“That’s quite all right, Mr Stubbs. You will let me know if there’s anything—”
“Of course.”
I left her walking her Pekingese. She was a pretty woman, and healthy, too—good breeding stock, as far as Miss Stopes was concerned. There was no doubt about her determination and dedication to the cause of eugenics. I was pleased that she had tears to shed over her fiancé, and that Miss Bentham was not so very rational as all that.
My next errand took me back to the bungalow of the unfortunate Eric Woods. It was not a long walk, and it gave me a little time to contemplate my next move which might involve a degree of coercion.
The place was as before, and the sound of a child crying told me that Mrs Woods was in residence. However, she was not the subject of my interest. I stationed myself across the road at a nearby bus-stop where a man could wait without attracting attention.
Mrs Woods had mentioned that his friend visited at fortnightly intervals, so I had determined to intercept him. He was on a bicycle, with bicycle clips to keep his Oxford bags from flapping and being caught in the chain. The saddlebags bulged with what I took to be photographic equipment.
As I approached, he looked at me with concern and then alarm. When I was a few paces away, he mounted up and started to pedal away furiously.
I put on a burst of speed that surprised him. He wasn’t the first person to decide that he preferred not to engage in conversation, and I had a turn of speed when I was put to it. I got hold of the rear mudguard with both hands, and the disparity in our weights meant I had little trouble slowing him to a halt.
“I’m sorry to trouble you,” I said. “All I wanted was a word.”
“What about?” He had the alarmed eyes of a rabbit, looking left and right for someone who would save him.
“If you stop pedalling, sir, I’ll explain,” I said.
It was an absurd situation. The fact that I was clinging on to the bicycle and not assaulting his person must have made some impression. And he rightly judged that he was not going to get away.
“Awfully sorry about that,” he said awkwardly, concluding that I was not in fact an assailant and stepping off the bicycle. “But you gave me quite a scare.”
“I do apologise,” I said. “The fault was all on my side. I was anxious that you might go off without talking to me.”
He was a good height and younger than I had first thought, no more than twenty. His features were strong and regular, and his reddish-brown hair was long, the way all the university types wore it in those days. I could see how he might have charmed Mrs Woods.
There was something about his eyes, though. He had an unconscious way of looking at things as though through a lens, as it were, and drinking in details wherever he looked. His was not an intense gaze, but the frank and interested look of one for whom everything was fascinating. In a moment, he had changed completely from apprehension to cordiality. “Tom Reynolds,” he said, and his handshake was firm and manly.
“Harry Stubbs,” I said. I would have fished out a business card, but it seemed that we had passed beyond that.
“Harry Stubbs? My godfathers,” he said, surprised by the name. “I suppose there’s only one Harry Stubbs? You were a friend of Lavinia’s, the lady that runs the Theosophical circle?”
It was my turn to be astonished. “I was,” I said.
“And you saved the day when that séance turned nasty? I was so sorry I missed that. I must have heard that story from six different people. Well, well, well, I am pleased to meet you, Mr Stubbs.”
“Likewise,” I said, placing him. This Tom Reynolds was Tom, the student photographer who had created a photographic record of the Theosophical Circle’s activities to encourage patrons. His pictures of a phantom who rose from ashes had been crisp and clear, not like most of the images you see of supposed psychic phenomena. Unfortunately, this had done nothing to avert the tragic events that broke up the Theosophical Circle.
He looked towards the house and started unbuckling the straps on a saddlebag. “Look, I have to see a friend now, but if you’re free—”
“I’m afraid Mr Woods is not at home,” I said. “His condition required him to be institutionalised.”
He stopped mid-gesture, reinterpreting my appearance in light of the new information, and apprehending that events had taken a turn for the worse. Interestingly, he did not seem keen to talk to Mrs Woods. “Let’s walk to the park,” he said soberly, already wheeling his bicycling along. “You can tell me what’s happened, and I’ll do my best to answer your questions.”
Reynolds had been away at university, and had only come down to London on the morning train. He had not heard from Woods, and had come to make their fortnightly appointment as usual. He had no idea that Woods had displayed his work to a cinema audience, and he groaned when I described the response.
“What did he think he was doing?” Reynolds was baffled by Woods’s action. “This is an experimental scientific study. It’s not something for a suburban matinee audience. What did he expect, a round of applause? He must have had a nervous breakdown.”
“So, you were aware of what he was doing?”
“He was helping me with a photographic experiment,” said Reynolds. “It’s not a movie. Just a sequence of unrelated images.”
Reynolds was looking ahead down the street, framing the view above the handlebars and under the trees as the pavement scrolled by beneath him. Bicycle wheels turned like film in a projector.
“It looked like a movie to me,” I said. He had not seen the finished product, and I described the Phantom of the Cinema as well as I remembered it. Reynolds nodded at the sections he recognised, puzzling over the surtitles that Woods had added. When I finished, there was the sound of the wheels going around and the rubber tyres crushing the ground.
“I wish he’d confided in me,” said Reynolds. “But he was obviously inspired to share it with the world first. I thought he trusted me.”
“I think you had better explain from the beginning,” I said.
“I’ve always tried to push photography beyond photography,” he said. “Pictures of things that have never been pictured, things that nobody thought could be pictured. Infrared, ultraviolet, making visible colours invisible to human eyes. Electrophotography.” He picked up a plane leaf, turning it by its stalk. His gaze swept the park. He was taking in, perhaps, the microscopic insects feeding on the fallen leaves, the geometric arrangement of each leaf, the path through time from leaf to leaf-mould, to bud and bursting into leaf again. “We can see inside bodies with x-rays and other radiations, but seeing inside minds is another matter. The optic nerve turns an external image into a visual impression, so why not reverse the process and turn thoughts back into a pattern of light and capture them on a photographic plate?”
I had no idea how to begin to answer such a question. He might well have asked me how I would go about distilling moonbeams or catching unicorns. I needed to take a step back. “So those pictures in Woods’s film,” I said carefully and slowly. “Those were pictures of his mental images?”
Reynolds screwed up his face.
“It’s difficult to explain to a layman,” he said. “The process involves a certain amount of manipulation. It’s as much an art as a craft, and that’s why Woods was so good at it. But that is the essence of it, making mental images visible.”
“And this is your technique?”
“Oh, no, not mine. I’m no more than an interested amateur having a go at it. You see, you can record what happens at the optic nerve, but it’s just electric snow. We can’t directly recreate it; we have to match the pattern with what it means. It’s like decoding a cipher, but with pictures.”
“I don’t quite follow you,” I said.
“Woods had a whole library of images. He had shelves and shelves of films, and an absolute genius for finding what chimed with a particular brain recording. With a bit of fiddling, he could take a stock image and revamp it to match the mental image. He bui
lt his own machine, which uses an interference pattern to warp an original to match the input when I only got snowstorms and blurs. He’s a wizard.”
“This library of films that he started with… Were they mainly German?”
“Universum,” he said, nodding. “Cheap, and with plenty of surreal images. The result was usually blurry at best, but he was getting better and better.”
“Let me get this straight. A machine captured Woods’s brainwaves, and he turned them into pictures.”
“Not his own brainwaves,” said Reynolds. “They’re wire recordings of mental activity wires. The apparatus isn’t nearly sensitive enough to pick up most people’s thoughts. It’s only certain people with a special aptitude, who generate powerful-enough imagery to show up through the static.”
“People like psychic mediums?” I asked.
Reynolds licked his lips. “I told you, this was a research project. There’s a doctor who makes the brain recordings and sends them to me. They come from…. certain mental patients.”
As he spoke, I could see the Sarcophagus, the electro-magnetic-therapy machine with the oversize helmet that fitted around the patient’s head, and all of those baffling controls. The patient went into it, and the magnetic waves were supposed to damp out their nightmares and their attacks of madness. The record of it was captured on magnetic wires, as though their exhalations had been bottled.
“It’s supposed to be a diagnostic tool,” said Reynolds. “It can show psychologists what is going on in someone’s head.”
“Madness made visible,” I said. “I suppose viewing it would be safe in small doses.”
“I had no idea it would affect Woods like that,” said Reynolds unhappily. “He was always so stable, so focused. I didn’t think he cared about the content. He was just so happy when he could get a clear image.”
I nodded slowly. Eric Woods possessed the gift of being able to decipher the dream-images and throw them onto a screen. And madness piled together upon madness made it crystal clear and showed it to people… It was no wonder it had such a powerful effect on the audience. While it might have been intended to open a window into disturbed minds for clinicians, the images were likely to provoke reactions in those with their own latent psychoses, stirring up things that were better left undisturbed. I could hardly imagine what effect it could have had on Woods himself. “This doctor who you’re dealing with,” I said. “Who is he?”
“I can’t tell you his name,” said Reynolds. “Not until I’ve informed him. Oh, God.” The implications of what Woods had done seemed to be sinking in.
“I think he has some idea already,” I said. “It wouldn’t be a Dr Beltov?”
Reynolds sighed heavily, then nodded.
“I think we’d better go to the cinema,” I said.
The Roxy was shut, but the commissionaire saw us looking in and swept the door open. He was a man of few words but grand gestures. “Enter!” he commanded.
I might have wondered if he was quite sober, but there was no smell of drink on him. As far as he was concerned, it was show business, and he was the gatekeeper to a magical kingdom.
Reynolds and I stopped to look through the little glass window into the projection booth. There was a new man in there, a pimply youth with a scraggly beard. The lights were on, and he was carrying out some sort of maintenance with a whole set of screwdrivers of different sizes beside him.
Mr Bellingham seemed pleased to see me. I introduced him to Reynolds.
“I believe I have identified the source of that disturbing Phantom of the Cinema reel,” I said.
“As a matter of fact, Woods told me himself,” said Bellingham. “He confessed everything, told me that he had created the film himself.”
“So, you know already,” I said. I wondered how long he had known, and whether he would have shared the revelation with me.
“Remarkable, isn’t it?” he said, more wondering than appalled by what Woods had done. “He has hidden depths, that Woods. A pity about his nervous breakdown. It’s the artistic temperament.”
“I’m not sure about that,” I said, but he brushed me aside.
“He’s not in a good way just at present,” he said. “But he has a remarkable future ahead of him. Making pictures, not showing them.”
“We need to talk about that film he brought in,” said Reynolds.
“Absolutely! Have you seen it? You must. We’re having a showing before we open for business, just for the staff. You need to keep seeing it. The first time, it floods the system. It’s too much. It’s like eating a whole box of chocolates at once. You can’t appreciate it.”
“The audience certainly found it troubling,” I said.
“Didn’t they, though?” Bellingham was triumphant. “I have never, not in twenty years, seen an audience react so strongly. It’s a genuine breakthrough. This is the real future of films. It’s not colour, not talkies, but what you saw right here on that screen.”
“It could be damaging to those who see it,” said Reynolds, but Bellingham’s enthusiasm was unstoppable.
“You know they rioted the first time Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring was performed? And when Duchamp displayed his Fountain? There’s never been anything like it in cinema until now.”
“It sounds,” I said, “as though your view on the work in question has turned around.”
“Films can seem banal the first time you see them. Their true worth only shines through after you’ve seen them a few times. But the Phantom of the Cinema—that’s not its real title, of course. That was something that Woods added when he saw the Lon Chaney was coming up. It’s something else. I’m trying to arrange a screening for an invited audience.”
“I don’t think that’s advisable,” said Reynolds.
“I don’t care what you think, young man,” said Bellingham, who was losing his patience. “This is my cinema. I’m making history. That film is mine now.”
“But—” I started.
“I appreciated your help very much, and I wish a very good day to you, Mr Stubbs and Mr Reynolds.”
“We’ll be on our way, then,” I said, donning my bowler. “Thank you for the free tickets, Mr Bellingham.”
I could hardly tell Bellingham to his face that he was deranged, or that repeated viewings of the film had disordered his mind. But I could not allow him to start showing that reel to more people. I stalked down the carpeted hall, wishing I had some help.
“Exit,” said the commissionaire, flinging open the door for me, his eyes glinting.
Chapter Eleven: The Electric Cure
I needed to have a private conference with Dr Beltov about the Phantom of the Cinema and what should be done about it. I also wanted to find out who the doctor was who had incarcerated Ross, and to discuss a few other matters, as well. Unfortunately, I had no time for that, as I was on the rota to assist Dr Easton in the Rose Room.
I went to collect Jenkins from the day room. He was just finishing a game of dominoes, and rather than being heavy-handed I allowed him to conclude his play. Then I felt some thin unaccustomed in my pocket. Taking it out, I saw that my little storm glass, which had been completely clear, was clouding over; dark billows occupied the upper half. The forecast was for a continuation of the long, dry, unseasonably warm spell we had been experiencing. There was no way of knowing what the glass was responding to, but it seemed to me that it was a different sort of weather.
“Turning nasty,” observed Hooper, as though he knew what the glass meant. He made that spiral gesture again with his finger, the Ouroboros. “Turn, turn, it all turns.”
“You’ve seen one of these?” I asked. I had been meaning to talk to him and now I had my opportunity.
“I’ve had my turn,” he said, and his eyes suddenly filled with tears. “It’s another turn of the screw, a funny turn for me and you. The world turns, but what does it turn into? I’d turn my coat, if I was you, Mr Stubbs.”
“Hooper, I wanted to ask you about something,” I said.
>
“Turn and turn about,” he said sadly. “Turn and turn about.”
I could not tell whether he was responding to me, or just killing his half of the conversation with the first words that came to him.
“You knew something of the occult.”
“I turned over a new leaf, turned to books, turned the pages,” he said, and it was a sort of answer to my question. “A turn-up for the books. But you can’t stop the world turning, and I’m turned out!”
“What is the matter?” I asked, but it looked like the moment of clarity had gone.
“Turn away while you can,” he said in a choked voice. “It’s a long road that has no turning wheel – wheel – wheel not meet again, Mr Stubbs. The end is nigh. The end is nigh!”
“What do you mean?”
Hooper was crying now, and Jenkins tugged my elbow. His game was over.
“I’m ready,” said Jenkins. We were already late. Reluctantly and I led Jenkins away, still wondering what Hooper had been saying.
“Isn’t it hydrotherapy this time?” he asked, seeing that our destination was different to the previous treatment.
“I don’t know what it is,” I said. The Rose Room did not have the plumbing for hydrotherapy, so whatever it was, it could not be that. But I did not want to disturb Jenkins unduly. “Dr Easton is in charge.”
Jenkins checked his pace a moment, and I thought he might give me some trouble when I saw he had stopped for an ant on the floor. The place was not so very hygienic, and pests were not uncommon. Jenkins placed a foot over it and very deliberately crushed it into the floor then smiled as though he had done something clever. I said nothing, but could guess his motive. He might be a helpless patient, but to that ant he was a vengeful god. Being able to crush others is a godlike thing, even if they are only insects.
The Rose Room had the same cream-painted walls as the rest of the place, but the ceiling was decorated with garlands of plasterwork roses, painted in red and pink. Easton greeted us with the bluff cheerfulness of one meeting his companions for a good game of golf. I suspected that he was not quite as confident as he would have wished to appear.
Master of Chaos (The Harry Stubbs Adventures Book 4) Page 12
