 14 Although he rejoiced greatly in the possession of his re-found powers, and although the drab monotony of his prison life was almost transfigured by the glowing speculation in which he indulged as to the possible use to which he could put them, Jenner Halkind was far too prudent to make indiscreet use of them. For the present, therefore, he contended himself with keeping Warder Jackson, who happened to be a peculiarly sensitive subject, more or less completely under his control. By this means he secured many luxuries and privileges which are not mentioned in his Majesty's prison regulations. The miserable diet was supplemented by such portable delicacies as potted meats, jam, sardines, and anchovies, with, now and then, a half pint of wine or brandy, and perhaps best of all, a newspaper. It was in one of these that he read in account of the action which Harold Instone had taken to set aside the will and abolish his own trusteeship. He had never read anything more anxiously in his life than he read that half column inch by inch as opportunity offered, but when he had got hold of all the facts he smiled as he hid the paper away until he could return it to his henchmen, and said to himself, That is all very good. The million is ours, and Iza will keep faith to me even to death. And who knows, but that between us we may someday find a way to open this living tomb. What he had actually learnt was that Harold's action had been successful so far as the actual estate and personal property was concerned. His own trusteeship and that of Iza Ramall had been declared null and void on the ground of improper influence, and the court had given everything back to Harold as Sir Godfrey's sole lawful heir. But over the million that had already been drawn out of the estate the court had no power. It is one of the peculiarities of English law that while it can punish the thief it cannot compel him to disgorge his plunder. No further penalty could be inflicted on a man already sentenced to penal servitude for life, and so Harold Instone had to submit to the loss of the million with what grace he could, and Iza Ramall guarded it safely and watched interest being piled upon interest until the day that he hoped for should come. One day about a week before Hallkind's probation came to an end, he was to be transferred to the great convict prison at Nethermore, within whose gray granite walls he was to pass the rest of his days, a serious misschance befell him. Water Jackson was struck down by typhoid fever, and in his delirium he raved about convicts with awful eyes which saw into his brain and waving hands that blinded him, and a voice that he could not disobey, which commanded him to forsake his duty and do all manner of unlawful things. It so happened that both the Governor and the Doctor of the Prison were men of considerable enlightenment and intelligence, and when they came to put their heads together they arrived at the conclusion that Water Jackson's story, which he told in connected form after he recovered his reason, tallied so completely with the strange allegations which had been made at Hallkind's trial that at the very least the matter was worth careful investigation. Without saying anything to Hallkind, the Governor had Denier before him in his private room and told him that if he would speak plainly and honestly about the supposed occult powers of his late accomplice, the marks which he would lose for receiving his letter would be restored to him, and nothing more would be said of the matter. Naturally Denier spoke quite freely, and he also took the opportunity of asking Leave to petition the Home Office for protection against Dr. Isa Ramal and Ramdas. The Leave was granted, not so much for his sake as for the reason that the authorities were not sorry to have a specific excuse for keeping an eye on Hallkind's associates, who were probably also his Confederates, since the vanished million was undoubtedly in their possession. His story of the strange powers which he had seen Hallkind exercise on both Sir Godfrey and his niece before her marriage tallied exactly with Water Jackson's confession, but when the interview was over the doctor said to the Governor, In my opinion this is distinctly a case that it will be well worth while both for us and the Nethermore people to watch carefully, and if possible without exciting this man's suspicions. I know Dr. Saunderson at Nethermore very well, and if you agree I will write him a description of the case as far as I can. Yes, replied the Governor. You might as well do that at once, Doctor. And while you're at it I'll pay a little surprise visit to our friend with the wonderful eyes, and see if I can make anything of him. Take care he doesn't make something that you don't want to be of you, Sir, replied the doctor seriously. It's only the plain truth that when a man really does possess this mysterious power, whatever it is, there's scarcely any limit to it. For instance, I've seen a man in the infirmary at the Salpettrier singing a comic song while his leg was being amputated without anesthetics, and simply under hypnotic suggestion. I quite believe it, said the Governor. I've read descriptions myself of the most extraordinary cases described by the very best authorities. I'll take good care he doesn't fix me with his basilisk gaze, although I hardly think he'd dare to try any tricks on me. A prison with a hypnotized Governor would be rather too Gilbersian. What on earth would our respected Commissioners think of it? The said Commissioners would have been just as much astounded as the Governor was if they could have accompanied him on his visit to Halkind's cell. It so happened that the chaplain, who like all prison chaplains worked rather for the love of his work than for a living, was visiting the distinguished prisoner that afternoon. He was making yet another of the many earnest efforts he had already made to make some impression upon Halkind's callous skepticism, and to bring him to a juster sense of the fate which his misdeeds had brought upon him. When the Governor entered the cell he was amazed to find the Reverend Edward Cartwright standing bolt upright in the corner behind the door. His arms held stiffly down his sides, and his eyes staring straight at Halkind, who was sitting at the other end of the cell by the little shelf that served for a table, calmly dictating a letter which the chaplain was to write for him to his friend Issa Ramall. The Reverend Gentlemen was just repeating in a mechanical, automatic voice the last paragraph of the letter when the Governor swung the door to behind him and exclaimed, Good heavens, Mr. Cartwright, what on earth is the matter? And you, Halkind, why don't you stand up? In his anger at the breach of discipline he forgot the Doctor's caution and stared straight into the luminous magnetic eyes. In an instant they had gripped his and held them. The chaplain's eyelids drooped, his voice died away in a murmur, and he seemed to go to sleep standing as rigid as a sleep-walker. "'Because, my dear sir, I prefer to sit down,' replied Halkind in slow, musical and yet intensely penetrating tones. "'It is you who shall stand. You had better do as you are told,' he went on, as the Governor made a struggling movement towards him. "'You know, if I were to tell you to stand on your head, you'd have to do it.' "'Confound you, you scoundrel? I'll take care, sir. Take care,' said the voice again, as the eyes grew darker and bigger and seemed to come closer. "'You are a somewhat apoplectic subject, and it would be very awkward if you had a fit in my cell with the door locked. They might think I had killed you, and I wouldn't like to do that. Now listen. I understand from the chaplain that Mr. Denier has made a confession about me, and that there is some idea of punishing me for causing him to break the regulations by reducing my diet and keeping me in solitary confinement. You will do nothing of the kind. My probation is nearly up, and I've had about enough of this sort of thing. You will credit me with the full amount of marks, and you will write this evening to the Governor at Nethermore, where I hear I am to be transferred, informing him that my conduct has been as good as my health has been delicate, and that you therefore suggest that I shall be treated with every consideration. If you don't do this and show me the letter before you post it, I shall keep you under my influence as I did Jackson, and compel you to do something that shall ensure your dismissal. Do you promise on your honor as a gentleman?' The Governor struggled hard to say what he wanted to say, but it was no good. Hall kind rose and came close to him. He felt his hands grip his temples, and saw the two eyes merge into one, as Water Jackson and the chaplain had seen them. Then he heard his own voice saying, Yes, I promise, on my honor. Very well, said the voice quickly. Now you may unlock that door. Mr. Cartwright, he went on, passing his hand upward over the chaplain's forehead. Come, it's time you woke up. Remember that you also have a letter to write for me. You'd better go and do it, and be careful not to forget anything I've told you. The chaplain's eyes opened, and he replied in a dreamy voice. Oh, no. I shall certainly not forget. I remember it perfectly. And when you have written it and posted it, understand that then, and not till then, you are to forget it. Now you may go. The Governor unlocked the door and went out with the chaplain, leaving Hall kind sitting by his little shelf and laughing softly. The two letters were written forthwith, and Mr. Cartwright, who was a man of highly nervous temperament and much more sensitive than the Governor, brought them both back to the cell at supper time in their stamped, directed envelopes. They were both very strange communications, but the one to Dr. Iza Ramal, although more than twice the length of the other, was to the ordinary eye totally unintelligible. The chaplain had written it mechanically, just as he had learnt it from Hallkind's lips. If he could have read it when his faculties were under his own control, he would have seen that it was quite the most amazing letter that a chaplain of one of his Majesty's prisons could possibly have written. The master prisoner approved them both, and the chaplain took them to the nearest post office outside the prison and dispatched them. It's amazing, and if we didn't know that such things are possible, it would be absolutely incredible. Of course, it's perfectly easy now to see what the Judge was really thinking about when he told the jury that English law took no account of this occult or superhuman power or whatever it is. If it had done, of course, this fellow would have been hung long ago, as I think he ought to have been under any circumstances. Now, you see, we have two living proofs that Hallkind really does possess this power, just as Charcot and Ribot and a dozen others in France, Germany, and Italy have it. The only difference is that they used it for good, while this fellow used it for evil. That's all very well, Doctor, said the Governor, who had asked him and the chaplain to come to his house and smoke a pipe after supper and talk over the strange doings of the day. That's all very well, but granted everything that you say, there remains the fact that I have written and posted a perfectly ridiculous letter. I mean, of course, ridiculous from the official point of view, to the Governor of Nethermore, a letter which I can't contradict now without giving everything away, and what is almost infinitely worse than that, Mr. Cartwright, than whom, as you know, His Majesty has no more earnest or loyal servant, has, under this infernal influence, or whatever it is, committed such a grievous breach of the King's regulations that nothing could save him or myself either, for the matter of that, from instant dismissal and possibly imprisonment. Good heavens, he continued, rising from his chair with a jerk. Just imagine what would have happened if we had had one of the directors or the visiting magistrates in the prison this afternoon. Phew! I daren't even think of it. Nor I, said the chaplain, raising his light-blue eyes and looking across the table at the Governor. Really, it is too amazing, and in another sense quite too ludicrous for, well, we will say, an official report. Heaven's alive, exclaimed the Governor. Put that in an official report? No, sir, not for anything. And now, Doctor, you know more about this sort of thing than we do. What is your advice? The Doctor took two or three poles at his pipe and a sip at his glass of port. He watched the blue wreaths curling up towards the ceiling and melting away in the smoke-laden haze of the room. And then he took his pipe out of his mouth and said, Well, sir, as regards what we may call the breaches of discipline, the harm is done, and therefore the less said about the affair the better. Personally, I think that this is a part of a scheme of revenge that Halkind has been hatching for weeks, possibly for months past, and if it all came out, there wouldn't be a more pleased prisoner-endurance vile than he. As regards his next move, my leave will be coming on just then, and I should like you to give me permission to accompany the jailers with him to Nethermore. I can explain it very much better to Saundersen over a glass of his North Country toddy than I could by riding. And meanwhile he went on, putting his hand into the breast pocket of his coat, and taking out a mask and a pair of dark goggles, such as motor-drivers wear. I think it would be as well, in case other accidents might happen, if our friend of the wonderful eyes were, as one might say, put in blinkers. Hmm. A very good idea indeed, doctor, said the governor. But I'm afraid the regulations won't allow us to force him to wear them. Oh, hang the regulations, said the doctor impatiently. You'll have to take the law into your own hands this time, sir. And if our patient objects, let him complain to the directors, and then let them come and interview him. I shouldn't wonder if we found them sweeping out Halkind's cell five minutes afterwards. At any rate, as this comes somewhat into my province, if you'll use the physical force, if necessary, I'll take the professional responsibility. Very well, doctor, said the governor. I'm agreeable to that. If there's any trouble about it, you and I will share it, and Mr. Cartwright here will help us out. The chaplain nodded and smiled. And so it came about that Jenner Halkind, in spite of many protests, made the journey from London to Nethermore masked and goggled like the driver of a racing motor car. End of Chapter 14. Recording by James K. White, Chula Vista. Chapter 15 of A Mayfair Magician, A Romance of Criminal Science. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by James K. White, Chula Vista. A Mayfair Magician, A Romance of Criminal Science. By George Griffith. Chapter 15. Well, my dear Arnold, I must confess that this is the most extraordinary case I have ever come across in my experience, to Dr. Saundersen, when his colleague from London had given him a detailed history of the strange case of Jenner Halkind, convict, and seeming miracle worker. The mask and the goggles were a good idea, I must say, but I'm thinking that we'll have trouble with them for all that. You see, we've no right under the regulations to compel a prisoner to look at the world through colored glass for the rest of his days. And a highly educated man like this would be the very one to put a complaint nicely before the directors or the visiting magistrates, and you know what they are. Then you see there is the difficulty about this story of yours. I needn't tell you that I believe every word of it, though I think the Governor wants a little more convincing. But how are we going to get a yarn like that through the skulls of county magistrates, even if you could confess that this fellow has made you and the chaplain and the Governor at your own place to say nothing of the water, break the King's regulations all to pieces? Yes, I am afraid you're right," replied the other. Naturally it wouldn't do to say anything about that. There would be no end of a row if it ever got before the commissioners. No, I'm afraid now that you've got him here you will just have to treat him as an ordinary prisoner until he works another of his infernal miracles on somebody, and then of course the Governor can report the matter regularly and get permission for the goggles. Meanwhile we'll try them at any rate until our friend makes a formal complaint. Curiously enough, however, and considerably to Dr. Saunderson's surprise, Halkind made no objection whatever to wearing the unsightly mask and spectacles. He had learnt the lessons of his probation well, and his conduct was practically perfect. The other prisoners and the warders were allowed to believe that he was suffering from a disease of the eyes which made any bright light very painful to him, and he did not undeceive them. He kept absolutely to himself, and in a very few weeks he had won recognition as quite the model prisoner of the establishment. His custodians would, however, have been greatly surprised to learn that although he was not yet entitled to receive or write letters, he was nevertheless in constant communication with the outside world. One of his principal occupations was gardening and light farm work, for which his intimate knowledge of botany and the science of agriculture made him exceedingly useful, and his eyes, in spite of the goggles, detected certain marks on trees, little arrangements of pebbles and broken twigs, and strange characters drawn on flat stones and cakes of clay that nobody else saw. It never struck anyone either to connect the visit of a mild-mannered Hindu barrister who was studying the prison system of England with prisoner number 777. And yet somehow he became possessed of a tiny ball of white paper which he unrolled in his cell and which then took the form of half a dozen cigarette papers covered with Persian characters. He read them carefully as opportunity offered, and when he had quite mastered their contents he swallowed them one by one. Thus the autumn grew into the winter of the second year of his imprisonment, and the time approached for the execution of a scheme such as had never before been conceived by a dweller within prison walls. Number 777's behavior had been so uniformly perfect that the governor, who had always looked with a certain amount of skepticism on the extraordinary story that Dr. Arnold had brought with him, began to come to the conclusion that there was probably a good deal of unconscious self-deception mixed up with the matter. He discussed the matter with Dr. Sanderson, who held firmly to his original opinion, and then in an evil moment he decided, with that obscenity which sometimes characterizes the military officer in a civil position, to test the truth or falsehood of the story himself. It so happened that Halkind suggested an excellent opportunity for doing this. Autumn merges rapidly into winter on the bleak slopes of Nethermore, and one day when the first snows had fallen he received a request for an interview from him. The next day was the one on which he was accustomed to hear reports and complaints in his office, and when the other cases were disposed of he ordered Halkind to be brought before him. The request that he had to make was a very simple and natural one, and it was made so modestly and respectfully that Colonel Marshall did not find any difficulty in granting it. He had suffered for years from a slight weakness of the bronchial tubes, said No. 777, and as gardening and farming were now at a standstill he asked that he might be given indoor employment, even if it were in solitude. Further the constant action of the colored rays on his eyes and the absence of natural light were enfeebling his eyesight. Wherefore, if the Governor still thought it necessary for him to wear the glasses in public, he would esteem it a great favor if he could be allowed to work in solitude and be relieved of them for a certain number of hours a day. Now it chanced that the telephonic communication between the Governor's house and the prison had got out of order and wanted thorough overhauling, and no one was better qualified to do the work than the almost universally accomplished convict 777. So the Governor, in spite of a somewhat strong protest from Dr. Saunderson, determined to have his own way and give the job to him. The same afternoon he was taken to the house under the charge of a warder, as the regulations prescribed, and the goggles were removed. He went about his work on the instrument quietly and deftly, keeping his eyes fixed on what he was doing. Warder Plunkett, his guardian, was a good officer and an excellent disciplinarian, but he was practically devoid of imagination, and therefore even more skeptical to the supposed powers of number 777 than Colonel Marshall himself was. The first instrument to be operated upon was the telephone in the Governor's bedroom, by means of which he could be roused any time of the night in case of any emergency arising in the prison. This was connected with all the principal galleries and the infirmary, as well as with the house which Dr. Saunderson occupied some little distance away on the opposite side of the principal entrance gate. Halkine took the framework down, examined it, and found a little fault in one of the wires which was not properly insulated. I think this is the fault with this instrument, sir, he said to the warder, as he heeded a piece of gutta percha over the flame of the spirit lamp. He rolled it out between his fingers, applied it to the wire, and went on as he replaced the instrument against the wall. Now, will you kindly see if you can ring the doctor up? I think this peg is his connection, yes? Now if you please. And it would be better if you would keep your eyes steadily fixed on this little circle. That is what is called the diaphragm. It is a little sheet of very thin iron, and it vibrates as you speak against it. That is how the electric wires convey the sounds of your voice to the receiver at the other end. Yes, that's it. Look very steadily at it, please, so that you can tell me if it moves. Allow me for a moment. That is not quite in the proper position I see. As he shifted the instrument a little, he passed his hand two or three times before the warder's eyes. When he saw that they were fixed on the diaphragm, he took out the connecting peg, looked keenly into his eyes for a few moments, made the connection with the governor's offices in the prison, and said with a snap of authority in his voice, Now, sir, be good enough to ask the governor to come to this room as soon as he is at liberty. I thought you said the doctor just now, said Mr. Plunkett, in a voice curiously unlike his own, and trying hard but unsuccessfully to get his eyes away from that little disk of black iron. It doesn't matter which, replied Halkind, with yet a little more authority in his voice. I only want to try the connection. There now, you ought to be connected. Kindly ask the governor if he can hear you, but don't take your eyes off the diaphragm. I want you to tell me if it moves. The warder did, as he was told, wondering in a dull kind of way what was happening. The reply came back that the governor was in his office. Governor says he's there, said Plunkett, in a dull tone. Very well, replied Halkind. Now tell him that he is wanted here immediately, here in this room. But he isn't, said Plunkett sullenly. I don't want him. And you have no right, never mind about rights, Mr. Plunkett, came the sharp reply. Be good enough to do as I ask you. Has that diaphragm moved yet? No, sir. No, it hasn't. Not as I have seen. No. Well then, perhaps we'd better wait until it does before you call the governor. Just say, all right, we are trying connections, sir. The warder repeated the words as a phonograph might have reproduced them and without taking his eyes off the iron disk. Presently the words spoken in the governor's voice, all right, I can hear perfectly, came over the wire. Governor says he can hear all right, sir, said the warder, remembering dimly how it was that their positions had been, as it were, reversed. Halkind walked to the window and looked out. He saw that it had begun to snow heavily. That will do, Mr. Plunkett, he said. It's getting near supper time. I think you'd better conduct me back to the prison. The officer tried hard, but he could neither get his eyes away from the fatal disk nor move a muscle in his body. He just stood there, leaning slightly forward, and staring with fixed eyes at the instrument. Then Halkind went up to him and measured him with his eye. He was almost exactly the same size as himself, but this he had already arranged so by choosing the day on which he knew that this particular man would be on duty. He stepped to the door and gently locked it. Then he commenced a rapid hunt through the room. He found the governor's razors and shaving tackle and shaved himself clean. This done he went to Mr. Plunkett, put his hands on either side of his temples, turned his head round and stared into his eyes fixedly for two or three minutes. His eyelids fell half over his eyes and stopped there. Then he passed his hands over his limbs and they became supple again. Attention! The warder, an old soldier, stiffened up, and he went on with a good imitation of the military tone of command. Sergeant Plunkett, you have got the wrong uniform on. Take it off and put this one on instead. Quick now! Boots and everything! I'm surprised that you should appear on parade in such an extraordinary rig. Think yourself lucky if it doesn't cost you your stripes. The officer obeyed in a wooden sort of way and at the same time Halkind stripped off his convict garb and threw the things towards him. In two or three minutes the change was completed and then Halkind ordered him to sit down, took a pair of scissors from the governor's dressing table, and very carefully clipped off the mustache and chin beard. Then he melted some more of the gutta percha to a fluid, mixed it with a little powdered resin, smeared it over his upper lip and chin, and with wonderful neatness transplanted the warder's mustache and beard to his own face, leaving him in the scrubby condition of a clipped convict. He put on the peaked cap, looked at himself in the glass, and waited until the gutta percha and resin, which were rather too hot to be comfortable, cooled and solidified. When he was quite satisfied with his disguise, he turned to the convict clad warder and said, Now then, Halkind, the bell will go in a few minutes. It's time we were getting back. Come along. Mr. Plunkett rose mechanically to attention, accepting the other name without question. Halkind fastened the mask and goggles on him, unlocked the door, and marched him out. He took him back into the prison, saw him safely into his own cell, and locked him in. Then he strolled quietly up through the prison yard, walked out through the gates with a nod to the gate keeper, and in a few minutes more had disappeared amidst the thickly driving snow. He had timed matters so that a good two hours elapsed before the audacious trick that he had played was discovered. Meanwhile the early dusk of the northern winter afternoon was deepened by the ever-increasing clouds of snowflakes, which fell quickly and softly out of the universal gray mist which covered the heavens. The prison bell was rung and the telegraph set to work. But any idea of search that night was madness, and so the infuriated governor and the bewildered officials could do nothing more than wire descriptions of the escaped convict to all the surrounding police stations and wait with what patience they could command till morning. But when morning came and the search parties were preparing to set out, a green grocers cart came laboring and jolting through the snow to the door of the prison. And in it lay the body of Jenner Halkine, which a shepherd trying to rescue some of his sheep that had been snowed up in a pen had found almost covered with snow and frozen stiff by the side of the old Roman road across the moors about five miles east from the prison. Dr. Sanderson examined the body and pronounced life extinct. The usual inquest was held in the afternoon, and in accordance with custom the fact of death was telegraphed to his sister and his niece, so that they might claim the body and arrange for the funeral if they chose to do so. The following day Jenner Halkine's sister, accompanied by his old friend Dr. Issa Ramal, having traveled by the sleeping car train from London, reached the prison with a closed carriage and a hearse containing an empty coffin, which they had procured from the neighboring town of Nethermore, went through the formalities necessary to claiming the body, and took it away to the railway station. End of Chapter 15, Recording by James K. White, Chula Vista. Chapter 16 of A Mayfair Magician, A Romance of Criminal Science. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Peter Block. A Mayfair Magician, A Romance of Criminal Science by George Griffith, Chapter 16. What a very lovely woman! Who is she? That, my dear Siemens, do you mean to tell me that you've been back from the wilds of Central Australia all this time without getting to know the beautiful Mrs. Endstone as everyone in London calls her, except the people mostly feminine, who have reasons of their own for wishing that she was not quite so beautiful? What Endstone? said the first speaker, with a very visible start, as though his companion's words had suddenly reawakened some long-sleeping memory, as indeed they had done for his thoughts instantly flew back through nearly twenty years. The exquisitely furnished, softly-lit London drawing-room comfortably well-filled with some of the smartest men and women in town, men whose names were for the most part as well-known in the columns of the newspapers and magazines as they were in the faraway outposts of the Empire, and women whose beauty or wealth or wit, and often all three, had made them famous wherever society is felt with a big S, suddenly faded away. A man, gaunt, haggard, with a skin like wrinkled brown leather, clothed in rags, and with eyes burning unnaturally bright with the first madness of hunger and thirst, was standing beside the prostrate body of another man, who was lying on the bare, rough, sun-baked sand and rubble in the shade, such as it was, of a scanty patch of waddle scrub, at the foot of a gray round topped hill, which reared itself about a thousand feet above the ghastly solitude of that miserable wilderness which the Australians have aptly called the land of never, never. A horse had just fallen to the ground within a few feet of the dying man, and was lying with glazing eyes and wide open mouth, giving out its life in long, guttural size, which rattled and grated deep down in its throat. Near to it stood a mule, its legs wide apart, and its head hanging down almost between its forelegs. He saw the standing man stoop over the fallen one, take his water-bottle, tobacco-pouch, and a pocket-book. He looked at the dying man, then at the water-bottle, unscrewed the top, put it to his parched lips, and drained the last few precious drops of muddy fluid that it contained. Then he dropped it beside his comrade and went to the horse. He took what little food there was left in the saddlebags, and a little leather bag holding between two and three pounds of pure gold dust. He slung these on the saddle of his almost-fainting mule, passed his arm through the bridle, and without so much as another look at the man believed to be dead, trudged away with long dragging strides towards the southeastward, pulling the staggering mule after him. He had seen all this in one of those swift flashes of memory which passed through the human brain as rapidly as the electric thrill passes along the wire. His companion only noticed a little pause, during which his right hand made a couple of strokes down the two sides of the long, silken-haired black mustache, which shaded and disguised the sharply-cut, pitiless lips of the man who, for all he knew, had left his friend and comrade to die in the wilderness more than twenty years before. He had done it just for the sake of the few drops of water, and the few mouthfuls of food, which, as it happened by one of those strange freaks, with which the fates delight to mock alike the memories and the delights of men, had made for him the difference between a little heap of bleaching bones and the solitudes of the great Australian desert, and the man who was standing that evening in the drawing-room of Lady Georgina Pontifex in the big-corner house in Grovener Place facing Buckingham Palace Gardens. Billy Siemens, millionaire twenty times over, absolute owner of a patch of desert-ground twenty miles square in the midst of which stood that lonely hill, on the slope of which Godfrey Endstone had lain down, as he thought, to die. Now it was humming with life and bustling with industry, honeycombed through and through with drives and shafts and tunnels, out of which the rattling trucks and hurrying ships were bringing out the gold-laden ore, half of which amounting now to many millions of pounds in value, should have been the property of the man who, for all he knew, had died where he had left him. Endstone. Endstone. He repeated to his friend Colonel Forrester, lately retired with the VC and many medals and minus half his left arm, which had been knocked off by a pom-pom shell as he was pulling a badly wounded and very green subaltern out of a hot corner in one of the little disasters of the Boer War. You don't mean the Northumberland Endstones, do you, Colonel? Oh, yes, I don't know of any others, and, as a matter of fact, the family is extinct. Why do you ask if it isn't a rude question? Because, said the millionaire slowly, still keeping his eyes already kindling with an unwanted fire on the most beautiful face even in that room where every woman was or had been a beauty in her time, a good many years ago, before I struck it rich, as they say, I was chums with a fellow of that name away in the back blocks of northeastern Australia. He died there, poor chap, just when we'd found the Lone Hill. Good Lord, what luck, said the Colonel, taking a pull at his stubbly gray mustache and turning his bright blue-gray eyes sharply onto the millionaire's bronzed, fixed features, and wondering why he, Headley Siemens, a man whose uncounted gold might have almost bought the land of a princess, had lighted up so strangely while he was looking on the fair face an exquisite figure of grace and stone. And so the poor chap died, as you might say, on the threshold of a treasure-house, which you had the luck to unlock. Well, well, the old story, I suppose, that one shall be taken and the other left. You made the millions, and he left his bones there. By the way, what was his other name? Not Godfrey, was it? Yes, said Headley Siemens, turning sharply round. Yes, it was, Godfrey and stone. But that can't be his daughter, because when I knew him, his wife had been dead two or three years, and he had no children. It can't be the same man, and anyhow, as I've told you, he died there. I wonder if he really did, said Colonel Forrester in his soul, and if he did how? It wouldn't be the first time the two men have found the making of millions, and only one of them has come away. Then he went on aloud. Well, that's quite right so far, she's not his daughter, and the Godfrey Endstone's I knew never had a child. She is Mrs. Endstone because she married the adopted son of Sir Godfrey, really the son of an old traveling companion of his, a brother explorer somewhere in Central Asia. He died there, and Endstone brought the lad home, gave him his name, and made him his heir. His real name was Docker. The millionaire suddenly turned his head away, a swift contraction of the eyes, a widening of the nostrils, and a twitching of the lips had instantly and irresistibly altered his whole expression. He had good reasons for not wishing the Colonel to see it. So he pulled out his monogram silk handkerchief, and took refuge in a very good imitation of a sneeze. Ah, yes, I see. Brought him back from Asia. Then, of course, it can't be the same man. Very likely the poor chap I knew and never, never had got hold of a name that didn't belong to him. There are lots like that in Australia now, and in those days there were good many more. But if you were a friend of this Sir Godfrey's, I suppose you know the lady. Would you mind introducing me if you have a chance? Under the circumstances Colonel Forrester could not say no, and yet for some unaccountable reason he would rather not have said yes. As far as he knew it was the first time on record that this man, multi-millionaire, a very Napoleon among money-kings, a lion in society who quietly declined to be lionized, and a frankly avowed cynic as regarded all the relations of the sexes, had actually asked to be introduced to a woman. There were hundreds of women who would have given almost anything to be introduced to him, who would have given themselves to him body and soul for the sake of his millions, and there were others who would scheme not a little as his hostess this evening had done to get the great Australian Gold King for half an hour or so into their reception rooms, and here he was actually asking for an introduction to a woman he had never seen before. Oh yes, of course I know her, replied the Colonel, not very cordially, as Siemens thought, but if you really want an introduction, which by the way is a rather curious thing for you, woman-hater and all that, here comes Lady Pontifex, she'll do the needful for you, a great deal better than I could. A few minutes later, Headley Siemens found himself making the usual conventional inclination before the only woman upon whom his eyes had looked even with interest since the days, now nearly thirty years ago, when sore-hearted and soured through and through by the faithlessness of the pretty feather-headed doll he had once called wife. He had turned his back on the world, swearing never to face it again, unless and until he could do so holding that golden scepter which makes man master of most earthly things. He had a ten-minute chat on most commonplace subjects with Grace and Lady Georgina, and then Harold came up when he was introduced. The gold king shook hands with him, and their eyes met for an instant, after which each felt that he knew the other just as well as he wanted to know him. Then Harold turned to his wife and said, I have just had a message from the house, dear, to say that my vote is urgently required to save a struggling ministry from defeat, so I must go. I'll take the braum and send it back for you at once, and I suppose you can expect me when you see me. You see, Mr. Siemens, that is one of the delights of trying to catch the speaker's eye. That doesn't sound right, but it's about what it comes to. Well, good evening. I hear you were in London for some time, and so I dare say we shall meet again. Certainly, I hope so, said the gold king, as he nodded and smiled his farewells. And then, as Harold went away, he turned to Grace and began talking to her with a strange subtle charm of manner which would have caused no little surprise to any one who knew him, as the world knew him, and there were few, if any, who knew him otherwise. About half an hour later he and Colonel Forrester, who in a quite respectable and honourable way played the part of social jackal to his lion, and did many things for him which he had neither the time nor the inclination to do for himself, made their adieu, and drove away in Siemens' braum to his splendid flat in Hyde Park court overlooking the park. Now, Forrester, he said, throwing himself into a deep arm chair and taking out his cigar case, I want you to tell me the complete story of what you call the end-stone tragedy. Of course, I've heard bits of it from the colonial papers, but I was flying about so fast just then, and had so many other things to think about that I really paid very little attention to it, though the name struck me as familiar. So Colonel Forrester, when he had selected a cigar and helped himself to a moderate brandy and soda, began at the beginning, and gave him the whole history of the strangely involved tragedy down to the death of Jenner Halkine in the snow, the claiming of his body by his sister and Dr. Itza Ramal, and its cremation at Woking, in accordance with his often-expressed wishes. For the first time for many and many long years, Headley Siemens, the man of perfect digestion, iron nerves, and unruffled temper, sought the oblivion of sleep in vain. Only thirty years ago he had awakened from what was almost a boyish dream of wedded love, and since then he had never looked upon a woman, save perhaps to admire her in a physical sense, or as something that his unlimited wealth could buy, either as a minister to his pleasures or a necessary aid to his boundless ambitions. And now with the swiftness of a lightning flash the unexpected, which might also have been the inevitable, had come to pass. The ice was broken. The volcanic forces, which had been hidden for so long, had burst into sudden and irresistible action, and with something like incredulous amazement he found himself, Headley Siemens, the soulless, money-desperate who had never permitted the life or the honor of man or woman to stand as an obstacle in the way of his schemes, passionately, and in a sense even honestly, in love with another man's wife, and that other man was the son of his greatest enemy, and the adopted son and heir of the friend and comrade whom he had deserted and left to die in the wilderness of never-never. Was it only an accident, or one of those slow revenges which time and fate work out between them? But the revenge might not be all on one side. He was still in the very prime of life, only forty-seven, and with his millions, his perfect physical and mental health, and his strong masculine beauty, so strangely enhanced by the almost feminine softness. Was not he a match even for the fates themselves? And was it not written that the sins of the fathers should be visited upon the children? End of Chapter 16, Recording by Peter Block Chapter 17 of A Mayfair Magician, A Romance of Criminal Science. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. A Mayfair Magician, A Romance of Criminal Science, by George Griffith. Chapter 17, The Endstone Tragedy was needed two years ago now, and six months before the first meeting of Grace and Hadley Siemens, a fair-haired, dark-eyed son had been born to the new Lord of Endstone Manor, and was thriving a pace to the great delight of Herod and his beautiful wife, to whose loveliness the joy and dignity of motherhood had added yet another charm. In all the world, it would have been hard to find a happier man and woman than these two favored darlings of fortune, who had been first brought together by the evil odds of the extraordinary criminal who, as everybody believed, had only escaped from the life-long infamy and slavery of penal substitute through the purging fires of the crematory furnace. All that was over now, and they were doing their best to forget it. When, one day, about a week after Lady Georgina's artifacts' reception, the whole miserable story was vividly brought back to them in the most strange and striking fashion. On the 20th of June, when the London season was at its height, and everybody who had any pretensions to be thought anybody was in town, the two worlds of society and science were startled, amused and interested after their different fashions by the simultaneous appearance in all the leading British and continental journals of what was generally admitted to be the most extraordinary announcements that had ever appeared in newspaper columns. It was not in the form of an advertisement, though in some cases it was probably paid for as such, and it consisted of a detailed setting forth of the aims, objects, and working of the Institute of Psychic Science, which was described as an international establishment for the study of the higher developments of mental and moral philosophy in all their forms, exact and occult, and its main object was to be the accomplishment of the tremendous task of uniting the schools of Eastern and Western thought, which so far had been separated since the beginnings by an impassable gulf. Every branch of the vast subject was to be studied purely on its merits, and without reference to scientific or religious prejudices. Students of all races and religions were to be welcomed, neither blood nor cast, nor color were to be allowed to influence a student's career, and the sole title to admission and membership was to be ability and devotion. The strangest fact of all, however, was that no subscriptions were asked for and no fees were to be charged. On the contrary, students, if they showed special aptitude for the studies in question, and were too poor to forsake their employment and devote themselves only to the work of the Institute, would not only be maintained free of charge, but would even receive salaries sufficient to support them in that ease and comfort and freedom from all the sorted cares and responsibilities of ordinary life, which was considered to be an essential condition for the proper prosecution of their studies. The director of the institute was the pundit Dr. Isaya Ramel, late professor and lecturer in the University of London on Oriental Languages and Science. And from this fact alone, it became clear that the million which the genius and the crimes of Jenna Hawkin had enabled him to abstract from the fortune of his victim, was really about to be devoted to the object described in Sir Goughrey and Stone's self-forged will. Well, Sir Herod to his wife, after he had given her just of the strange announcements over the breakfast table, there is just this conclusion about it. Whatever one may think of the way in which they got the money, they do seem to be trying to do something with it. And to say the least of it, that's better than leventing out of the country with it and just using it for their private ends. I wonder if the worthy pundit doctor will have the cheek to send us cards of invitation to the opening reception and converse sexy army. But you wouldn't go if he did, Herod, would you? She said, looking up for the first time from her plate. Well, really, I don't see why we shouldn't, he replied. It's Sir Goughrey's money that's doing it. And personally, I really don't bear any grudge. That unfortunate uncle of yours was, after all, I think, only an example of great genius run a bit mad. And we must admit that he only did for his Scottish science a great deal less than prosecutors have done for the owner of their creeds and yet retained a good opinion of the world. At any rate, he has paid the last penalty a man can pay for his sins and his mistakes. And there, so far as I am concerned, is an end of the matter. It was a lot of money, but I don't think we should have been any happier with it. Death closes all accounts and I can't say that I feel any particular grudge about it. That was said just as your own generous self would say it, dear, she said. Looking at him with an expression of something like thankfulness in her eyes. And I dare say you are not far from the truth. For certainly anyone who had known him as long and as well as I did would be bound to say that he never used his powers for his own profits. On the contrary, I have known him spent weeks and even months in which he might have earned any amount of money by lecturing and scientific writing and gained more fame and distinction besides in puzzling out some deep problem and then perhaps in the end find himself where he began. I'm very glad to hear you speak like that, dear. So went on after a little pause, because, after all, you know he was my mother's brother. But then there is this Dr. Romel. How can we go to his institute and make friends with him in a sort of way when, for all we know, he may have been a sort of accomplice? The answer to that, my dear Grace, he replied, returning a smile, is that we don't know and that, moreover, we don't want to know. There is not a shred of proof of it. These Dr. Romel's antecedents are not only irreproachable but most distinguished and certainly if any evidence of good faith on this part was wanted here it is in the fact that not only is he not going to make any money out of his institute but that he actually undertakes to spend the money very much as I think Chicago Free himself would have spent it. In fact from a great many talks I have had with him I'm practically certain of it. I don't exactly know how you feel about it but personally I'm quite ready to let bygones be bygones and as long as he's really honest about the thing treat him as what he appears to be that's just what I should like to do she said and so if we're invited I suppose we shall go of course everybody will be there it is just the sort of thing that society with the capital S will go crazed about they're getting tired of spiritualism and theosophy and christian science but this sort of thing with plenty of oriental mystery mixed up with it will just be the very thing to turn half the fabulous heads in London and perhaps some of the serious ones as well for instance just imagine with what enthusiasm Mrs. Romel Grover will throw herself into it I know that since that last scandal forced all respectable people to give up christian science she has been simply pinning for a new religion or something of that sort and princess Natia too you know she has strong leanings towards occultism and mysticism and several other isms yes reply Herod pushing his plate away and getting up from a table Mrs. Romel Grover is a very nice joylily to woman perfectly harmless with all her facts and the kernel is an excellent sort quite an angel of patience I should think but the princess do you know I've always had a sort of well I don't quite know what to call it not exactly dislike or suspicion because I'm not given to prejudices but a sort of yes dear so have I grace interrupted with a little laugh a kind of weak distrust a feeling that although there isn't any reason to think so she ought to go about marked dangerous she is beautiful in a diabolical sort of way brilliant universally informed and gets into some of the best houses both here and in the country plenty of money too apparently and I'm quite certain that Georgina point effects would be the very last woman to take up anyone princess or not who wasn't quite without approach oh by the way she continued with a laugh what do you think her latest ambition is said to be haven't an idea he said picking up a cigarette out of his case from the gossip I've heard about her at the clubs she seems compact of ambitions and curiously enough half the man in town rave about her devilish beauty and her wit and her general gorgeousness yet somehow no one seems to have a really good word to say for her what is it well mrs rora grover who of course apart from her fats and new religions is a really very shrill little woman who knows nearly everything and everybody in her own world told Georgina point effects the other day that Karen Atiev had confided to her that she had found her true affinity at last and who among all the impossibilities do you think it is haven't a notion he replied between the whiffs but I shouldn't mind making a sporting bet that it was some other woman's husband just like the charity of the male animal she loved but for once you are wrong her affinity if you please is no other than his oriferous majesty at least semen's gold king rary king steamboat king poet artist scientist and goodness knows how much else besides and woman hater or at any rate woman ignore into the bargain the joke of it is that her highness talks about it in the most delightfully naive manner and says she really doesn't care who knows it even the great hathley himself do you know grace he replied after half a dozen silent puffs at his cigarette there's something about that man I don't like another masculine prejudice I suppose you will say but still there it is and more than that I somehow have an uncomfortable sort of feeling that I either know him or have seen him before and for the life of me I can't make out where it's a funny thing but there it is the man has every possible advantage that you could imagine the face giving to anyone he's a millionaire the lord knows how many times over he has more real power in his hands than a good many ruling sovereigns he's still young as youth goes nowadays good looking and marvelously accomplished and yet from all I can hear of him he hasn't a friend in the world that he hasn't bought and therefore quite suitable affinity I should think for her diabolical highness the princess loved grace turning away towards the window what a pair they would make and yet how I can scarcely agree with you although of course I can scarcely say that I know him still I must say that he gives me the idea of a man with an immense reserve of power in him then it's so different from the ordinary millionaire and whatever you may say about your men at the clubs and in the city there's no doubt that the women like him and some of them I suppose would very much like him to like them just a fat evil-eyed princess would he replied a little harshly still as long as you are not one of them dear it doesn't much matter is there any truth in the rumor that the proud leader to Gina herself would not object to see him and his millions at her feet really Harrod I can allow you to talk about my friends like that it's only another proof that you men at your clubs are just as bad gossips and tattlers as we women are in our drawing rooms I know there is a rumor of that thought but I don't believe a word of it personally I think Georgina would very much rather make a match between the princess and his majesty than marry him herself and now I must say good morning for the presence and go and look after Harrod II what are you going to do with yourself till lunchtime oh I'm going to moat downtown as they say in the states I've got a little meeting on at Winchester house about that new coal mine of ours that's going to make us even more scandalously rich than we are and then there is that express ocean now I had a note last night from Davidson to say that our mutual friend the gold king wants a hand in debt and I don't exactly like the prospect it's a bit too clever and too rich to make a satisfactory partner I think what nonsense she said with a smiling reproach you know perfectly well you could hold your own with him or anybody else I've heard about some of your achievements in the city you know and I don't think that a man who can pile thousands upon thousands in the disgraceful way that you are doing but we have much more than enough already and at the same time get yourself talked about as the ableist of the young members of the house and a possible cabinet minister has very much to fear from Mr. Hadley Simmons oh and she went on with a quite feminine divergence while you are in town do try and find out what people in the city are saying about this institute of psychic science it's Georgina's at-home day and I'm going there'll be a lot of people and they'll all be talking about it so of course I want to have something to say too your ladyship's commands shall of course be obeyed he laughed and then he went on more seriously but won't that be a little bit awkward for you dear certainly not to reply with a touch of the dignity that he loved so much in her tone everybody knows the story and my real friends think about it as we do as for the others well if we were comparatively poor and of not much consequence they would probably visit the sins of uncle upon the knees but we are great deal too rich for that now good morning dear and mind you bring me back a nice big budget of news from the wo city and she kissed him and disappeared to spend a couple of hours of an annoyed pleasure in the society of the new master of the house end of chapter 17 chapter 18 of a Mayfair magician a romance of criminal science this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org a Mayfair magician a romance of criminal science by George Griffith chapter 18 the opening reception and Conversexianae at the Institute of Psychic Science the local habitation of which was on a pleasantly wooded estate slipping southward from Denmark Hill towards Dowledge was a unique and also a curiously fresh sensation not only for that section of the great world of London which worked so hard to amuse itself but also for many other excellent people who either were or earnestly pretended to be devoted students as they thought of some or all of the subjects included in the very extensive curriculum of the Institute the endstones and all Lady Georgina's pontifaxes particular set including the Princess Natyaf and Mr. Headley Simmons received cards of invitation and a second batch reached the yet more extensive acquaintances of the honorable Mrs. Royal Grover whose husband a distinguished general of engineers who had won his VC and nearly a dozen medals and decorations as well as a distinguished staff appointment described the whole scheme as probably only a piece of pretentious rot intended to fool women who had too much brains and men who were too little but who nevertheless dutifully accompanied the charming little woman whom he really delighted to call his C in C science in the persons of many Dr. Ramel's friends and former colleagues attended mostly in an attitude of tolerant and large mindless skepticism and even theology was represented by several of its more advanced exponents more skeptical and possibly less tolerant but still quite ready to be amused if not instructed the fact that the institute asks neither for pressionage nor for subscriptions went a long way towards allying certain suspicions which they might otherwise have had for even people of the most rigid views or the most exalted morals were inclined to look indulgently upon anything that promises to be interesting and causes nothing the remainder of the european and american portions of the guests was made up chiefly of those earnest but heterodox seekers after truth and notoriety who still believed in or had grown dissatisfied with the tenets of theosophy christian science and kindred forms of spiritual diversion but after all it must be confessed that the chief element of the great success which ended the function was the fascinating mingling of the life and color of the eastern and western worlds the black and grey frog-coated silk-headed men and the dentally costumed women of the west found themselves in company with the grave-faced deep-eyed strangely clad visitors from the distant and mystic orient there were passis from bombay and persia priming pundits whom i have just stepped out of the scented glooms of indian temples moolas and ulamas from the great muslim colleges of turkey persia and egypt ponzes from japan and shaven lamas from the highlands of tebats all gathered together from the uttermost ends of the earth at the building of the pundit dr issa remel now so trusty and dispenser of the million which had been so strangely fused from the estate of the self-murdered victim of jenna hawkin it must be admitted that not a few of the english and american gasses had been to some extent attracted to the function by the expectation that the distinguished president of the institute would in his address make some allusion to the very exceptional circumstances under which his magnificent endowment had been secured they were not disappointed as keanu robert robert said afterwards at one of his wives at home when the subject was being discussed the director completely established his claim to genus by the absolute frankness with which he described the extraordinary series of circumstances which had brought this vast sum of money under his control with a marvelous skill and tactics he represented his late friend and colleague who had died in a hopeless attempt to escape from a just doom that had fallen him as one of those enthusiasts whom too much genius had driven mad and who had even come to consider crime as a word if committed in the service of that science which he believed to be the only means for the earthly salvation of humanity for this mistaken belief he had to pay the penalty of his life the last and greatest penalty man could pay so far this concluding portion of his presidential address might have been received in various ways according to the varied feelings or convictions of the heroes but all doubts as to the financial honesty and soundness of the institute were set at rest during the next few minutes when he stated that ample means of support had been already promised from east and west and north and south and rather than any suspicion of complicity to rest upon himself and his colleagues in the enterprise he had decided to return the million intact to the hero of Sir Goughray and Stone who had the day before refused to receive it whether by chance or design on the one side or the other it happened that after the guests had left the lecture hall to take their pleasure and exchange ideas in a shady southward sloping ground Mr. Hadley Simmons and the Princess Karen Attiev found themselves strolling together just out of earshot of Lady Georgina's pontifacts and some of her party were taking coffee under the shade of the wild spreading cedars served with deft liquidity by the dusky dark-eyed white-turban servants of the institute the Gough King knew perfectly well just as well in fact as the princess did that she intended to capture him and his millions if she could and the frankly a wild project appealed very strongly to the sporting instincts of the men who had done a very big gamble with destiny and won at least so far as the current account was concerned moreover his strangely comprehensive and complicated nature made it quite possible for him to put aside for the time being the intense passion which he had so suddenly conceived for Grace and Storm as well as the almost unnatural revenge that it made possible and to frankly admire both in the physical and mental senses this beautiful and brilliant woman in the depths of whose gray eyes the enchanting witchery of youth still show and to play with her as he had played with other bright winged moths who had been attracted to their ruin by the fatal flame of that golden Aladdin's lamb of his to him as he believed it was a game such a game he had often played before under similar circumstances to her as he knew quite well he was a business and a somewhat desperate one too and that made it all the more interesting to him and what do you think of the learned director mr. Simmons she said of the records and some official review of his institute and his aims he must be either a most unselfish genius or a very clever man in another sense to have offered to return that million you are master of many millions yourself so your opinion ought to be valuable my dear princess replied looking more steadily than she quite liked into the brightness of the eyes that were turned up towards his that is if you will allow me to call it so somewhat of a leading question and if i had the honor of the learned upon this acquaintance i should possibly be rude enough to decline to answer it as i have not that honor i think i can say quite dispassionately that no man would have been such an idiot as to offer to give back a solid million to which he has an undoubted right unless he were either also an enthusiast for whom money has no meaning or a fool should create interrupting him quickly and i hardly think dr. remell is that you are quite right replied at least so far as i can see some very clever man are fools but genesis never are and i think from what i know of his career and his very remarkable achievements that remell is a genius then perhaps you also have some belief or shall i say a desire to believe in those strange almost superhuman powers which as he said today have been attained to by those who have devoted themselves soul and body to the study of the great secret the great secret he said stopping in the middle of his stride and looking down at the half laughing half serious face that had been quickly turned towards him what is that or rather i should perhaps say what do you mean by it ah she said with such a smile and such a flash of her eyes has almost made him wish that he could grant her her heart's desire and make her such a help meet as she might be to such a man as himself ah yes that is just such a reservation as one might expect you to make the great secret of course you don't expect me to say such silly things as that for men it is ambition and power and for women love no no that would be too absurd for us we have lived if not too long at least too much for platitudes of that thought but she went on lowering her voice almost to a whisper don't you really know what is there a male means for the great secret he would appear princess that you are in the position to tell me he left softly in reply and therefore i may as well confess at once that i could not have my present ignorance more delightfully dispelled granted always that you are willing to do so she put her hands behind her gave a little upward swish to her training skirts and as she turned down a dusty little side path overshadowed by wild spreading beaches she sat with a half backward glance as though inviting him to follow her yes i know it because i have been a pupil as i might almost say of the learned doctors you see i am half pole and half russian my mother had to choose between marrying my father or going to Siberia and so as most russians are fathers under the skin i have a mingling of east and west in me and therefore perhaps it's a remel found me somewhat of an ape pupil of that it would be impossible to have the slightest doubt princess replied already half fascinated by her great physical beauty and that almost diabolical wishery which made her so delightful to people who did not understand her but if i may say so that bring us no nearer to the great secret well she replied looking straight down at the weed grown path i'm afraid i can't tell you that at least not or at once without it's our remel's permission but being a woman i will answer your question by asking you another do you believe that there is any truth in the saying that there is that within the heart of every man and i should certainly think every woman also which if known will make his or her dearest friend or lover hate him or her as the case might be he interrupted with a quick glance into her eyes which she had some little difficulty in returning steadily yes i know the saying laros fushikus wasn't it well yes that is possibly true as seen by the inner vision of a philosopher with a twist of cynicism in his intellect but of course in practical everyday life it would be an absolute impossibility and a very good thing too because if the philosopher was right and it could clearly be proved well there would be an end to society every friend would become an enemy and every enemy would know just what you thought of him or her the world's pretty bad as it is but it's a little better than the kind of chaos that would result from working a theory like that out into practice altogether i think it is just as well that the human soul remains forever veiled from the gaze of all human eyes seriously it would be a very terrible thing if that were possible but it is she said stopping and laying her little dauntly gloved hand lightly on his arm it is possible now and that is the answer to your question and the proof he said in a tune that showed he was both wandering and suspicious can it be proved yes she replied it can and if you dare no i won't say that if you would like to try to prove with me this evening here at the institute or any other time you like i will try and get the master's permission and in the darkness she continued so suddenly that he looked half startled at her in the darkness you shall see that which was never seen in the light are you willing mr seaman willing that i should look into your soul and you into mine will you dare it if i do he took two or three most rights beside her along the path in silence then he stopped and said slowly yes caronative i will if you will and i will she said lifting her eyelids and looking straight into her eyes perhaps i risk more than you but i will do it and now for the sake of the commonances let us go back to the lawn and have some coffee and of chapter 18 chapter 19 of a mayfair magician a romance of criminal science this is a libervox recording all libervox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libervox.org a mayfair magician a romance of criminal science by george griffith chapter 19 at a quarter to ten the next morning just as the gold king was finishing a very leisurely breakfast mr saunders his body servant and domestic factotum knocked at the door and came in with a little curiously folded note on a silver salver the peculiar twist of the paper caught his eye at once and his eyelids lifted ever so slightly a movement that did not escape the observant gaze of mr saunders note sir he said softly as he presented the salver brought by a foreign party indian i think sir wouldn't leave it with the porter so he had to send up for me wouldn't give it to anybody's hands but mine or your sir and so as you were having breakfast and not at home to people of that sort i went down and got it of course you would saunders replied his master picking the note up off the salver but what sort of person do you suppose that i am not at home to big pardon sir if i've done wrong in not bringing him up said mr saunders apologetically but i didn't quite like the party's appearance he wears white trousers two inches too short for him and a lot too tight for thin legs like his elastic sides for boots which no one respectable wears nowadays two sizes too big for him single breasted frock coat not too new buttoned up to his neck no collar and a white turban with a little brass sort of ornament hanging in front a square circular triangular kind of thing all mixed up as it might be sir that doesn't interest me very particularly saunders said the gold king lying with perfect ease that is only born of long patients i really don't want to know how the gentleman is dressed but if he is still waiting you can show him up as he spoke he took up the note and opened it mr saunders true to the traditions of his kind watched his master's face very narrowly while he was reading it but for all he saw he might as well have been looking at the face of a image mr seamans twisted the note up and dropped it beside his plate he took a cigarette out of his case lit it and said slowly my appointment with mr davidson is for ten thirty isn't it yes sir said saunders very well then you can tell this person to come up and then telephone to the muse and have the broom ready at ten thirty saunders murmured another yes sir made an angular sort of bow and disappeared as soon as the door had closed mr headley seamans made a sado voce remark to himself which it is not necessary to produce lit a cigarette and then held the note and a burning match over his coffee cup as it was reduced to tinder he let it fall into the cup poured out a little more coffee and stirred it in then he pushed his chair a little way from the table leant back and puffed slowly and meditatively until another knock came at the door and saunders opened it came in and said this is the person who brought the note sir then he stepped aside and rom dos came into the room raised his hands to his turban and salamed that will do saunders you can go and see about the broom now and come back in 20 minutes said mr seamans taking his watch out of his pocket and looking at it for a moment very good sir murmured saunders taking a couple of quick glances one at his master and the other at his visitor and closing the door quietly behind him rom dos stood erect and motionless by the door his eyes looked downward and his hands hung loosely as they had fallen after the salam mr seamans went on puffing at his cigarette for a few moments longer took another glance at the morning paper propped up in front of him against the toast rack and then said rather abruptly in urdu the lingua franca of hindustan then am i to understand that what the princess said to me yesterday was true or at least approaching the truth it was true sahib quite true replied rom dos speaking with his little expression as a phonograph might have done my master does not send idle messages to such majesties as your most honorable self no i suppose it would be hardly worth his while or mine replied the millionaire flicking the ash off his cigarette but as you have waited for an answer which i could have sent just as quickly by an ordinary messenger what did he tell you to say to me about the letter the commands of the sahib doctor were to tell the lord of many millions that to those who see with the eyes of faith it is possible to see more in darkness than in the light and that the mem princess sahib has seen that is all as ramdas said this he took a couple of steps aside and stood in front of the door so that it could not be opened unless he moved headly seamen's dropped his cigarette onto his plate got up and went to one of the windows overlooking the park for two or three minutes he gazed out as though he were looking into vacancy then he turned quickly and said ramdas what is your price i can make you rich so rich that you will never have another care between here and nirvana and i will do it if you tell me yes if you tell me what you know that i want to know as he spoke he took his right hand out of his pocket and made a swift sign with it ramdas salamed again and said in his gentle monotonous voice my lord is of the elect to whom knowledge has been granted and yet would he ask for more knowledge from his slave what can i tell him that he does not know already you can tell me what i asked for ramdas replied the gold king going towards him and looking keenly into his dark inscrutable eyes and you know what i asked for before i say it is jennifer hall keen dead i will give you a thousand pounds for a truthful answer to that it is not for me to tell my lord sahib those who have passed through the gateway of the temple of knowledge may die and yet live to those who know much many things are possible which to others would seem impossible i understand said mr. seamans with a somewhat uneasy laugh if you won't take my thousand pounds for a straight answer to a straight question i can only conclude that you know a good deal more than you care to say very well ramdas i'm so accustomed to by the meaner sort of people body and soul that i like to meet a man who can't be bought though mind you if your master has a million i have twenty ramdas raised his head and looking the master of millions straight in the eyes said as quietly as before protector of the poor gold is of worth in one life only but knowledge grows from life to life the pilgrim must leave his gold on the edge of the grave his knowledge he may take with him i have enough i can live why should i ask for more if headley seamans had not been the strange combination of dreamers student and moneymaker that he was if he had only been one of those men who have the faculty of piling thousands on thousands just as other men have the faculties for accumulating facts he would have laughed at ramdas and increased his offer from a thousand to ten thousand but he was able to read the inner meaning of his words so he said ramdas i am content your master has told me more through your lips than he did in his letter my answer is that through the darkness i will try to see the light the words of my lord sahib shall be as though they were spoken in the ear of my master replied ramdas raising his hands again to his turban and salaming very good replied mr. seamans i shall be there at seven tell dr. ramal he had been looking out of the window as he said this when he turned round ramdas had vanished he had not heard the door open or shut but he was gone i thought so he went on taking out another cigarette from his case and lighting it i suppose that was a sort of final hint that well that i am to a certain extent playing with fire and i may quite possibly burn my fingers still it's worth it i wonder what it all means and if her perwitching highness really is no i shan't believe it until i see it light through darkness quite an eastern way of putting a little mystery where did she learn it what a pity that there is that other one the only one if i had never seen her karen aughty f should have her heart's desire and between us possibly with the assistance of our good friend is a ramal and that very excellent henchmen of his who just got through the door without opening it we should come very near to running the world if not psychically at least mentally it would be a great destiny i've got the money so much of it that it's worth nothing except to buy something else with i wonder yes after all there is no reason why it shouldn't be quite possible the princess is hardly a woman who would allow any ordinary scruples to stand in her way ramal has the same ambitions as i have and if there is any truth in those enigmatic words of ram das about how keen and we could all work together the possibilities would be simply infinite and stone would be an obstacle to a certain extent but not an entirely insuperable one and if mamma ze la princessa does not want an absolute monopoly well well money and magic can do a good deal between them there's not much that they can't buy or win even grace herself for after all she's only human so is the other it will be quite an interesting seance this evening at the institute i wonder what kind of light i really shall see through the darkness end of chapter 19 chapter 20 of a mayfair magician a romance of criminal science this is a libervox recording all libervox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libervox.org a mayfair magician a romance of criminal science by george griffith chapter 20 headley seamen said all the courage of a man who had practically no morals and therefore no scruples either is regards himself or anybody else as artist and student he had of course those emotions without which he could not have been either but as the successful adventurer the man of affairs who had fought his way through the world with no more care for consequences than a tiger would have when charging through the jungle onto its prey he was as absolutely fearless as he was unscrupulous for all that however he was forced to confess to himself as he thought over the extraordinary nay the unheard of proposition which the princess had made to him and which dr isa ramal had confirmed that he had been suddenly brought face to face with something which might well make the boldest man hesitate it was the unknown the intangible the mysterious and if the princess had only spoken truly it might also be the terrible at first he had been inclined to look upon the whole affair as some elaborate piece of jugglery possibly the result of a conspiracy between cara and natya and the principal of the institute but he had also found himself not a little to his annoyance wanting to believe that it was so and this suggested a suspicion if not a fear at least of a certain reluctance to face the ordeal that had been proposed to him then to the more he thought about it the more clearly he saw the absurdity of such a supposition it was impossible for him to rank a man like isa ramal who had over and over again given proof of strange powers for which human language had scarcely any name with the vulgar imposters of spiritualism theosophy and christian science he had completely proved his utter carelessness of money and even his servant and humble assistant ram das had quietly refused a splendid bribe for the answer to a single question and it was equally absurd to suspect the princess she had everything that rank beauty and wealth could give her saving only perhaps the gratification of love and ambition yes perhaps that was the secret and the explanation as well he knew that her ambitions were boundless and that she would hesitate at nothing to satisfy them she was just outside the magic circle of royalty and so it was impossible for her to share a prospective throne with one of the rulers of the nation true many women of her rank had contracted left-handed unions with reigning princes and had influenced their councils to no small degree but he knew that Kara Natyev was not one of these she would be Caesar's wife or nothing but there were other Caesars than those who sat on thrones and he was one of them no crowned monarch in Europe really wielded the power absolute and irresponsible that he did was this perchance the reason for that strange challenge of hers he had to confess to himself that the idea thrilled him he had of course long outgrown the commonplace vanities of his sex but he would have been more or less than human if the thought had not at once pleased and tempted him indeed if it had not been for grace and stone and that wild unholy and yet over mastering passion which her more gentle beauty and tenfold stronger charm had inspired him with he might well have come to the conclusion that of all the women he had ever met Kara Natyev with her wonderful beauty and brilliant genius was the most fitting help meet for such a man as himself still in spite of all the idea of this strange adventure in the unknown regions of forbidden knowledge fascinated him even by reason of the hidden terrors that it might reveal to him besides he had accepted Kara Natyev's challenge and given his promise to Isar Amal if she did not fear to look upon that mystery of mysteries an unveiled human soul why should he and yet he was forced to confess that when he got into his broom late that afternoon to drive to the institute he found himself in a condition of nervous anticipation which was entirely strange to him he was shown into the director's private sitting-room and as he and the princess rose to receive him he fancied that he could detect some subtle and yet unmistakable change in the lovely face which looked up at him it seemed as though some impalpable and yet impenetrable mask had been removed he seemed as it were to look down deeper into the depths of her eyes as he had never done before and there was a new light in them which as he thought at the moment that he took her hand might per chance be the reflection of that soul which he had challenged him as it were to compare with his own in all its unveiled nakedness her expression too had assumed an exquisite softness that was quite strange to him in short never had Karanatyev seemed so dangerously desirable in his own eyes as she did then and so Mr. Siemens you have really decided to keep this strange Tristavars she said very sweetly and with a smile that might have shaken the resolution of an anchorite I suppose you have recognized that if the experiment is carried through you and I will know each other as no two human beings ever did before is that not so doctor she continued turning towards him to headly Siemens immediate relief it is replied Isar Ramal in his smooth even impersonal tone and I think it right to warn you once more that if you have the strength to carry the experiment through you will have seen what no eyes save those of the adepts have ever seen you Mr. Siemens for instance cannot have forgotten one lesson which you learnt doubtless among many others in the days when in the land of knowledge you sought that which was better than wealth and what was that doctor interrupted the millionaire sharply it is true that I did learn many lessons there which of them are you referring to now that which teaches that knowledge without strength is worse than passion without judgment he who knows more than he has the power to use and control may be compared to a madman on a throne and you are about to learn a portion of that forbidden lore whose possession has air now meant misery for the strong and madness to the weak now remembering and knowing so much are you princess and you Mr. Siemens still prepared to acquire this knowledge and take the consequences of it for my part yes replied the princess quietly although with a just perceptible twitch of her lips after what you have said I would give my soul if I have one in the ordinary sense of the term to get such knowledge as that and you Mr. Siemens the doctor went on turning towards him are you still of the same mind do you after what I have said feel that your mental vision can be trusted to look into the depths which may be revealed to you in a human soul and that to the soul of a woman headly Siemens looked sharply at the princess her eyes met his with a frank almost defiant challenge as though they would say surely what I dare you will dare by some strange process which was quite as little understood by himself as it was by the princess and possibly also by dr. Ramal the challenge at once produced a complete change of mental front in him so far the mystic and the artistic portions of his nature had been as it were in the forefront of his being but now they receded instantly and the man of affairs the hard-headed cold-blooded keen-sighted soldier of fortune who had never yet known a defeat took its place I am perfectly prepared to go through with the experiment whatever its results may be he said in a voice so changed that his hearers involuntarily looked up at each other but after what you have said dr. Ramal I think it is only fair that I should say something more you are asking me to believe without inquiry what from my point of view may well be incredible and I tell you frankly that I will not believe it unless it is supported by just such proofs as I should require before I went into any ordinary commercial scheme but surely that would be impossible said the princess in a somewhat sharper tone which had a note of reproof in it if there is any truth in this it is a miracle and miracles are not to be tested by any ordinary rule of thumb methods some faith at least must be necessary pardon your highness interrupted is a ramal in his quiet passionless voice here there is no question save only of courage belief will not be asked for it will be compelled provided always that your courage endures to the end however we will take that for granted and now I think you are going to say something else mr. Siemens while he was speaking the gold king's lips had tightened and the black eyebrows had come together over his keen green blue eyes he had an intuition that he was being put into a somewhat uncomfortable corner he possessed that genius for reading men and women which had been the principal factor in the making of his own fortunes at the same time with all his great talents and his capacity for acquiring out of the way kinds of knowledge he was constitutionally incapable of believing anything that could not be proved according to the rules of human science what I was going to say is this he said in just such a tone as he would have used in an ordinary business interview this experiment is something so completely outside human experience that I really must assert the right to that skepticism which must be exercised by every independent observer in other words I cannot and will not bind myself to accept anything that I may see this evening as the truth no matter how wonderful it may seem without some proof which appeals to my judgment as conclusive at the same time he went on rather more quickly thinking that the princess was about to interrupt him again I want to be as honest with you as I know you are with me so far as you have gone I take it that Jenner Halkine found you by one means or another a million sterling to develop the scheme now I should like to say before I have seen anything of its working that I simply want to be convinced that it is really practical and I take it that the shortest and easiest way of getting that proof is to make the experiment which the princess Natyev has been kind enough to propose to me granted that only and then well such ability as I possess and every sovereign that I own is at your service in other words I shall be with you heart and soul and checkbook is that good enough Isar Ramal's eyes looked across at him with a glance which he had some difficulty in meeting steadily and his lips moved until they shaped themselves into a smile that had just a suspicion of mockery in it then as he kept a silence the princess said with a note of elation in her voice I knew that you would say that or something like it Mr. Siemens I knew you would and that is why I made the challenge in the first place I believe if you don't yet and I also believe that you will be convinced and then fancy what a glorious prospect there will be before us I mean of course those who devote ourselves to the work of the institute we can be masters and mistresses of the world since we shall be able to control those who govern it without their knowing that we can do so just imagine what one might call a syndicate of soul searchers finding out the inmost thoughts of all the statesmen and perhaps even the monarchs of the world yes it is a grand idea we could make a desperate do what we thought he ought to do and a constitutional minister advises sovereign not according to his own opinion but ours it would be just as easy to persuade the other gold kings of the world to play completely into our hands and to make fools of themselves just when they thought they were going to achieve their greatest triumphs yes it is a glorious idea and if you can only find yourself able to believe in it she went on with a suspicion of a caress in her voice I don't think anyone could see more splendid possibilities in it than you could my dear princess replied Siemens returning her glance this time quite steadily I haven't the slightest doubt about it only proved the possibility to me and to begin with I will gamble 10 millions on the practical working out of the scheme and that I think the director will consider a sufficiently sound guarantee of my good faith perfectly said dr. Ramal that shall be a bargain provided that you remain in the mood to complete it after you have been convinced there is only one condition that I am obliged to make before we go any farther but I don't think you would find it a very difficult one yes and what is that he asked it is that you shall never make any attempt direct or indirect to discover the construction or method of working of the apparatus with which the experiment will be made that together with the story of its invention must remain unknown to all save those who know it now any attempt to penetrate that secret would entail the most serious penalty upon anyone who tried my dear Ramal replied the millionaire with a laugh which the princess thought a trifle harsh pray don't trouble yourself about that as far as I am concerned really I don't care who invented the apparatus or how it works as long as it does work that is as long as it enables the operator to as the princess put it so forcibly to me look upon an unveiled human soul to read the most secret thoughts and passions of a brother or sister human being all that I want is conviction and as I have still preserved an entirely open mind on the subject no I will say no more than that since I would rather be convinced than not I think you will admit that you can scarcely have a better subject than myself then said the director rising if you will come with me you shall be convinced but even now I think it only right to tell you that you should prepare yourself for what may prove to be a very considerable shock I mean a mental and nervous as well as what I may call a moral one and I need hardly say princess he continued turning towards her and speaking rather more gravely that this may possibly apply to your highness even more than to mr. Siemens thanks for the warning doctor she laughed in reply but I am afraid it will have to be wasted I am not in the habit of taking risks that I am not prepared to go through with and of course if I am ready to dare the ordeal there can be no question about mr. Siemens of course there can be no question of that said the millionaire going to the door and opening it for her what you dare I dare princess in fact I may say that the prospect of making your more intimate acquaintance is a quite irresistible temptation she did not reply in words but as she passed out of the door she turned and looked him full in the eyes with a glance which told him more than many words could have done then laughed is our remal softly you shall both see what you shall see and now follow me please he led them down a long passage heavily curtained at both ends into an apartment which neither of them had ever seen before it was an eight-sided room about 20 feet in diameter with no windows or other means of admitting natural light the walls were draped with dull red and gold embroidered hangings evidently of oriental workmanship and the roof was similarly hung in a fashion which gave the whole room the appearance of a splendidly appointed marquee a cluster of electric lights hung from the center of the roof and just filled the room with a soft clear light that made everything distinctly visible without making its source all that conspicuous there was an oval table in the center of the room and on it stood a somewhat complicated series of apparatus at either end was what looked like a highly elaborated stereoscope with two eyepieces composed of almost priceless lenses magnifying several thousand times between them were connected rows of vacuum tubes something like those which are used in the production of the x-rays all these were connected with hysteria scopes and each other by slender insulated wires and in front of each pair of lenses was a round mirror about 10 inches in diameter intensely bright but shining with a faint blue luster instead of the silver sheen of ordinary mirrors there appeared to be other portions of the curiously complicated instrument underneath the table as other wires led from the mirrors and tubes over the edges and possibly down through the floor there was an armchair at either end of the table and when they had taken their places is our remal said you will be good enough to put your eyes to the eyepieces before you so look straight through at the mirror now give me your hands let your arms rest on the cushions yes that will do he went on as he joined their hands right to left and left to right and now i am going to put the electric light out not because this is anything like a dark seance but because you will have ample light to see what you are going to see without it and now one word more he continued speaking gravely almost solemnly if either of you wishes to end the experiment you can do so at any moment by simply unjoining hands he turned off the cluster and touched a little switch on the table they heard a very soft purring sound coming apparently from nowhere the mirrors began to glow with such a light as neither of them had ever seen before and the next instant they began to experience a totally different form of consciousness somewhat as it were of a separate sense totally differing from the ordinary senses and yet most strangely illuminating and exalting all of them neither spoke yet each seems to hear the other's voice low and distinct and saying unutterable things their eyes were fixed on the glasses yet they could see each other with more than a physical distinctness their faces seem to grow semi-transparent and to become enormously magnified then their brains came into view and they could see them working the blood circulated and the atoms composing the cells revolved about each other with varying but absolutely rhythmic motion and presently their revolutions began to have a definite meaning for them as the motions of a marvelously complicated machine would have a meaning for a skilled engineer after a few seconds as it seemed to him headly seamans felt the princess's hands begin to tremble and twitch then they were suddenly wrenched away in spite of his effort to retain them and a low cry which sounded to him like the voice of a soul in torment ran through the room enough enough I believe I have seen into hell Issa Ramall instantly switched on the electric light again and seamans saw the princess her face gray white her jaw dropped her eyes staring blankly at the ceiling she was lying huddled in the chair her arms hanging down and her head drooping onto her right shoulder his first thought of the moment was one of wonder that anything so exquisitely beautiful could have so instantly become so repulsive end of chapter 20