 Prologue 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 Dan Grzinski. A Mayfair Magician. A Romance of Criminal Science by George Griffith. Prologue. Despite the venerable antiquity of the saying, it is not always true that out of evil cometh good. But certainly out of the apparent evil of the snowburst, which on the mooring of a Christmas Eve not many winters ago suddenly buried H.M. Prison at Nethermore from the sight of heaven, and cut it off from all communication with the rest of earth. There came to me two good things in the shape of spontaneously offered and most generous hospitality, and one of the strangest stories of what I can only call inverted genius and diverted human power, that it has ever been my good fortune to hear. I had been visiting Nethermore, which, as you doubtless know, is situated on one of the southern slopes of the Scottish border hills, during the course of a series of studies of British and Continental prison systems, and I had to be up early to catch the train to Newcastle if I was to have any chance of spending Christmas at home. But when the doctor, or to give him his official title, the principal medical officer, who had kindly given me a bed, came to my door at daybreak. I heard his pleasant North Country burr saying across the frontiers of the land of Nod, I'm thinking you'll have to eat your Christmas dinner off prison fare, or something like it this year, Mr. Griffith. Get up and take a look at the snow. I mustered resolution for the plunge and crept shivering to the window. Yes, there was no doubt about it, southward and to east and west. The white wilderness mingled with the grey sky, and there was no more chance of making the seven-mile drive to the station than there was of bringing the Scotch Empress up to Nethermore. It was in this manner that I came to pass my only Christmas so far, within prison walls. My host was one of the most interesting of the many interesting men I have had the good luck to meet. He was a prison doctor by choice. Not from necessity. If I were to publish his name and give the locality of the prison a little more exactly, which I faithfully promised not to do, he would be recognized as one of the most distinguished psychologists of the day. He had a splendid London practice, but the attractions of his favorite science were too strong for him. And he gave it up to study criminal psychology under what he rightly considered to be the most favorable circumstances. I had made the last round with him and the Governor and duly inspected the preparations for the very mild festivities, which His Majesty's involuntary guests are permitted to indulge in. When, just as we were leaving the Great Kitchen, he asked me, Sotovoce, to particularly notice a prisoner who had already attracted my attention owing to the fact that he was wearing a mask and goggles of the style that motoring has brought into fashion. Despite of the cropped hair and the closely sheared stubble which covered his cheeks and chin, one could recognize his face at once as that of a man of more than ordinary mental power, even deprived as it was of those principal organs of expression, the eyes, which were completely hidden, as I thought on account of opthamia, by the huge goggles. Even the hideous prison livery, too, was not sufficient to entirely disguise a distinction of form and a grace of movement which is seldom or never found in the true or natural-born criminal. This is the season with us North Country folk for storytelling, said my host, as we tramped back to his house along one of the lanes that one of the Spade Gangs had made. And when we get to our grog after supper, I'll tell you the story of that man with the goggles and why he wears them, but if you ever tell it again, of course, he'll use different names and places and maybe mix a bit of fiction with it. I promised all but the last and that he left to my discretion. Over supper we naturally fell into a discussion of that most absorbing of all topics for the criminologist, the possible nature of that essential difference of mental function which divides what are commonly called the criminal from the honest classes. Of course I needn't remind you, said my host, when he had put a couple of fresh logs on the blazing fire and we had pulled our chairs round and loaded our pipes. That the first thing the really scientific student of crime, the man who wants to get at the truth, has to do is to get rid, once for all, of what is called the moral view of crime. He has nothing to do with the right and wrong of the matter, but only with the why and the wherefore. Naturally the student must not carry that principle outside his study. If he does he will have a good chance of getting into trouble with the policeman. And it is just for that reason, that the man I called your attention to, in the kitchen, is here wearing those goggles and prisons that have occupying a distinguished, in fact I might say, a unique position in the world of science. It is a terrible pity, he concluded, with something like a sigh. Yes, I assented, it hardly seems somehow in the fitness of things that such a lot of knowledge as he must have should be shut up in a prison cell. Still he may be persuaded to make legitimate use of it when he gets out. He will never get out, was the somewhat startling reply. He is a prisoner because he failed to realize that there are some things, human life and honor and happiness, for instance, which may not be sacrificed on the altar of science, even for the possible ultimate benefit of humanity. And he will die a prisoner because there is no law on the British statute book under which he could be hung for the crime he committed, murder though it was. That sounds promising, doctor, I said, after a few polls at my new lit pipe. But what about the goggles? Are they part of the punishment for this new sort of crime? They replied my host, are not a punishment. They are only a protection, not for his eyes, but against them. Ah, I see you hardly following. Well, never mind, you will see what I mean shortly. The doctor took a poll at his grog and two or three meditative whiffs at his pipe, and then proceeded to tell me the story of the convict with the goggles, which I reproduce in the following chapters, from the notes which I took at the same night, and also others of lengthy conversations which we had on the subject during the week for which the snow kept me a not unwilling prisoner at Nethermore. End of Prologue. CHAPTER I. Enstone Manor, one of the finest as well as one of the oldest estates between the Pennines and the North Sea, came into the possession of the late owner, Sir Godfrey Enstone, in this fashion. He was a younger son, but everyone said that he ought to have been the elder, with his handsome face and stalwart figure and high spirit, albeit the last was want on occasion to flame up somewhat swiftly to anger. The heir and only other child was more of a throwback to some remote generation than the son and spirit, as well as in blood of his own father and mother, for he was not only mean to look upon, but he was in disposition and nature everything that a gentleman ought not to be secretive, underhand, revengeful, and as close-fisted as a Dutch miser. That, however, is not germane to the story, save in so far as it was responsible for the everlasting quarrels between the brothers, which ended when Archibald, the elder, managed to get Godfrey into terrible hot water with his parents over some youthful escapade, and received at his hands a thrashing so sound that Archibald received injuries from which he never quite recovered. Of course, Godfrey was deeply and sincerely penitent when he cooled down and recognized what his momentary passion had led him to do, but his father would have none of his repentance and so in the end he gave him five hundred pounds and his curse and bade him never let him see his face again. Like most curses, that one duly came home derused under the old roof-tree. Godfrey disappeared utterly for over twenty years. The old baronet and his wife died within a few months of each other of pneumonia following influenza. The air succeeded. A soured and feeble misanthrope, who hated women, believed that all the girls of the countryside and in London were after his money in position, whereas no decent woman would have married him if he had been a duke and a millionaire. He killed himself with quack medicines and drugs in little more than a year, and then the solicitor set to work to find Sir Godfrey, as he was now, if alive. For two or three years nothing was heard of him, and the estate was managed by trustees appointed by the Court of Chansary. Then, without any notice, he walked one day into the solicitor's office and explained that he had only heard of the deaths of his father and brother six weeks before in Hong Kong, on his return from a three-years exploring expedition in Central and Northeastern Asia. However, he had made his money. He was evidently very wealthy, and when he had established his identity and taken possession of the carefully nursed estates, he was one of the richest men in the North Country. But although there was no doubt as to his being Godfrey Endstone, all who had known him before his banishment agreed that no one could well have been more unlike what one might have expected, Master Godfrey, to grow up than the thin grave, slightly stooping, parchment-skinned man who seemed to have little or no interest in life beyond his estates and his scientific studies, which some of his sporting neighbors looked upon with frank and openly expressed suspicion. There was, however, one exception to this rule. He brought back with him a fine, strapping honest-faced young fellow of about twenty-two, whom all his friends at first hoped was his son. But the world soon learned that he was really the son of an old comrade and fellow adventurer, who had lost his life in saving Sir Godfrey's. He had adopted him, and one of the first things he did when he got settled was to go through the legal process of giving him his name and declaring him his heir to the estates, which were unentailed and his own personal property. The title was to die with himself. He had proved that a father's curse, whether rightly or wrongly given, was a grievous burden to bear. His own wife and child had died together of plague fifteen years before on the anniversary of his banishment. Five years later, on the same day, his own life had been saved only at the expense of that of the only friend he had on earth. He had not a single blood relation in the world, and he had determined that the title should die with him, and the bloodline of end-stones ceased to exist. He had few friends, scarcely any at all in England, but as the postmaster at Endstone was well aware he had a large circle of corresponding acquaintances scattered nearly all over the world, and of these, according to the experience of the postmaster, the most frequent and constant was a certain professor, Jenner Halking, who appeared to possess addresses in pretty near every corner of the globe. One morning, at breakfast, nearly two years after his return, Dadfrey said to his adopted son, who was known legally as Harold Docker Endstone. His father's name had been Docker. Harold, my boy, what do you say to a run-up to London for a few days? You want some new guns and hunting gear before the season, I believe, and you could have a look around and choose them for yourself. It'll be better than having them sent on approval. With pleasure, Dad, was the reply. But, of course, you're going, too. Oh, yes, said Sir Godfrey, with what was for him an unwanted eagerness. The fact is that I have just had a letter from Professor Halking, and he tells me that he has at last made up his mind to give up wandering, and pitches tent permanently in England. He says his niece is growing up now, and he doesn't think it quite fair to her to keep on the everlasting trek any longer. At any rate, whatever that resolve may prove to be worth, he landed at Brindisi four days ago, and will be in London the day after tomorrow. Curiously enough, although we've been friends on no paper and in the scientific journals for years, this is the first time we have been within about a thousand miles of each other. In this letter, he asks me to call on him at Morley's Hotel on Wednesday, and at last make his personal acquaintance. Harold remembered as he spoke that Wednesday was the anniversary, as they called it, the black day of the year on which Sir Godfrey never began or ended anything of importance. But he did not share his feelings on the subject, although they had never discontinued the custom of putting on black ties on the day of his father's death. That is distinctly curious, he said, laying down the paper he was reading. It ought to be a very interesting meeting for you, though I hope you'll like the professor personally better than I like those theories of his. Great man, as he certainly is. I wonder what the niece will be like. Large and angular most probably, with the muscles of a man and the complexion of a jab. That's the worst of those travelling women. They're neither huggable nor kissable. Two days later Mr. Harold Endstone had the best of reasons to alter this very sweeping assertion. Sir Godfrey brought back an invitation to dinner from his hitherto unknown friend, whom he enthusiastically described as a most charming man and a thorough gentleman, and warned him that he was to meet the possibly formidable niece. Harold, somewhat against his inclination, found himself forced to agree with him as to the professor. He was certainly a man of birth, breeding and education, and in addition he possessed that indefinable heir of at-home-ness, which only travel can give. But for all that there was something about him, an heir of quiet, repressed power, which even suggested irresistible authority if once seriously exerted, which he found himself resenting during the first five minutes of conversation over the usual sherry and bidders. In addition to this he possessed the most extraordinary pair of eyes that Harold had ever seen in a human head. They were very large, too large, in fact, for a man and intensely luminous. They differed to in color with every changing light. Sometimes they were dusky and somber, almost a blackness. When their owner got animated, they brightened to a deep violet which at times paled slowly. When they looked towards the light, which they very seldom did, they were a greenish gray with frequent glints of reddish fire in them. To look directly into them for more than a momentary glance was not possible without a disquieting feeling, a rather suggestion of possible submission to the control of the forceful soul which was looking out of them. At least that was Harold's first impression of them. But when he went into the drawing room and he saw those same eyes set like glorious gems under a pair of dark, delicately curved brows, and lighting up the most exquisitely lovely face his own glowing fancy he had ever dreamed of, his opinion suddenly changed again, both as to rainbow eyes and women travelers. My niece, Miss Grace Romanes, said the Professor, as the slender form and the royally poised head crowned with its diadem of red gold coils bowed before them. When the introduction was over, Sir Godfrey looked at him with an expression which reminded him forcibly of his rash remark at breakfast the morning but one before. When Miss Romanes spoke, he had some difficulty in repressing a visible start, as often happens when one hears for the first time a voice of extraordinary sweetness. How the dinner and the couple of hours which followed at the opera passed, Harold never exactly knew. But when he got up the next morning with his soul full of the most fantastically delightful dreams he first informed himself that he was little better than a driveling idiot, and then expressed the opinion at breakfast that girls like Miss Grace Romanes ought not to be allowed to go about loose. It was not fair to men who had eyes in their heads and blood in their veins. Sir Godfrey sympathized, laughingly, with him and told for his comfort that he had asked Dr. Halkine and his niece to pay a visit to the manor for the purpose of comparing scientific notes. He suggested that if Harold felt that the proximity would be more than his fortitude could safely risk, a month's fishing in Norway would afford excuse for a dignified retreat. Master Harold decided to take the risk and felt absurdly pleased with himself when a very few days later it developed into a delightful and yet harrowing certainty. The conquest of Harold N. Stone was as rapid as it was complete and irrevocable, and it was accomplished before his fair conqueror appeared to have the slightest knowledge of her unconscious triumph. She was a charming companion, perfectly natural and unaffected, as might be expected of a girl whose education had been begun and completed amidst the realities of life and the eternal problem of nature, instead of the artificial trivialities which form the surroundings of the average society girl. This gave her an added charm in his eyes which no other woman could have had. His own life and education had been much the same, and so from the beginning there was a bond between them, of which, as she afterwards confessed, she must even then have felt the strength without realizing it. He had one of those open natures which make anything like concealment or the most innocent deception irksome and even unbearable where friends are concerned, and so as soon as he had made up his mind to the inevitable he went to his father, as he always called, and considered him, and told him everything. It so happened that on the morning of the same day Dr. Halkine, with whom Sir Godfrey had apparently become the fastest friends, had promised to rent a snug little dower house on the estate, so that he might settle down to the pursuit of his studies, not only in absolute quiet, but also in touch with a kindred spirit whose intellectual activities and scientific aspirations were practically identical with his own. Curiously enough, as it seemed to him then, the ardent lover did not find himself able to look with unqualified approval upon this arrangement, despite the fact that it would give him the best opportunities for an almost ideal love-making. In the first place he liked difficulties, and this looked as though things were going to be made too easy for him in one sense, and therefore perhaps, in another impossible, if Miss Grace ever got a suspicion that matters had been arranged this way. Again, he did not like the doctor. He was the only man he had ever felt uncomfortable with, and that was probably because he was the only man of whom he had ever felt, in any sense, afraid. He despised and for her sake reproached himself for this feeling. But it was no use, though out of deference for Sir Godfrey's great liking for him he kept his sentiments strictly to himself. At the same time he thought it only fair both to Miss Romanes and himself that she and her uncle should be told frankly that he loved her, and meant to win her if he could before they finally decided to settle in the Dower House. Sir Godfrey fully agreed with him, and put the matter with perfect plainness before Dr. Halkine, who accepted this situation with a quite philosophical consideration for a natural infirmity of age and sex, which interested him only as one of the inevitable phenomena of human life in its present phase. Whether or not he acquainted his niece with the State of Affairs did not appear just then, but the house was taken and the two guests remained at the manor till it was ready for the reception. Harold naturally accepted the decision as a task at permission to press his suit openly, and that he proceeded to do with such effect that within a month he felt justified in speaking out and asking Miss Grace to decide his fate for him. She did so with a quiet gravity which at once delighted and puzzled him. She gave him, with most sweetly gracious earnestness, permission to undertake the most entrancing of all tasks that a man can set himself to, the winning of a half-willing maid. But all through the conversation which meant so much to him, he was haunted by a strangely chilling sense of impersonality in her manner. She was as sweet and gentle as the most exacting lover could wish his mistress to be, and yet there was a something wanting, for which he was famed to account by the strangeness of her early surroundings and the unconventionality of her bringing up. Both Sir Godfrey and his now almost inseparable companion, the Doctor, gave their approval and their congratulations. But here again Harold was mystified, and in his father's case somewhat angered to discover the same element of impersonality, the same suspicion of aloofness or mental detachment. Later on he told Grace of this, but she only increased his difficulties by turning those marvelous, all compelling eyes upon him, each of them with a note of interrogation in it, and saying in a sweetly exasperating tone of unconcerned inquiry, I can't say that I have noticed anything uncommon in their manner, but surely one cannot expect men who pass most of their lives in the actual presence of the greatest mysteries of existence to be very deeply interested in this little love affair of ours. As the said love affair happened just then to be quite the most important manner for him within the limits of human concerns, he entirely failed to agree with her. He said so both verbally and otherwise, and with that he was famed to be content until the fates should vouchsafe an explanation, if ever they did, of a mystery in the presence of which he was mentally speaking as helpless as a little child. CHAPTER II That evening over their coffee and cigars after dinner Sir Godfrey and Harold were discussing the important events of the day, and when Sir Godfrey had, for the third or fourth time expressed his opinion of his great good luck in winning such a lovely girl for his wife, and which he seemed to think quite as important making such a close alliance, with so distinguished a scholar as Dr. Jenner Halkine, Harold, who had not spoken for several minutes, rose from his chair and began to walk up and down the room. "'Dad,' he said a trifle nervously, I scarcely know how to put the thing even to you, under the circumstances. Especially as you and the professor are such great friends, but, well to be quite frank, there's something about Dr. Halkine that I can't understand, and therefore, because of that, I suppose I don't like him.' That, my dear boy, interrupted Sir Godfrey, is one of the most natural things in the world. We, most of us, dislike what we don't or can't understand. It is, if I may say so, without offense, one of the commonest infremities in the human mind. A history of that particular phase of human character would also be a history of religious persecution as well as of almost universal opposition to every new discovery and invention, until its truth and utility have been proved beyond the possibility of doubt. "'Yes, I quite see what you mean,' laughed Harold. And then he went on much more seriously. I know, of course, that I stand on a very different mental plane to yourself and Dr. Halkine. You are both miles above me in intellect and attainments, but this is more of a moral than an intellectual matter.' "'My dear Harold, what do you mean?' exclaimed Sir Godfrey, looking up at him in sudden surprise.' "'It's rather hard to explain,' he replied. "'And perhaps the easiest way to do it is this. The other day I want to have a talk with him. A straight one, as I had right to have, about the ancestry and so on of the girl I had made up my mind to marry, if I could. I hadn't got the first two sentences out, before those infernal eyes of his were looking right through the back of my head, and the whole course of my thoughts and intentions changed in a moment. And, well, we talked about something else that I didn't really care a rap about.' "'And yet,' replied Sir Godfrey, with a gentle smile, if I mistake not, misgrace herself as I very like her uncles, and because you have got her and you think yourself the most unfortunate fellow alive. Rather a curious position, isn't it?' "'Yes, dad,' he laughed. With a sudden change of manner, I suppose I am really the luckiest fellow on earth, just now. There never was such a girl.' "'No, no, of course not,' said Sir Godfrey. "'There never is. Every man who is really and honestly in love with the girl he wants to marry thinks that, Harold. And if he didn't, he would not be genuinely in love with her, I suppose. Well, go on. What were you going to say?' "'Naturally,' he laughed again. "'It must be so. But there is one thing I have been wanting to ask you lots of times, since Dr. Helikine came. I mean, since we got to know him in grace pretty intimately, have you ever noticed anything peculiar about his eyes?' "'What on earth do you mean, Harold?' exclaimed Sir Godfrey. Certainly they are very wonderful eyes. I think the most beautiful pair of eyes I have ever seen in a man's head. But why should you trouble about that? Evidently his sister had the same, and Miss Ramonis has inherited them from her. And I presume that in your estimation no girl ever had such eyes as Miss Ramonis.' "'Of course, Dad. Of course. Why, when you look into them, your whole soul seems to—' "'No, I am not going to deviate into sentiment or what. I suppose you would call lovers nonsense. I am asking about the doctor's eyes. I want to ask you whether, when he has been looking at you, you have ever felt an inclination to do the thing that you don't want to do, even to do something that you didn't feel at the moment to be quite right?' "'My dear Harold,' replied Sir Godfrey, seriously, that is really a very grave question to put, because it involves one of the most intricate problems of psychology. I mean, of course, the possible influence of one mind over another convened through the medium of the optic nerve from the brain—the optic nerve being, as you know, the sole communication existing between the eye and the brain, with the exception of those governing muscles which move the eyes. In common speech, that is called hypnotism, which to those who have studied the subject at all deeply means either anything or nothing—anything to the vulgar—nothing to the learned. I may say that our own and research's, how kinds in mine, have gone a good deal deeper than that." In short, he went on with a note of something like exultation in his voice. I think I am in a position to say that we have arrived almost at the threshold of the greatest discovery in psychology that has ever been made. A most marvelous discovery, my dear Harold, one which might possibly result in the creation of a power which, in hands capable of using it wisely and well, might possibly solve all the problems which now perplex humanity—problems social, political, moral—all these might, no, I hardly dare trust myself to say what might not be accomplished through the exercise of such a power once under due control. Yes, said Harold, leaning forward over the back of his chair. That is just the answer, or something like it, to the question that I asked you. You say that this power, whatever it is—and I suppose it really means a sort of reading the thoughts of others and turning them into the direction willed by the reader—means, in plain English, just this—that the person who really could do that could also command the thoughts of those whom he or she could get into sufficiently close communication. Really, Harold, said Sir Godfrey, after a long pull at his cigar, I must congratulate you upon a fairly succinct definition of the new power which, according to Halkind's researches in mind, may at any time be called into being. That is exactly what would happen, provided always a complete knowledge of the lines upon which the average mind of mankind works. We have been working very hard at it, but it is, as you can imagine, a problem full of intricacies, only a few of which have so far been unraveled, even by the greatest of mental scientists. Of course you know that hitherto among all the thousands of millions of human beings that have been born into this world, everyone, male or female, has been an impenetrable mystery to every other. No matter how intimate their social or friendly relations may have been, still the mystery remains. As Halkind was saying to me only last night, after we had been at work for some hours on the subject, every human being resembles a triple wall fortress. Those other human beings whom he meets casually in the world are those who only knock at the doors of the outer walls, and sometimes they are open to them. His intimate acquaintances are allowed to pass the first door, but the second remains forever shut to them. Through that, only his friends, one or two perhaps in a whole lifetime, are permitted to pass. But in the third wall there is no door. Within that central citadel the man is forever alone with himself. It is the eternally inviolate abode of the human soul, the naked soul, that which no eyes of friend or wife or child or lover have ever looked upon, the mystery of mysteries, the problem of which every human being is the insoluble incarnation. That is, as it has ever been, he went on rising from his chair and beginning to walk up and down the other side of the room. For this reason men, yes, and women too, have failed in accomplishing their highest ideals of conquest and empire. But for that Alexander would never have sighed for other worlds to conquer. Caesar would never have fallen under his friend's dagger at the foot of the throne of the world, and Napoleon would have died Emperor of the Earth instead of a prisoner at St. Helena. You have asked me what I think of Professor Halkind's eyes? I tell you now, Harold, of course in the strictest confidence, that the day may come, not very far hence perhaps, when those eyes may be able to see through that inner wall which no mortal sight has yet penetrated, and then—and then, or rather before then, said Harold, straightening up and thrusting his hands into his jacket-pockets, with all due deference to you, Dad, and in spite of the fact that he is Grace's uncle, I think he ought to be shot in the best interests of humanity. I quite see what you mean, but I don't believe the time has come yet for any man to wield such a tremendous power as that would be. Fancy a man who could see another man's soul as naked as he could see his body? No, I don't think that ever ought to be. I quite see what you mean, replied Sir Godfrey, quietly. It is only natural for you to think that way, since you have not studied the subject, but still I may remind you, as I said just now, that Miss Grace's eyes are very like her uncle's. What have they could see, for instance, into your soul, through that third wall of the inmost citadel? Well, as far as I know, he replied, with a laugh, there is nothing there that she is not welcome to see, and the most interesting that she would see would be the best conception of herself that I have been able to make. Of course, it is very imperfect, but I hope it is something like her. Spoken as a true lover should speak, Harold, laughed Sir Godfrey, and not at all badly put, but she would also see the true reason why you asked me that question about her uncle's eyes, eyes which are so like her own. You take my meaning, of course. I am afraid you are getting a bit too deep for me, Dad, replied Harold, taking a fresh cigar out of his case. Of course, I see or think I see what you mean, but I must say that, much as I love Grace, and I did not believe any man could love a girl much more than I love her, I am bound to tell you that the reason why I asked you that question was that I'd give a good deal, if I had it, for her to be somebody else's niece, and for this searcher's souls to be safely back in Tibet, contemplating the eternities and immensities, and letting ordinary human beings alone. That, my dear Harold, said Sir Godfrey, is exactly what a young fellow like yourself, with all the world before him, and his heart full of love and his veins full of good blood, would naturally say, but at the same time you will allow that such things as these may look very different from the point of view of men like Alkind and myself, who have all our passions behind us, and as you put it, only the eternities and immensities before us. Yes, I quite see that, Dad, answered Harold, throwing himself back into his armchair again, but for all that I'm afraid I cannot agree with you. Human nature, even of the best, is not perfect enough yet to be trusted with a power like that. At least that is my opinion, and with all due deference to him as Grace's uncle. If Dr. Alkind tries any soul-searching experiments on her, or myself, after we are married, I shall take the law into my own hands, whatever the consequences are. I don't like the man, and I don't trust him. And I shall take jolly good care to get Grace out of reach of his unholy influence as soon as I have the right to do so. A Mayfair Magician. A Romance of Criminal Science. By George Griffith. CHAPTER III That evening at the Dower House Dr. Alkind had a conversation with Miss Grace on the same subject, the marriage which was now practically agreed upon between herself and Harold Instone. Then you have quite made up your mind, Grace, he said. And you really think that the marriage is in accordance with your—well, perhaps I ought not to put it quite so prosaically as that, although you and I are so much accustomed to talk that way. Oh, yes, I quite see what you mean, Uncle. She laughed. You mean do I think it in accordance with the eternal fitness of things, which of course includes my own affections and inclinations? Yes, she continued, putting her elbows on the table, and her chin between her hands, and looking at him, as few others were able to do for any length of time, straight in the eyes. Yes, you may call it an illustration of the law of selection, of the adaptation of the fittest to the fittest, under the special circumstances of the case, suitability to environment, and all that kind of scientific stuff, if you like. In plain English it comes to this, that Harold loves me, and I—well, yes, I think I love him. The last sentence was not spoken as a girl really in love would have uttered the words. There was just a suspicion of restraint, a little hesitation between the words, which might not have struck an ordinary person in their true meaning, but which Dr. Halkind grasped at once. Then Grace, he said, leaning back in his chair, and taking a long meditative pull at his pipe. I may take it, I presume, that you have really made up your mind, that you can marry this young man, and, as the storybook says, live happily ever after. I think so, uncle, she replied. At least, of course, so far as one can foresee these things. And yet, you know, it is very curious. He is almost absolutely the opposite to everything that you ever taught me to look upon as—what shall I say? Well, the best in man. That is a very singular remark, Grace, said the doctor, sending a cloud of smoke curling up towards the ceiling. Really, it is one of the most curious remarks that a young lady in your present position could very well make. What am I to understand by it? Surely you are not beginning to see spots on the sun already. Oh, no, no, she laughed. That isn't a bit what I mean. What I ought to have said is this. You have always trained and educated me to think that the highest qualities of men are the mental and intellectual, and that, however good and strong and manly a man might be, he was, after all, only a higher kind of animal, unless he possessed exceptional mental and intellectual powers. Now, of course, as you know, Harold is everything that a man, as man, ought to be—at any rate, I think so. But although he is clever and well educated as society reckons education, it would be absurd to say that he could compare for a moment with either Sir Godfrey or yourself. Or yourself, for instance, added the Doctor, knocking the ashes out of his pipe. That, Grace, I think, is a matter which you really ought to think seriously about. He went on, keeping his eyes upon hers and speaking in a tone which was familiar enough to her, but which it would not have done Harold Instone very much good to hear. You know that you are not merely an ordinary girl who can make a brilliant marriage like this just because you are beautiful, well educated and fairly well off. Your education has been very different to that of the ordinary society beauty, and, to put it plainly, it has given you powers which they have possibly never dreamed of. Is that really so, Uncle? she said, getting up from her seat and beginning to walk up and down the room with her hands clasped behind her. Frankly, I hope it isn't so, because since—well, since that afternoon in the park when Harold told me that he loved me and wanted me and I looked at him, yes, you looked at him, said the Doctor, and what then? You looked him straight in the eyes, I suppose, and then—that, she laughed with a quick flush, is not a question that you ought to ask, and I certainly shan't answer it. What I mean is this, she went on more seriously. Ever since then I have had an uncomfortable haunting suspicion that I have got some sort of power, as you say, that I use it unconsciously to, well, make him love me. My dear Grace, he laughed. If that is all you're going to say, you need not have taken the trouble. It is merely the power that every beautiful girl has to make a man love her, provided always that she exercises it over the right man. There is no mystery about that, except the eternal mystery of what people call love, which has never been explained, and which no sensible person wants to explain. Yes, she replied, but there is something else. You may be able to explain it, but I can't, something that is a complete mystery to me. Ah, he said, well now, perhaps we are coming to the most interesting part of the problem. Of course I will solve the puzzle for you if I can, but what is it? It is a very difficult thing, she replied, flushing again, for a girl to explain to any man if he is her uncle, even such an uncle as you have been to me, in fact the only sort of father I ever knew. Yes, he said so gravely that his tone rather surprised her. Yes, I quite understand. That is difficult. It must be. And by way of helping you out a little, I should suggest that you should detach yourself entirely from the personal question and put it into the ordinary language that we are accustomed to talk in. I quite see what you mean, she said, pulling herself up straight and giving her head a quick little shake as though she would shake a certain set of thoughts out of it. It is this way. When a girl is really in love with a man, I mean in love with him in the ordinary commonplace sense of the term, she is supposed to be in love with him always, not only when she is awake, but when she is crossing the borderland which lies between the world of realities and the world of dreams. In other words, she thinks of him when she is going to sleep. Now, if that is really true, I am afraid I am not properly in love with Harold. I think of him sometimes in an impersonal sort of way after we have been for a long walk or riding together or after we have been dining at the manner. But after that he fades completely out of my existence, and when I meet him again the next day I have a curious sense of making a new acquaintance. Yet the moment that we are alone together everything is just as it was the day before. I mean that we are in every way just as much lovers as ever. Then when we are apart it seems to go again, and I am, mentally speaking, unattached until I meet him again. Now that doesn't seem right, does it? That is very easily understood, my dear Grace, reply the doctor, lighting a fresh pipe. You have been educated quite differently to other girls. Thanks to my selfishness and your devotion you have lived a life of comparative isolation from society. You have traveled with me through the wild outlands of the earth, and what other girls have learned from books you have learned in the presence of Mother Nature herself. On the other hand you know something of social conventions, partly from books and partly from experience, and you have also learned how much or how little worth they are. On the whole then I think it is not very surprising that you should find yourself falling in love in a somewhat unconventional way. Then, you know, there is another thing which I don't think you have quite grasped. The average girl naturally falls in love in the average way, as a rule, with the average man. Do you mean Harold? She interrupted stopping in front of him. Oh no, he replied, looking up at her with a laugh. Harold Endstone is by no means an ordinary man. He is like yourself. He has taken the best of his education where you got it. Like you he has seen the eternities and the immensities face to face. He has learned to understand that eloquent silence which is the speech of nature. To him as to you towns and cities are simply overcrowded human hives. He, like you, would be lonelier in a London theatre or a society leaders at home than he would be on an island in the Pacific or in the uplands of Tibet. Although, of course, he has not so far attained to the higher knowledge that you have. Ah, yes, she stopped again. What is that higher knowledge? Perhaps that may be the secret of this strange love of mine, the love which really only seems to live when I am near him. What is it? Shall I tell you the great secret? Grace, he said, rising and beginning to walk up and down the room. But no, perhaps I'd better not, for after all, you might not like to know it. After that, of course, you will have to tell it, me uncle. She laughed, not altogether mirthfully. You said that in the very way to make me want to know. Now, what is it? If you don't tell me, I shall go to bed miserable and probably get up with the resolve to break off everything with Harold, because I shall think that I only love him in a philosophical and therefore unnatural sort of way. That, my dear Grace, he replied, would be a great misfortune, both for you and for him. It really would, because you are so perfectly suited to each other in every way. Therefore, I will tell you. But remember, he went on putting his hands on her shoulders and fixing her eyes with that strange magnetic glance which Harold Instone dislikes so much. Remember that what I'm going to tell you now is for you alone. It must never be repeated, not even to him when you are married. You have, as I have said, the same power over him that every beautiful woman has over the man who believes her to be the most adorable being in the world. But you have something else, something that you have inherited from your mother. You have the power of keeping his love, of making him mentally your abject slave, and yet at the same time detaching yourself absolutely from him, of looking upon him as something apart from your own existence, and therefore you can do as you will with his love. You can chain him in fetters of silk and gold, and yet remain entirely free yourself. That is, of course, if you choose to do so. And he went on speaking very slowly, drawing her a little nearer to him. You will choose, Grace, to do that whenever it may be necessary. You will marry him, and I think, yes, I believe you will be happy with him. But never forget in the midst of all your happiness that you retain that power in reserve, and if circumstances should ever demand it, you must and shall remember to use it. But why, she said, looking back at him, and feeling as though it were impossible to take her eyes away from his, why should I have such a power as that, and why should I ever want to use it with him? That, he replied, still keeping her gaze and chained, is a question which only the fates can answer. I have only told you what I know, but remember this, too, that having told you that you possess this power, I desire you to use it when and how it may be necessary to do so. Now, you had better go to bed, but remember, remember. He stooped forward and kissed her on the forehead. He stroked her hair back with his hand, and then drew it down quickly over her eyes. They closed, and then as he brushed her hair back again, they opened. She turned away and walked mechanically towards the door. He opened it for her, and as she passed slowly upstairs, he went down to the kitchen and sent the girl who acted as her maid up to her. When he got back to the dining-room, he lit another pipe, threw himself back into the big arm-chair, and said to himself between the puffs, Well, looked at from the lower plane, I suppose it would not be considered an entirely legal or even a strictly honorable transaction, but still there are other things to consider. And after all, the interests of science are higher than any individual human interests. It can be done, and there is no reason why she should not help me to do it. She will be happy and so will he for a time, perhaps for life, if they will only do what they are wanted to do. As for Sir Godfrey, he is a very good fellow, a learned man in his own sphere, but an ignoramus from our point of view. And happily or unhappily, again according to the point of view, he is afflicted with that very convenient disease, divided personality. Really, it would seem as though the fates had worked to bring me into contact with such a man, a man who, properly managed, could make me a potential master of two or three millions. What would be impossible then? Nothing except the reversal of the elementary rules of nature, and even those might be controlled someday. Yes, it is just a matter of money. Strange that we who have done so much and solved so many secrets should still, by some queer contradiction in the order of things, be forced to depend upon the money that may have been made by the most sordid trading or the commonest or meanest swendling. Yet we must have it. And therefore, if only my first experiment in divided personality is a success, I will have it. THE ENGAGEMENT The next day the engagement between Grace and Harold was a formally accomplished fact, and the occasion was duly celebrated by a dinner at the Manor, to which all the best people in the countryside were invited. There was, naturally, a considerable amount of heart-searching and disappointment, which in some cases amounted to disgust among the many marriageable daughters and their mothers, at seeing the greatest prize in the northern matrimonial market carried off so swiftly by the daughter of a stranger who, however distinguished he might be in the world of science, was nevertheless, in their estimation, far below the county-family rank. Still there was no denying the fact that the beauty and indescribable charm of Grace Romanus placed her far above any of the other young ladies who might have aspired to be the future mistress of in-stone Manor and the millions which Sir Godfrey's heir would inherit. Some of these young ladies and their mamas, especially the mamas, had tried to dislike her and failed. Others, rashly daring, had even tried to snub her, and these had failed more disastrously still. Wherefore, the county, as represented by its territorial and financial aristocracy, made up its mind to accept the inevitable and to look as pleased as it could. As was only natural under the circumstances the dinner was a great success. Sir Godfrey for once came out of his shell. He ceased to be the retired student who passed most of his life among books and revealed another character which society had scarcely suspected, that of the universal student the widely-traveled man who, so to speak, had been everywhere and done everything. Harold played a modest but excellent second to him. Grace was delightful and charmed even those who would have given most to be in her place. As for the professor, he, as Harold put it afterwards, just let himself go, and simply dazzled even the keen northern intellects by the brilliancy of his conversation. In fact, when the guests thought over the evening's doings the next morning, it seemed to many of them as though they had been passing some hours on the borderland of a strange world. One of the guests at the dinner was a Mr. Bonham Denier, a well-built and decidedly good-looking man, about forty to forty-five, clean-shaven, square-headed, and slightly hawk-nosed, with steel blue eyes, which were rather too small for his face, and well-cut lips which would have been all the better for being a trifle fuller. He was staying at the Dower House with the professor, who had introduced him to Sir Godfrey as an old friend in college chum, now the head of the London firm of solicitors which managed all his legal and financial business for him during his travels. Mr. Bonham Denier was also, in a sense, the legal guardian and trustee of Miss Grace, as her mother had left him the management of her little fortune. Such an introduction, of course, ensured a hearty welcome from Sir Godfrey and Harold, and as the lawyer's manner was quite irreproachable, and his conversation interesting beyond the common, the acquaintance had quickly ripened into something like intimacy. When they had taken leave of their host, the little party from the Dower House went home, and when Grace had said good night and gone to bed after receiving another of those strange caresses from her uncle, the two men went into the professor's den, and although it was getting well on towards midnight, Hawkind got out the spirit-stand, a siphon of soda, and a box of cigars, and they settled themselves in two big arm-chairs on either side of the fireplace as though they were at the beginning rather than the end of a country evening. Help yourself, my dear Denier. There is whiskey and brandy, and I think you will find the tobacco as good as usual. Thanks, replied the lawyer, mixing himself a whiskey and soda, and picking out a nice, long, well-molded, yellow-speckled cigar. The professor did the same, and when Mr. Denier had lit his cigar he sat down and leaned back, and after a few meditative puffs looked across at his host and said slowly, Then I presume, Hawkind, from what you said this afternoon, that you have absolutely made up your mind to carry this thing through? Absolutely, he replied, taking a sip of his whiskey and soda. Don't you see, Denier, that it is literally the chance of a lifetime for a man like myself. Here is everything ready to our hands. A man worth millions, two or three certain, perhaps more. An adopted son, an heir, who has been obliging enough to fall madly in love with Grace. And Grace? Well, quite prepared to believe that she is in love with him and so to marry him. By the way, interrupted Mr. Denier, I presume you have no intention of indicating the true nature of your relationship with Miss Grace either before or after marriage? Oh no, replied the professor quickly. There isn't the slightest necessity for that. Besides, look at the curious impression it would create and the difficulty of explaining matters to her. Oh no, much better as it is. Why do you ask? Only because it just struck me that such relationships are traceable, you know. And if there were any hitch in our contemplated proceedings and you incurred the hostility of this young millionaire, as he will be in due course, and he set himself to find things out, it would be still more difficult then. However, if you have made up your mind, there's an end of it. Then, after a little pause, he went on more slowly. You want my help now. To put it plainly, you have got to have it. And my silence as well. And I have come down to give it you. What are the conditions? Will five thousand paid out of the estate as soon as I get control of it be enough? No, said the other decidedly. My figure is ten thousand. But if you like, you may pay in two installments. One as soon as you get control of the property, and the second, say, in twelve months time, provided that we are equally successful in getting the young heir out of the way as well. After all, he is only an alien and a usurper. I don't think we need to consider him very much. And as for your niece, it will not be difficult to console her for her loss. What an infernal scoundrel you are, Denier, said the professor, quietly, almost contemplatively. When I commit a crime, as of course society would call this operation, I do it from purely unselfish motives. Personally, I don't profit to the extent of a sovereign. I do it simply in the interests of science, and because those interests, as you know, are absolutely supreme, and because they cannot be served in any other way. But you, you do it just for money, mere money. Have you ever really thought what a contemptible thing it is to commit crime for money? My dear fellow, laughed the lawyer, without the slightest appearance of offense. You really must pardon me if I declined to follow you into any of your metaphysical tangles. To be quite frank with you, what your science is to you, money is to me. I am quite prepared to make it honestly, as society would put it, and to a certain extent I do. At the same time, when I get a good opportunity of making it, well, we will say otherwise, I don't see why I should not avail myself of it. Wherefore, the question for me here is not your motives, nor has it anything to do with the interests of science. It is just whether or not you are prepared to come to my terms. It is a great deal of money, and it might be put to very much better uses, said the professor, with a sigh of perfectly genuine regret. For strange as it may seem, what he had just said was the absolute truth. Still, there will be plenty left, so I don't think we need quarrel over that. You can make out your bond, or whatever you may call it, and I will sign it in the morning. Then I think we must get to work. Quite so, said Mr. Denier, I entirely agree with you. But before finally committing myself to what may, after all, be a rather risky piece of work, I think you ought in common justice to tell me exactly what the said work is going to be. I don't suppose you have any objection to that. Not the slightest, my dear Denier, replied the professor. On the contrary, I think it will be distinctly advantageous that you should know the circumstances fully. He took a sip of his whiskey and soda, one or two pulls at his cigar, and went on, leaning back in his chair and fixing his eyes upon the lawyers. Without going into any tedious technicalities which might need a good deal of explanation, I may as well get to the point at once and tell you a fact which I think you will take without question on the strength of such reputation as I have. I have discovered that Sir Godfrey is suffering, quite unknown to himself for his ordinary medical advisor, from one of the most obscure diseases that is known either to medical or mental science. Briefly it may be described as divided personality. By that I mean a form of almost unknown insanity, the principal symptom of which is the possibility of dividing, by certain known means, the personality of the subject into two entirely different and even absolutely antagonistic parts. I need hardly tell you that in every human being there are what are called in ordinary language good and evil qualities, instincts which make for what our moralists call the right, and others for what they call their wrong. Yes, yes, I follow you so far, said the lawyer, taking another sip at his glass. No one ought to know that better than a man of my trade. But all the same you are getting me a bit out of my depth. Are you going to tell me that it is possible to, as it were, divide a man into two and set the good against the bad and vice versa? A sort of jekyll and hide business? Oh, dear no, said the professor. It is a much more serious business than that. When a person who understands this particular disease meets with a subject afflicted with it, it is quite possible for him to so treat the malady that without any black magic of the jekyll and hide sort he can render either side of the subject's mental being, the good or the bad as necessity may demand, totally unconscious of the doings of the other half. You follow me, I hope. Follow you, exclaimed denier, getting up from his chair and putting his back to the fireplace. I should think I do. Just now you called me an infernal scoundrel. I'll be hanged if I know what to call you. I know that I am not everything that a moralist might wish me to be, but I tell you candidly that there is something so diabolical about that idea that, well, I must say that I don't quite like it. Of course I presume that I am to gather from what you said that somehow, by these infernal arts of yours, you have discovered that Sir Godfrey is suffering from such a disease as this. You are going to divide his nature into two and make the evil work against the good for your own ends. And yes, I'll confess for my own as well. And then, my good Lord, you might as well make a man his own murderer. And there you sit, talking about all these atrocious possibilities as quietly as I should hear the confession of a criminal whose defense I had to get up. To be quite frank, Halkine, there is something uncanny about this that I don't altogether like. Now, am I right in what I have just said? Perfectly right, my dear fellow, said the Professor, laughing and turning his luminous eyes up at him. You have, as I might say in medical language, diagnosed the case to perfection. I mean Sir Godfrey's case. I have studied him now closely for some months and am perfectly certain of my own diagnosis. With just a little assistance I will, mentally and morally speaking, cut that man in two. One half shall go to sleep and forget. The other half, which to the world will look just like the whole man, will do exactly as I want it to do. In fact, he went on, his voice rising slightly. I could make him, I mean, that half of him, do anything. I could make it degrade what the world knows of Sir Godfrey Enstone, county magnate and millionaire, to the lowest level of the criminal you ever helped or prosecuted. I could drive him, yes, even to murder. Or self-murder, which under the circumstances might perhaps be more convenient, said the lawyer, leaning back in his chair again and putting the tips of his fingers together. Is that what you are driving at, Halkine? It might be necessary, said the Professor, and it would certainly be possible. Would it really, said Dinyar, with something very like a snare in his voice? Well, you called me a scoundrel just now, but I'm afraid I cannot retort that it is a case of arcades ambo. I don't know what crimes you have committed already, but if all you have said is true, and from what I know of you I haven't the slightest doubt that it is, you are not a criminal. You are something more, something that the language of criminology hasn't any word to describe. You can remain apparently innocent yourself while you are making others criminals and self-murderers. Well, as I said, the vocabulary of crime hasn't any word that would fit you. I quite agree with you, said the Professor, smiling at the very obvious expression of fear which had come over his accomplices' face while he was speaking. But you see, my dear fellow, although it is rather difficult for me to explain it to you, in the higher realms of science these things don't count. Science, like nature, considers ends, not means. And where those ends are to be attained there is neither right nor wrong. When Mother Earth relieved herself the other day of an internal strain by the eruption of Martinique, she didn't consider the trifle of the thirty or forty thousand lives which were lost in the process. Her end was simply the restoration of the balance of volcanic force. The people died because they happened to be there. That was all. She would have done just the same in an unpeopled desert. And since science is the handmaid, the interpreter of nature, her methods must be the same. In the present case, I, as a servant of science, must act upon the same principles. And Sir Godfrey Endstone happens to be in such an unfortunate position as the inhabitants of Martinique were. Science, that is to say, nature will take her course. And that, Halkine, said Denier, helping himself to another whiskey and soda, means in plain English that you are going to use this infernal science, or whatever it is of yours, to make this unfortunate man commit a fraud, as it were, on himself and his adopted son. And further, if necessary, make him, well, dispose of himself when he becomes superfluous, and that you call science. Precisely, said the professor, still in the same impassive tone. While he is necessary, he will remain. When he is unnecessary, he will probably disappear. But you needn't trouble yourself about that. I have asked him to come and have a little bachelor supper with us tomorrow night, and then you shall watch the beginning of the comedy which I propose to play. Of course, if it happens to end in tragedy, that will only be because it is necessary. Halkine, said the other, straightening himself up. We have been friends for a long time. I am about as dishonest and unscrupulous as disappointment and necessity ever made a man. But you, you are not dishonest because you are not human enough. You are not unscrupulous because you haven't any scruples. I do not know what you are. In fact, I am not altogether sure that you are entirely human. I am not entirely sure of that myself, replied the professor, with another smile. And now, I think, as they say in the east, we will take one last peg and go to bed. Chapter 5 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 5 The next morning, among the letters, Grace found an invitation from her aunt, the professor's elder sister, to go to London and do some shopping. When Grace's engagement to Harold had been formally announced, this lady had been asked by her brother to come and keep house for him until the wedding was over. This fell in exactly with the arrangements of the party, all the more so because Harold was going up to town to look after some shooting gear, and so they went up together by the midday train. Grace was to stop a week in town and then bring her aunt back to take up her new position at the Dower House. The night of the supper passed off very pleasantly, and no one who could have seen the three men smoking and chatting in such seemingly cordial friendship over their wine could have guessed that they were anything but the closest friends. Certainly the last possible supposition would have been that the perpetration of one of the most diabolically subtle crimes the mind of man had ever devised would have begun before Professor Halkine's guest left the house. Although Sir Godfrey did not, of course, see any sinister meaning in the circumstances, he might have noticed that his hosts smoked pipes while he had a box of peculiarly fragrant cigars at his elbow, and further that Halkine had devoted a small decanter of very delicately flavored wine, something like toque to his special use, saying that it was the last drop he had left for the present. He and Mr. Denier contended themselves with ordinary port. This, of course, Sir Godfrey took good naturedly as a friendly compliment, little dreaming what the consequences of his acceptance were to be. Towards eleven o'clock he began to experience a curious exhilaration of mind and an equally singular increase of physical vigor. He felt as though a weight of twenty years had dropped from his shoulders. The elasticity of youth seemed to be returning to his limbs, and his thoughts quickly thronging as they were appeared to be even for him, clear and logical thinker as he was, most unwontedly clear-cut and luminous. This is certainly a most wonderful wine of yours, Halkine, I must say. He said as he responded to an invitation to fill his glass again. What did you say it was? Oh, yes, some rare Bohemian vintage. Well, it's very kind of you to let me have your last bottle. Upon my word it almost makes one believe in the possibility of the elixir of life. Hanged if I don't feel twenty years younger, I believe I could climb the golden pinnacle again, and it is over fifteen years since I was fit to do that. And these cigars, too, deliciously fragrant they are. Yes, replied the Professor. It is, as you say, quite a wonderful wine. I'm very sorry that I have come to the end of it, but I am told there will be another lot ready for export in a few months, so you needn't have any scruples about finishing that. I assure you there isn't a headache in a dozen of it. It is very remarkable how it really does make one feel a lot younger. I suppose it must have some curious physical effect on the brain centers. It's a very pleasant delusion at any rate. I have drunk it for years, and never found any evil results, so that, after all, it is an innocent enjoyment, especially for people who have led lives like ours, and are getting into the armchair stage of travel. For my own part, I know of no greater enjoyment, except perhaps the tracking down of one of nature's secrets, than to go on my wanderings again in an armchair with a pipe and a sketch-map. For instance, I spent the half of last night among the mountains of the eastern frontier of Tibet. That ground is pretty well known to you, isn't it, Sir Godfrey? Yes, I think I may say it is, he replied. I had one or two little adventures there which form quite interesting memories. Well, as it is comparatively early yet, Sir Godfrey, said Mr. Denier, in a gentle persuasive tone. And, as I, a hopeless stay at home, don't often find myself in company with such great travellers as you are, won't you share some of those pleasant memories with us? I am sure you must have had some very strange experiences in all your wanderings. Mr. Denier was, as he had confessed, neither a moral nor an honest man. But he had a sort of moral veneer which served him as well with the world as the real article would have done, and he was distinctly shocked at the startling result of this request. Sir Godfrey's thin, parchment-skin cheeks were flushed as they had not been for years, and as usually mild and meditative eyes were shining with a hard, steely light, like the eyes of a man who was looking death very nearly in the face. Before he was halfway through with the telling of his first recollection, the startled lawyer recognized that Halkine had only told him the literal truth, during his exposition of the strange disease of personality from which he and Sir Godfrey was suffering. Whatever drug the professor had put into the wine and the cigars, it had certainly had the effect of dividing Sir Godfrey's nature with amazing sharpness. The courtly gentleman and the refined scholar had disappeared, and the adventurous wanderer, ruthless and unscrupulous in his fight for life and fortune against overwhelming odds, had taken his place. His very speech had changed, and he used phrases of picturesque coarseness and unrestrained ribaldry which sounded strange indeed from the lips of the polished master of instone manner. From adventures of one kind he gradually descended to others of the least creditable sort. In short, all the worst that he had done in his life came out, told with a frank gusto of brutal satisfaction which completely shocked the superficially respectable lawyer. It was indeed such a miracle as Mephistopheles himself might have delighted to work, and while he was reveling in the description of episodes upon which he had often looked back with shame and disgust, he drank glass after glass of the poisoned wine and smoked the seductively fragrant cigars incessantly, and yet, strange to say, he showed no signs of ordinary intoxication. His speech was as clear and his sentences as logically framed and consecutive as they had ever been. In short, the only effect that the deadly draughts had taken had been to make him, as it were, morally instead of physically drunk, to paralyze the whole of the better part of his nature and to excite all that was base and common in it to intense activity. It was nearly two o'clock before the party broke up, and when Sir Godfrey rose to go, the Professor went out into the hall with him to help him on with his coat. In doing so, he committed one of those apparently slight mistakes which have so often wrecked the careers of the greatest of criminals. There were still about a dozen cigars in the box and two or three glasses of wine in the decanter. The moment that they were out of the room, Mr. Denier took a round two-ounce bottle out of his pocket, uncorked it, and filled it with wine. He corked it and put it back and helped himself to a couple of cigars. There is no telling when these might come in useful, he said to himself as he sat down again. It is quite on the cards that friend Halkine may overstep the law practically as well as theoretically. In that case these would furnish very valuable evidence, especially if he is inclined to play the fool about that money. And when a fellow goes mad, as he is on science and all that sort of thing, there is no telling what he will do. When Sir Godfrey came in with his overcoat on to say good night, the Professor took the remaining cigars in a handful out of the box and said, Now, Sir Godfrey, there's just another glass of wine for a nightcap. I should not advise you to mix anything with it. Or I would offer you a brandy and soda. You might as well put these weeds in your pocket. I have got plenty more. My dear fellow, it would be absolute sacrilege to put anything down on top of such nectar as this, replied Sir Godfrey, taking the full glass which Halkine offered him. No, you can depend upon that. But you say you are going to be good enough to walk up to the manor with me. Well, if you like to turn in, I'll have the pleasure of watching you have a brandy and soda. Meanwhile, I must thank you for an almighty pleasant evening. By God, it is just like being back in the old times. Most extraordinary. All the same, I am not sorry that Master Harold wasn't here to hear some of these queer yarns I have been telling you. I don't think they would have done his young morals much good. Still, things were different in those old days, weren't they? I expect you could spin us a pretty tough-laid yarn yourself, if you tried. Well, well, when you get in some more of that wine, I'll get you to let me have some of it, if you can. Good night, Denier. Hope you won't dream about too many of those traveller's tales I've been telling you. It wouldn't be too good for a respectable member of society and father of a family like yourself. Well, so long. As soon as they got outside into the field path, which led from the Dower House to the Manor, the Professor's Manor altered entirely. He ceased to be the genial, respectable host and became, as it were, the mental director. It might also be said the tyrant of the man whom his science had for the time being placed completely at his mercy. He began to talk in a masterful tone, which was in strange contrast with the quiet, refined voice that he used in his daily intercourse with the world, and he confined himself strictly to one subject—business. Sir Godfrey appeared to take it all quite as a matter of course. He agreed with everything he said and did not take the slightest notice of his singularly changed manner. When they reached the side door of the Manor, which admitted directly to the rooms which Sir Godfrey reserved for himself, he opened it with his latch-key, turned on the electric light, and the Professor, following him to the library, he turned and said, Have a drink, Halkine. There is the spirit stand, and you will find some soda and a cigarette. I shall follow your advice. That wine of yours has made me feel so good that I guess I won't spoil the sensation with anything else. Halkine helped himself very sparingly. If ever he wanted a clear head and steady hand, he wanted them now. For this was the crucial hour of the experiment which was to prove whether his theory as to the disease of personality was correct or not. He sat down opposite his host at the corner of the table, and went on talking about his niece's marriage and arrangements for settlements, and so on, and gradually and subtly led up to the question of Sir Godfrey's will. Oh, that will be all right, he interrupted, almost roughly. I made the will some years ago. The estate is unentailed. I have left everything to Herald, with the exception of a few legacies to servants, and one or two bequests to scientific research, so you see Grace will be quite safe. Don't you worry about the settlements, old man. They'll be all right. No, I don't propose to, said Halkine, still in his cold, masterful tone, keeping his eyes fixed on Sir Godfrey's. But I do not think I could accept such a will on her behalf as entirely satisfactory. You see, I am her guardian. She owes practically everything to me, and although I don't suppose such a thing probable for a moment, still, you know, it is possible for man and wife, however much they may love each other to begin with, to come to loggerheads afterwards. So I propose that you shall execute another will in place of that one. But why on earth should I do that? exclaimed Sir Godfrey, in a curiously wavering tone, trying in vain to move his gaze from those pitiless and compelling eyes. Because I think it the right and proper thing to do, Sir Godfrey, was the reply. Just wait a moment. I'll show you what I mean. He got up, fetched the blotting pad, and a sheet of fool's cap from the writing table. He put these on to the other table by Sir Godfrey's right hand, and then he did a very extraordinary thing, which, strangely enough, did not strike Sir Godfrey as being at all out of the common. There was a light, Japanese folding screen standing beside the door. He brought this up to the table, and stood it up flat against the edge in such a way that one of the leaves stood between Sir Godfrey's body and his right arm as he sat at the corner of the table. In other words, it was so placed that, while Sir Godfrey's right hand and arm were lying on the table, he was not able to see them without looking round the edge of the screen. Halkind then went round behind his chair, placed the paper and the blotting pad in position, took out his stylographic pen, uncovered the nib, and put it into Sir Godfrey's hand. Then he went round the screen again, and sat down in front of him. And as soon as he got his eyes enchained again, he began, Now, Sir Godfrey, on the subject of this will, what I venture to propose that you should do is this. You and I, although we have not known each other personally for very long, are still old friends and fellow workers in the most sacred of all causes. Therefore I think you can trust me if you can trust anyone. Oh yes, replied Sir Godfrey, in the same wavering voice. There is no question to that, of course. Now, what is it that you propose? Simply this, he replied slowly and very distinctly, that you should, as soon as convenient, draw up instructions to your solicitors to prepare a new will. He paused for a few moments, and the hand behind the screen began to write. When the faint scratching ceased, he went on again. And I propose, by this will, you should leave your real and personal estate to your adopted son, Harold Enstone, on condition of his marrying Miss Grace Romanes. Here the scratching began again, keeping pace with Halkind's slowly spoken words. And that you appoint your friend Jenner Halkind as sole trustee of your whole estate, with power to carry out your wishes, as indicated in writing to me, for the furtherance of research in those special branches of science to which you have devoted so many years of your life. These instructions are in case your adopted son, Harold Docker Enstone, fails from any cause under his own control to marry Miss Grace Romanes, or shall be prevented from doing so by death, accident, or disease. In that case, the sum of one thousand pounds shall be paid annually to the trustee for life, and the residue of the estate shall be applied at his discretion to the purposes of study, education, and original researches in such branches of science as he may select in accordance with the aforementioned instructions. In the event of the marriage between Harold Docker Enstone and Grace Romanes taking place, the money conveyed to her by the marriage settlements shall be at her absolute disposal. Harold Docker Enstone shall enjoy the revenues of the estate to the extent of twenty thousand pounds a year, with possession of two houses in London and the country, Grouse Moors, Salmon Streams, Yachts, etc. The balance of the revenues of the estate shall be held in trust by Dr. Jenner Holkein, and used at his discretion in accordance with the testitor's instructions. He shall have power to appoint two other trustees of approved eminence in the scientific world to cooperate with him, and the legal advisor to such trustee or trustees shall be Bonham Denier Esquire of Middle Temple Lane, London. You will, of course, sign these instructions and have them put in proper form by him and your own solicitor as soon as possible. The pen went on scratching regularly until the slowly spoken speech came to an end. Then there were a few more rapid decisive scratchings, and it stopped. Holkein got up and went round the screen, took the pen out of Sir Godfrey's hand, and looked over the paper. The unconscious hand had written down the instructions word for word in the small handwriting so familiar to all Sir Godfrey's many correspondence, and at the end was his signature, as usual, in bold contrast to the writing. He put the paper and blotting pad aside, removed the screen, and said in a totally altered voice as though nothing extraordinary had taken place. And now, Sir Godfrey, we have had a very interesting chat, but I really think it is about time for bed. I will look round later on in the morning when we have both had a sleep and finish our little discussion. They shook hands and Sir Godfrey went out to open the side door. Holkein folded up the paper, put it into his pocket, and followed him. CHAPTER VI. 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 VI. Later on the same morning, the professor and Mr. Daniel met at breakfast, and almost the first thing that the latter said, after the servant had closed the door, was, well, and how did the great experiment go off? Perfectly, replied Holkein, look at that. He took the folded sheet of paper out of the breast pocket of his coat and went on. I suppose it is the only example on record of a man's signature forged by himself. Sir Godfrey Endstone wrote that in the small hours of this morning unsigned it without having the slightest notion of what it was and what he was doing, which I think is a fairly conclusive proof that my theory as to the disease of divided personality is pretty correct. You don't mean it, exclaimed Mr. Daniel, with something like a gasp in his voice, after he had run his eye over the written page. Of course, there is not the slightest doubt about it being Sir Godfrey Endstone's writing and his signature. Every handwriting expert in England would swear to it, and yet you mean to tell me that he did that without knowing? Look here, Holkein, I don't want to flatter you, but you are beginning to make me a little bit afraid of you. Here, last night, you gave our unfortunate friend some diabolical drug, which literally turned his character inside out. After that, you go away with him and get him to write instructions for a will, which, without wishing to be offensive in any way, I may say he would never have made if he had been in his proper senses. No, no, I have been, I admit, associated with certain transactions which would not quite stand the clear light that beats on the bench and the dock, but really, this is getting a little bit too much out of the way. It is a complication of crime which I am bound to confess I can hardly follow. For instance, how do I know that some fine day you may not find it in your head to work this infernal magic or whatever it is on me? The fact is, to put it quite plainly, it seems to me that you wield rather more power than it is safe for any one man to have in his hands. He continued, unconsciously repeating exactly what Harold Endstone had said to Sir Godfrey some few days before. My dear fellow said the doctor smiling, as he chipped his egg with scrupulous deliberation. I think you are disquieting yourself in vain. There is not the slightest danger of that, so long as you and I pull together, as we have agreed to do. I, like yourself, have occasionally found it necessary to do things which are not exactly in accord with the conventions of society. But one thing I have never done, and that is, betrays the trust of anyone who has worked with me. Of course, if you were to betray me, he went on, as he took the top of the egg off. It might be necessary to revise the position, but I am sure there cannot be the slightest danger of that. Mr. Denier looked up and caught a flash of the luminous eyes, which might have meant anything, from a friendly warning to a threat. His eyelids dropped and he went on with his own egg. Of course, he said, shifting a little bit in his seat, there cannot be any question of that. Only you see, Halkine, I have never been brought into connection with miracles of this sort before, and upon my word it does seem a miracle. In fact, if anybody else had shown me that, under the circumstances, I should have said that it was a forgery. Skillful knights of the pen, my dear Denier, replied Halkine, as he set his coffee cup down, can, as you know, imitate a man's signature with almost faultless accuracy. But no forger that ever lived could have written this letter in Sir Godfrey's usual handwriting, and also signed it with any chance of deceiving anyone who had ever seen a letter of his. Now, we are going to lunch with him today, and I want you to remember that the whole of this business was conducted over here last night, and that I went with Sir Godfrey in order to help him carry out his intentions, while the ideas were still clear in his mind. Yes, I understand, said the lawyer. It is all wonderfully reasoned out, I must say. Where do you mean to stop Halkine? There can be no end, replied the professor, almost solemnly, for those who honestly devote themselves to the service of science. He is mad, was Mr. Denier's mental comment, but still he went to lunch at the manor and played his part admirably. He noticed that Sir Godfrey appeared a little astonished when Halkine brought up the subject of the instructions of the will, and asked him to read over again what he had written the night before. After a few moments' conversation, during which he vainly tried to take his gaze away from the eyes of the man, who was now his master, his doubts seemed to vanish, and he took the paper of instructions and sat down there and then, at his writing table, and wrote to his solicitor at Alnwick, asking him to prepare the will in accordance with the instructions, and when it was ready to come over and dine and sleep at the manor, so that it might be duly signed and executed. Mr. Arthur Barthgate, head of Barthgate, Broth and Son, one of the oldest established firms of family solicitors in the North country, marveled not a little when he read the said instructions. Still, there was no doubt that they had been written and signed by Sir Godfrey's own hand, and men who had lived lives like his and made their money in despite of all obstacles were prone to make curious wills. After all too, the provision for his adopted son was not only just but generous. All that troubled him was the trusteeship of Dr. Jenner Halkine. Of course, he knew him by reputation as one of the most distinguished scientists in Europe, and he knew of his peculiar intimacy with Sir Godfrey, but that did not make his vague suspicions any less uncomfortable. I should like to know something more about that fellow he said to himself, after he had given his confidential clerk instructions to draw up the will. He is enormously clever by all accounts, but I don't like clever people being made trustees in a will which involves big estates and money running to nearly three millions. These geniuses ought never to have the control of money. They almost invariably play the fool with it. However, Sir Godfrey's instructions are clear enough and they must be obeyed. After all, his money and his estates are his own, and Master Harold Dacre Endstone must think himself a very lucky young fellow. A couple of days later, Mr. Barthgate met Dr. Halkine at the manor. He disliked him at first glance, suspected him of all sorts of things during the first hour of their acquaintance, and at the end of the second, which was spent over luncheon, he had come to the conclusion that he was one of the most charmingly intellectual and, at the same time, most un-business-like men of genius that he had ever met. In Mr. Daniel he found a colleague who was entirely to his liking, a thorough man of the world, sharp, shrewd and well-read, yet with all kindly hearted and possessing the widest and most generous views of life. Therefore, on the whole, he felt that the disposition of Sir Godfrey's fortune was quite properly provided for. The only things that puzzled and somewhat annoyed him was the singular change which seemed to have taken place in Sir Godfrey's manner and general lines of thought since he last met him. He did not seem to be quite the same man. It almost appeared that he had reverted to some former period of his life, and treated things generally in a rough and ready sort of way, which at times almost shocked the custodian of the family's secrets. You don't appear to be quite yourself just now, Sir Godfrey, he said the next morning after breakfast, while he was waiting for the Brochem to convey him with the will signed and witnessed in duplicate in his pocket to the station. I hope you haven't been overworking yourself over those scientific theories of yours. To tell you the truth, last night you struck me as being a little feverish. Why not run up to town and see Alderson? My dear Barthgate replied Sir Godfrey in a tone which he thought suspiciously boisterous. That's all right. I mean nonsense. I never felt better in my life. In fact, never so well for twenty years past. And besides, Halkind's a doctor and a perfect genius at that. Alderson's a clever fellow, but the professor could buy him at one end of this avenue and sell him at the other and make money on him as far as medical science goes. What on earth is the matter with Sir Godfrey? said Mr. Barthgate very seriously to himself, as he drove away. He really seems entirely changed. His language is quite different, and as for that last remark of his. Well, really, it was almost vulgar, and the idea of Sir Godfrey and Stone being vulgar is quite impossible. At least it would have been a short time ago. I hope he isn't threatened with that curious affection of temperament, which so often overtakes men who have too much genius and too little variety of occupation. Nearly a fortnight past, and the personality of Sir Godfrey slowly but steadily deteriorated under the ruthless treatment of Professor Halkind. Yet, unknown to the men who had already committed forgery by proxy and was now deliberately planning a murder without parallel in the history of crime. There were certain lucid intervals during which he seemed to escape from the evil influence, and his better nature was able partially, if not entirely, to reassert itself. Fortunately, as it was afterwards proved for the interests of justice, he employed most of those periods of returning sanity just as such a man might be expected to do, in writing a diary in which he analyzed his symptoms as far as possible, and drew almost every deduction but the right one from them. Perhaps the most extraordinary feature of these strange intervals was the fact that they appeared to have inspired him with a fear or distrust of his friends the Professor, which happily prevented him from letting him know anything about the incident of the diary. If he had done so, it is practically certain that Halkind would have used his evil influence to get possession of it. As soon as he heard that Grace and Harold were coming back from London, which they did after a stay of about three weeks, the Professor at once stopped what he called his treatment, and the result was that, although Harold saw a distinct change in Sir Godfrey, it was not sufficiently striking to excite either uneasiness or suspicion. He simply put it down to overwork and took keen devotion to his somewhat uncanny studies. It really only appeared to him as a sort of mental depression, which the excitement and festivities of the now approaching wedding would certainly dispel. A month later the wedding took place and went off, much as similar weddings do. Mr. Bonham Denier, who had returned to town a few days after the will had been executed, was of course invited, and brought with him a very pretty diamond, an emerald bangle, as his offering to the bride. When all was over and Harold, happiest of men, had taken his beautiful wife away for six weeks run through the Italian lakes and the south of France, Halkind and his friend found themselves once more together at the Dover House discussing the events of the day over their pipes and whiskey and soda. And now I suppose Halkind said the lawyer, this is the end of Act II and the beginning of Act III of the tragedy. Yes, replied the professor quite impersonally. Everything has gone off perfectly well so far, and now I think the time for stronger measures has arrived. Good Lord man, exclaimed the lawyer, you talk about a contemplated murder was as little concern as though it were legal execution. Have you absolutely no heart, no bowls of compassion for this man, who has been your friend and neighbor for all these months, and your intellectual friend for years and years before? It is not a question of friendship or compassion, or anything of that sort, my dear fellow, said Halkind, looking with his luminous eyes far away into space beyond him. It is merely a matter of necessity. In other words, Sir Godfrey, with whom I have every personal sympathy, is an obstacle in the way. Progress and science cannot wait on the welfare of individuals, and therefore he must be removed. Where it necessary I would lay down my own life with equal readiness in the same cause. Therefore, you can hardly expect me to have many scruples in such a case as this. Mr. Danier's private impression, which was possibly a correct one, was that his friend and accomplice was a little mad on this particular subject. He kept his opinion to himself, knowing that the first installment of the Ten Thousand Pounds could not be his until Sir Godfrey's will had been duly proved. So, to use the professor's cold-blooded phrase, the treatment began again, far more vigorously than before. The poison that had for the time being lain latent in Sir Godfrey's blood was rose to force an activity. Before many days had passed his life was simply an alternation between the wild ecstasies of hushish dreams and the awful periods of depression which followed them. It was in vain that his own doctor and the specialist from London, strenuously assisted by his friend and neighbor, strove to obey the evil. No matter what precautions were taken to keep all drugs out of his reach, the symptoms continued to grow worse, until at the end of the month it was decided to telegraph for Harold and his wife to return. The telegram reached them at Como and they hurried back at once, but on the morning of the day on which they were due to arrive at the manor, the nurse in attendance on Sir Godfrey, who slept in the dressing room adjoining his bedroom, on rising at usual at six o'clock to have his medicine ready as soon as he woke, found to her horror that he was lying in bed drenched with blood, with a razor clenched in his right hand, and the carotid artery and several of the large veins of the neck cut clean through.