 Chapter 7 of A Mayfair Magician – A Romance of Criminal Science The funeral of Sir Godfrey was over, and the will had been read. Neither Harold Endstone nor his wife had shown the slightest surprise at its extraordinary provisions. Both accepted the changed conditions with perfect acquiescence, not a little to the absolute surprise of Dr. Halkine and his accomplice. All that Harold said when Mr. Barthgate had finished reading the will was this. I presume, Mr. Barthgate, that this house and everything in it for the time being belongs to me. Unquestionably replied the lawyer, you have fulfilled the first condition, and therefore, during your life all the well to put it into legal phraseology, the messages, tenements and estates are your absolute property to deal with as you please. The trust, which Sir Godfrey imposed upon Dr. Halkine, has reference only to monies and security actually realizable. Thank you, said Harold, with a lock across the room at the professor. In that case, as my legal representative and advisor, I ask you to take precautions to prevent anything, even a scrap of paper, leaving this house, until I have made a thorough examination of my late guardian's papers. Certainly, Mr. Endstone, replied the lawyer, your wishes shall be obeyed, and I will instruct my clerk, if you like, to seal up all the receptacles in which Sir Godfrey might have placed any papers. I must admit that that is a wise precaution of yours, my dear Harold, said Dr. Halkine. But I hope you will allow me, after your examination is over, to have access to the manuscripts, which Sir Godfrey and I have been preparing for several months on a certain subject of very deep interest to the scientific world in general. I can make no promises, said Harold, rather stiffly, until I have gone through everything. When I have done that, I shall be happy to hand over to you anything, which you say is of interest to the scientific world. I don't think I can say anything more than that at present. Not a little to the professor's astonishment, Harold, while he was saying this, returned the gaze of those wonderful eyes of his unclinchingly. Grace, too, was looking at him, and there was a light in her eyes that he had never seen there before. In the solitude of his study that night he discovered the reason for this. The magic of wedlock had done its work. His influence over his daughter, hitherto supreme and unquestionable, was either greatly diminished or entirely destroyed. For his own purposes he had made her believe herself sufficiently in love with Harold Endstone to marry him. But there were deeper depths in the mysteries of the married union than even his philosophy had ever sounded. The artificial had become the real, and what had been only love by suggestion was now the love of the perfect union, whose strength, as he then recognized, now defied all his evil arts to break. I am much obliged to you, he said a little awkwardly, looking from one to the other. You will find the results of a very considerable amount of work which I should not like to lose. As a matter of fact, I have already arranged with the contemporary and two or three continental reviews for publication. It is a matter of deepest regret to me that my friend and colleague died almost at the time when his name was about to become world-famed. It is a southern pity, for without knowing it himself he was one of the greatest scholars and thinkers of his time. Harold acknowledged the tribute to his other father with an inclination of his head and the business of the hour proceeded. I wonder how the dice that fellow got the idea of having everything sealed up, said Halkine to Mr. Dannier, as they walked back to the dower house. Perhaps his wife suggested it to him. From what I have seen of Mr. Harold, Dacre and Stone, I should hardly think he has originality enough to think that out himself, whereas your daughter, my niece, if you please, for the present, interrupted Halkine sharply. There are reasons for that and it doesn't do to use phrases in private which may be used by accident in public. What do you mean? I mean that, as a pretty close student of human nature, as a man of my profession has to be, I have noticed during the last few hours a very considerable change both in your niece and her husband. He has a great deal more initiative than he had, more decision, more penetration. She, well, before her marriage, you know you could, as it were, turn her around your finger. Somehow I don't think you could do it now. That reminds to be proved, said the professor shortly. I think, my dear Halkine, you will find, if I have any skill in such matters that you, with all your own canny skill and deep learning, have managed to run up against something like a brick wall of your own building, which you will find a great deal too hard for your head. What do you mean? asked Halkine. Simply as this, when you arranged this marriage between your niece and Sir Gottfried's heir, you left out one factor in your calculations, and that is the absolute and far-reaching change which marriage produces in the personalities of the man and the woman. There is no doubt, of course, that Young Endstone was deeply and desperately in love with Miss Grace, however artificial her feelings may have been for him. Now, I think you can see that love has won the day. Instead of her subjecting him, as you intended, his love has conquered her. As I believe the prayer book says, they twain are one. I must say it was a curious impression for such a student of human nature as you are to make, and I am half inclined to think that you are right, Daniel, replied Halkine, very quietly, after he had taken a dozen strides in silence. It only, after all, goes to show how desperately complicated this new science of personality really is. Well, if you are right, I suppose I have made a bad mistake. I must admit that I am half afraid it is. And well, if it is, may I ask what it is that you propose to do, continued Mr. Denier. I mean with regard to the paying of the first installment. Oh, you need not have any fear about that, Halkine interrupted somewhat testily. That will be all right. Only, of course, you must see for yourself that it is quite impossible for me to draw such a large sum as that immediately. I will need a considerable amount of skillful arrangement, my dear fellow, said he bluntly, almost rudely. The careful arrangement is your business. Getting the money is mine. To be quite candid with you, I want it. Two or three of my ventures have gone rather badly lately, and I am short. In fact, I must have at least five thousand within a week. You can't possibly have it out of the estate, Denier, so it's no use talking about it. You must see for yourself that the thing is impossible. You know the terms of the will as well as I do. The money is to be used at my discretion for the furtherance of study and research in certain branches of science. How on earth can I realize five thousand pounds within a week after Sir Guthrie's burial? You must see that the thing is absurd. Of course you shall have your money, but there must be something like a decent interval. Hmm, yes, I suppose you're right, but you know I really do want some really cash as soon as I can have it. Can you do anything yourself? I mean in the way of an advance. I think I could let you have a couple of thousands within the week if that would help you over the style, said Halkine. It was nearly all for ready money he could command at the time, but he felt that whatever happened he could not afford to make an enemy of his accomplice at such a juncture as this. Afterwards, when, as he still believed he could do it, he reasserted his power over grace. Everything would be easy. But for the time being his only course was to temporize, even at such a sacrifice. Very well, replied Mr. Denier, if you can manage that I think I can tide over for the present. Only I really must have the money. You shall have it, my dear fellow, replied Halkine, almost cheerfully the moment after. And that was in a couple of days or so. Mr. Barthgate dined at the manor with Harold and his wife and accepted a pressing invitation to spend the night there. The fact is Mr. Barthgate said Harold when grace had left the table and the butler had put out the decanters and retired. The fact is that, as I was saying just now, I do not believe that that will was, well, what shall I say, properly made. I am perfectly certain that my father, as I have always called him and considered him since I was a boy, could never have put in such an absurd condition as that trusty ship without, well, what do you call it? I presume, said Mr. Barthgate, taking a sip at his port, that you allude what we call in law undue influence. Exactly, said Harold, as he lit his cigar. That is just what I mean. Of course, as you know just as well as I do, Sir Guthrie was a trifle eccentric where scientific matters were concerned. I could quite understand a rich man like him making very considerable bequests to recognize scientific institutions and I should be the very last to object to that sort of thing. I owe everything to him. He has been better than a great many fathers might have been to me and has left me a rich man for life. If he had left a million in that way, I should not have grumbled. But what I can't understand is that he should have left the disposal of what I suppose amounts to something like a couple of millions and the interest on them to this man, Halkein. He is Grace's uncle, certainly, but I have never liked the man. I don't know whether you have ever noticed his eyes, but there is a sort of hypnotic power or something of that sort in them and I don't think a man ought to have. Yes, replied Mr. Barthgate slowly. I have noticed them. I have noticed also that on the few occasions on which we have met he has done his best to, as they call it in the stories, fix my gaze. I candidly admit that I share your, we may say, distrust of him and I have always looked the other way. Still, he went on looking contemplatively at the smoke curling from the end of his cigar. As your legal advisor, I ought to tell you that of all things in law, undue influence upon a test-stater in the making of a will is the most difficult to prove. It is, of course, quite possible that those wonderful eyes of his did influence Sir Gottfried to make that extraordinary will. But there is the fact that the instructions which were given to me were written in his own handwriting and signed with his usual signature. I am afraid there is no getting away from that. We may call it eccentricity or anything that we like, but the courts are occupied every day with the eccentricities of testators. And I need hardly remind you that the law recognizes absolutely the right of a man to do what he will with his own, provided always that he is sane and that he executes his will in proper form. Now I really cannot see that there is any proof that Sir Gottfried was not absolutely sane when he gave me those instructions written by his own hand and when he executed the will in my presence. In short, I am afraid, my dear Mr. Enstone, if you are contemplating anything like a contest of the will, I am bound to advise you that you haven't a leg to stand upon. I had better tell you that now than later. Whatever my private opinion of the matter may be, it is my duty to save you from the worry and expense of a lawsuit, which, I am afraid, could only have one end. Yes, replied Harold, leaning back in his chair and taking up his wine glass. Of course you are perfectly right. All the same I am certain that he did not fright out those instructions of his own free will and accord, as they say. It's a most extraordinary thing, Mr. Barthgate. He went on rather awkwardly after little pause. But since I have been married to Grace, I seem to have acquired a curious kind of, um, well, I hardly know what to call it. It's a kind of insight, almost inspiration, one may say, that I certainly never had before. For instance, as I said, I never liked this Dr. Halkine. It was like the old rhyme about Dr. Fell. I could not tell why. Now, although I have not the slightest proof, I feel practically certain that he has been playing a double game all along and that he, and not Sir Guthrie, is the author of these instructions. And he went on leaning forward and putting his elbows on the table. What is more extraordinary still, Grace, who before we were married never had an evil thought of him, believes exactly as I do. Now what do you make of that? Everything and yet nothing, replied the lawyer, with a smile and slight shrug of his shoulders. Everything from what you might call the point of view of moral conviction. But as to the legal view, absolutely nothing. You see, my dear Mr. Endstone, the courts do not go upon convictions. I mean that kind of conviction. They want evidence, fact, proof. Of that you haven't a shred. I don't think that something cannot be discovered when you go through Sir Guthrie's papers. Happy thought, said Harold, emptying his glass and getting up. Let us go into the library and go through his writing desk. I had rather I had you with me when I did it. Grace can come too, because it is quite as much her business as it is mine. I am entirely at your service, said Mr. Barthgate, rising. For the rest of the night, if you like, I am the last man in the world to hold out anything like false hopes. But I may say quite candidly that I do sincerely trust that we may find something tangible to go upon. For, morally speaking, I am just as certain as you are that this Dr. Halkeim, with all due deference to your wife's uncle, is not exactly what he ought to be. He is a man and anyone can see of extraordinary abilities, perhaps too great abilities, and then those eyes of his. As you say, I don't like them. In fact, quite between ourselves, I may say that, during a little conversations they had with Sir Neville Alderson and Dr. Russell Thorpe, Sir Neville distinctly raised the question as to whether he was not one of a good many instances known to medical science of genius run mad. Hmm, said Harold, as I went towards the door. Criminal madness I expect, if that's the case. Chapter 8 A grace gave them coffee in the drawing room, and Harold meanwhile repeated his conversation with Mr. Barthgate in a somewhat condensed form while they were drinking it. It certainly doesn't seem a very dutiful sort of thing to say about one's uncle and a man who really has been as good as the father could have been to me, said Grace, when he had finished. But it's no use trying to be dishonest with one's self, or, she went on with a smile at the solicitor, with one's lawyer. I think I am right there. Am I not, Mr. Barthgate? My dear Mrs. Endstone, he said, leaning forward on the city, putting his elbows on his knees and lips of his fingers together. Of course, you know the old saying that the man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client. I think there is only one greater fool, and that is the patient of the man who is his own doctor. Exactly, she said. And that is something like I feel with regard to this will and my uncle. I have an instinctive feeling, as I have told Harold, that things are not all right. And, to be quite frank, I think just as he does about those instructions. She stopped suddenly, got up from her chair, walked across the room to the fireplace, looked at her own beautiful reflection in the glass for a few moments, then turned back and said, Mr. Barthgate, have you ever heard, um, wait now, yes, it's coming back to me now. What is it? I remember discussing it with my uncle two or three years ago in Paris, after he had been making some of his experiments with Dr. Charcot at the Salpeteria. Yes, that's it. Divided personality. Have you ever heard of that? My dear Mrs. Endstone, replied the lawyer, with a little uplifting of his eyelids. I am afraid I must plead ignorance. I am neither a scientist nor a medical man, and such a term as that is known only to them. Just as I was saying, interrupted Harold, and that is where I believe all the difficulty is going to come in. That is where the professor will trip us up, if he does it anywhere. I'm afraid, Mr. Endstone, you're getting a little beyond my depth. You see, we lawyers have to confine ourselves to hard facts. Nothing else is admitted in evidence. Although I speak of course professionally, we don't find anything else worth studying. In plain English, I really don't know what you are talking about, and I may as well say so sooner as later. It's just as well that you don't want to, loved Harold, because although I know what you mean, I certainly would not explain it to you. Indeed, I never had any idea of the subject at all until I had the idea of becoming the other half of Miss Grace Romanis. Don't talk nonsense, Harold, she said, with a delightfully unsuccessful attempt to be severe. All things considered, I must say, I think this is a rather too serious subject for frivolities of speech. I am duly corrected and conscious of my fault, he loved again. And now suppose we take Mr. Barthgate's advice and proceed from theory to fact. He went on, turning to the solicitor. You will do me the favor of being present when I opened Thurgothry's writing table. With pleasure, he replied, opening the door for Grace. A minute search through the drawers of the writing table, and those of an old Chip and Dale bureau, disclosed nothing more than neatly arranged files of letters, MS books, full of scientific memoranda and accounts relating to the estate. Nothing there that we want at present, said Harold when the search was over. But I have just thought of something else, excuse me a moment. He unlocked the door and went out and in about five minutes he came back with a square sealed envelope in his hand. I think this is what we have been looking for, he said. I just remember then, that Thurgothry used to do a good deal of his work in the small hours of the morning in his bedroom. There is a little safe there, let into the wall and covered with a panel. He told me how to open this, and curiously enough, when all this happened, I forgot about it altogether. If I had got back in time, I have no doubt he would have told me about it. If there are any private instructions, they are here. And dear, he went on putting his hand into the pocket of his dinner jacket, and turning his wife, I have found something else that may be of use to you. He took his hand out, and she saw that it was full of lustrous pearls and glittering diamonds. He spread it out on the table and it took the form of a necklace composed of five rows of exactly matched, strong pearls with a big diamond between each. Fifty thousand pounds worth if it's a shilling, murmured fate, his eyes dilating as he looked upon the wonderful ornament. Sir Godfrey was a great connoisseur in jewels. People say that he had the finest collection in the north of England. Yes, said Harold, taking up the necklace. I know that during our travels he was always buying pearls and diamonds in rubies whenever he could get them. But I did not know that he had got this. Come here, Grace, and let us see how it looks in its place. Is that, she exclaimed, with a little catch in her voice, and taking a step back from him, is that for me? No, Harold, it is altogether too lovely. The very reason why it should be for you, he said, going to her, and putting the strings of splendid gems over her willingly bowed head. There, too lovely, nonsense, it's exactly in its right place, isn't it, Mr. Barthgate? It would be impossible for them to be seen to better advantage, replied the solicitor, with something almost akin to an adoration that was divided between the splinter of the gems and the loveliness of their wearer. And now let us see what there is in this, said Harold, breaking the seal of the envelope. He took a small book bound in limb parchment out of it, and read on the first page in Sir Godfrey's handwriting. Notes of my strange experiences from 10 July, too. He turned to the next page and ran his eye over it and then the next and the next. The others saw his eyelids lift and fall and a shade of grey steel under the bronze of his skin. What is the matter, Harold? said Grace anxiously. Is it anything serious? Yes, he replied slowly, something that may be very serious, I'm afraid. It is apparently a diary that my father kept during the last days of his life. It is... Oh, then, of course, she interrupted. It's something that can only be intended for you. Shall I go if you want to read it? Oh, no, he replied a little awkwardly, as she thought. There is no such hurry as that. I'll have another look at it after you have gone to bed. And now suppose we have some coffee and afterwards you sing as something. During the rest of the evening, Grace noticed that her husband was decidedly constrained and preoccupied. She guessed that his thoughts were really between the pages of the book in his pocket and so about ten she said good night and went upstairs. We will go and have our whiskey and smoke in the library, Mr. Barthgate, if you don't mind, he said to the solicitor, I want to have a talk with you about this diary. With pleasure, replied the other, as he followed him out of the drawing room. When they got into the library, Harold locked the door and began rather abruptly. There is the stand and the soda, Mr. Barthgate, help yourself and sit down. Yes, you may mix me one, too, if you don't mind. When the solicitor was seated, Harold put his hands in his pockets and said, beginning to walk up to him. You remember, of course, Mr. Barthgate, what I said just now about the will and that extraordinary illness which my father had before his absolutely inexplicable suicide. And you will remember also, but never mind, that we'll do afterwards. I have a very strong idea that this diary will throw a good deal of light upon what seemed dark to me in more senses than one. I'm going to ask you to go over it with me and give me your opinion and your advice upon it. With pleasure replied the solicitor, lighting his cigar and leaning back in his armchair. Now, suppose you read slowly and I'll devote myself to the thinking part. Perhaps that would be the best way, replied Harold, sitting down at the table and taking the diary out of his pocket. He opened it and began to read without further command. 10th of July Man knows thyself way, if seeming wise, advice. Impossible even for those who, like myself, have devoted so many years of patient labour to the study of nature and man. Yet I thought I had made some little progress as my reward and here I am confronted in my own being, in my own self, with an insoluble puzzle. But have I really one self or two? Or is it possible that I am afflicted with some obscure mental disease, that perhaps I am going, no, I must not fright or even think of that? For that way darkness lies. I think I have a talk with age. No, I won't. There's been something queer about him since that supper. He has not been at all the same. Or is it my mental vision that has changed? At any rate I dare say he would only laugh at me as he did, I think, today when I forgot about the will. That was a very curious thing, for example. Of course, I have wrote the instructions and signed the will only the other day. And yet sometimes I am seen to have done it weeks or months or years ago. It's all very odd. When Harold is settled I must have a rest and run abroad. At present I had better take some more of age-stonic and go to bed. I hope I shan't have any more of these queer dreams I have been having lately. I must say I don't like the tone of that at all, said Mr. Barshgate, as Harold ceased reading. How on earth can he have forgotten a will that he had only executed? Let me see, yes, two days before. You will like what comes after is still less, said Harold in a hard tone. The next entry is four days later. Listen. 14 July Awake again. Or what is it? Have I been asleep since I wrote that last entry and is this only a dream in the sleep? No, that won't do. A diary is not such stuff as dreams are made of. Besides, I was awake this morning when age brought me some more filthy physics. Remember, too, I forgot to take it. Fizz, instead. Must have done me good. Perhaps woke me up and that's why I'm writing. If age can't stop these infernal dreams, for I am certain those are dreams, even if they are within dreams, as some dreamer of a poet dreamt once about his own dreams. Damn the dreams. I'll have another doctor. I'll have once more. And if that doesn't do, I'll tell Halkein. No, I won't. St. Alderson. Oh, that's terrible, my dear Harold, exclaimed the solicitor, sitting upright. Terrible. Your father could never have written like that even if he had been intoxicated. Or mad, interrupted Harold. Or, at any rate, going mad. Look at the language. Look at that almost imbecile repetition of dreams and dreaming. That, where you know, was a man who was particularly choice in his language. But there is worse to come. The next is dated the 18th. Listen. Dreams in heaven, dreams in hell. Wake on earth when Harold comes. That, said Harold, is all of that one and it is written in a scroll that I can hardly read. Now the next, which is dated a week later, just after we came home, is written in his old hand and perfectly clear and sane. Thank heaven, that mysterious attack of mine is over at last. God grant, I shall never have another. It seems incredible to me that I should have written such nonsense at those last two entries. I have half a mind to burn the thing, but I think I will keep it as a curiosity in mental pathology. It has certainly nonplussed Halkine, at least as far as diagnosis goes. He actually had the assurance to accuse me of taking drugs, hashish and that sort of thing. Never took such a thing in my life, except opium for cholera. Still, whatever it was I must confess, that he has pulled me round very quickly and precious glad I am. What a nurse would have happened if Harold and Grace had come back and found me in the condition I must have been in when I wrote that rubbish. Well, whatever it was, I hope there's an end of it now. But I shall have to be careful. I think, as Halkine says, I have been overdoing it for a good long time now. And as soon as Harold and Grace are one flesh, as the prayer book says, I will be off to the Selkerks and the Rockies for a couple of months or so and try Mother Nature's own cure. I can easily be back for Christmas. Ah, that's better, said Mr. Barsgate, taking a sip at his whiskey and soda. I should say that, mentally speaking, Sir Godfrey was perfectly well when he wrote that. What a thousand pities it was that he didn't go. Yes, replied Harold, between his clenched teeth. Then he went on. Now the next entry is on the evening of our wedding day. Well, they are married enough. And give them everything they deserve and desire. And now for the far west. He paused for a few moments looking closely at the page with straining eyes, out of which he tried hard to keep the almost irrepressible tears. Then he looked up and said in a low half choked voice. There are three others dated at about a week's interval. Very like the first ones, each one more terribly sad than the others. I won't read them. You can look at them yourself afterwards. They all seem to point to some dread necessity, some terrible deed he seems to feel himself forced to do in spite of himself. This is the last one as far as I can make it out. Awake again. How long sleep last time? How long next? I think all dreams now. Edge of pit last night at last. Flames at feet but didn't burn. White unvries like sea snakes. Shapes in front. Seem to know them sometimes. Know nothing now. Dead think or soon. Aged stuff wrong. Can't help not make dreams. All dreams night day, light dark, all dark now, die eye. Her old voice broke completely at the last word. He dropped the book on the table and drank off his whiskey and soda and strode up and down the room in silence for two or three minutes. While Mr. Barthgate took up the diary and looked over the few fateful pages. Well, what do you think of that? said Harold, almost savagely as he stopped abruptly in front of the fireplace and faced him. Really, my dear Endstone, he began hesitatingly. It is so sad, so terrible, so utterly mysterious that until I have had a little time to think over it I really hardly know what to say. There is nothing mysterious about it to me, said Harold between his teeth. It's as plain as the sun in the heavens. Can't you see, Mr. Barthgate, that those few sentences contain the story of a scroll as wild a murder as the wit of man ever devised? End of chapter 8 Chapter 9 OF A MAFARE MAGICIAN A ROMANCE OF CRIMINAL SCIENCE This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org A MAFARE MAGICIAN A ROMANCE OF CRIMINAL SCIENCE by George Griffith Chapter 9 MURDER, MY DEAR Harold! exclaimed the lawyer sitting up with a jerk and dropping a bottle of water here, sitting up with a jerk and dropping his cigar on his legs. Of course you are quite serious, but that is a very terrible word to use. And then, if there was a murderer, there must have been a murderer. Now who on earth can have had any reason to murder Sir Godfrey?" "'Listen for a moment,' replied Harold, slowly, and I think I can make it clear to you. The first of those entries shows my father in what I may call the stage of suspicion. He knows that there is something wrong with him. His memory is playing unaccountable tricks. He even forgets one of the most important acts of his life a few hours after he does it. He speaks of a certain supper. I would give a thousand pounds to know exactly what he had at it. The next three entries mark a swift decline into what I can only, with all due respect to his memory, call madness. Then you will have noticed that madness is relieved by fewer and fewer gleams of reason. Then comes a complete change. The next shows him as sane as ever he was. That was written just after we came home. Then comes the last piteous, serious ending with a ghastly nightmare of words which could only have been written by the hand of a maniac on the verge of self-destruction. The day after that was written my father was found dead in bed, self-destroyed. It was his own hand that killed him, I admit, but it was guided by another, and that was Jenner Halkind's. "'It could hardly have been anyone else,' said the lawyer meditatively, "'because I am perfectly certain, from my knowledge of him, that Sir Godfrey never was addicted to the drug habit, and that being so no one in this part of the country at any rate could possibly have contrived and executed such a, well, I may say, such an infernal plot against the life of an innocent man and a friend. "'But mind you, Harold,' he went on, assuming something of his legal tone in manner, "'I do not wish to inspire you with any false hopes. If he has done it, he has laid his hands with such devilish skill that proof of his guilt, I mean legal proof, is at present totally out of the question.' "'What!' exclaimed Harold angrily, in the face of the facts of his death and this diary, why, surely there isn't a judge or jury with a grain of sense that would not see it just as clearly as I do.' "'Quite possibly, my dear sir,' replied Mr. Barthgate, "'it is quite possible, perhaps probable, that they would see it, but not from your point of view. No conviction, however strong, goes for absolutely nothing in a court of law, and no amount of it would stand for a moment against the hard fact that Sir Godfrey did write those instructions and execute that will. Again, the use of hypnotic influence, or whatever it is, is not recognized in English courts as it is in France as an offense, unless it can be proved that it is used to procure unlawful ends. And that, I need hardly say, is quite impossible in the present unhappy case. "'And do you mean to tell me that how kind, as trustee, will be able to get probate on that will, a will obtained by fraud as it must have been?' "'Legally speaking,' replied the other, "'I cannot see the slightest reason why he should not, and if you will take my advice, which I give you not only as a lawyer, but as your friend, you will keep your suspicions and your convictions to yourself, and join him in applying for probate.' "'What? Help us scoundrel our murderer like how kind to get hold of the spoils of his villainy? You must be joking, my dear sir,' said Harold, ending the sentence with a harsh laugh. "'I was never more serious in my life, Harold,' said Mr. Barthgate, in a tone as grave as his words. "'Please remember that, granting our suspicions are correct, we may have an enemy of no common sort to fight. No ordinary criminal, but a man of both learning and genius, and one, two, who is apparently possessed of extraordinary powers of which we can only guess the nature. With such an adversary, the very worst possible policy would be to show hostility before you have some tangible reason for it, and to draw the sword before you are really ready to strike. "'At present, remember, you have not even a sword to draw!' The old lawyer's cold logic, coupled with the calm judicial tone in which he spoke, acted something like a douche on Harold's heated temper. He saw the wisdom of such a course, the absolute folly of any other for the present, the moment that he got cool. He took two or three more turns up and down the room. Then he stopped at the table, mixed himself another whiskey and soda, and said quietly, and yet with a note of stern determination in his voice, "'Yes, I see what you mean. You are right. I'd rather have repeating rifles with him at a hundred yards, but that won't do here, so I suppose we shall have to fight him with his own weapons as far as we can. And that's not very far, I'm afraid, at present. "'Help yourself to a nightcap, and we'll go to bed and sleep on it. By the way, what about Grace? I suppose she'll have to know sooner or later.' "'And therefore she had better know sooner,' replied Mr. Barthgate after a little pause. Of course, it is by no means a pleasant thing to do, but though she is Halkind's niece, she is also your wife. It will be a great shock to her, no doubt. But if I am any judge of character, she would rather have your confidence now than find out the truth for herself as one day or another she must do. "'You are right again,' said Harold, putting down his empty glass. "'I will show her the diary to-morrow. As somebody or other once said, I will go and seek counsel and dreams, and I'm afraid they won't be very pleasant ones, if I have any.' But when he got upstairs, he found his wife rogued in a flowing teagun of rich dull red silk, trimmed at the neck and wrist with filmy black lace, sitting reading in a deep armchair, in a cozy, exquisitely furnished room, half-boudoir, half-dressing room, which was divided from their bedroom by a heavily curtained archway. "'What? Not in bed yet? Do you know what is nearly twelve, dear?' he said as she laid down the book she was reading, rose, and came to meet him. "'I know, dear,' she replied, as his arm went round her shoulders. "'What do you think I have been reading? Ribose diseases of personality.' Her eyes sought his as she spoke, and for a few moments each looked into the other's soul in silence. They were communing in that new language which love had taught him since they twain were one flesh. "'Then you understand already?' he whispered at length, bending down and laying his lips gently on hers. "'Yes,' she replied as she returned his kiss. I understood as soon as I heard what the doctor said. I think I could almost guess what there is in that diary. It is something very terrible, is it not, Harold?' "'Yes, very. So terrible indeed that I am almost afraid to show it to you. And yet you will have to know what there is in it before very long, painful as it must be to you, dearest.' "'I have suffered that pain already, dear,' she answered softly. "'For I have suspected all that you have, more clearly perhaps, for I, before we were married, of course, was very close to him, so close that I might avenge daughter instead of only his niece. I have some of his power, some of his insight or second sight, or whatever it is. Yes, I could see, but I could not be quite sure. Something always made me doubt at the last. Perhaps he did. "'But how could that be, darling?' he asked incredulously. He has not been near you for six weeks until a few days ago. Distance does not matter very much in such things, I'm afraid,' she replied a little sadly. When sympathy has once been established between the stronger and the weaker, the link will stretch, but its seldom breaks. "'But good heaven's grace,' he exclaimed, as a sudden fear stalled into his soul. "'You are not going to tell me that the bond between you and this man whom—' I may as well say it at once since you understand—' I firmly believe to be my father's murderer—' Still exist?' She slipped out of his arms and went a few paces away from him. Standing with her little red-slippered feet nearly buried in the long fur of the hearthrug, and the soft glow of the shaded electric light falling on her glorious hair and the splendid gems he had just given her, she clasped her hands behind her and faced him, a vision of such perfect, almost unearthly loveliness that his eyes dilated with new wonder, and his pulses left with joy that she was his—holy his. But was she truly holy his? That was the horrible doubt that her very loveliness made the more horrible. Harold, she said in a soft, clear voice, whose music was almost pain to him, "'I do not think that such a bond as existed between my uncle and myself can ever be wholly broken, saved by death. Then if there is justice to be had on earth, he shall stop, Harold, stop. For God's sake, don't say that yet!' She interrupted with a little cry of pain. "'Remember, we do not know. We only suspect. But when we do know, if ever, your wife will be for justice and for you,' she went on with a harder ring in her voice. "'Thank God and you, darling, for that,' he said, taking a step towards her with his hands outstretched. She recalled another step, saying with a note of appeal in her voice, "'No, Harold, please, not now. Wait till I have told you what I have been staying up to tell you, something that I ought to have told you, and yet, no, I didn't tell you because I wouldn't.' "'What on earth do you mean, Grace?' he asked in amazement, the chill grasp of fear taking hold of his heart again. "'You will understand when I tell you, dear?' She replied softly and sadly. "'It is a very terrible thing for a wife to tell a husband who loves her. But I can tell you now, and I will. For you must know it before you give me your confidence, about your father's diary. Then tell me, tell me at once for heaven's sake,' he said hoarsely. "'However, however bad it is, if anything could be bad of you!' "'It is not bad,' Harold,' she replied quietly, yet with a quick flush which brought one of something like shamed was own. "'And yet,' she went on, looking down at the glittering buckle on her red slipper, "'in one sense it is bad because it is—' I ought to rather—it was not natural.' "'No, don't say anything now, dear. Let me tell it my own way. It will be over sooner.' Then, with her eyes looking sadly and yet steadily into his, she went on in a tone which struck him as strangely impersonal and unlike her own. "'I can hardly expect you to believe me, Harold, but it is still the truth that if it had not been for that mysterious bond between my uncle and myself, which I now hate as much as you do, you and I would never have been husband and wife.' "'What! You and I, Grace? Are you going to tell me?' "'I am going to tell you,' she went on, scarcely heeding his interruption, "'that before we were married, I did not love you. I had never loved any man. I did not know what that kind of love was like, and—and I never believed that I should. It is you that have taught me the real love, Harold, but it was my uncle who taught me the sham which you took for the reality. I did not know then that it was not real, that it was only a phantom love, which he had conjured up and projected into my heart, as it were, as I can see now, for his own evil purposes. Yet when I was with you, when I felt your arms round me and your kisses on my lips, I did love you, and that when we were apart it all went away. I had no dreams of you waking or sleeping as other girls have of their lovers. You seemed to be someone else, only an acquaintance, perhaps a friend, but nothing more, until I met you again, and then the strange sham love came back and cheated both you and me. Sham love? Cheat? Nonsense? Impossible, Grace!' he broke in passionately. I would as soon believe falsehood of an angel from heaven as of you. It was not my falsehood, dear. God forbid, she said gently, it was his, but it was a falsehood all the same. I did not bring you the true love of a true woman, and so you were cheated into believing that I had given you what I had not to give. That is all. Can you forgive me, Harold? The next instant she was in his arms again, smiling and unresisting. Forgive you, darling! What is there to forgive to such sweet innocence as yours? Sham or no sham! That strange love gave you to me, and if General Halkine were not what I believed him to be, I could bless him for it, fraud or not. But you have not said everything, dearest. You have one more question to answer. I know what it is, dear. She said so softly that her voice was almost a whisper. You are going to ask me if I love you now. Love you with the real love that a wife should give to her husband with everything else that she has to give. Yes, I do. For when we were married something new, something that I had never dreamed of before, came into my life and seemed to transfigure it. All the world about me was different. My uncle with his terrible influence went farther and farther away, and you, dear, came nearer and nearer. Do you know what that was, Harold, don't you? That was true love. It must have been, for only real love can change the world like that for a woman. Are you satisfied, dear? His answer was not spoken in words. He crushed her up in his arms, and as their lips met his soul said it to hers, and so the first threatening cloud drifted away from the heaven of their perfect happiness. End of Chapter 9 Recording by Todd Chapter 10 Of a Mayfair Magician A Romance of Criminal Science This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. A Mayfair Magician A Romance of Criminal Science by George Griffith Chapter 10 They did not go through the contents of Sir Godfrey's diary that night. They were both too happy in their immediate present to think of anything but the new happiness that each had revealed to the other, and so they wisely left the things of tomorrow to wait on the coming of tomorrow. But when Grace had read the few pregnant and prettiest sentences and interpreted them in the light of her own knowledge, and with the aid of her strange inherited power, she was, if possible, even more firmly convinced of the guilt of the man whom she happily believed to be only her uncle than Harold himself was. At the same time she heartily endorsed Mr. Barthgate's opinion that, for the time being at least, it was absolutely necessary for Harold to keep both his hatred and his suspicions of the Professor completely out of sight. No good and possibly great harm would be done by even allowing him to guess that his conduct was in any way suspected, and so, though it was by far the hardest of the many hard tasks that Harold Enstone had set himself to, he crushed down his desperate desire to take the law into his own hands, and, as he put it, consented to play the hypocrite for the first, and as he developmentally hoped, the last time in his life. It must be confessed, as Grace laughingly told him one night after a dinner at which the Professor and Mr. Denier, now almost his other self, were guests, that he played the part excellently, but that was due to the versatility of his education, and to the iron will which a youth of adventure and peril had endowed him. He treated Jenner Halkine on exactly the same footing as before Sir Godfrey's death. He had never been on really cordial terms with him, and, of course, this fact made his task in the keen-witted Doctor's deception all the easier. He entered with great apparent interest into his various schemes for giving effect to his dead friends' wishes, and gave every assistance in his power to expedite the process of probate. But when the will was proved, and Halkine entered upon his trusteeship, there came to Enstone Manor one fine morning, about a fortnight after the probate, a long blue envelope, the contents of which caused Harold to fling the paper down on the breakfast-table, and jump to his feet with an oath for which he promptly begged his startled wife's pardon. What on earth is the matter, Harold dear? she said, turning pale, for she had never heard a word from his lips that could offend a woman's ear. I beg your pardon a thousand times, Grace, he replied, colouring to his eyes. I ought to be kicked, swearing before a woman, but I think you'll admit that this is about enough to make a fellow forget himself. Would you believe it? That's counter-Halkine. I really refuse to think of him any longer, as any connection to you, has gone and realised a million out of the state investments on his sole authority, and without even consulting Barthgate or myself. A million? said Grace, with a little gasp as she began to realise what evil such a man as her uncle could work with such a huge sum of money at his command. A million? That's a tremendous amount, isn't it? But has he the right to do that by himself? I'm afraid he took very good care to make that all right before he sent my poor father to his suicides grave, replied Harold bitterly. Still, for all that, I'm off up to town as soon as I can get a train, and have it out with him in some way if it's only for the satisfaction of doing it. He's evidently thrown off the mask now, and I may as well do the same, while the Rascal hasn't even a single one of his schemes ready to spend a penny upon honestly. So now, dear, go and get packed up, and tell Jackson to put my usual things together, and we'll catch the midday train from Newcastle. I'll see about the carriage, and send Simmons to the post office with a wire to Mrs. Porter. No, I think we'll go to Browns, as the old Governor always did when he paid a flying visit like this. Are you really serious, Harold? She asked, rising from the table, for they had just finished breakfast when the ill-opened letter arrived. Never more so, dear, he replied with a little forward movement of the chin which told her unmistakably that he meant business. Very well, then, she said quietly, yet wondering what sort of consequence such a journey might have. If you are, I will come with you. Perhaps I may be of some use. They dined in the dignified and quietly luxurious piece of Browns Hotel, last survival of the ancient hostelies of London, which many a generation of county people have made their other home, and as soon as they had finished breakfast the next morning, Harold took a handsome and drove to Bedford Mansions, which was Professor Halkind's town address. He found him sitting over the fruit and sweet meats at the end of a late Oriental breakfast. There was another man at the table with him, and Harold, by some swift intuition, instantly recognized that he was in the presence of no ordinary earth-dweller. Never in all his wanderings had he stood face to face with such a personality as this. As they both rose from the table, Halkind held out his hand and said in his most genial voice, Ah! Good morning, Mr. Endstone! You have given us a pleasant surprise. We were just talking about you. Allow me to have the honour to present you to my colleague, and now co-trustee, Dr. Isorama, whose name I am sure cannot be unfamiliar to you. My friend, this is the Mr. Endstone, son and heir of our lamented friend and brother, Godfrey Endstone. Harold's muscles were quivering under the great effort of will that alone prevented him striking the smooth-spoken lyre and murderer to the floor, but he managed just to touch his hand and say, Good morning, civilly. Then he turned and his eyes met those of his sacramel. He saw a face that was at once the most beautiful and the most piteously impassive he had ever seen. There was something unearthly in its beauty, something almost devilish in its utter lack of human expression. The skin was a clear pale olive. The features were of the purest type of the ancient Egyptian aristocracy. It seemed, indeed, to Harold's wondering eyes that he might have stepped straight out of one of the wall paintings at Luxor or Carnac. His hair, which fell almost to his shoulders, was pure white, yet thick and soft as silk. His brows were still black, and under them, shown a pair of eyes so intensely and brilliantly blue that, unless their owner so willed, it was difficult to look into them for more than a few moments together. Such was Isaac Romal, reader of thoughts and searcher of souls, the outcast adept of the holy mysteries who had broken the most awful vows a mortal can take for the sake of a golden-haired, dark-eyed English girl of twenty. To the world in general he was better known as Professor of English Languages and Literature in the University of London and the most brilliant Oriental Scholar in Europe. There is no need to record the conversation that occupied the best part of the next hour. Suffice it to say that from the moment Isaac Romal began to speak on the subject of his friend's vast projects for the advancement of true science and the inestimable benefits her Godfrey had conferred upon humanity by enabling him to carry out, his anger began to melt away, and the real object of his visit seemed to recede into the background. Even his conviction as to how kind's guilt gradually became fainter. He was also bound to admit the fact that he was able to secure as co-trustee not only a man of absolutely blameless reputation, but also one of the most distinguished scholars in the world, went a very long way towards discounting the probability or fraudulent intention. The magnificent plans that were outlined so distinctly by them completely dazzled him, and he ended by feeling himself almost wholly in sympathy with the very proceedings that he had come to denounce as an insolent fraud. And yet, when he had left the flat and was walking slowly westward, lost in puzzling thought, with every step he took the spell that had been cast over him became weaker and weaker, and his original view of how kind and all his works came out stronger and stronger. When he met Grace at lunch he was one of the angriest and most bewildered men in London. Of course he told her exactly what had happened, and when he had done so she said in a voice which betrayed not a little concern, I am sorry to hear about Dr. Romile, Harold, very sorry. He is really something very different to what he appears to the world, something infinitely more powerful and dangerous than a mere scholar or scientist. What in the name of goodness do you mean, dear? asked her husband, a trifle alarmed by the seriousness of her tone. Do you know anything about this man? Too much to give you very much hope of success against my uncle, I'm afraid, dear, she replied gravely. This doctor, or as he should be called, Lama, Isaac Romile is, or was, one of the Tibetan adepts. Of course you must have learned something about them on your travels, and you know the extraordinary powers which they are credited. Well, my uncle told me several times that all this is actually true of Isaac Romile. I have myself seen him do, apparently just for amusement, the most incomprehensible things, tying a knot in a loop of string, for instance, and turning a closed bag inside out without opening it. Once he told me the whole course of my thoughts for twelve hours without a mistake. I hate the man, if he really is an ordinary man, and I'm afraid I fear him even more than hate him. Whatever you do, Harold, for heaven's sake, don't let him come near me, or I dare not guess what the consequences might be. You can be pretty certain of that, dear, he said a trifle grimly. I have heard of these fellows in their own country, and I know for a fact that they do some of them possess powers that we have no notion of. And, he went on with a laugh, you may rest quite assured that I don't want anyone coming around reading my wife's inmost thoughts when I don't even know them myself. I don't think many of them are hidden from you, dear, she smiled her reply, but quite seriously. I should absolutely dread meeting this man, especially now that he has allied himself with my uncle in this terrible piece of work. I'll take very good care you don't, he said with confidence that was greater than his knowledge. But now, can you tell me what the actual connection between these two worthies is? As far as I know, it began when he was twenty-five or so. He went as naturalist with an expedition which attempted to get into the forbidden city. Every man was killed except my uncle, and he was spared because Isaac Ramel, who was then very high up in the cult, took a fancy to him, or saw some possibilities in him, and claimed him as a disciple. He remained in the monastery with him for three years, and then they both got away. How or why, I don't know. That is all my uncle ever told me, and I never could get him to say another word on the subject. They went out shopping in the afternoon, and just as their Victoria pulled up in front of Jay's, they heard a familiar voice say, Good afternoon! I heard from Halkind this morning that you were in town, and I was going to do myself the pleasure of calling upon you. They looked up, and there stood Mr. Bornholm Denier, faultlessly dressed in the most recent of male modes, and looking the very incarnation of prosperous respectability. Harold helped his wife out, and they shook hands. As they moved towards the shop door, Mr. Denier muttered, just loud enough for him to hear, Will you have a couple of hours to spare before you go back to Endstone? I am very anxious to have a chat with you on a subject which concerns you very deeply. Harold caught a note of real earnestness in his voice, and as he looked up quickly, he saw a look of earnestness, almost of anxiety, on the lawyer's face that convinced him that he really had something of importance to say. Before he replied, he turned to his wife and said, laughingly, I don't suppose you want me to come and do penance at the shrine of St. Mode, do you? If you don't mind, while you are seeing things and trying on, I'll take a turn with Mr. Denier and come back for you in half an hour. I think you would better make it a couple of hours, dear," she smiled and replied. I have two dresses to try on, and ever so much else to do. Then in that case, he said, turning to Denier, we may as well take the carriage and drive down to the Travellers, and have a smoke and a chat there. I will be delighted, replied the lawyer, raising his hat again and bowing as Grace went into the shop. In ten minutes, there was seated in a secluded corner of the almost deserted smoking-room, for it was now late August, and club-land was almost a wilderness. When they had got their cigars going, and the waiter had put half a bottle of the famous Traveller's Port and a couple of glasses before them, Harold turned to his guest and said, Now, Mr. Denier, I am entirely at your service. You can speak as freely here as you could in your own office. There is no one within your shot, and those two or three old stages are either all fast asleep, or very soon will be. Exactly, replied the lawyer, in a low but perfectly distinct tone, such as he and his kind assume by instinct when they approach confidential matters. To save time and get to the point at once, I will begin by saying that I want to talk to you about a matter which concerns you and your fortunes, and something even more than them very closely. Then you can only refer to my late father's death and that extraordinary will he made, said Harold, putting down his glass and looking him straight in the eyes. Yes, that is it, replied Mr. Denier, returning his look for a second, and then dropping his eyelids. To begin with, I am going to ask you to give me your word that nothing I shall say shall go beyond this room, even to your wife, without my consent. Certainly, answered Harold, after a moment's thought. His instinct told him that Halkind's friend and partner, perhaps his accomplice, would not speak like that without pretty good reason, and so he determined to take the risk. Yes, he continued, you have my word on that, and now what is it you have to tell me? End of Chapter 10 Recording by Todd Chapter 11 of A Mayfair Magician, A Romance of Criminal Science This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Campbell Shelp A Mayfair Magician, A Romance of Criminal Science by George Griffith Chapter 11 To be perfectly plain with you, Mr. Endstone replied the lawyer, after a little pause, and with visible embarrassment, I want to make a bargain with you and a confession to you, but I may say at once that the one is contingent on the other. Then suppose we take the bargain first, Mr. Denier, said Harold coldly, and with a thrill of hope running over his nerves, and let me say before you begin that if you are in a position, as I somehow have an idea you are, to throw light upon the mystery of Sir Godfrey's death, and you can satisfy me that you had no act of hand in it, I will pay anything in reason for proofs that will stand legal tests, and hold my tongue about the confession as you call it. What is the figure? Permit me to first explain my position, Mr. Endstone, he replied, passing his hinker chief over his forehead. You will not fully understand the circumstances unless I do. Harold nodded and he went on. It is a painful thing for a man to have to say of himself, but the truth is that, like a good many other men who have had a hard and unequal fight with adverse fortune, I have been, as I may put it, driven off the lines. In other words, it is the old story, Mr. Endstone, the old, old story. Unhappy speculations, losses, debts, and then worse. That is how I came into Jenner Halkein's power, and that, too, is why, in obedience to some whim of his crooked intellect, for the man is as mad as a hatter where what he calls the interests of science are concerned. He forced me to give him my passive, only passive, mark you, assistance in the extraordinary, the almost incomprehensible crime by which he compassed your late father's death. Then he did it, did he, said Harold, between his teeth, forgetting his disgust at the man and his eagerness to learn what he had to say. Prove that and name your price. I can, he replied, wiping his brow again, and if you accept my proposal, I will do so within a week. Halkein's original price for my, er, countenance, which was very necessary to him after the fact, was five thousand as soon as he came into his trusteeship, and a salary of a thousand a year for life as legal advisor to the trust, as well as the return of certain documents even more important to me than the money. Now, as you must know, he has drawn the preposterous sum of a million sterling out of the estate. What does that mean, the development of science? Not a bit of it, Mr. Endstone. To my mind it means bolt. Disappearance of himself and that uncanny friend of his with your father's million, that's what it means. And I presume that it also means, interrupted Harold, with a note of contempt in his voice, that you have come to me because he has refused to give you what you consider to be an adequate share of the set million? In a sense, yes, replied the other awkwardly. I firmly believe that he intends to vanish and leave me in the lurch, perhaps after having sent the documents I spoke of to the home office, so as to secure my retirement for some years from active life, for I am now satisfied, Mr. Endstone, that that man has absolutely no human feelings where the interests of science are concerned. I asked for a twentieth part of his plunder, for it was nothing else, and the return of the documents. He laughed at me and said he could not think of robbing his mistress's science to such an extent for the sake of a lawyer who had been fool enough to get himself into trouble. Of course I did not show my hand. He little knows that the tables are turned now and that he is in my power. Then from that I pursue my may gather, replied Endstone, looking keenly at him, that your power over him consists in your ability to prove him guilty of, well, we will say, of managing the circumstances which led to my father's suicide. Of course if you can do that, and at the same time satisfy me that you had no active part it is merely a question of terms between us. Now to begin with, what can you do? I can prove, replied the lawyer after a little pause. Burst that Halkine began to get Sir Godfrey under the influence of drugs at a little supper that we had at the Dower House the evening after Miss Grace Romance had gone to London. Ah yes, Harold interrupted with some show of eagerness. Yes, I have heard about that supper. In fact, I was so much interested that I told Mr. Barthgate that I would give a thousand pounds to know what my father had at it. I will tell you, said the lawyer quietly, and to show you that I am not trifling with you. I will do that much for nothing. The supper itself was harmless, for we all three had it, but afterwards Sir Godfrey had a small decanter of rare old wine and a box of cigars specially reserved for him. I need to scarcely add that both wine and cigars were drugged. Their effect on Sir Godfrey was perfectly marvelous. His personality was totally changed, and very much for the worse. But how can this be proved, Mr. Denier? Harold interrupted with impatience. I mean proof that would satisfy a judge and jury. I took the precaution of securing a sample of the wine and a couple of the cigars. I thought they might come in useful some day. If we conclude an arrangement, they will be at your service for analysis. Further, I may tell you, that Halkine went back to the manor with Sir Godfrey that night, and the next morning at breakfast showed me Sir Godfrey's instructions for his will, written and signed by his own hand. It was certainly not a forgery. How Halkine obtained it, I have into the remotest notion, though it is certain that he possesses some hypnotic sort of power far beyond the average. After that, during your absence, he kept Sir Godfrey continuously under the influence of drugs. I was careful to secure samples of the so-called medicines that he was giving him to counteract the bad dreams and fits of nervous depression that he was suffering from. Finally, when Sir Godfrey got so bad that both his own doctor and Sir Neville Alderson were called in, he continued what he called his treatment by substituting medicines for what they prescribed. That is the explanation of the mystery which so puzzled the other two men. They thought that Sir Godfrey was a confirmed victim of the drug habit, and had drugs hidden away which he could take without their knowing it. They trusted to Halkine, who was in constant attendance, to stop it, while all the while he was giving him drugs of his own compounding. I had samples of those medicines also. Good God! exclaimed Harold, with an expression of mingled horror and disgust. What an abominable crime, a thousand times worse than ordinary murder, and you, you who posed before the world as a respectable man, you, a husband and a father, knew that this unspeakable villainy was going on under your eyes and never spoke a word or moved a finger to stop it, to save the life of a man who had never harmed you, whose bread you had eaten. Well, I suppose there is no use in telling you just what I think of you. What is your price for these samples, as you call them, and your evidence for? Of course we must have that. Mr. Denier's plump and usually rosy countenance changed to a salopaller at the word evidence. It would be most dangerous for me to give evidence, he said rather faintly. You see the moment that he saw my hand in this. Halkine would, at once, send the documents they spoke of to the home office, and that would mean, candidly speaking, a prosecution for me which I am afraid might result in penal servitude. That, Mr. Denier, replied Harold coldly, is absolutely no concern of mine, and frankly I cannot pretend to sympathize with you. In fact, as a lawyer, you must know that if I do purchase your assistance, I shall myself be compounding a felony. At the same time such offenses as I presume you are hinting at are treated with such absurd leniency nowadays, that at the very utmost you would not get more than five years, which your good behavior would, no doubt, bring down to three and a half. Of that, however, you must make up your mind to take your chance. For my part, I absolutely refuse to move another step in the matter unless you are prepared to write out what they call, I believe, a proof of your evidence and verify it by the usual affidavit. If you do that, I will give you ten thousand down on the day that Halkine is sentenced. If you can get safely out of the country with that before the law lays hold of you well and good. If you are caught and sent to penal servitude, I will undertake to pay your wife, or anyone you may appoint, a thousand a year for the term of your imprisonment. How will that suit you? It is a generous offer, Mr. Endstone, replied the lawyer, but at the same time the risk on my part is very great. Could you not make it twenty thousand down on Halkine's conviction, and let me take my chance? No, sir, replied Harold stiffly. I never make two bargains. Those are my terms. You will take them or leave them according to your own judgment. And now, he went on rising, I must be getting back. I shall expect your answer at Brown's hotel by eight o'clock tonight. No, no, Mr. Endstone, exclaimed the lawyer, also getting up. There is no need for that. You can have it now. I accept, provided, of course, that you give me through your solicitors a proper indemnity and consideration of the assistance I am to give you in bringing the real criminal to justice. When I have that, I will hand over the wine and cigars and medicines and the proof of my evidence properly sworn to. Very well, said Endstone, without turning round. I will see Lawson and Lawson this afternoon. A cool hand to that Mr. Endstone, muttered Mr. Denier to himself as he sat down again to have another cigar and finish the decanter of port. He's as hard as iron, too. I'm rather sorry for myself, but I'll hang Hellkind if I can. It isn't safe that a man like that should be allowed to run loose. I wonder if he'd have paid up if he'd known. Not he. He and that uncanny friend of his would have mesmerized me or something between them and then put me quietly out of the way. No, I think I've done wisely, even if I have to retire from the world for a few years. At any rate, I shall start again with ten or twelve thousand and a clean slate. When he left the club, he saw a tall spare Hindu, clad in the usual tight-fitting white linen trousers and tightly-buttoned frock coat walk slowly past the entrance. The white turbaned head turned and a pair of cold black eyes shot one swift glance at him. Mr. Denier saw the man, but did not notice the glance. There were plenty of orientals in London just then, and he was so preoccupied with his own thoughts that he took no notice of this particular one. He would have had something else to think about if he had known that he had shadowed him from the moment he left his chambers, that he had watched the meeting outside Jays and had followed him and Endstone in a handsome to the club. He would have thought still less of his bargain if he could have listened to the brief conversation which took place about half an hour afterwards in Halkein's flat in Bedford Mansions when Rom Doss, disciple and devoted hunjman of Dr. Izzak Ramal, had made his report. You have done well, Rom Doss, said the doctor, and he who deserves well shall receive much. Now go, and tomorrow at midnight bring me here what more you can learn of the movement of these two sohybes, but disguise yourself well, for neither must think he has seen you before. The wisest of the wisened, the protector of the poor shall be obeyed. He is my father and my mother, and his will is the law of his slave, replied the Hindu with a low salam. That means treachery, Halkein, the doctor continued as Rom Doss vanished noiselessly. That unbelieving dog who has eaten your bread and salt will betray you to watch these pig-eating caffers call their justice. I don't see how he can, said Halkein a little uneasily. I can have him arrested for felony in a week, and I shall do so. He can give nothing but his evidence his oath against mine, and there's not very much doubt which would be believed. Beside there is absolutely no proof. All the medical evidence will go to show that Sir Godfrey gave way to the drug habit, and that he committed suicide under the influence of narcotism. That was the verdict at the inquest, and there is not an atom of proof in existence to upset it. Do not be too sure, my friend, replied the other gently. Remember that the hand of treason is stealthy, and that its eyes see in dark places. I think it would have been better to have paid this man, at least with promises, until Rom Doss could have settled his account for him. That would be better than making an exposure and a scandal in the law courts. Yes, Isa, now that this has happened, I think you are right, and if the scoundrel really does mean to betray me, he has the means of doing so. Well, it is not too late yet for Rom Doss to arrange for a mysterious disappearance. Certainly it will never do to allow a worthless life like that to stand in the way of such splendid schemes as ours. End of Chapter 11. A deep, breathless hush had fallen over the crowded court. The leading counsel for the crown had exercised his right of last reply, and had just sat down. Jenner Halkine stood in the dock looking over the sea of heads and faces below him, with eyes from which, for the time being, day's astonishment, not unmingled with fear, had stolen their almost magic power. Only about a fortnight had passed since he had been arrested without warning, as he was leaving his flat after lunch to pay a visit to his friend the adept. He had been put into a cab and taken to Bow Street. He had been allowed to see no one save his solicitor, and he, it need hardly be said, was not Mr. Bonham Denier, who was just then living with Harold Endstone in a state of semi-confinement, which he accepted because it also meant protection, in the Endstone Townhouse in Eaton Square. The police court proceedings had been ominously brief, and had resulted in the inevitable committal, and within ten days he was standing in the dock at the Old Bailey to answer a charge which had taxed all the ingenuity of the treasury solicitors and their counsel to formulate anything like correctly. A thousand times he had regretted that he had not instantly taken the pitiless advice of Issa Ramal and allowed Ramdost to do the worst on the traitor who had betrayed him, perhaps to the scaffold, certainly to the prison. The unexpected completeness of the case against him, the existence of Sir Godfrey's Diary, the clear proofs of poison furnished by the analysis of the cigars in the wine, which his victim had so much enjoyed at that fatal supper, and of the medicines which, as Sir Neville Alderson and the family doctor had stated under oath, could not but produce exactly the opposite effect to that which they had prescribed, and finally the examination of Sir Godfrey's remains, exhumed at Harold's request by order of the home secretary, all these made up a damning mass of proof which made conviction of some sort inevitable. And now what would it be? The quick death of the scaffold or the living death of the prison. He sat back in his chair in the dock, folded his arms and stared with blank eyes across the well of the court at the judge, who was running rapidly through his notes prior to giving his summing up. A little murmuring sigh and a rustle of garments broke the silence with a note of relief as the judge finished his rapid survey of the evidence and lent forward on his desk with his long quill pen poised characteristically in his right hand. He turned towards the jury and began in cold clear tones, which sounded to Halkine something like the voice of fate itself. Well, gentlemen, I think I might say that the case which has just been concluded is, fortunately for the inhabitants of these islands, practically unique in the annals of our courts. For my own part, I must frankly confess that I find a certain amount of difficulty in performing my part of the work in hand, which, as I need hardly tell you, is to place the legal aspect of the matter before you as clearly as possible. It is your business and your duty to judge of the facts as they have been placed before you by the witnesses and commented upon by the learned counsel for the prosecution and defence. In all my experience, I cannot remember trying a case which was so difficult, because so of streus, so uncommon, so far removed from the ordinary beaten tracks of crime, always supposing that you find that crime has been committed as this one. To begin with, however, I think it is only right to relieve the possible apprehensions of the prisoner and his friends by telling you at once that in English law the primary charge of murder cannot be sustained. As he said this, the judge looked across at the dock. Halkind's eyes widened a little and grew brighter, and a faint flush came into his thin sallow cheeks. A sound of numerous rustling again ran over the court, and Harold Endstone, sitting in the well of the court beside the senior partner of Lawson and Lawson, gritted his teeth in frown, for he was not one of those who believe in the earthly forgiveness of sin. Then the judge went on. Fortunately, perhaps for the prisoner, he is not being tried upon such a charge as this in France. The principal allegation against him is that he made use of certain hypnotic, mesmeric, or other occult powers of which he is supposed to be possessed to induce the late Serb Godfrey Endstone to take into continue taking certain noxious drugs and further that he periodically kept him under the influence of these drugs, increasing or decreasing the severity of the treatment as circumstances demanded until in the end the unfortunate gentleman, driven into mental torment and insanity, committed the fatal act which ended his life. Now gentlemen, as I have said if that were proved against the prisoner in a French court he would be, and I must say I think justly, held guilty of murder and would probably suffer the extreme penalty of the law. The French penal code recognizes the use of such powers for unlawful ends as a felony and if such use results in the death of the victim, the felony becomes the crime of murder. The English law, whether wisely or not, does not recognize these powers at all and therefore I must ask you to dismiss all the allegations as to their use by the accused from your mind. The judge paused again as though to give the jury time to get hold of what he had been saying. The gentlemen in the box looked at each other in something like bewilderment. Halkine caught the eye of Issa Ramal and took comfort from his glance and the audience settled itself into an attitude of complacent expectancy. Then the judge began again making movements of admonition with the feather of his quill towards the jury box. Having done that, you will turn your attention to the actual facts of the case as they have been brought out in evidence and with regard to this part of the case, I am glad to be able to say that the law is perfectly clear, save on one point which I will deal with later on. I will put the matter into a concrete form by referring to a very famous case which I have no doubt will be familiar to all of you. It was the case of a married woman who was charged with murdering her husband by the administration of his certain poison. She was sentenced to death, but the death sentence was subsequently commuted to penal servitude for life. I am sorry to say that a very widespread agitation, as ill-advised as it was ill-informed, was got up with the object of securing the convict's absolute release. It was said with some show of reason that if she murdered her husband she ought to have been hung, and if she did not do so she ought to have been set free. It did not seem to strike any of these good people that there was another course. The evidence in the case was most carefully revised by the most competent tribunal that could be assembled. This tribunal found that the facts clearly showed that she had administered poison with intent to kill, but it was not clear that the poison she had administered was the actual cause of death. She was therefore given the benefit of the doubt, and the sentence she received was the invariable sentence inflicted for a crime second only to actual murder. That, gentlemen, is practically the question which you have to decide in the present case. Did the accused administer these noxious drugs to the deceased in order to bring him so completely under his personal control that, at his suggestion, he should make an entirely unjust and preposterous will, and did he in the second place continue the administration of these drugs until he had driven his unhappy victim into such a condition of mental and moral ruin and collapse that the very suggestion of the word suicide or the idea of it, the giving of a knife or a pistol or a razor, would so act upon a mind temporarily insane as to make the final and fatal act practically inevitable? Now as to the facts. It is to some extent unfortunate that the only direct evidence we have had comes from a distinctly tainted source. In fact, from a man who was to all intents and purposes the ally and the accomplice of the accused. A man who, knowing what was going on, was willing to hold his tongue and defeat the ends of justice for a pecuniary bribe. A man, too, who will himself have to answer charges of a serious nature before very long. If, therefore, you find that the prisoner did commit the acts of which he is accused, you must still bear in mind the fact that the evidence of the witness then year was given, not in the interest of justice, but for the sake of personal revenge and perhaps of personal profit. If this man's evidence stood by itself, I should ask you to look upon it, as I should do myself, with the gravest suspicion, but it so happens that it is very strongly corroborated by the facts disclosed by the government analysis, by the medical evidence, and also, strangely enough, by the hand of the dead man himself. Lastly, the post-mortem examination has revealed the fact that the deceased was at the time of his death suffering so acutely from narcotic poisoning that if the treatment had been continued many days longer he would certainly have died from the effects. Now, gentlemen, the judge continued waving his quill more energetically towards the box. This brings me to the difficult point of the case. If that had happened, the charge must have been one of murder and, in the event of the prisoner being found guilty, he would assuredly have been hung. But this unfortunate gentleman took his own life, of that fact there is no doubt, and therefore the point to which I am going to ask you to give your closest and most earnest attention is the answer to this question. It has been proved beyond the possibility of reasonable doubt that the mental and bodily health of the deceased was wrecked by the influence of drugs whether self-administered or not, and according as you believe or disbelieve the evidence that has been put before you, you will find the prisoner guilty or not guilty of the charge of administering those drugs. But now comes the second and more difficult question which you have to answer. Would the deceased have committed the act which terminated his life had he been in his right senses and in his usual health? If you say yes to that question, the case for the prosecution practically falls to the ground since it is not an offense in English law for a duly qualified physician, such as the accused is, to administer even such drugs to a patient unless an evil attempt can be proved. But if you answer the question in the negative, then the case assumes a very serious aspect since it is quite beyond belief that a man of the high professional and scientific attainments of the accused could possibly have administered these drugs without a full knowledge of what their effect would be. If therefore you find that he caused the deceased to take these drugs unknown to himself, you must also find that he did so with the intention of driving him into insanity and causing him to commit suicide at his suggestion, and in that case you will find the prisoner guilty of the most serious offense known to the law Save One. You will now be good enough to consider your verdict and in doing so, I must ask you to dismiss the question of the will entirely from your mind, save in so far as it is connected with the main charge, with the validity or otherwise of the will this court has absolutely nothing to do. The jury filed out of the box and retired to the little room in which so many human fates have been decided. Halkine had already given up all hope. His defense had been necessarily a very weak one in spite of the great ability of his counsel. The analysis of the cigars and wine and medicine, Sir Godfrey's diary and the result of the post mortem had forced the judge, in spite of his admirable impartiality, to sum up dead against him. He had left these possibilities entirely out of his calculations. In fact, he had not even considered them as such. In about 20 minutes, the jurymen began to come back, the buzz of conversation in the court seized, and the audience settled itself to listen to the words of fate. Halkine's eyes wandered over the box as they took their places. Some of them looked at him furtively and half shyly, and he knew what that meant. Then his glance sought that of Issa Ramal, and the brilliant blue eyes under the dark brows flashed back a signal which he read as meaning. You are doomed, yet hope! When the jury were in their places, the clerk of a reins rose and asked the usual question. Gentlemen, are you agreed upon your verdict? We are, replied the foreman. Do you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty of the charge of administering noxious drugs with intent to do bodily harm? We find him guilty, came the ominous reply. Do you find that the late Sir Godfrey Endstone committed suicide while under the influence of these drugs and that his suicide was the result of their effects? We are fully agreed upon that point also, was the decisive answer. Then that amounts to a verdict of guilty on both counts. The foreman bowed and sat down. Let the prisoner stand up. Now came in clear, hard tones from the judge's lips, and again the ominous pen feather began to move this time towards the dock. Halkine stood up and faced his fate gray-white, but firm lips steady-eyed and composed. General Halkine, the judge began, after a patient and careful trial, you have been convicted, and I must say most justly convicted, of a crime unparalleled in its diabolical ingenuity and its pitiless cruelty. Morally though, I am sorry to say not legally, you are guilty of something worse than murder. Fortunately for you, but unfortunately for the interests of justice, the hitherto unheard of crime of procuring self-murder is not known in English law. Otherwise the sentence which I am about to pass upon you would be the richly deserved one of death. It has been clearly proved that you possess talents of a very high order, great learning and possibly certain powers which are given to few mortals. You have used them, in the light of full knowledge, to commit as you thought with safety to yourself, the crime which I am glad to say has no parallel in the history of wrongdoing. Lineancy in such a case as yours would be an insult to justice. I cannot send you to the scaffold, but it is my duty to protect society against such a miscreant as you have proved yourself to be. Therefore it is my duty to pass one of the heaviest sentences that the law allows, and that is that you be kept in penal servitude for the term of your natural life. The judge gathered his papers together. Jennifer Halkine took a last look at the world he was leaving. A warder touched him on the shoulder and he turned away to the top of the steps leading to the tomb of the prison. And while the clerk was calling out the next case, most of the audience rose to go to lunch and to talk over the most famous case of the year. End of Chapter 12. Chapter 13 of A Mayfair Magician. A Romance of Criminal Science This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by James K. White Chula Vista. A Mayfair Magician. A Romance of Criminal Science. By George Griffith. Chapter 13. Penal Servitude for Life Banishment, absolute and perpetual from the busy world of men, with all its possibilities of joy and sorrow, success and failure, great daring and high enterprise, its glory and its shame, its light and its darkness, its life and its death. All, in short, that makes existence durable. All that nerves the man who has succeeded to work for yet greater successes. All that encourages the man who has failed to try yet again and again, for the prize which, by one chance or another, has so far eluded his grasp. But this was the negation of everything. It was life without the living and death without the dying. Penal servitude for life. What did it mean, even to the most ordinary of mortals? Imagine a man standing on the green border of a desert without any other horizon than the ever-moving line upon which the ocean of sand and the cloudless sky seem to meet. The man is doomed to leave the green border behind him and to take his way across the desert towards that line which he knows full well he will never reach. Someday his strength will give out and his footsteps fail. He will stumble on a mile or two further and then he will lurch forward and drop, and where he drops he will die, and the desert scavengers will pick his bones clean and the sun will dry them till they melt into powder and no man shall know the place where he last laid down to rest. That is a physical likeness of Penal Servitude for life. But the moral wilderness is wider and more desolate than any Sahara or Gobi on Earth. It has no limits and no resting places. Sleeping and waking its dreary horrors, its insatiable hunger and its unquenchable thirst are forever present. The journey across it may be twenty or thirty or forty years long, but every step of it has to be traversed at a measured speed which may neither be quickened nor slackened. Every act of every hour is regulated by a power outside the pilgrim's will. To look back as remorse, to look forward is despair. There are only two forms of release to be hoped for—death or hopeless disease. But should the disease be mental, it means only the exchange of one prison for another, the convict prison for the criminal lunatic asylum, a physical paradise and a mental hell out of which only one door opens, the grave and gate of death. The ordinary criminal of mediocre intellect is usually crushed into stupor during the first few weeks of his solitary probation by the tremendous weight of the doom that has fallen upon him. But to a man like Jenner Hallkind, with vast doors of learning at his command and a vivid and vulturous imagination to pray upon them until memory became a torment and a curse, no such merciful stupor of despair could come. A despair, Kenner a thousand times than the sullen surrender of the average criminal animal to a force that is too strong for him. It was as though the wonderer over the desert of sand and rock were to try and keep himself alive, by eating his own flesh. The intellect preyed upon itself. It devoured the memories of the past, while its handmaiden imagination painted in blinding colors the hideous differences between the past and the present. The process, perhaps consoling and even entertaining at first, would go on month after month and year after year through the dull, squalid courses of labor and the few half hours of leisure still more hateful to such a man. Then at length the all-devouring intellect would turn upon itself, and when the process once began there could only be one of two ends, insanity or imbecility. There was no other hope save a possible chance of suicide, the same death to which he had sent his friend and his host. Even this he thought of with a shudder, although he had watched Sir Godfrey go down the path that he had marked out for him to his death without a quiver of a nerve, but his own self-murder in a felon's cell appeared a very different thing indeed. For him in very truth the mills of God had begun to grind. They grind slowly but they grind exceeding small. Jenner Halkine had known this old Spanish saying by heart for a good many years, and he had taken it only as an eloquent condensation of the universal law of fate. Now sitting in his lonely little cell looking out over the featureless desert which spread before him and backward over the luxuriant jungle of mental and physical delights which had once been his happy hunting grounds, the words had quite a different meaning for him, and the memory of them was an added burden which he never could lay aside until the merciful hand of death was laid upon him. Even then, if there was any truth in the lore that he had learned from the lips of Isa Ramal, such a release would only be an ending and a beginning, a death and a rebirth in which the sins of the fathers would be visited on the children until the third and fourth generation, and perhaps to the fortieth. It so happened that in another cell in the same gallery of the prison only a few yards away Mr. Bonham Denier was also serving his nine months probation preparatory to the five years penal servitude to which he had been sentenced for the fraudulent practices disclosed by the documents which Halkine had sent to the home office as soon as he became certain of his treachery. They had met and recognized each other in the exercise yard, and had exchanged glances more eloquent than the words which they were forbidden to speak. The sight of his accomplice and betrayer had acted like a tonic on Dr. Halkine. He was puzzled and annoyed by the cheerful almost jaunty air which the ex-solicitor wore in such strange contrast with his prison dress. He did not know that he was being paid at the rate of about three thousand a year for the degradation which had already ceased to affect him, and for the light labor and easy healthful conditions of what is called by a polite legal fiction penal servitude. For him there was no limitless desert to cross, only a narrow strip, on the other side of which he would enter free of debt and danger and with several thousand pounds in his pocket. But if he could have seen what Halkine's eyes saw as they looked down so persistently at the narrow flagged pathway over which they took their dreary hours tramp morning and afternoon, day after day, week after week, month after month. If he could have seen that, as Halkine longed with a fierce desire to make him see it, every waking hour of his sentence would have been filled not with complacent reflections upon his coming prosperity, but with a haunting horror that would never have left him by day, and would have made his dreams hideous by night. For what Halkine saw was the somber figure of Ram Dass, waiting, as it were, outside the prison doors till they should open, to let Bonham Denier come forth once more into the world of men. And then, even while he was rejoicing in his newfound freedom, the stealthy shape would dog his every footstep. The brilliant black eyes would watch his every movement. The softly treading feet would follow him in all his goings and comings until the hour and the opportunity came, and the remal of the strangler would be cast about his neck, and his life would go out in a few quick choking sobs. There is no antidote to despair like the hope of revenge. And from his first meeting with his betrayer in the prison yard, Halkine began to live a new life. He began to learn that there was hope even for the hopeless. And in contemplation of the ghastly doom which he had prepared for the man to whom he owed his own fate, his spirits rose, and with them his powers gradually came back to him. One morning, when his probation was nearly approaching its end, he felt his mental forces so far restored that he determined, even at the risk of punishment, to make a trial of them. The half-past five bell rang, and he turned out of his hammock, dressed, rolled up his blankets, and stowed the hammock with the mechanical quickness and precision that the discipline of his endurance had taught him. Then he set out his polished ten utensils ready to receive the tasteless breakfast which only hunger made him eat, and stood to attention, waiting the opening of a cell door. Presently he heard the jingling of keys along the corridor, and the rattling of the locks as the spring bolts were shot back. As the now familiar sounds came nearer and nearer, he braced himself for the effort he was about to make. The key rattled into the lock of his door. It swung back, and the water looked in. That's right, he said kindly, as he ran an approving eye over the tidy cell. Always keep yourself smart and up to time, and it'll make things a lot easier for you afterwards. Get your things ready now and sweep out. Hey there, what are you looking at me like that for? Look the other way, I tell you. I won't have it. It's against, against, against. His voice faltered away into a whisper. Halkind's eyes had caught his. They seemed to grow bigger and bigger, to come nearer and nearer until they came together. And all he could see was one great luminous eye staring through his into the depths of his soul. Then he heard a far away voice, gentle and low, but very distinct, saying, Yes, I know what you were going to say. Against the regulations? Well, never mind about regulations just now. I want to talk to you. You know that prisoners mustn't. The water began feebly and then stopped. Not allowed to talk? Repeated the voice. Yes, but you will allow me to talk, won't you? And you will oblige me by shutting that door. The last words came quick and sharp, and had a ring of authority in them. The eye came closer, and something like a huge hand moved swiftly to and fro before his own eyes. He turned mechanically and shut the door. That's right, said the voice. Thank you. I'm glad you understand me. I will not keep you because that might lead to unpleasantness for both of us. Now what is your name and who are you? Robert Jackson, Warder of the Second Class, replied the man, looking up and speaking like an automaton. You are no such thing, replied the voice sharply. Your name is Robert Jackson, but remember you are my body servant, Jenner Halkind's body servant, and as such, bound to obey his orders. Do you understand me? Yes, sir, replied the Warder in a dull, impersonal sort of voice. Very well, replied the voice sharply. Now tear a page out of your notebook and give me your pencil. Make haste or they'll be wondering what you're doing here all this time. Warder Jackson took out his notebook and his pencil and committed a very serious breach of the regulations, a breach which would have certainly got him disrated and probably dismissed with a bonus of three months' imprisonment, with the fumbling wooden motions of a man half asleep. Halkind took the paper and pencil from him and said, Now open the door and go about your work, but don't forget that you are Jenner Halkind's servant. No, sir, I won't forget. He murmured, touching his cap mechanically. Then the eye disappeared. A cool hand touched his forehead, and the next moment he woke to see the prisoner standing to attention at the other end of the cell. He opened the door and went out feeling a little dazed and with a slight pain at the back of his head. While he was eating his solitary breakfast that morning, Halkind wrote in his neat, clear hand on the leaf from the notebook the following letter. Bottom denier, traitor, For the sake of money you have condemned me to a living death. You have destroyed all the hopes and aspirations and ambitions of a life that might have been of inestimable service to humanity. For this you yourself shall die. When the prison door opens for you, as you hope they shall never open for me, Ram Dass will be standing beside them waiting for you. You may not see him, but he will be there. Other eyes too will watch you. Other powers which you know nothing of will encompass you till the hour of vengeance comes, and then you will die. You shall think of this every hour of every day, and in your dreams the Avenger shall stand beside your bed. For you the day of release shall bring no hope, but dread. You shall not live to enjoy the price of your treachery. This is your sentence of death. You have yet years to live under the shadow, and they shall be years of fear and torment to you, and of hope to me. Your suffering shall be my delight. It may drive you mad, but I hope it won't, for I wish you to taste every horror of the slowly approaching doom that shall infallibly be yours. At dinnertime the closely folded slip of paper reached Mr. Bonham Denier by the obedient hands of Warder Jackson. And when Hawkind met the man who was now his victim in the exercise-yard that afternoon, he saw at a glance that his vengeance had already begun to work. The air of cheerful patience and resignation was gone. The head was bowed, and the steps had lost all their spring. The rosy face had gone grey in a few hours, and his eyes that had looked out straight and steady in the morning were now shifty and furtive, looking slantingly this way and that, as though they were already seeking the specter that was to come nearer day by day until it took actual human form, and the upraised arm of vengeance fell. I am avenged already, said Hawkind to himself, as he returned to his cell after hunting his victim with his eyes during the whole exercise-hour. Sentence of certain death with four and a half years of prison life to think about it, even I can't say that I envy him. End of Chapter 13 Recording by James K. White, Chula Vista