Stooping down, he picked up something from the floor. It was a lady’s purse,—a gorgeous affair, of crimson leather and gleaming gold. Whether it was Marjorie’s or Miss Grayling’s I could not tell. He watched me as I examined it.
‘Is it yours?’
‘No. It is not mine.’
Placing his hat and umbrella on one chair, he placed himself upon another,—very leisurely. Crossing his legs, laying his folded hands upon his knees, he sat and looked at me. I was quite conscious of his observation; but endured it in silence, being a little wishful that he should begin.
Presently he had, as I suppose, enough of looking at me, and spoke.
‘Atherton, what is the matter with you?—Have I done something to offend you too?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Your manner seems a little singular.’
‘You think so?’
‘I do.’
‘What have you come to see me about?’
‘Just now, nothing.—I like to know where I stand.’
His manner was courteous, easy, even graceful. I was outmanoeuvred. I understood the man sufficiently well to be aware that when once he was on the defensive, the first blow would have to come from me. So I struck it.
‘I, also, like to know where I stand.—Lessingham, I am aware, and you know that I am aware, that you have made certain overtures to Miss Lindon. That is a fact in which I am keenly interested.’
‘As—how?’
‘The Lindons and the Athertons are not the acquaintances of one generation only. Marjorie Lindon and I have been friends since childhood. She looks upon me as a brother—’
‘As a brother?’
‘As a brother.’
‘Yes.’
‘Mr Lindon regains me as a son. He has given me his confidence; as I believe you are aware, Marjorie has given me hers; and now I want you to give me yours.’
‘What do you want to know?’
‘I wish to explain my position before I say what I have to say, because I want you to understand me clearly.—I believe, honestly, that the thing I most desire in this world is to see Marjorie Lindon happy. If I thought she would be happy with you, I should say, God speed you both! and I should congratulate you with all my heart, because I think that you would have won the best girl in the whole world to be your wife.’
‘I think so too.’
‘But, before I did that, I should have to see, at least, some reasonable probability that she would be happy with you.’
‘Why should she not?’
‘Will you answer a question?’
‘What is the question?’
‘What is the story in your life of which you stand in such hideous terror?’
There was a perceptible pause before he answered.
‘Explain yourself.’
‘No explanation is needed,—you know perfectly well what I mean.’
‘You credit me with miraculous acumen.’
‘Don’t juggle, Lessingham,—be frank!’
‘The frankness should not be all on one side.—There is that in your frankness, although you may be unconscious of it, which some men might not unreasonably resent.’
‘Do you resent it?’
‘That depends. If you are arrogating to yourself the right to place yourself between Miss Lindon and me, I do resent it, strongly.’
‘Answer my question!’
‘I answer no question which is addressed to me in such a tone.’
He was as calm as you please. I recognised that already I was in peril of losing my temper,—which was not at all what I desired. I eyed him intently, he returning me look for look. His countenance betrayed no sign of a guilty conscience; I had not seen him more completely at his ease. He smiled,—facially, and also, as it seemed to me, a little derisively. I am bound to admit that his bearing showed not the faintest shadow of resentment, and that in his eyes there was a gentleness, a softness, which I had not observed in them before,—I could almost have suspected him of being sympathetic.
‘In this matter, you must know, I stand in the place of Mr Lindon.’
‘Well?’
‘Surely you must understand that before anyone is allowed to think of marriage with Marjorie Lindon he will have to show that his past, as the advertisements have it, will bear the fullest investigation.’
‘Is that so?—Will your past bear the fullest investigation?’
I winced.
‘At any rate, it is known to all the world.’
‘Is it?—Forgive me if I say, I doubt it. I doubt if, of any wise man, that can be said with truth. In all our lives there are episodes which we keep to ourselves.’
I felt that that was so true that, for the instant, I hardly knew what to say.
‘But there are episodes and episodes, and when it comes to a man being haunted one draws the line.’
‘Haunted?’
‘As you are.’
He got up.
‘Atherton, I think that I understand you, but I fear that you do not understand me.’ He went to where a self-acting mercurial air-pump was standing on a shelf. ‘What is this curious arrangement of glass tubes and bulbs?’
‘I do not think that you do understand me, or you would know that I am in no mood to be trifled with.’
‘Is it some kind of an exhauster?’
‘My dear Lessingham, I am entirely at your service. I intend to have an answer to my question before you leave this room, but, in the meanwhile, your convenience is mine. There are some very interesting things here which you might care to see.’
‘Marvellous, is it not, how the human intellect progresses,—from conquest unto conquest.’
‘Among the ancients the progression had proceeded farther than with us.’
‘In what respect?’
‘For instance, in the affair of the Apotheosis of the Beetle;—I saw it take place last night.’
‘Where?’
‘Here,—within a few feet of where you are standing.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Perfectly.’
‘What did you see?’
‘I saw the legendary Apotheosis of the Beetle performed, last night, before my eyes, with a gaudy magnificence at which the legends never hinted.’
‘That is odd. I once thought that I saw something of the kind myself.’
‘So I understand.’
‘From whom?’
‘From a friend of yours.’
‘From a friend of mine?—Are you sure it was from a friend of mine?’
The man’s attempt at coolness did him credit,—but it did not deceive me. That he thought I was endeavouring to bluff him out of his secret I perceived quite clearly; that it was a secret which he would only render with his life I was beginning to suspect. Had it not been for Marjorie, I should have cared nothing,—his affairs were his affairs; though I realised perfectly well that there was something about the man which, from the scientific explorer’s point of view, might be well worth finding out. Still, as I say, if it had not been for Marjorie, I should have let it go; but, since she was so intimately concerned in it, I wondered more and more what it could be.
My attitude towards what is called the supernatural is an open one. That all things are possible I unhesitatingly believe,—I have, even in my short time, seen so many so-called impossibilities proved possible. That we know everything, I doubt;—that our great-great-great-great-grandsires, our forebears of thousands of years ago, of the extinct civilisations, knew more on some subjects than we do, I think is, at least, probable. All the legends can hardly be false.
Because men claimed to be able to do things in those days which we cannot do, and which we do not know how they did we profess to think that their claims are finally dismissed by exclaiming—lies! But it is not so
sure.
For my part, what I had seen I had seen. I had seen some devil’s trick played before my very eyes. Some trick of the same sort seemed to have been played upon my Marjorie,—I repeat that I write ‘my Marjorie’ because, to me, she will always be ‘my’ Marjorie! It had driven her half out of her senses. As I looked at Lessingham, I seemed to see her at his side, as I had seen her not long ago, with her white, drawn face, and staring eyes, dumb with an agony of fear. Her life was bidding fair to be knit with his,—what Upas tree of horror was rooted in his very bones? The thought that her sweet purity was likely to be engulfed in a devil’s slough in which he was swallowing was not to be endured. As I realised that the man was more than my match at the game which I was playing—in which such vital interests were at stake!—my hands itched to clutch him by the throat, and try another way.
Doubtless my face revealed my feelings, because, presently, he said, ‘Are you aware how strangely you are looking at me, Atherton? Were my countenance a mirror I think you would be surprised to see in it your own.’
I drew back from him,—I daresay, sullenly.
‘Not so surprised as, yesterday morning, you would have been to have seen yours,—at the mere sight of a pictured scarab.’
‘How easily you quarrel.’
‘I do not quarrel.’
‘Then perhaps it’s I. If that is so, then, at once, the quarrel’s ended,—pouf! it’s done. Mr Lindon, I fear, because, politically, we differ, regards me as anathema. Has he put some of his spirit into you?—You are a wiser man.’
‘I am aware that you are an adept with words. But this is a case in which words only will not serve.’
‘Then what will serve?’
‘I am myself beginning to wonder.’
‘And I.’
‘As you so courteously suggest, I believe I am wiser than Lindon. I do not care for your politics, or for what you call your politics, one fig. I do not care if you are as other men are, as I am,—not unspotted from the world! But I do care if you are leprous. And I believe you are.’
‘Atherton!’
‘Ever since I have known you I have been conscious of there being something about you which I found it difficult to diagnose;—in an unwholesome sense, something out of the common, non-natural; an atmosphere of your own. Events, so far as you are concerned, have, during the last few days moved quickly. They have thrown an uncomfortably lurid light on that peculiarity of yours which I have noticed. Unless you can explain them to my satisfaction, you will withdraw your pretensions to Miss Lindon’s hand, or I shall place certain facts before that lady, and, if necessary, publish them to the world.’
He grew visibly paler but he smiled—facially.
‘You have your own way of conducting a conversation, Mr Atherton.—What are the events to whose rapid transit you are alluding?’
‘Who was the individual, practically stark naked, who came out of your house, in such singular fashion, at dead of night?’
‘Is that one of the facts with which you propose to tickle the public ear?’
‘Is that the only explanation which you have to offer?’
‘Proceed, for the present, with your indictment.’
‘I am not so unobservant as you appear to imagine. There were features about the episode which struck me forcibly at the time, and which have struck me more forcibly since. To suggest, as you did yesterday morning, that it was an ordinary case of burglary, or that the man was a lunatic, is an absurdity.
‘Pardon me,—I did nothing of the kind.’
‘Then what do you suggest?’
‘I suggested, and do suggest, nothing. All the suggestions come from you.’
‘You went very much out of your way to beg me to keep the matter quiet. There is an appearance of suggestion about that.’
‘You take a jaundiced view of all my actions, Mr Atherton. Nothing, to me, could seem more natural.—However,—proceed.’
He had his hands behind his back, and rested them on the edge of the table against which he was leaning. He was undoubtedly ill at ease; but so far I had not made the impression on him, either mentally or morally, which I desired.
‘Who is your Oriental friend?’
‘I do not follow you.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I am certain. Repeat your question.’
‘Who is your Oriental friend?’
‘I was not aware that I had one.’
‘Do you swear that?’
He laughed, a strange laugh.
‘Do you seek to catch me tripping? You conduct your case with too much animus. You must allow me to grasp the exact purport of your inquiry before I can undertake to reply to it on oath.’
‘Are you not aware that at present there is in London an individual who claims to have had a very close, and a very curious, acquaintance with you in the East?’
‘I am not.’
‘That you swear?’
‘That I do swear.’
‘That is singular.’
‘Why is it singular?’
‘Because I fancy that that individual haunts you.’
‘Haunts me?’
‘Haunts you.’
‘You jest.’
‘You think so?—You remember that picture of the scarabaeus which, yesterday morning, frightened you into a state of semi-idiocy.’
‘You use strong language.—I know what you allude to.’
‘Do you mean to say that you don’t know that you were indebted for that to your Oriental friend?’
‘I don’t understand you.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Certainly I am sure.—It occurs to me, Mr Atherton, that an explanation is demanded from you rather than from me. Are you aware that the purport of my presence here is to ask you how that picture found its way into your room?’
‘It was projected by the Lord of the Beetle.’
The words were chance ones,—but they struck a mark.
‘The Lord—’ He faltered,—and stopped. He showed signs of discomposure. ‘I will be frank with you,—since frankness is what you ask.’ His smile, that time, was obviously forced. ‘Recently I have been the victim of delusions;’ there was a pause before the word, ‘of a singular kind. I have feared that they were the result of mental overstrain. Is it possible that you can enlighten me as to their source?’
I was silent. He was putting a great strain upon himself, but the twitching of his lips betrayed him. A little more, and I should reach the other side of Mr Lessingham,—the side which he kept hidden from the world.
‘Who is this—individual whom you speak of as my—Oriental friend?’
‘Being your friend, you should know better than I do.’
‘What sort of man is he to look at?’
‘I did not say it was a man.’
‘But I presume it is a man.’
‘I did not say so.’
He seemed, for a moment, to hold his breath,—and he looked at me with eyes which were not friendly. Then, with a display of self-command which did him credit, he drew himself upright, with an air of dignity which well became him.
‘Atherton, consciously, or unconsciously, you are doing me a serious injustice. I do not know what conception it is which you have formed of me, or on what the conception is founded, but I protest that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, I am as reputable, as honest, and as clean a man as you are.’
‘But you’re haunted.’
‘Haunted?’ He held himself erect, looking me straight in the face. Then a shiver went all over him; the muscles of his mouth twitched; and, in an instant, he was livid. He staggered against the table. ‘Yes, God knows it’s true,—I’m haunted.’
‘So either you’re mad, and therefore unfit to marry; or else you’ve done something which places you outside the tol
erably generous boundaries of civilised society, and are therefore still more unfit to marry. You’re on the horns of a dilemma.’
‘I—I’m the victim of a delusion.’
‘What is the nature of the delusion? Does it take the shape of a—beetle?’
‘Atherton!’
Without the slightest warning, he collapsed,—was transformed; I can describe the change which took place in him in no other way. He sank in a heap on the floor; he held up his hands above his head; and he gibbered,—like some frenzied animal. A more uncomfortable spectacle than he presented it would be difficult to find. I have seen it matched in the padded rooms of lunatic asylums, but nowhere else. The sight of him set every nerve of my body on edge.
‘In Heaven’s name, what is the matter with you, man? Are you stark, staring mad? Here,—drink this!’
Filling a tumbler with brandy, I forced it between his quivering fingers. Then it was some moments before I could get him to understand what it was I wanted him to do. When he did get the glass to his lips, he swallowed its contents as if they were so much water. By degrees his senses returned to him. He stood up. He looked about him, with a smile which was positively ghastly.
‘It’s—it’s a delusion.’
‘It’s a very queer kind of a delusion, if it is.’
I eyed him, curiously. He was evidently making the most strenuous efforts to regain his self-control,—all the while with that horrible smile about his lips.
‘Atherton, you—you take me at an advantage.’ I was still. ‘Who—who’s your Oriental friend?’
‘My Oriental friend?—you mean yours. I supposed, at first, that the individual in question was a man; but it appears that she’s a woman.’
‘A woman?—Oh.—How do you mean?’
‘Well, the face is a man’s—of an uncommonly disagreeable type, of which the powers forbid that there are many!—and the voice is a man’s,—also of a kind!—but the body, as, last night, I chanced to discover, is a woman’s.’
‘That sounds very odd.’ He closed his eyes. I could see that his cheeks were clammy. ‘Do you—do you believe in witchcraft?’
‘That depends.’
‘Have you heard of Obi?’
‘I have.’
‘I have been told that an Obeah man can put a spell upon a person which compels a person to see whatever he—the Obeah man—may please. Do you think that’s possible?’
The Beetle Page 17
