 CHAPTER 7 THE GREAT PALL LESSINGHAM He was in evening-dress. He carried a small portfolio in his left hand. If the discovery of my presence startled him, as it could scarcely have failed to do, he allowed no sign of surprise to escape him. Paul Lessingham's impenetrability is proverbial. Whether on platforms addressing excited crowds, or in the midst of heated discussion in the House of Commons, all the world knows that his coolness remains unruffled. It is generally understood that he owes his success in the political arena in no slight measure to the adroitness which is born of his invulnerable presence of mind. He gave me a taste of its quality then. Standing in the attitude which has been familiarised to us by caricaturists, his feet apart, his broad shoulders well set back, his handsome head a little advanced, his keen blue eyes having in them something suggestive of a bird of prey considering just when, where, and how to pounce, he regarded me for some seconds in perfect silence. Whether outwardly I flinched, I cannot say. Inwardly I know I did. When he spoke it was without moving from where he stood, and in the calm, airy tones in which he might have addressed an acquaintance who had just dropped in. May I ask, sir, to what I am indebted for the pleasure of your company? He paused as if waiting for my answer. When none came he put his question in another form. Pray, sir, who are you, and on whose invitation do I find you here? As I still stood speechless, motionless, meeting his glance without a twitching of an eyebrow nor a tremor of the hand, I imagined that he began to consider me with an even closer intentness than before. And that the, to say the least of it, peculiarity of my appearance caused him to suspect that he was face to face with an adventure of a peculiar kind. Whether he took me for a lunatic I cannot certainly say, but from his manner I think it possible he did. He began to move towards me from across the room, addressing me with the utmost suavity and courtesy. Be so good as to give me the revolver and the papers you are holding in your hand. As he came on something entered into me and forced itself from between my lips so that I said in a low, hissing voice which I vow was never mine. The beetle! Whether it was or was not owing in some degree to a trick of my imagination I cannot determine, but as the words were spoken it seemed to me that the lights went low, so the place was all in darkness, and I again was filled with the nauseous consciousness of the presence of something evil in the room. But if, in that matter, my abnormally strained imagination played me a trick, there could be no doubt whatever as to the effect which the words had on Mr. Lessingham. When the mist of the blackness, real or suppositious, had passed from before my eyes, I found that he had retreated to the extremist limits of the room, and was crouching, his back against the book-shells, clutching at them, in the attitude of a man who has received a staggering blow from which as yet he has had no opportunity of recovering. A most extraordinary change had taken place in the expression of his face. In his countenance amazement, fear, and horror seemed to be struggling for the mastery. I was filled with a most discomforting qualm as I gazed at the frightened figure in front of me, and realised that it was that of the great Paul Lessingham, the god of my political idolatry. Who are you? In God's name, who are you? His very voice seemed changed, his frenzied choking accents would hardly have been recognised by either friend or foe. Who are you? Do you hear me ask? Who are you? In the name of God, I bid you say! As he perceived that I was still, he began to show a species of excitement which it was unpleasant to witness, especially as he continued to crouch against the book-shelf as if he was afraid to stand up straight. So far from exhibiting the impassivity for which he was renowned, all the muscles in his face and all the limbs in his body seemed to be in motion at once. He was like a man afflicted with the shivering achew. His very fingers were twitching aimlessly as they were stretched out on either side of him as if seeking for support from the shelves against which he leaned. Where have you come from? What do you want? Who sent you here? What concern have you with me? Is it necessary that you should come and play these childish tricks with me? Why? Why? The questions came from him with astonishing rapidity. When he saw that I continued silent, they came still faster, mingled with what sounded to me like a stream of incoate abuse. Why do you stand there in that extraordinary garment? It's worse than nakedness. Yes, worse than nakedness. For that alone I could have you punished, and I will, and to try to play the fool. Do you think I am a boy to be bamboozled by every bogey a blunderer may try to conjure up? If so, you're wrong, as whoever sent you might have had sense enough to let you know. If you tell me who you are, and who sent you here, and what it is you want, I will be merciful. If not, the police shall be sent for, and the law shall take its course to the bitter end. I warn you. Do you hear? You fool! Tell me who you are? The last words came from him in what was very like a burst of childish fury. He himself seemed conscious, the moment after, that his passion was sadly lacking in dignity, and to be ashamed of it. He drew himself straight up. With a pocket handkerchief which he took from an inner pocket of his coat, he wiped his lips. Then, clutching it tightly in his hand, he eyed me with a fixedness which, under any other circumstances, I should have found unbearable. Well, sir, is your continued silence part of the business of the role you have set yourself to play? His tone was firmer, and his bearing more in keeping with his character. If it be so, I presume that I, at least, have liberty to speak. When I find a gentleman even one gifted with your eloquence of silence playing the part of burglar, I think you will grant that a few words on my part cannot justly be considered to be out of place. Again he paused. I could not but feel that he was employing the vehicle of somewhat cumbreous sarcasm to gain time, and to give himself the opportunity of recovering, if the thing was possible, his pristine courage. That, for some cause wholly hidden from me, the mysterious utterance had shaken his nature to its deepest foundations, was made plainer by his endeavour to treat the whole business with a sort of cynical levity. To commence with, may I ask if you have come through London, or through any portion of it in that costume, or rather in that want of costume? It would seem out of place in a Kyrene street, would it not, even in the Rue de Rabagas? Was it not the Rue de Rabagas? He asked the question with an emphasis, the meaning of which was wholly lost on me. What he referred to, either then, or in what immediately followed, I, of course, knew no more than the man in the moon, though I should probably have found great difficulty in convincing him of my ignorance. I take it that you are a reminiscence of the Rue de Rabagas, that, of course. Is it not, of course? The little house with the blue grey Venetians, and the piano with the F-sharp missing. Is there still the piano, with the tinny treble? Indeed, the whole atmosphere. Was it not tinny? You agree with me? I have not forgotten. I am not even afraid to remember. You perceive it? A new idea seemed to strike him, born, perhaps, of my continued silence. You look English. Is it possible that you are not English? What are you then, French? We shall see. He addressed me in a tongue which I recognised as French, but with which I was not sufficiently acquainted to understand. Although I flatter myself that, as the present narrative should show, I have not made an ill use of the opportunities which I have had to improve my originally modest education, I regret that I have never had so much as a ghost of a chance to acquire an even rudimentary knowledge of any language except my own. Recognising, I suppose, from my looks that he was addressing me in a tongue to which I was a stranger, after a time he stopped, added something with a smile, and then began to talk to me in a lingo to which, in a manner of speaking, I was even stranger. For this time I had not the faintest notion what it was. It might have been gibberish for all that I could tell. Quickly perceiving that he had succeeded no better than before, he returned to English. You do not know French? Nor the patois of the rue du Rabagas? Very good. Then what is it you do know? Are you under a vow of silence, or are you dumb, except upon occasion? Your face is English. What can be seen of it? And I will take it, therefore, that English-spoken words convey some meaning to your brain. So listen, sir, to what I have to say. Do me the favour to listen carefully. He was becoming more and more his former self. In his clear, modulated tones there was a ring of something like a threat, a something which went very far beyond his words. You know something of a period which I choose to have forgotten. That is plain. You come from a person who, probably, know still more. Go back to that person and say that what I have forgotten I have forgotten. Nothing will be gained by anyone, by an endeavour to induce me to remember. Be very sure upon that point. Say that nothing will be gained by anyone. That time was one of mirage, of delusion, of disease. I was in a condition, mentally and bodily, in which pranks could have been played upon me by any trickster. Such pranks were played. I know that now quite well. I do not pretend to be proficient in the modus operandi of the hanky-panky man, but I know that he has a method all the same, one susceptible, too, of facile explanation. Go back to your friend and tell him that I am not again likely to be made the but of his old method, nor of his new one, either. You hear me, sir? I remained motionless and silent, an attitude which, plainly, he resented. Are you deaf and dumb? You certainly are not dumb, for you spoke to me just now. Be advised by me, and do not compel me to resort to measures which will be the cause to you of serious discomfort. You hear me, sir? Still from me not a sign of comprehension to his increased annoyance. So be it. Keep your own counsel, if you choose. Yours will be the bitterness, not mine. You may play the lunatic, and play it excellently well, but that you do understand what is said to you is clear. Come to business, sir. Give me that revolver and the packet of letters which you have stolen from my desk. He had been speaking with the air of one who desired to convince himself as much as me, and about his last words there was almost a flavour of braggadocio. I remained unheeding. Are you going to do as I require, or are you insane enough to refuse? In which case I shall summon assistance, and there will quickly be an end of it. Pray do not imagine that you can trick me into supposing that you do not grasp the situation. I know better. Once more, are you going to give me that revolver and those letters? Yet no reply. His anger was growing momentarily greater, and his agitation, too. On my first introduction to Paul Lessingham I was not destined to discover in him any one of those qualities of which the world held him to be the undisputed possessor. He showed himself to be as unlike the statesmen I had conceived and esteemed as he easily could have done. Do you think I stand in awe of you? You, of such a thing as you? Do as I tell you, or I myself will make you, and at the same time teach you a much-needed lesson. He raised his voice. In his bearing there was a would-be defiance. He might not have been aware of it, but the repetitions of the threats were, in themselves, confessions of weakness. He came a step or two forward, then, stopping short, began to tremble. The perspiration broke out upon his brow. He made spasmodic little dabs at it with his crumpled-up handkerchief. His eyes wandered hither and thither as if searching for something which they feared to see, yet were constrained to seek. He began to talk to himself, out-cloud, in odd, disconnected sentences, apparently ignoring me entirely. What was that? It was nothing. It was my imagination. My nerves are out of order. I have been working too hard. I am not well. What's that? This last inquiry came from him in a half-stifled shriek, as the door opened to admit the head and body of an elderly man in a state of considerable undress. He had the tousaled appearance of one who had been unexpectedly roused out of slumber and unwillingly dragged from bed. Mr. Lessingham stared at him as if he had been a ghost, while he stared back at Mr. Lessingham as if he found a difficulty in crediting the evidence of his own eyes. It was he who broke the silence, stutteringly. I am sure I beg your pardon, sir, but one of the maids thought that she heard the sound of a shot, and we came down to see if there was anything the matter. I had no idea, sir, that you were here. His eyes travelled from Mr. Lessingham towards me, suddenly increasing when they saw me to about twice their previous size. God save us! Who is that? The man's self-evident cowardice possibly impressed Mr. Lessingham with the conviction that he himself was not cutting the most dignified of figures. At any rate, he made a notable effort to, once more, assume a bearing of greater determination. You are quite right, Matthews, quite right. I am obliged by your watchfulness. At present you may leave the room. I propose to deal with this fellow myself. Only remain with the other men upon the landing, so that if I call you may come to my assistance. Matthews did as he was told. He left the room, with, I fancy, more rapidity than he had entered it. Mr. Lessingham returned to me. His manner distinctly more determined, as if he found his resolution reinforced by the near neighbourhood of his retainers. Now, my man, you see how the case stands. At a word from me you will be overpowered and doomed to undergo a long period of imprisonment. Yet I am still willing to listen to the dictates of mercy. Put down that revolver. Give me those letters. You will not find me disposed to treat you hardly. For all the attention I paid him, I might have been a graven image. He misunderstood, or pretended to misunderstand, the cause of my silence. Come. I see that you suppose my intentions to be harsher than they really are. Do not let us have a scandal and a scene. Be sensible. Give me those letters. Again he moved in my direction. Again, after he had taken a step or two, to stumble and stop and look about him with frightened eyes. Again to begin to mumble to himself aloud. It's a conjurious trick, of course. Nothing more. What else could it be? I'm not to be fooled. I'm older than I was. I've been overdoing it. That's all. Suddenly he broke into cries. Matthews! Matthews! Help! Help! Matthews entered the room, followed by three other men, younger than himself. Evidently all had slipped into the first articles of clothing that they could lay their hands upon, and each carried a stick or some similar rudimentary weapon. Their master spurred them on. Strike the revolver out of his hand, Matthews. Knock him down. Take the letters from him. Don't be afraid. I'm not afraid. In proof of it he rushed at me, as it seemed, half blindly. As he did so I was constrained to shout out, in tones which I should not have recognised as mine. The beetle! And that moment the room was all in darkness, and there were screams as of someone in an agony of terror or of pain. I felt that something had come into the room. I knew not whence nor how. Something of horror. And the next action of which I was conscious was that under the cover of darkness I was flying from the room, propelled by, I knew not what. End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 of the Beetle 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 Icy Jumbo The Beetle by Richard Marsh Chapter 8 The Man in the Street Whether anyone pursued, I cannot say, I have some dim recollection, as I came out of the room, of women being huddled against the wall upon the landing and of their screaming as I went past. But whether any effort was made to arrest my progress, I cannot tell. My own impression is that not the slightest attempt to impede my headlong flight was made by anyone. In what direction I was going, I did not know. I was like a man flying through the phantasmagoric happenings of a dream, knowing neither how nor wither. I tore along what I suppose was a broad passage, through a door at the end into what, I fancy, was a drawing-room. Across this room I dashed, helter-skelter, bringing down in the gloom unseen articles of furniture, with myself sometimes on top and sometimes under them. In a trice, each time I fell, I was on my feet again, until I went crashing against a window which was concealed by curtains. It would not have been strange had I crashed through it, but I was spared that. Thrusting aside the curtains, I fumbled for the fastening of the window. It was a tall French casement, extending, so far as I could judge, from floor to ceiling. When I had it open, I stepped through it onto the veranda without, to find that I was on the top of the portico which I had vainly assayed to ascend from below. I tried the road down which I had tried up, proceeding with a breakneck recklessness of which now I shudder to think. It was probably some thirty feet above the pavement, yet I rushed at the descent with as much disregard for the safety of life and limb as if it had been only three. Over the edge of the parapet I went, obtaining with my naked feet a precarious foothold on the latticework, then down I commenced to scramble. I never did get a proper hold, and when I had descended, perhaps, rather more than half the distance, scraping as it seemed to me every scrap of skin of my body in the process, I lost what little hold I had. Down to the bottom I went tumbling, rolling right across the pavement into the muddy road. It was a miracle I was not seriously injured, but in that sense certainly that night the miracles were on my side. Hardly was I down, then I was up again, mud and all. Just as I was getting onto my feet I felt a firm hand grip me by the shoulder. Turning I found myself confronted by a tall, slenderly built man with a long, drooping moustache and an overcoat buttoned up to the chin, who held me with a grasp of steel. He looked at me, and I looked back at him. After the ball, eh? Even then I was struck by something pleasant in his voice, and some quality as of sunshine in his handsome face. Seeing that I said nothing he went on, with a curious, half-mocking smile. Is that the way to come slithering down the apostle's pillar? Is it simple burglary or simpler murder? Tell me the glad tidings that you've killed Saint Paul, and I'll let you go. Whether he was mad or not, I cannot say. There was some excuse for thinking so. He did not look mad, though his words and actions alike were strange. Although you have confined yourself to gentle felony, shall I not shower blessings on the head of him who has been robbing Paul away with you? He removed his grip, giving me a gentle push as he did so, and I was away. I neither stayed nor paused. I know little of records, but if anyone has made a better record than I did that night between Lowndes Square and Wallam Green I should like to know just what it was. I should, too, like to have seen it done. In an incredibly short space of time I was once more in front of the house with the open window, the packet of letters which were like to have cost me so dear, gripped tightly in my hand. End of Chapter 8 Chapter 9 of The Beetle 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 Icy Jumbo. The Beetle by Richard Marsh. Chapter 9 The Contents of the Packet I pulled up sharply as if a break had been suddenly and even mercilessly applied to bring me to a standstill. In front of the window I stood shivering. A shower had recently commenced, the falling rain was being blown before the breeze. I was in a terrible sweat, yet tremulous, as with cold, covered with mud, bruised and cut and bleeding, as piteous an object as you would care to see. Every limb in my body ached, every muscle was exhausted. Mentally and physically I was dumb. Had I not been held up really nearly by the spell which was upon me, I should have sunk down, then and there, in a hopeless, helpless, hapless heap. But my tormentor was not yet at an end with me. As I stood there, like some broken and beaten hack, waiting for the word of command, it came. It was as if some strong magnetic current had been switched on to me through the window to draw me into the room. Over the low wall I went, over the sill. Once more I stood in that chamber of my humiliation and my shame. And once again I was conscious of that awful sense of the presence of an evil thing. How much of it was fact, and how much of it was the product of imagination, I cannot say. But, looking back, it seems to me that it was as if I had been taken out of the corporeal body to be plunged into the inner chambers of all nameless sin. There was the sound of something flopping from off the bed onto the ground, and I knew that the thing was coming at me across the floor. My stomach quaked, my heart melted within me, the very anguish of my terror gave me strength to scream and scream. Sometimes, even now, I seem to hear those screams of mine ringing through the night, and I bury my face in the pillow, and it is as though I was passing through the very valley of the shadow. The thing went back. I could hear it slipping and sliding across the floor. There was silence. And presently the lamp was lit, and the room was all in brightness. There, on the bed, in the familiar attitude between the sheets, his head resting on his hand, his eyes blazing like living coals was the dreadful cause of all my agonies. He looked at me with his unpitting, unblinking glance. So, through the window again, like a thief, is it always through that door that you come into the house? He paused, as if to give me time to digest his jibe. You saw Paul Lessingham? Well, the great Paul Lessingham? Was he then so great? His rasping voice, with its queer, foreign tang, reminded me, in some uncomfortable way, of a rust he saw. The things he said, and the manner in which he said them, were alike intended to add to my discomfort. It was solely because the feat was barely possible that he only partially succeeded. Like a thief you went into his house? Did I not tell you that you would? Like a thief he found you. Were you not ashamed? Since, like a thief he found you, how comes it that you have escaped? By what robbers' artifice have you saved yourself from jail? His manner changed, so that all at once he seemed to snarl at me. Is he great? Well, is he great? Well, is he great, Paul Lessingham? You are small, but he is smaller. You're great, Paul Lessingham. Was there ever a man so less than nothing? With the recollection fresh upon me of Mr. Lessingham, as I had so lately seen him, I could not but feel that there might be a modicum of truth in what, with such an intensity of bitterness, the speaker suggested. The picture which, in my mental gallery, I had hung in the place of honour, seemed, to say the least, to have become a trifle smudged. As usual, the man in the bed seemed to experience not the slightest difficulty in deciphering what was passing through my mind. That is so. You and he, you are a pair. The great Paul Lessingham is as great a thief as you, and greater, for at least than you he has more courage. For some moments he was still, then exclaimed with sudden fierceness. Give me what you have stolen! I moved towards the bed, most unwillingly, and held out to him the packet of letters which I had abstracted from the little drawer. Perceiving my disinclination to his near neighbourhood, he set himself to play with it. Ignoring my outstretched hand, he stared me straight in the face. What hails you? Are you not well? Is it not sweet to stand close at my side? You, with your white skin, if I were a woman, would you not take me for a wife? There was something about the manner in which this was said, which was so essentially feminine, that once more I wondered if I could possibly be mistaken in the creature's sex. I would have given much to have been able to strike him across the face, or better, to have taken him by the neck and thrown him through the window and rolled him in the mud. He condescended to notice what I was holding out to him. So this is what you have stolen, that is what you have taken from the drawer in the bureau, the drawer which was locked, and which you use the arts in which a thief is skilled to enter. Give it to me, thief! He snatched the packet from me, scratching the back of my hand as he did so, as if his nails had been talons. He turned the packet over and over, glaring at it as he did so. It was strange what a relief it was to have his glance removed from off my face. You kept it in your inner drawer, Paul Lessingham, where none but you could see it, did you? You hid it as one hides treasure. There should be something here worth having, worth seeing, worth knowing, yes, worth knowing, since you found it worth your vial to hide it up so closely. As I have said, the packet was bound about by a string of pink ribbon, a fact on which he presently began to comment. With what a pretty string you have encircled it, and how neatly it is tied. Surely only a woman's hand could tie a knot like that. Who would have guessed yours were such agile fingers? So, an endorsement on the cover. What's this? Let's see what's written. The letters of my dear love, Marjorie Linden? As he read these words, which, as he said, were endorsed upon the outer sheet of paper, which served as a cover for the letters which were enclosed within, his face became transfigured. Never did I suppose that rage could have so possessed a human countenance. His jaw dropped open so that his yellow fangs gleamed through his parted lips. He held his breath so long that each moment I looked to see him fall down in a fit. The veins stood out all over his face and head like seams of blood. I know not how long he continued speechless. When his breath returned it was with chokings and gaspings, in the midst of which he hissed out his words, as if their mere passage through his throat brought him near to strangulation. The letters of his dear love, of his dear love, his? Paul Lessingham's? So it is as I guessed, as I knew, as I saw. Marjorie Linden, sweet Marjorie, his dear love. Paul Lessingham's dear love, she with the lily face, the corn-hued hair. What is it his dear love has found in her fond heart to write Paul Lessingham? Sitting up in bed, he tore the packet open. It contained perhaps eight or nine letters, some mere notes, some long epistles. But, short or long, he devoured them with equal appetite, each one over and over again, till I thought he never would have done rereading them. They were on thick white paper, of a peculiar shade of whiteness, with untrimmed edges. On each sheet a crest and an address were stamped in gold, and all the sheets were of the same shape and size. I told myself that if anywhere, at any time, I saw writing paper like that again, I should not fail to know it. The calligraphy was, like the paper, unusual, bold, decided, and, I should have guessed, produced by a J pen. All the time that he was reading, he kept emitting sounds, more resembling yelps and snarls than anything more human. Like some savage beast nursing its pent-up rage. When he had made an end of reading, for the season, he let his passion have full vent. So, that is what his dear love has found it in her heart, right, Paul Essingham! Paul Essingham! Penn cannot describe the concentrated frenzy of hatred with which the speaker dwelt upon the name. It was demoniac. It is enough. It is the end. It is his doom. He shall be ground between the upper and the nether stones in the towers of Anguish, and all that is left of him shall be cast on the accursed stream of the bitter waters to stink under the blood-grimed sun. And for her, for Marjorie Linden, for his dear love, it shall come to pass that she shall wish that she was never born, nor he, and the gods of the shadows shall smell the sweet incense of her suffering. It shall be. It shall be. It is I that said, even I. In the madness of his rhapsodical frenzy, I believe that he had actually forgotten I was there. But on a sudden, glancing aside, he saw me and remembered, and was prompt to take advantage of an opportunity to wreak his rage upon a tangible object. It is you, you thief! You still live to make a mock of one of the children of the gods. He leapt, shrieking, off the bed, and sprang at me, clasping my throat with his horrid hands, bearing me backwards onto the floor. I felt his breath mingle with mine. And then God in his mercy sent oblivion. End of chapter nine. Chapter 10 of The Beetle This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Alan Winterout The Beetle by Richard Marsh Book two The Haunted Man The Story According to Sydney Atherton Esquire Chapter 10 Rejected It was after our second waltz I did it. In the usual quiet corner which, that time, was in the shadow of a palm in the hall. Before I had got into my stride she checked me, touching my sleeve with her fan, turning towards me with startled eyes. Stop, please! But I was not to be stopped. Cliff Chaloner passed with Gertie Cazelle. I fancy that as he passed he nodded. I did not care. I was wound up to go and I went it. No man knows how he can talk till he does talk, to the girl he wants to marry. It is my impression that I gave her recollections of the Restoration Poets. She seemed surprised, not having previously detected in me the poetic strain, and insisted on cutting in. Mr. Atherton, I am so sorry. Then I did let fly. Sorry that I love you. Why? Why should you be sorry that you have become the one thing needful in any man's eyes? Even in mine, the one thing precious, the one thing to be altogether esteemed. Is it so common for a woman to come across a man who would be willing to lay down his life for her that she should be sorry when she finds him? I did not know that you felt like this, although I confess that I have had my doubts. Doubts? I thank you. You are quite aware, Mr. Atherton, that I like you very much. Like me? Bah! I cannot help liking you, though it may be bah. I don't want you to like me. I want you to love me. Precisely. That is your mistake. My mistake? My mistake? In wanting you to love me when I love you? Then you shouldn't, though I can't help thinking that you are mistaken even there. Mistaken? In supposing that I love you when I assert and reassert it with a whole force of my being? What do you want me to do to prove I love you, take you in my arms and crush you to my bosom and make a spectacle of you before every creature in this place? I'd rather you wouldn't, and perhaps you wouldn't mind not talking quite so loud. Mr. Chaloner seems to be wondering what you're shouting about. You shouldn't torture me. She opened and shut her fan. As she looked down at it, I am disposed to suspect that she smiled. I am glad we have had this little explanation, because, of course, you are my friend. I am not your friend. Pardon me, you are. Pardon me, you are. I say I'm not. If I can't be something else, I'll be no friend. She went on, calmly ignoring me, playing with her fan. As it happens, I am just now in a rather delicate position in which a friend is welcome. What's the matter? Who's been worrying you, your father? Well, he has not as yet, but he may be soon. What's in the wind? Mr. Lessingham. She dropped her voice and her eyes, where the moment I did not catch her meaning. What? Your friend, Mr. Lessingham. Excuse me, Ms. Linden, but I am by no means sure that anyone is entitled to call Mr. Lessingham a friend of mine. What? Not when I am going to be his wife? That took me aback. I had had my suspicions that Paul Lessingham was more with Marjorie than he had any right to be, but I had never supposed that she should see anything desirable in a stick of a man like that. Not to speak of 101 other considerations, Lessingham on one side of the house, and her father on the other, and old Linden girding at him anywhere and everywhere with his high-dried Tory notions of his family's importance, to say nothing of his fortune. I don't know if I looked what I felt. If I did, I looked uncommonly blank. You have chosen an appropriate moment, Ms. Linden, to make me such a communication. She chose to disregard my irony. I'm glad you think so, because now you will understand what a difficult position I am in. I offer you my hearty congratulations, and I thank you for the Mr. Atherton in the spirit in which they are offered, because from you I know they mean so much. I bit my lip. For the life of me, I could not tell how she wished me to read her words. Do I understand that this announcement has been made to me as one of the public? You do not. It is made to you in confidence as my friend, as my greatest friend, because a husband is something more than a friend. My pulse has tingled. You will be on my side? She had paused, and I stayed silent. On your side, or Mr. Lessingham's? His side is my side, and my side is his side. You will be on our side. I am not sure that I altogether follow you. You are the first I have told. When Papa hears, it is possible that there will be trouble, as you know. He thinks so much of you in your opinion. When that trouble comes, I want you to be on our side, on my side. Why should I? What does it matter? You are stronger than your father. It is just possible that Lessingham is stronger than you. Together, from your father's point of view, you will be invincible. You are my friend. Are you not my friend? In effect, you offer me an apple of Sodom. Thank you. I did not think you so unkind. And you? Are you kind? I make you in a vowel of my love, and straightway, you ask me to act as chorus to the love of another. How could I tell you loved me? As you say, I had no notion. You have known me all your life, yet you have not breathed a word of it till now. If I had spoken before? I imagine that there was a slight movement of her shoulders, almost amounting to a shrug. I do not know that it would have made any difference. I do not pretend that it would, but I do know this. I believe that you yourself have only discovered the state of your own mind within the last half hour. If she had slapped my face, she could not have startled me more. I had no notion if her words were uttered at random, but they came so near the truth they held me breathless. It was a fact that only during the last few minutes had I really realized how things were with me. Only since the end of that first waltz had the flame had burst out in my soul, which was now consuming me. She had read me by what seemed so like a flash of inspiration that I hardly knew what to say to her. I tried to be stinging. You flatter me, Ms. Linden. You flatter me at every point. Had you only discovered to me the state of your mind a little sooner, I should not have discovered to you the state of mind at all. We will consider it terra incognita, since you wish it. Her provoking calmness stung me, and the suspicion that she was laughing at me in her sleeve. I gave her a glimpse of the cloven hoof, but at the same time, since you assert that you have so long been innocent, I beg that you will continue so no more. At least your innocence shall be without excuse, for I wish you to understand that I love you, that I have loved you, that I shall love you. Any understanding you may have with Mr. Lessingham will not make the slightest difference. I warn you, Ms. Linden, that until death you will have to write me down your lover. She looked at me with wide open eyes as if I almost frightened her. To be frank, that was what I wished to do. Mr. Atherton, Ms. Linden, that is not like you at all. We seem to be making each other's acquaintance for the first time. She continued to gaze at me with her big eyes, which to be candid I found it difficult to meet. On a sudden her face was lighted by a smile, which I resented. Not after all these years, not after all these years. I know you and though I dare say you're not flawless, I fancy you'll be found to ring pretty true. Her manner was almost sisterly, elder sisterly. I could have shaken her. Heartridge coming to claim his dance gave me an opportunity to escape with such remnants of dignity as I could gather about me. He dawdled up his thumbs as usual in his waistcoat pockets. I believe, Ms. Linden, this is our dance. She acknowledged it with a bow and rose to take his arm. I got up and left her without a word. As I crossed the hall, I chanced on Percy Woodville. He was in his familiar state of fluster and was gaping about him as if he had mislaid the co-enor and wondered where in thunder it had got to. When he saw there was eye he caught me by the arm. I say, Atherton, have you seen Ms. Linden? I have. No, have you? By Jove Ware. I've been looking for her all over the place, except in the cellars and the attics, and I was just going to commence on them. This is our dance. In that case, she shunted you. No, impossible. His mouth went like an O and his eyes did O. His eyeglass clattering down onto his shirt front. I expect the mistakes mine. Fact is, I've made a mess of my program. It's either the last dance or this dance or the next that I've booked with her, but I'm hanged if I know which. Just take a squint at it. There's a good chap. And tell me which one you think it is. I took a squint. Since he held the thing within an inch of my nose, I could hardly help it. One squint and that was enough and more. Some men's ball programs are studies in impressionism. Percy seemed to me to be a study in madness. It was covered with hieroglyphics, but what they meant or what they did there anyhow, it was absurd to suppose that I could tell. I never put them there. Perverbially, the man's a champion hasher. I regret, my dear Percy, that I am not an expert in cuneiform writing. If you have any doubt as to which dance is yours, you'd better ask the lady. She'll feel flattered. Leaving him to do his own addling, I went to find my coat. I panted to get out into the open air. As for dancing, I felt that I loathed it. Just as I near the cloakroom, someone stopped me. It was Dora Grayling. Have you forgotten that this is our dance? I had forgotten clean and I was not obliged by her remembering. Though as I looked at her sweet gray eyes and at the soft contours of her gentle face, I felt that I deserved well kicking. She is an angel, one of the best, but I was in no mood for angels. Not for a very great deal would I have gone through that dance just then, nor would Dora Grayling of all women in the world would I have sat it out, so I was a brute and blundered. You must forgive me, Ms. Grayling, but I am not feeling very well and I don't think I'm up to any more dancing. Good night. The Beedle by Richard Marsh Chapter 11 A Midnight Episode The weather out of doors was in tune with my frame of mind. I was in a deuce of a temper and it was a deuce of a night. A keen northeast wind, warranted to take the skin right off you, was playing catch-you-catch-can with intermittent gusts of blinding rain. Since it was not fit for a dog to walk, none of your calves for me, nothing would serve but pedestrian exercise, so I had it. I went down park lane and the wind and rain went with me, also thoughts of Dora Grayling, what a bounder I had been and was. If there is anything in worse taste than to book a lady for a dance and then to leave her in the lurch, I should like to know what that thing is. When found, it ought to be made a note of. If any man of my acquaintance allowed himself to be guilty of such a felony in the first degree, I should cut him. I wish someone would try to cut me. I should like to see him at it. It was all Margaery's fault, everything, past, present, and to come. I had known that girl when she was in long frocks. I had, at that period of our acquaintance, pretty recently got out of them. When she was advanced to short ones, and when once more she returned along. And all that time, well, I was nearly persuaded that the whole of the time I had loved her. If I had not mentioned it, it was because I had suffered my affliction, like the worm, to lie hidden in the bud, or whatever it is that the fellow says. At any rate, I was perfectly positive that if I had had the faintest notion that she would ever seriously consider such a man as Lessingham, I should have loved her long ago. Lessingham. Why, he was old enough to be her father. At least, he was a good many years older than I was. And a wretched radical. It is true that on certain points, I also am what some people would call a radical. But not a radical of the kind he is. Thank heaven, no. No doubt I have admired traits in his character until I learned this thing of him. I am even prepared to admit that he is a man of ability in his way, which is emphatically not mine. But to think of him in connection with such a girl as Marjorie Linden, preposterous. Why, the man's as dry as a stick, drier, and cold as an iceberg. Nothing but a politician, absolutely. He, a lover, how I could fancy such a stroked humor setting all the benches in a roar. By both education and by nature, he was incapable of even playing such a part. As for being the thing, absurd. If you were to sink a shaft from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet, you would find inside him nothing but the dry bones of parties and of politics. What my Marjorie, if everyone had his own, she is mine, and in that sense, she always will be mine. What my Marjorie could see in such a dry as dust, out of which even to construct the rudiments of a husband was beyond my fathoming. Such like agreeable reflections were fit company for the wind and the wet, so they bore me company all down the lane. I crossed at the corner, going round the hospital towards the square. This brought me to the abiding place of Paul the Apostle. Like the idiot I was, I went out into the middle of the street and stood a while in the mud to curse him and his house. On the whole, when one considers that it is the kind of man I can be, it is perhaps not surprising that Marjorie disdained me. May your following, I cried, it is an absolute fact that the words were shouted. Both in the house and out of it no longer regard you as a leader. May your party follow after other gods. May your political aspirations wither and your speeches be listened by the empty benches. May the speaker persistently and strenuously refuse to allow you to catch his eye, and at the next election may your constituency reject you. Jehoram, what's that? I might well ask. Until that moment I had appeared to be the only lunatic at large, either outside the house or in it, but on a sudden a second lunatic came on the scene and that was a vengeance. A window was crashed open from within, the one over the front door, and someone came plunging through it onto the top of the portico. That it was a case of intended suicide I made sure, and I began to be in hopes that I was about to witness the suicide of Paul. But I was not so assured of the intention when the individual in question began to scramble down the pillar of the porch in the most extraordinary fashion I ever witnessed. I was not even convinced of a suicidal purpose when he came tumbling down and lay sprawling in the mud at my feet. I fancy if I had performed that portion of the act, I should have lain quiet for a second or two to consider whereabouts I was and which end of me was uppermost. But there was no nonsense of that sort about that singularly agile stranger. If he was not made of India rubber he ought to have been. So to speak, before he was down he was up. It was all I could do to grab at him before he was off like a rocket. Such a figure as he presented is seldom seen, at least in the streets of London. What he had done with the rest of his apparel I am not in a position to say. All that was left of it was a long dark cloak which he strove to wrap around him. Safe for that and mud he was bare as the palm of my hand. Yet it was his face that held me. In my time I have seen strange expressions on men's faces, but never before one such as I saw on his. He looked like a man might look who, after living a life of undiluted crime, at last finds himself face to face with a devil. It was not the look of a madman, far from it. It was something worse. It was the expression on the man's countenance as much as anything else, which made me behave as I did. I said something to him, some nonsense, I know not what. He regarded me with a silence which was supernatural. I spoke to him again, not a word issued from those rigid lips. There was not a tremor of those awful eyes. Eyes which I was tolerably convinced saw something which I had never seen or ever should. Then I took my hand from off his shoulder and let him go. I know not why I did. He had remained as motionless as a statue while I held him. Indeed, for any evidence of life he gave he might have been a statue. But when my grasp was loosed how he ran. He had turned the corner and was out of sight before I could say how do. It was only then when he had gone and I had realized the extra double express flash of lightning rate at which he had taken his departure that it occurred to me of what an extremely sensible act I had been guilty in letting him go at all. There was an individual who had been committing burglary or something very like it, in the house of a budding cabinet minister and he would tumble plump into my arms so that all I had to do was to call a policeman and get him quadded and all that I had done was something of a totally different kind. You're a nice type of an ideal citizen. I was addressing myself a first chop specimen of a low down idiot to connive at the escape of the robber who's been robbing Paul. Since you've let the villain go the least you can do is leave a card on the apostle and inquire how he's feeling. I went to Lessingham's front door and knocked. I knocked once, I knocked twice, I knocked thrice and the third time I give you my word I made the echoes ring but still there was not a soul that answered. If this is a case of a seven or seventy-fold murder and the gentleman in the cloak has made a fair clearance of every living creature the house contains perhaps as just as well I've chanced upon the scene still I do think that one of the corpses might get up to answer the door. If it is possible to make noise enough to awaken the dead you bet I'm on to it and I was. I punished that knocker until I warrant the pounding I gave it was audible on the other side of Green Park and at last I woke the dead or rather I roused Matthews to a consciousness that something was going on opening the door about six inches through the interstice he protruded his ancient nose who's there nothing my dear sir nothing and no one it must have been your vigorous imagination which induced you to suppose that there was you let it run away with you then he knew me and opened the door about two feet oh it's you mr. Atherton I beg your pardon sir I thought it might have been the police what then do you stand in terror of the minions of the law at last a most discreet servant Matthews just the fellow for a budding cabinet minister he glanced over his shoulder I had suspected the presence of a colleague at his back now I was assured he put his hand up to his mouth and I thought how exceedingly discreet he looked in his trousers and his stocking feet and with his hair all rumpled and his braces dangling behind and his night shirt creased well sir I have received instructions not to admit the police the deuce you have from whom coughing behind his hand leaning forward he addressed me with an air which was flatteringly confidential from mr. Lessingham sir possibly mr. Lessingham is not aware that a robbery has been committed on his premises at the burglar has just come out of his drawing room window with a hop skip and a jump bounded out of the window like a tennis ball flashed around the corner like a rocket again Matthews glanced over his shoulder as if not clear which way discretion lay whether for or aft thank you sir I believe that mr. Lessingham is aware of something of the kind he seemed to come to a sudden resolution dropping his voice to a whisper the fact is sir that I fancy mr. Lessingham is a good deal upset upset I stared at him there was something in his manner I did not understand what do you mean by upset has a scoundrel attempted violence who's there the voice was Lessingham's calling to Matthews from the staircase though for an instant I hardly recognized it it was so curiously petulant pushing past Matthews I stepped into the hall a young man I suppose a footman in the same undress as Matthews was holding a candle it seemed the only light about the place by its glimmer I perceived Lessingham standing halfway up the stairs he was in full war paint as he is not the sort of man who dresses for the house I took it that he had been mixing pleasure with business it's I Lessingham Atherton do you know that a fellow has jumped out of your drawing room window it was a second or two before he answered when he did his voice had lost its petulance has he escaped clean he's a mile away by now it seemed to me that in his tone when he spoke again there was a note of relief I wondered if he had poor fellow more sinned against than sinning take my advice Atherton and keep out of politics they bring you in contact with all the lunatics at large good night I am much obliged to you for knocking us up Matthews shut the door tolerably cool on my honor a man who brings news big with the fate of Rome does not expect to receive such treatment he expects to be listened to with deference and to hear all that there is to hear and not to be sent to the right about before he has had the chance of really opening his lips before I knew it almost the door was shut and I was on the doorstep Khan found the apostles impudence next time he might have his house burnt down and him in it before I took the trouble to touch his dirty knocker what did he mean by his illusion to lunatics and politics did he think to fool me there was more in the business than met the eye and a good deal more than he wished to meet mine hence his insolence the creature what Marjorie Lindham could see in such an opusculum surpassed my comprehension especially when there was a man of my sort walking about who adored the very ground she trod upon endow chapter 11 recording by Alan winter out boom coach dot blog spot dot com chapter 12 of the beetle 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 Alan winter out the beetle by Richard Marsh chapter 12 a morning visitor all through the night waking and sleeping and in my dreams I wondered what Marjorie could see in him in those same dreams I satisfied myself that she could and did see nothing in him but everything in me all the comfort the misfortune was that when I awoke I knew it was the other way round so that it was a sad awakening and awakening the thoughts of murder so swallowing a mouthful and a peg I went into my laboratory to plan murder legalized murder on the biggest scale it had ever been planned I was on the track of a weapon which would make war not only an affair of a single campaign but of a single half hour it would not want an army to work it either once let an individual or two or three at most in possession of my weapon that was to be get within a mile or so of even the largest body of discipline troops that ever yet a nation put into the field and poof in about the time it takes you to say that they would be all dead men if weapons of precision which may be relied upon to slay are preservers of the peace and the man is a fool who says they are not then I was within reach of the finest preserver of the peace imagination ever yet conceived what a sublime thought to think then the hollow of your hand lies the life and death of nations and it was almost in mind I had in front of me some of the finest destructive agents you could wish to light upon carbon monoxide chlorine trioxide mercuric oxide conine potassiumide potassium carboxide cyanogen when edwards entered I was wearing a mask of my own invention a thing that covered ears and head and everything something like a diver's helmet I was dealing with gases a sniff of which meant death only a few days before unmasked I had been doing some fool's trick with a couple of acids sulfuric and cyanide of potassium when somehow my hand slipped and before I knew it my newt portions of them combined by the mercy of providence I fell backwards instead of forward sequel about an hour afterwards edwards found me on the floor and it took the remainder of that day and most of the doctors in town to bring me back to life again edwards announced his presence by touching me on the shoulder when I am wearing that mask it isn't always easy to make me hear someone wishes to see you sir then tell someone that I don't wish to see him well trained servant edwards he walked off with a message as decorously as you please and then I thought there was an end but there wasn't I was regulating the valve of a cylinder in which I was fusing some oxides when once more someone touched me on the shoulder without turning I took it for granted it was edwards back again I have only to give a tiny twist at his tap my good fellow and you will be in the land where the bogeys bloom why will you come where you're not wanted then I looked around who the devil are you for it was not edwards at all but quite a different class of character I found myself confronting an individual who might almost have sat for one of the bogeys I had just alluded to his costume was reminiscent of the Algerians whom one finds all over France and who are the most persistent insolent and amusing of peddlers I remember one who used to haunt the repetitions at the Alcazar at tours but there this individual was like the originals yet unlike he was less gaudy and a good deal dingier than his gallic prototypes are apt to be then he wore a bernouce the yellow grimy looking article of the Arab of the Sudan not the spic and span Arab of the boulevard chief difference of all his face was clean shaven and whoever saw an Algerian of Paris whose chiefest glory was not his well-trimmed moustache and beard I expected that he would address me in the lingo which these gentlemen called French but he didn't you are mr. atherton and you are mr. who how did you come here where's my servant the fellow held up his hand as he did so as if in accordance with a prearranged signal edwards came into the room looking excessively startled I turned to him is this the person who wished to see me yes sir didn't I tell you that I didn't wish to see him yes sir then why didn't you do as I told you I did sir then how comes he here really sir edwards put his hand up to his head as if he was half asleep I don't quite know what do you mean by you don't know why didn't you stop him I think sir that I must have had a touch of sudden faintness because I tried to put out my hand to stop him and I couldn't you're an idiot go and he went I turned to the stranger praise sir are you a magician he replied to my question with another you mr. atherton are you also a magician he was staring at my mask with an evident lack of comprehension I wear this because in this place death lurks in so many subtle forms that without it I dare not breathe he inclined his head though I doubt if he understood be so good as to tell me briefly what it is you wish with me he slipped his hand into the folds of his bernouse and taking out a slip of paper laid it on the shelf by which we were standing I glanced at it expecting to find on it a petition or a testimonial or a true statement of his sad case instead it contained two words only marjorie linden the unlooked-for sight of that well-loved name brought the blood into my cheeks you come from this linden he narrowed his shoulders brought his fingertips together and climbed his head in a fashion which was peculiarly oriental but not particularly explanatory so I repeated my question do you wish me to understand that you do come from this linden again he slipped his hand into his bernouse again he produced a slip of paper again he laid it on the shelf again I glanced at it again nothing was written on it but a name paul lesingham well I see paul lesingham what then she is good he is bad is it not so he touched first one scrap of paper then the other I stared pray how do you happen to know he shall never have her eh what on earth do you mean ah what do I mean precisely what do you mean and also at the same time who the devil are you it is as a friend I come to you then in that case you may go I happen to be overstocked in that line just now not with the kind of friend I am the saints for fend you love her you love miss linden can you bear to think of him in her arms I took off my mask feeling that the occasion acquired it as I did so he brushed aside the hanging folds of the hood of his bernouse so that I saw more of his face I was immediately conscious that in his eyes there was in a special degree what for one of a better term one may call them as merit quality that his was one of those morbid organizations which are often are found thank goodness in the east than in the west and which are and which are apt to exercise an uncanny influence over the week and the foolish folk with whom they come in contact the kind of creature for whom it is always just as well to keep a seasoned rope close handy I was also conscious that he was taking advantage of the removal of my mask to try his strength on me then which he could not have found a tougher job the sensitive something which is found in the hypnotic subject happens in me to be wholly absent I see you are a mesmerist he started I am nothing a shadow and I'm a scientist I should like with your permission or without it to try an experiment or two on you he moved further back there came a gleam into his eyes which suggested that he possessed his hideous power to an unusual degree that in the estimation of his own people he was qualified to take his standing as a regular devil doctor we will try experiments together you and I on Paul Lessingham why on him you do not know I do not why do you lie to me I don't lie to you I haven't the faintest notion what is the nature of your interest in Mr. Lessingham my interest that is another thing it is your interest of which we are speaking pardon me it is yours listen you love her and he but in a word from you he shall not have her never it is I who say it I and once more sir who are you I am of the children of Isis is that so it occurs to me that you have made a slight mistake this is London not a dog hole in the desert do I not know what does it matter you shall see there will come a time when you will want me you will find you cannot bear to think of him in her arms her whom you love you will call to me and I shall come and of Paul Lessingham there shall be an end while I was wondering whether he was really as mad as he sounded or whether he was some impudent charlatan who had an ax of his own to grind and thought that he had founded me a grindstone he had vanished from the room I moved after him hang it all stop I cried he must have made pretty good traveling because before I had a foot in the hall I heard the front door slam and when I reached the street intent on calling him back neither to the right nor to the left was there a sign of him to be seen endow chapter 12 recording by Alan winter out boom coach dot blog spot dot com chapter 13 of the beetle 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 Alan winter out the beetle by Richard Marsh chapter 13 the picture I wonder what that nice looking beggar really means and who he happens to be that was what I said to myself when I returned to the library if it is true that now and again Providence does write a man's character on his face then there can't be the slightest shred of doubt that a curious one's been written on his I wonder what his connection has been with the apostle or if it's only part of his game of bluff I strode up and down for the moment my interest in the experiments I was conducting had waned if it was all bluff I never saw a better piece of acting and yet what sort of finger can such a precision as St. Paul have in such a pie the fellow seemed to squirm at the mere mention of the rising hope of the radicals name can the objection be political let me consider what is lessing him done which could offend the religious or patriotic susceptibilities of the most fanatical of orientals politically I can recall nothing foreign affairs as a rule he is carefully eschewed if he has offended and if he hasn't the seeming was uncommonly good the cause will have to be sought upon some other track but then what track the more I strove to puzzle it out the greater the puzzlement grew absurd the rascal has no more connection with St. Paul than St. Peter the probability is that he's a crackpot and if he isn't he has some little game on foot in close association with the hunt of the oof bird which he tried to work off on me that couldn't as for for Marjorie my Marjorie only she isn't mine can found it if I had my senses about me I should have broken his head in several places for daring to allow her name to pass his lips the unbaptized Muhammad and now to return to the chase of splendid murder I snatched up my mask one of the most ingenious inventions by the way of recent years if the armies of the future wear my mask they will defy my weapon I was about to readjust it in its place when someone knocked at the door who's there come in it was Edwards he looked around him as if surprised I beg your pardon sir I thought you were engaged I didn't know that that gentleman had gone he went up to chimp me as all that kind of gentleman do why the deuce did you let him in when I told you not to really sir I don't know I gave him your message and he looked at me and that is all I remember till I found myself standing in this room had it not been Edwards I might have suspected him of having his palm well greased but in his case I knew better it was as I thought my visitor was a mesmerist of the first class he had actually played some of his tricks in broad daylight on my servant at my own front door a man worth studying Edwards continued there is someone else sir who wishes to see you Mr. Lessingham Mr. Lessingham at that moment the juxtaposition seemed odd though I dare say it was so rather an appearance that in reality show him in presently in came Paul I am free to confess I have owned it before that in a sense I admire that man so long as he does not presume to thrust himself into a certain position he possesses physical qualities which please my eye speaking as a mere biologist like the suggestion conveyed by his every pose his every movement of a tenacious hold on life a reserve force of a repository of bone and gristle on which he can fall back at pleasure the fellows lie than active not hasty yet agile clean built well hung the sort of man who might be relied upon to make a good recovery you might beat him in a sprint mental or physical though to do that you would have to be spry but in a staying race he would see you out I do not know that he is exactly the kind of man whom I would trust unless I knew that he was on the job which knowledge in this case would be uncommonly hard to obtain he is too calm too self-contained with a knack of looking all around him even in moments of extremist peril and for whatever he does he has a good excuse he has the reputation both in the house and out of it of being a man of iron nerve and with some reason yet I am not so sure unless I read him wrongly he is one of those individualities which confronted by certain eventualities collapse to rise the moment of trial having passed like phoenix from her ashes however it might be with his adherents he wouldn't show no trace of his disaster and this was the man whom Marjorie loved well she could show some cause he was a man of position destined probably to rise much higher a man of parts with capacity to make most of them not ill looking with agreeable manners when he chose and he came within the ladies definition of a gentleman he always did the right thing at the right time in the right way and yet well I take it that we are all cats and that we most of us are prigs for mercy's sake do not let us all give ourselves away he was dressed as a gentleman should be dressed black front coat black vest dark gray trousers stand-up collar smartly tied bow gloves of the proper shade neatly polished hair and a smile which if it was not childlike at any rate was bland I am not disturbing you not at all sure I never enter a place like this where a man is matching himself with nature to rest from her her secrets without feeling that I am crossing the threshold of the unknown the last time I was in this room was just after you had taken out the final patents for your system of telegraphy at sea which the admiralty purchased wisely what is it now death no really what do you mean if you are a member of the next government you will possibly learn I may offer them the refusal of a new wrinkle in the art of murder I see a new projectile how long is this race to continue between attack and defense until the sun grows cold and then there will be no defense nothing to defend he looked at me with his calm gray eyes the theory of the age of ice towards which we are advancing is not a cheerful one he began to finger a glass retort which lay upon a table by the way it was good of you to give me a look in last night I am afraid you thought me peremptory I have come to apologize I don't know that I thought you peremptory I thought you queer yes he glanced at me with that expressionless look upon his face which you could summon at will and which is at the bottom of the superstition about his iron nerve I was worried and not well besides one doesn't care to be burgled even by a maniac was he a maniac did you see him very clearly where in the street how close were you to him closer than I am to you indeed I didn't know you were so close to him as that did you try to stop him easier said than done he was off at such a rate did you see how he was dressed or rather undressed I did and nothing but a cloak on such a night who but a fanatic would have attempted burglary in such a costume did he take anything absolutely nothing it seems to have been a curious episode he moved his eyebrows according to members of the house the only gesture in which he has been known to indulge we become accustomed to curious escapades obliged me by not mentioning it to anyone to anyone he repeated the last two words as if to give them emphasis I wondered if he was thinking of Marjorie I am communicating with the police until they move I don't want it to get into the papers or to be talked about it's a worry you understand I nodded he changed the theme this that you're engaged upon is it a projectile or a weapon if you are a member of the next government you will possibly know if you aren't you possibly won't I suppose you have to keep this sort of thing secret I do it seems that matters of much less moment you wish to keep secret you mean that business of last night if a trifle of that sort gets into the papers or gets talked about which is the same thing you have no notion how we are pestered it becomes an almost unbearable nuisance jones the unknown can commit murder with less inconvenience to himself than jones the notorious can have his pocket picked there is not so much exaggeration in that as there sounds goodbye thanks to the promise I had given him no promise but that was by the way he turned as to go then stopped there's another thing I believe you're a specialist on questions of ancient superstitions and extinct religions I am interested in such subjects but I am not a specialist can you tell me what were the exact tenants of the worshipers of Isis neither I nor any man with scientific certainty as you know she had a brother the cult of Osiris and Isis was one in the same what precisely were its dogmas or its practices or anything about it none now can tell the papyri hieroglyphics and so on which remain are so very far from being exhaustive and our knowledge of those which do remain is still less so I suppose that the marvels which are told of it are purely legendary to what marvels do you particularly refer weren't supernatural powers attributed to the priests of Isis broadly speaking at that time supernatural powers were attributed to all the priests of all the creeds I see presently he continued I presume that her cult is long since extinct that none of the worshipers of Isis exist today I hesitated I was wondering why he had hit on such a subject if he really had a reason or if he was merely asking questions as a cover for something else you see I knew my Paul that is not so sure he looked at me with that passionless yet searching gaze of his you think that she still is worshiped I think it possible even probable that here and there in Africa Africa is a large order Amidst paid to Isis quite in the good old way do you know that as a fact excuse me but do you know it as a fact are you aware that you are treating me as if I was on the witness stand have you any special purpose in making these inquiries he smiled in a kind of way I have I have recently come across rather a curious story I am trying to get to the bottom of it what is the story I am afraid that at present I am not liberty to tell it to you when I am I will you will find it interesting as an instance of a singular survival didn't the followers of Isis believe in trans migration some of them no doubt what did they understand by trans migration trans migration yes but of the soul or of the body how do you mean trans migration is trans migration are you driving at something in particular if you'll tell me fairly and squarely what it is I'll do my best to give you the information you require as it is your questions are a bit perplexing oh it doesn't matter as you say trans migration is trans migration I was eyeing him keenly I seemed to detect in his manner an odd reluctance to enlarge on the subject he himself had started he continued to trifle with the retort upon the table hadn't the followers of Isis a what shall I say a sacred emblem how hadn't they in a special regard for some sort of a wasn't it some sort of a beetle you mean scarabus saucer according to latrielle scarabus egyptorium undoubtedly the scarab was venerated throughout Egypt indeed speaking generally most things that had life for instance cats as you know Osiris continued among men in the figure of apis the bull weren't the priests of Isis or some of them supposed to assume after death the form of a scarabus I have never heard of it are you sure think I shouldn't like to answer such a question positively offhand but I don't on the spur of the moment recall any supposition of the kind don't laugh at me I'm not a lunatic but I understand that recent researches have shown that even in some of the most astounding of the ancient legends there was a substratum of fact is it absolutely certain that there could be no shred of truth in such a belief in what belief in the belief that a priest of Isis or anyone assumed after death the form of a scarabus it seems to me lessingham that you have lately come across some uncommonly interesting data of a kind to which it is your bound and duty to give to the world or at any rate to that portion of the world which is represented by me come tell us all about it what are you afraid of I am afraid of nothing and someday you shall be told but not now at present answer my question then repeat your question clearly is it absolutely certain that there could be no foundation of truth in the belief that a priest of Isis or anyone assumed after death the form of a beetle I know no more than the man in the moon how the dickens should I such a belief may have been symbolical christians believe that after death the body takes the shape of worms and so in a sense it does and sometimes eels that is not what I mean then what do you mean listen if a person of whose veracity there could not be a vestige of a doubt assured you that he had seen such a transformation actually take place could it conceivably be explained on natural grounds seen a priest of Isis assume the form of a beetle or a follower of be Isis before or after death he hesitated I had seldom seen him wear such an appearance of interest to be frank I was keenly interested too but on a sudden there came into his eyes a glint of something that was almost terror when he spoke it was with the most unwanted awkwardness in in the very act of dying in the act of dying if he had seen a follower of Isis in the very act of dying assume the form of a beetle on any conceivable grounds would such a transformation be susceptible of a natural explanation I stared as who would not such an extraordinary question was rendered more extraordinary by coming from such a man yet I was almost beginning to suspect that there was something behind it more extraordinary still look here lessingham I can see you've a capital tail to tell so tell it man unless I'm mistaken it's not the kind of tail in which ordinary struples can have any part or parcel anyhow it's hardly fair of you to set my curiosity oligog and then to leave it unappeased he eyed me steadily the appearance of interest fading more and more until presently his face assumed its wanted expressionless mask somehow I was conscious that what he had seen in my face was not altogether to his liking his voice was once more bland and self-contained I perceive viewer of opinion that I have been told a pterodidil I suppose I have but what is the pterodidil don't you see I'm burning unfortunately atherton I am on my honor until I have permission to unloose it my tongue is tied he picked up his hat an umbrella from where he had placed him on the table holding them in his left hand he advanced to me with his right outstretched it is very good of you to suffer my continued interruption I know to my sorrow what such interruptions mean believe me I am not ungrateful what is this on the shelf within a foot or so of where I had stood was a sheet of paper the size and shape of half a sheet of post note at this he stooped to glance as he did so something surprisingly occurred on the instant a look came to his face which literally transfigured him his hat an umbrella fell from his grasp onto the floor he retreated gibbering his hands held out as if to ward something off from him until he reached the wall on the other side of the room a more amazing spectacle than he presented I never saw lessingham I exclaimed what's wrong with you my first impression was that he was struck by a fit of epilepsy though anyone less like an epileptic subject it would be hard to find it might be overwhelming I looked round to see what could be the immediate cause my eye fell upon the sheet of paper I stared at it with considerable surprise I had not noticed it there previously I had not put it there where had it come from the curious thing was that on it produced apparently by some process of photogravier was an illustration of a species of beetle with which I felt that I ought to be acquainted and yet was not it was of a dull golden green the color was so well brought out even to the extent of seeming to scintillate and the whole thing was so dexterously done that the creature seemed alive the semblance of reality was indeed so vivid that it needed a second glance to be assured that it was a mere trick of the reproducer its presence there was odd after what we had been talking about it might seem to need explanation but it was absurd to suppose that that alone could have had such an effect on a man like lessingham with the thing in my hand I crossed to where he was pressing his back against the wall he had shrunk lower inch by inch till he was actually crouching on his haunches lessingham come man what's wrong with you taking him by the shoulder I shook him with some vigor my touch had on him the effect of seeming to wake him out of a dream of restoring him to consciousness as against the nightmare horrors with which he was struggling he gazed up at me with that look of cunning on his face which one associates with abject terror atherton is it you it's all right quite right I'm well very well as he spoke he slowly drew himself up till he was standing erect then in that case all I can say is that you have a queer way of being very well he put his hand up to his mouth as if to hide the trembling of his lips it's the pressure of overwork I've had one or two attacks like this but it's nothing only a local lesion I observed him keenly to my thinking there was something about him which was very odd indeed only a local lesion if you take my strongly yours advice you'll get a medical opinion without delay if you haven't been wise enough to have done so already I'll go today at once but I know it's only mental over strain you're sure it's nothing to do with this I held out in front of him the photograph your of the beetle as I did so he backed away from me shrieking trembling as with palsy take it away take it away he screamed I stared at him for some seconds astonished into speechlessness then I found my tongue lessing ham it's only a picture are you stark mad he persisted in his ejaculations take it away take it away tear it up burn it his agitation was so unnatural from whatever caused it arose that fearing the recurrence of the attack from which he had just recovered I did as he bade me I tore the sheet of paper into quarters and striking a match set fire to each separate piece he watched the process of incineration as if fascinated when it was concluded and nothing but ashes remained he gave a gasp of relief lessing ham I said you're either mad already or you're going mad which is it I think it's neither I believe I am as sane as you it's it's that story of which I was speaking yet it seems curious but I'll tell you all about it someday as I observed I think you'll find it an interesting instance of a singular survival he made an obvious effort to become more like his usual self it is extremely unfortunate atherton that I should have troubled you with such a display of weakness especially as I am able to offer you so scant an explanation one thing I would ask of you to observe strict confidence what has taken place has been between ourselves I am in your hands but you are my friend I know I can rely on you not to speak of it to anyone and in particular not to breathe a hint of it to miss linden why in particular not to miss linden can you not guess I hunched my shoulder if what I guess is what you mean is not that a cause the more why silence would be unfair to her it is for me to speak if for anyone I shall not fail to do what should be done give me your promise that you will not hint a word to her of what you have so unfortunately seen I gave him the promise he required there was no more work for me that day the apostle his deviations his example of the calioptera his arabian friend these things were his microbes which acting on a system already predisposed for their reception produced high fever I was in a fever of unrest brain in a whirl marjorie paul ices beetle mesmerism in delirious jumble loves upsetting in itself a sufficiently severe disease but when complications intervene suggestive of mystery and novelties so that you do not know if you are moving in an atmosphere of dreams or of frozen facts if then your temperature does not rise like that rocket of monsieur verne's which reached the moon then you are a freak of an entirely genuine kind and if the surgeons do not preserve you and place you on view and pickle they ought to for the sake of historical doubters for no one will believe that there will ever was a man like you unless you yourself are somewhere around to prove them thomas's myself I am not that man when I get warm I grow heated and when I am heated there is likely to be a variety show of a gaudy kind when paul had gone I tried to think things out and if I kept on trying something would have happened so I went on to the river instead end of chapter 13 recording by alan winter out boom coach dot blog spot dot com chapter 14 of the beetle this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox dot or recording by alan winter out the beetle by richard marsh chapter 14 the duchess's ball that night was the duchess of dachats ball the first person I saw as I entered the dancing room was dora grailing I went straight up to her miss grailing I behaved very badly to you last night I have come to make to you my apologies to sue for your forgiveness my forgiveness her head went back she has a pretty birdlike trick of cocking it a little on one side you were not well are you better quite you forgive me then grant me plenary absolution by giving me a dance for the one I lost last night she rose a man came up a stranger to me she's one of the best hunted women in england there's a million with her this is my dance miss grailing she looked at him you must excuse me I'm afraid I have made a mistake I had forgotten that I was already engaged I had not thought her capable of it she took my arm and away we went and left him staring it's he who's the sufferer now I whispered as we went around she can waltz you think so it was I last night I did not mean if I could help it to suffer again to me a dance with you means something she went all red adding as an afterthought nowadays so few men really dance I expect it's because you dance so well thank you we danced the waltz right through then we went to an impromptu shelter which had been rigged up on the balcony and we talked there's something sympathetic about miss grailing which leads one to talk about oneself before I was half aware of it I was telling her of all my plans and projects actually telling her of my latest notion which ultimately was to result in the destruction of whole armies by a flash of lightning she took an amount of interest in it which was surprising what really stands in the way of things of this sort is not theory but practice one can prove one's facts on paper or on a small scale in a room what is wanted is proof on a large scale by actual experiment if for instance I could take my plant to one of the forests of South America where there is plenty of animal life but no human I could demonstrate the soundness of my position then and there why don't you think of the money it would cost I thought I was a friend of yours I had hoped you were then why don't you let me help you help me how by letting you have the money for your South American experiment it would be an investment on which I should expect to receive good interest I fidgeted it is very good of you miss Grayling to talk like that she became quite frigid please don't be absurd I perceive quite clearly that you are snubbing me and that you are trying to do it as delicately as you know how Miss Grayling I understand that it was an impertinent on my part to volunteer assistance which was unasked you have made that sufficiently plain I assure you pray don't of course if it had been Miss Linden it would have been different she would at least have received a civil answer but we are not all Miss Linden I was aghast the outburst was so uncalled for I had not the famous notion what I had said or done to cause it she was in such a surprising passion and it suited her I thought I had never seen her look prettier I could do nothing else but stare so she went on with just as little reason here is someone coming to claim this dance I can't throw all my partners over have I offended you so irredeemably that will be impossible for you to dance with me again Miss Grayling I shall be only too delighted she handed me her card which may I have for your own sake you had better place it as far off as you possibly can they all seem taken that doesn't matter strike off any name you please anywhere and put your own name instead it was giving me an almost embarrassingly free hand I booked myself for the next waltz but too who it was who would have to give way to me I did not trouble to inquire Mr. Atherton is that you it was it was also she it was Marjorie and so soon as I saw her I knew that there was only one woman in the world for me the mere sight of her sent the blood tingling through my veins turning to her attendant cavalier she dismissed him with a bow is there an empty chair she seated herself in the one Miss Grayling had just vacated I sat down beside her she glanced at me laughter in her eyes I was all in a stupid tremblement you remember that last night I told you that I might require your friendly services and diplomatic intervention I nodded I felt that the illusion was unfair well the occasions come or at least it's very near she was still and I said nothing to help her you know how unreasonable papa can be I did never a more pigheaded man in England than Jeffrey Linden or in a sense a duller but just then I was not prepared to admit it to his child you know what an absurd objection he has to Paul there was an appreciable hesitation before she uttered the fellow's christian name when it came it was such an accent of tenderness which stung me like a gadfly to speak to me of all men of the fellow in such a tone was like a woman has mr. Linden no notion of how things stand between you except what he suspects that is just where you are to come in papa thinks so much of you I want you to sound Paul's praises in his ear to prepare him for what must come was ever rejected lover burdened with such a task it's a normity kept me still Sidney you have always been my friend my truest dearest friend when I was a little girl you used to come between papa and me to shield me from his wrath now that I am a big girl I want you to be on my side once more and to shield me still her voice softened she laid her hand upon my arm how under her touch I burned but I don't understand what cause there has been for secrecy why should there have been any secrecy from the first it was Paul's wish that papa should not be told is mr. Lessingham ashamed of you Sidney or does he fear your father you are unkind you know perfectly well that papa has been prejudiced against him all along you know that his political position is just now one of the greatest difficulty that every nerve and muscle is kept on the continual strain that it is in the highest degree essential that further complications of every and any sort should be avoided he is quite aware that his suit will not be approved of by papa and he simply wishes that nothing shall be said about it till the end of the session that is all I see mr. Lessingham is cautious even in love making politician first and lover afterwards well why not would you have him injure the cause he has at heart for want of a little patience it depends what cause it is he has at heart what does the matter with you why do you speak to me like that it is not like you at all she looked at me shrewdly with flashing eyes it is possible that you you are jealous that you were in earnest in what you said last night I thought that was the sort of thing you said to every girl I would have given a great deal to take her in my arms and press her to my bosom then and there to think that she should taunt me with having said to her the sort of thing I said to every girl what do you know of mr. Lessingham what all the world knows that history will be made by him there are kinds of history in the making of which one would not desire to be associated what do you know of his private life it was to that that I was referring really you go too far I know that he is one of the best just as he is one of the greatest of men for me that is sufficient if you do know that it is sufficient I do know it all the world knows it everyone with whom he comes in contact is aware must be aware that he is incapable of a dishonorable thought or action take my advice don't appreciate any man too highly in the book of every man's life there is a page which he would wish to keep turned down there is no such page in paul's there may be in yours I think that probable thank you I feared it more than probable I fear that in my case the page may extend to several there is nothing apostolic about me not even the name Sidney you are unendurable it is the more strange to hear you talk like this since paul regards you as his friend he flatters me are you not his friend is it not sufficient to be yours no who is against paul is against me that is hard how is it hard who is against the husband can hardly be for the wife when the husband and the wife are one but as yet you are not one is my cause so hopeless what do you call your cause are you thinking of that nonsense you were talking about last night she laughed you call it nonsense you ask for sympathy and give so much I will give you all the sympathy you stand in need of I promise it my poor dear Sidney don't be so absurd do you think that I don't know you who are the best of friends and the worst of lovers as the one so true so fickle as the other to my certain knowledge with how many girls you have been in love and out again it is true that to the best of my knowledge and belief you have never been in love with me before but that's the weirdest accident believe me my dear dear Sidney you'll be in love with someone else tomorrow if you're not halfway there tonight I confess quite frankly that in that direction all the experience I have had of you has in no way strengthened my prophetic instinct cheer up one never knows who is that that's coming it was dora grailing who is coming I went off with her without a word who were halfway through a dance before she spoke to me I am sorry that I was cross to you just now and disagreeable somehow I always seem destined to show you my most unpleasant side the blame was mine what sort of side do I show you you are far kinder to me than I deserve now and always that is what you say pardon me it's true else how comes at that at this time of day I'm without a friend in all the world you without a friend I never knew a man who had so many I never knew a person of whom so many men and women join in speaking well Miss Grayling as for never having done anything worth doing think of what you have done think of your discoveries think of your inventions think of but never mind the world knows you have done great things and it confidently looks to you to do still greater you talk of being friendless and yet when I ask as a favor as a great favor to be allowed to do something to show my friendship you well you snub me I snub you you know you snub me do you really mean that you take an interest in in my work you know I mean it she turned to me her face all glowing and I did know it will you come to my laboratory tomorrow morning will I won't I with your aunt yes with my aunt I'll show you around until you all there is to be told and then if you still think there's anything in it I'll accept your offer about that South American experiment that is if it still holds good of course it still holds good and we'll be partners partners yes we will be partners it will cost a terrific sum there are some things which can never cost too much that's not my experience I hope it will be mine it's a bargain on my side I promise you that it's a bargain when I got outside the room I found that Percy Woodville was at my side his round face was in a manner of speaking as long as my arm he took his glass out of his eye and rubbed it with his handkerchief and directly he put it back he took it out and rubbed it again I believe that I never saw him in such a state of fluster and when one speaks of Woodville that means something Atherton I am in a devil of a stew he looked it all of a heap I've had such a blow which I shall never get over then get under Woodville is one of those fellas who will insist on telling me their most private matters even to what they owe their washerwoman for the ruination of their shirts why goodness alone can tell heaven knows I am not sympathetic don't be an idiot you don't know what I'm suffering I'm as nearly as possible stark mad that's all right old chap I've seen you that way more than once before don't talk like that you're not a perfect brute I bet you a shilling that I am don't torture me you're not Atherton he sees me by the lapels of my coat seeming half beside himself fortunately he had drawn me into a recess so that we were noticed by few observers what do you think has happened my dear chap how on earth am I to know she's refused me has she well I never buck up try some other address there are quite as good a fish in the sea as ever came out of it Atherton you're a blaggard he had crumpled his handkerchief into a ball was actually bobbing at his eyes with it the idea of Percy Woodville being dissolved in tears was excruciatingly funny but just then I could hardly tell him so there's not a doubt of it it's in my way of being sympathetic don't be so down man try her again it's not the slightest use I know it isn't from the way she treated me don't be so sure women often say what they mean least who's the lady who is there more women in the world than one for me or has there ever been you asked me who what does the word mean to me but Marjorie Linden Marjorie Linden I fancy that my draw dropped open that to use his own vernacular I was all of a heap I felt like it I strode away leaving him mazed and all but ran into Marjorie's arms I'm just leaving will you see me to the carriage mr. Atherton I saw her to the carriage are you off can I give you a lift thank you I am not thinking of being off I'm going to the House of Commons won't you come what are you going there for directly she spoke of it I knew why she was going and she knew that I knew as her word showed you are quite well aware of what the magnet is you are not so ignorant as not to know that the Agricultural Amendment Act is on tonight and that Paul is to speak I always try to be there when Paul is to speak and I mean to always keep on trying he is a fortunate man indeed and again indeed a man with such gifts as his is inadequately described as fortunate but I must be off he expected to be up before but I heard from him a few minutes ago that there has been a delay but that he will be up within half an hour till our next meeting as I returned into the house in the hall I met Percy Woodville he had his hat on where are you off to I'm off to the house to hear Paul Lessingham damn Paul Lessingham with all my heart there's a division expected I've got to go someone else has gone to hear Paul Lessingham Marjorie Linden no you don't say so by Joe I say Atherton I wish I could make a speech I never can when I'm electioneering I have to have my speeches written for me and then I have to read them but by Joe if I knew Miss Linden was in the gallery and if I knew anything about the thing or could get someone to tell me something hang me if I wouldn't speak I'd show her that I'm not the fool she thinks I am speak Percy speak you knock them silly sir I'll tell you what I'll do I'll come with you I'll to the house as well Paul Lessingham shall have an audience of three end of chapter 14 recording by Alan Winteroud boomcoach.blogspot.com