 The Beetle by Richard Marsh Chapter 43 The Murder at Mrs. Endersen's It is something of a drive from Waterloo to Limehouse. It seems longer when all your nerves are tingling with anxiety to reach your journey's end, and the cab I had hit upon proved to be not the fastest I might have chosen. For some time after our start we were silent. Each was occupied with his own thoughts. Then Lessingham, who was sitting at my side, said to me, Mr. Champ, now you have that report? I have. Will you let me see it once more? I gave it to him. He read it once, twice, and I fancy yet again. I purposely avoided looking at him as he did so. Yet all the while I was conscious of his palate cheeks, the twitched muscles of his mouth, the feverish glitter of his eyes. This leader of men, whose predominant characteristic in the House of Commons was immobility, was rapidly approximating the condition of a historical woman. The mental strain which he had been recently undergoing was proving too much for his physical strength. This disappearance of the woman he loved bade fair to be the final straw. I felt convinced that unless something was done quickly to relieve the strain upon his mind he was nearer to a state of complete mental and moral collapse than he himself imagined. Had he been under my orders I should have commanded him to at once return home and not to think. But conscious that as things were such a direction would be simply futile, I decided to do something else instead. Feeling that suspense was for him the worst possible form of suffering I resolved to explain so far as I was able, precisely what it was I feared and how I proposed to prevent it. Neither came the question for which I had been waiting. In a harsh broken voice which no one who had heard him speak on a public platform or in the House of Commons would have recognized as his. Mr. Champnell, who do you think this person is of whom the report from Vauxhall Station speaks as being all in rags and tatters? He knew perfectly well, but I understood the mental attitude which induced him to prefer that the information should seem to come from me. I hope that it will prove to be Miss Linden. Hope? He gave a sort of gasp. Yes, hope, because if it is I think it possible, nay probable that within a few hours you will have her again enfolded in your arms. Pray God that it may be so, pray God, pray the good God. I did not dare to look round for from the tremor which was in his tone I was persuaded that in the speaker's eyes were tears. Atherton continued silent. He was leaning half out of the cab staring straight ahead as if he saw in front of a young girl's face from which he could not remove his glance and which beckoned him on. After a while, Lessingham spoke again as if half to himself and half to me. This mention of the shrieks on the railway and of the wailing noise in the cab, what must this wretch have done to her? How my darling must have suffered. That was a theme on which I myself scarcely ventured to allow my thoughts to rest. The notion of a gently nurtured girl being at the mercy of that fiend incarnate, possessed as I believe that so-called Arab to be possessed, of all the paraphernalia of horror and of dread, was one which caused me tangible shrinkings of the body. Once had come those shrinks and yells of which the writer of the report spoke, which had caused the Arab's fellow passengers to think that murder was being done. What unimaginable agony had caused them? What speechless torture and the wailing noise which had induced the prosaic injureate London cab man to get twice off his box to see what was the matter? What anguish had been provocative of that? The helpless girl who had already endured so much, endured perhaps that to which death would have been preferred. Shut up in that rattling, jolting box on wheels alone with that diabolical Asiatic, with the enormous bundle which was but the lurking place of nameless terrors, what might she not, while being born through the heart of civilized London, had been made to suffer? What had she not been made to suffer to have kept up that continued wailing noise? It was not a theme on which it was wise to permit one's thoughts to linger, and particularly was it clear that it was one from which Lessingham's thoughts should have been kept as far as possible away. Come, Mr. Lessingham, neither you nor I will do himself any good by permitting his reflections to flow in a morbid channel. Let us talk of something else. By the way, weren't you due to speak in the house tonight? Do, yes, I was due, but what does it matter? But you have acquainted no one with the cause of your non-attendance. Acquaint? Whom should I acquaint? My good sir, listen to me, Mr. Lessingham. Let me entreat you very earnestly to follow my advice. Call another cab, or take this, and go at once to the house. It is not too late. Play the man, deliver the speech you have undertaken to deliver, perform your political duties. By coming with me you will be a hindrance rather than a help, and you may do your reputation and injury from which it never may recover. Do as I counsel you, and I will undertake to do my very utmost to let you have good news by the time your speech is finished. He turned on me with a bitterness for which I was unprepared. If I were to go down to the house, and try to speak in the state in which I am now, they would laugh at me, I should be ruined. Do you not run an equally great risk of being ruined by staying away? He gripped me by the arm. Mr. Champnell, do you know that I am on the verge of madness? Do you know that as I am sitting here by your side I am living in a dual world? I am going on and on to catch that, that fiend, and I am back again in that Egyptian den upon that couch of rugs with the woman of the songs beside me, and Marjorie is being torn and tortured and burnt before my eyes. God help me, her shrieks are ringing in my ears. He did not speak loudly, but his voice was nonetheless impressive on that account. I endeavored my hardest to be stern. I confess that you disappoint me, Mr. Lisingham. I have always understood that you were a man of unusual strength. You appear instead to be a man of extraordinary weakness, with an imagination so ill-governed that its ebullitions remind me of nothing so much as feminine hysterics. Your wild language is not wanted by circumstances. I repeat that I think it quite possible that by tomorrow morning she will be returned to you. Yes, but how? As the Marjorie I have known, as I saw her last, or how? That was the question which I had already asked myself. In what condition would she be when we had succeeded in snatching her from her captor's grip? It was a question to which I had refused to supply an answer. To him I lied by implication. Let us hope that, with the exception of being a trifle scared, she will be a sound and hail and hearty as ever in her life. Do you yourself believe that she'll be like that? Untouched? Unchanged? Unstained? Then I lied right out. It seemed to me necessary to calm his growing excitement. I do. You don't, Mr. Lessingham. Do you think that I can't see your face and read it in the same thoughts which trouble me? As a man of honour, do you care to deny that when Marjorie Linden is restored to me, if she ever is, you fear she will be but the mere soiled husk of the Marjorie whom I knew and loved? Even supposing that there may be a modicum of truth in what you say, which I am far from being disposed to admit, what good purpose do you propose to serve by talking in such a strain? None. No good purpose, unless it be the desire of looking the truth in the face. For, Mr. Chapnow, you must not seek to play with me the hypocrite, nor try to hide things from me as if I were a child. If my life is ruined, it is ruined. Let me know it and look the knowledge in the face. What to me is to play the man? I was silent. The wild tale he told me of that caring inferno, oddly enough, yet why, oddly, for the world is it all coincidence, had thrown a flood of light on certain events which had happened some three years previously, and which ever since had remained shrouded in mystery. The conduct of the business afterwards came into my hands, and briefly what had occurred was this. Three persons, two sisters and their brother, who was younger than themselves, members of a decent English family, were going on a trip around the world. They were young, adventurous, and, not to put too fine a point on it, foolhardy. The evening after their arrival in Cairo, by way of what is called a lark, in spite of the protestations of people who were better informed than themselves, they insisted on going alone, for ramble through the native quarter. They went, but they never returned. Or rather the two girls never returned. After an interval the young man was found again, what was left of him. A fuss was made when there were no signs of their reappearance, but as there were no relations, nor even friends of theirs, but only casual acquaintances on board the ship by which they had traveled, perhaps not so great a fuss as might have been, was made. Anyhow, nothing was discovered. Their widowed mother, alone in England, wondering how it was that beyond the receipt of a brief wire, appointing her with their arrival at Cairo, she had heard nothing further of their wanderings, placed herself in communication with the diplomatic people over there. To learn that, to all appearances, her three children had vanished from off the face of the earth. Then a fuss was made, with a vengeance. So far as one can judge, the whole town and neighborhood was turned pretty well upside down, but nothing came of it. So far as any results were concerned, the authorities might just as well have left the mystery of their vanishment alone. It continued where it was in spite of them. However, some three months afterwards, a youth was brought to the British Embassy by a party of friendly Arabs who asserted that they had found him naked and nearly dying in some remote spot in the weighty Haifa Desert. It was the brother of the two lost girls. He was as nearly dying as he was very well could be without being actually dead when they brought him to the Embassy and in a state of indescribable mutilation. He seemed to rally for a time under careful treatment, but he never again uttered a coherent word. It was only from his delirious ravings that any idea was formed of what really occurred. Shorthand notes were taken of some of the utterances of his delirium. Afterwards they were submitted to me. I remembered the substance of them quite well, and when Mr. Lessingham began to tell me his own hideous experiences, they came back to me more clearly still. Had I laid those notes before him, I have little doubt, but that he would have immediately perceived that seventeen years after the adventure which had left such an indelible scar upon his own life, this youth, he was little more than a boy, had seen the things which he had seen, and suffered the nameless agonies and degradations which he had suffered. The young man was perpetually raving about some indescribable den of horror, which was own brother to Lessingham's temple and about some female monster, whom he regarded with such fear and horror, that every illusion made to her was followed by a convulsive paroxysm which taxed all the ingenuity of his medical attendance to bring him out of. He frequently called upon his sisters by name, speaking of them in a manner which inevitably suggested that he had been an unwilling and helpless witness of hideous tortures which they had undergone, and then he would rise in bed screaming. They're burning them! They're burning them! Devils! Devils! And at those times it required all the strength of those who were in attendance to restrain his maddened frenzy. The youth died in one of these fits of great preternatural excitement without, as I have previously written, having given utterance to one single coherent word and by some of those who were best able to judge it was held to have been a mercy that he did die without having been restored to consciousness. And presently, tales began to be whispered about some idolatrous sect which was stated to have its headquarters somewhere in the interior of the country, some located in this neighborhood and some in that, which was stated to still practice and to always have practiced in unbroken historical continuity, the debased, unclean, mystic and bloody rites of a form of idolatry which had had its birth in a period of the world's story which was so remote that to all intents and purposes it might be described as prehistoric. While the ferment was still at its height, a man came to the British Embassy who said that he was a member of a tribe which had its habitat on the banks of the White Nile. He asserted that he was in association with this very idolatrous sect, though he denied that he was one of the actual sectaries. He did admit, however, that he had assisted more than once at their orgies and declared that it was their constant practice to offer young women as sacrifices, preferably white Christian women, with a special preference if they could get them to young English women. He vowed that he himself had seen with his own eyes English girls burnt alive. The description which he gave of what preceded and followed these foul murders appalled those who'd listened. He finally wound up offering on pavement of a stipulated sum of money to guide a troop of soldiers to this den of demons so that they should arrive there at the moment when it was filled with worshippers who were preparing to participate in an orgy which was to take place during the next few days. His offer was conditionally accepted. He was confined in an apartment with one man on guard inside and another on guard outside the room. That night the sentinel without was startled by hearing a great noise and frightful screams issuing from the chamber in which the native was interned. He summoned assistance. The door was opened. The soldier on guard within was stark staring mad. He died within a few months, a gibbering maniac to the end. The native was dead. The window which was a very small one was securely fastened inside and strongly barred without. There was nothing to show by what means entry had been maintained, yet it was the general opinion of those who saw the corpse that the man had been destroyed by some wild beast. A photograph was taken of the body after death, a copy of which is still in my possession. In it are distinctly shown lacerations about the neck and the lower portion of the abdomen as if they had been produced by the claws of some huge and ferocious animal. The skull is splintered in half a dozen places and the face is torn to rags. That was more than three years ago. The whole business has remained as great a mystery as ever. But my attention has once or twice been caught by trifling incidents, which have caused me to more than suspect that the wild tale told by that murdered native had in it at least the elements of truth, and which have even led me to wonder if the trade in kidnapping was not being carried on to this very hour, and if women of my own flesh and blood were not still being offered up on that infernal altar. And now here is Paul Lessingham, a man of worldwide reputation, of great intellect, of undoubted honor, who had come to me with a wholly unconscious verification of all my worst suspicions, that the creature spoken of as an Arab, and who was probably no more an Arab than I was, and whose name was certainly not Mohamed El-Kir, was an emissary from that den of demons I had no doubt. What was the exact purport of the creature's presence in England was another question. Possibly part of the intention was the destruction of Paul Lessingham, body, soul, and spirit. Possibly another part was the procuration of fresh victims for that long drawn-out holocaust, that this latter object explained the disappearance of Miss Linden I felt persuaded, that she was designed by the personification of evil who was her captor, to suffer all the horrors at which the stories pointed, and then to be burned alive amidst the triumphant yells of the attendant demons I was certain, that the wretch, aware that the pursuits was in full cry, was tearing, twisting, doubling, and would stick at nothing which would facilitate the smuggling of the victim, out of England, was clear. My interest in the quest was already far other than a merely professional one. The blood in my veins tangled at the thought of such a woman as Miss Linden, being in the power of such a monster. I may assuredly claim that throughout the whole business I was urged forward by no thought of fee or of reward. To have had a share in rescuing that unfortunate girl, and in the destruction of her noxious persecutor, would have been a reward enough for me. One is not always, even in strictly professional matters, influenced by strictly professional instincts. The calves slowed, a voice descended through the trapdoor. This is commercial rote, sir. What part of it do you want? Drive me to Limehouse police station. We were driven there. I made my way to the usual inspector behind the usual pigeonhole. My name is Champno. Have you received any communication from Scotland Yard tonight, having referenced to a matter in which I am interested? Do you mean about the Arab? We received a telephonic message about a half an hour ago. Since communicating with Scotland Yard, this has come to a hand from the authorities at Vauxhall Station. Can you tell me if anything has been seen of the person in question by the men of your division? I handed the inspector the report. His reply was laconic. I will inquire. He passed through a door into an inner room, and the report went with him. Beg pardon, sir, but was that a Harib you was talking about to the inspector? The speaker was a gentleman unmistakably of the gutter snipe class. He was seated on a form. Close at hand, hovered at policeman, whose special duty it seemed to be to keep an eye upon his movements. Why do you ask? I beg your pardon, sir, but I saw a Harib myself about an hour ago. Least ways he looked like as if he was a Harib? What sort of looking person was he? I can't hardly tell that, sir, because I didn't never have a proper look at him. But I know he had a blooming gray bundle on his head. It was like this year. I was coming round the corner as he was passing. I never seen him till I was right atop of him. So that I accidentally run again. My hey, didn't it give me a downer? I was down on my back of my head in the middle of the road before I knew where I was, and he was at the other end of the street. If he had knocked me more in our silly, I'd been after him sharp. I'd tell you, and ask him what you thought he was doing, but before my senses was back again, he was out of sight, clean. You were sure that he had a bundle on his head? I noticed it most particular. How long ago did you say this was, and where? About an hour ago. Perhaps more, perhaps less. Was he alone? It seemed to me as if a Cove was a follower in him. Least ways there was a bloke as was a keeping close at his eels. Though I don't know what his little game was, I'm sure. Ask the Pleaseman. He knows he knows everything the Pleasemen do. I turn to the Pleaseman. Who is this man? The Pleaseman put his hands behind his back and throughout his chest. His manner was distinctly affable. Well, he's being detained upon suspicion. He's given us an address at which to make inquiries, and inquiries are being made. I shouldn't pay too much attention to what he says if I were you. I don't suppose he'd be particular about a lie or two. This frank expression of opinion rearounds the indignation of the gentleman on the form. There you are at it again. It's just like you Pealers. They're all the same. What do you know about me? Nothing. This gentleman ain't got no call to believe me, not as I know Zahn. It's all the same to me if you do or don't. What is truth what I'm saying all the same? At this point the inspector reappeared at the pigeonhole. He cut short the flow of eloquence. Now then, not so much noise outside there. He addressed me. None of our men have seen anything of the person you're inquiring for, so far as we're aware, but if you like I will place a man at your disposal and he will go round with you. And you'll be able to make your own inquiries. A capitalist wildly excited young ragamuffin came dashing in at the street door. He gasped out as clearly as he could for the speed which he had made. There's been a murder done, Mr. Pleasman. The Haribs killed a bloke. Mr. Pleasman gripped him by the shoulder. What's that? The youngster put up his arm and ducked his head instinctively as if to ward off a blow. Leave me alone. I don't want none of your andlin'. I ain't done nothing to you. I tell you he has. The inspector spoke through the pigeonhole. He is what, my lad? What do you say has happened? There's been murder done. It's right enough there has. Up at Mrs. Endersen's in Paradise Place, a Harib's been and killed a bloke. End of Chapter 43. The Beetle by Richard Marsh. Chapter 44. The man who was murdered. The inspector spoke to me. If what the boy says is correct, it sounds as if the person whom you are seeking may have had a finger in the pie. I was of the same opinion, as apparently were Lessingham and Sidney. Atherton collared the youth by the shoulder, which Mr. Pleasman had left disengaged. What sort of looking bloke is it who's been murdered? I don't know. I haven't seen him. Mrs. Endersen, she says to me, Gustus Barley, she says, a bloke's been murdered. That there, Arab, what I chucked out half an hour ago, been and murdered him, and left him behind up in my back room. You run as odd as you can tear and tell them they're dreaded pleas, what so fond of shoving their dirty noses into respectable people's ouses, so I comes and tells her. That's all I know is about it. We went for in the handsome, which had been waiting in the street to Mrs. Endersen's in Paradise Place. The inspector and we three, Mr. Pleasman, and Gustus Barley followed on foot. The inspector was explanatory. Mrs. Endersen keeps a sort of lodging house, a sailor's home, she calls it, but no one could call it sweet. It doesn't bear the best of characters, and if you ask me what I thought of it, I should say in plain English that it was a disorderly house. Paradise Place proved to be within 300 or 400 yards of the station house. So far as could be seen in the dark, it consisted of a row of houses of considerable dimensions, and also of considerable antiquity. They opened on to two or three stone steps, which led directly into the street. At one of the doors stood an old lady with a shawl drawn over her head. This was Mrs. Endersen. She greeted us with garrulous volubity. So you have come, have you? I thought you never was a come in that I did. She recognized the inspector. It's you, Mr. Phillips, is it? Perceiving us, she drew a little back. Who's then their parties? They ain't coppers? Mr. Phillips dismissed her inquiry curtly. Never you mind who they are. What's this about someone being murdered? Shhh, the old lady glanced around. Don't you speak so loud, Mr. Phillips? No one don't know nothing about it as yet. The parties what's in my house is most respectful, most, and they couldn't abide the notion of there being police about the place. We quite believe that, Mrs. Endersen. The inspector's tone was grim. Mrs. Endersen led the way up a staircase, which would have been distinctly the better for repairs. It was necessary to pick one's way as one went, and as the light was defective, stumbles were not infrequent. Our guide passed outside a door on the topmost landing. From some mysterious recess in her apparel, she produced a key. It's an ear. I locked the door so that nothing mightn't be disturbed. I knows how particular you pleasement is. She turned the key, and we all went in, weed this time in front and she behind. A candle was guttering on a broken and dilapidated single wash hand stand. A small iron bedstead stood by its side, the clothes on which were all tumbled and tossed. There was a rush-seated chair with a hole in the seat, and that, with the exception of one or two chipped pieces of stoneware and a small round mirror, which was hung on a nail against the wall, seemed to be all that the room contained. I could see nothing in the shape of a murdered man, nor it appeared could the inspector either. What's the meaning of this, Mrs. Henderson? I don't see anything here. It's behind the bed, Mr. Phillips. I left them just where I found them. I wouldn't have touched them, not for nothing, nor yet I have let nobody else have touched them, neither, because as I say, I know how particular you pleasement is. We all four went hastily forward. Atherton and I went to the head of the bed, lessing him and the inspector, leading right across the bed, peeped over the side. There on the floor in the space, which was between the bed and the wall, laid the murdered man. At sight of him, an exclamation burst from Sidney's lips. It's Holt. Thank God, cried lessing him. It isn't Marjorie. The relief in his tone was unmistakable. That the one was gone was plainly nothing to him in comparison with the fact that the other was left. Thrusting the bed more into the center of the room, I knelt down beside the man on the floor. A more deplorable spectacle than he presented, I have seldom witnessed. He was decently clad in a gray-tweet suit, white hat, collar, and necktie, and it was perhaps the fact which made his extreme attenuation the more conspicuous. I doubt if there was an ounce of flesh on the whole of his body. His cheeks and the sockets of his eyes were hollow. The skin was drawn tightly over his cheekbones. The bones themselves were staring through. Even his nose was wasted, so that nothing but a ridge of cartilage remained. I put my arm beneath his shoulder and raised him from the floor. No resistance was offered by the body's gravity. He was as light as a little child. I doubt, I said, if this man has been murdered. It looks to me like a case of starvation or exhaustion, possibly a combination of both. What's that on his neck, asked the inspector? He was kneeling at my side. He referred to two abrasions of the skin, one on either side of the man's neck. They looked to me like scratches. They seemed pretty deep, but I don't think they're sufficient in themselves to cause death. They might be joined to an already weakened constitution. Is there anything in his pockets? Let's lift him onto the bed. We lifted him onto the bed, a featherweight he was to lift, while the inspector was examining his pockets to find them empty, the tall man with a big black beard came bustling in. He proved to be Dr. Glossop, the local police surgeon who had been sent for before I were quitting the station house. His first pronouncement made as soon as he commenced his examination was, under the circumstances, sufficiently startling. I don't believe the man's dead. Why didn't you send for me directly you found him? The question was put to Mrs. Henderson. Well, Dr. Glossop, I wouldn't touch him myself and I wouldn't have him touched by no one else, because as I've said before, I know how particular the emplacement is. Then in that case, if he does die, you'll have had a hand in murdering him, that's all. The lady sniggered. Of course, Dr. Glossop, we all know that you always have your joke. You'll find it a joke if you have to hang as you ought to, you, the doctor said what he did say to himself under his breath. I doubt if it was flattering to Mrs. Henderson. Have you got any brandy in the house? We've got everything in the house for them as likes to pay for it, everything. Then suddenly remembering that the police were present and that hers were not exactly licensed premises, least ways we can send out for it for them parties as gives us the money, being as is well known always willing to oblige, then send for some, to the tap downstairs if that's the nearest. If this man dies before you've brought it, I'll have you locked up as sure as you're a living woman. The arrival of the brandy was not long delayed, but the man on the bed had regained consciousness before it came. Opening his eyes, he looked up at the doctor bending over him. Hello, my man, that's more like the time of day, how are you feeling? The patient stared hazeily up at the doctor as if his senses of perception was not yet completely restored, as if this big bearded man was something altogether strange. Atherton bent down beside the doctor. I'm glad to see you looking better, Mr. Holt. You know me, don't you? I've been running about after you all day long. You are, you are, the man's eyes closed as if the effort at recollection exhausted him. He kept them closed as he continued to speak. I know who you are, you are the gentleman. Yes, that's it, I'm the gentleman, name of Atherton, Miss London's friend. And I daresay you're feeling pretty well done up and in want of something to eat and drink. Here's some brandy for you. The doctor had some in a tumbler. He raised the patient's head, allowing it to trickle down his throat. The man swallowed it mechanically, motionless, as if unconscious what it was that he was doing. His cheeks flushed, the passing glow of color caused their condition of extraordinary and indeed extravagant attenuation to be more prominent than ever. The doctor laid him back upon the bed, feeling his pulse with one hand while he stood and regarded him in silence. Then, turning to the inspector, he said to him in an undertone, if you want him to make a statement, he'll have to make it now, he's going fast. You won't be able to get much out of him, he's too far gone and I shouldn't bustle him, but get what you can. The inspector came to the front, a notebook in his hand. I understand from this gentleman, signifying Atherton, that your name's Robert Holt. I'm an inspector of police and I want you to tell me what has brought you into this condition. Has anyone been assaulting you? Holt, opening his eyes, glanced up at the speaker mistily as if he could not see him clearly, still less understand what it was he was saying. Sidney, stooping over him, endeavored to explain. The inspector wants to know how you got here. Has anyone been doing anything to you? Has anyone been hurting you? The man's eyelids were partially closed, then they opened wider and wider, his mouth open too. On his skeleton features, there came a look of panic fear. He was evidently struggling to speak, at last words came. The beetle, he stopped. Then after an effort spoke again. The beetle, what's he mean? Asked the inspector. I think I understand, Sidney answered. Then turning again to the man in the bed, yes, I hear what you say, the beetle. Well, has the beetle done anything to you? It took me by the throat. Is that the meaning of the marks upon your neck? The beetle killed me. The lids closed, the man relapsed into a state of lethargy. The inspector was puzzled and said so. What's he mean about a beetle? Atherton replied. I think I understand what he means, and my friends do too. We'll explain afterwards. In the meantime, I think I'd better get as much out of him as I can while there's time. Yes, said the doctor, his hand upon the patient's pulse, while there's time. There isn't much, only seconds. Sidney endeavored to rouse the man from his stupor. You've been with Miss Linden all the afternoon and evening, haven't you, Mr. Holt? Atherton had reached the court in the man's consciousness, his lips moved in painful articulation. Yes, all the afternoon and evening, God help me. I hope God will help you, my poor fellow. You've been in need of his help if ever a man was. Miss Linden is disguised in your old clothes, isn't she? Yes, in my old clothes, my God. And where is Miss Linden now? The man had been speaking with his eyes closed. Now he opened them wide. There came into them the former staring horror. He became possessed by uncontrollable agitation, half raising himself in bed. Words came from his quivering lips as if they were only drawn from him by the force of his anguish. The Beatles going to kill Miss Linden. A momentary paroxysm seemed to shake the very foundations of his being. His whole frame quivered. He fell back onto the bed ominously. The doctor examined him in silence, while we too were still. This time he's gone for good, there'll be no conjuring him back again. I felt a sudden pressure on my arm and found that Lessingham was clutching me with probably unconscious violence. The muscles on his face were twitching. He trembled. I turned to the doctor. Doctor, if there is any of that brandy left, will you let me have it for my friend? Lessingham disposed of the remainder of the Shilling's worth. I rather fancy it saved us from a scene. The inspector was speaking to the woman of the house. Now, Mrs. Henderson, perhaps you'll tell us what all this means. Who is this man and how did he come in here and who came in with him? And what do you know about it altogether? If you've got anything to say, say it, only you'd better be careful because it's my duty to warn you that anything you do say may be used against you. End of chapter 44, The Beetle by Richard Marsh. Chapter 45, All That Mrs. Henderson Knew. Mrs. Henderson put her hands upon her apron and smirked. Well, Mr. Phillips, it do sound strange to hear you talking to me like that. Anybody think I'd done something as I didn't ought to do a done to hear you going on? As for what's happened, I'll tell you all I know with the greatest willingness on earth. And as for being careful, there ain't no call for you to tell me to be that. For that I always am, as by now you ought to know. Yes, I do know. Is that all you have to say? Really, Mr. Phillips, what a man you are for catching people up, you really are. Of course that ain't all I got to say. Ain't I just to come into it? Then come. If you presses me so you'll muddle me up and then if I do happen to make a error, you'll say I'm a liar when goodness knows there ain't no more truthful woman not in Limehouse. Words plainly trembled on the inspector's lips, which he refrained from uttering. Mrs. Henderson cast her eyes upwards as if she sought for inspiration from the filthy ceiling. So far as I can swear, it might have been an hour ago or it might have been an hour and a quarter or it might have been an hour and twenty minutes. We're not particular as to the seconds. When I ears the knockin' at my front door and when I comes to open it, there was a harrow party with a great bundle on his head, bigger nor his self, and two other parties along with him. This harrow party says in that queer far and way them harrow parties as of talkin', a room for the night, a room. Now I don't much care for foreigners and never did, especially them harrobs with their abits ain't my own. So I as much as ince the same. But this year a harrow party, he didn't seem to quite follow of my meaning. For all he done was to say as he said afore, a room for the night, a room. And he shoves a couple of crowns in my hand. Now it's always been a matter of mine that money is money and one man's money is as good as another man's. So not wishin' to be disagreeable, which other people would have taken him if I hadn't, I shows him up here. I'd been downstairs, it might've been half an hour when I hears a shindia comin' from this room. What sort of shindie? Yelling and shriekin', oh my gracious, it was enough to set your blood all curdled. For ear piercing this, I never did hear nothin' like it. We do have troublesome parties in here like they do elsewhere, but I never did hear nothin' like that before. I stood it for about a minute, but it kept on and kept on, and every moment I expected as the other parties as was in the house would be complainin'. So up I comes and thumps at the door, and it seemed that thump I might for all the notice that was took of me. Did the noise keep on? Keep on, I should think it did keep on. Lord, love ye, shriek after shriek, I expected to see the roof took off. Were there any other noises? For instance, were there any sounds of struggling or of blows? There weren't no sounds except of the party hollerin'. One party only? One party only, as I says afore, shriek after shriek. When you put your ear to the panel, there was a noise like some other party blubberin', but that weren't nothin'. As for the hollerin', you wouldn't have thought that nothin' what you might call human could have kept up such a screechin'. I thumps and thumps, and at last, when I did think that I should've had to have the door broke down, the Arab says to me from inside, go away, I pay you for the room, go away. I did think that pretty good, I tell you that. So I says, pay for the room or not pay for the room. You didn't pay to make that shindy. And what's more, I says, if I hear it again, I says out you goes. And if you don't go quiet, I'll have somebody in as will pretty quickly make you. Then was there silence? So to speak there was. Only there was the sound as if some party was a blubberin', and another sound as if a party was a pantin' for his breath. Then what happened? Seeing that, so to speak, all was quiet, down I went. And in another quarter of an hour, or might've been 20 minutes, I went to the front door to get a mouthful of hair. And Mrs. Barker, who lives over the road at number 24, she comes to me and says, that their Arab party of yours didn't stop long. I looks at her, I don't quite follow you, I says, which I didn't. I saw him come in, she says. And then a few minutes back I see him gone again, with a great bundle on his head he couldn't hardly stagger under. Oh, I says, that's news to me. I didn't know he'd gone nor see him neither, which I didn't. So up I comes again and churn out the door was open, and it seems to me that the room was empty till I come upon this poor young man what was lying behind the bed. There was a growl from the doctor. If you'd had any sense and sent for me at once, he might have been alive at this moment. How was I to know that, Dr. Glossop? I couldn't tell. My finding him there murdered was quite enough for me. So I runs downstairs and I nips old of Gustus Barley, what was leaning against the wall and I says to him, Gustus Barley, run to the station as fast as you can and tell him that a man's been murdered. That harrow's been and killed a bloke. And that's all I know about it. And I couldn't tell you no more, Mr. Phillips. Not if you was to keep on asking me questions, not for hours and hours. Then you think it was this man, with a motion towards the bed, who was shrieking? To tell you the truth, Mr. Phillips, about that I don't hardly know what to think. If you'd had asked me, I should have said it was a woman. I ought to know a woman's holler when I hear it, if anyone does. I've heard enough of them in my time. Goodness knows. And I should have said that only a woman could have hollered like that and only hear her when she was raving mad. But there weren't no woman with him. There was only this man, what's murdered, and the other man. And as for the other man, I will say this, that he hadn't got too penny-worth of clothes to cover him. But Mr. Phillips, how some ever that may be, that's the last harrow I'll have under my roof, no matter what they pays. And you mark my words, I'll have no more. Mrs. Henderson, once more glancing upward, as if she imagined herself to have made some declaration of a religious nature, shook her head with much solemnity. End of Chapter 45, The Beetle by Richard Marsh, Chapter 46, The Sudden Stopping. As we were leaving the house, a constable gave the inspector a note. Having read it, he passed it to me. It was from the local office. Message received that an Arab with a big bundle on his head had been noticed loitering around the neighborhood of St. Pancras Station. He seemed to be accompanied by a young man who had the appearance of a tramp. Young man seemed ill. They appeared to be waiting for a train, probably to the north. Shall I advise the tension? I scribbled on the fly-leaf of the note. Had them detained, if they have gone by train, have a special in readiness. In a minute, we were again in the cab. I endeavored to persuade Lessingham and Atherton to allow me to conduct a pursuit alone, in vain. I had no fear of Atherton's succumbing, but I was afraid for Lessingham. What was more, almost than the expectation of his collapse, was the fact that his looks and manner, his whole bearing, so eloquent of the agony and agitation of his mind, was beginning to tell upon my nerves. A catastrophe of some sort, I foresaw. Of the curtains fall upon one tragedy we had just been witnesses. That there was worse, much worse, to follow I did not doubt. Optimistic anticipations were out of the question, that the creature we were chasing would relinquish the prey uninjured, no one, after what we had seen and heard, could, by any possibility, suppose. Should a necessity suddenly arise from prompt and immediate action, that Lessingham would prove a hindrance rather than a help I felt persuaded. But since moments were precious and Lessingham was not to be persuaded to allow the matter to proceed without him, all that remained was to make the best of his presence. The great arch at St. Pancras was in darkness. An occasional light seemed to make the darkness still more visible. The station seemed deserted. I thought at first that there was not a soul about the place, that our errand was in vain, that the only thing for us to do was to drive to the police station and to pursue our inquiries there. But as we turned towards the booking office, our footsteps ringing out clearly through the silence and the night, a door opened, a light shown out from the room within and a voice inquired. Who's that? My name's Champno. Has a message been received from me from the Limehouse police station? Step this way. We stepped that way into a snug enough office of which one of the railway inspectors was apparently in charge. He was a big man with a fair beard. He looked me up and down as if doubtfully. In Lusingham he recognized it once. He took off his cap to him. Mr. Lusingham, I believe? I am Mr. Lusingham. Have you any news for me? I fancy by his looks that the official was struck by the pallor of the speaker's face and by his tremulous voice. I am instructed to give certain information to a Mr. Augustus Champno. I am Mr. Champno. What's your information? With reference to the Arab about whom you have been making inquiries, a foreigner dressed like an Arab, with a great bundle on his head, took two single-thirds for haul by the Midnight Express. Was he alone? It is believed that he was accompanied by a young man of very disreputable appearance. They were not together at the booking office, but they had been seen together previously. A minute or so after the Arab had entered the train, this young man got into the same compartment. They were in the front wagon. Why were they not detained? We had no authority to detain them, nor any reason until your message was received a few minutes ago. We at this station were not aware that inquiries were being made for them. You say he booked to haul. Does the train run through to haul? No, it doesn't go to haul at all. Part of it's the Liverpool and Manchester Express and part of it's for Carlisle. It divides at Derby. The man you're looking for will change either at Sheffield or at Cudworth Junction and go on to haul by the first train in the morning. There's a local service. I looked at my watch. You say the train left at midnight? It's now nearly five and 20 past, where is it now? Nearing St. Albans, it's due there at 12.35. Would there be time for a wire to reach St. Albans? Hardly, and anyhow, there'll only be enough railway officials about the place to receive and dispatch the train. They'll be fully occupied with their ordinary duties. There won't be time to get the police there. You could wire to St. Albans to inquire if they were still in the train. That could be done, certainly. I'll have it done at once, if you like. Then where's the next stoppage? Well, they're at Luton at 12.51, but that's another case of St. Albans. You see, there won't be much more than 20 minutes by the time you've got your wire off and I don't expect there'll be many people awake at Luton. At these country places, sometimes there's a policeman hanging about the station to see the express grow through, but on the other hand, very often, there isn't. And if there isn't, probably at this time of night, it'll take a good bit of time to get the police on the premises. I tell you what I should advise. What's that? The train is due at Bedford at 129. Send your wire there. There ought to be plenty of people about at Bedford, and anyhow, there'll be time to get the police to the station. Very good. I instructed them to tell you to have a special ready. Have you got one? There's an engine with steam up in the shed. We'll have all ready for you in less than 10 minutes. And I tell you what, you'll have about 50 minutes before the train is due at Bedford. It's a 50 mile run. With luck, you ought to get there pretty nearly as soon as the express does. Shall I tell them to get ready? At once. While he issued directions through a telephone to what I presume was the engine shed, I drew up a couple of telegrams. Having completed his orders, he turned to me. They're coming out of the siding now. They'll be ready in less than 10 minutes. I'll see that the lines kept clear. Have you got those wires? Here's one. This is for Bedford. It ran. Arrest the Arab who is in the train due at 129. When leaving St. Pancras, he was in a third class compartment in front wagon. He has a large bundle, which detain. He took two-thirds singles for Hull. Also, detain his companion who is dressed like a tramp. This is a young lady whom the Arab has disguised and kidnapped while in a condition of hypnotic trance. Let her have medical assistance and be taken to a hotel. All expenses will be paid on the arrival of the undersigned who is following by special train. As the Arab will probably be very violent, a sufficient force of police should be in waiting. Augustus Champno. And this is the other. It is probably too late to be of any use at St. Albans, but send it there and also to Luton. Is Arab with companion in train which left St. Pancras at 1300? If so, do not let them get out till train reaches Bedford, where instructions are being wired for arrest. The inspector rapidly scanned them both. They ought to do your business, I should think. Come along with me. I'll have them sent at once and we'll see if your train's ready. The train was not ready, nor was it ready within the prescribed ten minutes. There was some hitch, I fancy, about a saloon. Finally, we had to be content with an ordinary old-fashioned first-class carriage. The delay, however, was not altogether time lost. Just as the engine with its solitary coach was approaching the platform, someone came running up with an envelope in his hand. Telegram from St. Albans. I tore it open. It was brief and to the point. Arab with companion was in train when it left here, and wiring Luton. That's all right. Now, unless something wholly unforeseen takes place, we ought to have them. That unforeseen. I went forward with the inspector and the guard of our train to exchange a few final words with the driver. The inspector explained what instructions he had given. I've told the driver not to spare his coal but to take you into Bedford within five minutes after the arrival of the express. He says he thinks that he can do it. The driver leaned over his engine, rubbing his hands with the usual oily rag. He was a short, wiry man with gray hair and a grizzled mustache, with about him that bearing of semi-humorous, frank-faced resolution which one notes about engine drivers as a class. We ought to do it. The gradients are against us, but it's a clear night and there's no wind. The only thing that will stop us will be if there's any shunting on the road or any luggage trains. Of course, if we are blocked, we are blocked, but the inspector says he'll clear the way for us. Yes, said the inspector. I'll clear the way. I've wired down the road already. Atherton broke in. Driver, if you get us into Bedford within five minutes of the arrival of the mail, there'll be a five-pound note to divide between your mate and you. The driver grinned. We'll get you there in time, sir, if we have to go clear through the shunters. It isn't often we get a chance of a five-pound note for a run to Bedford and we'll do our best to earn it. The fireman waved his hand in the rear. That's right, sir, he cried. We'll have to trouble you for that five-pound note. So soon, as we were clear of the station, it began to seem probable that, as the fireman put it, Atherton would be troubled. Journeying in a train, which consists of a single carriage attached to an engine which is flying at topmost speed is a very different business from being an occupant of an ordinary train, which is traveling at ordinary express rates. I had discovered that for myself before. That night it was impressed on me more than ever. A Tyro, or even a nervous season, might have been excused for expecting at every moment we were going to be derailed. It was hard to believe that the carriage had any springs. It rocked and swung and jogged and jolted. Of smooth traveling we had none. Talking was out of the question, and for that I personally was grateful. Quite apart from the difficulty we experienced in keeping our seats, and when every moment our position was being altered, and we were jerked backwards and forwards, up and down, this way and that, that was a business which required care. The noise was deafening. It was as though we were being pursued by a lesion of shrieking, bellowing, raging demons. George shrieked Atherton. He does mean to earn that fiver. I hope I'll be alive to pay him. He was only at the other end of the carriage, but, though I could see by the distortion of his visage, that he was shouting at the top of his voice, and he has a voice. I only caught here and there a word or two of what he was saying. I had to make sense of the whole. Lessingham's contortions were a study. Few of that large multitude of persons who are acquainted with him, not only by means of the portraits, which have appeared in the illustrated papers, would then have recognized the rising statesman. Yet I believe that few things could have better fallen in with his mood than that wild traveling. He might have been almost shaken to pieces, but the very severity of the shakings served to divert his thoughts from the one dread topic, which threatened to absorb them to the exclusion of all else beside. Then there was the tonic influence of the element of risk. Pick me up effect of a spice of peril. Actual danger there quite probably was none, but there very really seemed to be. And one thing was absolutely certain, that if we did come to smash while going at that speed, we should come to as everlasting smash as the heart of a man could by any possibility desire. It is probable that the knowledge that this was so warmed the blood in Lessingham's veins. At any rate, as to use what is in the case was simply a form of speech, I sat and watched him. It seemed to me that he was getting a firmer hold of the strength which had all but escaped him, and that with every jog and jolt he was becoming more and more of a man. On and on we went dashing, clashing, smashing, roaring, rumbling. Atherton, who had been endeavoring to peer through the window, strained his lungs again in the effort to make himself audible. Where the devil are we? Looking at my watch I screamed back at him. It's nearly one, so I suppose we're somewhere in the neighborhood of Luton. Hello, what's the matter? That something was the matter seemed certain. There was a shrill whistle from the engine. In a second we were conscious, almost too conscious of the application of the Westinghouse brake. Of all the jolting that was ever jolted, the mere reverberation of the carriage threatened to resolve our bodies into the component parts. Feeling what we felt then helped us to realize the retardatory force which that vacuum brake must be exerting. It did not seem at all surprising that the train should have been brought to an almost instant standstill. Simultaneously all three of us were on our feet. I let down my window and Atherton let down his, he shouting out. I should think that inspector's wire hasn't had its proper effect. Looks as if we're blocked or else we've stopped at Luton. It can't be Bedford. It wasn't Bedford. So much seemed clear. Though at first from my window I could make out nothing. I was feeling more than a trifle dazed. There was a singing in my ears. The sudden darkness was impetitrable. Then I became conscious that the guard was opening the door of his compartment. He stood on the step for a moment, seeming to hesitate. Then with a lamp in his hand he descended onto the line. What's the matter I asked? Don't know, sir. Seems as if there was something on the road. What's up there? This was to the man on the engine. The fireman replied. Someone in front there's waving a red light like mad. Lucky I caught sight of him. We shouldn't have been clean on top of him in another moment. Looks as if there was something wrong. Here he comes. As my eyes grew more accustomed to the darkness I became aware that someone was making what hasty could along the six foot way. Swinging a red light as it came. Our guard advanced to meet him, shouting as he went. What's the matter? Who's that? A voice replied. My God, is that George Hewitt? I thought you were coming right on top of us. Our guard again. What, Jim Branson? What the devil are you doing here? What's wrong? I thought you were on the 12 out. We're chasing you. Are you? Then you've caught us. Thank God for it. We're a wreck. I had already opened the carriage door. With that, we all three clambered out onto the line. End of chapter 46. The Beetle by Richard Marsh, chapter 47. The contents of the third class carriage. I moved to the stranger who was holding the lamp. He was in an official uniform. Are you the guard of the 12 o'clock out from St. Pancras? I am. Where's your train? What's happened? As for where it is, there it is right in front of you. What's left of it? As to what's happened, why, we're wrecked. What do you mean you're wrecked? Some heavy loaded trucks broke loose from a goods in front and came running down the hill on top of us. How long ago was it? Not 10 minutes. I was just starting off down the road to the signal box. It's a good two miles away when I saw you coming. My God, I thought there was going to be another smash. Much damage done? Seems to me as if we're all smashed up. As far as I can make out, they're matchboxed up in front. I feel as if I was all broken up inside of me. I've been in the service going on for 30 years and this is the first accident I've been in. It was too dark to see the man's face, but judging from his tone, he was either crying or very near to it. Our guard turned and shouted back to our engine. You'd better go back to the box and let him know. All right, came I going back. The special immediately commenced retreating, whistling continually as it went. All the countryside must have heard the engine shrieking and all who did here must have understood that on the line something was seriously wrong. The smash train was all in darkness. The force of the collision had put out all the carriage lamps. Here was a flickering candle, there the glimmer of a match. These were all the lights which shown upon the scene. People were piling up debris by the side of the line for the purpose of making a fire, more for illumination than for warmth. Many of the passengers had succeeding in freeing themselves and were moving hither and thither about the line, but the majority appeared to be still imprisoned. The carriage doors were jammed. Without the necessary tools, it was impossible to open them. Every step we took, our ears were saluted by piteous cries. Men, women, children appealed to us for help. Open the door, sir, in the name of God, sir. Open the door. Over and over again in all sorts of tones, with all degrees of violence, the supplication was repeated. The guards, vainly endeavored to appease the, in many cases, half-frenzied creatures. All right, sir, if you will only wait a minute or two, madame. We can't get the doors open without tools. A special train has just started off to get them. If you'll only have patience, there'll be plenty of help for every one of you directly. You'll be quite safe in there if you'll only keep still. But that was just what they found at most difficult to do, keep still. In the front of the train, all was chaos. The trucks, which had done the mischief, there were afterwards shown to be six of them, together with two guards vans appeared to have been laden with bags of Portland cement. The bags had burst and everything was covered with what seemed gritty dust. The air was full of the stuff. It got into our eyes, half-blinding us. The engine of the express had turned a complete somersault. It vomited forth smoke and steam and flames. Every moment it seemed as if the woodwork of the carriages immediately behind and beneath would catch fire. The front coaches were, as the guard had put it, matchboxed. They were nothing but a heap of debris, telescoped into one another in a state of apparently inextricable confusion. It was broad daylight before access was gained to what had once been the interiors. The condition of the first third-class compartment revealed an extraordinary state of things. Scattered all over it were pieces of what looked like partially burnt rags and fragments of silk and linen. I have those fragments now. Experts have assured me that they are actually neither of silk nor linen, but of some material, animal rather than vegetable, with which they are wholly unacquainted. On the cushions and woodwork, especially on the woodwork of the floor, were huge blotches, stains of some sort. When first noticed they were damp and gave out a most unpleasant smell, one of the pieces of woodwork is yet in my possession, with the stain still on it. Experts have pronounced upon it too, with the result that opinions are divided. Some maintain that the stain was produced by human blood, which had been subjected to a great heat and, so to speak, parboiled. Others declare that it is the blood of some wild animal, possibly of some creature of the cat species. Yet others confirm that it is not blood at all but merely paint. While a fourth describes it as, I quote the written opinion which lies in front of me, caused apparently by a deposit of some sort of viscid matter, probably the excretion of some variety of lizard. In a corner of the carriage was the body of what seemed a young man costumed like a tramp. It was Marjorie Linden. So far as most careful search revealed that that was all the compartment contained. End of Chapter 47, The Beetle by Richard Marsh. Chapter 48, The Conclusion of the Matter. It is several years since I bore my part in the events which I have rapidly sketched or I should not have felt justified in giving them publicity. Exactly how many years for reasons which should be sufficiently obvious I must decline to say. Marjorie Linden still lives. The spark of life which was left in her when she was extricated from among the debris of the wrecked express was fanned again into flame. Her restoration was, however, not merely an affair of weeks or months. It was a matter of years. I believe that even after her physical powers were completely restored, in itself a tedious task, she was for something like three years under medical supervision as a lunatic. But all that skill and money could do was done and, in course of time, the great healer, the results were entirely satisfactory. Her father is dead and has left her in possession of the family estates. She is married to the individual who, in these pages, has been known as Paul Lesingham. Where his real name divulged, she would be recognized as the popular and universally reverenced wife of one of the greatest statesmen the age has seen. Nothing has been said to her about the fateful day on which she was consciously or unconsciously paraded through London in the tattered masculine habiliments of a vagabond. She herself has never once alluded to it. With the return of reason, the affair seems to have passed from her memory as holy as if it had never been, which, although she may not know it, is not the least cause she has for thankfulness. Therefore, what actually transpired will never in all human probability be certainly known and particularly what precisely occurred in the railway carriage during that dreadful moment of sudden passing from life on to death. What became of the creature who all but did her to death, who he was, if it was a he, which is extremely doubtful, once he came, whether he went, what was the purport of his presence here, to this hour these things are puzzles. Paul Lesingham has not since been troubled by his old tormentor. He has ceased to be a haunted man. Nonetheless, he continues to have what seems to be a constitutional disrelish for the subject of Beatles, nor can he himself be induced to speak of them. Should they be mentioned in a general conversation, should he be unable to immediately bring about a change of theme, he will, if possible, get up and leave the room. More, on this point, he and his wife are one. The fact may not be generally known, but it is so. Also I have reason to believe that there still are moments in which he harks back with something like physical shrinking to that awful nightmare of the past, and in which he prays God that as it is distant from him now, so may it be kept far off from him forever. Before closing, one matter may be casually mentioned. The tale has never been told, but I have unimpeachable authority for its authenticity. During the recent expeditionary advance towards Dongola, a body of native troops, which was encamped at a remote spot in the desert, was aroused one night by what seemed to be the sound of a loud explosion. The next morning, at a distance of a couple of miles from the camp, a huge hole was discovered in the ground, as if blasting operations on an enormous scale had recently been carried on. In the hole itself, and round about it, were found fragments of what seemed to bodies. Credible witnesses have assured me that they were bodies neither of men nor women, but of creatures of some monstrous growth. I prefer to believe, since no scientific examination of the remains took place, that these witnesses, ignorantly though innocently, erred. One thing is sure. Numerous pieces of both stone and of metal were seen, which went far to suggest that some curious subterranean building had been blown up by the force of the explosion, especially where the proportions of molded metal, which seemed to belong to what must have been an immense bronze statue. There were picked up also more than a dozen replicas in bronze of the Willom's sacred Sacrobus, that the den of demons described by Paul Lusingham had, that night at last come to an end, and that these things which lay scattered here and there, on that treeless plain, were the evidence of its final destruction, if not a hypothesis which I should care to advance with any degree of certainty. But putting this and that together, the facts seem to point that way, and it is a consummation devoutly to be desired. By the by, Sidney Atherton has married Ms. Dora Grayling. Her wealth has made him one of the richest men in England. She began, the story goes, by loving him immensely. I can answer for the fact that he has ended by loving her as much. Their devotion to each other contradicts the pessimistic nonsense which supposes that every marriage must be of necessity of failure. He continues his career of an inventor. His investigations into the subject of aerial flight, which had brought the flying machine within the range of practical politics, are on everybody's tongue. The best man at Atherton's wedding was Percy Woodville, now the Earl of Barnes. Within six months afterwards, he married one of Ms. Atherton's bridesmaids. It was never certainly shown how Robert Holt came to his end. At the inquest, the coroner's jury was content to return a verdict of diet of exhaustion. He lies buried in Kensel Green Cemetery under a handsome tombstone, the cost of which, had he had it in his pockets, might have indefinitely prolonged his days. It should be mentioned that that portion of this strange history which purports to be the surprising narration of Robert Holt was compiled from the statements which Holt made to Atherton and to Ms. Linden, as she then was when a mud-stained shattered derelict he lay at the lady's father's house. Ms. Linden's contribution towards the elucidation of the mystery was written with her own hand. After her physical strength had come back to her and, while mentally, she still hovered between the darkness and the light, her one relaxation was riding. Although she would never speak of what she had written, it was found that her theme was always the same. She confided to pen and paper what she would not speak of with her lips. She told and retold and retold again the story of her love and of her tribulation so far as it contained in the present volume. Her MSS invariably began and ended at the same point. They have all of them been destroyed with one exception. That exception is here in place before the reader. On the subject of the mystery of the beetle, I do not propose to pronounce a confident opinion. Atherton and I have talked it over many and many a time and, at the end, we have got no farader. So far as I am personally concerned, experience has taught me that there are indeed more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy and I am quite prepared to believe that the so-called the beetle, which others saw but I never was or is, for it cannot be certainly shown that the thing is not still existing, a creature born neither of God nor man. End of chapter 48. Recording by Anthony Wilson. End of The Beetle by Richard Marsh.