which had contained soda-lime. This canister was on the floor to my left. I moved towards it, as nonchalantly as I could, keeping an eye on that shining wonder all the time. Directly I moved, its agitation perceptibly increased,—it was, so to speak, all one whirr of tremblement; it scintillated, as if its coloured scales had been so many prisms; it began to unsheath its wings, as if it had finally decided that it would make use of them. Picking up the tin, disembarrassing it of its lid, I sprang towards my intended victim. Its wings opened wide; obviously it was about to rise; but it was too late. Before it had cleared the ground, the tin was over it.
It remained over it, however, for an instant only. I had stumbled, in my haste, and, in my effort to save myself from falling face foremost on to the floor, I was compelled to remove my hands from the tin. Before I was able to replace them, the tin was sent flying, and, while I was still partially recumbent, within eighteen inches of me, that beetle swelled and swelled, until it had assumed its former portentous dimensions, when, as it seemed, it was enveloped by a human shape, and in less time than no time, there stood in front of me, naked from top to toe, my truly versatile oriental friend. One startling fact nudity revealed,—that I had been egregiously mistaken on the question of sex. My visitor was not a man, but a woman, and, judging from the brief glimpse which I had of her body, by no means old or ill-shaped either.
If that transformation was not a bewildering one, then two and two make five. The most level-headed scientist would temporarily have lost his mental equipoise on witnessing such a quick change as that within a span or two of his own nose I was not only witless, I was breathless too,—I could only gape. And, while I gaped, the woman, stooping down, picking up her draperies, began to huddle them on her anyhow,—and, also, to skeddadle towards the door which led into the yard. When I observed this last manoeuvre, to some extent I did rise to the requirements of the situation. Leaping up, I rushed to stay her flight.
‘Stop!’ I shouted.
But she was too quick for me. Ere I could reach her, she had opened the door, and was through it,—and, what was more, she had slammed it in my face. In my excitement, I did some fumbling with the handle. When, in my turn, I was in the yard, she was out of sight. I did fancy I saw a dim form disappearing over the wall at the further side, and I made for it as fast as I knew how. I clambered on to the wall, looking this way and that, but there was nothing and no one to be seen. I listened for the sound of retreating footsteps, but all was still. Apparently I had the entire neighbourhood to my own sweet self. My visitor had vanished. Time devoted to pursuit I felt would be time ill-spent.
As I returned across the yard, Woodville, who still was taking his rest under the open canopy of heaven, sat up. Seemingly my approach had roused him out of slumber. At sight of me he rubbed his eyes, and yawned, and blinked.
‘I say,’ he remarked, not at all unreasonably, ‘where am I?’
‘You’re on holy—or on haunted ground,—hang me if I quite know which!—but that’s where you are, my boy.’
‘By Jove!—I am feeling queer!—I have got a headache, don’t you know.’
‘I shouldn’t be in the least surprised at anything you have, or haven’t,�
�I’m beyond surprise. It’s a drop of whisky you are wanting,—and what I’m wanting too,—only, for goodness sake, drop me none of your drops! Mine is a case for a bottle at the least.’
I put my arm through his, and went with him into the laboratory. And, when we were in, I shut, and locked, and barred the door.
CHAPTER XIX
THE LADY RAGES
DORA GRAYLING STOOD IN THE DOORWAY.
‘I told your servant he need not trouble to show me in,—and I’ve come without my aunt. I hope I’m not intruding.’
She was—confoundedly; and it was on the tip of my tongue to tell her so. She came into the room, with twinkling eyes, looking radiantly happy,—that sort of look which makes even a plain young woman prepossessing.
‘Am I intruding?—I believe I am.’
She held out her hand, while she was still a dozen feet away, and when I did not at once dash forward to make a clutch at it, she shook her head and made a little mouth at me.
‘What’s the matter with you?—Aren’t you well?’
I was not well,—I was very far from well. I was as unwell as I could be without being positively ill, and any person of common discernment would have perceived it at a glance. At the same time I was not going to admit anything of the kind to her.
‘Thank you,—I am perfectly well.’
‘Then, if I were you, I would endeavour to become imperfectly well; a little imperfection in that direction might make you appear to more advantage.’
‘I am afraid that that I am not one of those persons who ever do appear to much advantage,—did I not tell you so last night?’
‘I believe you did say something of the kind,—it’s very good of you to remember. Have you forgotten something else which you said to me last night?’
‘You can hardly expect me to keep fresh in my memory all the follies of which my tongue is guilty.’
‘Thank you.—That is quite enough.—Good-day.’
She turned as if to go.
‘Miss Grayling!’
‘Mr Atherton?’
‘What’s the matter?—What have I been saying now?’
‘Last night you invited me to come and see you this morning,—is that one of the follies of which your tongue was guilty?’
The engagement had escaped my recollection—it is a fact—and my face betrayed me.
‘You had forgotten?’ Her cheeks flamed; her eyes sparkled. ‘You must pardon my stupidity for not having understood that the imitation was of that general kind which is never meant to be acted on.’
She was half way to the door before I stopped her,—I had to take her by the shoulder to do it.
‘Miss Grayling!—You are hard on me.’
‘I suppose I am.—Is anything harder than to be intruded on by an undesired, and unexpected, guest?’
‘Now you are harder still.—If you knew what I have gone through since our conversation of last night, in your strength you would be merciful.’
‘Indeed?—What have you gone through?’
I hesitated. What I actually had gone through I certainly did not propose to tell her. Other reasons apart I did not desire to seem madder than I admittedly am,—and I lacked sufficient plausibility to enable me to concoct, on the spur of the moment, a plain tale of the doings of my midnight visitor which would have suggested that the narrator was perfectly sane. So I fenced,—or tried to.
‘For one thing,—I have had no sleep.’
I had not,—not one single wink. When I did get between the sheets, ‘all night I lay in agony,’ I suffered from that worst form of nightmare,—the nightmare of the man who is wide awake. There was continually before my fevered eyes the strange figure of that Nameless Thing. I had often smiled at tales of haunted folk,—here was I one of them. My feelings were not rendered more agreeable by a strengthening conviction that if I had only retained the normal attitude of a scientific observer I should, in all probability, have solved the mystery of my oriental friend, and that his example of the genus of copridae might have been pinned,—by a very large pin!—on a piece—a monstrous piece!—of cork. It was, galling to reflect that he and I had played together a game of bluff,—a game at which civilisation was once more proved to be a failure.
She could not have seen all this in my face; but she saw something—because her own look softened.
‘You do look tired.’ She seemed to be casting about in her own mind for a cause. ‘You have been worrying.’ She glanced round the big laboratory. ‘Have you been spending the night in this—wizard’s cave?’
‘Pretty well’
‘Oh!’
The monosyllable, as she uttered it, was big with meaning. Uninvited, she seated herself in an arm-chair, a huge old thing, of shagreen leather, which would have held half a dozen of her. Demure in it she looked, like an agreeable reminiscence, alive, and a little up-to-date, of the women of long ago. Her dove grey eyes seemed to perceive so much more than they cared to show.
‘How is it that you have forgotten that you asked me to come?—didn’t you mean it?’
‘Of course I meant it.’
‘Then how is it you’ve forgotten?’
‘I didn’t forget.’
‘Don’t tell fibs.—Something is the matter,—tell me what it is.—Is it that I am too early?’
‘Nothing of the sort,—you couldn’t be too early.’
‘Thank you.—When you pay a compliment, even so neat an one as that, sometimes, you should look as if you meant it.—It is early,—I know it’s early, but afterwards I want you to come to lunch. I told aunt that I would bring you back with me.’
‘You are much better to me than I deserve.’
‘Perhaps.’ A tone came into her voice which was almost pathetic. ‘I think that to some men women are almost better than they deserve. I don’t know why. I suppose it pleases them. It is odd.’ There was a different intonation,—a dryness. ‘Have you forgotten what I came for?’
‘Not a bit of it,—I am not quite the brute I seem. You came to see an illustration of that pleasant little fancy of mine for slaughtering my fellows. The fact is, I’m hardly in a mood for that just now,—I’ve been illustrating it too much already.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, for one thing it’s been murdering Lessingham’s cat.’
‘Mr Lessingham’s cat?’
‘Then it almost murdered Percy Woodville.’
‘Mr Atherton!—I wish you wouldn’t talk like that.’
‘It’s a fact. It was a question of a little matter in a wrong place, and, if it hadn’t been for something very like a miracle, he’d be dead.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t have anything to do with such things—I hate them.’
I stared.
‘Hate them?—I thought you’d come to see an illustration.’
‘And pray what was your notion of an illustration?’
‘Well, another cat would have had to be killed, at least.’
‘And do you suppose that I would have sat still while a cat was being killed for my—edification?’
‘It needn’t necessarily have been a cat, but something would have had to be killed,—how are you going to illustrate the death-dealing propensities of a weapon of that sort without it?’
‘Is it possible that you imagine that I came here to see something killed?’
‘Then for what did you come?’
I do not know what there was about the question which was startling, but as soon as it was out, she went a fiery red.
‘Because I was a fool.’
I was bewildered. Either she had got out of the wrong side of bed, or I had,—or we both had. Here she was, assailing me, hammer and tongs, so far as I could see, for absolutely nothing.
‘You are pleased to be satirical at my expense.’
‘I sh
ould not dare. Your detection of me would be so painfully rapid.’
I was in no mood for jangling. I turned a little away from her. Immediately she was at my elbow.
‘Mr Atherton?’
‘Miss Grayling.’
‘Are you cross with me?’
‘Why should I be? If it pleases you to laugh at my stupidity you are completely justified.’
‘But you are not stupid.’
‘No?—Nor you satirical.’
‘You are not stupid,—you know you are not stupid; it was only stupidity on my part to pretend that you were.’
‘It is very good of you to say so.—But I fear that I am an indifferent host. Although you would not care for an illustration, there may be other things which you might find amusing.’
‘Why do you keep on snubbing me?’
‘I keep on snubbing you!’
‘You are always snubbing me,—you know you are. Some times I feel as if I hated you.’
‘Miss Grayling!’
‘I do! I do! I do!’
‘After all, it is only natural.’
‘That is how you talk,—as if I were a child, and you were,—oh I don’t know what.—Well, Mr Atherton, I am sorry to be obliged to leave you. I have enjoyed my visit very much. I only hope I have not seemed too intrusive.’
She flounced—‘flounce’ was the only appropriate word!—out of the room before I could stop her. I caught her in the passage.
‘Miss Grayling, I entreat you—’
‘Pray do not entreat me, Mr Atherton.’ Standing still she turned to me. ‘I would rather show myself to the door as I showed myself in, but, if that is impossible, might I ask you not to speak to me between this and the street?’
The hint was broad enough, even for me. I escorted her through the hall without a word,—in perfect silence she shook the dust of my abode from off her feet.
I had made a pretty mess of things. I felt it as I stood on the top of the steps and watched her going,—she was walking off at four miles an hour; I had not even ventured to ask to be allowed to call a hansom.
The Beetle Page 14
